When Lancelot spoke of the King's death, Ysobel was the first to cry out her defiance.
The regent was in error. He must be. He had been misled. It was some trick of the foreign hordes. God would not send Arthur and his finest men on a quest of such holy significance only to bring him low so far from Britan's shores. She would not name the Regent a liar, but it did not matter to her what he claimed to know. Her heart told her King Arthur could not be dead and her heart was never wrong.
But when Lancelot spoke of cause, she fell silent. When he spoke of God's will, her eyes darkened, and when at last he spoke of heresy, she unslung her shield, gripping the handle of her weapon, grimly. She was young, and not wise, but she had heard men speak this way before, use those very words. All had been the same, beneath their knowing faces and silver tongues. All had served the same master. And there was no longer any doubt in her mind that the regent was ensorcelled or insane.
She turned to the doors -- too late, the heavy timbers creaking as the tall sliver of daylight behind them narrowed and disappeared with a booming thud. She pushed through the shouting throng as the pitch began to rain, set her shoulder and ran with all her determination and strength, slamming her black-armored body like an iron ram against the enormous doors. She felt the surface warp with the impact, felt the wooden bar groan and splinter, but neither would give way, pushing her back like a giant's hand. She cried out for aid, her voice piercing through the panicked tumult for only the merest moment before the shouting turned to screams, and with a noise like the exhalation of Hell itself the entire chamber erupted into a roaring abyss of flames.
The few who came to aid her were weak, too weak. One collapsed, a squire, barely a man, choking and sputtering at her feet as they heaved. Another fled, stumbling over his fellows, desperate for a way out. Men ran like livestock, bellowing and burning. If another of the great champions of strength had been with her in that hour, she knew they could have cracked the murderous portal like baked clay. They could have saved every soul within that roiling inferno. Tears and bitter ash stung her eyes as she forced herself uselessly against the burning wood with a clamoring thud, again and again. They could have done it.
She screamed out loud, pounding her fist against the doors, drawing up short only as she imagined some half-heard voice crying to her over the apocalyptic din.
".....service ladders... columns... best chance!..."
She turned back, barely able to see a familiar-looking shadow slither up one of the looming pillars through the roiling clouds of hot, suffocating pitch.
It was a sign.
She heaved the boy over her shoulder, dragging him along with her through the billowing black smoke and lapping sea of liquid fire. Pain blazed in every part of her body, her armor searing through its crude padding to her skin, sweat pouring from her face. She held her breath as long as she could, forcing herself to run with her eyes shut through the crackling storm to the barely-visible ladder. Her lungs burned as she forced herself to climb without inhaling, gripping the rungs with one hand, hauling the stricken squire up along with her with the other.
It was agony. Every muscle in her body rebelled as she dragged them up through the searing, pestilential clouds and punishing heat. Her arms felt as though they were being torn from their sockets as she heaved her weight and his directly upward by bare, bloody inches. Men screamed and died beneath her, and she climbed, one step after another, one handhold after the next. The burning cinders beneath them disappeared, leaving nothing below and nothing above but oily, choking blackness. She gave no thought to how far she had climbed. Two steps? Two hundred? Her head swam in the heat and a darkness that owed nothing to the inferno crept in at the edges of her vision. Her lungs spasmed, demanding she draw in the tainted air and die. It didn't matter. She would go on no matter the pain. God would not forsake her.
And nor
would she
forsake
Unseen hands gripped her own and she felt her armor crest a solid surface. She coughed, gasping, retching and sucking in lungfuls of cleaner air as she tumbled over, spending the last of her strength to pull the young squire up with her.
"Rise, poor brother," she choked, hoarsely, "God hath delivered us from the fire. Stand, and let us make our way from this accursed place."
The young man gave no reply. Ysobel wiped cinders from her eyes, taking his hand and trying to help him to his feet.
He was dead.
She stared, blinking wordlessly at the pale, lifeless hand in hers. There were no words. And no one to say them to.
...They could have done it.
They could have done it.
