Silver made his way back through the underground tunnels. His heart was pounding in his chest after the fateful words he had thought. He looked for danger around every corner. The Guardian would have felt silly if not for his instincts usually being correct. Something was about to happen.
Coming up through the kitchen exit, the cloaked figure clung to the shadows of the passage as he neared the servants' dining hall. He did not like what he saw. Only a few members of the kitchen staff were milling about.
'Just the wrong number of people. Not enough to just slip through the crowd, but too many to risk sneaking by.' The situation could not have been worse. He was good at covert movement, but that amount of skill was beyond even the level of a ghost. Silver retreated and considered how to regroup.
Sounds in the servants' tunnels interrupted his planning. A very angry butler was looking for a missing maid with all of the spit and fire of one who has wrongly received the blame for an error.
"Moira! Where are you? I'm gonna see to it that someone tans your hide!"
A yelp of recognition came from the kitchen. Moira must have been among those who were not doing their job. That meant there was about to be a collision between the butler and maid almost exactly where the Guardian was standing.
'Not good. If I cannot go down or straight out, then there is only one way to go, though I don't like it.'
Silver hurried up the flight of stairs into the keep as the angry shouting commenced only narrowly behind him. A third voice joined the fray as whoever was with Moira valiantly protected his lady love.
'Someone is losing their job tonight. Hopefully it isn't me.'
With most of the exits being blocked by people or other barriers, Silver quickly found himself climbing the stairs to the top of the inner curtain wall. Now that the sun had fully set, the torches set in intervals along the crenellations of the wall cast an uncertain light on the walkway between the two southern towers.
The Guardian could see no sentries and supposed that they would mostly be stationed on the outer wall for better visibility. There was nothing to be seen where he stood except the inner courtyard by the keep and the garden between the two walls.
Scanning the outer wall, he could only spot three or four patrolling figures against the night sky. 'Far too few soldiers. Very strange.'
Below, a group of people caught Silver's eye. Three figures were walking casually through the vined garden.
The Guardian wondered for a moment at the sense of having ropes of vines hanging between the two walls. The leafy cords partially blocked the view of the ground below, but the Guardian decided that in the darkness, they would likely ensnare a descending intruder and alert the guards to their presence.
That is, if the intruder didn't have the sense to go around them, as he had. Silver had no idea the whole of the garden had been planted to entertain a certain princess, nor that he was currently viewing the recipient of such a gift.
The trio's presence was inconvenient for Silver. If not for them, he might have been able to use the vines to drop down and pass through unnoticed. But the myriad of servants and guards attending the trio made the task impossible. So Silver had nowhere he was able to go just now, at least nowhere that he was willing to go blindly. As a result, he found a secluded spot in the shadows to stop and wait for the right opportunity.
Silver peered eagerly down at the group craning his neck to see where they would go. As soon as they were out of sight again, he could continue his escape. The brunette and soldier were talking happily, but the lady in between was paying them no mind. Her blonde hair and blue eyes were lit up by the large round braziers carefully placed throughout the garden.
The woman smiled as she stared at the wall of the garden. Silver's heart skipped a beat.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?" a whisper that sounded like bells came right by the Guardian's ear.
Silver shrugged, sure that only he could hear the voice. "She's not my type." he answered, thinking of the curvy brunette risking her life in Lakyle. "Besides, I am taken. Not that anyone could compare to you, Hanna."
The silver-eyed man knew to keep his voice down, but if the Fate was visiting him, it was worth answering her.
"I admit I am pretty spectacular. Still, maybe you should meet her," Hanna persisted with mischief in her voice.
"Meet her? What do you…." Silver was unable to finish his question as a whoosh of air shoved him between the crenellations and over the side of the ledge.
At the last possible moment, the Guardian caught the edge of the wall with his hand. He hung there for a moment in disbelief of what had happened.
'For Fate's sake, what was that?!'
The silver-eyed man hastily pulled himself back up to safety, but the damage had been done.
"Breach!" The cry rang out. Suddenly the castle was alive, all of its members galvanized into action.
Looking down at the trio, the man faced the Guardian for the first time. Up until that moment, his profile had been blocked from Silver's elevated view. Silver's heart sank. He recognized his nemesis, Borit.
'What's that fool doing here? He was supposed to be on a mission for the king.' An idea came into Silver's head. 'Time for a distraction.'
The Guardian pulled a bow from his cloak and nocked an arrow. In one fluid movement, he drew back and released, the arrow landing home in Borit's thigh. Without the commander, the soldiers would take longer to rally and possibly give him time to think of an escape. At least he hoped so.
"You are lucky you aren't dead," he whispered. "But I'm not a cold-blooded killer."
Silver turned away, but not before aiming at an empty patch of dirt in the courtyard. 'Now's as good a time as any to try these out.'
He pulled a round ball full of liquid from his cloak and tossed it at the empty area. The resulting explosion blew dirt in every direction. Silver felt the vibration through the stone floor.
'I may have made that too powerful,' he mused with eyes wide from viewing the small crater.
Pandemonium erupted from all corners of the castle. No one there had ever seen such a thing, which is what the Guardian had been hoping. He added to the confusion with a series of conflicting cries.
"The intruder is heading toward the keep! He's after the king!" Silver shouted down in his most authoritative voice.
Already he could hear men coming up the stairs to the battlement. He slipped over the side toward the inner courtyard and held firm to the ledge. Again he threw his voice, "I see him! He's running across the garden. After him!"
In a gravelly voice he called, "Check the eastern battlement, you fools!"
Then with a thick accent he directed them, "No no the western battlement. Look there!"
He could hear the confusion above him as soldiers bumped into one another, not sure what to believe. The Guardian belatedly realized that if the men listened to his directions, he no longer had a way to get down. Even now people were filing inside the courtyard below to intercept his path. There was only one way to go, and unfortunately that was up. He grappled over to the closest stone tower and reluctantly began to ascend.
'After this, I never want to climb again.'