She fought against the overwhelming weight of despair. She had only one option: she needed to go down, through the interior of the tower.
Shivering with the chill, she limped toward the door. The thin slivers of moonlight did little to brighten the room. She ran her fingers over the smooth stone surface, searching in vain for a keyhole.
The Duke used a pendant to get out. She fumbled for the place where he'd placed the pendant to open the door. Even had she possessed a set of lockpicks, she couldn't have done anything with them. The tower belonged to Duke Phonnis, but it was said to be built by the Serenii. Beyond the tunnels beneath Voramis, she had no experience with the ancient race's creations. The absence of a keyhole or visible lock told her the Serenii hadn't relied on the same security methods used in Praamis today. But how had Duke Phonnis gotten his hands on the pendants? How had the stones survived the centuries since the Serenii disappeared from Einan?
Right now, that didn't matter. All that mattered was that she couldn't pick the lock to get out. Instead, she had to lure the Arbitors into the room long enough to break free. She'd have to fight, with nothing but a melted tin figurine for a weapon.
And a sling! Her hand went to the leather thong wrapped around her wrist. Ethen had told her long ago the sling was foreign to the people of Praamis. The Duke hadn't recognized the strip of leather as a weapon, at least not one she could use to overpower his armored, sword-wielding, highly-skilled Arbitors. He had full confidence in his men and his prison.
That will be your undoing. With a savage grin, she loosened the thong from her wrist.
* * *
"Please!" Ilanna shrieked over the wind. "Please make it stop!" She thrashed on her bed, moaning and screaming. "Make it stop. Don't let them come. They want to take me away!"
She continued her violent spasms and wailing, though her muscles tired and her throat grew raw. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of incoherent screeching, the door to her cell swung open. Torchlight spilled into her room and two shadows moved toward her.
"Swordsman take you!" snarled a man's voice. "Be still, girl!"
A hand clasped around her wrist. Ilanna twisted and writhed in the man's grip. Just a little more…
"Come help me here, Alech," the first man said. "The Duke'll have our heads if we let her—"
The moment Ilanna felt a second pair of hands on her, she moved. She whipped the leather thong around and toward the nearest guard. The tin hawk, secured to the end of the sling, struck him between the eyes. Even as the Arbitor fell back with a cry, Ilanna drove her foot up between the legs of the second man, Alech. Alech's eyes flew wide and, with a pathetic groan, he slumped onto her cot.
Ilanna leapt to her feet and slithered away from the grasping hands of the first Arbitor. She didn't bother trying to run—her only hope of escape lay in dispatching these two before they could sound the alarm.
The first Arbitor staggered to his feet, reeling, a hand pressed to his forehead. Ilanna darted around behind him. The leather thong flicked out to encircle his neck. Ilanna caught the end, leaping onto the Arbitor's back and wrapping her legs around his waist. She hauled on the sling with every ounce of strength. The Arbitor gagged and gasped. His hands beat at her arms, her fingers, her face. One lucky blow split her lip and set her vision wobbling, but she refused to let go. He stumbled backward and drove her back against the hard stone wall. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs. Still she clung to the Arbitor, strangling the life from him.
A gust of wind sent a chill down her spine. Acting on instinct, Ilanna unclasped her legs from around the guard's waist and kicked her feet out behind her. Her toes slipped off the ledge of the window. For a moment, her body dangled in empty air, her hands clinging to the strip of leather around the Arbitor's neck. Off-balance, the guard teetered, her weight dragging him backward and over the ledge.
Ilanna had a split second to act. Her right hand released the leather thong and grasped at the window lip. Her fingertips clawed for purchase on the smooth lip, caught, and held. Heart thundering a wild beat, she hung by a single hand, watching the Arbitor plummet two hundred paces to the treetops below. His silent fall ended in an ominous crackling of branches.
Ilanna fumbled the sling between her teeth and reached her left hand up to grasp the windowsill. Her toes, numb with chill, dug at the stones. Finding purchase, she scrambled up the tower and heaved herself over the lip of the window.
Alech's eyes widened at the sight of her. Groaning, he climbed to his feet and limped toward the door. In desperation, Ilanna leapt at him. Her weight landed atop his back, knee digging into his spine. He stumbled forward, feet tangling, and he fell hard. Air whooshed from his lungs with another groan. Before he could move, Ilanna wrapped the leather sling around his throat and pulled upward, driving her knee into the base of his neck.
I'm sorry, she repeated in her mind. She had no personal enmity toward the Arbitor, but he stood between her and freedom. The Duke had given her no other choice.
That didn't make the deed any easier. She clung to Alech as his choked cries and gagging grew quieter, his struggles weakening. Gritting her teeth, she forced her trembling hands to grip the thong tighter until her forearms burned. For a full minute after the Arbitor lay still, Ilanna kept the pressure on the sling. Finally, she slumped to the ground beside him, gasping for air.
For long seconds, she couldn't move. Her eyes remained fixed on his blue face, the blood filling his open eyes, his lolling tongue. She wanted to vomit—she'd never killed anyone like that. Swallowing hard, she levered herself upright and fumbled in Alech's robes.
A nagging doubt echoed in her mind. Had the other Arbitor taken the pendant with him? If so, she had no chance of getting out of the door, much less escaping the tower. Her dread grew with every passing second, and still she hadn't found what she sought.
Then her fingers closed around the pendant, tucked into an inner pocket in the dead Arbitor's robes. She nearly wept with relief. Stumbling to her feet, she pressed the stone to the wall in the same place the Duke had the day before. After a heart-wrenching moment of silence, the door swung open without a sound, revealing a torchlit staircase.
The tension in Ilanna's chest snapped, and she blew out a long, ragged breath. She cast a glance over her shoulder. The Arbitor hadn't moved.
Steeling herself, she turned her back on the corpse. She had no time for the weakness of guilt. She needed to escape. She forced herself to walk calmly through the door, leaving her prison, the night chill, and the shrieking wind behind.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ilanna stood on the top step of the stairs descending the interior of the Black Spire. Torchlight revealed nothing odd or out of place on the stone walls, ceiling, or the steps themselves, but she knew better than to trust a first glance, especially where Duke Phonnis and the Black Spire were concerned.
Her first experience with the Duke's traps had taught her to look beyond the immediate. That night in the Black Spire so many years ago, she had avoided a visible section of raised tile, only to trigger a trap she could never have spotted even in broad daylight. The misstep had nearly cost her her life.
She studied everything, letting her well-honed instincts take in the details: the perfect circular shape of the interior walls, even though the exterior was built in an octagon; the smooth granite of the walls and ceiling, and the torches hanging in bronze sconces. No flicker meant no air currents sweeping up the staircase. The interior of the Serenii-built tower showed little of the wear and tear of the exterior.
Wear and tear.
The Duke had mentioned remodeling the room atop the Black Spire. That meant workmen traveling up and down the stairs. Workmen with heavy boots that would disturb gathered dust and scuff the stones.
Ilanna retrieved a nearby torch and held it close to the smooth surface of the stairs. The step immediately beneath hers bore a pair of scratches. No doubt from the Arbitors' hobnailed boots. The next step down, however, showed no scuff
s in the layer of dust covering it. The lack of wear meant those who used the staircase purposely avoided the step. Knowing the Duke, it was a trap.
The third stair bore the marks of the Arbitors' passage in the center, with thick layers of dust along the edges. Ilanna leapt over the trapped stair to land lightly on her toes in the middle of the step. She held her breath in anticipation. Nothing happened.
Blowing out her cheeks, she stooped to examine the next step. She saw no scratches, but it showed more wear than the untouched stair she'd avoided. The same for the following step. Three down, she paused. Once again, a thin sheen of dust lay undisturbed. Another trap, and another five steps farther.
Ilanna gritted her teeth, frustrated at the slow pace of her descent. Hundreds of stairs lay between her and freedom. At this rate, she would be out of the tower at the week's end.
Her study of the Duke's security systems had revealed his reliance on the more popular traps: a hidden crossbow, poisoned darts, a stair that broke away underfoot to send her plummeting into a spike pit, or a spout shooting a gout of flame. But she had no idea what manner of traps the ancient Serenii would have integrated into their creation. No doubt the Duke had added his own layers of security, but she couldn't risk triggering something invisible built into the very foundation of the Black Spire.
Worse, she feared triggering the traps would set off the alarm bells that had rung out the first time she'd crept into the Black Spire. The bells were intended to alert the guards below that the traps above had snared an intruder. She couldn't risk stumbling into a group of Arbitors waiting for her at the bottom of the windowless tower. That meant keeping her pace slow, no matter how much it frustrated her.
A thought nagged at the back of her mind. The Duke uses these steps. And his Arbitors, and whoever remodeled the room. So how did they get up the steps without triggering the traps?
She sat on the stairs and pondered the question. She studied the staircase below for any marks, scratches in the wall, anything to indicate which steps were safe and which concealed snares. Nothing. She turned to stare at the stairs above. Perhaps the marks were hidden to those who descended, only visible from below. Still nothing.
How in the fiery hell do they know which stairs to step on?
She forced herself to think like the owner of the Black Spire. In her desire to keep her tower safe, she built snares and hidden traps into the steps. But she would want to ascend and descend without fear for her life. Without visible markings, how would she have the confidence to climb the staircase?
A memory from her time in Voramis flashed through her mind. Graeme, the Hidden Circle apprentice, had taught her the code to navigate the Secret Keepers’ temple. He'd used a simple numerical pattern to determine whether to turn right, left, or go straight at each intersection.
So what if this follows the same concept?
She held the torch to the steps, counting as she descended. Two steps to the first trap. Three steps to another. Five steps down, she hit a third. Three more to hit a trap. Two steps down. Three down. Five, then three.
Excitement set her heart thumping. Anyone climbing the stairs would have to remember the simple pattern. 3-5-3-2. The descent would simply be the same pattern in reverse. 2-3-5-3.
Keeper's horny elbows, it's brilliant! Even a child could remember such a simple pattern. All the Duke and his Arbitors had to do was count the steps and they could avoid the traps.
She tested her theory, studying each step carefully before she placed her foot. The heat of the torch stung her face. Sweat stood out on her forehead, and nervous tension set her shoulders aching. For long minutes, she descended at the slow pace, counting with each step.
2-3-5-3. 2-3-5-3. She studied each trapped step carefully for any sign of scuff marks before stepping. If she was wrong about the pattern, she would trigger a trap. She could expect painful death at worst, ringing alarm bells at best.
Yet the pattern held true. By the time she'd descended a full sixty steps, she knew she had hit on the secret of the Black Spire. Triumphant, she picked up the pace, not bothering to study the stairs. Elation surged within her chest. She could be down and out of the Black Spire well before morning. As long as the Arbitors didn't change shifts in the middle of the night, she could escape undiscovered.
Her bare feet made little sound on the stone, though a chill seeped through her soles. Ilanna gripped her improvised weapon—the tin hawk tied to the end of the sling—tightly. The Arbitors at her door had carried no swords, clubs, even daggers. Nothing she could use in case she ran into anyone farther down the stairs.
The barest hint of sound trickled into her ears. She froze, uncertain. Was the Black Spire playing with her imagination?
No, it came again, voices, low and incoherent, hardly above a whisper, but voices nonetheless. The torch danced and flickered with a thread of air. Ilanna's heart leapt. Air meant a door or window, a way out. But voices meant Arbitors, no doubt with swords, silver breastplates, and a willingness to kill her.
Perhaps if she charged down the stairs, she could catch them off-guard. She discarded the idea immediately. Errik had spent hours teaching her to wield a sword, daggers, and other weapons. His lessons had also included very strict instructions never to face armed men in direct combat whenever possible. Her small size set her at a distinct disadvantage. Years of climbing ropes and running the Hawk's Highway had developed her muscles, but she had no chance against fully-armored men. She was a thief, not an assassin. She had to think like one.
Setting down the torch, she slipped down the stairs in silence. Worry and fear mixed like acid and vinegar in her gut. She forced herself to take slow, quiet breaths as she descended. The voices grew louder with every step, but twenty stairs down and she still hadn't reached the Arbitors. She understood. The Black Spire was playing tricks with her. The design of the staircase amplified the sounds within. Just as she could hear the Arbitors below, they would hear her.
That suited her just fine. She stopped, a wicked, dangerous idea flitting through her mind. She turned it over, analyzing it. She would have to take the risk. She couldn't fight her way past the Arbitors, not without a weapon. The leather sling and tin hawk would do little to stop the Duke's men from raising the alarm. She had only one choice.
"Help," she moaned in the weakest, most pathetic voice she could muster. The reedy sound floated down the staircase as she cried again. "Help…me."
Seizing her shirt, she tore the neck to reveal a good deal more of her breasts than modesty preferred. Another tug ripped the shirt at her belly. She slipped one side of her pants down over her hips and lay down on the stairs, twisting her knees and elbows at an awkward angle.
"Please!" she wailed. "They…hurt…me."
Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. Ilanna rumpled her hair and splayed it over her face. Closing her eyes, she lay back and groaned weakly.
"You heard that, Trund?" a male voice sounded.
"Aye, so I did," another man answered. "Prob'ly just Alech playing the fool."
Ilanna gave another pathetic moan, adding a whimper for dramatic effect. "Oh gods…help me!"
"That don't sound like Alech, Rafe!" said the first man, Trund.
Rafe muttered something inaudible, and the sound of heavy footfalls approached more rapidly.
Ilanna's breathing sped up, her chest rising and falling as if in panicked terror.
"Keeper's teeth!" Rafe's voice came from a few steps below her. "It's her. The thief from the tower."
"What happened?"
"Judging by her clothing, I'd say Alech had his—"
Ilanna jumped up and whipped the tin hawk toward the Arbitor. The metal figurine caught him on the top of the head and spun away as the leather thong snapped. Rafe, a big man with a beard the red of a Bloodbear's robes, stared at her wide-eyed. Seizing the moment of hesitation, Ilanna pushed off the staircase and leapt through the air. Her feet slammed into his chest. She shoved as hard as she could. He was strong, far stronger tha
n her, and her weight barely moved him. But he stumbled a single step backward--right onto a trap.
The moment his foot touched the stone stair, a dark blur shot from the wall. Blood spurted and Rafe screamed, staring in horror at the arrow buried in his knee. He fell back, catching Trund off-guard. Rafe's bulk knocked Trund off-balance. The Arbitor's boot came down hard on another trapped stair.
Before Ilanna could react, green fire bloomed from dozens of holes around the blue-robed man. A pillar of emerald flame washed up and down the staircase, reaching for Ilanna with blistering fingers. She had a split second to hurl herself flat against the inner wall as a wave of heat and fire blew past her. The roaring inferno consumed the screams of the Arbitors as greedily as it devoured their flesh.
The heat faded in a flash, leaving Ilanna standing alone in the staircase. The curving staircase had saved her from the worst of it, but the blaze had eaten away at her shirt and locks of her hair. The flesh of her shoulders, neck, and back stung. Her ears rang from the concussive force of the fire.
Horror writhed in her gut as she stared at the Arbitors. The sudden burst of flame had charred Thund beyond recognition. Rafe still lived, little more than a mess of blackened flesh. Only his legs had escaped the blaze. Viscous green liquid oozed from the tip of the shaft protruding from his knee. What little blood trickled from the wound had turned as black as the burned skin of his face.
Ilanna felt a momentary stab of pity. No man deserved to die in such agony. At least the poison, whatever it was, would grant him a merciful death. Burn victims could suffer for days before succumbing to the overwhelming pain.
Something within Ilanna mourned the death. Was that how Kodyn and Ria died? Screaming, shrieking as the fire turned their flesh and bone to ashes?
She had suffered at the loss of her loved ones, but what about these men? Did they have someone waiting at home for them—a son or daughter, wife, parents, friends, loved ones? What had the future held for them—a future that had ended because of her?
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