Of Whispers and Daggers ✓ [TLRQ #2]

Chapter 33 - Aster

Heart racing, I dart for the wizard barracks on the second floor. The women's sleeping quarters is closer to the stairs than the men's, so I burst in, propriety be scorned.

"Everybody up!" I yell. "The grounds are under attack. All available battle casters report to the front of the castle now." Women scramble up. "You"—I point to a third-tier diviner—"repeat that message to the men's barracks. Go!" She runs off, and I exit, rushing out of the castle.

When I burst through the doors, moonlight catches on the axes and curved swords of twenty fur-clad Kadranians. A handful of soldiers battle them, but just as many are motionless and bloody as standing.

These beasts have no right to kill my people.

I wish I had throwing knives to send hurtling magically into these savages. Instead, I dance into the fray, cloak whipping around me in the windy night, and I fight. My rapier becomes an extension of my arm, years of drills flowing through me. What skill I lack with it, I compensate for with a muttered et væ and a wave of my left hand. Here, a man stumbles; there, a sword twists aside. In my fury, I feel like I'm zoomed out, watching everything from above. One animal falls before me and another takes his place. I'm aware of both him and the adversaries around him, of my countrywomen around me, of the men on the wall. The world roars with shouting and rings with metal. Blood soaks the dead grass.

More Kadranians flood my widened awareness, and sparse reinforcements from the castle run to meet them. My stomach drops. There shouldn't be any more Kadranians; what Kadranians are already here shouldn't be possible. I freeze.

They have an open entrance to the grounds.

A sword sweeps toward my still form, and I duck into a crouch. My rapier strikes at my opponent's leg, and as he stumbles away, I draw back, earning a moment's respite. The gate is shut, I can see that from here—

An axe arches toward my neck.

"Et væ!" My left hand shoots to the side, and his axe follows it. He's open, and my rapier plunges into his side and back out, slick with the same dark blood pulsing from the wound. The brute crumples.

My eyes flick across the battle. Kadranians stream from the shadows. The shadows near—

A swordtip swipes past, and I scramble away. I whirl around two men locked in battle, duck an axe's backstroke, and run. It's the wall. The door I left the castle from. In Niv, Amarris had my cloak, and my cloak had my instructions to the wall. She's letting them in through the wall.

I press forward, fighting to reach the opening. In the darkness, I can't see it, but it must be where these creatures swarm from.

I dodge between northern savages. I have to get behind them.

"Aster!" a rough voice yells. I spin that direction just in time to see an axe arcing down. I dance away and shove my gory rapier into the man. He howls. Out comes my sword, down goes the man, and now I can see Reyan fighting through the chaos. The charging Kadranians shift toward me, but I run through a breach in their ranks.