The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way by Harry Connolly Page B

soldiers and guards?”  
    “Remly Snowfall,” the commander answered. “He’s one of the old tyr’s distant cousins.”  
    “Will he strike at the tyr’s children and take the chair?”  
    “No.” Lowtower obviously wanted to get away from Tejohn and this conversation, but he could not bring himself to walk away. “No, not that one. He was loyal to the tyr but what he cared most about was red wine and late sleeping. He’s a commander, like me, but his troops are inside the holdfast while mine are, usually, on the walls and in the streets.”  
    Tejohn shook his head. He didn’t want to say this, but there was no choice. “Your family is free but not safe. We need to find them—”  
    Two guards in Twofin green came down the hall toward the torchlight. Both were women; one held up an unstrung bow while the other carried her shield on her back. They looked nearly as pale and haggard as the prisoners they’d been guarding.  
    “Is that all?” Lowtower said, moving his family safely behind him. “I know there were more than two guards down here.”  
    “We were five,” the archer said. “The others didn’t believe we would be reassigned to the walls.” By the look on her face, Tejohn though she didn’t believe it, either.  
    “Call them out here,” Lowtower ordered. “Let them see we’re serious.”  
    The archer looked from one face to another. “Commander,” Tejohn said. “She said they didn’t believe us, not that they don’t . Soldier, they fell on their swords, didn’t they?”  
    The archer nodded. Lowtower’s two daughters burst into tears. The girls had known those guards for years, possibly most of their lives.  
    “We can’t afford to lose any more people,” Lowtower said bitterly. “We have never had the spears we needed, not with Bendertuks to the south and Holy Sons to the north and east. We can’t afford to be killing our own!”  
    “Husband.” The commander’s wife stared at him with dead eyes. She had a voice like a ghost. “You must see to your duty. I will take the girls away somewhere. We will clean, and rest, and look at the sunlight. Is it day?” Lowtower shook his head. She did not seem to have any reaction to his answer. “Do what you must.”  
    She spoke to her husband as though he was her jailer. He embraced her again. She allowed it helplessly.  
    “My mother will look after them,” the guard with the shield on her back suddenly said. Her cheeks were flushed as though she was ashamed to speak. “She will be glad to, I promise. She likes to fuss over people and look after them. I swear to keep them safe, sir.”  
    Lowtower’s wife spoke before he could. “We should accept. Adellin has been a friend for years, and I feel as though we know her mother from all the stories we’ve heard.” She tried to smile, but it was obviously difficult. “You have much to do here, it seems. Seek us out when you can. Girls.”  
    The commander’s daughters moved toward their mother, both laying a hand on Lowtower’s shoulder as they went past. He looked as if he wanted to snatch them all up and run away with them. “Strangers,” he said quietly. “You’ve become strangers to me. I’m sorry I could not free you sooner. I tried.”  
    “We understand. Adellin explained everything, more than once. Seek us out.”  
    “Do you blame me?” Lowtower asked. “Do you blame me for...”
    “Seek us out,” she said again, in that same terrible way, then turned toward the two guards. “I want to go right away.”  
    The guards looked nervously at Tejohn and the commander, then back to Lowtower’s family. “This way. The servants’ passages are faster.”  
    They slipped through a narrow door, leaving Tejohn and Lowtower alone in the antechamber. Great Way, how would it feel to rescue your family after so many years only to discover they were still lost to you? “I apologize, my tyr,” the commander said, his voice shaky. “I meant to