Wolfbreed (54 page)

rhard led his men slowly up the cylindrical staircase. They treaded softly and slowly, twisting rightward toward the top of the keep. The route was narrow, and the stairs uneven, to give the advantage to the defenders against attackers coming from below. Even in the confined space, the five knights carried crossbows nocked and ready to fire.

The stairwell would be a bad place for a fight. Just spacing out
enough to wield their weapons meant that Erhard wasn’t even in sight of the last two men following.

He led his men while leaning forward and looking up, extending his sight line as far as the slit in the hooded lantern would allow. As they reached the last few spirals of the stairway, he noticed light from above.

He waved back so the man behind him shut the lantern. The darkness closed in, but not completely. Above them he heard a massive clanging noise, followed shortly by a familiar growling voice.

“Where is she?”

By the position of the voice and the subsequent crashing and screaming, they had their opportunity. He waved the knights after him, running as quickly as they could manage up to the highest level of the keep.

“You think death is the worst I can give you?”

The few seconds it took him to run up the last two circuits of the stairway gave him time to realize why the bishop had retreated up here. He came up here to ready the siege defenses. In Erhard’s opinion, the impulse was terribly premature.

“Tell me!”

They emerged from the stairs, spreading along the walls to prevent an attack from the rear. However, God was with them. Lilly was in the open, by the one section of the wall where the bishop’s men had lit the sconces. She stood with her back to the knights, in all her lupine fury.

Muscles rippled in her back, her fur streaked by blood, soot, and tar. She had a man pinned, his upper body covered by black ooze, and her muzzle was wrinkled in a horrid snarl as she slammed him into the wall close to a flaming sconce.

“Do you feel the fire yet?”

Her tar-coated victim screamed a babble of languages at her.

“Tell me!”

His men had taken the few distracted seconds to take cover and aim. The first shot buried a bolt in Lilly’s back, just above her left hip. The next was a split second later, just as she started reacting, burying itself in her back just below her right shoulder. The third and fourth bolts missed as she dodged, dropping the tar-covered man, who fell against the sconce, releasing a shower of embers. Erhard fired, and buried a bolt in her left thigh as she disappeared behind a thick stone pillar.

For a moment the only sound was the creak of the bows as the five knights recocked their weapons.

Then the bishop’s man started screaming. Erhard looked away from Lilly’s hiding place, and saw the tar-covered man staggering away from the wall, toward the knights. Flames licked at his head, and toxic black smoke rolled from his shoulders. He tried to beat at the fire with his hands and only succeeded in spreading the burning tar.

Erhard shook his head and leveled his crossbow at the man’s head, which was already an orb of orange flame. Erhard fired, ending the man’s agonized screams. The body fell over flat on the stone floor, rolling flames covering its back.

He gestured to the others, pointing along the walls of the stone room. They nodded, two going the short way toward Lilly’s refuge, the other two going the long way. Then Erhard bent, putting a foot in the crossbow’s stirrup to recock his weapon.

“Brother Erhard?” The familiar voice was labored, wheezing.

Erhard ignored her as he placed a bolt in his crossbow. The silver tip glittered, reflecting flames from the burning corpse in the room. Oily black smoke spread across the ceiling.

“Is your God just?”

Bolt cocked, he leveled it at the storeroom in front of him. There were piles of boxes and barrels between the stone pillars, offering some cover around the edges of the room. However, standing here by the stairs, he could cover the central area of the large
room. With the others circling to flank her, the injured monster couldn’t move without entering a field of fire.

He heard her cough, and he aimed the crossbow toward the sound.

His eyes watered and he wanted to cough himself. The flames from the burning corpse filled the room with the stench of tar smoke and charring flesh.

One of the pair of knights circling around the dark side of the storeroom fired at something. Erhard couldn’t see them anymore. He had lost both men in the dark and the haze. He heard something crash and splinter, then everything was quiet for a moment.

He heard her cough again. “Would a just God forgive you?”

He heard one of his men in that direction cry out.

God, don’t let me lose focus
.

Erhard reined in his own sense of panic and braced himself to cover the open area should Lilly reveal herself.

Across the room, on the other side of the burning body, Erhard saw the other two knights moving, crossbows raised. Then he lost sight of them behind the rolling black smoke.

Erhard heard the sounds of a struggle, someone uttering a startled “Huh?” Then he heard a crossbow fire. A few seconds later, a second one fired.

Erhard thought he heard a body thudding to the ground.

They got her!

Erhard coughed. They had to find the bishop and get out. The smoke was thickening, and the flames had spread to some of the storage crates. There were barrels of tar among the stores, and when those caught it would become Hell itself up here.

He ran around to the knights. He had to follow along the wall because the fire made the central part of the room impassible. “Do you see where the bishop—”

Erhard stopped, because one of the knights lay crumpled on the ground, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his right eye. His
own crossbow rested on the ground between his legs, bolt still nocked.

Erhard spun around, too late.

Ahead of him, just visible through the smoky haze, stood a naked, blood-soaked seventeen-year-old girl. She stood over another body, this one with a bolt buried deep in his throat.

“Would a just God let you live?” she said.

She held a loaded crossbow braced against a crate.

Don’t let her surprise you
, he thought as a bolt ripped through his chest. He dropped his crossbow as his whole body spasmed with the pain of the impact. He wheezed and his mouth filled with blood.

Erhard looked up and saw her limping toward him. She was hemorrhaging from the two massive wounds in her torso. Half her body shone slick with her own blood. She dropped the spent crossbow as she approached, kneeling unsteadily in front of him.

He tried to speak, but his throat filled with blood.

“We both serve cruel masters,” she whispered, placing a hand on his cheek. “But, at least I can punish mine.”

She grabbed the other side of his head and twisted until his neck snapped.

aster …

She stared at Erhard’s face as it went slack between her hands. She stared into his eyes until she felt the light go out of them, then she let him go, allowing his body to crumple on the floor.

She coughed, sending pain shooting out from the wounds in her torso. Her leg shook, and she felt light-headed. She didn’t know if it was from blood loss or from the toxic black smoke rolling from the center of the storeroom.

She clutched the wound above her left hip. The bolt had passed clean through, leaving a crater in her gut next to her navel. That one was the worst. She could feel her life pulsing out through the hole. In seconds, her clenched fist was coated with her own blood.

That would be the wound that killed her, and she wondered idly if Erhard had fired the bolt that caused it. Somehow, it would be fitting if he had.

But she couldn’t die yet.

“Hilde!” she yelled, tasting her own blood on her lips.

She heard nothing but crackling and hissing flames.

“Hilde!”

She could feel the skin peeling off her throat and started coughing.

Then, when her own wheezing subsided, she heard someone crying. She looked around, moving her head, trying to focus on the sound. It took her a few moments before she realized where it was coming from.

The sound came from above her.

Lilly looked around and saw it dimly through the smoke, leaning against a pillar.

A ladder
.

ama. Papa. Ulfie. Lilly
.

The four names repeated through Hilde’s head over and over. Even with her eyes screwed shut, she still saw the men tossing the torches. And it was all her fault. If she hadn’t talked to the man, hadn’t told them Lilly’s name …

She had been crying and screaming when the fat man grabbed her and dragged her into the castle, so she wasn’t sure what was going on. When he shouted at the other men, he spoke words she didn’t recognize.

The fat man half carried, and half dragged her up one twisting stairway.

“Why did you hurt Mama?” she yelled, beating at his pudgy arm with her fists. “Papa, Ulfie! Why?”

But by now she had run out of breath and her screams were mere wheezes. She was so tired that she couldn’t even make him notice her fists.