Fire Heart (The Titans: Book One) Read online

  After what seemed an eternity the rope began stiffen, swaying less and less as he drew nearer to the top. His knuckles began to scrape against the stones, rubbing the skin away and leaving behind raw flesh that leaked little blurry crimson trails along his hands. He barely felt the wounds.

  And then, finally, he felt the space between the rope and the wall narrow and tighten on his fingers, and he knew he was near the edge. A moment later a strong, skeletal hand gripped his wrist and hauled him over the lip, where he sprawled unceremoniously on the ground, panting and shivering. His longsword dug into his back and the spiked end of his war hammer was pricking his kidney, but he barely even felt them. After what seemed an eternity he opened his eyes and stood, shaking himself and rubbing his cramped muscles in an attempt to restore circulation. He winced as he flexed his hands and what little feeling he had left in them sent lances of pain shivering up his arms.

  He saw Hook haul Katryna over the wall a moment later, and she collapsed to the ground much the same way Will had. A series of witty remarks about women ran through his mind, but Will decided that the effort of taunting Katryna simply was not worth it. He contented himself instead with steadily moving his fingers in an attempt to lessen the biting pain.

  Hook stalked over to Will, grinning maniacally, and clapped him on the back. Where Katryna was thin and wiry, Hook was even more so—almost to the point of looking something akin to a skeleton with skin. His clothes hung from his frame, and his gaunt features lent his grin a demonic quality. Scars covered what little of his skin was exposed, the grim collage dominated by a long, ugly one that ran from his left eyebrow to his right cheek. “What are you looking at, wretch?” Will snarled, and Hook burst out laughing—a strange, wheezy, guttural sound punctuated perfectly by the wagging stump of his severed tongue. After a moment Will started laughing too, and he punched Hook playfully in the shoulder, wincing as his raw knuckles made contact.

  “You men are strange,” Katryna grumbled through chattering teeth. She was kneeling now, uncoiling the extra rope from around her torso, and Will followed suit. Soon they had four more ropes dangling over the edge of the wall.

  “How many do you think we'll lose?” Will asked.

  “Six,” said Katryna. “This is a bad storm.”

  Hook considered for a moment, and then held up three bony fingers. “Only three?” Will asked with surprise. The thin man nodded emphatically. “Why so few?” Hook flexed his arms and adopted a look of grim stoicism. Will laughed. “Yeah, they're a tough bunch. I say five, though. Place a bet?”

  “Two silver marks,” Katryna said.

  With a hopeful grin, Hook pointed at Will's back—at his sword. Will reached up unconsciously to touch the blade's hilt and shook his head with a small laugh. Both sword and hammer had been crafted by Brendric Hammersong, the most renowned blacksmith in the Lower Kingdoms and possibly the whole of Pallamar. They had cost Will his entire life's savings. He would never part with them. “I don't think so, my friend,” he said with a grin, and Hook sighed and held two fingers up as well.

  “Two it is,” said Will, and they shook hands.

  The rest of the men arrived some time later in much the same condition—shaking and exhausted, and numb to the point of immobility.

  “How many is that?” Will asked when it was apparent none of the others had made it, and went to coil the ropes once more.

  Katryna did a quick head count and murmured to herself, “Fifteen—ah, damn.” With a scowl she pulled two silver marks out of a small leather satchel at her hip and tossed them at Hook. “Take them, you wretched imp,” she grumbled, and then folded her arms across her chest and turned away. Hook let loose with another gurgling laugh and extended his hand palm-up, waggling his fingers at Will, who also produced two coins and threw them along with a glare in Hook's direction. He followed the glare with one of the coils of rope, but the thin man snatched it out of the air with a chuckle before it could hit him.

  “I don't know why we keep betting against him,” Will growled as Hook picked the coins up off the ground and pocketed them. “We always lose. Always.” He shook his head and grunted his displeasure before looking around at his soldiers. A point of light off in the distance caught his attention, and he narrowed his eyes, straining to see through the storm. More guards were on their way, it seemed; the Ravens needed to hurry.

  “Right,” he said, beckoning everyone closer to him, “everyone ready?” His answer was a chorus of nods and half-hearted shrugs, the latter of which he took to be a nod's equivalent. “Alright,” he continued, “stick to the shadows, follow me, and kill anyone who sees us unless it's a civilian.” Hook gave him a questioning look, and in reply Will said, “Castor's orders.” The thin man shrugged and drew a long, curved dagger, and every other member of the party quickly followed suit; a dagger was small, fast, and quiet, which was exactly what they needed at the moment. Will drew his from a sheathe on his greave and moved off into the night, motioning for the others to follow. Soon they were gone, hidden by the sheets of rain and the roll of thunder.

  ~

  It was not long before they found their first victims—a group of four guards huddled around an oil brazier. It sputtered and spat in the rain, managing to shed a pool of light that illuminated the grumbling men and the street around them. It was, Will noticed with a twinge of annoyance, strong enough to burn away the shadows through which he and his fellows needed to pass through. Will crouched just outside of the glow as he tried to decide how to proceed, painfully aware of his steadily waning window of opportunity.

  He made a quick survey of his surroundings—they were in a narrow street lined with the dark houses of slumbering castlefolk, the shutters drawn against the rain. Can't have a scuffle, Will thought. They could scream, and that might draw the villagers out. Castor said no civilian casualties. But the storm...

  A bolt of lightning drew his gaze skyward. Yes, the storm could be their cover if they were fast enough, and Hook could easily creep around to the other side of the men undetected. Will turned to beckon the skeletal man over to him, but paused at the last moment. His eyes fell on Katryna, and an idea formed in his mind. A distraction, he decided, would make things so much easier.

  Will motioned Hook, Katryna, and another of the men forward and whispered his plan to them. Katryna, as he knew she would, giggled with delight before darting away into the shadows. The other three men moved into position behind the guards, keeping to the darkness and hiding the blades of their daggers against their arms to shield them from the light of the brazier. Hook crept around to the other side, moving on all fours in a disturbing imitation of a spider until he was poised behind the furthest guard. For a moment the brazier flared, and Will saw Hook's sallow, grinning face illuminated like an orange skull. It died away a moment later, plunging the man back into darkness.

  Will moved as close to his victim as possible, hoping with all his might that the other guards to either side would not see him, and waited. Katryna did not take long.

  She came trotting out of the rain with her cloak wrapped tightly around her, hiding her weapons from view. “Sam?” she called softly, just loud enough for the guards to hear, and they whirled around with their hands on their weapons. Katryna skidded to a halt just out of their reach. “Is that you, Sam?” she asked, squinting against the glow from the brazier.

  “Nobody named Sam here,” Will's guard said, and his hand fell slowly away from his sword. “What are you doing out in this weather?”

  Katryna adopted a look of dejection, letting her gaze fall. “Sam told me he would be here,” she said, taking a step toward them. “I had to wait until my mother and father were asleep to leave, but I came to meet him, just like he asked.”

  “Ain't Sam up on the wall?” Hook's guard murmured to one of the others.

  “If he is,” Will's murmured back, “he's missing out.” Raising his voice and plastering on what Will assumed was meant to be his best smile, the guard said, “What's your name, girl
? Come in a little closer. Mayhap one of us can help you.”

  Katryna smiled coquettishly and moved in among the men. “Kat,” she said. “My name's Kat.”

  “I'll be your Sam, Kat,” one of the guards grunted with a grin, and the others laughed. “Just come over here.”

  “It doesn't have to be Sam,” Katryna breathed, standing a mere hand's breadth from the guard closest to her. She reached out from beneath her cloak and ran her fingers along his chest. “I just wanted to have some fun. Any of you will do.”

  The guards guffawed again, and the one Katryna was touching reached out and squeezed her rear. “I like the way you think, girly,” he said. “I'll give you some fun. In fact, we all will.”

  Will had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing, and so devoted was he to containing his mirth that when another bolt of lightning flashed through the sky he nearly missed his chance to act. But the guards were momentarily blinded by the light, and Hook seized the opportunity to plunge his dagger into his target's back. The man opened his mouth to cry out, but there was no sound, and in the next instant Hook had brought him to his knees and wrenched his head sharply to the side. The snap of the guard's breaking neck was drowned out by a peal of thunder, but the kill did not go unnoticed; the remaining guards turned with stupefied stares to watch as their comrade tumbled to the ground.

  Will knew he had not a moment to spare, and he pulled one guard close, brutally wrenching the man's head back with his hand over his mouth, and slashed with his blade. He felt hot blood speckle across his hands as it jetted from the gaping maw in the man's throat and he dropped the twitching body to the ground in the same motion. The man gurgled and writhed feebly as the life spilled out of him, flooding across the cobblestones to be washed away in thin, dark ribbons by the rain.

  The familiar jolt of electric excitement coursed through Will's veins as he looked down at his blood-flecked hands. Feels good, he thought absently. Something stirred deep in his chest—stretched as though awakening from a deep sleep—and his hand went to his heart. It was pounding against his ribs, the fleshy hammer of some crazed blacksmith. He felt heady, intoxicated by the violence—

  No.

  He shook his head slightly, banishing the dark thoughts that had risen so quickly inside of him. An image flashed through his mind like lightning—a young Eastland girl standing before him, tears running down her cheeks and mingling with the tiny flecks of blood that dotted her skin—but he pushed it to the darker reaches of his thoughts as he always did. I am not a monster. Will repeated the mantra in his mind as the sounds of muffled violence reverberated around him, and when he raised his head once more, the other guards were dead.

  “Will?” Katryna asked, and when he flicked his gaze to her she was staring at him with a knowing look. Are you alright? her eyes seemed to ask.

  He turned away, ignoring the unspoken question, and said simply, “Keep moving.”

  There were several more clusters of men-at-arms on the road to the gatehouse, and each went down as easily as the first. After the third, when it became apparent that the miserable conditions had sufficiently addled their wits, Will did not have Katryna repeat her routine. It was, he decided, both simpler and faster to simply kill them without toying with them first.

  The castle gate was at the southernmost end of the fortress, and by the time they reached it Will was slathered up to his elbows in a mixture of blood and rainwater. Even the storm had trouble washing all of it away, and whenever his arms became clean for even a moment the viscous fluid simply crept out from where it had soaked into his shirt to stain his skin once more. He swiped his hand across his eyes in an effort to clear away the rain, but succeeded only in smearing diluted blood across his face. He gave up trying to wipe it away a moment later with a grumble.

  The gatehouse was dark, but surrounded by an army of guttering oil braziers that burned away his night vision and left glowing white streaks across his eyes. They made it impossible to see what could be lurking in the black depths of the building beyond, and a rush of flighty excitement went through him at the prospect of the unknown dangers. He paused for a moment, considering his options, and then he motioned for Katryna and Hook to each take a third of the men to either side of the gatehouse; the only other openings in addition to the door seemed to be two windows on either side of the building.

  Will took the remainder of the men and crept up to the front where a short ladder led to the doorway. Rather than ascending it, though, he opted instead to lift himself up onto the platform from the side and out of view of the entrance. He slid silently along the wall, crouching low to the ground, and stopped a few paces from the open door. He listened intently, trying to hear even the slightest indication that they had been detected, but the rain was too loud and the thunder and lightning were coming more quickly now. He had no way of telling how many guards were inside, and his nerves tingled with excitement at the knowledge.

  He rolled his shoulders and neck, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and waited. He listened to the pounding thunder, felt the sting of rain against his skin, smelled the oil from the braziers. It's all in your head, he thought. Let it go. A deathly calm settled over him—the familiar sensation of approaching battle that sharpened his senses and heightened his awareness—and he exhaled slowly. Now or never, he thought.

  His eyes flew open, and he signaled his men to attack. He leaped forward, the wood creaking in protest beneath his feet, and gripped the frame of the doorway, using his momentum to swing himself around the corner. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness, however, and had he not been in the act of sliding into a crouch it would have cost him his life. Instead, the longsword meant for his neck whistled barely a finger's breadth over the top of his head. He felt the breeze, could smell the oiled steel and the stink of perspiration and fear, and then his attacker grunted in surprise as his sword whistled through empty air and thunked into the door frame. The next sound to leave the guard's lips was a choked, gagging scream as the Raven behind Will stabbed the man through the throat.

  Will opened his eyes wide, straining to see through the shadows, but only darkness and strange, shifting shapes met his gaze. The firelight glinted off of metal and eyes, giving the scene a nightmarish quality as the soldiers started toward him with weapons drawn, crouched into fighting stances. Something caught Will's eye, and he saw a skeletal figure materialize in one of the window frames; it was gone a moment later, dragging a thrashing guard through the opening with it. There was a strange, gurgling cackle, and the men advancing on Will paused momentarily, their eyes widening in fear.

  It was Katryna who tore one of the braziers from its mount and threw it through her window, and suddenly the world was awash with light. The oil from the lamp began to drip to the floor, creating a pool of fire where it fell, and the flames cast a garish orange glow around the newly illuminated gatehouse. There were ten men total inside, more now that Will's companions were entering the fray, and when the light hit their eyes they flinched as though struck. Will wasted no time and pulled a second knife from his belt, leaping at the nearest guard and dodging the man's wild sword swing. He stabbed him once in the crook of his arm and once in the kidney, and then finally in the neck, twisting the knife in the man's throat and tearing it out to the side so that it opened a gaping, ragged wound that painted the walls and ceiling with blood as he fell to the floor. From there the swirling melee devolved into utter chaos, made all the stranger by the sharp shadows and demonic glow cast by the brazier and its flickering offspring in the center of the floor.

  At one point Will's dagger was torn from his grasp, and he felt a fist collide with his jaw. He spun with the blow, whirling in a complete circle and using the momentum to bring the second, smaller knife in his left hand around, slamming it into his attacker's arm. The man grunted in pain and stumbled, and Will used the opportunity to pick the brazier up and swing it repeatedly into the man's face. He felt rather than heard the crunch and squelch of ruined bone and carti
lage, and his nostrils flared at the sharp coppery smell of the blood that misted his face. When the enemy guard finally fell to the floor his face was a wet, ruined pulp of red muscle and burned flesh.

  The fight lasted no more than a few frantic moments; Will knew it was over when, screaming incoherently, he turned to attack the man next to him and found that it was Katryna. They both stopped short, he with a knife pressed to her throat and she with the point of a shortsword just piercing his leather chest armor. They stared at each other for a moment, both panting heavily, and then burst out laughing. They sheathed their weapons and Will went to retrieve his fallen dagger, which had somehow become embedded in the wall by the doorway. He surveyed the room, now covered in smears of dark blood that reflected the light from the brazier, and rubbed idly at his bruised jaw. He noticed then that the pool of fire was still burning in the middle of the floor and he heaved one of the dead guards on top of it, smothering it.

  “Well,” he said with a half-smile, turning to face Katryna, “shall we open the gate for His Eminence?” Behind him, Hook gurgled with laughter.

  ~

  Outside, pressed up against the castle wall to avoid the patrolling guards above, Castor waited silently with his men. There were a hundred in all, each one waiting with weapons drawn for the moment when they could rush through the gate and earn their pay. The weather continued to pound them mercilessly, and waiting in the wind and the rain had left them miserably cold and wet. The storm had not abated in the slightest since Will had left to scale the wall, and the lightning was coming so quickly now that it seemed as though the sun had risen early.