The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [37]
“Cover your eyes! Let Reev and Hilman get it.”
“It didn’t get them all,” Leoff whispered.
“What didn’t get them all?” Gilmer asked.
Leoff noticed that the old man was trembling.
A stronger, more commanding voice rose over the others: “That came from the wall. Someone’s still in there. Find them. Kill them.”
“That means us,” Leoff said. “Come on. And don’t look!”
The two men scrambled down the stairs and back into the silent town.
“How long will it take them to come around?” Leoff huffed, as they raced over rough cobblestones.
“Not long. They’ll come in by the south gate. We’d better hide. Come on, this way.”
He led Leoff through several turns, across the square below the bell tower, and up another street.
“I wonder how many it got, whatever it was?”
“No telling.”
“Shsst!” Gilmer said. “Stop. Listen.”
Leoff did, and though the sounds of his breath and heart cloyed in his ears, he could make out what Gilmer had stopped for—the footsteps of several men approaching the spot where they stood.
“Come on, in here,” Gilmer said. He unlatched the door of a three-story building, and they entered it. They took the stairs to the second story, to a room with a bed and a curtained window. Gilmer went to the window.
“Take care,” Leoff said. “They might have it with them.”
“Auy, raeht. I’ll just peek.”
The smaller man went to the window. Leoff was watching him nervously when a hand clapped over his mouth from behind.
“Shh,” a voice said in his ear. “It’s me, Artwair.”
Gilmer turned at even that faint sound.
“My lord Artwair!” he gasped.
“Hello, windsmith,” Artwair said. “What sort of trouble have you gotten us into?”
“My lord?” Leoff repeated.
“You didn’t know?” Gilmer said. “Sir Artwair is our duke, cousin to His Highness, Emperor Charles.”
“No,” Leoff said. “I did not know that. My lord—”
“Hush,” Artwair said. “This is of no importance now. They’re coming, close on your heels, and they will find you. The basil-nix has a keen nose.”
“Basil-nix?”
“Auy. Our darkest legends come to life, these days.”
“That’s what was in the box?”
“Auy.” He grinned tightly. “When I arrived, they were walking the streets with it, shining it about like a lantern. I saw the last of the townspeople die. I have my old nurse to thank for my life, for only from her tales did I understand what was happening. I averted my eyes before its gaze turned my way. Of course, when you burst its cage, I nearly died again, because I was watching. Still, that was clever. I think you killed more than half of them before they got the thing covered again.”
“You saw?”
Artwair nodded. “I was watching from the south tower.”
“How did they manage to capture and cover the thing?”
“They have two blind men with them,” he said. “They serve as its handlers. The rest walk behind. The cage is like an aenan lamp, closed on all sides but one. It makes a light, this thing, and once you have seen it, you can resist only through the greatest contest of will.”
“But the cage is shattered now.”
“Auy. And so they must take greater care, and so must we.”
“We must flee, before they find us.”
“No,” Artwair said softly. “I think we must fight. Two men remain at the dike. It will take them longer, but they will still open it if we give them time. We can’t allow that.”
“No,” Gilmer agreed. “Not after Broogh gave its life.”
“But how can we fight something we cannot look at?” Leoff wondered.
Artwair lifted something near the door. Two flasks of blue glass, filled with liquid. Rags had been stuffed in the top.
“Here is my plan,” Artwair said.
Moments later, Leoff stood facing down the stairs. Artwair stood below him on the first landing, a shadow with a bow held before him, and an arrow nocked. Gilmer crouched behind Leoff at the window, with his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“They’re here,” Artwair’s voice came up. “Be ready.”
Leoff nodded nervously. He gripped a candle in one hand and one of the flasks of oil in the other. Gilmer was similarly armed.
Leoff heard the door open, and the bow sang a low pitch.
“They have a bow!” someone yelped.
“Move up!” another