The High-King by Robert Jones

Author:Robert Jones [Jones, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-01-29T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER V

Two boys ran screaming from an alley and disappeared into the maze across the street. They were like rabbits running from one warren to the next and Isolde heard the sharp cry of a girl from where they had come.

“Come on, Isolde,” Harald cried.

But it was no use, the wails were a siren call and Isolde had been captured. He cursed her out loud but she didn’t hear him.

“We need to form the line!” he yelled but as she slipped into the back lane, he felt the tug of pity in his own heart. In a city full of death, he knew they could save more by moving on, but he still couldn’t turn away from the helpless whimpering.

“Come on,” he cried as he shouldered past Isolde into the alley.

The girl was but ten steps in, sitting with her back up against a wall, her dark hair a birds nest of mess with red eyes and tears underneath. Harald could feel his heart beating hard under his chest. With his grip tight on his war-axe, he tore his eyes away from the child as Isolde knelt down beside her. Here in the alley, they were rats in a maze. He looked around as passageways broke in and out of their lane and quickly noted that they only had one safe way out. He looked back at Isolde, she was pushing the hair out the girl's eyes.

“Come on!” he cried, but his words were cut short as a mountain-man burst out from the shadows and dived at him with a blade.

Harald’s axe went straight up by instinct and he caught the beast under his chin so that his head flung back in an arc and the man was dead before he hit the ground. Harald turned back with raging eyes at Isolde.

“Carry her!” he ordered and led them both back into the main street.

He looked up the road from where they had come and saw a great boulder smash into a line of their own men. Some of them crawled back to stand, but most didn’t move again. He shook his head, so much destruction, so much death. He was shaking and he didn’t even know it until Isolde put her spare hand on him. She was holding the weeping girl in her other arm and looked at Harald with eyes that shone like he had never seen before.

“We don’t have far to go,” she said calmly and she was right.

She pulled Harald by the shirt softly and he could see the Jarl’s hall before them, rising up with its light wooden palisade and ornate walls. The rest of the run seemed like a dream, he was following Isolde, yet she had a new light about her, something he couldn’t quite see, but an aura he could feel. He felt safe, even as the catapults kept up their ghastly work and more and more rocks fell around them.

“It’s alright… it’s alright…” said the soft voice of an angel.

Harald knew it

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.