Rage of Lions by Curtis Jobling

Author:Curtis Jobling
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780141964713
Publisher: Penguin Adult
Published: 2011-06-09T22:00:00+00:00

5

The Key

Haggard Castle once had a splendid throne room, home to the great and good of the Longridings. Merchants and nobles wined and dined there, keen to earn favour and fortune. The port of Haggard’s Bay provided a harbour for ships from every edge of Lyssia. It was relatively recently that the Horselord city of Cape Gala had replaced Haggard as the capital of the Longridings, and many still considered Haggard the beating heart of the grasslands, carved out of the rock it grew upon. But times had changed.

Now, Count Kesslar’s ‘court’ slept where they fell, littering the floor of the throne room. Bodies slumped around the chamber’s marble pillars. Spent ale casks lay about, the soldiers having done their best to empty the castle’s cellars. A figure slept upon the throne beneath a fur blanket, an ancient grey mastiff dozing at his feet, its dirty muzzle resting on its paws.

Whitley crept silently towards the throne’s stone dais, stepping gingerly between the slumbering guards. She counted twenty, each fearsome looking and armed to the teeth. She’d seen men like these before, rolling through Brackenholme, hitting taverns and causing chaos before they picked up jobs on departing caravans.

Kesslar’s men had underestimated Whitley. Lying in bed, convalescing after Baron Ewan had treated her injury, she was the last person any of them expected to be creeping around the castle in the middle of the night. She’d appeared close to death upon arrival, only attracting the attention of Kesslar once he discovered she had value. The daughter of Duke Bergan was clearly worth a great deal to the Goatlord.

Kindly old Ewan had been the first person she laid eyes upon when she regained consciousness. He’d quickly informed her of the predicament she was in, where Drew was imprisoned and who held the key that kept him locked away. It was all immaterial, Ewan had said – she was too ill to get out of bed, let alone plan a daring escape for her friend. She needed a full night’s sleep, and then they’d face what the new day brought when her energy had returned.

That wasn’t good enough for Whitley.

The Goatlord’s men had made merry until the early hours, drinking and carousing. When the noise subsided, Whitley waited for a further hour before creeping from her bed wearing nothing but the nightdress she’d been given. The guard who had been posted outside her door had departed long ago to join his brothers in their cups. After all, how much guarding did a sickly young girl require?

A sweeping staircase led down directly into the throne room, where Kesslar’s small army of hired swords lay sleeping off their festivities. This was their last night in Haggard, according to Ewan, the Goatlord intending to set sail with his prisoners the following day. Whitley spied the stairwell that led down to the cavern beneath the castle, but that wasn’t where she was heading. Drew would have to wait. She had to pay someone else a visit first.

Whitley was far from recovered, her body still weak as it fought the diseased wound from the dead soldier.

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