spins with the blow and comes back around with an attack of his own. Hralfar blocks the blow and retaliates.
I and Percival manage to stay together. We are tiring; there are too many of them. I start to question my resolve to stay. Somehow they have separated me and my father, who fights on the other side of the room.
Then suddenly the Tygnar commander twirls his sword about Hralfar’s and smites the weapon from his grasp. The clang of the weapon on the ground sends a signal to all within the room to stop the battle.
Hralfar is shaking. “What are you waiting for?” he seethes. “Finish it!”
The commander laughs.
“Finish it!” Hralfar rages.
“No,” says the commander softly. “Not yet.” When the Jarl does not ask why, the commander continues, “I must wait until your entire precious city is watching.” Still no response. “Until every man, woman, and child in this city is gazing upon you. Only then will I smite your head from your shoulders, and they will know who rules this pitiful city.”
“What of my men?” asks Hralfar boldly.
“Your men? Your men will be forced to watch you die. And once you are dead, those who cannot work will be slaughtered.”
Hralfar does not respond, but fingers the handle of the dagger on his belt.
“If you take your own life and deny me this privilege, they will all die where they stand.”
Hralfar replies, “As I die they will not see me frightened. They will see courage from one who sees a better future. Better to die a hero than a coward.” His hand withdraws from the dagger.
“Brave words,” the enemy leader applauds sarcastically. “But words will avail you nothing. Chain them.”
I glance at my father who is forced to his knees and clasped with shackles. He’s staring directly into my eyes. He is clearly saying, “Run.”
I return a look that says, “And leave you behind?”
His response says merely, “Run.”
As soldiers place and lock shackles on Hralfar’s hands, I edge my way down the hall with Percival.
“Drop your weapons,” says the commander. I hear the loud clangs of various weapons hitting the stone floor. One of the soldiers sees me still holding my hammer and Percival behind me, still holding his sword and shield.
“Hey! Drop your weapons!” he repeats. Instead, we turn and run.
We know exactly where we are going. Shouts sound behind me, footsteps of approaching guards. At the end of the tunnel we sprint down two flights of stairs and continue down another hallway, going deeper into the mountain. We keep enough distance between ourselves and the soldiers to keep them out of sight.
Within another minute we find the metal grate with the iron bar door that had previously been padlocked shut. The padlocks are missing from both the outer and inner doors. Do we risk the noise the door will make if we open it?
We decide no. Instead we hide in the darkness, pressed against the wall next to the bars. One of them shuffles in the darkness, so close I could pound him into the ground in one hit. “Forgot a torch,” he says. “Somebody go get one!” When nobody responds, he mutters something about stupid guards and runs back up the passage to retrieve one himself.
Once the footsteps are out of hearing, we try the doors. The creak the door produces on the rusty hinges is horrifically loud. I’m careful to shut both doors behind us. The soldiers reappear moments later. There are only three, sent to find a rogue idiot and his sidekick wandering about in the lower levels of the Keep. They open the doors and enter the passage. Percival and I, however, are waiting just around the corner.
The first and second go down before they even know we’re there. The third, however, has a bow.
Percival yells and drops to the ground just before I pound in the breastplate of the guard. “Percival!”
The bowman, in his frightened quickness, did get off a shot, but it was not a very good one. The arrow sits in Percival’s calf, stopped before it breaches the other side of his leg.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “Can you walk?”
He tries, but a small grunt of pain escapes his lips. He shakes his head.
Quickly I tear off a part of my shirt. “Should I pull it out?” I ask him warily.
He thinks for a moment, and then nods. “Just do it quick.”
He yelps as the arrow exits his calf. The head is sharp and not barbed, so the extraction was not