cooking meat rose into the still night air, saw the feathered shaft protruding from his back.
The other three had spun as one at the sound of their leader falling into the fire, and as one they fell, two killed instantly, the third screaming in agony as a shaft shattered his knee. Blood fountained from a severed artery, and his screaming was short-lived.
The screams had set off the dogs, which howled and barked and ran wildly back and forth. Anton ran to Brenna, who grabbed him and hugged him tight, pressing her face into his shoulder, trying to close her ears to the horrible sizzling of the man in the fire, to the noise of the dogs…
… to the crunch of running footsteps in the snow. Her head shot up as six men burst into the light, the naked swords in their hands glittering with frost. Enchanted, she thought.
The new arrivals were dressed all in white: white coats, white trousers, white boots. Even their helmets were painted white. But on their shoulders were round blue patches slashed across with a streak of red.
Army soldiers, Brenna realized. The first, a tall man with a large, beaked nose and a bushy mustache rimed with frost, strode over to them. “I am Sergeant Meerk,” he said. “By order of Lord Falk, I arrest you. You are to be returned immediately to the Palace.”
Brenna exchanged a startled look with Anton. It made no sense! The men who had just died had already been taking them to Falk… well, Mother Northwind, but that would have been on Falk’s behalf…
… wouldn’t it?
But if these men were acting on Lord Falk’s orders, maybe…
“I am Lord Falk’s ward,” she said. “I thank you for your rescue, but I must demand that you-”
“I know who you are,” the guardsman said. “And my orders are to arrest you for certain, him,” he nodded at the boy, “if at all possible… and do what we liked with the others.” He took a couple of steps to the fire and kicked the body off of it. “Commoner trash!” Brenna hid her face against Anton’s shoulder again, but not before she’d had one horrible glimpse of what was left of the dead man’s face.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she mumbled to Anton.
“Not on my shoulder,” he whispered. “Although I guess it would be fair turnabout for what I did to you the day we met…”
Despite everything, that made her chuckle. It threatened to turn into hysterics, though, so she bit it off. “There’s something strange here,” she whispered. “The dogsledders were taking us to Mother Northwind, who Falk told to twist your mind to make you loyal to him. These guards are taking orders from Falk, too… and yet they killed Mother Northwind’s men.”
“I know,” Anton murmured. “Maybe-”
But Sergeant Meerk was pulling him away. “Enough of that,” he snapped. “There’s a carriage waiting to take us to New Cabora, but we have to get to the road and it’s a long walk.”
He snapped orders, and while two men stayed behind to deal with the cleanup, he and the other three formed a square around Anton and Brenna and marched them up the hillside into the snowy forest.
There was no chance to talk again during that hourslong hike, no chance to talk in the carriage with two guards keeping them silent.
As it turned out, there would be no chance to talk again for a very long time.
Karl jerked awake, not sure why. He lay in darkness for one long breathless moment, then heard the noise of splintering wood downstairs, followed by shouts and the clash of steel on steel.
His bedroom door crashed open, letting in red light and acrid smoke. Denson, sword in hand, shouted, “Get up!” Karl, naked, scrambled out of bed and grabbed the dressing gown Goodwife Beth had given him, but he barely had time to slip his arms into it before Denson grabbed him and shoved him toward the far end of the hallway, where the false wall hid the extended corridor built into the hillside. Karl managed to get the dressing gown cinched as they skidded to a halt at the wall. Downstairs there was a flash of blue light and a man screamed, the sound ending abruptly. Denson had opened the panel in the left wall that hid the lever to open the door; he pulled it hard.
“What’s going on?” Karl said. His heart pounded in his ears. Two minutes earlier he had been fast asleep and his brain was playing catch-up to his frightened body. “An attack?”
“Falk’s rutting guards,” Denson snarled. “Jopps must have sold us out. Open, damn it!” he shouted at the wall, which was slowly starting to slide aside.
More shouts, the clash of swords, on the stairs now. Karl, glancing back, saw Vinthor’s head appear. Then Denson grabbed him and dragged him into the hidden hallway, turned and grabbed another lever on that side. As the door began to close, Karl saw Vinthor drop from sight. An instant later two men in the blue-and-red uniforms of Royal guards stormed up the stairs and went straight into Karl’s room. Finding it empty, they turned the other way- just in time to see the door to the secret passage closing, but with no time to reach it before it sealed.
Denson twisted the door lever sideways, and something heavy thudded into place inside the door. “Out the back door,” Denson said, hurrying on down the corridor. “Horses up there.”
“I’ll freeze,” Karl said, remembering the last time he had been marched barefoot through the snow. “I need boots at least, a coat-”
“You’ll be lucky if I leave you your head, you mewling piece of MageLord filth,” Denson growled. “I don’t care if your balls freeze off.” They’d reached the end of the hallway. Denson pulled open that door, revealing the room where Karl had found him playing cards with Jopps the day he’d arrived. A man Karl hadn’t met stood behind the overturned table, a crossbow leveled at the door. He lowered it at the sight of Denson and the Prince. “What’s-” he began.
“Royal rutting guards,” Denson said. He turned and slammed the door shut, then lowered a heavy oak bar across it. “Time to get the hell out. Where’s Spilk?”
The man with the crossbow jerked his head up. “Went up to watch the exit. Haven’t heard anything.”
“Then there’s still a chance. If you have to fight,” he said to the man with the crossbow, “watch for spells. Someone stops moving, gets a distant look like he’s taking a shit, shoot him. They got Lazy with a melonbreaker. Head came apart like rotting fruit.” He stared up the ladder leading to a hidden exit high above on the top of the hill. “If it was Jopps,” he said almost to himself, “they’re going to be waiting up there. Waiting for the first head to show itself…” He turned to the crossbowman. “Give me your helmet.”
“What-?”
“Give it to me!” Denson barked. The crossbowman hesitated, then slipped it off and handed it to him. Denson turned and jammed it onto Karl’s head, almost taking his right ear off. Breaking noises came from the other side of the barred door. Denson grunted. “Didn’t take them long.” He pointed up. “Climb. You stick your head out first and we’ll see if you keep it.”
“But-”
“If they’re out there, you royal turd, then Spilk is already dead and me and Riddler here ain’t long for this world. But I’ll still count it a good night if they kill their precious Prince trying to rescue him. Now climb, or I’ll shove this sword up your lily-white ass so far it’ll snick out your tonsils. Go!”
Terrified, Karl turned and started to climb.
The rusty iron rungs were cold beneath his feet, and once he had climbed a half dozen, he’d left the dim light of the guardroom behind him and moved upward through total darkness. The helmet, a size too small, squeezed his head so that he could feel his pulse pounding in his temples. The nightgown had come untied and flapped open around him, and the cold and the prospect of what lay ahead alike had his testicles trying to crawl inside his belly.
But he could do nothing but climb. Denson was behind him with sword in hand.
Suddenly he saw, over his head, a slightly less-dark circle within the black of the tunnel, a tinge of red to it. He slowed, then gasped as something sliced his heel, warm blood trickling from the wound. Denson wouldn’t let him stop. He could only go on.
With a deep breath and a prayer to the SkyMage he didn’t believe in, he poked his helmeted head up into the gray light, and suddenly everything happened at once.
He glimpsed half a dozen men, all guards, encircling the opening, saw a body lying in bloody snow just a few feet away-and then heard “Don’t! It’s the-” screamed at the same instant that blue light exploded all around his head, blinding him. There was a wet popping sound, and pieces of something wet struck his face and slid down it. He blinked, dazed but unhurt, then hands seized his shoulders and pulled him from the tunnel into the bitterly cold air.
