SWNOVELS Court of Ice and Ash: Chapter 7
I bit into my tongue to keep the laugh inside. “You mean, it is beneath you.”
Tor narrowed his eyes, adjusted the sack of grain he carried, and scratched at the linen tunic covering the belt of knives on his waist. “My first order of royal business is outfitting serfs into something not spun in bleeding husks. All hells, how do they wear this?”
“I believe it is because they have no choice.”
Tor let out an irritated sound, but clenched his jaw, going silent.
We hobbled with other pack serfs bound for deliveries to the fury quarries. After we discovered Halvar would be held there, we’d spent days and nights planning this moment. The trouble was not getting into the prison but getting out. Here, Castle Ravenspire kept the richest fury. Night Folk locked away to be of use to the false kings that took its throne. There was no telling if more pyre fae, air fae, or dark fae suffered in these walls.
My hold tightened around the musty sack of grain in my arms. How often were Night Folk tortured until they would use their magic for anyone simply to make the pain stop?
The Night Folk in here—I could not count on them being loyal against the ravens or the false king. If they were manipulated enough, then to them we might be the enemy.
Guards halted the caravan at a large wooden gate, checking the supplies.
Towers marked points along the top. Flames from torches cast raven guards in a harrowing light. Mentally, I checked their positions. Three towers. Four guards in each. Two on the outside of the gate, doubtless two more on the inside door.
More than ravens there would be rune spells, and we’d need to be on our guard. Bindings lived here. I closed my eyes, wishing the memory of the burn had never returned.
I didn’t know how many turns the unbreakable fetters bound my wrists during the raids. Truth be told, I didn’t want to remember each detail. Made of iron from this earth, but warped with some fury, some magic I didn’t know. A wretched kind spell powerful enough to block even earth fury as mine.
Those bindings added to our trouble getting out of the prison. Halvar would be bound, I was certain. We’d need to steal one of the keys used to remove the bindings.
A key, no mistake, the warden of this place would have in his keep.
Three men against the most heavily guarded, cruelest man in this gods-forsaken pit. The odds were not in our favor. But I never did care much for acting on the odds of fate. It had never been kind to me, so I would make my own.
“Bag.” A guard prodded the grain sack in my arms.
I kept my head down, a knit cap pulled over the points of my ears, a dye in my eyes to brighten them. The guard whacked the grain with a wooden rod, chuckling when I grunted against the strike.
He pounded the end of the rod between my shoulder blades. “Keep moving, then.”
My feet stumbled, but my mouth lifted in a sneer. Worthless bastards. Two paces behind me, Tor passed his own inspection and humbly sauntered like a downtrodden serf.
The prison gates were spiked on top. A few skulls jutted above the rest on pikes. Omens of raven feet, teeth, and bones, hung from leather. Beneath our feet mud caked the thin boots we’d stolen from a farmer’s stable in the last township. A familiar reek of piss and mold hung in the air, no different than it was when I’d been trapped in these walls.
Anger tasted like acid on my tongue. I looked forward to the day this place burned to the ground.
Tor cleared his throat and gave a subtle nod. In the archway the serfs crowded one another, perhaps to stay warm, perhaps they feared being trapped here. No matter the reason, the swarm provided time for us to slip away through a covered bridge connecting the outer yard to the main prison.
Together, we kept our heads down, hurried our steps, and ducked behind stacked ale casks halfway down the bridge. Two torches provided little light, but fifty paces forward we’d find a small stove room where raven guards took respite. From there, corridors honeycombed to guard rooms and the warden’s chamber.
We didn’t need a map.
We had memories.
“How much time?” I hissed through my teeth.
Tor lifted his eyes to the velvet sky. “Moon’s nearly at the high point, so within the hour.”
I nodded, adjusting so I could crouch easier behind the casks and keep watch on a lancet window straight ahead.
“You trust this man to give the signal?” Tor asked.
“No. But he will.”
“And if he doesn’t.”
“We follow through with the consequences. As promised.” I’d follow through on any threat. This was the sort of thinking Elise told me she feared. She’d been right, of course. Now I had no doubt I’d sell my soul to avenge the wrongs of my people, to free Halvar.
She was better off away from all this.
Since parting, I’d heard word the second Kvinna lived on. Heard she’d found refuge in Ruskig. I’d also heard her future brother-in-law had taken her for a second wife. Another that her corpse decorated the gates of Ravenspire.
The latter was false—I’d made certain of it before I could ever give this night enough focus—so who was to say which rumors were true?
Tor smacked my chest. “We ought to dress.”
I withdrew a knife from my boot, grinning. “If my mother were alive and she saw you hitting me all the time, you’d be buried alive, Torsten.”
“Your mother loved me more than you, My Prince.” Tor stabbed his grain bag at the seam and began splitting the threads. “Hells, you were always crying to the queen.”
I thrust my knife into the grain sack, shredding the canvas until my boots were buried in oats. Inside the grain sack, my grip found the handles of the two axes, my cowl, two knives, and the red mask. “I regret nothing. I barely survived childhood because of you and my brother.”
Tor smiled, but it was distant as he dug through the mess of oats and corn in his sack for his mask and hood. Silence thickened between us. This place had a chill in the air that I was certain only the two of us felt. As if ghosts from the past encircled our every move. Tor’s family died here too. And Sol was his as much as mine.
Emotion scratched up my throat. “Do you ever wish he were here instead of—”
“No,” Tor interrupted. “I do not waste time with wishing.” With that, Tor cupped the back of my head, eyes locked with mine. “I am nothing but cruel, broken pieces of what I was because they took Sol. But you are my brother, and not once have I wished anyone else stood at my side.”
I cleared away the knot, patted his face, and gave him a curt nod.
Crouched behind the casks we stripped the serf clothing with care. Once or twice, we paused when a few ravens sauntered past, yawning and off their duty. I’d finished securing the battle axes to my belt by the time Tor struck my shoulder again.
“Look.” He pointed at the window.
A new flame on a single candlestick glared through the glass. “That’s the signal. Ready?”
“Days ago.”
We kept low along the wall of the bridge. Once we reached the end, Tor pressed his back on one side of the door. I took hold of one axe.
This place was one of the hells.
I gritted my teeth, and kicked the door hard enough the worn latch snapped.
The next steps blurred. Tor ducked into the room in front of me. His blade stabbed a half-dressed raven before the guard finished snapping his trousers. There were five guards in the room. All disoriented at the sudden attack. All in various states of dress and weapons.
Shouts rang in my ears. Fear. Surprise. A guard lunged at me. His blade met my axe. His unsteady stance became his undoing. I knocked his strike off course, then swung my axe against his neck.
Tor cursed when a guard gained a hit over his shoulder. I threw my axe and didn’t wait for the blade to sink into the raven’s spine before I had the second blade in hand. Wet, sticky blood coated my hands as the fourth raven fell.
The fifth guard had his back pressed in the corner. Shoulders heaved; his body trembled. Gods, he whimpered when I crossed the room to him. Bleeding fool.
I pressed the end of the axe against his throat, voice rough. “Where is it?”
The guard avoided my eyes, muttering prayers under his breath as he reached into the folds of his tunic. He pulled out a crumbled, folded piece of parchment. “I . . .I want to know she is un-unharmed.”
I snatched the roll from his hand. “I keep my bargains. Your mistress is safe now, but I doubt you’ll survive the night.”
His eyes went wide in fear. “You promised! I give up the cell blocks and you don’t harm me or Tira! Wraith, you—”
I chuckled darkly and leaned in. “She’s safe. At your wife’s home. It is not my problem your woman did not know you’d taken another. I’ve never been so frightened than when she discovered the truth. May the gods be with you when you wake.”
With the butt of my axe, I struck his head. The guard crumbled at my feet.
Tor came to my side, holding a linen cloth to his wound. “How did Sven know this one would be the weak one?”
“His mistress is an acquaintance of Sven. A little digging and I knew he’d be the one. And I wasn’t lying. His wife is terrifying. She’ll bury him come dawn.” I flicked my eyes to his arm. “Is it deep?”
“Nothing I won’t survive.”
We sprawled the parchment over the small table in the center of the room. A rough drawing of the different cell blocks, marked with type of Night Folk. Air fae were kept below, near the water, and away from windows.
“This stairwell is our best chance,” Tor said, pointing to the east side of the prison. “I remember always being brought to cells from the west. The ravens frequent the west side. These, I believe, are used for removal of the dead. See how it leads to the river? Traffic will be less.”
“I agree.” I folded the parchment again and retrieved my axe from the spine of the dead guard.
“Valen, what if fury won’t work?” Tor asked.
“It must. We have no time to hunt the warden for his bleeding key.”
“We must be prepared for the bindings.”
Muscles in my jaw pulsed. Halvar would be bound, I was sure of it. Removing them would be a problem without a particular key. “Let’s worry about getting him out first, then we’ll worry about finding the runes to break his bindings.”
“And if we don’t, then the option is using dark, twisted spells from dark, twisted seers and sorcerers. Not Night Folk.”
“Yes, and we might need to sink to the underbelly. Are we not desperate the same as the wretches?”
Tor pinched his mouth and stared at the doorway for a breath before facing me. “You are a king by birth and by right, so no. You are not the same. Do not risk dark tricks of magic. Me, nor Halvar want that.”
“No,” I said, gripping the collar of his shirt. “Sol was a king. I was born to kill for him. Now are we done? We have a man to save.”
Tor let out a long breath. “Yes. We’re done. For now.”
“Then, hurry. When these guards do not report to their post an alarm will be set.”
We made it inside, now we’d focus on getting Halvar before I worried too much on getting out. One step at a time.
We’d take the canals beneath the prison as our way out. It would be dangerous, but with enough iron bars, I believed I’d be able to bend us through most cages there. It was decent plan. Made in haste, with few resources, but despite the risks it was the safest way out.
But as always, fate was fickle.
Roars of guards in the distance froze us at the door of the guard room. A horn echoed in the night. Another followed.
My brow furrowed. Tor ran to the window and peered out.
“Dammit,” he cursed under his breath.
“What?”
Tor’s eyes darkened when he looked at me. “Our plans will need to change. The prison is under attack.”