The Sword and the Sorcerer (16 page)

Still Rodrigo and the others knew they could not press their luck. If Talon did not soon materialize with the catch he had so bulldoggedly set out to bag—Mikah—they would have to pass through the wall panel before which they stood and flee the castle via this secret passage.

The rebels were in an upper wing of the castle overlooking the section where the harem girls were lodged. The alarm gongs and constant sound of amored patrol guards scurrying all around them was nerve-racking.

“I hear soldiers running very close,” Rodrigo whispered to his men. “Be prepared to enter the passage at an instant’s notice. Painful as the thought of leaving our rescuer behind is to me—I don’t know what else to do! Some of us have to survive or the Cause is lost!”

The younger warriors muttered “ayes” and sadly nodded their heads.

“Look!” Rodrigo exclaimed, brightening.

The others followed his stare. Rounding a corner at the far end of the colorfully bannered hallway was the man who called himself T. Slung over his shoulders was clearly Mikah. A half-dressed slave girl hurried to keep up with the young warrior. He sprinted toward them, so fleet of foot that it appeared Mikah’s weight was no burden to him at all.

“You did it!” Rodrigo exclaimed, helping Talon unload the awakening prince from his shoulders. As Mikah rubbed his eyes and wobbled on his feet, Elizabeth and Rodrigo propped him up, careful not to touch any of the terrible lash welts and bruises on his body.

“What did you expect!” Talon laughed, delighted by Rodrigo’s ebullience. He gestured to Elizabeth for her to help Mikah into the dark passageway.

Mikah detained her, studying the handsome features of his rescuer with sharpening focus. “I owe you, my friend . . . whoever you are.” Some elusive and dim recognition crossed his face. “You look, sir, vaguely familiar. Have we met?”

Talon smiled, squelching the urge to take his childhood friend into his arms and reveal his true identity. This was not the time or the place. “We’ll talk about it some other time.”

“Still I owe you, sir,” Mikah insisted, as he let Elizabeth walk him into the passageway.

“No, your sister owes me,” he said, remembering Alana’s bargain. The words had leaped out of Talon’s mouth before he could stop them.

Mikah was confused. “My sister? What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” He signaled Elizabeth to move him. “Go. We didn’t risk our lives for you only to have you snatched from us so close to freedom.”

Elizabeth and Mikah were swallowed into the darkness and the others poured in behind them—all but Rodrigo and Devereux, who were nervously listening to the approach of a patrol somewhere close.

Talon tried to wave them through the open panel. “I’m going to keep the soldiers busy until I’m sure all of you are safely outside the castle.”

“I’ll stay too!” Rodrigo declared, but plainly wishing he were with his escaping men.

“So will I!” the white-haired architect chimed in, with something less than enthusiasm.

Alone he might be able to divert the guards long enough to assure Mikah’s escape. But with these two understandably battle-shy men he’d be slowed down. “Go!” he ordered.

“We get out together or die together!” Rodrigo protested.

Four guards suddenly turned the corner at the far end of the corridor and saw them. “There’s some of them!” one of the guards shouted. The patrol raced towards the surprised trio brandishing swords and yelling for reinforcements.

“Well, come on then!” Talon exhorted Rodrigo and Devereux, as he himself charged head on into the oncoming guards without a second thought to his two cohorts.

Because Talon was still dressed in the garb of a Black Klaw the guards were confused, giving him the perfect opportunity to plow into the four men before they realized he was not one of them. With one elegantly orchestrated series of lightning-quick movements, he kicked one guard in the balls, chopped the windpipe of another one with the axlike side of his hand, and drove his head like a bull’s into the stomach of a third guard, and tore away most of the fourth guard’s face with the steel braces on two fingers of his left hand.

When he turned to see the state of Rodrigo and Devereux he realized they must have taken his advice after all, for they were gone. He smiled. Even the bravest of men has his off days.

He glanced over the four unconscious or dead guards, strewn on the marble floor like broken toy soldiers. Then the approach of many more guards reminded him he was far from being out of danger. He ran to the window at the end of the corridor and stepped through it onto a spiraling stairwell, which led to the roof, many levels above him.

No sooner did he begin to climb than two guards shot through the same window. They took after him in hot pursuit. Talon deliberately slowed down as he ran up the stairs, while their momentum increased. Just as they were virtually breathing down his neck, they raised their swords to cut him and Talon suddenly flung himself at their feet, tripping them with his prostrate body. Giving them no time to recover balance Talon swarmed all over them like an enraged beast, kicking and punching them senseless, and then throwing them down the stone stairs. As they bounced and rolled from step to step blood flew from their heads.

Talon started racing down the stairwell but stopped when he saw the horde of Klaws fill the courtyard below and point up at him. He had no recourse but to go up to the roof, taking three and four steps at a time.

The roof was flooded with moonlight, vividly highlighting the scrollwork and gargoyles on the multitude of turrets and spirals. There was no place to hide and nowhere else to go save over the side. He had run himself into a cul de sac. He had to make a decision regarding what to do at once, for bursting out of a skylight door were fifty or more Black Klaws with his death written all over their hardened faces.

Talon dashed to the edge of the roof and dropped to a narrow ledge about twenty feet below. Above him guards began to pitch spears at him but they flew by him because he was protected by a hollow impression in the wall.

“Get ropes! A ladder!” some soldier on the roof shouted.

Talon pondered the options. Four hundred crashing feet below was the courtyard swarming with soldiers. Above him men were engineering means of reaching him. And about fifty feet below and directly facing him, was the open window of a faintly lit chamber. The window appeared to be his best bet. If he miscalculated he’d go plummeting to a certain death on the stones below. But if he hit his target he would at least buy time against being captured or killed.

Talon pressed his fingertips against the rough stone wall, hunched forward a trifle, rested his weight on his toes, bent his knees slightly and flung himself through the air like a diver soaring from a cliff into the ocean.

His aim was right on target. He dove through the window and landed unharmed on a sea of satin-covered pillows in the harem room, which were littered with a voluptuous tangle of mostly naked concubines. The impact on their bed of pillows startled most of the twenty or so girls awake and they screamed when they saw the wild-looking warrior, scattering into the hallway.

Talon had fallen short by several feet of landing on top of a sleeping blonde. When he raised his head he discovered it was between her spread legs. The girl must have thought she was still dreaming, because, when she languidly opened her eyes and saw the rugged young giant’s sensuous mouth so temptingly close to her pink slit, instead of screaming she began to purr and lift her pelvis toward his face.

Talon wished he could oblige the wanton, because the meal she offered was one he had not partaken of in weeks. But there was an outlaw king to dethrone and his own hide was being hunted by hundreds of soldiers at this very moment. So he pulled his head away from between the girl’s legs in time to see the girls who had fled the harem room returning. Now that they realized the good-looking warrior meant them no harm they sashayed back to observe him at close range, several of the girls blatantly flirting with him. Talon smiled indiscriminately at the assortment of nubile maids, wishing he could spend a week in this paradise of female flesh sampling them all. But, alas, he couldn’t afford another minute here.

Talon leaped to his feet and paused for a moment to kiss the girl on the lips who so obviously wanted him to kiss more. “I’d love to stay, darling—but I really must run!”

And run he did—right out of the harem and into a series of interconnected hallways, finally recognizing the one Devereux had described would take him to the quarters most likely to contain Alana.

He lingered for a moment before the ceiling-high white and gold trimmed door. From inside he heard a flurry of soft female voices making a flattering fuss over Alana’s body, for they interjected her name between ooohs and aaahs several times. He backed up about ten feet and then charged forward with his head lowered like a bull’s, crashing through the door as if it were a paper bag.

He was so agog by the immediate sight of Alana totally nude on a white linen table, while three beautiful attendants rubbing exotic creams and oils into her skin, that he didn’t see the two Klaws off to a side of the room sneaking up on him. Suddenly he was under a merciless rain of fists to his head, ribs and abdomen. He staggered, reeled and, before he realized what the Klaws were doing, they had punched him to the open window and shoved him through it. And as he fell like a stone through the darkness he thought he heard Alana scream, continuing to scream even when he crashed through the thatched roof of the castle’s first floor storage room, landing on top of a dozen bags of flour.

The storage room instantly swirled with clouds of the white powder. Talon rose from the broken bags of flour feeling as if he had been stomped by a herd of stampeding horses. He choked and sneezed from the flour in his nose and throat, every bone and muscle of his body aching from the double impact of the fall and the beating he took upstairs. He knew he must resemble a ghost for he was covered from head to toes with flour.

It took him a full minute for his head to stop spinning and when it did, he sprang out of the storage room like a snow-covered bear seeking blood. He couldn’t get the two ruffians who had hurled him out the window from his mind and he prayed that he would confront them again face to face. His purpose now was to rejoin the rebels and Mikah but he salivated with desire to smash those and other Klaws along the way.

The chance for revenge arose almost immediately—but it was more than he had bargained for.

Talon was streaking across a moonlit and what appeared to be deserted tile pool courtyard, running toward a maze of tall shrubbery, where he hoped to hide and plan his way out of the castle. Suddenly a cordon of Black Klaws poured out of this same maze from the shadows on either side of him. He was surrounded by a steeled ring of soldiers with himself square in the middle. Here and there in the circle of men he spotted a battered and bloodied face that he had rearranged; the savagery of their glares revealed they were very much hot also to rearrange his face.

The hundred or more Klaws began to tighten around him like a noose. If he was to die here, his spilled blood washed in moonlight, so be it. But he would take many more than one cursed Klaw with him.

The rattle of metal aloft somewhere behind him turned him around. On one of the castle’s many balconies directly behind him a line of Royal Archers stood poised to riddle him with arrows. He smiled. Were the archers really necessary, considering the overwhelming odds already facing him? Or did his unusual achievements at Skull Cave spread rumors that he had superhuman powers calling for extra might?

For some reason the wide circle of Klaws stopped closing, creating a space inside very much like a small arena. What lethal contest did they have in mind for him?

Talon unsheathed the Klaw’s sword at his side, whipped out a dagger with his other hand and braced himself for whatever challenge they had in store for him. He spread his muscular legs far apart, thrust his head defiantly forward and waited for the soldiers to make the first move.

In the silvery wash of the night he stood like a primordial beast. And it thrilled him hotly to discern that, in spite of the staggering odds against him, the Klaws were awed and feared tangling with him. And rightfully they should be, for he vowed—on the memory of his slaughtered family—he’d chop down any soldier who came near his blade!

Still the Klaws held back from trying to take him. He began to realize that something more than fear restrained them. They were waiting for someone . . . to do he knew not what.

“Who dies first?” he baited and laughed.

As if on cue, the ranks opened up to admit a fiercely proud-looking man encased in a breastplate and helmet of solid gold. The royal red cape flowing behind him told Talon he was facing the king himself; it had been Cromwell the soldiers had been waiting for.

“I’ll be first!” Cromwell raged back, flashing his huge sword in front of him.

Eleven years of seething hate began to boil and overflow Talon’s bosom. Cromwell! The killer of his father, mother, baby sister and brother! He tried to harness the tidal wave of anger that threatened to engulf his customarily steely self-control, because he knew if he succumbed to it the scathing emotions would greatly impair his swordsmanship. He also knew he would need all the skills with the blade at his disposal in the duel that was about to transpire. Cromwell’s reputation as a swordsman was formidable and far-flung.

“Then kiss the tip of my sword, vile outlaw king!”

The circle of soldiers were riveted with silent fascination to the heroic battle that they knew would take place between these two titans. And now Talon and Cromwell began to circle and eye each other, like two snarling panthers waiting for the right moment to strike.

“Don’t act as though you don’t know me, Xusia,” Cromwell spat out at his adversary. “It’s your old friend Cromwell—and the comely form you’ve assumed does not deceive me!”

Talon had no idea what the king was talking about. He decided he was trying to throw him off balance with this gibberish. “I’ve been called a lot of names—but never Xusia!”