The Place of Dead Kings (52 page)

Sonali nodded.

‘Cattans come!’ Cormac had stuck his head around the side of the wall.

Jack shuffled across and looked around. Cattans, waving swords and spears, were running along the outer wall. They must have realised they were facing only a tiny force.

They would be at the dividing wall in minutes.

Jack grasped Cormac’s shoulder. ‘We’re going to fight Mahajan. The shee woman is going to help.’

‘Ah.’ Cormac faced Sonali and lowered his head. ‘Great Shee, Captain Rao, send her.’

‘Something like that,’ Jack said. ‘Now listen. You lot have to hold off the Cattans for a few minutes.’

Cormac straightened his back, even as he remained crouched. ‘We do it.’

‘Good.’ Jack patted Cormac on the shoulder. ‘God’s grace to you.’

‘And you, Jack, friend of Great Shee.’

Jack paused. He wasn’t sure that Cormac and the others would survive. There were hundreds of Cattans along the wall. They would easily outnumber the small band of twenty Mar warriors. He thought he should say something more but there was no time.

‘Quick.’ Sonali tugged at his sleeve.

He pulled away from Cormac and followed Sonali along the wall, staying hunched below the top of the battlements. Sonali’s green sari swished about her legs and her slippers pattered against the stone.

Jack thought of Rao for a moment. Was the Captain still alive?

And what about Saleem? Was he still trapped in the dungeon?

So much was resting on him and Sonali killing Mahajan. But he didn’t even know whether Sonali was telling him the truth. Everything she’d said seemed unreal.

Pain struck him. He almost fell over, but managed to regain his balance before Sonali noticed anything. He paused, looked over the wall, and saw that Mahajan was now directly in front of him on the other side of the bailey.

‘Here,’ he called to Sonali. He was surprised by how weak and cracked his voice was.

Sonali spun round, charged back and squatted beside him.

Another wave of pain washed over him and he doubled over for a second.

‘What’s wrong?’ Sonali asked.

He gritted his teeth. ‘Nothing.’

He heard shouts and the ring of metal behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the Cattans had reached the dividing wall and set upon the Mar. The warriors were defending their position, swinging their swords and jabbing with their spears, but several had already fallen.

They wouldn’t be able to hold back the Cattans for long.

Jack peered at Mahajan. The siddha was swinging his arm and gesturing at Rao’s men again. With a booming roar, the skull emerged from the fog, flame licking from its mouth and eye sockets.

‘What is that thing?’ he asked Sonali. ‘The Brahmastra?’’

She shook her head. ‘The Brahmastra is far more powerful. We have to attack Mahajan now, Jack.’

‘You sure this is going to work?’

‘The Lightning attack will work. I tried it once before. Mahajan almost killed me when I did that. You sure you can hit him from here?’

Jack paused. He had a clear shot at Mahajan, but the siddha was moving around and the mist obscured the view. His chances were middling at best. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘You’ll only have a second. Then the shield will come up again.’

Jack nodded. ‘What about the necklace? Won’t Mahajan set it to strangle you?’

‘Probably.’

‘It’ll kill you.’

‘If you kill him first, maybe it’ll stop.’

‘You sure?’

‘No.’

He heard a cry to his right. A lone Cattan was charging down from the far end of the separating wall, a longsword in his hand.

Christ. Jack hadn’t even considered a threat from this direction. The man would reach them in seconds.

He couldn’t shoot the Cattan with the musket – if he did that he’d have nothing to fire at Mahajan. With no other option, he stood and drew the knife from his belt.

‘No.’ Sonali slipped past him and faced the approaching guard.

Jack was about to pull her back, when she closed her eyes and began muttering words he didn’t recognise. She held out her arm and lifted her eyelids again.

The Cattan was less than twenty feet from her, his eyes shining and a hungry look on his face.

She screeched as if she were in great pain and powerful sattva pulsed out from her. Dazzling green lightning snarled from her fingertips, pummelled the Cattan in the chest and plucked him off his feet. The man flew back and landed further down the walkway, smoke rising from his dead body.

Sonali slumped forward and held the parapet to support herself. Sweat glistened on her forehead and she panted with exhaustion.

‘Are you all right?’ Jack said.

She nodded, went to speak, then gasped and clutched at the torc. The metal was sinking into her neck as if the skin were soft dough. She gave a small moan and looked across the bailey.

Jack stared through the mist. He saw that Mahajan had leapt down from the battlements and now stood facing him and Sonali.

‘He sensed me use a power.’ Sonali’s voice was thin. ‘Now. We have to do it.’

She leant against the parapet and mouthed the secret words again, wincing as the torc squeezed tighter.

Mahajan raised his arm. With a deafening rumble, the skull descended and hung in the air above him. The metal death’s head opened its mouth and grinned, exposing its jagged teeth. Its blank eye sockets bored right into Jack.

‘Quick.’ Sonali’s voice was faint.

Jack leant against the battlements, raised the musket and stared along the sights. Mahajan circled his arm, but his torso remained largely fixed in one position. Jack could still only see out of one eye, but he only needed the one. Sweat popped on his forehead and his heart hummed.

The guns roared, the muskets spluttered, the mist swayed and the ash spiralled over everything.

Sonali held out her arm and gave a muted shriek.

At the same time, Mahajan pointed straight back at her. The skull growled, quivered and then hurtled across the bailey. Mist streamed over the black iron. Flame throbbed alight inside it. Within seconds it would reach Jack and Sonali.

Green lightning blazed from Sonali’s finger, snaked across the bailey and thumped into Mahajan. Mahajan tottered backwards. His shield blinked bright bronze and vanished.

The skull howled through the air.

But Jack didn’t look up.

He couldn’t.

Because now was his one chance to shoot Mahajan.

One second. That was all the time he had.

With his gaze still locked on the sights, he pulled the musket’s trigger. The butt kicked into his shoulder and a jet of smoke burst from the barrel and blurred his view.

His heart seemed to stop. Everything went silent.

He dodged to the side to look around the smoke and saw Mahajan still standing on the walkway.

Jack seemed to wait for a long time, long enough for thoughts to flood his mind. Had his shot gone wide? Fallen short?

Then Mahajan jumped and folded backwards against the battlements.

Jack had hit him.

But even as he registered this, the skull swooped down and blotted out the view. For a moment he was face to face with the evil countenance. Then the beast screamed and red flame erupted from its eyes and mouth.

The heat punched Jack in the face. He cried out, leapt towards Sonali and knocked her down below the parapet. The two of them skidded across the walkway as fire boiled over the battlements and hissed across the stone behind them.

The air was so hot it scalded Jack’s skin for a second.

He landed beside Sonali and looked back to see the skull roar past and chip off the top of the battlements, before sweeping up into the sky and wheeling around in a wide arc.

He heard a choking sound. Sonali was writhing on the ground and fighting to pull off the torc. Her eyes bulged and tears ran across her cheeks. She tried to speak, but the only sounds she made were gasps.

Christ.

He squatted beside her and tried to work his finger under the necklace. But it was too tight and impossible to grip. He wrenched out his knife and tried to ease it under the torc. But even that proved impossible without cutting into her neck.

She kicked her legs and thrashed about.

Damn it.

He stood and saw Mahajan was lying sprawled on the walkway with a group of his men gathered about him. At first Jack thought the siddha must be dead, but then Mahajan feebly raised one arm.

Should Jack try to shoot him again? With what?

He heard cries from the end of the wall. Cormac and his men were being overwhelmed by the Cattans. They wouldn’t be able to hold the attackers back for much longer.

Jack felt a grumble through the stone, looked over the parapet again and saw the skull had circled back and now hovered above Mahajan. The prone siddha gestured limply towards Jack. The skull roared and launched itself across the bailey once more.

No.

Sonali was still lying on the walkway and struggling with the torc, her face red and swelling. He had to get her out of the way or she would be burnt alive. He grasped her shoulders and dragged with all of his remaining strength. She twisted and turned. Perspiration covered her face and her mouth hung open.

The skull gave a piercing shriek.

He looked up in time to see it plunge towards him. The fire glowed into life within it and its mouth opened wider.

Jack’s heart smacked in his chest. Blots of darkness swirled about him.

The skull was about to blast him and Sonali. He couldn’t get out of the way in time—

Then the flames snuffed out.

The creature changed course slightly and bowled ahead without attacking. Only now it was heading directly for the battlements.

It was going to hit.

With a last surge of strength, Jack hauled Sonali. Blackness washed over him. He could barely breathe. He was certain he would pass out at any moment.

The skull groaned like a foghorn and smacked into the battlements about twenty feet from Jack. The wall shook and he slipped back. Shards of stone shrieked in all directions and dust bloomed. With a metal squeal, the creature ploughed straight through the masonry and careered down into the inner bailey. It pounded the earth, spitting up a geyser of clods, and buried itself so deeply that only the back of its crown poked up from the ground.

Jack sat on the walkway. The world whirled around him. Cathedral bells pealed in his ears. Dust embraced him and shining ash flakes swooped past like comets. Broken stonework lay scattered across the walkway, spreading out from the large gouge left in the wall by the falling skull.

Everything went dark for a moment. But he shook his head and fought off the dizziness.

Sonali.

She was lying next to him, smothered by dust and absolutely still. Her eyes were closed.

Christ. The torc had strangled her.

He rushed to her side and frantically swept the dirt away from her neck. The torc had vanished, leaving only an indentation in her skin.

Then her eyes sprang open and she coughed, wheezed and gasped for breath, as if she’d been drowning. Jack helped her sit up and she coughed and spluttered some more, her whole body shuddering.

Alive. Thank Christ. He quickly crossed himself.

‘Mahajan,’ she said, her voice hoarse.

Jack understood and thrust his head over the parapet. The siddha lay motionless on the walkway. A group of Cattans stood nearby, their heads lowered and their arms hanging limply at their sides.

Mahajan must be dead.

That explained why the skull had crashed and the torc had vanished. The bullet had killed the siddha just in time.

Jack crouched down again. ‘We did it.’

Sonali looked confused.

He clutched her shoulders. ‘Mahajan’s dead.’

She touched her neck, stroked the liberated skin with her finger and a slight smile crept across her lips.

Cormac burst through the mist and clouds of dust, leaping over chunks of shattered masonry. He skidded to a halt, squatted and grasped Jack’s arm. ‘You live.’

‘Yes, we live,’ Jack said.

Sonali coughed a few more times and wiped her mouth with her hand.

Cormac bowed his head and spoke softly. ‘Great Shee woman. I have seen the lightning from your hand. You are as great as the great Captain Rao. You have struck down Demon.’ He raised his head and looked at Jack. ‘And you too. With fire weapon. I see.’

‘We all did our best.’ Jack raised himself, pain still lancing his chest.

Five Mar warriors jogged along the wall and came to a halt behind Cormac. Blood smeared their clothes and speckled their faces. A few had gashes on their arms and legs. They were clearly the only survivors from the party Jack had led into the castle. And yet they smiled broadly, their eyes shining.

The guns and muskets had fallen silent. A hush seemed to blanket everything. Several Cattans still stared at Mahajan’s fallen body, but others were now fleeing along the ramparts or charging down the stairs. Cattans ran across the inner and outer baileys, shouting, but seemingly unable to organise themselves to resist the attackers any longer. Without their leader, they seemed to have lost the will to fight.

Jack thought he could hear the faint cheering of the horde of warriors beyond the castle walls.

Then the stone beneath him jolted and a grumble emanated from the earth. The wall rocked and he had to grasp the parapet to steady himself.

It felt like an earthquake. He’d been in one years ago in the Napoli Caliphate.

The Cattans shouted and charged about in all directions.

Cormac frowned. ‘Demon. Magic still here.’

‘No.’ Sonali raised herself to her feet. ‘The castle’s held together by Mahajan’s power. Now he’s dead it’ll fall apart.’

With a shrill squeal, one of the prongs on the side of the inner bailey buckled inwards, as if being crushed by a gigantic hand. The ground rolled and the roaring sound grew louder. A chimney swayed and toppled over. Falling stones and pipes splattered over the lower buildings and dashed across the bailey.

Sonali leant against the wall, too weak to stand unaided. Sweat and dirt streaked her face and she swallowed repeatedly as though she were about to throw up. Using a power could exhaust a person at the best of times. On top of that she’d almost been strangled.