The Apprentice (45 page)

There
were cries of “kill him” and “take him down” but every man who stepped forward
was cut down. The hall was narrow, forcing the soldiers together so that they
could not all attack at once. Despite Baird’s skill and his tenacity, however,
Rowan could see that his master would soon fall. With a cry, he charged
forward.

He cut
down two men before he was even noticed. He took a wound while he killed a
third man. He hacked and he cut and he fought his way through the men, taking
out all of his anger and all of his hatred. His vision was red.

It was
not until Baird grabbed his arm that he realized there was no one left to
fight. Rowan could not even remember the last enemy that he had been dueling.

“Stop,
Rowan. It’s over.”

Baird’s
voice was strong yet hollow. He no longer seemed driven.

“We must
leave. I have failed in my duty. King Alden is dead and Gannon is taking the
castle.” Baird tried to lead Rowan back the way he had come, but Rowan would
not budge. He had come too far; he would not give up now. Dodging past his
master and darting down the hallway, Rowan went to the royal chambers.

He found
a bloody scene. The doors had been broken in. One hung askew, still attached to
the wall by a single bent hinge, while the other lay on the floor. Many bodies
littered the ground, a number of them soldiers who must have been loyal. But
not all the bodies belonged to soldiers. There were several highborn men and
women, and servants as well.

But
Rowan’s gaze was not for the carnage. He could only stare across the room at a
sight that he could not believe.

The head
had been removed, but even still, the king was easy to recognize. Beside him
lay the body of a young girl, facedown and lying as though she had been caught
fleeing.

At the
sight of the fallen, Rowan lost all hope. Baird was right, they had failed.

He
stared at her lifeless body, the golden curls and the slim figure were blurred
through tears. He could not even bring himself to look at her face. He could
not bear that pain.

“It
would have been better had you not seen this. I wanted to spare you this,”
Baird said from behind him. “You should have listened to me and gone.”

“What
good would it have done? No one would have been able to come quick enough to
provide any aid.”

The
scene before him was too much to look at. He turned back to the hall and was
suddenly being pulled away by Baird. Rowan did not resist as Baird led him.
They ran away from the unspeakable.

“I
should not have involved you in this. I should have kept you protected.”

Rowan
disagreed. He did not want to be sheltered or protected. Being in the center of
this violence was bad, but here he had the ability to help, to act as needed
rather than remain unaware of the danger until it was too late, as he would
have had he never left the barracks. He wanted to act. He needed to act. All
that he could think of was that he needed revenge. Not justice, but revenge.

“Gannon
must die.”

Rowan’s
words hung in the air for a moment.

“I do
not disagree with you. If you were not here, I would have already gone to exact
justice. But you
are
here and that has left me conflicted.”

“What
has you conflicted? We could finish Gannon together. We cannot allow him to get
away with this.”

“Rowan,
I have already told you that I do not disagree with you. But you must
understand that you speak through a desire for revenge rather than a desire for
justice. You are my apprentice, and you are bound by the same standards that I
am. We are keepers of the peace and defenders of justice. We cannot act on
emotion for a personal vendetta.”

Rowan
wanted to interrupt, to argue with Baird, but his master was not finished.

“More
importantly, as much as I wish to seek out Gannon at this moment, I cannot do
that. We must see the larger picture. Our chance to stop Gannon’s coup has
passed, but the country has not yet been taken, and there is still a chance to
prevent that from happening. If we can escape now, we can mount a resistance
and stop this before it leaves the capitol. Gannon must not come to power.”

“You
would have us run instead of standing to fight?”

“I would
have us do what is right and necessary for the good of our country. King Alden
fought to make Estoria greater and more prosperous, and I will see that Gannon
does not ruin his legacy. My allegiance was to the king, but our duty is to the
realm.”

The two
of them had made their way back out into the cold night. The fog was not so
thick as before and they could see the glow of torches scattered across the
grounds. Many guards were about and they could hear the sounds of shouting
coming from beyond the castle walls. Baird glanced in the direction of the
commotion.

“People
will have gathered. They will be coming to see what has happened. Gannon cannot
have kept the city from noticing that something is amiss. If we can leave the
grounds, then we will be able to use the crowd to cover our escape.”

“And
what of the guards?”

“We will
do what we must. They will try to stop us, but we need only make it beyond the
wall. My hope is that their attention is turned outwards, focused on the crowds
and not the castle grounds. They will need to be focused on keeping the mob out.”

Rowan
walked with Baird in the direction of the gate. Even from a distance he could
see that the gate was closed and many guards manned the wall. As they grew
closer, he could make out the cries of the guards as they shouted at the mob
beyond the wall.

“Leave
the castle grounds and return to your dwellings!” There were many answering
cries and shouts: “I refuse to leave.” “What has happened?” One voice cried out
for the gate to be opened and others quickly took up that cry. Rocks and other
objects bounced off the walls, striking several of the guards.

Baird
halted. “This is about to become violent and it will not end well. Come,” he
said, “we should leave by another exit. We will not be able to make it through
this gate.”

The
cries behind them grew as they retraced their steps, the crowd growing more and
more unruly. He heard a command shouted from one of the guards, and suddenly
the shouts of anger turned to cries of fear and screams of pain. He turned his
head to see archers firing from the wall.

“Do not
dally, Rowan. We cannot hope to help them now, and we must leave if we are to
survive this night.”

He kept
moving, but he glanced back at the wall where people were dying. How could so
much death be happening? How could everything fall apart like this? But no
matter how much he wanted to, he could not escape from this terrible dream.

They
went a good distance from the main gate and then turned and walked along the
wall, looking for an unguarded gate. They found Baird’s intended exit near the
stables, but that was heavily guarded as well.

Baird
cursed under his breath at their lack of luck. “I was hoping we could take the
horses and leave with them. It would have helped to gain some distance, even if
the loss was noticed.”

It
suddenly occurred to Rowan that he knew a way out.

“I know
a way out of the castle grounds,” Rowan said. “Follow me.”

Rowan
explained to Baird. “I found a small crawlspace in the ground that goes under
the wall. It is small and well hidden, so there should not be guards there.”

He took
the lead, making his way to the spot where he had come in. They ran into a
guard as they travelled, but Baird pulled out a dagger and dispatched the man
before he could make a sound.

It took
Rowan a while to find the crawlspace in the foggy darkness. He had only used
the spot a few times, so he was not overly familiar with its location. In the
dark everything blended together. Several times he got on hands and knees to
examine a spot of brush, only to find nothing but solid ground beneath and
behind it. Baird said nothing as he worked, but Rowan could sense his urgency.
Eventually he pulled away a bush and found the hole in the ground.

“See,
here it is.” Rowan pulled the bush back and hacked away some of the brush so
that there would be easier access.

Baird stared
at the hole in the ground. “I will not be able to fit through there. Rowan, I
want you to go on ahead of me and I will follow you some other way.”

“I
cannot leave you behind. We will look for another way out together.”

“This is
no time for you to argue with me. It would be foolish to stay together. I am a
knight and I can handle myself. I promise you that I will not be far behind,
and you will be more useful if you are safe outside the wall and able to help
me from there.”

Rowan
stubbornly refused to leave his master behind, but Baird was forceful. He
reminded Rowan of his promise to obey him. “There is a hidden way out, meant
for the royal family. I would avoid using it so as not to betray its existence,
but with the royal family dead, I find that our needs force me to make use of
it. Once you are beyond the wall, I want you to make your way west and meet me
near the west gate.”

Someone
shouted nearby. The two turned and saw lights coming towards them.

“We do
not have time to argue. You must go now.”

Rowan
reluctantly got on his hands and knees and crawled through the tunnel and under
the castle wall. Dirt fell on him in clumps and he heard a thud behind him as
he crawled.

Once
beyond the wall, Rowan suddenly felt alone and vulnerable. He could hear people
in the streets only a short distance away, but they were not a part of his
world and he paid them no mind. They could do nothing for him.

Rowan
heard more shouting from beyond the wall and then a shout from up above. He
pressed himself against the wall and melted back into the shadows, trying to
hide, but he had not been seen. The guards on the wall had seen a different
figure in the night. Rowan felt a moment of relief until he realized who it was
that the soldiers must have spotted.

He
hurried back to the crawlspace, the sound of shouting and the clangor of steel
driving him faster. He had to get to the other side of the wall. He had to help
Baird.

He
scrambled into the hole and instantly met resistance. His head met solid earth.
The tunnel had collapsed and fallen earth blocked the passageway, preventing
Rowan from reentering the castle grounds to save his master. Baird must have
done something to seal the crawlspace to keep him out and to keep others from
following him.

“NO!”
Rowan pounded at the wall of earth, striking it and stabbing at it with the
blade. He tried to dig but it was useless. The hole was sealed solid and was
too long besides. It would take him much too long to reopen it.

He
crawled backwards out of the hole and ran towards the west gate. He could still
hear the sound of steel and the guards’ shouts, giving him hope that his master
was still alive.

He ran
as quickly as he could, not stopping until he was at the gate itself, not
caring if he was seen by the guards. The portcullis was down, preventing him
from entering, but he could see into the castle grounds.

Baird
was not far away, standing his ground against four men. He fought hard, but two
of the guards had pikes. Every time Baird would turn to face an attacker, one
of the two pikemen would seize the opening and stab at Baird.

The
knight fought as Rowan had never seen him fight before. Baird swung his blade
with inhuman strength and speed. He blocked attacks that should have killed.
Every time he dodged, he escaped death by a hairsbreadth. He was holding the
men at bay, but only just. Each attack left a wound, and fast as he was, Baird
could not defend attacks from all sides at once. Yet it did not stop him from
trying. With a roar, he cut down one of the swordsmen, shearing through both
armor and flesh. But it cost him a cut on the thigh.

He cut
down a second man, but he was wounded again. He was not faring well. The battle
was clearly exhausting him. When he next attacked, the remaining pikeman took
his back. Baird turned and was able to block many of the pike thrusts in time,
but he was not unscathed and he was favoring his right side very obviously.

It
wasn’t until Baird spun completely around to dodge an attack that it became
clear why he was favoring his right side. Baird’s other arm had been cut at the
elbow and hung useless at his side, blood flowing freely from the wound. It was
the kind of wound that would either take a man’s life or leave him forever
handicapped.

Rowan
looked on in horror. Baird could not be hurt. Baird was strong and infallible,
he was a greater power.

But
Rowan’s eyes showed him otherwise. He beat at the gate, trying to hack his way
through the metal with his blade and screaming in frustration as he failed. He
needed his master; his master needed him. Rowan cursed and screamed and each
time that Baird took a wound, he tried that much harder to destroy the gate
blocking his entrance.