Chapter 97

CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN

Ryker

As they recovered from the unexpected attack, the remaining guards freed their swords. They rushed out from behind the prisoners to engage with the enemy approaching them.

One ran at me with his sword raised as he bellowed. Before we reached each other, an arrow pierced the center of his head, knocked him off his feet, and sent him flying backward.

I didn’t have to look back to know Ellery had taken him out. While the arrow through his brain wasn’t lethal, it would keep him incapacitated until someone removed it. Unwilling to let that happen, I severed his head from his shoulders.

The man’s feet still kicked against the ground when I ran past him. Around the green, lanterns started lighting the windows of the nearby homes as shouts of pain and fury mingled with the clash of blades and the thud of arrows hitting flesh.

Tucker’s followers on the rooftops had gotten so good with bows and arrows that they only took down the guards. As far as I could tell, they hadn’t accidentally hit anyone on their side.

However, the town was waking far faster than I’d hoped. I got to the first pillory as Tucker and the siblings arrived with more of Tucker’s followers.

Raising my sword, I brought it down on the lock. It cracked with a loud pop before springing open and falling to the ground.

I ripped the top off the pillory and tossed it aside. The prisoner I’d freed hit the ground as his legs refused to support him.

I had no doubt the weakened man couldn’t open a portal to free himself. If I opened one for him, I’d have to close it after, as we couldn’t risk any guards going through it.

That meant I would have to keep opening and closing portals to turn them loose and to free myself, which was impossible. We had to get most of the prisoners out simultaneously, so this man had to move .

Grabbing the man by the arm, I ignored his cry as I dragged him toward the second prisoner. His hands remained bound by chains before him, but he had some ability to maneuver them.

When I released the man’s arm, he fell to the ground, and I lifted my sword to bring it down on the next lock.

After freeing the woman, I sheathed my sword, seized both their arms, and hauled them toward the third as the cacophony in the green grew. The sharp, coppery tang of blood filled the air, as did the acrid stench of terror. Beneath my feet, fresh blood was starting to coat the green.

From outside the torches, more soldiers raced past with their swords raised and battle cries spilling from their mouths. Most of them hadn’t bothered to dress in their uniforms, much less their chain mail. Some wore loose-fitting pants, while others were nude.

Judging by the increased flow of arrows, some of the newcomers had bows too. Unlike our marksmen, they would be less able to use their weapons in this crush, but they took down a few before tossing their bows aside, unsheathing their swords, and throwing themselves into the fray.

On the roofs, our marksmen could still take out these newcomers, but it would be more difficult now that they’d joined the crush of fighters.

An arrow whistled by me and into the forehead of the third prisoner just after I broke the lock. I didn’t know if I was the intended target for that shaft or the woman, but while I wanted to rescue them all, the arrow had incapacitated her too much to make freeing her possible.

I dodged a sword that swung out from the crush and grasped my hilt in both hands as I lunged forward to bury my blade in the guard’s belly. I sliced upward, freeing his intestines before I planted my foot on his hip and kicked him off my blade.

“You have to move!” I shouted at the first two prisoners. “We can’t get you out of here if you don’t help rescue yourselves!”

The woman scrambled to her feet as the man groaned and crawled forward. Arrows whistled past me; they thunked against the wood as they embedded themselves in the pillories.

When the head of one of Tucker’s men landed at my feet, I kicked it aside. I couldn’t see who it belonged to through the hood covering it, but I needed it out of my way.

I ducked as a sword arced toward my head; blood dripped from its tip, and the silver blade glinted in the torchlight before it embedded in the ground. With the guard occupied by trying to free his blade, I took the opportunity to liberate him of his hand.

He screamed and gripped his arm to lift his bloody stump in the air. I ignored the hot wash of blood that sprayed over my hood.

The prisoner crawling across the ground screamed as a guard brought his sword down on the man’s back. I hammered my fist into the guard’s face as he struggled to pull his sword free of the man’s spine.

“Here!” I shouted at the woman as I tossed her my sword. “Free the next one!”

Her chains made catching it difficult, but she grasped the hilt before the sword hit the ground. She had enough movement in the chains to wield the sword.

Judging by the hollowness of her cheekbones, she was about twenty pounds underweight, but determination etched her features and blazed from her eyes as she ran to the next prisoner. Lifting the sword, she brought it down on the lock.

When the guard ripped his sword free of the first captive, I lunged forward and hit him again. The man staggered from the impact of my repeated blows before I gripped the hilt of his sword and ripped it from his grasp.

Twisting his blade in my hands, I plunged it into his chest. Blood spewed from his mouth as his heart tore out the back of his chest.

He hung there, clawing at the blade as his mouth opened and closed. When I tore the sword free, he collapsed.

Once the man hit the dirt, I focused on the prisoner. He’d fallen on the ground between me and the fallen guard. His spine showed through the gaping hole in his back.

Blood coated the ground around him as the man moaned and his fingers twitched, but he couldn’t drag himself forward. He twisted his head to avoid the feet dancing around him as the battle continued to wage.

I contemplated mercy killing the prisoner but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Grasping his arm, I dragged him forward as another guard rushed at me. I held him off with my sword as more swarmed over us.

The woman had managed to free another prisoner, and the two of them dodged the crush of guards as they ran toward me. “Help him!” I commanded.

The women each gripped one of the man’s arms and dragged him onward as I used my sword to fend off the guards. From what I could see through the crush of bodies, the rest of the prisoners were free, but too many guards surrounded us to open a portal. They would only follow if we did.