by K. J. Nessly
Kathryn and Daniel headed for the south end without comment, trusting David’s leadership. Matt wandered off on his own, focusing on the apothecary and spice market.
Now the Dragons were in their element. Immediately Natalie began to browse the various shops and vendor’s stalls, chattering the whole while. David and Jenna followed a bit more slowly, but making their own conversation and picking up on the slight clues revealed in the body language of the local villagers.
In a radian David learned that Sebastian was a tyrant. Not that any of the villagers would actually come out and say such a thing, but the way they ducked their heads or shifted uncomfortably when face with polite queries about their protector told David all he needed to know.
Natalie was inspecting a piece of pottery when the sound of thunder reached her ears. At first she looked up, thinking the sky was about to send a torrent of rain down on them, but quickly realized the thunder she as hearing was the sound of horsemen…very excited horsemen.
Turning to the right she caught sight of three fully dressed knights barreling down the center of the marketplace. The villagers were scrambling to get out of the way, throwing their wares and purchases into the air trying to escape the path of the knights. Natalie felt someone grab her arm and pull her further back into the stall just as the three knights rushed past, apparently oblivious to the destruction and havoc they were causing.
When the dust had settled the marketplace began to thrive again. Dusting herself off Natalie asked the stall keeper, “Does that happen often?”
He shrugged. “More and more since the woman arrived.”
Natalie’s ears perked up, but she kept forced herself to keep her voice calm. “What woman?”
Again the man shrugged. “Some woman arrived here about a fortnight ago.”
“Have you ever seen her?”
“Why would a noble lady show her face in a place like this?” The man waved an arm around.
Natalie ducked her head. “Good point.” She quickly made her purchase and left to find David.
He and Jenna were further down at a grain stall. Jenna was haggling over some barley and David was there to make sure she got a good price. As she approached, Natalie couldn’t ignore how handsome and intimidating David was. He stood just behind Jenna, slightly off to the right, with his hands folded across his chest and a serious expression on his face. His wavy black hair was gently dancing in the wind. Oh, if only she could get him to notice her! He was perfect for her, and the fact that he was of a noble family only made it that much easier. Yet for over seven months he had steadily ignored her, or at least treated her the same way he treated every other Dragon. It was frustrating her to no end.
Gently Natalie pulled David away and slowly walked down street. “Apparently,” she said softly and adding in a small flick of her hair to keep his attention, “There’s a noble lady staying in the castle who arrived about a fortnight ago.”
David nodded. “It seems that Duke Sebastian has heavily stepped up security at the castle. The common people can’t even get near the drawbridge.”
“What’s your next move?”
“I need someone to get inside.”
“Didn’t you just hear yourself? How can we get inside if we can’t get near the drawbridge?”
“I’m hoping Kathryn can manage it.”
Just the mention of her nemesis caused Natalie to scowl “What is it with Kathryn and questions?” she asked remembering their ride in, and then remembering something else, she turned on David. “I’ve been wanting to ask you this since you set up our teams. Why did you put Amy on Kathryn’s team when the rest of us had no one we were familiar with? Why the favoritism?” She probably shouldn’t be second-guessing his decisions, not while on a mission, and especially not when she was trying to get him to notice her in more than a platonic way, but that little bit of information had been niggling at her for months.
David looked at her sternly. “What I am about to say goes no further than you and me. Got it?”
She rolled her eyes. “I got it, it’s a secret.”
“I put Amy on Kathryn’s team because she’s the only one Kathryn trusts enough to confide in or allow to help her. Also, because you make friends easier than Kathryn, I knew you could handle being alone. Besides, it’s not entirely true that Kathryn is the only one who knows someone on the team. Luke was my best friend at the school and he’s on my team.”
“What’s Kathryn’s problem with trusting?” Natalie demanded hotly, ignoring David’s last comment. “Why can’t she learn to trust like the rest of us?”
“Kathryn’s past is what caused her to lose the ability to trust,” David told her firmly, “Until she decides to reveal it to you or anyone else don’t, I repeat, do not push her to answer your questions.”
Natalie moved away in a huff. “Fine. But I still don’t like it.”
David let out an exasperated sigh. He had brought Natalie along hoping that she would end her feud with Kathryn but it was appearing to have been for naught. Praying fervently that the two would make up, David went to find Daniel, Matt and Kathryn, hoping they had learned more than he had.
“Are you sure you can do this?” David whispered.
“I don’t think it will be a problem,” Kathryn replied calmly as she removed her sword and daggers leaving her armed only with her bow and fighting knives.
David, who had been forced to order her to bring her sword, frowned when he realized she wasn’t taking them with her. “You have no worries about the guards?”
When David had caught up with Kathryn and Daniel earlier that day he found they had learned the exact number of guards that were patrolling the castle. An even better show of good fortune was when Daniel found a guard who was mentally weak enough for Natalie to swoop in and distract him enough for him to estimate how much time was left before the evening shifts would begin to see if he had time for a drink. Normally, even a weak minded knight would prove difficult to glean information out of, but Natalie’s charms and flirtatious, David might have even considered them suggestive, gestures were very persuasive in turning his thoughts quite blatantly to how much time he had before his watch started. The effort of keeping the thoughts of other knights and patrons in the tavern separate from his target was far more than Daniel had ever attempted since leaving school and took a toll on him but he still managed a very disgusted grimace before saying, “I will never get those images out of my head,” as they melted away into the crowd.
Now, the team was poised on the cliffs, waiting for the shift to change and Kathryn to penetrate the castle’s defenses for reconnaissance.
“I don’t like the idea of you going in with just your bow and knives,” David admitted.
“The sword will only slow me down,” Kathryn protested as he tried to hand it back to her. She didn’t want that thing anywhere near her. “Besides,” she said as she slipped her bow and quiver off her shoulder and handed it to David, “the fewer encumbrances the better.”
“You’re not taking your bow?” David asked in disbelief.
Kathryn looked into his protesting face and sighed. “I have a lot of climbing to do in a short amount of time and it will just get in the way”
“Then at least take a dagger,” he insisted.
“I don’t need it,” she hissed back. She lifted Destiny to a perch and said, “Silence.”
Destiny bobbed her head up and down a few times and opened her beak wide as if getting ready to let out a victory call. Instead only her tongue appeared in the dark void between her beaks. Not a sound came out.
Matt, who had been watching the strange interaction, muttered quietly to himself, “That is just weird.”
Kathryn shot him a wry grin.
“Fifteen minutes,” Jenna whispered from above. She and Natalie were keeping an eye on the time as well as watching the guards in case the change happened at a slightly different time. Daniel was further away watching for patrols in the cliffs.
“Got t
o go.” Kathryn slid down from the ledge and disappeared into the darkness before David could protest again.
The leader of the Dragons looked at Matt who was eyeing Destiny with suspicion. "Please tell me that you didn't bring Lacey," he hissed.
Matt looked hurt. "I couldn't just leave her in the room."
David suppressed a curse. "Well make sure she stays hidden," he ordered. "The last thing we need is for Destiny to go after her or Natalie to scream and give away our position."
Matt grimaced. "Good point, I'll see if I can get her to stay in my pocket."
"No," David ground out. "You will make her stay. I've tolerated her terrorizing Natalie Matt, but I won't let her risk our lives."
He waited until Matt acknowledged his ultimatum before moving upward to join the two girls. “Anyone spotted her yet?”
“She just left,” Natalie reminded him sourly. “She’s hasn’t even reached the first wall.” She paused and then added. “I still think that I should have been the one to go,” she complained irritably. “After all, I’m the one who distracted the drunk knight so that Daniel could peak into his thoughts. Not to mention I have intelligence training.”
“Oh, sure,” Matt agreed sarcastically from below. “Let’s send the one person who hasn’t been participating in the extra training sessions these last seven months, and who doesn’t have intrusion skills, over four castle walls we aren’t sure she can climb in daylight, let alone the dead of night, so that she can sneak past a castle swarming with trained knights, who are on alert for trouble. We’d end up having to rescue both you and the princess,” he predicted. “At least we know that Kathryn can do it.”
“How do you know that I can’t?” she hissed back.
Daniel coughed hard, announcing his return. “Seriously? After seven months, Natalie, we pretty much know what everyone else is capable of in this family.”
“And climbing castle walls and becoming a night wraith aren’t in your skill set,” Jenna added.
“Kathryn isn’t trained in intelligence,” Natalie protested with a sniff. “She doesn’t know what to listen for. I should have gone with her at least.”
“So you can distract her with your interrogations like you do at home and get the both of you killed?” Matt suggested mockingly. “Brilliant idea.”
Silence fell over the cliffs so abruptly, David wondered if his companions were all still with him or if they’d somehow fallen off the precipice without him knowing.
“If you’re going to accuse me of something, Matt,” Natalie said stiffly, “just come out and say it.”
“Fine,” he turned to face her directly, not an easy feat to accomplish since she was sitting five meters above his head in the cliffs. “You’re the reason Kathryn hasn’t been able to settle in to this family. If it wasn’t for you haranguing her every chance you got, she might actually want to spend time with us and get to know us.”
“How—How dare you!” Natalie sputtered.
“He’s right,” Jenna spoke up. “Don’t bother denying it Natalie, we all know the truth. You hate Kathryn and have been making her life miserable for months.”
In any other time and place, David would have been thrilled to have this discussion take place. As usual, fate had decided to time it for the most inappropriate time. “There is a time for everything,” he spoke up forcefully before anyone else could say anything. “And this isn’t the time for family disputes. We’re on a mission. Get your heads back into it,’ he ordered.
“He’s right,” Daniel agreed after a few tense heartbeats. “We can’t help Kathryn if we’re too busy snapping at each other to notice that she’s in trouble.”
“Each other?” Natalie whispered incredulously. “You all were snapping at me.”
“Enough.” David put the full weight of his position as family leader into his tone.
They waited tensely for the next fifteen minutes to pass. David strained his ears against the night, willing himself to detect any signs of Kathryn’s entry, any sign that she’d been discovered. But he came up empty. No alarm calls rose from the castle walls.
“At least there’s cloud cover to help mask her movements,” Jenna whispered encouragingly as if sensing David’s anxiety.
“I still don’t like the idea of her going in alone.”
Jenna, knowing that nothing she could say would calm their anxious leader, wisely didn’t comment.
They kept their eyes glued to the wall and the small patches of light that were illuminated by torches. All tensed when the changing of the guard happened and there was no sign of Kathryn.
“I didn’t see her,” Matt whispered.
“None of us did,” Jenna whispered back.
“Now what?”
“We wait,” David said firmly. “Kathryn has two radians to gather information between now and the next changing of the guard. We get to wait.”
Kathryn slipped down from the ledge she had been perched on, moving silently towards the castle walls. When she reached the wall she stretched up and found a handhold. Slowly she began to climb. She wished Destiny was here to help guide her, but she managed to reach the top without any serious problems arising.
Moving slowly she made her way to a section of the wall that wasn’t bathed in light before climbing up and over. Cautiously she looked around then moved to the other side and began climbing back down. She was halfway down when two guards appeared below her, torches in hand. Frozen in place she listened to them discuss their sour opinion of the extra security before they moved off.
She descended the rest of the way and moved across the small open area that separated the first wall from the second. Again she scaled the wall with no trouble, but as she prepared to descend she noticed the third and fourth walls.
Pausing in the darkness she considered the obstacle before her. The third wall was different from the first two. Instead of having a patrol space with a three foot wide walking path on top, the third wall came to a point and had spikes about the height of a man protruding from the top.
The sound of shuffling feet sent her flying over the edge of the second wall and she cautiously made her way down. As she crossed the space between the two walls she was forced to move slower, unlike the first, this area was pitted with holes and small rounded bumps in the earth. However Kathryn was naturally surefooted and combined with her training, as long as she moved carefully, had no trouble negotiating the field.
She climbed the third wall more slowly than the first two, trying to come up with a way to get over without impaling herself or leaving anything behind to mark an intruder.
When she reached the top she made a pleasant discovery, the spikes were just barely wide enough for her to squeeze through. That turned out to be a blessing as the upper third of the spikes morphed into a four bladed pike no doubt to prevent infiltrators from clambering over the top. Well, the original builders, or whoever had augmented the decorations on this wall, obviously had not planned on smaller women being part of an infiltration team. Peeking over the top she was grateful to find the three sentries below at ease and definitely not watching the wall.
Effortlessly, she slipped through two of the spikes and made her way down. It was easy getting past the sentries who, she could now tell had had way too much drink earlier in the evening. They were in no condition to stand watch, let alone fight an intruder.
She started on the last wall, taking her time finding secure supports, when she reached the top she noticed that this wall was extremely wide, wide enough for at least two carts to fit side by side. Silently she slipped over the side and moved along the pathway. She was on the ground five minutes later.
For a moment she stopped in the shadows. David had guessed that the princess would be housed in the highest tower. Looking around she spotted it a courtyard over. Moving like an apparition she made her way across the first courtyard. She had just reached the arch that led to the second when a guard suddenly appeared from inside the arch. Kathryn froze as he calmly walked p
ast her and toward the three sentries. Once he passed her, she continued to move through the arch.
Inside the second courtyard were ten sentries. Climbing this tower might be a challenge. Kathryn was still contemplating how to get across and up when a shout echoed across the courtyard— instantly six of the ten guards ran off.
Sparing no second, Kathryn moved to the tower and began to climb. By the time the six guards returned, shaking their heads at the false alarm, she was halfway up. This tower was older than the rest of the castle and the mortar holding the stone blocks together wasn’t as strong as the material used in the building of the walls. While the chipped away mortar gave her better hand and footholds, she had to be cautious not to knock the stuff off. The last thing she needed was a guard looking up because a chunk of mortar had landed on his helmet.
Kathryn pulled herself up the rest of the way. Moving around the tower she came across a window with a faint light coming from it. Peering inside Kathryn saw a young woman with long black hair. Princess Roseanna looked exactly as David had described her. The young woman was obviously agitated, pacing from one side of the room and back again, reminding Kathryn of a caged animal.
Kathryn was about to tap gently on the glass when the door opened and an older man stepped into the room. Immediately Kathryn ducked her head away from the glass, listening to the conversation.
“Good evening my dear,” the voice that spoke was arrogant and sophisticated with a cold, cruel edge that reminded Kathryn of Lord Blackwood. It could only belong to one person—Duke Sebastian. “I hope these quarters are to your liking.”
There was the sound of a slap. “I demand you release me at once!” Princess Roseanna’s voice wasn’t how Kathryn had imagined it, light and un-intimidating even with her anger giving it a cold edge.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that your highness,” Duke Sebastian chuckled coldly. “You see if I did release you, your father would have my head.”