A pained whimper and crack came up the corridor behind him.
He glanced up at the stairs, then retreated down the corridor. When he reached a sharp turn in the passage, he paused to spy around the corner with one eye.
At the far end, a woman in a gown was backed against the side wall by a tall soldier. He held a shortsword pointed at her chest, and she stood rigid with a bloodied dagger in her hand. A second fat and unshaven soldier was crumpled in the corner beyond them. The man breathed in quick whimpers while clutching his stomach, and blood seeped between his fingers. None of them looked Chane's way.
Someone else lay on the floor. A woman in a plain muslin dress rolled to her side. Light brown hair toppled from her face, exposing a reddened cheek and jaw below an eye swollen half-shut. A brass candlestick lay just beyond her open hand.
Chane's senses sharpened at the sight of Wynn's beaten face.
There was blood between her lips, and it ran in a thin line of saliva out the corner of her mouth.
He rounded the corner at a run.
Every fragment of life energy he'd stolen welled through his cold flesh. When the tall soldier and the woman heard his footfalls and turned, he'd already closed the distance.
The lanky soldier raised his sword.
Chane grabbed the mans throat with one hand. With the other he snatched the soldier's grip on the sword, closing his fingers over the man's own. Chane squeezed tightly as he drove the soldier to the floor.
He barely heard the muffled pop of cracking bone. He kept squeezing, tighter and tighter, with the image of Wynn's battered face wedged in his mind until it was all he could see. It clouded the guard's reddening, silent face… gaping mouth… swelling tongue.
"Ch… ch…"
Chane froze at the sound of her voice trying to say his name. The soldier's eyes were wide and blank. Blood ran between Chane's fingers, and he felt the split skin of the soldier's throat beneath them.
"Wynn?" he rasped, and turned his head.
She lay with her face toward him, one eye half-open. It closed slowly.
Chane scurried to her on all fours. He reached to grab her, saw his hands soaked red, and shrank back. He heard Wynn's even breaths, heard her heart beating evenly. She was alive, only slipping into unconsciousness, but he could not tell how badly she was hurt.
A scuffling behind him snapped his head around instinctively, and he lashed out with his boot. It connected with the fat soldier's throat. The mute crackle of the man's windpipe mixed with his choking, and he sagged in the corner, still and silent. Behind that sound Chane caught the soft pad of feet and swung back around.
Rage rose up in Chane on the tail of his fright. For an instant he saw Magiere waiting for him with dark hair and pale features. His muscles tightened.
Her skin was not quite pale enough.
The woman in the gown stiffened, halting her reach for a canvas bag between Wynn's feet. Something squirmed within the bag.
Memory surged in on Chane-a woman behind an inn.
He remembered the taste of her blood and fear… smelled that fear on her now, though there was little of it in her hard expression. This was the one who had been spying in the keep. Chane shifted on all fours, crouching protectively over Wynn.
The woman stepped slowly back, holding out the dagger.
Chane's thoughts began to clear. Wynn had been trying to get below this keep, and this pale woman was with her. He lowered his head like an animal suppressing its urge to spring, and locked his eyes upon the woman's own wary gaze. His voice rasped within the narrow passage.
"Do you still wish to live?"
Leesil gripped a stiletto and waited behind Magiere as Emel pounded on the door.
"Open up. It is Baron Emel Milea."
"Baron Milea?" a deep voice called, and after a brief jangle of keys, the door opened.
Leesil saw a perplexed soldier standing in the opening with a hauberk of large leather scale. He stared at Emel and then turned his eyes upon Leesil in the stairway below.
Magiere shoved past Emel and drove her fist into the soldier's face. The man teetered backward, and a second soldier leaned in from beyond the door to grab the tail of her hair.
Chap rushed in, sinking his teeth into the second man's inner thigh. Before the guard cried out, Emel smashed the man's face with a fist and shoved his way through the door. The second guard's grip held on Magiere's hair, and she toppled out of Leesil's sight.
Leesil rushed out and found himself face-to-face with a stunned housemaid with reddish hair tucked under her cap and an empty serving tray clutched in one hand. Her shock turned to fright, and she swung the tray at him.
He ducked aside, and the tray caught Emel in the face. The baron toppled back through the stairwell door.
Leesil hissed under his breath. He, Magiere, and Chap should have taken these guards down in two breaths, and with far less racket. The only fortune was that neither guard had been able to draw a sword. From his crouch, he swerved around behind the maid. When she opened her mouth wide to shout, he had no choice and struck the back of her head with the butt of his stiletto. The tray clattered out of her grip to the floor, and he caught the maid under the arms and lowered her down.
Chap had one guard pinned. Magiere had pulled her hair free and now grappled with the other.
"Leesil, go!" she called to him. "Get to Darmouth. I'll find you."
Leaving her in this or all places wasn't something he'd ever imagined doing. But it was his only choice.
The corridor was open before him, and he ran cautiously in a half-crouch. He knew part of the main floor well enough, and there would be few places to hide. When he reached the end of the long south corridor and entered the alcove, he crawled forward to scan the wide entryway. There was no one about, and he hurried to the nearer archway. Flic meal hall was empty, and he ducked inside.
His thoughts drifted for an instant to what Emel had said.
He'd called his mother "Lady Nein'a," seen with nobles and officers here in this keep. Leesil had wondered in his youth why she was required at Darmouth's few evening events. Had his father known all along? Only a naive boy wouldn't have imagined…
"What-Lady Progae is gone? And what breach? Make sense!"
Lees saw no one in the entryway, but Darmouth's deep voice carried from inside the council hall across the way. His grip tightened on the stiletto.
For all the years since he'd heard that voice, it sank him into all the shadows of his past. He closed his eyes tight, then snapped them open again when memories leaped at him from the dark in his own mind.
He would do this. He would save Darmouth from the Anmaglahk.
"Where is Faris?" Darmouth boomed. "Where is that useless trash? Find him!"
As if to answer this question, Leesil heard the entryway's doors swing open. He glanced around the archway's side.
Faris entered, wild-eyed and half-mad with anger, and behind him was a woman who resembled him closely. She panted, looking panicked. The two hurried toward the council hall, and Leesil stayed low, still watching. Faris paused short of the archway, seeming to prepare himself to face Lord Darmouth.
A distant shout echoed from the south corridor, and Faris turned.
Leesil ducked back. If these two followed that sound… He looked back carefully.
Faris and Ventina were gone. Leesil heard running footsteps fade down the south corridor, headed straight for Magiere and Chap.
All Leesil's instincts screamed at him to go back to them.