35. RESCUING DAMSELS IS ALL PART OF THE JOB
Rescuing damsels is all part of the job
Gwen was on her feet before she could think.
Her hand closed over Isobelle’s and hauled her up, and she was grateful for all the hours she’d spent training in fifty pounds of armour.
Together they raced back across the great hall, their shadows sprinting ahead of them.
From behind them came a crash and a splintering shriek as a stone fell and smashed through one of the long tables.
The light of the fire flickered and winked out in a showering waterfall of rock, thrusting them into darkness.
They skidded around the corner into the entrance corridor, momentum half carrying them off their feet. The doors at the end of the corridor were still open, and only the faintest light from the stars and moon outside showed them where to go.
Then, suddenly, there was more light. Gwen looked up, swore, and shoved Isobelle against the wall as part of the ceiling rained down where they’d been. She covered Isobelle’s body with hers, and felt herself stagger as a boulder the size of her head glanced off one armoured shoulder.
Isobelle grabbed for Gwen’s arm and tugged, getting her dazed champion moving again. The ground seemed to stretch out between them, making it harder and harder to cover the distance – until Gwen realised the ground was tilting, slowly but surely.
Isobelle had noticed it, too. She gave a cry of wordless anguish, and Gwen answered by getting her feet under her properly and making a leap for the other side of a giant crack opening in the floor.
On the other side, the ground was level again – she reached back for Isobelle’s hand, and felt Isobelle’s weight dangling, her feet scrabbling for purchase as the floor slid away from her.
Then, both feet braced against the stone and groaning with effort, Gwen hauled Isobelle up over the edge. A moment later that section of floor tipped and crashed down into the dungeon below.
They lay sprawled, panting, searching the ceiling for signs of more imminent collapse.
The only sound was the crash and groaning of rock as other sections of the tower collapsed.
Gwen flinched, trying to get up to her hands and knees, gasping air into her burning lungs.
And then, from behind her, a much fainter sound – a subtle scrape of rock somehow different from the sound of the tower’s ruin behind them.
A quiet, sly sound that triggered all Gwen’s instincts.
She drew her sword. At Isobelle’s questioning gesture, she shook her head and placed a finger to her lips. She crept around the edge of a fallen stone, body tense and ready, and then halted.
It was Tabitha, or at least her top half.
Her legs were trapped in some way under a pile of fallen debris.
She was digging and shoving at the rocks in a way that told Gwen she was relatively uninjured, though pinned to the spot.
As Isobelle rounded the boulder and stopped with a squeak of surprise, Tabitha looked up at them, her eyes wide.
‘How—’ she croaked, staring first at Gwen and then at Isobelle. ‘She should still be asleep. How did you—’ She gave a bitter, coughing laugh. ‘I suppose I must address you as sister, now.’
Gwen noted with a grim, distant interest that Tabitha already knew, deep down, that Isobelle had been the one with the power to break her spell. Not for a minute did she think Gwen had wriggled out of her nightmare on her own.
‘I had help,’ Isobelle said quietly, her gaze troubled. ‘Your mother was only one of the witches whose spirits linger here. You shouldn’t have used the tower in your curse – they didn’t like it.’
Tabitha’s gaze flashed with a wrenching mix of chagrin and fear. She shoved at the rock wedging her leg again, panting with effort, but nothing shifted.
Isobelle looked at Gwen – Gwen looked back at her, offering up a wry smile. They didn’t need to discuss the faint question in Isobelle’s gaze. They were both already decided.
‘Rescuing damsels is all part of the job,’ Gwen muttered, and was rewarded by a tired but true grin from Isobelle.
They moved together, Gwen crouching to put her back to the larger stone and Isobelle darting in to begin trying to wedge smaller rocks underneath it, hoping to raise it so Tabitha could slip out.
‘What are you doing?’ demanded Tabitha, white-faced, her eyes round and luminous with tears of pain and frustrated fury.
‘Digging you out,’ grunted Gwen, her vision sparking white with effort, her feet sliding against the floor as she pushed with all her might.
‘But …’ One of Tabitha’s tears spilled down her cheek and landed on the rock beneath her cheek. ‘But I hated you. Betrayed you. Manipulated you. Used you. Why … why would you help me, of all people?’
Gwen tried to speak, but could only let out a groan as she repositioned her feet.
Isobelle answered for her, and far better than she would have done anyway. ‘You watched them take your mother away from you. You were angry, and hurt … and scared.’ She took a breath, and Gwen felt her gaze shift towards her. ‘We don’t leave people behind because they were scared.’
Tabitha shut her eyes, a few more tears escaping. ‘You should go – there’s no point getting me out. I’ll just hunt your Order friend down. I won’t stop because—’
‘Any movement?’ gasped Gwen, feeling her heart slamming in her own ears.
Isobelle hesitated. ‘No. We’ve got to think of something else.’
Gwen stopped trying to lift the rock and staggered down to one knee, panting. ‘Maybe if we use my sword for leverage—’
She was interrupted by a massive shudder of the floor beneath them that sent Isobelle sprawling, and wrung a cry of pain from Tabitha as the rocks pinning her shifted. Gwen looked up to see a handful of mortar and pebbles come raining down at them.
‘There’s no time.’ The words came from Tabitha. She’d stopped digging at the rocks, and her voice no longer had the confused urgency that had marked her earlier questions. ‘Just go. You should go.’
Gwen glanced at Isobelle, who was looking back at her, expression grave – even Isobelle’s habitual positivity was struggling to see a way out here. She stepped forward, edging her sword under one of the stones. ‘Let me try …’ Her voice thinned with effort. ‘See if you can move,’ she gasped.
Tabitha gulped a sob, and reached over the top of the stone, grasping Isobelle’s extended hand, trying to pull herself out. She moved a scant inch … and the entire tower quivered. Another shower of stones came, making them all duck and shield their heads.
Shaking, Tabitha tried again, and again, the tower moved with her.
She let out another sob and caught her breath. ‘My spell,’ she gasped. ‘It’s still tied to the stones.’
Isobelle understood quicker than Gwen. She knelt down beside the slab pinning Tabitha to the floor, and curled her fingers around the young witch’s hands. ‘Let it go,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t need that spell anymore. Just let it go, and come with us.’
Tabitha grimaced with effort and pain, and shook her head. ‘Go,’ she demanded. ‘If it’s tied to me, maybe I can hold it long enough for you to get out.’
The ground all but vibrated with the impacts of falling stone and crumbling mortar.
All at once, Gwen became aware of the sheer weight of the tower rising over their heads.
Isobelle had spoken about the spirits of the witches who had died here, living inside the stones.
For a strange moment, Gwen could feel them raging, tearing at the tower – she could see that Tabitha was bound to it as surely by her own refusal to release all that had brought her to this pass.
Isobelle was protesting, her voice rising with passion and fear. ‘We can’t leave you here—’ she began.
‘In ten seconds I’m going to bring the rest of this wall down on top of me,’ Tabitha said through gritted teeth. ‘You can either be standing here with me, or safe outside in the courtyard.’
Gwen met the young witch’s eyes, seeing the resolve there – the same resolve she’d expect to see in the eyes of an opponent in the jousting arena. She had committed to the fight, and she was charging down the lists. She no longer knew how to stop.
Tabitha let out a sound of fury and exasperation. She grasped Isobelle’s arm and jerked her closer. ‘Do one thing for me,’ she said, gazing intently into Isobelle’s eyes.
‘Anything,’ Isobelle replied.
Tabitha’s lips twisted. ‘When you see him next … tell our father that this was all his doing.’
The silence that followed those words was absolute. Even the tower seemed to pause its slow collapse, held off by the sheer weight of the witch’s implication. Isobelle went rigid – Tabitha’s words had gone through her like lightning through a metal spire.
Our father.
‘But …’ Isobelle’s voice came slowly, haltingly. ‘My father’s a diplomat. He’s … he isn’t …’
But that was all the time the collapsing tower gave her to process what Tabitha had said. The ground shuddered again, and Tabitha craned her neck, watching the stones overhead ripple and crack.
‘Go – get her out of here, Gwen!’
Gwen forced herself to move. She wrapped an arm around Isobelle’s waist, and hauled her, unresisting, to her feet.
She managed four steps before the ceiling came crashing down.
She shoved Isobelle ahead of her, got half knocked aside as the stones beneath her feet buckled and cracked apart, and hit the ground with a thud.
She managed to turn her momentum into a roll, and came to a halt in the courtyard, lifting her head to look back the way they’d come.
Just in time to watch as the tower finished crumbling into the sea.