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Breia’s knees turned to water. She stumbled back against the wall. The Golem’s eyes, deep holes of darkness in a ridged, bony face, stared straight at her. She panted, ashamed to hear a sob at the end of each breath.
“Breia!” Terrano shouted, but she could only stare into the soulless eyes, seeing in their depths the deaths of each victim. The Golem’s face rippled. In quick succession, she saw the features of those she had killed. The last, the young whore she had smothered, stared at her in mute appeal. “Breia! Look away!” Suddenly beside her, Terrano gripped her chin, forced her face from the Golem. Cringing and trembling, she stared into his eyes, blue and alive, his brows drawn in fierce intensity.
Tagrin leaped at the Golem’s back. His longknife flashed at the corded neck. Terrano pushed Breia behind him. “Tag, no! Get clear…” Before he could complete the warning, the Golem reached behind its head with both huge fists. It grasped Tagrin by the head and pulled him over one shoulder. Tagrin roared and struggled, slashing wildly with his knife. Wherever the blade cut, the gray-green flesh melded together, leaving no evidence of harm. The Golem raised its head, looked straight at Terrano and snapped Tagrin’s neck like a dry stick.
“Tag…” Breia choked on the word. Tagrin’s limp body fell from the Golem’s grasp and disappeared beneath the foundations. Hex staggered toward them, his mouth twisted with grief and rage. Terrano pulled Hex beside him. “Don’t look at its eyes,” he rasped. “It’ll paralyze you until it can reach you. Hex!” He shook the dark man. “Grieve for Del later.”
Hex stared at Terrano. Without warning, he launched himself at the still-emerging Golem. Terrano cursed. Hex’s guttural battle cry was cut short. His sword fell, knocked away by a fist the size of a man’s head. The Golem’s other hand crushed Hex’s throat, lifted his body, and threw it at the wall above Breia’s head. She didn’t turn when it landed in a sickening thud behind her.
The Golem braced its hands on each side of the yard-wide rift. Its shoulders bulged and hunched. The stone groaned. The gap widened.
“It needs all of us to free itself entirely,” Terrano murmured urgently. “Seven, each with the blood of ten on their hands. Seventy and seven: the arcane key.” He glared up at their left. Breia looked. The mage appeared to be in a trance.
“How could you know that?” Terror thickened her voice.
Terrano threw her a sideways glance. “A little priestess told me.”
The Golem heaved one huge knee from the rift, but its hips remained wedged. The rotting-meat stench of its breath blasted Breia with each frustrated roar.
“Donell, are you hurt?” Terrano leaned past Breia. Donell’s ragged breathing belied his calm expression.
“No. What do you have in mind?” He drew his brows over coal-dark eyes. Terrano gazed up above their heads. Sweat trickled from his temple. The Golem bellowed.
“The window we saw from outside. It must be above us, but boarded up.”
Donell edged along the wall to where the fake treasure chest rested. Free now of illusion, its weight had returned to normal. He pulled it back to them and climbed atop it. Terrano mounted beside him, pulled two short daggers from his belt and handed them to Breia. “It’s up to you, Princess.” He and Donell clasped each other’s wrists and held their makeshift step ready for her foot. Misery rose in her throat. She could only nod dumbly and tuck the knives into her own belt. Behind her, the Golem thumped a mighty arm on the floor, trembling the walls. It heaved and reached, its fingers only inches from Donell’s legs.
“Cara
“Don’t look,” he breathed, but she did. Twisting and screaming, Donell clawed at the stone. The Golem gripped his lower leg and drew him toward the fissure.
Breia closed her eyes and fumbled with the clasp of her mantle. Pulling it free, she laid it around Terrano’s shoulders and clipped it across his chest.
The fabric swirled and settled around his body, adjusting to his shape. He blinked and frowned, but held his hands ready for her. She set one foot in his palms and pressed her mouth to his. He boosted her high. She stepped onto his shoulders. He braced himself against the wall and raised his hands, and when she stepped onto them, pushed her higher. She wobbled and stabbed at the wood above her with one dagger. Below, the Golem roared a foul-breathed blast. The stone cracked loudly. Her blade struck metal. Weeping with frustration, she stabbed again, but higher. The wood splintered. The knife sank to the hilt into bark-thin veneer, then tore down and lodged on a metal bar with a dull clunk.
Terrano gasped a curse. She felt him twist beneath her. Not daring to look, she tore through the wooden fascia with the second dagger and heaved herself up. Dropping the first knife, she drove her fist through the shattered wood and gripped the bar behind it. She swung one leg up and kicked in a toehold, pulled the remaining dagger free, and stabbed it higher. Within moments, she clung to the iron-barred window with both hands, and both feet stood firmly on the metal rungs.
She looked up. The Necromancer stood, trancelike, still braced in the exit to the slide. She looked down. Terrano flattened his back into the wall and flinched away from the Golem’s reaching fingers. His face ran with sweat. He fumbled at the mantle’s clasp with one hand.
“Tee, no!” she screamed at him. “Forget the mantling! It’s a Flame Guard’s cape-a Mantle of Exclusion.” Seeing the dawning understanding in his eyes, she continued her heaving climb, gasping for breath, her shoulders burning with effort. Reaching the top of the window, she balanced carefully, then inched her hands up the wall toward the struts that supported the step to the tower’s exit.
Contact. Her raw fingertips closed over the strut. She closed her eyes and swallowed. A loud curse from below and the tremble of the walls powered her tired arms into a prodigious heave. Inch by inch, she hauled herself up until her chin reached the step. At the end of her strength, she hooked an elbow over the small platform, colliding with the Necromancer’s feet. Horrified, she clung to the step. A fall would mean certain death.
His lips moved in a continual mutter, but he did not register her presence. She glanced down and saw the pallor of Terrano’s upturned face. And the Golem, one thigh remaining in the rift, one giant knee now braced on the stone floor. Fresh panic fueled her. By the Divine Witch, let the Mantle’s power be true, and not just myth. Her toes scrabbled against the rough wood paneling, providing just enough propulsion for her to drag herself up in front of the mage’s feet. The tower shook. Breia wormed past the Necromancer and thrust herself through the exit. Holding on to each side of the doorway, she drew her knees to her chest, screamed a foul curse, and shot her legs out.
Her boots caught the mage behind his thighs. His arms flew up. He crumpled forward and fell in a billow of indigo robes. Breia spun and pushed herself out into the chute, desperate to reach Terrano before the Golem could. Night air rushed past her cheeks and whined in her ears. Faster she slid, and faster still. Her eyes watered; fear for Terrano trembled her whole body. The dizzying spiral ride ended in a tumble headlong into cold mud.
Rolling to her feet, she sprinted around the tower to the door. There was no sound. All evidence of their dreadful ordeal lay sealed inside the tower, no doubt concealed by the Necromancer’s art. Reaching the door, she pulled on the heavy latch. The screech of metal on metal set her teeth on edge. Heaving her whole weight against the lever, she groaned in relief when it lifted with a sullen clank. The door itself was solid. Bracing a foot against the outer wall, she strained to pull it open. It swung slowly outward.