“I am Prince Alric Essendon! Open the gate now!” he demanded again, and this time, he removed his helm and threw it aside, backing his horse into full view of the ramparts.
Alric and the others waited. Count Pickering and Mauvin stared at the prince in terror and tried to persuade him to come away from the gate. Nothing happened for several tense moments as the prince and his bodyguards sat outside waiting, staring up at the parapets. From inside they heard the sounds of fighting.
A shout came from atop the walls of the city. “The prince! Open the gate! Let him in! It’s the prince!” More shouts, a scream, and then suddenly the massive gate split open, and the great doors pulled back. Inside was a mass of confusion as uniformed guards fought a horde of citizens dressed up like tinkers, wearing makeshift armor or stolen helms.
Alric did not pause. He spurred his mount and drove into the crowd. Mauvin, Count Pickering, Sir Ecton, and Marshal Garret struggled to form a personal defense for their king, but there was little need. At the sight of him, the defenders laid down their weapons. Word that the prince was alive spread, and those who saw him charging toward the castle, brandishing his father’s sword, roared with cheers.
Royce heard the horn wail as he stood trapped on the steps of the tower. “Sounds like a fight outside,” Magnus mentioned. “I wonder who will win.” The dwarf scratched his beard. “For that matter, I wonder who is fighting.”
“You don’t take much interest in your employer’s business, do you?” Royce said, studying the walls. When he tried to tap a spike into a seam, the stone broke like an eggshell. The dwarf was telling the truth about that.
“Only if it’s necessary for the job. By the way, I wouldn’t do that again. You were lucky you didn’t hit a binding thread.”
Royce cursed under his breath. “If you want to be helpful, why not just tell me how to get up and back?”
“Who said I was trying to be helpful?” The dwarf grinned at him wickedly. “I just spent half a year on this project. I don’t want you to topple the whole thing in the first few minutes. I want to savor the moment.”
“Are all dwarves this morbid?”
“Think of it as having built a sandcastle and wanting the pleasure of seeing it fall to a wave. I’m on the edge of my toes waiting to see exactly how and when it will finally collapse. Will it be a misstep, a loss of balance, or something amazing and unexpected?”
Royce drew his dagger and held it by the blade for the dwarf to see. “Are you aware I could put this through your throat where you stand?”
It was a false threat, as he would not dare throw away such a vital tool at this moment. Still, he expected a reaction of fear, or at least a mocking laugh. Instead, the dwarf did neither. He glared at the dagger, his eyes wide.
“Where did you get that blade?”
Royce rolled his eyes in disbelief. “I’m a little busy here. If you don’t mind.” He resumed his study of the steps. He observed the way they curved up and around the central trunk of the tower, how the steps above formed the ceiling to the ones below. He looked up ahead and then behind him.
“The step I am on doesn’t collapse if I’m on it,” Royce said to himself, but loud enough for the dwarf to hear. “It only falls if I step on the next one.”
“Yes, quite ingenious, isn’t it? As you might imagine, I’m quite proud of my work. I originally designed it to be an instrument of Arista’s death. Braga hired me to set it up to look like an accident. A decrepit old tower in the royal residence collapses, and the poor princess is crushed in the process. Unfortunately, after Alric escaped, he changed his mind and decided to have her executed instead. I thought I would never get to see the fruits of all my hard work, but then you came along. How nice of you.”
“All traps have weaknesses,” Royce said. He looked ahead at the steps and smiled suddenly. Crouching, he leapt forward not one but two steps. The step in the middle slipped from its position and fell, but the step he had started from remained. “With no following step,” Royce observed, “that step is now secure from breaking, isn’t it?”
“Very clever,” the dwarf replied, clearly disappointed.
Royce continued to leap two steps at a time until he moved around the circle out of sight of the dwarf. As he did, Magnus shouted, “It’ll do you no good. The gap at the bottom is much too far for you to jump. You are still trapped!”