Chapter 4 - The Iron Ambush
The echoing slam of the massive bronze-banded oak doors extinguished the celebratory cries in the hall.
Panic swept through the aristocrats like a sudden winter frost.
Ladies scrambled away from the perimeter walls toward the central dais.
Men drew ornate, thin-bladed ceremonial swords that were utterly useless against heavy combat armor.
From the high arched windows overlooking the palace courtyard, dark ropes dropped down into the hall.
Thirty heavily armed men slid down the ropes, landing upon the marble floor with dull, metallic thuds.
They wore unmarked black mail and half-helms that hid their faces.
Each man carried a short, notched broadsword and a heavy spiked buckler.
They were not royal guards.
They were northern mercenaries hired from the lawless mountain borderlands.
"Treason!" Count Julian cried out, attempting to shield his young wife behind a carved stone pedestal.
Lady Victoria did not run.
She stood beside her husband, a cold, triumphant smile returning to her lips.
"You should have stayed in the shadows of the scullery, girl," Victoria said across the hall.
"Did you truly believe we would let twenty years of careful planning be overturned by an old ring?" Lord George barked.
The mercenaries fanned out in a tight crescent, cutting off the dais from the rest of the court.
"Rowan!" Lord George commanded.
"Surrender the girl, and your pension will be doubled," George offered.
"Refuse, and your body will be thrown into the harbor before nightfall," he threatened.
Captain Rowan spat upon the marble flagstones.
"I swore an oath to King Alden, George," Rowan replied, his voice deadly calm.
"I do not sell my honor to northern cowards who kill children in their beds," Rowan growled.
Rowan raised his broadsword and signaled to the six veteran guards who stood loyal at his back.
"Shield wall around the dais!" Rowan commanded.
The six veterans moved with machine-like precision, locking their heavy iron shields together at the foot of the stairs.
Princess Celestine cowered behind Elena, clutching the folds of her sister's rough linen gown.
"Elena, they will kill us all," Celestine wept, terrified by the glint of drawn steel.
"They will try," Elena replied, her voice eerily steady.
Elena did not back down a single step.
She picked up a heavy ceremonial silver staff from the altar.
It was tipped with a solid gold eagle, heavy enough to crush a man's skull through an iron helmet.
"Attack!" Lord George yelled, slashing his hand through the air.
The mercenaries surged forward with guttural roars.
The first wave slammed violently into the guards' locked shields.
Sparks flew as iron collided with iron, the deafening screech echoing off the stone pillars.
Rowan thrust his sword through a gap between two shields, running a mercenary through the chest.
Blood spilled across the pristine white marble, staining the ancient tiles where kings had walked for centuries.
The aristocrats shrieked, trampling one another as they tried to force the barricaded side exits open.
Two mercenaries broke past the shield wall and scrambled up the steps toward Elena.
The first man lunged with his notched blade aimed directly at her throat.
Elena did not flinch.
She stepped inside his guard with the speed born of years dodging heavy blows in the lower ward taverns.
She swung the silver staff with both hands.
The solid gold eagle struck the mercenary directly under his jaw.
The impact broke his teeth and threw him backward down the marble steps.
The second mercenary hesitated for half a second, stunned by the fierce brutality of the girl in the grey dress.
That half-second was fatal.
Elena drove the pointed butt of the heavy staff into his knee, shattering the joint.
The man collapsed, howling in agony, before Rowan’s blade finished the work.
Victoria watched from the safe perimeter of the hall, her eyes wide with shock.
She had expected an easy execution of a frightened scullery girl.
She had not anticipated an untamed wolf forged in the brutal underbelly of the capital.
"Archers!" Lord George screamed toward the upper balcony.
Four men armed with compact crossbows appeared along the high wooden balustrade.
They raised their weapons and aimed down directly at the dais.
"Down!" Rowan roared, throwing his heavy shield over Celestine.
The twang of crossbow strings hummed through the air.
Three iron bolts struck Rowan’s shield with tremendous force, embedding themselves deep in the wood and iron.
A fourth bolt grazed Rowan’s unprotected shoulder, tearing through his leather doublet and drawing a dark spray of blood.
The captain fell to one knee, groaning through clenched teeth.
The line was failing.
The remaining loyal guards were being pushed backward by the sheer weight of mercenary numbers.
More mercenaries poured through the smashed southern windows.
Lord George drew his own rapier, stepping forward with Victoria at his side.
"Finish them!" George ordered.
Elena dropped the silver staff.
She looked up at the high balcony where the archers were reloading their crossbows.
She knew they could not survive another volley in the open.
She turned to Celestine.
"Do you trust me?" Elena asked, grabbing her sister’s trembling face.
"I...
I have no one else," Celestine sobbed.
"Then remember who you are," Elena said fiercely.
Elena grabbed the hem of the Sacred Veil from the altar.
She wrapped the cloth tightly around her left arm like a makeshift buckler.
Then she picked up a fallen mercenary’s short sword with her right hand.
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She did not wait for the enemy to close the distance.
Elena leapt over the shattered shield wall and charged straight into the fray, her blade swinging with terrifying purpose.
