Steel Maiden (23 page)

T
HEY DROPPED FROM THE top of the
temple like a rain of slashing silver swords. The sound of metal
against flesh chilled me to the bone. The air filled with guttural
shouts as many of our number died at the foot of the stairs. They
were foaming at the mouths, convulsing, and screaming as the poison
from the swords entered their blood streams. They never stood a
chance.

I was shoved and pushed. I cried out as
someone elbowed me in the face. And in the confusion and screams, I
stood frozen in panic for a moment. I knew what violence just one
of these masked men was capable of.

Blood trickled from my nose as I blinked
away my tears and found my courage again.

“Their blades are poisoned!” I shouted.

Mad Jack looked confused for a second, then
he ducked and parried the sword of a masked man. With surprising
skill, he spun and ran his sword through the masked man’s back.

“How do you know?” he shouted back.

He blocked another attack from two masked
men and drove them back. I watched as the masked men spread out
like a shaken silk sheet. They spilled out of the building like an
army of ants.

“Because I’ve fought one of them
before.”

The blood pounded in my ears. I heard Mad
Jack shout something to Leo and Will, but I couldn’t make it out
over the screams and shouts that surrounded us.

My attention shifted to the three masked men
that came at me.

I didn’t have time to think. I could only
react. I raised my sword and parried the first fierce blow
instinctively. My attacker’s cape entangled him for a second, but
it was all I needed. I rammed my sword into his gut, and he spit
out blood into my face. As he hit the ground next to me, I was
already moving towards the other two.

The other two assassins came at me from two
directions. I parried them, one after another. Then they both
slashed sideways, trying to behead me. I ducked and pulled out a
dagger. I spun and came up behind one of the men. He slumped to the
ground as I embedded my dagger into his throat.

I stumbled forward as something hit the back
of my head. The adrenaline of panic gave me the strength to steady
myself and turn around. Blinking the spots from my eyes, I felt for
blood or any signs of a cut, but there were none.

The second masked man roared as he flew at
me again. His sword cut the air in a side-to-side movement and when
our swords met, he pushed me to my knees in a show of strength. I
strained to keep my sword against his and looked up into dark eyes
behind the mask.

“You will never get the stone,” he
hissed.

He pushed his sword dangerously close to my
neck.

My arms burned as I strained to keep his
blade from slicing my throat. But I was no match for him, and I
knew I couldn’t defend myself like this for much longer. He smiled
wickedly at me, knowing all too well that he was winning. My arms
slipped a little, and his blade inched down closer to my throat.
But just as victory gleamed in his eyes, I kicked out my leg and
made contact with his ankle. I heard a snap. He yelled and as he
dropped his guard, I drove my sword into his heart. His eyes
widened in shock, and then their gleam was gone.

I pulled out my bloody sword and stood up. I
jumped over his body and made my way towards the battle. Bodies lay
scattered in puddles of their own blood, but I’d say there were
more bodies of the masked men than there were of us. Combatants
circled and feinted towards each other in a dance of death.

I spotted Princess Isabella. She proved to
be the warrior princess I thought she would be and moved with
deadly skill and grace. She spun and parried as if she were dancing
while masked men fell at her feet. If I hadn’t been in mortal
danger myself, I could have watched her cut a path through our
attackers all afternoon.

A glimpse of red and gold caught my
attention. Prince Landon lifted his sword to parry a blow at his
shoulder. His sword met with a masked assassin’s, and in a swirl of
flashing silver the masked man lay on the ground at his feet. The
prince moved with the deadly grace of a tiger. He skewered the
assassins so fast and precisely that they were dead before they
realized it.

While about a dozen men and women from
different groups lay dead with white foam in their mouths and blood
that had thickened like pudding, I was in awe at the warriors
around me. Although we had suffered a considerable number of
causalities and had been outnumbered, we had managed to kill every
single one of the masked men.

Something caught Landon’s attention, and he
bolted towards the temple’s stairs just as Otto disappeared through
the arched entrance.

That’s when the race truly began.

The surviving crowd rushed to the temple as
Prince Landon galloped through the archway. In the melee a man came
tumbling down the stairs, and another brawl erupted. Only this time
we were fighting amongst ourselves.

Not wanting to get caught up in this
madness, I hung back and waited for an opening. Once again the air
was filled with the sounds of metal clashing against metal and
grunts.

I felt something on my lower back, and in a
flash I whirled my sword around and parried Mad Jack’s blade with a
ringing clash.

He made to lower his blade, but I wouldn’t
lower mine.

“Easy. It’s just me,” he said.

I clenched my teeth. He could have easily
rammed me through, but he hadn’t. My gut told me to trust him, so I
lowered my sword but kept it in my hand.

Will and Leo both looked wild eyed, but they
were alive and had been unscathed by the poisoned blades.

Mad Jack crouched. He looked at me.

“On my mark, you run like hell up those
stairs and get that god damn stone! You hear me? We’ll be right
behind you.”

Even though I was still unsure why he was
here, or whether I should trust him, I nodded anyway. I didn’t have
time to second-guess myself.

I waited. Mad Jack’s shoulders tensed, and
he whispered, “Go, go, go!”

I ran up the stairs two at a time, careful
not to trip, and all the while watching to protect myself from any
attackers. But I reached the top of the stairs without incident and
kept running.

I heard footsteps rushing behind me. I could
only hope that they were Mad Jack’s. I didn’t stop running.

The temple was larger than I’d first
thought, and the first hundred paces of passageway were carved from
stone. Soft light from torches that were held in sconces on the
walls lighted my path. I felt the same strange sense of power that
I had felt at the poles and at the entrance to the city. Only this
time it was stronger. Energy pulsed through the walls of this
place.

“Don’t stop,” Mad Jack encouraged me from
behind. I hadn’t realized that I had stopped.

He whispered, “Unless you want twenty more
people crushing us in this small tunnel, we need to keep
moving.”

There was an anxiety in his voice that I had
not heard before, maybe even fear, and it made me move more
quickly…

I held my breath and ran as fast as I could.
The strange, humming tunnel continued for what felt like miles, and
then it opened into a cavern.

Prince Landon stood in the clearing along
with King Otto and several others of their entourage. They were
examining a section of the wall at the opposite side of the
chamber. They looked up at our arrival, but then quickly returned
their attention to the wall. Even in the dim light I could see that
both men were sweating in concentration. And when I moved closer I
could understand why.

A single oval-shaped stone that looked like
a giant egg sat in a niche carved in the stone. It was the size of
a hand, but it didn’t sparkle, nor was it made of red diamond. It
looked like a smooth river rock. But as I got even closer, I could
see six red lines marked on the front of the stone. They were the
only indication that this wasn’t just a regular rock.

“What the hell are they waiting for?” Mad
Jack’s hot breath tickled the skin on my neck.

I looked around at the wall of stones and
shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they feel it’s just way too easy.
That’s what I think. It can’t be as simple as this. There’s
something else.”

He leaned so close I felt his cheek brush up
against mine.

“You think it’s a trick?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “I don’t
know…maybe…it just feels off, you know. If this stone is so
precious, then why isn’t it better protected? Why aren’t any of
those masked men in here guarding it?”

“You have a point.”

“Something’s not right.”

Even as the words escaped me, I felt dark
and light emanating from the stone. I smelled the stench of death,
but I also smelled the blossoms of summer and the flow of life.

There was a rush of voices behind us, and
the rest of the surviving clans stumbled into the room. King Otto’s
eyes narrowed, and he roared something in Girmanian. Then he thrust
out his great big arm and reached towards the stone—

“Don’t touch it!” I warned in a hasty
whisper.

King Otto stopped. His hand was still
outstretched.

“Why not?” he said with a heavy accent.

Even though he looked at me with eyes that
showed his mistrust, he had paid attention to me and had
hesitated.

“I don’t know,” I said. It was the truth.
“It’s too easy. Think about it. It doesn’t feel right.”

I didn’t know why I was helping him. We were
competing, and yet a part of me felt it was wrong not to help.

King Otto stared at me and then glanced at
his men. He said something that immediately resulted in laughter at
my expense. Prince Landon did not laugh, however, and I could see
that he agreed with me.

The room went still and all eyes turned to
the king.

He smiled at me, and with eyes gleaming with
greed he grabbed the stone.

“No, wait!” I shouted and then held my
breath.

King Otto’s face paled. But then the color
returned to his cheeks when nothing happened.

He raised his hand in triumph, and the
Girmanians exploded in cheers and threw their swords in the air.
They had won the race.

But then the king’s flesh started to glow a
bright yellow. His eyes opened wide with fear as the yellow light
broke through his skin, and then he exploded into thousands of
bloody chunks of burned flesh.

CHAPTER 24

B
ITS OF KING OTTO got me in the face,
and I nearly vomited right there. I could see that the only solid
parts that were left of the king were his shattered bones. That
explained why we had seen all the bones outside in the city. They
were the remains of the thousands of unlucky souls who’d already
tried to retrieve the stone. Blood of Arcania.

The room erupted in a cacophony of screams
and blood-curdling wails. People ran for cover, slipping and
falling into the mess of what used to be the king of Girmania. They
didn’t know if they were about to explode as well. The blast had
been so sudden that most of us just stood transfixed and stared at
the spot where King Otto had stood moments before.

“
La
pierre est maudite! C’est une pierre des démons!”
Spit flew
from the mouth of a Fransian man whose face was covered in blood
that was not his own.

The man said something about the stone being
cursed. And I believed him. A consensus of murmurs reverberated
around the chamber. The blanched faces spoke for themselves. I just
stood there shivering and sweating.

The stone rested in a pool of blood in the
middle of the chamber. The Heart of Arcania was such a small thing,
and yet it possessed remarkable power. I had sensed it. And I was
no fool. I had warned Otto, but he hadn’t listened. And now all
that was left of him was a sticky, slippery, red mess.

I looked around the room, trying to piece
together a plan. My gaze fell upon the nobleman,
Bartolomeu Dias, not because he was
about to share his thoughts, but because he was watching Prince
Landon. In fact, as I surveyed the room, I could see that all eyes
fell on the prince. It was as though he had become their leader
now, and it would be up to him to decide their fate. Besides, he
and Otto had been first to enter the chamber, so Prince Landon was
next in line.

I watched the prince. He hadn’t moved
either. He’d been closer to Otto than me, and by the sloppy mess of
flesh and blood that covered him, he’d gotten it worse than I had.
As though he’d read my mind, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped
his face. But his eyes didn’t leave the stone.

The tension in the room continued to grow.
The hair on my arms stood up, and I instinctively grasped my sword.
Something was about to happen and it wasn’t the stone.