Chapter 8 Hannah
Hannah
Istopped with a jerk. Panic clawed my chest. I grabbed at the wall with one hand and shoved my toes into a narrow crack.
I glanced upward, and my stomach churned. Shit! The knot wasn’t seated right. The rope crept through the binding loops as the fibers twisted above me.
Snow fell in soft flakes, dusting my head, and the night sky was jet black except for a few stars and the moon itself shining above. Footsteps thundered toward where I’d tied the rope, getting closer and closer.
My heart tried to ram its way through my ribs, and I forced myself to breathe evenly. I had to calm my panicking mind, or I would be caught. I needed to climb down faster than the sliding knot was unraveling. At least, that way, the fall would be more controlled than plummeting the entire way down.
The wall tore at my gloves, coat sleeves, and jeans. As the rope bit deeper, friction-heat built in my palms until it felt like my skin might split. Snow blew into my face and melted against my lashes. With the two contrasting temperatures, I wasn’t sure which was worse.
The knot slipped again, and my feet skated over an icy patch on the wall. My body dropped a full foot before I caught myself, and a raw groan ripped from my throat.
My chest slammed against the stone, and I kept one hand locked around the rope and the other gripping the rock as I scrabbled for purchase.
My fingers slipped, causing my lungs to stop working, but I managed to catch on to a seam in the wall and cling as best I could.
My nails dug into the stone grooves, and if not for the gloves, I’d probably have shredded my fingertips.
I glanced down to see packed earth and dark stone still a couple dozen feet below me. From this height and in this light, I couldn’t tell for sure. I had no chance of coming away from a fall like that with anything less than broken bones. Maybe death. I had to get lower before I risked jumping.
The rope creaked and tensed but held.
Well, flitter. I had to get the hell away from King Grouchy Butt. I swallowed hard and made my hands move, inching them down as my toes searched for leverage. All I found were shallow seams and frost-slick stone, which didn’t help much, but at least I wasn’t free-falling.
Don’t rush. Don’t freeze. Be methodical.
I slid another foot lower, my muscles trembling as the rope shifted again. The knot above me groaned, a subtle, awful complaint that vibrated through the rope and straight into my bones. My stomach dropped as the rope gave another fraction. Shit!
“Get that rope before she falls!” a deep voice shouted.
“The king’s calling for the hounds! Go tell them she’s headed down the eastern wall. Send them out the eastern gate in case we can’t drag her up,” another voice called out.
My panic spiked. Hounds? Definitely not what I needed. Visions of floppy-eared dogs with drooling maws and sharp teeth flashed through my mind. But who knew what they’d look like here, or what they might do?
I tried to move downward faster without putting too much stress on the rope. My shoes skidded, caught, then skidded again. The wall chewed at my gloves, front, and sleeves, fabric rasping against rough stone. The pulse in my ears pounded so loudly that I couldn’t hear them above me anymore.
Slowly, I made it another foot down…then another.
The ground inched closer, but I was still too high. If I shoved outward and dropped, I could aim for the roof of the closest building in the row built near the castle wall, but it was so steep I’d probably slide off and fall just as dangerous a distance.
My arms shook with the effort to control every movement as my heart raced faster.
Above me, metal scraped stone. I looked up again. A helmeted head appeared between the stones, then another. Snow shook loose as they leaned farther out.
“There—she’s on the rope there!” A dark figure jabbed a finger in my direction.
“Grab it!”
The line jerked.
My body slammed into the wall, ribs cracking against it hard enough to knock a cry out of me. Fucking bastards! The impact rattled my teeth and sent pain flaring down my side as the rope slid another inch through my grip. Heat screamed across my palms through the gloves, fierce and immediate.
“No—” The word tore free as I clawed at the stone while my fingers scrabbled uselessly for a hold.
The rope shifted again. I forced myself to descend, my hands sliding despite my rubber-soled shoes fighting for cracks to catch a grip. My breaths came fast and shallow, fogging the air in front of my face.
When I glanced up again, a gloved hand appeared above me, fingers reaching through the gap in the wall.
Then the rope snapped taut.
My feet ripped free of the stone as the guards hauled upward. My body swung out into open air for a sickening second before I smashed back into the wall. Pain exploded through my shoulders. I gasped, my vision flashing white, one hand locking around the rope while the other grabbed at the wall.
They pulled again.
I slid upward despite myself, the rope biting cruelly into my arms as my shoes couldn’t find any traction.
Snow spun past my face, blinding me in quick bursts.
I kicked, twisted, fought to drag myself down instead of up, forcing my hands to slide farther down the rope even as my skin and muscles screamed in protest.
But the ground was closer now, and I would run out of rope fast.
Heart hammering, I risked a glance down. Ten feet. Maybe a little more. Close enough that fear shifted, sharp and focused, into calculation.
“Pull!” The command rang out in the icy air above me.
I didn’t wait for them to drag me higher.
I let go.
The world dropped, and my stomach lurched into my throat.
Cold air tore past me as I twisted into the fall the way experience and instinct demanded, body loose, knees bent, chin tucked.
I hit the ground hard, the balls of my feet striking first and my knees bending as far as they could before my body folded, and I rolled so that my hip and shoulder slammed down hardest. Pain detonated through my side, snow and grit tearing at me, stone scraping my back.
I came to a stop, gasping, the ground brutal and real beneath me.
Holy shit. I’d made it in one piece.
Shouts exploded above the wall. “She’s loose!”
“She’s on the ground!”
“Is she dead?”
I sucked in a breath that felt like knives slicing my lungs and forced myself upright while pain roared inside me. I’d be sore tomorrow, if I got to see tomorrow at all. My legs trembled but held, and I pushed away from the wall before they could decide otherwise.
“Awooo—wooorrrr—awoooo!” A long series of howls rolled from beyond the castle walls.
The sound carried, low and resonant, cutting cleanly through the panic and noise, echoing off stone in a way that made my skin prickle. More howls answered, closer, the rhythm deliberate enough to turn my stomach.
Cold air burned my lungs as I pulled in a measured breath and let it out, grounding myself in the weight of my body and the scrape of snow beneath my shoes. I was upright and moving. Even better, my cut leg wasn’t hurting nearly as much.
The space I’d landed in was a narrow lane that ran between the outer castle wall and the inner edge of the surrounding town.
The buildings didn’t press close here. They stopped short by design, leaving a clear buffer of stone and packed earth wide enough for groups of people to fit through.
It was built to limit cover for anyone near the wall, but the alleys between the buildings looked to have more overhang to hide me.
Snow lay unevenly across the ground, churned by boots and wheels, darkened in places by ash and cinders.
The air smelled of damp stone and old smoke, like the residue of a thousand fires burned and cleared away.
Fresh prints wouldn’t show for long, even as the new snowflakes dropped and clung to the dirty surfaces.
Straight ahead, through the buildings, I could see what was likely the main road, where torchlight flared and people ran in every direction, voices overlapping in fear and confusion.
“The Night King is attacking!”
“No, it’s an escaped prisoner!”
“They’ve sent the hounds! Don’t get in their way!”
Another horn blast sounded. Based on what I’d seen from the walkway, I guessed that the eastern gate lay to my right. If the hounds came through that gate, they would sweep this lane first.
I turned away from the street and ran down the alley between the nearest set of buildings.
My shoes crunched over the thin layer of snow as I scanned the ground and the structures around me.
The town appeared to be set up on a rough grid.
Pools of peach-orange light surrounded tall iron lampposts, and dark wood structures were set at regular intervals.
From the wall, when I’d peered over, I’d seen at least four sections of buildings before the main road that led out of the castle.
It opened into a large marketplace square.
As I ran, I glimpsed the main road, where people milled and shouted.
Several homes had single torches in the windows, as if the occupants had been roused from sleep and hadn’t lit up every room.
The hounds would come out of the main gate, and then they’d track me fast.
I needed to find something to mask my scent. What might be available in a city that probably had less tech than Game of Thrones? Ash might work.
Heart hammering in my throat, I ducked into a gap between buildings and scanned for anything useful.
There were stacks of firewood in iron rings, a pile of broken crates, and seven barrels sitting beneath the overhang of a broad-roofed shop.
Fine gray powder and black chunks were scattered around the bases of the barrels, and a sign with an anvil hung out front.
Probably a blacksmith. Sweet! I ran up and lifted the lid of one barrel, and found it contained powdery gray ash.