One of the guards came for her, but before he had taken his second step, Eda threw her knife, striking his sword arm. The defender grunted and dropped his weapon. The king’s eyes widened slightly. Clearly he had not been expecting that level of skill from her.
Door, Eda signed as she shook another knife from the sleeve of her dress.
Lyndal leapt in the direction of the exit, praying her sister had the situation under control behind her.
‘If you open it, you will kill us all,’ Borin shouted
Lyndal looked back as she took hold of the drawbar, watching as the second knife flew between two of the guards, striking the king in the leg.
He roared.
The door banged once more, the noise vibrating through Lyndal. The drawbar was too heavy.
‘Eda!’
Her sister was at her side a moment later, throwing her shoulder into it and pushing as hard as she could while two defenders came at them.
‘Don’t fret, Your Grace,’ Lyndal called when the drawbar finally budged. ‘The merchants will show you the same compassion you’ve shown them.’
The women tossed the wooden plank at the defenders as the doors burst open and merchants poured in like floodwater. The guards were swept back with the force of the deluge. Lyndal and Eda pressed themselves against the wall, then squeezed around its edges.
‘I need to get to the tower,’ Lyndal shouted, but her words were drowned out by King Borin’s screams.
Chapter 37
The castle grounds were swarming with merchants. No one looked twice at the two women moving in the opposite direction with their unkempt hair and worn clothes. They were there for one reason only: to knock the monster off his throne.
‘What are we going to do about them?’ Lyndal asked, pointing to the handful of defenders atop the wall shooting at merchants below.
Eda tripped, and when the girls looked down to see what she had fallen over, they found a dead merchant man clutching his longbow. Without hesitating, Eda snatched it from his hands.
We need to keep moving,she signed.
The habit of signing in place of speech would take time to break.
As they ran towards the gate, they pulled arrows from corpses. Lyndal watched the defenders atop the wall carefully, praying their bows would not swing in their direction, because she knew they would not miss. They stopped beneath the archway to regroup, looking in the direction of the tower. Lyndal’s breath caught when she spotted smoke pouring from the windows of the circular structure.
Astin.
Go,Eda signed.I’ll cover you.
Lyndal took off at a sprint towards the tower, leaping over bodies, her dress snagging on weapons. Her wet skirt tangled on her legs, and she fell, slamming into the mud just as an arrow whistled overhead. She watched it pierce the ground in front of her, knowing another would follow.
A hand wrapped her arm, pulling her to her feet. She came face to face with Blake, and her eyes widened.
‘What are you—’
‘Move!’ Eda shouted behind them, jogging backwards while shooting at defenders atop the wall.
Blake grabbed Lyndal by the arm and pulled her in the direction of the tower. ‘She spoke!’
‘A very recent thing,’ Lyndal shouted back, holding up her dress to prevent another fall.
They stopped once they were out of shooting range, eyes sweeping the outer-wall to ensure there were no more arrows pointed in their direction.
‘What are you doing here?’ Lyndal asked Blake, her breaths coming in heaves.
Blake held her knees. ‘You didn’t think I was going to let you two have all the fun, did you?’
