Rigger sat back next to his brother. ‘Well, I don’t fancy climbing into the daylight surrounded by an invading army, but I’ll take my chances that way rather than sit here and fry.’
A noise from above caused them all to look up at the ceiling, the floor of the basement of the old mill. The sub-basement entrance was hidden, but guards moved quietly to their side of the trap, weapons drawn and ready.
‘Sounds like they’ve reached this end of the city,’ said James softly.
‘Or someone is trying to find a place to hide,’ whispered Lysle. ‘Maybe some more of my people.’
James signaled one of his guards, who nodded. The man quietly put down his sword and shield and climbed up the short flight of stairs leading to the trap in the floor above. He pushed open the door slightly, allowing him to peek through the door, and stepped back, obviously surprised. ‘M’lady,’ he said.
James’s head snapped around as he saw his wife descending the stairs to the sub-basement. ‘What are you doing here!’ he shouted.
Gamina held up her hand. ‘Don’t use that tone on me, Jimmy.’
James’s rage was barely held in check. ‘You were supposed to be in Darkmoor by now, with Arutha and the boys. How in heaven’s name did you get here?’
She was muddy, with dirt on her face. Her hair was disheveled and covered with soot. She said, ‘You forgot Pug gave you one of those Tsurani transport spheres. I didn’t.’
‘How did you know where to find me?’ he said, his tone still seething anger.
Touching her husband’s cheek, she said, ‘You foolish old man, did you think I couldn’t hear your thoughts a world away?’
His anger fled. ‘Why did you come? You know there’s a chance we won’t get out of here alive.’
Her eyes grew moist with emotion and she said, ‘I know. But do you think that after all these years together I could live without you?’
James gathered her into his arms and held her close. ‘You must go back.’
‘No, I won’t,’ she said firmly. ‘I can’t. The device is out of power. The best I could manage was to get to the market near the wall, and then I tossed it somewhere back in the mud. I had to make my way here on foot.’ She moved close to him and held him, whispering in his ear, ‘If you can’t live without this damn city, you must know I can’t live without you.’
He held her in silence. After nearly fifty years of marriage he knew he could not win an argument with her. It had been his intent to be the last to leave the city, and if fate decided he would die with Krondor, he thought it might be for the best; since constructing the plan for the defeat of the enemy he had constantly wrestled with the terrible price paid by the citizens of the Prince’s Capital. There could be no early warning for them, no orderly evacuation, for if the enemy had thought the city without plunder and food, they would have bypassed it. More, the enemy must think the bulk of the Kingdom Army destroyed in Krondor.
James could hardly bear the idea of leaving so many people, so much of what had been his life, to die while he lived on. Perhaps it was fear of the ghosts of those who had paid the ultimate price so that James could buy time for the Kingdom; he didn’t know. All he knew was that at some point in the planning for the defense of the Kingdom, James had decided that when it came for his city to die, for Prince Arutha’s city to die, he would most likely die with it. But now he had to leave, for he knew Gamina would not leave without him.
Lysle said, ‘This is your wife?’
James nodded, holding Gamina’s hand. This is the only woman I’ve loved, Lysle.’ He smiled at her.
Her head came around and her eyes widened. ‘Your brother?’ He nodded. She turned to Lysle and said, ‘I’ve heard of you, but had no image of you.’ Glancing back and forth, she said, ‘It’s obvious.’
Motioning for his wife to sit down, James said, ‘Let me tell you of the time I first met this fellow, when people kept trying to pick fights with me up in Tannerus because they thought I was with him.’
Lysle laughed and said, ‘It’s a good story.’
James began, starting by explaining the odd mission Prince Arutha had sent him on, with his old friend Locklear, a young son of a local noble who happened to be an apprentice magician from Stardock, and a renegade moredhel chieftain. Gamina knew the story as well as James did, having heard it a dozen times, but she sat back, next to her husband, leaning her head on his shoulder and let him tell it. The soldiers and thieves hiding in the gloom would be diverted from the terrible future that bore down upon them, and for a while they’d hear of better days, when the heroes were victorious and the forces of evil vanquished. Besides, she thought, as Lysle had said, it was a good story.