Kingsteel (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 3)

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Kingsteel (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 3) Page 30

by Michael Meyerhofer


  She forced herself to walk boldly into the room. She stopped before the closest cell. Keeping her back to the guards on the other end of the chamber, she drew her thinnest knife and inserted the tip into the lock. Women pressed toward her. Some whispered questions. A tall, dark-skinned woman pushed in front of the others, hissing for them to be quiet. They fell back. The dark-skinned woman gripped the cell bars. A faint smile touched her lips.

  “Igrid.”

  Igrid blinked. “Ailynn?” Igrid hardly recognized her former captain. Ailynn’s hair hung in a long dark braid against her breasts. Her dark Soroccan body bristled with scars, some of them recent, including one that stretched from her bottom lip to her chin, interrupting her smile. Igrid blushed. “I thought…”

  “I died with Queen Sharra?” Ailynn shook her head. “Some killed themselves to avoid capture. Others kept fighting. I chose the latter.” She glanced over Igrid’s shoulder. “Stop gawking and work that damn knife! They haven’t seen you yet, but they will.”

  Igrid returned her attention to the lock, gently wiggling the tip of her dagger, trying to feel the mechanism through the blade. A moment later, she cursed. “I can’t…” She glanced to the side and saw the occupants of the other cells watching, too.

  “Breathe, child,” Ailynn told her. “I know where you came from. You’re better at this than I am.”

  Igrid met Ailynn’s gaze, nodded, and returned her attention to the lock. A man shouted in the distance. The shout was followed by laughter. The Dhargots were calling out to her, thinking she was one of their comrades opening the cell for a bit of fun. Some teased while others reminded her not to open the cell without help.

  Igrid felt a lump in her throat. She was running out of time. Her hands were sweating, making it harder to hold the dagger. The Dhargots called to her from across the chamber again. The teasing turned to angry shouts when she did not answer. She heard men pushing back their chairs and rising to their feet.

  Then the lock clicked open.

  Instead of opening the door, Igrid reached through the bars and gave Ailynn her dagger. “I’ll slow them down. Get to work on the next cell.” Ailynn plucked two more daggers from Igrid’s belt, passed them to the women beside her, and nodded.

  Igrid stepped back. The cell door opened. Women rushed out. The Dhargots shouted in rage and surprise then drew their swords. Igrid glanced at the doorway. She realized there was still time. She’d given the Iron Sisters a fighting chance. If she wanted, she could run back down to the sewers. She could save herself.

  Igrid stared at the Dhargots scurrying up from the tables, arming themselves. To her surprise, she laughed. Then she tossed away the helmet. Despite the lump in her throat, she flashed the men a crooked smile.

  “Well, I don’t have all night. Come and die, you bastards.”

  Karhaati was only halfway down the stairs when he heard the clash of steel. At one, he turned sideways on the stairwell and drew his longsword. He considered calling for his bodyguards, whom he’d left at the top of the stairs, then decided against it. He heard the battle cry of a lone woman, punctuated by men’s grunts, then a man’s sharp cry of pain.

  One of the Iron Sisters had gotten hold of a blade.

  Karhaati leaned against the wall of the stairwell, listening. He imagined the look on the face of whatever careless guard must have been raping an Iron Sister when she plucked a dagger from his belt and slashed his throat. He imagined her rolling his body off hers, her face washed in his blood. He visualized her rising off the stone floor, naked, drawing the dead man’s sword off his corpse—maybe screaming in defiance before she threw herself at the next target, as wild as an animal.

  Karhaati smiled. He heard another man scream. Other men cursed, followed by what sounded like a table being overturned. The cries of women joined in—probably fellow Iron Sisters, shouting encouragement from their cells, unaware of the punishment awaiting them.

  Steel clashed again, echoing up the stairwell. Karhaati’s bodyguards had started down on their own, but he stopped them with a gesture. He was in no danger, and there were more than enough guards down there to handle one escaped woman with a sword. Closing his eyes, he leaned against the wall and listened. The woman’s wild, sweet battle cry reached his ears. A moment later, he heard her gasp. He imagined her hurt, blood running down one arm as she fought to stay alive. He thought about loosening his belt in response to his growing feelings of lust, but a new sound interrupted the chaos: an iron gate swinging open.

  More women cried out from the dungeon, offering battle cries of their own. Karhaati opened his eyes. He straightened. His smile became a scowl. Glancing back at his bodyguards, he snapped his fingers. He waited a moment for them to catch up then started down the stairs.

  The woman tried in vain to lift her cheek off the cold stone floor. Somehow, she’d fallen in a pool of water, though she could not remember how. The water smelled like old coins. It reminded her of how her hands had smelled after she spent all day begging for coins outside a temple in the slums of the Dark Quarter.

  My name was Ilreeth then… or was it Anza? She blinked. Why do I have so many names?

  She tried to make her eyes focus, but all she saw was a wild blur of color swirling in front of her—some red, mostly gray. She blinked again. Slowly, a woman’s face took shape, pressed against stone, staring back at her. The woman’s eyes were brown. Half her face was red. She did not blink.

  Is that my face? She felt a surge of panic. She tried once more to lift her head. A sharp pain made her wince. When the pain passed, she tried again. This time, beyond the dead woman lying next to her, she saw new shapes in the distance—more men, fighting. She saw more women, too. Women with swords. She blinked.

  Igrid. My name is Igrid.

  She fumbled for her sword and finally found it on the floor next to her. Blood covered half its surface. The sight of the blood reminded her of the wetness on her face. Pressing one hand to the gash in her forehead, Igrid snatched up her sword and tried to rise. A dying man collapsed in front of her, almost hitting her. His brown, pleading eyes found hers. Igrid recoiled. She pushed herself onto her feet, reeled, and almost fell. Someone grabbed her arm.

  “You’re still alive,” Ailynn shouted, “but you won’t stay that way if you don’t start making that sword dance.” She pushed Igrid aside and stabbed a Dhargot in the face.

  Igrid nodded dumbly. Her whole body hurt. Glancing down at her tattered, bloody armor, she wondered how many times she’d already been cut. She decided it didn’t matter. Turning, she spotted a Dhargot in swordlock with another Iron Sister. The Iron Sister lost her balance and fell to one knee.

  Igrid stepped forward, stabbed the man in the back, and wrenched the sword from his grasp as he fell. She turned. She barely crossed both swords in time to stop an incoming axe. Sparks showered her. The shock of the blow shook her arms. The Dhargot howled, his face so close that she felt his spit as he screamed obscenities at her.

  Igrid wanted to twist sideways and break free, but her legs did not seem to work. Her arms trembled. The Dhargot started to force her down. Then his eyes widened. The Iron Sister she had just saved withdrew her blade, nodded to her, then turned to find another opponent.

  Igrid followed suit. She backstabbed another Dhargot then held a second in swordlock long enough for another Iron Sister to do the same. But then that woman fell, and Igrid was backpedaling, trying to fend off three Dhargots at once.

  Ailynn saved her again. The Captain of the Iron Sisters stepped smoothly into the Dhargots’ path. Like Igrid, she held a sword in each hand. Two more women followed her. One fell, but the rest of the Dhargots retreated.

  “Formation!” Ailynn screamed.

  As Igrid paused to catch her breath, other Iron Sisters rushed to join them. All had armed themselves, but a glance at the floor showed that many had already falle
n. Meanwhile, the remaining Dhargots had pulled into a tight formation of their own and were retreating toward the far wall. As they passed cages still containing captive Iron Sisters, they thrust their swords between the bars.

  Igrid bristled. They’d managed to open all the cells and hack open some of the cages, but a third of their sisters had not yet been freed. The Dhargots set about slaughtering these as quickly as possible. Igrid turned to Ailynn. She expected the captain to order a charge so that they could try to save as many of their sisters as possible.

  Ailynn’s eyes found hers. Ailynn shook her head. “Hold formation,” she said in a low, steady voice. She handed one of her swords to a woman who was unarmed, then stooped to pick up a shield. She slid the straps over one bloody arm. Then, otherwise nude, she took up position in front of the others.

  Some of the other Iron Sisters stooped to grab helmets. A few pulled cloaks or leather jerkins off the dead. But most of the Iron Sisters still had little or nothing by way of clothing, let alone armor. Igrid tried to ignore the plight of her caged sisters and count the remaining Dhargots.

  “We outnumber them,” she called out. “Let’s finish off these bastards and go find the Bloody Prince!”

  A few women cheered, but Ailynn scowled. “I said, hold your ground.” She edged closer to Igrid. “How far to the sewers?”

  “Right around the corner,” Igrid said, “but we can’t leave the rest of our sisters in cages!”

  “The Dhargots have armor. We don’t. They’ll have reinforcements here any second. We go now, or we all die.”

  Igrid turned to the Iron Sisters being stabbed through the bars of their cages. Some shouted defiant curses at the Dhargots. A few wept. Others died quietly. None called out for help.

  Igrid felt tears running from her eyes, mingling with the blood on her face. She considered charging the Dhargots anyway, in defiance of Ailynn’s orders. Then she heard a scream of warning from behind her. She turned in time to see a squad of Dhargots barreling into the dungeon. Unlike the others, they wore extravagant armor draped in silk.

  “Those aren’t regular guards,” Ailynn muttered. She shouted new orders, telling the women to pull back into a tight rectangular formation and prepare to repel attacks from two sides. Meanwhile, more confident, the Dhargothi prison guards charged again. The woman to Igrid’s right went down, then a spear caught the woman behind her. The Dhargots came at them from two sides, driving them back inch by bloody inch toward their cells.

  Igrid glanced at the door, now separated from them by twenty armed men, with more probably on the way. She shouted at Ailynn, “Either we break out now, or we die!”

  Ailynn bashed her shield into a Dhargot’s face, cleaved the top of his skull, and nodded. Moments later, the captain led half the Iron Sisters in a reckless charge toward the door. The Dhargots beat them back. Then Igrid spotted a single Dhargot in their midst, bigger than the rest. A bloodstained longsword sang in his grasp, faster than she would have thought possible. Unlike the other Dhargots, he wore an open silk tunic. And he laughed.

  Igrid tried to tell Ailynn who she thought that was, but Ailynn did not seem to hear her over the din of battle. The Dhargots answered Ailynn’s charge with twin charges of their own. The Iron Sisters threw them back, at great cost. Ailynn attempted yet another reckless charge at Karhaati’s force. Karhaati answered by placing himself at the thick of the fighting. He drove forward, cutting down one Iron Sister after another.

  Then he met Ailynn in a furious flash of steel—Ailynn shouting, Karhaati laughing. Igrid struggled to help, fighting desperately to stay at the side of her former captain. But then the prison guards charged with renewed fury, as though anxious to impress their prince. Igrid lost sight of Ailynn. The Iron Sisters’ lines buckled. The prison guards drove a wedge between them.

  But Igrid saw at once that the prison guards had overextended their lines. They could be flanked now. Better yet, a few Iron Sisters might even slip back and free more women from the few cages left untouched. Igrid pointed with one sword. She shouted fresh orders. To her relief, a few of the Iron Sisters obeyed.

  Then, shouting Ailynn’s name, Igrid led her own charge against the prison guards. Iron Sisters, savage and quick, fought on either side of her. While the Dhargots fighting Ailynn’s force held their ground, the ones fighting Igrid’s force withered. Then Karhaati’s force fell back, too, retreating out the door.

  The Iron Sisters followed, aided by more of their fellows. Igrid could not see Ailynn and Karhaati, but she imagined their fight must have spilled into the hallway beyond the dungeons. She followed, stepping over dead men and women, their bodies splashed with torchlight. Then she spotted Ailynn. The Soroccan woman lay unmoving on the floor, her eyes wide. Something had happened to her hair.

  Igrid lifted her head. Karhaati stood on the stairwell, his tunic open, blood splashed across his face and chest. Dhargots formed a protective circle around him. Some shouted up the stairs for reinforcements, especially archers. Karhaati’s eyes met Igrid’s. The Bloody Prince grinned. He lifted something to his face. Igrid saw that it was a long, dark braid. Karhaati sniffed it. Then he draped it around his neck like a necklace.

  Igrid screamed with rage. She started forward then stopped herself.

  More Iron Sisters spilled out into the hallway. More Dhargots appeared in front of her, massing on the stairs. Karhaati started casually up the stairs, his bloody sword resting against his shoulder. Dhargots closed around him. Igrid took a deep breath and let it go. She glanced over her shoulder toward the other stairwell that led down into the sewers.

  “Retreat,” she said finally.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Hands of Fire

  A broad, frozen sea lay before him, stretching on as far as he could discern. A faint dusting of snow covered the ice. He shivered. His breath fogged the air. Sundown spilled through the clouds, splashing across the ice. It was utterly silent.

  Rowen frowned. He was on the Wintersea. But that did not seem possible.

  He looked down at his clothes. He wore a tattered leather jerkin, trousers, gloves, and boots. The gloves were too small, the boots too big. His only other item of clothing, a mouse-brown cloak, had been patched and sewn in a dozen places.

  “I should be wearing armor.”

  He parted his cloak to reveal an Ivairian-style shortsword.

  “Knightswrath. What happened to Knightswrath?”

  He looked around, searching the ice at his feet. He looked behind him. For some reason, he’d expected to see mountains and green fields in the distance. Instead, he saw more ice. He considered heading south then changed his mind and went north.

  He walked for what felt like hours. Strangely, the sun did not seem to move. Finally, he stopped. Something lay before him, frozen deep inside the ice. It was so big that he marveled that he had not noticed it sooner. He thought at first that it was just a trick, a web of water that had not quite solidified.

  Then he realized that it was a dragon. Multicolored and six winged, it lay just beneath the ice. Its legs—huge, powerful legs ending in claws the length of his arm. He knew he should have been afraid, but he wasn’t. He started forward, following the outline of the dragon’s body. He stopped again when he saw its head. Its long neck, bent at an impossible angle, held its face frozen against the ice. One huge, dark eye met his. Though Rowen sensed that the beast was dead, eons dead, the dark eye seemed brimmed with sadness.

  The eye blinked.

  Rowen jumped. He reached for his sword, but it was gone. Stepping away from the dragon, he looked behind him, thinking he’d dropped his sword. But it was gone. When he turned around again, the dragon had disappeared, too. He stood for a moment, wondering if what he’d just seen was just a dream.

  “Or maybe I’m going mad.”

  He started forward again. The sun still had not
sunk any farther in the sky, though purple clouds drifted across it. An animal howled—not the shrill, mournful howl of a wolf, but the deeper, dreadful rumble of a greatwolf. Rowen shuddered. He was being hunted. He turned in a circle, searching for threats, but saw nothing.

  Finally, he started north again. He walked and walked. Then he saw a cloaked man walking toward him. The man kept his hood drawn, his hands folded neatly in his dark, priestly cloak. An impossibly long shadow stretched behind the man. His ink-black cloak spread across the ice like a stain.

  Rowen stopped. He knew that he’d been seen. Something told him to run. He searched the area around him for a weapon, but all he saw was snow and ice. He knew how to fight with his hands and feet—he’d done so many times before. Still, he trembled.

  “Singchai ushó fey.” Those words were somehow important. They were supposed to give him comfort, but he could not remember what they meant. He wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to go. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to take one step forward then another and another.

  When just a few feet separated Rowen from the cloaked figure, the dark priest stopped. He stared at Rowen. Though splashes of red sunlight still shown against the ice, no light penetrated the priest’s hood. Rowen heard him breathe, low and ominous, like the bellows of a furnace.

  Then the breathing stopped. The dark priest removed bone-pale hands from his sleeves and lowered his hood. Rowen faced angular features, a thin jawline, and tapered ears. The man was either bald or had shaved his head. Rowen could not tell how old he was. The man must have been a Sylv or a Shel’ai, but his eyes were wholly black. Then he blinked, and his eyes turned purple. Finally, the dark priest smiled. Despite his coldly handsome face, his teeth were dark and rotten. “Do you know who I am?”

 

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