The Templar's Curse by Sarwat Chadda (classic books to read TXT) 📕

above. Up and up she went. Then her hand grabbed hold of a wet, thick tuft of grass. She didn’t pause for a prayer of thanks, or even a sigh of relief. Instead she hauled herself up the last metre to stand at the top of the cliff. She wiped the rain from her face.

The sea-ward wall of Hollburgh had long since collapsed. There had been no invaders from the North Sea for over a thousand years. There was a low lip of pitted and weathered stone, the cracks blooming with weeds and a wind-bent tree hung perilously on the narrow strip of ground between the wall remains and the air. Its branches creaked and seemed to beckon her in.

Billi buckled the sword-belt back around her waist and drew the Templar sword. The heavy steel settled in her palm, the moonlight caught upon its razor edge. It was old but as deadly as the day it had been forged. Billi started climbing over the low, broken wall.

There was work to do.

CHAPTER 28

Most of the castle lay in ruins. The original keep was a pair of walls and a few spiral stairs that led nowhere. Billi crossed through a low doorway into the keep’s roofless interior. The stone floor-slabs were cracked and weeds grew between them and yet the walls remained mighty, the stones remembered their glorious, noble past. The fireplace remained and Billi could almost smell the odour of the fat pigs that would have roasted over the flames and the vast slabs of beef that would have been fed to the first FitzRoy and his companions. He would have gazed out at this same view. A mercenary from Normandy who’d tossed his lot in with William in a desperate bid for the English throne. The ancient clash of steel rang in Billi’s ears.

What would he say, seeing her tonight? Determined to end his thousand-year line?

What was happening to Erin? Had Reggie destroyed her already, leaving a shell of flesh and that too was about to be abandoned when he completed the ritual and transferred his soul, once and forever, to Ivan.

Over my dead body.

Crows nested within the nooks. Their glossy black eyes watched her cross, a wraith of ruin, steel in hand and the desire for dark deeds in her heart. There was a coldness settling within her that had nothing to do with the rain and wind.

The tremor started slowly, gently. The small loose stones bounced and rattled against each other and the stubby trees that had found root amongst the ruins swayed. The vibrations rose up through her soles, making her tingle to her fingertips. Then the sound of heavy stones grinding, of mortar cracking and flagstones shifting grew steadily louder. If was as if a dragon, held in the catacombs below, was stirring from hibernation and stretching out within the confines of his old prison, disturbing the foundations.

Billi backed away as dust fell from the arch above her, its keystone cracked and shifted a few centimetres.

The noise grew louder. But it wasn’t a noise, it was a vibration, a feeling. It was a thrum on a cosmic string as some entity plucked at the threads of reality. A wave of nausea crashed against her, passing deep into her guts, a dizzying sensation that was like suffering a hang-over while spinning on a funfair whirly-gig. The ground swayed as the castle around her seemed to wobble and bend.

And then it stopped. Stopped as if it had never happened. No more movement, the sense of sickness entirely gone. The ground steady and the horizon still.

The Anunnaki were beating at the door between their plane of existence and hers. Soon it would open, or be smashed.

Her ears pricked at the sound of sobbing from ahead. Grip tight around her hilt, sticking to the shadows, Billi advanced through the ruins towards it. She stepped around a puddle, peering into the darkness, and saw a figure curled up in a nook.

“Ardhan?”

The figure looked up. “Billi?”

Ardhan curled up even more. Trembling through and through. “Please don’t hurt me.”

She wanted to. She wanted to take it out on someone, but Ardhan wasn’t her enemy. She wasn’t sure exactly what Ardhan was, but right now he was terrified beyond his wits. Billi, a little roughly, grabbed his arm and lifted him to his feet. “Where’s Erin?”

But Ardhan was deep in his own misery. “I didn’t think it would actually happen, Billi. I thought it was all play-acting. But she did it, she really did it. She pushed Brigid over the cliff. I heard her scream, and I heard…” he sobbed, “… and I heard her land. It was a hideous sound. That crunch as she hit the rocks.”

Billi tightened her grip. “Where is Erin?”

“Help me, please. I need to get away. I don’t want anything to do with this, not anymore.”

“Where. Is. Erin?”

Ardhan searched around frantically, lost in his own terror. “I told Phoebe to run away! I told her, Billi. Why didn’t she save herself?”

Oh. That didn’t sound good. “What happened to Phoebe? Tell me so I can help you. Protect you.”

“Protect me? You can’t. No one can. Come with me. We can run away right now! We’ll be safe. We just need to get away!”

“How, Ardhan? You can’t cross the bridge.”

Ardhan screamed and broke free. Tears streaked down his face leaving black trails from his kohl and he scratched at his bare arms until he drew blood. “We need to run away! You can’t save her!” He shoved Billi away and turned, running deeper into the ruins.

“Come back, Ardhan!”

She chased, following the cries and sobs but couldn’t make sense where they were coming from, they bounced from one wall to the next until Billi was well and truly lost. Then it was suddenly silent. One last cry echoed through the ruins but was swiftly carried off across the sea.

Damn him! Where has he gone?

“Ardhan! Just wait! Ardhan…” Billi waited, forcing her breath back under control as she tried to penetrate