The Hickory Staff

THE FIREPLACE

‘Garec, Sallax.’ Versen Bier waved to them from across the ancient hall. ‘Where have you been all day?’ Gazing into the half-light at the far end of the narrow chamber, Steven saw a group of workers hauling large wooden boxes down stone steps to a room beneath the palace’s ground floor. Torchlight brought some hazy visibility to the otherwise dark room, but not enough for Steven to see what was stored in the crates. The woodsman started towards the small group. He was a powerful-looking man with sandy brown hair, boyish features and muscular forearms, and dressed similarly to Garec and Sallax. In his belt he wore a long hunting knife and a small double-bit axe that looked honed to a razor’s edge.

‘Well, Sallax, look at your nose,’ Versen said, smiling. ‘What happened to you?’

‘He did,’ Sallax answered dryly, motioning towards Mark.

‘Aha. And who have we here?’ the woodsman asked the two foreigners. ‘From the look of your bonds, I’d say spies. Unless of course you’re making an innovative fashion statement and you expect all of us to be dressed this way in the coming Twinmoons.’

‘We’re not spies,’ Steven told him matter-of-factly.

Noticing Mark’s face, Versen asked, ‘Oh? And what happened to you?’

Mark forced a grin and nodded towards Sallax. ‘He did.’

Steven, Versen and Garec all chuckled, and Sallax turned towards the wall to avoid making eye-contact with any of them. Hearing laughter coming from the group, Brynne moved across the abandoned dining hall to join them.

‘Am I the only one who finds it odd you’re all laughing together? Especially when two of you are tied up?’ she asked. She was sweating openly from hauling boxes, but Mark found her curiously attractive, despite her grimy appearance.

Garec put his arm around Brynne’s shoulders and led her to stand before the two strangers. ‘This is Mark Jenkins and Steven Taylor. They are from Color- Colorado?’ He looked to Steven, who nodded. ‘Apparently, they fell through a magic tapestry they stole… no, found , and were transported to the beach near the point.’

Sallax interjected, ‘Or they’re spies from Malakasia, here to gather information on the Resistance.’

‘Dressed like that?’ Brynne asked incredulously.

‘That was my point,’ Steven ventured. He had been working to loosen the leather thongs that held his wrists behind his back, but he didn’t think he was making much progress: the sting from the straps rubbing against his raw flesh burned more painfully with each attempt. Giving up for the moment, he looked through the hall and realised that the palace had at one point been the victim of an enormous fire. The smell of ancient creosote lingered in the air and he could feel the gritty texture of ashes beneath his boots.

He knew the longer he and Mark could keep their captors talking, the more information they would glean, and the greater their chances of escape would be, once they freed themselves – if they freed themselves.

Once again, Steven relaxed his mind and let the foreign words come. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the girl.

‘I’m called Brynne Farro,’ she answered, rubbing a thin forearm across her sweat-streaked brow.

‘Brynne Farro,’ he asked, ‘would you have some water, or some food? It’s been a long day and we haven’t eaten since-’

‘You’ll eat when I tell you to eat,’ Sallax interrupted harshly. ‘Brynne, take them upstairs and lock them in one of the apartments on the third level.’

‘Why don’t you do it?’ she asked.

‘Because, my dear sister, I am going to take over your duties hauling boxes downstairs.’ Sallax handed her his hunting knife. ‘If they make any move to escape, cut their throats.’ To Mark and Steven he added, ‘I would advise you not to test her ability with that knife, my strangely outfitted friends. She is deftly skilled with any number of weapons.’

Garec gave Brynne some leather straps and she motioned her two captives towards the huge staircase at the far end of the hall. As they passed the stacks of wooden crates, Steven risked a glimpse into one that had not yet been nailed shut.

‘They’re weapons,’ he whispered in English. ‘That box must contain thousands of arrows, just like the ones Garec fired at us this morning.’

‘Well, they’re obviously mobilising for action against this Malathing character.’ Mark hesitated. Above them on the landing, Brynne watched as they carried on their conversation. She held a small torch to illuminate their way upstairs. Mark decided she was quite lovely. Her pale skin contrasted strikingly with her dark brown hair, and although slightly built, he could see that she was wiry and athletic. He imagined she had learned to hold her own in a fight, especially growing up with a brother like Sallax. The way she held his hunting knife, blade forward, ready to slash any would-be attacker, proved his suspicion. Yet she had the porcelain-smooth hands of a woman who, when time allowed, cared for her appearance. At that moment, Mark wanted to be free from his bonds for no other reason than to reach beyond the knife’s edge and touch those perfect hands.

Brynne looked at them curiously. ‘What is that language you speak?’

‘It’s the language we use in Colorado, and the region around our home,’ Steven answered in Ronan, the words coming more quickly now.

‘We’re not certain how we learned your language. It must have happened to us when we were brought here,’ Mark added. He changed the subject. ‘Can you tell us why you are hiding weapons under the floor of this old castle?’

Brynne squinted into the darkness towards her friends, then motioned for Steven and Mark to continue following her upstairs. ‘I will tell you as we go,’ she whispered. They reached the second floor and Steven could see what might have been a large audience chamber at the end of a short hallway leading from the landing. The remains of a throne stood atop a slightly elevated dais. Charred and blackened in the fire, the ruined chair seemed to be patiently waiting for the return of a flawed king. Steven’s view of the chamber faded to black as Brynne continued up the staircase and the light from the torch followed her away.

‘If you are spies, then you know why we hoard weapons. If you’re not spies- Well, I don’t know where you come from.’ They had reached the uppermost landing of the grand staircase and were high above the hall where they’d started their climb. She stopped and turned to face them. ‘We have been under Malakasian occupation for as long as anyone can remember, four or five generations. Malagon Whitward is an evil and violent man, and the occupation soldiers grow more and more heavy-handed as they keep the peace here in Rona.’ She brushed a lock of hair away from one eye and then, frustrated, pushed a handful behind her neck. ‘We are fighting to win our freedom, the right to govern ourselves, to make our own laws and to live in a free nation, not an occupied one.’

‘That sounds reasonable,’ Steven said quietly.

‘It is,’ Mark agreed. ‘Those same goals have fuelled revolution after revolution throughout time. I suppose I’m not surprised it’s the same here… wherever here is.’

‘But you need to understand,’ Steven interjected, ‘that none of this has anything to do with us. We are lost. We made a terrible mistake… I made a terrible mistake, one that brought us here, and we need to find someone who can help us get back.’ He strained to look into her face, hoping for some glimmer of compassion. ‘Do you know of anyone who would believe us – and be able to help us?’

Brynne hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘I do. He’s supposed to be here, but we’re not certain if he’s coming back. If anyone would know how to help you, it would be him.’ She drew a deep breath and allowed it to escape slowly as she added, ‘Ironically, though, he may be the one who orders your death. If you truly are lost, and not Malakasians, then I hope he helps you. We’ve seen so much death here: Malagon just murders us at will.

‘I would hate to see the two of you killed if you are innocent… especially killed by Ronans. We’re supposed to be the good ones.’ Brynne used Sallax’s knife to gesture down a long stone corridor. Steven understood they were to move along the hall to their cell.

‘Why can’t you-’ Mark started, trying to keep her talking, but she held up a hand to stop him.

‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘no more talking now.’ They walked in silence past several doorways until they reached the final chamber off the hall. A large wooden door, charred black and burned almost through, hung awkwardly from one broken hinge. Brynne pushed it aside and motioned for the two men to enter. In the torchlight, Steven and Mark could see the room had been the foyer for a series of rooms. Given the number and size of the chambers, it was evident someone of importance once lived here. A stone fireplace took up most of one wall.

Brynne ordered them to sit on either side of a blackened beam supporting the ceiling in the front room. She threaded several leather straps between the beam and the wall and tied an intricate knot to fasten both men’s bonds to the wooden support. Lifting her torch, she took a last look at Mark Jenkins, slipped the knife into her belt and ducked beneath the broken doorframe into the hallway beyond.

Total darkness quickly swept through the room and for several moments, Steven and Mark sat in silence. Finally, Mark said, ‘Well, she seemed nice.’

Laughing, an uncontrolled response to fear, Steven replied, ‘Sure, maybe she’ll take you home to meet her parents, but make sure you have her in by eleven, young man, or her brother will hack you to fishfood with his battle-axe.’

Mark started laughing too. ‘Look, I don’t even want to think about where we are, or how we got here, or how we are both fluent in a language that doesn’t exist. Let’s just get untied, get down those stairs and find a way out of this building. Do you have your pocketknife?’

‘No,’ Steven responded, dejected. ‘It’s on the kitchen counter.’

‘Terrific. You jumped through a magic rug, a stolen magic rug, into a new world, perhaps even a new time, and you didn’t bring a pocketknife?’

‘Hey, I thought I was stepping to certain death,’ Steven said. ‘You were gone. I figured you’d been vaporised or some damned thing and I was sure I was stepping into oblivion. So excuse me if I didn’t figure I’d need a corkscrew in the afterlife.’

‘You’re right. It was brave, what you did. Stupid, but brave. Me, I just tripped on the hearthstone and fell onto the damned thing.’ Mark struggled to loosen the straps holding him to the beam. ‘If we work on these all night, I bet we can get free. We have to get out of here before the sun comes up.’

*

Some time later it began to rain, plummeting down as if determined to wash southern Rona out to sea. The strong winds they had felt on the beach earlier that day continued through the evening, blowing sheets of raindrops into the chamber through a broken window to puddle on the stone floor. The din of the torrential downpour coupled with the howling wind made it impossible for them to hear if anyone was approaching from the hallway, so Steven kept a tired eye on the broken door hanging between them and their captors. They persisted in their efforts to loosen or cut through the leather straps: one would rub his end of the leather thongs up and down against the beam a hundred times while the other rested, then they swapped over. Too soon they discovered that although exhausted, sleeping in one-hundred-second intervals was worse than not sleeping at all, so as they took turns wearing through the leather straps they counted out loud. Mark counted in German, in Russian, then backwards in German. He even tried it once in Ronan.

‘Ein Hundert,’ Mark called out over the roar of the wind and rain. When Steven didn’t take up the mantra, Mark nudged his roommate. ‘Hey, Steve. It’s your turn. Let’s try French this time. You took French in college, didn’t you?’ There was no answer: his friend had fallen into a deep sleep. ‘All right, all right, I’ll take another turn. You were up all last night, but don’t think I’m going past two hundred. I don’t know the numbers past two hundred.’ He thought for a moment then shook his head. ‘Two semesters of German and I can’t count past two hundred. Now Ronan, I can count to one hundred million in Ronan and I never had one class. Who would’ve guessed?’

When Steven failed to answer, Mark continued his own monotonous efforts to break free.

On Ronan number 2,564, he finally felt the straps holding him to the beam break. His wrists were bleeding and his lower back ached from the constant rocking, but he was free. Mark felt a surge of adrenalin rush through him as he stood up straight for the first time in hours. His hands were still tied behind his back, but he figured Steven could untie them, or even bite through those with his teeth if he had to. He looked down at his roommate: Steven had slept through the excitement and still lay slumped forward on the stone floor.

Outside, the rain had slowed. Mark staggered to the window to see the earliest glow of dawn breaking through the thunderclouds.

‘Not much time. Steven, wake up,’ he said. Steven did not move, and he raised his voice. ‘C’mon Steven,’ he said urgently, ‘we can still make it out of here. Wake up.’

Mark searched hurriedly around the room: a lightning flash illuminated the fireplace and he spotted several jagged bits of masonry. In the darkness he backed up against the stones and felt for a sharp edge, then leaned awkwardly into the fireplace and moved his hands up and down against the stone. He quickly developed a cramp in his shoulder; when he changed position he found a large stone that protruded outward from the masonry at about eye level. Leaning against it with his forehead, he called aloud to the empty room, ‘Why does this have to be so goddamned difficult?’

Mark rested his eyes for a moment, waiting for the cramp to subside, then he felt the rock move. Shifting his forehead to the opposite side, he pushed against the stone with his temple. It moved again. Back and forth he pushed it, and with every push he felt it come looser from the fireplace. The cramp in his back gone, he now felt the rough texture of the large granite block rubbing his forehead raw. Back and forth, again and again, he pushed the stone with his forehead until finally it fell to the floor with a resounding crash. ‘Shit all over,’ he cried and listened for the sound of their captors approaching from the grand staircase.

Hearing nothing, he turned and began furiously rubbing the leather thongs up and down against the sharp edge. This time it worked and within minutes, Mark had severed the straps and freed his hands.

Faint daylight crept into their stone cell. Mark was about to wake Steven when he realised he would need to be able to surprise their captors if someone came to the chamber before Steven was freed and ready to travel. He hefted the large stone block from the floor and was about to push it back into the fireplace wall when he saw several pieces of folded parchment. They had obviously been hidden behind the stone.

‘What’s this?’ He leafed through the pages, but was unable to make out more than a few words of the foreign scrawl – Ronan was apparently easier to speak than read. He held them up to catch the light, but even so, the words were still too difficult to decipher. Mark shrugged to himself. It was probably just some long-ago lady’s love letters. He still had the matchbook he had taken from Owen’s two nights before: with this, they would be able to make a fire if they managed to escape safely to the forest.

He stashed the parchment in his back pocket, replaced the stone in the fireplace and moved quickly to wake Steven.

Lieutenant Bronfio ordered his soldiers to dismount long before they reached the edge of the clearing surrounding Riverend Palace, even though he was conscious that the increased Ronan opposition to the Malakasian occupation meant that soldiers on foot were vulnerable. Through the early morning light he watched as they unstrapped bows and checked that broadswords and rapiers were loose in their scabbards. Several men were already looking at him expectantly, awaiting his command to march on the seemingly abandoned fortress in the distance.

The horses were tethered to trees in a small clearing. Bronfio raised one arm and gave the silent order to proceed. They would attack from the north, burning the ropes securing the palace portcullis so they could enter speedily. Bronfio’s orders were clear: they needed only one or two partisans for questioning. The rest were to be killed on sight, or taken as prisoners for public hangings.

Looking towards the rear of his small company, Bronfio saw three men struggling to carry a barrel to the edge of the clearing. Although small, the barrel obviously weighed a great deal. The lieutenant indicated that Brexan should lend some assistance. Reaching the tree line, Bronfio ordered the platoon to hold their position for a moment while he watched the palace for any indication that partisans were indeed inside. The merchant had given him no idea how much resistance to expect, and the young officer disliked the idea of charging into the palace without knowing how numerous or well-armed their enemy were. The barrel was an equaliser; he intended to employ it before beginning the fight. Riskett had brought one along as well.

Across the clearing, in the palace dining hall, Garec stirred. They had finished stacking the crates of stolen weapons, armour and silver in the old cistern only a short time earlier and now his friends lay about the floor, stealing a few moments’ sleep before sunrise. They needed to be away before daylight if they were to avoid being detected by the dawn patrols; Garec planned to sneak up into the hills above the river and sleep the morning away.

He wasn’t sure what Sallax had planned for their prisoners, but he shuddered at the idea of assassinating them. He wished Gilmour were around to tell them what to do next. Garec believed in their fight to restore freedom to the occupied lands, and he had killed for that cause – he’d always known that expelling the Malakasian Army from Rona would require extreme sacrifice. Killing unarmed prisoners was a different matter. He wasn’t convinced he would be able to do it.

He sat on the floor and watched dawn begin to illuminate the stained-glass window that flanked the grand staircase at the opposite end of the hall. ‘We’d better get moving,’ he said to himself and began pulling on his boots.

‘I don’t think you’re going anywhere this morning,’ a voice answered softly.

Garec whipped around, reaching for the hunting knife he had placed on the floor before falling asleep. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked, peering into the darkness.

A warm glow – burning pipe embers: it lifted the darkness against the wall behind him. Garec detected the faint but familiar odour of Falkan tobacco.

‘Gilmour. Lords, you scared me.’ Garec lay back on the floor and looked at the glowing pipe bowl. ‘How did you get in here?’

‘Gilmour?’ Versen rolled over and yawned like a swamp grizzly. ‘Gilmour. Great rutting dogs, but it is good to see you.’ He clambered to his feet as everyone gathered around the elderly man.

Greetings and embraces were exchanged as Gilmour Stow was welcomed back home. He was dressed in a wool tunic over leather leggings and boots, and despite the heat of the Ronan southlands, he always wore a hooded riding cloak. Bearded but balding, Gilmour was shorter even than Brynne, but he had broad strong shoulders and powerful legs. He was old – no one knew how many Twinmoons – but his bright eyes and frequent smile were boyish. His skin was a deep brown, tanned from constant travel, and he carried no weapons except for a short dagger Garec had never seen him draw.

‘What do you mean, we’re not going anywhere?’ Garec asked.

‘You are not- We are not going anywhere this morning because there are two platoons of Malakasian soldiers forming up in the forest just beyond the edge of the palace grounds,’ the old man said as he drew contemplatively on his pipe.

‘Pissing demons,’ Sallax exclaimed, and quickly moved from window to window in an effort to assess the forces mobilising against them.

Mika grimaced. ‘How did they know we were here?’ he asked. ‘We can’t defend this place – or ourselves – against two platoons.’

‘Versen, Garec, Mika,’ Sallax called, ‘get those last two crates back up here and opened. We’ll need bows, and lots of arrows.’

The three men leaped into action while Gilmour sat down, back to the wall, watching the frantic activity and enjoying his pipe.

‘Brynne,’ Garec shouted before disappearing into the cistern, ‘you’d better get those two down here. We might be able to use them if we need to negotiate our way out.’

‘Or as a shield,’ Sallax muttered watching his sister take the stairs two at a time.

‘What two?’ Gilmour asked, perking up suddenly.

‘Just two spies Garec and I found along the beach near the point yesterday. Brynne has them tied up somewhere upstairs.’ Sallax tossed the older man a longbow, which Gilmour considered for a moment and then placed gently on the floor at his feet.

The winds had died somewhat, so Steven and Mark heard the girl coming. ‘Quick, back on the ground,’ Steven ordered as they heard her stop outside their room for a moment.

‘Right,’ Mark agreed, adding, ‘remember what Sallax said about that knife.’ When Brynne entered the room, she stopped and stared for a moment at the two strangers she had left tied to the support beam all night. A look of disgust passed over her face, as though she could not believe she was capable of such an act, but as quickly as it came, the look was gone. Brynne pursed her lips, drew her knife and moved towards the prisoners. As she reached to slash through the leather straps holding them against the wall, she gave a startled cry. With surprising speed Mark grabbed her wrist and squeezed with all his strength. He didn’t intend breaking her bones, and as soon as her knife dropped to the floor he relaxed his grip.

Brynne tried to scream for help, but Steven clamped a hand firmly over her mouth and nose while Mark retrieved the blade. ‘Come with us,’ he ordered, speaking Ronan. ‘You’re our ticket out of here.’

‘I still don’t see them,’ Sallax shouted to Garec, who was busily unpacking swords, longbows and arrows from crates hauled up from the cistern. ‘The sun’s almost fully up. Why are they waiting?’ The Twinmoon winds had abated somewhat from their previous fury, though the trees still rocked and bent in the breezes that accompanied a perfect lunar alignment. Sallax frantically searched the forest for any sign of a coming attack, but it would be impossible to spot the occupation forces until they broke clear of the tree line and started across the palace grounds. He kicked angrily at a charred piece of ancient wood.

Across the room, the old man tapped the ashes from his pipe and refilled its bowl from a leather pouch.

Garec pulled himself out of the cistern and reached back down to take a small box of arrows from Versen. He saw Gilmour stand up and walk towards him, the old man’s eyes fixed on the grand staircase.

‘Well, good morning, my friends. I have been waiting for you for some time.’ Gilmour’s tone was one of pleasant surprise.

Garec looked puzzled. ‘Gilmour, what are you talking about?’ The young Ronan followed Gilmour’s gaze, then shouted into the cistern, ‘Versen, Mika, get up here now!’ He grabbed a rosewood longbow, nocked an arrow and trained it up the broad staircase.

Startled by the sudden commotion, Sallax also turned on his heel. ‘Rutting bastards!’ he shouted, drawing his rapier and starting for the stairs. ‘I swear this time I will kill you both!’

Gilmour broke in calmly, ‘It’s all right, my friends. Come down.’ No one paid the elderly man any attention.

‘Not another step,’ Mark shouted, stopping Sallax several stairs above the dining hall floor, ‘or I will cut her head off by the time you reach me.’ Mark had Sallax’s hunting knife held fast against Brynne’s throat.

‘Take him, Garec,’ Sallax ordered, ‘take the shot. You can make it.’ Versen, armed with a longbow too, hauled himself out of the cistern.

Steven huddled behind Mark, who was using Brynne’s body as a living shield. Although she struggled, Mark held one arm around her shoulders and one hand at her neck. With each attempt to break free, the young woman pulled the knife’s blade across her own throat; tiny rivulets of blood were running into the bodice of her dress. She cried out, more in fear and surprise than in pain.

‘Put the bows down,’ Mark called, and to encourage them to act quickly, he placed the point of the knife against Brynne’s throat and pushed gently until the tip pierced her skin. The insignificant stab wound was enough: Versen and Garec both dropped their bows to the floor with a noisy clatter.

‘What are you doing?’ Gilmour asked his friends. ‘They aren’t spies.’

‘What did you say?’ Sallax half turned to face him. ‘Gilmour, what do you mean?’

He had no chance to respond as a small barrel filled to the brim with burning pitch crashed through the stained-glass window, showering shards of multi-coloured glass across the grey stone floor like myriad refractions from a damaged prism. Acrid black smoke began filling the dining hall almost immediately. Garec, seeing Malakasian soldiers through the gaping hole, retrieved his bow, nocked the arrow he had dropped beside it and fired out towards the soldiers as they retreated across the courtyard to rejoin their platoon. A cry of pain and astonishment confirmed that his arrow had found its mark.

‘Back upstairs, now,’ Mark said urgently to Brynne and Steven. He pulled at Brynne’s elbow, dragging her back to the upper levels of the palace.

‘Try not to breathe the smoke,’ Sallax called. ‘Quick, arm yourselves and get to the windows. Mika, find something to cover this barrel.’ Water would not extinguish the burning tar; their only hope was to mitigate the effects of the smoke. His heart sank as a second barrel crashed through a smaller window at the opposite end of the hall.

He shouted to Garec, ‘Try to hold them here. If the smoke gets too thick, take up positions along the second-floor landing, and at those windows. There’s a lot of room to retreat through this palace, but we don’t want to get cornered.’

‘Right.’ Garec hefted two large quivers and slung them over his shoulder.

Sallax grabbed a battle-axe from the cistern’s edge and dashed up the stairs after the fleeing prisoners. ‘I’ll be right back.’

‘Leave them, Sallax. They can’t get out either,’ Versen called, trying to stop him, but Sallax was already taking the steps three at a time to the upper-level apartments.

Steven rushed along the hallway until he found an intact door. ‘In here,’ he called to Mark, who dragged the struggling Brynne along and shoved her roughly into the room. He helped Steven to hurriedly set the locking beam and seal the chamber.

Mark slid the knife into his belt and turned towards Brynne. ‘Listen, I don’t want you to think-’ He was cut off as the young woman slugged him hard across the face, knocking him back into the door. Mark’s knees buckled beneath him and he sat heavily on the stone floor.

‘You cut my neck, you horsecock!’ she screamed down at him, raising her fists for another attack.

Steven moved between them and grabbed Brynne. ‘Listen, we have bigger problems than that right now. Who are those soldiers? Are they Malakasians?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, glaring at him. ‘Somehow they must have discovered where we’ve been hiding weapons for the Resistance. I don’t know how – maybe you two do.’ She crossed the chamber floor to the window and looked down into the courtyard where a number of soldiers had taken cover behind the battlements, waiting for the burning pitch to finish its job of choking or blinding the partisan group.

‘They’re here to kill us – or, worse, to use us to send a very public message.’

Mark joined her at the window. ‘What if we give ourselves up? This isn’t our fight.’

She wheeled on him, her face just inches away. ‘They’ll hang you from a tree for an entire Twinmoon as an example to any who might decide to mount a resistance effort.’

Neither Mark nor Steven had any idea how long a Twinmoon lasted, but however long was too long to be hanging from a tree. They lapsed into silence.

‘We’ll hide in here then?’ Steven asked eventually

‘Or we go join the fight,’ Brynne said, pointing a bloodstained finger towards the door.

‘And wait for your brother to slice our throats? No thank you,’ Mark replied adamantly. ‘We have to wait it out and hope either your friends turn them away or that they don’t find us when they come in. This place is huge. We might be able to find another way out.’

The discussion was interrupted by the sound of Sallax’s battle-axe hammering at their door.

‘I’m going to kill you both!’ he screamed, his axe leaving fresh hack-marks in the blackened wood of the chamber door. Wood chips flew as he continued swinging, his fury unchecked. Inside, Mark looked for anything to brace against the door as Steven stood frozen in place, his face a pallid shade of grey. Brynne backed slowly into an adjoining room. She looked around hurriedly, but there was no other way out. She grimaced. Sallax would have to break through and free her before the Malakasians breached their defences downstairs.

Riverend Palace had a second, unexpected, portcullis inside the battlements. The first, a huge iron and oak gate, blocked the main entrance to the ancient keep. It remained where it had collapsed many Twinmoons earlier as the last of Riverend’s occupants fled the raging fire that had claimed the lives of Princess Danae, her son Prince Danmark III, and Prince Tenner of Falkan.

Prince Markon II had installed an additional portcullis to guard the west entrance, which led to the royal chambers. During the brief peace that had preceded his death, the prince had commissioned the largest and most elaborate stained-glass window in the Eastlands; a team of talented artisans had worked for several Twinmoons to design and install the gigantic work of art in the east wall of Riverend’s grand hall.

The huge window was a massive weakness in Riverend’s defences: any attack on the palace would centre on the east hall as the window would be seen as easy access.

To make up for that, the second portcullis – one no invader would expect – ensured that a few well-armed soldiers could hold the west wing with little difficulty, even against a far superior enemy force.

Now Bronfio strode towards the portcullis with determination. His confidence had risen as his platoon crossed the exposed circular meadow without incident. Peering intently through the thick latticework of the heavy wooden gate, he could see smoke from the burning pitch accumulating in great clouds throughout the hall.

He waved over his shoulder for a bowman to join him at the palace entryway. Igniting an arrow from a small torch, Bronfio directed the bowman to fire into a length of rope fastened securely on an inner wall. He intended to lift the gate by releasing the ropes holding it fast and hoisting it with a line threaded through a crooked fracture in the palace’s western wall. He feared for a moment the weight of the portcullis would bring the entire section of wall crumbling down on them, but the stone lintel held fast as the gate rose and his men were able to secure their lines to a neighbouring wall.

He smiled to himself as he ordered his platoon into the fray. ‘Use the smoke as cover,’ he told them quietly. ‘We don’t know how many partisans are inside.’ Brexan, like her fellow soldiers, nodded confidently, then slipped under the hanging portcullis, up several stone steps, through a small antechamber and into the palace’s dining hall.

Bronfio waited for the last of his force to slip into the building before he drew his sword and started towards the entryway himself. As he ducked beneath the portcullis, he came face to face with Jacrys Marseth, the merchant spy from Estrad.

‘I’ve been waiting for you, Lieutenant,’ Jacrys said icily. ‘We can’t have you sharing my sentiments with His Majesty, now, can we?’ Bronfio felt the dagger pass between his ribs. For an instant he was surprised the pain was not much worse. Then a searing heat emanated outwards from the wound, running across his back in a tangled web of white-hot fire and contorting his torso in an involuntary spasm. The young officer felt his legs twitch several times before they buckled, but he didn’t fall: Jacrys held him tightly from behind.

Bronfio tried to call out to his platoon before he realised the foppish spy had one hand clamped firmly over his mouth and nose. Unable to breathe, Bronfio gave up. The stinging heat from the dagger wound was so powerful, he could focus on nothing else.

Slowly, the world around him began to dim, as if the great cloud of burning pitch was engulfing him from all sides. He thought of his mother… they had played together, kicking a ball around a fountain in the village square. It had rained that day. His mother’s soft brown hair had escaped her normal heavy plait and lay loose against her head. He had been young, that day. Then the memory faded into the distant regions of his consciousness and Lieutenant Bronfio fell away into the darkness.

Brexan stayed low to the ground. She found the air there less difficult to breathe; for a moment she considered crawling in to face the enemy. She heard choking from all around her, but she could not be certain which coughs were Malakasian and which were partisan: everyone choked in the same language.

Amongst the hacking and retching, she thought she detected a struggle behind her. Doubling back with her sword drawn, fearing the Resistance forces were attempting a flanking manoeuvre, Brexan found herself back at the portcullis. As her eyes watered and she refocused, she spotted Lieutenant Bronfio’s body. He had died before entering the palace, obviously not in a fight with the partisan terrorists. Bronfio had been murdered. This was not right. Things were not supposed to work out this way. The battle plan had been clear. They were not supposed to suffer loses, certainly not like this. Her stomach knotted and she thought she might retch. She swallowed hard, steeling herself against the notion that the morning might be unravelling quickly.

Brexan heard stones tumble from the battlements, and her attention was drawn to the ancient wall across the courtyard. A well-dressed young man was scurrying over the crumbling defences, dislodging a diminutive avalanche of stones in his wake. Brexan immediately recognised the merchant who had passed her the papers outlining their orders for this morning’s assault.

It had all been a set-up. The merchant had sent Bronfio in from the north so he could find an opportunity to murder him – but why? No answers emerged as Brexan looked back into the dark cloud of smoke filling the dining hall. Without thinking, she sheathed her sword and started out after the fleeing murderer.

Garec choked on the thick smoke billowing around him, but he cheered up when he noticed most of the foul-smelling cloud was moving in one direction. Their Malakasian attackers had made a mistake when they threw the second barrel of burning pitch into the far end of the grand hall: breaking the second window had allowed strong winds to create a cross-draught through the castle. He and Versen had taken up positions approximately halfway up the first level of the grand staircase. From this vantage point, they could spot any Malakasian attempting to enter through the windows.

Garec thanked the gods of the Northern Forest he and Sallax had taken time to lower the hall’s portcullis and secure its ropes when they brought their prisoners in the previous night. The young Ronan still had no idea how Gilmour had managed to enter the building undetected, but there was no time to worry about that now. He knew it would be only a matter of moments before the Malakasians burned through the portcullis ropes and then used horses to haul the huge wood and iron gate up far enough to enter through the courtyard. With limited visibility, there would be no stopping them from taking the hall.

He and his friends would have no choice but to retreat to the upper levels of the palace. What they would do once they were trapped there was another matter.

Mika, Namont and Jerond were not bowmen. Armed with swords or battle-axes, each guarded a window along the walls of the dining hall. They all looked at each other, hoping to garner a collective strength for the coming fight. They were frightened. Above them, Versen and Garec were preparing to rain deadly fire down on the soldiers coming through the stained-glass window. Already many of the lower panes of the enormous glass aperture had been broken out, and two attackers had died with Garec’s arrows buried in their chests.

As the moments ticked by, the burning pitch continued to emit thick clouds of choking black smoke and despite the crosswind, the hall was soon filled to the ceiling. ‘Versen,’ Garec called, ‘run up to the first landing and break out the windows. We need to create more breeze in here.’ The big woodsman did as Garec ordered, but it did little to mitigate the dense, caustic smoke.

Garec’s eyes watered as he strained to see through the darkness into the dining hall below. He thought he spied a Malakasian soldier crawling through the stained-glass window and fired into the smoke. A cry of shock and pain confirmed that, even blind, Garec was one of the best bowmen in Rona. Time seemed to move in slow motion as he stared into the billowing cloud, hoping to see anything that would give him an update on their situation. He could no longer make out Versen, who had been standing just a few paces away.

‘They must be through the portcullis by now,’ he whispered into the smoke, hoping the woodsman could hear him.

‘You’re right,’ Versen replied softly. ‘We ought to think about getting to higher ground. This smoke is doing exactly what they need it to.’ As if confirming his fears, a strangled cry came from the far end of the hall.

‘Get up here, get up here!’ Garec screamed. ‘They’re in the hall! Fall back, fall back!’ Mika burst into view only a few paces in front of him and Garec nearly loosed an arrow into his friend. Mika was followed closely by Jerond, but they heard nothing from Namont.

‘Namont,’ Garec called, slowly backing up the stairs towards the first landing, ‘Namont, get up here.’

‘Namont,’ an unfamiliar voice sang up from the floor below, ‘Namont, get up here… Namont can’t join you right now, but don’t worry, you’ll see him later today.’ The stranger laughed cynically.

Though blind, Garec fired into the cloud.

‘Rutting dogs,’ the suddenly anguished voice cried out in surprise, ‘I’ll kill every last one of you!’

Versen joined him on the landing, ‘It sounds like you hit him.’

‘I hope so,’ Garec answered. ‘I guess they got Namont.’

‘We can’t worry about it now, Garec. We have to get out of here,’ he said, hustling up the stairs to the third level.

The windows Versen had broken pulled some of the smoke outside and the stairway above the first landing was fairly clear. The four men coughed out the vestiges of burning pitch from their lungs as they climbed.

Suddenly, Garec stopped and turned back towards the dining hall. ‘Where’s Gilmour?’

Mika turned as well. ‘I haven’t seen him since the first barrel came through the window.’

‘I’m going back down.’

‘And you’ll be dead before you reach the bottom of the steps,’ Versen scolded. ‘Gilmour can take care of himself. Let’s keep moving.’

Garec was unconvinced, but he recognised there was little he could do right then. He followed Versen and as they reached the uppermost landing, they could see, down the long hallway, Sallax hammering away at one of the wooden doors with a battle-axe.

‘Sallax,’ yelled Garec, ‘you’d better get down here. They’re in the building – and on their way up after us.’

Sallax stopped hacking at the door and stalked angrily back to his compatriots, rage clearly evident on his face.

‘They aren’t going to hurt her, Sallax,’ Garec assured him. ‘They need her to get out of here. Come on, let’s go.’

Versen led the small group down a short hall adjoining the upper end of the staircase. ‘The spiral stairs will be easiest to defend. We can hold there for some time.’

The narrow spiralling staircase separating the third level of the palace from the royal apartments above was short, but the narrowness of the stone stairwell made it the most defensible position inside the building. Only one soldier at a time would be able to come at the freedom fighters there.

Garec reached the fourth-level landing and ran along the hallway, past a number of closed wooden doors. He stopped at a window facing out onto the palace grounds. He could help most by dispatching as many Malakasians as possible; from here he could pick them off as they approached the palace. He was not a skilled hand-to-hand warrior, so he gladly left defence of the staircase to Sallax and the others.

Looking out over the battlements, he thought he caught a glimpse of the well-dressed merchant he had met at Greentree Tavern. ‘What is he doing here?’ Garec asked himself, but was distracted by the sight of Gilmour far in the distance. The elderly man stood near a clearing cut back into the trees on the south side of the palace. A large number of Malakasian horses were tethered together. Garec watched as Gilmour cupped his hands to his mouth and called into the trees. Garec couldn’t hear the words, but he was surprised when Gilmour turned, looked up at the castle and waved to him – as though he knew Garec was watching.

Then, apparently without a care, Gilmour turned and walked back towards the palace: an older man out for a morning stroll. Back along the corridor, Garec heard a shout of surprise.

‘Get back here!’ Sallax called urgently. Garec hurried to the spiral steps. A Malakasian arrow was deeply embedded in a wooden doorframe across the hall from the stairwell. Without speaking, Sallax pointed to it and gestured down the narrow stairs. Garec immediately understood. A Malakasian bowman had tried – and nearly succeeded – in banking a miracle shot off the curved stone wall, up and around the corner into the small band of Riverend’s defenders.

Garec nocked an arrow and estimated a descending angle to the lower level. Drawing quickly, he fired and watched the arrow glance off the wall and disappear out of sight. An enraged howl pierced the stillness. For the third time that day, Garec’s blind shot had tallied a Malakasian casualty.

Staring down the stairwell, he beamed with pride, looking at Versen as if to say: ‘I am the finest bowman in the land.’ A moment later, however, Garec came to his senses and dove for the floor, an instant before another Malakasian arrow bounced off the stairwell and buried itself in the wooden doorframe.

Smiling, Sallax helped his friend to his feet. ‘Nicely done,’ he told him. ‘With your trick shots and our battle-axes, we ought to be able to hold this floor all day.’

‘What will we do when they send for reinforcements?’ Mika asked. ‘They know who we are, and we can’t hold here for ever.’

‘No,’ Sallax replied, ‘eventually we’ll have to find a way we can get down undetected.’

‘With them waiting for us right there?’ Jerond interjected. ‘All they really have to do is wait us out.’

‘Yes, but at least this buys us some time to think,’ Garec pointed out. He gathered his quivers and was about to retrace his steps to the window when the first tendrils of dark smoke climbed the stairway.

‘Oh, no,’ was all Garec managed to get out. This time there would be nowhere to escape from the burning pitch.

It didn’t take long for the fourth level hallway to fill completely with smoke. Arrows came more frequently up the stairs and soon there were eight protruding from the doorway across the hall. Garec continued to fire back down, but heard nothing that led him to believe he had hit anyone else. Now they were choking with each ragged breath. The partisans knew they couldn’t remain at the top of the stairs very long. Taking turns, two stood a painful vigil at the stairwell, coughing and dodging capricious arrows from below, while two stood at the open window breathing clean air and coughing foul smoke from their lungs. It worked until the first Malakasian burst from the stairwell, screaming and swinging his sword wildly through the billowing clouds. Garec ducked the attacker’s first blow and heard the man’s sword blade impact the stone wall with a metallic clang.

The next sound stayed with Garec for a very long time: a sickening thud, followed by a horrible tearing sound, and then a scream so primal that Garec’s blood nearly froze in his veins. He felt a splash of moisture on his face and raised a finger to wipe it off; it was viscous, not water. Even in the smoky darkness he could recognise that he had been splattered by his attacker’s blood.

As he dived to the floor to avoid any wild thrusts of the Malakasian’s sword, Garec’s head came down on what felt like a warm but awkwardly shaped pillow. Feeling for it with his hands, he discovered a human leg, severed just above the knee by a vicious blow from Sallax’s battle-axe.

Blinded by the smoke, filled with anger and disgust, Garec crawled back to the top of the staircase and fired arrow after arrow down the stone stairwell into the Malakasian ranks. After several releases, he heard cries of pain.

Garec didn’t think he could stomach another frontal attack: he would keep the Malakasians at bay if it took every arrow he carried. Firing blindly, over and over again, into the smoke, Garec did not slow until he felt Sallax’s strong arms hugging him from behind.

‘It’s all right… Garec, it’s all right. They’re going.’

‘Going?’ he asked, dumbfounded. ‘What do you mean, going?’

‘Come with me and take a look.’ Sallax led him to the window. Gazing out towards the forest, Garec saw ranks of Malakasian soldiers running towards the clearing. Some shouted and waved frantically, while others fired arrows into the tree line. Allowing his gaze to follow one of their shafts, he saw the reason for their hasty retreat. A pack of grettans had attacked their horses: the beasts were tearing wildly at the helpless mounts in a frenzied melee, and the horses were screaming in pain and terror. Garec covered his ears to block the disturbing sound.

‘Lords,’ he whispered in disbelief.

‘Yes,’ Mika answered excited, ‘they left their horses and attacked the palace on foot… they needed to preserve the element of surprise.’ He smiled at Sallax. ‘They obviously didn’t realise there were grettans in the area: tethering the animals like that was as bad as sounding the dinner chime.’

Sallax slapped a victorious hand on Garec’s back and told his fellows, ‘Let’s get Brynne and get out of here before they come back.’ He turned on his heel and moved towards the stairwell.

Silently, they approached the chamber into which Steven and Mark had fled with Brynne. Rage seethed again in Sallax’s eyes and Garec noticed he had not bothered to wipe the Malakasian’s blood from his battle-axe. As they drew near the door, Garec mouthed redundantly to the others behind him, ‘It’s open.’

Sallax knew immediately that his sister and their prisoners were gone. ‘Rutting foreign bastards,’ he yelled, kicking the door open and searching the rooms. ‘We don’t have time to search the whole rutting castle for them.’

‘Let’s find Gilmour,’ Garec suggested. ‘Maybe he can help us.’

‘If he’s still alive,’ Mika said grimly.

‘He’s still alive.’

The group made their way back to the throne room. In a wall flanking the dais, Mika pushed open a narrow doorway that led to another spiral staircase. This one led down below the grand dining hall into a tunnel that connected the cistern with a palace scullery in an adjacent building. The passageway had been constructed as a convenient exit for the prince.

‘Why didn’t we use this before?’ Jerond asked.

‘The palace scullery isn’t as easily defended as the upper floors,’ Sallax told him. ‘Old Prince Markon knew that. Anyway, we had no idea where they were this morning. The scullery could have been crawling with Malakasians.’

‘Could have been?’ Jerond asked nervously.

When the friends emerged in the palace kitchens, they found Gilmour waiting. ‘Where have you been?’ Mika asked. ‘We thought you were dead.’

‘No, I’m very much alive,’ Gilmour said, then added sadly, ‘I cannot say the same for Namont, however.’

‘What happened?’ Sallax asked.

‘They came upon him in the smoke and cut his throat. I’ve carried his body into another wing of the palace. We can come back for him later tonight.’

‘Right,’ Sallax agreed. ‘Did you see any sign of Brynne?’

‘No,’ the old man answered. ‘They’re still upstairs. She’ll be fine, though. Actually, I expect they’ll come looking for us in the next day or two.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Garec wiped the blood from his face with a sleeve. ‘Why didn’t those two join the other soldiers when they left the palace?’

‘Because they’re not spies,’ Gilmour said. ‘It will all make sense in time, but for now she’s quite safe. Come, we must hurry.’ He led them out through the scullery and into a maze of dilapidated palace buildings.