The Sword of Shannara - Terry Brooks [293]
“Perhaps they did it to confuse us...” muttered Hendel quietly. “Like this smoke screen we so obligingly provided them with.”
“All that dying just to get a smoke screen?” Menion exclaimed incredulously.
“If so, then they have something very definite in mind — something they are certain cannot fail,” declared Balinor. “Keep an eye on things here. I’m going down to the gates.”
He turned away abruptly and disappeared down the winding stone stairway almost at a run. The others watched him go without comment and turned back to the wall. In front of them, thick clouds of the heavy black smoke still rose skyward as the oil on the plains continued to burn. The cries of death had ceased and there was a strange silence.
“What are they up to?” Menion voiced the question at last.
For a moment there was no response at all.
“I wish we had been able to catch Stenmin,” Durin muttered at last. “I haven’t felt safe even behind these walls with that madman running loose somewhere in the city.”
“We almost had him,” Dayel interjected quickly. “We followed him into that room, but he seemed to disappear into thin air. There must have been a secret passage.”
Durin nodded in agreement and the conversation dropped off again. Menion stared into the smoke and thought about Shirl waiting for him at the palace, about Shea, Flick, his father, and his homeland — all in a rush of images that flooded his wandering mind. How was it all going to end for them?
“Shades!” Hendel jerked him around so sharply that he was momentarily startled. “I’ve been a fool. It was right in front of me all the time. A secret passage! In the basement of the palace, beneath the wine cellar, in the dungeons sealed off all these years — a passageway that leads through the mountains to the plain beyond. The old King spoke of it once to me, years and years ago. Stenmin must know of it!”
“A way into the city!” exclaimed Menion. “They’ll catch us with our backs to them.” He paused sharply. “Hendel! Shirl’s back there!”
“We don’t have much time.” Hendel was already starting down the steps. “Menion, come with me. Dayel, find Janus Senpre and tell him to get help to us at the palace immediately. Durin, find Balinor and warn him. Hurry now, and pray we’re not too late.”
They were down the worn stairs in a rush, scattering across the barracks ground as if possessed. Hendel and Menion broke into a dead run, pushing their way heedlessly through clusters of soldiers toward the gates to the Tyrsian Way. Too slow, Menion’s harried brain screamed at him! He nearly jerked Hendel off his feet in an effort to turn him toward a small group of saddled reserve mounts tethered to their right. Knocking an interfering attendant aside without pausing, the duo leaped into the saddles of the two nearest mounts and wheeled them toward the city. At a gallop, the horses tore through the open gateway, past the flustered guards, past swarms of reserves posted just inside the gates; with the path cleared, they raced at breakneck speed for the palace.
Everything that followed seemed to come in a rush that negated time and space. People and buildings flashed by them in a blur as the two horsemen galloped over the ancient stones of the Tyrsian Way. Precious moments were lost and then the wide arc of the Bridge of Sendic loomed in the distance, spanning the People’s Park to the palace of the Buckhannahs. A train of baggage carts scattered wildly at the foot of the bridge as the two riders tore past them without slowing, racing their mounts across the stone arch toward the open gates of the monarchial home. Dashing into the garden-ringed courtyard, Hendel and Menion drew their sweating horses up sharply and vaulted to the ground.
Everything was silent. Nothing seemed amiss. A single attendant strolled almost leisurely out of the shadows of a great willow to take the reins from the heated riders, his eyes reflecting only mild curiosity. Hendel gave the man a sharp glance and dismissed him, beckoning