Firebrand (Rebel Angel Series) by Gillian Philip

Author:Gillian Philip
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2013-02-19T06:00:00+00:00

19

I’m an arrogant toad. Full of myself, always have been. But I have never again been so arrogant when the life of someone I love is at stake: literally at stake, in Conal’s case. I know now that I have to think ahead and plan for the worst. Now I know I’m not the cleverest fighter who ever walked the earth. Now I know I can be out-thought and outsmarted and outfought. Now I know the value of contingency planning.

Not then, I didn’t. But I learned.

It was the following evening when I made my way back to the keep. I stayed in the tree line for more than an hour, panic squeezing my skull and my chest till I could barely think or breathe. I put my hands in my hair and gripped fistfuls of it and tore it till it hurt, trying to make myself think clearly, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even think in a straight line.

The guard at the outer keep wall had been trebled, and they were no longer local clansmen. Cold-eyed, unsmiling, they were the paid mercenaries of the priest and I knew that they would have the wits to keep their eyes open and to watch each other’s backs. There would be no putting sleep on these grim fighters, and they’d be damn sure to hold onto their weapons.

I hunted in a wide circle around the keep, staying in the trees. Only at the wall outside Conal’s dungeon had the guard been changed and strengthened. My brain and spine prickled with terror. How had they known?

Two days. Could I reach the watergate in that time? Yes, but the time might unbalance. It often did. No speed would matter if a month passed while I ran helpless to my clann. Or a year.

How long would he take to die? How long would it feel?

The courtyard gate swung wide and out came the priest, hands clasped piously before him. Close to me was the vertical base of an uprooted pine, blown down in a spring gale. The trunk and branches were gone, but the mud-choked tangle of roots was nearly twice my height, so I ducked behind it and watched through the trees.

The priest walked to the new guards, his robes flapping like batwings, and spoke to them for a minute or two. There was much nodding, many gestures up into the surrounding hills and trees, and at one point they all looked up simultaneously, almost directly at my hiding place.

The priest glanced down at his feet and stamped hard. I heard the clang of solid metal. He leaned down and tugged at something with his fingertips, quite hard, then straightened, nodding in approval. Sickness turned my stomach, and tears burned my eyes.

They’d covered up the little barred hole. They’d taken away his last light, and his last air, and his last chance of a death of his choosing.

When he left the guards, the priest did not go back towards his pony as he usually did. He walked out towards the trees, straight towards me.

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