provincial irregulars are notorious for it.’
Chel locked eyes with the young count. The noble’s eyes glittered with mocking challenge. Fuck you, Chel thought back. I’m trying to save your life, you abject halfwit.
He said nothing.
‘I can smell burning!’ a noble shouted. She looked young and earnest. ‘And there’s a bell! In the distance!’
Chel looked back to the duke, ignoring his son. ‘Please, your grace. I saw not a guard between here and the city gate – I’ve just run straight in here unchallenged. I can’t tell you where everybody is, only that soldiers are inside the palace right now. We must take refuge!’
The duke looked at him through narrowed eyes, then around the room, gauging the rising panic in the hall. Several of the nobles had begun to chatter among themselves, despite the duke calling for quiet, and members of one family, including the girl who had noticed the smell of smoke, were already making for one of the doors out of the hall.
‘Remain in your seats!’ the duke bellowed. They ignored him, and a moment later had disappeared down one of the narrow hallways that led toward the main wing of the palace. Others were rising, the servants already making for the kitchen exit, the minstrels in hot pursuit. The duke remained seated, glowering at Chel, and growled for his own men to stay put.
Chel looked to the prince, who was likewise unmoved. ‘Please, your highness, we need to—’
Screams silenced the hall. From the first passageway, a bloodied noble came stumbling back into the room, slick hands clutching at a savage rent in his midriff. ‘Norts!’ he shrieked, then collapsed. He did not move again.
At last the duke was on his feet. ‘Bar the doors! Bar every fucking door in this hall!’
***
The duke’s guards moved quickly, rushing to the doorways and slamming them shut, then dragging festival tables in front. Screams and hammering came from beyond more than one. Then they moved to the storm-shutters, hauling closed the wide windows that had offered such a charming view out over lower terraces and the western sea beyond. Few nobles remained in the hall, besides Chel and guards: the duke himself, his son Esen and nephew Morara, and Prince Tarfel. Wherever the others had fled to, Chel hoped they were safe. Somehow, he doubted it.
The duke was breathing hard, his face flushed and gleaming. ‘Norts in the palace. Shepherd’s eye, we’re doomed.’
‘Charge them, Father!’ Count Esen was at his father’s side. An ornate, slim-bladed dagger had appeared in his hand. ‘Drive these dogs back into the sea!’
The duke waved him away. ‘You, prince’s man. How many did you see?’
Chel swallowed. His side was beginning to throb. ‘At least twenty, your grace. But they weren’t coming from the sea, they came up the hill path from the city gates.’ He shot Count Esen a look of challenge. ‘And they’re not Norts at all. They’re in disguise.’
The duke shook his head. ‘Norts, partisans, it’s piss in a gale. Assassins are in my palace, murdering my guests. We’ll either have to fight our way out, or dig in here until reinforcements arrive.’
The eyes of the hall fell on the wide archway beyond Chel. There was no door, only a long hallway to the eventual doorway between them and the water gardens.
Chel turned to the duke, one hand still clasped to his side. ‘Keep yourself, the prince and your family safe. I’ll do my best to hold them off or draw them away.’
The duke stared at him, thick brows lowered. ‘You’ll need luck indeed to see off a score, Chel of Barva.’ He turned to the prince, who was cowering behind the table. ‘Quite the sworn man you have here, Merimonsun.’
The prince whimpered something. Chel met his helpless gaze, nodded, and set off.
He hurried down the hallway, trying not to limp; already his side felt like it was seizing up. The garden doors were bigger and heavier than he’d realized. His breath coming in serrated gasps, his side burning, Chel drove the one door closed, then the other. From down the hallway came the crash of silverware and the groan of wood on stone as the duke’s guards upended tables to barricade the archway.
Chel slid his edgeless half-sword between the overlarge handles, then, when the sword wobbled and flapped in its setting, he braced his body against the doors and gripped the handles tight. A slim gap remained between the solid wooden panels, and he peered through it, anxious to catch a glimpse of the column’s progress. He had the most narrowly angled of views across the area beyond the doors, a vaguely circular courtyard ringed by colonnaded walkways. He could see the edges of the flickering light of their coming attackers, hear their clanking footsteps on the smooth stone beyond.
Someone screamed. He pressed his eye to the gap, but the doors’ thickness blocked his angle. He saw blurs of dark arrows flash through the sliver of night, before a swirl of what looked like orange briar shot past his narrow viewport. The torchlight jumped and swung, the shadows on the surrounding walls flailing in concert. Further shouts and cries followed, along with the clatter of metal and whump of fearsome impact.
Chel considered opening the doors a crack. He needed reinforcements.
The doors smashed inward, hurling him backward onto the flagstones, jarring his bones and knocking the back of his head against the stone. Reeling and cursing, Chel looked back at the doors. His edgeless sword lay bent on the dark stone. Over it, framed in the doorway by torchlight and the flames that licked from the opposite windows, stood a towering silhouette, its outline blurred as its loose robes swayed around it.
Chel squinted.
His eyes fell on the long staff in the figure’s hand. His eyes widened.
‘The pig-fucker!’
The man before him was tall and broad, his former hunched shuffle discarded. Grey, lank hair hung from his head, his features indistinct in the flickering torchlight. He swung the staff around his body, thumping it into a meaty palm.
‘Come again, little man?’ His voice was deep and clear, its accent mild but vaguely northern.
He scrabbled forward, snatching the half-sword from the floor. ‘You’re the pig-fucking beggar. You have caused me nothing but trouble since you tripped me.’
The beggar shook his head. ‘Get out of my way.’ He started to move forward.
Chel pushed himself to his feet. ‘No.’
The beggar paused. Chel stood half a head shorter than him, holding the bent, blunt blade before him like a religious artefact. ‘What?’
‘I won’t get out of your way.’
The beggar looked past him to the hallway’s end, where oil lamps glimmered behind upturned tables. Irritation darkened his shadowed features. Behind him, the noise was peaking, the sounds of metal on metal and metal on flesh reaching a crescendo. Flames licked higher from the palace buildings.
The long staff swung before Chel was ready, sweeping his legs out from under him. Again he thumped back against the stones, the staff’s other end bouncing savagely from his wounded abdomen. He hissed and spat, curled double on the cold stone floor.
Muttering,
