“Sir,” she said, forming the word with great concentration, “as you have said, we are only observers here.”
He could not strike her from where he was perched in the tree, and this time he didn’t even seem to consider it. His mind was on Briac only.
Out on the commons, the masked apprentice had also become aware that Briac was speaking to the Dreads.
He stood up and yelled into the air, “You must—”
But the rest of his words were swept away by the inhuman screech of his false voice. He tried to yell again, but his words were nothing but noise. The device changing his voice was no longer working properly.
“If he cuts me,” Briac called out, “I don’t know what I may say. Or what he may find. The book …”
The Young’s eyes were on the Middle. He was poised between slow and fast, his feet at the edge of the branch. The Middle was scared of something Briac knew—of something he might reveal. And the book. She remembered the book, and the boy beneath the floor.
The apprentice ripped something from around his throat and yelled out with his true voice, “You must stand aside. You have rules. He has broken them first!”
The Young threw her sight at Briac. He was bleeding heavily from his leg and shoulder, visibly losing strength. If they waited long enough, he would certainly bleed to death.
“Sir, he is right,” she said. “Briac first took the athame—”
The Middle sprang into action. He reached across the tree trunk and yanked her from the branch, throwing her to the ground. It was only ten feet, and she rolled into the fall easily, but the Middle’s reprimand was unmistakable. From the ground, she looked up at him. He had a crossbow in his hands, and a bolt was already pulled into place.
“I decide,” he told her. “You must obey.”
“Help me!” Briac yelled again.
The Middle loosed the crossbow bolt, and one of John’s men toppled off his horse.
“Fire on them,” the Middle commanded her.
The Young Dread sped herself up, had her own bow in her hands, an arrow nocked almost instantly. She let the shaft fly and watched as it hit another of John’s men in the shoulder, as she had intended, sending him to the ground.
The apprentice and his remaining men—only two of them now—were in disarray. The Middle loosed another bolt as one of the men tried to gallop away. The horse was hit, and the man went tumbling.
The apprentice had only one man left now. They were scrambling to disappear, the apprentice on foot, the other man, the man with the disruptor, still mounted. The Young Dread followed the apprentice with her arrow. She could kill him easily. She had only to release her right hand. And yet this was not her duty, no matter what the Middle said. To avoid interfering, he had stopped her from helping the others on the estate. For the same reason, he could not rightly order her to kill John. They had done too much already. The boy who was a man now, who was running for his life, was not their jurisdiction.
The Middle had sprinted into the open and was dragging Briac back toward the trees. She met him inside the edge of the woods, her bow back across her shoulders. Still at high speed, the Middle set Briac down and lashed out at her. The Young ducked his arm, but he had a dagger in his other hand and he’d already buried it in the side of her abdomen.
She stepped back, feeling the blade of his knife slide out of her, her hand grabbing at the wound. Blood spilled through her fingers.
The Young’s own hand shot out with a knife and cut the Middle across his chest.
“You did not kill him,” the Middle said. His voice was still speeded up, but his motions were already settling back into their sedate rhythm. His chest was bleeding, but he ignored the injury. “You should have killed him.”
The Young Dread didn’t answer him. She was ripping off a piece of her cloak and using it to stop the flow of blood from her abdomen. She tied another piece around her waist to hold the first tightly in place. She sensed her body growing weak, but as her old master had taught her, weakness meant little. You kept going regardless.
“Tie his shoulder,” the Middle ordered. He knelt at Briac’s left leg to make a tourniquet above the bullet wound. The Young knelt on the other side, stopping the blood at Briac’s shoulder.
When they were finished, Briac had almost gone unconscious. The Middle leaned over him and pulled up an eyelid.
“Where is the book?” he asked. The wound on the Middle’s chest was dripping onto Briac’s shirt, but still the Middle paid no attention to the gash.
“Safe,” Briac mumbled. “As long as I am.”
“Where?” the Middle demanded.
“Safe …”
With that, consciousness left Briac. The Middle shook him violently, but he did not wake up.
As the Young Dread watched this, she fell over onto the ground. Throwing her mind into her wound, she saw that it was trickling slowly now, matching her own speed. When he’d first cut her, however, the blood had poured out, moving at the pace of her own battle motions. She could see an enormous puddle of it soaking into the ground nearby. Injury meant little, but with enough blood spilled, her body would simply stop working.
The Middle stood over her, tearing a strip from his cloak. As he did, he prodded the Young’s wound viciously with one of his feet. He was looking down at her as she’d seen him look at small animals—as though her pain was delightful to him. She could not move away, but neither would she cry out.
From a pocket of his cloak, the Middle drew out the athame of the Dreads. It was smaller than the other athames, more finely made. Lying on the ground, the Young could see the carving in the base of the handgrip: three interlocking ovals. The Middle slid the delicate lightning rod from where it lay concealed in a groove at the back of the athame. When he struck them together, the vibration washed over her.
Carving a circle in the air, the Middle cut through the fabric of the world and opened a doorway to There. He grabbed Briac around the chest and yanked him up into his arms.
“You may die now,” he said to Maud.
Then, holding Briac, he stepped across the threshold of the anomaly and into the darkness beyond.
The Young Dread could see the Middle through the doorway. He had set Briac down and was tying up his own bleeding chest wound with the strip he’d torn from his cloak. The Young grabbed at the earth, dragging herself toward that doorway, its border pulsing with energy flowing inward to that place. But her body would not follow her orders. She had moved only a few inches when the tendrils of dark and light began to lose their shape, seething into each other and collapsing. A moment later, the anomaly was gone, taking the Middle Dread with it.
He had promised not to harm her, but the chaos on the estate had given him an irresistible excuse. One day, when he had to explain to her master what had happened to her, he could blame her death on John’s attack.
She let her head rest on the ground. The forest floor was cool against her cheek. Slowly, her eyes closed.
CHAPTER 19
SHINOBU
Shinobu was almost to the north end of the commons, following the sound of John’s distorted voice, when his fingers found the inscription on the hilt of the knife. In the orange light of the closest cottage fire, he held the weapon up to his eyes and discovered letters and numbers carved into the handle. It took a few moments of study before he could properly discern them: HK MMcB AMcB. Next to these, the numbers of a year had been chiseled delicately near the end of the grip.
He traced the letters with a finger, as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing.
HK MMCB AMCB
And the year inscribed on the knife—six years ago.
MMcB. McB was MacBain, of course, his own last name. And MMcB, that could only be Mariko MacBain. His mother. And AMcB—was that for Alistair? And HK …
His father had thrust this knife at him, handle first. He had not been trying to stab Shinobu. Even caught in the grip of the disruptor field, Alistair had kept enough control of h
is mind to give his son this knife. With this message carved upon it.
His mother had died seven years ago, in a car accident, and yet this knife bore her initials and his father’s and a more recent date. Was it possible …
“Oh, God.” The words came out of Shinobu’s mouth without his control.
He had left his father to die in the most terrible way possible. He’d refused to give him the tiny amount of compassion you would owe anyone, even an enemy. He had acted, in the face of Alistair’s agony, like a spoiled child. Now bits and pieces from his childhood, scraps of conversation about his mother’s family, came together and he understood.
She’s Japanese, Shinobu, but her family has lived in Hong Kong for a long time, Alistair had told him once, when the two of them were alone together, walking along the shore in Corrickmore. Sometimes I imagine you there.
Shinobu looked again at the carvings on the knife. He could envision her bringing the blade somewhere to have it engraved. He could imagine his father receiving the secret gift, keeping the knife near him all these years, proof that she was safe and hadn’t forgotten them. Could it be true?
He ran back the way he had come, throwing an arm across his mouth to keep the smoke out of his lungs, but the air was clearer in the forest, and he was able to move faster among the trees.
He found Alistair halfway up a hill, sprawled on the ground. Throwing himself to his knees by his father’s side, Shinobu strained to catch sight of the disruptor field sparks, but there were only a few, and those were rapidly fading, even in the dim moonlit forest. With a sinking heart, he placed his hands on his father’s body and pushed him over onto his back.
The big man lay completely still, his eyes partway open. His face was badly cut, and there was a large, bleeding patch on one side of his head, where his skull had been crushed.
Shinobu felt at his father’s neck, but there was no pulse. Alistair was dead. As Shinobu watched, the final disruptor sparks went out.
A man caught in a disruptor field cannot usually connect his thoughts long enough to put himself out of his misery. But nearby, a small boulder, covered in blood, told the story. After what looked like many attempts, Alistair had managed to hit his head hard enough against that rock to get the job done. His father had done for himself what Shinobu had refused to do.
He sat back on his heels, hit by a vast, all-consuming remorse.
“I’m sorry …” Shinobu breathed. “I’m so sorry … Is she really there? All this time? Oh, God, I’m worthless …” He rested his forehead against his father’s chest, momentarily paralyzed with shame.
Hoofbeats from the other side of the hill reminded Shinobu that he was in the middle of a fight and his misery would have to wait. He pulled himself away from Alistair and ran.
At the top of the hill, in the brighter moonlight coming through a break in the trees, he was greeted with a much more welcome sight. Below him, at the base of the slope, were Quin and Fiona. Quin was mounted on Yellen, pulling her mother up behind her. As Shinobu appeared at the top of the hill, Quin raised her eyes to him and beckoned. Then she reached into her cloak and pulled out the athame. It caught the moonlight and seemed to glow subtly in her hand.
Shinobu felt a surge of hope. They could get away from the estate together, right now. He started down the hill toward them.
“Quin! Quin! You’re here!”
Shinobu’s head whipped around. It was John, calling to her with his real voice, and he sounded confused. He was on horseback, as was the man with the disruptor, and they had just entered the clearing below.
John was urging his mount toward Quin, and Shinobu saw the moment when his eyes found the athame in her hands.
“You have it,” he said. “Thank God you have it!”
Quin tugged on Yellen’s reins, and the horse began backing away. She looked torn.
“It’s all right,” John told her. “You’re safe. The athame’s safe. We found each other. I thought you were gone.”
Quin shot a glance at Shinobu, who was still concealed from John among the trees halfway up the hill. She wants to get away, Shinobu thought, but she wants to get away without hurting John. After what had happened to Alistair, Shinobu had no such qualms.
“I can’t give it to you, John,” she said, her voice shaking. “You shouldn’t have it. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have it.” Her eyes met Shinobu’s again, and he understood what she intended. They would get free of John and use the athame.
Before John could come any closer, Quin yanked Yellen’s head around and dug in her heels, and she and Fiona were galloping away.
“Quin, wait! Listen!” John kicked his own horse to follow.
She’s not listening to you anymore! Shinobu realized, with a vicious sort of elation. In an instant, he had pulled the crossbow off his back, stretched a bolt into place, and let it fly.
The bolt missed John, but the shaft buried itself in his saddle, cutting into his horse’s flesh. John’s mount reared and shrieked, running wildly into the path of the other man’s horse. That man, unwieldy with the heavy disruptor around his chest, teetered in his saddle and almost fell. Shinobu took that moment to leap out from behind the trees, and he careened down the hill toward them.
Before he was halfway there, John had pulled out the crossbow bolt and regained control of his injured horse. Then he was off after Quin, racing toward the commons.
Shinobu ran headlong toward the second man, reached up, and yanked him violently from his mount. The man hit the ground and was nearly crushed by the weight of the disruptor, and then Shinobu was smashing the crossbow into his head, shattering the old weapon.
“That’s for Alistair!” he yelled.
Then he leapt up into the saddle and galloped after John. Quin and Fiona were ahead, running flat out across the commons on Yellen. John was whipping his horse with the reins as a trail of blood flowed down the animal’s white flank.
Shinobu kicked and whipped his own mount, forcing it to a full sprint as they reached the meadow. With a burst of speed, he came up alongside John. They were neck and neck. The wind had picked up, blowing the smoke on the commons away from them, and the moon was startlingly bright in the sky.
“I only want what’s mine!” John yelled at him, his face still masked.
“What about Alistair?”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen! Of course I didn’t mean it.”
Shinobu reached over, tried to shove John off his horse. But instead of being unseated, John grabbed Shinobu’s arm and unexpectedly jerked Shinobu toward him, tipping him off balance. Shinobu clamped a hand onto John’s shoulder to stop himself from tumbling off his mount. With his other hand, he groped for the reins of John’s horse.
John yanked his reins away, and his mount veered, pulling Shinobu fully out of his saddle. Legs flailing as he came free of his horse, Shinobu clenched John’s shoulder with an iron grip as his full weight slammed against John. To keep himself from falling, he locked his legs around one of John’s and reached wildly for the pommel of the saddle.
Despite the jolting of the horse beneath them, Shinobu could feel John’s hand scrambling for his gun. Then the cold metal was at Shinobu’s shoulder. John was going to shoot! Shinobu’s hand was on the pommel, his fingers touching the reins. He hooked one finger around the leather straps and wrenched the reins toward himself, jerking the horse’s head down and to the side.
The animal reared, pivoted, and nearly fell, throwing both of them and sending them rolling over each other across the meadow. The gun went off harmlessly. And then they were hitting each other, like this was a brawl in a pub, except John’s arm—the one holding the gun—was not working properly. He’d injured it in the fall. He fired the weapon again, wildly, and Shinobu slammed a fist into the damaged wrist, feeling it break. A shriek erupted from John as he let go of the gun.
Only thirty yards away, the man with the disruptor was running toward them across the meadow. Shinobu could hear the whine of the weapon pr
eparing to fire. In an instant, he was up on his feet and sprinting toward Quin.
CHAPTER 20
QUIN
Quin pulled Yellen to a stop as a tingling pain, and then numbness, spread across her chest. She was suddenly finding it hard to breathe.
Shinobu was racing toward her on foot. She brought the athame up over her head and pulled the lightning rod from her cloak.
“Hold on to me tightly, Mother!” she said. She could see Fiona’s arms around her waist, but she couldn’t feel them.
Shinobu had covered only half the distance to her, and now John was back on his horse, kicking it into motion. John himself was injured, but he was in a desperate fury. Quin knew she could end this now; she could give the athame to him. He was begging her to help. But she couldn’t do it. He had hurt Fiona and tried to shoot Shinobu, two people who had never done him harm. And if he could injure them in his attempt to get his hands on the stone dagger, what would he do once he possessed it?
“Hold on, Mother!” she cried again, and she kicked Yellen toward Shinobu. “Hurry, Shinobu!”
She managed to strike the athame down against the lightning rod, despite the fatigue creeping through her muscles.
Beneath the sound of John’s horse racing toward them and her own labored breath, she could feel the vibration of the stone dagger. She was getting dizzy and her arms seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds, but she pulled Yellen to a stop. Grabbing his mane, she leaned forward and used the athame to cut a huge circle in the air in front of the horse.
Shinobu was almost to her, his red hair streaked with ash, his eyes fierce as he ran all out. John was not far behind.
The tendrils of light and dark were growing together, forming a circular doorway in front of them, the edges thrumming with energy that pulled inward, toward blackness.
“Quin, no! Please wait!” John yelled.
She could not feel her chest, and the numbness was spreading to her arms. There was pressure at her waist as her mother’s grip tightened. Quin dug her heels into Yellen, and the horse leapt forward, a high, perfect jump, like Quin was taking him over a fence. He brought them neatly through the opening, just as the tendrils began to grow soft, hissing as they undid themselves.