There! There it was again. Squinting, Daeric could make out a half-dozen forms, now gathered before an iron-plated door that led from the open battlements into the castle itself.
Light glinted from the edges of bared swords and knives. As the band of intruders quietly opened the door, dim lantern light flooded the battlements for a moment, and Daeric caught a glimpse of red and blue livery. He gasped and recoiled from the window. Ghoerans here? But how?
After he recovered from his momentary shock, Daeric darted across the room and opened the door leading to the hall. Two of the castellan’s guards stood there in full arms and armor, assigned to protect him from a possible assassination attempt. Both clattered to attention in panic when he threw the door open – it had been a long and quiet watch until now.
The senior of the two, a battle-tempered sergeant, recovered first. “My lord Mhor?” he said. “Is there anything you need, sir?”
“Ghoerans have infiltrated Shieldhaven,” Daeric said.
“Sergeant, stay here with me. Trooper, I want you to rouse the guard captain immediately and sound the alarm.”
Both guards stared at him blankly for a moment. Daeric realized they thought he’d taken leave of his senses. “I saw them on the battlements,” he said. “Now, get moving! I have no idea how many may be inside already.”
“Sir! At once, sir,” the other guard said. With a worried glance at his partner, he sprinted off down the hall, bellowing at the top of his lungs. “Guards! Guards! Enemies in the castle! Awake!”
Daeric seized the other man by the shoulder. “I can only guess that Tuorel’s men are here to kill Thendiere and me,” he said. “I’ll assume they know where to find our chambers. Get my son and daughters, and bring them here. I’ll be ready in a moment.” The sergeant nodded and hurried off to pound on Thendiere’s door. Daeric stepped back inside his chambers and quickly threw on the first tunic he could find. As he dressed, his eye fell on an old sword hanging above the mantle.
It was an ancient heirloom of the family; he snatched it from the wall and thrust the blade through his belt before stepping back into the hall.
In the thirty or forty heartbeats it had taken him to get dressed, the sergeant had literally dragged Thendiere and his sisters Liesele and Ilwyn from their respective rooms. All three had sense enough to keep quiet, although Ilwyn was shaking with fright. “What’s happening, Father?” she asked in a fraying voice.
“Ghoere’s men are in the castle. Come on – they’ll be trying to reach the royal quarters, and we must move.” With the sergeant beside him, Daeric turned down a servant’s passage and headed for the great hall. There were guardposts and visiting knights and courtiers there; with any luck, they’d find enough swordarms to organize a defense of the castle. The passage led to a tight staircase that spiraled down to the floor of the hall. Daeric allowed the sergeant to lead, while Thendiere brought up the rear, hefting his heavy cane as a weapon.
At the bottom of the stair, an old oaken door opened into the hall. The sergeant set his hand on the latch, but the Mhor caught his arm. “Carefully,” he said. The sergeant glanced at him and nodded, edging the door open a few inches so Daeric could see the room beyond.
A hundred or more Ghoeran soldiers stood in silence in Shieldhaven’s hall. A score of Mhorien guards, servants, and courtiers sat on the floor, hands on their heads, under the watchful eyes of Ghoerans detailed to watch over the prisoners.
Scattered around the hall, there were a handful of bodies sprawled limply on the floor – guardsmen who had tried to fight for the hall, along with a Ghoeran or two. The Mhor studied the disciplined ranks of enemy soldiers standing in his own hall, astounded at their numbers. How in the world did that many men get inside without being seen? he thought. What manner of treachery was this? Carefully, he pulled the door shut again, hoping no one had spotted them.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Thendiere said.
“There must be a hundred Ghoerans in the hall,” the Mhor replied. “How many more are elsewhere in the castle? For that matter, how many guardsmen do we have to lead against them?”
“My lord, there were one hundred and thirty of us on the duty roster tonight,” the sergeant replied. “That’s enough to man the gatehouse, the towers, and the battlements against an assault.”
Mhor Daeric ground his teeth. “Apparently not.” He looked around in the dark passageway, thinking. Whatever they did, they couldn’t remain where they were for long. He considered the men he’d seen on the battlements and in the hall. “By my guess, the garrison’s outnumbered two to one, or worse, and the enemy’s seized the castle already,” he said quietly. “I don’t think we can retake the castle with the guards that are left. Clearly, our enemy knows us quite well, and they’ve made certain that we wouldn’t be able to fight back.”
The Mhor paused, meeting the eyes of his children. It occurred to him that they were children no longer, but men and women with strengths and capabilities he could no longer measure. “Fighting for Shieldhaven is out of the question, and surrender strikes me as unacceptable. Our only remaining alternative is flight. If Tuorel takes our castle but we slip through his fingers, we’ll call this night a stalemate.”
“I hate the thought of abandoning Shieldhaven without a fight,” Thendiere said.
The Mhor forced a shrug. “It’s already happened, whether we like it or not. Now, let’s see if they’ve thought to guard the old sally port under Bannier’s tower.” They backtracked down the passage and then chose a broad hallway running through a portion of the castle reserved for visiting nobles.
Daeric would have liked to find a less well-traveled route, but unfortunately none headed the way they wanted to go. They had almost reached the bend at the end of the corridor when four Ghoeran guards abruptly turned the corner in front of them. Without hesitation, the Mhor threw himself forward, slashing at the lead man – these guards stood between them and escape. The guard sergeant and Thendiere followed a moment later.
“Careful, lads!” cried one of the Ghoerans. “The old one’s the Mhor! Don’t kill him!” Daeric’s opponent was an excellent swordsman who parried his blows while looking for a chance to disarm him. Beside him, the sergeant felled his man with a sturdy thrust to the chest, but then spun to the ground a moment later as a Ghoeran slashed his face open. Liesele stooped and picked up the sergeant’s sword, swinging it recklessly with both hands as she flailed away at the fellow who’d felled the sergeant.
Daeric’s arm was growing tired already, and a dozen aches and protests were announcing themselves throughout his body. He snarled in frustration – the fight was noisy and was costing them time they didn’t have. Thendiere hopped about awkwardly, barely defending himself with his cane, and lured his opponent into reach of Daeric’s sword. The Mhor quickly turned from his opponent and stabbed Thendiere’s foe under the arm. The man coughed and staggered back a few steps before falling. Then the man he’d been fighting stepped close and landed a solid punch on the side of his head with his sword hilt. Daeric’s world turned upside down and he reeled to the floor, stars flashing across his vision.
Daeric’s arms and legs refused to work. Clumsily, he pushed himself to his hands and knees. He realized that it had suddenly become quiet; the clang of sword on sword was gone. Raising his head, he saw Liesele sliding down the wall, her face open with astonishment as her hands clutched at a spreading stain of blood in the center of her stomach. Her lips were blue and her face was white with shock. She tried to say something, but he couldn’t hear it for the ringing in his ears.