Druids Sword by Sara Douglass

The promise, Jack.

“I don’t have all the bands,” he said.

Catling’s face twisted. “I think you do. I think you’re just saving them for the right moment to use against me.”

“For gods’ sakes—”

The promise, Jack.

“I need to speak with Noah. She will need to agree.”

“Make sure she understands. Make sure she understands her little girl is going to be in agony every moment she delays. Make sure she knows that there are many more I can kill the longer you delay. All these deaths, as Grace’s agony, are your responsibility, Jack.”

And then Catling was gone and the fireman was back, his eyes blinking in confusion.

Grace came to slowly. She fought against waking because the pain was so bad. It wasn’t like the agony caused by Catling. In some measure she’d grown accustomed to that, and had inured herself against it, but the weight of tons of rubble on your chest and crushing your legs was so different, so final, that Grace didn’t think she could bear it. This was not something she need endure until Catling grew tired of it, this was something she’d need to endure until someone physically came along and pulled the weight of the rubble off her.

And all Grace could think about was that “the rubble” consisted of at least five storeys of blank walls and featureless windows, and that “pulling it off her” was going to take many hours, maybe even days.

She started to sob, then stopped the instant the rucking of her chest caused her such distress she almost fainted again.

Then, suddenly, miraculously, she felt Matilda’s face move under her outstretched fingers.

Noah sat on a pile of bricks to one side of the ambulance. Her arms and legs were bandaged, and she had plasters over her forehead and one cheek.

Her eyes were dull.

Weyland stood by her, his eyes shifting between Noah and the emergency workers now crawling uselessly over the mountain of rubble.

Jack walked over, every step dragging.

He sat on the ground next to Noah, avoiding looking at Weyland’s face.

“Catling,” he said, needing to say no more.

Noah gave a soft cry. “Why? Why now?”

“She says she will keep Grace trapped until we agree to complete her. Until we ‘come up with a date’.”

Weyland muttered an expletive, turning his face away.

Noah began to cry. “Jack…Ecub and Erith are dead.”

Jack stared at Noah, unable to speak. No wonder he’d been so consumed by an awareness of death.

Ecub and Erith. They’d been through so much together, and when he’d been Louis, they’d been his lovers.

“Matilda is still alive,” he said. “She is still alive.”

Noah swallowed, the movement making her wince in pain. “But she is close to death, Jack. I’m sorry.”

Jack’s hands sank into his face. Grace was suffering, yes, but Catling had ensured that Noah and he would suffer as badly.

He wiped at his eyes, his hand trembling. “When you say ‘dead’, Noah, how dead is that?”

“They won’t come back, Jack. I don’t know how Catling has managed it, but she has cut their ties, not only to life, but to us and to this land. They’re gone completely.”

Jack gave a low cry and buried his face in his hands. No! And Matilda hovered close to death. No…not Matilda.

After a moment he raised his head, and reached out to take one of Noah’s hands.

“Matilda!” Grace croaked. “Please, please, answer me.”

She felt an exhalation of breath, and perhaps a groan, but it was enough.

“Matilda!”

Another groan, and Grace felt the woman’s face contort under her fingers. The movement caused her to scrape her wrist across a piece of rubble. It wasn’t much of a movement, but it was enough for Grace to suddenly remember her diamond bands.

“Oh, gods,” she whispered. Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods…

Surely she had enough ability left to dredge the diamond bands to life? Grace closed her eyes and concentrated with everything she had. Surely she could manage this at least? This tiny bit of magic?

There was a faint flicker of light which Grace felt rather than saw. She opened her eyes.

The diamonds had appeared about her right wrist, the only one free of the rubble, and they now faintly illumed the space in which she and Matilda lay.

Grace was initially overwhelmed with relief that she’d managed it, and then relief was instantly swamped with horror as she realised just how dreadful was her and Matilda’s situation.

They lay in an air pocket within the rubble roughly eight inches high and some four feet long. The entire space sloped downwards, probably following the line of the stairs, with Grace lying at its upper limit and Matilda further down. Both of their bodies were buried within the rubble; only the left half of Matilda’s face was showing, while Grace at least had her entire head and one arm free.

What little part of their flesh showed was covered in pulverised brick dust and small pieces of rubble and marked here and there with drying rivulets of blood.

Matilda’s left eye blinked, once, slowly, then again.

“Matilda?” Grace whispered. “Matilda?”

“Oh, Grace,” Matilda managed to whisper. “What are you doing here?”

A policeman came over to Jack, Noah and Weyland. Weyland had slumped down on the ground beside Noah and Jack, each of the men holding one of Noah’s hands.

Jack looked up at the man, wondering if it were truly a policeman, or Catling come to taunt them.

But it was just a young, ashen-faced constable. “Madam? Gentlemen? My sergeant sent me over. Do you know anyone inside the building?”

Noah made an incoherent sound, and it was Weyland who answered. “Our daughter is in there,” he said. “Grace Orr. And three dear friends.” He gave the constable their names.

“Why hasn’t anyone got them out yet?” said Jack, standing up. “Do you want a hand?”

“Sir,” said the constable, “we’re doing everything we can. All available emergency workers have been called in. But…it is difficult. The shelter was in the basement, and at least five storeys have come down on top of it. The rubble is so compacted that we can’t—”

The constable stopped abruptly, realising he’d said too much.

“We’ll do our best, sir,” he concluded.

“Jesus Christ,” Weyland muttered.

“You’ll live,” Matilda said in a hoarse voice. “Catling can’t have you die.”

Grace wept. “Why can’t I help you, Matilda?”

Matilda closed her eyes. Talking was difficult, breathing was harder, and something had so completely crushed her right shoulder and arm she wished she could lapse into unconsciousness again just to escape the pain.

But then Grace would be left alone in here.

Matilda suddenly missed Jack intensely. She’d seen so little of him in this life, and she regretted not making the time to see and talk to him more since his return to London. She wished desperately Jack were here now—not crushed under the rubble like herself and Grace, but just close enough so she could hear his voice, and pass the time of her dying with some happy memories of when she had been the Duchess of Normandy and he its charismatic duke. Times when they had been married, and happy.

She knew she was dying. She could feel death tugging insistently at her, but Matilda wasn’t ready to give in just yet. Best to hang on until they came for Grace. Best to wait until Grace was out. Then she could give in.

“Why can’t I help you?” Grace whispered again, and to that Matilda had no answer save the one she was sure Grace already knew.

You’re too badly injured, Grace. You’re as close to death as me. You have as much power left as you have life.

THIRTEEN

Stoke Newington, London

Monday, 14th October 1940

Just after dawn the fire chief came to speak with Noah, Weyland and Jack. “Every entrance down to the basement shelter is buried under tons of rubble,” he said, “and the bomb shattered both the water and sewer mains. I’m afraid the basement is flooding.” After witnessing so much death over the past month the chief was physically tired and utterly emotionally exhausted.

He’d watched his words and how he said them, at the beginning. Now he couldn’t be bothered. He wasn’t unsympathetic to the plight of the two men and woman standing before him (the parents and sweetheart of a girl buried in the nightmare that had once been Coronation Avenue, so he’d been told), but he had no more resources left to even try to summon tact or to wrap the terrible news in vaguenesses.

Noah laid a hand on his arm. “You must be able to do something.” Her words were softly spoken, but underscored with a terrible anxiety.

“We’re doing all we can,” the fire chief said. “I’m sorry. Perhaps it would be better if you went home and waited for news.”