Shadeborn: A Book of Underrealm (27 page)

The sound of tramping boots filled the air, and a fresh group of palace soldiers marched into the courtyard to join them. “There are the reinforcements,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Your Grace, we should be moving.”

He led them on, back into another wing that Loren had never explored. She soon found herself disoriented and resigned herself to following the armored soldiers’ backs. Soon they pushed through another, smaller door, into a narrow open space between the palace’s rear and the eastern wall. Loren could see guards firing arrows at unseen foes on the other side of the wall. But they could scarcely raise their heads above the parapets without having to duck a hail of arrows.

Loren said, “It looks as though there are many of them beyond the gate.”

“Let us hope not enough,” replied the Lord Prince. “Open the gate!”

The shout went up the wall, and guardsmen in the gatehouse leaned to the wheel. With the groaning of rusted chains, the gate swung slowly inward. Almost at once, Loren saw swords and spear tips pushed through the gap.
 

Eamin held his sword aloft and gave a battle cry.
 

Palace guards charged into the fray, and the Shades were thrown back from the wall. They turned in a rout, many fleeing into the streets and vanishing into alleys. Some of their captains managed to rally, and slowly the grey and blue uniforms reassembled. The Lord Prince stalled, and the palace guards were pushed into a circle with their backs to the wall. Loren and her friends could not get through the gates, for it was blocked by their armored bodies.

“They cannot get through,” said Gem. “They will be cut down.”

Loren did not answer him but looked at Chet, and in his eyes saw the same fear. Dread seized her. She had brought the enemy to the Seat and doomed the High King. Now she was powerless to save them.

Shadeborn. Shadeborn. Shadeborn.

A chant was building beyond the wall. Loren quailed, for she recognized the word—the name Rogan had given himself when they met in Dorsea. She craned her neck and above the fighting saw him. He had pressed through his troops to stand at their head, blocking the High King’s escape into the city.

Shadeborn, shadeborn, shadeborn.

Bolstered by their captain, Shades were pressing forward in earnest, and the palace guard was forced back through the gate. She saw the Lord Chancellor desperately hacking, trying to cut a path through the enemy. With an enraged cry he threw himself forward and attacked Rogan himself.

His blade caught in the hook of Rogan’s axe and was turned aside. Then they danced, the Lord Chancellor striking with both sword and shield, while Rogan held his axe in both hands, shield slung across his back. He blocked strike after strike with the haft, the Lord Chancellor pressing forward and into the enemy’s midst. But Loren could see Rogan’s smile under his helmet; he was toying with the Lord Chancellor, drawing him out and into the army’s arms.

A sword came swinging from the left, and the Lord Chancellor caught it on his shield. Rogan struck in that moment’s distraction. His axe came down in a punishing blow that the Lord Chancellor barely avoided. He was off balance, and Rogan pressed him back. Where before they had been matched blow for blow, now Rogan’s axe was a blur of speed, striking so swiftly that it took all the Lord Chancellor’s skill to hold him back.
 

In the end it was not enough. The axe bit deep into his shoulder. The Lord Chancellor dropped his sword as he sank to his knees. Twice more the axe rose and fell, severing an arm before taking his head at the neck.
 

The Lord Chancellor’s body fell beneath his enemy’s boots, and the Shades screamed their approval.

With renewed vigor, they pressed forward, and Rogan led them in another charge. Palace guards had to retreat through the gate. Loren, Chet and Gem threw themselves at one of the gates, struggling to close it against the mass of bodies. Loren stood at the door’s edge, a few paces away from the fighting, heart thundering as steel flashed and blood spattered the pavement at her feet.

“Loren!” Rogan drew her gaze. He wore a rictus grin, blood covering his armor. She saw a sword hilt sticking from the side of his breastplate where someone had landed a blow, but the Necromancer’s dark magic kept him on his feet. “Daughter of the forest. You have done your duty well. Thank you for paving the path of our conquest.”

She gritted her teeth then stepped away from the doorway to snatch her bow. In the blink of an eye she drew, and whether it was by Albern’s training or some stroke of luck, her shaft sank into Rogan’s left eye and out the back of his helmet. His body went limp as a rag doll, and he fell beneath the press of bodies.

The palace guards gave a great cheer, and the Shades wavered.
 

The Lord Prince led a counterattack, and they pushed their foes back through the gates. But the press of bodies was too thick beyond the walls, and it was all they could do to push the gates closed. The royal guards grabbed the Lord Prince and the High King then dragged them back into the castle, with Loren and her friends hastening to follow.

thirty-three

“That was a well-placed shot,” said the Lord Prince. His helmet had been knocked loose in the battle, and a bruise was blooming to life on his cheek. “I had heard from Xain that you had no taste for killing.”

“He will not die,” said Loren grimly. “A dark enchantment protects him, binding the beast to life.”

“Still, it secured our escape, and I thank you,” said the High King, kneeling to wrap a bandage about the thigh of one of her royal guard who had taken an arrow in the leg.

“Your Grace,” said Loren. Then she turned on her heel and ran down the hallway toward the staircase.

“Loren!” said Chet. “Where are you going?”

“Finding us an escape.” She took the stairs two at a time, and Chet hastened to follow.

“But why go up? We cannot fly away from here.”

“Mayhap, but one never knows.”
 

She threw open a door leading to one of the wide open balconies that circled the palace exterior. She could see the fighting at the eastern wall below them. As she had expected, Rogan again stood at the head of his soldiers, the gaping wound where his eye had been already stitching itself shut.

Loren looked around in desperation, searching for some other way, some hidden door she had not noticed before. It seemed impossible. She had been a guest here less than a month. How could she find a new escape route more easily than those who had lived at the palace their entire lives? But she had to try. Loren ran down the balcony, around a corner of the palace. The sun blinked as it vanished behind the arches.

Chet nearly crashed into her as she stopped in her tracks. He saw her looking up and followed her gaze. “What is it?”

She did not answer. Loren was looking at the arches. The palace stretched out in five great wings. Along the top was a balcony, like the one they stood on now, but thirty feet higher. And from the end of each wing sprang an arch, gently rising before dipping back to meet the towers at each of the castle’s outer corners.

“Come with me,” she said and ran back into the palace.

When Loren reached the High King, the royal guard was engaged in a furious argument with the Lord Prince concerning their next move. Xain and Gem stood apart. Gem saw them and came running, eyes wide.

“Where were you? I thought you had run off and abandoned us.”

“You are not so lucky as all that,” said Loren. “You must suffer our company longer—quite a while longer, if I have my way.”

“What do you—” he began, but Loren pushed past him to speak with the High King.

“Your Grace,” she said, cutting through the argument between the Lord Prince and the royal guard. “There may be a chance to get you to safety.”

Everyone stopped and stared at Loren. But where Loren had quailed under their gaze in the throne room, now she had no time and pressed on before they could answer.

“We have no chance of victory by warfare, as any of us can plainly see. The castle entrances are blocked. This is not a time for blades and armor but for stealth and secrecy. Shed your arms and follow me, and I can get you beyond the palace walls.”

“How?” said the Lord Prince.

“The arches. They stretch from the top of each wing to the towers. They are high, but wide enough to walk on, and not too steep. But we must go quickly, for it will be a dangerous crossing, and if they see us they will shoot us down.”

“That is madness,” said one of the royal guard. “’Tis fifty feet in the air.”

But Enalyn studied Loren’s face then turned to the Lord Prince. “What is your counsel, Lord Prince?”

He looked at Loren’s face in wonder, and she could see the thought working its way through his mind. “I . . ." he began.

THOOM

They heard a great crash outside, and the roaring of an army.

“They have broken the eastern gate!” said one of the palace guard. “They are within the walls!”

“Enough,” said Enalyn. “If they are in the walls already, we have no choice. Up the stairs, and quickly!”

Loren led the way, jumping the steps like a deer, with Chet and Gem by her side. The High King followed, while the Lord Prince helped Xain and his son make the climb. Four of the royal guard came with them, the rest staying behind to guard the ground floor against the invaders.

The stairs wound in a spiral. Loren ran past every floor. Only upon reaching the top did she finally take the door leading out of the staircase and quickly turned to gather her bearings. In a moment, she found the door leading outside and took it to another balcony. She went to the railing and looked down at the courtyard far below to see a swarm of Shades battling with palace soldiers on the pavement. She forced herself to look away.

A few paces farther along the balcony, Loren found the spot where the arch joined the castle wall, some ten feet below the railing. It was not such a far drop, but it made Loren dizzy now; the arch was mayhap five feet wide, and if they stumbled upon landing, it was another forty-foot fall to the courtyard below.

“That is not an easy jump,” said Chet beside her.

“It is the only way. If only we had a rope! There is one in my pack, but I left that in our quarters.”

The door opened behind them, and the rest of the procession came out onto the balcony. Xain took one look at the height and reeled heavily away from the railing. Gem stood brightly on tiptoe, leaned far over the edge, and said, “I made far more difficult leaps than this on the rooftops of Cabrus.”
 

“Your Grace, you cannot think to go through with this,” said the royal guard. “It is certain death.”

“Certain death is the battle that rages in the palace even now,” said Loren. “This is a hope, however slim.”

“Five feet is about how slim I would call it,” Eamin said.

“Unless someone is willing to suggest an alternative, my decision has been made,” said Enalyn. “Now help me out of this armor.”

She, Eamin, and the royal guard all quickly shed their plate. Loren tried to help, though she knew little of how the pieces strapped together. Before long, they stood in their regular clothing and light shirts of chain, which would not hinder their movement.

“Now, we must go down one at a time,” said Loren. “We should send one or two ahead of the High King, to help catch her and steady her landing.”

“I will go first,” said Chet, and before she could argue, he seized the railing and vaulted over the balcony’s edge.

“
Chet!
” she cried, running to the rail.
 

He landed hard on the archway, taking the shock of landing on stone with his legs and falling forward. He spread his hands wide and gripped either edge of the path to hold himself steady. For a moment he lay there, recovering.

“Up, boy,” called one of the royal guard. “I am coming down and have no wish to crush you.” He was a burly man with a trimmed beard, somewhat advanced in years but still strong. Chet scrambled to his feet. The guard lifted himself carefully over the railing then held on as he lowered himself. Once at the limit of his reach, he dropped. Facing backward, he landed badly and fell onto his rear with a grunt, nearly rolling off the edge. But Chet gripped his shoulder to steady him, and he managed to stand.

“Make haste,” said Loren, for she was looking past the arch to the ground far below. Shades had broken through the soldiers in the courtyard. Even now they were in the palace, ransacking halls in search of the High King. “Your Grace, are you ready?”

“Send them first,” said Enalyn, gesturing to Xain and his son.
 

“Your Grace, I—” Xain began.

“No time to argue,” she snapped. “Your son first, then you.”

Xain took Erin and held him under the arms. “Look at me, Son. I am here. I will come right behind you. Be brave for me.”
 

Erin nodded, his eyes teary.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Xain lowered him over the edge, holding his son by his hands. Loren helped, leaning over to grip the boy by his wrists. Together, they hung as far over as they dared, until Erin’s ankles were a couple of feet above Chet and the royal guardsman’s outstretched arms. Loren nodded, and they let go. Erin fell into Chet’s arms then clung to his chest.