Free Changer of Days by Alma Alexander Page B

uttered back in the stables. Melsyr’s quick grin in the darkness…a flash of white teeth… I’ll swop duties with someone; it might be more useful if I’m guarding a back gate…
    “The postern,” said Kieran brusquely. “It’s our only chance. Come on.”
    They wheeled and stumbled back the way they had come. Kieran hesitated at the next corner, and Charo leaned closer. “Do you know where we’re going?” he hissed.
    “I know where Miranei’s postern is from the outside,” Kieran hissed back. “I could hardly ask directions for it in here. Adamo found out from one of his friends, and he said…give me a moment…”
    “Go left,” said a faint, unexpected voice. “There’s a passage from this courtyard.”
    Kieran glanced down at Anghara with a sense of surprise. He should have remembered this was her childhood home. He nodded. “Come on, Charo.”
    He saw the archway leading into the passage she had mentioned, and then had to flatten the three of them against the wall as five soldiers emerged, moving fast. Their faces were set into expressions ranging from unease to what was almost panic in the case of the youngest. They passed without turning their heads; Kieran waited for a tense moment to see if any more were likely to emerge before drawing his blade with a soft hiss. “I’ll go first,” he said softly. “You follow, Charo, help Anghara. Be careful.”
    Charo nodded, wasting no words, loosening his own weapon. Kieran moved forward with wary caution. The narrow arched gate widened into a broad walkway—initially a tunnel, torches guttering in sconces on either side, abruptly metamorphosing into a cloister surrounding a grassy square with a fountain set into the central sward.
    “Keep to the left,” Anghara’s voice came from behind, pitched only just loud enough for Kieran to hear. “There’s another arch straight ahead.”
    There was; Kieran slipped inside. A sudden noise made him lift his hand, stilling the other two into silence, but the sound of footsteps faded into the distance and Kieran crept forward cautiously once again.
    “Turn right at the end of this corridor,” came the instruction, just as a blank wall seemed to cut off all forward passage. A narrow lane branched right and left at the T-junction, and Kieran, peering both ways, stepped into the right passage.
    “At the end of this corridor,” whispered Anghara, “there’s a door; the latch is on this side, but there might be a guard on the other. We’ll come out at the foot of the West Tower; the postern is set into the base of the tower itself.”
    “Wait a minute,” said Kieran softly. “The West Tower? This isn’t the postern I know. That lets into the city. This one…”
    “This one leads into the foothills,” said Charo, a touch of quickening excitement in his voice. “Well done, cousin. If the unease spreads out into the city, at least we’ll be well out of it…”
    “In the mountains, on foot, with no supplies at the tail end of winter,” said Kieran. “Still, the idea has merit. If we are seen to enter Miranei for the first time only after this whole mess, it might be easier to get out again quietly, as opposed to us trying to sneak out of the city once what happened this morning becomes known.”
    There was no man at the latch-gate at the end of the corridor, but there were three at a small sturdy door set into the Western Tower. One of them, wearing the insignia of a commander of some rank, was leaning casually on the ill-tempered face of a gargoyle made of tarnished metal and wearing a black iron ring through its broad nostrils, set into the door.
    “That’s the postern?”
    “Yes,” Anghara said, and her voice was barely louder than breath. “The door is stone. From the outside, you can’t see it. It looks as though it is a part of the wall…”
    There was a sudden silence, and even as Kieran turned his head he saw Anghara crumple soundlessly and Charo’s arms go around her as she fell.