FULL NOVELXO Court of Ice and Ash: Chapter 9
rang in the passageway. The door to the lower cells was ajar, as if guards ran up the stairs so swiftly, they forgot to lock it behind them. Damp moss soaked the steps and only a few torches lit the staircase. Shadows played games, dancing and jumping like Marish demons sent to haunt our dreams.
The stairs opened to the lower cell blocks. Each cell was made of wooden doors or iron bars. It was silent but for a steady drip of water in the darkness. Wet straw perfumed the air with mold and a thick cloud of unwashed skin. With open windows and cracks in the stone, the cells held little warmth, and each puff of breath clouded in front of my mouth.
Siv took the left, I took the right, peeking into doors and cages.
“Halvar!” I called out when we’d checked at least a dozen cells. Most were empty, two had corpses, the rest held Night Folk who wouldn’t roll over to look at us. I dragged my fingers through my hair, panic rising in my chest. “Halvar, answer me!”
Nothing.
At least not right away.
“I am not surprised you ask,” a raspy voice responded after a few heartbeats. “For who would not enjoy the sound of my voice?”
I let out a wild laugh and darted to the cell tucked in the corner. He laid out on a wooden cot, one knee propped up, one hand behind his head.
A smile cut across my face, and I was taken aback how relieved I was to see Halvar Atra again.
He rolled his head to glance at the bars, the familiar cleverness in his eyes. But after a breath, the smile wiped off his lips, and he pounced from the cot. “Elise? All gods, am I seeing things?”
I chuckled and reached a hand through the bars. “You’re not seeing things. We’ve come to get you.”
“I don’t . . . how are you here? How did you know I was taken? Wait, are you with him?”
“No,” I said, defeated. “No, we heard of your capture another way. Hurry, now. We have one chance to get you free from this cell.”
“Wait, Elise.” Halvar curled his grip around the bars. For the first time I noticed how a few fingers were bent and bruised and on his wrists were silver bands. Runes were etched into the bands and his skin was red and irritated underneath.
“Halvar.” I traced his bruised knuckles. “Have they hurt you?”
“Oh yes,” he said lightly. “Expected in this pit, though.”
I swallowed a swell of anger and pointed at the bands. “What are those?”
“Bindings. They make me terribly ordinary by blocking my magnificent fury. And they burn like the damn hells.”
Those were the bindings Ari spoke of, the ones he insisted he had a key to remove.
“We’ll get them off once you’re out.”
He shook his head. “I’ll stay.”
“What? No.”
Halvar was pallid, his lips chapped. The glossy waves in his hair were matted and covered in a fine layer of dust, but his grin was sly as ever. With a heavy sigh, he flopped back onto the wooden cot. “I am flattered by the gesture, truly. Not surprised, of course. I knew you missed me most, but if you have come, no doubt my guild shall be arriving shortly. In fact, the way the guards ran from here, I would not be surprised if they are already here.”
“You idiot,” Siv snapped. “The guards left because of us! We have the clans outside causing a distraction, risking their bleeding lives to save you. No get up and get out of here.”
“The chaos is you?”
“Yes,” I said with a sigh. “Siv, the powder.”
Siv dug into her tunic and removed a pouch of tied pig skin. We had no key, but what Ruskig provided were hidden talents of skilled poisoners. It was rather frightening, in truth. Kjell, an old man with a beard to his navel, had mixed the powder for us. Ari assured us it would be as effective as any key.
With a small spoon I scooped some of the red poison and sprinkled it onto the hinges on Halvar’s cell.
“Careful,” Siv said shrilly when I spit into the spoon. “Don’t let any of the wet powder touch your skin.”
I nodded and tipped the spoon onto the dry powder until it became a bloody paste.
Almost right away the powder hissed and snapped, and a bit of white smoke billowed up. Halvar took a step back. So did we. A stink of ore and ash covered the damp cells. It didn’t take long before the hinges melted and the door on the cell slumped, maneuverable enough Halvar could slip out.
“Where did you learn a trick like that, Kvinna?” Halvar looked delighted.
“Ruskig has a lot of interesting folk. You must hurry.”
He hesitated. “He will come for me, but if I’m not here, he will tear this place apart.”
Siv groaned.
“Halvar, right now it is us who came for you,” I said.
He closed his eyes, mouth tight. “He does not want—”
I wouldn’t learn what the Night Prince didn’t want. A clang of the door at the top of the staircase startled us into silence.
I withdrew my dagger. “Halvar, we’re leaving.”
“Right.” He shook out his hands and climbed over the broken cell door. “Blade?”
Siv provided him with a narrow knife. He seemed ready to protest but spun it into his grip instead.
Cries of two others rattled in my head. I wished we had enough to free them all, but Kjell told us the burn powder was tricky and expensive. We had one cell to use it on and no more.
At the stairs, Ravenspire patrols spilled into the cell block. Their dark leathers and guarders were damp with blood. They screamed at us to stop, then charged, ready to kill. My mind went blank. From fear or instinct, I couldn’t say. I simply jabbed, cut, and parried. Siv handled a battle well, but Halvar was mesmerizing.
Not once did he stop grinning. Even with broken fingers, he danced around the guards. His blade tore out a throat, stuck in ribs, in the heart, the belly as if he did not even need to think. The last guard fumbled back after Halvar’s knife sliced the side of his neck and the body smashed into me.
Halvar caught me by the arm and winked. “Tis so good to see you again, have I told you?”
“Yes,” I said, glancing at the dead guards at our feet. “And I can see now why your people were the first knights.”
Halvar chuckled, but held a finger to his lips. “Naughty. Keep those secrets, dear Elise.”
“I can’t say anything detailed. I’m lip-locked by fury.”
“Ah, still a sore subject for you, I see.”
I rolled my eyes and ran after Halvar, grateful he was alive. Ragged, perhaps, but alive.
“Um, may I ask, my sneaky Agitator,” Halvar began when Siv took the lead, “where exactly are we going to get out of the prison?”
“Up,” was all she said.
We climbed the staircase back to the level with the spring door, then turned into another staircase. Up here, the shouting from the clans bellowed through every hall. Guards shouted commands; archers fired again. Outside flames rose and the angry clash of steel on steel gave way that the shield walls had broken. The Agitators were fighting.
“Here,” Siv shouted. She skidded in front of a window next to a torch on the outer wall. With the point of her elbow, she smashed through the glass, and lifted the torch from the sconce, waving it back and forth.
“You’re certain this is the one?”
“Yes,” she said, breathless. “Five down from the center of the prison.”
A horn blew in the distance, the signal for the clan to pull back. If they were still able to at this point remained to be seen.
Siv flicked her fingers. “Back up!”
From the trees, a bolt attached to thick rope whistled through the window and into the wet stone of the prison wall. Siv checked the tautness of the line, stepped onto the window’s ledge, then unbuckled a boiled leather belt she’d fastened to her leg. “I’ll go first.”
Siv slung the belt over the rope, secured the buckle again, and slipped into the strap. She adjusted and secured it underneath her shoulders, then pounced off the windowsill into the night. Siv skidded down the line, legs tucked, and avoided the points of the gate by a few paces.
“Here.” I turned to Halvar, gathered the serf skirts in my fists, and removed a similar belt from my leg. Once it was secured over the line, I gestured for him to come close. “Make sure it’s under your arms.”
“I am not leaving you here,” Halvar said.
“I’m right behind you.”
Reluctantly, Halvar stepped onto the ledge. I helped secure the loop over his head, careful of wounds sliced into his body I hadn’t noticed before, and his injured fingers. He glanced back at me, doubtless ready to argue, but his eyes widened.
He shouted my name, then everything blurred.
A fist struck the back of my head. I fumbled as my eyes darted between the raven who’d surprised me and Halvar who was trying to escape the makeshift harness and fight for me.
I bit the inside of my cheek and shoved him.
Halvar cursed as he was pulled out the window. He shouted my name again, but it faded with him.
I slammed the edge of my dagger against the rope, cutting it before the guards used it to track where the clan hid.
A guard’s thick arm curled around my waist. I screamed, kicked, bit. Anything to get free, but failed when his hand clapped over my mouth, and he dragged me away into the fury prison.