Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men (57 page)

t took close to half an hour to climb the smooth stone steps to the first opening. Valkyrie lasted less than two minutes before her legs cramped, and she happily settled into Skulduggery’s arms for the rest of the journey. When he finally set her down, she straightened, and it was like unspooling from a hot, humid swamp. Every part of her was sticky and covered in sweat.

“I feel gross,” she said softly, holding her arms out from her sides. “Oh my God, I need a shower.”

Skulduggery read the air. “First we rescue Fletcher, then you can have your shower. How are you feeling aside from hot and burnt?”

She wanted to tell him she felt fine, that there was no need to worry about her. But lying about something like that would be dangerous to them both. “I feel a little weak,” she said.

“Then you stay behind me. If I tell you to run or hide, you do what I say. Going up against a witch is not like going up against a sorcerer. These people are much more dangerous.”

They moved in through the opening, and the sudden shade would have made Valkyrie smile were it not for the sunburn that kept her face as blank as possible. She pocketed her sunglasses. There were rooms to either side of them, no doors, containing shelves of clay pots of varying sizes.

“If we get separated,” Skulduggery whispered, “we meet up back here.”

She gave the slightest of murmurs, and followed him to the heavy curtains at the end of the corridor. He pulled the curtains back and a warm light chased the shade away.

The centre of the pyramid was a vast, hollowed-out cavern in which numerous plateaus had sprung, stretching from one side to the other. These plateaus were connected by a spider’s web of rope bridges and ladders, stairs and slopes. Some plateaus were narrow, some were wide, some were solid and some looked flimsy as paper. There were buildings on some of them, solid buildings of stone, but mostly the dwellings seemed to be tents and marquees of varying sizes.

Valkyrie hunkered down beside Skulduggery, neither one speaking for the moment, and they watched the Brides. Now she understood why Saracen had said there were worse people to be held captive by. Their hair was tied in a series of golden bands, and the lower half of their face was covered by a red veil. They wore skirts of silk, slit high to the waist, and a choli blouse, all in red, with their bellies exposed. The cape was red, too, although Valkyrie was pretty sure that it wouldn’t be called a cape. Whatever it was, it was some kind of mix between silk and chiffon, and it was attached to the shoulders by small golden rings and to each wrist by a golden bracelet. The cape rippled with every movement, no matter how slight. Another bracelet curled round the right upper arm, and their sandals had interlacing straps that looked way too complicated and annoying to be practical. Each Bride had a curved dagger in a jewelled sheath on her hip.

Wherever each Bride went, a man followed. Wearing nothing but a plain white sarong around their waist, their heads were shaven and their bodies were muscled. The Devoted kept their eyes down as they walked, each one exactly six steps behind the Bride they followed. Not a bad system.

“Do the Devoted have to do
whatever
the Brides tell them?” Valkyrie whispered.

Skulduggery looked at her. “Stop drooling.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Stop it.”

She sighed. “Fine. So where do you think they’re keeping Fletcher?”

“I don’t know,” Skulduggery said. “From what I’ve read of the Brides, their evenings and nights are for themselves. Everything gets shut down. Doors are locked and off they go to do whatever it is they do in their spare time. That’s our best shot at moving around.”

“How? I don’t have the cloaking sphere any more.”

“We’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way,” Skulduggery said. “We’ll have to sneak.”

“That sounds hard.”

“Nonsense. Sneaking is easy. You just have to be careful about where you—”

He stepped out from hiding and accidentally kicked a pebble that skittered along the ground and bounced off a pot with a nice loud
ping
.

“Me and my big articulate mouth,” he muttered, as a Bride looked up and saw him.

The alarm went out, the Brides shouting warnings to each other. Valkyrie started to stand.

“Stay down,” he ordered.

She stared at him. “What are you going to do?”

“Something inadvisable,” he said, and ran forward.

Valkyrie stayed where she was, tucked behind cover, listening to the shouts and the sounds of crackling energy and exploding rock. He was leading them away from her.

He’s leaving you alone.

Keeping low, she moved back through the curtain, squinting at the rectangle of unforgiving light that would usher her outside. Where would she go? Where would she hide? She was weak, sunburnt, and probably had heatstroke or something. She wouldn’t get far out there. She wouldn’t get far in here, either. The thought of throwing a punch made her want to cry.

Footsteps on the other side of the curtain made her dart into the room on her right. She pressed herself back against the wall, careful not to disturb the clay pots. Two voices – no, three – talking quickly. Only one of them spoke English. She didn’t recognise either of the other two languages.

One of the Brides babbled urgently.

“Let me,” said the Bride who spoke English.

More babbling, then—

“We will.”

Valkyrie would have scowled if the pain hadn’t stopped her.

Just our luck that the only one we can understand is a lackey and not a boss.

She peeked out. Two Brides hurried into the sunshine and disappeared down the steps. Made sense. Their secret pyramid had been breached, after all – they needed to know if there was anyone else out there.

The third Bride, the one Valkyrie couldn’t see, walked back towards the curtain, and Valkyrie coughed softly. The footsteps stopped. Valkyrie picked up one of the pots. She couldn’t hear anything now, but it was highly unlikely that the Bride was still standing in place. No, if the Bride was anything like Valkyrie, she would already be sneaking to the doorway, ready to lunge in and catch the intruder unawares—

The Bride lunged into the room and Valkyrie smashed the pot over her head, giving a muffled scream as her sunburn sent claws of stinging pain ripping through her. The Bride stumbled to her knees and Valkyrie stepped back and kicked her in the head.

Oooh, that felt good.

Valkyrie looked down at the unconscious Bride while she waited for the pain to fade. An idea came to her, and grew into a plan. It wasn’t a very good plan, but it was a plan, and that’s more than she had a moment ago.

Valkyrie took off her clothes, folded them neatly and put them on a shelf behind a pot, and dressed herself in the Bride’s outfit.

Not right, is it? Leaving these wonderful clothes here with all manner of dangers ahead.

No, it wasn’t right, especially given what she was now wearing. Red silk and a stupid veil and sandals she couldn’t even do up right.

You look great. You look like a homicidal belly dancer.

She slipped the Necromancer ring into a small pouch she found beside the knife, then shackled the Bride’s wrists, tied her feet, and used one of Valkyrie’s own socks as a gag. She apologised about that one. Of course the Bride didn’t hear it, but that was hardly the point.

The only way this was going to work was if no one got too close to her. Then they wouldn’t see the mess she’d made of the sandals or how her hair wasn’t bound right or how, instead of a healthy tan like the others, her skin was glowing painfully red. Also, the Brides walked with a sway that she didn’t have, and they walked lightly, like they were each on individual clouds. Valkyrie was well aware of how she walked. She walked functionally. She was used to wearing trousers and boots.

Trousers and boots that Ghastly Bespoke made. Doesn’t seem right to abandon them like this.

Taking a deep breath, Valkyrie left the room and walked through the curtains. The heat made her start to sweat again, and made her sunburn sting like crazy. She walked for the nearest rope bridge. It was surprisingly steady.

One of the Devoted was ahead. She faltered, then straightened up and walked swiftly by him. He didn’t shout out. Didn’t raise the alarm. This was good. This was going to work. She glanced back. He was right behind her.

She whirled and he stopped. She waited for him to make a move. He didn’t. He just stood there with his eyes down. She frowned, backed away, turned and walked on. He followed.

She stopped again and so did he.

“What do you want?” she asked. If he recognised the difference in accents, he didn’t react to it. But neither did he answer.

She was about to stride off and leave him there when she saw a Bride and another Devoted walking closer. Cursing under her breath, she retraced her steps back to the rope bridge. The Devoted came after her.

“Would you stop?” she hissed. “Just stop, all right? Stay!”

He stopped walking and she hurried, passed the rope bridge and kept walking until she came to a junction. She hid as another Bride passed, a Devoted walking behind her with his head down. Everywhere a Bride walked, there was at least one Devoted trailing in her wake.

A Bride walking around without a Devoted will probably arouse suspicion.

Valkyrie headed back to the rope bridge. He was still there.

“Hello,” she said. “Would you … I need to get to our prison cells, but I have forgotten, uh, how to get there. Take me to them.”

The Devoted bowed slightly, but didn’t move.

“Well?” she pressed. “Let’s go.”

He took a step backwards, bowing as he did so, and she understood. She walked by him and he followed. When she got to the top of the slope, she hesitated, looked back, saw the angle of his shoulders and moved right. It wasn’t the fastest or most effective way to get where she needed to go, but it worked. In one narrow corridor they were forced to pass within arm’s length of another Bride. The Bride nodded to her and she nodded back, and they each continued on. Valkyrie breathed out and relaxed.

They walked until they came to a giant door. She looked at the Devoted. “This is it?”

He bowed a little deeper.

It was locked. Of course it was locked, the day was over. Everything shut down when the day was over. There was no way she was getting through this tonight, not without bringing every Bride down on top of her.

“I need to sleep,” she said.

He bowed, stood to one side, and she walked by him. Again, he directed her with the turn of his shoulders until they came to a wide plateau of tents and marquees. Doing her best to keep away from other Brides, Valkyrie chose a tent on the outer edges.

“Get me food,” she said to the Devoted. “And water. Please. If you wouldn’t mind.”

The Devoted bowed and walked away, and Valkyrie stepped inside, letting the flap close behind her. The floor was covered in cushions, and she stepped over to the biggest one and sat. She wished she had her phone. She didn’t even know what time it was. She tried to fix her hair back into the golden bands, but abandoned the task before she grew too annoyed.

A few minutes later, there was movement outside her tent. Resisting the urge to come up in a crouch and prepare for trouble, Valkyrie lay back and feigned sleep. That wasn’t easy with her sunburn. She listened to someone come in and cracked open an eye. A Devoted laid a tray of food down on the small table. The lamplight flickered over his muscles and his bald head – but they
all
had muscles and bald heads. She waited until she saw his face, until she was sure he was
her
Devoted, before she sat up.

“Thank you,” she said.

He said nothing. He went to the entrance and stood there, hands by his sides, head down, like a statue.

Valkyrie crawled over to the table, filled a goblet with water and lifted the veil to drink it down in one go. There were meats and grapes and fruit piled on to the tray and she ate what she could and left the rest of it.

She crawled back to the big cushion, piled a few on top of each other and lay against them, propped up. The curved dagger was digging into her thigh. The arm bracelet was digging into her bicep. Her hair was too loose and her damn sandals had slipped down again. She was anxious. She was anxious and bored. She was anxious and bored and tired, but there was no way she could sleep, not with the enemy all around, not with Skulduggery held captive and—

She woke. She couldn’t have been sleeping for that long. She was still propped up on the cushions. She hadn’t moved.

The Devoted had, though. He had laid out small jars of sweet-smelling oils on the ground before her, and beside them was a large pail of water. He stood behind the pail, a cloth in his hands.

“Uh,” said Valkyrie. “What’s going on?”

He didn’t say anything. Of course he didn’t. She sat up, almost cried out with the pain and he quickly scooped up one of the jars and knelt by her. He dipped a finger in, then touched it lightly to her arm. That spot, the spot he’d touched, immediately cooled. It didn’t even look as red any more.