A Shadow Bright and Burning (Kingdom on Fire #1)(71)
I heard a rush of wind and turned to welcome Hargrove down from the sky, but it wasn’t his face that greeted me. It was hers.
She fell to the earth, lacking the company of her terrifying friends. The shadow rider dismounted from her monstrous black stag, and even before she unrolled her smoke hood, I knew she would be the one with sewn-up eyes. She was no dream or illusion this time. The girl unsheathed her dagger and swung toward the screaming crowd. Men dropped their wares and ran; women scuttled inside their houses and slammed the doors. I prepared to open fire when she whirled away from the people. Sniffing the air, she turned to face me.
“Not dressed properly,” she muttered to herself. Tilting her head, she sniffed again, deeply. “But the same smell. And a stave.” Her face scrunched up, a momentary flash of pain. “Little lady sorcerer.”
“What are you doing here?” I readied myself for an attack. The rider threw her head back and laughed.
“Follow your scent. The bloody king wants to know how you fight.” R’hlem. She swung her dagger in the air twice, testing. “He wants to see if you’ll die.” Leaping, she brought her blade in an arc toward me. I struck her with a gust of wind and rolled to the ground. I stood with my back against the ward as she drew herself up and hissed. This time, I fell aside as she attacked, and her dagger dug into the pale yellow outline of the barrier itself. The place of impact glowed bright green for an instant, then began to fade. She turned for me, nostrils flaring. “Good, good. Not afraid. He likes those with courage.”
“What does he want?” I said.
She struck again, and I met her with my warded blade. She was good, but Magnus’s training had helped. We crossed swords a few times, and then I leaned back and kicked her in the stomach. You could accomplish so much in trousers and boots! Men didn’t know how lucky they were.
Before she could regain control, I blasted her with a tunnel of wind and twirled a spell that sent the earth up around her like a hand, to catch and drag her down. She was chest-deep next to the ward when Hargrove alighted beside me.
“I’ve never seen that before,” he said, eyeing the trapped rider.
“A blend of the two styles,” I muttered as the girl shrieked and thrust her hands upward. It was as if she became smoke and bled through the earth to free herself.
Hargrove and I unleashed a volley of magic. I called down the wind to dissipate the still-smoke Familiar, and he shrank her demonic steed to the size of a small dog. She re-formed into her solid state and fell to the earth with a piercing screech. The rider stared stupidly at her dwarfed mount, which bleated like an angry lamb. Grabbing the stag under her arm, she held up a hand in a signal of surrender.
“Leave.” I pointed Porridge with more confidence than I felt. “Or I’ll fire.”
Hissing, she reached out and touched the ward. “Soon,” she croaked, giving a small, hideous giggle as she slid her fingertips down the glowing surface.
The stag ballooned back to its normal size, and she climbed atop it. They galloped into the sky and vanished before we could attack again.
“We should go,” I whispered, tipping my cap over my eyes.
“Indeed. After a hard day of protecting the city, I should think we’d earned a meat pie.” Hargrove didn’t seem as carefree as his words implied. We looked to where the Familiar had sliced the ward. When I put my fingers to it, I found the smallest cut in the surface.
“Well,” he said as we landed on a rooftop to catch our breath, “now you see the challenges of defeating one of the Shadow’s pets. They always were the trickiest to destroy. The best Familiars to kill, of course, are Molochoron’s slugs. You remember that fat, slimy fellow last week in Hoxton? The one we exploded?”
“What’s happening to the ward?” I whispered. “It feels like rubber on the inside, and fragile glass without.”
“The ward usually wears down the closer we get to the solstice,” Hargrove said, cracking his back and wincing. “It’s at its strongest around Christmas.”
“Why?”
“Some believe the Ancients are tied to the pagan calendar, so Midsummer Eve is a particularly wonderful time for them. I think there’s truth to it. Of course, the sorcerers used this concept to attack the witches.” He sounded bitter.
“Did you know any witches?”
“Before the burnings, you mean? Yes, one or two.” He snorted and spit off the roof. “A bunch of ladies with flowers and rye in their hair, farming and making potions to help with a toothache. Truly the most fearsome magical practitioners of all.”
“If they’re so innocent, why were they outlawed?”
“Many believe that magical women are difficult to control,” Hargrove said. “As you are well aware.” The memory of Cellini and the knife returned in vivid color. “While we’re talking, have you payment for another evening’s lesson?” He snapped his fingers. Groaning, I dug into my pocket and produced two sovereigns. Handing them over, I muttered, “Try to spend it sensibly.”
“This makes ten pounds and four shillings. Almost there. And the rest?”
“Next time.” Agrippa now gave me two pounds a week for spending money, so he unwittingly paid for my lessons. That made approximately five weeks of sneaking off to visit Hargrove when I could. I swung my legs over the roof and looked to the ward, a glowing bubble in the night. “What happens if the barriers don’t hold?”