the rear, first.
“Where is Bercola?” The other young woman’s eyes were wide with alarm.
“Holding them off. She told me that we should keep going.”
Several of the other guards turned, their expressions grim.
“Is it a dead end?” It was a struggle to get the words past her lips, fear strangling her.
“Not exactly,” Lena replied, stepping aside. “Look for yourself.”
Stepping into a small chamber, Lydia’s eyes locked on the stem of xenthier glittering at its center.
And from behind them, Bercola roared a battle cry.
52
KILLIAN
Sprinting across the ruined ballroom littered with bodies, Killian exited the main door. Only to find himself met with a tide of civilians, all coughing and choking even as they ransacked the palace, running with loaded arms out the front entrance and into the night.
The main staircase bristled with soldiers, their duty to protect the High Lords hidden in the upper level, not to protect the palace. Killian prayed the fire he’d set would remain contained to the ballroom, or the strategy would see half the power of Mudamora dead in one night.
But he didn’t care about that now.
He’d seen the smaller vessels bristling with men heading toward the cavern entrance, and his gut told him they weren’t full of Gamdeshians. Malahi was trapped.
And Lydia was with her.
Shoving his way clear to the soldiers, he shouted, “Fifteen of you with me. The Queen’s escape has been compromised. We need to get her upstairs.”
The soldiers the High Lords had brought with them were well trained, following him without argument as they pushed their way down the hall to the narrow stairs leading to the sublevel.
Screams erupted in front of them, and suddenly people were running and pushing. “Get out, get out!” someone shouted. “They’re inside! They’re in the palace!”
“Corrupted?” muttered one of the soldiers, but Killian pressed onward, lifting his sword as the hallway cleared.
There were bodies on the floor, some moaning, some still. But while most had been crushed, several of them were clawed up and scratched, their hands and arms covered with … bite marks?
Edging down the stairs, Killian picked up the sound of shuffling feet. Of many mouths breathing. And in his nose, the awful stench of blight.
Steeling himself, he stepped out of the stairwell.
And found himself behind a horde of civilians, all of them fighting one another in an attempt to get into the room containing the trapdoor leading to the tunnels.
None of them spoke, only pushed and strained against one another, bare feet crushing those who fell. And those who fell uttered not a sound of pain, only attempted to crawl through the legs of their companions toward the trapdoor.
“The Six protect us,” one of the soldiers whispered. “Some of them are children.”
And as one, the horde turned, revealing grey faces lined with blight, eyes reflecting the underworld that had stolen them.
Killian lifted his sword.
53
LYDIA
Everyone in the group jumped at Bercola’s battle cry, Malahi and Hacken turning from their wary inspection of the xenthier stem.
“Bercola’s holding them off,” Lydia repeated. “She doesn’t know it’s a dead end.”
The Queen closed her eyes, grief passing over her face. Then she turned to Hacken. “We don’t know where it goes. It could take us to the bottom of the sea. Or to a chamber a league beneath the ground. Or to a terminus that’s been entombed in rock.”
Or somewhere far away from here.
“Gods-damned Falorns,” Hacken muttered, running his hand through his hair in a gesture reminiscent of his brother. “They built this castle. It’s full of their secrets.”
Malahi turned away from the xenthier. “Sonia, how long can we hold them off?”
The small woman exhaled a long breath, then shook her head. “Against those things … Hours, I should think. They were unarmed, but if they keep coming…” She trailed off, leaving much unsaid because everyone was thinking it. The guards would fall one by one to the onslaught, and if no help came they might all die before Malahi and Hacken were driven to risk the xenthier. “But,” Sonia added, breaking the silence, “that’s only if one of the corrupted doesn’t arrive. I’m out of arrows, and no one here is fast or strong enough to defeat one of them, especially not in close quarters.”
There’d been one of the corrupted in the boat. And Lydia was sure everyone was thinking the same thing: that it was only a matter of time until it hunted them down.
Faint grunts of effort echoed up the tunnel. Thumps and thuds and the loud clang of a sword hitting rock. Bercola fighting off