Michael scoffed like he’d heard something funny, but Ameena trudged forward, stepping over all the bodies laid out between her and the throne. The Ant Killer watched on with red, puffy eyes. He didn’t move to intercept, just stared as Ameena walked towards him and the Archduke.

  Helena had watched Ameena’s declaration with fascination, battering at Ellis’s hands to take them off her ears when the wall had stopped moving. But now that the excitement had died down, she began to fight with everything in her to get out of Ellis’s hands.

  “Let go of me! Daddy! Daddy!” she started to scream.

  Ellis tried to hush her, to calm her down so that this would go smoothly, but she wasn't having it. A whistle of metal flew through the air an inch past his eyelid as he ducked his head out the way on reflex, the knife flying past his face end over end. The cavern rang out with a loud clanking sound as Ellis turned back to see where the knife had come from.

  He found the Ant Killer already winding back his hand for another knife throw. Ellis freaked out and shouted, “Wait! Wait! I’ll let her go! I promise!”

  “Then do so you fucking sorcerer!” he shouted back, dropping the knife to pick up his bloody sword, and then another from a dead palace guard.

  Michael watched this in fascination, scratching his chin as his eyes darted back and forth from the Ant Killer to the little girl. “You know her?”

  “You will let her go!” he ordered once again, the desperation in his voice giving it away.

  Michael grinned at that, like he’d discovered something fun. Ameena had made it within sword swinging distance of the Ant Killer, still at the base of the throne’s stairs. She had not taken her eyes off of the Archduke from the moment she had started walking, and he in turn did not take his eyes off her.

  The Ant Killer brought his sword up to her throat, and screamed loud enough to make the Archduke blush, “Let her go or I will kill one of yours!”

  A loud crash echoed throughout the cavern from the double doors, and then hundreds of angry voices filled the maze of hallways beyond the cavern, all shouting at each other to hurry up and kill the intruders. The garden illusion had faded. Their time limit for being here had started.

  Ellis’s time limit to kill the man standing next to him had just moved up.

  “I’ll let her go! I promise! Just help us get out of here after we kill that bastard!” Ellis shouted, trying his best not to hurt Helena as she struggled in his arms.

  They had the travelstone, so leaving would actually be the easiest part of this mess. But Ellis had to kill the man standing next to him, and his weapon to do so was scratching his arms.

  Michael took a side step toward Ellis. “You know, I don’t think we should let her go. I am starting to see why ya’ll wanted to keep her around. She makes an excellent hostage.”

  Ameena spoke for the first time since her promise. “We will let her go if you step aside. One step, and she’s all yours.”

  The Ant Killer glanced between her and Ellis. With a slight shake of his head, he thrust the sword deeper into her neck. “No! You will let her go right now or I will kill you all!”

  The Archduke seemed to snap out of his stupor. “No Leon! Spare her! Kill the rest! You will be pardoned for your treason if you do so!”

  The Ant Killer, Leon, ignored him as he bent down and seethed right into Ameena’s face. “Let my daughter go.”

  Ellis couldn’t handle the desperation in his voice, it made his stomach twice as if gripped in a vice. Helena was his only bargaining chip, their only bargaining chip… but he hated how this made him feel. And worse, Michael was inching closer and closer to him, peeking around Ellis’s shoulder to try and get a better look at her.

  So, even though he could hear those guards footsteps running towards him, and with every logical part of his brain screaming at him to stop, Ellis darted forward just before Michael could clamp his hand around his shoulder.

  “Leon! Here!” Ellis roared as he threw the little girl forward with all the strength in his arms.

  She screamed as she flew through the air. Leon forgot about Ameena entirely as he jumped to catch her. He flew toward her at a diagonal angle, the fifty meters between them gone in an instant. Right before her little head hit the floor, his hands closed around her body and brought into her chest as he rolled out of the fall, coming to a stop a few meters from where Ellis now stood, Michael still behind him.

  Helena threw her arms around her father’s neck and cried into his shoulder with such gusto Ellis had to stop himself from tearing up. Leon hefted the sword and pointed it toward the door, now spewing out guards in the dozens as they let loose their warcry upon seeing Ellis and the rest.

  The Archduke took this moment to capitalize, holding up his hand and shouting for all he was worth, “Execute the traitors!”

  Ameena started running up the stairs, and Ellis hoped she would enjoy her revenge as he brought the crossbow up to his shoulder. Turning around, he found himself looking straight into Michael’s chest. The man bore down on Ellis as a small army sprinted at his back. The bastard gave him a raised eyebrow and a playful smile.

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  He lifted his hand and patted Ellis’s cheek. “I thought you wanted to kill him for killing your family?”

  Ellis took a deep breath, and returned Michael’s unbroken stare. “Does it fucking matter?”

  Michael grinned at that, slapped Ellis on the shoulder before turning around to face the guards now barely twenty meters away. He walked towards them with open arms, like he wanted to give them a hug.

  Ellis shouted over his shoulder, “Leon! Help us! We won’t be able to leave otherwise!”

  Leon was still giving him a quizzical look, before he simply shook his head and sprinted to his right, heading for the cavern wall rather than the palace guards, who charged at all of them in turn.

  Michael met them first. They crashed into him with their shields that had him sliding back on his heels. He reached forward with one hand and crushed the helmet of the first man, his screams dying in an instant as the second was cut in half with a single swing of Michael’s sword.

  Those men had no qualms about killing them. And Ellis needed to live long enough to kill his companions. So with a prayer, he activated his ring and charged forward.

  Using the leg Michael had braced himself on, Ellis bounded up the bastard’s shoulders to grab a chandelier high in the air, hanging over the middle of the guard’s formation. With his vantage point over the horde of shields sprinting toward them, he let loose a rain of bolts, almost every single one finding a mark. Many died on impact, the rest of the bolts having stuck shields to the men’s faces and arms, leaving them tripping over one another. He ruined any semblance of a formation with that single volley, the guard’s trying in vain to rip the bolts out.

  The chandelier he was hanging on shuddered for a moment, before one of the chain’s holding it up snapped. Hoping this was a good idea, Ellis started swinging forward, trying to make the heavy metal swing with him. The unbroken chains groaned with every kick of his legs, and it didn’t take much for them to break.

  The guard’s keeping an eye on Ellis tried to warn the men, but they were far too preoccupied. The chandelier crashed down on top of some of their heads, killing a few and maiming the rest.

  He landed next to the chandelier, and had to dodge only three spear thrusts before Michael was sprinting past him, using a screaming man to batter some of the men out the way. Once he reached Ellis’s position, he swung his hand a hair's breadth over his head and killed two men charging at where they stood with a roar of fire.

  Ellis smelt his hair burning as he dodged out the way of Michael’s ring.

  The bastard chucked the screaming man at some men who had managed to stay on their feet, spears pointing forward. Unfortunately that just meant the man Michael had thrown was skewered on his friend’s spears, his momentum barreling all of them over.

  Michael let loose a torrent of fire all around them once again, giving enough time for Ellis to finish off a man who had fallen at his feet, reload and bring the crossbow back up to his shoulder. But once he was up and aiming, his eyes ignored the terrified men around him whose numbers seemed to increase indefinitely, to the the people trying to sprint past one another near the cavern wall.

  They were the nobles from earlier, all cowering in their attempt to squeeze past the carnage. Trying to run through that onslaught of cowering nobility were even more palace guards, moving towards the throne.

  During those days in the forest, Ameena had told him all about the nobles and what they do to the peasantry, so he would shed no tears to see them die. The palace guards sprinting towards Ameena’s back, who was standing over the Archduke now sitting in his throne, almost made him turn around to help her. But their numbers were small. Clearly Michael was holding the majority of their attention by his sheer presence.

  What made Ellis pause though, was a tall man running with the nobles toward the door. He was carrying a little girl in his arms and backhanded any noble or palace guard stupid enough to get in his way. The Ant Killer was trying to escape. And that meant any of Ellis’s plans to kill the man covering his back was not possible.

  Watching his weapon slip through his fingers had Ellis grit his teeth. He jumped upwards, using Michael’s shoulder to kick off and jump over the palace guard’s heads once again. He landed just outside their formation with a roll, and sprang up to start sprinting towards Leon and his daughter. They waded through the chaos, Helena’s face stuck fast into her father’s shoulders as he ran.

  Without warning, the incessant screeching of the Archduke filled the air. The first time Ellis had heard it, it sounded like an angry baby. Now though, it sounded like a man being skinned alive. It raised the hackles on his neck as he glanced toward the throne mid sprint. What he saw was Ameena, both of her knives pinning The Archduke’s hands to the throne. Tears covered his cheeks as he screamed.

  Ellis only glanced towards them though, his feet never faltering as he ran forward. He was almost happy for her, despite the noise.

  The Ant Killer was closer now, but the rich nobles all screaming their heads off made it difficult to get to him. They all backed away from him as he ran after Leon, and even though his dexterity was his best stat, he could barely keep up.

  He wrenched a bracelet off a noble lady and threw it at the back of Leon’s head. It bounced off, and he glanced back over his shoulder to see Ellis sprinting after him.

  Leon must have taken this as a threat, because the moment their eyes locked Leon stopped running forward, turned around, and crossed the distance between them before Ellis could blink. He grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off his feet with a snarl.

  “You gave my daughter back, so I will let you live this once! Fuck off boy!” he shouted, throwing Ellis back down to the ground before turning around, and running off toward the only exit within view.

  Ellis couldn’t let him leave, no matter how justified he was in doing so. He needed him. So he crawled back onto his feet and ran after the Ant Killer once again.

  But it was too late. Because Michael had made it to the exit first, the guards behind him all shouting. The bastard had used the fallen chandelier to carve a path out of the encirclement of guards, and had crossed the distance between where he stood and the hallway faster than Ellis realized he could.

  All the muscles in his arms bulged as he pulled on the giant doorhandle of one of the doors. A loud grinding sound filled the room as the door resisted, then gave way. He did the same for the next door, and ripped the large wooden entrance off its hinges.

  That done, he simply shoved one of the giant doors into the space, and kicked it, once, twice, and with a howl, three times. The door was now stuck into the doorway sideways, the top and bottom now stuck fast into the rocky salt wall. There was still a space above it for someone to leave.

  All they had to do was get past the man standing in front of it.

  Michael turned to the dumb struck guards, to the cowering nobles, to Ellis and the Ant Killer standing together, and shouted at the top of his lungs, “None of you get to leave! The party isn’t over yet!”