She nodded and pointed up.
I followed her finger and stood back, gazing at the buttresses and exposed beams of the ceiling. Those nearest to the floor were about ten feet up. They extended along the walls and connected to beams twenty feet up that ran between rooms.
"Brilliant," I murmured. It had been a while since I was on a balance beam, but at the moment, I really didn't care. "You know where they go?"
She nodded. "Out … outside."
"Come on." I stood and picked her up, hurrying to the wall nearest us. The Mongol's rampage of the room did us some good. We stood on the wardrobe he toppled to reach the windowsill. I was able to stretch and reach the beam. With some graceless experimentation, I finally managed to walk my way up the wall to the beam and straddled it. I leaned over to grip her hand and hauled her up with me.
It was hard to see what was in the next room over from here.
The princess was quick on her feet on the beam. I trailed, my focus split between the sounds of fighting and my balance. Squeezing through the space between ceiling and wall, we walked above the corridor outside her room.
Chaos was below us. The prisoner, the soldiers from the house, and on one side, two more men in distinctive Mongol warrior dress were fighting over piles of bodies. Blood drenched the walls, and I looked away quickly, disgusted by the sight. My stomach roiled. I forced myself to breathe steadily, aware we'd both be dead if I threw up over the corridor.
The princess led us down a second beam running parallel to the hallway before shifting to take us over an unoccupied room. She didn't stop here, though, but went to the outside wall facing the city and moved through the opening in the wall and out onto a roof.
"Moonbeam!" The Mongol warrior's bellow almost cost me my footing.
I caught myself against the wall and hurriedly squeezed through the opening onto the roof. The night air was warm and the breeze light. The A-frame roofs were steep, the space between them barely wide enough for my foot. One misstep, and we'd both tumble into the city below.
Near my wit's end, I sagged against the eave nearest me.
The girl gasped from her spot at the edge of the crawlspace we were on. I pushed away from the roof and went to her.
The city was almost completely on fire. People poured out of one of the city's gates into the dark night while smoke clogged the sky above us and blocked the stars.