The lord marshal gathered the members of the little party at the base of the ladder, speaking quietly and quickly.
“Remember, the Thorn Knight first,” he said. “The giant and the witch-doctor are dangerous, but it’s the magic-user who is likely the chief link to the elemental. After we take him down, make for Ankhar and the shaman. All set?”
“I’m ready,” Sir Maxwell said. Most of the color had drained from his young face.
“Let’s go,” Sir Michael said, nodding curtly. “We’re all ready.”
Jaymes led the way, still holding one small crossbow while using his free hand to climb the ladder. He moved as stealthily as possible as he ascended, peering through the bars of the sewer grate, trying to get some idea of where they were going to come out above. By the time he was at the top of the ladder, he could see two walls with exterior surfaces of sooty stone, which seemed to indicate that they would be within a narrow alley. There was a thin line of smoky sky visible between two roofs that nearly overlapped each other, casting the whole area in welcoming shadows.
The grate was not so welcoming, however. Jaymes shoved at it with one hand, but it wouldn’t budge. Reluctantly uncocking his crossbow and slinging it at his belt, he put both hands against the rusty bars and braced his feet on a ladder rung. He pressed with all his strength, gritting his teeth, sweat beading around his eyes, but the grate was stuck fast.
Putting his face right up to the bars, he peered to the right and left. He saw barrels stacked nearby, apparently blocking off one end of the alley. The other end opened onto a wide avenue, and as he watched, a pair of ogres lumbered past. They paid no attention to the alley, but the grate was only a couple of dozen feet away from the street.
He turned around and dropped a few rungs, nearly stepping on Moptop’s fingers before turning to whisper to the kender. “Which building do you think is the inn where Ankhar went?”
“Well, let’s see…” The kender pulled out his scroll of parchment, allowing it to unroll downward until it dangled past his feet, swinging past the nose of the knight behind him. He looked up through the grate then back at the sheet. Finally he nodded. “That one over there-it has to be that one,” he said, indicating the structure to the right side of the narrow alley.
“Fair enough,” Jaymes said, trying to mute his skepticism. “We’re going to have to move fast,” he informed them all. “I’m going to cut through the grate with my sword, which might attract some attention. So get ready. Everybody up and out in half a breath.”
“Lead on,” Sir Michael said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
At the top of the ladder again, Jaymes cocked both crossbows and slung them at the ready. Then he twisted sideways so he could draw Giantsmiter out of its long scabbard. Balancing on his feet, with one knee propped around the back of a rusty rung, he slowly extended the tip of the sword between the bars of the sewer grate.
When he twisted the hilt in his hands, flames appeared along the steel edge, soundlessly flaring, bright blue in the shadows of the sewer shaft. He touched the blade to one rusty bar, producing a noise like the hiss of water spattering in a hot pan; the weapon quickly cut through the bar and came to the next with another loud, sibilant noise. Sparks and bits of molten metal spattered downward, some of them singeing his arms.
He ignored the pain and kept up the pressure with the sword. In a moment he had cut through all the bars at one end. Swiftly he repeated the process on the other three sides. Slicing through all but one of the metal rods, he lowered his sword and with one hand, bent down the almost-severed grate to open up a clear route to the alley.
With a glance down, confirming that his companions were poised for action, he pulled himself upward and out, quickly scrambling into a crouching position on the rough cobblestones of the alley. His eyes fixed upon the open end of the narrow passage. Fortunately, all he saw was a deserted section of the Duke’s Avenue. He slipped his sword back into its scabbard and took up his twin crossbows, one in each hand.
By then Moptop and the Kingfisher had emerged, with the three Knights of the Sword coming after. Maxwell looked almost boyish in his bright tunic and leather leggings. He held his dagger at the ready while offering a hand to Sir Michael, the last of the knights to emerge.
“There’s a doorway over here… looks like a kitchen door to the inn,” Moptop said, striding over to a rickety wooden barrier. The smell of lard seemed to confirm his diagnosis.
“Keep an eye on the entrance to the alley,” Jaymes ordered one of the knights. “We’ll be going back down that hole in a moment.”
He led the others to the kitchen door and tried the latch, finding it locked. Shrugging, he dropped his shoulder and plunged forward, breaking easily through the flimsy planking. Lunging into the empty room, he saw another door past the long cooking counter and huge iron oven. He advanced through the kitchen at a run, but the door to the main room flew open before he got there.
Jaymes found himself almost on top of one of the Dark Knight bodyguards who had accompanied Ankhar down the street. The man was clearly shocked to see an intruder in the kitchen, and he reached for his sword with lightning reflexes. Jaymes raised one of his crossbows and shot, the powerful weapon punching the lethal bolt into the man’s throat just above the rim of his breastplate.
Gagging, the knight fell back, and the lord marshal charged into the inn’s great room. He spotted the half-giant at once; Ankhar was standing near the front window, where he had apparently been watching his troops pass by in the street. He spun around, mouth gaping in a tusk-baring expression of astonishment. The little hob-wench was there as well and reacted quickly, shrieking in agitation and shaking her grotesque totem at the intruders. But where was the Thorn Knight?
Jaymes caught sight of the Gray Robe on the far side of the room. The man moved with liquid grace, gliding behind a stout pillar as if he knew that he was the target of this sudden intrusion. Other Dark Knights, more of Ankhar’s bodyguards, closed in, but Jaymes dashed across the room, while Sir Michael and the other knight met the guards with their steel. The lord marshal rounded the pillar and confronted the Gray Robe.
The Thorn Knight’s eyes met his. The magic-user was working on some kind of spell, murmuring an arcane word, gesturing with the slender fingers of his right hand while he waved a slender stick of wood in his left.
The lord marshal started to raise his crossbow, but the mage, without hesitation, charged right toward him-and away from him at the same time. Jaymes swung a fist at the Gray Robe, and his hand passed right through the image, causing it to disappear. Suddenly there were four identical wizards, all running from behind the pillar, each going in a different direction. The lord marshal swung the weapon, with its single remaining shot, from one of the images to the next, unsure which was the real Thorn Knight.
Moptop sprinted past and flew at one of the gray-robed figures, stretching his arms wide in an attempted tackle. The kender flew right through the magical image and landed hard on his nose. At the same time, the conjured reflection of the wizard vanished from sight. But that still left three possible targets, one racing toward the front door, and two diverging into opposite ends of the great room.
Meanwhile, Ankhar had recovered his wits and entered the fray. He pulled a sword from his belt that, while it was styled like a short sword for the half-giant, boasted a blade every bit as long as Giantsmiter’s.
Making a guess, Jaymes started after the Gray Robe who was heading for the door. He raised his crossbow, ready to shoot the man in the back. He barely noticed the Kingfisher, frantically chanting something and waving his hands around the room.
“There!” cried Sir Maxwell as the image in front of Jaymes disappeared.
The lord marshal spun around. The image of the Thorn Knight heading toward the back of the inn was also gone; only the one to the side of the room remained, his robe sweeping behind him as he leaped for the stairs leading to the second floor. Lunging after him, Jaymes slammed into genuine flesh, knock
ing the Gray Robe down.
The wizard fell into the railing, slumping backward. His lips curled into a snarl and his hands-one holding the wand, the other empty-gestured before his face.
But he wouldn’t have time to finish the casting.
Jaymes had raised the crossbow and now shot his bolt right into the man’s chest. The force of the strike hurled him backward, but the lord marshal was already on him as he fell. He saw the wand falling from the mage’s limp fingers and dived to snatch it up. He felt it snap between his strong hand and the floor before it rolled under a nearby crate.
“He destroyed the wand!” shrieked the shaman, her tone horrified.
“No!” Ankhar bellowed.
Jaymes could see that the Thorn Knight was badly, perhaps fatally, wounded. The half giant’s bellow, every bit as panicked as his mother’s cry, echoed in the room. More of Ankhar’s troops charged toward the front door, a press of reinforcements.
Clearly, the outnumbered attackers needed to withdraw. “We’ve accomplished what we wanted!” he cried, now pulling Giantsmiter from its sheath at his back. He rushed toward Sir Michael, who stood alone against a pair of Ankhar’s bodyguards. Moptop, his nose bleeding, ran along beside him, leaping over the body of the slain Sword Knight who had stood at Michael’s side when they entered the room.
“Where’s Maxwell?” demanded Jaymes, holding his great sword with one hand and spinning on his heel.
But Ankhar had closed in on the young Kingfisher. With one great hand, he gripped the young wizard around the throat and lifted him from the floor. Maxwell’s feet kicked and his arms thrashed, but he could do nothing against the hulking brute. With a deep, wet snarl, the half-giant tightened his fingers around the man’s neck.
Sir Michael cut down the last of the Dark Knights with a thrust to the gut, and joined Jaymes as both turned to rush toward the enemy commander. The hobgoblin shaman shrieked something, and both warriors halted abruptly as if they had crashed against an invisible fence. The lord marshal swung his flaming sword at the barrier and felt it wavering as Maxwell’s face turned blue, his flailing limbs suddenly drooping limply.
Moptop sprang across the room, jumping right at the shaman’s head. He wrapped his arms around her face, and the two of them stumbled crazily toward a large stone fireplace-the hearth, fortunately, cold. Their shouts and screams mingled chaotically as they tumbled onto the granite shelf, the kender on top of the old witch-doctor. With a shout of triumph, the kender broke free of the shaman’s violent embrace.
At the same time, the door to the street burst open and a troop of ogres charged in. “Kill them!” shrieked the witch-doctor, pointing with her skull’s-head rattle, and the brutes charged en masse toward the two swordsmen and the kender.
Maxwell made one last desperate gesture-a wave of his hand toward Jaymes. His mouth worked, and though no sound emerged, he clearly signaled: “Go!”
More ogres spilled through the door. The hob-wench shrieked her “Kill!” command over and over.
“You’ve got to flee,” Michael said to Jaymes, as they edged back from the approaching ogres.
“You too,” commanded the lord marshal, taking the other man by the shoulder and pulling him back. “There’s nothing more we can do.”
Grimacing in fury and grief, the Sword Knight acknowledged this truth. Moptop was already out the door, and they turned and followed him into the kitchen, stopping only to pull a heavy ice chest down to block their escape.
In the alley they saw that the last Sword Knight had taken up position near the street, where he stood matching swords with a burly ogre, giving ground slowly. Arrows zinged around them as some of Ankhar’s archers, responding to the alarms, shot wildly into the alley. The knight groaned and fell, bleeding from a gash through his chest, but before the ogre could advance, Sir Michael charged to replace the fallen man.
“Get away from here!” the swordsman shouted over his shoulder before cutting down the ogre with a single stab. More of the brutish warriors filled the mouth of the alley.
“Go!” Michael cried before meeting the next ogre with a resounding parry. “Est Sularus oth Mithas!” he shouted, the ecstasy of honorable battle radiant in his voice.
Jaymes shoved Moptop toward the gaping sewer hole. With a yelp, the kender ducked out of sight, and the lord marshal tumbled after. They ran into the darkness, chased by the sounds of ringing steel from the lone knight’s valiant holding action.
After no more than ten breaths, the sounds of battle suddenly ceased, but soon they were around the first corner, sprinting away through the sewers of Solanthus.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
UNLEASHED
‘W hat happened?” Ankhar roared, seizing the chief of his bodyguard detail and shaking him by the shoulder until the man’s neck broke with an audible snap. The half-giant cast the suddenly limp body aside, glaring down at his stepmother. “What happened?” he repeated, his voice, if anything, louder and angrier.
Yet Laka didn’t even spare him a glance. She was busy pressing her hand to the bleeding wound on Hoarst’s chest, muttering some prayer to the Prince of Lies. Abruptly, as the half-giant stared, she plucked out the bloody bolt and tossed it aside. She hoisted her death’s-head talisman, held it over the Thorn Knight’s pallid face, and shook it wildly. The pebbles in the skull rattled and the green stones in the eyes glowed, visible even in the daylight. Finally the hobgoblin dropped the device so the fleshless mouth of the skull met the cold, blue lips of the dying man.
Hoarst gave a hideous shriek. The green light flashed again, so brightly this time that Ankhar was forced to blink. In spite of himself, he leaned closer, watching the bleeding Thorn Knight with narrowed eyes.
Hoarst gasped and coughed, choking violently. Laka turned him onto his side, and he vomited blood onto the inn’s smooth floorboards, convulsing with pain and finally curling into a ball and drawing ragged, retching breaths. The wizard’s eyes were shut, his hands curled into fists and clutched against his chest, as he shivered like one in the depths of Nordmaar fever.
“Almost dead,” Laka said, standing and fixing the army commander with a sharp-toothed grin. “But not quite.”
“The wand!” spluttered the half-giant. “Can’t you use it?”
Laka shrugged. “Dunno,” she replied with a lot less concern than the army commander expected to see.
“What will we do without it?” he growled.
“You take it,” she replied, handing him the slender pieces of wood she plucked from under the crate. He looked at the things, like a broken toothpick in his massive hand, and suppressed the urge to throw them to the floor. They looked so tiny, so insignificant, he couldn’t believe it would make any difference if he waved them at the elemental king and tried to give it orders.
Laka dusted off the ashes that covered her all over from her tumble into the hearth. She patted her belt purse and shook her head grimly as she glared upward at her stepson.
“Wand’s not the worst of it.” Laka pulled a small, ruby-encrusted object from her pouch, and showed it to Ankhar. The lid of the little box had broken loose and lay separately in her weathered hand. Several of the stones were loose-tiny chips of crimson flecking her brown, parchment-like skin.
“We have no box to hold the giant when it comes for us.” She made the announcement as if she were reporting a shortage of butter to spread on the army commander’s ration of bread.
Ankhar looked askance at the broken box. Its magic was gone, the half-giant realized. The wand was of little use even if it were in one piece. The elemental king could no longer be imprisoned in the magic box. The thought of that horrific being stomping toward him, free of its prison and out of control, suddenly struck home. It was a very unsettling thought, indeed.
“It will come soon, won’t it? And it will be seeking us-you, and me, and the Gray Robe?”
Laka snorted. “What do you think?”
Ankhar threw back his head and roared with exasperation. He beat a mighty f
ist against his chest then struggled to think, to regain command of, first, his own emotions, then his army, then this battle.
“Yes, I understand. The wizard who held the king at bay is wounded and possibly dying, and the box that we have held him in is broken.” He growled, turning his back and stomping angrily across the inn’s hall. He spun again and pointed a thick finger at his stepmother and the still-huddled form of the Thorn Knight.
“There is only one thing to do: fix it!” he roared. “Before it kills us all!”
Jaymes and Moptop, a little muddy and wet from their trek through the sewers, raced into the Temple of Kiri-Jolith, where the duchess agreed to wait for them. They found her and her captains in a side vestibule, examining a map of the city that was spread over a desk.
“You’re back!” Brianna cried, rushing to embrace the lord marshal. “How did you fare?”
He shrugged. “Not well. We managed to attack the wizard. He is badly injured, possibly slain, but a company of ogres charged in before we could do any more damage. We were driven back.”
“But at least you foiled the wizard!” cried the duchess, seizing at the straw. “If he can’t help the enemy any more, that’s got to be good for us.”
“It came at no small cost,” the lord marshal admitted. “Four brave knights fell in the course of our escape.” Jaymes turned to Lord Martin. “Your son’s courage was pivotal to our attack… but I am sorry to tell you that he paid for that courage with his life.”
The lord’s face drained of color. He staggered almost imperceptibly. Then he stood straight, forcing the words out through his clenched jaw. “The Kingfishers hold to the same creed as the other orders: Est Sularus oth Mithas. I am grateful his death was not in vain.”
“By all that’s holy-did you just leave the dead behind? The bodies of those brave men?” demanded Lord Harbor. He faced Jaymes across the table. “Do you mean to say you just fled for your own safety? That you didn’t make the wretches pay?”
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