The Outcast (Summoner #4)(87)

“Shut it, now!” Sergeant Caulder bellowed.

The doors began to close, ever so slowly.

“Shields!” Percival called.

A dozen men responded to the order, the rear guard turning and kneeling in one smooth motion. Bolts whistled, and Arcturus heard the thunder of the impacts, turning the upraised shields into pincushions of splintered wood. Then the doors crashed closed, and they were in pitch darkness.

“Hellfire,” Prince Harold cursed.

Ulfr shoved his way through the shield men, and Arcturus heard the jingle of keys in the lock.

“It won’t hold them for long,” the dwarf called. “We need to move. Now!”

Rotter picked up Edmund, for the boy was barely able to walk, and then it was a mad, bone-juddering rush from the paving stones of the courtyard to the drawbridge. Behind, Arcturus could already hear the pounding of fists on the doors. The rebels would catch up too soon.

The wood of the bridge creaked and shook as the soldiers sprinted across it. For a moment Arcturus thought the platform would snap in two, but then he was across on solid ground once more, and there was Ulfr, leading the way into the low, grassy hills that surrounded Vocans.

Then he stopped. The drawbridge.

That was it.

Arcturus turned and used the last dribble of mana in his body to power up a wyrdlight, barely larger than a firefly. In a rush, he summoned Sacharissa, the pentacle fizzing as her dark form flared into existence. Then he was running across the bridge once more, his axe drawn.

At the base of the bridge, the light revealed two iron hinges embedded in the wood, though the mechanisms were so rusted that it looked like they had not been used in years. These kept the bridge attached to the castle, along with the two thick ropes on the end that raised and lowered the enormous rectangle of wood.

Arcturus lifted his axe and hammered it down, sending a shower of sparks flying across the dark water. The light revealed a smear of bright metal where he had damaged the hinge. Barely a scratch.

“Think,” Arcturus cursed.

Sacharissa whined behind him, and Arcturus ordered her to begin work on the nearest rope. She snarled and went at it with a vengeance, leaving him to his dilemma.

Beyond, Arcturus could hear the hammer of weapons against the main doors of Vocans. Holes were appearing in the planking, casting beams of light across the courtyard. He had but a few minutes.

He slashed again in desperation, and missed completely, instead sinking the blade into the wood itself. It bit deep and was almost stuck, the water-rotted wood splintering easily beneath the cold edge of his steel.

“Wood,” Arcturus whispered.

He wrenched the axe free and chopped down once more, hacking in the dark at the wood that surrounded the hinges. Behind him, there was a snap as Sacharissa’s teeth parted one of the taut ropes holding the bridge in place. It lurched to the side, and he fell to one knee.

“Arcturus!”

His name drifted on the wind—someone in the escape party had noticed he was missing. No time for that now. The first hinge broke free from the surrounding wood with a crack, loosened by the shifting bridge. He began on the next one, swinging with wild abandon.

A bolt fluttered past his head, so close that he heard the thrum of its passing loud in his ear. As the atrium doors fell apart, men were firing through a large gap in its center.

Arcturus sent the wyrdlight flitting there, even as the next man aimed through the hole and fired. The light danced in front of the shooter’s eyes, dazzling him, while Arcturus was shrouded in gloom once more. The bolt went wide, clattering into the courtyard wall to his right. Arcturus swung again.

The wood of the second hinge crumbled and the jolt sent Arcturus sprawling, just in time to avoid another bolt that might have skewered him through the shoulder. He crawled for the last rope, where Sacharissa had gnawed it through to the final twisted strand. The platform was in the moat now, but held half floating in place by this last pulley.

“No!” a rebel yelled, seeing what Arcturus was about to do.

Arcturus swung one last time, and felt the bridge was afloat. He sprawled face-first to balance it and sent an order to Sacharissa, who dove into the black water and gripped the edge of the drawbridge with her teeth. Even with his weight alone, the water seeped over the edges and onto the front of his shirt. It would not bear the weight of more than a man at a time without sinking.

Sacharissa ignored the pain of her injured ribs, pummeling the water with her feet. Slowly, the long, flat piece of wood floated to the side, out of reach from where someone might pull it back into position and slowly crawl their way across. Arcturus slung his axe, and when they had floated a long stone’s throw away from where the bridge had been, he leaped across, soaking his breeches as he scrabbled against the steep edge of the moat and pulled himself up by handfuls of weeds and grass. Sacharissa clambered out beside him, shaking herself dry in a spray of murky water.

The last-ditch efforts of the crossbowmen thudded into the grass where he had been before, and Arcturus laughed at the screams of rage from within Vocans.

Then he was gone. Into the darkness.





CHAPTER

51

IT WAS EASY ENOUGH to find the group’s trail—too wet and exhausted to concentrate and pick up the scent, Arcturus simply followed Sacharissa.

He caught up with them within a few minutes, for they had been slowed by Elaine. She was being carried by a big-boned soldier, and fighting tooth and nail to go back and get Arcturus.