Jim Butcher - Academ's Fury

"Are you well?" Fidelias asked.

"Windcrafting sometimes gives me headaches," she replied. "I had to draw that air all the way from the river and up through the Deeps to lift us. It was extremely heavy."

"Air?" Fidelias asked. "Heavy?"

"When you're trying to move enough it is, dear spy, believe me." She lowered her hand and looked around, frowning. "A service corridor?"

"Aye," Fidelias said, and started down it. "We're close to the royal suites and the stairway down to the meditation chamber. There are several ways down to the Deeps throughout that portion of the palace."

Lady Aquitaine nodded and kept pace, following slightly behind Fidelias. He led her down the hall a short distance, to an intersection that would allow them to bypass a sentry post-though he suspected that the entire Royal Guard was responding to the alarm bells, there was no point in taking chances. Fidelias took the servant's entrance into a richly appointed sitting room, dim and quiet since Gaius's first wife had died some twenty years before, now opened only for dusting and tidying. Inside the sitting room, a section of the oak paneling over the stone walls swung out to reveal a small passageway.

"I love these," Lady Aquitaine murmured. "Where does this one lead?"

"To Lady Annalisa's old chambers," Fidelias murmured. "This room here used to be Gaius Pentius's study."

"With a direct passage to his mistress's chambers, hmm?" Lady Aquitaine shook her head, smiling. "Palace or not, it's all so petty once you've scratched the surface."

"True enough." They shut the hidden panel behind them and emerged into a large bedroom suite centered around an enormous bed on a slightly elevated section of floor. This room, too, had the look of something that had been largely discarded, and Fidelias crossed to the door, cracked it open very slightly, and peered out into the hallway.

The crash and cry of combat rang out as soon as he had opened the door. Not thirty feet away, the Royal Guard crowded against the doorway leading down to the First Lord's meditation chamber. Fidelias sucked in a quick breath. The metal door had been smashed flat to the floor inside the room by some unthinkably powerful impact. Even as he watched, a guardsman went through the door, weapon at the ready, and stumbled back a breath later, clutching his hands to a long wound across his abdomen. He was hauled to one side, where other wounded were being seen to by a harried-looking healer, who kept trying to craft the worst injuries closed enough to keep the wounded alive until more could be done for them. The other members of the Guard struggled to fight their way through the door, but it was clear that the alarm had found them unprepared, and there didn't seem to be any organization to their efforts.

"Wait here," Lady Aquitaine said, and strode out into the hallway. She walked purposefully over to the nearest guardsman, and said, tone steady and crackling with authority, "Guardsman, who is in charge of this riot?"

The man whipped his head around and blinked at the High Lady. His mouth worked a couple of times, and he said, "This way, Your Grace." He led her over to the healer, and said, "Jens! Jens! Lady Aquitaine!"

The healer looked up sharply, studying Lady Aquitaine for a brief second, before nodding to her and returning to his work. "Your Grace."

"You are the commanding officer here?" she asked.

A spear flew out of the guardroom as though cast by some enormous bow, spitting another one of the guardsmen. The man started screaming.

"Get him over here!" the healer shouted. He glanced up at the High Lady again, and said, "The captain is nowhere to be found. Every regular centurion on duty has been killed, but technically I carry the rank of centurion." The guardsmen brought the impaled man to him, and the healer seized his kit and whipped out a bone saw. He started hacking through the spear's shaft with it. "Crows take it," he snarled, "hold him still!" He grimaced as he cut the spear shaft and slid the weapon out of the wounded guardsman. "If you will excuse me, Your Grace. If I don't give these men all my attention, they'll die."

"If someone doesn't lead them, you're going to have a great deal more of them to tend to," Lady Aquitaine said. She frowned down at the healer, then said, "I'm assuming command until one of your centurions or the captain arrives, healer."

"Yes, fine," the healer said. He looked up at the guardsmen, and said, "Let Lady Aquitaine get things organized, Victus."

"Yes, sir," the guardsman said. "Uh, Your Grace. What are your orders?"

"Report," she said sharply. "Exactly what is happening here?"

"There are four or five Canim holding the first guard station against us," the guardsman said. "They've killed the guards in the room, and about a dozen who have tried to get in, including Centurion Hirus. More of the men are on the way, but our Knights were off duty tonight, and we're still trying to find them."

"Who is down there?"

"We can't be sure," the guardsman replied. "But the First Lord's page came through and warned us of an attack, and Gaius is usually in his meditation chamber at this time of night. The men in the first room went down fighting, so he must have warned them."

"The Canim left some to hold the door against you while the others go after the First Lord," Lady Aquitaine said. "How long have the alarms been sounding?"

"Ten minutes, perhaps, Your Grace. Give us another ten, and our Knights will be here."

"The First Lord doesn't have that long," she said, and spun toward the doorway. She spoke in what seemed a normal tone of voice, but it rang clearly over the sounds of battle and carried the tone of absolute authority. "Guardsmen, clear the doorway at once."

Lady Aquitaine strode to stand in front of the doorway, the guardsmen falling back as she did so. She faced the room, frowned, and raised her left hand, palm up. There was a sullen flash of red light, then a sphere of fire the size of a large grape swelled into life there.

"Your Grace!" the guardsman protested. "A firecrafting could be dangerous for those below."

"A large fire would," Lady Aquitaine replied, and then she hurled the sphere of fire through the doorway.

From where he was standing, Fidelias couldn't see precisely what happened next, but there was a thunderous sound, and wildly dancing light spilled from the room. He saw the sphere flash past the doorway several times, moving in a swift blur and rebounding off every surface within. Lady Aquitaine stood staring at the room for perhaps a minute, then nodded once, decisively. "The room is clear. Gentlemen, to the First Lord at once!"

Something set Fidelias's instincts screaming, and he opened the door enough to look the other way down the hall as the Royal Guard poured forward into the room.

It was the first time he had seen the vord.

A pair of hunchbacked, black shapes were coming down the hall, each one the size of a small horse and covered in chitinous black plates. They had legs like those of an insect, and moved with an awkward, scuttling gait that nonetheless covered ground very swiftly. On the floor beside them, on the walls around them, even on the ceiling above they were accompanied by dozens and dozens of pale forms the size of a wild dog, also covered in chitinous plating, gliding along on eight graceful, insect limbs.

He stared at them for half a second, and began to shout a warning. He clamped down on the urge. There were thirty or forty guardsmen in the hallway and more arriving at every moment. If one of them saw him, odds were good that he would never leave the palace alive. The only rational thing to do was remain silent.

The creatures drew closer, and Fidelias saw the heavy mandibles on the larger beasts, the twitching fangs on the smaller ones. Though it seemed impossible, no one in the hall had seen them yet. Everyone was focused on getting forward through the doorway to aid the First Lord. Lady Aquitaine had her back to the oncoming vord, listening to an appeal from the frantic healer.