Nexi materialized next to her. “I found the stairs. This way.”
They ran together down the stone hallway and took a couple of turns, eventually hitting a set of rough-cut steps that curved around. When they got to the bottom, there were four offshoots, four possible ways to go.
Off in the distance, there was the sound of footfalls. Many. Heavy. Coming at them.
More guards.
Ahmare knew that Chalen had gone to wherever her brother was. And might well be slaughtering Ahlan at this very second. “Damn it—”
A whistle, sharp and urgent, came from the shadows.
She and Nexi trained their guns in that direction.
A guard stepped out of the darkness with both his hands up. With his hood pulled off, his face was showing.
That young face. That red hair.
“You,” Ahmare breathed. “From the forest.”
It was the guard who she had spared from Duran’s wrath, and Ahmare snapped ahold of Nexi’s arm. “I know him. Don’t shoot.”
The guard looked all around, as if to make sure there was nobody other than the three of them. Then he motioned and pointed.
Ahmare glanced at Nexi. “We can trust him.”
“The fuck we can—”
“I saved his life. He owes me.”
The guard stamped his foot and motioned more insistently, his robe flapping. Tightening her grip on Nexi’s arm, Ahmare pulled the Shadow along, and the young male led them over to a grate in the stone wall. Next thing she knew, they were crammed into a crawl space, the metal lattice closed behind them as guards flooded the area from the four corridors, congregating in the torchlight right in front of the hidden passage. Through the holes in the metal weave, Ahmare counted them. Ten. Maybe fifteen.
They were using hand signals, getting a plan.
The young guard tapped her shoulder. Nodded behind himself. And started to shuffle off in that direction.
Ahmare kept her gun out and stayed behind him, squeezing herself through a tight carve out of stone and earth that made her think of Duran’s ductwork.
The young guard stopped abruptly. They had come to another grate and Ahmare pushed her way up to look through its metal links.
It was a dungeon cell, either the one Duran had been in or another just like it, bars welded into the stone floor and ceiling, a steel mesh in place, walls dripping with groundwater, bones on the floor.
There was a male curled up naked in the center of it.
“Ahlan—”
The guard covered her mouth with his hand and shook his head. Putting his forefinger to his lips, he made a shhhh with his mouth, and then reached for the grate, moving his fingertips around its edges as if he were looking for a release.
Ahmare did the same, even though she had no idea what she was going after. All the while, she tried to see whether her brother was breathing: Was his chest inflating at all? Was he dead? His skin was shockingly pale—white, even—
“Bring him to me!”
Chalen’s voice. Off to one side. Out of range.
“I will kill him myself!”
The bars of the cell began to rise up, and guards entered, picking up her brother by the arms and starting to drag him out of view.
No! she thought as she pushed against the grating. No!
As Chalen barked orders, Ahlan came awake in the guards’ holds, his frail body jerking, his head coming up.
“Please . . .” he said hoarsely. “No more . . . no more . . . please . . .”
Ahmare shoved the red-haired male back and got into his position. Like maybe if she tried from this angle, she could accomplish what he could not—and no, she didn’t give a fuck if they were outnumbered. She had a gun. Two. Nexi also had two—
“No!” she shouted.
Her brother started to scream. And Ahmare saw that Chalen was up on his feet, shuffling over, a knife in his hand. Through the tiny holes in the grating, it was a horror movie come to life, her brother thrashing, his bony body flailing.
Ahmare started to pound on the metal lattice, but it was set so solidly into the stone, mounted so well, that there was no noise, just pain on the heels of her fists.
Chalen was laughing now, the sound loud, so loud, so evil. With maniacal eyes, he raised the blade over his head. He had both hands locked on the hilt, as if he needed the extra strength, even though the guards were holding his target still—
The crash came without warning.
From absolutely out of nowhere, the sound of something plowing into the side of the dungeon wall—or was it an explosion?—reminded Ahmare of the detonations in the mountain.
Everything stopped. Chalen. Her brother. Even the guards looked to the sound.
A second impact hit, and that was when the castle’s side started to crumble. In response, Chalen just stood there, frozen, as if he couldn’t believe someone was actually blasting through his fortification.
Except it wasn’t a bomb
It was . . . an old Dodge Ram truck.
And when Ahmare saw who was behind the wheel, she swore her broken heart was playing tricks on her.
“Duran!” she yelled.
34