Forest Kingdom Trilogy 1 - Blue Moon Rising

was still off balance. He lashed out blindly with his sword and Julia threw herself to one side. The blade whistled past her face, and Julia's sword flashed from her scabbard as she dropped automatically into her fighting stance. Bodeen shook his head to clear it, and cut at her again. There was the ring of steel on steel as Julia parried the blow, and then she beat aside his blade, lunged forward, and stabbed him just under the heart. For a moment the tableau held: Julia in full lunge, Bodeen staring down at the sword piercing his chest. He tried to lift his sword, and then blood gushed from his mouth, and he crumpled limply to the floor. The King started forward with his guardsmen, but Julia waved them back. She eased the sword from Bodeen's chest, and knelt beside him.
    He grinned up at her with bloody teeth.
    'I forgot what a fighter you are,' he said indistinctly. 'Damn. Damn.'
    'Would you really have killed me?' asked Julia.
    'I don't know,' said Bodeen. 'Probably.'
    'Why?' said Julia fiercely. 'Why did you betray the King?'
    Bodeen chuckled painfully. 'The Barons paid me better.'
    And then he died.
    Julia looked up as King John laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. 'Come away from him, Julia. It's over now. One of my guards will see you safely back to your chambers.'
    'It isn't over yet,' said Julia. She got to her feet and stared steadily at King John. 'I want to meet the men who bought my friend.'
    'You don't have to do this,' said the King. 'This isn't really your business.'
    Julia put her hand to her throat and showed King John the blood on her fingers. 'Isn't it?'
    The King looked at her a moment, and then looked away. 'Very well, then. But don't get in our way.
    This isn't going to be pretty.'
    Treachery never is,' said Julia, wiping her bloodstained hand on her leggings.
    The King signalled to his guards, and he and his party moved purposefully down the corridor, heading deeper into the East Wing. Again and again the King's men discovered others guarding the corridors, but none of them put up a fight. Faced with a full company of the Royal Guard, a few ran and were cut down, most surrendered. Finally the party rounded a corner and surprised two guardsmen standing before a closed door. The King watched broodingly as the two guards were disarmed and taken to one side, and then he gestured brusquely to his Guard Commander, who bowed formally, walked forward, and hammered on the closed door with his mailed fist. 'Open, in the name of the King!'
    Chaos filled the Hall as the revellers ran frantically back and forth, shouting and screaming, and drawing swords and daggers. Some clapped their masks to their faces again, as though the flimsy disguises could still somehow protect them with anonymity. Tables were overturned as the crowd surged this way and that, and those who fell in the crush were trampled blindly underfoot. Lord Darius tried desperately to quell the panic, but his voice was lost in the shrieking din. Cecelia clutched at his arm, her face pinched and white with shock, but Darius didn't even know she was there. Gregory fought his way through the milling crowd to join her, but the sheer press of bodies slowed his progress to a crawl.
    The three Landsgraves stared at each other.
    'The bookcase in Darius's study,' said Blays. 'We'll use the secret passage to escape, and then ...'
    'And then what?' whimpered Guillam, the cold sweat of fear already running down his face. 'We've been betrayed! The King will have us all executed!'
    'He's got to catch us first,' snarled Blays. 'Pull yourself together, you're supposed to be a Bladesmaster, dammit. If need be, you should be able to fight your way out of here, unless you've been exaggerating your abilities all this time. Now calm down, and think. That door is solid oak and bolted top and bottom, it'll take the King's men a good hour and more to cut their way through and by then we'll be long gone.
    All we have to do is get to the stables, and we can be on our way back to Oakeshoff demesne before the King even knows we've left the Castle. Once we're safely inside my master's Keep, no one can touch us.'
    'Where's Harald?' said Bedivere suddenly.
    The three Landsgraves looked quickly about them, but Harald had disappeared. The huge door shuddered under another thunderous knocking, and once again the voice without demanded entry in the name of the King. Businessmen and courtiers drew together into their tight little cliques, swords at the ready. Lords and Ladies