Breakmaster smiled, unelipping the siege hooks from both saddles, "Are we to ride once more to the top of the wall and battle with the Nightbeasts beneath the shining stars?"
"No, my friend, we will marshal the people into the armoury and follow them wherever the secret way leads."
Long after darkness had descended across the empty Candle Hall and swallowed all the shadows in the inner city the King and Breakmaster waited, holding the horses, while Arachatt sealed and bolted the great outer armoury doors.
Holbian shivered in the feeble sparks of light and looked fearfully beyond the doorway that led down into the bowels of the earth.
Hesitantly he Lied to follow the m.u.f.fled noise of the descending city folk as they trod the secret road but he could not move, his iron-shod boots seemed frozen to the granite floor. "All I strove to overcome has shrivelled to nothing," he whispered, tears of helpless despair wetting his eyes.
"Once in all my power I chased the Master of Nightmares to the very Gates of Night but I could not follow him into the darkness and destroy him, and now a lifetime later that same weakness leaves my people abandoned in their moment of greatest need, for I cannot lead them through that same darkness."
Slowly the King turned away from the black entrance and called Breakmaster to come forward. "You have been a strength at my right hand in these last grim daylights but I would ask one more thing, perhaps the most difficult any man could undertake." King Holbian paused, looking for long
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moments into the horseman"s eyes before he slowly lifted his hands towards the crown upon his head. "I pledge you to take this crown of Elundium and keep it safe until the new King is found. There is none save you, dear friend, that I could trust with such a task, for you are true-hearted beyond fault."
"No, Lord!" cried Breakmaster, fearing that the King would stay alone in the armoury to defend the entrance to the secret road, buying them time to escape. "Follow the city folk, my Lord, and let me be the one to defend the door. Let my sword arm grow weary that you might lead the people back into the
sunlight."
King Holbian smiled and then fiercely gripped the horseman"
s arm. "Your love for me blinds you, fool. I have no choice. I, the last Granite King, cannot walk in the darkness because, because, . . ." King Holbian looked away, blinking at his tears, "because I am afraid of the dark. Now you know my weakness. Go and do my bidding and let me hide my shame beneath a wall of Nightbeasts. Go, I command it."
"Keep him warm," whispered a voice in Breakmaster"s head. "Cloak him with something you value above everything else, something that will give him courage in the dark, for he is old and brittle with age and afraid of the weakness that other men will see."
Breakmaster struck his fist against the wall, ashamed at how close he had come to deceiving the King, seeing clearly his own weakness, knowing that he would have kept the steelsilver coat to himself. Nevian"s words shouted at him as he bent and searched amongst the fallen shields until his hands closed on the silken warmth of the battle coat.
"lord," he called, barely able to meet the King"s eyes as he held up the battle coat. "This will give you courage to walk in the dark, for it is steelsilver of the finest weave. Listen to the
soft sounds of morning as it moves, feel the touch of sunlight it still holds. Come, my Lord, and let me wrap it around your shoulders."
"Steelsilver!" whispered the King. "I thought Errant took the
last steelsilver battlecoat for Dawnrise to wear on their dash to World"s End!"
"This is the only one in the armoury, my Lord, perhaps the only one in all Elundium, and of a much finer quality than the one Errant took. It is . . ." Breakmaster fell silent as he draped the coat around the King"s shoulders, his hands trembling with relief as he threaded the fine silver buckle at the King"s throat.
"Pure steelsilver," whispered the King, running his brittle fingers across the fine metal weave, reflecting the joy of a summer"s day in his eyes as he looked down into its soft shimmering colours. Tilting his head he could, for a moment, hear the whispers of a meadow lark and the first blackbird of the morning. "Breakmaster," he smiled, taking the horseman"s hand, "Breakmaster, I know the measure of this giving, I can feel it through your fingertips and hear it in your silence. I promise you, my dearest friend, when we reach the light this coat will be yours, and I will find a Lord of Horses to wear it.
Breakmaster looked up into the King"s eyes and saw how the hairline fractures on his face had crazed in fine starshaped patterns and he felt glad to have given away the beautiful coat.
"Lord, I shall follow the soft sound of bells, for the coat makes a gentle music. It will guide me in the dark."
Beyond the bolted doors the faint thunder of iron trees battering against the inner walls shook the armoury floor. "It is time to abandon the city, Arachatt. Seal the secret way behind us. The daylights of the Granite City are now at an end."
King Holbian pa.s.sed sadly through the doorway, with one hand holding tightly to Beacon Light"s bridle and Breakmaster following with Mulberry. Arachatt waited until the King was safe, then pulled the studded door shut, and with his iron spike the steel hammer he quietly loosened the middle granite blocks around the door until he could ease the spike into the narrow crack.
"Now!" he whispered, swinging the hammer and jumping quickly back. The heavy granite block fell. For a second
.11_.
nothing happened, fine granite dust settled on the mason"s hands as he fled down the secret way, and then slowly the wall began to bulge and sway. Then the sheer tower that rose above the armoury began to subside. Roaring and rumbling it collapsed, burying the armoury and the beginnings of the secret road for ever.
"It is done, my Lord," panted Arachatt, catching up with the King.
"It is done!" whispered Holbian, blinking the tears from his eyes as he moved forward.
aLures For Thanehand
"Gildersleeves!" snarled Krulshards, uprooting tile neat, wellclipped hedge figures of fencing men as he strode in black hatred towards the swordsman"s house.
"Gildersleeves!" he dribbled, reading the name caned above the doorway and lifting hate-filled eyes towards die strengthening sun chat had risen above the tree tops of the black forest. Turning away, he buried his head in the malice and gingerly touched the raw wound Archer had inflicted on him with the last arrow strike. "Foul tattoo chat burned white widl a light that could enter the malice!" he muttered, searching the early morning tree line for Kerzolde, his Captainbeast.
"We will rest here, Captain," he shouted impatiently as Kerzolde broke through the trees and staggered across the dew-wet lawns.
"Master," he gasped, crawling into the long shadows of a flower-filled gallery, "the Archer"s arrow has weakened me. I
cannot keep to your pace." ~
Krulshards snarled, snapping at his ( ;aptain, "Keep pace, or we lose the advantage. We must reach Woodsedge before the Gallopersp.a.w.n."
"But the Nightbeasts chat ring the hut of dehorns will have captured and killed him, Master!"
Krulshards curled his lips back across his teeth. "He has a rare gift for life, but he will die, when I have the Elionbel."
Krulshards reached up and tore a handful of newly-opened flowers from a hanging basket and squeezed them between
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his fingers, drawing out all the sweet nectars. Laughing, he dropped the flowers, now grey-pressed, dry crumbs, on to the gallery floor.
"I owe this swordsman much for the skill of his arms before my black gates. Repay him now by destroying His house of Gildersleeves and leave it night-bl lick and burned before tile sun sets."
Kerzolde rose wearily to his feet and swung his broken claw through the stem-woven chains of the flower baskets, tearing them from Heir hooks and treading them into a black tangle along the galleries and walkways. Krulshards laughed with spite as he spread the malice through the lower chambers, wilting tile hanging vines, burning and withering the living garden chat Morolda had grown with care.