05 Dragon Blood: The Blade's Memory (12 page)

What?

They found it. One guard is running down the tunnel to see if someone got in, and the other is heading back to the front gate. There’s a lot of shouting going on.

Sardelle closed her eyes. “We’ll have to…” She trailed off as the buzz of a flier’s propeller reached her ears.

Kaika turned off the lantern and opened the shutters above the desk. The room looked out over the grassy lawn in the rear of the castle, as well as a landing pad where a flier was parked to one side. Lanterns burned all along the pathways, and pairs of guards ran down them, the clank of their weapons and armor drifting up to the window. The wall rose too high for Sardelle to see the rocky promontory behind the castle—or the men investigating the hole—but she did not doubt that they were there. More guards occupied the towers and the wall than had before. A few were pointing toward the sky, but most were running, urgency speeding their legs.

“They’re starting a search of the castle,” Cas said.

“Because their boss is coming home.” Kaika pointed to the night sky.

The lights of a two-person flier had come into view. A pilot wearing goggles, a leather cap, and a scarf was guiding it toward the landing pad, and the sight made Sardelle think of Ridge. The person in the back wore a scarf and cap, too, so it was hard to determine features, but locks of long blonde hair had escaped and fluttered behind the woman.

“That’s the king’s personal flier,” Kaika said. “I don’t know where the queen needs to fly about to, but it looks like she’s taken it over.” Her lips thinned with disapproval.

Sardelle was tempted to ask if Kaika had met the queen and what kind of woman she was, but they needed to think about escaping. Some of the guards likely knew about this room and would check it. If not, the
queen
certainly knew about it.

There are soldiers in your hallway. They’re searching the rooms, and they’re debating whether to search the king’s suite next. They’re moving quickly. They want to catch the intruders before the queen is on the ground and starts asking how there came to be a hole in the brick wall in the cellar.

“There are guards in the hall,” Sardelle told the others. “We can’t go out that way.”

“I heard them,” Cas said grimly.

Kaika risked poking her head out the window. It seemed brazen with the lawn below awash with light and more lanterns moving about on the walls, but they were three stories up, and the wall remained in shadow this close to the roof.

“There’s a bunch of ivy on the wall out here,” Kaika said. “Maybe the vines are strong enough to support our weight. Hm. I also have some rope. Look, this part of the building extends over to the battlement. We’re a little above the walkway. Maybe we can climb across and swing down to land on it. There are a lot of men on the wall, but if we time it right… and get lucky… we might be able to climb over the side and down to the rocks before they catch us.”

Those vines aren’t as sturdy as they look
, Jaxi said.
Just ask your acrobatic lover.

Noted. Thank you.
Sardelle was too busy grimacing at the image Kaika had painted for a lengthier response. The idea of them making it across and down without being spotted sounded incredibly optimistic. As did the idea of making it across and down without falling. The flier was hovering over the yard now, its thrusters activated as it prepared to lower to the landing pad. Sardelle pictured falling from the wall and splatting to the ground right in front of the queen. That hadn’t been how she imagined her introduction to the royalty of this century.

“Maybe we could hide in here until things quiet down,” Cas said, sounding like she found the odds against them too.

A thump came from the bedroom.

“Don’t think we have that option,” Kaika said.

Sardelle sensed two armed men searching the bedroom, one looking in the closets and one… heading for the secret panel.

“They’re coming,” she whispered. “In here. The window is the only option.”

Kaika was already swinging out through it. Not hesitating, she disappeared around the edge. Cas hopped onto the sill and followed. In the bedroom, the secret door swung open. The guard strode straight into the passage between the rooms.

Afraid she would fall if she rushed out the window, Sardelle lifted her hand, trying to think of a way to delay him. If she pushed the dresser in front of the door, he would know someone had been in here. Instead, she focused on the lock. Engineering was not her specialty—as Jaxi would be the first to point out—but she did her best to bend the metal of the latch, hoping it would stick. Then, with her heart beating at triple speed, she climbed onto the sill and peered in the direction the other women had gone. There were numerous vines with ivy leaves tangled all about them, but they did not appear sturdy enough to hang from. Kaika and Cas were creeping along a ledge—more of an architectural decoration—no more than an inch wide, leaning their weight into the wall and using the vines for handholds.

You’ll catch me if I fall, right Jaxi?

I don’t know. I was amused by that image of you tumbling to a heap at the queen’s feet.

The guard grunted and shoved his shoulder against the hidden door, leaving Sardelle no more time to debate the climb. She stepped onto the tiny ledge, only the tips of her toes able to perch on it. Her small pack suddenly felt heavy as it hung from her shoulders, pulling her balance backward. She couldn’t imagine how Kaika was doing this. Not only was she taller and heavier, but her pack full of explosives had to weigh three times as much as Sardelle’s pack. Kaika had made it to the next window along the wall and was looking inside, probably worried about guards in the bedroom. The curtains had been drawn when they had been in there earlier, but someone might still glimpse a person climbing past on the ledge.

Seeing the window reminded Sardelle to close the shutters behind her so the secret nursery would appear untouched. So long as nobody counted the pamphlets in the drawer.

With her toes already trembling from supporting her weight, Sardelle crept after the others. She used her power as she could, strengthening the ivy so the slender vines would not snap and using air currents to push at her back, to help keep her weight leaning into the wall.

A soft gasp came from farther along the building, past the bedroom window. Kaika’s foot slipped off the ledge. She had hold of one of the vines, but the ivy was snapping, pulling away from the wall. Sardelle froze and moved the air currents in Kaika’s direction, cupping her from below and pushing against her from behind. With the assistance, Kaika managed to get her foot back onto the ledge. She paused to regroup, taking a deep slow breath, then looked toward Sardelle.

Sardelle, her calves now shaking from the effort of maintaining the awkward position, managed a short nod in her direction, then checked on Cas before returning to her own careful climb. Cas was the smallest and lightest of them all and was not having much trouble. Good. Sardelle had all she could manage to continue along the ledge on her own without worrying overmuch about the others.

As Sardelle reached the bedroom window, the flier touched down. The curtains were still drawn, and she lunged across, hoping nobody was glancing in that direction. She could sense one guard still in there, checking under the bed. As if three women with swords and rifles and packs could hide under a bed.

You never know. Tolemek and Ridge were getting cozy under that bed earlier tonight.

Must have been a big bed.

Kaika had reached the corner of the building and was contemplating the jump to the battlement. There was not a gap, so she merely had to leap down, but two guards were jogging along it. If they looked up at the corner of the building, they were sure to spot Kaika, shadows or not. For now, their focus was toward the rocks outside of the castle. Sardelle wondered how many people were standing around the hole they had made, but she did not break her concentration to check. She was already struggling to focus on the climb and not the words of a conversation floating up from the landing pad. The flier’s propeller had been stopped, and she could clearly hear the queen making comments as a guard captain explained the hubbub to her.

“Someone’s
inside
the castle?” she asked. “Any idea who?”

“No, my liege. He may be a Cofah spy, but we’ll find him. He won’t escape.”

Cas had caught up with Kaika at the corner of the building. They were waiting for Sardelle before they tried to time a jump. She did her best to coerce her cramping calves and trembling toes to hurry the last ten feet along the ledge. She had to duck under a thousand-year-old leering dragon head to manage it and almost lost her grip. She pushed at herself with an air current again, trying to regain her balance, but a portion of the old ledge crumbled beneath her foot. Struggling to keep the calm necessary to use her power, she grasped at the ivy with both hands and flattened her face to the brick as her right foot now dangled in the air. The sound of the tiny shards of rock trickling down the wall below her seemed horribly loud to her ears.

Cas was only two feet away and might have reached out a hand to steady Sardelle, but she only gazed in her direction, the shadows hiding whatever expression she wore.

“Time to jump,” Kaika whispered. “The guards are at the towers. Best chance we’ll get.”

Sardelle managed a quick nod.

“Any word on the search for the king?” the queen asked from below. She was now walking toward a door while the guard continued his report.

As she passed under a gas lantern, Sardelle got her first good look at her. A woman in her late forties with her long blonde hair clipped back, she had a slump to her shoulders and appeared tired. Whatever her position was right now, she was doing more than knitting and reading mystery novels. She soon walked out of view, but her aura lingered, one stronger and more pronounced than Sardelle would have expected.

Jaxi, does she—

Yes.

Before Sardelle could dwell on her realization, Kaika jumped to the walkway, landing in a crouch, her fingers brushing the ground. The shadows were doubtlessly not as thick down there as she would have liked, and she moved quickly, pulling a coil of rope from her pack. Cas jumped down after her. She had the big sword across her back, but it was so long that the end banged down as she landed. Sardelle winced. With the flier propeller no longer rotating, the courtyard had grown quiet, and that bang seemed to echo along the battlements.

“Someone’s up on the wall,” came a cry from the yard.

Cursing, Kaika hurried to tie her rope around one of the crenellations. But the nearest two tower doors flew open, and men charged out. She wasn’t going to have enough time.

Sardelle jumped down, forming a barrier with her mind even as she dropped. Rifles fired. Bullets would have struck the women, but Sardelle’s shield deflected them. That was better than the alternative, but she winced, knowing that even if they escaped, the castle guards would realize that a sorceress had been among the intruders. Maybe it was dark enough that the soldiers might simply believe they had missed. Except that they were running as they were firing, drawing closer with every second. They were sure to notice the barrier when they bounced off it.

“Go,” Kaika said, shoving Cas toward the rope.

Without hesitation, Cas slung herself over the wall and disappeared. Kaika waved for Sardelle to follow, even as her hand tapped the hilt of her pistol. Kaika didn’t draw it—knew she couldn’t. She hopped onto the wall between two crenellations, using them for cover, but from the confused furrow to her brow she had realized the bullets were not making it through to them.

The first soldier reached the edge of Sardelle’s barrier. He bounced backward, as if he had struck a wall. His eyes opened wider than full moons as he stared at her. Then Kaika was pushing Sardelle over the side, and she had no choice but to grab the rope and slide down. She ignored the stone wall scraping at her knuckles and the rough rope biting into her palms, and made sure a barrier remained around Kaika.

Watch out,
Jaxi barked into her mind.

Rifles rang out from below—
close
below. Sardelle didn’t see the bullets speed through the night sky toward her, but Jaxi erected a barrier in time, and they burst into flame, incinerated. Sardelle skimmed the rest of the way down the rope, but as she landed, the air flashed with light, and a boom thundered in her ears. She stumbled on the uneven rocks—or maybe the ground shook and tripped her up—and fell onto her butt.

Cas knelt a few feet away, her rifle in hand, and aimed toward a squad of soldiers running toward them.

“Don’t,” Sardelle yelled, belatedly realizing Cas wasn’t going to. She already would have taken them out if she intended to.

Spotting a soldier pulling back his arm to throw something—a second explosive?—Sardelle hurled a gale of wind at the squad. It struck them like a hurricane, battering them almost as forcefully as a bomb’s shockwave would have.

Sardelle scurried away from the dangling rope, looking up toward the wall, hoping to see that Kaika was climbing down and about to land. But the bullets and the explosion had distracted Sardelle. The barrier she had been keeping around Kaika had dissolved.

Kaika was hanging over the edge of the wall, clinging to the stones as men tried to pry her away. Her face contorted with pain, and Sardelle sensed that she had been shot. But what she yelled down was not about her own danger.

“Find the king,” Kaika ordered, her gaze raking across Sardelle even as the guards finally managed to pull her away from the wall.

We will
, Sardelle promised silently, breaking her rule about telepathic communication to let the words trickle into Kaika’s mind.

They’re coming again
, Jaxi warned.

Sardelle sent another blast of air at the men, then turned and ran for the harbor. Cas was already heading in that direction.

A diversion would be welcome, Jaxi.
Sardelle could keep hurling wind at them, but that wouldn’t keep the men on the wall from firing or seeing which direction they were going.