Adam of Albion (20 page)

The
hidden entrance to the fortress was exactly where Cristof had said it would be—a
small cave mouth at the base of the Mother of Life, away from the main cliff
that faced the valley, and out of view of anyone approaching. It was carefully
covered by rocks that looked as if they’d fallen there naturally, just like the
thousands of others around them. Inside was a vertical tunnel that led up a
long flight of stone steps to the fortress itself.

But
calling that a “flight of steps” was like calling an old beat-up Volkswagen a
Rolls Royce. The shaft was as dark as a well, and the steps were just
irregularly spaced knobs of rock barely big enough for hands and feet to get a
grip on.

Those
Sisters must be tough, Adam thought.

As
he panted and struggled upward behind Mustafa, Orpheus was his usual helpful
self, chiming in words of encouragement from the hemp sack, with the hearty
tone of a football coach.

“Forget
about what’s below you, buddy. Don’t even
think
about how every step
means you’ve got that much farther to fall, and one tiny slip,
boom!
—you’re
a mushy puddle of worm food down on the cave floor.” Then, anxiously, he added,
“But if you do take a dive, try not to land on your back, okay?”

It
felt like it would go on forever. They’d probably only been climbing for about
fifteen minutes, but it seemed like hours before they glimpsed a faint circle
of light at the top.

Mustafa
finally reached the opening, and Adam expected him to squirm and kick his way
up over its rim. But instead, he seemed to suddenly levitate—he just shot
straight up, with his feet swinging in mid-air, and disappeared off to one
side. It was as if some huge creature, like a balrog, had grabbed him and
snatched him into its lair.

Adam
stopped and hung there by his precarious grips, shaking with exhaustion and
trying to clear his mind. It wasn’t any balrog—that was stupid—and Cristof
wouldn’t have sent them into a trap. But he’d said that the Sisters wouldn’t be
pleased about this, and Adam had better explain things, pronto.

“Please,
I need to talk to Theodora!” he yelled up. “I’ve got a message from Cristof,
and it’s really important.”

He
heard a quick murmuring of female voices. Then a face appeared in the opening—a
woman with wheat-colored hair.

“Come
up—hurry,” she said. Adam clenched his teeth and forced his weary body up the
final steps, until hands reached down to clasp his wrists and lift him out.

He
hunched over, working to catch his breath. Mustafa was pressed back into a
corner, looking as scared as Adam felt. They were surrounded by the Sisters of
Isis—all with hands on their wicked curved swords.

“I’m
Theodora—tell me your message,” the fair-haired woman demanded.

“The
Templars are on their way to attack,” Adam gasped out. “They’re close, within a
couple of miles by now.”

The
women glanced at each other in alarm.

“This
had better not be some kind of ruse,” Theodora said with narrowed eyes.

“No,
I swear! Look, here’s the map Cristof drew.” He pulled the scrap of bandage
from his pocket and gave it to her. She studied it quickly and seemed to agree
that it looked genuine.

Then
her gaze zeroed in on Adam again. “Why isn’t he with you?”

“He
stayed behind to stall them.”

Theodora’s
eyes darkened with pain.

“And
yet, they come,” she murmured—realizing the same thing Adam had about what that
must mean, that Cristof had been killed. She looked stricken, and now Adam
remembered King Richard’s sly remark about Cristof learning the arts of love
while the Sisters healed his wounds. It seemed a good guess that Theodora was
his teacher—and that he’d taken on the Templars single-handedly in hopes of
saving her.

But
she took charge again immediately, turning and speaking to the women.

“Sister
Cleo, sound the alarm—everyone prepare!” They dispersed, moving with such swift
stealth that they practically seemed to vanish.

“Theodora,
there’s a girl I was with,” Adam said anxiously. “She tried to follow you
yesterday—is she here?”

Theodora
hesitated, but then gave a curt nod. “All right, you may see her.”

Adam
and Mustafa both lit up with joy—but Theodora raised a hand in warning.

“Don’t
try to deceive us,” she said sternly. “Eyes will be watching, and while you may
not see them, believe me, they’ll see you.”

They
believed her.

She
led them quickly to an open courtyard, the center of the fortress. The
surrounding walls stood another twenty feet higher, and on top of the front
one—the cliff rising from the valley floor—they could see the dark figures of
the Sisters taking their stations.

“Theodora,
it’s true!” one of them called down urgently. “The Templars are entering the
valley—they number about sixty. They’re approaching in stealth—they don’t know
that we’ve been warned.”

“They
are too many for us, but I’ll reap my share of vengeance,” she said, as if to
herself. Then she called up to the others: “Any who wish to escape, do so
quickly. I will stay and fight.”

Not
one of the women moved.

Theodora
then turned back to the boys. “Forgive me for doubting you—we owe you great
thanks.”

“We’ll
help you fight, Theodora,” Adam heard himself blurt out—hardly believing he’d
said it, as soon as the words left his mouth.

“Yes!”
Mustafa agreed, with timid excitement. “I’m training to be a soldier for the
Sultan—I’m good with a bow, the best among my friends.”

She
answered with a surprisingly gentle smile—but her answer was firm.

“You’re
going to stay right here while I get Artemis—and then you’re all going to leave
this place, the same way you two came in.”

Adam
stared helplessly after her as she strode away across the courtyard. What could
he possibly do? This was their last, only hope of finding Eurydice—if they
failed, it was a death sentence for Orpheus. But the Templars were a death
sentence for all of them, and they’d be attacking within minutes.

“Get
me out of here, will you?” Orpheus demanded from behind his back. “I’ve got
something to do, and I can do it a lot better if I’m not stuffed in this bag.”

Adam
unslung the sack and set him on a rock. There wasn’t much point in keeping him
hidden any more.

“What’s
the something?” Adam asked anxiously.

“If
you’d just let me
do
it instead of yammering, maybe you’d find out,”
Orpheus snapped.

Then—just
as Artemis came rushing out into the courtyard, and Adam and Mustafa ran to
meet her, and they all hugged, hopping around and whooping—

Orpheus
started to sing.

His
rich baritone voice filled the air with a haunting melody and words in an
unknown language—so enchanting that everyone who heard got lost in it, almost
forgetting where they were. Theodora stopped in her tracks, and the Sisters on
the battlements gazed down in wonder.

Orpheus
paused—he seemed to be listening intently—and for several seconds, there was total
stillness.

And
then, from deep inside the fortress, echoing sweetly through the thick stone
walls, another voice answered—female, every bit as beautiful, and singing the
same mesmerizing song.

“At
last!” Orpheus cried, leaping joyously a good six inches off the rock and
bouncing around.

But
Theodora was moving again, hurrying forward with a determined look.

“Stop
that right now!” she called sharply to Orpheus. “I’m not about to let your
sweet talk lure her back!”

“Ex
cuse
me, but I haven’t heard her voice in a good 800 years,” Orpheus said acidly.
“Kindly give us a little privacy, and we’ll work this out ourselves.”

“You
see, Artemis?” Theodora fumed. “You see how men insist on power and control?”
She whirled to face Orpheus. “No! The Goddess is now in her true home.”

“Theodora,
wait,” Artemis pleaded. “You can’t just leave her locked up in that vault.
Maybe the Templars won’t find her, but no one else ever will, either—she’ll
just languish there, buried alive, and Orpheus will die. Do you think
that’s
what she wants?”

“Sister
Theodora,” Orpheus interrupted, all sarcasm gone. “I think we can help you win
this battle.”

“I
already told Adam no,” she said impatiently. “Three children and a head hardly
bigger than a goose egg? Absurd! Back to the escape tunnel, and begone.”

“I’ve
got an ace up my sleeve,” Orpheus said—then, seeing her glare, added hastily,
“Sorry, poor choice of metaphors, but you get my point. As for these
children,
they’ve already put themselves in great danger, with nothing to gain for themselves—just
to help me, who they only just met. I dismissed them at first, too, but they’re
a tough, resourceful little gang—good when they can be and bad when they have
to be. True, there’ve been a couple of minor discipline problems—” he shot
Artemis a stern glance— “but what they’ve managed to accomplish is amazing.

“Give
us a chance, Sister. If we succeed, all I ask is that we let Eurydice decide
what
she
wants to do.”

“Yes,
Theodora, it’s only fair,” Artemis urged. “That’s what you you and the Sisters
believe, isn’t it?—a woman should have the right to make up her own mind.”

They
waited tensely while Theodora walked a few paces away and turned her face up to
the night sky. In the quiet, they could hear a faint sound coming from the
valley below, like the rumble of distant thunder.

It
was the hooves of galloping horses. The Templars were done with their stealthy
approach—now they were coming on in an all-out attack.

“Very
well,” Theodora sighed. “The Sisters will abide by
her
decision—if there
are any of us left alive to witness it. I’ll be truthful, Orpheus—my faith in
your promise is as thin as gauze, and I fear that these young ones will die
needlessly. But there’s no more time to argue. I’m off to fight with my
comrades—you’ll have to take care of yourselves from here on. You’ll find
weapons in a storeroom under the staircase. Remember, the knights are powerful,
but slow—use your speed and your wits.”

Then
she embraced the three kids quickly.

“Our
fate is in the hands of the Goddess,” she said. “I’ll pray that She protects
you.”

Theodora
hurried across the courtyard and up the stone staircase that led to the top of
the battlements. The kids all turned to stare at Orpheus, with their faces
showing that they were realizing what they’d gotten themselves into.

“Okay,
let’s get moving,” Orpheus said briskly. “First stop is the weapons locker,
then follow Theodora. Mustafa, you go join the Sisters’ archers. You other two
stay with me. We need to find a good spot for me to work from. After that,
we’ll take it as it comes.”

 “I
do hope you can come through on this, Orph,” Artemis said with a tremor.

“Trust
me,” he assured them.

Although
he didn’t really sound all that confident.

Adam
had gotten plenty of fearful shocks during the past two days—but nothing
compared to what he saw when they climbed the battlements and looked down at
the valley floor.

The
Templars were riding up to the fortress’s main entrance, spread out in a vee
formation. The advance guards had lit torches, illuminating the sixty-plus
knights mounted on their great warhorses—grim, hardened soldiers who looked
huge with their armor and weapons.

Against
the few dozen small, slender Sisters, who, fierce and skilled though they might
be, seemed like dolls by comparison.

That
familiar lump was in Adam’s throat again, and this time he didn’t even bother
trying to fight it down. This was David against Goliath—but David’s only hope
was a pint-sized head who very possibly had let his mouth write a check he
couldn’t cash. On top of that, Adam and Artemis were an outright joke—she was
carrying one of the Sisters’ curved swords and he’d picked out a long pike
spear, but neither of them had any training, and the weapons felt big and
clumsy. The only one who looked competent was Mustafa, who’d armed himself with
a bow and quiver of arrows and placed himself next to a phalanx of the Sisters’
archers.

Orpheus
scanned the surroundings, then pointed with his nose at a niche high up in a
rock.

“That
will work,” he said. “Set me up in there—then get ready to attack.”

“
We’re
going to attack
them?
”

“You’ll
see. Come on, shake it! The meter’s running.”

Adam
had to scramble up the rock face and stretch on tiptoe to reach the niche.
While he was hanging there, Orpheus whispered to him.

“Adam—Theodora’s
a good woman, and she meant what she said about Eurydice—
when
she said
it. But if push comes to shove, she might have second thoughts.

“And
I hate to even say this, but it’s just possible that Artemis might side with
her. She’s been here long enough that Theodora could have won her over. So be
on the watch.”

Adam
nodded unhappily and jumped back down again. With all the other worries,
nothing like that had even occurred to him.

But
then came still more. As he and Artemis hurried back to their vantage point on
the battlements, she started whispering to him, too.

“Adam,
this is hopeless. What can Orpheus possibly do? He’s so tiny to begin with, and
now he’s sitting way up above everything. You don’t suppose this is all a
trick, do you? To have everyone else caught up in the battle, and he manages to
get to Eurydice?”

It
was yet another thing that had never occurred to Adam. Could Orpheus bounce and
roll his way through the stone halls to her, following the sound of her voice?
Or even have another way of moving that was faster and more agile than he’d let
on? He remembered what Cristof had said about people who managed to stay alive
here learning to keep secrets—and Orpheus had stayed alive a long, long time.

And
what about Artemis? Was Orpheus right? Would she side with the Sisters in the
end? For that matter, what about Mustafa? Was he really a spy for the Templars,
or for Nicodemus of Edessa?

At
least Adam didn’t have any ulterior motives himself—the only thing
he
couldn’t be trusted on was to be of any use in this battle.

He
shook his head hard, trying to throw off all the doubts. “Look, Artemis, we
just have to ride this out. And that means we depend on each other—all of us.”

The
Templars had come to a halt. They were a only couple of hundred yards away now,
and the Sisters were poised with their bows ready, but the distance was still
too great for the accuracy they needed to find chinks in the knights’ armor.

Then
one of the Templars in the lead raised his broadsword high in the air. With a
chill, Adam recognized him—Gerard de Chavirage.

And
somehow even more chilling, he noticed another man on horseback who was
watching the scene, far to the rear and all alone on a hilltop—safely away from
the action. Adam couldn’t see him clearly, but something about his shape and
bearing—even more than that, something about the creepy feeling Adam got—made
him sure that it was Nicodemus of Edessa.

Chavirage
suddenly brought his sword sweeping down as if he was cutting off somebody’s
head. On that signal, torches moved quickly through the ranks—and a dozen
flickers of a different, strange-looking kind of fire appeared, quickly flaring
up into phosphorescent greenish blazes. Their ghostly light showed that these
were arrows, nocked on the drawn bows of the Templars’ own archers.

A
little click deep in Adam’s memory brought up the term
Greek fire,
which
water wouldn’t quench and spread like flaming grease—the medieval equivalent of
incendiary bombs.

With
a great
whoosh,
the volley of arrows streaked from the bows toward the
fortress’s wooden door, striking with solid thunks. Another flight of arrows
came right behind the first one, and then another, until the door was a
pincushion of the greenish flares. It was massive, made of heavy wood that only
a battering ram could have broken through—but it was also centuries old and dry
as dust from the desert heat. Within a minute, the dozens of blazes had
converged into a raging bonfire, with the spooky flames leaping and crawling
like they were alive.

Now
Adam could see that the knights were readying heavy iron grappling hooks on
chains. As the door weakened, he realized, they’d charge in and hurl the hooks
against it, pulling it apart in chunks. With them and their mounts protected by
armor, they could ride unscathed through the remaining scattered
flames—straight on into the fortress.

Adam
wiped his sleeve across his sweating forehead, with despair washing over him.
Their only hope was Orpheus, but Orph had done exactly nothing—just stayed
perched high up there in his niche, where he looked so small and still, he
could have passed for a pebble.

Was
that his plan, as Artemis had wondered? To stay
hidden and safe—like Nicodemus of Edessa—until he got a chance to sneak away
unnoticed and find Eurydice? Could he possibly be that treacherous, so desperate
to regain her that he’d throw everyone else to the wolves?

There
was no more time to wonder about it. The Templars were starting their charge,
spurring their snorting, pawing horses forward into a gallop and holding the
grappling hooks ready to throw.

Adam
stepped to Artemis and put his arm around her shoulders. He could feel her
trembling, although she was doing her best to look brave. He was trembling,
too, and he was sure he didn’t look brave at all.

Then
it happened.

From
above and behind them, a sound cut suddenly through the night—a high, shrill,
piercing tone that Adam felt more in his teeth than he heard in his ears. He,
Artemis, and all of the Sisters whirled around to see its source.

Orpheus
was singing again, but this time, it was no haunting love serenade—it didn’t
exactly
hurt,
but you wouldn’t waste any time getting away from it if
you could.

The
sound poured out over the battlements and down into the valley, meeting the
charging Templars head on like another invisible army.

And
that,
Adam realized, was exactly what it was!

The
knights were going wild! It was almost comic—they jerked and gyrated like
zombies dancing an insane jitterbug, hurling away their helmets and gauntlets
and clawing off the rest of their armor like it was full of wasps. The horses
were rearing and careening around, bucking off their riders and crashing into
each other.

Artemis
whooped with excitement. “That’s it! He’s causing a resonance in their armor
that’s driving them crazy! It must be torturing their nerve endings!”

The
Sisters pounced on the opportunity, swiftly drawing their bows and sending
flights of deadly accurate arrows at the now vulnerable knights. Howls and
curses rang through the air as the missiles found their marks.

Still,
those who’d stripped off their armor started to regroup, gathering their wits
enough to throw up their shields for protection, while their archers took cover
behind fallen horses and returned fire—a Sister suddenly cried out and fell
back, with a quivering shaft piercing her neck, while others rushed to tend to
her.

Then
Adam spotted Gerard de Chavirage, who’d managed to stay on his mount. In that
instant, Adam made up his mind that he was going to strive with his last breath
to plant his spearhead in the Templar’s throat.

Theodora
was rushing around the battlements like a demon, her eyes shining as she
shouted commands and encouragement.
“Sister
Hibernia,” she cried out. “Let fall the door!”

A
strong-looking woman ran to a windlass the size of a barrel, wound with heavy
chain. She released it with a mighty yank on a big lever, and jumped clear of
the windlass’s spinning handle as the rattling chain whipped free. The fortress
door plunged outward like a wall toppling over, hitting the ground with fiery
chunks of wood that exploded in all directions and took out several more
Templars.

The
Sisters streamed down the stone staircase to the courtyard, moving so fast they
seemed to be flying. They raced through the long sloping hallway to the opened
entrance, drawing their swords as they danced through the flames to meet the
Templars hand to hand.

Adam
and Artemis were right behind them—but as they faced the looming reality of the
huge warriors thundering around on their steeds and swinging their ferocious
weapons, Adam’s excitement was short-circuited by fear, especially for Artemis.
He grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back into the fortress.

“You
stay here! They’ll crush you like a bug!” he yelled.

“I’ll
sting them first!” she shouted back, yanking herself free with a wild-haired
glare at him.

He
watched, horrified, as she ran straight at one of the mounted knights with her
sword upraised. The man’s bearded face turned astonished, then he broke into a
sneering laugh as he leaned out of his saddle with a battleaxe to cut her down.

But at
the last possible second, she seemed to vanish, diving to the ground and
rolling. By the time the furious knight could rein his horse around, she was on
her feet again and behind him, leaping high into the air to slash her blade
across the side of his neck. He slapped his hand to the wound, roaring in pain
and rage as blood streamed out through his fingers. He kept circling his horse,
swatting at her like she
was
a bug. But she stayed just out of reach,
and each time the momentum of his swing carried his heavy axe past her, she
darted in again with another slash or stab.

It
all happened as fast as a string of firecrackers going off, although it seemed
to Adam like it took forever—and then the knight slumped, slipping out of his
saddle with one boot still in its stirrup, to be dragged away across the ground
by his nervous horse.

Adam
realized that he was staring in a trance of shock. But his brain was kicking
and screaming at him:
Don’t just stand there, idiot—if she can do it, so can
you! And remember what you promised yourself!

He
tightened his grip on his pike and started looking for Gerard de Chavirage.

The
wild brawl was touch and go, with the Templars swinging their weapons like
baseball bats, while the Sisters gracefully dodged and sliced with surgical
precision. It seemed like it could tip either way at any second.

Then
Adam saw Chavirage. He was fifteen yards away, dueling with a Sister who was
holding her own—until she parried one of his sword strokes, then suddenly
faltered, stumbling. The torchlight caught her pain-twisted face and fair hair.

It
was Theodora!

She
struggled to regain her balance, but something was wrong—she was hurt, and her
few seconds of weakness was all that Chavirage needed. His horse wheeled around
toward her, his broadsword raised to slash her from shoulders to waist.

No
way could Adam run fast enough to get there in time—but his body seemed to
react on its own, as if a remote control had suddenly taken over. He leaped
forward, planting the pike’s butt on the ground like he was pole vaulting, and
launched himself through the air, landing close enough so that the charging
knight swung around in his saddle for a look at what was hurtling toward him.

“What
happened to Cristof?” Adam yelled. “Did you gang up on him and stab him in the
back again?”

Chavirage’s
eyes went wide with disbelief and rage.

“You!”
he roared. “I’ll have
your
head for
my
pommel, boy!” He yanked
the horse’s reins viciously, changing direction to bear down on Adam.

Adam
stayed crouched, digging in his feet, with the pike held low to the ground and
his entire universe crystallized into an area the size of a dinner plate—the
Templar’s beard.

At
the last second, he whipped up the spearpoint and threw his weight behind it.
What happened next was a blur, but the shock of contact vibrated down the
wooden shaft so hard it was torn from his hands.