The leader of the winged guard pointed to the rioters and said in German. “Cease and drop your weapons.”
It was the wrong thing to say, because the rioters rushed them, stabbing with their pikes at the guard. Leanna was screaming and yanking on my arm. I looked to where she was pointing. The anubis were running full tilt straight at us. Leanna let go of me and put her hands over her face, screaming. I grabbed her and flew straight up. She was heavier than she looked and we barely cleared the anubis. Thankfully they ignored us and went at the brown wings.
Leanna’s weight started dragging me down and I flapped harder. “Fly! Leanna! Fly!”
She kept screaming, not flying, until I reached down and smacked her on the top of the head. She looked up with a tear-streaked face. “Mattie?”
“Fly! I can’t hold you forever.”
Her wings snapped out and I released her. The skirmish was two feet away and the rioters were doing surprisingly well. I couldn’t understand it. The anubis were made for war, but they were being overwhelmed by a bunch of angry civilians. The winged guard weren’t doing much better. Six had fallen out of the air and were bleeding on the floor. On instinct, I started for the closest wounded, but Leanna snatched me back. “What are you doing?”
A rioter fell beside the guard, clutching the stump of his severed arm.
“I have to help them,” I said, trying to peel her fingers off my forearm.
“You can’t do anything.”
That was right. I wasn’t supposed to be able to do anything. I turned away with a great weight on me. I rarely felt such regret. Turning away from a patient in dire need, what would Grandma Vi say. What would Ibn Vermillion say? But I had to protect Iris and the others. If I helped, I would be known for what I am.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
Leanna looked for a way out. More anubis were coming and, down the hall, another group of rioters entered, winged and unwinged. Every way was blocked, above, beside, and below. We were trapped in 3D.
“I don’t know which way to go,” Leanna wailed. A spray of blood hit her in the face and she went all hysterical. Not helpful.
I gave her a smack, which focused her for a split second. “Which way is best?” I screamed in her terrified face.
She pointed a shaking finger at a stove past the main fighters.
Alright. Here we go.
Chapter Twenty-six
I DRAGGED LEANNA with me. It was like having a lead weight at the end of my arm, except the lead weight was actively fighting. I so wanted to let go and leave her, but I didn’t. I used every bit of strength I had to drag her and dodge the fighters.
A sword with a brown wing owner came slashing through the air. I dropped down and it barely missed my wingtips. We went over two anubis getting beat to a pulp by a couple of lady trolls and then dodged under five winged guards hacking at a couple of wood fairies carrying wicked-looking pikes with barbed tips. Up, down, sideways. Somehow we got through without a scratch and cleared the main fighting. We hovered ten feet away, gasping. Leanna was so freaked that her teeth were chattering loud enough for me to hear them. I turned back to the fighting. It was still going strong. Backup for both sides kept arriving.
“Where’s the door?” I asked as another set of anubis turned into the hall and spotted us.
Leanna didn’t answer. Her mouth was open. I followed her eye line. A rioter with a spurting neck wound was corkscrewing through the air, leaving a bizarre mist of blood in his wake.
“Leanna! Which door?” I asked.
The anubis were running now and they were focused on us. We had blood all over, so they didn’t know who we were.
“Leanna! Now!” I spun her around and she saw the anubis screaming and pointing at us.
“There!”
I saw the small door in the side of the stove halfway between us and the charging anubis. We darted for it. I shoved Leanna in first and slammed the door behind us. A second later, the door rattled. I grabbed the handle and held it closed.
“Where’s the lock? Where’s the lock?”
Leanna shook her head. “There’s no lock!”
“No lock? That’s just great.”
The door was yanked so hard, it opened a millimeter, and I saw an enraged anubis looking in.
“I work for the cardinal!” I screamed in his face. It made no difference. He saw insurrection, not me.
“Run, Leanna!” I yelled.
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Just run!”
Leanna took off into the depths of the stove and I closed my eyes, picturing the other side of the hall behind the anubis. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I made a small explosion inside the wall and the anubis instantly let go of the door. I ran through the corridor that followed the curve of the stove, yelling for Leanna. I spotted her wingtip going through a door and caught up on the other side. She hovered while I slammed the door and pivoted, looking for enemy, which was pretty much everybody at that moment. We were in the palace dining room. There were a dozen humans, oblivious to anything but themselves milling around, but no fairies. Safe. For the moment.
“Which way now?” I asked Leanna, who was clutching a gilt leaf on the side of the enameled stove for support.
“Through the door.” She looked past the humans to a door to another palace room.
“Come on,” I said. “The anubis could come through. There’s no lock again.”
That got her moving and we zipped through the dining room and a series of other royal rooms before Leanna took us back into the wall. I totally lost track of where we were and panic settled in my chest. This was taking too long.
Just as I thought that, Leanna flung open a door and we were in the stables. The cardinal’s carriage sat alone at the end of the wide corridor and the animals, or whatever you wanted to call them, looked at us curiously over their partitions.
“What are we doing here?” I yelled at Leanna.
“The cardinal’s supposed to be here.” A pale hand appeared in the window of the carriage. “There he is.”
“My brother is in the kitchens,” I said.
“Nobody said that,” she protested.
That’s right. Nobody remembered my little spriggan.
“Okay,” I said. “This is what we’re going to do. You’ll get the cardinal out of the palace and I’ll get Horc.”
“You don’t know where the kitchens are.”
“Give me directions. I’m not leaving my brother in this nuthouse.”
Leanna looked over at the carriage. “How am I going to get him out? The horses are gone.”
Oh crap! They are gone.
“You’ll have to fly. He does it all the time.” I took her hand and we ran over to the carriage. I flung open the door, ready to order the cardinal out, but froze instead. It was the cardinal in the carriage, but he was wholly different than he’d been when we arrived. He was slumped in the seat, sweating, panting, and looking at me with a glazed expression. “Mattie.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. I heard. Go get Horc,” he said. If I hadn’t been able to read lips I doubt his words would’ve been strong enough to be heard by even Iris’s ears.
Leanna tugged on my sleeve. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know.” I took his wrist and felt his weak, thready pulse. To say the cardinal looked like he had death flying on his wings was an understatement of epic proportions. I didn’t know what to do. I had to get Horc, but I couldn’t leave the cardinal. He might take his last breath any minute and I owed him so much and what about Vienna. He was second only to the empress in the Viennese’s love and look what a rumor of her death had done.
“Go, Mattie,” he whispered. “I’m old.”
“Not that old.”
“What?” said Leanna.
“Find the horses,” I said, suddenly deciding.
“How?” she asked.
I turned and yelled,
“Volotora! Volotora!” I looked at the other creatures, staring at me. “Do you know where the damumoto are?”
“Why are you asking them? They’re animals,” said Leanna.
“I thought they might talk.”
“They don’t.”
“Great.”
I didn’t know what to do. Horc could be under attack at that very moment or Nanny could have him stashed away completely safe. The cardinal, on the other hand, was under attack by his own body. In the words of my sister, what’ll I do? What’ll I do? The horses weren’t coming. Nobody was coming.
And then somebody came. Not at all who I was hoping for. Another door at the other end of the stable flew open and the archduke strode in. I saw him through the carriage windows, but he didn’t see me. He had a small bottle in his hand and a smile on his lips. A smile. What was there to smile about?
“Your Highness!” exclaimed Leanna. “Thank goodness.”
She rushed around the carriage and the smile dropped off the archduke’s handsome face. “Leanna, what happened to you?”
She told him, at least I think she did, with waving arms and a lot of wing flapping. He tucked the bottle away and came around the carriage. “Who are you?” he asked me.
“The cardinal’s maid of all work,” I said, trying to get some sense of him, but like the last time, I felt nothing from him. “We’ve met.”
He nodded. “Yes. Yes, we did. Mattie, isn’t it? What are you doing here?”
“I was hired as extra cleaning staff. What’s happening in the palace?”
He smiled at me and I felt the kind of glow that Lonica showed when she talked about the archduke. It was totally unreasonable. Stuff was happening. Why was I getting all glowy?
“The anubis have the situation well under control,” said the archduke. “I came to see if the cardinal had gotten out. But I see he hasn’t.”
I stared at his beautiful face, transfixed for a moment.
“Mattie?”
I shook my head to release whatever it was that had a hold on me. “Yes.”
“Where are the damumoto?”
“I don’t know. He’s alone,” I said.
“Leanna,” said the archduke, turning his glow onto the future nanny, “can you go look for them.”
She giggled and grinned.
“We don’t have time for that,” I said. “The cardinal is very ill.”
The archduke looked in the carriage. “Your Grace, what happened? Are you injured?”
The cardinal shook his head and tried to speak.
“No, no. Don’t try to talk.” The archduke looked at me and the mooning Leanna. “You two go find Healer Gruber and my personal guard. We will bring the cardinal back into the palace for treatment.”
“But the fighting—”
He waved my words away. “It’s under control, only a few malcontents. Now hurry. The cardinal needs a warm bed and a healer.”
I looked in the cardinal’s eyes and he nodded his assent. I had to leave him. There wasn’t much I could do with witnesses and without supplies. I touched his hand. “I’ll be right back with help. Just hang on.”
“Come on, Leanna.” I took her hand. “You have to help me find the healer.”
“I could stay here.” She gazed at the archduke.
“No, you couldn’t.”
The archduke and Leanna jerked their heads toward the large arch at the end of the stables and, before I could ask, Volotora and the rest of the damumoto came galloping through. The flames in their nostrils were now streams, so long that they flowed back from their heads like reins.
“Where is the cardinal?” asked Volotora, skidding to a halt in front of us. He did a bow to the archduke and then looked at me.
“In the carriage,” I said. “Where have you been?”
“We were accidentally locked in the paddock. We had to break out.” Volotora glanced back at the other damumoto. “Get in harness. We must escape.”
“Yes. The cardinal is very ill. You have to get him back to the cathedral,” I said.
“I must get you both back. The master secretary ordered me to watch over you both and keep you together.”
“My brother’s in the kitchens. I’m not leaving without him.”
“You must. I have my orders.”
I shook my head. “No way!”
“You must stay with the cardinal,” said Volotora.
The archduke’s perfect brow wrinkled. “Why? Let the girl go to her brother. The palace is under control. She’ll return to the cathedral soon.”
Volotora stamped his sparkly hoof and an explosion of flames came out of his nostrils, dazzling me for a second. No one else reacted. Weird.
“The palace is not under control. There are thousands of fairies gathered outside. They’re demanding control of the government.” Volotora looked at the archduke. “Your Highness must address the crowds and reassure them of your mother’s health.”
“Is it as bad as that?”
“Worse. If your mother can stand, she should make an appearance with you, sir.” Volotora moved into his spot in front of the carriage and the velvet harness wrapped around his sleek body.
“The empress is injured from the opera riot. She can’t appear,” said the archduke.
“She can,” I said.
They all gaped at me and I remembered who I was. A maid. Just a maid. There to clean up annoying trolls. “I saw her. Just for a second when I was throwing out a klitzeklein troll. She seemed okay. Well enough to stand on a balcony or whatever.”
“Excellent,” said Volotora. “We’ll take the cardinal and Mattie home. Your Highness will get your mother and calm the crowd.”
I backed away. “I’ll get to the cathedral as soon as I can. I’m going for my brother.”
“No, you’re not,” said the archduke.
“You can’t stop me.”
He pointed past us. “They can.”
I looked back and a stream of brown wings rushed through the door to the rest of the palace.
“Run!” I screamed.
The archduke and Leanna went in different directions. I dove into the carriage and banged on the ceiling. “Go! Go! Go!”
The carriage jerked forward and we were racing through the stable. I yanked the back curtain aside. Two dozen armed rioters were running behind us. There was no sign of the archduke or Leanna.
They got away. Please let them have gotten away.
The carriage was bumping over the cobblestone floor and the cardinal was flopping around. He was conscious but too weak to steady himself. I grabbed his broad body. My arms didn’t reach all the way around and I couldn’t hold us still. Through the front window I could see where we were headed. The door to the outside. We would escape. I was leaving my brother. I was screaming. I don’t know when it started. The damumoto picked up more speed and the stables blurred. Then there was something in the door. Fairies. Too many to count. We would hit them.
The damumoto turned before the carriage and for an instant I could see them running sideways on the wall before we turned on our side. The cardinal and I fell against the side of the carriage. If the cardinal hadn’t been so big, we would’ve fallen through the window. The carriage went right, still on its side, and it happened so fast that we hit the ceiling. Then we went upright and hit the floor. I landed on the cardinal and rolled off, banging my head against the seat. The cardinal’s eyes were closed and he was completely limp. He had a pulse, not a good one, and his breathing was increasingly shallow. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t perform any spells. I couldn’t even stop myself from flying into the air every couple of seconds.
I left the unconscious cardinal on the floor and managed to climb onto the front seat. The outside was blurred, but I could tell by the colors of cream and gold that we were back in the palace. There were rioters everywhere fighting with the palace guard. The damumoto swerved around them, up and down. I would’ve thrown up, if the velocity hadn’t kept everything down my throat.
The damumoto banked left and we were in the royal dining room, racing over the fancy place-settings. The dining room! That was close to the kitchens and Horc.
“My brother!” I screamed into the rushing wind. “The kitchens!”
An enormous porcelain vase exploded right in front of Volotora. We flipped to the side and then started corkscrewing through the air, totally out of control. I would’ve been thrown out if I hadn’t been holding onto the window frame when it happened. My body hit the ceiling, the right side, the seat, and then the left side. We spun and spun. I lost my grip. A terrible pain in my head. Blackness.
We were upright again. I crawled onto the seat. We were racing through a royal bedroom. No not exactly racing. We were much slower. One of the damumoto was limp in its harness. The one beside Volotora. He was struggling to keep our altitude, but we were dipping lower and lower. There were fighters on the floor. It didn’t look like imperial guard against rioters anymore. It was a free-for-all and we were getting closer.
I looked back at the cardinal. His face was distorted from swelling and there was blood rolling down his cheek from a cut on his temple. Hopefully, that meant he was alive. I looked back out the window. We were heading for the human door, but we’d never make it. I climbed out the window and over the empty coachman seat. I dragged myself forward using the velvet harness. I had to get the dead damumoto free.
How? How? How?
My arms burned as I pulled myself along the harness and inexplicably the master secretary’s crabby face popped into my mind. The knife. I patted my pocket. It was still there. I reached the dead damumoto hanging half under the hooves of the horse behind him. That one yelled, “Undo the harness!”
I ignored him and pulled out the sheath. I put the leather tip in my mouth.
Please let the blade be there. Please!
I yanked the hilt out and the blade was there. Some sort of blade anyway. It was like a memory of a blade. There, but not there, at the same time. I reached down and the blade sliced through the harness like it would’ve sliced through air. No resistance at all. The damumoto’s body was almost released. I made the mistake of looking down. We were now a foot above the fighters and they definitely saw us. Pikes were thrust into the air. They didn’t even know who we were and they didn’t care. I’d make them care. I strained toward to the last bit of rope holding the damumoto to the carriage. I almost couldn’t reach it.
Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four) Page 26
