Page 64 of A Dragon of Black Glass (Moonfall #3)

64

K ANTHE WIPED BLOOD from his eye and drew Frell down. His gaze stayed fixed on the battle between Eligor and Tykhan.

The Kryst trembled like a reed in a wind, his lips drawn into a pained grimace.

“No!” The single word burst forth, booming louder than the blast.

His bronze body flared into a sun, shattering the obsidian under his knee. Kanthe threw his arms across his eyes. Knights fled back in terror. The blue beam, still shooting into the heart of the blaze, flashed brighter—then shot all that power like a cannonball back at its source.

It struck the crystal cube in Tykhan’s hand and exploded. The ta’wyn got thrown back, his body melting under that backlash. The sun across the room collapsed to a darkness that seemed to suck the last of the light.

Tykhan struck the floor and skidded, leaving a trail of molten bronze, then settled into a pool of the same. He struggled to sit up, like a drowning man in a fiery sea. His form had been reduced to a slaggy outline of limbs and a head. Still, the ta’wyn fought, bringing around a face that had melted away, leaving only two shiny azure crystals, imbedded and seeping down.

Grief and sorrow shone there.

Kanthe rushed to his friend and dropped to his knees at the edge of the bronze pool, which spread in glowing waves of dissolution. An arm, a crude, smoldering branch, reached toward him as if asking to be pulled free. Those eyes flared with determination, maybe pain.

Kanthe reached for his hand—which had melted into a lumped fist of bronze. “Tykhan…”

Rami pulled Kanthe away. “We cannot stay.”

Frell and Cassta rushed to his other side. “Eligor is down. Gone dark. The schysm in his chest must have been destroyed. Maybe damaging him further.”

Gheel pushed closer with a warning. “The enemy’s regrouping. We can’t make it to the door we came in. But maybe another.”

Kanthe fought against being pulled away. “If we leave Tykhan, they’ll scavenge him, use him to make up for what we destroyed. It’ll all be for nothing.”

Frell pushed him farther into Rami’s arms. “Tykhan knows what to do in this eventuality. We discussed this in private.”

Kanthe glared at Frell, knowing what this must mean, and turned to Tykhan, the little that was left of him. His bronze had gone dull and cold. Those azure eyes stared with clear agony. In that gaze, Kanthe read the pleading, begging for Kanthe to listen to him one last time.

Tykhan’s gaze flicked to the doors, then he pounded that raw fist into the pooled bronze. These last edges still glowed a ruddy orange, spreading in jagged peaks toward Kanthe, as if pointing toward those doors, too.

All of Tykhan’s last efforts were clearly forged to one purpose, a final plea to a friend.

Go…

Tykhan and Kanthe had had this same argument before, down in the Shrivenkeep, when Eligor had possessed Tykhan. Kanthe had wanted to stay then, too, but his ta’wyn friend had warned him away.

That fist lifted again and struck weakly, then froze in place.

Go…

Kanthe had refused this demand before, but he knew he could not now.

“I’m sorry,” Kanthe gasped, and allowed himself to be dragged off.

Frell scolded him as they all rushed across the chamber, away from the main clutch of Hálendiian knights. “Pray your sympathy hasn’t bled him of his last energies. I fear he will need every bit of strength left to him.”

Frell still had one of his bombs in hand. He squeezed a flash from it and tossed it toward the door ahead, toward the scatter of knights blocking that way.

The blast stung Kanthe’s eyes, but he ran headlong into the blindness.

Behind them, Gheel and the last two of his men clashed as knights rushed after them.

Kanthe had taken just another five steps when a resounding blast shoved him forward. The flash burned his shadow in the wall ahead. A glance back showed knights smoldering under a wash of molten bronze. Others had been knocked flat.

Tykhan’s body was gone.

Gheel rushed them onward. “Go! While we can!”

Cassta proved the fastest. She reached the door, yanked it open, and led the way. They fled up the dark steps, running blind, using outstretched arms to guide them. At the top of the stairs, they reached another door and shoved through it. Light welcomed them, revealing a dim, dusty librarie.

Sconces in the next hall drew them like a scatter of bloody moths.

“Do you know where we are?” Rami gasped to Kanthe.

He shrugged without slowing. “If we keep going, I’m sure I will eventually.”

The booming of thunder and cannon blasts guided them. Still, running toward battle did not seem the soundest strategy, but that direction was their only hope of escape. If they failed to reach the Gryffin or another of the ketches, they could attempt to strike for Llyra and her rough army.

After some missteps and backtracking, they finally returned to the cookery wing. Its kitchens had long been abandoned. Scullery maids and spit-boys had wisely slipped to quieter corners, leaving matters of princes, kings, and falling moons to others.

The door to the yard still lay ajar after being bashed open earlier.

Gheel took the lead, limping on a leg that bled out of his armored greave. His face was awash in the same, flowing from under his helm. One of the remaining Shields followed him out, while the other guarded their rear.

It seemed like ages since they had entered the castle, but the second bell of the new day had rung out while they were escaping. So they had been gone no more than three-quarters of a bell.

Still, much had changed in that short time.

While lightning crackled across the bellies of dark clouds, the lashing rain had died down to a sullen drizzle. Outside the portcullis, the fierce fighting sounded both less intense and more brutal, more determined. Silver flashed out there among shadowy men as Llyra’s army struggled to hold their ground. Higher up, the nearest towers smoked amidst a ruin of broken bricks and shattered parapets.

Kanthe failed to spot any trails of flames across the clouds. To the left, one of the ketches lay in fiery ruins. Yet to his right, the Gryffin stood tall. More Shields surrounded it, hopefully a sign that some men had escaped the wreckage of the other. Those last forces were engaged in a pitched battle amidst piles of bodies, both men and horses. The dead formed a barricade around the ketch.

“Can you get us there?” Frell asked Gheel.

“We must try.” Gheel turned to them. “Stay low.”

The Shield standing next to him should have heeded this warning. A bolt shattered through his skull, sending his body crashing to the side. Kanthe could not say if it had been shot by friend or enemy, such was the carnage and confusion.

Kanthe expected Gheel to force them inside, but clearly the tide of battle was turning—and not in their favor.

Gheel simply raised his shield. “Behind me. Move swiftly.”

As they set off, the man behind them blew a warbling steel whistle. The wall of guardians around the Gryffin responded, spotting their tiny phalanx. Armored men, bloody and battered, surged toward them, forming two lines, creating a corridor to the ship. They used their bodies as their namesake, creating a shielded path back to the ketch.

Even before Kanthe and the others could reach them, the guardians fell to more bolts and arrows. A cannon fired from somewhere above, trenching a line through the muck, tearing the leg off a man.

Kanthe looked back for the source.

Flames burst into view above, lining the keel of a small Hálendiian warship as it rode over the castle and across the yard. More cannons fired from above, blasting mud, pummeling bodies.

The warship reached and swept over the Gryffin.

From hatches under its keel, dark barrels tumbled out. Gheel recognized the threat and pushed everyone back. But they were already too close. The bombs burst with chest-pounding blasts. Fire swept high, nearly reaching the height of the Hálendiian craft. The concussion threw them off their feet, sending them tumbling across the mud.

On the ground, Kanthe twisted toward the fiery wreckage, wreathed in oily smoke. The warship circled, intending to cause more ruin. Then a column of flames rose from beyond the wall, blasting a waveketch into view. The craft must have been riding low along the walls to set up this ambush. It shot over the top of the warship’s balloon, skimming its surface, using its forge like a fiery knife. It burned a path across the fabric—then the gasses below ignited into a fireball.

Kanthe caught sight of the ketch getting caught in the blast.

It had been a suicide run, intended to protect those still on the ground. Gheel got everyone up and moving, ready to strike out for Llyra’s army.

Kanthe needed no help gaining his legs. Fury fueled him. Knowing the sacrifice made, he refused to let it go to waste.

He suspected that had been the last of their ketches.

This became clear as a clattering of hooves thundered around the wing of the castle ahead of them. Armored stallions stamped heavily through the mud, splashing across pools. Saddled atop them were men in silver armor, who glowered from under plumed helms, showing the crimson countenances of Vyrllian knights. The unit’s most elite. The black tattoos across their faces gave this away—as did the pale knight with a silvery mask riding along with them.

All Silvergard.

Coming with King Mikaen.

The knights pounded upon their trapped group and circled with a great flourish of hooves and ringing armor. Kanthe suspected his brother had been waiting until the skies were clear, for those in the yard to be ground down, before making an appearance.

Mikaen had always preferred the slaughter to the battle.

His brother trotted forward, riding tall. His smile was broad and mean—at least what showed past the edge of his mask.

Mikaen called down to Kanthe, “Welcome home, brother.”