the roof several feet, she stood, ran down the slope, and sprang, using the momentum to propel her. She landed with a solid, painful thud, managing to catch her balance and not roll down over the edge.
Biting back curses, she climbed to the peak of the roof, keeping her body low and close to the slats. Were those shouts that she heard mingling with the dog’s howls down below? Not animal voices, but not human either. Those shadow-beings didn’t talk, which meant the voices she heard must belong to some of the fae denizens of Ninthalor. They were on the alert now.
Had Kyriakos awakened? Or had they simply come running in response to the crash in the hall?
A little tower stood at the peak of this roof. A bell tower, perhaps. She couldn’t see or sense anyone inside, so she climbed up to it, thinking it might work for a temporary shelter. As she climbed higher, however, she saw a walkway leading along the top of the roof to the tower, which meant others could easily run out to catch her. Not good. But if she didn’t find a place to hunker down and catch her breath, she would end up light-headed. Hardly ideal for rooftop rambling.
She reached the little tower and caught hold of the rail, intending to pull herself up inside. Just as she started to heave her body up, she stopped short.
A bell hung in the tower, just as she’d suspected. Bright, silver. Silent.
And all around it, clinging to the rafters, were small, warm bodies suspended upside-down by long, taloned toes. Feathered wings wrapped bat-like around weirdly humanoid torsos and half covered strange, beaked, mannish faces.
Harpens.
A whole roosting massacre.
Nelle eased away from the tower and back down onto the roof slats, scarcely daring to breathe. The last thing, the very last thing she wanted was to wake those monsters—
“Atradir!”
Startled, Nelle turned, whipping long hair out of her face. Five figures, armed and helmeted, appeared at the end of the walkway, the last just emerging from a trap-door hatch. Spiked weapons bristled in their hands.
One of them gestured her way. The other four lunged forward, racing along that high walkway straight for her.
For a heartbeat, indecision held her captive.
Then, with a curse bursting from her lips, she leapt up, scrambled over the railing into the bell tower, and, not daring to hesitate even a second, shoved the bell with both hands. It swung heavily on its hinges, swung back again, then uttered a low, dull: Boooom.
Hundreds of wicked little eyes opened.
The air split with the cacophonous screaming of harpens, nearly drowning out the second toll of the bell as it swung back. Nelle’s eardrums threatened to burst as she flung herself over the far rail and fell from the tower to the slanted roof, where she hit hard and rolled and rolled and kept rolling, unable to stop, unable to hear or feel anything except her too rapid descent. She expected the roof to give out, the fall to claim her.
But she came to an abrupt stop with her back against a wall, stunned but whole. She blinked hard, gasping at the pain in her side, and looked wildly up the way she’d just come.
Harpens swarmed the air overhead like a storm descending on the five armored figures. The bell tolled one last time, a deep underscore to the shouting and screaming and ripping and mayhem. The harpens couldn’t penetrate armor, but they went for the faces behind the faceplates, screeching with the delight of bloodlust.
Nelle picked herself up. The roof seemed to be built against the surrounding courtyard wall, which was too high for her to spring atop. But, turning frantically, she spied what might be a drainage pipe not far from her current position.
Running at an awkward tilt along the slanted roof with one hand pressed to her ribcage, the other using the wall for support, Nelle made her way to the pipe, hoping and praying the harpens wouldn’t notice her. Gods above knew she didn’t have any bodily protection!
Reaching the pipe, she scrambled nimbly up the side of the wall and slipped between crenellations to drop onto a parapet broad enough for three large men to walk abreast. Rushing to the far side, Nelle peered over the edge.
“Seven gods!” she breathed, her eyes widening.
It was much, much farther down on the outside—a dizzying drop along smooth wall and ragged stone slopes to a brutal landing she could scarcely see. One narrow winding road made its