It was unlocked. I supposed the Voievod didn’t need to worry about intruders. The evil of the place settled over me like a shroud. Had he made all those people strigoi, like the child we had encountered in the woods?
Behind the door was a heavy woollen curtain, dyed black as night. My heart thudded, shaking my whole body, but I felt Mira’s hand, cool against my wrist, and calmed my breath. I gripped my yew stake and pushed the curtain carefully aside.
I barely registered a corridor, broad and dimly lit with torches, before something rose up from the floor. Fen pulled me back, wrenching open the curtain with the other hand. The last of the daylight illuminated a face, eyes gummy with sleep but waking more every moment.
He did not howl, or cower from the light, or dissolve. It was a man. His face was bearded, his eyes blue and wide with surprise. I wondered what we must look like, from our days and nights in the forest, the blood of the strigoi’s father still splattering our clothes.
At his breast was stitched a crest: a dragon curled about a heart, the same crest Boyar Calazan had borne. We blinked at each other a moment, before he opened his mouth as though to shout, his hand reaching for his sword.
We acted as though it had been planned. Mira threw her full weight at his arm, sending the sword clattering away into the dim corridor. I pushed the handful of curtain I held into his mouth, stifling his cry. His teeth scraped against my hand as he bit down, leaving my fingers bloody, and Fen grasped hold of his other arm, kicking at his knees until he went down.
We pinned him in place, his breathing loud and ragged through his nose. I sat astride his shoulders and leant down to whisper in his ear.
‘I don’t want to hurt you, but if you scream I will cut your throat.’
Even saying the words, even hearing his breathing like that, so loud and heavy like Vereski’s in the stable, made me nauseous. But there was something else in me, something desperate and dangerous as a cornered dog, that made me certain I could carry through the threat if forced to it. For Kizzy, I could make myself a murderer a hundred times over.
The guard must have realised this, because he stopped struggling almost instantly, going limp beneath us.
‘Good,’ I said, making my voice steady and low, a tone that I learned from Malovski. ‘I’m going to move slightly, so you can nod or shake your head. Are there more of you?’
He nodded. Fen looked down the corridor, his jaw clenched.
‘Nearby?’ I asked. He shook his head. ‘But more guards, more men?’
Another nod. Mira sucked in air through her teeth.
I nodded grimly. Calazan’s men would guard the castle in the daytime; strigoi would swarm the place at night. Rescuing Kizzy seemed like an impossible task. I knew we’d rather chance the men, but it was a close, and unpleasant, call. We needed a plan, and for that, we needed somewhere to be safe.
‘The church,’ I whispered to Fen and Mira. ‘We need to go back to the church.’
‘What about him?’ Fen looked at the man. He was choking a little on the curtain, his eyes wide and glinting at me. I could not kill him in cold blood.
‘He’s coming with us. I think he’ll be useful.’
Fen looked ready to argue. He took up the man’s sword, but I knew he could no more sink it into a defenceless person than I could. Fen slid the sword into his belt. Mira nodded her agreement and the three of us hauled him to his feet.
He was tall, but slight, and gave no argument as I sliced the curtain free with my axe, using the extra length of it to bind his hands, knotting it tight. We pulled the door closed behind us and crossed the courtyard hurriedly. I cast a look at the barn full of strigoi and shuddered.
The light was falling fast as we reached the church. Mira loosened her grip on the man and pushed at the door. It would not open.
‘It’s locked,’ she said, leaning against it.
‘Can’t be,’ said Fen, gesturing. ‘No lock.’
He was right: the area beneath the handle was smooth, with no place for a key. He ran his hands across it and shook his head. ‘Must be jammed. Move out the way.’ Mira took his place holding the man as Fen took five big strides backwards.
‘What are you—’ I began, but, before we could stop him, he ran at the door, shoulder forward, slamming into it with all his weight.
The door didn’t budge, and Fen was sent ricocheting backwards, toppling over and falling in a moaning heap at our feet.
‘Fen!’
Mira and I crouched beside him, pulling the guard to his knees. Fen’s teeth were gritted, and he hissed, ‘I think it’s locked.’
I bit back a laugh, but Mira snorted, and I was too slow to look away. We caught each other’s eye and both began to laugh. It was as if all the horror of the past hours, days, weeks of our lives was forgotten, and I laughed so hard no sound came out and I was gasping for breath.
‘It … hurts …’ wheezed Fen through his laughter, still wincing from his shoulder. ‘Stop …’
But it only made us laugh more. The guard looked between us, nonplussed.
Mira was first to recover herself, sitting up, her stubbled head dusty and cheeks flushed. She looked so beautiful, with the worry lines that had been etched between her eyebrows smoothed, her mouth still wide in a smile.
Something sharp stuck its haft between my ribs and twisted. I longed to reach for her, to pull her back down to the ground, but she dragged the guard to his feet again and I stood with them, offering my hand to Fen.
We brushed ourselves down, and I turned back towards the church. Now I was certain we had to get in, that the doors had been barred for a reason that would be useful to us. Fen’s attempt had made no mark on the door, and the windows were too high and small for us to climb through.
‘Is there a key?’ I asked the guard, and he shrugged. He looked warier than ever since our hysterics, and I wondered if he thought we were lunatics. As I pulled Mamă’s axe from my belt, I thought he was not far wrong.
‘Stand back.’
The air was close inside the church. Close, and wrong. It didn’t smell of must and burnt-down candles. It smelt of death: not the instant, sharp metal tang of blood, or even of rot – but like a tomb, the air ringing with stillness.
I hesitated on the threshold, peering through the shattered door, cleaved enough to scatter light across the church floor. From the smell, I knew what I would see, and I was right.
Bones, so old they were not even bodies anymore, just piles ranged along the flagstone floor and on the wooden pews. More bones on the altar, and at my feet. Here and there, the earth had broken through the gapped flagstones and breathed green life into the room: moss and mushrooms and small white yarrow. There was nothing to fear here, and much to grieve.
‘What is it?’ said Fen, and I moved aside to let him see. ‘Oh,’ he said, and the sound was like a child sighing for their mother.
I reached past him, through the gap Mamă’s axe had made, and felt for whatever was blocking the door. My hand found a metal bar laid across the centre, and I was able to push it free.
We stepped inside, bones shifting before us.
‘Were they killed?’ said Mira angrily, rounding on the guard. Fury blazed strong in her eyes and he flinched, but Fen laid a hand on her shoulder.
‘These people have been dead decades. I doubt he had a hand in it.’