Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [219]
The Scorpion, Ygor, rumbled deep in his chest, and she sensed the brigands weighing up the odds, a pack of them against her, their stolen blades crossing with a single rapier. She felt her smile grow, and was helpless to stop it. Why not? Free them, kill them – what’s the difference? Be but true to your own nature, wherever it takes you, and then you need bear no guilt nor blame. She suppressed the insidious feeling, but something of it had communicated itself to the brigands, and none of them made a first move.
‘Soul, you go with her,’ Dal directed. ‘Besides, the bar on these doors is huge, a two-man job at least.’
Tynisa looked the Grasshopper up and down. He was a tall, lean specimen with his kind’s usual lanky frame, but there was a stillness to him that marked him out as dangerous. He nodded to her and, when she ascended the stairs, he fell into step so naturally that it was as if they had worked together for years. He was silent too, padding past the sleeping guards with barely a scuff of his bare feet. The one sentry still awake saw Tynisa coming, recognizing her and not challenging her, just as he had let her pass through on the way down, no doubt imagining her to be on some errand of the princess’s. This time Tynisa made herself nod, forcing a smile, while Soul Je crept past unobserved, as though the pair of them had spent an hour planning the move.
The castle beyond was quiet, at a time when only a few of the most menial servants would be abroad and about their tasks. Tynisa led the way, passage to passage, heading for the open air: not using the main gates, which were closed, with guards close at hand within, but a window on the first floor, the shutters drawn back and just large enough for her to squeeze through. In truth she was not sure if he would be able to follow her, but with a twist of his shoulders he was out, too. While she let herself down the wall hand over hand with her Art, he simply dropped straight down, crouching for a moment all knees and elbows, before straightening up and making his swift way across the courtyard to the hatch leading to the prison.
They heard the fighting from the other side of the trapdoor even as they approached. Clearly, at least one of the Salmae’s guards had decided to see what Tynisa had been up to, or had simply wandered down to check on the prisoners. Sharing a glance, Tynisa and Soul Je took hold of the bar and hefted it out of its rests, letting the heavy wood thud to the ground. The doors burst open almost at once.
Tynisa saw the Spider-kinden, Avaris, fall back with a mailed Dragonfly poised above him, his punch-sword drawn back to strike. She did not stop to think, and any distant guilt she might have entertained about causing the deaths of innocent servants simply doing their jobs vanished on the instant. Her blade took the man between shoulder and neck, where his armour was weak, and she killed him in that one surgical strike. Avaris scrambled out from under the corpse, and wasted no time running for the main gates to the courtyard.
The brigands came piling out into the open air without plan or rearguard, spilling the Salmae’s guardsmen in their wake. Tynisa counted a mere half a dozen of the latter here, with a couple lying dead around the empty pit, and at least one of Dal Arche’s people fallen too. There would be more, though, for the alarm would have been raised, and Elass’s forces here were bolstered by the retinues of her early-arriving guests.
Her sword lashed out again, and they fell back before her, even as the brigands rushed for the main gates. She was left alone to face the guards, but they stayed back and would not engage her, and their faces showed only fear. In that moment she finally saw what Salme Elass had made of her: not a champion, not a huntress, most certainly not