LITMIR.BIZ

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We’ll either have to fight our way out, or dig in here until reinforcements arrive.’

      The eyes of the hall fell on the wide archway beyond Chel. There was no door, only a long hallway to the eventual doorway between them and the water gardens.

      Chel turned to the duke, one hand still clasped to his side. ‘Keep yourself, the prince and your family safe. I’ll do my best to hold them off or draw them away.’

      The duke stared at him, thick brows lowered. ‘You’ll need luck indeed to see off a score, Chel of Barva.’ He turned to the prince, who was cowering behind the table. ‘Quite the sworn man you have here, Merimonsun.’

      The prince whimpered something. Chel met his helpless gaze, nodded, and set off.

      He hurried down the hallway, trying not to limp; already his side felt like it was seizing up. The garden doors were bigger and heavier than he’d realized. His breath coming in serrated gasps, his side burning, Chel drove the one door closed, then the other. From down the hallway came the crash of silverware and the groan of wood on stone as the duke’s guards upended tables to barricade the archway.

      Chel slid his edgeless half-sword between the overlarge handles, then, when the sword wobbled and flapped in its setting, he braced his body against the doors and gripped the handles tight. A slim gap remained between the solid wooden panels, and he peered through it, anxious to catch a glimpse of the column’s progress. He had the most narrowly angled of views across the area beyond the doors, a vaguely circular courtyard ringed by colonnaded walkways. He could see the edges of the flickering light of their coming attackers, hear their clanking footsteps on the smooth stone beyond.

      Someone screamed. He pressed his eye to the gap, but the doors’ thickness blocked his angle. He saw blurs of dark arrows flash through the sliver of night, before a swirl of what looked like orange briar shot past his narrow viewport. The torchlight jumped and swung, the shadows on the surrounding walls flailing in concert. Further shouts and cries followed, along with the clatter of metal and whump of fearsome impact.

      Chel considered opening the doors a crack. He needed reinforcements.

      The doors smashed inward, hurling him backward onto the flagstones, jarring his bones and knocking the back of his head against the stone. Reeling and cursing, Chel looked back at the doors. His edgeless sword lay bent on the dark stone. Over it, framed in the doorway by torchlight and the flames that licked from the opposite windows, stood a towering silhouette, its outline blurred as its loose robes swayed around it.

      Chel squinted.

      His eyes fell on the long staff in the figure’s hand. His eyes widened.

      ‘The pig-fucker!’

      The man before him was tall and broad, his former hunched shuffle discarded. Grey, lank hair hung from his head, his features indistinct in the flickering torchlight. He swung the staff around his body, thumping it into a meaty palm.

      ‘Come again, little man?’ His voice was deep and clear, its accent mild but vaguely northern.

      He scrabbled forward, snatching the half-sword from the floor. ‘You’re the pig-fucking beggar. You have caused me nothing but trouble since you tripped me.’

      The beggar shook his head. ‘Get out of my way.’ He started to move forward.

      Chel pushed himself to his feet. ‘No.’

      The beggar paused. Chel stood half a head shorter than him, holding the bent, blunt blade before him like a religious artefact. ‘What?’

      ‘I won’t get out of your way.’

      The beggar looked past him to the hallway’s end, where oil lamps glimmered behind upturned tables. Irritation darkened his shadowed features. Behind him, the noise was peaking, the sounds of metal on metal and metal on flesh reaching a crescendo. Flames licked higher from the palace buildings.

      The long staff swung before Chel was ready, sweeping his legs out from under him. Again he thumped back against the stones, the staff’s other end bouncing savagely from his wounded abdomen. He hissed and spat, curled double on the cold stone floor.

      Muttering, the beggar set off past his prone form, tapping the staff as he went.

      Chel’s hand gripped the man’s ankle, and he stumbled. He whirled around, grimy robes sending up a cloud of ash, and kicked Chel’s hand away from his foot. Chel felt his fingers bend too much.

      ‘Just fuck off, will you, boy?’

      The beggar made it almost to the barricade when Chel landed on his back, bloodied and screaming, flailing one-handed at the beggar’s head.

      ‘I won’t let you hurt the prince!’

      The pair stumbled forward into the piled furniture, colliding with one end of a badly balanced long table and crashing in a tumble of blood, ash and wood-splinters.

      In the shuttered darkness of the hall, Chel staggered to his feet, blood streaming from a new gash in his forehead. He gripped a broken chair leg, ignoring the splinters in his palm, and swung at the beggar’s head as he rose. He missed, thumping the wood against the man’s shoulder and earning an enraged bellow in return.

      The beggar scrabbled for his staff but Chel was faster, even with blood in his eyes. He landed one foot on the long wooden pole before the beggar could lift it and took another swing at the man’s reaching form. The beggar swivelled, dodging the blow then driving a fist into Chel’s midriff. A second hit followed, connecting with his slackened jaw and sending him sideways.

      Chel pushed himself to his knees as the beggar snatched up his staff. ‘Stay down, boy,’ the man snarled.

      Chel lunged forward, planting his shoulder into the man and driving him backward against the polished stone of the wall. The beggar’s surprise was short-lived. Thick arms wrapped around Chel’s neck and shoulders, and a moment later the beggar twisted and Chel found himself slammed into the stonework himself, his cheek grated like cheese. His right arm was jammed back against him, the joint screaming against its limits as he struggled.

      ‘Nine hells, boy, why won’t you lie down?’ The rough voice in his ear mixed rage with bafflement.

      ‘I won’t … let you … hurt the prince,’ he managed.

      ‘God’s dancing balls, boy!’ The arms that pinned him swung him from the wall, out to face the ruin of the feast. ‘I’m no danger to your fucking prince!’

      He strained, gasping in the beggar’s relentless hold, before his eyes made sense of the scene before him. The men of the duke’s guard lay face-down at the foot of the steps to the high table, their throats cut, swords still in their scabbards. Grand Duke Reysel himself lay sprawled over the high table, his ample belly slashed and stabbed with dozens of gory wounds. Behind the table, blood-streaked knife in hand, stood Count Esen Basar. He was grinning. Around his neck hung a makeshift Nort mask.

      ‘We started without you, couldn’t risk …’ The count’s grin froze as he registered the beggar gripping Chel. ‘You’re not one of mine,’ he said, eyes widening. Something was rattling at one of the shutters. ‘Morara! Now! Do it now!’

      ‘The prince—’ Chel began, when an upturned table clattered sideways across the hall. The count’s hairy cousin Morara kicked another chair aside as he closed on a cringing royal shape in a darkened corner. Chel writhed in the beggar’s grip, struggling to free himself, before kicking at the man’s shin.

      The beggar bellowed and snarled. ‘Fuck this!’ He wrenched Chel’s arm around, grinding the bone from its socket, then flung his stricken form against the wall. Chel’s battered forehead clunked against the stone and he slumped sideways, his vision blurring.

      From his new vantage point on the hall floor, events took on a certain fuzzy, dreamlike quality. He saw the beggar move away from him with what seemed leisurely ease, although part of his brain was still registering the sickening damage to his shoulder and the latest blow to his head. He watched

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