Dance of devils and dayl.., p.35
Dance of Devils and Daylight (Legion of Thieves Book 2), page 35
Freya was not surprised to see Davie, but the hope that filled his eyes when he saw her made her throat tighten.
Still, she did not yield. Could not yield. Not now. Not when they had come so far.
Vessa sighed. “Very well. Bring the rest of these thieving scoundrels out.”
Four more guards emerged from the passage, shoving Devon between them. Another four dragged Hetty, who looked as though she would willingly stab them with the bluntest blade she could find. Hex was last to emerge, though he had the privilege of carrying an extra guard. He walked out smoothly, without resistance, even as they shoved his knees to the stone.
Vessa smiled wickedly. “And how about now?” he drawled.
Seventeen guards stood behind him, all of them armed, all of them focused intently on the prisoners kneeling before them.
Between their steel bellies, Freya’s eyes locked with Hex’s. Even though his face remained carved from stone, she felt something snap tight between them – something braided with worry and relief, fear and devotion. The stillness he held – the careful tension simmering beneath his coat – told Freya he was saving his strength.
Do not yield, he seemed to say without an inch of movement. Do not back down.
Freya felt Nyar and Bryn move to flank her. Underestimating the three of them would be the last mistake Vessa would ever make.
She glared back at him. “No.”
Fifty-One
“Enough of this,” Vessa barked. “Surrender now, or the only thing leaving this prison will be your corpses.”
Freya tightened her grip on her sword. “Is that so?”
She knew her words would bait him, knew her refusal to submit would spike his temper, teasing his thoughts until he lost control of his rationality.
She was banking on it.
A scattered mind meant a scattered defence, and a guard unit could not function under disorder.
Vessa’s upper lip twitched, his knuckles going white as his own grip tightened. “You think you can survive me, girl? You think you stand a chance at escape? You and your little rag-tag team are not the first hellions I have dealt with, and you will not be the last. Irongate will prevail, and I will ensure that it is the last place you ever see.”
Freya held his gaze. “You are an old man who has not yet learned when to lay down his sword.” She cocked her head. “But you will learn today, when you bleed onto the rocks you are so devoted to.”
“Kill the men,” Vessa snarled. “Take the girls to the racks. Let’s see if we can’t make all this trouble worth our while.”
The guards holding Hetty began to drag her back. She writhed beneath their grip, teeth gritted as she growled at them. “Let go of me!”
The other guards hesitated, though their weapons were still angled to kill.
Vessa spun to face them. “Well?” he demanded. “What are you waiting for?”
With his back turned and the guards anxiously watching Vessa, Nyar slipped closer, moving on silent feet, a shadow among shadows.
“With all due respect, sir,” one of the guards holding Hex answered, “our commander’s orders were to keep him ali–”
“And my orders were to KILL HIM!” Vessa roared, spittle flying from his lips. His face turned a furious shade of red.
The guards around Hex shuffled back, unnerved by his temper and clearly conflicted.
“Cowards!” he seethed when they still did not obey. He drew his sword. “I shall do it myself.”
Freya sprang forward, closing the distance between them as she angled her sword to strike. She had never intentionally charged someone before – never attacked someone with an intent to harm them. But she did not feel an ounce of remorse as she swung her steel at Vessa’s back.
Her sword swiped his shoulder. He arched beneath the pain, whirling to face her with rage and hate and madness in his eyes.
Behind him, Hex was rising, leaping to his feet like he had done at the Legionnaire’s ball – as though all this time he had been waiting for Freya to lead the dance. As though he refused to rise if she was not there to stand beside him.
The guards shouted. “Oi! Get down!” They pressed in, trying to force Hex back down. One lifted his mace to strike.
Hex moved like lightening. His arm flashed out, snatching the guard’s wrist and disarming him in one fell swoop. He swung the mace against the guard’s knee, then pivoted to smack it across another’s face.
Freya had never seen him look wild before. But at that moment, while he faced five guards, teeth flashing, blood spattered across his skin, he looked nothing short of feral.
And it fuelled her. Sending strength through her bones, making her blood sing. She swung at Vessa before he could pick up his sword, narrowly avoiding cutting him open from breast to belly.
The chaos quickly spread. Devon leapt to his feet, disarming one of his guards and dropping another to the ground.
Freya blocked Vessa’s attack as he swung his blade at her. His movement was clumsy, off kilter, and she knew the wound across his shoulder would only continue to slow him down.
She allowed herself a second to glance at Hetty, hoping she had managed to break away from her guards. But Nyar was already there, dragging shards of steel across their throats and through the flesh of their knees.
Hetty scrambled to her feet, snatching a mace from one of the fallen guards. Her cry was one of war as she lifted it above her head and brought it down on a guard’s face.
Vessa swung low, forcing Freya to leap back or risk having a blade through her shin. His blade found her skin anyway, slicing through the muscle above her ankle. She cried out, stumbling across the stone as she put distance between them. Fire lashed through her leg, and it was an effort to keep from dropping to her knee.
Vessa smirked, and there was victory in his eyes. “Your concern for your friends will be your downfall,” he hissed.
“You’re wrong.” Freya growled, gritting her teeth against the pain. “My concern for my friends is what will keep me standing long after your heart stops beating beneath my blade.”
Vessa’s nostrils flared. He charged at her, and she let him come – let him close the distance between them, let his anger lend him strength until his sword was above his head and he believed himself capable of delivering a killing blow.
Then she raised her own sword, cutting the air above her head, blocking the fall of his steel. Their swords sang as they slid against one another. She arched her blade down and around, carving a crescent so fluid she almost didn’t feel the moment her blade dragged across his gut, sweeping across the parting gap in his armour that had opened as he lifted his own sword high.
Blood sprayed onto the stone. Onto her.
Vessa’s eyes went wide, his face twisting into an agonised grimace. He dragged in a ragged breath. His sword clattered to the ground a second before he did.
Freya watched him fall. “I hope the love you hold for this dark place is undying,” she muttered. “Because this prison is now your own.”
Around her, the fight was dying. More guards lay on the ground than were left standing. At the sight of Vessa bleeding out on the stone, those who were smart quickly retreated. Those who weren’t stood little chance.
Hex and Devon fought back-to-back, while Nyar dragged Hetty away from a guard whose face could no longer be recognized. One of his comrades charged at them. Bryn caught the sentry with a shoulder in his stomach, flipping him over his shoulder and slamming him into the stone.
At either end of the platform, more guards were running towards them. The bell continued to toll, the prisoners continued to riot, and soon enough they would be outnumbered again. Soon they would be overpowered.
“We need to move,” Hex declared, driving his sword beneath the unguarded armpit of the last sentry.
Freya tested her leg. She could walk. She could probably even jog. But she wasn’t certain she could run.
“I…” she began to say, but trailed off when she noticed the lack of unruly blond hair. “Where’s Davie?”
From the alcoves in the wall where Vessa had emerged came a grunt and a thud. Davie popped out of the shadows, dragging a sentry out of the narrow passage. He straightened and grinned, looking rather pleased with himself as he jingled a ring of keys in the air.
“This way!” he called.
Freya bit down on the pain lancing through her leg as the others began sprinting for the alcove. Running it was, then.
The sound of charging men chased them. She looked back – only once. Dozens of sentries had filled the platform. At their backs, standing on a stone dais, was Guard Commander Jakova. Even from a distance she thought she could place the focus of his narrowed, beady eyes.
She thought they were on her…
“Quickly now,” Davie chided, ushering them through the gate. He slammed the squeaky iron shut behind them and shoved a thick metal key into the lock.
The lock clicked right as the first guard reached the alcove. He stabbed his blade between the iron bars.
Davie stumbled back, pulling the key free.
The guard rattled the gate. It held fast.
“Come on, lad,” Hex called. “It won’t be long before they find another way through.”
Freya watched as Davie turned, jogging to catch up. His knees wobbled slightly, his footsteps falling flat until his toe clipped the ground and he fell to his knees.
Hex rushed to his side. He began to help him up, then paused.
Freya and the others waited for them to move, to stand, to start running again. But instead, Hex lowered himself down onto his knees.
Unease prickled across Freya’s neck. She took a step closer to them, mindful of the guards banging at the gate. They didn’t have time to linger. They needed to move before they became trapped.
Davie’s hands pressed against the side of his stomach. His face had gone pale, his chest heaving. Slowly, he peeled his hands away. They trembled beneath a slick layer of blood.
“No,” Freya breathed. She dropped down beside them, placing her hands where Davie’s had been. She looked back at the others. “I need cloth. A shirt. Anything. Hurry!”
Nyar unwrapped the scarf around her head, holding it out. Freya lifted Davie’s jacket. He whimpered as the fabric grazed his skin.
The guard’s blade had found its mark just beneath his ribs. Blood oozed from the wound, trickling down his skin and over the belt of his pants.
Freya took Nyar’s scarf and pressed it into the wound.
Davie yowled. He tried to push her hands away but Hex grabbed his wrists, holding them firm.
Freya didn’t need to look at Hex to know the strain he felt. She’d seen him carry the weight of Davie’s injuries before.
Now, his silence screamed that same guilt.
She held one end of the scarf against the wound and wrapped the other twice around Davie’s waist, tying it tight. He was grasping at consciousness by the time she was finished.
She ducked beneath a shoulder and helped Hex haul him to his feet.
Devon quickly stepped in to take her place. He glanced at Bryn. “If there was ever a time to prove your worth, Kuyjlor, now would be it.”
Bryn shook his head, and though his jaw was tight, remorse flickered within his amber eyes. “I cannot heal.”
Devon’s eyes darkened. “No, but you can destroy.”
Bryn glanced at Freya, and a question replaced the remorse.
She stared back at him in answer.
They do not know. They cannot know.
Somewhere within the mountain, metal clanged as a gate was thrown open. A guard’s bellow bounced off the walls. “They’re at the north gate! Kill the others, but Commander wants the captain and the girl alive.”
Nyar shifted against the shadows. “We need to move,” she said quietly. “If they catch us here, there is no other escape.”
She took the lead, Hex and Devon carrying Davie behind her. Hetty followed, and Freya and Bryn took up the rear. They moved as quickly as Hex and Devon could manage, tracking back the way they’d come.
Each passage they passed echoed the shouts of the guards in pursuit, some closer than others. By the time they reached the prison’s guarded iron gates, Davie’s feet dragged limply on the ground. Freya watched his spine, the way his head hung between his shoulders, counting every shallow breath and praying she would not see his last.
The guards at the iron gates were waiting for them. They formed a line of defence, weapons raised and ready.
Freya had no patience to fight, not when Davie’s life was hanging on the cusp. She cracked the power like a whip. Wind stirred the stagnant air, the first proper breeze she’d felt since descending into the cold chamber. The shadows quaked and a blast of darkness rolled from the tunnel, slamming into the guards and sending them crashing into the walls.
Bryn’s golden gaze slid to Freya, and she thought she saw an inkling of pride there.
“Nyar, take him,” Hex instructed. He pulled Davie’s arm over his head and draped it across Nyar’s shoulders. “Hetty, you too.”
Free from carrying Davie, the two of them began winding the level that hauled in the chains. Slowly, ever so slowly, the iron gates began to crack open.
From farther down the tunnel, shadows danced. Torches flickered against the dark, illuminating the silhouettes of a platoon of guards.
Twenty – no, more than twenty.
Bryn’s arm brushed Freya’s shoulder. “You can do this,” he murmured, low enough that only she could hear.
She stared down the tunnel at the two dozen guards marching towards them. She didn’t want to unleash the same wrath that she’d seen in Orlenea, where bodies had been torn apart and skulls had been imploded. She just wanted them to stop. She just wanted to get out. She just wanted her and her friends to survive.
The power simmered at her fingertips, waiting for her command.
She thought of Davie, bleeding and unconscious. He could be dead now for all she knew. They hadn’t had time to check. They didn’t have time to waste.
Her fingers twitched. Darkness swept through the tunnel, snuffing out the guard’s torches with a blast of cold breath. Though Freya could no longer see them, she could hear the clink of their armour and their unsettled shouts.
Then the darkness roared.
The guards began to scream. Buckling armour and snapping bones echoed off the walls.
Freya stumbled back, fear spiking through her chest. The dark prevailed, leaving the horror to her imagination. In her mind she saw shattered bodies, men torn limb from limb, armour flung through the air, blood splattered across the stone.
Someone tugged at her arm.
She dragged her eyes from the impenetrable dark. The gates were open. Snow flurried from thick clouds that had parted to reveal a full moon. The city and the harbour glistened below.
There lay their ship. There lay their freedom.
Behind her, the screams of the guards cut off, replaced by the shouts of another unit headed their way.
The darkness vanished. The torches in the tunnel flickered back to life, as if they had merely been holding their breath. Strewn across the ground were the bodies of the guards. Not shredded. Not in pieces. But broken, nonetheless.
“More are coming,” Bryn said, and he pulled Freya’s elbow, turning her away from the carnage she had created.
As she followed the others out of the mountain, tears rolled down her cheeks and onto the frozen ground.
You can destroy.
That is what Devon had told Bryn. And if the power only echoed the soul of its wielder, then destruction was what she had become.
Fifty-Two
They’d barely made it halfway down the mountain when arrows began to skitter through the air. They whistled past Freya and the others, hitting the snowy ground before them with a thunk.
On top of the huge stone wall surrounding the city, torches bobbed against the dark, shifting with the soldiers as they tracked the group.
“Get against the wall!” Hex ordered. He and Devon veered off the road, carrying Davie into the snowdrifts that had gathered against the stone. Hetty and Freya scrambled after them, Bryn and Nyar like two shadows at their heels.
There were no torches to see by, but the heavy clouds had parted to reveal a pale moon that washed the world in shades of blue and gray.
“What do we do?” Hetty asked. Her wide eyes caught the moonlight.
Hex beckoned Bryn. “Take my place.” He stepped out from beneath Davie, passing the unconscious boy to Bryn.
“What are you doing?” Freya demanded.
“Testing a theory,” Hex answered. He looked up the wall at the soldiers above them. Then he dashed back out into the snow-covered road.
“Oi!” Nyar shouted. She leapt after him.
A choked sound escaped Hetty and she clamped her hands over her mouth. Freya bit down on her own gasp of fear.
The arrows whistled. A dozen black lines cut through the air, piercing the snow before Hex and Nyar, forcing them to skid to a stop. They turned and ran back to the group.
Freya smacked Hex’s shoulder. “Are you really so eager to die?” she scolded.
“They’re not trying to kill us,” Hex said, and though his words should have brought her hope, instead they filled her with dread. “They’re trying to slow us down.”
He pointed back to the road. “See how the arrows only fall before us, never behind? They’re trying to drive us back. Keep us between them and the guards from the mountain.”
Hetty pulled her hands away from her mouth. “What do we do?” she asked again.
Hex ran a hand through his hair. In the dark, his eyes found Freya’s. “It’s you and I they’re after. I don’t know why, but they want us alive, I heard Jakova say it himself.”
You and I.
It didn’t make sense. Why would Jakova want them and only them? He should want them all for stealing one of his prisoners. He should want them all dead.
Freya looked at Bryn, who held one of Davie’s arms across his shoulders. She looked at Davie, who’s skin was ashen, his hair damp where it fell across his eyes. His blood had spilled down his hips, over his thigh, dripping like ink into the snow.
