Or they had the misfortune of stumbling across someone who would give them away— which was exactly what happened.
They had just reached the upper levels, where tall windows opened to hazy gray light and heavy clouds, when a lone Gnome Hunter came out of a room right next to them. Everyone froze for an instant, and then the Gnome was crying out. Rue buried her dagger in his chest, knocking him back into the room, but the damage had been done. The cry was immediately taken up, and the pursuit they had feared was mobilizing.
They began to run again, Bek’s arm about Rue’s shoulders, her arm about his waist. She felt the thick dampness of his blood seeping into her own clothing.
« It’s not far!» Trefen Morys called back to them, leading the way. «Just ahead, through those doors!»
A pair of heavy, ironbound oak doors stood closed at the end of the corridor. But the sound of boots reverberated on the stone flooring from just out of sight behind the fugitives.We’re not going to make it, Rue thought.
Gnome Hunters burst into view, rounding a corner of the hallway perhaps a hundred feet back. Too many to stand and face. Too many to overcome with conventional weapons. Rue glanced at Bek. His eyes were slits in a face gone pale and sweaty. His breathing was shallow and ragged. He was failing rapidly and in no position to use his magic.
Then they were at the double doors, and Trefen Morys was wrenching them open. Rue and Bek stumbled through, and the young Druid shoved the doors closed behind them and stepped back. «Wait!»
He mumbled something, his hands weaving. The locks on the doors melted and fused into a knot of iron, sealed shut.
He turned back to them and grinned triumphantly. «I know a little magic.»
They were in the airship courtyard andSwift Sure hovered just off the ground not a hundred yards ahead, straining at her anchor ropes, her light sheaths rippling in the breeze and her radian draws taut. She was rigged for flying and ready to lift off. From the pilot box, a solitary figure dressed in black Druid robes jumped up and started waving.
« Bellizen!» Trefen Morys shouted.
The girl shouted back, then darted out of the box and down to the decking. A moment later, one end of a rope ladder flew over the side.
But in the same instant a clutch of Gnome Hunters appeared on the Keep’s battlements behind them. They howled in anger when they saw what was happening. Still supporting a wounded Bek, Rue lurched toward the safety of the airship. Trefen Morys darted ahead. Then, seeing how badly his companions were struggling, he raced back to help, taking Bek’s other arm and slinging it over his shoulder.
« Hurry!» he urged.
Rue didn’t need to be told. Arrows fired from Gnome bows were falling all around them, sharpened heads clattering and skipping across the stones. Rue realized suddenly that she had no weapons of her own, that none of them had, that they had left everything behind in their battle to escape the cells.
She glanced ahead atSwift Sure, caught sight of the starboard rail sling in place on the bow, and felt a flutter of hope. «Does Bellizen know how to use airship weapons?» she shouted at Trefen Morys above the cry of the attacking guards. «Do you?»
The young Druid shook his head. «Neither of us does! We aren’t trained in the use of weapons!»
A bad oversight, she thought. She took a deep breath. «Stay with Bek!» she ordered.
She dropped her husband’s arm and sprinted for the airship ladder. She knew what she was doing. She was trying to save him, but she was also leaving him to his fate, abandoning him to the Gnome Hunters.
He would never reach the airship if she failed. Both he and Trefen Morys would die.
But there wasn’t any other way.
A crossbow bolt caught her in the thigh, passing so deep into her flesh it jarred the bone. She cried out in pain, stumbled, righted herself and hobbled on. Arrows rained down all about her, but she was only nicked until one caught her in the shoulder and spun her all the way around. She continued to run, teeth clenched, hands knotted into fists.
Just a little farther.
She leapt onto the rope ladder and clambered up the rungs in a wash of razor–edged pain and suffocating heat that took her breath away. She reached the top and Bellizen grabbed her arm and pulled her past the railing and onto the deck. The Druid girl was no older than Trefen Morys—younger still, Rue guessed. Short–cropped blue–black hair formed a helmet about a face paler than Grianne Ohmsford’s. Eyes as black as pools on a moonless night peered over. «What do you need me to do?»
Rue hesitated. Gnome missiles thudded into the airship decking, bristling from the planks and rails like quills. Impatient with the failure of their bowmen to bring her down and infuriated by the efforts of Trefen Morys, Gnome Hunters were rappelling down the Keep’s walls on ropes. The young Druid had shown enough presence of mind to use his Druid magic to cause clouds of dust to swirl across the courtyard, hiding Bek and himself. It was a clever strategy. But once those descending the walls reached the ground, the pair would be found again quickly enough.
And the rail sling, with its slow–cranking winch and single bolt, wasn’t going to be enough to stop them.
« Help me into the pilot box,” she said, struggling to stand.
Bellizen was stronger than she looked, and she hauled Rue to her feet, practically carrying her across the deck and up the three steps into the pilot box. Fighting the waves of pain and nausea that threatened to undo her, Rue gripped the controls of the airship, unhooding the parse tubes to release the power stored in the diapson crystals and readying the thruster levers.
« Cut the aft and forward anchor ropes,” she ordered the girl. «Then drop flat against the deck close by the rope ladder. But leave the ladder down!»
Bellizen saw what she intended, jumped down the steps out of the box, and raced off to cut the ropes. Swift Sure was already straining against the lines, responding to the fresh power Rue was feeding her In the courtyard, the haze of dust still obscured Bek and Trefen Morys, but the Gnome Hunters who had rappelled from the battlements were almost upon them. She shouted again at Bellizen, feeling the ship swing about as the aft anchor rope was cut, then lurch forward moments later as the bow anchor rope followed.
Swift Sureshot forward as if catapulted from a sling. Too much power! They would run Bek and the young Druid down! Rue hauled back on the thruster levers, reversing the flow of power through the parse tubes. The airship bucked and slowed, and she was suddenly in the thick of the dust cloud, arrows and crossbow bolts flying everywhere as shouts rose from the Gnomes charging across the courtyard.
« Bek!» she screamed.
The big airship swung about, clearing a space in the dust cloud, and she saw her husband and his rescuer almost underneath the hull. Bellizen was on her feet, calling down to them, directing them toward the ladder. They reached it in seconds and began to climb, Bek in the lead, Trefen Morys helping to boost him up. But they were too slow, each step taking too long. Bek, weak from loss of blood and exhaustion, was barely hanging on.
Frantic, Rue leapt from the pilot box onto the decking and charged forward to the rail sling. Cranking back the winch furiously, she inserted a bolt, swung the weapon about, and fired it into the clutch of Gnome Hunters just emerging from the haze. Three or four of them were knocked backwards like rag dolls. The rest, caught by surprise and not exactly sure what had just happened, dropped flat against the courtyard stones, trying to shield themselves. That gave Bek and Trefen Morys just enough time to gain the airship railing, where Bellizen was waiting to pull them aboard.
Rue dropped the handle of the rail sling and raced back for the pilot box. Leaping inside, she threw the thrusters to the left parse tubes forward and yanked the thrusters to the right parse tubes all the way back.Swift Sure swung violently about, turning toward the outer walls and the Dragon’s Teeth, and Rue shoved all the thruster levers forward and tilted the tube noses up to gain lift.
An instant later, the airship exploded out of the courtyard and rose into the midday sky, leaving Paranor, with its Druids and Gnome Hunters and dark memories, behind.
