Icefall (41 page)

‘Where's Iolaire?' he asked Cluaran coldly.

‘Iolaire is not one of you,' hissed Cluaran. ‘He's in my custody and he'll hang when this is over.'

‘You're wrong,' said Rory. He didn't specify on what count.

‘And you, Laochan,' snapped Kate, ‘are too damned arrogant. Cluaran. Burn them.'

Cluaran gaped at her, shocked.

‘Don't make me repeat myself. Murlainn and Caorann: put them to the stake.'

‘What?' said Cluaran.

‘Oh, and put in an extra stake for that misbegotten spawn of mine.' Kate flapped her fingers. ‘The girl. Currac-sagairt.'

Rory felt as if he'd been hit hard in the gut. ‘You promised me,' he hissed.

‘You're not cooperating, Laochan, you're irritating me.'

‘Wait a minute, Kate.' Shoving Rory aside, Cluaran took a step forward, tracked by Kilrevin's cold empty eye. ‘That was a bluff. They're rebels and I'll happily hang them but I'm not burning anyone.'

It happened so fast. Kilrevin drew the sword off his back and plunged it casually into Cluaran's heart. He drove it in further, up to the hilt. As Cluaran sagged against him and the light went out of his stunned eyes, Kilrevin withdrew it. Then he wiped the blade casually on Cluaran's jumper, and sheathed it.

Dusting his hands, he turned to Kate's front line. Two other captains glanced at each other, swallowing, and dismounted to take hold of Seth and Finn.

Closing her eyes, Kate shook her head sadly. ‘I can't bear uncooperative people. Now, Laochan, there's still a chance I'll have them strangled first. A very slim chance, and entirely at my own whim. So I suggest you start ingratiating yourself with me.'

He knew she wouldn't. He knew she'd burn them alive even if he kissed her feet and begged. There was no choice. Never had been. And the horses were close, so close.

Rory walked back to the cliff top. Teeth gritted, he tightened his fingers into fists, then flexed them.

Oh, gods forgive me.

He drew his hand back in a claw, then lashed out like a big cat disembowelling a deer. Dug in his nails. Growled. Raggedly, violently, his fingernails ripped the air.

Easier than last time. Would it go on getting easier?

He was never going to know, so what the hell. He shut his eyes, grabbed the Veil in two hands, and dragged it apart.

The gap shimmered in the air, bulged, widened. Kate laughed, quick and breathless. Sweeping to Rory's side, she stepped past him and touched the edges lightly. They smouldered like paper, curling back, but nothing ignited, no proper flame would catch. Resisting, thought Rory. It was strong.

Don't mess with me …

The gap was widening, though, remorselessly. Kate's excitement was a tangible thing.

She could have done this back in the fortress, thought Rory. She could have had her way then. But she wanted a show, a victory celebration, a public execution. Oh, that vanity of hers. It'd be the death of her.

It'd be the death of them all, but who cared?

The gap was perhaps ten metres wide and three tall when she stopped burning the Veil. It was clearly a struggle. Hesitating, she stepped forward. She frowned at Rory.

‘This isn't how it behaved before,' she said.

‘No, it isn't.' He studied it with interest. It was a fascinating thing. He wished he could have longer with it.

It wasn't dark this time. It wasn't
black
; it was positively summery. But he felt the breath of it, the menace, raising the roots of his hair. He tilted his head and touched the edges, curious more than afraid.

The sunlight on the other side was just dazzling. Her eyes blazing its reflection, Kate stepped briskly through the gap. The landscape beyond looked much the same, Rory thought. That was comforting despite its empty strangeness.

It was beautiful. He liked it. Funny it should look so welcoming, and so like the world they were about to leave forever. A thrill buzzed at the nape of his neck.

Kate, though, was scowling. Turning a full circle beyond the torn Veil, she stared around as if she was blind to the moor on the other side, and the glittering sea, and the crying gulls. As if there was nothing there.

‘There's nothing here!'

‘Not for you, bitch!' The yell came from behind.

Rory turned and grinned at Hannah.
Oh, Hannah,
he thought.
Trust you to get the point
.

Told you I'd trust you to the end of the world.

Hannah's captors eyed her warily, and they were gripping her arms now. But she didn't need restraining. She was laughing too hard. ‘Not for you, ya soulless witch!'

Rory said, ‘She's right, Kate. You haven't got what it takes.'

Kate gave a shocked gasp and looked down at her fingertips. In the clear light beyond the Veil they were greying, shrinking, and a hint of white bone poked through the tips of them. Her face paling too, Kate hurried back through the gaping maw of the hole, and took a shaking breath as she lifted her hand to her eyes. Her fingers pinked and fleshed out once more. She sighed her relief, but there was real fear in her face now, where last night there had only been the ghost of it.

With one nervous scowl at Rory, she turned back to the ripped Veil, but took an involuntary step away from it. The edges flickered again, and combusted. With no help from Kate, the fabric of it was kindling, the black invisible flame spreading, unseen in the brilliant light. She backed further from it and Rory followed her with his eyes, smiling.

‘You haven't got what it takes.' He barked a laugh that was half happy, half savage. ‘You only went and gave it away.'

‘Shut this Veil!' she yelled in panicked fury. ‘Shut it! Shut it!'

‘I don't think I can, Kate.' Rory gave her a cool smirk.

She spun in a rage. ‘Alasdair!
Burn them!'

‘
You're too late!
' Rory screamed back in her face.

‘Shut it, damn your soul!'

‘
At least I've got one!
' He wanted to howl with laughter, but the joy of victory was so fierce it choked him.

‘Congratulations, Kate! We're all going to die! It's open and
I can't close it!
'

And that was when the riders came.

 

Hannah

Why wasn't I scared? There must be something wrong with me: my teachers were right all along.

Is something amusing you, young lady? Do you find this funny?

Hell, yes.

The landscape beyond the Veil-gash was blurring, but only because the sunlight was so white and fierce. They came out of it, hooves thundering loud and clear now, fighters on horseback. I spun and ducked, then had to fling myself onto the ground as the leader's horse took a flying leap over me. The horse was a black kelpie. I couldn't see much of the man on its back, except that he was blond and scary and there was a white wolf running with him.

I wanted to go and hug Rory for being so damn clever, I'd have liked that to be the last thing I ever did, but there wasn't time. There was nothing more to be done. I hadn't expected dying to be this much fun. I was still laughing as the rest of the horsemen hurtled past me and fell on Kate's ranks.

They were terrifying but some of them seemed familiar. A crop-haired beautiful woman, her horse's throat clotted with blood; right behind her, a skinhead with a thin grim mouth. There was a blond bearded guy with burnt-sugar eyes. A tawny-haired woman, eyes even bluer than Finn's. A goatee-bearded, black-haired barbarian, handsome as all-get-out. Finn dragged Seth to the ground and flung herself across his body, her arms over his head, but the black-bearded man twisted his head to stare down at Seth as he galloped past, and I'd never seen a barbarian look quite so gobsmacked.

I was still watching him, still grinning, when the flesh began to slide from his face.

I squealed in horror, rolled onto my back and kicked away frantically, afraid to look at him, afraid to look away. As if some invisible blade had hit him, a gash opened from his eye to his jaw. His throat split wide, and I waited for the spray of blood, but it never came. And he never even paused. He just swung his own sword at one of the guards, taking her head off in one blow, and rode on.

~
Hannah! Hannah!
I heard Sionnach's panicked voice, saw him elbow-crawling towards me on his manacled arms, but there was too much carnage between us. He tried to get up and run to me but the crop-haired beauty's dappled horse shouldered him to the ground.

Sionnach couldn't break his fall and he crashed hard, but he seemed stunned by more than the impact. The female rider's chest opened in a bloodless burst but she didn't fall, she didn't even wince. She just galloped on, straight for Gealach's unit, and impaled the first fighter who came at her.

Kate's ranks were in chaos. Some of them were trying desperately to fight back, some of them were running. Incredibly, some of them were rooted to the spot, just gaping, and then I realised: those ones were ours. Our clann, weaponless and defenceless and conquered, but maybe that was why they weren't attracting the attention of the cavalry. The tawny-haired woman rode straight through, scattering them even as she ignored them, and swung a spear in a low elegant arc through a guard's chest. Gobsmacked Barbarian turned on his horse to give her a gruesomely adoring smile. The woman reined in her horse and hesitated, seeming undecided, but the dead guard was still flopping around on the point of her spear. Impatiently, effortlessly, she flicked him off.

I lay on the ground, holding onto fistfuls of peat for dear life, and goggled up at her, thinking
please don't kill me please don't kill me.
She wasn't that beautiful now, to be honest. Her face had putrefied fast, and her limbs looked bloated, and there was rank seaweed tangled in her hair.

She looked at me with curiosity in her eyes, eyes that were no longer very blue because they'd sunk back in their decaying sockets. Then she calmly turned her horse's head and rode back at the screaming, panicking, human fighters.

There was a low outcrop of granite not far from me, and I stumbled for it, running low. A pale blood-dappled wolf streaked by me, its ribs exposed by its peeling flesh, at the side of a black horse. I thought my heart would stop, I thought I was headed straight for decay and death myself, but the wolf, the horse, and its rider all ignored me. The blond captain rode straight for the captive blue roan, circled it, and his sword slashed its chains like spiderweb. The roan reared, lunged free, and bolted seawards, and the black watched it go, giving a screaming whinny that was too much like laughter.

I was panicking now, frantically and uselessly wriggling down in the shadow of the granite slabs. The skinheaded ghoul nudged his horse round at my movement, blade raised, but he shrugged and turned away from me, and he couldn't seem to find another opponent. He jerked his head at his captain, who was riding back at a trot, his blade bloodied and filthy. He didn't speak. None of the strange riders yelled or spoke. I thought,
Oh yeah. Their tongues have probably rotted already
. And then I thought,
Oh my GOD their TONGUES HAVE ROTTED.

The blond captain turned his horse on its hindquarters, and peered around the battlefield with fascination. The horse shook its indignant head, and its eye caught me lying there. It peeled back its lips and screamed a whinny.

And that was when I finally recognised its rider, stupidly enough: from Finn's horse.

He was the father of my dreams, the father of other people's broken memories. He was beautiful. He was terrifying. His throat was slit in a single deep bloodless slash. His faded blue shirt was torn, and as his body moved with the horse's gait I glimpsed a jagged rip in his belly. His barely-contained innards sagged out of him with every pace. He was still beautiful, though. Still terrifying. His eyes glowed silver, the irises, the pupils, everything.

I wasn't terrified, not now. But Kate was.

She was standing rigid in the middle of what had become a rout, clenching and unclenching her fists, her lovely mouth open in disbelieving horror. Slowly she turned, and shouted at one of her fighters who was scrambling away on all fours, but her words were inaudible among the screams and he ignored her anyway. A bloodied space was opening around her, and when she spun again, the captain on the black horse was watching her. Her eyes snapped wide.

For a few seconds she seemed frozen, couldn't tear her eyes off him. Then her muscles gave a violent twitch, like she could move again. She took a step back from him. Then another.

He furrowed the dead, flaking skin of his brow, studying her with a detached curiosity. Behind him, Seth had pushed Finn off and was struggling to his feet.

‘
Cù Chaorach.
'

His voice was cracked and barely audible, but this time the rider seemed to hear. He twisted on the horse's back, peered down, and his skull split in a grin.

Seth staggered forward, his teeth clenched. ‘
I claim her.
'

‘Seth, no!' I heard Finn's yell, saw her snatch at him, but when the blond rider reached down his rotting skeletal hand, Seth seized it.

‘Not without me,' he rasped. And the rider yanked him bodily up onto the horse behind him.

Conal—
my God,
I thought as I named him in my head,
Conal—
craned his head round, smiling a delighted, death's-head smile, shrunken lips peeled back from his teeth. Seth locked an arm round his brother's waist, his maimed hand flopping loose; then the two ruined men, the living and the dead, rode together towards Kate.

She turned, and ran.

Not fast enough. I got the impression she could never go fast enough. Conal nudged the kelpie on, and it picked up effortless speed. Within ten feet of Kate, it broke into an easy gallop. As the two riders drew abreast of her, Seth leaned down, gritting his jaw against pain, and seized her arm.