A shout came from atop the walls of the city. “The prince! Open the gate! Let him in! It’s the prince!” More shouts, a scream, and then suddenly the massive gate split open, and the great doors pulled back. Inside was a mass of confusion as uniformed guards fought a horde of citizens dressed up like tinkers, wearing makeshift armor or stolen helms.
Alric did not pause. He spurred his mount and drove into the crowd. Mauvin, Count Pickering, Sir Ecton, and Marshal Garret struggled to form a personal defense for their king, but there was little need. At the sight of him, the defenders laid down their weapons. Word that the prince was alive spread, and those who saw him charging toward the castle, brandishing his father’s sword, roared with cheers.
Royce heard the horn wail as he stood trapped on the steps of the tower. “Sounds like a fight outside,” Magnus mentioned. “I wonder who will win.” The dwarf scratched his beard. “For that matter, I wonder who is fighting.”
“You don’t take much interest in your employer’s business, do you?” Royce said, studying the walls. When he tried to tap a spike into a seam, the stone broke like an eggshell. The dwarf was telling the truth about that.
“Only if it’s necessary for the job. By the way, I wouldn’t do that again. You were lucky you didn’t hit a binding thread.”
Royce cursed under his breath. “If you want to be helpful, why not just tell me how to get up and back?”
“Who said I was trying to be helpful?” The dwarf grinned at him wickedly. “I just spent half a year on this project. I don’t want you to topple the whole thing in the first few minutes. I want to savor the moment.”
“Are all dwarves this morbid?”
“Think of it as having built a sandcastle and wanting the pleasure of seeing it fall to a wave. I’m on the edge of my toes waiting to see exactly how and when it will finally collapse. Will it be a misstep, a loss of balance, or something amazing and unexpected?”
Royce drew his dagger and held it by the blade for the dwarf to see. “Are you aware I could put this through your throat where you stand?”
It was a false threat, as he would not dare throw away such a vital tool at this moment. Still, he expected a reaction of fear, or at least a mocking laugh. Instead, the dwarf did neither. He glared at the dagger, his eyes wide.
“Where did you get that blade?”
Royce rolled his eyes in disbelief. “I’m a little busy here. If you don’t mind.” He resumed his study of the steps. He observed the way they curved up and around the central trunk of the tower, how the steps above formed the ceiling to the ones below. He looked up ahead and then behind him.
“The step I am on doesn’t collapse if I’m on it,” Royce said to himself, but loud enough for the dwarf to hear. “It only falls if I step on the next one.”
“Yes, quite ingenious, isn’t it? As you might imagine, I’m quite proud of my work. I originally designed it to be an instrument of Arista’s death. Braga hired me to set it up to look like an accident. A decrepit old tower in the royal residence collapses, and the poor princess is crushed in the process. Unfortunately, after Alric escaped, he changed his mind and decided to have her executed instead. I thought I would never get to see the fruits of all my hard work, but then you came along. How nice of you.”
“All traps have weaknesses,” Royce said. He looked ahead at the steps and smiled suddenly. Crouching, he leapt forward not one but two steps. The step in the middle slipped from its position and fell, but the step he had started from remained. “With no following step,” Royce observed, “that step is now secure from breaking, isn’t it?”
“Very clever,” the dwarf replied, clearly disappointed.
Royce continued to leap two steps at a time until he moved around the circle out of sight of the dwarf. As he did, Magnus shouted, “It’ll do you no good. The gap at the bottom is much too far for you to jump. You are still trapped!”
Arista was crouched on her bed when she heard someone outside her door. It was probably that dreadful little dwarf or Braga himself coming to take her to the trial. She could hear a scraping and an occasional thud. She remembered too late that she had not resealed the door with her gemlock. As she moved toward the door, it swung open. To her surprise, it was neither Braga nor the dwarf. Instead, there in the doorway was one of the thieves from the dungeon.
“Princess,” was all Royce said, entering with a respectful though brief nod in her direction. He quickly moved past her and seemed to be looking for something; his eyes roamed over the walls and ceiling of her bedroom.
“You? What are you doing here? Is Alric alive?”
“Alric’s fine,” Royce said as he moved about the room. He looked out the windows and examined the material of the drapes. “Well, that’s not going to work.”
“Why are you here? How did you get here? Did you see Esrahaddon? What did he say to Alric?”
“I’m a bit busy just now, Your Highness.”
“Busy? Doing what?”
“Saving you but I’ll admit I’m not doing very well at the moment.” Without asking permission, Royce opened her wardrobe and began sifting through her clothes. Then he rifled through her dresser drawers.
“What do you want with my clothes?”
“I’m trying to figure a way out of here. I suspect this tower is going to collapse in a few minutes, and if we don’t get out soon, we’ll die.”
“I see,” she said simply. “Why can’t we just go down the stairs?” She got up and crept to the doorway. “Sweet Maribor!” she cried as she saw every other step missing.
“We can leap those but the last six or seven steps at the bottom are totally gone. It’s too far to jump to the corridor. I was hoping maybe we could jump out the window to the moat, but that looks like instant death.”
“Oh,” was all she could utter. A scream was growing in her and she covered her mouth with her hand, holding it back. “You’re right. You’re not doing very well.”
Royce looked under her bed and then stood up. “Wait a minute, you’re a sorceress, aren’t you? Esrahaddon taught you magic. Can you get us down? Levitate us, or turn us into birds or something?”
Arista smiled awkwardly. “I was never able to learn much from Esrahaddon and certainly not self-levitation.”
“Can you levitate a board or stone we could jump to?”
Arista shook her head.
“And the bird thing?”
“Even if I could, which I can’t, we’d stay birds, because I couldn’t turn us back after changing, now could I?”
“So magic is out,” Royce said, and began pulling the feather-stuffed mattress off Arista’s bed, revealing the rope net beneath it. “Okay, then help me untie your bed.”
“The rope isn’t long enough to reach the bottom of the tower,” Arista told him.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he replied, pulling the rope through the holes in the bed frame.
The tower shuddered, and dust cascaded from the rafters. Arista held her breath for a moment, her heart pounding in anticipation of a sudden plummet, but the tower steadied itself once more.
“Clearly we are running out of time.” Royce coiled the length of rope over his shoulder and headed toward the door.
Arista paused only a moment to look back at the dressing table and the brushes her father had given her, and then moved to what remained of the stairs.
“You’re going to have to jump down. The steps that are still there should be very sturdy and it should be easier than jumping up. Just be sure you don’t over jump, but if you do, I’ll try to catch you.” With that, he sprang down two steps so gracefully that she felt embarrassed for her own lack of confidence.
Arista stood on the landing and rocked back and forth, focusing on the first step. She leapt and landed on it a little too far forward. Waving her arms madly, she teetered on the edge, struggling desperately against falling. Royce held out his hands, ready to catch her, but she regained her balance. Shaking slightly, she took a deep breath.
“Don’t over jump!” he reminded her.
No kidding, she thought. As if I haven’t already learned that lesson.
The second jump was easier, and the third better still. Soon she developed a rhythm and moved down the steps at a brisk pace following Royce, who almost danced his way down. They were nearly to the bottom when Royce stopped.
“Keep going,” he told her. “Stop when you reach the last step and wait there.”
She nodded as he pulled the rope from around his shoulder and began tying it to the step he stood on. Arista continued to jump her way down, reminding herself not to be overconfident. When she saw the open expanse at the bottom, her remaining confidence fled. The gaping hole, which fell away into darkness, was enough to shake her back into terror.
“Well, well, princess!” the dwarf called to her. He stood in the open doorway of the corridor, grinning, showing a mouthful of yellowed teeth. “I really didn’t expect to see you again. Where’s the thief? Did he fall to his death?”
“You disgusting little beast!” she cried at him.
The tower shifted once more. Its shuddering caused Arista to stagger a bit on the step and her heart to pound in fear. Clouds of dust and bits of rock rained down, clattering off the walls and steps. Arista cowered, covering her head with her arms, until the shaking stopped and the debris settled.
“This old tower, she’s almost ready to fall,” the dwarf told her with a manic glee in his voice. “Such a pity to be so close to safety and yet still so very far. If only you were a frog, you might leap it. As it is, you still don’t have a way out.”
A coil of rope fell from the heights above. Suspended by a stair, the rope dangled midway between the princess and the dwarf. Along the slender line, Royce descended like a spider. When he reached a point level with Arista, he stopped and began to swing.
“Now that is impressive!” the dwarf exclaimed, and nodded, showing his approval.
Royce swung onto the step next to Arista and tied the rope around his own waist. “All we have to do is swing across. Just hang on to me.”
The princess gladly threw her arms around the thief’s shoulders and squeezed tight, as much out of fear as for safety.
“You might have actually made it,” the dwarf said. “For that you have my respect, but you must understand I have a reputation to uphold. I can’t have someone walking around boasting they escaped one of my traps.” Then, without warning, he abruptly closed the door, sealing them in.
Hadrian heard the wail of a horn as he faced Braga in the corridor of the royal residence. “I think it will be quite some time until Wylin and the castle guards arrive,” he said, taunting the archduke. “I suspect the master-at-arms has more on his mind than responding to the demands of an earl from Warric to report to the royal residence when his castle is being stormed.”
“More’s the pity for you, as I no longer have the luxury of keeping you alive,” Braga said as he lunged once more.
He swiped at Hadrian with lightning-fast cuts. Hadrian danced away from Braga, retreating farther and farther down the hall. The archduke showed perfect form, his weight centered on his back foot while only the toe of his front foot touched the ground, his back straight, his sword arm outstretched, and his other arm raised in a graceful bent L. Even the fingers of his free hand were elegantly posed as if they were holding up an invisible wineglass. His long black hair, peppered with lines of gray, cascaded down to his shoulders, and not a trace of perspiration was on his brow.
Hadrian in contrast acted clumsy and unsure. The Melengar sword was far inferior to any of his own blades. The tip wavered as he tried to hold it steady with both hands. He inched backward, working to keep a distance between them.
The archduke lunged again. Hadrian parried and then dove past Braga, barely avoiding a return slice, which nicked a wall sconce. He took the opportunity to run down the hallway and slip into the chapel. “Are we playing hide-and-seek now?” Braga said, goading him.
Braga entered and crossed swiftly to the altar, where Hadrian stood. When the archduke swung at him, Hadrian stepped back, ducked a swiping stroke, and then leapt clear of a slash. Braga’s attacks glanced off the statue of Novron and Maribor, taking part of the god’s first three fingers off. Hadrian now stood before the wooden lectern, keeping his eyes on the archduke while he awaited the next attack.
“It’s so poetic of you to choose to die in the same room as the king,” Braga said. He swung right, and Hadrian glanced the stroke aside. Braga pivoted on his back foot and swung his sword overhead in a powerful downward stroke. Expecting this attack, counting on it, Hadrian dove and slid across the polished marble floor on his stomach in the direction of the chapel door.
Hadrian got to his feet and turned in time to see Braga’s stroke had sliced into the vertical grain of the lectern. His swing had been so forceful that the blade was now wedged in the wood and the archduke struggled to free it. Taking advantage of his distraction, Hadrian ran to the door, slipped out, and closed it behind him. Driving his sword into the jamb, he wedged it shut.
“That should hold you for a while,” Hadrian said to himself, pausing to catch his breath.
“That little worm!” Arista spat through clenched teeth at the closed door.
The tower shuddered again, and this time larger pieces fell. One block of stone plummeted down, taking out a step only a few feet from them. Both shattered on impact and fell into the abyss of the tower’s foundation. With the loss of those blocks, the tower came free and began to twist and topple.
“Hang on!” Royce shouted as he pushed off the step. The two flew across the gap to the door. He grabbed hold of the large iron door ring, and they each found footholds on the ledge of the doorjamb.
“He locked it,” Royce informed her. He looped one arm through the door ring and removed his lock-picking tools from his belt. With his free hand, he worked the lock. A deep, resonating thunder shook the castle, and suddenly the rope tied to Royce went slack. The thief dropped his tools and pulled out his dagger. He cut the rope around his waist just as the stone slab attached to it passed them heading down. The rest of the tower was collapsing now.
Royce drove his dagger deep into the wooden door for another handhold as the tower fell around them. Walls hollowed out by the dwarf splintered into shards, which burst and flew in all directions. Rocks and stone pummeled them as Royce and Arista cowered under the scant protection of the narrow stone arch of the doorframe.
A fist-size stone struck Arista’s back. She lost her tenuous foothold and screamed as she fell. In an instant, Royce grabbed her. Grasping blindly, he caught the back of her dress and a substantial amount of hair. “I can’t hold you!” he shouted.
He felt her sliding down his body, the back of her dress tearing. Royce gave up his own toehold, hanging by his arm hooked through the door ring, so that he could wrap his legs around her. The princess’s fingers clawed his body frantically, and when they finally found his belt, she latched on.
Royce was temporarily blinded by a cloud of dust and powdered stone. When it settled, he found they were dangling in the brilliant sunlight on what was now an exterior wall of the castle’s keep. The debris of the tower fell into the moat, making a pile of broken rocks seventy feet below. The crowd of trial watchers screamed and gasped, pointing up at them. “It’s the princess!” a voice shouted.
“Can you reach the ledge?” Royce asked.
“No! If I try, I’ll fall. I can’t—”
Royce felt her slipping again and tried to tighten his leg hold on her, but he knew it would not be enough.
“Oh no! My fingers—I’m slipping!”
Royce’s arm, crooked in the ring, was wrenching his shoulder badly. His other hand, which gripped Arista’s dress and hair, was slowly losing hold. She was sliding down once again; soon he would lose her altogether. Royce felt a tug on his arm. The door opened, and a strong hand reached out and grabbed Arista.
“I’ve got you,” Hadrian told her as he hauled th
e princess up. Then he pulled the door open wide, dragging Royce into the hallway with it.
They lay on the floor exhausted and covered in bits of rock. Royce got to his feet and dusted off his clothes. “I thought I felt it unlock,” he said, getting up and retrieving his dagger from the face of the door.
Hadrian stood in the threshold, looking out at the clearing blue sky. “Well, Royce, I love what you’ve done with the place.”
“Where’s the dwarf?” Royce asked, looking around.
“I didn’t see him.”
“And Braga? You didn’t kill him, did you?”
“No. I locked him in the chapel but it won’t hold. Which reminds me, could I borrow your sword? You’re not going to use it, anyway.”
Royce handed him the falchion sword that had been part of his castle guard disguise. Hadrian took the weapon, slipped it from its sheath, and weighed it in his hand. “I tell you, these swords are terrible. They are heavy and have all the balance of a drunken three-legged dog trying to take a piss.” He then looked at Arista and added, “Oh, excuse me, Your Highness. How are you doing, Princess?”
Arista got to her feet. “Much better now.”
“For the record, we’re even, right?” Royce asked her. “You saved us from prison and a horrible death, and now we’ve saved you.”
“Fine,” she agreed, wiping the dust from her torn dress. “But I would like to point out my rescue of you was far less death defying.” She ran a hand through her disheveled hair. “That really hurt, you know.”
“Falling would have hurt more.”
A loud bang echoed from down the hall.
“Gotta go,” Hadrian told them. “His Lordship is loose.”
“Be careful,” Arista shouted after him. “He’s a renowned swordsman!”
“I’m really tired of hearing that,” Hadrian grumbled as he started back up the hall. He had not gone far when Braga rounded the corner, coming toward them.
“So, you got her out!” Braga bellowed. “I’ll just have to kill her myself, then.”
Theft of Swords Page 27
