The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(124)

“It wasn’t you. You told me you were just a boy at the time, and never even touched him.”

“So I was. But–”

“Then stop feeling so guilty about it.”

“But I killed him the second time.”

“Killed who?” Kiiren’s voice was childishly high but held a commanding note.

“No one,” Coby said.

She began telling him a story; a sure-fire way to distract both the skrayling within and the child he surely still was. Mal listened with half an ear, and realised it was a story of Robin Hood and his fight against the injustices of wicked King John. He wondered idly if generations to come would tell similar tales about themselves and their fight against wicked King Henry. Of course they had to win first, and preferably live to tell the tale.

The road dipped into a tree-lined hollow. Mal turned his attention back to his surroundings. This was the perfect place for an ambush. What if Shawe had used his magics to persuade the constable to free Monkton and his men? They could be lying in wait even now…

He reached the bottom of the hollow and the ground began to rise again. The moon was rising, casting a pale glow through the trees… No, that was not moonlight. Coby’s mount whinnied and balked, and Mal reined his gelding to a halt beside her.

“What is it?” she whispered to him, as the light grew.

The tunnel mouth coalesced, cutting them off from Sandy, Ned and Gabriel, and now he could see a figure at the far end.

“Shawe?”

The figure came closer. He was thin and dark-haired, but it was not the alchemist. This lad was no more than eighteen.

“Give him to me.” The apparition held out his arms to Kiiren.

Mal wheeled his mount, but another tunnel was already forming behind them.

“How did they find us so easily?” Coby muttered.

“Never mind that,” Mal replied. “Prepare to ride like the wind.”

He dismounted, drew his rapier and turned back to face the guiser blocking their path. The youth could not step out and confront him, not if his aim was to take Kiiren back.

“Give him to me, or be destroyed.”

“And how exactly do you intend to do that?” Mal grinned at him and hefted his blade. The cold steel felt reassuringly solid and unmagical.

The youth raised his hands and a wind began to pour from the tunnel, whipping his hair forwards and filling the air with dead leaves and… black feathers? A harsh cawing mingled with the sound of the wind, a dark shape soared over the youth’s head, straight towards Mal, who raised his blade in an instinctive parry. The crow exploded in a rain of feathers and gore, but Mal had no time to wipe the mess from his face. Another was coming at him, and another. The rapier sang as he wove a steel net between the monstrous birds and his family. Its blunt edge sliced through the crows as if they were mist, but they felt solid enough when they dodged the blade and raked his scalp with their claws.

There were too many now to fight; his only hope was to stop them at the source. Mal pressed forward, shielding his face with his left hand and whirling the rapier in his right. At last he reached the mouth of the tunnel. The boy sneered at him, but his smile turned to a grimace of horror as Mal thrust the rapier straight towards his heart. Before the blade could touch him, however, the tunnel flashed a sickly yellow-green and collapsed in on itself, sending a shock like a hammer blow back up the rapier. Mal dropped his blade, shaking his stinging hand.

“Mal!”

He stooped and grabbed the weapon with his left hand, and turned to see Coby hunched in the saddle, trying to protect Kiiren from the last of the crows. Mal leapt onto his own mount and set about them with his sword. By the time he had dispatched the last one, the tunnel behind them was open, another guiser standing at its mouth. Mal glanced over his shoulder. The lane in front of them was clear.

“Go!” He slapped the mare on her haunch and the beast sprang forward. He turned back to the guiser and brandished the rapier, still in his left hand. “You want some of this as well?”

The boy paled, but began to raise his hands. Mal kicked the gelding forward, and it lashed out with an ironshod hoof that landed square on the boy’s chest. The horse screamed and reared as the tunnel exploded, and Mal slithered backwards, landing in a bone-crunching heap on the cold ground. He rolled quickly out of the way as the animal foundered. What in God’s name had just happened? None of the guisers in England had been this powerful before. He limped off in search of his family, hoping his enemies had spent their best strength against him already.



A few hundred yards down the road, Coby finally caught up with Sandy, Ned and Gabriel.

“What did you think you were doing, letting us get separated like that? We nearly lost him.”

Sandy had the good grace to turn pale. He slid down from his mount and ran over to them to take Kiiren’s hand in his.

“It was my fault, amayi. Our horses bolted when the guisers attacked, and by the time I got them under control it was all over.”

“Give me the spirit-guard,” she said. “We all need to be protected from their enchantments.”

He took it out and passed it up to her. Kiiren protested, but she fastened the necklace about his throat.

“There, that’s better, lambkin.”

She took the lack of further complaint as indication that Kiiren had withdrawn for a while, as Erishen did when Sandy put on a spirit-guard.