Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  Kel went to the foot of the stair to listen, straining to hear anything that did not sound right. Time slowed. A few of the servants, Connac, Zerhalm, Fanche, Saefas, and Connac’s squad went to the kitchen, where a side door led outside. It made a better exit for their purposes than the front door, which was framed with torches that burned throughout the night. If they went out that way, in all likelihood the guards on the castle walls would see them and alert comrades in the barracks.

  Sweat trickled down Kel’s temples. So much could go wrong here. . . . Blayce might want a late-night snack; a messenger from King Maggur might arrive. A restless soldier might wander and glimpse her people. The children might make noise.

  Stop it, Kel! she ordered herself. Neal’s the one with the imagination, not you.

  At last a child appeared at the top of the stair. He was dressed in a white velvet tunic, hose, lacy-collared shirt, gold chain belt. If it hadn’t been for the half-bald doll clutched in his arms, Kel would never have recognized Meech in this pretty lordling. He saw her and raced down the steps to hug her fiercely around her armored waist. Behind him came a flood of children, all barefooted, all clean, dressed in silks, velvets, lace, and brocade, their hair brushed and ordered. They trotted down as quickly and quietly as Meech had, though a few wept silently: Kel saw the glitter of tears in the faint torchlight. Meech wasn’t the only one to seize her in a frantic hug. Kel kissed the heads of any she could reach and traded handclasps with the rest.

  Here came Agrane and the convict soldiers with the infants. The youngest children made no sound, either. Neal had given Agrane drops to make them sleep until dawn. The dogs swarmed around them as they descended the stair.

  Kel waved the remaining servants in and hand-signed slowly, making sure they understood her. They were to help Agrane take the children to safety through the tunnel, now. Each time a servant opened his or her mouth to argue, Kel put a finger to her lips. When it was clear that she wouldn’t take no for an answer, they gathered the children and led them downstairs. If this attack goes wrong, at least the children will escape, Kel thought.

  As the last of them vanished on the stair to the dungeon, Kel turned to discover that not all of the children had left. Gydo and Loesia stood there, armed with spears they had taken from brackets on the wall.

  Kel draped an arm around each girl’s thin shoulders and murmured, “You could get killed.”

  “We’ll fight till then,” Loesia replied, her voice barely a whisper. Gydo nodded. Kel looked from one girl to the other. At twelve she had battled bandits and spidrens. She doubted that commoner girls had any less courage than noble ones did. She motioned toward the kitchen hall.

  The people who had gone ahead waited there. Some of the men carried three long kitchen tables. Kel nodded when she saw them. They could block some barracks exits with these. Handing her glaive to Gil, she strung her bow and checked her quiver of griffin-fletched arrows. She chose several and handed them to her best archers: Fanche, Saefas, Gil, and one of Connac’s men. This was the trickiest part, dividing Blayce’s soldiers into bite-sized groups and opening the gate to Dom’s squad, Neal, Owen, and the warhorses.

  Once the arrows were distributed, Kel went for a look outside. The inner courtyard was just as Agrane had described it, torchlit all the way around on the lower part of the wall. The barracks stood at a right angle to the kitchens, with the privy a separate building behind them. The stables stood on the opposite side of the courtyard; the main gate was directly across from the keep. As a castle it was just enough to hold off bandits and neighbors. It was also a perfect isolated location for a mage who worked death magic.

  Hidden from the sentries by a low woodshed, Kel scanned the wall. A couple of wagons stood against the wall between kitchen and barracks. She pointed them out to Connac, who hand-signaled his men. Four of them followed him through the shadows to the wagons. They, like the kitchen tables, could barricade the rear and side exits of the barracks once things got moving.

  First they had to deal with the sentries who paced the walls. The portcullis was down, the gate up. With no soldiers on the ground, Kel guessed that Stenmun didn’t think she could attack the castle in any strength.

  And maybe if he’d treated the locals better, he wouldn’t have to worry, she thought, counting the sentries. There were five, all in view. With the castle’s curtain wall built snug against the cliff, Stenmun couldn’t post guards there, out of Kel’s sight, even if he’d wanted to. Kel shook her head at this further sloppiness and signaled her archers one by one, indicating which sentry to bring down. Carefully she fitted a griffin-fletched arrow to her bow.

  Her people were as ready as they could get. Kel stepped into the open, sighting on the guard she had chosen. All wore leather jerkins with iron plaques sewn to them, scant protection against big longbows, which could punch an arrow through plate armor. Kel loosed; five more bowstrings snapped around her. Her sentry went to his knees as her arrow struck him in the back. Gil’s arrow hit his man on the helm and glanced off. He instantly put another arrow into the air before the man could shout the alarm. The sentry went down with an arrow in his eye. Kel made sure of her guard with a second arrow, conscious of the thuds of falling bodies and the creak of wooden wheels as her men pushed wagons toward the barracks.

  The men carrying tables quietly braced them against three sets of shutters. Kel saw no light through the shutters or under the barracks doors, but she still approved of her people’s stealth. The more exits they could block before the soldiers woke, the better their chances for survival.

  Uinse appeared around the far side of the barracks and waved. Kel motioned to those whose chore it was to open the gate, then pointed her archers to their positions on the keep steps and the far side of the barracks, where they could shoot anyone who escaped. She and Connac stood on either side of the only barracks door that was not blocked, the front one. Other men took places on either side of the shutters that opened onto the courtyard, their own weapons ready.

  Kel looked at the men at the gate. They had their hands on the winches that would raise the portcullis. Once it was up, they could admit the rest of their friends. Kel raised her arm and let it drop. The men put their backs into the winches, straining to raise the heavy portcullis. The thing made a crunching noise that Kel would have sworn was audible in Corus, but long moments passed in silence before she heard the pounding of feet inside the barracks.

  The door opened and a man stuck his head out. Kel cut him down. Another man stumbled across his body to die at Connac’s hand. Inside, Kel heard men hammering at the blocked doors and shutters. Here came another soldier, half armed over a nightshirt. Kel rammed her glaive into his unprotected side while Connac chopped at the next man’s neck.

  Yells and the crash of wood told Kel the unblocked shutters near her were open. The men positioned there did their best to kill anyone who came out. A second crash: the other shutters didn’t fly open as much as they shot off their hinges. Three men tumbled out of the barracks into the courtyard dirt. Her fighters were on them.

  A Scanran in chain mail swung at Connac with a big hand-and-a-half sword, forcing the soldier back. Kel darted in and blocked his stroke with her glaive. Sparks flew as glaive met sword: the Scanran’s weapon was made of good steel. Now Kel had a fight on her hands. She parried the man’s next swing and jabbed at his middle. He lunged back, then leaped forward again, chopping. She parried as she backed up a step to give herself room. He chopped down a third time. Kel came up inside his weapon’s reach, driving her blade up into her foe’s armpit. The glaive parted his mail like a hot knife passed through butter, biting into the big veins in the armpit. Kel freed her glaive and thrust at a new attacker, a blond man who advanced on her, howling, axes in both hands.

  “Idiot,” Kel muttered. She swung her glaive up between his legs, slashing his thigh muscle. The man went down. She killed him.

  She glanced at the gate. The portcullis was up; her men fought to lift the heavy bar on the
wooden gate. One last shove and it was off. Eagerly they thrust the halves apart to admit Dom’s squad, Neal, Owen, and the warhorses.

  It was a mess after that, one Kel was hard put to follow. Two of the tables failed, giving the men in the barracks less hazardous ways to leave the building. Peachblossom saw three of them race around the corner of the barracks and plunged into their midst, spinning as he lashed them with his forelegs, then dropping to kick out with his hind legs. The men flew into the air. When they landed, Peachblossom was waiting for them.

  Kel was holding off two men with swords, both veterans who respected the reach of her glaive, when Owen rode up behind them, cutting one man down from behind as Happy butted the other with his armored head. The second man fell and Kel finished him off. She hated to kill men on the ground, but it had to be done. She couldn’t let word of their presence get out. She did it, but she knew she would feel the glaive cutting flesh and bone for a very long time.

  There was Dom, calling out orders to his squad, blade flashing as he rode down two men who ran out of the barracks. There was Neal, crouched beside Gil as one of Blayce’s soldiers ran at him, sword raised high. Kel was about to scream a warning when Neal turned on his knees, the sword in his hand biting deep into his attacker’s side. It seemed he had learned more than just healing from Alanna the Lioness.

  Morun, her picklock, was dead on the keep steps. Loesia, Gydo, and Tobe circled a soldier, their spears leveled at him. Shepherd hung from a man’s throat despite his prey’s frantic hammering on his ribs. Jump seized the wrist of a man who was about to stab Fanche as she knelt over Saefas. As Jump swung from the man’s sword arm, Fanche gutted the attacker, hate in her eyes.

  Throughout the entire mess Kel was aware of a tall man, his long, gray-blond hair loose, bellowing orders as he cleared the ground around him with a big double-bladed axe. He briefly managed to get a few soldiers into a position they could defend, their backs to the keep wall, but Peachblossom, Owen, and Happy rode at them, the horses as bent on victory as Owen. The men scattered.

  Loesia screamed. Tobe was shot, an arrow in his side. Kel leaped to fend off the men who converged on the girls and Tobe. Jump, the gray-and-orange cat, Dom, and Neal’s horse, Magewhisper, all followed her. Within moments the younger fighters’ attackers were dead. Kel brought Tobe to Neal herself.

  It was nearly over. A few soldiers fought to reach the gate, but they wouldn’t make it: Kel could see that. What she couldn’t see was Stenmun, but she knew where to find him.

  “Neal,” she said. He looked up as he held a green-glowing hand over a deep gash in Gil’s chest. “I’m going after Blayce. If I’m not out when you’ve secured this place, take our people home.”

  He nodded, half of his concentration on Gil. “I’ll remind ’im, lady,” croaked Tobe. Loesia wept as she knelt with her friend.

  “Good,” Kel said, trying not to show her fear for her boy. Later she could give way to emotion. Right now, if Blayce and Stenmun escaped, all this would mean nothing. “Try to stay alive, will you?” She turned for a last survey of the battle scene. Her people had won. That was as plain as the glaive in her hand. They could finish up. She wiped her forehead on her sleeve before remembering her sleeve was mail, grimaced, and headed into the keep.

  “Gods all guard you, lady,” she heard Tobe call.

  The main hall was empty. Kel climbed to the second floor as Jump, the cat, and several other dogs spread out around her. She listened for any sound of an ambush. The second floor, where the children had been kept, was also empty. She hadn’t expected anything else, but she waited until the dogs returned to let her know they had found no one. Just because she didn’t expect to find Stenmun or Blayce here didn’t mean she could go on as if they weren’t. Mistakes like that got people killed.

  Again the dogs and cat preceded her up the stair. She did expect to find Stenmun here, guarding his master’s workroom. Stenmun was Blayce’s dog: he would guard the mage and leave the men who looked to him for leadership to die.

  Jump yelped and leaped to the side as an axe blade cut the air where he had been. Sparks flew when the blade hit the stone steps. Kel instantly lunged up the stair as Stenmun recovered. She kept low, her glaive held over her head as a shield. When the axe came down again, she parried it with the teak staff of her weapon, wincing as the axe cut chips from the wood. She parried a second lunge and made it to level flooring. Stenmun swung his axe sidelong, chopping at her armored waist. Kel knocked the heavy blade aside and slammed the iron-shod foot of the staff into the big man’s ribs. They circled, eyes intent on one another.

  It wasn’t often that Kel had to look up to a man, but Stenmun was a head taller than she, a big, hard-muscled warrior with the merciless stare of a water snake. Though she was armored and he wore only a shirt and breeches, she knew he was going to make her work for victory.

  The muscles in Stenmun’s arms flexed, making Kel think he would try a big chop. Instead, he jabbed with the pointed, spearlike tip between the twin crescents of the axe blades. Kel knocked the axe aside just enough that the point punched through her mail into her left shoulder instead of into her throat. A blaze of fire leaped in her left side. She stepped back to get her bearings.

  “I just want to know,” she said as they circled each other once more, “why do you do this? You bring the children, you know what he does—why?”

  Stenmun raised his eyebrows as if he were shocked by the question. “He pays me well,” he informed Kel.

  “That’s it?” Kel demanded, shocked. “Just money? Are you mad?”

  “Isn’t that just like a noble?” asked the Scanran. “Only you rich folk think money doesn’t mean anything. Listen, these commoners’ brats die all the time. Famine, disease, war—something gets them.” He feinted at Kel, who dodged and feinted back. He blocked, still talking. “At least Blayce’s way they have a bit of fun and a decent meal before they go, and we have King Maggur’s gratitude.”

  He closed in, his eyes alight, thinking he had her. With a yowl that made the hair stand on Kel’s neck, the cat who had made him bleed on the road once more launched herself onto Stenmun’s head. She clung to his scalp with three sets of claws and swiped at his eyes with the fourth. Stenmun yowled and flailed at the cat one-handed, using his other hand to try to keep his axe between him and Kel. Jump leaped and grabbed the big man in a place no human male should be grabbed. Stenmun roared. He tried to smack Jump away while throwing himself backward at the wall in an attempt to jar the cat from his scalp.

  Kel lunged, bracing her glaive with her right wrist and elbow so she could wield it one-handed. She thrust at Stenmun’s belly. He kicked her weapon aside and struck Jump with the butt of his axe. The dog let go. Stenmun hit the cat against a stone arch. She tumbled from his head, leaving ribbons of blood to flow from the wounds she’d inflicted.

  Now Stenmun charged Kel, bringing his weapon up in a two-handed chop. She swung her glaive up to block the axe and twisted the teak staff, locking it and the axe haft together. Stenmun leaned into the jammed weapons, forcing them back on Kel. They strained. Kel’s arm trembled with the force he put on it.

  Stenmun smiled. “Too bad for you, little girl,” he said, his voice tight with triumph.

  Kel gave him her politest Yamani smile, hooked her leg around one of his, and jerked, a leg sweep from her studies in hand-to-hand combat. Her legs were powerful and he wasn’t braced. He went down on his back, hitting so hard the breath was knocked from his lungs. His fall jerked his axe clear of her glaive. Kel didn’t wait for an invitation. She brought the iron-shod butt of the glaive down with all her strength, striking him right between the eyes, breaking through his skull. That probably finished him, but to be sure, she cut his throat.

  For a moment she stood over him, leaning on her glaive, gasping for breath. Then she looked for her friends. The other dogs stood in front of a closed door. Jump limped toward them, a long scrape on his left shoulder bleeding sluggishly. Kel couldn’t even remember when he
’d been hurt. She looked for the cat. The animal lay against the wall, unmoving.

  “I hope the Black God has something tasty for you,” she whispered to Stenmun, and spat on him. Then she cut strips from his shirt to bandage the hole he’d put in her, so that she wouldn’t bleed to death. The wound hurt sharply as she pressed a wad of strips against it and bound them tightly around her shoulder and under her arm. Only when she finished did the pain settle into a dull, steady pounding. The cut didn’t seem to be too deep, though it was cursed inconveniently placed.

  She looked at the door where her dogs stood and stepped toward it. The door moved away. Kel stepped again to close the distance. Now it seemed a hundred yards away, which was much too far for the size of the keep. A third step took the door two hundred yards back. She could barely see the dogs.

  Kel put her good hand to her head and ground her teeth. At some point, a missed blow had cut the griffin headband from her forehead. She looked until she found it hanging over the top step of the stair. Kel lurched over to the band and picked it up, balancing her glaive against her shoulder. When she straightened, the room spun.

  “Blood loss,” she said aloud. “Never mind.” She turned and laid the band over her eyebrows. The dogs and the closed door were just ten feet away. Is it locked? she wondered. It might be. She made herself go to Stenmun’s body and grope in his belt pouch. Here was the key.

  It took her a moment to get the key in the lock. Her hand shook as badly as the rest of her. Finally the stiff mechanism opened. “I hope the Chamber was right and he’s out of killing devices,” she muttered. “Else I’m dead and am just about to find it out.” She thrust the door wide. The dogs streamed in ahead of her as Kel walked straight into her nightmare.

  eighteen