The War Of The Black Tower (Book 3) (12 page)

Something blotted out the storm
clouds above, and he was in shadow—a great, winged shadow. Something huge flew
above, breathing fire.

He made for the tunnel.

To his surprise,
Sadram’s
entrance was guarded by fifty or so men hunkering
down behind a barricade of overturned coaches and debris—a makeshift refuge of
the townspeople! He was heartened to see they weren’t all overrun.

The men saw him coming, and their
archers took aim but didn’t fire. After studying him for a few moments, a group
pushed one of the
coaches
aside, allowing him in.
Grateful, he slowed his horses as they passed within the barricade, then drew
rein. The men pushed the coach back into position behind him, grunting with the
effort. It felt good to have a roof over his head again.

Above, a
Darkworm
spewed a column of fire, torching several buildings all in one fiery breath.

“My wife!” one of the men said,
tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Baleron said. “Thank
you all. I owe you.”

“Then will you stay and help us
fight?” another asked.

“I can’t, I’m sorry. I’m Prince
Baleron, and I’ve got to find my father.”

They looked him up and down, and a
large man grinned. “Why, it
is
the
prince!”

Another exclaimed, “The Dueling
Dandy himself! Look at him!”

The big man said, “Why, you dog!
He’s Baleron of Baleron’s Fighting Five Hundred—speak ill of him at your
peril!”

A third man asked, “What happened
to his hand?”

“It’s Baleron!” said another, just
arriving. “Prince Baleron!”

Baleron looked ahead to the far end
of the tunnel. Between here and there were hundreds of people—men, women,
children, soldiers and civilians—all desperate, all scared. Torches lined the
walls, and their smoke was carried away by the tunnel’s ventilation system.
Just the same, the tunnel was gloomy and full of shadows, and it gave him an
uneasy feeling.

“Indeed it is,” said a familiar
voice from the darkness.

A stout, medium-sized man with a
royal bearing emerged, hard blue eyes as penetrating as ever. His crown,
stained with blood, glinted in the torchlight.

“Father!” said Baleron.

Albrech carried a broadsword
crusted with Borchstoggish viscera. He wore only rudimentary armor, including a
bloody breastplate, apparently not having taken the time to don more. Baleron
knew that this spoke to his burning love of Glorifel and his desire to helm its
defense even at his own expense. Five guards flanked him.

“Son,” said the king, his voice
grave.

Lightning split the night sky
beyond the tunnel, and thunder rolled across the city.

Well, Baleron supposed, his search
was over, but it looked as though his mission had only just begun.
For they were trapped under a hill in an overrun city, with
countless horrors all around.
He didn’t know how he could get the king
to safety, or if the king would even want to go.

Chapter
8

Leaping down from the driver’s bench, Baleron strode over to
Albrech. “Why aren’t you at the wall?” he said, meaning to embrace his father—he
never got that close.

Albrech pointed his sword at his
throat and said, “Stop right there.”

Baleron closed his eyes and took a
breath.
 
When he opened them again, the
king was studying the red stains on Baleron’s clothes.

“That’s not Borchstog blood,”
Albrech said.
“Guards!”

Instantly, a ring of sharp steel
surrounded the prince.

Albrech narrowed his eyes
suspiciously. “To answer your question, we never made it to the wall. It was
overrun just as soon as the shields collapsed. Dragons and glarumri broke our
defenses. My company and those we gathered to us sought refuge here . . . and
the shields’ failing can mean only one thing: Logran is dead.” He paused.
“
Interesting
that that
happened just as soon as I sent you
to
him.”

“Father, I can explain.”

“You have an explanation for
everything, don’t you?” Albrech grimaced in distaste. “Just the same, it
was
I that sent you to him. I suppose
I’m to blame, too.”

Baleron hung his head.
Steady,
Bal
,
he thought.
Stay on course.

Slowly, he lifted the stump of his
left arm. It was a blackened ruin. Where it wasn’t black, the skin looked as
though it had melted, and the whole thing was an inflamed, reddened mass of
tortured tissue. The king actually started upon seeing it.

“Rauglir is gone,” Baleron told him
steadily. “The demon is gone. It did kill Logran . . . but it cannot harm
anyone else.”

Thunder cracked again, and rain
began to fall from the dark clouds Gilgaroth had thrown over the city. A chill
breeze gusted through the tunnel.

Albrech eyed Baleron skeptically.
“This is the same demon that pretended to be Rolenya?” the king said.

“The very one.”

A beat passed. Albrech reached his
decision. “We need all the men we can muster, I suppose. General
Kavradnum
is dead. I don’t think the Enemy knows I’m
here,
otherwise they would have overrun us already. But we
need every able-bodied man and woman to take up arms. I don’t know if I can
consider you able-bodied, but . . . you do have a sword.” He studied the Fanged
Blade. “Is that . . . your old sword?
The cursed one?”

“Rondthril, yes.
The last thing Logran said was that I should keep it.”

Albrech nodded slowly. “Yes, you
did wield it well, if I remember.
When it wasn’t betraying
you.
And me.
Just the same, perhaps with it you
could still prove of help to us—if you can resist the urge to murder any more
of your fellow countrymen.”

Baleron hadn’t thought the jest
humorous when Logran told it, and it hadn’t improved since. “Father, staying
here is suicide. No matter how long you hold out, they’ll come for you
eventually.” He paused significantly,
then
said,
“Glorifel has fallen.”

The king glared at him.
“You weakling.
Coward.
How
dare
you say
that!
”

“It’s true, Father. I’ve been out
there. I’ve seen it. Our only hope—
Havensrike’s
only
hope—is for you to live and somehow marshal a resistance in the north.”

“I won’t abandon my people!”

“You said yourself the city was
doomed. If you don’t leave now . . . right now . . . you will die. Then you
truly
will
abandon them.”

“I will not stand here and listen
to your bile. Either take up your sword and fight the Borchstogs, or be damned!
I’ll put an end to you myself!”

Baleron gritted his teeth.
Patience, Bal.
“Very well, Father.
Borchstogs it is.”

Turning to one of the men, Albrech
said, “Put him on the north barricade. And keep an eye on him.”

“I can’t keep eyes on him and the
Borchstogs both,” said the captain of the assigned barricade. “I need men I can
trust.”

“That’s ill for you,” spat the
king. “You’ve got him instead.”

He stalked off, leaving Baleron
with the captain.

“Where do you want me?” Baleron
said.

The captain placed him at a spot on
the barricade, and Baleron settled in with the others to watch the rain-thrashed
city succumb to the horrors of Oslog. Gloom began to dig its way into him. The
eyes of the other soldiers were glazed and dull and hopeless, and he knew if he
stayed here long enough his would be the same. The terrible part was that the
soldiers were right to think as they did; they
were
doomed.

Baleron tried to talk sense into
the captain, whose name was
Marz
Sider
,
a colonel under General
Kavradnum
: “My father will
die if he stays here. You must help me get him to safety. I know a way. It’s
the only chance for Havensrike.”

Marz
Sider
shook his head—“You
are
craven”—and marched away. Baleron decided to bide his time
until the moment was right, then steal the king away himself, somehow or other.

As things happened, that didn’t
prove necessary. About an hour after Baleron’s arrival, a wave of Borchstogs
swarmed across the bridge and broke against the barricade, howling and calling
for blood. The men fought back with everything they had, women and children
picking up arms beside them. Many died, but ultimately they drove the
Borchstogs back—at least temporarily. The enemy would return.

Bleeding from a cut on his arm,
Marz
Sider
drew Baleron aside.
The captain looked haggard and frightened, but Baleron knew it wasn’t for
himself; the king had been forced to draw his sword during the fighting, and
he’d been wounded—only a shallow cut along one cheek, but it had evidently been
enough to convince
Sider
of something.

“You were right, Baleron,” he said
without preamble. “The King
will
die
if he stays here.”

Baleron waited.

“You seemed to think there was a
way to get him safely out of the city,”
Sider
went
on. “Is there?”

“Yes. It’s an old family secret,
but I guess it doesn’t matter now. Beneath the ruins of Castle Grothgar there’s
a tunnel. It will take us beyond the city, assuming we can find it under the
rubble.”

“An old escape tunnel for the
king,” mused
Sider
. “You’ll need men.”

“How many can you provide?”
Sider
thought it over.
“Maybe nine
or ten.”

“It’s not quite my old five
hundred, but it will have to do. Get them ready immediately. We
’ll need
help to kidnap the king.”

For as long as he could remember, Baleron had wanted one
thing above all else—his father’s love and respect—but e knew that if he did
this thing, if he took the king away from the fight here at what Albrech must think
of as the bitter end, his father would not thank him, would in fact never
forgive him, and Baleron would lose any chance he ever had of making up with
him. To save the man, Baleron must give up his dream. If nothing else, the
prince could not have asked for a better partner.
Marz
Sider
was well respected and an able fighter.

To accomplish the plan they’d need
to go up Kings’ Road yet again, and it was in worse shape now than before; at
least one bridge was out that Baleron knew of, and the Omkar knew how many
creatures lurked in the dark, not to mention the hordes of Borchstogs that had
brought them . . . and, of course, the dragons and glarumri.

Baleron watched himself closely. He
waited to feel a stab of ice in his breast, or a swell of shadow, or some other
sign of his Doom.
Nothing.
Still, he remained wary.

At length,
Sider
returned to him. “The men are ready, sir.”

The king was giving a speech to a
group of perhaps fifty soldiers and civilians, trying to rally their spirits.
All looked grim and weary, most especially Lord Grothgar. “We will fight and we
will die,” Albrech was saying, “but, Illiana help us, we’ll take as many of
them down with us as we can. We’ll weaken them so much that our allies will be
able to wipe them from the earth. Our sacrifice
will save the world!”

The troops cheered raggedly, though
Baleron doubted many believed the bold words. Baleron just felt sick.
He
was the reason for their deaths, and
he didn’t forget that for a moment.

As the gathering broke up, he
approached his father, who appraised him coldly and said, “Yes?”

“I’ve something to talk to you
about . . . privately.”

“Oh?” Albrech did not budge.

“It’s about Rolenya.”

The king arched an eyebrow. “What
about her?”

“It’s something I don’t feel
comfortable talking about here. Come.”

Reluctantly, Albrech followed him
into the shadows in the center of the tunnel, the farthest place from the
torches, right next to the coach Baleron had stolen from the palace. It had
been drawn up by one of
Sider’s
men, and father and
son huddled next to it conspiratorially.

“What is it?” asked the king.

“She lives,” said the prince.

It was the signal.

All at once three soldiers rushed
around from the other side of the coach, one shoving a gag over the king’s
mouth. The largest wrapped his muscular arms about his lord and held him while
the third slugged the king in the face to subdue him; the man looked frightened
even as his fist landed, but it worked, and some of the fight went out of
Albrech, though by no means all.

Colonel
Marz
Sider
jumped into the driver’s bench and another,
bearing a longbow and a full quiver, joined him.

Baleron opened the door and they
prepared to fling the king inside.

The prince had forgotten about the
unconscious driver.

The man still lay in the cab, even
more still than before. Blood coated his throat and chest and face. Flies
buzzed all about, and a stench of decay and death filled the tight space. All
those gathered before it gasped and recoiled at the sight.

A long, dark form rose from the
dead man’s chest—where it had been coiled inside one of the wounds, within the
man’s very body—and reared its scaly head at kidnappers and king.

Its hood flared.

Albrech screamed into his gag, his
eyes bulging. Baleron reached for Rondthril.
Chose the dagger
instead.

Rauglir, a serpent now, coated with
blood, struck at Albrech, but the distance was too great and Baleron leapt in
between them, dagger flashing. Rauglir retreated into the darkness of the cab.

All over the tunnel, people shouted
and pointed towards the coach.

“Hells!” snapped
Sider
. “Hurry, boy!”

The first three kidnappers dragged
the kicking, thrashing king back a few feet, while Baleron leapt into the
coach, growling in desperation—the others in the tunnel would be upon them soon—and
slashed at the snake, again and again, but Rauglir was too quick. Hissing, the
serpent vanished into the shadows.

The shouts and screams and
commotion drew closer.
Louder.
In seconds Baleron and
the rest of the kidnappers would be caught and killed.

He heard a sound and flung the dagger
at it. The blade quivered in the wood floor, catching nothing. Damn!

Rauglir flew at the prince’s face.

Baleron barely had time to reach up
and grab the snake by the neck. Rauglir, slippery with blood, twisted in his
grasp, but Baleron held firm. The snake tried to bite him, but Baleron avoided
his fangs. Frustrated, Rauglir began changing forms—first to a scorpion, then a
left hand, then a spider. Working quickly, Baleron evaded his mandibles and
stinger and kept his grip, until finally, exhausted, Rauglir returned to his
snake form.

Hearing the noise outside, Baleron
knew he had to do something fast and bitterly lamented the loss of his left
hand. He threw the black snake at the wall and pinned him there with his boot.

“Get comfortable,” he said.

He jerked his dagger out of the
floor and ran Rauglir through, right to the hilt, impaling the demon to the cab
wall; the blade passed right below the snake’s head; he did not want the snake
dead, as that would just free Rauglir’s spirit to cause further mischief in a
new form.

To the kidnappers, he shouted over
his shoulder, “In!
Now!”

The three leapt inside, dragging
their captive with them, and with a crack of
Sider’s
whip the coach was off. The dead body of the coachman was flung unceremoniously
outside.

Marz
Sider
had recruited several of the men along the barricade,
and they shoved a coach out of the way so that the king’s vehicle would have an
opening to break out of. They’d begun shoving the overturned vehicle out of
alignment with the others the second their captain had jumped into the driver’s
bench, and by the time
Sider
lashed the horses into
action the way was open.

The coach shot out of the tunnel,
and not a second too soon. In an instant an angry mob was swarming out after
them, but fortunately none were mounted, and the king and his kidnappers were
safely off.

Looking out the rear window,
Baleron watched as the angry mob turned their venom on the men that had
breached the barricade, and a swell of shame rose in him.
Yet
more deaths on his conscience.