Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

When the fitting-out was finished, Marcus bowed again. “I’ll go and alert your escort, Your Majesty.”

“My queen,” Sothe whispered, as soon as Marcus had gone out into the foyer. “Something is wrong.”

“What?” Raesinia turned too quickly, setting her ornaments to clicking. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not certain.” Sothe licked her lips, like a snake tasting the air. “Something isn’t right. I can’t-”

She quieted as Marcus reentered. He, too, looked perturbed.

“Your Majesty,” he said. “May I ask a question?”

“Of course,” Raesinia said, fighting a rising tide of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

“Who usually guards your door?”

Raesinia blinked. “The Grays are charged with the security of the grounds. But the royal family is guarded by a company of Royal Grenadier Guards, and some of your Armsmen. There should be a few of each out there.” She’d walked past them a thousand times.

“There’s an escort forming up in the corridor,” Marcus said. “But it seems to be only Grays. And when I looked out, I didn’t see any Armsmen or Royals.”

“That is odd,” Raesinia said. “Perhaps they’ll be joining us later on?”

Someone rapped at the door. A voice came from outside. “Your Majesty? Open the door, if you please. There’s an emergency.”

“Don’t,” Sothe said. Raesinia hadn’t seen her move, but she was reemerging from her own room, a pistol in either hand, her long dress tied up above her knees to give her freedom of movement. “It’s Orlanko.”

“What?” Raesinia’s anxiety was shot through with rage. “He wouldn’t dare.”

“We’ve overestimated his caution,” Sothe said, positioning herself in the doorway. “Or his intelligence. But I’m certain those are his people.”

“Get behind me, Your Majesty,” Marcus said, surprisingly unfazed by this news. His saber rasped from its scabbard.

“Wait.” Raesinia scrambled to her feet. “We can’t be certain. Don’t shoot anybody-”

There was a thud and a crunch of wood. Someone had rammed his shoulder hard against the corridor door. It was a light, decorative thing, not designed to endure that kind of abuse, and splinters flew from around the bolt.

“-oh.” Raesinia’s mind went blank. There was no excuse for doing that to the queen’s chambers, even if the building was on fire. “Go ahead, then.”

They were in the main room of her suite, with a couch and table providing the only cover. A door separated this room from the foyer, but it was no sturdier than the one in the corridor and would provide only a few seconds’ respite. Instead of closing it, Sothe squared off in the doorway, staring across the open space of the foyer as though she were on a target range.

Another blow brought a great crash from the outer door, tearing the bolt out of the wood and sending splinters pinwheeling across the room. A man in a Noreldrai Grays uniform stumbled through it, and as he took a moment to straighten up and get his bearings Sothe shot him neatly in the head. He toppled backward against the doorframe, blocking the path of a second Gray who was struggling to get into the room. Sothe tossed her smoking pistol aside, switched the second one from left hand to right, and shot him, too, just as he was beginning to shout a warning. Then she drew a vicious, thick-bladed long knife into either hand, settled back on the balls of her feet, and waited.

“Your Majesty,” Marcus said urgently. “We have to get out of here.”

“Stay put,” Sothe snapped. “We don’t have a chance if they catch us in the open.”

“There isn’t time to explain.” Marcus grabbed Raesinia’s sleeve, but she yanked it away from him and set her jaw.

“I’m not leaving without her,” she said.

“But-”

Marcus was interrupted by the ring of steel on steel. At least a half dozen Grays had cleared the two bodies and rushed across the foyer, only to pile up again at the inner door. They’d left their muskets behind and drawn their straight-bladed swords, but these weapons were still long enough that the narrow confines of the doorway offered no room to swing. The first one charged with his sword lowered point-first, like a lance, but Sothe’s blade licked out and diverted the thrust so that it crashed into the decorative wainscoting and stuck there. Her off hand came up in an almost casual motion and drew a line across the guard’s throat, which opened in a spray of gore. He gave a bubbling shriek and stumbled backward, clutching the wound, until one of his companions shoved him roughly aside and came at Sothe with leveled blade.

“You can’t kill them all !” Marcus shouted, over the shouts of the attackers and the screech of blade against blade as Sothe blocked another thrust.

Yes, she can. Raesinia had never really had the opportunity to watch Sothe fight before. It was. . graceful was not the word, precisely, or elegant , though the latter was closer. Efficient , possibly. Sothe fought like a master butcher carving a pig, no unnecessary flourishes or brutality, just the minimum number of strokes necessary to reduce her opponents to piles of quivering meat. The second Gray fared no better than the first, going down with a long gash in his inner thigh that fountained a quite astonishing amount of blood. Two more tried to come at her together, but she simply retreated a step, letting them tangle each other up in the doorway. One of them managed a clumsy thrust, which she sidestepped neatly as she lopped off his hand at the wrist.

“We just need to hold until help arrives,” Sothe said, as this opponent fell back, screaming. She wasn’t even breathing hard. “Orlanko can’t have all the guards in the palace on his side-”

She checked an overhand swing from another Gray on one of her knives, falling back a step as he tried to force her down by main strength. Her other blade came up to gut him, but before it got there a pistol shot sounded from the foyer. Sothe’s opponent stiffened for a moment, then went limp, sword dropping from his slack fingers. He fell forward, collapsing on top of her, and she had to catch him under the armpits to avoid being bowled over. As she tossed him aside and looked up, a second shot sounded, and Sothe grunted and spun as if she’d been kicked in the shoulder by a mule. The deadweight of the guard bore them both to the floor in a heap.

Raesinia screamed and tried to dart forward, but Marcus grabbed her with his free hand and shoved her back against the wall. Four Grays surged through the doorway, spreading out with drawn swords. Standing in the foyer, smoking pistol still in hand, was a young man in a long dark coat. He tossed the weapon aside and strode forward, black leather fluttering around his ankles.

He spared only a cursory glance for Raesinia and Marcus. Instead he went to where the dead Gray lay atop Sothe and rolled the guard off with the toe of his boot. Sothe was on her back, completely still, and from where she stood Raesinia couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

“So,” the man said. “The Gray Rose, run to ground at last.” He glanced at the scattered corpses. “And with some teeth, after all. I commend you on a well-run chase.”

He drove his boot into her stomach with sudden violence, and Sothe gasped and rolled on her side, curling into a ball. Blood squelched on the floor under her shoulder.

“And still a bit of life in you,” he said. “Excellent. If you survive, His Grace will be very interested to hear what you have to say.”

As he spoke, the four Grays had spread out into a loose semicircle around Marcus. He kept his saber moving and backed away until he and Raesinia were pressed against the wall. The Concordat agent gave Sothe another kick, almost playfully, and was rewarded with another gasp of pain. Then, with the air of someone attending to an unpleasant but necessary matter, he came to stand behind the ring of guards.