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The troll collapsed at Rharreth’s feet, asleep. He was immediately replaced with another attacker, and Melantha waited for her chance, timing it and grazing the troll’s neck with her fingers. He, too, went down.

The third troll was more wary, but Rharreth managed to get him in an arm lock, using his body as a shield even as Melantha sent him to sleep.

But the attacking trolls kept coming. Drurvas himself pressed forward with troll warriors on either side of him. Even more troll warriors were packed in the hallway behind him, just waiting for their chance to attack their king.

Melantha sagged, even as she managed to send another attacker off to sleep. There were too many. At any moment, they would be overrun and killed.

A sword grazed her arm, and she cried out, yanking her arm back behind the shield of Rharreth’s body.

With a growl, Rharreth stumbled back into her. He dropped his sword and held up both hands, magic building in icy swirls around him. With a crack, ice blasted at the attackers even as stone shot from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. One thrust of ice knocked Zavni backwards just before the stone slammed into place, once again blocking the attackers.

“We need to move.” Rharreth picked up his sword with one hand, then pushed her toward the far wall with the other.

Melantha grabbed the leather pack from the bed as she stumbled past, her brain catching up to Rharreth’s plan after a second.

The hidden staircase. They could get outside that way, then climb down the outside of Khagniorth Stronghold. Perhaps they could find shelter somewhere in Osmana while they assessed the situation and rallied those warriors still loyal to Rharreth.

Melantha shrugged into the pack as she ran across the room, reaching the far wall only a moment before Rharreth and Zavni.

Zavni was limping, a hand clutching at his side. But he gave her a tight smile as she glanced at him, and by the way the blood was slowing, she could tell that the magic she had pumped into him earlier was still working.

Rharreth pressed a hand to the wall. Icy magic surrounded his fingers before the opening began to appear in the wall.

A crack sounded from the wall behind them. Melantha glanced over her shoulder, stifling a gasp at the sight of a similar, but smaller opening appearing in the stone behind them. Drurvas’s magic might not be as strong as Rharreth’s, but he had multiple trolls to help him.

“Go.” Rharreth pushed her through the narrow opening to the stairs.

She raced up the steps, slipping and bashing her knee, before she kept on going. She could hear Rharreth and Zavni at her heels, but she could not turn around to check on them.

Cold stung her nostrils and the back of her throat as she stepped onto the ledge where she and Rharreth had spent many an evening gazing at the stars and northern lights.

Only when she stood on the fur blankets where she and Rharreth normally sat did she finally turn around to look for Rharreth and Zavni. As she turned, her gaze caught a glint on the dark wall far above. That glint was not normal. That wall was supposed to be dark and empty.

But, no, there was a hulking shadow up there, with a small, moving shadow behind it. There was a gleam in the moonlight on something long and shiny. Something cracked loud and sharp, a puff of smoke wafting from the end of that shining barrel at the same time as a rock shattered off to her left.

A gun shot. A gun barrel swinging toward her.

Not just a gun barrel. The large, multi-barreled muzzle of an Escarlish repeater gun.

A whole line of shattered rocks worked toward Melantha across the ledge, the gunshots echoing against the night sky, ringing in Melantha’s ears so loudly that it nearly drowned out the thunder of her own heartbeat.

She could not move. Her feet were frozen to the rugs beneath her. Even her last breath was frozen inside her chest.

Then a broad back clad in only a loose, off-white shirt was in front of her. Rharreth shuddered, as if under multiple impacts. Something punched into Melantha’s shoulder.

But Rharreth still raised his hand. A blast of ice shot out, headed for the repeater gun on the wall.

Melantha did not have time to see if the ice reached the ambusher. Rharreth spun, and his arms wrapped around her. Then they were falling, tumbling. Off the ledge. Down the mountainous slope of the outside of Khagniorth Stronghold.

Cradled inside Rharreth’s arms, one of his large hands protecting the back of her head, Melantha gripped his shirt and tried to tuck herself tighter against him. The pack she wore protected her back and shoulders, but her breath was still knocked from her as Rharreth’s weight settled on her as they rolled. Her legs and feet scraped over the stones.

Then, with a final jolt, they came to a stop in a scrape of gravel and cloud of dust.

For a moment, Melantha could only lie there, gasping for breath. Pain throbbed in her shoulder, across her back and legs.

Warm and wet stickiness was spreading over her hands where they clasped against Rharreth’s shirt. Beneath his shirt, his heartbeat was stuttering.

No, no, no. Melantha pushed upright, frantically examining Rharreth in the faint moonlight. Blood soaked the front of his shirt. He was gasping, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. More blood shone on the back of his head.