It was a scale from his days under Master Sollis, drilled into him with merciless precision, for use against a skilled enemy. A series of slashes and thrusts, delivered with dizzying speed, all aimed at the face, forcing the opponent to raise his blade, leaving the midriff open, not for a sword but a kick. Frentis’s boot took the One full in the sternum, bone breaking with an audible crunch. The Kuritai slumped against the wall, blood coming from his mouth, but finding the strength for a final thrust. Frentis swept it aside and cut his throat with the backswing.
“K-King . . .” the fallen Lord Marshall stuttered, staring up at Frentis, his face white from loss of blood.
Frentis went to his side, looking at the wound and seeing it was hopeless. “The King is fallen,” he said. “But Princess Lyrna lives. I need to find her.”
“Brother . . . F-Frentis, is it not?” the guardsman asked in a croak. “I saw . . . with the Wolfrunners, years ago . . .”
“Yes. Brother Frentis.” I am a brother of the Sixth Order. “And you, my lord?”
“S-Smolen . . .” He coughed, staining his chin with blood.
“My lord, your wound . . . I cannot . . .”
“Care not for me, brother. L-look for her in the east wing . . . Her rooms are there . . .” He smiled as his eyes began to dim. “Tell her . . . It was a great thing to travel so far . . . with the woman I loved . . .”
“My lord?”
The smile faded from the Lord Marshal’s lips and his features slumped into a lifeless mask. Frentis gripped his shoulder and turned away, turning a corner and running in what he hoped was an eastward direction. The palace was empty here, no more bodies, although the sounds of slaughter still echoed through the halls. He passed a broad window and saw flames rising in the city. He paused, taking in the sight of the Volarian fleet crowding the harbour, well over a thousand ships, disgorging a great mass of soldiery onto the wharfs, a constant stream of boats carrying more from the ships outside the harbour wall. He could see no Realm Guard, just Varitai and Free Swords, forming ranks and moving off at the trot, spreading throughout the city in accordance with a well-rehearsed design. This has been long planned my love . . .
Varinshold will fall this night, he realised, tearing his gaze away and running on. He would find the princess and spirit her from the city. Then to the Order House with warning of the impending attack.
He came upon more bodies as he entered the east wing; it was separated from the main palace by a narrow courtyard, several corpses lying amongst the rosebushes and cherry blossoms. A tumult of combat came from the doorway ahead, shouted challenges in an unfamiliar language. A woman’s voice.
He charged in, finding four Kuritai battling a tall tattooed woman wielding a spear, the blade trailing blood as she whirled it. One was already down and she speared another through the leg as he stepped forward to make an unwise thrust, twisting away before the others could close. Lonak, Frentis realised, noting her tattoos and the indecipherable abuse she yelled at her attackers. Crouched to her rear was a lanky youth clutching a long sword, staring at the melee with wide-eyed indecision. Frentis was impressed he hadn’t run.
He killed the wounded Kuritai with a slash to the neck, took another down with a thrust to the back, parried the third’s slash and stepped back as the Lonak woman speared him in the guts. She finished him with a bone-crushing stamp to the neck and whirled to face Frentis, spear levelled. “Who are you?” she demanded in Realm Tongue.
“I am a brother of the Sixth Order,” he replied. “Come in search of Princess Lyrna.”
“You wear no cloak,” she said, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Brother Frentis?” the lanky youth came forward, staring at him. “Could you be Brother Frentis?”
“I am,” he said. “Is the princess here?”
The Lonak woman lowered her spear, though her suspicion still lingered. “This place falls to deceit,” she told the boy. “Don’t give your trust so easy.”
“This is Brother Frentis,” he replied. “And you saw what he just did. If we cannot trust him, there is no-one to trust.”
“The princess,” Frentis repeated.
“She’s not here,” the boy said. “We haven’t seen her since she went to meet with the King. I’m Arendil, this is Davoka.”
“You are far from the mountains,” Frentis observed to the Lonak woman.
“I am ambassador,” she replied. “What has happened here?”
“The King has been assassinated, also his queen and the children. Princess Lyrna has fled, badly wounded. We must find her.”
The Lonak woman’s eyes lit with rage and concern. “Wounded! How?”
“She burned. The assassin . . . had a Dark ability with fire.”
Davoka hefted her spear. “Where is this assassin?”
“Dead by my hand. We have no time for this. A Volarian army comes ashore as we speak and this city will be in their hands within hours.” He cast around at the empty palace halls. She will not be found here. “We have to leave,” he said. “Get to the Order House.”
“Not without my queen,” Davoka stated.
“If you linger here, you’ll die and she’ll still be unfound.” He gestured at the long sword in the boy’s hands. “Can you use that?”
The boy took a firmer grip on the hilt and nodded.
“Then next time do so, don’t just stand there.” He started for the courtyard, Arendil trotting after.
“Davoka,” he paused to hiss at the Lonak woman. “Please!”
Frentis ran on, making for the western wall. The gates would be in Volarian hands by now, they would have to find another way. He glanced back on reaching the wall, seeing Davoka’s tall form following. He moved right for another forty feet or so until he found it, a shallow drain leaking foul-smelling water into the city sewers through a channel in the base of the wall.
“We won’t fit,” Arendil said, nose wrinkling at the smell.
The channel was barely one foot high, though fortunately without bars. “Strip,” Frentis told him, pulling off his shirt. “Smear yourself with shit. It’ll ease your passage.”
He went first, scooping up muck from the drain water to cover his chest and arms. He cast the sword ahead of him then lay down and crawled through, straining to squirm into the sewer beyond, skin scraped and chafed by the rock, his knife wound stinging from the foulness that would surely infect it. With a final grunt he hauled himself free of the channel, bending down and extending a hand to the boy. He pushed his long sword through then followed, coughing and retching from the stench. Davoka was next, her spear clattering past them before her head appeared, teeth bared as she tried to pull herself free. Frentis and Arendil took hold of her arms and hauled her out, Arendil gaping at her bare though shit-covered breasts. She cuffed him on the side of the head and retrieved her spear.
“How do we find our way down here?” Arendil asked, rubbing his stinging head.
Frentis found he had a laugh in him. “How does anyone find their way around their home?”
He tried for the northern river outlet first, it was closest and offered the prospect of the north road, the quickest route to the Order House. He had Davoka and Arendil wait whilst he crawled through the pipe to the river, peering out at the half-obscured north gate on the far bank. Varitai were already manning the gatehouse with more on the walls, including several archers. He had hoped to crawl along the bank and through the channel under the city wall but they would be seen almost instantly and swimming upriver against the current was impossible.
“No good,” he reported after crawling back. “The walls are lost.”
“No other way?” Davoka asked.
“Just one.” He didn’t like it, the route was tortuous and would add miles to their journey to the Order House, but all other avenues would be well guarded by now. For all his detestation of the Volarians, their efficiency demanded considerable respect.
“You were there,” Davoka said as he led them on an easterly course through the maze of tunnels, splashing through the foul waters that still made Arendil retch with every other step. “You saw this assassin?”
The King’s eyes . . . the sound his neck made as it broke, like a dry piece of driftwood . . . “I was.”
“There was no warning? No chance to stop it?”
“If there had been, I would have taken it.”
A pause as she fumbled for the right words. “The gorin . . . character of the assassin? Their name?”
“A Volarian woman. I never knew her name.” He held up a hand as a sound echoed through the tunnels, a brief shout, quickly cut off. He crouched, waiting, listening. Faint whispers came to him, rough voices in argument, the words indistinct.
Frentis crept forward, sliding his feet along under the water, pausing at a corner as the voices became clearer. Two of them, both male. “I ain’t staying down ’ere all fuckin’ night,” a guttural whisper, the words pitched high in desperation.
“Then go for a nice walk outside,” a calmer response, but still edged with fear. “Make some new friends.”
A pause, then a sullen mutter, “Must be somewhere better’n this shit pipe.”
