“Hadley …” Sandor said, his face frozen in shock. She was carrying the orb as if it had always been there.
Break away.
Hadley climbed free of the ghastly lust that had risen within her. She didn’t like the sensation and sensed it wouldn’t help them now the dwarves were dead. Clearing her thoughts, she peered through the trees.
“The orcs will soon be here. Too many for the dire orb.”
“’Dire orb’?” Sandor repeated. “You’re outing yourself more by the hour. Fucking witch.”
Hadley smiled, but crouched low when she spotted more dwarves emerging from the rubble of Overlook.
“Stay,” she hissed, covering Sandor with her body and doing her best impression of a corpse. Thankfully the enemy sappers continued through to the Cathedral Plaza, where orc infantry were already massing. The estate sentries lay dead on the cobblestones. It was only a matter of time before the enemy soldiers spotted them. Sandor was looking in the opposite direction, where a garden bed had sunk several yards into the soil. The monumental blast underneath Overlook had ruptured the surrounding grounds.
“Tunnel town there,” the Governor said with a wry smile.
It was true. The sinkhole had partially exposed a steeply sloping tunnel twisting underneath the ruined keep.
“I’ve only seen a few dwarves in my life,” he continued. “One hinted at a network of tunnels spreading west from the Furan Mountains. Never in my wildest dreams did I think they could reach the riverlands.”
Hadley helped her husband down the loose soil to the floor of the sinkhole. At the very least they were momentarily out of sight.
“Alright then,” she said shortly. “Let’s assess. You can’t walk. We have no food, water or a light source. The tunnels will be pitch black and full of dwarves, a race notorious for scalping trespassers. Especially if we somehow reach the Arms of Danedan. There’s no chance of finding an exit tunnel in the mountains, but even if we somehow made it all the way to Lakeshore herself, Duskovy will be there - begging for the chance to denounce me and my family name.”
Sandor limped over to the eye of the tunnel, scratched his pockmarked nose and extended a hand.
“Shall we?”
Hadley sighed, stowed the dire orb and hitched up her dress. Their way forward - their only way forward - was clear. All she had ever wanted was a crown and a cause. Ardennia owned her, just like it did Ballist. The rest was so utterly inconsequential she had no qualms drowning it in blood. In the wake of her violence, her release, she felt stronger than any human woman had a right to feel.
“Yes, husband,” she said, taking his arm and helping him into the darkness. “I haven’t come all this way to surrender.”
FINIS
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Knight and Champion Page 33