disappeared under the press of bodies.
“Back!” Caim shouted to Keegan.
Keegan retreated into the doorway with his sister, giving Caim some room to maneuver, but three soldiers were already on the landing, with more coming up behind them. Caim glanced around. How am I going to get out of this?
There was nowhere left to retreat to-they were on the top floor. No windows in sight. And having seen the results of captivity in this horrid place, surrender wasn’t an option. He’d die before they took him alive. If Keegan loves his sister, he’ll kill her the moment my body hits the floor.
Another option buzzed in the back of his head like an angry hornet. His powers. As the soldiers moved to surround him, that final solution loomed larger in Caim’s mind. It was potentially fatal for everyone in the prison- Keegan, Liana, the outlaws, and the scores of men and women languishing in their cells. Then again, some might call it an act of mercy. Damn yourself if you will, but don’t sugarcoat it. Will you kill a hundred people to save your own hide?
The answer lurked inside him, but Caim didn’t want to search for it, afraid of what he might find as the battle-rage bubbled in his chest. The shadows oozed along the ceiling, pulsing with hunger, wanting to be unleashed. Their hunger began to eat away at his concern, and he didn’t know how long he could keep the feelings at bay.
Caim froze for a fraction of a heartbeat as a tremendous roar echoed behind him. But it wasn’t the shadow beast. Samnus launched himself from the doorway and into the press of soldiers. Seizing them in his bruised arms, the burly thane plunged over the side of the landing and into the empty space between the stairways. Their combined screams dropped like stones down a well. Caim couldn’t believe what he had just seen. It was madness.
Caim rushed at the soldiers on the steps. As he deflected a hammer stroke aimed at his face, Caim felt the presence of the sword like a great black bird perched on his shoulder. He wanted to draw it, but he wasn’t sure he could trust the weapon. Or perhaps he couldn’t trust himself as the bloodlust sang in his ears.
As he punctured the stomach and inner thigh of the man across from him, the north door banged open. Aemon and Dray exploded onto the crowded landing, plowing into the soldiers with their boar spears. The distraction allowed Caim to beat aside a soldier’s guard and put him down with a stab up through the armpit.
When the last soldier was slain, Caim leaned against the wall. His forearm was killing him. There was blood everywhere-pooled on the floor, streaked across the walls. Keegan sat on the floor holding his left hand on his lap. His sister dabbed at the wound with the edge of her cloak. Caim pushed aside his exhaustion to go over to them. Keegan’s palm was laid open like a cleaned fish belly. Blood welled from the cut in thick streams. Liana tried to take hold of her brother’s arm to get a better look, but Keegan jerked it away and pressed it against his stomach.
“Let it go, Li.”
“Keegan! It looks bad. Let me see!”
“No, Li-”
Caim grabbed the boy’s arm and pulled up his sleeve. Long cuts ran along the inside of his forearm. They looked like they had been made with a knife blade. A few looked recent, but faint lines showed where old cuts had healed over. Caim looked up, but Keegan was staring down at his lap, his lower lip pulled into his mouth. Caim moved in front of his find so none of the other outlaws could see.
“Keegan,” Liana said. “Did you do this?”
His chest shuddered as he drew in a long breath. “Sometimes I can’t deal with it, Li. You know? Father and the war. I just…”
Caim sliced a strip of cloth from the youth’s cloak. While Liana wrapped the makeshift bandage around her brother’s hand and forearm, he gripped the boy’s shoulder.
“You did well.”
Keegan winced as his sister tied off the ends of the bandage. “I could have done more.”
“Any more,” Liana said, “and we’d be sewing your funeral bag.”
Caim looked Keegan in the eye. “You did plenty.”
The youth nodded. Caedman was slumped against the wall beside them. If anything, his pallor had gotten worse. Wonderful. All this to rescue a warm corpse. Caim turned around. The rest of the outlaws gathered around the landing. Three men held the east door shut, even though the pounding from it had ceased. Ramon strode toward them. “Where did you come from?” he asked Liana.
“She stowed away,” Caim replied.
Ramon bent down and winced when he got a closer look at the prisoner. “It’s worse than I thought. You think he’ll live?”
“I don’t know. He’s beaten up pretty bad, but he’ll stand a better chance if we can get him out of here.”
“The front is the best way out.”
Caim didn’t like it, but he had to agree. The presence of the soldiers was a bad sign.
Ramon pointed to a pair of men. “Take the lead with Caim. Oak and Lumel, you stay with Caedman. Everybody stay tight around them.”
Oak and the other man selected bent down and hefted Caedman. One of the men holding the opposite door shut called over, asking what they should do.
“Wedge it shut,” Caim said. “With a knife or a spear tip. Anything you can find.”
The outlaws formed up. Those with injuries, including Caedman and Keegan, were placed in the center of the column. Liana scowled when Ramon put her there as well, but she said nothing.
“Let’s go,” Caim said, and he started down the steps.
On the way down they passed Joram’s body, hacked to unrecognizable pieces. Ramon didn’t say a word, but he picked up his cousin’s hammer. Flight by flight Caim led them down the stairwell, while the shadows crept overhead. The doors on the other landings were shut and no sounds issued from them, but with each floor Caim’s anxiety grew. It was as if some invisible doom hovered above his head. He rode the feeling down to the ground floor.
Samnus lay between the bodies of the soldiers he had carried to their deaths. Blood and pulp were splattered across the floor and up the walls. With a glance at each shadowed corner, Caim moved to the archway leading to the prison’s front gate. The long corridor was empty and the doors along its length closed. It looked innocuous, like an easy stroll to the exit, but the feeling nagged at him. Something wasn’t right.
“Stay here,” he said.
The word was passed back through the ranks as Caim edged into the corridor. Leaving behind their muted chorus of shifting footsteps, muffled coughs, and clanking metal, he paused at each door he passed, listening for anything untoward, hoping to find something to attach to his heightened apprehension, but they stood like rows of silent guardians watching his passage. He stopped at the edge of the atrium. The sensation had grown to a gigantic weight pressing down on the back of his neck. As he stepped toward the gate, a faint noise reached him. A footstep? He couldn’t tell. Maybe it was nothing. They might still get out of here alive.
Caim halted as a tiny voice hissed in his ear.
“Caim!”
Heart racing, he looked around for her distinctive glow. “Kit?”
“Caim! You… door… -ow…”
It was definitely Kit, but he could barely hear her. “Kit, where are you?”
“… can’t… you!”
Caim tried to follow the direction of her voice, but it was too faint. He remembered the night he’d fought Levictus on the palace roof, and how the sorcerer’s magic had separated Kit from him. He closed his eyes and tried to reach out to her. “Kit, I’m right here. I need you-”
But she was gone again, leaving him more troubled than before. He only had a moment to process it before a sharp creak of metal against metal whispered through the atrium’s still air, and the front gate flew open with tremendous force to clang against the inner wall. A fierce wind, stinking like an opened grave, howled through the gaping doorway. Caim lifted an arm to his face, choking on the horrible stench.
“Dark’s blood!”
He looked to see Keegan crouched a dozen paces behind him. How the youth had managed to sneak up behind him, Caim didn’t know, but his feeling of dread intensified.
