The Adept Book 2 The Lodge Of The Lynx (57 page)

“Not well enough on my own account,” Peregrine said weakly, as Adam moved on to check the SAS man Peregrine’s efforts had saved.

“Is he all right?”

“He’ll have to be, for now,” Adam replied, moving quickly among the other injured.

As Peregrine struggled up onto his elbows, he looked around anxiously.

“Where are the lynxes? Are they gone?”

“As many as attacked us here, aye,” said McLeod’s voice from the shadows on his other side. “With any luck, it was enough to force a general retreat. Are you ready to move yet?”

Peregrine heaved a deep breath. His chest still ached, but he was relieved to find himself otherwise undamaged.

“I think so,” he said. “But I wouldn’t mind an assist getting up.”

McLeod grinned and extended a hand. As he struggled to his feet, Peregrine looked around and saw that there were several men down, only one of them not moving. Ahead, Duart and a handful of his men had regrouped and again were stalking the approach to the west wing. Farther back, one of the other patrols was giving covering fire.

Peregrine flinched as the quiet burp of the submachine guns was suddenly punctuated by several shotgun blasts in quick succession. He glanced back at the heavy door just in time to see two troopers kick the door in and then fade to either side as a third tossed something inside. The dull
whump
of a stun grenade jarred them even outside, and then Duart and his men were through what remained of the door, firing in quick bursts, more men running up from farther back.

* * *

Raeburn was with Barclay and the four acolytes guarding the entrance to the tower when he heard the door to the west wing blow. The stun grenade was too far away to do more than set their ears ringing, but he knew what it was, and that it was only a matter of time before the attackers won through. His men would put up a good fight, and die before being taken, but they could not hold out against such as these.

“Sinclair’s brought in the damned SAS!” Barclay said bitterly, caressing the Uzi slung around his neck. “I told you that was no mountain rescue operation this morning!”

“Yes, and I told
him,”
Raeburn replied, nervously eyeing the far door that led from the west wing. “But I may still be able to salvage something. Go and do what we discussed.”

With a curt nod, Barclay took off at a jog along a corridor that led away at a right angle from the west wing. The acolytes stirred uneasily, perhaps suspecting what he planned, but Raeburn knew they would not dare to defy him—not while he wore the torc and carried a charged medallion. Leaving them there with instructions to hold their positions, he himself mounted the spiral stair to the topmost room.

He found the tower chamber in a state of complete disarray. Five of the Head-Master’s remaining eight acolytes lay sprawled on the floor, either dead or comatose. Those others who were still sitting upright looked pale and dazed, trembling with the strain of their recent exertions. The Head-Master himself was crouched over his precious manuscript, running a twisted finger down a yellowed page, muttering bitterly to himself. As soon as Raeburn appeared, however, he left off his murmurings and staggered to his feet, his eyes fiercely aglitter in his skull-like face.

“You!” he panted hoarsely. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at your post?”

Raeburn declined to answer either question. Meeting his superior’s gaze dispassionately, he said, “The west wing is in the process of being overrun. Sinclair and his men will be here shortly. I thought you should be informed.”

The Head-Master was breathing hard, his face contorted in black rage.

“Why do you tell me things I already know?” he demanded. “What you have yet to answer is why you have seen fit to disobey my orders!”

“With respect, Head-Master,” Raeburn said evenly, “I do not think the Patron of Shadows requires us to sacrifice ourselves in a pointless act of defiance, just because Huntsmen have run us to ground. The helicopter is standing by in the rear courtyard, thus far undamaged. I’ve sent Barclay to warm up the engines. We can take you to safety.”

The Head-Master’s face contorted. “What kind of counsel is this? The battle is not yet lost!”

“No, the battle
is
lost,” Raeburn said. “But the war may yet be
won—if
we leave now.”

“Craven!” the Head-Master rasped. “This is all your fault! You were ordered to call down the lightning rather than allow this fortress to be overrun. Why did you disobey?”

“Because it would have been a pointless waste of resources,” Raeburn retorted, advancing a step or two in anger. “Can’t you . see? We serve no one but Sinclair if we allow ourselves to be driven into taking our own lives. Sacrifice is one thing; suicide is quite another.”

The Head-Master’s mouth was working furiously, his withered lips flecked with foam.

“Traitor!” he shrilled. “You are unworthy to be called the Son of Taranis! Give me back the tore!’

Raeburn’s hand moved in reflex to his throat, where the torc lay cold against his flesh, potent with power. Standing straighter, he shook his head.

“If you will not come, give me the manuscript,” he demanded, “and allow me to take it to safety.”

The Head-Master’s black eyes went wild.

“So
this
is what you’ve been intending all along!” he screeched. “To wrest the Fuhrer’s manuscript from me by fair means or foul! Oh, you are so like your father! He thought
he
could do it, but he was wrong—and so are you!”

He lashed out with one hand. A bolt of black flame shot from his fingers, kindling the torc with such a surge of blinding pain that Raeburn cried out and flung it from him. It rolled to rest in the bloody pool by Wemyss’ lifeless body, and as the Head-Master pounced to retrieve it, skidding in the blood, Raeburn produced the yet-unused medallion he had been carrying, flung it bitterly after the Head-Master, then swooped in to snatch up the sacrificial knife. He considered going for the manuscript as well, but the Head-Master shrieked as he turned and saw Raeburn’s intent, one bloody hand already locked around the torc. The implied threat lent wings to Raeburn’s feet as he turned on his heel and fled.

* * *

Nothing stirred in the west wing. As Duart and five of his men swept systematically through it toward the tower, their progress periodically punctuated by bursts of machinegun fire, Adam rounded a corner and came to a standstill.

“Listen!” he said. “What’s that noise?”

McLeod cocked an ear. “Sounds like that helicopter nobody saw. Duart!” he called sharply. “Out the back! I think some of our birds are about to flee!”

As Duart’s signal sent a four-man patrol off at a jog-trot, Adam said, “Go with them!” and McLeod trotted after. Duart, meanwhile, had won through to the ground floor of the tower, where three bloody, white-robed bodies lay sprawled in various attitudes of sudden and violent death—not the work of Duart and his accompanying trooper. A door stood open to the winding spiral of a dark stairwell, and Duart was already edging cautiously up the first steps as his partner made sure of the three men on the ground.

“This is it, isn’t it?” Peregrine whispered, white against his snow-camouflage as he peered queasily past Adam at the carnage.

“Almost,” Adam said, slipping past Peregrine to follow the two SAS men. “I’ll go first.”

The spiral of the stairwell was a second, smaller tower shaft set close along the side of the first, faintly lit by moonlight streaming through narrow lancet windows set at every turning. Only one landing opened off the tower stair before they reached the top—an empty bedchamber and a dark, shuttered chamber fitted out as a library. Adam and Peregrine waited on the stair until Duart and his man had pronounced it safe, then continued climbing behind them.

Gradually a glow of yellow light began to brighten from beyond the upward turning of the stair, and Adam hissed at Duart to slow. The very air of the stairwell was dark with hostile intent, but it was time for Adam’s expertise to take over now.

Slipping past the SAS major, Adam led the way cautiously around the curve to halt just short of the final landing, where yellow gaslight spilled across the threshold of a chamber beyond. Something metallic lay glittering on the floor just inside the threshold—a not-unexpected Lynx medallion—and its placement warned him that at least one of those no doubt lurking in the room beyond had slipped beyond the bounds of reason.

He turned quietly to Peregrine and the two soldiers retreating a step. As Huntsman, he well knew the danger of a cornered quarry; as Master of the Hunt, he was obligated to see that quarry taken, with as little injury as possible to his fellow Huntsmen and those under their protection. Duart thought he was protecting Adam and Peregrine, but in fact, it was Adam who must now protect all of them.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said to Duart. “You two go back to the base of the tower and wait with Mr. Lovat.”

“Adam—” Peregrine began.

“Do it,” Adam said in a tone that brooked no argument. “What happens from here on out is my responsibility.”

They retreated with obvious reluctance, but not before Duart had pressed a Browning Hi-Power into Adam’s Ieft hand, pointedly thumbing the safety off, though he said not a word. The gun at his side, his
skean dubh
clutched firmly in his other hand, Adam squared his shoulders and silently commended himself and all those with him to the ongoing protection of the Light, then drew upon himself the mantle of authority that proclaimed him not only Master of the Hunt but Keeper of the Peace. Given what those in the tower chamber had already accomplished, Adam had no doubt they would be able to see the astral overlay of that authority as well as his physical form. He also knew the source and scope of their power now, and that he had the means to counter it.

Serenely, then, he mounted the last three steps, coming to a halt a pace outside the chamber.

His quarry sat crouched in the midst of a pile of scarlet cushions to one side of the room—a bald-headed, gnome-like figure in a flowing white robe, bloodstained down the front. Around him lay nearly a dozen bodies, one of them obviously the source of the blood. Several others lay merely dead, exuding the psychic signature of over-extension in the Overworld—probably those who had launched the lynx attack.

But the three nearest him, two of them women, had scarlet cords knotted around their throats, apparently but recently strangled. Adam could sense the power their slayer had absorbed by their willing sacrifice, their heads laid on the pillows around him, arms outflung in surrender, but his real concern was for what the old man held.

Claw-like hands clutched a yellowed sheaf of parchments to the bloody bosom. The thin neck was encircled by a heavy torc of meteoric iron, its blackness lifted by murky cairngorms and Pictish symbols traced in silver. Adam had glimpsed it before in visions, and recoiled now from the dark, elemental power radiating from it. Sensing the evil potency that linked it with what was inscribed within the manuscript, Adam bent to lay his pistol gently on the floor of the landing—useless here—then drew himself erect, never taking his eyes from his quarry.

“Are you Head-Master here?” he inquired sternly.

Fierce black eyes glared up at him balefully out of a wizened, ash-colored face.

“I am,” the robed figure whispered.

“Then by the authority vested in me by the Council of Seven, as Master of the Hunt, I order you to resign that office and to surrender such artifacts and implements as are presently in your charge.”

“How dare you?” The Head-Master’s response was a whisper like grave cerements, rising on a note of hysteria as he lurched unsteadily to his feet. “How dare you make such a demand of me, and in my own house? Surrender my power to you? I think not! Not while I yet possess the means to determine my own fate!
Here
is the seat of my power!” He laughed maniacally and jerked a thumb curtly toward the torc about his throat. “And
there!”

He stabbed a finger at the lynx head medallion lying on the floor between them, lips parted in a death’s head grin, then took a backwards step and raised both arms in a theatrical gesture of summoning.

Just as swiftly Adam moved across the threshold. As the air in the room came alive with the hum of building energies, he set his foot deliberately across the medallion’s chain on the floor. Locking eyes with the Head-Master, he pointed his
skean dubh
at the medallion and uttered a Word. Light flared blue from the blade, the stone in its pommel, and the ring on his third finger, and with a sullen whine, the dark aura of power in the air faltered and collapsed, like the sound of a dynamo shutting down.

Aghast, the Head-Master glared at Adam, the astral authority beyond mere physical presence finally registering.

“The game is ended, Head-Master,” Adam said quietly. “That Which I serve will not allow me to come to harm at your hands. I know the source and measure of your power. Once again, I charge you to lay aside what you have stolen and misused, and submit to the lawful authority of the Light.”

“You cannot judge
me,”
the Head-Master rasped, clutching the manuscript more tightly to his bosom. “I have spent a lifetime mastering what lies here. The goal is within reach. Taranis calls me to be
his
scourge against such puny mortals as play like children with what they can never grasp or understand. Why seek the light when Darkness beckons with such sweet power? You cannot judge
me.”

“It is not my place to judge, but only to bring you before judgment,” Adam said. “Put down the manuscript and the torc.”

Trembling, the Head-Master shook his head, glancing wildly around the room for some escape.

“It’s mine!” he whispered. “I will never give it
up—never!”

“Neither you nor it will leave this room,” Adam retorted sternly. “Put down the manuscript and the torc.”

The Head-Master’s shoulders slumped. It seemed for a moment that he was about to capitulate. He bent stiffly from the waist to set the manuscript reverently at his feet. Then, without warning, he reared back, twisted hands set to either side of the torc and thrusting his wild, searching glance toward the ceiling and beyond.