The Gauntlet Read Online Free PDF

wasn’t burning, and stared around
desperately for some opening in the crowd. Panic was making it hard
to think, but she shoved it away angrily. She couldn’t afford
weakness now. Weakness would get them killed.
    A group of nearby witches was attacking the
stables, but Gillian couldn’t see the point. The horses’ faster
pace might get them beyond range of the archers before their
shields gave out, but that was assuming they made it out at all.
And while the portcullis wasn’t completely down, a mob of guards
and who-knew-how-many protection spells stood in their way.
    No. No one was getting through that.
    But they might cause a great deal of
commotion trying.
    She blinked, her heart drumming with sudden
hope. She stared from the battlefield to the high, gray walls
surrounding it. And then she scooped up Elinor and took off,
weaving through the remaining sheds and outbuildings that hugged
the castle walls.
    She stopped when they reached the far side of
the castle, squatting beside a wagon piled with empty barrels and
breathing hard. She didn’t think they’d been seen, but she couldn’t
be sure. There were guards here, too, although not as many. Most
had joined the fight and the rest were staring at it, as if
watching her people be slaughtered was great entertainment.
    She probably had a few minutes, at least.
    She tugged Elinor behind the wagon and
started working on the ropes holding the barrels, tearing her nails
on the tight knots. “What are you doing?” Elinor was looking at her
strangely.
    “Getting us out of this place!”
    “There’s no door here,” Elinor said, staring
past her at the carnage.
    “Don’t look at it,” Gillian told her harshly.
“And no door doesn’t mean no exit.”
    But not getting one of these barrels loose
might. The knots must have been tied before the previous night’s
rain and they’d shrunk. Try as she might, she couldn’t get them
loose, and while it would be easy with magic, she didn’t have it to
spare. She was ready to scream from frustration when she spied a
little barrel on one edge of the cart that no one had bothered to
strap down.
    She rolled it onto the ground and stood it on
its end, glancing about. She didn’t know if she could do this once,
but she certainly couldn’t manage it twice. The moment had to be
perfect.
    It came an instant later, when the guards on
the ramparts above them reached the farthest end of their patrol.
It left a brief window with no one on the walls directly overhead.
Gillian stepped back, pointed the staff at the barrel and cast the
strongest levitation spell she could manage.
    For a long moment, nothing happened, the
small container merely sat there like a stone. But then, as she
watched with her heart in her throat, it quivered, wobbled slightly
and sluggishly lifted off the ground. She breathed a brief sigh of
relief and jerked the staff towards her. The barrel followed the
movement, but slowly, as though it weighed much more than empty
wood should. But she didn’t start to worry until it began to shake
as if caught in a high gale.
    And then to start cursing.
    A stumpy little leg suddenly poked out the
bottom, with a big toe sticking out of a pair of dirty, torn hose.
Then a plump arm pushed through the side and a head topped by wild
red curls appeared where, a moment before, the round wooden lid had
been. The head was facing away from her, but the barrel was slowly
rotating, so it wasn’t but a second before a small, furious face
came into view.
    It had so many freckles that it was almost
impossible to see skin, but the militant glint in the hard green
eyes was clear enough. “Goddess’ teeth! I’ll curse you into
oblivion, I’ll gouge out yer eyes, I’ll cut off that bald-headed
hermit twixt yer laigs and feed him to—” She paused, getting a good
look at the woman standing in front of her. “Gillian?” Her gaze
narrowed and her head tilted. “Wot’s this, then?”
    “Winnie,” Gillian said hoarsely, her