The rider rains down a barrage of punches on the back of my head, his sword not in his hand, disappearing just like Feve’s. But I don’t feel his hits. This is my territory now and shots to the head are a way of life.
I lay into him, punching him first in the gut, and then in the face.
Gut and face. Gut and face.
I get a rhythm going while he continues to pound from the back and squeeze his eyes shut against Feve’s raking fingers.
Buff always said I had a head harder than an ice sculpture, on account of how many bar fights I won with my signature finishing maneuver. I crank it up now, still pounding away with my fists, leaning my head back slightly, waiting for the perfect moment…
Feve’s hands slip away from the rider’s face as he’s crushed underneath him. I snap my head forward, butting the rider’s skull like a goat defending my young. I hit him so hard—too hard probably—seeing stars myself and feeling an instant throb in my temples, but my pain’s nothing compared to what the rider’s feeling. He screams, clutching at his forehead, wailing something fierce. Then he stops screaming and lies unconscious.
I pull and Feve pushes and we get the rider offa him. We look at each other and it’s one of those moments when you think you should say something, but it’s impossible because another rider’s swooping in and you’re both dead if you don’t get your arses in gear.
Feve cracks a strange grin, dives for the snow, somehow finds his sword, slashes at the rider, and knocks him off his horse, which keeps on running without him. When I just stand there, Feve yells, “Go!” and I take off, sprinting in the direction I last saw Skye.
But she’s not there anymore and any path is all closed up. There are so many bodies, alive and standing and fighting, dead and crumpled and broken, that I don’t see how I’ll get through them all. Then I spot them, Skye and Siena and Wilde, and now Circ too, moving off to the side, looking back for me and Feve. Skye spots me.
She waves me over and I run, run, run, ignoring a fallen guard with a sword in his gut who cries out for help from the ground, leap over the lean flanks of an injured horse, which blows steam out of its nose, whinnying in pain, give a wide berth to an axe-wielding guard who’s facing off against a sword-swinging rider.
While Siena continues to let arrows fly at anything that gets close, Skye, Circ and Wilde hack their way to the wall. And then Feve is with us again, still grinning, his sword slick with red.
We move along the palace wall, only having to fight foes on one side now, which makes all the difference. None of the guards or riders get anywhere near me, because the others are so good at keeping them away. We inch our way forward, skirting the battle, which continues to rage hot and fierce, neither side seeming to gain an advantage. Small wooden supply structures burn along the edge—the source of all the smoke we saw earlier—but we run past them, barely feeling the heat.
I’m coming. I’m coming, Jolie.
We reach the pillars that hold up the roof just before the palace entrance. A wall of guards blocks the way, fifteen, twenny of them. Too many to fight our way through.
But it’s not just us. The riders want to get through just as badly.
A half a dozen riders charge the line.
We charge the line.
Chapter Thirty-One
An axe arcs over my ducking head.
I raise a heavy boot and kick the guard in the midsection, launching him back into a mess of other guards who are attempting to hold off a pair of riders.
Something slices at me from the other side and I turn too late, only seeing the rider’s sword in time to watch it cut me into Dazz-steaks.
But then he slumps over before he can finish his swing, dropping his sword at my feet. His horse keeps running and I see the arrow sticking from the rider’s back as he passes. Siena stands back a ways, wearing my coat, bow strung with a new arrow, as if saving my life was just a small act, and she’s already pushed it from her mind. Her arrow flies and pierces the shoulder of a guard who’s fighting Circ. The guard staggers back and Circ slashes him down, flashing a smile in Siena’s direction.
I search frantically for an opening in the mess of bodies, but it’s all just violence and falling snow and armor and swords and—
There.
A rider cuts down three guards in quick succession, splitting the wall of men in half. He charges through, riding right into the palace. He’s going for the king!
Jolie! I scream in my head as I charge through the gap, ignoring the killing that continues on either side. I’m two steps from the door, two steps from getting inside, but then I see him.
A rider, hot exhalation steaming from both his and his horse’s mouths, galloping toward me, sword raised. It’s the same rider who cut down Buff’s father, who let my mother and Buff’s brothers and sisters live. The merciful murderer.
Heat flares up in my chest as I charge him.
~~~
When we’re so close that I can see the individual spots of blood on his sword, I dive to the side, narrowly avoiding getting trampled by his horse, which pulls up sharply, lifting its hoofs in the air, bucking at something that’s spooked it.
With a cry, the rider falls back, tumbling off and landing awkwardly. The horse returns to all fours and gallops away, leaving a clear view beyond. Skye stands stalwart, her blade raised, her brown skin steaming in the cold as her sweat vaporizes the moment it leaves her skin.
I stride toward the fallen rider, but Skye says, “Go. Save your sister.”
I glance at the rider, who’s struggling to his feet, looking dazed, then back at Skye. She walks toward him.
I run through the doorway.
Tapestries flash past me as I run, full of blood and dark men and violence—all of it having come to life just outside the doors. One of them, the one depicting the battle between the people living on the water and the riders, is shredded in half, each side hanging limply from its frame. Sliced by the rider who already came through.
Fear rises up, dwarfed only by the red hot anger that continues to pulse through my veins. As I pass the throne room I can’t hold back the images. Wes in chains, being led into the dungeons; Wes holding his bloody gut; Goff on the wall holding my sister. Goff. Icin’ freezin’ Goff.
The fear disappears and I’m all anger and it’s okay—it’s okay this time. Necessary. Right, even.
The steps to the dungeon go by on my left and I keep running. A ceramic vase lies broken in jagged shards on the floor. Knocked over by a horse that’s not used to running inside?
I turn a corner to find a staircase and a horse. The horse chews on something, ignoring me, as if I’m just another person and today’s just another day. The stairs wind up and up. A tower staircase. The central palace tower, the one that splits the clouds and allows the king to see the sun even in the worst storms, like the one today.
Rushing by the horse, I take the steps two at a time, tripping once, banging my knee, but scrambling with my hands to stay on my feet. Two steps, two steps, curving, climbing, around and around and around. Higher and higher, my lungs burning, my mouth dry, my hands fisted, higher and higher.
There are windows every twenny or so steps, but I can’t see anything except gray and white.
Higher and higher, around and around.
My legs are aching, not in one place, but in every place—but that’s nothing. Nothing.
I realize I’m speaking out loud between ragged, heaving breaths. “Jolie. I’m coming. I’m coming, Jolie. Don’t hurt her. Don’t. I’m coming.”
I don’t stop running or mumbling. Both things are all I have and they give me hope.
I reach a landing and there’s a door, a vacant room beyond. I keep going.
My legs aren’t working the way they should and I have to switch to one step at a time. With each stride they protest, but I tell them Only one more step, and then I take it. Repeating my empty promise, I take another. And another. And another.
Just when I think the tower goes eve
n higher than they say, stretching all the way to the stars, I step onto a landing. My head’s down, between my knees, but I manage to tilt my chin enough to look up. And there aren’t any more stairs. Just a stone ceiling.
The top of the tower.
A door stands open. I walk toward it just as the screams fly out.
~~~
I’m in no shape to fight, too exhausted from my harried flight up the stairs, which is exactly why the king is probably hiding out here.
But I enter anyway, taking it all in with a single glance.
The horseless rider is surrounded by guards, slashing and blocking and hacking at their spears and axes and swords, killing one with a slice to the throat, stabbing another through the gut, fighting like someone who can’t be defeated.
Small windows are cut at intervals along the walls, barely letting in any light at all, and certainly no sun—nay, not one speck of sunlight; at the other end of a room that seems too big to be held up this high, Goff stands in front of a huge, stone throne on a raised platform like a god, eyes blazing, his arms around…his arms holding…
I choke when I try to speak, gasping for air and words, because he’s got her, he’s got...
“Jolie,” I say.
It’s not loud enough to reach anyone’s ears beyond my own, not against the battle cries in front of me.
Another guard dies with a scream, the rider vanquishing his enemies one by one.
“Jolie,” I say again, this time louder.
Both Goff and Jolie look across the room at me. “Dazz!” Jolie screams.
And King Goff smiles. He actually smiles. His whole world is crashing down around him and he doesn’t seem to care one bit, as if he’s entertained by it. Jolie strains against his arms, but he’s got her tight, so tight, and I start to run toward her, but then Goff reaches back and when his hand returns it’s gleaming and it’s holding a knife, jabbing it under Jolie’s throat, and he’s still smiling and his eyes are too, warning me to Stay away, stay away, back off, or, or…
…she dies.
There’s nothing I can do but stop. Rage is throbbing in my head and in my blood and in my heart, but I have to stop, because he’s got her and he’ll kill her—that much I can see in his eyes.
But Jolie’s pleading, pleading with her own eyes, giving me that hopeful look that she always has, like having a knife at her neck isn’t anything if I’m there. Her protector.
A body crashes to the floor behind me and I jerk my head to the side and down. Another guard, not yet dead, but on his way, blood gurgling from his lips as he tries to breathe through thick, red liquid.
I raise my head to see the rider standing alone amidst a circle of bodies. He’s killed them all—every last guard. A warrior, his strength far beyond my pathetic and useless bar-fighting talent that I once held such pride for.
He steps forward, his dark skin dripping with sweat, his black robe dragging at his feet, his sword held with both hands in front of him, the tip almost touching his chin.
I won’t let him get Jolie without going through me first.
“You’re here for the girl?” he asks, his voice a deep rumble. I step back, as if his words are far worse than his sword. He says it like it’s a normal question, the start of a normal conversation, as if he hasn’t just killed ten men on his own.
“She’s my sister,” I say. “He took her from me.”
He nods. “He’s a bad man,” he says. “I can’t let him live.” But what about Jolie?
“I’ll kill her if you come any closer,” the king says, and in his tone is a promise. I see him drawing his thumb across his neck, high atop the wall.
The rider steps toward him.
“I swear to the Mountain Heart, I’ll do it!” Goff screams, pushing his blade into Jolie’s flesh, drawing a trickle of blood.
“Ow! You’re hurting me!” Jolie cries.
“Don’t!” I shout, both to the rider and to the king.
The rider looks back, but there’s no uncertainty on his face. I see him slip a knife from his belt, using the width of his body to hide the motion from Goff.
I signal No! with my eyes, but he ignores it, turns, throws the knife toward the king and my sister.
The sound of the knife embedding in flesh and bone is sickening.
Blood flies.
The king slumps over, still clutching his knife.
Footsteps thump onto the landing outside the door.
With a whirl of his cape, the rider leaps past me, his sword raised. I spin around as he deflects an axe, a metal club, and a sword, each of which come flying through the entrance in short succession.
Past him, hordes of guards clamber up the stairs, pushing forward. The rider swings wildly, forcing them back, throwing them back, looking over his shoulder, looking right into my eyes. “Save her,” he says.
With a sharp yank, he ducks through the door, pulling it shut behind him.
I rush to it, slide the thick, metal latch across, locking us inside.
Before I can spin back to Jolie, I hear the most awful sound.
It’s a laugh. The king’s not dead.
~~~
I turn to face Goff, my heart skipping a beat when I see the truth.
Goff is dead—at least the man I believed to be the king, the tall, strong, throne-sitting man—lying in a red pool, a knife embedded in his heart.
But another man has replaced him, shorter, older, more grizzled, with a wispy beard and unkempt hair that stinks of crazy, jutting out from his golden crown at odd angles. He looks anything but kingly, and if not for his red, satin robe and glinting crown he might be no more than a castle soothsayer. He must’ve been hiding behind the heavy stone seat, the throne.
“You can’t save her,” the real king says.
“Dazz?” Jolie says, like she wants to know if what the king says is true.
“Everything’s okay, Joles,” I say.
The king laughs. “Okay for whom?” he asks.
To the king I say, “Who was that man?” The dead man.
Goff laughs, his eyes blue and filled with a wild glee. “Captain of the guard,” he says. “You really think I’d stoop so low as to cavort with commoners? While my men obey, the king can play.”
So stupid. I’ve been so stupid. I knew it wasn’t right that the king would speak to Wes and I, that he would venture into the dungeons to stop our original escape attempt. But I didn’t listen to the warnings in my head. But now I know. A second chance to make things right.
I know I can’t go right at him. He won’t hesitate to kill her and then take his chances with me. There’s only one thing to do: try to distract him until I can make a move.
“Where are the other children?” I ask, taking a step forward.
“That’s far enough,” Goff says. The trickle of blood reaches Jolie’s neckline. I stop, take a deep breath, fighting my urge to rush at him.
“You want to know about the other children?” he says. “That surprises me, Dazz. Why do you care so much about them when your sister’s right in front of you?”
I grit my teeth and try to stay focused. “I don’t care about them,” I lie. “I just need to know why. Why do you take them? What do you do to them?” I can’t keep the rage out of my voice, bubbling up like a spring. I swallow it down.
“Oh-ho! You’re worried about whether I’ve done anything to your pretty little sister here. Why she’s still here even after all the other children are gone. Is that it?”
The other children are gone? Does he mean—I swallow again—dead?
Goff laughs again. “Kid, you look like you’ve swallowed a frog. If you’re thinking I killed the rest of them, you’re mistaken. I might be a monster, but even a monster has a heart. I sold them, like I have for years. What do I need a bunch of snot-nosed Heater kids running around here for? My servants wait on me hand and foot. My guards protect me…well, try to protect me, although they’re not doing the best job of it lately, are they?”
I?
??m dumbfounded, speechless. He sold the Heater children? To who? And for what?
“Mountain lion got your tongue?” Goff says.
“I’m just surprised,” I say, trying to keep the conversation going.
There’s a heavy thud on the door behind me, which doesn’t bode well for the rider. He lasted a while, but never had a chance against so many foes—not really. I don’t look back.
Goff smiles, looks past me to the door. “Seems we’re finally winning,” he muses. “Should we let them in and end this quickly?”
“Nay,” I say. “Not until I understand.” And freezin’ kill you, I add in my mind.
There’s a heavy thud on the door and the metal bar rattles in its fixture.
Goff smiles, but I’m not sure if it’s at the door or at what I’ve said. “As you wish,” he says. “It’s simple, really. The Stormers want children.”
“The Stormers? But they’re…”
“Attacking us?” the king says, smiling. “I guess I’m not delivering enough of them, or the children aren’t strong enough, who knows? Although this one”—he squeezes Jolie harder—“is a real firecracker, always trying to escape, fighting the guards—I wonder where she gets it from?” He kisses the top of her head.
“Let go of her!” I scream, my rage rising up quicker than I can bite it down.
“Oh-ho, are you forgetting who has the knife to whose neck? Another outburst like that will get her killed,” Goff says, his green eyes gleaming maliciously, as if he’s hoping he gets just such a chance.
Thud, thud! The hammering on the door is getting louder, more persistent. If Goff’s guards get in, it’s over.
“You wouldn’t,” I say.
He laughs and that answers my question. He would. He has. Killed children. Enjoyed it. “Don’t be so naïve, Dazz,” he says.