“I will find Adriel—with or without you.”
Aren sighed. The man was annoyingly stubborn sometimes. Well, all the time really. “Cain, I’m not trying to talk you out of it, but I hope you realize that you’re potentially trading thousands of lives away for one. We at least need a plan. Our men won’t want to risk their lives for one person.”
Cain shook his head and turned away. “Tell them we sail for revenge; blood is what they want—they will get their fill of it where we’re going.” He stepped forward and stopped again. “Oh, and leave some of our transports here.”
“Why would I order that? We’re cramped as it is, even with the new Aceden ships.”
“We can’t take the citizens where we’re going. Leave them here with some ships and men.”
“We can’t, our fleet has been here too long as it is. It’s a wonder they haven’t discovered. Not to mention we’re surrounded by Acedens. They hold Galenth and Killu, remember?”
“Fine. Send the survivors and some of the men back to Brunein, they’ll be able to tell Branim where we’re at.”
Aren sighed again. At least Cain had sounded compassionate for the moment. “Alright. I hope you know what you’re doing.” He climbed the stairs to the top floor of the ship. He drew his saber, its shrill rasp of steel echoing across the deck. Their men grew silent and turned to their leader.
“Men of Inveira and of the Alliance!” he began as his soldiers gathered around. “We’re taking a little detour, Brunein will have to wait.”
“We will travel to Alkanost. We’ve learned that the Acedens will be using it as a launching point for the attack on Brunein. Who wants to pay them a little visit?”
The army’s sighs instantly turned to elation at this. They cheered at the thought of vengeance and raised their weapons at Aren’s lead.
Aren watched his friend from the crowd. Cain damn well better know what he’s doing, he thought, because I sure don’t.
Darkness. Unadulterated darkness.
Adriel didn’t know how long she had been down here, but it was long enough to forget light. And it was quiet. It was always quiet, nothing but the occasional footstep on the deck overhead or the creaking of a board.
She trembled, perhaps as much from fear as the wet cold. The blood of her foes and of her own mixed on her face like a painting of swirled reds. The dried blood cracked with her movements.
She sought to stand but her body denied her. If only she could feel her arms; they hung behind her like jelly. Her arms and legs were tied to some thick, splintery post. She managed to move her torso somewhat, but fire shot through her lungs despite her body’s numbness. Great, she probably had a cracked rib or two. She gave another jolt and rocked forward, her head lolling like a stone set between her shoulders. Her mind felt heavy, sluggish, like her thoughts had to slog through honey. Why was that? Why did she feel this way?
She managed to roll her head around to see a sponge and a bowl of some strange liquid. Someone descended the stairs into the darkness. Footsteps came closer and closer, thudding against the planks. Adriel sagged in her bindings and the last of her strength sighed away, a tear trickling from her eyelash.
Silas, Isroc, and Moran led their army through the trees as the day wore on. Several horses pulled wagons of the weak, sick, and wounded. The survivors that could walk clambered over root and stone with boots salvaged from the feet of slain Acedens.
Silas watched them. They looked as if death had tried to take them but decided they weren’t worth the trouble. He’d done a good thing in helping these people. So why did he still feel hollow?
He knew it was because he didn’t kill Ada. He had been so close! He’d almost had his vengeance, and he’d let it slip through his fingers. He was just so angry, angry at the world, at himself. How could anyone live like this?
But these survivors. Hadn’t they suffered as much as he? Many of them were downtrodden, their wills beaten out of them, likely only still walking because someone told them to. But a few of them had a light in their eyes. They had purpose, a reason to keep going. Life had cut them down, taken their homes and families, but still they walked. Which one was he?
He couldn’t dwell on that kind of thinking. Thinking had never gotten him anywhere anyway.
Silas turned from the survivors and leaned back in his saddle. “Moran!” he called to the general riding at his side. “Spare me from this monotony. Tell me a story. I quite enjoyed the tale you told last night of King Bayern the Blighted and the one about the Song of Stone.”
Moran nodded sagely. “Bayern was indeed a fool king; Inveira was a bit brighter without him darkening the throne. And the Song… well, there are indeed many more wars between Inveira and Erias, that was but the first.”
“Then tell us another,” he managed to grin. “You were a bard, after all.”
“Indeed, I was, but even a bard knows when to take up the steel and trade songs for silent duty.”
“Oh, just one bloody story. Play that lyre if you won’t.”
Moran laughed. “No more songs for now, my fingers grow raw.”
Silas leaned back in his saddle again and his horse whickered at the sudden shift in weight. “I’m accompanied by curmudgeons and malcontents.” Isroc and Moran chuckled at this. “Tell me this then, why do they call you Seven Legs?”
Moran gave a hearty laugh. “I’ll give you this, Warrior; you know how to get your way. I sat a horse before I could walk, and I sit a saddle more oft than not, thus I earned the name. Aptly so, wouldn’t you say, for a cavalry general?”
Silas twisted his face in thought. “Why Seven Legs? Could the man who gave you that name not count?”
“Oh, I’d reckon she could count fair enough.”
Silas mused on this as Moran and Isroc exchanged a laugh. “Why Bloody Beard then? Did you earn that on the battlefield?”
The general slapped his belly and hooted. “Off the field more than on, my friend!”
Silas blinked as the other two roared with laughter. He snorted and watched the trees ahead of them. Insufferable idiots. Still, he felt an urge to laugh with them. Inside was a torrent of blood and hate, but he could at least force himself to smile.
Moran eventually turned to Isroc. “I’ve been to Brunein many times, but I’ve never seen this area. That storm must have thrown us off course.”
They guided their mounts around a thicket of trees and continued toward a clearing. “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Isroc said, “nothing is ever easy. But we should be close. It sure would be nice to eat some real food and feel my feet again though. It’s so wet and cold here. It’s late spring and it still feels like winter.”
Moran laughed. “Living in Inveira, you grow used to not feeling anything!” He grabbed the fork of his legs and gave a jerk. The nearby soldiers cackled at this. “Sometimes, we’d have to hold our piss all winter. Ah, here it is.” He reined his horse around the trees and approached the mouth of a rocky ravine.
They followed the winding gulley through the earth for hours. Eventually, Moran managed to lead them to a pile of boulders, and working their way through them, came to a familiar crevice.
“We’ll have to send some of our men to take the horses around,” Moran said, “they won’t fit through here.”
The three dismounted and stepped into the dank dark. They inched their way through the snaking passage, their soldiers following suit. They reached the end and Moran pulled a key from his cloak. He raised it to Silas with a smirk before slipping it into the rusty lock and pushing open the door with a creak.
They stepped out into Brunein at last. The few soldiers in the room turned in surprise as the door swung open. They saluted their general and the Warriors as thousands of soldiers began to trickle into Brunein.
The Warriors climbed out of the storeroom and stepped out into the sun, white and sharp. The streets reverberated with the sounds of the distant lapping ocean and the pinging of forge hammers.
Silas and Isroc exchanged a worried
glance. Their friends weren’t here, and there were still far too few men to defend this place. Beyond these walls, the Aceden forces gathered. It was only a matter of time before they faced the end. Silas and Isroc turned to each other, as if silently asking the same question.
Where was Cain?
Cain stood at the bow of the lead transport. He stared into the stars beyond, fists clenched and eyes dark. The oarsmen pulled and pulled, cutting the waters and sending the ship like a knife up the river.
He had to find her. He wasn’t worried about her being dead, they wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of kidnapping her only to slit her throat. They were using her as bait to get to him. Well, it worked. And they’d get him in all his white-hot fury. He’d save Adriel no matter the cost. Despite those thoughts, he still couldn’t shake his fear. What if she was hurt? What if they really did kill her?
Lost in his thoughts, he almost failed to notice Aren step up beside him. “The men are willing to go.” Cain said nothing. “Fortunately, Valerik may know where this Alkanost is. I’m still asking around for information about the place. But we could be drastically outnumbered. We have no idea what we’re going into… this could be suicide.” Cain remained silent.
Aren sighed and leaned against the railing. “Are you alright?” Cain stared transfixed on the wilderness before them. “I’ll take that as a no.”
Cain eventually tore his gaze away and turned to his friend. “How can I be alright when I know she’s out there, hurting? Who knows what they’re doing to her.”
“She’s strong. She’ll survive.”
“Until they…” Kill her. He couldn’t say it.
Aren rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “But we won’t let that happen, will we?”
Cain returned his stern gaze. “No. I won’t let that happen.”
The thudding of boots on the deck above was ever a dull, thunderous drumming. Snores echoed through the slits in the planking, a choir of guttural basses and nasally trebles.
The hatch to the lower deck opened to let in a knife of silver light. A black shadow split the moonbeams and a man stepped into the darkness.
“Wake up, bitch!” he called. The stairs groaned beneath his weight. “Wake up!” He banged a wooden spoon against a clay bowl filled with a mixture of oats and some foul-smelling substance.
He reached the last step and creaked off it, taking no care as he spilled some of the mixture. He stood in the silence, scanning the dark.
He swept off his feet and vanished into the dark, the bowl and spoon clattering to the planks. His boots banged against the planks as he writhed, kicking and scraping in the moonlight.
A sickening snap broke the silence and the man fell limp.
Adriel collapsed there in the beam of moonlight. She just wanted to lay there; her body refused to answer her panicked thoughts to go. It had to have been whatever horrible stuff they’d spoon fed her. Her bones felt like jelly, her movements sluggish and painful. Even her hearing seemed muffled as if cloth plugs were stuffed in her ears.
She peeled herself off the planks and searched in the dark, her fingers feeling for the man’s pulse. Her hands brushed his sweaty hair, bulging veins, and the hemp rope around his neck. Her fingers met metal. She held the knife to the moonlight and she would have grinned if she had the strength.
Adriel crept up the stairway with knife in hand. Well, fumbled really. The pale light of the slender moon was enough to make her pause and blink away the sudden change in brightness. She scanned the deck, empty, save for a few Acedens bundled in their cloaks and mats.
She stepped out onto the deck and closed the hatch, then slipped away as quickly as she dared. Her steps groaned in the sea-sprayed wood. Her ragged breaths seemed like warning bells clanging in her ears.
A footstep stopped her, her fingertips an inch away from the ship’s railing. She turned to see a soldier walking down the steps from the upper deck toward her.
Adriel swept over the side of the ship and grabbed its edge as she swung. She hung like an anchor over the starboard ribs, sea spray and wind whipping at her face. She dangled there for a time, her body now awake with burning pain. The man’s footsteps receded over the deck.
This was a stupid, stupid idea. But there was no going back. She took in a great gulp of air, then dropped into the sea.
Frigid water rushed up to greet her and filled her lungs with salt. Her body tensed with the sudden shock. But the intense cold helped to clear her senses, somewhat easing her pain. Then the exhaustion came. It demanded her to stop, to slip away under the waves. She wanted nothing more.
Adriel burst through the surface and gasped in the cold night’s air. She looked about her, nothing but a vastness of rolling black and the great black masses of ships.
She willed her body forward and followed the fleet of ships. Waves beat about her and the currents tugged her around like driftwood. The sea tossed and lashed and hammered her, seeking to snuff her beneath each bucking wave.
One hand before the other, one foot kicking after the other. Slow, deliberate strokes. She spat and sputtered with each wave that hit her. Her lungs drowned with water and dried with stinging salt. She stroked, kicked, stroked, kicked, stroked, kicked. She didn’t know how long she swam—hours, minutes, it was irrelevant. She only knew to keep going or her body would give out.
A wave pulled her under. She rolled helplessly, drowned, crushed. She felt nothing. Blissful. Maybe she should just give in to the numbness.
And then she opened her eyes. The stars twinkled at her, a cool breeze tickling her wet skin. She rolled to her side and retched saltwater over the sand.
Adriel laid back down and watched the hovering shadows of ships off in the bay. The knell of a brass bell suddenly rang. The sound shook her from her lull and she crooked her neck to the direction of the tolling.
A massive shadow loomed over her, its curtain walls towering high and its towers even higher. The shouts and calls and laughter of men echoed through the maze of streets, over the docks and shipyards, across the long and lonely bay. She turned to her other side to see a welcoming band of trees. Her escape.
Adriel climbed to her feet. She clenched her fists to work feeling back into her hands. She felt for her knife, but she knew it would be in the bottom of the ocean. She sighed and clambered across the rocks toward the enemy fort. She had work to do.
Cain paced back-and-forth across the deck of his transport. He wore away at the planking with his hours and days of pacing, etching a scar into the deck.
Aren watched his frantic pacing. His friend was going crazy. He’d seen Cain go through a similar breakdown after Eileen’s death, but that was pure anger with nowhere to put it. This was focus, an unbendable will. And perhaps desperation. Cain had only just learned to set aside his revenge; he could easily return to his former rage and hatred. He walked a very fine line.
He couldn’t watch his friend like this any longer. “Cain.”
Cain spun to face him. “Are we there?”
Aren waved a scroll at him. He walked to the railing and unfurled the parchment. Cain stepped beside him and peered over the vellum scroll.
A crude drawing of a city covered the parchment. The city rested at the northern tip of Inveira, facing out over the sea they now crossed. The ink drawings of buildings and roads seemed rushed and half-finished, almost as if the city were still under construction. Even the seven hills and their walls that formed the place looked strange, either that or the artist just couldn’t draw circles.
“What is this?” Cain asked.
“Alkanost. I had one of the soldiers draw it for us. We’re lucky some of the men have been there before.”
“You couldn’t find anyone to draw it better?”
“We’re soldiers, not artists. But that’s what it’s supposed to look like apparently. Alkanost was a lighthouse for centuries and was rumored to be a shrine of some sort. It became a port for a time, then a place for the sick, but it was eventually abandoned a
few years ago. The walls were already there, though they’re likely in disrepair by now.”
Cain crooked a brow before returning to the parchment. “This isn’t right.”
“What’s not?”
Cain ran a hand along the map, examining the rings of walls. “Why would the Acedens take Adriel here if it’s nothing more than rubble?”
“It’s a trap, Cain. They don’t need buildings to kill you.”
“No, not that… why would they use such a place as one of the launching points for their attack on Brunein if it’s nothing but rubble. That’d make the perfect place for the Acedens to set up; it would already have shipyards, docks, barracks, stables. Besides, luring me into a trap way out here just doesn’t make sense.”
Aren stared over the drawing. “I can’t believe I didn’t see that.”
“The Acedens will need tens of thousands of men to assault Brunein,” he said, running a finger around the outermost hill and its circles of rubble. “They would start by repairing the walls out here and move inward.” He pointed to the middle circle. “That’s where they’re keeping Adriel.” He handed the parchment to Aren. “Now we know what to expect.”
“This is your battle. I hope you have a plan.”
Cain smirked. “I always do.”
Blood smeared the bricks and formed a trail off the road and into an alley. Adriel dropped her rock and parted the corpse of its sword. She gave a few testing cuts and looked to the sky tinged purple with the fledgling dawn. She pursed her lips and glided down the alley.
She paused between two buildings, their overhanging eaves bathing her in shadow. The stronghold was in a clamor. Streams of black-armored men rippled through the streets and alleys, shouting and passing orders.
A New Reign Page 18