The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War 2)

Guardian leapt to intervene, as if driven by a single huge and coiled spring he shot in beneath the blow, narrowly missing taking my head off, and drove into the newcomer’s chest. Both went tumbling across the stone floor, their progress arrested by a crunching impact with the opposite wall. They rose, locked in combat, each gripping the other’s hands and straining to break some vital part.

“We should help Guardian.” Hennan said it with conviction but made no move to do anything.

“We should get to Snorri and Tuttugu while we still can,” I said, although “we should run away while we still can” very nearly came out instead. I grabbed the boy and pushed him back onto the stairs. Behind us the two metal combatants thrashed around with no concern for bystanders. A wild kick from Guardian knocked a chunk of stone nearly as big as my head from the corner where the cell passage led off and sent it ricocheting off the walls. I couldn’t tell who was winning but although the tower-soldier was the larger of the two, Guardian had been fully wound for the first time in centuries and the extra strength that bought him soon began to make itself told. Metal strained against metal, joints creaked, reinforcing bars groaned under the pressure, and gears ratcheted up through their cycles.

“Jal!” Hennan tugging at me.

A rivet from the tower-soldier’s armour shot free and hit the arch above my head, pulverizing a small piece of the stonework. Taking my cue, I ducked back and hurried past the boy, off up the stairs.

The fourth floor had a different smell to it, a stench of blood and vomit. You couldn’t miss it, not even with a broken nose. On the jailer’s station downstairs a truncheon and lantern had hung; on this level manacles, ropes and gags depended from various pegs in addition to the usual tools of the trade. This floor had more to it than just wasting away people’s lives in small stone boxes. Here they hurt people. Every piece of me wanted to run—it felt as though I were voluntarily putting myself into Cutter John’s care. A sharp metallic retort echoed up the stairwell as some vital part of one of the soldiers surrendered to the pressures mounting against it.

“We should check the cells.” Hennan, stepping forward. “Find Snorri and Tutt.” He’d never seen the horrors I’d seen, never been tied to a table and visited by Maeres Allus. Also he wasn’t a coward. The short sword trembled in my grip, feeling too heavy, and awkward. Every piece of me wanted to flee, but somehow the sum of them stepped forward on uncertain legs, pushing Hennan behind me. A small voice behind my eyes cut through the baying panic—without Snorri at my side I wouldn’t get far out of the city, perhaps not even past the reach of the Tower’s shadow. When I reasoned it as a more forward-looking version of running for the hills my legs seemed better prepared to play their role.

I went to the jailer’s station and took the lantern from its hook. The jailers had left in a hurry, perhaps gathering together on the top floor to make a stand. If so I hoped they stayed there. If they found their courage and came down in a group I’d be sunk. I made a quick check for any sign of jailers or guardsmen then unlocked the door to the cell corridor. The stink lay thicker here, sharp with something new and unpleasant . . . a burnt smell.

Hennan tried to rush on ahead. I held him back. “No.” And advanced, short sword out before me, lantern in the other hand, sending the blade’s shadow dancing across the walls.

“Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen.” Hennan read the numbers from above the doors. I didn’t know if he could read but his grandfather had at least taught him the Roman number runes.

“Watch the corridor for me,” I told him. I didn’t know what waited beyond the door but it probably wasn’t something he needed to see.

“It’s dark!” Hennan waved an arm at the gloom.

“So watch for a light!” I turned from him, held my lantern up, out of my line of sight, and placed the key into the lock. It fitted perfectly as always, almost eager to turn. With the door unlocked I returned the key to my pocket and drew the short sword I’d stolen. Edris could be waiting on the other side. The door creaked as I pushed it and the stink hit me immediately, a sewer stench, laced with vomit and decay, together with smoke and an awful aroma of burned meat.

Tuttugu looked smaller in death than he had in life. The weight that he’d carried across frozen tundra and wild oceans despite meagre rations seemed to have dropped from him in less than a week in the Tower. They’d torn away his beard leaving just scraps of it here and there amid raw flesh. He lay upon the table they had tortured him on, still bound hand and foot, the marks of the iron on his arm, belly, thighs. The brazier still smoked, three irons with cloth-wrapped handles jutting from its small basket of coals. They’d been ready, waiting for the authorization, and set to work immediately.