“Capture that hellcat and throw her in irons!” the Queen shouted, her voice shrill.
One of the three guards near lunged. Willow beat his rapier aside and pierced his belly. A circle of blood darkened the white shirt beneath his jacket. He placed a hand to it, looked at his bloody fingers in disbelief, and then crumpled. His name had been Cinge.
The second soldier in the group waited for the exact moment she withdrew her blade from Cinge, and then beat it aside so that he could grapple her. He succeeded in trapping her blade between them. One of his arms wrapped hers, locking it, and he caught her in the face with an elbow smash that made her see stars. She felt a trail of blood dripping from her nose.
She struggled to free the rapier for another moment and then gave up. She bashed the top of his nose with her forehead and when he fell back, she drew her dagger from its sheath on her hip. She thrust the blade upward between his ribs. His eyes bulged but his hands never made as far as the hilt before he died. His name had been Diess.
She stomped on the third guard’s foot, intending to distract him long enough to skewer him. He leapt backwards instead, and hobbled until the pain subsided. Fear showed his eyes. A quick glance around showed that the second wave was almost upon her.
“Come on, Sartoris,” Willow said to the third guard. “Earn
your pay.”
Sartoris screwed up his courage and charged her, thrusting wildly. She parried once, then twice, and then countered with a slash across the abdomen that left him clutching ropey guts in his pale arms.
“I want her alive!” shouted the Queen from somewhere in the room.
An evil smile appeared on Willow’s face as she danced around the floor for position. She stooped to retrieve her knife from Diess’s body.
Ooh, that had been a mistake.
The remaining soldiers hesitated, though they outnumbered her three dozen or so to one. Glances darted about as her attackers sought someone in their midst brave enough to risk his life to launch the next wave. Willow turned in a slow and erratic circle, playing with their timing, pressing against them with her eyes.
Then, almost as one, they began to move in. There were no more mad lunges at her. Instead, they began creeping in, causing the circle around her to contract. As good as she was, she couldn’t fight in all directions at once.
The last of the forty-five or so soldiers had entered the chamber, and now they were sealing the door with an enormous wooden bar.
So much for escape. Ah well, she had never expected to get out of here alive.
Willow conjured a mental picture of the room and the people therein, and began working out the tactics of the situation. Over fifty enemies in an enclosed space. Only one door, which was barred. Windows—she glanced about quickly—were too high to reach.
She parried one attack, then another, and then abruptly hopped onto a chair and from there onto one of the long rectangular tables that ran parallel to the room. Soldiers were quickly surrounding her. Worse, they were beginning to coordinate their attacks.
She ran the length of the table and jumped off. Almost too late, she heard the whistling of a blade behind her. She pivoted, but the rapier sliced the biceps of her sword arm. She grimaced silently.
“I knew I should have taken away your weapon,” said Erenble with a sneer. “Munce wouldn’t let me, and now you’ve ruined him.”
“He’ll be missed,” Willow agreed, her breath getting short. She lunged and caught Erenble in the throat. He dropped, blood jetting through the fingers he clamped to his neck. “You won’t be.”
The attackers had now formed a circle around her that was three or four deep. Slowly, the circle contracted.
Willow’s grip on her rapier was weakening, and she almost dropped it. Quickly, she transferred it to her left hand.
She gauged the perimeter of the circle that surrounded her. It was closing uniformly, which of course was the correct thing to do. If it closed unevenly, that is, if one lunged at her and then another, she could kill them one at a time. But if they all closed at the same time, she might get one or two of them, but they would get her.
She had trained them well. The irony brought a small smile to the corner of her mouth.
“What in the name of the Icy Inferno are you smiling at, you filthy traitor?” shouted the Queen from somewhere far out of reach. “Get her, you idiots! A promotion and a month’s wages to the man who disarms her.”
“Try it,” Willow said, her voice matter-of-fact though her breath was labored, “and I’ll promote you to a better place.”
The effect was exactly what she had hoped. The braver of the soldiers were moving in quickly to get the promotion. The more cowardly ones were hanging back. The circle distended.
Willow seized at the opportunity. She leapt from the table and made a sudden desperate break for a gap in the distended circle. It was a long shot, but just barely possible.
No good! A rapier caught her in the chest with a glancing blow. Her leather jacket prevented it from penetrating too deeply into the muscle, but she gasped and her blade slid from her grasp, clattering onto the floor.
She stooped for it, but another quick-thinking soldier kicked it out of the circle.
Willow drew her dagger again, spinning. Her right arm was almost useless now and her left was becoming slippery with blood and sweat. She had to concentrate on retaining her grip on the dagger.
The circle was tightening, tightening. They were almost within rapier range, and then she was dead. She kicked a chair towards the perimeter, but she caught it at the wrong angle and it just skittered harmlessly for a few feet.
Oh well. It had been a good fight, one that they would remember for many years to come. But all things must eventually come to an end.
Willow placed the dagger to her own throat. She took a deep breath. She fought against her intrinsic self-preservation mechanism.
This was going to be harder than she had imagined it. She closed her eyes, tensed her arms.
“Somebody stop her!” cried the Queen from somewhere far off. She heard some of the soldiers in the circle running towards her. Too late. All they’d do is get bloody.
Suddenly, there was the sound of a hundred thunderclaps: BLAM! Willow felt it in the soles of her feet. Her heart skipped a beat.
She opened her eyes. Everybody had frozen, was looking towards the door.
BLAM! It was like being inside a colossal drum. Two soldiers dropped their rapiers and pressed their hands to their ears.
BLAMACK! A crack formed down almost the entire length of the humongous wooden door.
“Guard the Queen!” cried one of the soldiers.
“Protect Her Majesty!” shouted another.
“Save me!” cried the Chancellor. “We’re under siege!”
KABRACK! The oaken panels of the door splintered and the great bar bowed under the assault.
Willow heard the Chancellor sobbing.
BRACK!
The bar snapped and the door literally exploded into the room, knocking a pair of guards from their feet.
Willow expected an flood of barbarians to pour through the breached doorway. Instead, Tamlevar stormed into the room like Force personified. His teeth were bared and his eyes gleamed with a ferocity that caused even Willow’s breath to catch. Guards scurried away from him, and his blade wasn’t even drawn.
“LEAVE HER ALONE!” Tamlevar shouted. “Or, by all that is pure, I swear I will bring this castle CRASHING DOWN upon your heads!”
Chapter 18
Everyone in the hall stood transfixed by Tamlevar’s explosive entry. Willow seized the miraculous reprieve and sprinted towards Tamlevar, weaving between the stunned guards.
“Stop her!” the Queen cried, a note of desperation in her voice.
The guards regained their wits too late. By the time they had raised their swords, Willow had already slid outside of the circle and now only a handful of opponents stood between her and the exit.
And of course, now ther
e was Tamlevar on her side.
Willow didn’t precisely understand how Tamlevar had found her, nor how he had broken the doors to the throne room. Something to do with his Illuminati upbringing, of course, but she hadn’t bothered learning the details. She didn’t understand how he did it, and at the moment, she didn’t care. All that mattered was that escape was now possible.
She ran past Tamlevar, grabbed his hand, and pulled him towards the door.
“Let’s go! Before they lower the portcullises!”
Tamlevar opened his mouth to say something, then shut it and allowed himself to be led.
“Stop them!” the Queen shouted. “There are over forty guards in this room. If you can’t stop an unarmed wounded elf and a foreigner private, I’ll have you all in chains!”
Willow and Tamlevar raced down the stone hallway, mercifully devoid of guards. It occurred to her that now would be an opportune time for the barbarians to attack, seeing that the front gate was unguarded and the military was in disarray.
She snatched a torch from a wall sconce as she passed it. A few more steps brought her alongside a tapestry given to Bryanae by King Henrie II of Kyrn. Its value was beyond measure. Willow tore it from the wall and put it to the torch. It smoldered and then a hesitant lick of flame appeared and began to spread.
Willow tossed the burning tapestry into the center of the hallway, where it would serve as a nice barrier to their pursuers.
She heard the Queen shouting invectives at the guardsmen who had yet to appear in corridor. Likely, they were regrouping rather than charging after her pell-mell. This presented an opportunity.
“Wait outside for me.” Willow skidded to a halt, and headed back towards the throne room. “Keep the front entrance clear.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” exclaimed Tamlevar, his eyes wide with fear. “They’ll be on us in moments!”
“For once in your life, will you listen to me? I’ll be right with you. Now do as I say.”
Tamlevar lingered a moment longer and then relented. He jogged off down the hall. Now at last, the guards were emerging from the throne room. As she had surmised, they were in a loose formation. Their lack of discipline had allowed her to decimate their ranks; they did not intend to make the same mistake twice.
“Make it easy on yourself, Captain,” said one of them, Sergeant Jonns. He had one palm raised and the other on the hilt of his sheathed rapier. Between them, the tapestry was starting to blaze nicely.
Make it easy on herself. That was precisely what she intended to do.
Willow walked towards them, stopping at the massive portcullis that hung suspended over the corridor. Five spikes as thick as tree trunks were designed to fit neatly into holes in the stone floor. The portcullis was suspended by a pair of thick rope cables. Each cable led to a hand-cranked winch.
“You don’t have to call me Captain anymore,” she said. “I’m a civilian.”
A moment later, she had her dagger to the one of the rope cables and began sawing at it.
“The portcullis!” cried another guard. “Stop her!”
Their rapiers flashed as they sprinted down the hall only to be blocked by the blazing tapestry. They kicked at it, causing sparks to fly into the air and the smoke made them cough.
“Smother it with your cloaks!” shouted Jonns, his voice hoarse.
She made one last cut with her dagger and then the cable snapped. She had mere moments left. It was going to be very close.
Willow ran to the other winch. She kicked at the chock. All the weight of the portcullis was on that winch, on that chock. It was almost impossible to budge it. Each kick moved it less than a finger’s breadth. But she couldn’t risk the uncertain timing of trying to cut the cable.
“Willow!” called Tamlevar from down the hall.
Willow kept kicking at the chock. Almost free. The problem was that the winch was on the wrong side of the portcullis. Once the chock was free, she’d have to dive through the opening before the portcullis came down. If she timed it wrong, she’d be crushed by the portcullis—or worse, trapped on the wrong side and be at the mercy of the Guard.
“Willow!” Tamlevar’s voice was a distant nuisance, the buzz of a mosquito.
“Kill her!”
Almost. Free. She kicked as hard and as fast as she could. Her foot was aching all over, and one of her toes might have been broken.
Almost. Free.
One of the guards was upon her. She spun and caught him in the ribs with a side kick that lifted him from his feet and landed him in a sprawled heap. She didn’t have time to spare him more than a glance, however, and returned to kicking at the chock. It was almost free.
Almost. Free. Almost.
FREE! The chock slid out. The winch spun like an insane water wheel and the portcullis began its plunge.
Willow dove for the opening beneath the plummeting teeth of the gate. In that brief instant, time distended, seemed to expand infinitely. Each moment seemed stretched to the point of breaking. Willow heard each “kerchunk-kerchunk” as the winch ratcheted out of control, heard each footfall of the guards.
Just as she started to think she had made it, blinding pain shot through her entire body. The pointed tip of the one of the spears of the portcullis had just missed her, but the angled section of the spearhead struck the bottom of her foot a glancing blow. Even this merest brush with the portcullis was sufficient to rip the sole from her boot and crumble the bones within her foot.
She crawled from the portcullis just as the guards arrived. They poked at her through the bars of the portcullis in impotent fury.
Oddly enough, she felt no pain in her foot. She knew from experience that it was shock. The pain would be on her in moments, so she crawled as fast as she could, if only to make the most of the time she had.
Then the wave of agony and nausea crashed over her, buried her beneath such intensity that she nearly fainted. She needed to keep crawling but she couldn’t help curling into a fetal position and moaning.
The guards were trying to raise the portcullis with the undamaged winch. With only the single rope to lift it, the winch raised the bars askew, and the portcullis kept jamming against the wall.
Her world was a blazing sun of white agony. She was clenching her teeth so hard that they too began to hurt. Her stomach heaved and she was a hair’s breadth from retching.
“Discipline!” she cried, tears pouring from her eyes.
“Willow!” Tamlevar called from the exit.
“Tamlevar, help me!”
The guards had raised the portcullis almost high enough for them to crawl through and they were swishing their rapiers along the floor, trying to cut her. One of them grazed her pants leg.
“Hurry!” she shouted to Tamlevar, not even able to look up to see if he were coming.
Then one of Tamlevar’s hands was on her shoulder and another on her hip. She felt herself hoisted into the air.
Tamlevar threw her over his shoulder. As he did, her injured foot swung around and struck Tamlevar in the face. Her world exploded into sickly white pain that wiped out all other sensations. She gritted her teeth and fought against the encroaching darkness, but a moan slipped out despite her efforts
“Ow,” Tamlevar said. “That hurt.”
“Just …” Willow croaked. “Just. Go.”
Tamlevar ran through castle gate onto the square, scattering pigeons. People gawked at them: the tall black man carrying the famous elf captain Willow over his shoulder, fleeing the castle. The ceremonial guard at the entrance was caught unprepared and one of them nearly dropped his halberd in surprise.
“You know, Willow,” Tamlevar said. “I think we’re in trouble.”
Tamlevar sprinted past the guards and down a set of stone steps leading from the square. His every step jostled Willow and brought a new spike of pain. Her head was pressed against his chest, and she felt more than heard his breath becoming labored.
“All right,” he said, gasping for breath. “So th
at was a bit … a bit obvious. This whole …” Tamlevar stopped and leaned against the corner of a temple, glancing back at their path. “This whole … laying siege to a castle thing is … is new to me.”
His tread was becoming uneven, and he was starting stumble. Willow’s mind raced, desperately seeking a solution to the crisis in which she now found herself.
“Excuse me!” Tamlevar said, after weaving between a vendor and his wagon. “I’m so … I’m so sorry.”
At last, they reached the opposite end of the square. Tamlevar paused for breath once more and then took off down an alley between two buildings, took a sharp turn around a corner, and then ran a few more blocks.
“I can’t …” he said, wheezing. “I can’t go … much further.”
This would have to do. Tamlevar was her only ally: it wouldn’t do to run him to death.
“All right,” said. “We can stop here.”
Tamlevar halted and leaned against the corner of another temple. He lowered Willow onto her good foot, and then straightened, tilting his head back to better his air intake. He breathed in gulps, and he seemed almost drunk from near asphyxiation.
He sagged against the wall. “I never … I never channeled that much before,” he said, his voice brittle. He glanced back at their path. “What are we … what are we going to do? Where do we go? We have … we have to think … fast.”
Her mind had been spinning, trying to answer those very same questions. At last, she came up with a plan.
Well, not really a plan. More of a shell of a plan, but it was all she had.
“Suel,” she said. “Head for Suel’s tower.”
Chapter 19
Tamlevar was strong; she had to give him that. Staggering through the streets of Bryanae with an armored elf over his shoulder couldn’t be easy. She kept an eye out behind them, but so far, the streets were devoid of soldiers. That wouldn’t last; the pair of them was hardly inconspicuous.
“We are in so much trouble,” Tamlevar kept repeating, as though grappling with the enormity of the situation. If they were caught, she’d likely be put on public display for a week or so and then hanged. As for Tamlevar, the best he could hope for would be an ignominious discharge from the Guard; but far more likely, he too would swing at the end of a rope. Perhaps that would at last satisfy his idea of romance.
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