Dropping his weight to normal, Nightfall continued his sprint down the hallway. Prisoners called to him from the cells, marking his passage. Ahead, the guards’ footfalls rang louder, mixed with shouted commands. Nightfall whisked around a corner, probing the keys for the one that felt most correct from his momentary assessment of the lock.
The gateway flashed into sight. Six guards aimed loaded crossbows between the bars, three kneeling and the others standing. More guards in mail and Alyndarian uniforms huddled behind the bowmen.
Nightfall skidded to a stop.
"There he is!" one shouted. An overeager crossbowman released. The quarrel sailed toward Nightfall who sprang aside. Its point struck the wall. The shaft shattered, plunging a splinter deep into Nightfall’s arm.
"Fire!"
Nightfall hurled himself to the floor, tucked and rolling. The bolts rained around him, just beyond accurate range. Retreating as he floundered to his feet, he darted off the way he had come.
Vulgarities chased him down the hallway. A sword struck the metal wall, the sound ringing deafeningly down the corridor.
Nightfall ran, weaving through puddled shadows, skirting the semicircles of torchlight. He kept his run sinuous, avoiding jerky movements that might attract attention, hoping to become lost to sight in the pervading darkness. Never having gone in this direction, he had no idea what to expect or where to go, so he trusted his instincts to lead him toward an exit. Behind him, the sound of the opening gate jostled and creaked through the hallway. Ahead, boot falls hammered the granite, accompanied by a chorus of clinking chain links.
Mercifully, the prisoners seemed to have lost track of him, their shouts muddled into a wild chaos that no longer gave away his location. Directly before his own cell, Nightfall stepped over Rylinat’s now still form, reassessing his strategy in the moments before the guard contingents sandwiched him. To remain in place was folly. Enraged by his escape and their companions’ deaths, Alyndar’s prison guards would surely beat him to oblivion or beyond. Yet to run in either direction meant colliding with a rushing herd of sentries. From the noises, he guessed the guards from the unexplored direction would reach him well before the other group. Already, he could see the leader’s mail reflecting a beam of sunlight from a slit in the roof.
Nightfall seized the bars to his cage. Rust bit his fingers, flaking into his palms. He lowered his head, dropping his weight as low as possible, and scrambled like a squirrel to the top. He took a deep breath that jabbed the rib into his lung with enough force to make him dizzy with pain. He clung, not daring to exhale.
Within seconds, fifteen guardsmen dashed beneath him. Their four ranks swept the corridor from side to side leaving no space for an escaping convict to slip past. The ones in the lead jerked to an abrupt halt before the body of the blond, and the others pulled up as suddenly. One in the back veered, stumbling to his knees. "What the hell?"
` "Holy Father," one of the leaders said.
Spots filled Nightfall’s vision. His lungs ached.
Another guard crept forward, checking first Rylinat, then his companion. "They’re dead." His tone went ugly, though welling tears softened the curse. “The ruthless bastard. I’ll rip him apart with my own hands."
Nightfall’s lungs gasped spasmodically for fresh breath. He fought the urge for an explosive exhalation, letting spent air trickle silently between his lips.
Several guards glanced into the empty cell, but not a single one looked up.
"There’s nothing we can do here," another guard said. “We’ve got to keep moving or he’ll get away.” Skirting the corpses reverently, they continued down the hallway.
Nightfall waited only until they passed, then slithered down the bars and dropped lightly to the ground. Gasping in a quiet breath, he ran in the direction from which the guards had come. Behind him, he heard the shouted exchange as the two contingents met.
"Where is he?"
"He’s not this way!"
"Well, he’s certainly not that way!"
"You idiots!"
The footfalls resumed behind him, growing louder as they spun back in his direction. They paused briefly as the new group found the corpses, gaining Nightfall several paces of lead.
The hallway branched into winding byways. Nightfall chose his course at random, guessing he ran toward the palace, yet finding no place to reverse direction. The pursuit grew more sparse as the guards broke into groups, but still they followed him consistently, never losing distance, yet never gaining.
The run taxed Nightfall. Deep breaths shot agony through his chest so he reverted to rapid, shallow patterns that lapsed into a doglike pant. The pain radiated into a nearly crippling side cramp.
Nightfall massaged the ache as he ran. Suddenly, the left wall fell away, revealing the black mouth of a stairwell. The guards had hauled him down steps to enter the dungeon, so it seemed only natural to ascend. Whipping around the corner, he started up the steps.
Nightfall’s toes met slime-covered granite, interrupted by the passage of metal and leather. Encouraged by obvious signs of use, he sprinted upward, probing each slippery step briefly before trusting his weight upon it. From behind, the sounds of pursuit continued, the guards’ boots slamming solidly on each stair.
On entering, Nightfall had been too busy trying to catch each of the guards’ words and intentions to count steps. Now, the stairway seemed endless, and he wondered whether to blame the sensation on a poor choice of direction or his own impatient desperation. Just as he considered turning and trying to sneak past the guards, he came to a landing and a twisting hallway. He ran on, the sentries closing the gap behind him.
Shortly, he came upon another gloomy funnel of steps. Now committed, he took the stairs two at a time. Within a dozen paces, he came to a dead end, discovering the bottom of a trap door above him. Two keyholes admitted light in parallel bands.
Damn. Nightfall studied the locks, separating the correct keys by touch. He had no way of Knowing where he would find himself once through the trapdoor, presumably in some well-traveled chamber of King Rikard’s castle. Below him, the clink of armor grew louder. He flicked the first key into the lock and spun, then inserted the second.
"He’s up there! I hear him." A voice floated up the stairway, closer than Nightfall expected. He could hear winded inhalations beneath his own and counted at least six sentries.
Nightfall cursed his gasping breaths and the injured rib that made them necessary. Exchanging the keys for the dagger, he slammed his shoulder against the trapdoor, prepared for a fight.
The panel swung open. Chilled air washed over Nightfall, startling him. Outside. How? Catching the sides of the opening, he hauled himself through, studying his surroundings. The moss-stained wall of Alyndar’s castle rose beyond him, and a nearby pair of sentries whirled, alerted by the sound of the swinging door. To his left and right, a stone ledge adorned with gargoyles jutted to the height of his waist. The sun beamed through a cloudless expanse of sky.
As Nightfall swung to the pathway, a hand enwrapped his ankle. Thrown off-balance, he staggered, twisting. The gash from the shackles reopened, slicking his skin with blood. The fingers slipped off, but their tug sent Nightfall crashing to the ground.
The sentries near the castle ran toward him. From the trapdoor, a grim face appeared.
Nightfall rolled, scrambled to his feet, and leapt to one of the low walls. Behind him, guards sprang through the trapdoor opening. Ahead lay a vast void of air. Nightfall grabbed a gargoyle’s head for support. Far below, easily three times the length of Raven’s main mast, the leaf-covered tops of oaks and hickories waved in the breeze. Not outside! We’re on the parapets! Realizing his mistake, Nightfall whirled.