Liberate

by Krista D. Ball

  She turned a corner and plowed straight into a footman. They both stumbled backward. Her sword was half out of its scabbard when she recognized Terrence Whitefeather, one of the elderly footmen.

  She signed: Hide in attics.

  “What is going on?” Terrence said. His face was ashen from fear.

  Rose shook her head. Hide in attics. Safe.

  It took Terrence a moment to parse her words, but he nodded. “I’ll bring the children from the maid’s nursery.”

  Rose nodded this time. Getting Dowager. Duchess. Elf.

  “Good, good. I’ll get the children. Good luck.” It was then he seemed to notice her attire. “Ah. Good.”

  Rose gave him a gentle punch in the bicep. Then she left him and ran for the Dowager. She climbed out through a hidden door in a linen closet and looked down the corridor. There was fighting at one end. Three guards fought two attackers. She slipped across the hallway, hoping no one saw her, trying to stay in the shadows. She pressed against the wall next to the Dowager’s door, tested the door, and then flung it open, slamming it behind her.

  Soft moonlight filtered into the room and helped Rose find the way to the Dowager’s bed. The old woman was sleeping on her back with a lace doily over her eyes. Rose shook her gently, at first. However, the sounds of fighting in the corridor gripped Rose’s heart and she shook the Dowager until the old woman gasped from her deep sleep in terror.

  “What in Apexia’s name...” The Dowager panted, pressing a hand against her chest. “Rose? What are doing in here?”

  Rose held up her notepad with the pre-written words on there. Danger. Run.

  “I can’t see in this dark. What does it say? Does that say...run? Why am I running? I don’t run, girl. Who do you take me for?”

  A scream was cut off from down the corridor. Rose pounded her fist against her hand, a gesture she always used to gain their attention. She pointed at the door and then pulled her sword from its scabbard.

  The Dowager’s gasp signalled she finally understood the severity of their situation. She threw the covers off her and moved as quickly as her old body could muster. The sounds of battle grew closer. Rose moved to give herself enough room to attack anyone who barged inside. She braced herself, held her sword, and waited. Another wail of pain, only this time closer.

  “May Apexia save us all,” the Dowager prayed under her breath. She pulled on her fur slippers and a heavy cloak. She grabbed her cane and a purse of money. She shoved her jewels into her purse. She grabbed her fur stole and wrapped it about her shoulders. “I am ready to face my goddess.”

  Footsteps thudded down the hallway, approaching ever closer. Rose pointed behind the door, near the closets. The Dowager dutifully walked over there and stood quietly and proudly, even though she was obviously terrified.

  The door swung open and in stormed a dirty, filthy man with a hammer. Rose rammed her sword into his innards before his eyes had even a chance to adjust to the dimmer light. He collapsed to the floor. The Dowager sucked in a breath, but made no other sound.

  Rose waited for a moment before sticking her head out into the corridor. There was no one living left in the hallway. She motioned for the Dowager to follow her. They hurried as fast as the old woman's legs could carry her until they got to the duchess' room. They knocked on the door with no answer. The Dowager whispered it was her. At that, the door swung inward. Paverly was crawling out from under the bed.

  “Is it safe?” the duchess asked, hiding behind the door.

  Rose shook her head.

  Paverly rushed over to them. “What is happening? There were men shouting and...Sweet Apexia, is that blood on you?”

  Rose gave Paverly a sharp nod and motioned for them to follow. It was times like these she wished she could speak. She knew they all thought she should be able to speak because she hadn't lost her entire tongue. However, her brain had somehow forgotten how to form the words, and her screams of that night always haunted her whenever she tried to form words in front of the mirror.

  Rose shook her head and the cobweb of bad memories faded. She was a soldier. She was Lady Bethany's apprentice. She'd been with Arrago throughout the entire rebellion. She'd fought in every single damn battle he'd been in. She was going to get these women out of this house alive. Words or no words.

  Rose pounded her fist against her hand again to get their attention. Besides, she had soldier’s words and they were all learning more every day. She motioned toward the door ahead.

  “Where does that lead?” the duchess asked, though she followed Rose inside all the same.

  “This is just a linen closet,” Paverly said. “How will a linen closet stop madmen with swords?”

  Rose stepped outside of the room to grab a flickering candle from the wall bracket. Shielding it with her hand, she passed it to Paverly and motioned for her to stay close. Then Rose pushed against a small, barely visible crack in the plaster half way down the wall. The wall creaked and two shelves gave way to reveal a hidden room. Rose helped the Dowager inside and then the others. It was a cramped room, but it was one of the many hiding places she'd found in her time at the palace.

  Rose motioned for Paverly to hand the candle back.

  “We need the light,” the duchess said.

  Rose shook her head and motioned a second time for the candle.

  “But we’ll be blind in here,” the duchess insisted.

  “My dear, they will be able to see the light through the cracks,” the Dowager said. “We must remain undetected.”

  “Gentle Goddess,” whimpered the duchess.

  “Wait. Rose, aren’t you coming in?” Paverly asked.

  Rose shook her head.

  “You must!” Paverly insisted.

  “She isn’t one of us,” the Dowager said, though she didn’t say it to be unkind. “She is our protector tonight.”

  “She has to come in with us!” the duchess insisted.

  Rose began to sign out an explanation, but the Dowager put a hand on Rose’s forearm. “No. She cannot hide here with the women. She is here to fight to protect us. She cannot do that if she is worrying about us with a candle, and she certainly cannot do her duty if she is locked in a closet with us. We will be perfectly safe and snug. Now, go child. Spit on their bodies for me."

  Rose smiled at the Dowager before she pushed herself up to standing. With a few grunts of effort, the shelf slipped back into place without dropping the candle. She fixed the linens so that they weren’t disturbed and ran a cloth along the floor in case their footsteps were visible in the dust. She did the same with the visible edges of the shelves. Then, she eyed outside the closet, saw she was still alone, and headed around the corner, toward the sound of more fighting in the lower wing.

  KINER ROUNDED THE CORNER, sword held high, and found two of Rutherford’s thugs looting a collection of small silver figurines from a glass cabinet. Kiner shouted and charged. The men froze in terror at seeing a heavily-armed elf rush them, and he’d made swift work of both of them before they’d even drawn their weapons.

  He surveyed the bodies. Basic, worn gear. Basic weapons. Poor boots. Definitely low-cost mercenaries, and most likely not one cohesive group. It would be a nightmare trying to find the connection between them and Rutherford’s visit to the palace. Anyone with two drops of sense would know they were connected, but the nobles would never accept common sense as a legitimate means of exiling or imprisoning one of their own.

  Kiner turned to leave the room when Brennus burst into the room. He lowered his sword at the sight of Kiner. Kiner cocked an eye at the blood splatter on Brennus’ tunic.

  “A thug in the closet forgot he was supposed to be looking for Prince Henry, not raping the maids. He wasn’t expecting it, and I ended up hitting him wrong. Got more blood on the maid than anywhere else.”

  “She okay?”

  Brennus shrugged. “Not really. I shoved her into the secret passage, the one behind the tapestry in the east wing. You know the one?”

>   At last count, Kiner knew of six different secret passages in the east wing, and two of them were behind tapestries. He nodded all the same, since he assumed Rutherford would not have been able to communicate a list of all of the servant and hidden passages of the palace. Kiner had learned from Rose in previous conversations that the servants didn’t know them all since some of them were hidden from plain view. Only the housekeeper was aware of them all.

  “Have you seen Prince Henry yet? Or Edmund?” Kiner asked.

  Brennus shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Let’s continue the plan. We need to clear the wing straight to the Dowager’s rooms, in case Rose didn’t make it. Then we sweep up to Amber’s room,” Kiner ordered.

  “Understood,” Brennus said, taking up position on Kiner’s flank.

  The two men systemically went room to room, checking for survivors and attackers alike. A palace this size was difficult to determine the number of people in it at any given time. Servants, visitors, delivery boys, message couriers spending the night, and guards all took up space and didn’t need to be reported to someone like him. The housekeeper looked after all of that.

  A knot formed in Kiner’s stomach with the third room they walked through. They were finding more dead servants than living ones. He hoped most were in hiding either inside the castle or beyond its walls.

  “Clear,” Brennus said.

  “Clear,” Kiner said of the room he inspected. “Looks like the Dowager isn’t here.”

  “Same with Paverly and the duchess. Rose must have been through here.”

  “That’s good news,” Kiner said. “All right. Let’s head up. I can hear the fighting up there.”

  Brennus took the lead up the main stairs, stopping to check a small storage room under the stairs. The door was locked and he whispered, “It’s Lord Brennus. Who’s in there?”

  “Casey, the duchess’ personal maid,” said a small voice. “There’s two other maids in here with me. The night cleaners.”

  “Okay, good,” Brennus said. “Stay in there until someone you know comes by to say it’s safe.”

  “Okay.”

  Kiner made a mental note. He didn’t know about that closet, even though it was in plain view. A man could easily get lost in a maze like this.

  Brennus continued up the stairs and Kiner followed, keeping an eye behind them. He’d never fought with Brennus, but he’d heard of him in passing several times. The Dowager spoke well of him, as had some of the other field commanders who’d interacted with him. And while these were untrained mercenaries marauding through the palace, Brennus had a keen eye and a balanced temper as they fought through the patches of attackers.

  An explosion of shattering glass sounded along with a stream of curses. Kiner and Brennus took the stairs at a run, dashing up to the next floor. There, they found four mercenaries assaulting six footmen of various ages. The footmen used priceless antiques and furniture to deflect untrained, but heavy blows from clubs. One wielded a silver serving platter like a shield in front of his face. The platter crumpled from a crushing blow, but the boy next to him threw a crystal vase at the attacker’s head. Razor-sharp shards showered the room.

  Both knights rushed the thugs, who were no match for heavily-armoured and well-trained experts. The footmen, to their credit, didn’t cower to let the two elves do the work. Instead, they used the opportunity to get in whatever cheap shot they could, be it a swift kick in the back of the knee or a chair crushing down upon one’s head and shoulders.

  It was over in less than two minutes. Kiner was breathing heavily. So was Brennus, but Kiner found himself struggling to issue orders to the servants. When this was over, he was going to get back outside to train every day. This was embarrassing.

  “Go through the servant passage. South room.” Kiner gulped down the urge to pant. “The one built into the bookcase. You know it?”

  “Yes, Lord Kiner,” an older servant said. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  “Good. Get the maids and try to get outside. Get to the gardener’s cottage, if you can. If not, hide in the shrubbery. Don’t trust anyone you don’t recognize. We don’t know how many men there are.”

  Kiner’s pounding heart made it difficult to speak. He and Brennus waited for the servants to clear the room, Kiner using the opportunity to catch his breath. When this was over, he was going to take up running and horse-riding again. He was getting old and fat organizing behind a desk. His lungs were even burning.

  “You going to make it?” Brennus asked him.

  “I’m getting too old for this,” Kiner said.

  Brennus laughed, flashing Kiner a wide grin. “You were breathing a little heavily in that last fight. I was thinking you’d been behind a desk for too long.”

  “Brennus, if I wanted to be endlessly insulted, I’d have just gone to Orchard Park with Bethany.”

  That made Brennus laugh harder. Kiner grabbed Brennus’ arm at the sound of a soft whimper. “Did you hear that?”

  Brennus tightened his grip on his sword and shook his head.

  Kiner pointed at a narrow door in the corner. He’d not noticed it before, but it was just a hair askew. Both men walked toward it, Brennus keeping watch over his shoulder for any trickery. Kiner tugged the door open. Inside, two footmen lay dead on the floor. From the looks of them, they’d tried hiding, but were too severely injured. A wall shelf was empty; its linens were strategically piled in the back corner. Whimpering came from the linens.

  “It’s Lord Kiner and Lord Brennus,” Kiner whispered. “You can come out now.”

  There was some rustling before a tiny head poked out from the fabric. Her dark eyes were bloodshot from crying, and snot stained her lip. Kiner instantly recognized her as the girl who delivered the clean chamberpots to all of the rooms and then ran the little errands that a fast-footed girl could do.

  “Tori?” Kiner said her name very gently. She looked up at him, eyes wide. “Did they hurt you?”

  She shook her head. More tears fell as she glanced at the dead footmen. “They hid me in the tablecloths, but then the men came through the door.”

  Kiner crouched down and offered his hand to her. She didn’t take it. Instead, she wrapped her tiny limbs around his body. He sighed, but pushed himself to his feet. He gave Brennus a look that he wasn’t even sure what he wanted to convey. These monsters weren’t just after the prince. They were hurting servants, children, anyone in their path. Kiner’s blood boiled.

  “We have to go,” Brennus said, looking at the girl.

  Tiny arms tightened on Kiner’s neck. “She’s not going to let go.”

  “We have to get to Amber,” Brennus said.

  “Tori?” Kiner said, very gently. “I need to keep fighting, to get these men out of here. But I don’t want you to see that. Do you understand?”

  “I saw one of them lift up Mary-Anne’s dress and she screamed and screamed and then she hit him with a vase and then she hit him over and over until there was blood everywhere. And then she ran away and left me.”

  “Oh Apexia,” Brennus whispered.

  Kiner’s grip tightened on the little girl, but he managed to keep the anger out of his voice. “I’m going to fight those men who hurt Mary-Anne, okay?”

  “Okay, Lord Kiner.”

  “Will you crawl on my back?”

  “Okay, Lord Kiner.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Chapter 18

  DARIEN PRESSED HIMSELF into the corner, cloaked by the darkness, and hoped Miss Amber, Opal, and the prince got away. He insisted on going with them, but she said he could slow down anyone who came in their path. That meant, he had to be a real knight and stay behind and slow...

  He gulped. Slowing meant she thought he couldn’t stop those who were chasing her. That meant, he was about to give his life in the defense of Miss Amber and the prince. And an innocent little girl whose mother happened to be guarding royalty.

  This was what a knight truly was, wasn’t it? T
his was what Brennus had been yelling at him about. Jud’s version of being a knight was rules and discipline. It was learning how to walk and march and look good. Even the fighting was choreographed down to their very foot stances. This, he had not been trained to handle.

  He was considered an excellent swordsman. He could dance and parry. This kind of savage attack, brutal and uncaring, he had never trained for. No one had even hacked at him with a sword in all of his days of training. He touched his nose, which was only now tender to touch. The bruises were mostly faded now. True to her word, Bethany hadn’t broken his nose. Still, he’d never been attacked like that.

  And now here. Where roving bands of mercenaries were raping and pillaging their way through the palace. And here he was, silently guarding the exit Miss Amber had taken in case the thugs made their way into this wing of the palace.

  He closed his eyes, trying to still the trembling in his hands. He’d been sent here because Jud had found out his identity. He had come to betray all these people to keep a secret safe. They trusted him with their lives. He could have killed Lady Bethany in her sleep.

  Well, his brain corrected, he could have died trying to kill Lady Bethany in her sleep, and then his pension would go to his mother and siblings to keep them from starvation.

  But here he was. Protecting a human in a land of humans. He should have killed Henry when he’d had a chance, but he couldn’t. Damn Jud into oblivion, but he couldn’t kill a toddler. Nor could he hurt any of these people. Damn them all. When this was done, if he lived, he was going to have to tell Lady Bethany the truth. All of the truth. If Apexia’s grace still blessed this land, she would let him die tonight to avoid that conversation.

  Floorboards groaned in the next room. They were coming for him. This would be it. He was going to die here. He steadied his sword as best as he could. This was what he wanted. To be a hero. Sometimes, heroes died. Anything to protect the innocent. Anything to protect his family.