The Crown Tower trc-1

by Michael J. Sullivan

  Given his love of altitude, Royce found it ironic that most of his life had been spent in the gutter. All that could change now. He was done with cities. Nothing to go back to-he had made certain of that. He hadn’t just burned bridges; he had obliterated them in apocalyptic fashion. Only one more tie to cut, and he was severing it tonight. In an odd way he felt as much regret as pleasure. He would be on his own again, but he would also be alone.

  I work best alone.

  Royce wanted to believe that, but even after all that had happened, he still missed Merrick.

  Back in his early days, when he was new to the city of Colnora, he had met Merrick. They were both new inductees to the Black Diamond thieves’ guild. Merrick had started life better off than Royce-most people had. He had parents of means, not that they were still speaking to him by then, but they had raised their son, educating the boy with the hope he might follow his father’s example and become a magistrate. Merrick chose a different path.

  The guild paired Royce with Merrick to learn the city, but Merrick was always an overachiever. Royce was his pet project, and his new partner proceeded to instruct him on everything. He taught Royce letters, numbers, and the most reliable escape routes and safe houses. He also introduced him to his first bottle of stolen Montemorcey, shared one night on a rooftop. Doing so ruined Royce for any other drink and made high places his altar.

  Royce had known nothing of the world and Merrick became his guide. Little wonder they turned out to be so much alike, kindred spirits in motives and attitudes. Royce had never known his family, and Merrick soon became the brother he never had. The two would still be terrorizing the streets, alleys, and rooftops of Colnora if only Merrick hadn’t betrayed Royce and sent him to prison. The betrayal proved that no one could be trusted. People looked out for themselves. Not even the slightest act was ever without some form of perceived benefit to the person making it. Even kindness was the result of a desire for respect or admiration in the eyes of those helped. This was another lesson Merrick had taught Royce, and Merrick knew everything. When the noose pulled tight, when the wind blew cold, anyone-no matter who-looked out for themselves.

  As he thought this, Royce felt a tremor on the wooden walk circling the crown. It wasn’t Hadrian; he was still climbing.

  The rising wind?

  Possible, but he didn’t like it. He had been lucky, but Royce was cynical by nature, and gods he knew to be fickle. He struggled to listen, but the same wind was howling and at that moment Hadrian finally pulled himself over the lip of the crenel, where he collapsed, panting on the walkway. Royce removed his harness and gestured for Hadrian to do the same. Once done, he pointed to the right, indicating their direction. The window he had entered last time was halfway around the tower. All he needed Hadrian to do now was follow him. Concerned about the vibration on the walkway, he wasted no time getting started.

  He didn’t trot although he wanted to. If the vibration was the result of footfalls, he didn’t want to send a return message. Still, he moved with urgency, peering ahead and watching the bend for signs of anyone.

  Different.

  Previously there had been no patrol on the parapet, but he had rattled the beehive with his last visit. Had they found the horses? Had someone in the city spotted Hadrian blundering through the streets? Had they seen all the rope he was carrying and made an educated guess? They could have determined Royce’s previous method of entry. Steps may have been taken. Still, he needed only minutes. Royce reached the window-still unlocked. Is that good or bad? He pushed the panes in and entered. Dark, but not entirely silent, he could hear breathing. Creeping inside he found no one. The room was as empty as before. The breathing came from an outer chamber. Moving forward, he found a priest seated on a bench breathing heavily. The stairs were nearby and the priest’s waistline indicated he might be unaccustomed to climbing.

  The priest was a minor annoyance. He had his back to the window and panted so loudly, he invited a throat slitting. Royce pulled out his dagger and inched forward.

  A heartbeat later Hadrian blundered in behind both. A moment after that, the priest turned-and screamed.

  The priest’s scream was cut short by Royce, but while it lasted, the piercing wail had been loud.

  “Drop the book and run for the rope!” Royce told Hadrian. “We’re done. You’re on your own.”

  Royce passed him and was out the window before Hadrian could respond, not that he had much to say, beyond, “Okay.”

  Hadrian did as instructed. He withdrew Hall’s Journal and set it on the bench beside where the priest had fallen into a pool of blood. Then he climbed back out the window. Royce was nowhere to be seen. He might have run left or right, he had no idea, nor did it seem important at that moment. Hadrian ran to the right, back the way he had come.

  Royce was leaving him behind. Hadrian could never hope to catch up; the man was too fast, too agile. He would already be over the side, rappelling down the tower long before Hadrian reached the rope. With the wind roaring in his face, and while still struggling to catch his breath after the climb, Hadrian reduced his run to a trot.

  The wind wasn’t the only thing shouting. Men were yelling, angry voices buffeted by the gale. Ahead or behind Hadrian couldn’t tell for sure. All he knew was that Royce was gone and he was left alone on the tower to face the aftermath of the thief’s handiwork. He thought of Pickles and gritted his teeth.

  Silence, wind, silence, wind. Stone merlons interrupted the gale. Gaps of stars flashed on his left, solid stone to his right. Ahead he spotted the rope and the two harnesses.

  Imagine twenty tower guards with sharp swords running at you, and twenty more with crossbows shooting, their bolts pinging off the stone around you. The thing is, you don’t just have to get down before they stab, hack, or shoot you. You have to get down before they realize all they have to do is cut the rope.

  Hadrian slid to a stop at the edge and picked up his harness.

  How long do I have? Seconds?

  “Why did I even take the thing off?” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder as he pulled the harness over his legs. Then he stopped. “Why two harnesses?”

  Hadrian bent over the edge. The rope dangled, drifting lazily, abandoned in the breeze. No sign of the thief. As fast as Royce was, without a harness he couldn’t possibly be at the bottom unless he had fallen. Hadrian looked at the other harness, even as he pulled the leather straps over his own shoulders. In the distance the sound of shouts continued. He felt vibrations through the wooden walkway. Men were on the parapet.

  The walkway was a big circle. The window they had entered was halfway around the tower from where they had climbed up. Running in either direction after climbing out the window would eventually lead back to the rope. Hadrian had gone to the right, returning the way he had come. Royce, he realized, had gone left.

  Royce determined survival was still a possibility when there were just two. Three meant certain death, and now there were five. They were all tower guards at least, homegrown footmen-no seret. Still, their swords were just as long, which gave them a three-foot advantage. Trapped on the narrow parapet, he had little room to maneuver and nowhere to hide.

  Royce glanced over his shoulder. No sign of Hadrian, but then there wouldn’t be. He went the other way. They each had an even chance, and Hadrian had proved luckier. He’d gone around the tower on the side without guards and was back at the rope whizzing down the lines. In less than five minutes, his ex-partner would be back on the street heading for the horses. In fifteen, he’d be trotting away. Hadrian had done to him essentially what he had planned to do to Hadrian. Only in the fighter’s case, it was accidental.

  The guards advanced and Royce backed up.

  There were other doors and windows along the parapet-none he would dare enter as he imagined the inside of the crown to be a hive of men eager to kill him. Royce had one chance. He could run back, circle the tower the way Hadrian had, and reach the rope. If he was fast enough, he could get over
the lip and down a few feet before they cut the line. If he could get his hand-claws on and catch hold of the stone, he might be able to climb down. Still, they would probably have him. Men would be waiting at the bottom by the time he got down, but that was still his best option.

  He lingered, curious as to why the footmen were hesitating. They inched forward a short step at a time with swords out, jabbing. No serious attempt was made to wound. They resembled a pack of old wives with brooms chasing Royce as if he were a squirrel on their roof. Men of this sort weren’t usually this timid-unless they already knew him. He was missing something.

  Time was not on his side. He turned to make good his gamble, but before he took a step he saw two more guards exit the tower to the parapet. They had him front and back then, and more were struggling to join the party.

  So that’s what you were waiting for.

  None of the men jabbing their blades had said a word. No demands to drop his dagger, to give up, to surrender. It appeared the church had strict penalties for defiling the home of their holy leader. Royce’s options were limited to just two: death by sword or death by falling. He put his back to the wall to see which side would lunge first. The guy to his right with the short beard gave him a sneer.

  Royce crouched, ready to move. His best bet would be to dodge under whatever stroke came. Make a rabbit-stab to the heart or lung, then just push forward. They were clustered. He might be able to knock a couple down, stab another one or two before-

  Someone screamed.

  The cry was behind him.

  Royce didn’t have time to look as Mr. Beard took that opportunity to lunge. The attack was a jab. Royce avoided it, then rushed in tight. Leading with his shoulder, he ran into the man as hard as he could, thrusting Alverstone up and under his armpit. The initial resistance faded the moment the blade went in, and the man fell backward with a groan. The footman directly behind went down as well, knocked over by the collision. The third was quicker than Royce had hoped. He stabbed down. Royce rolled against the inside wall and the soldier’s blade pierced the second man’s thigh, wrenching out a high-pitched squeal. Royce scrambled up the piggish guard and got his dagger into the foot of the third man, still distracted by the shock of having wounded his comrade. The pain brought the man to his senses, and he swung at Royce, who again managed to roll clear. Limping, the tower guard retreated a step as his two remaining associates pulled him out of the way.

  At any moment Royce expected a blade in his back. He hadn’t had time to look and couldn’t fight in both directions. The tiny army behind him had an open target and he wondered what was taking them so long to end this. Their tardiness almost annoyed him.

  Then Royce heard the clank of steel and another cry. Finally taking the chance to look behind, he saw the bodies of at least four guards, blood-soaked and clogging the walkway. Amidst the slain, a stained sword in each hand, stood Hadrian.

  Like everyone else still alive on the parapet, Royce stared in shock. Too many impossibilities bartered for his thoughts. The thief was paralyzed, unable to think because the world had just flipped. At first he refused to believe it was Hadrian. It had to be someone else. Perhaps it was Novron himself, who had overheard Royce’s thought about fickle gods and had arrived to exact punishment. The guards had just been in the way. Somehow this seemed more believable to Royce than what his eyes revealed.

  Is it possible the idiot couldn’t find the rope?

  Hadrian leapt the corpses and moved to his side. “Get behind me.”

  Royce did better than that. For some reason the gods saw fit to give him a second chance, and he was taking it. Slipping past Hadrian, he bolted for the rope.

  It wasn’t far, and just as he was nearing the anchor point, Royce stopped. Two more guards were on the walkway, blocking his passage. Only these were nothing like the footmen nor did they resemble seret. They didn’t appear like anything Royce had ever seen before. They wore gold breastplates over shirts of vertical red, purple, and yellow stripes with long cuffs and billowing sleeves. Matching pants plumed out, gathering just below the knee into long striped stockings. On their heads, messenger wings decorated gold helms, which hid their faces behind cages of mesh. Each held unusual weapons, long halberds with ornately curved blades at both ends, which they held tight to their sides with one arm straight down and the other high across their chests.

  Royce didn’t know whether to laugh or run. They looked ridiculous. They were also big, and his inability to see their eyes worried him. They didn’t hesitate. They didn’t jab at him like old wives. They advanced with such determination that Royce settled on running away.

  “By Mar!” Hadrian shouted as he ran across him again. “What have you found this time?!”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like them.”

  Hadrian stepped between Royce and the two golden guards as they marched single file. They showed no hurry but also no hesitation.

  “Where are those others?” Royce asked.

  “I persuaded them to leave.”

  “Good for you.”

  Hadrian used his sleeve to wipe the sweat and blood from his eyes as the walkway bounced with the coming of the colorful guards. “Once I start fighting, run back around the tower. Get to the rope and head down.”

  Hadrian was only lending voice to Royce’s own thoughts. He took a step back and was about to run again when he noticed something that didn’t make sense. “Hey, you’re wearing your harness.”

  “I almost went down. You’re lucky I realized you were in trouble.”

  The golden guard closed in.

  Hadrian crouched, raising his swords. “Get going.”

  Hadrian lunged forward to meet the first of the pair. Royce watched in awe as Hadrian moved like a dancer, catching the pole-arm of the guard with one sword and stabbing with the other. It looked as if he got the sword up under the breastplate, but the tip glanced away. The guard slammed Hadrian back with enough force to drive him into Royce.

  “I told you to leave!”

  “I’m going!”

  Royce retreated as Hadrian attacked once more. This time the guard swung, spinning the top blade down. Hadrian blocked with his off-hand sword, and Royce watched in amazement as Hadrian’s blade was cut in half.

  “Whoa!” Hadrian retreated.

  The guard pressed the attack. Hadrian ducked, letting the spinning blade spark against the tower’s stone. Without pause, the guard brought up the bottom blade, which Hadrian deflected with the broken hilt, but that just gave the golden boy another downward slice. Hadrian should have been dead. Royce had seen enough fights to know that most were short affairs. One or two parries were all that could be hoped for, and that was only if both sides were playing by proper fencing rules. The golden gods before Hadrian weren’t even using swords. The downward blow had speed and strength.

  Clank!

  Royce wasn’t sure how he did it, but Hadrian had gotten his remaining sword up high enough to save himself from being cut in half. The same could not be said about his second sword, which snapped, the end of the blade flying out over the edge of the parapet. Hadrian only avoided being cleaved in half by falling to his knees.

  “RUN!” he shouted.

  Royce had seen enough and sprinted back around the tower. He came to the dead bodies and vaulted them, skidding so far on the blood-slick walkway he nearly went out one of the open crenels.

  There were eight bodies. Hadrian had killed seven.

  Royce was nearing the rope’s anchor point when again he faced a golden guard. Just one this time, but after watching Hadrian, that was one too many. How many of these are coming up the steps after us? No, he realized, this was the second of the two Hadrian had faced. Hadrian was probably dead. The other guard would be going around the opposite way, coming up behind him.

  Fighting was stupid. He just needed to get by. If he could avoid one attack and push past, there was a chance to dive for the rope. Without waiting, without pausing, Royce ran at the guard and dodged
left then right. The faceless golden helmet followed him and swung with incredible speed, just missing Royce’s left leg. Pivoting and using his forward momentum, Royce punched his body through the gap between the tower wall and the golden armor. He remembered the second blade of the guard’s weapon too late.

  Royce felt the metal cut into his side, and where he intended to land on his right foot to keep running, his leg refused to obey. He collapsed under his own weight. Royce fell, skidding across the wooden walk, sliding on his own blood. Rolling to his back, he watched the faceless guard bring down the killing blow, the spinning scythe-like blade aimed for his chest.

  Clank!

  The pole was hammered to the wall, sparking and chipping out a fist-sized chunk of stone. Hadrian was there again, standing above him. He had his big sword out, and spinning in a full circle he caught the gap between the guard’s collar and the flange of his helm. Or so Royce thought. His head should have flown a mile, but instead the guard was merely slammed into the wall where his helmet carved out another bit of stone.

  Hadrian continued to ram forward, pummeling the guard with blow after blow, forcing him back. Royce struggled to get up. He pushed to his elbows and saw the cut in his side was deep, his tunic awash in blood. He struggled to slide himself toward the rope. The pain nearly caused him to pass out.

  Almost getting inside Hadrian’s defense, the guard halted his advance and reversed the momentum.

  On his back, propped up on his elbows, Royce saw it coming but didn’t have time to warn him. As Hadrian stepped into the blood, his foot slipped.

  He managed to block the blow using both hands on his great sword as if it were a staff, but the impact bounced him against the stone wall of the tower. Unlike the guard, Hadrian didn’t have a helmet. Still, he managed to anticipate the second blade. He tried to block, but not well enough, and he cried out as he fell alongside Royce.