Page 39 of Witchcraft and Fury (Chronicles of the Divided Isle #1)
A SWIFT EXIT
House Shadowmarsh has always been among the most secretive of houses.
In all the civil wars that have riven Ashwood throughout the Fifth Age, House Shadowmarsh and its armies have been conspicuous by their absence.
And yet when the fighting is over, and men return home to their lands, they invariably find that the Shadowmarsh’s reach and power have grown.
On the docks they found a cluster of torches tucked behind a barrel.
Cal, who had hidden them there before boarding the slavers’ ship, had told Binns about them just as the master-at-arms and trainees had taken their leave.
He had also pressed his bow and quiver into Solar’s hands, and she wore them now slung across her back.
They took the torches up and ran towards the city’s north gate, but after just a couple of minutes they found themselves in a long, narrow street blocked by three heavily armed goblins.
‘Halt!’ snapped Binns. They came to an immediate standstill some hundred feet away from the goblins, who stood menacingly in the evening light.
Binns looked around, assessing their surroundings. There were few side alleys between them and the goblins, and the roofs were empty.
‘You look mighty confident, outnumbered as you are two to one,’ Binns shouted. ‘What say you just stand aside and let us on our way, forget you ever saw us?’
In response, one of the goblins clicked its tongue three times in a slow, steady beat, the sound ringing out down the otherwise-deserted street.
A hulking minotaur shouldered through the doorway of one of the houses lining the street, his horns, sharpened to wicked tips, gouging two deep grooves in the lintel.
Rising out of his stoop, he was at least nine feet tall, his height made all the more apparent by the diminutive goblins crowding behind him.
He held a spiked mace that looked as if it could smash through an entire rank of armoured soldiers.
‘Shit!’ snarled Binns. ‘This could get messy.’
‘We still outnumber them!’ said Bear gamely. ‘We can take them.’
‘We can’t afford to get bogged down in street warfare. Remember the mission. Saving those people on the clifftop is our only priority,’ Binns replied.
‘We run then? Towards the cliff?’ asked Wyman.
‘Aye, lad. You all run. Make for the cliff as fast as you can and send that spirit to the underworld where it belongs. I’ll take care of this lot and rejoin you when I can. Wield justice. Honour the code.’
‘Are you sure you can—’ began Pingot, but the master-at-arms cut him off .
‘Have you lot forgotten how to take orders?’ he bellowed. ‘I said run!’
He cast his unlit torch aside, drew his sword and advanced on the minotaur and goblins at a run, black hair streaming behind him.
Solar and the other trainees watched him open-mouthed.
‘We can’t face the Twin Killer alone,’ Wyman said, voicing the fear Solar both recognised in her own heart and suspected was shared by each of her friends.
She forced herself to overcome it. ‘We have no choice,’ she said, looking each of her companions in the eye. ‘Binns is risking his life here to give us a fighting chance. Now let’s move!’
Solar led them back the way they’d come, the initial clash of weapons in their ears, to look for another way to the cliffs.
It did not take them long to reach the north gate, aided by the position of the sun, the looming clifftop and the knowledge they’d rapidly gained of the city’s layout during the course of their investigations.
They lit their torches from a fire the guards kept for warmth, exited the city and sprinted up to the clifftop for the second time that day, legs protesting, lungs aching and torches flickering in the evening’s final light.
Pingot lagged behind, puffing and panting.
When they reached the top they saw, on the grassy stretch between the fringe of the forest and the cliff edge some fifty strides away, a long line of boys and girls their own age chained together.
Before them loomed the sinking sun, a huge blood-red orb, its dying light casting their shadows long and dark.
As Solar and her friends watched, the sun sank to kiss the sea on the horizon, and from the group of captives came a lone, chilling cackle.
The boy-corpse from Jacob’s memory strode out from the front of the line, pulling at a chain with supernatural strength.
Though the captives dug in their heels and resisted with sobs and tears, their combined efforts were no match for the Twin Killer.
They were dragged inexorably towards the cliff, inch by inch.
‘Hey, you! Twin Killer!’ shouted Solar at the top of her lungs. ‘We have something for you!’ She brandished her flaming torch.
The corpse stopped and turned in the direction of the shout.
Expressionless, it raised a hand and clenched it into a fist. Immediately, the captives nearest him collapsed to the ground, clutching at their throats, apparently unable to breathe.
The trainees watched, dumbstruck. The spirit opened its fist, and its prisoners were able to breathe again, taking in the air with ragged gasps that Solar could hear even from where she stood.
‘ It possesses many magical powers, the deadliest of which is the ability to suck the air of its life-giving qualities ,’ murmured Oswald in an awed voice, quoting from memory his uncle’s book.
Solar heard Pingot let out a vehement exclamation under his breath and Bear offer a prayer. Oswald and Wyman shook each other’s hands solemnly.
‘It’s been a pleasure, cousin,’ Oswald said. Wyman nodded in response, dry-mouthed and unable to speak.
All Solar could think of was how much they needed Loveday and Binns at their side now. Loveday’s staff in particular would have been very reassuring.
Then, as one, Solar and her companions swallowed their fear and looked death in the eye. They raised their torches and, with a roar, they charged.
The spirit walked towards them at a leisurely pace.
Solar, the quickest over short distances, reached it first. She lifted her torch over her shoulder, to thrust it into the monster’s heart as if it were a javelin, but as she drew back her arm she saw the flames sputter and die.
She looked at her torch in confusion. Its head was ash grey, with nothing but a wisp of smoke to indicate it had been wreathed in flame just moments before.
Then she steeled herself, ready to drive her weapon into the monster’s flesh, fire or no fire. She took a deep breath—
Only there was no air to breathe. She dropped her torch and fell to her knees, eyes wild with panic.
She looked up at the spirit and saw that its fist was clenched again.
Desperate for air, Solar turned and crawled frantically back the way she had just ran, her lungs screaming in protest. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her classmates charge past her, ready for battle.
After crawling twenty paces or so, Solar found she was at last able to breathe again. She collapsed and took in greedy gulps of cool night air, her cheek pressed to the ground. She was dizzy, her vision hazy, but she forced herself to sit up and see how the fight was progressing.
Oswald was on his knees before the Twin Killer, his own hands at his throat as he struggled to breathe; Bear was lying on the ground, all four limbs convulsing.
Pingot, slower than the others, was only just reaching the fray.
Solar saw him pause and take in a deep breath whilst he was still able, then charge at the spirit with his torch raised high.
No sooner had he drawn level with Oswald and Bear than his torch fizzled out, just as Solar’s had.
But he carried on running, hurling himself at the Twin Killer.
The spirit unclenched its fist as Pingot reached it, thrusting out its arms to protect itself from Pingot’s charge, and Oswald and Bear found themselves suddenly able to breathe again.
They lay flat on their backs, filling their lungs .
Pingot collided with the spirit, and together the pair crashed to the ground and rolled to the cliff edge.
They got to their feet at the same time. Pingot was closest to the awful drop to the sea. He stood at the very brink, the heel of his back foot suspended in thin air. Far below waves could be heard breaking on jagged rocks.
The spirit dealt him a terrible kick to the stomach. Pingot flew into the air, shouting in wild panic. His flailing body went over the cliff edge and was lost from sight.
Solar gave an anguished cry and leapt to her feet.
Pingot could not be dead – she would not believe it … and yet she had seen him fall with her own eyes.
Her hands were empty. Bear and Oswald had no fight left in them, and their torches were extinguished; the same mysterious power that the spirit used to deprive the living of air, simply by clenching its fist, also seemed to put out fires.
She looked wildly around her, searching for something or someone to help them in their plight, and her eyes landed on—
‘Wyman!’
Her classmate looked up at her shout. He was some twenty paces away.
His clothes were filthy and torn – clearly, he had slipped during the charge and fallen behind the others.
But his torch was billowing fire. In a flash, Solar knew what she had to do.
She unslung her bow and notched an arrow from her quiver.
Don’t take any chances , she told herself silently.
Focussing all her willpower on Wyman’s torch, she bade the fire leap the gap between her and Wyman in a dancing tendril and set her arrowhead aflame.
Aim true. Drive the fire deep into its body. Strike only a vital organ .
She drew back her bowstring, set her sights on the Twin Killer … and let fly!
The monster’s flesh was decayed and rotten, and the burning arrow sank into its heart like a hot knife into butter. The force of it knocked the Twin Killer over the edge of the cliff, feathers protruding from its chest.