From the look of things, the guards had tried to close the castle gate against the rolling smoke advancing from the fairgrounds. This happened as several knights—Sir Baramon included—arrived on horseback, hoping to gain entry and safety inside the castle walls. The desperate skirmish that followed was still raging as the witch-smoke arrived on our tails, to end all debates. Sir Baramon fought on the far side, holding off two soldiers, but looking weaker with every step. The other soldiers, though …
“Janel!”
“I see them,” I said.
They were raising the drawbridge.
It wouldn’t help them against the smoke, but it would stop our progress.
“Come on, Arasgon!” I shouted to him.
We galloped.
We jumped.
I reached back and grabbed Brother Qown’s agolé midair, but he held on to me so tightly I imagined I felt his fingernails through my armor. Mid-leap, I saw Sir Baramon take advantage of the defending soldiers’ wide-eyed awe to stab one through the leg before ripping his sword free to hack at a second’s soldier’s thigh. He might have gained some weight, but he hadn’t lost his skill.
We hung in the air forever, time slowing to a crawl. Then the seconds sped up again as Arasgon landed hard on the wooden planking, the impact jolting through his body and reverberating through my bones. Qown let out a surprised yelp.
Then we were galloping again. The soldiers scattered. I didn’t see anyone with the glyph marked on their foreheads. These poor fools had just been trying to protect themselves with wood and stone. And failing, because they had no idea what they faced.
Neither did I, but I knew more than they did.
Arasgon pulled into a trot, calling out a greeting to his brother Talaras.
“Let my man give you his blessing,” I ordered Sir Baramon. “It will protect you when the witch-smoke comes.”
“It’s already here, Count,” Sir Baramon called out.
Which was true. The closed drawbridge bought us a few seconds, but the blue smoke shimmied through cracks and leaked around the edges like a living thing seeking warm bodies and blood.
Brother Qown half fell, half slid off Arasgon’s back and ran forward to mark the rune on Sir Baramon and Talaras. It looked for all the world like he traced their skin with a glowing fingertip, leaving behind a mark the same glowing color.
“We have to find Ninavis!” I shouted.
“Her leg’s still broken,” Brother Qown responded. “I told her to stay in her room and rest.”
“I doubt she listened,” Arasgon said as he pointed his nose across the courtyard. “Someone had to start the fires.”
Across the way, I saw someone in a hooded sallí cloak leading another person with a limp up a staircase from the basement. I couldn’t see their faces, but I recognized Dorna’s second-best riding skirt.
“Ninavis!” I yelled out. “Ninavis, wait!”
The second person looked up.
Ninavis hesitated. Kalazan stiffened, with his arm still around her. I suspected both were thinking about how much simpler their lives might be if they just ran. Of course, they didn’t yet know about the blue smoke. They didn’t understand what horror had just overtaken Barsine Banner. They didn’t understand that all that lay between their freedom and an ugly death was a foreign Blood of Joras they barely knew.
Ninavis pulled back her hood. “Do you have my people?”
Kalazan asked at the same moment, “What happened to Baron Tamin? Did you kill him?”
I ran to her, aware Brother Qown was running too. “Never mind Tamin. Your people are safe. Possibly they are the only ones who are.”
“I don’t understand—”
“I have to mark this blessing on your forehead,” Brother Qown gasped as he caught up with us. “Quickly. The blue smoke kills anyone not wearing this sign.”
Ninavis looked over Qown’s shoulder toward the front gate. She blanched. The witch-smoke was inside now, spreading fast. Already, the sound of choking echoed as the cursed air found new victims. Ironically, the vapor smothered the fires meant as a distraction while Kalazan rescued Ninavis; the flames died as soon as the witch-smoke rushed in and replaced all the air.
“What—?”
“No time,” I said. “Lower your hood, my Kalazan.” I used a possessive I had no right to use. My Kalazan, my loyal man. I had just declared him my vassal, taking up the offer Kalazan had made the night before, when he called me his lord.
He inhaled, but then, perhaps because he saw the smoke rushing at us from across the courtyard, he did as I ordered.
Brother Qown finished the glyph on Ninavis and moved on to Kalazan.
The smoke enveloped us. Kalazan closed his mouth, shut his eyes, pinched closed his nostrils. The smoke tried to force its way inside, but Brother Qown finished the line, connected the last points, completed the glyph. The tendrils snapped back, pushed out by the pocket of clean air around Kalazan’s head.
“Find as many—” I started to order Brother Qown, but he needed no orders to do what came as instinct. He’d already gone to a serving maid on the ground, wide-eyed, choking, gasping for breath. He painted the glyph on her forehead.
But the witch-smoke was in her lungs. She died while we watched, powerless to help her.
They all died.
* * *
Kalazan gained his voice first.
And lost his wits first too.
“What just happened? What is this?” He looked at us wide-eyed, crazed. He had the hostile anger of someone who didn’t understand what they’d just witnessed but damn well intended to find someone to blame.
I almost felt sorry for him, but this wasn’t the time for sentimentality.
“You mustn’t use up your air.” I turned to Ninavis. “Calm him. We have much to do and little time in which to do it.”
She looked a bit wide-eyed herself, but she squared her shoulders and put both her hands on Kalazan’s arms. “We’ve come this far. Just come with me a little further.”
“What happened?” He didn’t want to be quiet.
“Witchcraft,” I snapped. “The real kind, and not the stories people use as an excuse to kill old mares with too many warts on their chins. We need to leave, Kalazan. Sooner, not later. Now. I swear to you I will explain all once we’re away from here.”
His face paled from fear or anger or some combination. “The baron did this?”
“No,” Brother Qown said. “I saw the woman who cast this spell. She wouldn’t have left Baron Tamin to die if they were partners.”4
That stopped Kalazan. “He’s dead. Tamin’s dead?”
My heart broke at the hope in his voice, the dread, the … regret. I’d just dropped by Barsine Banner on special occasions, with the periodic tournament as excuse. Kalazan had grown up with Tamin. They had played together, gone exploring together, whispered stories, and dreamed of becoming knights.
“We have no time for that right now. Dorna, I need—” I grimaced as I remembered I’d left Dorna back at the tournament grounds. “Never mind. I’ll gather our belongings. Everyone do the same, but take no more than five minutes. Grab what you can and follow me.”
“I don’t mean to spoil a good plan, but the smoke seems to be killing horses as well as people,” Ninavis said, looking across the courtyard toward the stables.