"Did you tell the Light Court where I was going to be on the road to the solstice gathering?" Nikolas asked. "When I showed up that night, you asked me if I had taken the M6."
"I"m sorry I grabbed her! Look, let"s stop to talk about this." Ashe backed down the hall. "I lost my head, Nik. That"s all it was. I swear it."
Even Sophie heard the lie in that. Ashe"s face twisted, and he swore under his breath.
Nikolas lunged so fast he turned into a blur. Suddenly a line of red appeared down the side of Ashe"s face. "Did you tell them about the puck? How Gawain and I met in the pub in Westmarch? Did you, you son of a b.i.t.c.h?"
Pressing relentlessly forward, he lunged again and pierced Ashe high in one shoulder. Ashe reeled back, then in a liquid twist, advanced to slash at Nikolas"s abdomen. With a catlike grace, Nikolas leaped back, and the attempted blow went wide.
"How many people, Ashe?" he asked. "How many of our people did you kill with small betrayals? What did they pay you? How much were our lives worth to you?"
Suddenly Ashe roared, "It wasn"t about how much your lives were worth! It was about saving mine! They were killing us-they"ve been killing us for centuries!-with no way home, no way out."
Nikolas paused, chest heaving. "You could have deserted."
Bitterly Ashe snapped, "With what money? How far could I have gotten? I struck a deal for amnesty and enough cash to start a new life and get out from under this G.o.dsforsaken doom the Dark Court has been under for centuries. All I had to do was feed them information until I could deliver you to them. Once the commander of the Dark Court force had fallen, I would be free. Then she showed up and found her way into this pile of s.h.i.t, and you decided it would be a bright idea to make this your last f.u.c.king stand."
"The Hounds waited to attack until you and Gawain had left with the lorry, didn"t they? That"s why you insisted on going." After such an extremity of rage and movement, Nikolas held still and sounded eerily calm. "You told them we had come here. You turned this into our last f.u.c.king stand, Ashe. You did this."
Down the hall, the other four men had appeared. They walked forward, staring, their expressions stricken and shocked. The pain and rage emanating from every one of the men was so raw and palpable Sophie could hardly bear it.
She felt like she shouldn"t be watching the confrontation. This was their betrayal and their pain, and they had the right to deal with it in privacy, but there was nowhere she could go to escape it. They blocked the way to the courtyard. All she could do was retreat into the cell with Robin. Sitting on the floor, she scooped him into her arms.
An odd, incongruent sound filled the hall as Ashe began to laugh. He staggered, shoulders shaking. The blood from his shoulder wound had spread down his side.
"I guess you"re right, Nik. I was too G.o.dd.a.m.n stupid to make a break then. The deal did hinge on your life, after all."
"Why didn"t they attack the group at summer solstice?"
"Because they thought they were going to get you before then. I"d already met up with the others by the time we found out what had happened, and besides, you might have gotten away. I thought I might still meet the bargain if I could only let them into the house when everyone was sleeping-but everybody had so much to say to one another, some of you talked through the night, and then this morning, you got the bright idea to set watches. What a cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k, hey?" He looked around at the circle of stony faces surrounding them. "None of it was personal."
"Well, it felt pretty f.u.c.king personal to me," Nikolas said. He sprang forward, and his sword flashed again.
This time it was a direct hit to Ashe"s heart. Ashe didn"t try to dodge or parry. Instead, he let his arms fall to his side and accepted the blow. Sophie covered her head with a hand. The body fell to the floor with an audible thump.
Afterward, heavy silence descended in the hall.
Rhys said thickly, "I suspected someone was working with the Light Court. Nik, I"m sorry, I thought it was you."
"And I thought it was you. You asked enough questions, I thought you were pumping me for information, and you killed the Hound I wanted to interrogate. I didn"t connect that the only one besides Gawain who wasn"t present for the attack was Ashe until he grabbed Sophie." Nikolas sounded so soul weary Sophie"s eyes dampened. "He was right about one thing. G.o.ds, what a cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k."
While the men talked, Robin tugged on Sophie"s sweater. Wiping her eyes, she looked at the puck. Ooh-ooh, he mouthed. He slapped the floor by her thigh. Then he slapped it again, and again, so insistently it caught her attention.
Here, Robin said telepathically. Down here.
Frowning, she concentrated. Robin was right. The ma.s.sive shift was directly down below. This close, it felt bigger than ever.
For the first time, she focused on the floor of the cell. Part of it was wooden. She ran her fingers along one side while she studied the square. There were hinges.
A pair of boots appeared in the corner of her vision. She looked up as Nikolas knelt beside her. His expression was bitter but composed, until he looked down at her sweater.
Then his eyes blazed, and he grabbed hold of her with tense care. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Sophie! Why didn"t you say something?"
"About what?"
Her gaze followed the direction of his, down to her shirtfront. Okay, that looked pretty bad. Blood had soaked into her sweater, and it had run down her side. She looked as awful as Ashe had.
Making a face, she told him, "I forgot about it. It looks worse than it is. He caught me on the collarbone. Nik, there"s a trapdoor."
"Who the f.u.c.k cares?" he said. His touch was much more gentle than his tone, as he eased the collar of her sweater aside so he could inspect the wound. He pressed lightly against her skin near the long cut.
"Ouch! Stop that!" She tried to shrink away from him.
"G.o.ddammit," he growled. "Hold still."
Something about the way he said that told her he was barely holding on to his self-control. She forced herself to sit still, although she couldn"t help from b.i.t.c.hing about it.
"You will never learn how to ask politely, will you?" she muttered. "How hard is it to say, "Will you please hold still a moment, Sophie?" Well, let me tell you, it"s not hard, because I just said it."
"He cut you to the bone, you stupid woman," Nikolas snapped.
She opened her eyes wide. "Why are you calling me stupid, like that was my fault?"
She had seen Nikolas angry before, but this time his rage seemed transcendent. "You hit him with a telekinesis spell while he held a knife to your throat!"
His taut expression was so full of rage and pain and residual fear she paused and tried to swallow the snarky response that rose to her lips.
Setting her hand gently to the side of his furious, dangerous face, she said in a soft voice, "Well, yes. Yes, I did. I"m so sorry I did something to get myself out of a bad situation instead of waiting for you or one of the other menfolk to rescue me. Next time I"ll go sit in a tower and learn how to knit, mm-kay?"
So... swallowing the snark hadn"t exactly been a success. As they stared at each other, she watched a muscle tic in the side of his jaw, and she almost, very nearly, yes indeed came so close to feeling bad about that.
Cupping her hand to his cheek, he placed the flat of his palm over her injured collarbone, gathered his Power, and spoke in his Celtic-sounding language. Warmth spread over the area, and she could feel the torn flesh knitting together. It was not an altogether comfortable sensation, but that was such a small price to pay for the healing, she gritted her teeth and stuck with it.
When he had finished, he pressed a kiss to her fingers and whispered, "You still make me. So. Crazy."
She loved him so much it twisted her up inside. Stroking his lips with her thumb, she smiled as she whispered back, "And you"re still very much an a.s.shole." She shifted to lean her forehead against his. I"m so sorry about Ashe.
He took in a deep breath. It had to be one of them. I"m glad I killed him.
Another shock wave rose from the earth. This time the rumble was so long and sustained the structure over their heads groaned from strain. Nikolas"s face tightened. He said calmly, "Maybe we should step out into the courtyard."
"No," she told him. She patted the floor. "We need to go down."
Gawain and Rowan shouldered their way into the cell. Coming down on one knee beside them, Gawain said, "La.s.s, this is most likely an oubliette. There won"t be anything but a pit down there and no way to get out if the building comes down around our ears."
She twisted to look at Robin, who hovered at her elbow.
Down, the puck said. She had never seen him look so desperate. Robin needs to go down.
Robin isn"t going by himself, she told him. Turning to Nikolas, she said, "Going out to the courtyard is just a way to prolong death. While this isn"t a guarantee of anything, there"s a ma.s.sive shift down there. Let"s at least take a look."
Instantly Nikolas scooped her into his arms and rose to his feet. Striding to one side of the cell, he ordered, "You heard her. Get the trapdoor open."
Once he stepped off the wooden section, he set her on her feet. Gawain and Rowan threw themselves at the task, while Rhys slid into the cell to help. The others crowded around outside, looking in. Not one of them, Sophie noted, left to go to the courtyard.
The hinges had rusted, and it took the combined strength of all three men to pry the floor up. As it creaked open, it revealed a lightless black of unknown depth. The monkey leaped into the oubliette.
"Robin!" Sophie flung herself forward, hand outstretched, but she was too late to stop the puck.
Rowan rubbed his face and swore. Nikolas said, "Get one of the lanterns down there."
The group had two lanterns with them. Cael lit one of them, tore the edge of his T-shirt into a strip to tie around the handle, and pa.s.sed it forward. Accepting it, Nikolas lowered it into the blackness.
The light touched rough-hewn rock along the sides and what looked like it might be the bottom. Sophie leaned farther to get a better look. At the very edge of the light, she caught sight of the puck. While she couldn"t tell for sure, he appeared to be digging.
"Ma.s.sive shift, you say." Nikolas rubbed his chin.
She repeated, "Ma.s.sive."
He looked around at his men. "We"re going to go down. If the shift is that big, there"s no telling how long it will take. If any of you want to go to the courtyard, go ahead and do it."
"Sod off," Cael said, mildly enough. "The sooner you get down there, the sooner we can follow."
Sophie held out her hands. "Lower me down."
She half expected Nikolas to start an argument about who got to go first, but instead, he took hold of her hands. They locked their fingers around each other"s wrists, and when she nodded that she was ready, he swung her down into the darkness. When he had lowered her as far as he could, he released her wrists and she dropped, landing in a crouch to save her ankles.
As soon as she hit bottom, she scrambled to the side, and Nikolas leaped in after her. They took hold of the lantern and moved deeper into the pit, as one by one, the men jumped down to join them. Cael and Gareth lit the second lantern.
The pit was larger than Sophie had expected. Followed by Nikolas, she scrambled over the uneven, rocky terrain to reach Robin.
As she reached the monkey"s side, he looked at her, eyes huge and frantic. He said out loud, "Home."
It was as if Robin had doused the men with gasoline and lit a match. They blazed with so much hope it was almost unbearable to look at them.
"He"s a nature sprite," Nikolas said. "He knows home when he senses it." He twisted. "Get anything you can dig with!"
"Out of the way, la.s.s." Without asking, Gawain picked her up and pa.s.sed her back to the men behind him.
Braden took hold of her and pa.s.sed her back to Rowan. She didn"t protest being manhandled. In this case, it was clear she was outcla.s.sed, and there wasn"t enough room to take up s.p.a.ce just because she was curious.
They attacked the earth with hand axes and crowbars. Watching from the rear, she caught only glimpses now and then of Nikolas. When the men at the forefront paused, at first she didn"t see what was going on, but then she felt a ripple up ahead, and she knew Nikolas was working with the land magic.
Gawain said, "That got us a good six meters. Do it again."
There was a pause, and another wave rippled out. The men moved forward and started digging again.
Left to her own devices for the moment, Sophie found an outcrop of rock and went to sit down. Something crunched under her feet. Looking down, she realized she had stepped on a long bone, perhaps a femur. A bare skull lay nearby.
She picked it up to study it. Someone had died down here, alone in the blackness. Maybe they had been a criminal, but maybe they had just been an enemy. It was even possible the victim had been one of Nikolas"s people.
Kathryn Shaw might be wonderful, and her father sounded like he"d been a miracle to many, but those earlier Shaws...
They didn"t like to read, she thought. They didn"t like to write. They threw people into black pits. They sided with the Light Court. Those earlier Shaws had been terrible people.
Sighing, she sat, set the skull in her lap, and wrapped her arms around it while she waited.
Another wave rippled through the land magic, and a sharp, cold wind blew into the pit. A thin, pale illumination followed. Someone roared-she thought it was Braden-and then others joined in. They hacked and slashed at the ground in a frenzy until suddenly they surged forward.
Still holding the skull, Sophie stood and picked her way forward through the short tunnel they had created. Details came clearer, as one by one, they climbed out of the hole. Outside, despite the biting chill of a winter wind, they hugged one another while someone laughed. Another one sobbed.
Sophie was the last one out, staring at the heavy snowfall that weighted the limbs of nearby pine trees. Pine trees that grew in Lyonesse. It was twilight, and the thin illumination came from a moon wreathed in storm clouds.
As she climbed awkwardly up, Nikolas"s head and shoulders suddenly filled the opening. He offered a hand, and she took it. When he helped her out of the hole, the fierce exhilaration in his expression hitched as he caught sight of the skull she had tucked under one arm.
"What on earth are you doing now, my Sophie?" he asked.
"I promised him I wouldn"t leave him alone in the black pit," she explained. "Even though I might be centuries too late."
In the middle of the other men"s jubilation, he stood still. Then he stepped forward to put his arms around her. He said from the back of his throat, "Thank you for bringing us all home."
In answer, she rested against the hard length of his body and put her head on his shoulder.
Then his arms loosened, and he pivoted. He said to the others, "We can"t relax. We"re not done. This is the only way we have right now to get back to Earth, and time here moves so much more slowly than it does there. We"ve got to get word to Annwyn at Raven"s Craig as quickly as we can, muster troops, and climb back through to stop Morgan before he closes this pa.s.sageway for good."
"s.h.i.t," Gawain swore. "Raven"s Craig is a good ten leagues from here. Even running as fast as we can, it will take us at least two days in this weather."
Nikolas said, "It might take us two days, but it wouldn"t take Robin that long."
Shivering as the wind bit through her clothes, Sophie turned to look in the same direction as the others. Several yards away, the monkey played and rolled gleefully in the snow, flinging handfuls into the air.
What did Nikolas mean, it wouldn"t take Robin that long to travel ten leagues? How long was a league? a.s.suming the men could run for two days, that would make it thirty miles? Forty?
And even a.s.suming they could run that long, she couldn"t.
Gawain said, "Even if he would agree to take a message, we can"t send Robin by himself. He"s been absent for too long. Annwyn would never trust him."
"Someone would have to go with him." Nikolas raised his voice. "Robin, we have a favor we need to ask of you! Will you carry one of us to Raven"s Craig?"
As she listened, her questions kept coming. How would a monkey carry one of them thirty or forty miles?
But Robin wasn"t really a monkey.
As Nikolas called out his question, the puck"s head lifted, and he turned to look back at the group.
The puck said, "No."
Nikolas strode toward the puck. "I wouldn"t ask it of you, except our need is so urgent. You can bargain for anything you like, and if it"s in my Power to give it to you, I will."