The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(138)

“Not so cocksure now, are you?” Ned yelled at them.

One of the boys raised his arms and a freezing wind poured down the passageway, ice crystals tearing at the defenders’ skin as they tried to stand their ground. Mal squinted through the onslaught, his free hand before his face. The wind-raiser’s companions had transformed into flat, serpentine creatures that slid along the upper walls of the passage, too high to be hit by missiles from above. One of them squirmed through a murder-hole, and moments later screams echoed around the passageway. Mal swore. Their last line of defence breached.

Ned and Gabriel raised their crossbows and shot at the creatures as they slithered out around the walls of the gatehouse, momentarily out of sight of their fire-wielding companion. One of them fell, transforming in mid-air into a boy of about thirteen, naked and with a crossbow bolt through his chest.

“God’s teeth, I hate these guisers!” Ned growled, cranking his crossbow again. “Using children as their soldiers, the craven bastards.”

The two oldest youths advanced through the gatehouse and emerged into the innermost ward.

“This isn’t working,” Sandy panted. “They’re not even drawing on the dreamlands for their magic any more, and I don’t know how to fight them.”

“No, but I do.” Mal raised the sword in prima guardia, ready to fend off the next attack.

“You told me yourself you are tiring. How long can you keep them back?”

“As long as I have to.”

Sandy sighed. “There is another way.”

Mal glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”

“We have to finish what Jathekkil started.”

“What?”

“Reforge our souls into one.”

“No.”

“Brother, you know it must be. Sooner or later. Or we are both lost, and Kiiren will be alone.”

“No.”

“They’ll destroy us anyway, and Kiiren. And kill your wife.”

Mal hesitated. “She would not want this either. She would call it blasphemy.”

“And if they eat her soul too? Where is her God then?”

The weapon drooped in his hand as he acknowledged the inevitable. “What must I do?”

“We will need a quiet place, and a little time.”

“We can give you that,” said Ned. “Go on. Do whatever it is you have to do to destroy this lot.”

Mal seized Ned’s arm with his free hand. “I can’t let you do this. They’ll kill you both.”

“Most likely. But isn’t that what happens in war?”

Mal hugged him one-handed, holding his sword out of the way.

“I’ll never forget this, or you,” he murmured in Ned’s ear.

“Oh, go on with you.” Ned kissed his cheek. “I mean it. Go.”

Mal retreated into the keep, Sandy still behind him. The last thing he heard was Ned’s battle-cry.

“Right, you bastard sons of whores, which one of you is first?”





CHAPTER XXXVIII



They found a high-ceilinged side-chamber that had once been a chapel, though its rood screen and altar had long since been removed and its coloured glass windows were grimy with neglect. Mal supposed it was as good a place to die as any.

“So, what do we do?”

“Put aside all your weapons, and remove anything made of iron or steel from your person.”

Mal unfastened his sword belt and placed his blades on the stone steps before the missing altar, like a knight of old commencing his vigil. After a moment’s consideration he kicked off his boots and removed his doublet, in case any of the buckles or lace-ends were tainted with iron.

When he was done, Sandy gestured for Mal to join him in a corner by the doorway, where they would not immediately be seen by anyone approaching.

“Now, sit down on the floor. This will go better if you don’t fall over once we get started.”

Mal sat down, hands clamped around his raised knees to stop them shaking, as he used to sit and hide as a boy when their father was in an ill temper. Sandy sat down by his side so that they were shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, like a mirror image. He took out a small wooden box and opened it. Inside was the obsidian blade he used for shaving.

“Where did you get that from?” Mal asked.

Sandy just smiled. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Mal held out his wrist. The fat blue-green vein leading to his palm twitched in time with his heartbeat, counting out these last moments–

“No, not you. Me.”

“What?” Mal looked up. “No. Jathekkil said I was the one that must die–”

“He was wrong. Your half of our soul is too weak. It might not prevail against mine, and then you are simply dead.”

“Prevail? You mean I would have to fight you?”

“Our souls have been apart too long. They cannot simply be fitted back together like a broken cup.” Sandy bared his wrist and laid the black, glassy blade against his skin. “I have to do this.”

“No!”

But it was too late. Dark blood was already welling from a long shallow cut along the veins of Sandy’s wrist. As Mal watched in horror, his brother sliced open his other wrist. Mal saw again the piles of skrayling corpses in the watchtower on Corsica, smelt the copper tang of fresh blood. Sandy put the blade down on the floor between his feet and took Mal’s hand in his own. Lifeblood, warm and sticky, pulsed over both their hands and dripped to the floor.