Chapter 36
Casrian reached the gap in the wall and threw his back against the crumbling stone.
Behind him, the fort loomed black against the cloud-veiled sky.
Vines crawled over the stone, possibly the only thing still holding it together.
This place had been abandoned long before the fall of Caetris, though its position above the river suggested that it had once overseen a trade route between the kingdoms. It was no wonder no one remembered the place.
Rowan and Toby had likely been the first people to find it in decades.
Where guards had once kept watch, only broken parapets remained.
The roof had long since rotted away. One tower had collapsed, sliding into the river.
Another remained, broken like a rotten tooth.
The fallen walls exposed shattered stairwells and empty halls choked with moss and stone.
Little remained of the curtain wall. The main gate lay open and waiting like a gaping maw.
It was exactly the sort of place witches liked. Isolated. Echoing of past glories. Forgotten and melancholy. She was probably able to lure the occasional brigand or wanderer into her circle. Enough to feed upon. Not enough to stir notice.
It was also exactly the sort of place a pair of adventurous youth would go on a quest to find treasure. He could almost imagine Rowan here, foolishly brave, daring her friend to follow her into the place. The image that crossed his mind caused an ache in his chest.
Let her still be alive.
Daris joined him and gave a sharp nod. Casrian cocked the crossbow and loaded the bolt.
When Daris signaled that he was ready, they slipped through the wall and moved off to the right, aiming for the door Rowan had said opened to the great hall.
They hadn’t come across any familiars yet, which meant that the witch had likely pulled them into the nest. Normally, the things would be out prowling the woods looking for food, but with fresh meat in the dungeon and hunters at the door, the witch would want to keep them close.
This witch seemed to have a gift for creating familiars.
He’d never come across any so large. Usually it was clear what animal had been corrupted.
He still had no idea what the fuck these ones had been before she’d gotten her hands on them.
Maybe wolves. They seemed vaguely doglike.
They moved in packs. But they were as big as bears and some of them had horns.
Maybe they’d been created from some new creature in the mountains.
Who knew what evil things now roamed Caetris?
He signaled to Daris to follow and circled toward the front. As they approached, the fine hairs on the back of his neck rose. Magic trembled in the night air like the reverberation of a drum just out of hearing. The air was heavy with the stench of rot. The shadows pooled black as pitch.
The witch was here—somewhere—but he didn’t feel the focus of her attention. That had always felt to him like the sharp tip of a spear poised above his heart. Impossible to ignore. This felt less targeted.
What could possibly absorb a witch more completely than a pack of witch hunters? He could only think of one thing. The prisoners already in her grasp.
He wanted to rush inside, but he’d made a promise to stick to the plan. It was a good plan. He had to at least give it a chance.
They held to the cover of the wall as the first round of flaming arrows ghosted overhead.
Emrys was friends with the armorer and often tested out new weapons before they were distributed to the other patrols.
These arrows contained small vials of oil that burst into flames upon impact.
Most of them hit the stone walls of the fort and flared only briefly to life, charring stone.
A few hit the dry ivy and burned longer.
But the ones that landed in the brambles near the front door flamed like a torch, casting enough light for them to see what monsters the shadows veiled.
One familiar beside the door flinched away from the light.
“Got it,” he said and put a bolt in the thing’s head.
When he looked down to reload, he heard Daris fire another shot. There was a dull thud, and Daris cursed softly. The crossbow had never been his weapon. They each took out another of the familiars before the flames began to die. The witch had still not appeared.
“It won’t be enough,” Casrian said. “She has dozens of the damned things.”
Daris caught his arm and pulled him back. “We need to move. They know where we are.”
They were so close.
Casrian shook his arm free, gaze fixed on the entrance that would bring him nearest the dungeon stairs.
“Cas, you can’t.”
It was the promise he’d made. Hold the witch’s attention. Don’t engage her directly until her power waned with the dawn.
It was the smart thing to do.
Emrys was right.
All of their classes at the Academy had emphasized the idiocy of attacking a witch at night, let alone raiding her nest in anything but the full light of day.
Still, he hesitated, staring at that black hole of a door. Daris caught his shoulder and pulled with more force than was necessary.
“Damn it.”
A cry rose from within the fort—a woman’s cry, cut short—and every muscle in his body went taut.
“It’s the witch,” Daris hissed in his ear. “That wasn’t Rowan. The witch is trying to lure you inside.”
“You don’t know that.”
Securing the crossbow at his back, he drew his sword, eyes fixed on that door. The fire in the brambles had died down. It didn’t cast enough light to pierce that absolute darkness.
“Don’t—” Daris began.
He ran.
Daris cursed behind him.
Casrian threw himself through the door and rolled.
Coming to his feet with his sword in his hand, he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
There was a familiar rushing toward him.
A hulking black shape that blended with the shadows.
The reflection from the fire off the leathery hide.
The gleam of its eyes. He swung across the thing’s chest, readjusted his grip and slashed again for the neck.
But there was movement behind the creature, so he pulled his swing, barely slicing through the skin as he angled his body to meet the new threat.
There was Asher. Pale as a ghost, eyes wide and frantic. His arm was wrapped around a smaller form, supporting her completely. Rowan? Was she hurt? He didn’t have time to look.
“Outside,” he shouted. “Daris is through the door. To the right. Rowan?”
“I’ve got her,” Asher said, and relief shuddered through him.
No time for it.
He positioned himself between Asher and the familiar.
The thing lurched forward again. Two steps and he caught it between neck and shoulder.
It was too dark. The area too closed. There was something to the right—some presence that was coming closer, making the hairs rise on his body, making the familiar’s movements frantic and jerky.
Fuck.
The witch was coming. They had her full attention now.
He rushed the familiar, striking out and severing a clawed hand that swung at him and he was through the door. Daris had Rowan in his arms. Asher was moving, squinting against the dim light, limping a bit.
“Faster,” he shouted. “She’s here. Emrys!”
And, thank God, Emrys must have heard, because he launched another volley of those flaming arrows that hit the stone behind them just as the familiar burst through the door.
They didn’t pause at the wall. They scurried over the broken stone and ran for Emrys’s position. Casrian covered their retreat.
Witch hunters surrounded them. Emrys was yelling at him, but Casrian didn’t hear anything he said. He dropped to his knees beside Daris who’d collapsed with Rowan as soon as they hit the line of archers. It was dark. The only light was from the fires burning at the fort walls.
It was just enough to see Rowan’s pale face. Her eyes were closed and her thin body looked so small. He put his hand on her chest and didn’t breathe until she did.
Emrys’s medic pushed him out of the way.
Asher fell to his knees beside him, speaking quickly.
“She has a head wound and her hand is burned. Badly, I think. No. Right one. Yes, there. I don’t think her skull is fractured, but there’s a knot.
Definitely concussed. She was vomiting earlier.
She was still walking when we were on the stairs, but the familiar threw her against the wall. ”
Casrian stood, backing up slowly to give them space. His hands were shaking. Somewhere he’d dropped his sword.
Behind him, someone called his name but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Rowan.
A roach scuttled from the forest floor over the curve of her throat toward her mouth.
Asher flicked it away. The flat-backed insects were everywhere.
Rats too. He could hear them chittering in the dry leaves as they swarmed the ruins, called by the witch as she gathered her power to her.
His hands clenched to fists. “We have to get her out of here.”
She shouldn’t be here. He’d promised her she wouldn’t have to face the witch.
This was his fault.
“Cas.” Emrys’s hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him around. “What part of “don’t go inside” did you not fucking understand?”
“They were already on their way out. I just helped them through the door. The witch is still alive.”
“No shit.”
A blast of power rolled over them, making the ground tremble and the shadows thicken.
He braced himself against the swell of fear rising in the animal part of his brain that wanted to run.
They trained to stand against this. Hours of training at the Academy.
Years in the field. And it still affected him down to his soul.
Maybe it was a good thing that Rowan was unconscious for this part. If he wanted her safe, really, truly safe, body, mind and soul, there was one last thing he had to do. He looked at her one more time—pale and still, the medic’s hands moving over her—and then he turned away.
“I need a sword,” he told Emrys. “This won’t wait until morning.”