Whitemantle. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

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       CHAPTER THREE THE BIER OF ETERNITY

      Those enforcers of the Iron Rule who saw what had happened rose to their feet and a shout went up. Daggers were drawn, cover taken. The enforcers were men well used to coming under attack. They moved to cover, alert as weasels, looking high up on the monument to the place from which the crossbow bolt must have been shot, but they lacked the means to reply and so their caution was all the greater.

      Will saw that the shaft of the bolt was short and set with two triangular leather flights. So powerfully had it been flung into the earth that its iron head had been wholly buried. He knew with utter certainty who had shot at him and why, and when a black-swathed man moved from behind the rump of a great stone griffin Willow knew it too.

      ‘So Chlu didn’t go north after all!’ she cried as Will bundled her between the tents and pressed her hard up against the monument’s base. Then she saw the look on his face and knew what was in his mind. ‘Will, no!’

      But he was already climbing. His hands thrust against the pole that held the nearest awning taut. His feet found purchase on the letters graven into the plinth. When he reached to grip a bronze griffin’s claw and haul himself up, a red waterfall of molten wax cascaded over him and froze in his hair and on his skin.

      He gasped at the sudden burning on face, neck and hands, but as the pain passed he saw that above him the crossbow’s string was being drawn two-handedly upwards. Chlu straightened his back, fingers straining as he pulled on the cord. A second bolt was clamped between his teeth.

      Time stood still in Will’s head, blotted out by a certainty as strong as any rage. The wax slid under his feet and fingers, but in another moment he had pulled himself upright and was facing his twin. When Chlu saw there was not enough time to cock and raise his weapon, he stood up straight, ready to face him.

      Their eyes met. Will felt a tremor pass through him, a moment of horror to be looking into eyes so like his own, yet so informed by hatred.

      ‘Tell me what I’ve done to make you want to kill me,’ he demanded. ‘If you bear a grievance, tell me what it is or, by the moon and stars, I’ll stamp your face into the mud here and now!’

      The other’s malicious stare wavered as a laugh gurgled from him, but he made no reply.

      ‘I know who you are. Master Gwydion told me everything. I don’t blame you for what you’ve done. I just want us to talk out our differences.’ Will held out open hands. ‘Listen to me! Don’t you know that we’re brothers?

      But Chlu’s growling laugh cut him off. It was a deep, barely controlled, animal noise that seemed to catch in the back of his throat. ‘I’m not your brother – I am your doom!‘ He swung the weapon in his hand at Will’s head.

      Will raised an arm and fended off the blow, but he was not fast enough. One of the steel prods caught in his face, tearing open his left cheek, and as the crossbow clattered to the ground Will was knocked backwards across the plinth and tangled among bronze limbs. By the time he had recovered his feet Chlu had fled.

      There were cries below as the men in red tried to shadow Chlu along the monument, but he had already found a way down where they could not follow him. A stone yale, a horned, tusked animal, rearing up on its hind legs, stood at one end of the monument. Chlu had threaded his way between its legs and leapt down into the maze of black and white paving that formed the closed precinct beyond the iron fence. Now he ran unmolested towards the base of the Spire itself.

      The Vigilants who guarded the gate were ill-prepared for their swift-moving trespasser. Chlu dodged them easily and disappeared inside the Spire’s vast, ornamented gates. Will felt a warning turn over his guts, but a great surge of desire thrust him onward. This was not a simple wish to corner Chlu, but an overwhelming need to find the answer. He knew he must not let his twin get away.

      ‘Who comes?’ came the cry from the Fellows. ‘Who comes?’

      They lifted their heads, turning like beasts testing the air, and Will saw how difficult it would be to follow Chlu now that the guardians of the Spire had been stirred up.

      Blood dripped from his cheek. He wiped his hand on the waxy shoulder of his jerkin, then he leapt down from the monument and ran straight to where the knot of gate guards were standing. More were hurrying СКАЧАТЬ