Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) (13 page)

“I don’t know if I was addicted,”
she said.

“Better safe than sorry,” Aaron
said, moving to the helm. “I ain’t gonna land in the city, we don’t got the
time.”

“We’ll use the rope ladder,”
Ashlyn said. She shook her head, trying to clear it. Whatever had happened with
the
shift
magic, addicted or not, she
felt very strange now that it was gone.

As Aaron maneuvered the airship
to hover directly over Toryn, Ashlyn briefly considered saying goodbye to her
dad, but thought better of it. He was probably still unconscious, and she
didn’t have any time to spare.

She was still wearing her gloves,
fortunately, and as she climbed onto the first rung of the violently whipping
ladder, she looked down, estimating how much of a jump it would be.

It was too far down to just let
go, but she could slide a bit. Ashlyn kicked her feet off the rung and relaxed
her hands. Without letting go completely, she let the ladder slip through her
fingers and allowed herself to slide towards the ground. The wind whipped her
hair around her face and the palms of her gloves warmed to an almost unbearable
heat from the friction, but Ashlyn’s concentration was firmly focused on the
ground below, trying to gauge the distance.

At last she tightened her grip on
the ladder, and came to an unceremonious, abrupt halt. The sudden stop felt
like it almost yanked her arms out of her socket, and Ashlyn grimaced as she
found the next rung with her feet. Maybe sliding down wasn’t such a great idea
after all.

Climbing down the last two rungs,
she stepped off the ladder and looked up to see Drake and Vargo making their
way down, much slower and more carefully than she had. Ha. Wimps.

“Ash!” Restlyn enveloped her in a
hug. “Are you okay? Where’s your father?”

Ashlyn returned the hug and looked
around, curious at the empty state of the city streets. “He’s on the ship,
still,” she said. “Aaron’s not going to set down. My dad’s gonna be okay, but
he needs major medical attention, and it’s too risky to keep him here. Where is
Skye?”

“Right here,” Skye said from her
right. He nodded to Vargo as the Spartan stepped off the ladder, followed
shortly by Drake.

The crew began pulling the ladder
up, and Ashlyn waved to them, her heart in her throat. They had her dad’s life
in their hands, and she was letting them leave without her. But he would be far
safer in North Camp, especially considering they had mere moments before Kou’s
army attacked.

“Did you kill Kou last night?”
she asked Skye as the airship departed.

The blond shook his head, his
dark glasses obscuring his eyes. “No way to know for sure.”

“I’ve heard that before,” she
muttered. “Kou’s troops are on their way. Almost here, in fact.”

“Ellis and Aik are coordinating
the army behind the- well, behind what’s left of the pagoda,” Restlyn said.
“Skye and I got everyone else inside. We were going to head back to help the
soldiers.”

Ashlyn looked back, seeing the
first of the black cats scaling the city walls. They were already pacing the
top, looking for a way down. “There’s no time,” she said. “When will the army
be ready?”

“Thirty seconds, maybe,” Skye
said, drawing his sword. “They were distributing weapons when we left them.”

“Not fast enough,” Vargo snapped.

Ashlyn reached back and grabbed
her sword. Her heart was pounding, but she refused to let her nervousness show.
“Are you telling me a Spartan can’t stay alive for thirty seconds until
reinforcements arrive?”

“You challenging me, princess?”
He tossed a grin over his shoulder as he faced the walls, baton at the ready.

“Just wondering if you’re going
to turn tail and run,” she retorted, “Not like you’ve ever done
that
before…on the metro tracks…in
Endro.”

“Hey now,” he complained. “Low
blow!”

“Less talking, more ass-kicking,
Spartan!” Ashlyn rushed forward, watching keenly as one of the cats jumped from
the top of the wall to the crow’s nest and began bounding down the stairs. Her
adrenaline hadn’t quite kicked in yet, but she still knew that being on the offensive
was a better idea than waiting for the cats to come to her. She met the panther
at the base of the stairs and dove into a roll as the cat jumped at her. Ashlyn
came up onto her feet and spun, casting an
ice
spell on the ground and sending the feline sliding. Vargo was there to
intercept where the ice patch ended, cracking his baton down on the panther’s
head with one swift movement.

Ashlyn charged up the stairs,
determined to stop the rest of the cats before they reached the ground. From
the corner of her eye she saw one cat jump to the ground from the top of the
wall- a risky move, considering how high the wall was- but there was nothing
she could do about that now. She’d just have to leave it to FLD to deal with
that one.

Three of the cats were already
departing the crow’s nest, and one began running towards her when it saw her
advancing. Ashlyn jumped up onto the railing and ran up the thin beam like a
tightrope, waiting until the cat was almost upon her before she launched
herself into a flip, slicing cleanly through the animal’s spine in mid-air. A
second cat lunged at her, and Ashlyn danced sideways, deflecting the cat’s
claws with her sword. She spun in a roundhouse kick, catching the panther on
the side of the head and knocking it over the railing.

The third cat was hanging back,
seemingly wary of jumping into the fray. Ashlyn yanked her knife from its
sheath on her thigh and flung it sideways. The cat drew back, snarling, but
didn’t move fast enough, and the knife embedded itself in the creature’s
shoulder. Ashlyn didn’t give it any time for recovery, dashing towards it and
leaping into a flip kick that brought the back of her boot down hard on the
cat’s head.

The black panther collapsed
against the staircase, either unconscious or dead, as Ashlyn scrambled to her
feet again. She jerked the knife out of the fallen creature’s shoulder, slid it
back into its sheath and continued up the stairs. It hadn’t occurred to her
before, but if she could get onto the wall, it might be possible for her to hold
the cats off for at least a little while with her stanes. She wasn’t sure if
the bears were able to climb, but she hadn’t seen any on the walls yet, so it
seemed unlikely.

A loud
boom
shook the crow’s nest as she entered it, and Ashlyn grabbed
the railing for support. The vibration had shaken the entire city. Kou’s army
was trying to break down the gates. Ashlyn looked over her shoulder, and
breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the Toryn army advancing. Skye and Restlyn
were already shouting orders to the troops, readying themselves to intercept
any cats that jumped down from the walls and defend themselves if the rest of
the monsters did manage to break through the gate.

She turned back to the wall, and
steadied herself before taking a running leap. She jumped up onto the crow’s nest
railing and used it to launch herself into the air.

She landed on top of the wall
just as another impact shook the heavy wood slats. Ashlyn lost her grip and
slid off the opposite side, but managed to catch herself before she fell off by
stabbing the knife into the wall for purchase. Grunting from the effort, she
dragged herself back over the edge, taking a moment as she regained her balance
to look down at the army outside Toryn.

There were perhaps forty
creatures milling about below, far more than she’d expected after the
devastation of the two attacks that she had made with Skye and Drake. Most of
them were bears, but there were a few snarling cats who were steadily climbing
the wall. Ashlyn blasted one with
fire,
and
smiled in grim satisfaction as the panther fell to the ground. She didn’t
typically take pleasure in hurting others, but after watching what they had
done to her father, she couldn’t bring herself to feel an ounce of sympathy for
these monsters.

The bears were hurling their
bodies at the gates in pairs- a surprisingly organized move- and Ashlyn could
see that the already-weakened wooden gates would not hold up much longer. She
pondered freezing the gates to add some additional protection, but before she
could make a decision, she saw a cat pull itself up onto the wall a few feet
away. Several yards down, another cat was nearing the top.

Ashlyn ran towards the first
panther, jumped over a swipe from the big cat and threw a punch that landed in
the middle of its bony forehead. Ashlyn’s hand smarted from the impact, but she
gritted her teeth and followed up with a crane kick, her foot connecting
solidly with the animal’s lower jaw. The cat growled and shook its head before
charging. Caught off-guard, Ashlyn managed to collect herself enough to leap
up, dancing down the panther’s back and landing on the opposite side. Her last
step, with her foot at the base of the cat’s spine, threw the animal
off-balance, and it fell off the inside edge of the wall. Ashlyn couldn’t stop
to watch its descent, sprinting towards the next panther. When she got close
enough, she leaped into a spinning attack, the shuriken in one hand and her
sword in the other.

The cat never had a chance.

As its body fell to the ground
below, Ashlyn crouched on top of the wall, trying to keep her balance as the
bears continued their assault on the city gates. Amidst the writhing bodies
below, she saw Kou- unshifted and in human form. How were the
shift
monsters not attacking him? Did he
have that much control over his army, even when they were in animal form?

The wall shook again beneath her,
and there was the sound of splintering wood. The bears had broken the gates.

Clearly she wasn’t going to do any
more good up here. She stood and ran back towards the crow’s nest.

Hopping from the wall into the
crow’s nest was much easier than jumping up had been, and Ashlyn sprinted down
the stairs, trying to take stock of what was going on below her as she ran. The
Toryn army greatly outnumbered the
shift
monsters,
but she knew not to count on numbers as a match for experience. She saw the
flash of Skye’s sword in the front lines, and tried to pick out some of the
other members of FLD from the masses, but couldn’t find anyone else.

At the bottom of the stairs, a
Toryn soldier was trying to cut down a bear with his katana. Ashlyn took the
opportunity to use the railing as a vault, landing on the bear’s back and
driving her sword deep into its neck. The big animal shuddered and roared, but
fell to the ground beneath her. Ashlyn nodded to the soldier and rushed towards
the next creature she saw. She wanted to find Kou, but it would be almost
impossible to pick him out from everyone here, and the next best thing would be
to rid Toryn of as many of these monsters as she could.

“Princess!” Vargo appeared beside
her. Blood spattered the side of his face, and the sleeve of his jacket was
torn, but he grinned at her, clearly in his element in the midst of battle.

“Spartan!” she shot back,
ridiculously happy to see him. She ducked under his arm as he swung his baton
at the bear behind her, turning as she did and sending an ice spell straight up
the bear’s nose, freezing its muzzle. The creature howled and fell backwards,
pawing at its muzzle in agony.

A flash of black hair in the
sunlight caught her eye, and Ashlyn straightened up, trying to peer through the
crowds, aware that her Toryn soldiers were all wearing head coverings. She glimpsed
Kou, fighting his way through the throngs of soldiers- and moving away from
her. Where was he going? Ashlyn shoved past two soldiers and ran after him. She
leaped over a fallen bear and detoured around a pair of soldiers battling a
panther, frowning as she realized that Kou seemed to be headed for her house.
What could he possibly want from there? Maybe Tag was still in the basement?
Was Kou trying to pull off a rescue?

Kou shoved the door to her house
so hard that it almost fell off its tracks, and disappeared inside. Ashlyn
hesitated, wondering if she should take somebody in with her, and Vargo ran
into her from behind.

“What the hell are you doing?” he
demanded. “Party’s out here.”

“Kou’s in my house,” she
explained breathlessly, and glanced back. To her extreme delight, there didn’t
seem to be many monsters left. Could Toryn be winning?
This might be our chance to destroy the
shift
army once and for all,
she thought, and motioned to Vargo to
follow her. “We’ve got to catch him before he escapes.”

She entered the house cautiously,
letting her eyes adjust to the darkness inside. The door leading to the basement
was wide open, so Ashlyn tiptoed over to it, careful not to make a sound. The
distinctive sound of a squeaking metal gate reached her ears. She’d been right-
Kou was trying to free Tag.

Ashlyn crept down the stairs, knife
and shuriken at the ready. It was perfectly dark downstairs, and she paused,
wondering if maybe she and Vargo shouldn’t wait for Skye.

Something grazed against her
legs, like a cord of some kind, and abruptly her knees were pulled together
before something hard smacked against her calf.

“Look out!” Ashlyn cried, losing
her balance and tumbling down the stairs. The weapons skittered out of her
hands as she landed, and she smacked her head hard against the stone floor,
dizzying her for a moment. The lights came on immediately, and Kou stood above
her, a second bola in his hand. He snatched the knife from its sheath on her
thigh, but stumbled forward when Vargo hit him in the back with the baton. He
recovered quickly, diving out of the way before Vargo could land a second blow.