I hadn’t expected that to have the effect it did, the flicker of alarm in the yellow eyes, the sudden relaxing of the pressure. But it did the trick. There was a sudden, sickeningly meaty thump, and he jerked upright, rigid. Any man would have doubled up in helpless agony, but though his slatey face writhed and his cat-eyes bulged he held me still and hewed at me – too late. I’d seen what was coming, and he hadn’t; I ducked under the stroke, and clamping both hands on the hilt I thrust upward. I needn’t have. He gave a horrible gargling yell as the point took him just under the breastbone, but it was the rush of his own blow that drove him onto it and lifted him, impaled, kicking, over my shoulder. A gush of stinking blood burned my arm as he slid off the blade, toppled onto the railing in a shower of splinters – and over, out into emptiness. A terrible dwindling wail ended, abruptly in a splintering crash. Thunder detonated overhead, shaking the roof and showering us with rattling fragments of tile.
I didn’t look after him. I turned to Clare, hopping on one leg clutching the bare foot she’d applied where it mattered, and plunged for the landing. Rotten wood popped and crackled under us; I was afraid we’d fall right through any minute. We ran for the other stairs; there wasn’t enough left of the ones we’d come up. From the inner hall below a sudden uproar arose, and men spilled out across the floor; the crew had fought free of the cellar. Through the fighting Mall streamed like a comet, and where she passed the Wolves hid their eyes and bolted, or died.
‘Grand, Steve, grand!’ she shouted as she saw us. ‘Out, out, away and a’haste! Some other sending comes!’
In an avalanche of disintegrating wood we more or less fell the last flight. As we dashed out into the outer hall after the others the floor shook beneath us, and by the lightning that sizzled around the windows I saw the Wolf captain’s corpse sprawled on the shattered remains of the high thrones. Tremors ran through the ceiling; plaster fell, and the stone walls seemed to quiver and blur with the vibration. In the doorway stood Jyp, frantically waving the men out past him, his other arm hanging limp and darkened. Beside him Mall burned like a white-hot casting, her eyes too bright to look at, her hair rising in wreaths like smoke. Her outstretched sword-arm seemed to fence with the plunging shadows, and keep the tremors at bay. As we passed, last of all, she danced in behind us, backing away, swinging her sword in great hissing sweeps. On the floor a few wounded Wolves writhed or crawled; what others remained were spilling out of the windows in screaming panic, with no heed to us. Out we staggered onto the terrace, Jyp gasping as each step jarred his wounded arm; the rain came flailing down on us and he slipped and fell. I stooped to help, still supporting Claire – and stared in sheer horror.
The lightning was flashing almost constantly now, like a gigantic strobelight; and in its pulsing glare a strange change had come over the frontage of the mansion, some shifting overlay of shadows that formed a sinister image. The tall windows above the door seemed to change shape, to merge into two great dark ovals. It was as if a face had settled on the house, or became visible through it, a face with heavy sunshades resting above cheekbones undershot and fleshless, the door its stretched, screaming gape of a mouth – a mocking deathshead of a face. And even as we stared that face contorted; the whole housefront seemed to soften and swell, the mouth to work, the heavy stone lintel and pillars of the doorway flexing like lips, the rain-slickened stair a curling, glistening tongue reaching out hungrily towards us as we struggled in the rain. Suddenly Mall stood over us, aglow no more, her face grey and drawn, her hair plastered limp about her cheeks by the rain. But she stooped and seized Jyp as if he weighed nothing at all, drew his good arm up over her shoulder and dragged him away across the flags, out of the baleful shadow of the door.
‘Come!’ she panted. ‘I cannot face Ghede now, and he may have others to rally, Wolves or worse –’
Even as she spoke, I saw the wind catch the stickimage at the terrace’s end and strip the clothes from it. The stick-frame toppled forward with a crash; the hat went bowling skyward, but the coat swooped down on us like a vast flapping raven, arms outstretched. Mall’s sword and mine lashed out in the same second and slashed into it; it swirled up and flapped away over the brink of the terrace, riding the blast. The crewmen rallied around us then, taking Jyp from Mall; but I held tight to Clare.
‘Not down the steps!’ she ordered. ‘The way we came is marked! Fly, all! By the back of the terrace – into the jungle! Fly for your lives – and souls!’
