Isak turned to the crowd, watching in silence. A few had fallen to their knees in prayer; he could see their mouths moving, though no sound reached his ears. With an effort he sheathed his sword-
— and then stopped. Something had changed; some detail had set an alarm bell ringing in his head.
Slowly, as though through a fog, the Land came back into focus.
'Why is the gate shut?' Isak said. He took a slow step forward as realisation crept over him and he raised his voice to a bellow. 'Who shut that damned gate?'
'Bind it fast, Duril!' Kam yelled, chancing a look back at the now-barred gate. Another man came for him and he swung wildly with his club. Kam missed, but Boren didn't. He caught the knight's rapier a heavy blow, sending it clattering away.
Piss and daemons, this place is still full of armed men! More feet charged down the stairs as screams came from the square outside. Did that mad bitch know what she was doing? Kam had caught the beginning of the chaos outside as the enormous spider-like limbs reached up so high that he could see them, even from the back of the crowd. Qods, I hope her friend is as good as his word, he thought fiercely as he prepared himself for the fight ahead.
Four Ghosts charged from the guardroom at the entrance to the cells. Sir Gliwen, the Lomin knight sent by the Duchess, led Kam's companions forward, jumping over the bodies of the men they'd already taken out and rushing the soldiers, leaving Duril to finish with the gate.
The Heren brothers were watching Kam's back. 'See you in the Herald's Hall!' roared Jeyer Heren behind him. The man was relishing his chance to try his skill — and his heavy forester's axe — against the Palace Guard. He was big as a bear and fearless; he'd chopped the first soldier they'd reached nearly in two. Jeyer would buy them the time they needed. They'd said their goodbyes already.
Before Kam could stop the man, Snivelling Woran raced ahead of the rest of them to attack the soldiers all by himself. The scrawny little man was drunk on adrenalin and swinging his home-made mace wildly as he reached the Ghosts, who barely slowed their charge as they ducked Woran's blows and delivered a brutal cut to his belly. Woran went down shrieking.
'Keep together,' Kam yelled, knowing the rest of his men had no chance against the seasoned veterans unless they attacked en masse. He used his club to block another cut, working in tandem with Boren, giving his friend the opportunity to smash the soldier in the face. Blood splattered them all and the man went down, but it didn't distract his comrades for a moment as they savagely laid into the Siul men. Gren screamed out, a hefty blow to his shoulder almost spinning him around. He grunted as he barged into Foret, just as a glaive slashed deeply into Foret's face and he fell without a sound.
Kam quickly crouched, risking his own neck to go for the soldier's knees. It was a weak strike, but enough to unbalance the man, and Tol the charcoal-burner finished the job with his axe. They quickly killed the remaining soldiers, but not before the Ghosts had taken two more of their own.
'Move!' Kam yelled, scooping up one of the dead men's glaives and a ring of keys before heading down the corridor. The entrance to the cells was ahead, and there would be more Ghosts in the guardroom. Keep moving, keep moving: the words ran through his head like a mantra. They were dead men, they knew it, and they had to get to the young duke to make their deaths worth a damn.
Sir Gliwen was the first to reach the guardroom. The two remaining guards inside were standing ready, their swords gleaming in the dim lamplight. The Lomin knight grinned and beckoned to his comrades.
Before the guards quite knew what had hit them, Tol had barrelled into them, his axe taking out a chunk of one man's arm and leaving a great splintered gash in the thick door behind as well. While the Lomin knight indulged in some vicious swordplay with the other guard, the Siul men finished off Tol's victim. It was a matter of moments before both lay dead on the floor.
Grimacing at the cut he'd received in his shoulder, Gren shoved Tol towards the door to break it down before Sir Gliwen shouted to get their attention and waved the ring of heavy iron keys.
When they finally managed to get the door open, Sir Gliwen was the first man through — and seconds he later was lying dead on the floor, a grey-haired man sporting an embroidered golden eagle on his chest and brandishing a bloodied broadsword standing over him. He had leapt on Sir Gliwen as he entered the corridor, turning the knight's last-minute parry and running him through. Almost before the Lomin man had fallen, the old man was darting back to avoid Corast's swinging axe-blow.
Kam blinked in astonishment at the old man's speed. He trapped Corast's axe with his sword and lunged forward with a dagger in his left hand to skewer Corast's right shoulder. But despite his speed and undeniable skill, the numbers were against him. While Kam attacked from the right, Boren managed to clip the old man's left arm. As he recoiled, Boren smashed the glaive's weighted handle into his skull.
'Keep going,' Kam panted, shoving his companions on, not allowing himself to look at the fallen. They reached a narrow staircase, and found themselves ploughing into more soldiers. Someone — Kam didn't know if it was his boys or the enemy — knocked the only torch from its holder, plunging the place into sudden gloom. Cries of alarm and pain were shortly followed by the sounds of bodies crashing into each other and the clatter of weapons falling onto stone floors. The sudden spray of sparks skittered over their heads and caught in Boren's hair. Kam ducked and struggled to stay on his feet as Boren roared in pain and flailed around, trying to extinguish the smouldering sparks, while the group barrelled on down the stair.
At last the men from Siul stumbled into the lower guardroom, trampling two black-and-white-liveried Palace Guards under their feet and finishing the job with their clubs and maces. Two more were driven back against the rear wall of the guardroom by the onrush of fight-maddened men, and with no space to swing their swords they were battered to the floor and brutally dispatched.
Kam looked around. The dimly lit guardroom was low-ceilinged, barely an inch higher than him, with grimy grey walls and the mingled stench of shit and sweat and fear thick in the air. An unlit brazier stood in one corner. The only other door in the room opened onto a narrow corridor lined with cell doors at regular intervals.
'Find the keys,' he ordered as he headed towards the cells. Boren, Gren, Corast and Tol began to search the bodies as Kam called Duke Certinse's name, looking for the correct cell. A dozen voices replied, all calling for rescue, and he started to pound on each door in turn. He finally found the right door by listening for the only voice that sounded anything like a young duke's. He started fumbling with the unwieldy ring of rusty keys Boren had handed him.
He tugged the door open and shouted, 'We've got 'im! Back up those stairs, now.' He started checking the keys on the ring for one small enough to unfasten the duke's manacles, but they were all too big.
'Not that set,' Certinse croaked. 'Swordmaster Kerin has the key.'
'Who's that?'
'He was here just a few minutes earlier; I heard him. Blue tunic with a gold eagle.'
'Boren, key's on the man at the top of the stair,' Kam called, and Boren grunted and disappeared. Kam took a moment to examine the man he'd given up his life for. He didn't see much to impress: Duke Certinse was smaller than he'd imagined, a slender, smooth-cheeked young man who still managed to look haughty, even when manacled to a wall.
'What's your plan from here?' he asked.