20
Blade & Claw
Now that Kate could
see the woman for herself, she had no doubt of who she was. She was
the person she had seen in her vision through the spirit wheel. She
might be older, but for someone who had to have lived for centuries
she did not look very different from the young woman Kate had seen
in her vision of the past; the woman who had condemned so many of
the bonemen to death. She had the same sharp eyes, the same aura of
dominance, and a sense of secrecy that made Kate think she was
missing something that had been put out in the open for her to see.
‘You knew the bonemen,’ she said, not caring how impossible her
words seemed. ‘You ordered them to kill each other and bound their
souls into the spirit wheels.’
‘Very good,’ said
Dalliah. ‘Few people possess a mind open enough to accept the truth
of my existence during our first meeting. Even Silas was uncertain,
and he and I are very much alike.’
‘You’re not like
him,’ said Kate.
‘In certain ways, of
course, you are right. Silas was blind to the truth of this world
before his eyes were opened, whereas I saw the truth from the very
beginning. The veil has shown me everything. All that has been, and
all that will be. You may see the same, in time.’ Dalliah reached
her bloodied hand out to Kate, who did not take it.
‘Why are we here?’
asked Edgar.
Dalliah looked at him
as if a dog had just opened its mouth and spoken. ‘We are standing
upon the brink of everything,’ she said. ‘We are about to bear
witness to the birth of a new world. Everything that has happened
was preordained, the future is the same, and even you will have
your part to play.’ She stepped aside and gestured to the door.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Silas is waiting for us inside.’
Kate stepped forward,
but the Blackwatch leader held her back.
‘Our work is done,’
he said. ‘What news do you have of Bandermain? Is he
alive?’
‘He is close to
death,’ said Dalliah. ‘Had you taken much longer it is doubtful he
would have survived. This girl will give him the help he
needs.’
‘Where is
he?’
A man’s strained
voice carried from inside the building. ‘Let her in!’ it said. ‘The
girl. Now!’
The Blackwatch leader
handed Kate over at once. ‘Take her,’ he said. ‘We have done as
ordered. I trust it will be enough.’
‘As do I,’ said
Dalliah. ‘Wait here with your men. You two, come with
me.’
With three of the
Blackwatch and Dalliah Grey surrounding them, Kate and Edgar had no
choice but to walk through that door and face whatever was on the
other side. Kate went first, determined to lead the way. She could
sense Silas close by. The veil, which had seemed faint and erratic
since she set foot upon Continental soil, thrummed against her
senses, her connection with it strengthening with every step. Kate
knew how to recognise a listening circle when she sensed one, but
what had been created inside that room was something else.
Something older, more primitive and infinitely more
powerful.
She stood still just
a few steps inside the door and saw the bones lining the walls, the
hanging vials, and the dimly glowing carvings on the bloodstained
floor that her sensitive eyes could see clearly in the candlelight.
The air was thick with energy but there was no listening circle
there, no half-life and no shades. This was something she had not
read about in Wintercraft.
Edgar was beside her.
‘Now that is something I never thought I would see,’ he
whispered.
When Kate saw what he
was looking at it took a few seconds for her mind to take it in.
Silas was lying on the floor on the other side of the room, with a
red-coated man standing over him holding the blade of his own
blue-black sword to his neck. Silas was conscious, but only just.
His eyes were shot with blood as they turned slowly to meet hers
and his body was still.
‘Silas,’ she said;
her nervous voice was barely more than a breath. She tried to cross
the room to reach him, but Edgar held her back.
‘Don’t, Kate,’ he
said, looking round the bone-covered walls. ‘There’s something
wrong in here. Don’t … move.’
Kate caught the
flicker of a warning in Silas’s eyes and stayed still, clenching
her fingers into fists as Dalliah stepped between her and
Edgar.
‘Bandermain, what are
you doing?’ demanded Dalliah.
The red-coated man
looked almost as ill as Silas. He was clutching his chest with his
free hand, his voice thready and breathless. ‘I have to know,’ he
said. ‘I have to be sure.’
‘He is no longer here
to satisfy your curiosity,’ said Dalliah. ‘Your men have delivered
the girl. You have earned my trust. It is time for you to receive
your reward.’
‘No.’ Bandermain held
the weapon steady against Silas’s throat. ‘If you can do this to
him, what is to stop you doing it to me once I am changed? Look at
him. You caused this. His life may be endless, but that is no way to live.’
‘My treatment of
Silas is only a precaution,’ said Dalliah. ‘He is a danger to me.
You are not.’
‘But I will be.’ Bandermain’s voice was growing louder and
the strain of talking made him cough hard. ‘No one should have that
much power over another life.’
‘What’s wrong with
him?’ asked Edgar, taking a few steps back.
Bandermain snapped
his head round to glare at him, and then turned his spit-soaked
lips towards Kate. ‘I knew Silas Dane long before you and your kind
got your hands on him,’ he said. ‘His life was his own. He fought
and bled for his country and it was an honour to stand against him.
Now all it takes is one witch to set him on his back. One witch to
poison his life!’
Dalliah stepped
forward, pulling Kate with her. ‘This is what you wanted,’ she
said. ‘The girl is here. Do not turn your back on what we have
achieved together. Leave Silas and accept your
reward.’
‘I will find no
pleasure in taking the life of an unarmed enemy,’ said Bandermain.
‘But if what you say about Silas is true, he will survive. If not …
I must know how far your witchery goes. A swift slice to the neck
and I will hold Silas’s head in my hands. Let us see if he is still
breathing after that. Let us see if this suffering is
worthwhile.’
Bandermain leaned
forward and pulled Silas off the floor by his bloodied shirt. ‘I
will give you an honourable end,’ he said, raising the dark blade
high over his shoulder. ‘Death by the sword. If you survive, I will
accept the path I have been offered. I will take this gift and
start my life again. To face death – the ultimate enemy – and live
… let us see if that truly is a battle Silas Dane can
win.’
Dalliah stood
watching as the sword reached its height, but instead of saying
something to stop Bandermain she looked interested in what he was
about to do. She wanted to see what was going to happen
next.
‘No!’ Kate and Edgar
shouted together as the sword flashed down towards Silas’s neck.
Edgar looked away and Dalliah stared wide-eyed as it streaked
towards his skin. What came next all happened in a single
moment.
Silas’s sickly eyes
looked up at the sweeping blade. He snatched hold of the hand
holding his shirt and twisted it hard, snapping Bandermain’s wrist
and forcing him to let go. Silas fell back, out of reach of the
sword, and Bandermain struggled to recover his balance as the glass
in the door exploded in a burst of black feathers and splintering
shards. Silas’s crow slammed through it and flopped on to the
floor, dazed and unsteady on its glassdusted wings. Its claws
scratched the stones and it launched itself, screeching and
fluttering over Edgar’s ducked head, towards the man attacking its
master.
Bandermain did not
see the bird coming until it was too late. He brought the sword
down again, desperate to deliver a mortal blow, but Silas dodged
and struck him hard in the throat, making him buckle and fall. The
crow took its chance and flew at Bandermain’s face in a feathered
frenzy of beak and claws. The sword slid from his hand as he tried
to break his fall and Silas reclaimed his weapon, sweeping it up as
he got to his feet. Bandermain yelled in fury as the crow scratched
at his face, barely managing to keep its snapping beak away from
his eyes.
‘Crow.’ Silas said
the word quietly, but the bird still heard him. It ceased its
attack at once and fluttered awkwardly on to Silas’s shoulder, out
of reach of Bandermain’s grasping hands.
Bandermain glared at
the bird with a crazed look of fury. ‘Keep that filthy thing away
from me,’ he said, drawing a dagger from his belt with his good
hand and spinning it in his fingers.
‘Get used to that
feeling,’ said Silas, glaring at Bandermain from beneath his
eyebrows as his own neck twitched with pain. ‘You want to know what
it is like to live my life? Well, now you are living it. For weeks
you have allowed this woman to take you to the edge of death and
claw you back from it. You fear death. I see that. But what she has
done to you is a far greater cruelty than simply watching you die.
You are a tortured man and you do not even see it. You believe that
my life is a reward to be handed out for a job well done, but you
do not yet know what it truly means to fear something, Celador. No
one should live as I do. No one should be denied the death that is
rightfully theirs. That is cruelty. That is pain.’
‘I could have killed
you,’ said Bandermain. ‘No one can survive a blade to the neck. Not
even you.’
‘Perhaps one day
someone will put that theory to the test,’ said Silas. ‘But not
you, and not today. You wanted life. I am proof that you can have
it, but it does not come without its price. Do you still want what
I have? Do you want to look into the current of death and turn away
from it forever?’
Bandermain looked at
the people around him and pointed his dagger shakily at Kate.
‘You,’ he said. ‘You can heal me. You can take this sickness
away.’
‘She cannot heal this
disease,’ said Silas. ‘No one can.’
‘She will,’ said Bandermain.
Dalliah pulled Kate
closer to the sick man, so close that she could smell the scent of
blood upon his breath. ‘She may not be able to heal you,’ said
Dalliah, ‘but she can save you. You are
a worthy man, Celador. I will have need of you when the veil falls.
Do not allow death to claim you now.’
Bandermain looked
frailer every moment, until he barely had the strength to hold the
dagger, and as he weakened Kate felt the energy in the room change.
Silas had noticed it too and, whatever it was, it was having a
direct effect upon Bandermain. Kate did not know what to do. Silas
had had his chance to take his life, but he’d held back. She did
not know if Bandermain was truly an enemy or not, but she could not
stand by and watch a man die without doing something.
‘Let me try,’ she
said.
‘No,’ Silas said
suddenly. ‘Stay away from him.’
‘The only thing Kate
will do here is what I tell her to do,’
said Dalliah. ‘You cannot afford to waste your time on foolish men,
Kate. The veil is falling. If he will not accept the binding there
is nothing your Skill can do for him. It will be a shame to see him
die like this. I expected more from him. But if he wishes it
…’
‘No!’ Bandermain
grabbed Kate’s arm in a feeble grip. ‘Do it,’ he said quietly. ‘Let
me have what Silas has. Let me live. They said you could do this
for me. I do not want to die like this.’
Bandermain’s face was
wild and terrified. Kate tried not to look directly at him and she
looked over at Silas instead, who was trying not to show how ill he
was. Just moments ago Bandermain had attacked him, but it was hard
to separate who was an enemy and who was a friend in that
room.
‘You have the book
with you,’ said Dalliah. ‘I know Wintercraft is here. It will tell you what you need
to do. All you need is a blade.’
‘Take mine.’
Bandermain handed Kate his dagger, hilt first, and when she took
hold of it she deliberately clasped his uninjured hand in hers. She
could feel the muscles quivering beneath his skin and could sense
the veil hanging like a silvery aura around him, waiting for death
to carry him into its current. He did not have long. As soon as she
touched him Bandermain began to breathe more freely and the
bird-claw scratches faded upon his skin. Kate heard the crack as
his broken wrist snapped back into place and Bandermain stared at
it as if it was the most amazing thing he had ever
seen.
Kate could see Silas
questioning her with his eyes, unsure of her plan. But Kate did not
have a plan. The building they were standing in did not hold a
listening circle, but that did not matter. Listening circles were
created to channel the veil at places where the barrier between it
and the living world was at its weakest. There on the Continent the
veil was so far away that it needed to be attracted towards a
circle, not pierced by one. With all the bodies buried beneath her
land, Dalliah had recreated her own miniature version of Fume: a
graveyard inhabited by the restless souls of the dead. Kate could
sense hundreds of those souls gathering around her, their presence
tingling like eyes on the back of her neck. Every one of them was
bound to that place; to the blood that had seeped into the soil,
and to the memory of their deaths still hanging over them. Those
souls carried the veil with them as Bandermain’s spirit reached out
for death.
Kate reached deeper
into the veil, letting it flood across her senses in a way that was
very different from what she had felt within an ordinary listening
circle. The power of what was happening within that building just
outside the reach of normal sight overwhelmed her. The candlelight
that had glowed gently when Kate first walked in now revealed
itself to be a carefully crafted lie, a veneer created by Dalliah
to hide the raging maelstrom of destructive energy brewing
underneath. Kate did not know how she had not sensed it before, and
she was certain that if Silas had known what he was walking in to
he never would have entered that room.
Opening her mind to
the veil there was like lifting her head out of a gently flowing
river and being dragged under by the pounding force of a raging
waterfall. The full extent of the veil’s attracted energy plummeted
down around her; raw and disorganised, primal and wild. Listening
circles were built to harness those energies; they tamed the veil
and allowed it to be manipulated safely, but this circle simply
called it forth and let it slam into its stones, fierce and
uncontrolled. Kate braced her mind against it, defending herself
against the awesome power of something far greater than any single
life. The veil was one of the world’s greatest secrets, one of the
unseen threads that held the world together. Standing there,
staring right into the heart of it, she could see that it was
falling apart.
Memories flickered in
the misted glaze that hung across her eyes, belonging to the living
people standing within the room as well as the Blackwatch waiting
patiently outside its doors. Kate glimpsed the minds of everyone
there; everyone except Dalliah herself. Then she saw Edgar, just
standing there, calmly ignorant of the invisible forces thundering
down around him. To his eyes this room was just like any other room
with bone-clad walls and bloodstained carvings on the floor and for
a moment she envied him. He did not have to see what she could see.
He did not have to struggle with the veil every day and be
persecuted for something he could not control. Even Silas could not
see the truth about this place and its influence was affecting him
and Bandermain the most.
The racing energy
scrubbed through the air, making it impossible for anyone except a
Walker to connect with the veil. It was moving too fast, leaching
into the earth, rejecting the lost souls that were not yet free to
pass into death and then retreating back towards Albion. As it
moved, its absence left a vacuum in its place, preventing Silas and
Dalliah from being able to heal and speeding up the progression of
Bandermain’s illness. Kate could not even begin to understand how
Dalliah had created that place, or how she was able to stand within
it so calmly, conducting conversations as if nothing was happening
when it felt as if the ground was about to open up and tear
everything apart.
‘Bandermain’s spirit
shall be bound to me,’ said Dalliah, reaching out to her. ‘The
blade. Give it to me.’ Kate handed her the dagger and watched her
draw the silver twice across her palm, leaving two deep cuts
behind.
Bandermain walked
awkwardly towards Kate, his strength failing. ‘Now mine,’ he said
as Dalliah handed the blade back to Kate, and he held out his own
already scarred hand.
‘This can’t be
undone,’ said Kate. ‘If I do this, you will never go back to the
way you were. You will never get your spirit back.’
‘Yes, yes. I know all
that,’ said Bandermain, impatience cutting through his words. ‘Get
on with it.’
Kate hesitated then,
allowing the memory of how Bandermain had received those scars to
bleed into her mind. Dalliah had already tried to bind his soul to
hers twice before, and she had failed. The silver in the blade
hummed gently as Kate’s energy ran through it, ready to do
something that she knew she might instantly regret.
‘Do it!’ said Bandermain.
Kate lowered the
dagger just enough for Bandermain to sense that she was having
serious doubts.
‘You said she would
do it!’ he said to Dalliah.
‘She will honour our
agreement,’ said Dalliah.
Silas dug the point
of his sword into the floor, helping himself to stand. ‘Things are
not as simple as they first seemed, are they, Celador?’ he
said.
‘Quiet!’ Bandermain’s
eyes flickered briefly to Edgar, who was trying, and failing, to
get Silas’s attention. He lunged for him, grabbed his neck and
locked it beneath his arm, holding him off balance so he could not
squirm away. Edgar flailed his arms, trying to wriggle free, but
stopped the moment another of Bandermain’s daggers pressed against
his back.
‘It is a simple
enough task,’ said Bandermain, panting to catch his breath. ‘Do it
now, girl. Or I will show you how blood spilling should be
done!’