The Lazarus Vault

LII

A bolt of lightning splits the world from the heavens to its core. Thunder rolls over the hill and hits me like a wave. I feel weightless, snatched off the hilltop, caught in the sound. I see the whole hill, a single instant of the battle frozen in the blue-white light.

Then the light goes out. Lazar reels away screaming, clutching his side in agony. Something stings the back of my hand. I think it must be a raindrop, but when I look down I see blood. Is it Lazar’s? A little way off, a spent arrow lies on the ground. But none of Malegant’s men were archers.

Something plucks at the sleeve of my hauberk. Another arrow. I don’t know where they’re coming from, but if I don’t find cover it won’t matter. I dive behind the rock altar. Behind me, Hugh’s crouched by the stone pillar cutting the King loose. The moment he’s free, they run across and join me.

An arrow rattles off the surface of the stone. Grit rains down on us.

‘What —?’

‘Morgan’s men.’

There’s a broken shield lying on the ground behind me. I reach back and drag it to me, then lift it over my head and peer over the rock. Two arrows strike almost at once: the shield shudders as they stick in it.

The battle seems to have been decided. The only men I can see are ours. It’s a pitiful sight — of the thirty who set out, only a dozen are left, crouching under their shields as the arrows rain down. Corpses litter the ground around the fire. Some twitch as the falling arrows make redundant wounds.

I can’t see Malegant anywhere.

‘Where —?’

‘He escaped.’ Another flash of lightning seizes the hilltop. Arrows seem to hang in mid-air. The thunder follows, more slowly this time. The storm’s moving on. A cool wind brushes my cheek; I can smell rain coming.

Hugh gestures to the lance lying at my knees. Trampled in the mud, it looks like any other weapon lost on the battlefield.

‘Take that and make for the coast. We’ll follow when we can.’

‘What about the King?’

‘William can take him to Harlech — the garrison there are loyal.’

‘And you?’

Hugh wipes his sword and rises to a crouch. ‘You didn’t kill Lazar. He’s still got what we came for.’

Even with her arm shielding her face and her eyes screwed shut, Ellie saw the brightness of the flash. A white light more brilliant than anything she’d imagined, searing through her eyelids, like staring into a lightning bolt. At the same time, or so close she couldn’t tell them apart, came the loudest noise she’d ever heard — not rolling like thunder, but a single sharp clap that went straight through her skull.

She smelled smoke and opened her eyes. Most of the lightbulbs had blown, while the ones that survived cast eerie beams through the dust and grit trickling down from the ceiling. Her nose was running — when she wiped it on her sleeve, she saw blood — and her ears were ringing. She could feel fluid in them, like water trapped after a swim, and wondered if that was blood too.

Ellie looked at the door. Five figures stood there in the swirling smoke, machine guns couched in their arms and torches on their heads. She tried to raise her arms, but she was trembling so badly she couldn’t move.

One of the men stepped into the light and pulled off his head-torch. Through weeping eyes, Ellie saw the familiar, brutal contours of Destrier’s face.

‘In a puff of smoke …’ He laughed. ‘Got you at last, you bitch.’

He turned his head, as if he’d heard something down the tunnel, though Ellie couldn’t hear a thing. Even his voice sounded impossibly distant, as if the words had been poured through some viscous liquid.

A new shaft of light beamed out of the tunnel. A moment later, Blanchard stepped through the carved stone doorway, a torch in his hand. He surveyed the hall, saw Ellie and smiled. But he didn’t move. He seemed to be waiting for something else.

A wheelchair rolled into the hall and stopped. Ellie stared at the man in it. His body seemed impossibly frail — gaunt and pale as bone, his skin almost translucent with age — but the sky-blue eyes that stared at her were fixed with purpose. She wondered how badly he must covet what she had, to risk crossing the boulder field and being lowered down that narrow crevice by the waterfall.

‘Eleanor Stanton.’ The box on his throat machined out whatever humanity survived in his ravaged body. The cough that followed sounded like a death rattle. ‘You have done everything we expected.’

She realised the ring was still clenched in her fist. She opened her hand. Blanchard saw it.

‘You kept it. My ring of power.’

For the second time that day, she found herself asking, ‘Is it magic?’

Her voice sounded thick and sluggish. Blanchard gave her a pitiless grin.

‘There’s a GPS transmitter in it. A beacon, to help me find my little bird when she flies away. The battery is so small it only lasts twenty-four hours when activated, but it was enough.’

He crossed to the stone table. Beside Ellie, Leon stiffened, though the guns at the door kept him rooted to the spot. The lance still swayed gently from the explosion’s aftershock. Blanchard reached out to take it — but paused. He pulled back his hand, stepped around the table and picked up the black box out of the fireplace. He smiled at Ellie.

‘You brought it back. So thoughtful. We expected you would try and steal it — but even I didn’t think you’d succeed.’

‘Is that why you hired me — so you could use me as a pawn in your game?’

‘Surely you didn’t think we hired you for your financial expertise?’

He took the box to Saint-Lazare and laid it on the old man’s lap. Saint-Lazare’s withered arm shook, but his hand stayed firm as he pecked out a sequence from the glowing symbols on the lid. It swung open.

Blanchard looked uncertainly at the old man, who gave a curt nod. It was the first time Ellie had seen Blanchard defer to anyone. He reached in with both hands.

Rain changes the face of the battle. As it falls harder, the arrows gradually disappear. Clouds of steam billow off the dying fire, which has sunk to a bitter red glow. The roar of battle gives way to spattering water, softening the ground and puddling with the blood.

I wait until the arrows stop falling, then run out from my shelter. I find a body — it isn’t hard — and hoist him on my shoulder, then start the treacherous descent. I pray there’ll be no more lightning. I try to go quietly, but on that slope, with the full weight of a mailed knight on my back and the lance trailing from my free hand, it’s impossible.

Thirty yards down from the summit, I hear movement, the rasp of a blade being drawn. It sounds like a knife — I guess it’s one of the archers. The rocks are steep and slick, and they don’t know what’s waiting for them at the top. They’re in no hurry to storm the hill.

‘Help me!’ I shout in Welsh. ‘He’s wounded.’

He can’t see me in the dark, but my voice sounds right. I see a figure coming towards me. I walk on, muttering encouraging words to the dead man on my back.

The knife slides back in the sheath. ‘What happened?’

‘He tried to go up there.’ I let the body swing round. The archer puts his right arm under the corpse’s shoulder, taking the burden.

‘Christ, he’s heavy.’

I shrug off the body so that the full weight suddenly falls on the archer. He’s wearing armour, so I don’t try to punch him. Instead, I kick his legs from under him. He falls in a tangle with the corpse. I find the knife and whip it out of his belt. With my knee on his chest I press the blade against his neck. It would be so easy to kill him.

But too many men have died that night. Working quickly, before he recovers his wits, I take off his belt and knot his hands together. He has a cloth he uses to dry his bowstring — I stuff it in his mouth, then pull off his boots and hurl them into the darkness. It won’t hold him for long, but it’ll be enough. Finally, I take his shield.

Using the precious lance like a staff, I stumble down the mountainside. Rain drums against me. At last, the sound changes — I can hear the soft hiss of water on water. The lake. I slide down the final embankment and come out on the valley floor. The rain’s stopped; the breeze shreds the cloud. Moonlight leaks out like a wound.

I can’t see the horses. Have Morgan’s men driven them off? My whole being is close to collapse — but before I despair I hear a whinny in the trees to my right. The horses must have sought shelter there from the storm. I call, and one comes trotting obediently towards me. He’s already tacked up — we didn’t have time to remove the saddles when we arrived.

I don’t know which way the sea is, but I can hear running water. I track the sound to the far end of the lake, where a stream flows out. I follow it down a narrow gully between two hills, splashing in and out of the water.

Soon the stream grows into a small river. There’s a track beside it, easier riding. I look back, but the hilltop where we fought is hidden from view. The fire’s gone.

I let the river lead me to the sea. I know I should hurry, but a slackness has overtaken me, the let-down after the battle. I loosen the reins and let the horse find his own way. Soon enough, the earthy air takes on a new salt smell. Waves break softly ahead of me. The horse’s hooves sound silver on the sand.

I dismount and take off the saddle. The horse lies down and I lie against him, drawing his warmth, one hand resting on the lance beside me.

The night’s terrors aren’t over yet. Malegant is still out there, and Lazar, and Morgan too. I’m supposed to be guarding the lance. But I’ve barely slept in four days. I’ve ridden, clambered, fought to the end of my endurance. The hot breath of battle drains out of me, leaving me empty and limp.

I fall asleep.

Though she’d been warned, Ellie had still expected a cup — a gold chalice crusted with jewels, the image that a poet’s words had seeded into the West’s collective imagination for centuries. Instead, what Blanchard lifted out was an egg-shaped stone, about the size of a rugby ball. The stone was cloudy white, but even in the dull worklights it glittered with myriad points of light, like an infinitely multifaceted diamond. The reflected light glowed off it, making a nimbus in the dust and smoke that hung in the air.

As Blanchard turned it in his hands, Ellie saw that the tip of the stone was hollowed out into a shallow bowl, and the base was smoothed flat so it could stand upright. Blanchard carried it back to the stone table and set it down under the spear.

‘These were separated in the twelfth century,’ he murmured. ‘We’ve been waiting for this moment ever since.’

‘Why?’ Ellie asked simply.

‘The lance cuts and the stone heals. But only the spear that made the wound can cure it.’

As Blanchard spoke, Saint-Lazare’s whole body seemed to lurch forward — almost as if he were about to get up from the chair and walk. The chill of centuries touched Ellie’s cheek. She wondered how long he’d sat in that wheelchair.

Blanchard reached for the spear again. Again, Ellie sensed Leon go tense beside her. Blanchard, with his back to them, didn’t notice — but Saint-Lazare missed nothing.

‘Stop.’ His face was drawn into a fierce scowl of concentration, hard as ivory. His blue, fathomless eyes turned to Ellie.

‘You do it.’ The artificial voice, uninflected and mechanical, was pitiless. Ellie stayed rooted to the spot.

Saint-Lazare jerked his head. Destrier marched forward, grabbed Ellie by her hair and dragged her to the table.

‘Where I can see her,’ Saint-Lazare rasped.

Ellie shook Destrier off and walked to the far side of the table, facing the rest of the hall. Destrier stepped away, keeping his gun trained on Ellie.

From across the table, Blanchard gazed into her eyes. She searched his face for any trace of warmth, any last lingering affection, and saw nothing. She felt tears stinging her eyes — not for Blanchard, but for so much waste. So many mistakes she’d never be able to correct.

Blanchard misunderstood. He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry.’

Ellie looked past him to the hall beyond — like a suicide on the precipice taking one last look at the world she’d abandoned. Destrier, leering with triumph. Saint-Lazare’s skeletal face fixed on Leon, who in turn was staring at Ellie. He mouthed something to her she couldn’t understand; his eyes moved deliberately from the spear to the fireplace behind her.

Whatever he was trying to tell her, it couldn’t make any difference. She looked down at the stone grail on the table, dull and plain in Blanchard’s shadow, then up at the spear. It wasn’t one piece, but two lengths of black iron, joined in the middle by a length of burnished wood. She could see the cables suspending it now, two wires snaking down from the roof. There were no knots: the wires disappeared right into the shaft of the spear.

Ellie put both her hands on the shaft. Her fingers closed around the iron. In the wheelchair, Saint-Lazare’s eyes narrowed.

A shudder convulsed her; she felt an electric surge crackle through her body.

Then the room exploded.

I wake at dawn. It wasn’t the light that woke me, though I don’t realise that at first. Grey sand stretches away to a grey sea at low ebb; wisps of grey cloud drift across a grey sky. The only thing that breaks the grey is a boat, a cockeyed hulk stranded by the tide.

Carried on the wind, I hear a sound — the clop of hooves on the shingle at the top of the beach. I leap to my feet, though it’s clear at once that there’s no danger. The rider’s slumped over his reins, nodding as if asleep. He’s kept hold of his lance, but it trails behind him like an oar. The horse isn’t much better — he weaves and sways like a drunk as he ambles on to the sand.

My first thought is that he’s no threat. My second thought is that he must be close to death. Then I realise it’s Hugh.

I run across and grab the bridle. I try to lift him down, but he won’t move: he’s looped his belt around the cantle of his saddle to hold him in place. I unhook him and pull him free. There’s a deep gash in his arm and another in his side, black wounds cut through his armour. I unlace his helmet. He squints at me, as if even that grey day is too bright.

‘Chrétien?’

‘Did you get it?’

A look of agony crosses his face. ‘Lazar escaped. I tried to follow, but Malegant found me.’

‘What about the others? Anselm, Beric …?’

‘All dead.’

I stroke the hair back from his face. There’s a flask of water in my horse’s saddlebag: I fetch it, and pour some in his mouth.

There’s no way we’ll ride out of there. Even if I tied him back on his mount, he wouldn’t last five miles. I cut off his hauberk and wrap him in one of the horse blankets. He still weighs as much as a pony. I lift him in my arms and stagger down the beach to the boat. Ribbons of weed hang off the hull; some of the planks have warped, but there’s a pair of oars, a mast and a sail.

It’s all I can manage to heave Hugh over the side and lay him in the bottom of the boat. I put the lance beside him. He feels it, and gives a grimace.

‘At least they didn’t get that.’

I put my shoulder to the boat’s transom and make a halfhearted effort to push it into the water. It doesn’t budge. It’s too heavy for one man, and the sand holds it firm. I think about tying the horses to it, but I don’t have a harness and I’d probably just break their necks.

I clamber back into the boat and kneel beside Hugh. I tell him how we’ll wait for the tide to come in and then sail away. I don’t know if he understands. His eyes are glazed; he barely knows me.

It wasn’t like the stun grenade. That had been over in a heartbeat — a flash and a crack, then nothing but blindness and the ringing in her ears. This time it happened in slow motion: a percussive boom rumbling down from the roof, a torrent of sound that started loud and grew and grew until it was almost a solid presence, driving the air out of the room. She glimpsed flashes above and blooms of smoke, felt the first pieces of debris falling on her like knives. The floor shook.

She scooped the stone off the table and dived into the fireplace. The noise grew again, battering her; for a split second she saw the whole roof of the hall descending like a cloud, and Michel Saint-Lazare under it, powerless to move.

The world went black. She covered her head with her hands and curled in a ball around the stone; she felt her body being punched and kicked from every side, until the blows were so many they became indistinguishable. The world melted around her — sound and stone and flame became one roiling, furious mass pounding against her.

She couldn’t say how she knew it was over. She couldn’t even say she knew she was alive — only that she could identify some spark of life inside her, battling through the suffocating weight of numb flesh and bruises. She could feel something smooth and round and hard against her stomach, and that gave her confidence. She cracked open her eyes.

There was light. That gave her hope. She opened her eyes more; she tried to turn her head and found that she could. She looked around.

She was lying in the fireplace, half-buried under a cascade of earth and rubble that had spilled through from the hall. The fireplace itself seemed mostly intact, though a number of bricks had shaken loose from the chimney. She looked up. There was no light at the top of the chimney, but a hole gaped in the back wall where a cluster of bricks had been knocked out. Behind it she could see space — and light. It was a dim, dirty sort of light, but natural, not generated or kindled. Daylight.

She dug herself free. The hearth was so big, the chimney so wide, she could easily stand up in it. She found a piece of rubble and used it to hammer at the bricks, knocking them out one by one. The explosion had shaken the mortar loose: they came easily. Soon she had a hole big enough to crawl through. She posted the grail-stone through, then put her hands on the lip to haul herself up. She winced. Her hands were a bloody mess of scrapes and bruises. Two fingers seemed to have been crushed.

She heard a noise behind her, the rattle of shifting debris. Beyond the fireplace the whole hall was a symphony of ruination: sighs and clatters, cracks and bangs as the rubble shifted and settled. But this sounded closer. She looked down.

A hand had emerged from the mound of earth. She was sure it hadn’t been there a second earlier. It twisted around, blackened fingers scrabbling at the rubble. The earth shuddered, and a second hand came out beside it. The gold bracelet of a Cartier watch gleamed on the wrist.

Ellie snatched at the wall and tried to haul herself up. The bricks wobbled under her grip; for a moment she thought they might bring down the whole chimney on top of her. Her arms burned, but she swallowed the pain and heaved. Broken stones cascaded behind her as Blanchard rose out of the rubble; something snatched at her foot, but she kicked free.

She flopped through the wall, landed awkwardly and rolled away. She was in some kind of stairwell, tumbling down the steps. She threw out an arm to stop herself, but before she could get a purchase she landed at the bottom with a bump. New shoots of agony ripped through her.

She pulled herself to her feet. A thin layer of earth carpeted the stairs, but otherwise they were clear. The daylight she’d seen seemed to be coming from above, though the tight-wound spiral hid its source.

She had to get there.

She picked the grail-stone off the floor where it had landed and began to climb. The light was barely clear enough to see by; some stairs were missing, others buried where lumps of the wall had fallen in. Her trouser legs tore open. Blood poured from the grazes in her skin, coagulating with dust and grit.

She reached a landing and paused. Her chest ached — she thought she might have broken a rib — and every breath hurt. She bent double to squeeze out the pain, listening to the sound of her breathing.

It wasn’t all she could hear. Quick footsteps rose out of the darkness below — not running, but faster than she could manage. A weary tremor ran through her body.

She went on.

The air grew brighter and cleaner, drawing her up. The footsteps were getting close, but she hardly heard them: she was trapped in an ever-ascending world of her own, concentrating on the pain to keep despair at bay.

And suddenly she was there. She rounded the final turn and came out at the top of the tower. She stared.

After so long underground, the daylight was strange and foreign. The sun was setting behind the clouds, throwing a blood-red light over the landscape. Her eyes took a moment to adjust. When they did, the sight was still incredible.

She was standing on the top of a stone tower, dug into the side of the hill. Behind her, she could see shrubs and trees poking over the edge of an escarpment only a few feet higher than the tower itself. In front of her, there was only space. The collapsing hall had brought down half the hillside, exposing the tower and leaving an enormous crater in front of it. A few pieces of masonry were visible, but most of the hall lay buried under the earth. Uprooted trees lay strewn across the surface.

Laboured footsteps climbed out of the staircase behind her. She heard heavy breathing, a pained sigh, then the clean, metallic sound of a bolt being snapped. She didn’t look back.

‘It’s quite a sight,’ Blanchard said.

‘Is that … what the lance does?’

Blanchard gave a ragged laugh. Reluctantly, Ellie turned to face him. His white hair had become a crazed, mud-streaked tangle; his face and arms were a welter of cuts, and his clothes were shredded. A gaping wound across his cheek oozed blood; his right arm hung limp and useless. The only clean thing about him was the small pistol he gripped in his left hand, incongruously black and shiny.

‘The lance was a lure — a decoy to trap us. Your friend, I think, rigged a detonator to it. When you touched both ends, your body completed the circuit.’

Ellie remembered the scaffolding, the wires running from the generator. ‘The roof …’

‘Explosives.’

A fit of coughing overtook him. The gun shook dangerously in his hand. He spat out a gob of blood.

‘The lance was a fake.’ He pointed to the white stone cradled to her chest. ‘That, I’m afraid, is the real thing.’

Ellie had almost forgotten she was holding it. Instinctively, she pulled it closer, hugging it to her like a child.

‘You did more than I ever expected, Ellie. More than your father — more than all these idiots have managed for centuries. But you cannot keep it.’

His broken lips twisted into a ghastly smile, encouraging her.

She almost gave it to him. But Blanchard’s words bothered her. More than your father. She thought of him, the man she knew only from photographs, run down in a tunnel trying to rescue the stone she now held in her hands. She thought of her mother’s long years of stoic widowhood and her lonely death, imprisoned in Blanchard’s hospital. She thought of Doug. After everything she’d done, she was glad she hadn’t brought him here.

She gripped the grail-stone tighter. ‘No.’

Blanchard nodded. ‘I understand.’

He shot her.

There’s no time on that beach. No sun or shadow, no church bells: only grey stillness and the lap of waves. The glassy tide never seems to move.

I examine the lance. I still can’t tell what it’s made off. It feels like stone, though surely stone would have shattered by now. Strange designs run along the shaft, engraved so finely I can barely feel the groove with my fingertip. I carry it down to the sea and wash Lazar’s blood off the tip.

A tremor goes up my arm, a twitch like an adder. Maybe it was a muscle spasm, but I think it came from the lance. I put it back in the boat and cover it with the edge of the blanket.

Power pools in deep reservoirs, Hugh said. It accrues in people, but also in objects. If there are powers invested in the lance, I don’t think they’re good ones.

The day goes on. To kill time, I saw through the hawser that ties the boat to a rock. Hugh’s sword is so blunt it can barely cut the fibres: I find a whetstone in his saddlebag and sharpen it. An easterly wind is blowing down from the mountains, but Hugh’s face is glossy with sweat. His brow’s hot to the touch. I fetch the flask, but it’s empty.

We’ll need more water if we put to sea.

We’re not far from the river estuary — but I daren’t go far unarmed. I strap on my armour and saddle my horse. I take the Welshman’s shield, and Hugh’s spear and sword. I leave the precious lance covered in the boat with Hugh. The tide’s finally reached it. Waves race up to the hull, but they sink away almost immediately. I think it’ll be an hour or more before there’s enough to float it.

I trot over the sand dunes to the riverbank. The water’s brackish, the flask isn’t nearly big enough, but it’ll have to do. I try to fill my helmet, but it leaks out through the rivets. I stare at myself in the river: gaunt, bloodied, filthy and lined with cares. This wasn’t the sort of knight I dreamed of being. If my eight-year-old self saw me now, he’d run in terror.

Flies dance over the reflection, as if picking over a corpse. I put on my helmet and mount my horse one last time. The tide suddenly seems to be coming in faster: I don’t want it to carry away the boat without me. I spur to the top of the dunes and look down.

The boat’s still there — but it’s not alone. A horse is cantering along the beach, a black horse with a black rider. He sees me and halts.

‘Peter.’

The wind blows the name back at him. Giant though he is, the strain in his voice is obvious. He’s been riding and fighting at least as hard as I have.

I ease my horse down the dune and trot out on to the beach. A bowshot away from him, I stop. Waves crash on the shore; the wind snaps at the horse’s mane. We might be the last two men on earth. We lower our spears.

Malegant pricks his spurs. I’m not wearing any, but my horse knows what to do. We charge together, as fast as our horses can manage. The wind sings in my face. I couch my spear and tilt it across the horse’s neck; I crouch in my stirrups, knees bent, head forward, just the way Gornemant taught me.

The collision is immense. Against Malegant’s lance, the archer’s shield isn’t worth two bits of bark. It doesn’t even deflect the blow — the point carries on, cuts through my chain mail and slices open my arm, just missing the muscle. Malegant gallops on, his momentum tearing the shield off my arm. He almost pulls me off with it.

I’m shaking; I can barely hold on to my spear. But I have to get around before Malegant does. I haul the reins in, dragging the horse. This is why they call it the tourney — only now we’re not fighting for ransoms or glory.

I’m fast — but Malegant can match me, and I don’t have a shield any more. We start closer for the second charge, but the horses are slower: it seems to take an age to come together. Plenty of time to dodge Malegant’s lance, though it means my own strike barely touches him.

We wheel again. Now we’re so close there’s no need to charge. We hammer at each other, blunt bodyblows without the power to pierce armour. My foot comes loose from my stirrup; my saddle starts to slip. I feel the girth snap. But my blows are beginning to tell too: Malegant’s having just as much trouble staying upright. He slides back, his spear goes up; I see my chance and lunge, catching him high on the shoulder. He falls backwards out of the saddle and thumps down on the sand.

But the motion unbalances me too. Before I can press home the advantage, the saddle slips round. I dive off, rolling away so as not to be dragged under the horse.

We both leap to our feet and draw our swords. To buy time, and gather my breath, I shout, ‘What was I to you?’

Under the helmet, Malegant’s lips draw back in a sneer. ‘Nothing.’

‘Why did you take me to the Île de Pêche?’

‘To kill you.’

‘Why me?’

‘Unfinished business.’ He laughs. ‘I’d already killed the rest of your family.’

Afterwards, I’ll always wonder if that was true — or just a lie told to provoke me. It certainly has that effect. Numb and dazed from the blows I’ve sustained, I don’t question it. I’m ten years old again, back in the burning compound of my father’s home. And like the boy I was, all I want to do is attack.

No fight is pretty, but this is worse than most. We’re exhausted from last night’s battle, and from the blows we’ve already traded. I lumber towards him across the sand. I swing at him, miss; he steps away, then scythes his sword at my helmet. I duck. Not soon enough: the blow catches it on the crown, snaps the laces and whips it off. My head’s ringing like a bell. He raises his sword to split my bare skull. Instinctively, I throw up my shield arm

But I don’t have a shield. I catch his blow hard on my forearm. The bone snaps; the arm hangs limp and twisted. Blood drips through the links of my armour and drizzles like rain on the sand. Under my sleeve I can feel the bone sticking out through my skin. When I try to move it, the splintered bone catches in the chain mail: I scream so hard I almost faint. Malegant laughs.

And yet, and yet — I still have the arm. His sword should have cut clean through — bone, armour and all. The blow was certainly strong enough.

His sword’s blunt: it lost its edge in the night’s battle and he hasn’t sharpened it. My blade is keen and well honed.

The pain brings clarity. I stagger backwards, my sword dangling from my good arm, as if I no longer have the strength to hold it. Malegant sees his chance and comes after me. He’s as tired as I am and desperate to finish me quickly. I slow down; I start to totter. He quickens his pace and aims for my skull.

But though my body’s swaying, my legs are firmly planted. Suddenly I kick off, launching myself forward: my sword comes up. He runs straight on to the blade. All I have to do is hold it firm and let his momentum do the rest.

The point pierces his armour and opens up his belly. He swings his sword, but I’m too close; there’s no momentum behind the blow, and the blade’s too dull to cut me.

I stand back, put my boot against his groin and pull the blade free. Blood leaks from his stomach, but he’s still on his feet. A second blow slashes his helmet, smashing the nose-guard in to his mouth and breaking three teeth. He drops to the ground.

I cut the laces on his helmet and pull it free. He’s still resisting me. A knife’s appeared in his hand; he staggers to his knees. He no longer looks dangerous — just pathetic.

I grip my sword like an axe and swing. The strength comes: the neck severs. His head rolls down the beach and comes to rest just below the tide mark, rocking gently. At my feet, his open corpse pumps blood on to the sand.

Ellie had thought she was immune to pain. For a second, she didn’t feel the bullet at all. Then the pain exploded through her side. She collapsed to the ground, shielding the stone with her body, while her blood gushed over it. Through the agonised haze she was dimly aware of Blanchard crouching on top of her, trying to wrestle her off. His polished, urbane mask was gone: he clawed and tore at her like a frenzied animal.

The ground shook again, though she didn’t see what had caused it. Blanchard didn’t look up.

A tall figure, silhouetted against the red sky, pulled Blanchard away from Ellie. Blanchard spun around. She saw Doug’s face and cried out, though perhaps it was just a dream brought on by death. The gun came up.

Doug had seen it. Before Blanchard could fire, Doug dropped his shoulder and charged into him. Blanchard doubled over, stumbled back, and–

Flat on the ground, Ellie didn’t see him fall. She just heard his scream echo off the valley, then die away.

Hugh lies straight in the bottom of the boat, his arms folded across the sword on his chest, his eyes closed. I lean down and whisper in his ear, ‘We saved the King. We got the lance.’

He doesn’t hear me. He’ll never hear anything again. With clumsy, inexpert hands, I step the mast and rig the sail. It’s poorly done, but it’s enough. The wind catches the canvas and carries us out to sea.