The Prince

Damien II: Chapter 2

Chapter 2





The Marshal’s shouts following him down the stairs Damien thrust his way between guards, ducked under lowering spears, and was running so fast that he was in danger of falling every step of the way as he raced to get out of the Citadel alive.





After what seemed an eternity he erupted out the main entrance and into the courtyard beyond.  Soldiers everywhere, on duty, drilling, taking their ease, no one stopped to look at him.  Pausing for a moment to catch his breath, Damien stared about him.  Where could he go?  Where would he be safe?  The Strets?  Too far, no matter that hardly any guards ever went there.  Back home, to the apartment in Solid Waters?  That was just as far as the Strets.





Again an epiphany came to him.  The Boots!  He could go to The Boots!  Even though a soldier’s tavern, he could still go there.  His friends were there after all, friends he had known his entire life.  His father’s men they were they had all been recruits together, lodged in the same barracks, all part of the same company.  As his father had risen so had they.  They would protect him.  They had to.





Choosing the same road he had come in by, Damien ran down the Tower’s west road toward Green Bows.  Behind him he heard the Citadel’s doors burst open, shouting, then the running of quite a few pairs of feet.  Don’t look back, don’t look back, he told himself.





His pursuers called for him to halt, for others to stop him, grab him.  But Damien, weaving through those groups of soldiers he met, was gone before they could do anything.  He ran as fast as he could, even faster than the other night when he’d had Twitch to worry about.





Damien knew the Towers like the back of his hand.  He’d grown up here, played and worked here for the first thirteen years of his life.  The places people looked, the places they didn’t, those they didn’t know about or were too small for any adult to get into—he knew them all.





A bell ringing, Damien recognized as the call for the gates to be closed.  Approaching the gate to Green Bows he saw the guards there hurrying to get inside.  Someone at the winch on the north side of the road, he was readying to drop the portcullis.  Fiddling with the knife tucked into belt, he prepared to do whatever he had to do to escape.  Clutching his letter in his right hand, Damien put his head down and sprinted.





The man on the winch had released the brake and was beginning to lower the portcullis.  Drawing near, someone at the gate must have seen him and shouted for the winch man looked around, saw Damien, and tried to stop the dropping portcullis.  Realizing he’d never make it, Damien changed direction and ran for the winch.  The man’s eyes widening as Damien raised his knife, he threw himself to the ground as the boy reached him, his hands still on the winch.





Rather than killing him, however, Damien instead leapt atop the winch.  Stuffing his letter into his coat, Damien grasped the rope above his head and brought his knife down on it as hard as he could.  A big, thick rope, he hacked at it several times before it snapped.  His pursuers just reaching the winch, one made a grab for him just as the rope snapped.  Shooting up suddenly, Damien let out a wild cry that was half fear, half triumph.  The rope swiftly disappearing into a hole in the top of the wall, Damien let go of it.  His momentum carrying him still higher, he miraculously cleared the top of the wall.  It was only then that he realized he was nearly forty feet in the air.  His cry turning to a scream, he flailed his arms as he began to fall.