Deeper shouts ring out, closer now, an alarm bell starts to clang further back in the palace.
Cursing in a tongue I’ve not heard before, the Lady Blue breaks away, sprints along the Sword Gallery and vanishes between the two mercenaries, veering left past the double doors. As she passes them both Grant and Johan lose their battle and slide down the walls clutching their throats, blood drenching their chests.
I stand, overwhelmed by a deep sense of relief, although I was never in danger. Alica’s already running, but in the wrong direction: she’s chasing the lady. The Silent Sister is on all fours, her head down, exhausted. Garyus flops in his chair, as broken as I ever knew him, his last vestiges of health sacrificed to his twin’s power, drawn along whatever fissure still connects them. His eyes, almost hidden in the shadow of his monstrous brow, find me, or seem to. I meet his gaze a moment, and a sorrow I can’t explain closes a cold hand in my guts. I know I’m not the man ever to make the kind of gesture this boy has made. My siblings, my father, Red March itself, all of them could go hang before I’d take the blow meant for someone else.
I run, though whether to get clear of Garyus’s scrutiny or to follow Alica I don’t know.
? ? ?
The Lady Blue’s path through the palace is littered with guardsmen struggling against reflections that only they can see. It’s late at night and apart from the guards the palace is deserted. In truth the palace is largely deserted at any time of the day. Palaces are an exercise in show—too many rooms and too few people to enjoy them. A king can’t afford to let his relatives get too close and so the Inner Palace is nothing but luxurious chambers enjoyed by no one and unseen save by the cleaners who dust and the archivists who ensure that the dust is all they remove.
We pass more struggling guards. The dangerous men will be wherever the king is. Not in his throne room, not at this hour, but they won’t be walking the corridors, guarding vases and rugs, they’ll be close to the man who matters.
I catch up with Alica, though it takes some doing. I’ve run these corridors myself—well mostly corridors further away, the Red Queen isn’t that fond of her grandchildren, but on occasions as a child I’ve scampered down these halls. But, stranger or not, the Lady Blue is ahead of us both. She’ll need luck, however, and lots of it. This wasn’t her plan, this is desperation, or anger, or both, and it’s being made up on the spot.
As I run alongside Alica I try to remember what I’ve been told about my great-great-grandfather’s death. I draw a blank. I never gave a damn about any of the dead ones, unless it was to file away some impressive fact about my lineage that might give me an edge in pissing contests against visiting nobility. Surely I’d have remembered if he’d been brutally murdered in the palace by some crazed witch though? One of them died hunting . . . pretty sure. And another of “a surfeit of ale.” I always found that one amusing.
Although Alica looks grim, and there’s murder afoot, I can’t help feeling the worst is over. After all I never knew either of the elder Gholloths, One and Two as the historians call them, and I’ve had my whole life to come to terms with the fact that they were both dead. And frankly five minutes would have been more than enough for that. We’ll find the Lady Blue has killed him, or we won’t, but either way she’s run off and I’m feeling far more relaxed than I was when confronted with her back in the Sword Gallery. Not that I was in any danger there either . . . All in all I’m relaxing into these memories quite happily and—I glance back over my shoulder. I’m sure I heard a dog bark. I shrug and catch up with Alica as she turns a corner and starts up a flight of stairs. There it is again. The baying of a hound. Surely none of the mutts from the banquet hall have been allowed to run loose in the palace. Again, and closer. Intolerable! Mongrels from the hall prowling the corridors of power! A sudden tremor puts me off my stride. Earthquake? The whole place seems to be shaking.
“Slap him!” A woman’s voice.
“Get him up!” A boy’s.
I open my eyes, confused but still outraged about the dog, and a large hand smacks me across the cheek.
“What the!” I clutched my face.
“Hounds, Jal!” Snorri let go of me and I sunk to my knees. The ground dusty, the night dark, the stars many, and strewn in such profusion they made a milky band across the heavens.
“Dogs?” I heard them now, baying in the distance, but not distant enough.
“They’re tracking us down. After the key still.” Snorri helped me up again. “Sure you want to keep it?”
“Of course.” I pulled myself up to my full height and puffed out my chest. “I don’t scare that easily, old friend.” I slapped him on the shoulder with as much manly vigour as I could muster. “You’re forgetting who stormed Fraud Tower unarmed!”