Chapter Fifty Five: I Will Wade Through Filth and Walk Through Fire to Prove My Love
Kareem was incensed. His woman had deserted him, leaving him stranded here on the ground as she took to the rooftops and set off alone to rescue her twin. She was right in one respect, however. They could not afford to resign themselves to failure and allow Charlotte, his promised, destined bride, to be married off to barbarous Carnen Gristhm, her virtue corrupted. This wedding must be averted, and while his cali was making her maddened move to somehow break into the chapel by descending in from the heavens, he would take a more direct approach.
He would kill all fifty men on guard and enter right through the front doors. “A son of a marquis fears no challenge of prowess,” he reminded himself nervously, drawing out the scimitar that Captain Banen had procured for him. “Just as Esop defeated a hundred men for the sake of his love, so shall I triumph, to prove myself to my promised ones.”
Still, there was nothing dishonorable about employing tactics to aid him in this most daunting fight. He had one of his cali’s incendiary bombs, swiped from her belt without her taking notice when he’d been crouched over her in this alleyway. He had taken it initially because he recognized that most dangerous and volatile munition as something that could blow a woman’s fingers off or scar her pretty face should she stand too close to the explosion or make use of it improperly. He had liberated it from her possession for the sake of her protection, but that fated act (compelled by the gods no doubt) would give him a chance now of saving his Charlotte and his cali both.
A rifle at his side might not be a bad idea either. Captain Banen and his soldiers may have all been shot down already, but on the grounds where they had fallen there was most certainly still a rifle or two that Kareem could borrow in the event this little bomb did not perform to his expectations.
He scurried forward on cat’s paws, padding softly and swiftly back to the entrance of the alley, and crouching carefully in shadow of the building wall, as he made his study of the bloody street beyond. A figure lurched to grab his ankle, and his blade whipped down toward the attacking man’s throat.
He stopped before he ended him though, for this was no pale-eyed enemy. It was Captain Banen, crawling up from the gutter with a crossbow bolt gone straight through his shoulder and another embedded in his thigh. “Demi-marquis,” he grated, and Kareem extended a hand to haul him up into his hiding spot.
“You survived.” Kareem was stunned, not that this man appeared in much of a state to aid him in his storming of the chapel.
“Yes. Me and a dozen other of my marksmen, positioned just across the way.” He pointed to the shaded gutters running beneath the chapel on the other side of the broad walkway that led toward the palace. Kareem could see no sign of any living rifle-men waiting there, but he took the captain’s word for it.
“We were about to make a bid to push through those doors,” Banen panted. “I can still hold a pistol. Though I’m in no shape to be leading this charge, to be honest, and neither are my men. We can take out a few of those northmen, but the second our guns go off, they’ll spot us and kill us, long before we break through.”
“Then we blow through their ranks,” Kareem offered, holding up his cherry bomb. “That will break their center and blind them with the smoke. Then you will order your men to fire, and I shall charge in myself, to cut down every enemy to survive the volley.”
That required creeping close enough to make a solid throw, however. Banen pointed him toward the path through the reeking sewage tunnel that stretched under this walkway, and Kareem grimaced. “I do not suppose you can crawl back through there yourself and set off this bomb?” he pressed the captain, and the man’s eyes darkened.
Kareem looked once more to the oozing wound in Banen’s thigh. “No, I suppose you have not the strength for that. So… Jezeb forgive me,” he muttered. “I shall make the sacrifice and sully myself. Though I demand a most thorough bath, the second this rescue is completed.” A bath with both Charlotte and his cali…
Those heavenly thoughts made bearable the stench, though he still kept his hands and head well clear of the edges of this little, slimy tunnel, as he shuffled his way through the ankle-deep slurry and over to the other side of the way.
The northmen’s backs were to him now, and the little square of space where the church’s eavestrough ran down into this spillway gave him the perfect opening to throw this cherry bomb, right through the spokes of the wheel of Carnen Gristhm’s carriage. He lit the fuse and made the throw with perfect precision.
Parts of the carriage blew apart in a glorious spray of shrapnel, and the concussive burst smashed in the breastplates of the most inner ring of guardsmen. Clouds of smoke obscured the vision of the survivors already turning to investigate the scream-riddled commotion, and a volley of rifle fire blew through their backs. Some of the shots clattered right off that thick steel-plated armor, but most found the chinks below the visor and at the joints.
The men thudded to the ground, and Kareem scrambled up the ridged path of the eavestrough just as quickly as his cali would have. He squeezed through that square of opening in the cobbles and cut down the last of the northmen who had survived Banen’s bullets in a split second’s time. Then he paused and took the time to smooth down his hair and toss aside the ragged cloak his cali had insisted he wear overtop his regular, fine and brightly colored tunic. One must be presentable when making first impressions on one’s soulmate, and now with his black hair gleaming and his stained outer clothing removed, he was fit to sweep his bride right off her feet.
He kicked open those chapel doors, as Banen and his troops all flooded in at his back to support him. His golden-haired Charlotte looked so utterly splendid in that lacey white wedding dress of hers, even as her expression twisted with teary-eyed anxiety. Kareem himself felt only outrage, as he followed her stare to his cali — pinned right beneath Carnen Gristhm on the floor and about to have her neck broken by the tank of a man pressing up against her.