Rise of the Legion

by Chloe Cullen

  Cori was about to answer him, or to thank him, she couldn’t be sure, because the second she opened her mouth to speak, a scream sounded across the street, high-pitched with fear.

  Without missing a beat, Cori and Thoren began running towards the sound, and saw a crowd gathered at the mouth of an alleyway. Thoren pushed his way past, shouting for them to get out of his way, and Cori followed in behind him.

  When they got through to the front of the crowd, they both paused, taking in the sight before them.

  The alleyway was a dead-end with a tall stone wall ahead of them. Lying in front of the wall, were three grey-clothed bodies. As they slowly walked closer toward the inert Legionnaires, Cori could see that their faces were pale, each with eyes open wide but not seeing, their arms each stretched outward from their body, positioned purposefully to have their fingers pointing towards the wall behind them.

  “Thoren…” Cori breathed, looking at the wall, her blood chilling in her veins.

  Written sloppily, but clearly across the stone wall behind the bodies, were the words: WE ARE THE SHADOW LEGION.

  23

  “It’s perverse what they’re doing,” Thoren said to Cori as they walked through a wide hallway at the Palace later that evening. Thoren had insisted on escorting Cori to the Palace, and being deep in conversation, he had ended up following her inside as well. “Associating themselves with the Legion like this.”

  On their walk to the Palace, Thoren had even wondered out loud if Tiberius Teller had anything to do with the crude message on the wall, considering the timing of it.

  Cori shook her head, unable to get the image of those dead Legionnaires who had been killed just to spread this message. Just when she had felt some semblance of happiness again, they swooped in to pluck it away from her.

  “They’re sending us a pretty clear message,” Cori said, her voice deadly quiet, “that the Legion is still compromised. That we can’t trust… anyone.”

  Thoren stopped walking and shook his head at her. “No, Cori. You can’t think like that – you can’t let them win by thinking things like that.”

  Cori faced him. “How can I – or better yet, how can any of us possibly think anything else? We would be stupid not to consider that some, if not all, of these people are Legionnaires. They’ve named themselves after the Legion.”

  Thoren’s face was hard as he considered her statement. “It could also be what they want us to think. To spread discord amongst the Legion, making us weaker.”

  There was a raw emotion in his voice, as though trying to convince himself just as much as Cori. She was sure the entire Legion were feeling the same way after hearing this news. That their home, their family they chose, were being threatened again. That it wasn’t over.

  After discovering the bodies, Thoren had gotten rid of the crowds and had the alley manned by Legionnaires until the bodies could be removed. They had spent the rest of the afternoon speaking with Maveron about their meeting with Tiberius and the events that had followed. Needless to say, Maveron had taken the news of more dead Legionnaires and the message on the wall with a drawn, pale face.

  When Cori had excused herself from Maveron’s office, knowing she was past due to return to the Palace, Thoren had followed her out, even though he was supposed to be in the training halls with the initiates.

  “I hope you’re right,” Cori now said as they climbed a set of stone steps in silence, their footfalls echoing around the walls. When they exited into the hallway where the Princess’ rooms were, Cori stopped Thoren again.

  “You better get back to the Compound – those initiates won’t train themselves,” Cori told him, trying for a light tone.

  Thoren looked past her down the hallway, and Cori glanced over her shoulder to see the Legionnaires standing guard outside of Millisa’s door.

  “Just keep your eyes open,” Thoren said as Cori faced him once more, “keep yourself, and the Princess safe at any cost.”

  Cori frowned, because it wasn’t as though she were about to lose her focus but nodded anyway in agreement. “I will.”

  “Alright, I’ll see you this evening. Will you patrol with me when you’re finished here?” Thoren asked.

  Cori hesitated, glancing over her shoulder again to the door that led to the Princess. “I think I want to stay with Millie tonight, but tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” Thoren said, nodding his understanding, “I’ll try and rope Trey in to coming with me,” he said with a small smile, “we haven’t patrolled together in a while. Could be fun if I could somehow get him to lighten up.”

  Cori allowed a small laugh. “Trey did used to have a wicked sense of humour. He once…” Cori lost her train of thought, an image of Trey suddenly coming to her, joking around with her on the day of the Massacre two years ago. She felt her pulse quicken as understanding flooded through her body.

  “Oh… Gods.”

  Thoren’s frown deepened at whatever look was on Cori’s face. She could only imagine how pale she had become, feeling the blood drain from her face. “Cori – what is it?”

  She reached out to grip his elbow, heart pounding. “Thoren… I think we should be ready to expect an attack – I think the Shadow Legion are going to take advantage of the Five being scattered around Holmfirth… like they did two years ago,” Cori said.

  Thoren cocked his head to the side. “You think they’ll attack now? With Ione, Val and Ryker gone from the capital?”

  “If the last time is anything to go by… yes, that’s exactly what I think.”

  Cori then told Thoren about the few hours before the Massacre. How a woman in black had led Trey away from Everton, chasing a boy who may have never been missing in the first place. Trey had never found him, and when he went back to speak to the mother, she had disappeared as well. And thinking back on the Massacre, Cori realised that only two Legion Five warriors had been present to assist in the fray, the others had been too far away to get to them in time to help.

  “You think they were that organised? To lead Trey away before the fight?” Thoren asked, looking disturbed by the thought.

  Cori nodded. “I’ve spent a lot of time not thinking about the attack, but I’m thinking about it now. And I don’t believe it was by chance that our most skilled fighters were absent from the Compound.”

  Thoren’s eyes widened slightly. “Ryker was pulled inside a house to help with a domestic disturbance before the attack. He sat with them for over an hour, trying to calm one of the women down. He didn’t even know there had been an attack until he had walked a few blocks away from the house… you don’t think…”

  Cori shrugged. “It would be too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t it? Val was already out of the Capital on orders, and all they needed to do was get rid of a few more to even the playing field. We were left with Maxyn and Ione and I watched them group around Maxyn to take him down. They definitely planned on it.”

  Thoren pinched the bridge of his nose. “I guess I never realised how much of a coordinated attack it was.”

  “Neither did I, and Maveron wouldn’t have thought about it before…”

  Thoren suddenly looked nervous. “He just sent three of them away.”

  They looked at each other in silence for a moment.

  “I’ll go speak with my father, and you stay here with the Princess. We don’t know if they are going to attack, but I will send a high alert throughout the Legion.” Thoren turned to go and made it a few steps, then paused and turned back to her. “Don’t go anywhere alone.”

  “I can take care—”

  He stormed back towards her. “Don’t argue with me – just don’t go anywhere without someone you trust.”

  Cori couldn’t help it, she smiled at the authority and the protectiveness. The fierceness faded from his face, and he shook his head. “Please?” He asked again.

  “I promise,” she said.

  Thoren sent her a grim smile and nodded, before striding away.

  Cori walked the rem
ainder of the hallway and stopped in front of the guards outside of Millisa’s rooms. She nodded to the girl she had offended yesterday. “Good evening Sara.” Then she smiled at the male guard. “Harvey.”

  Sara looked a little taken aback, but she nodded back to Cori.

  Cori knew it was only a start, but she felt better for having made more of an effort than she had a few years ago.

  Her hand was poised to open the door to the Princess’ rooms when something else occurred to her. Something that might help them should the Shadow Legion choose to attack.

  She told the guards that she would be back in a moment, and hurried away from Millisa’s rooms, already breaking her promise to not go anywhere alone, but this was time sensitive.

  Cori climbed what felt like several hundred steps until she entered the pigeon tower in the western section of the Palace. The open windows sent gusts of wind whistling around the circular stone room, so she moved to close them before standing at the writing desk to scrawl out two messages.

  Cori cringed at the smell around her, understanding why the windows had been opened in the first place. The pigeons in their cages behind her flapped and chirped nonstop as she wrote her messages down. She didn’t know what difference these notes would make, but she had to try.

  Rolling up the two missives, she picked out the pigeons from their labelled cages and attached the paper to their legs before opening one single window. One by one, Cori released them into the open air and only watched for a moment as they flapped off in different directions.

  24

  THE ASSASSIN PART FIVE

  It had only been a few days since the Assassin had decided to lie low from the Legion, but she had understood that their efforts were not going to die down so easily. Instead, it seemed, the Legion were everywhere at night, making it wholly difficult to get anything done.

  Their attention on the Royal Quarter was only getting worse, especially after finding those dead Legionnaires earlier in the day. The Assassin wish she knew who had been responsible, and she would be more than happy to add them to her list of victims.

  With the Legion trawling the streets every night, the Assassin had not found a decent opportunity to complete her task. She needed to get Mr Teller off her back by retrieving the gold pieces from the man who had managed to cheat in a card game in one of his establishments, swindling enough money to live comfortably for many years. So tonight, she was going to take the risk, and hope she wasn’t spotted by one of the Legionnaires. She would need to make herself smaller, quicker, better.

  She crouched low on a balcony and watched as two Legionnaires patrolled the rooftops across from her. Apparently, they had finally caught on to the fact that she hardly ever walked the streets below, but instead used the roofs as her main pathway. The Assassin felt a healthy amount of resentment to them for being on her roofs – for making her task so much more difficult than it needed to be.

  She waited patiently, fingering the point of Irandyal, as the Legionnaires on that rooftop paced, eyes searching the shadows for her, and when they found nothing, moved to the next rooftop.

  The moment they were out of her line of vision, she leaned forward to peer to the cobbled, stall-lined street below. At this time of night, there were no people walking the streets, except for the Legion. But for right now, the road was clear.

  The Assassin moved.

  She sheathed Irandyal and leaped over the rail of the balcony, gripping the edges with her hands before letting herself fall, landing in a crouch on the dusty cobbles below.

  The Assassin stayed crouched for a moment in the shadows between the lamplights, looking left and right before she stood, and ghosted towards the nearest alley.

  She ran on light feet down the alleyway, searched the road, and ran for the next one. For a few heartbeats, the Assassin had needed to stop and press herself against a wall in the darkness as another figure stalked past her or stood on a rooftop looking down.

  But eventually, she made it to his home, and stood in the alleyway across from his front door. She had scouted the house during daylight hours and knew there were no windows or balcony she could sneak through. No, the Assassin would need to enter through the front door.

  She pulled Irandyal back out and watched the house for a moment from the shadows, and after she checked the road again and found it clear, she dashed across the stones and stopped in front of the door. Unfortunately, her lock-picking skills, while adequate, would take much too long for this late-night venture.

  So, without hesitating, she raised her blade and tapped at the wooden door with the hilt.

  In the seconds that she was waiting, the Assassin turned to check the rooftops across from his house, and when she confirmed they were empty of onlookers, she tapped again.

  The door clicked as a lock was disengaged and then opened, a gangly man with long greasy hair and dark eyes peering out.

  “What do you—” His eyes widened as he saw her, then he swore and tried to slam the door shut, though the Assassin’s boot was already in the way.

  The man let go of the handle and backed away. She kicked the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside, throwing it closed again behind her.

  “Good evening,” she said softly, and watched on as the man visibly swallowed, his back against the opposite wall. There was a fire crackling in the grate beside them, the only light in the small room, casting the room in a flickering dance of light and shadow.

  “Please,” the man choked out, “if I had known you worked for Mr Teller, I never would have…”

  “Stolen from him?”

  A spark flickered in his dark eyes, and he pointed at her. “I did not steal! I am no thief… I’m just a mathematician down on his luck, and I needed some money.”

  She cocked her head to the side, and expertly twirled Irandyal in her hand. He glanced down at the sharp blade, and he dropped his hand, his throat bobbing as he swallowed again.

  “So, you’re not a thief, but you’re a cheat.”

  He lowered his head, as though ashamed of himself. “Yes, I am.”

  The Assassin stopped twirling the blade, a ripple of shock passing through her. She had never heard any of them admit what they were before.

  “Are you…” The man’s voice broke, and he paused momentarily. “Are you going to kill me?”

  She took two slow steps forward, and he cringed even further into the wall behind him.

  “Do you think you deserve it?” She asked him curiously.

  He breathed heavily, chest moving up and down. The half of his face illuminated by the firelight was drained of colour, eyes darting around the room in panic.

  Then he shook his head in jerky movements, his long hair flinging about his face. “No. I am just a man trying to survive.”

  Another step forward, and the man’s bottom lip started to quiver.

  “You say you are a mathematician, why not get a job educating the young?” she asked, a serious and genuine question.

  He took a shuddering breath. “I… I did have a job. But I lost it after…”

  The man stopped talking and looked to the corner of the room. She followed his gaze, and the Assassin balked to see a baby’s cot in the corner.

  When she returned her gaze to his, she found him weeping. The Assassin lowered her blade slowly.

  The man looked to her, imploring, tear-filled eyes wide with anguish. “My wife died giving birth to my daughter.” Another pause, to gasp in some air. “And not long after that my little girl fell ill. She took up all of my time, so I had to give up my job, and I couldn’t have kids around her lest they catch the illness. I used my last coins to keep us afloat.”

  She felt her arms turn leaden, knowing she couldn’t threaten this man with a baby in the room. She may be an assassin, but she didn’t yet consider herself a monster.

  “A fortnight ago… my little girl… she—” He sobbed again, and the Assassin stiffened, looking again to the cot. She couldn’t see inside it, but she did not
e the absence of sound, knowing that babies were generally woken with ease, and would make their presence known. “She… succumbed to the illness.”

  Without another word, the Assassin sheathed Irandyal, and turned towards the door.

  “Please,” the man said in a wobbly voice, and she looked over her shoulder to him, “take the coins. I couldn’t bring myself to spend any of them.”

  The man staggered to a small shelf with some books stacked upon it. He moved aside a large book, and reached behind it, pulling out a bulging cloth sack which jingled as he held it out for her.

  To the man’s credit, he didn’t cringe again as she moved towards him. He dropped the sack into her open hand, and the heavy weight stunned her. She had never held that much gold before.

  The Assassin stepped away with the gold in her hands and considered the man for a moment. He was tall and thin, his hair hanging in ropes around his face, his cheeks heavily sunken in from being either malnourished or devastated. Likely it was both.

  She pulled the coin-sack open and fished out a handful of gold pieces, knowing she had enough of her own coins to replace the contents before she handed it back over to Mr Teller.

  She dropped the coins onto a small table by the fire and cast him one final look before she stalked for the door again.

  “You’re not going to kill me?”

  She paused in front of the door but couldn’t bring herself to turn and look at the man again. “No. Your debt is paid in full as far as Mr Teller is concerned. My advice is to use the gold to leave Everton and start anew elsewhere.”

  The Assassin shoved the remaining gold into the pocket of her cloak and opened the door of his home. Before she stepped out on to the street again, she swore she heard the man whisper his thanks, and she shut the door again behind her.

  Ducking into an alleyway quickly, she leaned against the cold stone wall, and took a deep, steadying breath. The weight in the breast pocket of her cloak was a bulging reminder of the man inside who had lost his family, and had made a few stupid, desperate decisions. Of course, Mr Teller didn’t care about any of that. The Assassin wondered if he even knew about the man’s circumstances before ordering her to retrieve the gold and ‘rough him up a little’.