The heavy crunch of the ogre"s feet destroying the cobblestones as he ran behind us began to speed up, and I realized that there was no way Naima would be able to outrun him. I wasn"t sure if even I would be able to without her.
"Hide!" I shouted, and pulled her to the side, practically tossing her toward the thin gap between a couple houses. It was big enough for a normal adult troll to fit in, but an ogre would be unable to grab her.
With Naima safely out of the way, I drew my sword and turned back around to face the ogre charging toward me.
SIXTY-NINE.
ogre Grinning crookedly with his oversized mouth, the ogre slowed as he reached me, and I realized that it was Torun, who had so badly wanted to squash Konstantin and me when we came across him in the swamps outside Fulatrask.
He was over eight feet tall, with arms like tree trunks. He was completely lopsided, with everything on his right side larger than that on his left. His right hand was much larger than his left, and he had it balled into a fist.
"Squash you now," Torun grunted with an angry laugh.
"Last time you caught me without my sword," I told him. "I won"t go down as easy as you think."
Torun raised his right fist high above his head, and I waited until he started bringing it down toward me, to squash me. Then I lifted my sword and jabbed it straight through his wrist. He howled in pain and when he yanked his arm back, he took me with it.
I wrapped my legs around his arm, so when he tried to shake me off, I had a good grip, and I began twisting the sword, cutting through the tendons and bone. Ogres were bigger and stronger than regular trolls, but their bones broke just as easily as for the rest of us.
Realizing I wouldn"t let go, Torun grabbed me with his left hand and threw me aside. I crashed into a house, and fell into a pile of snow. The landing had been hard enough that it left me dazed and out of breath for a moment, but I stumbled to my feet as quickly as I could.
Torun"s ma.s.sive hand was hanging on to his arm by a flap of skin and a few tendons. He cradled it with his good hand, crying out in pain, as blood poured out, soaking the street.
When he saw me getting up, he growled in rage, and I knew I had to finish him off quickly. He charged toward me, and I dove out of the way, so he crashed into the house and knocked himself off balance. The loss of blood seemed to be affecting him, and he stumbled backward.
My sword had fallen to the ground, and I grabbed it in a flash. I went up to his right side and stabbed between his ribs, straight into his enlarged ogre heart. Torun growled once more, and that was it. He slumped over and slid off my sword, onto the street.
I wiped the blood off my hand, then held it out to Naima. She hesitated before coming out, but she finally did, and we started running down the street.
We rounded the corner, Naima"s house finally in sight, and a small Omte guard came out of nowhere. He had jumped out from between two houses, and now he was charging at me. I pushed Naima behind me, using my body as a shield.
The Omte raised his sword at me, so I blocked it with my own. Since that move would only leave us at a standstill, with him pushing his blade toward me while I pushed back, I kicked him in the stomach, knocking him back.
Moving quickly, I stabbed him through the chest before he had a chance to block me. I pulled my sword free, and he fell to the ground.
That was when I looked down the street again, and I saw Rutger Abbott standing in the middle of the street. His sword was drawn, and he had the rigid stance of a Hogdragen. His face was much harder than Kasper"s had ever been, but he had the same eyes as both Kasper and Naima.
I stepped out from in front of Naima and whispered, "Go to your dad."
Rutger had to have seen enough to know that I had just killed an ally of the Kanin kingdom. He walked toward me with cold deliberate steps. When Naima ran to him, he hugged her, but kept his eyes on me.
I was terrified about how this would play out. If Rutger believed the lies that Mina had told him, he would blame me for Kasper"s death and believe me to be an evil traitor. With that in mind, he might very well want to kill me, and I did not want to fight Kasper"s dad in a battle to the death.
"Go in the house," he told Naima.
She did as she was told, rushing toward the relative safety of her home, and leaving Rutger and me alone in the street. At least for a moment. Other guards would surely be coming soon.
"Thank you for protecting my daughter," he said finally.
"I"m sorry I couldn"t protect your son," I said.
He lowered his eyes. "Go, and finish this for him." That was all he said before he turned and walked back toward his house.
I looked back over the roofs of the cottages around us, toward the palace looming over everyone and everything, and I started running toward it, my legs moving as fast as they could.
SEVENTY.
conspire On the way to the palace, I tried to avoid as many main roads and conflicts as I could. Not only because I wanted to get there as quickly as possible, but also because I wanted to avoid killing any Kanin if I could help it. And it was a bonus if I ended up not getting killed myself.
Still, I"d had to kill two more Omte soldiers before I found myself in close proximity to the palace. I crouched down next to Astrid Eckwell"s mansion, with the body of Simon Bohlin in the snow beside me.
On my way here, I"d seen Simon, with his head lolled to the side, bleeding from a fatal wound in his stomach.
For a nearly year we"d dated, until I"d broken up with him because I was looking for something more casual. He had been a great tracker, though, which was one of the things that attracted me to him. We"d grown up together, and he"d always been kind to me in a school where a lot of kids hadn"t been.
I couldn"t leave him in the middle of the street to get crushed under ogres" feet, so I dragged him to the side of the house. I knew I couldn"t move all the bodies, that I couldn"t save everyone, but I couldn"t bear the thought of leaving Simon out like that.
Leaning with my back against the cold bricks of the mansion, I tried to catch my breath and gather myself. I didn"t have time to mourn Simon or anyone else who would die today. Not if I wanted to save Ridley and stop Mina.
I looked back out to the street, where the fighting raged on, just in time to see Ember, fighting her way through the crowd. Behind her was Linus Berling, and while he wasn"t doing an amazing job, he was holding his own fairly well. He hadn"t been killed yet, but he did appear to be bleeding from his arm.
Ember finally managed to break free from the fighting, and Linus chased after her, following the path she"d made. They ran right up to the mansion next door to Astrid"s, diving over the fence and running around to the back door.
If I wanted to storm the palace, it wouldn"t hurt to have someone like Ember at my side. She was a quick, strong fighter, and there were going to be many more guards left to face.
I decided to go to Ember and see if she would help me free Ridley. I ran around the back of Astrid"s house, and then I jumped the neighbor"s fence. I wasn"t sure if I should knock or not, but since Ember had just gone in through the back door, I decided to try it for myself.
As soon as I pushed it open, Ember was there with her sword in my face.
"Oh, jeez, Bryn." She sighed and lowered her weapon. "You really need to start knocking." She opened the door wider for me, letting me in.
The door opened into the kitchen, where Linus sat shirtless at the kitchen table. A girl stood beside him, her dark hair falling around her, as she tried to clean up a nasty gash on his arm.
"Bryn." Linus tried to smile at me, but his injury caused him to wince instead. "When I saw you on the wall today, I was so happy that you were okay and fighting to get rid of that witch in the palace."
It had been nearly two months since Linus had first arrived in Doldastam, and in that short time he"d already grown and changed so much, even though he was barely eighteen. He"d spent time training with Ember, and his arms and chest had begun to fill out, with muscles bulking up his lanky frame.
Light freckles dotted his face, and he still had an openness to his expression, like he could never completely hide what he was feeling, but his eyes had darkened, taking some of the innocence he"d arrived with.
Around his wound, his skin had begun to change color, shifting to blend into our surroundings. When the girl tending his wounds tried to st.i.tch up the gash on his arm, Linus winced, and the color intensified, making it almost appear as if his arm had disappeared, other than the parts stained red with blood.
"We just came here to fix Linus up, and I wanted to get Delilah somewhere safe," Ember explained as she closed and locked the door behind me.
Delilah looked back at me, and I hadn"t recognized her right away because I"d only met her once before. She was very beautiful, with dark almond-shaped eyes and a soft smile. In her jeans and tunic sweater, she appeared slender and tall.
"We got Linus"s parents out of here already," Ember went on. "My brother is helping refugees escape. Since most of the fighting is going on around the back wall, Finn is leading evacuees right out the front gate and to your camp on the other side of the hill."
"I came back to help other people escape," Linus said, and he gritted his teeth when Delilah turned her attention back to fixing him up.
"My parents won"t leave." Delilah scowled, and she began wrapping Linus"s arm with gauze. "They"re in the bas.e.m.e.nt hiding in a panic room, and I"m actually surprised they haven"t come back up here to drag me down with them."
"So that"s what we"ve been doingtrying to help people evacuate." Ember looked me over, her eyes lingering on my bloodied sword. "What have you been doing?"
"I"ve been trying to get to the palace," I said.
I thought about explaining to her about Ridley, and how he"d been captured, and how I had to get him free before they killed him. But it all felt like too much to say aloud, and there was enough going on here. Everyone in this room had more than their share of problems to deal with.
"I saw you, and I wanted to make sure you were okay," I said instead, my words sounding tight around the lump in my throat.
"I think we can handle it," Ember told me, trying for a rea.s.suring smile. "I know you"ve got your work cut out for you."
A loud knocking at the front door interrupted our conversation. The kitchen was at the back of the house, so we couldn"t see the door from where we stood, but we all turned toward it.
"I locked and bolted the front door," Delilah said softly.
But the knocking just grew louder and more intense, until it changed from knocking to someone trying to break down the front door.
SEVENTY-ONE.
adversary Ember and I both drew our swords and moved closer to the entryway from the kitchen so we could see into the front hall, when the door came crashing in.
"Markis or Marksinna Nylen?" a man asked in the strong, clipped tones of a Hogdragen. "Are you safe?"
"I saw her run in here!" a female voice shouted shrilly, and it was like nails on a chalkboard, so I placed it instantlyAstrid Eckwell. "Go inside and get her! She"s the one behind it all!"
I grimaced, realizing that Astrid must"ve seen me coming over here. She had probably been holed up in her mansion with her family and their own personal Hogdragen standing guard. But her contempt for me was so strong that she"d left the safety of her home to make sure that I got my punishment.
We"d grown up together, and Astrid had been unrelentingly vicious to me. She had been the first one to ever call me a half-breed, and she had made certain that it caught on as a cruel chant that the other kids would sing to me during recess.
It wasn"t until my teenage years that I realized the sheer level of her hatred stemmed from jealousy and feelings of inferiority. Her house and most of her riches came from an inheritance that should"ve been my dad"s, and would have been my own, had my grandparents not disinherited my dad for marrying a Skojare. The Eckwellsas second cousins to my dadwere the closest relatives and next in line.
Astrid only had her status because my dad had given it up. Her life should"ve been mine, and I think that secretly she was always afraid I would take it from her.
But I had never wanted her life, and now she was trying to get me killed.
"I"m here," Delilah said, stepping out from the kitchen before either Ember or I could stop her. "I"m Marksinna Delilah Nylen, and I"m here and I"m safe."
"Where is she?" Astrid demanded.
I leaned against the kitchen wall and carefully peered around the entryway to watch the scene unfolding. The Hogdragen was Ja.n.u.s Mose, a tracker I"d gone to school with who was only a couple years older than me. He didn"t appear as confident about their intrusion into the Nylens" home as Astrid did, and she pushed her way around him.
A war was raging on half a mile from her doorstep, and she wore a gown with a fur stole. It was typical of her arrogance and stupidity.
"I saw that Skojare traitor run in here, and if you"re housing her, you"ll go to prison too," Astrid said, sneering at Delilah. "Or you"ll be executed. Ja.n.u.s could do it right on the spot."
"There"s no need for that." Ember sheathed her sword and rushed out to the main hall.
Linus pulled on his shirt and stepped out from the kitchen. "You probably just saw us. Ember and I ran in here to get away from the fighting."
"I wanted to keep the Markis safe," Ember explained, standing beside her girlfriend.
"With all due respect, Markis Linus, you look nothing like a little blond half-breed traitor," Astrid told him, doing her best to keep her cool when talking to a royal who outranked her. "Bryn Aven is here, and I know it. And if you all keep covering it up, Ja.n.u.s will have no choice but to execute you all."
I gripped my sword tightly in my hand, but I didn"t move. Not yet.
Theoretically, Astrid was right. In times of war, a member of the Hogdragen had every right to execute those who were standing in the way of the kingdom or harboring traitors. But while Ja.n.u.s hadn"t been the brightest guy I"d gone to school with, he"d gone through enough training to know that he shouldn"t act rashly on the word of a spiteful Marksinna.
"Are you housing Bryn Aven?" Ja.n.u.s asked them directly, standing tall in his Hogdragen uniform. The light coming in through the open windows caused his epaulets to shimmer, and he kept his expression hard but blank, the way Kasper always had.
"It"s just us here," Delilah said, speaking as calmly as she could.
"Then where are your parents?" Astrid demanded, and she looked up at Ja.n.u.s. "They haven"t left yet."
"My parents are in the panic room" Delilah began, but she couldn"t even finish her sentence before Astrid let out a delighted gasp.
"They have a panic room! They"re hiding Bryn in there!" Astrid shouted, pointing wildly into the house. "Search the house until you find her."
"Is this really necessary?" Linus asked. "This all seems to be getting out of hand, especially with everything that"s going on outside. You should take Astrid back to her house so she can be safe."
"As soon as we find the traitor, this will be all over," Ja.n.u.s told him firmly. "And then everyone can be safe."
That was when I knew that this wouldn"t end peacefully, and I couldn"t let Ember, Delilah, and Linus fight my battle for me. I stepped out from the kitchen. Astrid screamed when she saw me, but her eyes were wide with excitement.
"I told you she was here!" Astrid squealed.
Ja.n.u.s raised his sword, and his eyes were unforgiving and his jaw was clenched. I knew that lookhe meant to kill me, with Astrid cheering him on.
"It doesn"t need to come to this," Delilah said.
She stepped closer to him, perhaps meaning to reason with him, but she didn"t understand the severity of the situation. With the tension of the war, Mina"s fabrications about me, and Astrid screaming in his ear, Ja.n.u.s was like a gun, c.o.c.ked and loaded, just waiting for something to set him off.