by B. T. Narro
She took back her coin pouch, then searched his pockets. She found his purse. It held a couple gold coins, to her surprise. She pocketed his money, spat on his corpse, then walked over to his horse. Rygen freed the animal from the tree. She jumped onto its back and tried various methods to get it moving west, back down the hill. But the creature never obeyed her, eventually neighing in what sounded to be annoyance and even bucking as if to throw her off.
Jin snapped at the horse, which startled it even more. It started to run north, bucking hard. Rygen tried to calm the large animal with a soothing tone, but it seemed hopeless. Eventually it threw her off and sped up. She quickly got up and started after it, but the horse was much faster than her.
She cursed as she went back to the top of the hill for another look at Jatn. It was so far away from here, and the barbarians had already progressed a good distance on horseback. There really was no way for Rygen to make it there in time.
She looked down at Jin. He was stronger than ever these days, able to remain in the light realm for an entire day before needing to return. He was faster than Rygen as well…much faster.
She crouched down in front of the snout of her foxlike creature. “Miqu is in trouble. The town is going to be attacked. She has to be warned. Get her out of the city. Do you understand, Jin? Go as fast as you can.”
Her creature darted west but stopped to look back at Rygen.
“Yes, go! Bring her back here!”
Jin raced down the hill. Rygen ran after him a ways to watch him go. He was as fast as a speeding horse. She could feel that he’d understood her. It wasn’t that he spoke common tongue, for he would be confused by someone else’s command. It was that he and Rygen shared a connection. Even across the realms, he could sense her emotions. When they were together here in the light realm, she could even relay some thoughts to him. She trusted he knew what to do. But what she didn’t know was whether he would make it in time.
She made wishes for the safety of Jin, Miqu, and Gartel. She had not told her creature to find the guild master. There just wasn’t time to risk it, but if Jin arrived soon enough then Miqu could get Gartel out with her.
Please make it in time.
She turned back and was sickened by the sight of Willven’s corpse. Rygen’s summoned could find her no matter where she went, so she would not punish herself by staying here.
CHAPTER TEN
Leo had spent the last few hours sitting beside a passed out KRenn. Leo and the Analytes in the palace had brought the weakened mage to a room with a few beds and little other furniture. KRenn had slept until now, when he awoke with a dazed expression.
“What’s wrong?” Leo asked.
KRenn suddenly appeared only fatigued, no longer stunned. “Nothing.” He got out of bed with a bit of energy, sparking hope in Leo. Perhaps KRenn was finally getting stronger. “What’s happened?”
“Do you remember the rifts we made?”
“Of course. What happened after I fell asleep?”
“I found out that most of Mavrim’s army is heading west. Barbarians have attacked the human cities.”
“Which?”
“The capital.” Leo’s breath caught. “And Jatn. They’ve already taken both.”
“Is it Mavrim who takes them west?”
“No, his son Gavval. Mavrim and the army commander are still here.”
“Then we can still destroy the rift. I must meet with Mavrim immediately.” KRenn started down the hall, presumably toward the exit of this large palace.
“Wait,” Leo said. “My brother’s still alive. I can feel the stalwart link between us.”
KRenn grabbed Leo by his shoulders and leaned close. Leo often forgot that he had grown tall, realizing then that he had more height and width to his shoulders than KRenn, but he still felt like a child in the way the master mage regarded him as if to scold.
“Unless he is close, we must first destroy the rift before we do anything else.”
Leo thought to lie, to tell KRenn that they could follow the direction of the link and come to Andar today. But the link was stretched so thin, its power weak. Andar had to be at least a hundred miles away.
“We have to find another testing stone to bring him back,” Leo argued. “I won’t help you destroy the rift until we do.”
KRenn’s lips turned inward in obvious anger. He looked as if he was going to yell.
Leo spoke first. “He’s my brother, sir, and he might be in danger.”
KRenn’s expression softened. His eyes lifted as he seemed to be in thought. “There is a good chance of uncovering another testing stone if you travel east about sixty miles from here. Most of the trek is through a land with no paths to follow.”
“That’s fine. Where do I go?” Leo tilted onto the balls of his feet, ready to run out of there and grab his horse from the stables.
“East-southeast, beyond the mountains south of the capital. Once the land flattens out, you will see the clear lakes of Gesnia ahead eventually. The lakes mark a point in which the links between the realms are strong enough for Esitry to pass into our realm. There are deep caverns—”
“Wait, I should write this down.”
“You will remember what you need to know. Keep listening. There are deep caverns past the lakes of Gesnia. No one has ventured into them and come back alive. I was planning to go myself to see what I might uncover, but I had an unborn grandchild who would soon arrive. My son still needed guidance before he became a father. Then I began to feel the disturbance that turned out to be the expanding rift. I planned to resolve the disturbance and then explore the caves.” He looked down and seemed to lose himself to memories.
“With Esitry in the air, would I need to surround myself with a cocoon of Artistry like you did when you entered the rift?”
“Yes. I had spent weeks testing my cocoon by the lakes of Gesnia to see if I developed a sickness. When my body remained strong, I told myself I would venture into the caves later. I will draw a map for you.”
“Come with me,” Leo urged. “Then we will bring back my brother and we can destroy the rift together.”
“I’m too weak for such a trip.”
Leo was crushed with disappointment. KRenn had looked stronger after his rest.
“You’ll recover,” Leo tried.
KRenn shook his head. “I might not. I must make use of the time I have. We will destroy the beast as you obtain more testing stones.”
Silence followed as Leo thought through this. He supposed he could do this on his own, but he had to admit he was frightened. KRenn had said that the lakes marked a point in which the links between the realms were strong enough for Esitry to pass through. What else could these links cause to happen? The area sounded unstable and certainly dangerous. But Leo looked again at KRenn, who hunched over as if ready to drop to the ground at any moment.
I can do this alone. I must do this alone.
Without a goodbye, Leo went to his quarters to pack quickly for his trip. He managed to convince an Analyte to take him to the kitchen, where Leo packed all the dried food he could fit in his bag. The few servants watching him seemed concerned with him taking so much, but at least they didn’t try to stop him.
Leo left the kitchens and traced back his steps. He passed by KRenn in the hall on his way out. The mage didn’t see Leo. He seemed focused on something within a room. He then entered the room as if in a trance. Leo followed.
He found KRenn going toward an eastern window and opening the curtains.
The sight out the window shocked Leo. A small army looked to be headed here from the capital. A team of horsemen in armor led the charge.
“Did you pack a spyglass?” KRenn asked Leo.
He didn’t think KRenn had heard Leo behind him. Leo reached into his pack and got out a spyglass he had guiltlessly snagged from a desk in the palace. Rather than put it into KRenn’s waiting hand, Leo stepped up to the window for a look himself.
Leo recognized the human cavaliers at t
he front of the charge. He and his brother had traveled here in the same brigade with them. They were all proud men who looked down upon everyone else in the army. They were led by a man Leo avoided, Aaron Elm. He was the one who’d confronted Leo and Andar when they’d first arrived in the capital for training, believing them to be rebels to the throne.
Many in Aaron’s group were older, well into their forties, but their reputation made them fearsome. With the aid of their battle-hardened horses, they had never lost a battle. Most rebels ran from them, but there was little reason to do so. The cavaliers always caught up to their quarry. It was only when chasing Erisena and Leo’s father that they had failed to catch up to the group of rebels. But that was only because Erisena had summoned a massive beast that had delayed them enough for the rebels to reach the mountains, where they could escape the horsemen.
Why are they charging the palace? There’s no one here but us.
Mavrim had declared peace. The rebels were no longer targets. The only enemies in this land were the rift and the beast that dwelled within it.
Except for the barbarians, but why would the cavaliers charge so quickly if they were headed all the way back? They’ll drain their horses’ stamina.
Leo thought that they might be chasing down the prince to deliver an important message, but that seemed unlikely because there were thousands hurrying toward the palace behind the cavaliers.
“What’s happening?” KRenn asked.
“I’m still determining that.”
Leo looked past the cavaliers and found the army commander, Jarrel Marks, running as if his life depended on it. It was his men who were behind him, many with blood on their army uniforms.
Leo cursed as he watched a few bowmen turn and shoot eastward. Leo couldn’t make out much of the army far behind Jarrel, but he thought he saw purple hair on some of the distant men. It was enough for him to decipher the meaning behind this.
“Jarrel Marks must’ve attacked the rebels and possibly the Analyte army. Now they’re running here to take the palace.”
“Remind me of who Jarrel Marks is.”
“The army commander.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t understand it, either, but we have to get out of here. It’s likely they’ll kill us.”
“But why?” Then KRenn seemed to realize something as his expression changed. “Is Jarrel a greedy man?”
“Very.”
KRenn ran out into the hall. He yelled in Analyse. Servants came running. After a brief conversation, the Analyse men and women were leading KRenn and Leo out of the palace and around back where the stables were located.
“I hope you know how to ride well,” KRenn said as he quickly prepared the saddles.
“I do. This is my horse that I took here.” His brother’s horse was in the next stall. It pained Leo to leave the animal behind.
“Our path has been chosen now, Leo.”
He didn’t fully understand KRenn’s meaning, but there wasn’t time to question him. They rode hard south as the cavaliers came toward the palace from the east.
“My father and his men are likely behind Jarrel,” Leo yelled to be heard over the pounding hoofbeats. “We’ll ride south and go around Jarrel’s men to meet up with him.”
“They won’t allow it. Watch.”
Leo didn’t know how KRenn could predict this, but sure enough about fifty cavaliers broke off from their group to cut off Leo and KRenn.
“We keep going south!” KRenn yelled.
But then how were they going to reach Gesnia? “We have to at least veer east.”
“We can’t. They cut off our eastern path. They don’t want us circling back to join your father.”
Leo still didn’t understand why they would do this. He looked back at the cavaliers and was horrified to see they were gaining on him and KRenn. They were still far, but they might not be for long.
Leo’s father might’ve been attacked in the capital. Leo hoped he was all right.
What Leo wouldn’t give to be with his father right now. They could fight off the cavaliers together. Perhaps that was why Aaron Elm was making sure his horsemen wouldn’t allow Leo to reunite with his father. They would be too dangerous together. But that brought up something in Leo’s mind…KRenn was hailed as the strongest mage in the world.
“Can you fight off fifty cavaliers?” Leo asked him.
“Even in my most powerful state I would not take my odds against them.”
“We don’t have to win,” Leo said. “We just have to delay them for a short time. Then my father will arrive here with his allies.”
“There is only one question we must answer. Have the cavaliers changed in the last two decades? Because I knew them as ruthless killers who would never let their targets find safety, especially if that safety is joining another army less than an hour away.”
“Perhaps we aren’t their primary target, though,” Leo argued, longing to fight and rejoin with his father.
After they were safe, Leo was certain his father would find someone to send with Leo and KRenn as they retrieved testing stones…and Leo was not liking the idea of going anywhere alone with KRenn. The man didn’t just seem weak. Something was off about his mental state.
“I cannot fight at all,” KRenn said. “So unless you can stand against fifty cavaliers for an hour, then we have no chance of surviving an attack.”
Leo looked back again and noticed that half of them had slowed. They still pursued Leo and KRenn, but half of them no longer seemed in a hurry. The rest kicked their horses as if their lives depended on catching up.
Leo remembered something he’d heard about the cavaliers during his time in the army. If they couldn’t catch up to someone fleeing, half would continue to chase at high speed while the other half slowed to allow their horses to travel a farther distance. It was this slower half that would eventually catch up to Leo and KRenn.
Damn. How do we escape them? But if there was an answer to that, then the cavaliers would not be infamous in Aathon.
Leo couldn’t concentrate on any thoughts through his panic. He knew his horse to be strong. This was the same animal that had taken him to Jatn, then back to the capital, then all the way to the Analyte palace. But did this animal have the same stamina as a cavalier’s mount? If Leo’s love for the animal made a difference, he wouldn’t worry, but he had never made his horse gallop for long distances.
“We have to lose them somewhere soon,” Leo said, knowing even less about the mount KRenn had chosen.
“The cavaliers are trackers as well. There’s only one way to lose a tracker, and that’s crossing a river. There’s one ahead of us; a two-day ride with no sleep.”
“Can you make it?” Leo asked.
“We’ll find out.”
Leo couldn’t get one thing out of his mind as he continued to ride hard. Why were Aaron and his men so intent on catching Leo and KRenn? It saddened him to realize that these people would murder him. And for what? All he and the rebels were trying to do was destroy the rift.
Oh. Everything suddenly made sense. The answer was hidden in the fact that Jarrel was a rapacious man. Jarrel’s plan was also revealed to Leo, then, for it was the only thing that could explain his actions.
Leo had never felt the urge to kill someone before. But Leo also had never found himself to be a target in such a cold-hearted plan.
Jarrel is a terrible, terrible man who deserves to die for this.
Leo would not let go of this anger until Jarrel stopped breathing.
◆◆◆
It had been many hours since Rygen had sent Jin back to Jatn to find and rescue Miqu. It didn’t take long for Rygen to lose sight of her creature. Even using her spyglass, she had no hope of following him as he approached the city.
Now all she could do was wait and worry as she watched the barbarians move closer to the southern hills. Night approached. The barbarians would most likely wait until the sun was down to flood from the hil
ls and ravage the city.
Rygen wondered if Miqu might be safe even if Jin didn’t get her out of the city in time. Perhaps she could hide herself somewhere and then escape. But then again, Miqu would’ve had to prepare a hiding place in advance, and she wasn’t exactly a good planner. She was beautiful too, which made Rygen feel even sicker at the thought of what they might do to her. At least Rygen had moved far enough from the corpse of the man who’d held a knife to her throat and told her to disrobe. She wanted to forget everything about him, including his name. She would not think of it ever again if she could help it.
She wished she could do more to help Miqu. Rygen should’ve spent some of the coin that Leo had left her on horse-riding lessons. Then she could’ve bought a horse and ridden to Analyte land on her own.
There were a lot of things she should’ve done differently. She could’ve gone with Leo when he’d invited her to join him back to the capital. Sometimes she played out that trip in her mind, just the two of them on a horse, her arms wrapped around him. She’d imagined all the topics they’d explore as they got to know each other again. … Her breath always caught as she thought of them sleeping beside each other. She liked to imagine his arms enveloping her, his lips on her neck.
The sight of fire brought her back. She gasped as she stood. A small section of Jatn was aflame, but it was spreading fast. She could hear cries in the distance.
Please be all right, she hoped for Miqu.
Rygen could feel that her creature sensed a great danger. Rygen had a brief internal struggle as she tried to decide what she should do now. But she reminded herself that it was Miqu who’d decided to stay, not Rygen.
Jin, get out of there! Be safe.
Rygen knew that her creature could only faintly pick up Rygen’s emotions from this distance, but she figured her worry was strong enough to relay the message clearly.