Shard Knight (Echoes Across Time Book 1) by Matthew Ballard Read Free Book Online Page A

His words echoed through the house.
    The wooden ladder disappeared through the cellar door. The city guard slammed the door shut sealing Ronan in a fiery tomb.
    The flames skittered across the splattered oil setting aflame a wooden box and piles of empty burlap bags.
    Ronan breathed in the billowing smoke, and a wave of nausea rolled through his stomach. He stripped off his jacket and pushed it against his nose and mouth.
    The flames leaped from box to box, and glimmers of fire flickered from cracks between kitchen floorboards overhead.
    Thick smoke burned Ronan’s eyes, and his stomach lurched in protest as the jacket did little to ward off smoke inhalation. He’d die in this cellar unless he could find Tyrell’s door.
    Within seconds, a wall of flames engulfed the far side of the cellar licking at kitchen floor overhead.
    Ronan scoured the unburned part of the cellar, but found no door.
    As the stacked wooden crates crumbled in the raging inferno, a heavy door fell forward having burned from its hinges.
    The steel door groaned and crashed into the tangled burning crates. Sparks billowed across the cellar’s scorched air spraying Ronan with tiny red-hot embers.
    Ronan beat his coat against the floor killing the fire before it could take hold.
    Flames licked beneath the fallen door, but it provided safe harbor through the blazing inferno and offered cool comfort from a dark passageway beyond the flames.
    With his pulse racing, Ronan found the key in his breast pocket and jammed it into his trousers. He wrapped the blue uniform jacket around his head and plunged into the flames finding his footing on the fallen door.
    The fire’s intense heat overwhelmed Ronan, and his knees wobbled on the burning door. As he crossed through the flame, heavy smoke curled up beneath his feet and poured into his mouth and nose. His throat constricted, and his body shook with violent spasms as he gagged and choked under the assault.
    The passageway’s welcoming darkness appeared at the end of the fiery gauntlet, and Ronan pitched forward tumbling into the tunnel’s cool damp earth.
    Flames licked around his head as his jacket had caught fire. He tossed his destroyed coat into the blazing fire and dropped to his knees choking and gagging.
    With his eyes watering and stinging, Ronan crawled along the passage stopping to choke up strings of mucus and hot bile.
    At the tunnel’s end, a wall of cool mud stopped any further progress forward.
    Ronan leaned against the earthen wall pulling in shallow breaths of clean air. His lungs burned, but the air provided welcome relief.
    Inside the burning cellar, the kitchen floor collapsed. Piles of molten ash and burning wood blocked entry to the cellar.
    With no way out, he turned his gaze upward, and for the first time today a weak smile spread across his face.
    Built into the muddy ceiling, a small door remained unscathed by smoke or flame.
    Ronan pulled the key from his soot-stained trousers and unlocked the door. He pulled himself inside the cool darkness of the adjoining cellar, and relief washed over him. He rolled away from the trapdoor and breathed in damp smoke free air.
    Dim light filtered through the dark cellar outlining a small trapdoor built into the ceiling.
    Ronan stood, lumbered across the room, and pushed opened the cellar door. He climbed the ladder and paused inside the empty kitchen.
    Bright flickers of flame danced from the adjoining room’s floorboards. Near the chairs, occupied only hours before, a circular patch of flame licked the floor engulfing a shattered oil lamp near the rusty iron stove.
    Ronan spun searching for signs of fire, but the kitchen remained untouched.
    Inside the little kitchen, the back door hung off its hinges, and fresh splinters jutted from a mangled door frame.
    Ronan dashed through the rear door into the night air’s welcome relief.
    A narrow alley led away in opposite directions. The guards had evacuated both houses leaving Ronan’s exit observed by