Chapter 31

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Allie Ahreld stumbled into the Throne Room and took in the number of bodies strewn across the marble floor. Nearly overwhelming relief flooded through him when he saw Maralt Adaeryn lying in the midst of all the carnage, Carryn’s sword thrust through his chest. Allie stepped aside, pulling Trevan with him so that the men with them could enter from the King’s office. Trevan was limping badly and couldn’t walk without help.

Allie came to an abrupt halt. At the foot of the dais, he saw one twin slumped over the other, not entirely sure which was which. He couldn’t look at them or the sword that stuck out of one. He realized with a shock that it was Dain’s sword, recognizable by the emeralds set in its hilt. He eased Trevan down to the floor and moved closer, shaking as he approached, and knelt beside them.

He saw Dain’s bloodied hands and didn’t want to accept the terrible thought that raced unbidden through his mind, that he could have done this. Allie pulled Dain off of Dynan, startled to see that Dynan was breathing, or trying to. Blood bubbled between his teeth. Quickly, Allie checked Dain’s pulse and found it erratic but there. Dynan’s was less easy to find, weak, but very fast.

Allie closed his eyes against tears and growing fear. He didn’t know how they would move him. He was afraid to remove the sword, thinking it would kill him. There wasn’t any time to debate it either. The enemy would soon overwhelm the hasty defenses he’d set up at the Throne Room doors and in the office.

Trevan crawled over to him, favoring his right leg, looking at the sword. “I hear them coming.”

Allie set his hand to the hilt.

“Wait!”

Geneal rushed from the shadows of the pillars over by the secret entrance, having not done what everyone told her she should do, which was go to the Medic Center. Allie started shaking his head. “We have to move them out of here.”

“I have to do this here before he’s moved or he’ll die,” she said, kneeling down beside Dynan and throwing open her medic kit. “Pull the sword.”

“Geneal—”

“Right now, Allie,” she said, getting out a long cylindrical device. She examined the controls. “It won’t be easy, either. You have to pull hard. And don’t move it around at all.”

Before he could comply with the demand, a troop of men charged in from the King’s Office. The men with Allie charged at them and once again, the sound of swords clashing filled the Throne Room. Trevan hauled himself to his feet, hopping on one foot to get his balance, prepared to defend them against the onrush.

Allie took the hilt again, sickness rising to his throat. Geneal issued a string of instructions and encouragement, urging him on. Trevan stabbed a man who got by the other guards and he thudded to the floor almost on top of them. Allie pulled. Geneal wasn’t mistaken when she said it would be hard. It was almost impossible, but he managed it. The results were immediate. Dynan stopped breathing and when Geneal searched for his pulse, she couldn’t find one.

She didn’t check long. As Allie jumped over Dynan and by Trevan, Dain’s sword in his hand, he saw her jamming the tip of the device she held into the wound. She activated it, leaning back on her heels. That was all the time Allie had before he was set on. He only had three men to help defend against eight, at least, not counting Trevan, who was going to get himself killed if he stayed in the fight much longer.

Allie swung around and the man before him was distracted by the emerald sword flashing in his eyes. Allie killed him for being stupid. Mikk Jorg held off another three, but there were more coming from the office and from the main hall. Most of them wore the uniform of a Palace Guard. Out of the corner of his eye, Allie saw Geneal take Dynan by the arm and start to drag him across the floor toward the secret entrance. Everyone left standing shifted with her, holding back the enemy who recognized they were trying to escape. She left Dynan and went back for Dain, dragging him with her, intent on not leaving either. It was then Allie realized she was crying.

Ralion was curled on the floor, unmoving. Sheed was dead for certain, lying in a pool of blood. He couldn’t tell if Marc was still breathing, crumpled at the foot of the throne. Loren wasn’t far from Maralt. Allie didn’t want to leave her, or anyone, but didn’t know how they could take them all and escape.

Another man came at him, got around him and almost got through to Trevan, and would have except for another of the Exile Base guards. Jarrid Rohn dove in at the last moment and stopped the arc of the blade before Trevan would have been cut in half. They were almost surrounded, but then Allie heard a defiant roar from the main hall.

Boral raced in with a troop of exile base forces. His arrival, bowling over half the enemy in one sweeping charge, gave the rest of them the time and men they needed to get the living up off the floor.

While the fight raged around him, Allie moved from one to the next, finding out who they would leave behind. Geneal stayed with Dynan. Mikk Jorg was with her, carrying him slung over his shoulder, heading over to the pillars. Jarrid Rohn took Dain. Another guard picked up Marc, who was unconscious, but breathing. Allie leaned over Loren, relieved to find her alive as well. To him, that meant Dynan might have a chance to survive. He was heartened to see one of the guards helping Ralion to his feet. He was as white as a sheet, but they got him bandaged and treated as best they could, and helped him hobble toward the far wall.

Sheed didn’t move. Lycon Tylam fell in the assault through the King’s office.

It was only half a victory, and a brief respite what with all the enemy forces that poured in from the hall. With three times their number.

Boral turned to Allie, as he leaned and helped him pick Loren up off the floor. “Go on.”

“Boral, no,” Allie said, moving backward and talking at the same time. “Come with us now.

He shook his head. “You won’t make it if someone doesn’t stay to hold them off. Use the shield doors in the Medic Center. Change the codes and keep changing them. Go. There’s no time for anything else.”

It was true. An angry horde of attackers was almost on top of them. Allie turned, darting behind the giant tapestry that hid the secret entrance. He heard the crash of all those men one into the other. He heard Boral’s voice ordering those around him to stand firm, go one direction, go another until it was abruptly cut off.

Allie sealed the door closed, fighting back tears. He didn’t think any of them were going to survive this. There wasn’t time to grieve the dead.

He moved with Loren, still slung over his shoulder, through the passage to the corridor outside the Throne Room and then into the passageway that led down to the Medic Center, trying to figure out how to help with those chances and couldn’t. It wasn’t until he was on his way down the narrow stairs that he realized he hadn’t seen Carryn anywhere.

He swore under his breath, knowing he couldn’t go back. There wasn’t time. The Medic Center had to be fortified as soon as possible, the shield doors activated, and he was the only one who could make that happen.

A door, almost undetectable led them off the tunnel and into Doctor Eldelar Elger’s office. It was empty, though the sounds of activity preceded Allie into the hallway. That was a long, wide corridor. Allie turned left, to the last door on the hall. A room of substantial size held three beds, each with a bank of monitors. Dynan, Dain, and Marc were already placed on the beds. Allie carried Loren to a couch along the wall, directing others to help Trevan and Ralion into another room.

Geneal was already working over Dynan, the monitors over his bed squealing in alarm. The tube device she’d stuck in him remained. His heart wasn’t beating. He wasn’t breathing. Geneal gave him one injection after the other. She opened a panel in the wall, pulling out a vat that had sterile glove solution inside it and dipped her hands in, not bothering to remove her uniform tunic. She flipped another switch and the sterilization lights blinked on that would keep Dynan safe from infection, which Allie thought, was the least of his problems. He didn’t look alive.

She pulled out the tube stuck in his chest, checked it and set it aside while she watched the monitors another moment. When she made the incision in Dynan’s chest wider with a laser cutter and stuck her hand inside, Allie turned away. He was heartened the next moment when the steady tone of the monitor chirped and an erratic heartbeat started. Geneal breathed and laughed.

“It worked,” she whispered, leaning over Dynan and kissed his forehead. “Thank you, Dynan.” She smiled again and glanced at Allie. “Carryn and her visions.”

“Did you see her?”

“No. She told me to stay out of sight, behind the pillars in the Throne Room. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.” Allie nodded to Dynan. “Is he going to make it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I have to go. Tell me when you’re more certain about him – one way or the other.” He looked to the emerald sword he still held in hand and to Dain. He took a cloth and wiped the blood off the blade and set it against the wall beside Dain’s bed.

She glanced at him again. “I will.”

He left the room, almost running into Eldelar Elger as he came down the hall. “Allie! Are you hurt?”

“I’m all right, Eldelar. I have to go.”

“I understand. Good luck and stay safe.”

He felt like laughing, but suddenly he was too tired. He shook his head, and hurried from the Medic Center.