The Wheel of Osheim (The Red Queen's War 3)

“The lichkin is here.” I’d intended it to be a resigned announcement but it emerged more as a squeaking whisper.

“The what?” Bonarti Poe looked as frightened as a man could be of something he knew nothing about.

“A bad thing,” I said.

By the sound of it the lichkin hadn’t come at the head of a breakthrough from the gate. The death-scream was too scattered and too quiet for that. Even so, there were many of the dead and the lichkin on its own was a thing to fear. In Hell a single lichkin had defeated Snorri ver Snagason in moments.

My chair seemed suddenly less comfortable, more like an anchor holding the lamb for the slaughter. The illumination from the new king’s candles and lamps seemed to grow more dim by the moment, as if a second sunset were upon us, one that cared nothing for the works of men, only that the light must die. Shadows lengthened and grew darker, twitching with possibility.

And then the lichkin drew near. I could almost taste it through the outer wall of Milano House, stalking the night. Colours died, shade by shade, leaving the room subdued, and a great sorrow fell across us, blacker than the blackest of black dog days—the certainty that joy had fled and nothing would ever be right in the world again.

It lasted an age, but at last the sensation lifted by degrees. Poe’s weeping quieted to a deep heaving. The oppression eased enough for me to wonder how bad it must have been for the men out there in the dark with just the feeble illumination of torch and moon between them and that stalking horror. It had been terrible even when safe in the light, comfort, and security of the house.

A death-scream right below the window answered my question and made me lurch in my chair so badly it nearly tipped over. Men had died out there from sheer terror, and now they tore at their living comrades, spreading horror and panic.

Glancing about me, I saw that the curtains had developed grey patches where the material had rotted. The brass handles on the doors held a tarnished look. All of us, prisoners and guards alike, looked aged, as if we’d spent a week without sleep.

“We need to get out of here. We need to get out of here. We need—”

A skinny lord with a wispy moustache leapt to his feet, yanking at the chain restraining him. He’d turned the chair over and had managed to tug the chain from the leg before the guards beat him down. “Shut it! Just shut it!” One of the guardsmen in the struggle gained his feet, raw-knuckled from punching Lord Wispy in the jaw. He looked more scared than the fallen prisoner, the deep-set eyes in his piggy face as haunted as if they’d seen the butcher coming for his bacon. The sounds of fighting and panic reached us from outside. Screaming, both from the hungry dead and the terrified living, rang out toward the front of the house. We heard shutters splinter in the chamber next to us. “The windows! Barricade the windows!” I stood up, lifted my chair, releasing the chain from around its leg, and walked with it toward the curtains. None of the guards moved to stop me: instead they looked about for anything that might aid the effort.

I reached to help two guardsmen struggling with a heavy cabinet, the treasured pottery within spilling from its many shelves. Nobody commented on the fact that the chain on my wrist now hung loose, no longer tethering me to my seat. I helped with a suit of armour and its stand then moved off to get something else to use . . . and carried on going.

The sounds of the fight outside were terrifyingly familiar. If I closed my eyes I could have been back at the Appan Gate. New sounds close by of breaking glass and splintering wood lent a little more pace to my escape. I wasn’t sure quite how far I’d been dragged after being taken from the throne room, nor in which direction to head in order to leave the building. I wasn’t even entirely sure I wanted to go outside. I opened one door onto a library, not huge, but lined with books from floor to ceiling. The windows were uncurtained—half a dozen tall, narrow arches, each sealed with a dozen plates of puddle-glass, leaded together. As I moved to pull the door closed blood splattered the entirety of each window, save the top-most panes. A wave of it breaking against the building.

Despair washed over me, then lessened as the lichkin moved away again, tracking down more victims outside the house.

I slammed the door, turned, and saw Hertet hurrying down the corridor toward me, the crown askew upon his head. A group of knights followed at his back. His gaze slid across me unregistering, his face deathly pale. I noticed his cloth-of-gold robe bore a scarlet splatter across the middle as if someone had been gutted in front of him. I flattened myself to the door to let them by.

“It wants the key!” I shouted as he passed me. I’m not sure why I said it. Hertet stopped, seeing me for the first time. “Jalan. Reymond’s boy.”