Corvan nearly fell through the door in shock. Kate was leaning heavily on Jorad’s arm. Her face was pale and her eyes dull. She looked like she had been drugged. He had to get her out of there, but how could he possibly reach her with a sea of armed warriors in the way?
A man in the crowd whistled at Kate, and a few others joined in. The leader’s head snapped around, squinting in disapproval, and the beady eyes of the stuffed animal head glinted in the red light. The whistles immediately died off.
Dressed in the brilliant white cloak. her red hair tucked under a tiara that sparkled in the firelight, Kate looked like a queen. She wavered on her feet, and Jorad pulled her closer to keep her upright. Corvan nudged the door open a bit wider.
The leader shouted something about his new counterpart, becoming the Cor-Van, and the impending victory over Kadir. All the men rose to their feet, chanting a single phrase over and over, jumping about and working themselves into a frenzy.
Corvan stepped away from the door. Tsarek had warned him that Kate would die under the light of the lumiens, and she already looked barely alive. If he didn’t act right away, Kate would be gone forever.
“Come on, Corvan,” he muttered, “there has to be something you can do.”
He pulled the hammer from the holster. “I was too afraid to help Tarran. I won’t make the same mistake with Kate.”
He held the handle in front of him, staring at the end, but there was no light and no sense of power or direction. He snapped it back into its holster. Morgan’s black knife would be more useful than a dead hammer. He dug into his pack and pulled out the blade. A bright red cylinder on a stick— one of his bottle rocket fireworks from home— tumbled out.
That could work! With the fireworks to create a diversion, he might get close enough to help Kate escape. Frantically digging through the pack, he retrieved the rest of the fireworks, a pack of firecrackers, the waterproof tube of matches, and a stubby candle.
He punched three holes around the edge of his last tin can with the Swiss Army knife. After inserting the three bottle rockets into the holes, he positioned the can just inside the door. With the smallest blade, he drilled three holes just below the top of the candle, placed it on the top of the can, and inserted one rocket fuse into each hole. If his rough calculations were correct, by the time the candle burned down to the fuses, he could work his way around the perimeter to reach Kate and Jorad. If Jorad was any sort of priest at all, he would help get Kate to safety.
Corvan took the can to the door and slid it halfway open. The scene outside had grown more intense, with men slamming into each other. The noise of the crowd was deafening in the enclosed space.
A shower of dust drift past the open door. He had forgotten about the men on the rooftops. Those to the sides could easily see him if they looked his way. He stepped back inside, fighting the rising fear. How could he ever reach Kate?
He looked back to the tube of matches that lay next to Morgan’s black knife, the long tube of a Roman candle, and the pack of firecrackers. It was time to act, not think about everything that could go wrong.
Lashing the knife to his forearm, he slid the Roman candle under the sheath, stuffed the firecrackers into his back pocket, and grabbed the matches. Dropping to his knees by his bottle rocket contraption, he opened the waterproof tube of matches.
Only three matches remained.
He struck one, but the head snapped off and fizzled on the ground.
With trembling hands, he pulled out the second match. It sputtered, and he touched it to the wick. A small flame sprang to life, but as he dropped the match to the ground, the candle wavered and died to a smoking ember.
One match left. He held his breath. It caught, and he cupped it with his other hadn and held it to the candle until the match singed his fingers. This time the flame grew stronger. Sliding the can closer to the edge of the door, he packed dirt around the bottom to angle the three rockets over the heads of the raucous crowd.
Stepping over the rockets, Corvan slipped out the door and headed to the right, keeping his back pressed tight against the crypt walls. At first, he had room to maneuver, but soon he discovered the celebration had spread to the edges and men were blocking his way. A fight broke out beside him, forcing him to backed into a crevice between two crypts.
Something was missing. He felt for the knife; still there along with the Roman Candle. The krypin rope was still attached to his belt. The pack! He had left it behind in the crypt. He glanced back, but was no time; the rockets would be flying any second.
The crowd swirled before him, and he caught a glimpse of Jorad and Kate just twenty feet ahead through the thrashing tangle of bodies. The alley behind them was empty, but armed guards stood watch on the two crypt roofs that flanked the narrow channel. One guard peered over the crowd, then he jumped across the gap to his companion while pointing toward Corvan’s flickering candle and shouting into his ear. The other man nodded, and together they moved across the tops of the crypts toward the light.
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Thrusting himself from the crack, Corvan entered the mass of bodies, bouncing with them in their frenzy but ensuring he moved steadily in Jorad’s direction. He fell hard against a stout man, who promptly shoved him into someone else. Corvan evaded another body check, then stepped in close to Jorad. The priest was staring into the fire in the brazier, his face was smoldering in anger. Corvan grabbed his shoulder, and Jorad looked over. His mouth dropped open.
Corvan leaned in and shouted over the din. “Soon there will be a bright light in the sky and then loud noises. When that happens, take Kate and meet me by Morgan’s grave.”
Jorad hesitated, glanced at the rebel leader, then nodded. Corvan moved away and dropped down at the wall next to three older men who stood watching the crowd in disdain.
The rebel leader moved closer to the fire, hollering and motioning for silence. Over his head and across the crowd, Corvan saw the two guards peering down at his flickering candle. “Come on, come on, do something,” Corvan urged aloud as the din began to die down.
Someone kicked his side. He looked up to find one of the older men standing over him and shaking his head in disgust. Not wanting another kick, he slid away, bumping against two full jars of fuel leaning against the wall. The jars scraped slowly along the wall, tipped over on their pointed bottoms, and began oozing their contents into the alley.
The energy of the crowd was dissipating. Those closest to the fire stood silently staring at Kate.
“Come, High Priest,” the rebel leader cried out. “Come and bless our union.”
The crowd fell silent as Jorad raised both hands. “Gods of the Cor, we seek your will tonight. We ask you to give us a sign if you are unhappy with us. Show us if we have moved forward without understanding your will.”
The men in front shifted uncomfortably. The false Cor-Van motioned his three older comrades forward. Jorad continued to pray, asking in more fervent terms for the gods to demonstrate their displeasure if this were not the right time for the Cor-Van to unite with this counterpart.
As the three men closed in on Jorad, Corvan crawled along the wall behind them to get a clear shot at the fire. The rockets in the crypt door must have failed. He dug into his pocket. The firecrackers would have to provide the diversion. Taking aim, he lobbed the entire packet of firecrackers toward the brazier.
As the packet tumbled through the air, a shaft of light tore through the darkness, followed by a blast that shook the ground. One of the guards cried out as he fell off a crypt, just down from Corvan. The entire company of men threw themselves on the ground and covered their heads.
Two more bright lights screamed into the sky. Corvan glanced over to see Jorad leading a docile Kate out through the passage.
Bang! Bang! A pair of explosions cracked the night air, then darkness dropped back over the crowd. The rebel leader called out for more light. One of his men poured more oil into the brazier, and as the flames leaped up, the firecrackers began to go off in rapid succession, spitting balls of flaming oil in all directions.
The man with the oil jar jumped back, sloshing oil on his robes. In a flash, he was also on fire. Screaming, he ran into the crowd. Men clambered over one another to get away from him.
Jumping up, Corvan put his back to the wall and slipped toward the opening into the alley. The crowd was milling about in confusion. This was his chance to follow Jorad and Kate and get away but when Corvan looked up, he found the leader shouting to his two remaining helpers and pointing directly at him. Intense hatred was twisting the man’s face into a snarl as fierce as the animal face on his head. Corvan’s special cloak had failed him, and whatever the rebel leader saw in him, it wasn’t good. His two henchmen turned toward Corvan.
The last of the firecrackers spit a round blob of flaming tar at Corvan’s feet. He had one last trick up his sleeve. Whipping the Roman candle out from under the lashed knife, he bent and lit the fuse from the bubbling flames.
The two men stopped short at the sight of the firework sparking in Corvan’s hand like a magician’s wand. Their leader shouted a command, but before they could move, a flaming ball shot from the cardboard barrel with a soft fwoopand hit one in the shoulder. The man turned quickly away and disappeared into the crowd.
Corvan shuffled sideways, keeping his back against the wall and his eyes focused on the next man.
Fwoop, fwoop. Two green balls whizzed past the man’s head, then he also vanished.
Corvan moved to enter the alley, but now the rebel leader moved into place and was blocking his retreat. Corvan could now see that the animal skin the man wore on his head was from some sort of large bat, its wings and body clinging to the man’s head like a leathery skullcap. Its small bony claws were now curled around the man’s ears. Corvan pointed the candle at the tall man, but all that came out was a small blue dud that rolled up to his feet. He crushed it under his boot before he pulled out a long sword.
Corvan backed away, slipped in the black oil, and fell against the wall. His hood fell back from his head, and the leader’s eyes grew wide just as a thick cloud of smoke from the brazier billowed around him. Corvan scooted tight against the wall and squeezed past the man into the narrow channel and freedom.
As he stood to run, a sword pierced the curtain of swirling smoke to reveal the angry face of the rebel Cor-Van.
“Die, you evil sorcerer, you servant of the darkness.” The man raised his sword high over his head, and Corvan found himself looking directly into the black eyes of the bat-like creature as it pushed itself high up on its bony wings and hissed at him past pointed teeth.
Corvan yelled and desperately shoved the sputtering Roman candle toward the man’s head.
A blazing red ball shot out and exploded in the rebel leader’s right eye.
The creature on his head leaped up into the air and flapped off into the darkness.
The man’s sword fell with a splash into the pool of oil as another dazzling red ball hit the man square in the chest, rolled down his robe, then dropped into the gleaming pool of oil. The fire leapt up, and the leader disappeared behind a tower of flames that roared toward Corvan.
Corvan ran ahead of the fire, slipping his way through the black goo and out into the maze of streets and leaving a trail of flaming footprints in his wake.
Another ball from his Roman candle arched off into the darkness and gave him a quick look at his surroundings. Was this the right way? He aimed the cardboard tube higher as he ran.
A final yellow ball sailed through the sky.
Just ahead was the half-dead tree.