In Ashes Lie (34 page)

But at Wayland’s call, the chalk lines had lifted free of the grass, and that was what they rode: an incomplete, elongated white figure, mottled with green, far larger than any natural horse, and far less substantial. How they even sat upon its back, his rational mind could not comprehend. His decades of association with the fae told him not to try. Antony gripped Lune, closed his eyes, and waited for their ride to end.

The cold dampness that chilled his skin like fog broke suddenly; the wind tried to tear his cloak from his neck. He opened his eyes to the sight of dark treetops rushing up far too fast, and choked back on a scream. They missed the branches by the barest hair and thudded to a halt in a field, sheltered from any eyes, with the rest of his company landing around him. Most of the horses they rode fell away, transforming back into ordinary straws. The remainder, and the black dogs that had run alongside them, took on their more or less human aspects.

A troop of horse, riding into London, would bring the Army and militia down on them like a hammer. From here, they would go their various ways by foot.

One of the mortals helped him down from the Horse’s lofty back. Lune shifted, as if to touch him before he went, but then he was on the ground and out of reach. “Give us until sunrise,” she said.

Antony nodded. He could not tithe bread to the fae and have it be of use, but the humans newly gathered to their cause could. For the first time in ages, they had enough to protect all their people.

He stood alone with the Queen, while their soldiers—such as they were—prepared to march. She spoke quietly, for his ears only, gazing down from the height of the Horse. “If there is one thing you have taught me,” Lune told him, “it is patience. Should this not go as we hope—”

“Retreat, and try again.” Sound advice—but Antony wanted to tear his skin off with impatience. The Onyx Hall called to him, awakening the craving he had fought these long years. Yet he dared not let himself believe they would succeed. If he did, and then they failed—

That
will
kill me. I cannot survive such a fall.

He was not sure Lune could, either. Physically, yes; but for all her talk of patience, she showed little of it herself. The Queen wore a man’s riding habit, with armor to keep her safe, and looked very warlike upon her strange steed. Anger burned silver in her eyes. She was not the kind to endanger herself recklessly—but was she the kind to retreat?

Antony hoped so. “Sun and Moon keep you,” he said, in lieu of the Christian benediction that had risen, unbidden, to his lips.

“And you,” Lune said. A faint smile told him she wanted to bless him in his own manner—but even if it did not hurt her, the Horse would not take it kindly.

The great beast pawed at the turf, and she somehow patted a neck that was not entirely there. “Back to the sky, my friend.”

It reared, which became a leap that carried it into the clouds. Lune’s company was gone by then, continued on, but the Horse would catch up before long.

Bonecruncher approached him, eyes flaming in the bleak gray light. With his horns and claws, he could easily have been mistaken for a devil, and Antony’s jaw tightened. “Why are you not masked? Do you want some passing farmer to see you and raise an alarm?”

Unconcerned, the barguest shrugged. “We was just checking where we are.”

“About half a mile from Tyburn, that way.” Antony pointed without looking.

Bonecruncher blinked. “How did you know?”

The goblin had lived in London longer than Antony had been alive, and yet was appallingly ignorant of everything outside the City walls. Antony shook his head. “Glamour yourself, and be on your way. We do not have much time.”

Lune’s company arced north of the City and approached from the east, where the pestered suburbs had not yet spread quite as thickly and as far. Landing in an open field between the Tower and the dockyards farther downriver, they quickly constructed their glamours and readied themselves to move on.

Riding the White Horse had been an impulsive decision, one designed purely to impress and therefore hearten their following. Now, within sight of London, Lune slid down and placed her hand on the figure’s neck. “Irrith—will he return home on his own?”

The wild sprite considered it, then approached and pulled the enormous head down until she could whisper in his ear. The Horse whickered and stamped. Somehow, without any change the eye could catch, he shrank in upon himself, until he was no larger than an ordinary stallion. Irrith gave Lune an amused shrug. “I think he wants to stay. Perhaps he’s as curious as I am, what this realm of yours is like.”

“It is not a place for horses.”

“I guessed as much, by the way you ride.” Grinning, Irrith slapped the Horse’s neck and beckoned her company onward.

Lune sighed, and found the white circle of the Horse’s eye contemplating her inscrutably.
They say a wish made while standing in his eye comes true. Whatever fortune we have tonight, I am glad I did not try.

They made for the nearby bank. An advance guard of river nymphs had gone ahead a few days before and secured enough skiffs for their group; once in, the boats floated steadily against the current, towed from below, in perfect silence up the Thames.

Ahead, London gleamed under a quarter moon. The pale light marked the upthrusting spires of the City’s many churches, and the truncated tower of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The close-packed houses lay in shadow below. The beloved silhouette struck Lune like a blow to the gut, driving all the breath from her body.
I am home at last.

She felt it in her bones, as well as her heart. Love and longing, for the place that was not just her realm but her home. Lune could not imagine retreating again.

And that meant they had to succeed. Tearing her gaze away from the City, Lune attended to the task at hand.

This was, for their group, the most dangerous passage. Once inside a fortified place, it was easy to seem as if one belonged there; gaining entrance was the trick. The fae huddled under their cloaks, scarcely breathing, as their boats drew up to the Tower’s water gate. Men called it the Traitor’s Gate, for the prisoners brought through it; Lune tried not to think of the name as an omen.

In the front skiff, a willowy asrai helped a boggart into the water, and supported him while he scowled at the chain holding the gate shut. He muttered a curse, and water splashed as the asrai covered his mouth; with such a force as theirs floating under the very toes of the guards, they dared not risk any noise that might break the tenuous charms keeping them hidden.

But the jingle of the chain was sweet music, and the quiet slosh of the gates swinging open.

Sir John Barkstead, lieutenant of the Tower, served the late Protectorate assiduously in his command, and maintained a watch alert enough to spot any intruders, however quiet. Therefore Antony had arranged for the Rump Parliament to dismiss the man, replacing him with one much less dedicated. For all that London was on tenterhooks, expecting a Royalist rising, the guard
inside
the Tower was lax, and the fae slipped easily through the courtyard precinct, heading for the White Tower.

Now Lune took the lead, for she was the only one who knew the way. Antony’s men were coming into the City by circuitous routes, in twos and threes, and had less fear of attracting notice; her own force had to move quickly, lest their numbers break their concealment. And sunrise, Irrith breathed in her ear, was not far off.

They reached the old Norman keep at the heart of the fortress, and silent as ghosts slipped into the cellar. Its three rooms were crowded with stores—beer barrels here, gunpowder there—but no one had covered over the well that pocked the earthen floor. Water glimmered cold and clear in its depths.

Lune knelt at its edge, and set a dagger to her palm.

Three drops of blood fell into the water below. Each one sounded a deep note, like the tolling of an immense bronze bell, audible only to the ears that knew to listen for it. In Threadneedle Street, the well’s rope could lower a knowledgeable traveler into a small antechamber; here, the stones shuddered and changed their configuration. The water drained away, leaving a black, dank pit, that had been here since before the Norman conqueror built his Tower. Dripping stones offered uneasy footholds, spiraling down its sides.

Irrith, waiting at her side, offered a malapert grin. “You’ve been in my home for years; I’m eager to see yours.” And before Lune could say anything, the sprite was the first down the stairs.

“Stay in stealth as long as you can,” Antony whispered to his men, scarcely more than breathing the words. “You will only get one chance at surprise. Make it count.”

Bonecruncher’s expression suggested he was only just restraining himself from snorting. They had been over this a dozen times and more. But they crouched now beneath the crumbling weight of St. Paul’s, and Antony found his nerves as hot as any green young man’s, facing his first battle.

It
is
my first battle. Old man that I am.

Old he might be, but just standing here gave him strength. “And remember,” he said, glaring down Bonecruncher’s impatience. “Wound them only, if you can.”

Cheerful words. Most of his supposed soldiers would be lucky to find their targets. He prayed surprise would be enough.

Now they moved with speed, slipping out of the chamber and through the Onyx Hall. Every Berkshire faerie or mortal was paired with a Londoner; Lune had drilled them on their paths, but it was easy for a stranger to become lost. Antony himself waited with Bonecruncher and a wispy, unarmed sprite named Dandelion.

A chill rippled down his bones, and he startled. “What?” Bonecruncher growled, glaring at him.

“Lune is here.” The words came without need of his mind. Had he always been able to feel her presence? Perhaps—but only now, with his body starved of the Onyx Hall’s touch, was he raw enough to notice it.

Bonecruncher took his revelation in stride. “Then let’s get moving.”

They were the last to leave, and went by the most secret route. Antony’s target was the treasury. Vidar would have claimed its contents for himself, of course, but the chamber was the most protected location for keeping the enchanted objects that belonged to the Crown; they were hoping he had left things of use there.

But they could not move entirely by hidden passages, not from where they began. They had to traverse some of the same chambers used by the palace inhabitants. Antony had planned a course that took them through the Hall of Figures, a long, sunken gallery filled with statuary; it was not often frequented. But as they reached the top of the steps leading to its floor, Antony saw movement ahead.

Bonecruncher reacted before Antony could think. Down on one knee, and up came the weapon Wayland Smith had forged for this attack. One clawed hand on the barrel, one on the stock, flaming eyes squinted close—

A deafening crack broke against the walls, and an elfin voice screamed.

God be praised—he hit him.

Even that thought was a delay he could not afford. Antony drew one of the pistols from his belt, and for the second time in its long history, the Onyx Hall rang with the sound of a gun.

He missed; pistols were less accurate than the firelock musket Bonecruncher carried. But the guns Wayland had forged were as much instruments of terror as weapons; fae had seen them in mortal hands—occasionally even been shot by them—but to bring them into a faerie war was unthinkable innovation.

At least for Vidar, who scorned humanity and its works as beneath him.

Two fae had been conversing beneath a statue of a man beset by snakes. One fled. The other collapsed to the floor. Bonecruncher stopped long enough to tap him into unconsciousness, with enthusiasm that made Antony wince—but fae rarely died of wounds that did not kill them outright, and the guns fired elfshot instead of ordinary lead.

They had not even finished crossing the Hall of Figures when Antony heard more gunfire in the distance. He prayed the fae were conserving their shots; muskets and pistols were slow to load, and he had forgone lessons of speed in favor of teaching them to aim.

“Keep moving, m’lord,” Bonecruncher growled. “Your war isn’t over yet.”

 

Some of Lune’s courtiers had switched their allegiance to Vidar, when he invaded. Others joined her exiled court in Berkshire. Most of the remainder had gone elsewhere, giving up on this war entirely.

Half a dozen languished in cells beneath the White Tower, from which Antony had been unable to free them.

Lune’s force—or rather Irrith’s—subdued the guards without resorting to the firearms they carried. The six fae in the cells stumbled out, weak and blinking; Vidar had kept them in darkness and deprived of food and water, such as would kill any human kept thus.

But those long, black years had refined their hatred. Angrisla bared all her teeth, and gladly claimed the knife someone offered her. “I will bring him to you screaming,” the mara promised.

“Stay with us,” Lune ordered her. “The time for revenge will come.”

The mara’s obedience to that order would be dubious at best, but Lune had no one to spare for watching her, nor the others. The Tower squad split, each group to their particular task. The White Horse was long gone, cantering off on its own inscrutable exploration, but that might be all to the good; its presence would baffle Vidar’s folk, spreading confusion they could use.

The sudden ring of blades announced the commencement of battle just outside the chamber Lune sought. Trusting Irrith and her companions to hold the door, Lune laid a hand upon a floor stone that would lead them into a lower passage, bypassing the royal apartments, which Vidar had claimed for himself.

When her fingers touched marble, her vision blurred. Instead of the floor, she saw—