THE DOOR WITHIN TRILOGY CONTINUES IN . . .
The torchlit passages in the heart of Paragor’s stronghold twisted and turned like a den of serpents. “Please tell me you aren’t lost,” Antoinette said when Aidan stopped suddenly at a fork in the path.
“Quiet, I’m thinking!” Aidan barked.
Antoinette raised her eyebrows and looked at Aidan with wonder. She still couldn’t believe he had found a way to return to The Realm. She was grateful, for together they might be able to escape and do something about Paragor’s plan to destroy Alleble.
Zabed, the old sage they had liberated from a lower tower cell, placed a withered hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “What place does thou hope to find?” he asked.
“It’s a huge balcony,” Aidan said. “On the northern side of the great tower. I tied the dragons there.”
“Does thou mean that tower, the one crowned with thorns?”
“Yes!” Aidan exclaimed.
“Then take the passage on thy left,” Zabed explained.
There came a strange rumbling from below. It grew louder, and Aidan recognized the sound as the tromp of many iron-shod feet. Paragor had not emptied his fortress completely after all. “Soldiers!” Aidan shouted. “Antoinette, they know you’ve escaped! We must hurry!”
They could hear shrieks and the shouts of many voices, distant but growing ever closer.
“The rats in this cursed hold will smell us out, I fear,” Zabed growled. “I have told ye the prophecy of thy scroll. You have no longer need of me. Leave me behind.”
Aidan looked at Zabed, who was starved from his long imprisonment, thin and frail with age.
“Maybe there’s another way,” Aidan said, and he handed Fury to Antoinette. Then he grasped Zabed’s wrists and carefully slung him onto his back.
“Nay, lad!” Zabed protested. “Leave me be! I will slow ye down to the demise of all!”
“Zabed, I won’t leave you,” Aidan said, hefting the sage and taking a few steps. “C’mon, Antoinette!”
Aidan ran surprisingly fast, bearing Zabed’s extra weight more easily than he had thought he could. The passage curled and then sloped downward. Aidan whispered a quick thank you to King Eliam and charged on. Antoinette, Fury in one hand, the Daughter of Light in the other, raced after him.
Heavy footfalls fell in the passage behind them. Too close! Aidan thought. They’ll catch us before we can—Then he saw it. The passage opened up at the bottom and strange gray twilight fell upon the stone beneath a wide arch. Aidan knew that arch. The balcony and the dragons were just beyond it!
“It’s just ahead!” he cried. “Hurry!” Just then an arrow swooshed over Aidan’s shoulder, struck the ceiling of the passage ahead, and clattered to the ground. Angry screams blared from the passage.
Aidan dashed down the hill. The arch was closer. Almost there. Suddenly, Zabed groaned. His arms stiffened and then went limp in Aidan’s grasp. Zabed’s gray head fell on Aidan’s shoulders.
“No!” Aidan exclaimed. “Zabed?!” But the old sage did not answer. Aidan surged beneath the arch into the ethereal gray of night in Paragory. But the moment Aidan stepped on the stone of the balcony, his feet slid out from under him. He skidded as if on ice and fell backward. His weight came down hard on Zabed. Antoinette was right behind him. She lost her footing as well, flailed to keep her balance, but crashed to the stone. Her sword and Fury clattered across the balcony.
Antoinette pushed herself up from the ground. Her hands felt wetness. She stood awkwardly and looked at her palms. Even in the shroud of gray night, she could see glistening blood. Blood! Antoinette looked around. They were in a great wide pool of blood.
With Nock and a legion of Yewland’s best archers defending Alleble’s parapets, Paragor’s great siege towers could not get close to the walls.
But Kaliam knew better than to relax. He knew only too well that the enemy had a devastating weapon at his disposal. He looked out over the wall into the murky darkness breathed into existence by the evil Wyrm Lord.
“Kaliam,” Farix shouted as he ran up, “what are your orders, my Sentinel?”
“Farix, good. I am glad you have come,” Kaliam said, pointing out into the shadows. “What do you see?”
Farix stared into the gloom. “I see a thousand knights on foot,” he replied. “They have also pendulum battering rams, and siege towers, but beyond that, I can see nothing.”
“That cursed darkness! It hides the enemy’s designs. We see only those within range of a short bow, but what lies beyond? And where are the Wyrm Lord and the Seven Sleepers?”
“Perhaps Paragor is waiting to release them at the time of greatest opportunity,” Farix said.
“Now is the time of greatest opportunity!” Kaliam shouted out in frustration. “The Wyrm Lord in his weakest state razed Clarion to the ground, and together with the sleepers, they devastated our combined forces in Yewland! By now Paragor has no doubt nursed them back to full strength. Why does he delay?”
Farix was silent.
“We must be ready,” Kaliam said. “Farix, go and find Kindle and make sure he has his force of spearmen near at hand. And see to it that Mallik and his folk fill the turrets should any of their siege engines win through to the walls!”
“Yes, Sentinel,” Farix said, and he vanished down the stairs.
Kaliam stared out over the enemy into the darkness. He paced the parapets until he could bear it no longer. He raced along the wall, ducking into and out of massive turrets, until he came to one of the guard towers near the main gate.
As Kaliam approached, seven sentries ran to him and stood at attention. “What news?” Kaliam asked.
“The gates hold,” answered the first guard in line, a clean-shaven Glimpse who wore a gleaming conical helmet. “In fact, it has barely been assaulted since the battering rams were turned back.”
Kaliam went to the wall and peered between two stone merlons down at the enemy. There were knights as far as the eye could see in that gloom, but they were armed with swords and milled about almost casually.
“We sent the archers to the outer walls,” the sentry continued. “They are needed more there to repel the siege towers.”
“Yes, good,” Kaliam replied. But he was not so sure. He looked again down at the enemy. As thick as ants on a carcass, they were, but they had no ladders or devices for scaling, no great rams for smashing the gates. Why would the enemy abandon the gates? It was the weakest point of entry. “You have done well,” Kaliam said at last. “But do not be caught unaware by a lull in their assault. Send word to bring a host of archers back to the gate. I feel the enemy will strike here again.”
The sentry nodded and sent one of his knights racing along the wall. Then he and the others returned to their posts.
“What is Paragor’s plan?” Kaliam thought aloud. He turned and looked behind him, up Alleble’s main thoroughfare, past the Seven Fountains to the castle. He longed to speak with the King. Surely he would know what to do. But King Eliam had gone to a place where his Sentinel could not follow. And there had been no report of his return. Kaliam would have to lead the defense of the kingdom himself.
Suddenly, the sound of metal grinding against metal ripped through the din of the siege. Kaliam whirled around. “What are they doing?!” The enormous deadbolt arm of the main gate was being drawn back. He pointed to the sentries. “Go!” The sentries dashed from their post and flew down the spiral stairs to the causeway leading to the gatehouse.
Still the great murynstil bolt continued to slide back. Shouts came from the enemy knights on the other side. Kaliam went to the parapet and saw that they were aimless no longer. Hundreds had gathered at the gate, and to Kaliam’s astonishment, they were forming ranks at the gate. Kaliam looked back along the walls, and there, running swiftly along the parapets, was Nock, and he led a great team of archers.
“What is happening?” Nock asked when he drew near.
“There is evil afoot!” Kaliam exclaimed. “Someone has begun to withdraw the great bolt to the gate!”
Nock and the others stared.
“I sent a team of guards to the gatehouse, but—” Kaliam looked back to the gate just in time to see the last of the bolt slide away from the guides on the portcullis. He felt a tremor of fear creep along his spine, for slowly the gate itself began to rise. “Nay! This is not possible! Nock, I must go myself to the gate! But see, the enemy is forming on the other side—lining up—as if they might simply walk in!” Kaliam locked eyes with Nock, and in that moment, he was not speaking captain to knight, but friend to friend. “Do not let the enemy enter our city!”
“They stand in line to perish,” Nock said, motioning to his team.
Kaliam’s broadsword unsheathed, he sprinted down the stairs and across the causeway to the gatehouse. He paused at the ramp and watched. The triple portcullis continued to rise. It was nearly high enough for the Paragor Knights who clamored there to squeeze through. I will put a halt to this! Kaliam thought as he hurried up the ramp.
But Kaliam stopped short. There before him was a trail of twisted bodies. He recognized the Glimpse warriors strewn about the road like broken toys, and their eyes were frozen open in fear.
“What madness is this?!” Kaliam exclaimed. Few weapons could inflict this kind of damage—Mallik’s hammer, perhaps. And that led Kaliam to a very disturbing thought. Could one of Mallik’s folk, the Glimpses of the Blue Mountain Provinces, be a traitor like Acsriot or the false ambassadors?
Kaliam held his broadsword in front as he climbed to the top of the ramp. And there, turning the giant chain-driven wheel that raised and lowered the triple portcullis, was a single knight. That is impossible! Kaliam thought. It takes three stout warriors to turn that wheel!
The knight stopped and stood to face Kaliam. Dressed in the armor of Alleble, he smiled grotesquely at Kaliam before walking toward him. And as he drew near, he seemed to change. It was as if with each step, he grew larger. Then Kaliam saw his eyes. They flashed blue at first, but then they flashed red. The warrior began to convulse. . . .