in some stinking cell and escape from chains and bars.
It would not be the first time Corin had accomplished such a feat, though he’d never faced a palace dungeon before. He could have some aid from Avery, but—for all the damage they had done Kellen—the reviled soldier still seemed their last, best hope. Corin tried again. “Yeoman Kellen—”
He got no further. Faster than a blink, the soldier drew his sword and pressed its tip to Corin’s throat.
“Not another word,” the soldier said, his voice as hard as the blade’s edge, “or I’ll betray my pledge as your secure steward and likely win a commendation for it.”
“That you would,” Avery said softly, sounding a bit impressed. “You very likely would.”
Corin held his tongue. A moment later Kellen nodded, satisfied, and laid the blade across his knees. He didn’t sheathe it, and no one spoke for the rest of the rattling ride.
When they stopped at last, the open doors revealed not the grand front gates or a majestic palace entrance, but a barred and fortified carriage yard somewhere else within the palace grounds. Somewhere far more…military.
The escort was there as Ephitel had promised it would be—easily half a hundred men, crowding the courtyard and bristling with pikes and crossbows, all of them aimed at the three prisoners. Ephitel himself came forward to watch the prisoners leave the carriage. Corin watched him, wary. The strutting lord should have gone off to see the king. It was unsettling to see him here.
Kellen was the last out, and he stumbled when he saw the lord protector. “My…my lord! I understood that you intended to go directly to the king.”
Ephitel didn’t meet the soldier’s eyes, but still he answered. “I have had time upon the journey to reconsider. I would prefer to have some answers from the miscreants before I attempt to make a report to Oberon. Come.”
He turned, and the crowd of soldiers opened a path to a heavy door, barred in iron and secured by half a dozen locks. It opened with a groan and revealed a stairway walled with stone that plunged down into the darkness underneath the palace. The soldiers jostled Corin, Maurelle, and Avery until the prisoners fell into a single-file line, which was all the narrow stairway would allow. Yeoman Kellen went on ahead, Corin close behind him, and from the sound of footsteps Corin knew that only one more escort accompanied the brother and sister behind him. He never doubted who that might be.
Once or twice along the long descent, Corin passed a narrow landing before the path turned back and down. At each such landing, a pair of wardens stood attentive beyond a gate of iron bars, armed with heavy crossbows more than able to cut down any prisoner attempting an escape from below. Down and down they went, deep beneath the earth, until at last Corin stepped onto a landing that had no further descent. Here, too, a gate looked out onto the landing, and Kellen approached it with all the dignity and authority Ephitel had denied him before.
He saluted the two wardens standing watch, then called out in a strong, clear voice, “Three prisoners, upon the mercy of the king, arrested under order of Lord Ephitel for breach of peace.”
In the wider landing, Avery stepped up beside Corin. He spoke under his breath. “I could garrote him with his own elven cord. How funny would that be? I guarantee those guards would only watch and laugh.”
Maurelle stepped up beside Avery and clutched at his arm. Irritation and worry creased the lordling’s brow. It only grew worse when Ephitel stepped past them and into the wardens’ torchlight.
“Calm yourself, Kellen,” Ephitel said smoothly. To the wardens, he said, “These are troublemakers who must be well watched. And I count not three, but four.”
“My lord?” Kellen asked, a quaver in his voice.
“As I said, I had time upon the journey to consider. What I discovered looked too much like a plot. Five good men rode with you to bring back my druid and my elf. Five of them are convalescing now, sick with druid poison. But you alone suffered only superficial blows—”
“They were hardly superficial! I’ll vow I’ve suffered more than those sleeping from a nettle’s sting.”
“Yet you were not incapacitated, when all the others were. You stink of complicity.”
Kellen trembled with a futile rage. “I detest these criminals.”
“And we return the sentiment,” Avery offered.
Ephitel casually backhanded the gentleman, never moving his gaze from Kellen. “Yeoman, I cannot believe