Putting his face right up to the bars, he peered to the right and left. He saw barrels stacked nearby, apparently blocking off one end of the alley. The other end opened onto a wide avenue, and as he watched, a pair of ogres lumbered past. They paid no attention to the alley, but the grate was only a couple of dozen feet away from the street.
He turned around and dropped a few rungs, nearly stepping on Moptop’s fingers before turning to whisper to the kender. “Which building do you think is the inn where Ankhar went?”
“Well, let’s see…” The kender pulled out his scroll of parchment, allowing it to unroll downward until it dangled past his feet, swinging past the nose of the knight behind him. He looked up through the grate then back at the sheet. Finally he nodded. “That one over there-it has to be that one,” he said, indicating the structure to the right side of the narrow alley.
“Fair enough,” Jaymes said, trying to mute his skepticism. “We’re going to have to move fast,” he informed them all. “I’m going to cut through the grate with my sword, which might attract some attention. So get ready. Everybody up and out in half a breath.”
“Lead on,” Sir Michael said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
At the top of the ladder again, Jaymes cocked both crossbows and slung them at the ready. Then he twisted sideways so he could draw Giantsmiter out of its long scabbard. Balancing on his feet, with one knee propped around the back of a rusty rung, he slowly extended the tip of the sword between the bars of the sewer grate.
When he twisted the hilt in his hands, flames appeared along the steel edge, soundlessly flaring, bright blue in the shadows of the sewer shaft. He touched the blade to one rusty bar, producing a noise like the hiss of water spattering in a hot pan; the weapon quickly cut through the bar and came to the next with another loud, sibilant noise. Sparks and bits of molten metal spattered downward, some of them singeing his arms.
He ignored the pain and kept up the pressure with the sword. In a moment he had cut through all the bars at one end. Swiftly he repeated the process on the other three sides. Slicing through all but one of the metal rods, he lowered his sword and with one hand, bent down the almost-severed grate to open up a clear route to the alley.
With a glance down, confirming that his companions were poised for action, he pulled himself upward and out, quickly scrambling into a crouching position on the rough cobblestones of the alley. His eyes fixed upon the open end of the narrow passage. Fortunately, all he saw was a deserted section of the Duke’s Avenue. He slipped his sword back into its scabbard and took up his twin crossbows, one in each hand.
By then Moptop and the Kingfisher had emerged, with the three Knights of the Sword coming after. Maxwell looked almost boyish in his bright tunic and leather leggings. He held his dagger at the ready while offering a hand to Sir Michael, the last of the knights to emerge.
“There’s a doorway over here… looks like a kitchen door to the inn,” Moptop said, striding over to a rickety wooden barrier. The smell of lard seemed to confirm his diagnosis.
“Keep an eye on the entrance to the alley,” Jaymes ordered one of the knights. “We’ll be going back down that hole in a moment.”
He led the others to the kitchen door and tried the latch, finding it locked. Shrugging, he dropped his shoulder and plunged forward, breaking easily through the flimsy planking. Lunging into the empty room, he saw another door past the long cooking counter and huge iron oven. He advanced through the kitchen at a run, but the door to the main room flew open before he got there.
Jaymes found himself almost on top of one of the Dark Knight bodyguards who had accompanied Ankhar down the street. The man was clearly shocked to see an intruder in the kitchen, and he reached for his sword with lightning reflexes. Jaymes raised one of his crossbows and shot, the powerful weapon punching the lethal bolt into the man’s throat just above the rim of his breastplate.
Gagging, the knight fell back, and the lord marshal charged into the inn’s great room. He spotted the half-giant at once; Ankhar was standing near the front window, where he had apparently been watching his troops pass by in the street. He spun around, mouth gaping in a tusk-baring expression of astonishment. The little hob-wench was there as well and reacted quickly, shrieking in agitation and shaking her grotesque totem at the intruders. But where was the Thorn Knight?
Jaymes caught sight of the Gray Robe on the far side of the room. The man moved with liquid grace, gliding behind a stout pillar as if he knew that he was the target of this sudden intrusion. Other Dark Knights, more of Ankhar’s bodyguards, closed in, but Jaymes dashed across the room, while Sir Michael and the other knight met the guards with their steel. The lord marshal rounded the pillar and confronted the Gray Robe.
The Thorn Knight’s eyes met his. The magic-user was working on some kind of spell, murmuring an arcane word, gesturing with the slender fingers of his right hand while he waved a slender stick of wood in his left.
The lord marshal started to raise his crossbow, but the mage, without hesitation, charged right toward him-and away from him at the same time. Jaymes swung a fist at the Gray Robe, and his hand passed right through the image, causing it to disappear. Suddenly there were four identical wizards, all running from behind the pillar, each going in a different direction. The lord marshal swung the weapon, with its single remaining shot, from one of the images to the next, unsure which was the real Thorn Knight.
Moptop sprinted past and flew at one of the gray-robed figures, stretching his arms wide in an attempted tackle. The kender flew right through the magical image and landed hard on his nose. At the same time, the conjured reflection of the wizard vanished from sight. But that still left three possible targets, one racing toward the front door, and two diverging into opposite ends of the great room.
Meanwhile, Ankhar had recovered his wits and entered the fray. He pulled a sword from his belt that, while it was styled like a short sword for the half-giant, boasted a blade every bit as long as Giantsmiter’s.
Making a guess, Jaymes started after the Gray Robe who was heading for the door. He raised his crossbow, ready to shoot the man in the back. He barely noticed the Kingfisher, frantically chanting something and waving his hands around the room.
“There!” cried Sir Maxwell as the image in front of Jaymes disappeared.
The lord marshal spun around. The image of the Thorn Knight heading toward the back of the inn was also gone; only the one to the side of the room remained, his robe sweeping behind him as he leaped for the stairs leading to the second floor. Lunging after him, Jaymes slammed into genuine flesh, knocking the Gray Robe down.
The wizard fell into the railing, slumping backward. His lips curled into a snarl and his hands-one holding the wand, the other empty-gestured before his face.
But he wouldn’t have time to finish the casting.
Jaymes had raised the crossbow and now shot his bolt right into the man’s chest. The force of the strike hurled him backward, but the lord marshal was already on him as he fell. He saw the wand falling from the mage’s limp fingers and dived to snatch it up. He felt it snap between his strong hand and the floor before it rolled under a nearby crate.
“He destroyed the wand!” shrieked the shaman, her tone horrified.
“No!” Ankhar bellowed.
Jaymes could see that the Thorn Knight was badly, perhaps fatally, wounded. The half giant’s bellow, every bit as panicked as his mother’s cry, echoed in the room. More of Ankhar’s troops charged toward the front door, a press of reinforcements.