“Then . . .” Jasnah said, “the palace is really under attack?”
“Yes,” Kemnar replied in a low voice. “We were planning to wait for this evening to rescue you, but when the ruckus started, we decided to move.” He pulled the bulk of the train free and tossed it aside. Then he waved to his men. “Let’s go,” he said. “Our primary concern is Lady Kholin. Let that fool Meridas worry about the invaders.”
The ten men nodded, escorting Jasnah and the three frightened ladies-in-waiting away from the sounds of fighting, toward the eastern section of the palace. As they walked, Jasnah caught sight of a doorway into one of the servants' quarters. She froze, gasping slightly despite herself as she saw the bodies littered within.
Kemnar paused beside her, face grim. Then he nodded for them to continue.
“Kemnar . . .” Jasnah said.
“My lady, we have no choice,” he said. “What would you have us do? Fight to defend the palace and risk losing you to the invaders? Do you have any idea how valuable a captive the king’s own sister would make?”
Jasnah nodded, steeling herself against the carnage. She had seen death before. She had spent years with Elhokar on the battlefields of Prallah. But common people were somehow different than soldiers.
“At least the massacre tells us it’s not Dalenar who is invading,” she said, moving forward again.
Kemnar nodded. “They must be trying to secure the palace, taking control of the Oathgates quickly before news can reach Elhokar. Some remnants of the Prallan rebels, perhaps? This Rantah group that Lord Dalenar thinks is behind the death of the Traitor? If they got an army to the Traitor without us seeing, they might have been able to get one into the city.”
“Perhaps,” Jasnah said.
Their trail ended at a large, unoccupied set of chambers in the eastern wing. It had a wide terrace with large open doors that overlooked the city below. Kemnar peered through the balcony doors, then cursed quietly.
“What?” Jasnah whispered, joining him and peeking out into the sunlight.
“The ramp,” Kemnar said, pointing. A squad of at least five tenset soldiers lounged near the top of the stone ramp leading down into the city proper.
“But they wear Aleth blue!” Jasnah said eagerly. “We can bring them back to the palace and—”
“Those are no soldiers of ours, my lady,” Kemnar informed her. “There are hardly that many left in the entire city, and they would never gather here. They’re too busy guarding the walls. The invaders want to box us in.”
Kemnar ducked back. He didn’t speak, but Jasnah could see the troubled look in his eyes. If the eastern ramp, the one farthest from the Oathgate chamber, was guarded . . .
“We should check the western ramp, just in case,” Kemnar decided. “Other than the ramps, the only way out is through the Oathgates themselves, and I doubt—”
“Kemnar!” the lookout shouted. “We’ve been spotted!”
Kemnar cursed, grabbing his sword and waving his men to fan out. At the end of their hallway, a large squad of soldiers strode their direction. Kemnar was right; despite their blue uniforms, they were collectively too tall and broad to be Aleths.
Vedens Jasnah thought. It would explain the slaughter—Vedenar was far more militaristic than Alethkar, its soldiers known for their harshness.
Kemnar slammed the hallway door shut, but there was no bar, only a small latch. He jumped back as the door smashed open, and the battle began.
The fight went poorly from the very beginning. Jasnah backed up to stay out of the way, but there was nowhere to run. They dared not escape through the terrace, for just beyond—mercifully out of earshot—waited the ramp-guarding soldiers. Kemnar’s men were outnumbered nearly two to one, and they had to worry about protecting Jasnah and keeping any of the enemy from escaping through the terrace and bringing enemies up from behind. Jasnah watched her defenders die—they fell with heroism, but they died all the same. Soon, only Kemnar and two other men remained, backed up in a tight circle around Jasnah and the three ladies. Her protectors’ breathing was heavy, limbs wet with blood. Nine enemy remained, seven spearmen and two sword-bearing noblemen.
There was a lull as the two sides regarded one another, their companions dying on the floor around them. Kemnar glanced up suddenly, his eyes flickering toward something behind the invaders. One of the soldiers noticed the motion, turning. He mumbled something, alerting his companions. A man stood at the end of the hallway. Alone, dark, almost like a shadow. He was unarmed.
Taln, the madman.
Jasnah groaned quietly. She had forgotten that this was the day she had arranged for his departure through the Oathgates. She had unwittingly brought him to his death.
Taln stepped forward.
“No, Taln!” Jasnah yelled. “Run!”
He did run—toward the soldiers. He stooped down, cloak fluttering as he dashed forward with a speed that belayed his size. The nobleman at the back raised his sword to cut the madman down.
Steel glittered in Taln’s fingers as twin daggers appeared from beneath his cloak. Surprisingly, he dodged the nobleman’s attack, then rammed his daggers into the man’s upper arms. The nobleman screamed in pain. Taln snatched the falling sword, then rammed its hilt into the nobleman’s face, the force of the blow tossing the man backward.
The nobleman fell against the back ranks of his own men, and the battle pulsed to life again—but with a change. The new participant drastically altered the flow of the conflict. Taln was a boulder rolled through a patch of insects. He was a spinning god of death—quick, precise, almost inhuman. He sliced the end off a spear as it thrust for him, then easily beheaded its bearer. As Kemnar stumbled near Jasnah, falling beneath the assault of several soldiers, Taln hurled his sword. The fine steel shortsword whipped through the fray, slamming into the head of one of Kemnar’s assailants, causing the man to stumble long enough for Kemnar to regain his footing.
Taln kicked up the two-foot end of the spear he had sheared from its haft—catching the pseudo-weapon without even glancing toward it—then plunged it dagger-like into the chest of an attacking spearman. Even as the attacker fell, Taln bent to the side, dodging another spear. He grabbed the offending spear, yanking it in its bearer’s hands so the haft came up and took its owner in the chin. A kick sent the man reeling back into the second nobleman, stunning both long enough for Taln to duck and rip the broken spearhead out of the dying soldier, only to plunge it into the chest of the off-balanced spearman. The soldier fell, dropping his spear as if into Taln’s waiting hand, and this came up to block the nobleman’s attack. The noble-man’s sword bit deeply into the wood, and Taln spun the spear, sliding both weapons from their owner’s hands and dropping them to the ground.
The nobleman glanced toward his sword as Taln reached to the side, where the second spearman was trying to pull the broken spearhead from his chest. Taln wrenched the spearhead free—letting the man collapse with a sigh—then slammed it into the nobleman’s back as the man ducked to retrieve his sword.
Kemnar and his two companions held their ground, finishing off the last two soldiers. As the final Veden fell, Kemnar jerked to a surprised halt, regarding the swath of dead men at Taln’s feet. The madman was completely unwounded.
Kemnar whispered the tenth name of the Almighty, lowering his sword. The other guards did likewise. Then, from behind Taln, a group of people poured into the hallway. Kemnar fell into a fighting stance before realizing that these were not more soldiers—far from it. Though most bore weapons of some sort, they held them uncertainly. There had to have been at least fifty of them—palace servants and other citizens, a group of children, and several litters carrying the wounded.
Taln stepped forward as Kemnar checked his fallen comrades for life. The madman stood before Jasnah for a moment, quiet, but breathing deeply from the battle. “Lady Kholin,” he finally said.
“Madman,” she replied, tipping her head.
“It seems your family isn’t the only
one who dreams of holding all ten Oathgates for itself.”
Jasnah flushed with anger despite herself. “Do not compare me with these,” she said, nodding to the slaughterers.
Taln eyed them, then nodded. “You are right. I apologize.”
“You fight well,” she noted. “Unexpectedly well. Perhaps I shouldn’t have kept you from taking back your sword at the feast.”
Taln smiled slightly. “If you hadn’t stopped me, I wouldn’t be here now, and you would be dead at these soldiers’ hands. The Almighty’s ways.” Then he turned, eyes losing their smile as he regarded the dead. Kemnar had found two men alive, and was helping one to his feet while his companions bound the other’s wounds. He would have to be carried.
Jasnah’s stomach turned at the sight of the massive group of peasants. How were they to escape with such a great number? In fact, how would anyone escape? Taln had rescued them, but if the Oathgates had fallen as Kemnar claimed, an army was likely on its way through at the moment. Though Taln fought amazingly well, he still fought as a man, with steel and wood. She had seen no signs of supposed divinity, and one man—no matter how good—would not be able to stand against such odds.
Taln obviously saw the look in her eyes. He moved over, peeking carefully out at the ramp beyond.
“We can’t escape,” she whispered.
Taln shook his head. “There is another way. Isel, Jeniz, help Lady Jasnah’s men with their wounded. The rest of you, let’s go. We don’t have much time.”
Two of the palace servants hopped forward, moving to assist Kemnar. The rest of the citizens stood nervously, gripping their weapons. Kemnar glanced at Jasnah questioningly. She held up a hand, bidding him not to join the fleeing peasants. The madman spoke with presumed authority, obviously giving no thought to the fact that Jasnah, or even Kemnar, grossly outranked him. In another man, the assumptions would have been insultingly arrogant. To Taln they simply seemed . . . natural. He had led men before. Whoever he really was, that much was obvious.
“Where do you seek to take us?” Jasnah demanded as Taln picked through the fallen weapons, distributing them as he saw fit.
The madman looked up. “The palace cellars,” he informed. “There’s a passage there into the caverns beneath the mountain.”
Jasnah raised an eyebrow skeptically.
Taln sighed, then approached her, holding the fallen nobleman’s sword. “Look,” he said quietly. “You think I’m insane, but I obviously learned how to fight somewhere. Is it inconceivable that I might know something about this building that you do not? Your family has, after all, lived here for less than a generation.”
Jasnah narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. Taln obviously took the silence as assent. He handed her the sheathed sword. “Here,” he said. “Hold this. I may need it later.”
With that, he waved his rag-tag group forward, taking the point position, followed closely by several younger men and his Peacehome monk friend.
Kemnar stepped over next to her, watching the strange group leave the room. “The cellars will leave us trapped,” he noted.
“We’re trapped anyway,” Jasnah decided. “Besides, it might earn us a little bit of time. You said the invaders are trying to secure the palace—they’ll check the cellars last, since they have no exits.”
No exits. Her own words fell harshly on her ears. Kemnar seemed to accept them, however, and he waved his three able-bodied companions to close around Jasnah to escort her after Taln’s troop.
The going was brutally nerve-wracking, but mercifully uneventful. The palace felt oddly silent now, an atmosphere enhanced when they passed corpses in hallways or rooms. Some were palace guards, but more often they were regular citizens, cut down as they ran or hid, slaughtered regardless of gender or age.
The hallways, once familiar to her, now felt alien. Jasnah shivered. After a short time of travel, Taln held up a hand, stopping the procession. Jasnah pushed her way forward, past wounded servants and young men with untested weapons. Taln had given some of them swords, she noted, despite their citizen status.
“What?” she asked as he stood quietly.
“Listening,” he said. “There is battle up ahead. I had assumed the palace secured, but someone obviously fights on.”
Jasnah frowned. She heard nothing. The direction Taln had indicated led to the Oathgates—their group had been forced to skirt uncomfortably close to the center of the palace in order to reach the cellar stairwells.
Taln waved her to remain where she was, then crept forward to a hallway intersection. He returned a few moments later. “We’ll have to sneak past the next intersection,” he explained to Jasnah and the few men who stood near the front.
“Shouldn’t we go and help whoever’s fighting?” the monk asked.
Taln shook his head. “We shouldn’t have delayed this long as it is. It isn’t your life and mine we risk now, Lhan, but the lives of all those we’ve saved. We cannot afford further recklessness.”
Taln organized the peasants into a line, then approached the intersection and waved them forward in small groups. Not waiting for her turn, Jasnah joined him at the intersection, the weight of the sword he had given her unfamiliar in her hands. She ignored his suffering glare, turning to peer past him down the leftmost hallway of the intersection. She was mildly surprised to realize that he was right—there were sounds coming from that direction. The hallway broadened near its end into a small entryway, and she could make out forms moving in this section, though she could see nothing distinct. Occasionally, a yell of pain would carry through the stone passages. There were, however, no sounds of metal on metal. Just the screams.
“More executions,” she said grimly.
“No,” Taln corrected as the servants continued to pass. “It’s . . . something else. Those screams are all Veden.”
“You claim to be able to tell accents from screams?” Jasnah scoffed.
Taln nodded distractedly, looking down the hallway with confused eyes. Then his eyes opened wide. He turned with a sudden motion. “Lhan! The cellar stairwells are two intersections up on the right. Lead the people down and wait for me there.”
Lhan opened his mouth to object, but Taln ignored him, taking off down the side hallway in a fast creep.
Jasnah cursed quietly, watching him go. What was so important that he would abandon the people so quickly after giving his speech on not being ‘reckless’? He’s insane, she reminded herself. He may seem stable, but he’s not. However, insane or not, they needed him—if the secret passage in the cellars did exist, Taln would have to live long enough to show it to them.
“Kemnar, go with the people and protect them,” she ordered. “I’m going to bring the idiot back.”
“I’ll send my men,” Kemnar replied, “but I’m not leaving you.”
“Fine,” Jasnah said, rising and moving down the hallway with as much stealth as she could in the frilled blue dress. She could see Taln up ahead, standing in a pillar alcove just before the hallway widened. She needn’t have worried about sneaking—the soldiers ahead weren’t watching their backs, instead focused on something Jasnah couldn’t see. She joined Taln in his alcove, receiving another suffering glare.
“What is it?” she hissed, ignoring him.
Taln nodded past the pillar, as something walked into view ahead of them—a man. Meridas.
“My Blade,” Taln whispered.
The nobleman stood indifferently before a group of nervous invaders, their spears held at the ready. The remains of those foolish enough to attack lay on the ground already, dismembered in various ways. Meridas held Taln’s Shardblade casually by his side, point down, in his odd relaxed dueling stance.
Meridas dashed forward without warning. The seven spearmen didn’t stand a chance—not against a Shardblade. Meridas took them down in three swings.
“He’s good,” Taln noted with a frown. “I didn’t expect that.”
“Meridas!” Jasnah called, showing herself as the nobleman wiped his swor
d.
Meridas raised an eyebrow as he saw her, then frowned as he saw Taln. “You should escape the palace, woman,” he said, turning away from her and stepping over a body. He walked away impassively.
“Where are you going?”
“The Oathgates,” he said. “I’ll cut my way through and escape to warn your foolish brother. I told him not to leave the city so undermanned.”
“The Oathgates are sealed,” Taln said. “King Elhokar ordered them closed. How will you escape through them without an Awakener?”
Meridas paused.
Just then, a door at the side of the hallway flew open, revealing two men in Shardplate—probably summoned to deal with Meridas. They assessed the situation and the dead soldiers, then one stepped forward and held out his Blade in a dueling posture.
Meridas smiled, as if their arrival were a pleasant gift, and nodded his head to the first man.
Beside Jasnah, Taln tensed.
“No!” she hissed. “Theses are Shardbearers! They’ll cut you down without—”
Taln reached up, ignoring her as he grabbed the hilt of the sword she still carried. In front of them, Meridas and the first man began their duel.
“Shardbearers are like other men,” Taln whispered, hand on hilt. “Swing something at them, and they can’t help reacting. Watch.”
With that, Taln whipped the sword out—leaving the sheath in Jasnah’s hand—and jumped toward the second Shardbearer. The man turned in surprise, raising his weapon. Taln swung his sword, and the Shardbearer parried reflexively, slicing Taln’s weapon in half.
The Shardbearer didn’t notice the dagger in Taln’s other hand until it was too late. The Veden cried out, dying with a length of steel in his eye, and Taln grabbed his Shardblade as it fell—then jumped directly at the back of the man dueling Meridas. Taln cut down the second Shardbearer before the man even knew he was there, dropping him with a thrust directly between two sections of Shardplate.
The Way of Kings Prime Page 46