“Psst!”
Aydin looked at Colwin. “What?”
“Aydin? Colwin?”
Aydin and Colwin turned to look behind them at the window. Feeling a bizarre sense of unreality, Aydin rose with an effort and moved to the window.
Emma was standing below them looking up. His heart nearly stopped in his chest.
“By the gods, Emma!” he gasped, horrified. “You will get yourself killed!”
She glared at him. “Catch this when I throw it up and loop it around the bars!”
Aydin and Colwin stared at her blankly.
She had a length of chain in her hands, they discovered. She swung it round and around and then pitched it. Colwin and Aydin both made a grab for it, but it fell short of the window by several feet.
“What are you doing, you little fool!” Aydin hissed at her.
“Just grab the damned chain!” Emma snapped. Checking it, she reeled a couple more feet through her hand and began twirling it again.
“You will brain yourself with that thing!” Colwin snapped.
She released it after several turns, nearly braining him with it when it flew at his face. He snagged it before it could fall away again and dragged it through the window.
Emma did a little dance on the ground below them. “Now put around the bars and hook the end in one of the loops.”
“You are mad!” Aydin growled, but he helped Colwin thread the chain around the bars and then hooked the end as she’d described.
“I saw it in a cowboy movie—of course they used horses …. Get ready to jump!”
Aydin studied her as she raced to the front of the strange looking cart parked below the window. Opening the door, she climbed inside and he heard an odd coughing noise and then a low growl. The cart moved forward slowly until the chain leading from the bars on the window to the cart grew taut.
The chain began to vibrate and fear shot through Aydin. It wasn’t going to pull the bars out! It was going to snap. Before he could shout a warning, however, the cart began to buck. The smell of something burning wafted past his nostrils. Suddenly, without any warning at all, the bars shot outward, crumbling away a section of the wall as it did.
Aydin shot a startled look at Colwin, but Colwin had already leapt toward the opening. Shaking his shock, Aydin jumped.
Emma leapt from the cart and raced toward them. Launching herself at Colwin and throwing her arms around his neck. Colwin embraced her briefly, and then swung her onto his back.
The prisoners who’d been sharing the cell with them began to drop through the opening before they collected themselves and launched into a full out gallop around the side of the building. Aydin was inclined to avoid the moving thing that had brought them into the city, but he bowed to Emma’s insistence and leapt onto it behind her and Colwin. When he’d attained his balance, he discovered racing along the already moving walk helped him attain far more speed than he could have on solid ground, particularly since the streets were full of centaurs.
They began to shout at them as they raced past. When Aydin saw that several had decided to challenge them, he poured on more speed until he drew alongside Colwin and used his shoulder to knock them out of the way as they tried to gain the moving walk. Doubts filled him that they could possibly outrun or plow their way past everyone in the streets, but although they heard a hue and cry behind them, they managed to clear the most dense area without mishap.
He was laboring for breath by the time they reached the end of the moving walk and leap off onto the ground. He threw a breathless grin at Emma as she turned to look at him. “Did you by chance also learn the way out?”
“We followed the road. We didn’t make any turns when we came out the passage.”
He wanted to kiss her. He would’ve if he’d dared stop long enough. They were forced to slow before they reached the entrance to passage to catch their breath, however, and he wouldn’t have spared the time for that if he’d known his heart was going to explode if he didn’t allow himself a little time for recovery from the run.
He paused long enough to spare a glance back when before they entered the passage. It didn’t comfort him. Behind them, he could see armed warriors charging after them.
“Gods! It was too much to hope they would not notice that Emma had broken their prison!” he muttered gustily. “It looks like half their army is behind us.”
“And the gods only know how many in front!” Colwin added.
“I didn’t know anything else to try! The ones already there are supposed to be looking for the hoonans, right?” Emma said worriedly.
Aydin shook his head at her. “That was not a complaint, dearling, only an observation. They might be distracted enough not to see us, but I don’t think we can count on it.”
Emma’s excitement about succeeding in breaking them out waned. “What do we do now?”
“Keep going and hope that we can get past the guards at the other end. I am not in favor of going back when they had it in mind to execute us! And I doubt there is another way in or out of this valley.”
Emma felt a little sick. “I
knew
it was a very bad thing!”
“It is still a very bad thing.” Aydin moved alongside Colwin and reached for her, pulling her into his arms and holding her tightly for a moment. “Listen to Emma and do as I say,” he said gruffly.
She nodded, nuzzling her face against his throat.
“Promise me.”
She pulled away, trying to see his face in the darkness. “You’re scaring me, Adyin.”
He swallowed audibly. “Promise.”
Emma bit her lip. She wasn’t going to promise him anything until she knew what he wanted her to do because she had a feeling it wasn’t something she would want to do. “I promise,” she lied, knowing he wouldn’t say anything else until she did.
“If this goes badly for us, you must go to the king for protection.”
Emma swallowed with an effort. “Don’t talk like that! We got out, didn’t we?”
“He wants you, Emma. He can protect you.”
“Aydin!”
“I mean it, Emma. I want to know that you will be safe, no matter what happens.”
Emma thought for several moments that she was going to burst into tears. “We can’t give up now!” she said forlornly.
“We have not given up. We will not. We will fight.”
With their bare hands against armed men? She knew then that it was hopeless, that he was saying he didn’t mean to allow them to capture him again. She tightened her arms around him. “Promise me you won’t do anything to get yourself killed. I love you, Aydin!”
He kissed her. For a moment, she thought he meant that he loved her, too. Then she realized he was saying goodbye. It took all she could do to sniff her tears back. She clung to him a moment longer when he pulled away, but holding on to him, she realized, wouldn’t save him—wouldn’t save Colwin.
There
had
to be something they could do! She wasn’t ready to give up. She didn’t want Dresden even if he did want her, and she thought Adyin only thought so because
he
cared about her.
Almost the moment he settled her on Colwin’s back again, they launched into a run. They raced along the passage full tilt until they reached the area where it narrowed until they could barely squeeze through single file. Even then they barely slowed, though.
“Wait!” Emma gasped as a sudden thought struck her. “You should shift! Both of you! They’ll hear the clatter of your hooves on the stone. I could hear the sounds echoing around us when we came in. They won’t hear us if you do that and they’re focused on an attack from the outside. We’d at least have a chance of slipping past them.”
“They will certainly catch if we shift,” Colwin said. “We have an army advancing from behind. We cannot run nearly as fast on two legs, and you cannot.”
Emma thought that over. It occurred to her that she’d picked up more from the old movies she’d watched as a kid than she’d realized. “I know another way!” she said excitedly. “It won’t take but a few minutes. Stop and help me down!”
“We need to keep moving,” Aydin said impatiently.
“But we can muffle the sound of your hooves with my skirt!”
She thought Aydin had ignored her, but as soon as the passage widened again, he helped her down. She snatched the skirt off and handed to Aydin, who tore it in half. Handing the one to Colwin, he tore his own piece into strips and sat down to tie the strips around his hooves. “I need help. I cannot reach the back,” he muttered in disgust.
Emma was blind in the darkness. She had to find her way by feel, but she tied the strips as quickly as she could and turned to help Colwin. “It feels strange,” Colwin remarked when they started off again.
“Yes,” Aydin agreed, “but Emma is right. It does muffle the noise.”
Not as much as she’d hoped, but she thought it still might give them a chance.
“No more talk. The passage narrowed near the center,” Aydin warned them.
Emma tightened her arms around Colwin. “Colwin?” she whispered.
He glanced back at her.
“I love you, too. Be careful.”
“Just hold tight, love. I do not want you to bounce off if I have to run like hell.”
Chapter Thirteen
Dawn broke before they reached the end of the passage and Emma’s hopes withered as the darkness around them began to lift. She’d been trying to convince herself that her eyes had just adjusted to the darkness, but she finally had to accept that they’d lost the night and the chance to escape with it.
Colwin and Aydin both slowed when they realized they were nearing the outer opening of the passage and began to scan the walls above them. Emma thought at first that they were staring up at the patches of sky they could glimpse occasionally, but she finally realized they were looking for the position of the guards.
Her heart nearly failed her when she spied one herself. She tensed all over as Colwin moved below him, relaxing fractionally when Aydin also passed the opening above them. The cloth was far more effective in preventing their hooves from ringing against the stone when they walked cautiously and Emma began to be more hopeful despite the nearly insurmountable odds she knew they were facing.
They stopped completely when they reached the opening. Adyin signaled Colwin to move as close to the wall as he could and moved to the opening taking quick glances outside, moving to a new position and checking again.
Emma felt the tension inside her mount until she began to feel faint from trying to hold her breath to keep from breathing hard enough to be overheard. Finally, Aydin moved toward them and spoke in a low voice. “I think I have found their positions. I will go out first. If you hear a shout, charge through and make a sharp right, following the creek. I will try to hold them off. If you do not hear a call, give me a count of twenty and then follow as quietly as you can—to the right. I do not want to chance running into the hoonans when we have no weapons.”
Colwin nodded grimly.
Emma let go of him long enough to wipe her sweaty palms on her tunic and then looped her arms around him again, locking her fingers together. She bit her lip as Aydin slipped outside, held her breath, prayed, trying to count in her head. She managed to suck in a breath when she’d counted to twenty and they didn’t hear anything.
Colwin moved to the opening and studied the area outside until he spotted Aydin. She tightened her arms around Colwin frantically when he slipped from the passage and began moving carefully among the rocks, pausing every few moments to search for the men the king had sent to guard the passage.
She wished abruptly that she’d stolen tunics for them to match those worn by the king’s guard, but discarded it with the reflection that she might as well have wished for an airplane or a helicopter. She would’ve had as much luck getting either one.
They’d managed to move maybe twenty feet from the passage when Emma heard the shout she’d been dreading. Her blood turned to ice water. Colwin jolted, glanced swiftly around and then bolted from cover. They’d nearly reached the stream when Emma realized that bellows were coming at them from every direction.
Opening her eyes, she whipped a terrified look around them. She sucked in breath on a scream when she saw a wall of hoonans racing toward them from the woods on the other side of the tiny stream. When she whipped a look behind them, she saw a wall of centaurs charging in their direction.
“Oh my god! Col! We’re surrounded!”
“Hell!” he bellowed, struggling to run faster over the rocky ground, trying to kick off the rags she’d tied to his feet at the same time.
“It’s her!” one of the hoonans bellowed.
“Oh shit! Of god!” Emma exclaimed.
Aydin charged toward them, intercepting the hoonan who’d made a grab for her.
Colwin bounded away and slammed into another centaur. They struggled. Colwin had managed to grab his sword hand. Emma stared at the blade as it whipped back and forth with their movements and finally lurched forward. Grabbing the handle above his fist, she sank her teeth into his knuckles as hard as she could.
He uttered a roar of pain and let go of the sword.
She had it. She wasn’t certain what to do with it, but she finally decided to use it as a club and slammed the flat of the blade down on the other centaur’s head. His eyes rolled around in his head. He stumbled. When he did, Colwin released his hold and grabbed the blade from her.
He nearly unseated her when he reared upward and kicked the man with his forelegs.
“Hold on, gods damn, Emma!” he roared at her when she dug trenches across his belly trying to maintain her grip on him.