His words afforded Kylac five more strides. Drawing his sword gave Kylac two more. He half-turned to holler a warning down the stairs, but managed only an inarticulate grunt as Kylac closed the remaining distance. His sword came up to block Kylac’s lunging thrust. As it raised, Kylac dove low, driving a shoulder into the man’s thighs and carrying them both into the torchlit stairwell.
The watchman scraped and thudded headfirst along his back, white-blond beard and colored cheeks giving him the look of a turnip. Kylac perched atop him, coiled to spring. The stair wasn’t long. A gap-toothed watchman stood at its base, fumbling for a blade of his own. As the weapon came free, Kylac leapt into him, tackling him against a chamber wall.
They struck hard enough to jar the sword from Gaptooth’s hand. Kylac used his blade to dislodge the soldier’s helm, following with a pommel strike to the temple. Gaptooth crumpled beside his weapon, which Kylac kicked clear.
Turnip moaned senselessly, mouth bleeding, eyes glazed. So Kylac turned focus to the rest of the room. A swift survey revealed a crypt come to serve as a torture chamber, given the bladed instruments set around its torchlit walls. At the far end, his father hung half-naked from a pair of manacles hammered into the ceiling, unconscious if not dead, covered in sweat and filth.
That was all he had time to discern before Traeger and an attending watchman rounded on him with ready blades, their features flashing alarm, anger, and finally bemusement as Kylac shed his cloak and helm.
He did not wait to see what their reaction would be when Brie came scampering down the stairs, or for their companions to recover. Instead, he launched toward the attending watchman, forcing the soldier to engage. The watchman responded with a practiced thrust. Kylac deflected it high and to one side with a scissored defense, giving a twist that forced the weapon from his opponent’s grasp. As it struck the stony ground, he drew a pair of shallow gashes along the soldier’s wrists—a deterrent against retrieving his blade too quickly.
He heard Brie enter behind him, but did not have time to turn. Traeger’s sword came at him in a sweeping arc. He ducked low to avoid its cleaving edge, then spun for a pommel strike against the back of the bleeding watchman’s head, who had stubbornly bent to chase his sword despite his wounds.
I should have taken his thumbs, Kylac thought.
Thumbs dropped like a sack of grain. Brie stood over the dazed Turnip, pointing her sword at his throat.
“Eyes up!” she shouted.
A kind warning, if unnecessary, as Traeger slashed again. Kylac twisted, then ducked a sudden backswing. The next strike aimed low. Kylac sprang from the floor to the wall, somersaulting over Traeger’s head to land at his back. The captain fought to whip his blade around, but Kylac pricked his ribs, causing him to reflexively hunch over that side. Kylac then dropped his own blades to latch on with a sleeping hold.
“Pleasant dreams, Captain.”
Traeger sputtered furiously, then fell slack in Kylac’s arms.
Kylac dropped the captain, then reached for the final handful of thongs tucked in his belt. “Bind them,” he said to Brie, tossing her the leather strips.
“This one’s waking,” she replied, pricking Turnip’s throat with the tip of her sword.
“He’d rather be trussed than dead, I’ll wager,” Kylac said, reclaiming his own swords while staring pointedly at the half-dazed watchman. “Have him roll over with his hands behind his waist. If he refuses, I’ll carve the peak from his throat.”
Turnip cowed to the threat, rolling over as commanded.
Kylac watched until the man’s hands were tied, then sheathed his weapons and turned to his father. Rohn continued to hang limply from the iron chains hammered into the ceiling, head bowed against his chest. Kylac wasn’t even certain he still lived.
His heart raced…carrying a warm flood of relief when he found his father’s pulse.
“Is he…?” Brie asked, as she worked at binding Turnip’s feet.
Rohn’s face was bruised and swollen, but did not bear any permanent injuries. Traeger had only been softening him, in preparation, mayhap, for Governor Tehric’s arrival. “He lives.” He took his father gently by the jaw. “Come now, Father. I need you to wake.”
“What now?” Brie asked, as she moved on to Gaptooth. “I mean, where will he go?”
“We’ll find a safehouse, hold him until the king hears my petition for an honest trial.”
“Have you a place in mind?”
He didn’t. Not yet. He needed his father to regain consciousness first.
He snapped his fingers beside Rohn’s ear, then raised an eyelid, exposing the reddened orb to the light. Still his father did not respond.
“Check our good captain for a key to these manacles,” he said, before deciding it might be just as quick to pick the locks. “Belay that. I’ll tend to it. Just see that he’s bound like the others.”
The cuffs hung too high for him to access without difficulty, so Kylac moved farther back to fetch a stool. He had just picked it up when he heard Brie’s startled gasp, followed by the rasp of her blade coming to hand. As he turned, he watched Traeger retrieve his own sword and throw a clumsy swipe. Brie parried it easily, and then another.