Mercedes Lackey - Sleeping Beauty

Leopold reached the door first, and stopped — he held out his hand and Siegfried all but ran into it. Outside the tunnel of burned and dead thorn-vines, the still-living ones had recovered and were trying in vain to get to them. The burned "bower" above their head shook and rattled, and little bits of ash and burned wood rained down on them. Both of them glanced up. There was no telling how long the protection would hold.

Leopold put his finger to his lips, signaling for quiet, and pressed his ear to the door. Siegfried nodded, and held his breath, wishing there was some way he could get the vines to stop making noise.

"They may not know we're out here," Leopold whispered, his eyes narrowed in concentration. "Better if we can surprise them."

Siegfried nodded again, and waited. Finally Leopold shook his head. "I can't hear anything," he whispered. "But we aren't doing Rosa any good out here." He grimaced a little. "The man who trained me always told me to try the door before I tried knocking it down — "

"I'm ready," Siegfried breathed, and watched as Leopold carefully tried the handle. To his shock and disbelief, it began to turn. Leopold eased the door open as slowly as a snail crawling, while Siegfried held his breath expecting a loud creaking at any moment. When it was open a mere crack, Leopold put first his ear, then his eye to the tiny gap.

"I think they're upstairs," he whispered, and eased the door open farther. "I can barely hear them at a distance, and it sounds up."

When the door was open just enough to allow them to slip inside, they did so, Leopold first, then Siegfried. They both paused and looked around.

They were in a kitchen; the windows here, which had never been large, had been covered over with stonework. It was lit by candles stuck in their own wax in the middle of a great table. There were shelves around the walls that looked old, a cupboard against the wall to Siegfried's right that had once had a window that looked just as old, a stone sink next to it, chairs around the table that looked new. To Siegfried's left was a blank wall with an immense stone chimney and a huge hearth. Opposite him was another wall with a rack for kitchenware that was mostly empty. The kitchen was unoccupied, but there were signs someone was using it; a pot hung over the hearth, covered, giving off the aroma of rabbit stew, and there was an empty bowl with a spoon in it, and an equally empty bottle on the table. There was a doorway without a door at the far end, and an open door in the wall opposite them, halfway along it. That open door gave out into darkness; there was light coming from the doorway without a door in it, and that was where the voices were coming from.

Siegfried inclined his head at that dark door, and Leopold nodded; moving as quietly as possible, they eased along the wall until they came to the open door. This time Siegfried stuck his head inside — he could just make out a set of crude stone steps that went down into darkness. He toyed with the idea that Rosa might be in a cellar or dungeon or something below, then decided that whatever was down there didn't matter right now. If it was Rosa, she could stay there until they eliminated the threat. Nothing was going to happen to her that hadn't already. If there were reinforcements of some kind he could make sure they didn't get a chance to act. With a nod to Leopold, he eased the door shut, and then gently let a bar down across it, to keep whatever was down there from coming up. Then he slipped up to the next doorway and peeked around the frame.

The next room was also unoccupied, but contained a single bed, a stool and a wooden chest. The windows here were also walled up, and it was lit by more candles stuck about randomly.

Siegfried signaled to Leopold, who slipped past him into the room. Siegfried followed. They kept their backs pressed firmly up against the wall. Desmond might be a magician, but he had certainly put no magical guardians or alarms inside this place. He had put rather too much trust in his external safeguards. That, in Siegfried's opinion, was never a good idea.

The voices were definitely coming from the next room, and above. It looked as if the tower was in the shape of a rough square; the kitchen and this room formed half of the square, with this room leading into the other half of the square.

In the wall to Siegfried's left was the door to that other half of the bottom floor, and this door also stood open. This time it was Leopold's turn to peek his head around the frame, and Siegfried's to slip inside at his signal.

Light for this room poured down the staircase going up the wall. It looked like something added recently; the stone was a lighter color. It also looked as if this had once been divided into two rooms. And there were some dark brown stains on the floor that Siegfried did not like at all. Signs of the previous owners?

Siegfried slipped back to the bedroom, and motioned to Leopold. "They're definitely up there, and Rosa is either in the cellar I barred or up there with them," he whispered. "We need a plan. We can't just rush up those stairs and hope everything comes out all right."

Leopold nodded. "We're definitely at a disadvantage if we come at them up that stair. We need to get them down —

He was interrupted by a shout from the other room.

Their heads swiveled toward the open doorway as if they were on the same wire, and there was the Huntsman, standing in the middle of the staircase, staring at them. So much for plans.

He and Leopold nearly collided in the doorway trying to get to the man before he could get off the stair, in the hopes of blocking Desmond from coming down, too. But the Huntsman was quicker than either of them; he leapt off the stair and charged them before they could get clear of the door and get their swords up. He hit them without drawing his, shouldering them into the bedroom. Leopold hit the floor and tumbled back up to his feet; Siegfried staggered but didn't fall, his heart pounding and his focus already narrowing to the fight. He backed away from the Huntsman and shifted his grip on his own weapon, just as Desmond leapt from the second story, disdaining the use of stairs altogether.

With a single glance and a nod, Leopold jumped for the Huntsman, while Siegfried charged Desmond. He came straight at the magician in his usual style, and Desmond parried him easily. Then Desmond closed, and he pivoted out of the way. Within the exchange of three blows, Siegfried, at least, knew he was in trouble.

Desmond had been holding back in the practice bouts they'd all had. The bastard had even allowed himself to lose once in a while. If he'd actually exerted himself, he'd never have lost at all. Desmond was not just good.

Desmond was unbelievable.

* * *

Rosa's mouth was dry, and she thought longingly about a drink of water. Alfer leafing through his grimoire twice, Desmond had found the spell he was looking for, and the Huntsman, seeing this, retreated down the staircase to the first floor. But he did not get far.

"Sire!"came the startled voice from the stair."Intruders!"

Her heart leapt. There was the immediate sound of scuffling, the sounds of bodies impacting and grunts. Desmond tossed his book aside, grabbed his sword from the table where he had left it and charged down the stairs himself. Then there came the clash of metal-on-metal, grunts and curses, as the fight began in real earnest, and her heart didn't just leap, it raced with excitement and the need to get free. Rosa fought the paralyzing magics in a frenzy of impatience, attacking them with everything she had in her.

She had loosened them, yes, but no more than that. They weren't undone, not even close to being undone. She still had to pick the ends loose and unweave them. She tore at them with mental fingers, her heart racing, her chest aching with the urge to swear at them. All the time she fought with the bindings, she could hear the sounds of fighting below, andthought she recognized Leopold's and Siegfried's voices. And it sounded as if they were in trouble.