Nichols silently took the blade handed to him.
“I’m going first, and I’m going to cut my way through anything that gets in the way. Nichols, you follow right behind me, and the rest of you come along after him as best you can. We’re going to head to the Princess; the rest of you fall out when it suits you,” he said without looking at them, anger building within him. “What will we do when we go through that door?” Alec asked Nichols.
“Well, we’ll go up a set of stairs, make a turn and go up another set of stairs, and turn again to go up a third set,” Nichols began.
“Will there be any guards posted or doors on the landings?” Alec questioned.
“There probably won’t be guards. There will be a door at each floor above us. The third floor will be ground level,” Alec’s companion spoke. “That’s where we’ll run into lots of guards.”
“How many are lots? Which direction will we go when we get there?” Alec wanted to prepare.
“It will be a main hallway; there may be four guards, there may be eight, there may be twenty,” Nichols told him, “and once the battle starts, more will come.”
He paused, and Alec continued to look at him intently, unfazed by the number of potential opponents. “Then we’ll turn right, and go down a long hall, past banquet rooms until we see a series of glass doors at the end of the hall. That will be the garden. We’ll go out there, and have to go forward, then off to the left the Garden palace will be sitting straight ahead.”
“That sounds simple,” Alec gave an ironic smile. He strode forward towards the doorway and pulled the door open. There were distant noises coming down the stairwell, and he stepped in to the dark silo. Alec ignored the sound of shuffling feet behind him as he looked upward and began to climb. He placed two knives in each hand as he passed the door on the first landing, and continued to climb. The door to the second landing was also closed and silent, and Alec arrived at the metal-banded door at the top of the stairwell.
He stopped and looked back where a tail of men was grimly following him, all faces looking up at him. They were about to feel the fury of battle, they all realized, as did he, and suddenly he felt sorry for them, not trained or used to battle, but about to face it. He placed his hand on the latch and cautiously lifted it, inching the door open a crack to take a look.
There were only two guards visible in his narrow field of vision. Considering the odds to be as favorable as they could possibly be, be pushed the door open calmly and stepped out. There were four more soldiers standing just ten feet away from the door as he opened it, and his wrists flicked his four knives at them. All four crumpled silently as the other two guards looked on in astonished horror. Alec pulled two more knives out and threw them in a blurring motion that floored them too in silence.
Alec stepped over to the still bodies and pulled his knives from them as the rest of the prisoners stepped into the hall. “Go now,” Alec ordered them, looking at Kage. “Stay in some type of formation and don’t look like you’re in a hurry. Good luck and Godspeed.” He hooked his hand around Nichols’ arm and directed him into the hall on the right hand side.
They walked at a purposeful rate, not running, as they passed people who looked at them curiously. “How did you do that?” Nichols asked at last. “How do you do any of these things?”
“I have a gift,” Alec said simply.
“Who are you?” a pair of guards accosted them.
“We need your help,” Nichols said disarmingly. “We’re trying to find the princess in the garden.”
The two guards scowled and pulled their swords, but faster than they could anticipate, Alec drew his own sword and knocked both of theirs to the ground with a rapid slashing motion.
“If you cooperate with us, you’ll live. If you don’t you’ll die,” Nichols told them urgently. “Now escort us to the Princess, and make it look natural.” He kicked their swords out of sight, underneath a divan along the wall.
The four of them began walking, and minutes later they were approaching a checkpoint in the garden, where Alec disarmed two more guards; and the six men arrived at the front door of the garden palace, an elegant building large enough to be a nobleman’s home in the Dominion. They silently entered the front hall, an opulent though vacant space, and stood there uncertainly. “How many guards are in the palace?” Alec asked in a hoarse whisper.
In response, one of his captives dove to the left, tackling a large, ornate vase that toppled to the floor and loudly shattered into a thousand pottery shards.
“Who’s there? What was that?” asked two voices from the unseen interior of the small palace, and a pair of guards appeared. Alec’s three other guard captives split off in three directions, shouting warnings. The two guards inside the palace drew their weapons and called for assistance as they charged towards the entrance.
Nichols took a defensive stance, but Alec burst out in front of him and attacked the two guards quickly and ferociously, slashing one man’s wrist and stabbing the other through both thighs. The four previously captive guards, still without weapons, scrambled across the drafty marble floor in various directions. Alec and Nichol stood unchallenged in the hallway, listening to the sound of other activity in the building.
“Which way to the princess?” Alec asked Nichols.
“They took me to see her in the visiting parlor,” Nichols pointed a pale blue hand to the left.
Alec starting trotting in that direction, stepping over one of the escaping guards, who paused in his motions as if he could play dead. The short hallway ended at a large pair of double doors, elaborate bronze doors with a large crown wreathed in prominently displayed branches. With his right shoulder against the door, Alec began to press the slab of metal open, but jumped back so abruptly he stepped back on Nichols behind him, while a sword blade cut through the airspace he had vacated. As his body moved backwards Alec’s left arm stabbed forward, and the guard with the sword fell forward towards him through the narrowly opened door into the hallway. As Alec began to press forward, he heard a sound behind him and turned to see Nichols holding off a formerly captive guard who had found a weapon and was coming up behind them.
Alec thrust his shoulder against the door and banged it open, then allowed his momentum to carry him into the room with a forward somersault that put him behind a knot of guards who were defending the doorway. Alec turned and pulled knives from his bandolier, then tossed them rapidly, ending the charge of the guards before they could reach him. Nichols burst into the room, only to find five bodies lying in a ragged line.
“I took care of the hard one out there,” Nichols said between deep breaths. A bell overhead started to ring vigorously. “That’s the alarm! There’ll be more Conglomerate Guards swarming on us in a few seconds!” he grabbed Alec’s arm.
Alec removed Nichols hand and stooped to reclaim his throwing knives. “We’ve got to get the princess. Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Let’s go through that door,” Nichols pointed at the back of the hall they were in. A throne-like seat rose on a dais, with an unobtrusive door tucked near it. Alec and Nichols ran across the room and as Nichols opened the door, trampling feet brought a crowd of guards into the end of the throne room they had just vacated. A pair of them threw spears at the fleeing rescuers of the princess. Alec focused on one spear, and caught it in mid-flight, then turned it and instantly flung it back as he heard a dreadful noise next to him.
He turned and saw Nichols slumping to the ground, his hands loosely grasping a wooden shaft that protruded from his right hip area. A large amount of blood was gushing forth in a spreading stain, and Alec knew that the man had only a minute or less to live. Glancing at the approaching enemy, he jerked the door open, grabbed Nichols at the shoulders, and dragged him into the room behind the door. He slammed the door shut, dramatically dimming the small room.
Alec jammed his feet against the door, then took a deep breath. Nichols had passed out. Thankful for that small bit of perversely good news
, Alec carefully pulled the spear out of the man’s side, feeling the blade grate against bone. Alec dropped his warrior powers, and felt a wave of exhaustion sweep through him, causing his shoulders to droop.
With focused concentration, he tapped his healer powers, placed his hands over the ragged wound, and began to exercise his healing abilities. The first action he took was to repair the nick in the pelvic vein, stopping the loss of blood, and then he altered his powers to cause the body to reabsorb much of the blood that had already spilled. The appendix had been cut, but instead of repairing it, Alec caused it to detach from the body, and he tossed it aside with his right hand.
There was a shudder in the door, and Alec flashed a burst of energy into Nichols, healing the muscle tissue and the skin, and then he ceased the healing. Taking a breath again, he stood and pulled several knives out of the bandolier; many of them were still wet with blood, he noted. With a quick prayer for assistance, Alec returned to the use of his warrior ingenaire ability; he flung the door inward, and threw his knives outward, then charged with his sword and sliced deeply across the chests of two men who still stood without knives in their flesh. Six men were down faster than the palace defenders could understand, and Alec stepped backwards, gave an ironic blade salute, and pushed the door closed.
He pushed a heavy armoire in front of the door to hold his defenses, and released his powers again. He was nearly spent, he realized, something that could not be happening at a worse time. With a sigh he rested his back against the armoire, looked down at the unconscious Nichols, and then looked up and around at the dim room for the first time. At that moment, he finally realized that they were not alone – two women stood silently in one corner, watching him watch them.
Chapter 6 – Meeting the Princess
“Is one of you the princess?” Alec asked as soon as he realized the other two were present. “No never mind, that’s not the most important issue right now. Is there another way out of this room?” he asked them. The door behind him reverberated, and Alec knew they had little time.
“We came to try to rescue the princess and set her free; this man knows her,” Alec pointed at Nichols. “But we need a way out.” He glanced around the room. There were no typical windows, only small, high circular holes near the ceiling.
“Is he a foreigner too?” One of the women asked.
“No, he’s from around here,” Alec answered in an exasperated voice.
“He’s a Jag, I’m sure he’s from around here,” the other woman. “How do we know we can trust you though?” she asked Alec.
“He’s come in here through all the Conglomerate guards, so I trust him more than them,” the second woman pointed out. “He may speak like a barbarian, but he seems to be on our side. I say we go with him for now, and find a better option as soon as we can.”
She pointed at a corner of the room, and Alec’s eyes detected a grating in the floor. “That’s the only way out,” she told him, “other than the door you’re blocking.”
Despite the dire circumstances, Alec’s eyes spent a moment studying the pair, as odd and contrasting as two people could possibly be. One woman was tall and gangly, with hair that hung in two pigtails over her shoulders. The other was plain and short and very rotund, displaying misshapen lumps in odd locations, and even as she stood still Alec could tell without his healing powers that one leg was so badly deformed that she would walk with a severe limp. The tall blond had a pretty face, a face that he knew many men would pause to look at twice or more, though she did not have the breathtaking beauty of his Bethany in the Dominion
Alec placed an arm beneath the unconscious Nichols and dragged him over to the side of the grate, then put his companion down and looked at the heavy metal cover. Warm air was rising from the darkness below. With another sigh of discontent, Alec engaged his powers, and used the strength of his warrior abilities to lift the edge of one side of the metal grate. With a heave he lifted it and let it fall backwards away from the heating vent, letting it land with a very loud clanging thud.
Alec dropped one of his few remaining knives into the darkness, and heard it land after only a fraction of a second, comforting him with the knowledge that the drop down wasn’t far. The women were beside him now, bent over with him to look into the darkness below.
“How could you do that?” the thin woman asked. “We’ve seen three workmen call in extra help to raise that grating.”
A new crashing sound at the door told Alec that the besieging crowd outside had started using axes. “I’m going to drop down, and then I’d like for you to lower my friend to me. Will you do that please, so that I can catch him?” Alec asked the thin woman.
“And then you’ll catch us?” she asked.
“I don’t think this is going to end well. You shouldn’t plan to go with us,” Alec answered.
“Her Highness does not wish to remain in captivity. We will go with you,” the shorter of the two women responded.
“You get down there. We don’t have time to argue,” the tall woman urged.
Knowing that the woman was right about the lack of time, as a raucous splintering noise came from the door, Alec hopped into the dark pit. He landed on his toes, and flexed upward as his body rebounded quickly. “Drop Nichols down here,” Alec spoke to the two figures just above his head. There was a scraping sound as they moved the body, then his feet came sliding down to Alec, preparing him for the arrival of the rest of the inert body. Alec sat Nichol on the floor of the narrow brick chute.
“Do you have candles?” he asked the women overhead. The tall girl ran to get something, while the heavier girl sat on the floor and hung her feet over the edge. “Will you help me?” she asked.
“Come on down. I’ll help you,” Alec calmly reassured her, and he braced himself to withstand the arrival of her bulk. She slid more than jumped, and came down against Alec, whose hands found her hips and brought her to a soft landing on her feet. She was much lighter than he had expected her to be, and he felt for a brief moment as though he had compressed many layers of cloth, rather than flesh, as he held her.
“Can you start crawling into that shaft?” Alec suggested to her as he held her loosely for a moment more, then released her.
“Thank you! Yes, I’ll go,” she maneuvered around Nichols and began to crawl away from Alec.
He watched her for a second until a loud landing beside him startled him. The princess had landed gracelessly next to him without help or injury. “Go ahead and close the grate. I’ll follow the maid,” she told Alec.
Alec hadn’t thought about closing the grate, but realized it made sense. He re-engaged his warrior powers, and felt them flicker before he grasped them firmly; he was close to total exhaustion of his ability to use his powers. He leveraged himself upward, and grunted as he grabbed hold of the grate and pulled it up and over. The metal was incredibly heavy, and as he positioned it for its return to its functional role, his powers flickered again and he lost control of the weight.
The grate fell straight down, crushing the tips of the fingers on his right hand and banging against the top of his skull. Alec fell to the floor of the heating shaft, and heard the armoire in front of the door topple as the guards finally broke into the room. Alec held his right hand against his chest, grabbed the front of Nichols’ shirt with his left, and began to crawl into the warm dark void that was his only hope for escape.
Chapter 7 – Flight Underground
Alec heard thumping and exclamations behind him as he moved into the deep black darkness of the heating shaft. The women were somewhere ahead of him, although he could not hear or see anything. The floor of the shaft was a shallow bed of sand, making his progress less uncomfortable than it would have otherwise felt. A slight breeze, albeit a warm one, provided a barely detectable headwind.
There was a slight flash ahead of him, then a warm, flickering glow illuminated the cramped profiles of the two women squatting ahead of him.
“Oh gracious! Are you alright?” the p
rincess asked Alec as he struggled up to them with Nichols.
“As alright as the conditions can allow,” Alec responded.
“Your head – it’s bleeding,” the girl told him.
Releasing his grip on Nichols, Alec placed his left hand on top of his head. It was sticky, and he found that blood was running down his temple from where the grate had hit him. He lifted his right hand into the light and saw that the throbbing fingers were badly mangled.
“Oh, your poor hand too!” the broad-hipped maid sympathized.
“I’ll be okay,” Alec assured them. He knew that in just a matter of hours he would hopefully have enough rest to restore his healing powers and then treat his injuries. “Let’s keep moving forward. Those guards are going to be chasing us soon.”
One of the women grunted agreement, and they started forward again, the shorter of the two taking the lead and holding the candle ahead of her as they crawled. There were small vents occasionally branching off to the sides, one time bringing the sounds of people talking in a room overhead, and then after perhaps half an hour the ventilation shaft began to tilt noticeably downward. Alec’s awkward rhythm of pulling Nichols had just swung his face backwards when there was a mild shriek and the candle light ahead abruptly went out.
“Are you okay? Is everything alright?” he called loudly.
“Yes,” a voice replied firmly. “There’s a short drop down into a bigger passage, and I dropped the candle.”
Alec resumed pulling Nichols, wishing he had enough energy to heal the unconscious man and himself. The candle was successfully relit, and Alec saw the junction of the two air ventilation openings. The two women were standing up in a passage that looked like the district heating system Alec had been in with Kage and Elena, complete with the large pipes running near the ceiling, and the more concentrated, damp heat he remembered. Alec deposited Nichols on the floor of the new passage, and pushed an eyelid back to examine him, then checked his pulse. Satisfied that his companion was in no danger, the ingenaire slumped back against the wall, exhausted by the pain of his injuries and the effort to carry Nichols.
Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series Page 9
