The Hickory Staff Read online

  ‘They’re here to kill us – or, worse, to use us to send a very public message.’

  Mark joined her at the window. ‘What if we give ourselves up? This isn’t our fight.’

  She wheeled on him, her face just inches away. ‘They’ll hang you from a tree for an entire Twinmoon as an example to any who might decide to mount a resistance effort.’

  Neither Mark nor Steven had any idea how long a Twinmoon lasted, but however long was too long to be hanging from a tree. They lapsed into silence.

  ‘We’ll hide in here then?’ Steven asked eventually

  ‘Or we go join the fight,’ Brynne said, pointing a bloodstained finger towards the door.

  ‘And wait for your brother to slice our throats? No thank you,’ Mark replied adamantly. ‘We have to wait it out and hope either your friends turn them away or that they don’t find us when they come in. This place is huge. We might be able to find another way out.’

  The discussion was interrupted by the sound of Sallax’s battle-axe hammering at their door.

  ‘I’m going to kill you both!’ he screamed, his axe leaving fresh hack-marks in the blackened wood of the chamber door. Wood chips flew as he continued swinging, his fury unchecked. Inside, Mark looked for anything to brace against the door as Steven stood frozen in place, his face a pallid shade of grey. Brynne backed slowly into an adjoining room. She looked around hurriedly, but there was no other way out. She grimaced. Sallax would have to break through and free her before the Malakasians breached their defences downstairs.

  Riverend Palace had a second, unexpected, portcullis inside the battlements. The first, a huge iron and oak gate, blocked the main entrance to the ancient keep. It remained where it had collapsed many Twinmoons earlier as the last of Riverend’s occupants fled the raging fire that had claimed the lives of Princess Danae, her son Prince Danmark III, and Prince Tenner of Falkan.

  Prince Markon II had installed an additional portcullis to guard the west entrance, which led to the royal chambers. During the brief peace that had preceded his death, the prince had commissioned the largest and most elaborate stained-glass window in the Eastlands; a team of talented artisans had worked for several Twinmoons to design and install the gigantic work of art in the east wall of Riverend’s grand hall.

  The huge window was a massive weakness in Riverend’s defences: any attack on the palace would centre on the east hall as the window would be seen as easy access.

  To make up for that, the second portcullis – one no invader would expect – ensured that a few well-armed soldiers could hold the west wing with little difficulty, even against a far superior enemy force.

  Now Bronfio strode towards the portcullis with determination. His confidence had risen as his platoon crossed the exposed circular meadow without incident. Peering intently through the thick latticework of the heavy wooden gate, he could see smoke from the burning pitch accumulating in great clouds throughout the hall.

  He waved over his shoulder for a bowman to join him at the palace entryway. Igniting an arrow from a small torch, Bronfio directed the bowman to fire into a length of rope fastened securely on an inner wall. He intended to lift the gate by releasing the ropes holding it fast and hoisting it with a line threaded through a crooked fracture in the palace’s western wall. He feared for a moment the weight of the portcullis would bring the entire section of wall crumbling down on them, but the stone lintel held fast as the gate rose and his men were able to secure their lines to a neighbouring wall.

  He smiled to himself as he ordered his platoon into the fray. ‘Use the smoke as cover,’ he told them quietly. ‘We don’t know how many partisans are inside.’ Brexan, like her fellow soldiers, nodded confidently, then slipped under the hanging portcullis, up several stone steps, through a small antechamber and into the palace’s dining hall.

  Bronfio waited for the last of his force to slip into the building before he drew his sword and started towards the entryway himself. As he ducked beneath the portcullis, he came face to face with Jacrys Marseth, the merchant spy from Estrad.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you, Lieutenant,’ Jacrys said icily. ‘We can’t have you sharing my sentiments with His Majesty, now, can we?’ Bronfio felt the dagger pass between his ribs. For an instant he was surprised the pain was not much worse. Then a searing heat emanated outwards from the wound, running across his back in a tangled web of white-hot fire and contorting his torso in an involuntary spasm. The young officer felt his legs twitch several times before they buckled, but he didn’t fall: Jacrys held him tightly from behind.

  Bronfio tried to call out to his platoon before he realised the foppish spy had one hand clamped firmly over his mouth and nose. Unable to breathe, Bronfio gave up. The stinging heat from the dagger wound was so powerful, he could focus on nothing else.

  Slowly, the world around him began to dim, as if the great cloud of burning pitch was engulfing him from all sides. He thought of his mother … they had played together, kicking a ball around a fountain in the village square. It had rained that day. His mother’s soft brown hair had escaped her normal heavy plait and lay loose against her head. He had been young, that day. Then the memory faded into the distant regions of his consciousness and Lieutenant Bronfio fell away into the darkness.

  Brexan stayed low to the ground. She found the air there less difficult to breathe; for a moment she considered crawling in to face the enemy. She heard choking from all around her, but she could not be certain which coughs were Malakasian and which were partisan: everyone choked in the same language.

  Amongst the hacking and retching, she thought she detected a struggle behind her. Doubling back with her sword drawn, fearing the Resistance forces were attempting a flanking manoeuvre, Brexan found herself back at the portcullis. As her eyes watered and she refocused, she spotted Lieutenant Bronfio’s body. He had died before entering the palace, obviously not in a fight with the partisan terrorists. Bronfio had been murdered. This was not right. Things were not supposed to work out this way. The battle plan had been clear. They were not supposed to suffer loses, certainly not like this. Her stomach knotted and she thought she might retch. She swallowed hard, steeling herself against the notion that the morning might be unravelling quickly.

  Brexan heard stones tumble from the battlements, and her attention was drawn to the ancient wall across the courtyard. A well-dressed young man was scurrying over the crumbling defences, dislodging a diminutive avalanche of stones in his wake. Brexan immediately recognised the merchant who had passed her the papers outlining their orders for this morning’s assault.

  It had all been a set-up. The merchant had sent Bronfio in from the north so he could find an opportunity to murder him – but why? No answers emerged as Brexan looked back into the dark cloud of smoke filling the dining hall. Without thinking, she sheathed her sword and started out after the fleeing murderer.

  Garec choked on the thick smoke billowing around him, but he cheered up when he noticed most of the foul-smelling cloud was moving in one direction. Their Malakasian attackers had made a mistake when they threw the second barrel of burning pitch into the far end of the grand hall: breaking the second window had allowed strong winds to create a cross-draught through the castle. He and Versen had taken up positions approximately halfway up the first level of the grand staircase. From this vantage point, they could spot any Malakasian attempting to enter through the windows.

  Garec thanked the gods of the Northern Forest he and Sallax had taken time to lower the hall’s portcullis and secure its ropes when they brought their prisoners in the previous night. The young Ronan still had no idea how Gilmour had managed to enter the building undetected, but there was no time to worry about that now. He knew it would be only a matter of moments before the Malakasians burned through the portcullis ropes and then used horses to haul the huge wood and iron gate up far enough to enter through the courtyard. With limited visibility, there would be no stopping them from taking the hall.

  He
and his friends would have no choice but to retreat to the upper levels of the palace. What they would do once they were trapped there was another matter.

  Mika, Namont and Jerond were not bowmen. Armed with swords or battle-axes, each guarded a window along the walls of the dining hall. They all looked at each other, hoping to garner a collective strength for the coming fight. They were frightened. Above them, Versen and Garec were preparing to rain deadly fire down on the soldiers coming through the stained-glass window. Already many of the lower panes of the enormous glass aperture had been broken out, and two attackers had died with Garec’s arrows buried in their chests.

  As the moments ticked by, the burning pitch continued to emit thick clouds of choking black smoke and despite the crosswind, the hall was soon filled to the ceiling. ‘Versen,’ Garec called, ‘run up to the first landing and break out the windows. We need to create more breeze in here.’ The big woodsman did as Garec ordered, but it did little to mitigate the dense, caustic smoke.

  Garec’s eyes watered as he strained to see through the darkness into the dining hall below. He thought he spied a Malakasian soldier crawling through the stained-glass window and fired into the smoke. A cry of shock and pain confirmed that, even blind, Garec was one of the best bowmen in Rona. Time seemed to move in slow motion as he stared into the billowing cloud, hoping to see anything that would give him an update on their situation. He could no longer make out Versen, who had been standing just a few paces away.

  ‘They must be through the portcullis by now,’ he whispered into the smoke, hoping the woodsman could hear him.

  ‘You’re right,’ Versen replied softly. ‘We ought to think about getting to higher ground. This smoke is doing exactly what they need it to.’ As if confirming his fears, a strangled cry came from the far end of the hall.

  ‘Get up here, get up here!’ Garec screamed. ‘They’re in the hall! Fall back, fall back!’ Mika burst into view only a few paces in front of him and Garec nearly loosed an arrow into his friend. Mika was followed closely by Jerond, but they heard nothing from Namont.

  ‘Namont,’ Garec called, slowly backing up the stairs towards the first landing, ‘Namont, get up here.’

  ‘Namont,’ an unfamiliar voice sang up from the floor below, ‘Namont, get up here … Namont can’t join you right now, but don’t worry, you’ll see him later today.’ The stranger laughed cynically.

  Though blind, Garec fired into the cloud.

  ‘Rutting dogs,’ the suddenly anguished voice cried out in surprise, ‘I’ll kill every last one of you!’

  Versen joined him on the landing, ‘It sounds like you hit him.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Garec answered. ‘I guess they got Namont.’

  ‘We can’t worry about it now, Garec. We have to get out of here,’ he said, hustling up the stairs to the third level.

  The windows Versen had broken pulled some of the smoke outside and the stairway above the first landing was fairly clear. The four men coughed out the vestiges of burning pitch from their lungs as they climbed.

  Suddenly, Garec stopped and turned back towards the dining hall. ‘Where’s Gilmour?’

  Mika turned as well. ‘I haven’t seen him since the first barrel came through the window.’

  ‘I’m going back down.’

  ‘And you’ll be dead before you reach the bottom of the steps,’ Versen scolded. ‘Gilmour can take care of himself. Let’s keep moving.’

  Garec was unconvinced, but he recognised there was little he could do right then. He followed Versen and as they reached the uppermost landing, they could see, down the long hallway, Sallax hammering away at one of the wooden doors with a battle-axe.

  ‘Sallax,’ yelled Garec, ‘you’d better get down here. They’re in the building – and on their way up after us.’

  Sallax stopped hacking at the door and stalked angrily back to his compatriots, rage clearly evident on his face.

  ‘They aren’t going to hurt her, Sallax,’ Garec assured him. ‘They need her to get out of here. Come on, let’s go.’

  Versen led the small group down a short hall adjoining the upper end of the staircase. ‘The spiral stairs will be easiest to defend. We can hold there for some time.’

  The narrow spiralling staircase separating the third level of the palace from the royal apartments above was short, but the narrowness of the stone stairwell made it the most defensible position inside the building. Only one soldier at a time would be able to come at the freedom fighters there.

  Garec reached the fourth-level landing and ran along the hallway, past a number of closed wooden doors. He stopped at a window facing out onto the palace grounds. He could help most by dispatching as many Malakasians as possible; from here he could pick them off as they approached the palace. He was not a skilled hand-to-hand warrior, so he gladly left defence of the staircase to Sallax and the others.

  Looking out over the battlements, he thought he caught a glimpse of the well-dressed merchant he had met at Greentree Tavern. ‘What is he doing here?’ Garec asked himself, but was distracted by the sight of Gilmour far in the distance. The elderly man stood near a clearing cut back into the trees on the south side of the palace. A large number of Malakasian horses were tethered together. Garec watched as Gilmour cupped his hands to his mouth and called into the trees. Garec couldn’t hear the words, but he was surprised when Gilmour turned, looked up at the castle and waved to him – as though he knew Garec was watching.

  Then, apparently without a care, Gilmour turned and walked back towards the palace: an older man out for a morning stroll. Back along the corridor, Garec heard a shout of surprise.

  ‘Get back here!’ Sallax called urgently. Garec hurried to the spiral steps. A Malakasian arrow was deeply embedded in a wooden doorframe across the hall from the stairwell. Without speaking, Sallax pointed to it and gestured down the narrow stairs. Garec immediately understood. A Malakasian bowman had tried – and nearly succeeded – in banking a miracle shot off the curved stone wall, up and around the corner into the small band of Riverend’s defenders.

  Garec nocked an arrow and estimated a descending angle to the lower level. Drawing quickly, he fired and watched the arrow glance off the wall and disappear out of sight. An enraged howl pierced the stillness. For the third time that day, Garec’s blind shot had tallied a Malakasian casualty.

  Staring down the stairwell, he beamed with pride, looking at Versen as if to say: ‘I am the finest bowman in the land.’ A moment later, however, Garec came to his senses and dove for the floor, an instant before another Malakasian arrow bounced off the stairwell and buried itself in the wooden doorframe.

  Smiling, Sallax helped his friend to his feet. ‘Nicely done,’ he told him. ‘With your trick shots and our battle-axes, we ought to be able to hold this floor all day.’

  ‘What will we do when they send for reinforcements?’ Mika asked. ‘They know who we are, and we can’t hold here for ever.’

  ‘No,’ Sallax replied, ‘eventually we’ll have to find a way we can get down undetected.’

  ‘With them waiting for us right there?’ Jerond interjected. ‘All they really have to do is wait us out.’

  ‘Yes, but at least this buys us some time to think,’ Garec pointed out. He gathered his quivers and was about to retrace his steps to the window when the first tendrils of dark smoke climbed the stairway.

  ‘Oh, no,’ was all Garec managed to get out. This time there would be nowhere to escape from the burning pitch.

  It didn’t take long for the fourth level hallway to fill completely with smoke. Arrows came more frequently up the stairs and soon there were eight protruding from the doorway across the hall. Garec continued to fire back down, but heard nothing that led him to believe he had hit anyone else. Now they were choking with each ragged breath. The partisans knew they couldn’t remain at the top of the stairs very long. Taking turns, two stood a painful vigil at the stairwell, coughing and dodging capricious arrows from below, while two stood at the
open window breathing clean air and coughing foul smoke from their lungs. It worked until the first Malakasian burst from the stairwell, screaming and swinging his sword wildly through the billowing clouds. Garec ducked the attacker’s first blow and heard the man’s sword blade impact the stone wall with a metallic clang.

  The next sound stayed with Garec for a very long time: a sickening thud, followed by a horrible tearing sound, and then a scream so primal that Garec’s blood nearly froze in his veins. He felt a splash of moisture on his face and raised a finger to wipe it off; it was viscous, not water. Even in the smoky darkness he could recognise that he had been splattered by his attacker’s blood.

  As he dived to the floor to avoid any wild thrusts of the Malakasian’s sword, Garec’s head came down on what felt like a warm but awkwardly shaped pillow. Feeling for it with his hands, he discovered a human leg, severed just above the knee by a vicious blow from Sallax’s battle-axe.

  Blinded by the smoke, filled with anger and disgust, Garec crawled back to the top of the staircase and fired arrow after arrow down the stone stairwell into the Malakasian ranks. After several releases, he heard cries of pain.

  Garec didn’t think he could stomach another frontal attack: he would keep the Malakasians at bay if it took every arrow he carried. Firing blindly, over and over again, into the smoke, Garec did not slow until he felt Sallax’s strong arms hugging him from behind.

  ‘It’s all right … Garec, it’s all right. They’re going.’

  ‘Going?’ he asked, dumbfounded. ‘What do you mean, going?’

  ‘Come with me and take a look.’ Sallax led him to the window. Gazing out towards the forest, Garec saw ranks of Malakasian soldiers running towards the clearing. Some shouted and waved frantically, while others fired arrows into the tree line. Allowing his gaze to follow one of their shafts, he saw the reason for their hasty retreat. A pack of grettans had attacked their horses: the beasts were tearing wildly at the helpless mounts in a frenzied mêlée, and the horses were screaming in pain and terror. Garec covered his ears to block the disturbing sound.