“Please,” he said.
So she whispered the secret in his ear, and though Alistair and Eanrin strained to hear what she said, even the cat-man’s sharp ears could not quite make it out. But the Chronicler’s eyes widened, and he stepped back, surprised but undoubting. “Lumé’s crown!” he exclaimed.
Leta laughed. “It was there in front of us all along.”
The two goblin guards snapped to attention outside the library door when they heard their master’s footsteps. They exchanged glances as they did so. This was the day, they thought. This was the day when, finally, Corgar did away with the mortal inside. They’d heard his threats and they’d heard her responses. No goblin would stand for such disrespect from a human! Today, then, must be the day when he broke her scrawny neck.
They stood with weapons upraised when Corgar approached, his head down like a hunting animal’s, his eyes fixed on the door. It was as well for them that they backed away, for he would have barreled through them unseeing, so intent was his stride. He flung open the library door, ducked, and entered.
Instantly, he felt the emptiness. But he did not believe it at first.
“Where are you?” he growled. The floor stones shook beneath his heavy footfall as he crossed the room. With a heave, he tossed over the big table, scattering books and pages without a care. Then he turned to the desk, and his claws tore into its surface, digging trenches. “Where are you?”
The tapestry covering the secret door was next, lying in shreds within moments of Corgar’s touching it. But the door beyond was shut, its lock secure. She could not have escaped this way.
The stairway to the loft was too frail to hold his bulk, and it broke before he had taken three steps. But he could see that she was not there. And even had he not seen it, he could smell it, he could taste it, he could sense it with all his being. The girl was lost to him.
He stood in the center of the library, his chest heaving, his wild eyes staring at nothing, and no thoughts could fit in the tumult of his brain. The guards looked inside, saw what was happening.
Then they turned and ran for their lives.
One was slower than the other, and Corgar caught the luckless lagger by the back of the neck, flinging him to the ground. “You let her go!” he growled, drawing a stone knife as he towered above the screaming guard. “You let her escape!”
“No, captain, I swear!” the goblin cried, and these would have been his last words had not Corgar’s attention been caught by a shout going up outside in the courtyard.
“It’s him! It’s him! The mortal king!”
Corgar gnashed his teeth, and his aim with the dagger went wide, cutting the guard across the face rather than plunging into his heart. With a roar, the goblin captain left his wounded prey lying on the stones and hastened down the stairs and out to the courtyard. Human slaves shrank back with the clank of many stone chains at his passing; it was not they who had set up the cry but their goblin drivers.
The walls of the inner yard were almost completely demolished, but the outer wall was still high and strong. Corgar climbed to the battlements of the outer gates, demanding, “What is this noise I hear? What is this rabble saying?”
No one dared answer him, so he tossed aside any goblins in his way and looked for himself to the winterbound land beyond Gaheris’s walls.
Four figures stood on the road below. One was a redheaded youth with a shattered face, another a golden immortal clad in a cat’s body. Eanrin of Rudiobus, curse him and all his kind! One Corgar recognized with a lurch in his gut as Leta, standing with a borrowed red cloak about her shoulders, shivering but defiant even at that distance.
And stepping from among the other three was the half-sized mortal who was their king.
“Corgar of Arpiar!” the Chronicler cried. His voice was bold but small in the coldness of hastening morning. Nevertheless, he took the forefront position and stood with his shoulders back. “The time of your tyranny is ended. You will leave Gaheris, you and all your goblin kin.”
Corgar drew a hissing breath. “I will send my warriors out to slaughter you!” he called, then hated himself, for his voice was that not of a captain but of a petulant child. “They’ll stick your heads on their lances!”
Alistair and Eanrin exchanged glances, and the cat’s ears went back. But Leta did not shift her gaze from Corgar’s face above. And the Chronicler, calm as a cloudless sky, replied, “Send them out, then. Send them out if you are afraid to face me yourself.”