Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(209)

The prisoners had been secured by chains attached to the stone fireplace.

Lady Placida sat on the floor, hands folded calmly in her lap, her expression regal and defiant as the door opened. She wore only a slender white undergown, and a rough ring of iron circled her throat, and was attached to a heavy chain, which was in turn fastened to the stones of the fireplace. She faced the door as it opened, eyes hard and hot, and then blinked in utter surprise as Amara and Rook entered.

"Mama!" came a small, glad cry, and a girl of perhaps five or six years of age flung herself across the room. Rook stooped to gather her up with a low cry and held the little girl tight against her.

"Countess Amara?" Lady Placida said. The red-haired High Lady came to her feet-only to be jerked up short by the chain, which was set at such a length as to make it impossible for her to stand fully upright.

"Your Grace," Amara murmured, nodding once at Lady Placida. "I've come to-"

"Countess, the door!" Lady Placida cried.

But before she had finished, the heavy door to the chamber slammed shut behind them with a power and a finality that could only be the result of furycraft. Amara spun to the door and tried to open it, but the handle would not turn, and she could not so much as rattle the door in its frame.

"It's trapped." Lady Placida sighed. "Anyone can open it from the other side, but..."

Amara turned back to the High Lady. "I've come to-"

"Rescue me, obviously," Lady Placida said, nodding. "And none too soon. The pig is returning sometime today."

"He arrived but moments ago," Amara said, crossing to Lady Placida. "We have little time, Your Grace."

"Amara, anyone who rescues me from this idiot's soulless little bower should feel free to call me Aria, " Lady Placida said. "But we have a problem." She gestured up the chain fastened to the ring on her neck. "It's not a lock. The chain's been crafted into place. It has to be broken, and if you'll look up..."

Amara did, and found four stone figures glaring down at her, carved shapes of hideous beasts that rested atop the stone pillars at each corner of the room. The gargoyles had to have weighed several hundred pounds each, and Amara knew that even though they would not move with speed any greater than that of a human being, they were so much heavier and more powerful than any human that it would make them altogether deadly to anyone who got in their way. One could not block the unthinkably powerful blow of a gargoyle's fist. One could get out of its way or be crushed by it. There was no middle ground.

"According to my host," Lady Placida said, "the gargoyles are set to animate if they detect my furycrafting." Her mouth twisted bitterly and she glanced significantly at Rook and the little girl. "Moreover, he assured me that I would not be their first victim."

Amara's mouth firmed into a hard line. "The bastard." More screams and shouts came to them from the central stairwell, muffled a low mutter by the thick door. "He's on his way up, by the sound of things."

"Then your team does not have much time," Lady Placida said. "He'll pull out his men and pour fire up the stairwell. He won't mind sacrificing a few of those poor fools in the collars if it means he gets to incinerate a team of the Crown's Cursors."

Amara coughed. "Actually, I'm the only Cursor. This is Rook, lately the head of Kalarus's bloodcrows. She helped us get this far."

Lady Placida's fine, red-gold eyebrows arched sharply, but she looked from Rook to the child, and an expression of comprehension came over her. "I see. And who else?"