Cold Magics by Erik Buchanan Page A

once a guard stepped inside and shut the door behind him. “The watch has arrived, Bishop,” he said. “The students are preparing to fight them.”
    The bishop stepped to the door, opened it and looked out. Thomas tried to look past him into the street beyond, but could only see the torches of the crowd and the backs of the horsemen who stood in front of the doors.
    “Stand fast!” Henry’s call rang out clearly above the rest of the noise. “Stand fast but do not attack!” The tone changed, and Thomas guessed that Henry was turning his attention to the watch. “We are here on behalf of the Royal Academy of Learning to execute a writ, demanding the return of Thomas Flarety to the custody of the Academy by order of the chancellor himself! These men block the way and seek to block the king’s justice!”
    The bishop stepped away from the door as another guard stepped in. “Your Grace, a dozen men on horseback are riding toward our troops. One of them is the leader of the students. What shall we do?”
    “Is the watch doing nothing?”
    “They are stepping aside,” said the guard. “He does have a writ, your Grace, with the Royal seal on it. And the men riding with him are fully armed and armoured, and moving in a disciplined formation. What do we do?”
    The bishop thought a moment. “Let them come. Tell the guard to step aside. If they wish to talk, we should afford them the opportunity.” He turned to the men holding Thomas. “Follow me. Bring him.”
    The guards holding Thomas kicked his legs out from under him and threw him face down on the ground. With no way to stop his fall, Thomas hit hard, the wind going out of him. Two guards grabbed his ankles and hauled him across the floor. A moment later he was outside, and a moment after that they sent him rolling hard down the stone stairs. Thomas landed on his chained arms, crying out in pain.
    “Who are you?” he heard the bishop saying. “And by what right do you demand this prisoner?”
    Thomas forced his body to twist to the side, then into a sitting position as Henry rode forward.
    “I am Lord Henry Antonius, son of the duke of Frostmire, and student of the Royal Academy. I am here on behalf of the Academy and the king, whose Lord Chamberlain instructed me to give you this.”
    He held out the writ. The bishop gestured and the guard stepped down the stairs and took the rolled up paper from Henry. He handed it to the bishop with a bow. The bishop opened it, looked at it, and returned it. “Very well, take him.”
    “Unchain him,” said Henry.
    “No.” The bishop turned and walked back toward the doors. “You have your man. Take him and go, or I’ll order the cavalry to ride down the students.”
    Henry looked at the horsemen that lined the front of the building, then raised a hand to his own mounted troops. Sir Lawrence dismounted and went to Thomas, helping him to his feet. Thomas barely managed to stay upright. Lawrence looked back to Henry. “He can’t stand, my lord.”
    “Help him onto my horse,” said Henry. “I’ll hold him up.”
    “This will hurt, lad,” said Lawrence to Thomas. “Sorry.” At his gesture, another of the knights dismounted and helped lift Thomas up. Between the two of them lifting and Henry pulling from above, they got him seated precariously on Henry’s saddle.
    Henry put an arm around Thomas to steady him, then turned his horse and rode carefully toward the students. If he noticed how Thomas stank, or that Thomas’s breeches were wet, he gave no sign of it. When they were halfway to the students, Henry called out, “He has been released!”
    The students cheered, their voices filling the square and ringing off the buildings. Thomas saw that their numbers were closer to two hundred, all raising blades in victory. Henry waited for the cheering to die down.
    “We have done what we have come to do!” he declared. The cheers grew louder, wilder. Henry’s voice rose above them. “But now!” He waited until