Damsel Knight (23 page)

The snap sound of an arrow released from a bow interrupts whatever response she might’ve made. It’s followed by another, then another. But as Boone looks up, hoping to see those arrows heading straight for the barbarians, and not at her or Neven, she’s surprised to see the bows not aimed at any of them. Instead they’re pointed up to the sky, as fumbling fingers load and fire another volley.

Warning shots? Why? That doesn’t make sense.

The first soldiers - if you can call them that - make it to the group of barbarians. Only, from their confused expressions, and the way their swords are drawn but down by their sides, barbarians is not what they see. One of them asks a question Boone can’t make out, and in response a barbarian points his sword at Boone and Neven. There’s further noise; shouting while gesturing at Sir Julius’s body. It’s quietened by a few words.

‘It wasn’t us.’ Those words would say. ‘It was them.’ She wonders if they’re bringing magic into this, or painting the knight and them as traitors who for some unknown reason attacked. Whatever words they use, it causes those few survivors to look at them with fury and contempt.

Witch. It has to be. There’s no other word that could evoke that much hatred, except for the word girl. But that secret’s still safe for now.

Gritting her teeth, her mind searches for a solution like how Neven had shown those on the wall the illusion shrouding the fake knight with a toss of his sword. She doubts the fake knight will fall for the same trick twice, but when she looks back to Neven for help he’s distracted, staring upward in that absorbed way she fears might kill him some day.

Today will not be that day. Swallowing her fear is harder than before. She doesn’t manage to get rid of all of it, but shoves enough down so she can walk close enough to the fake knight to reach out and touch her sword tip to his. This close she feels braver, and more terrified than before. It’s better this way. Against the gate she and Neven could do nothing but wait for an attack. This way she’s close enough to get a blow or two in if any of them chose to throw something at her. And if they do overwhelm her, Neven will have time to get away.

“It’s over,” she says as loudly and firmly as she can. Every part of her body thrums with the need to swing her sword or run. “They’ll never let you in, and I’ll never let you pass. Leave now, and maybe they won’t fill you full of arrows.”

It’s her father’s words, not hers. He may not have taught her deference like her mother wanted, but he taught her words can be more important than actions. He also taught her that caution is always the best move, but that one she might still be working on.

The fake knight’s eyes are still on her father’s sword. Behind him-her, the fake soldiers laugh.

There’s a rush of wind above her, and the soldiers stop laughing. They stare wide eyed as small children seeing the edge of the Dark Forest for the first time. More than that. They stare like small children approaching the Dark Forest on a dare, and then something in those trees moves, and they see a face they will never be able to describe for as long as they live, and claws reaching out to grab them.

They turn and run, fake and real soldiers alike. Shields and swords clang to the ground in their haste to get away. They leave their dead behind, and further away from the rest of them lies Sir Julius, staring at the sky with unseeing eyes.

Rescue came too late for him. That hurts more than any other loss. He’d been kind to her, and she should’ve repaid that kindness by saving his life. She should’ve charged into fight when he did. Staying back might have saved her life, but it wasn’t a knight’s move. It was a girl’s move. A coward’s move.

A heavy blast of hot foul air hits her from behind, messing her hair and making it harder to breathe than it already is. She turns to see what she expects. Gelert squished between the palace wall and her, his house sized head tilted questioningly to one side. Arrows crash into his dark red back, falling broken and unnoticed to the ground.

The rush of battle drains quickly, leaving her feeling empty and unsteady on her feet. A kind of sick ache settles over her, making her skin feel too hot and too cold at the same time, and increasing the pain behind her eyes to a pounding. “I had them,” she says, thinking of honey soft voices coming from bear sized men, and threatening fifty barbarians with nothing but a sword and a dented shield.

Gelert’s head hits her with what might’ve been his version of a companionable nuzzle, and she falls to the ground.

Chapter 24

They build the fire in the courtyard, where Boone had often snuck back when she was Bonnie to watch knights teach soldiers how to fight.

It’s far enough away from the front facing walls to only have a glimpse of the gate, but she can still hear Gelert’s mournful noises, and the soft scratching of his giant claws against the wood, like a giant dog asking to be let inside. They’ve stopped wasting arrows on him, moving onto heated discussions about how to get rid of their new pest, held far away from the walls.

This is Sir Angus's contribution.

The man is not in a good mood. Chiefly because of his new face. His very female new face.

He’s a hair over five feet with the same tan uniform as the barbarians, long flowing red hair, and blue marks on each of his pale cheeks. Only his eyes and his voice are still his. Those dark eyes look odd staring out from his delicate features, so full of hate.

A dozen or so other soldiers in tan uniform move about the courtyard, gathering wood and straw. The only ones of the fifty who swapped faces to survive. Boone doesn’t know what the knight said to get the people inside to let them in the gate, but it must have been convincing. As convincing as when the changed knight had asked Boone and Neven for their help to get Sir Julius’s body and the wounded past the dragon.

Boone shifts, hearing the metal jangle on her wrists. The cobbled ground of the courtyard bites at her knees, and her arms are tethered so tight to the horses post behind her, that for once she’s glad she can only feel one of them. She leans as heavily into Neven’s side as he does into hers, both of them trying to find some shred of comfort.

“Bring them over,” Sir Angus’s voice says from his new form.

She jolts out of her dozing as a hand fiddles with the chains linking her cuffs to the post. All that metal for two boys. Most would’ve tied a rope around their wrists and been done with it.

Boone keeps her head up as they push her toward the bonfire. They say it's a horrible way to go. That even men scream when the torch is lit and the flames start eating at you.

She doesn't want to scream. She doesn't want to die, but more than that she doesn't want to scream. Cowards scream. Women scream.

If she has to die, then she wants those watching to see her die a brave boy, not a whimpering girl.

A clanking of metal and her mind goes blank. Neven unlocked behind her. Neven who had followed her on this long journey for no other reason than loyalty.

Her heart skips a beat. Ness is right. Neven needs someone, and right now the only someone is her. She got him into this mess. It's her duty to get him out of it.

She feigns tripping, twisting her arms in the man's hold. The angle is awkward enough to hurt. He grabs her again, his hands - larger than their tan uniformed illusion's - close around her wrists instead of her chains.

"Not so fast witch. You're breaking this spell. One way or the other."

Boone thinks about trying to convince him she had nothing to do with this magic. She closes her mouth. They've been coming up with arguments as to why this is a stupid idea for hours, and every word out of Neven's mouth was convincing. They just want someone to blame, and with the barbarians fled, they're the closest ones to the action who incidentally have a dragon acting like a personal house-pet.

He guides her to the bottom of the bonfire, Boone digging in her heels to make his job difficult. Neven's dragged after her, a sickly sheen to his face.

"Any last words before you're burned and this curse is lifted?" Sir Angus asks.

Boone's not sure whether that large voice coming from the mouth of a small woman makes it more or less frightening. Their audience of wounded men and boys seems to agree. Some whispering behind their hands, while others looking tense enough to keel over in shock at any sudden noise.

"It wasn't us," Neven says, the plea as heartfelt as the first time he'd said it. "The head druid already checked us for magic traces."

Boone looks Sir Angus in the eyes - his real eyes, hovering somewhere above the illusion's face. "He's right. You should've remembered what the druid said."

The man holding her in place drops to his knees. She uses the opportunity to snatch her arms out of his weak grip and barrel into the man holding Neven.

The man doubles over, clutching his large stomach. The noise he makes is familiar. The glimpse of his wide face in the late afternoon light sends shivers down her spine. She knows him, but that's as far as her mind gets before she's running beside Neven, both of them with hands cuffed behind their backs.

Metal. If it were rope she'd grab her sword and cut it clean through in less than a second. But her sword is on the other side of the bonfire, lying across an empty barrel by Sir Angus. And while it'll bite through rope fine, taking a finger or two with it no doubt, metal puts up more of a fight.

Neven heads for the stables - the nearest cover. Boone follows, thinking how useless all of this is. Her heart beats faster than a frightened rabbit's. Blood rushes around her head, but none of it drowns out the slap of boots right behind them or the shouting.

A horse rears up as they pass, and a stable boy drops the feed he's carrying. They run right through the stalls and out the other end. The other side is empty, mercifully, but she knows that further down that way, behind the bulk of the palace are the barracks and armoury. Even with their losses, there'll be plenty of eyes there to spot them.

Thinking fast, she bumps her shoulder into Neven, guiding him to the right where the kitchens jut out from the rest of the palace. They pass the door that she used to sneak out of to watch soldiers battle on the courtyard, and the vegetable patch where she said she was heading whenever she got caught.

They duck behind the marble wall, less shining and clean on this part of the palace. There's a nook between the door to the kitchens and the next wall used to hide rubbish. Boone scrambles between one of the large boxes filled with kitchen scraps, and another filled with sacks of something almost as foul smelling.

Neven shuffles his way awkwardly beside her just as the soft sound of footsteps on grass tells her the men have followed them through the stables. Leaning against the grimy wall, she brings her knees slowly to her chest, forcing her breath to even out. Her heart beats so loud it seems impossible that they can't hear it.

"You check the kitchens," it's Sir Angus's voice, deep and commanding. "You two see if they went toward the barracks. Hurry up about it. The sooner we get rid of them, the sooner we break this curse."

Neven leans against her knees, closing his eyes as if that'll make them pass by quicker.

Boots carry on past their hiding place. She doesn't know how many, but it's more than the two Sir Angus had ordered in that direction. They'd be spreading out, trying to cover as much ground as possible. That's what she'd do.

One pair of footsteps pause by the alleyway. "What about down here?"

"If you want to search through that stuff be my guest." A different voice. Not Sir Angus.

The footsteps come closer, cautious.

Neven holds his breath, exchanging a desperate glance with her. She keeps her own breathing slow and quiet despite the burning in her chest. She holds his gaze, trying to convey the need to stay calm. She thinks he gets it, because he ducks his head a little and the next breath he takes is less panicked than it could be.

One boot then the other comes into view, stopping in front of their hiding place.

Boone wishes for her sword. Whatever strange trick her cold arm does when someone touches it too long is neat, but there’s nothing like the beautifully balanced weight of dragon steel. The thought of leaving this place without it is only slightly less painful than that of being caught and facing the fire.

She’d taken the sword from her father’s side after he’d died. She’d thought she’d be separated from it the same way.

There’s a thudding sound above them. Boone flinches before she realises he’s looking in the containers. She tenses, hands turning to fists behind her back. All he needs to do is glance between the containers and he’ll see them. Two boys huddling together in a childish hiding place.

He shuffles around the containers for several minutes, then moves on, muttering about the bad smell under his breath. Boone goes weak with relief when she hears his footsteps fade into silence.

Neven meets her eyes again, and she shakes her head. They wait together until the light between the containers dwindles to a pitch black and all noise outside fades. Every now and again there’s a faraway rumble she wants to believe is Gelert, still waiting for them.

If they leave now with him they should be safe. The King’s soldiers will be too occupied to chase them. Alice will be locked away in the palace. As long as Mrs Moore keeps her head down no one should suspect her of being part of whatever plot they’ve dreamed up.

The barbarians are still out there, getting ready to launch another attack on the palace walls, but she can’t do anything about that. She thought she could. She thought she could be a brave lone knight fighting off hordes with a sword in one hand, and a shield in the other, but she can’t. Sir Julius tried and now he’s dead.

He was more a man than she’ll ever be. If he couldn’t do it, then how can she?

Slowly. So slowly, she creeps out of the hiding place, poking her head into the open. The entrance to the rubbish nook is a touch lighter than the pitch they’ve been hiding in. The moon while no longer full, is big enough to show the vast amount of open space out there. No voices. Not close anyway.

Sliding out onto the grass, she fumbles her way onto her feet. She steps up to the entrance on feet ready to run, even though there’s nowhere to run to. There’s a soft glow to the left that must be torches near the stables, or the courtyard. She hopes not the courtyard. The idea of men still gathered there around that waiting bonfire sends shivers down her spine. The right holds only darkness, no-one crossing the length of grass between the barracks and the stables.

Good enough.

She turns to see Neven beside her, his cuffed hands somehow in front of his body. Not wanting to risk any words this close to the kitchen door she taps his wrists with her good hand. Silently he guides her through the motions to move her own cuffs from behind her back. Somewhere along the way he must have figured out it was her dead arm that made the man collapse, because he wraps his own hand in his shirt before helping her with its clumsy movements.

Her dead arm may be stronger, but moving it around is like moving some unwieldy contraption separate from the rest of her.

By the time they both have their arms in front of them the coast is still clear. She edges around the wall, keeping close to the white stone. The building continues to the right for a bit, before making another sharp right. She follows that for a few steps, hoping she’s remembered it right. The distant hint of light from the barracks helps. A window, right where she’d thought it would be. She’d spent quite a few afternoons peering out that window, trying to catch a glimpse of the barracks without making her curiosity too obvious. The soldier’s barracks is not something for little girls to be interested in after all.

With her arms tied behind her, it would’ve been impossible to climb in. As it is, it’s difficult. Neven drops to a crouch, hands locked to give her a boost. She narrowly avoids bristling at him, reminding herself that it’s not to do with her gender. She might be the stronger one, but her arm is injured, and he’s taller. It makes sense for her to be the one to get a boost.

She grabs the sill, prying the small opening wider, and compressing her dead arm into an awkward angle as she wriggles through. The stone edge bites into her stomach, then she's falling.

A sack of carrots softens her landing, the vegetables skittering through the darkness. Her hands fumbles over the uneven surface before she gives up and rolls her whole body, not stopping until she feels stone beneath her.

Neven drops through a moment later where she'd just been.

The room is pitch black apart from the scant moonlight coming through the window, showing a wall of shelves with food on it. Craning her head around them, she sees a line of light. The kitchens. Voices and the clattering of pans carry through the heavy wooden door.

Not that way.

Pushing herself to her feet, she follows the line of shelves until she feels pressure against her outstretched cold palm. A wall? Or a door?

Her good hand skirts over it. A wall.

Moving sideways like a crab she sticks close to the wall, stepping over mysterious bundles until she finds it. Wood beneath her fingers. Her hand finds the handle, fiddling with it until the door creaks open. She hasn’t been down here herself, but she’s seen people haul bottles of drink from the dark depths. It’s a cellar. She knows that much. What she hopes is that it leads to the maze of dark dank cellars that run under the entire palace.

The gates will be guarded. But if they manage to emerge at a stretch of wall without men nearby then they can climb it. The wall is tall, but there are stone steps set at regular intervals, and if they’re all guarded, then perhaps Neven can come up with one of his ideas and get them over. Once they’re outside Gelert will help them. All they need to do is get past the wall.