The ceilings on the dungeon level were low, built to stymie the tall hoch alfar and dokk alfar, but they were perfect for Ben’s height. His lady’s too. Rhianne mac Aodha appeared to be only an inch, if that, taller than Ben. Unusual for a Tuil Erdannan, but Ben wasn’t complaining.
His night-sight took them unerringly to the stairs at the end of the corridor. The door that had barricaded it leaned raggedly against a wall, torn from its bronze hinges. Ben had been too impatient to pick the lock.
Ben started up a flight of stairs, pulling Rhianne behind him. Flashes and rumbles sounded from above, the walls shaking in a manner that alarmed him.
“What is that?” Rhianne asked in Tuil Erdannan, probably figuring Ben was fluent in it.
Ben wasn’t. He’d learned a little during his sojourn in Faerie so he could speak to Lady Aisling when needed. Not that Lady Aisling didn’t know many other languages, including several human ones. Today when she’d met Ben at an ancient sundial in the woods and marched him to her house, she’d told him his task in perfect English.
My daughter’s been taken by that wretched Walther le Madhug, she’d said in rage, but Ben had felt her great fear behind the anger. He’s a high lord among the hoch alfar and far too full of himself, but he has grown dangerous. He wants to force Rhianne into marriage, believing it will help his bid to become emperor. Ha! You are to rescue her and then keep her safe for me.
Sure, your ladyship, Ben had thought. Easy-peasy.
Ben said to Rhianne now in careful Tuil Erdannan, “Don’t speak your language much.”
“Parles français?” Rhianne went off into a string of French, until Ben squeezed her hand.
“English?” he suggested. “Or one of twenty Native American languages? Some don’t exist anymore. Up to you.”
“I don’t know English as well as French.” Rhianne answered in English without a falter. “Mother goes to Paris so often that she likes to speak French.”
“Well, it’s that or hoch alfar, and I’m not sullying my mouth with that.” Ben gummed at his tongue, reflecting he was seriously thirsty. He hadn’t been able to finish his beer. “Since I’m thinking you don’t know my language, English it will have to be.”
“Agreed,” Rhianne said.
Another flash rolled down from above, and the entire castle shuddered, dust showering them. Over the loud rumbles came the sound of maniacal laughter.
“That’s Cian,” Ben explained. Cian could dig his fingers straight into walls, handy for carving niches for incendiaries. “I hope he leaves enough of the castle standing for us to escape.”
“I hope the entire place explodes into dust,” Rhianne growled. “We should run.”
“Word.” Ben leapt up the last step of the staircase from the dungeon, Rhianne directly behind him.
Light filmed the corridor on the next level, courtesy of the holes Cian had blasted in the walls, plus the glowing stones the hoch alfar used so they wouldn’t stumble in the dark and bruise their little toesies.
The place was a maze, but Ben had marked the walls as he’d made his way to the cells below. Of course, when they reached the door through which he’d entered the castle, rubble blocked it. Cian was having too much fun.
“What’s he using?” Rhianne asked, sounding merely curious. “I didn’t think dokk alfar had that kind of magic.”
“He doesn’t. He has explosives.” Ben scanned the corridor and chose a side hall, hoping it would take them to another exit. “How do you know he’s dokk alfar?”
“You said his name is Cian. That’s a dokk alfar name.”
“Fair enough.” Ben pulled Rhianne around another corner to an even darker corridor.
“Do you know the way out?” Rhianne asked.
“When I came in, yes I did. Now, no.”
“I don’t know the way either. I wasn’t awake for most of the journey.”
“Nice way to woo a girl.”
Rhianne’s laughter was shaky but held a hint of richness. “That’s what I said.”
“This way, I think. Or ... Okay, maybe not.”
Three hoch alfar stopped abruptly in front of them.
They obviously hadn’t expected to see Ben and Rhianne, because they hesitated a hair too long before they shouted and attacked. Ben was already engaged in the fight by the time they sorted themselves out.
Hoch alfar were much harder to brawl with than drunk guys in a Louisiana roadhouse. Fae had nasty pointed weapons for one thing, usually loaded with spells, plus these guards were trained from childhood to do battle.
Ben wasn’t any kind of alfar, which worked to his advantage. The hoch alfar were honed fighters who occasionally faced dokk alfar but mostly they battled other hoch alfar from rival clans. These guards didn’t know what to do with a pissed-off goblin who hated them on principle.
Ben’s fight with the barflies had been a warmup. This was the real thing. He kicked and spun, punched and jabbed, dodging knives headed for his gut, breaking a hand that wielded one.
The guards also didn’t know what to do with the yelling whirlwind of red hair who sprang at them instead of waiting on the sidelines like a good damsel in distress. Rhianne had found a piece of bronze pipe in the rubble, and now she whacked left and right.
The wall next to Ben exploded. Shards of dust and metal sprayed into the corridor, and the guards began to scream.
Rhianne stepped back in bewilderment, her bronze bar held like a sword as the guards writhed and clawed at their faces.
Ben grabbed Rhianne’s hand and pulled her through the newly made hole. “Cian packs iron into the explosives.”
“That’s mean.” Hoch alfar hated the touch of iron. It burned them, crippled them, killed them if they were hit with a big enough dose. Rhianne shuddered. “On the other hand, Walther let half a dozen of his guards grope me when he tracked me down, so they can eat it.”
Ben’s body tightened. He debated wading back into the castle and breaking necks and crushing bones, but it was more important right now that he whisk Rhianne to safety.
The hole led to a space between the castle’s inner and outer walls. Another opening had been blasted in the curtain wall, through which fresh wind blew. The outside world. Or, at least, Faerie.
Ben climbed through, pulling Rhianne behind him. She scrambled over the broken stones, her hair snagging on the jagged opening. She impatiently jerked it free, never letting go of Ben’s hand.
Ben slid a few feet down the steep hill the castle perched upon before he planted himself to help Rhianne to firmer ground. At least the hole in the wall hadn’t opened to a sheer part of the cliff.
The only road to the castle was a precarious one from a river valley, the better for defense. All other ways involved clambering around densely packed trees and scrub on a near-vertical slope.
Cian leapt out over the pile of rubble, landing with the grace of a cat. He wore close-fitting black clothes and soft shoes, which made him look much like the popular movie image of a ninja in the human world.
Cian’s usually grim face split into a broad smile. “Head’s up,” he said in dokk alfar.
Ben grabbed Rhianne and yanked her to the earth. Cian removed a small object from his pocket and tossed it through the hole he’d just emerged from then slammed himself facedown in the dirt.