by AC Cobble
“Nice throw,” whispered Zaine.
“I feel strange,” said Cinda, staggering into the room.
Rew was staring over the bodies of the two guards to where a trio of doors and a wall blocked half the space on the floor. The rest of the area was covered in thick carpets, comfortable chairs, and a banquet that held fruits, breads, and flagons of wine. Behind them was a wide glass door that led to a balcony. Through the glass door, Rew saw the bridge between the tower and the keep thrusting across the open air like a spear. Duke Eeron’s fortress rose like a monolith beyond. On the bridge, Rew glimpsed half a dozen people walking toward them and disappearing out of sight beneath the balcony. The girl that the guards had mentioned along with an escort, he guessed.
Unlike the prison cells below, the doors on this floor were constructed of solid steel, and one of them was glowing with bright, cerulean patterns traced in silver. Bands of steel, glowing gemstones, and silver ran all along the wall and disappeared, like it was encircling a room.
“King’s Sake,” muttered Rew, staring in shock at the patterns. “Arcanist Ralcrist’s design. They’ve built these cells specifically for spellcasters. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Cinda collapsed into a chair, and Anne crouched beside her. The empath muttered, “She’s hurting.”
“The wards,” said Rew.
Only one of the cell doors was locked and glowing. He strode forward and knelt beside the dead guards, pulling a ring of keys off one of the men’s belt. There were only three keys. He tried them in the locked door, found the one that worked, and yanked the door open. Immediately, the pulsating glow faded from the cerulean specks embedded in the door and the walls.
“Again?” growled a weary voice from inside.
“We’re here to rescue you, Baron Fedgley,” said Rew.
“Senior Ranger,” said the baron, looking up from where he was sitting hunched over on the foot of an unkempt bed. His arms were bound in glowing shackles, and he appeared to have lost a stone of weight. His face was sallow, his eyes haunted as he peered at Rew, blinking in the sudden light. “Who is we?”
“Your youngest children,” said Rew.
Baron Fedgley’s eyes fell back to his lap.
“Father!” said Raif, shoving past Rew to get into the cell.
“You shouldn’t have come,” said Fedgley. “You’re only going to get yourself killed, you fool boy.”
“We’re here to save you, Father,” declared Raif.
The baron huffed, not looking up at his son and not rising off the bed.
“Uh, Rew,” said Zaine, leaning her head in, “the only thing above us is the roof, and below us are two dozen guards. I think we’ve got less than a minute before they’re coming up here.”
Rew stomped over to Baron Fedgley and hauled the man to his feet. The baron’s arm felt like nothing more than skin and bone, and his flesh hung loosely off him like a scarecrow’s jacket. The ranger dragged the baron out of the cell and into the room outside.
Cinda leapt to her feet. “Father!”
Baron Fedgley’s head slumped down at the sound of his daughter’s voice. His body was wracked with tremors, as if he was sobbing. Tears of joy? Rew frowned at the broken man, not certain that was why the baron was crying.
“A key, we need a key!” exclaimed Raif, pulling the key ring from the door where Rew had left it. The boy frowned at the keys and then at the manacles on his father’s wrists. “I don’t think these are going to work…”
Rew shook his head. “It won’t be any ordinary key that opens these. The manacles are warded, and I’m certain they will have taken other precautions—like not keeping the key up here, for one. King’s Sake. It could be on those men we killed two floors down, or it might not even be in the tower!”
“What do we do, then?” asked Raif, looking from Rew to his father, hoping for answers.
Rew leaned over and studied the manacles on the baron’s wrists. The older man didn’t object. He didn’t do much of anything, except shake his head. He wouldn’t look at his two children.
Rew stood up and pointed at Raif’s greatsword. “That’s your key.”
Nodding curtly, Raif pulled his father over to the table the second guard had been seated at and instructed the baron to put his arms on it. He hissed, “Hold them flat.”
“Rew!” said Zaine from near the stairwell. She was moving from one foot to the other. “I can hear them downstairs. We’re out of time. Do you have a plan?”
Rew glanced back at Raif and Cinda. He said, “Free your father and have him call upon his wraiths. I’ll buy us time.”
He strode to the top of the stairs beside Zaine and drew his longsword and his hunting knife. He crouched, ready. Behind him, he could hear Raif admonishing his father to hold his hands still, to keep his arms flat. Below, Rew heard the muffled voices of the guards. They were greeting each other, he thought, and then he heard the shuffle of armor as they approached the stairs.
“Should we shut the door?” whispered Zaine, a hand on the sturdy wood barrier that barred the top of the stairwell.
“Not yet,” replied Rew.
“What are we waiting on?” questioned Zaine, her words low and harsh. “If we don’t shut it now, they’re—“
“We’re waiting on her,” said Rew.
Coming up the stairs were a pair of guards, Kallie Fedgley, and half a dozen soldiers behind her.
“Get the girl, drag her upstairs, and slam that door shut,” instructed Rew. “Don’t wait on me, Zaine. The baron has the power to protect you, but he’ll need time.”
The thief nodded.
On the stairs, the first pair of guards paused, confused. One of them barked, “What is this?”
Rew launched himself down the stairs, careening like an avalanche, arresting his momentum when he kicked a boot into the face of the guard who’d spoken.
The man pitched backward, completely unprepared for the attack, though he was more fortunate than his companion. Rew reached across and slid his longsword into that man’s throat. The dying guard fell away, and Rew darted around Kallie, who stood rooted in the center of the stairwell, her jaw hanging on her chest.
The guards behind the noblewoman had an extra moment to prepare, but they were packed tightly in the narrow passage and their movements were fouled by the two fallen men who’d collapsed onto them.
Rew put the point of his longsword onto the stone stair and vaulted, lashing out with his feet again, pounding the heel of his boot into another man’s chest, forcing the pack of guards farther down the stairs. Surprised at the unexpected attack, the soldiers retreated, dragging their injured companions with them. Rew took advantage of the disarray to spin around and charge back up the stairwell.
Zaine was tugging on Kallie’s arms, hauling the girl after her. Rew crashed into the back of them, shoving both girls ahead of him and through the doorway. He spun and slammed the door shut. Zaine was by his side, sliding the bolt home, locking them into the tower room.
“Now what?” the thief asked.
“I’m hoping the baron will do something,” muttered Rew, turning to look where Raif was standing next to his father, his greatsword raised above his head.
The big youth brought his sword down, and the enchanted blade crashed against the warded manacles around Baron Fedgley’s wrists. The steel shattered beneath the heavy blow in a cloud of acrid smoke and sparks. Rew saw a purple bolt of lightning shiver up the enchanted blade like an uncurling snake, but the charge didn’t reach the hilt, and Raif stepped back, looking in surprise at his Father’s pale, exposed wrists.
Anne darted forward, clasping the baron’s arms. “A slight fracture, no more,” she called. “With my healing, it will hold until we get out of here.”
“A well-aimed blow,” Rew said to Raif. He moved beside the baron and told him, “M’lord, we need you. Call upon your wraiths. We have minutes at the most before Duke Eeron’s spellcasters are here, and without your strength, we can’t fac
e them all.”
The baron, staring morosely at his bare arms and the broken steel around them, whispered, “They have Kallie. They have my daughter, and there was nothing I could do. Now, they’ll have the rest of my children. They’ll have Cinda. You imbeciles, what have you done?”
Rew blinked and turned to Kallie. “Ah, Kallie is right here, Baron Fedgley.”
The man looked up, his eyes hard. “Kallie?”
“Yes, Father,” she whispered.
“You escaped,” murmured the baron. “I’m surprised. You should have run, though. You should have saved yourself when you could.”
“Escaped?” interjected Zaine. “She’s been free this entire time.”
Kallie scowled at Zaine and muttered, “I recognize you. You’re the one who came to my room. I told you to leave this city. Be silent, girl.”
Rew shook his head, baffled. Anne glanced at him, but he could only return her confused look.
“That bastard arcanist of Eeron’s, Salwart, was holding her, torturing her,” said Baron Fedgley, rising slowly to his feet. “They were trying to coerce me into joining them, doing—I couldn’t. Not for Kallie. Not for anyone. I am sorry, my girl, but I couldn’t do it.”
“Torturing her?” spluttered Zaine.
“I said be quiet!” snapped Kallie, glaring at the thief.
“She wasn’t a captive, Father,” murmured Cinda, staring at her older sister in bewilderment.
“She was,” said the baron, drawing himself up hesitantly, feeling the effects of a month of confinement. He raised a hand toward his eldest daughter, but he did not move to embrace her. “They brought her to me every day. I saw the marks on her skin, the horrible evidence of what they’d done to her. I saw it, but I could not break. I would not break! I am sorry, my girl, but you must understand it was for our family. It was the best thing for all of us. I couldn’t let them make me—”
“I understand,” snapped Kallie, her voice dripping with venom. “All for your family. Those you consider a part of it, that is.”
“Kallie,” said Cinda, stepping toward her older sister.
Kallie growled at her younger sister. “He thought I was being tortured, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care, because you were free. You thought I’d run away with you, did you? That you’d forget I was sent away, and that none of you cared? Did you believe I’d really go back with you to Falvar, where I’d be no more than a forgotten woman, dependent on your largess? Why are you here, Cinda? Why did you come?”
“W-We’re...” stammered Cinda, “we’re here to rescue Father. And you, of course.”
“Always Father’s little girl, weren’t you?” snarled Kallie. “Always his favorite. The reason he and Mother stopped having children. Did you know? You’re just like him. A necromancer just like him. You’d do anything for him, wouldn’t you?” She glanced at Baron Fedgley and spat, “If you thought Cinda was being held, you would have been soft clay in Arcanist Salwart’s hands. What wouldn’t you do for her—for the family’s magical prodigy? I knew he’d made a mistake thinking you’d join them just to rescue me. I knew you wouldn’t do it, but I had to see for myself. I had to—I had to see it.”
“Kallie!” cried Baron Fedgley. “Do not speak so disrespectfully. We are the power that is within our blood, and it is Cinda who carries that power for the Fedgleys. She is the future of our line. I hurt for you, my girl, but I had no choice.”
Kallie looked away.
Raif shifted uncomfortably, glancing between his older sister and his father. “Father… we have to leave.”
The door to the room shattered in a hail of broken wood and twisted metal. Debris peppered Rew’s side, and he was thrown off his feet by the concussion of air that screamed through the open doorway. He rolled and then jumped to his feet.
Vyar Grund stood in the doorway. Over the mask that covered the lower-half of his face, his eyes were hard as granite. The ranger commandant raised his arm and pointed at Rew. From around him came two massive simians. They wore heavy, scale armor. Steel spikes poked from bracers on their forearms. Their knuckles were covered in steel-studded gloves. The simians screeched, their mouths opening wide, their yellowed-fangs protruding.
“King’s Sake,” hissed Rew.
“You should have gone back to the wilderness,” boomed Grund. “You should have stayed away.”
He snapped his fingers, and his trained simians attacked.
They scampered toward Rew in their odd, halting gait. The steel on their gauntlets scraped against the stone floor as they charged.
“Baron Fedgley, we need your wraiths!” barked Rew.
Before he could turn to see if the baron was listening, the first simian was on him. Rew dodged to the side as the creature grasped for him with its powerful hands. Luckily, if such a thing was possible given how the rest of the day was going, it seemed that while Grund had armed and armored his pets, he hadn’t taught them how to effectively make use of their new toys. Instead of trying to grapple with him and slash him with their bracers or smash him with their gauntlets, the simians were reaching for him just like they would with no armor or weapons. Of course, that still meant two beasts, his weight and half again each, were chasing Rew around the open room.
He darted behind the table in the room and kicked it toward the closest simian. He thrust at the second with his longsword, and the tip of the blade bounced off the simian’s thick scale armor. Cursing, Rew ducked as the table came flying back at him, narrowly missing his head, and then, he nearly tripped over Zaine, who was crouching behind him.
“Shoot them with your arrows, lass!” he bellowed. “Wait, wait, no. Get everyone to the rooftop, and have the baron summon those damned wraiths before we all join them in death!”
“You want me to—“ She cut off in a squawk as one of the simians lumbered toward her.
Rew slashed with his longsword, catching the simian on the upper arm and drawing a deep cut, but he couldn’t lean into the blow because the second one was leaping at him. He backed away, slicing his longsword through the air in front of the simians to keep them back, and then was nearly decapitated as Vyar Grund clicked his blades together and scissored them, attempting a dramatic flourish that would have resulted in Rew’s body becoming headless.
Rew dropped and spun, kicking out with a leg and catching the ranger commandant on the knee. Grund’s feet were swept out from under him, and he crashed down. Rew jumped over the prone body of the ranger commandant and rolled, the simians just behind him, nearly trampling their master as they came after Rew. Spinning again to face his attackers, Rew swung his blade and cleaved through the foot of one of the charging beasts. It went down, skidding and wailing in anger.
The other hurdled its injured companion and reached for Rew, grasping his ankle in a bone-crushing grip. Its other hand swiped at his face. Rew barely turned it aside with his longsword. He jerked his hunting knife free of his belt and slammed it down into the arm that held his ankle. The simian’s hand spasmed, and his leg was free. Skipping back to his feet, Rew saw Vyar Grund rise as well. Rew readied himself.
The ranger commandant held his two gleaming falchions wide.
“Who are you working for?” asked Rew. “The king or Valchon?”
The eyes over Grund’s mask did not change, and he offered no explanation, just an attack. He came at Rew sweeping both of his falchions in a horizontal slash.
Rew dodged out of the way, knowing how difficult it’d be to block both of the man’s weapons at once. Rew struck, swinging a quick counter to Grund’s attack, but the commandant caught it with one falchion then thrust with his second blade.
Wincing, Rew backed away again. Grund’s style was to wait for an attack and then counter, and it was devastating when one faced him with a single blade and no shield, but Rew sheathed his knife and put both hands on the hilt of his longsword. The smaller blade would be at a horrible disadvantage against Grund’s falchions.
The ranger commandant seemed to be waiting
for Rew to attack, but when Rew didn’t, he came in again, swinging high with one blade and thrusting low with the other.
Rew blocked the high stroke, moved to the side to avoid the thrust, but then paid for it with a long, bloody cut on his hip when Grund turned his falchion and drew it along Rew’s side as he stepped back. As Grund pulled his falchion, slicing Rew’s skin, Rew swung down with his longsword, taking Grund on the side of the head, shearing away one of the man’s ears and sending a spray of crimson blood down Grund’s front.
In a blaze of speed, blood flinging from his face, Vyar Grund attacked.
Rew, with no thought of offense, met each blow with his longsword, retreating, trying to buy time for the others, hoping the baron could do something before Grund hacked him in two. Rew had gotten lucky, he knew. The ranger commandant had been overconfident, certain he could easily handle one of his rangers. It had given Rew an opening, but it wouldn’t happen again.
Rew retreated. One of the simians skittered close but then backed away as the clanging swords slashed near its face.
Rew and Grund parted as the simian screeched at them. In the momentary break, Grund sheathed one of his falchions and held up his hand. It ignited in a burst of orange and red fire. A shield formed of living flame. Grund advanced.
Rew feinted, drawing Grund’s falchion to the side, then swung a quick strike at the man’s shield. It wouldn’t have reached Grund’s body, but Rew needed to know what the barrier was made of. His longsword clinked and bounced off the flaming shield as if he’d struck a steel one, but when Grund advanced, Rew could feel the heat of the fire on his face.
Rew cursed then taunted, “Whichever prince is holding your leash taught you a few tricks?”
Grund’s expression didn’t change, but Rew saw a flicker of motion in his bright eyes. He ducked.
A huge body slammed into Rew’s back, sending him staggering forward onto his knees, a furred arm punching over his head. The simian’s steel-covered knuckles missed his spine with a bone-crunching strike only because he’d ducked the second before.
Grund thrust, stabbing down at Rew with his falchion.