by Morgan Rice
What did that leave?
The answer came to Sartes slowly, and it seemed insane as he thought of it, but what other options were there? What was there that might work?
“Then we let the invaders into the castle,” he said.
The others looked at him as though he’d just proposed that they should jump from the walls.
“What?” Leyana asked. “Sartes, that would mean chaos.”
Sartes nodded. “And chaos is what we need right now. If we stay here with things as they are, eventually Stephania kills us. If we go out there, Felldust’s army kills us. If we let them in, maybe they’re all so busy killing one another that we can escape.”
It was a desperate plan, Sartes knew that. There were so many ways it could go wrong. He might be bringing their deaths down on them, but wasn’t even that better than some of the things Stephania might do?
“We have to do this,” he said. “Father, will you do it? Will you find a gate to open?”
His father hesitated, and Sartes couldn’t blame him. What he was asking would bring violence to the castle that otherwise wouldn’t touch it. It would cost people their lives.
“All right,” his father said at last. “What will you do while I open the gate?”
Sartes nodded in the direction of the main body of the castle. There was only one thing he could do.
“I’m going to go get Ceres.”
***
Berin crept down through the castle courtyard, weighing his hammer in his hand. It was almost as heavy as his thoughts right then. What he was about to do would bring death to a lot of people.
“Are we really going to do this?” Caspar asked. He’d been one of Berin’s smiths only a couple of weeks, but he was a good man in a fight. J’ket, beside him, was a former slave who’d been a smith back in the Southlands.
“First we need to find a gate we can open,” Berin said. It wasn’t an answer, but right then, he didn’t have an answer. He could imagine the slaughter when Felldust’s army broke into the castle, the rapes, the looting.
He didn’t have to imagine it, because he’d already seen it in the rest of the city.
“There,” J’ket said. “They’ve welded it shut, but these imperials can’t weld worth my hammer scale.”
It turned out that he had a good eye for it, because one look at the small gate he was pointing to told Berin that it was the one that they wanted. The guards had indeed tried to weld metal bars in place over it, but Berin could see the bad welds there. Only the original bolts would be strong, and they would be easy enough to pull back. Even the couple of wooden bars nailed in place would be easy to rip clear.
“This is the one,” Berin agreed.
He started to hammer at the bad welds, the sound of metal on metal ringing out around the courtyard. They were stronger than they looked, and for a moment, he thought maybe he’d picked the wrong gate. The first one gave.
Just as it did, a group of guards approached. There were half a dozen of them. Too many to win against, but right then, that wasn’t the point.
“Hold them off,” Berin said, pointing with his hammer. “I need to get this door open.”
They didn’t hesitate, and Berin was proud of them for that. They took up a position in front of him, swinging their hammers to keep the soldiers back. Berin swung his own, but at the door welds, not at their attackers. He hit with all the force he’d built in years of blade-smithing, striking right at the point of the weakest welds.
He dared a glance back at the battle. Caspar was grappling with one of the guards while another was down. J’ket was giving ground, a fresh wound open on his side. Berin saw him charge, but couldn’t watch the rest. He had to focus on the doors.
He struck, shattering welds even while the sounds of battle continued behind him. He broke apart metal, ripped free chains, and tore at wood.
When he looked back again, Caspar and J’ket were on the ground, while two of the soldiers remained standing. J’ket was still moving, trying to keep his hammer between him and the enemy, while Caspar had all the stillness of the grave.
Berin’s hand closed over the last bolt. If he pulled this, the gate would be open. The invaders would have a way in. He would be responsible for whatever followed. He found himself thinking of the nobles in the castle, the servants, the soldiers.
The same people who were tormenting his daughter even then.
“If you’ve any sense, you’ll run, lads,” he said.
He pulled back the bolt and threw the door open.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Ceres stood there watching as her brother made his break for freedom. She felt relief in that moment, and something more. She felt triumph. It was a small victory over Stephania, and there was at least one more that she could gain.
She threw down her blunted excuses for swords, turning her back on the combatlords Stephania had sent into the training pit. “I’m not going to play your games anymore, Stephania. I won’t fight for your amusement.”
She heard the crowd of nobles boo then, as if this were really the Stade. As if she were being a coward by not taking part.
“Then your rebels will die with every strike the combatlords land,” Stephania said. She gestured to the waiting combatlords, and Ceres braced herself for the strikes they would land.
They didn’t move.
“Fight her!” Stephania ordered. “Fight her, or die.”
“We’d rather die,” one of them said, folding his arms. “I’m sick of playing nobles’ games.”
Ceres could see the fury on Stephania’s face then. She’d never liked things being out of her control. This had to be impossible for her.
“Then die,” Stephania snapped. “Guards! Kill the combatlords!”
They poured down into the small training space, and Ceres snatched up her weapons again. She stood with her back to the combatlords, waiting.
The soldiers charged.
Their weapons were sharp this time, but Ceres didn’t care. If anything, it made it easier, because now she could afford to take a scratch from one without a prisoner losing an arm.
She dove into the fight, striking out with her blunted weapons. As soon as she knocked down a soldier, she snatched up his sword, trading it for one of the practice weapons they’d foisted on her. She thrust it through another guard, snatched his sword too, and spun to strike at the next.
The combatlords seemed to have the same idea, casting aside the training weapons Stephania had allowed them in favor of snatching blades from their attackers. They spun and cut now, working in formation with Ceres, and even though she didn’t have the strength she’d once had, they had more than enough to make up for it. She saw one pick up a soldier and throw him into another, while a second barged a soldier straight into the wall of the training pit, stabbing as he closed in.
She parried an attack, dropped to cut at the leg of one of the soldiers, then bounced up, her second blade sweeping across his throat. Before, she’d been a thing of crushing violence, using the weight of the heavy practice blades to attack. Now, she moved them like razor-edged clouds, using their speed and sharpness to make up for the leaden exhaustion seeping into her limbs.
That was far too real after so much fighting, but Ceres didn’t care. She parried and thrust, ducked and cut, forcing herself to keep moving on the shifting sand. She stumbled slightly, recovered, and cut a soldier’s head from his shoulders.
Quickly, the soldiers pulled back, obviously unwilling to keep risking their lives against such trained killers.
“Enough,” Stephania said from above. “We’ll try this another way. Bows!”
Some of the guards above stepped forward, drawn bows in their hands.
“You have a choice,” Stephania said. “You can fight Ceres, or you can die. And you, Ceres, if you won’t fight, I’ll have them put arrows in your legs. You can still crawl to the First Stone that way when I give you to him.”
The guards with the bows didn’t waver in their aim.
Ceres wondered if she could dodge the arrows somehow, or maybe put herself between them and the combatlords. She was the reason they were in this situation, after all. She stepped in their way, but the guards were all around the pit. There was no way for them to dodge.
That was when the horns started to sound. They blared loud enough that they seemed to fill the world, and shouts came with them, as well as screams.
A guard came running in. “Invaders! Invaders are in the building! The gates have fallen!”
He shouted it as a warning, but he didn’t do it quickly enough. A figure in dark strips of cloth came up behind him, thrusting a blade through him. Guards turned to fight, cutting down the first of the invaders, but there were more, and more after that.
The guards who had been pointing bows were fighting the Felldust soldiers now. Ceres stood there as above, nobles started to scream, servants ran, and Stephania stood, trying to shout orders.
In spite of the chaos, she smiled to see Stephania like that.
“So much for being in control,” she said.
***
Stephania stood on her throne, trying to shout orders to her men, trying to push down the panic that threatened to overwhelm her.
“Fight back!” she ordered. “You, why are you running? We have to hold them!”
She watched as Felldust soldiers forced their way into the room. She saw a servant get in the way, only to be cut down by the stroke of a curved knife. A soldier struggled with one of the invaders, trying to push him back even as another stabbed him from the side.
Stephania could feel the panic in the room. Nobles scrambled over one another to try to find an exit. Men who’d boasted about their fighting prowess pushed and shoved to run away. Women screamed as the attackers grabbed for them.
Stephania felt a scream rising in her own throat and pushed it down. She would stay calm. She would stay in control.
“What are we going to do?” a girl demanded, grabbing at Stephania’s hands. “Help us, your majesty!”
Stephania recognized her as the girl who was supposed to be her double, but right then, the two didn’t look much alike, despite wearing the same dress. This was just a panicking little girl, while Stephania was in control. She was—
A warrior in dust-ingrained armor came at her, a wavy bladed axe raised to strike. On instinct, Stephania shoved the girl into his path as the axe swept down. Her shriek was cut short as the axe plunged into her, cutting through her from collar bone to abdomen. Stephania stepped back, letting others do the work of fighting.
Some of them were trying. The guards were struggling to bring their swords into play, stabbing and slashing despite the confines of the crowd. If they’d been fighting on the walls, they might have had a chance, but with the invaders inside the castle, this was a last stand rather than an organized defense.
Some of the noblemen seemed to realize that there was no way out except through the attackers. They drew their short, mostly ceremonial, weapons, and started to fight back. Stephania saw one fall with his throat cut open, saw a noblewoman pushed down into the fighting pit.
A hand closed over her arm and Stephania spun, going for one of her hidden blades. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Elethe there, a bloody knife in one hand and a determined expression on her face.
“This way, your majesty,” she said, pulling Stephania down toward the training pit’s entrance. One of Felldust’s men stepped in their way and Elethe stabbed him with the speed of a striking snake. “We need to get you out of here.”
“This is my castle,” Stephania argued automatically.
“And it’s full of invaders,” Elethe snapped back. She seemed to remember herself. “I’m sorry, my lady, but… we have to keep you safe.”
Stephania nodded. “You’re right. We need to go. The rest doesn’t matter.”
She’d been prepared to abandon all of it just a short while ago, after all. She’d traveled to Felldust with almost nothing. She still had her poisons and her emergency jewels. Even as a queen, she carried those with her.
Elethe led the way through the violence, guiding her way through it the way a fish might have slipped through a shoal. A warrior moved into her way and she stabbed again. Stephania shoved back a noblewoman who grabbed hold of her, begging for help.
They made it to the entrance the slaves used when they trained, slipping through it, down into the sweat stink of the space beyond. It was dark there, but Stephania was used to sneaking through the dark. Elethe led the way, snatching a torch from the wall and lighting it, but Stephania followed close behind. She drew a short blade, ready for trouble.
“Do you know which tunnels are blocked?” Stephania asked.
“It’s hard to tell for sure,” Elethe replied. “There might be invaders down here. We’ll find the way.”
Stephania had no doubt that they would. They set off through the near dark, and at every step, Stephania had the feeling that someone was watching. That someone was following them through the dark, stalking the way a hunter might track an animal. Stephania dismissed that as just her fear talking.
She spotted a turning she thought she recognized, and set off again.
“This way.”
She led the way down through the tunnels now, only pausing when she saw figures ahead. She heard them talking and recognized the words in the tongue of Felldust.
“…told us to wait here and cut off escape. Wait, is that a light?”
Elethe edged forward. “What do you want me to do, my lady?”
Stephania pushed her without thinking, sending her stumbling into the path of the soldiers while she stood back and watched. Yes, Elethe had saved her life, but Stephania had to be practical about these things. Either Elethe would do well, or she would be the distraction Stephania needed to escape.
She watched the guards draw their weapons, then smiled as Elethe leapt forward to the attack. Her knife rose and fell as she struck at the first of them. The second moved in behind her, and that was when Stephania stepped in with her own blade. She cut the warrior’s throat and let him fall while Elethe stared up at her.
“You pushed me straight at them,” she complained.
Stephania gave her an even look. “I did what I thought was best to take them by surprise. There was no time to give you a warning.” She reached out to touch Elethe’s shoulder. “You did well. I won’t forget.”
Stephania wasn’t sure if she would believe it, but it didn’t really matter. Her handmaiden had already shown that she was loyal. She would do what Stephania required.
“This way,” Stephania said, leading the way through the tunnels. She knew them. She’d made it her business to know them. She took a small key from a collection at her belt, unlocking a gate. She kept going.
As she walked, she tried not to think about everything she’d just lost. She’d gambled on holding out in the castle, forcing the First Stone to talk, and building her power base as he withdrew. She’d even considered seducing him, and becoming the queen of a combined empire that would stretch across the sea.
That was done now. Her bargaining chips were gone. Even now, Felldust’s troops were cutting down her nobles, taking her valuables.
“Someone betrayed us, Elethe,” Stephania said. “Someone opened a gate. Who would betray me?”
“I don’t know, my lady,” Elethe said, although she didn’t sound certain about it. Stephania ignored that.
“We will rebuild, though. We will use the tunnels to get beyond the city walls, and then get clear. I have some valuables with me, and I know where there are caches. Even if we can’t retake Delos, I will set up somewhere else.”
There would always be room for a noble and a spinner of secrets. Stephania might even go to Felldust, and start to take the city over one piece of information at a time. She still had her networks. She still had her mind.
Ahead, Stephania thought she saw a glimmer of light. If she remembered this tunnel correctly, it would bring her out in a small grove beyond th
e walls. Hopefully, it would be beyond the lines of Felldust’s army too. From there, she could slip away, steal a horse, find a ship. She would sell Elethe to slavers if she had to, although it would be better to have her protection. Perhaps it would be better to keep her loyal with more half-promises and suggestions. Whatever it took to stay safe.
She was almost out into the light when a figure shuffled out in front of them. For a moment, Stephania thought that it had to be another straggler from Felldust’s army, silhouetted against the light. A woman this time, not that it made any difference. Then she saw the woman’s face, and froze.
“Well, princess,” Felene said as she stepped out with a grim smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Felene leaned against the wall as nonchalantly as she could. She definitely didn’t want to let Stephania know that it was the only thing holding her up right then.
“Surprised to see me?” Felene asked, forcing herself to smile. “You shouldn’t be. What did you think was going to happen when you tried to kill me?”
“Mostly,” Stephania said, “I thought that you would have the decency to die.”
Felene’s smile widened at that. “Ah, that’s where you went wrong, thinking that I have any decency. If you’d waited a while longer before betraying me, maybe we’d have had a chance to find out.”
Stephania made a face at that. “In your dreams, thief.”
Ordinarily, Felene would have made a quip about all the things Stephania might have been doing in her dreams, but the truth was that the only dreams she’d had when it came to Stephania had her dying. Dying a hundred different ways for what she’d done, and none of them seemed like enough.
Felene saw Elethe there behind her mistress. The dreams involving her had been more complicated, but Felene pushed them out of her mind. It wasn’t as though there was some bright future waiting for her after this.