Guards and nobles alike scrambled for whatever cover they could find, but there was precious little to be had.
One soldier rolled behind a thickly stuffed wing-backed chair. A noble tore a portrait of Sir Robin from a wall and held it before himself like a shield.
“The door!” Agon barked, though his heart was clouding with despair. There was no way out. The man or men shooting them not only had numbers and traitors in the castle, they also knew the castle’s secrets. The paranoid King Hurlak had honeycombed his expansion of the castle with secret rooms and spy holes. Because he knew where they were, this assassin had merely to sit in place and murder them all. There was no way to stop him.
Twang-hiss. The soldier sitting behind the great chair stiffened as the bolt tore through the chair’s back and penetrated his. The assassin was letting them know the hopelessness of their plight.
“The door!” Agon shouted.
With the kind of courage many commanders would demand but few would get, the rest of the guards jumped up and began hacking at the door. They knew that some of them would die doing it, but they also knew it was their only way out, their only hope for life.
Twang-hiss. Another royal guard crumpled in the middle of a swing at the door. Lord Ungert, weakly holding the portrait before himself, wailed like a little girl.
Twang-hiss. A soldier seemed to leap sideways as a bolt punched through his ear hole and threw him bloodily into the doorframe.
A rent appeared in the door. One of the remaining three royal guards gave a shout of triumph.
An arrow flew in through the gash in the door and buried itself in his shoulder. The man spun around once before a bolt from above clove his spine.
Both of the last two guards snapped. One dropped his sword and fell to his knees. “Please,” he begged. “Please no. Please no. Please . . .”
The last was Captain Arturian. He attacked the door like a man possessed. He was a strong man, and the door shuddered and rocked under his blows, the gap widening, stretching to reach the latch.
He dodged as two arrows sped through the hole and past his head, then attacked once more. Another arrow streaked past Vin Arturian, and Agon saw his head whip back. His cheek had been grazed, cut in a neat line, his ear sliced in half.
Screaming, Captain Arturian threw his sword through the hole like a spear. He grabbed the latch and tore it out of the door, jerking as an arrow went into his arm and out the other side. Ignoring it, he seized the door and heaved, tearing it from the frame.
Five Khalidoran archers wearing Cenarian livery stood on the stairs with arrows drawn. Six swordsmen and a wytch stood behind them. Another archer lay at their feet, the guard’s sword sprouting from his stomach. The five archers released their arrows simultaneously.
Riddled with arrows, Captain Vin Arturian dropped backward. His body landed next to the guard on his knees, who shrieked.
Twang-hiss. The shriek ended in a gurgle and the young man fell, drowning in his own blood.
Then came one of those eerily normal moments in the chaos of battle that Lord Agon had seen before but could never get used to.
One of the archers handed his bow off, stepped into the room, and grabbed the door. “Excuse me,” he said to the captain he’d just helped kill. His voice wasn’t sarcastic, simply polite. He pulled the door out of the captain’s death-clenched fingers, stepped back into the stairwell and propped the door in place as Lord Agon and the nobles watched him.
In that no-time before reality came crushing back into place, Lord Agon looked at the nobles. They looked at him. These were the men who’d been willing to put their own lives at stake to rescue the prince. Brave men, if some of them fools, he thought as he looked at Lord Ungert shielding himself with a painting. These were the men he’d led to death.
The trap was clever. The “Gyre servant” who’d announced the attack on Logan had doubtless been one of the usurper’s men. The ploy not only split the royal guard, taking most of them away from the Great Hall, it also neatly separated the wheat from the chaff. The lords who had come with Agon weren’t even exactly the men he himself would have expected to defend Prince Logan, but they were all men who had shown their loyalties in the only way that mattered—with their actions.
By killing these men, the Khalidor would eliminate the very men most likely to oppose them. Brilliant.
Under the sound of the dying soldier’s gurgling and rasping breath, Agon heard another sound. His ears identified it immediately. It was a crossbow’s windlass being cranked.
Click-click-clack. Click-click-clack.
“So you know whom to curse as you die,” a voice, darkly amused, said from his hideout above them. “I’m Prince Roth Ursuul.”
“Ursuul!” Lord Braeton cursed.
“Oh, it’s an honor then,” Lord lo-Gyre said.
The bolt caught lo-Gyre through his fat stomach and struck with such force that it tore out of his back, taking a good part of his viscera with it. He sat roughly against a wall.
Several of the lords damned Ursuul as he had invited. Some went to comfort Lord lo-Gyre, wheezing and shaking on the floor. Lord General Agon remained standing. Death would find him on his feet.
Click-click-clack. Click-click-clack.
“I want to thank you, Lord General,” Roth said. “You have served me well. First you killed the king for me—a nice bit of treason, that—and then despite that, you were able to lead these men to my trap. You will be rewarded well.”
“What?” old Lord Braeton asked, looking at Brant with alarm. “Say it’s not true, Brant.”
The next bolt went through Lord Braeton’s heart.
“It’s a lie,” Lord Agon said, but Lord Braeton was dead.
Click-click-clack. Click-click-clack.
Lord Ungert looked at Agon, terrified. The canvas shook in his hands. “Please, tell him to stop,” he begged Agon as he saw that he was the last noble standing. “I didn’t even want to follow you. My wife made me.”
A small hole appeared in Sir Robin’s painted shield and Lord Ungert staggered backward. For a long moment, he stood against the wall, grimacing, canvas still in hand. He looked disgusted, as if the canvas should have stopped the crossbow bolt. Then he fell on the painting, breaking the frame to splinters.
Click-click-clack. Click-click-clack.
“Bastard,” Lord lo-Gyre said between thin gasps, staring at Lord General Agon. “You bastard.”
The next bolt hit Lord lo-Gyre between the eyes.
Lord General Agon raised his sword defiantly.
Roth laughed. “I wasn’t lying, Lord General. You’ll have your reward.”
“I’m not afraid,” Lord General Agon said.
Click-click-clack. Click-click-clack. The bolt hit Agon’s knee and he felt bones shatter. He stumbled to the chair and fell. Moments later, another bolt tore through his elbow. It felt like it had torn his arm off. He barely held himself sitting on the floor, clutching the arm of the chair like a man drowning.
“My wetboy told me I could trust you to run blindly into this trap. After all, you were stupid enough to trust him,” Roth said.
“Blint!”
“Yes. But he didn’t tell me you’d betray your king! That was delicious. And marrying Lord Gyre into the royal family? Friend of yours, isn’t he? You cost Logan his life with that. I know you’re not afraid to die, Lord General,” Roth said. “The reward I give you is your life. Go live with your shame. Go on, now. Crawl away, little bug.”