Page 80 of The Dragonrider and the Void
The guard hesitated, looking to the King for guidance.
“Tell her,” the King said with a cruel smile. “Let her understand the uselessness of her hope.”
“Venrick survived escaping the Keep’s wards, but remains gravely injured somewhere in the city,” the guard reported dispassionately. “The Archmagus says the Flashover will begin in three days. We need the dragonrider now for the ritual.”
Lark wavered. Venrick was alive, but suffering from the spell the King used with the Void Drinker’s help. And the Flashover was coming far sooner than they had anticipated. Three days, not the months she’d assumed they had to prepare.
The Archmagus gestured for the guards to take her, but as they moved forward, the entire tower shuddered. A distant explosion echoed through the night air, followed by alarms ringing throughout the Keep.
“What was that?” the King demanded.
“I don’t know, Your Majesty,” the guard replied, steadying himself against the wall as another tremor shook the tower.
Lark felt a surge of power through her bond with White Eye. Despite her instructions to retreat, her dragon had launched an attack on the Keep’s outer defenses. She could tell from his confidence that he wasn’t alone. There was a force working with them on the ground.
Cheyanne’s rebellion,she realized.
The distraction was her chance. With the sudden eruption of chaos, Lark made her decision. As the guards moved to grab her arms, she twisted away, using the maneuver Barrik had drilled into her countless times during their training. Her bound hands were a disadvantage, but she had spent years learning to fight through limitations.
She kicked out, catching the nearest guard in the knee. As he buckled, she checked him with her shoulder into the second guard. They both went stumbling. The Archmagus raisedhis hands, energy from his Yogo Sapphires gathering at his fingertips, but Lark was already moving.
She dove for the door, rolling into the corridor beyond. Guards shouted, boots pounded on stone, but Lark had memorized the path back to her cell.
Another explosion rocked the tower, closer this time. Through the windows, Lark glimpsed the festival square below as she ran. Chaos reigned at the ground level as citizens fled, and soldiers mobilized. A dark shadow passed overhead. White Eye was circling the Keep.
Lark ran harder, her bound wrists hampering her balance as she navigated the corridors. Twice she had to duck into recesses to avoid guards rushing toward the upper levels. The third time, she wasn’t fast enough.
“Stop right there!” A squad of four guards blocked her path, their weapons drawn.
Lark didn’t slow. Instead, she accelerated, catching them by surprise. At the last moment, she dropped into a slide, passing between two of them before they could react. As she came up behind them, she slammed her shoulder into the back of one guard’s knees, sending him tumbling into his companions.
The fourth guard lunged, managing to grab her bound wrists. Lark twisted, using his grip as leverage to swing her legs up and around his neck. They fell together, the guard cushioning her impact as they hit the stone floor.
Lark rolled clear, winded but uninjured. The guards were already recovering, shouting for reinforcements. She had seconds, not minutes.
Two more flights of stairs and she would reach the level where her cell, the gateway chamber, was located. Lark took the stairs three at a time, nearly falling headlong when another explosion shook the tower. Dust and small fragments of stone rained down from the ceiling.
White Eye is targeting the tower itself,she realized.He’s trying to bring it down to reach me.
Finally, she reached the familiar corridor. Two guards stood outside her cell door, already alert from the alarms echoing through the Keep. They raised their weapons as she appeared at the end of the hallway.
“Stop right there, Heartfell,” one shouted.
Lark had no intention of stopping. She charged directly at them, feinting left before cutting sharply right at the last moment. The first guard’s sword slashed through empty air where she should have been. The second managed to grab a handful of her shirt, but Lark’s momentum carried them both into the wall.
As they struggled, Lark heard the pounding of boots. Reinforcements were coming from both directions. She would be surrounded in moments.
The guard struck her across the face, the blow jarring her teeth and splitting her lip. Lark tasted blood, but the pain only sharpened her focus. She drove her knee up into the guard’s stomach, then used her bound hands to strike him in the throat.
As he fell back, gasping, Lark lunged for the keys at his belt. Her fingers closed around them just as the reinforcements reached the corridor’s end.
“There she is!” someone shouted. “Stop her!”
Lark fumbled with the keys, trying each one in the cell door’s locks. The third key turned with a satisfying click. Lark shoved the door open and threw herself inside, slamming it shut behind her. The final two locks wouldn’t engage from the inside, but the door would hold for a few precious moments.
She turned to the chamber walls, eyes scanning the runes she’d studied earlier. Already she could hear the guards gathering outside. “Someone get a dragon over here now,” one yelled. “Bring a Paragon, a Knight, ash, anyone with brismil,”another called. “We’re going to bust this down the old-fashioned way, brute force and a battering ram,” another said.
Now or never,she thought, closing her eyes.
