“Get back!” I lunge in front of Jeremiah and whip my arm up to block the first soldier as he swings his sword toward Jeremiah’s head. The blow slams into my arm, and my knife feels tiny and insignificant clutched in my desperate fingers.
Another soldier leaps forward. I plant my right foot, lean back slightly, and snap my left leg into the air, kicking his windpipe with my boot. He drops to the floor, and as I dodge another blow from the soldier to my right, I bend to scoop up the fallen soldier’s sword.
It’s too heavy for me. Too long. I’m overbalanced, and I won’t be able to fight with it for long without tiring, but it’s better than going up against trained soldiers with nothing but my knife.
More soldiers rush into the building. Some converge on us, some kick open doors and start searching the rooms that line the hallway. We have to get to the basement stairs before they do, or we’ll be cut off from the group. If that happens, Jeremiah and I are both dead.
“Move,” I say to Jeremiah, who huddles behind me. He slides along the wall while I hold my stolen sword in front of me and wait for the next attack.
It doesn’t take long.
One of the soldiers closest to me whistles, a sharp, piercing sound that hurts my eardrums, and every man within a five-yard radius instantly pivots toward me, swords drawn.
Not good.
“Jeremiah, get to the basement. Don’t worry about me, just go,” I say quietly. I can’t take my eyes off the soldiers in front of me to see if the old man is obeying. The soldier who whistled tenses slightly, and I crouch, weapons steady. Obeying some silent signal, the closest row of soldiers—five? six?—rushes me.
The shock of metal clanging against metal reverberates through me, and I block. Duck. Spin and parry only to find another three swords advancing. My vision narrows down to the wall of uniforms in front of me. I slash with my knife, slicing into a soldier’s neck. A line of brilliant red spills across his coat and splashes onto my hand.
The blood is warm and sticky, and for one awful second, it’s Melkin’s blood gushing over my palms to swallow me up in guilt.
That second is all the distraction the soldiers need.
They lunge at me from all sides. I don’t know where Jeremiah is. I don’t know where anyone is. I’m surrounded by soldiers, by the flashing teeth of swords, and it’s all I can do to stay alive.
An arrow zings past me and the soldier to my right falls. Another arrow, and a soldier to my left falls as well. I dive to the floor and roll backward as arrows fly over me, mowing down the first line of soldiers.
A second wave of soldiers leaps across the bodies of their fallen comrades, and suddenly Quinn is there. Lashing out with his feet, his hands—tearing through the barrier surrounding me with methodical precision.
“Run!” he yells.
I shove myself to my feet. At the end of the hall, Willow is half-carrying Jeremiah, and they’re almost to safety. If we sprint, we can make it before the soldiers cut us off. The heavy, too-long sword slows me down, so I fling it behind me and say, “Let’s go.”
Quinn grunts, a strange animal-like sound of pain. I whirl around to find a line of blood blossoming from a cut to his leg. The soldier who wounded him raises his sword for another blow, and I lunge forward, my knife braced for impact.
I slam into him, and my knife slides uselessly off his stomach. I forgot about the Dragonskin. I’ve knocked him off-balance, so his sword misses Quinn, but we’re running out of time. Several more soldiers are pressing close behind this one. If any of them get past us, we’ll be cut off from our only avenue of escape.
I can’t wound his vital organs, but there’s more than one way to stop a man. Quinn’s foot lashes out and blocks another soldier’s sword as it arcs toward me. The blade bites into his boots, and Quinn has to grab onto the wall behind him for balance.
Time to end this.
The soldier in front of me raises his sword arm, and I drop into a crouch seconds before he can impale me on the weapon. Diving forward, I flip in midair and slash at the back of his knees. Before his scream leaves his throat, I spin around and slice into the legs of the two soldiers behind him. Inner thigh. Major artery. Just like Dad taught me.
Quinn shoves the first soldier into the other two, and they fall. We have a few seconds before the next line of soldiers can climb over the bodies of their comrades, and I don’t plan to waste them.
“Need help?” I ask, but Quinn is already half-limping, half-running for the open doorway at the end of the hall. I shove my knife into its sheath and follow him at a dead run.
“Get in, get in, get in,” I say as I skid around the doorframe and launch myself onto the stairs. Willow slams the door behind us and bolts it. We race past Jeremiah just as Logan reaches the bottom of the steps.
“Carrington?” Logan asks.
“At our backs. We have seconds before they’re through the door,” I say.
“Thank you,” Jeremiah says as he reaches me. His voice shakes. “I was working on the map. I didn’t realize they could break down the door so fast, so—”
“You aren’t safe, yet. None of us are,” I say. “Get in the tunnel.”
Above us, booted feet slam into the door and the hinges whine in protest.
“Get in the tunnel!” Logan yells, his voice rolling across the fifty yards that separate us from the mouth of the tunnel. The thirty or so people who still huddle uncertainly in front of the tunnel’s mouth flinch. “I can protect you from the Cursed One, but I can’t save you from Carrington if you’re still in the basement when they come down those stairs.”
The people start moving. Grabbing torches. Grabbing each other’s hands. But they still aren’t going fast enough. We race across the basement, herding stragglers and feeling the weight of Carrington’s blades coming closer to our necks with every second that passes. Quinn helps Jeremiah into the tunnel, though with his limp I’m not sure he doesn’t need some help himself. The rest of the people still refuse to go underground.
“You have to lead them,” I say, and Logan shakes his head.
“I have to detonate the explosives.” He gestures toward the string of black metal boxes he attached to the ceiling beams last week.
“We’ll do that,” Willow says. “Rachel’s right. Those people are too afraid to go underground without you.”
The door cracks, a loud pop of sound that echoes across the cavernous basement. Logan looks between the door and the tunnel and makes up his mind.
“Here.” He thrusts a small copper oval into my hand. A raised lever rests in its center. “You need to be at least ten yards inside the tunnel before you detonate, or you could be buried.” His voice is calm, but his face is white, and I understand. I wouldn’t want to leave him behind to face an army with nothing but a battery-operated fuse box and a collection of the Commander’s explosives for protection.
“We’ll be inside the tunnel. Don’t worry.” I clutch the trigger with clammy hands, and he pulls me against him for a second. I breathe in the scent of him, holding it inside of me with the memory of Oliver’s maple-raisin baking and Dad’s leather cloak. Then he’s gone. Disappearing into the tunnel, torch in hand. Calling out instructions and reassurances in his calm, logical, I’ve-always-got-a-plan voice.
The door at the opposite end of the room comes off its hinges, and soldiers run toward us.
“Ready?” Willow asks as the last Baalboden survivor hurries into the damp, cool darkness of the tunnel.
“Ready.”
She grabs a torch, and we step off the stone floor and onto the dirt. Behind us, the chilling war cry of Carrington fills the air as the army rushes toward us. We run the ten yards Logan said would give us a margin of safety, and then I turn, lock eyes with a soldier who is mere steps away from entering the tunnel on our heels, and flip the lever.