Blood in Snow (25 page)

“Oh no!”

He found Vomit propped up against the wall, clutching his abdomen. Blood seeped between his fingers.

“Keep going!” Edmund told the knights. “To the exit! Hurry! I’ll stay behind and cover your retreat!”

Knights and lords began to fumble past, tripping in their fatigue.

“Here, let me see your—” Edmund lifted Vomit’s hand. Pink intestines slid out of the gash.

“Filth,” Vomit said weakly. “I killed two. Two!”

Edmund shot a glance at the fleeing knights; none were paying any attention to him.

“Hold on, Vomit.” He put his hand on the wound. “Hold on.”

He cast his healing spell.

The wound started to close.

Vomit smiled, but his eyes weren’t focused.

“Two,” he muttered and then went limp.

The clash of metal and the laughing cries of the King grew louder as Lionel and his rearguard retreated toward Edmund.

Edmund knelt by Vomit’s body. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner. Rest in peace.”

The rearguard came into view.

Several knights waved torches, weapons broken, shields bent and twisted; they fought a running battle with a horde of goblins trying to overtake them. An arrow whizzed overhead and snapped against the tunnel’s rough-hewn walls.

“Watch out for the bodies!” Edmund pulled the dead pit dwellers out of the knights’ way. “On the floor! Watch out!”

“Edwin?” the King called over his shoulder, voice strained yet still jovial. “Is that you? How much farther?”

“A quarter mile,” Edmund guessed. Several knights swore, their sword arms tiring. “Don’t worry, it’s—”

A horn blew behind them. Cries from more goblins reverberated down the passageway.

“Edwin!” Panic now touched the King’s tone. “What is that? Where is that battle in relation to us?”

“It’s coming from the guardroom, sire,” one bodyguard said. “They’ve cut off our retreat!”

“Trapped!” another knight muttered.

“Edwin!” the King yelled.

“I’ll go check it out!”

Edmund ran off into the darkness. The noise of a new battle grew louder as he approached the exit, the ring of steel on steel echoing back to him. Men were screaming. Goblins had retaken the guardroom, blocking any chance of escape.

We’re trapped!

Edmund stopped and considered his options.

Hide in the mines? You can produce enough food now.

The King wouldn’t go for it. He’d rather die fighting.

Forget the King! Save your—!

People jogged toward Edmund from the guardroom. Judging by their voices, they were goblins. Within seconds, they were on him, surprised to find anybody else in the dark passageway.

Edmund swung his short sword, its blade scoring deep into the unseen foe’s flesh. There was screaming. Another sword whistled somewhere to his right. Edmund slashed, then stabbed blindly. His thrust hit someone; there was another cry of pain.

“Edwin?” the King hollered from up the passage.

Edmund slashed again, cutting through what felt like an arm. It fell heavily to the floor, followed by a body. He kept stabbing until its shrieking stopped.

“Edwin!” the King hollered again.

“Here! I just killed a couple of goblins.”

“Good! Kill a couple hundred more!”

Red torchlight appeared from up the passage; the King and his knights now ran in full retreat, goblins on their heels.

“Is the exit held against us?” the King cried, racing toward him.

“I don’t know! There’s battle.”

The foremost knights ran past Edmund, armor wrenched and battered. All of them glistened a bloody red.

Edmund dashed to the King as he and a solitary knight turned and fought to slow the mass of goblin warriors. An arrow skimmed the King’s armor.

“Retreat!” the King bellowed. “Edwin, retreat!”

The King’s accompanying knight fell, a goblin sword piercing his throat.

Edmund leapt forward and swung his black blade.

“Retreat, I said!” the King shouted again.

“No! You can’t hold them off yourself!”

Edmund threw himself at the advancing goblins, cutting through their parrying weapons and into their armor. Blue sparks lit up the shadows. The goblins’ advance wavered in the face of Edmund’s reckless strokes. Edmund swung again and again, sword cleaving through everything it hit. Three, four, five goblins fell before him.

“Good God, man!” the King cried next to him. “My lessons worked! Look at you!”

“Go!” Edmund yelled. “Go now!”

“A king never leaves when there is battle at hand!”

Another arrow flew past Edmund’s head and slammed into a knight’s already dented breastplate with a hollow thud. The knight collapsed.

Goblins in front of Edmund were reassembling; some dived at his feet, trying to trip him, but he kept swinging his sword as fast and as hard as he could.

“They’re coming from behind,” one of the remaining knights shouted. “They’ve taken the guard’s chamber! We’re surrounded!”

“Back to back!” the King ordered. “Stand back to back! Now is the time to give them what for! Die gloriously, men! Die gloriously!”

Shouts from the exit grew louder, then, among them, Edmund heard a new sound—the snarling of a very angry dog.

“Becky!” He stabbed a goblin squarely in the forehead; its skull split open, revealing white brains. “Friends are behind us, Your Majesty! Friends!”

“Ed!” called a female voice up the passageway.

“Abby! Secure the exit! Retreat! Retreat!”

A goblin swung a two-handed mace and connected with the side of the King’s helmet with a loud crack. Lionel crumbled to one knee. At once, three goblins were upon him, stabbing their scimitars through the metal mesh between his breastplate and gardbrace.

Edmund and the remaining knights leapt to his defense.

Knights slew the attacking goblins, but the King was grievously hurt; blood spurted from his armpit.

Becky charged, torchlight glinting in her red eyes. Vaulting over the dead bodies, she slammed into the wall of goblins.

Panic renewed Edmund’s strength; he, too, charged forward, stabbing and swinging as he went.

For a moment, the goblins gave ground.

“Back, Becky, back! Stay back!” Edmund shouted.

Other voices yelled from down the passageway—human voices.

“Ed!”

“Here! I’m here!”

Pond, Hendrick, and Hendrick’s men-at-arms rushed forth, rested and well-armed with black-bladed swords. Shields raised, they drove into the goblins, expertly delivering blows for maximum effect. The goblins gave even more ground, giving Edmund some breathing room.

The King’s five remaining guards lifted Lionel. Lionel tried to wave them away but ended up dropping his sword.

“Get him to the guardroom!” Edmund leaned against the tunnel wall, catching his breath. “Outside! Get him outside the door! We’ll hold them off! Go! Get him outside!”

Becky ripped into a fallen goblin who tried in vain to fight her off.

“Becky,” Edmund said, “come back!”

Becky bounded to Edmund, a still-twitching goblin arm in her jaws.

“You okay?” Pond asked, but Edmund turned to Hendrick, panting.

“What’s the situation at the guard’s chamber? Can we get out?”

“Now we can,” Hendrick replied.

“Those stupid lords wouldn’t send you reinforcements.” Abby threw her arms around Edmund, heedless of the blood. “We saw a bunch of goblins go in through the black door, but the lords in the forest still wouldn’t send help! Even after the knights holding the door against them started to fall!” She looked at him tenderly. “Are you okay?”

Behind them, the fresh arms and black swords of Hendrick’s men kept the goblins well at bay.

“I’m fine,” Edmund said. “How far to the exit?”

“Two hundred yards,” Pond said. “Give or take.”

“Good. Everybody fall back! Hendrick! Fall back to the door. Time to leave!”

“High time!” Hendrick sliced a goblin’s sword in two.

Bit by bit, they retreated to the guardroom, where Lord Archibald and his knights lay slaughtered about the floor.

“Abby, get the snowshoes and coats,” Edmund ordered. “You too, Pond. We can’t leave if we’re going to freeze to death.”

“Aye aye!” Pond seized an armload of supplies and threw them out into the snow.

“Out the door. All of you,” Edmund said. “Hendrick, let’s get the hell out of here!”

Still holding the goblins off, Hendrick and his men withdrew slowly from the guardroom and out into the trampled snow. Once they were all outside, Edmund surged forward, driving the goblins back one last time. He yanked the iron door closed.

“We can’t lock it from out here!” Hendrick said. “We’ll have to hope—”

Edmund cast his enlargement spell. The door’s metal squealed as it expanded into the surrounding rock. Behind it came muffled yells as goblins jerked on the door handle.

Breathing hard, Edmund asked a nearby wounded knight, “How’s … how’s the King? Where is he? We don’t have much time; we have to get him out of here.”

The King lay on the snow halfway down the slope, surrounded by his lords and what remained of his guard, his blond hair stained a dark red. Edmund knelt by his side.

A knight tried to pull Edmund away, but Becky stepped closer and growled. The knight immediately let go.

The King’s eyes opened, and he laughed.

“Damned good dog,” he managed to say.

Edmund laid his hands over the gash on Lionel’s forehead. The King groaned and several knights pulled Edmund’s hands away, despite Becky’s snarls.

“I can help him!” Edmund shouted at the knights. “Leave me alone!”

The King’s grey eyes opened again. He tried to laugh a second time but merely coughed. “Leave him be.” Then he said to Edmund, “You will be a fine king, Edwin. Enjoy your lands.”

Edmund wrenched away from the knights’ grip and laid his hands on the King’s forehead. He cast his healing spell, not caring if everybody around could hear.

“
Smerte av reise
.”

Immediately the wound started to close. A collective gasp rose as the surviving knights and lords.

Edmund laid his hands on the King’s side over a stab wound and cast his healing spell again.

“He’s a … a witch!” somebody cried.

“He’s a healer!” Abby shouted. “Leave him alone! He’s a healer, damn it! He’s saving the bastard’s life!”

Knights closed in around Edmund, bloody swords drawn, but Hendrick’s men leapt forward, black blades at the ready.

“Anybody who touches him,” Hendrick said, “dies!”

Goblins continued to hammer against the iron door.

“We don’t have much time!” Edmund told the knights, their notched swords still pointed at him. “We have to set up some sort of defense. They’ll be out any minute!”

Lord Ashford stepped forward.

“Take the King,” he commanded to one of the guard, “and bear him southward as fast as may be, due southward, until you reach Eryn Mas.” He turned to another exhausted knight. “Gather the men-at-arms from the forest and array them along this slope. We will make our stand here.”

“Good!” Edmund said. “We can kill them as they come out of—”

“We no longer need your assistance, witch.” Lord Ashford scowled. “We’ll deal with you as soon as the goblins are dead.”

The King moaned as two knights hoisted him up and began carrying him southward into the forest.

“We have to fight together!” Abby shouted at Lord Ashford. “The more swords we have—”

“Oh, shut up! If I wanted the thoughts of a hysterical woman, I’d ask for it.”

“Ed …?” Pond said, black sword still drawn. “What do you want to do?”

Edmund glared at Lord Ashford.

“Come on, everybody,” he said to Hendrick and his men. “Let’s leave these men to their fate.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Edmund glanced back up the hill.

Two hundred of the King’s men-at-arms and what remained of his lords and knights stood silhouetted against the starry winter sky as they prepared for goblins to issue forth from the black iron door.

“They’re going to get themselves killed,” Edmund said.

“Serves the idiots right,” Abby replied. “When the goblins went into the guardroom from outside, we begged Lord shit-in-his-pants to send in reinforcements. But he kept saying he had orders to stay in the woods.”

“I don’t know …” said Hendrick, watching the King’s men ready themselves. “Goblins can only come out of there one or two at a time. There’d have to be a lot of them to force their way out into the open.”

“Trust me,” Edmund said, “there’re
a lot
of goblins.”

Shaking his head, he resumed trudging down the slope. The others followed, their snowshoes leaving deep prints even a blind goblin could track.

“Did you …” Hendrick began, trailing after Edmund into the forest. The damp pine needles smelled wonderful, but none of them took much pleasure in it at the moment. “I mean, that is, when you were rescuing the prisoners, did you …”

“He wasn’t in the pits,” Edmund said.

Hendrick sighed. “So Bain’s dead.”

“I’m sorry … but if it helps, he was well avenged. We must have killed at least six hundred goblins.”

“Six hundred?” one guard repeated. “I didn’t think there’d be so many! I mean, I thought there was only an isolated band or something, hidden away under the mountains.”

“There’s more than an isolated band,” Edmund said. “There’ll be thousands of goblins coming out of that door in a few minutes.”

Pond traipsed beside Edmund. “So what’s your plan?”

Edmund stopped again, panting breaths white in the moonlit darkness. Again he glanced up the hill, though trees obscured his view. Any minute, the iron door would shrink to its normal size, and the battle would begin.

“Ed?” Abby prodded.

“How much food do you all have?” he asked everybody. “Enough to get back to Rood?”

“We would,” Hendrick said, “if we return to our base camp and take the supplies we’d brought for Lionel’s men.”

“Is he dead?” one guard asked. “Old Yellowhair, I mean?”

“I don’t think so,” Edmund replied. “I stopped the bleeding, and he seemed strong enough when they carried him away. Then again, there’s n-nothing, there’s nothing I can do if his wounds had been poisoned.” He resumed hiking down the steep, forested slope, snowshoes sliding with each weary step. “We’d better hope he lives, at least so he can keep his promise. We don’t know how a new king would react to our independence.”