“So your vision was of the present,” Levee shook her head. “I never thought the city could fall like this…”
“It isn’t lost yet,” the prince lengthened his strides as they followed the river’s lead into the open fields. “Not until every last one of us submits to Shadow’s hand.”
The pair moved swiftly, using the trees and foliage for cover as they strayed closer to the borders of Jaycent’s kingdom. In the distance, they could see an open field littered with frozen bodies, their armor glinting in the sunlight.
“We’ll want to give Nevaharday a wide berth until we’re ready to go inside,” Levee reminded him. “Even then, it’s risky. I’m sure the illusionist has several eyes planted on the outside to guard his recent victory.”
“Or to keep watch for his prey,” the prince muttered.
“He will be looking for you,” she agreed. “Knowing that, how can we get inside the city’s walls?”
“Nevaharday was betrayed by its own soldiers,” the prince stated. “We should still be able to find some extra uniforms in one of the checkpoints stationed near the trade route. We’ll use them to get inside the city gates.
“I do not look the same as I did when I left. Neither Shadow nor my people will recognize my face very easily.”
“Checkpoints…” Levee turned southeast to where New Haven sat, a black splash against the white hills. A checkpoint had been built barely a quarter of a mile from Milo’s house, if it still stood. “Let us head toward New Haven. It’s only a few miles outside of the city and just south of one of the sentry houses. Perhaps we can uncover what became of Milo and Tay while we’re there.”
Jaycent nodded, and the two set out in an arcing route through gypsy territory toward the small farming town.
* * * * *
“A valiant effort, General. Really. I’m quite impressed.”
Rayhan Mendeley glared at the re’shahna pacing in front of him, his knee-high leather boots clacking loudly against the marble floor. Even in his two-legged form, Shadow still looked as repulsive as the dread stallion the general had met on the battlefield.
Though his satin black tunic spoke of an effort to look noble, the attempt was lost on his greasy ebony hair. Corrupted magic darkened his veins and gave his body a sickly image, like the narrow face and sunken cheeks that reminded Rayhan of the mummies he had seen in old catacombs.
But it was his eyes that disturbed the general the most. Dark as red wine and empty like the throne he paced in front of, they spoke of a wickedness that would not give way to mercy.
One of the two soldiers restraining Rayhan from behind slugged the general in the cheek as punishment for his silence. “King Shadow has spoken to you. Respond to him.”
The general grunted against the blow, and his jaw began to swell. Still, the proud rahee said not a word.
“I see,” Shadow mused. “Even now you remain loyal to your kingdom despite my seat on its throne,” the illusionist plopped upon the bright blue cushion that had been used by the Connors for as long as Nevaharday stood. Rayhan scowled. “A vain act, General Mendeley, but I admire your courage nonetheless.”
“Do you expect your flattery to mean something to me?” the rahee asked, which earned him yet another punch that broke his nose with a sickening crack. Again, he took the hit without a word, though his eyes watered and his face burned with the pain.
Rayhan had trained beneath the iron fist of his father. If he felt anything now, it was the shame of failing his city and its civilians. Not the fists of cowards.
“Oh, by all means, share how you feel, rahee,” the illusionist laughed. “Get it all out now! You may not live long enough to voice your thoughts tomorrow.”
“Yet clearly there is some benefit in keeping me alive today,” Rayhan guessed.
“What good is slaughtering an entire army if there’s no one left to gloat to?” the re’shahna remarked.
The general studied the illusionist’s cruel red eyes for many long seconds.
“No,” he decided. “Your admiration of my skill tells me you would consider me a formidable opponent, yet the way you used deception to defeat Diego marks you as the sort that doesn’t take risks for the sake of pride. There is a reason I am alive. You think I can serve some purpose.”
“Such as…? Your city is already mine.”
“You gave Kotu orders to preserve my life.”
“You are perceptive,” the illusionist observed. “I am beginning to understand why the rahee made you their general.” Shadow unsheathed his sword. “Mendeley, was it?”
“General Mendeley,” the rahee corrected.
“Yes, of course.” A half-smile creased the re’shahna’s cracked lips and he gently stroked the ridges that creased the blunt side of his blade. “General Mendeley. There is one who I have longed to meet but it seems he is not here. Tell me, where is the prince of Nevaharday?”
“Did we lose him again?” the general inhaled through his teeth. “You know, it’s just so hard to find dependable guards these days.”
Enraged, Shadow seized the general by the throat, his long fingers squeezing until the rahee’s breaths came in suffocating rasps. “If you value your life, you will not play coy with me.” He shoved the general back into the hands of his captors and slapped his bruise face with the back of his hand. “Now… shall we try this again?”
“Ask as often as you would like,” the general wheezed. “My answer will be the same.”
“Then I will carve your skin from your flesh until we uncover an answer.”
“Do what you will,” the general invited. “I do not fear death.”
Shadow walked calmly down the steps of the dais, his heels clicking with every slow, deliberate step. In his palm dark black wisps of magic began to form, wriggling in his hand until they took on the form of squirming maggots.
With his free hand, Shadow raised Rayhan’s smug chin and forced his swollen jaw to open. “Perhaps. However, everyone dreads the pain the preludes death, General Mendeley. Some just hide it better than others.” He clamped the bug ridden hand over the general’s mouth and watched as Rayhan’s eyes widened and he struggled to tear his face away.
It was torture straight out of a twisted nightmare. Rayhan felt the filthy creatures pile atop his tongue and crawl down his throat as his mind flashed with visions of them eating him alive from the inside out.
He growled and screamed in defiance, but his voice remained muffled against the re’shahna’s hand. Shadow smiled with pleasure as the general fought against his grasp.
It was all a game of illusions. The fact became apparent to the general when Shadow finally pulled his hand away. Immediately, Rayhan vomited onto the marble floor, coughing relentlessly as his body tried to extract the invasion that wasn’t even there.
Nothing, Rayhan gasped as he stared at his own expulsion. Not a single wiggling maggot. His eyebrows sunk over his stubborn brown eyes and the general straightened his back so that he stood erect despite his trembling body.
“Do whatever you will,” Rayhan’s voice was stiff, his visage uncompromising. “It does not matter. You’ll get nothing from me. As long as our prince is alive, you have yet to truly conquer us.”
Shadow turned dramatically around, his outspread arms acknowledging a throne room occupied by his minions. “Your castle says otherwise, General.”
“Your grip is tentative,” Rayhan spat. “Diego says you invaded my cousin’s dreams and attacked his unit outside our walls. Despite his status, one prince would not have saved us from this fate.
“What you really want is His Highness, and you are disappointed he isn’t here. Maybe even afraid?”
“Afraid?” the illusionist laughed. “On the contrary, General, I hope he returns!”
“Why?” Rayhan inquired. “If the city is won as you claim it to be, then why does it matter?”
Shadow’s furry black ears dipped beneath his dreaded locks and Rayhan knew he had hit a nerve. “So that you can watch as I t
ake his life,” the illusionist growled, “and then die with the emptiness of knowing your hope has been extinguished.”
* * * * *
It was dusk when Jaycent and Levee made it to the checkpoint to retrieve a pair of uniforms, and darker still when they finally walked the streets of New Haven’s ruins. They had seen the village from afar and knew the damage was great. But it didn’t prepare them for the wave of emotion that swept the couple when they walked amongst the houses reduced to skeletal supports.
For Jaycent, it was like stepping back into Connor’s memories all over again. The village was desolate; torn asunder by Shadow’s minions who had been ordered to make every home inhospitable.
Only a couple of stone cottages still stood. Even then, their rooftops were frayed and blackened by the fires. Jaycent’s chest tightened as his fury toward Shadow mounted.
Levee’s pain was just as fierce and far from discreet. Her breaths quivered with the prelude of tears that she swept away with two shaking palms.
“Tay… Milo...” the gypsy whispered, her feet already picking up their pace toward the stone cottage she once called home.
“Levee,” the prince moved to join her side, but the gypsy was already caught within a flare of raw emotion. She ran toward the Kasateno property, unable to bear the suspense.
“Levee!” the prince tore Lumiere from his belt and darted after his grief-stricken mate as she bolted recklessly through the broken door. A curse slid under his breath, his training as a soldier reminding him a silent village didn’t mean it was void of life.
The door slapped in front of his face, and the prince shoved his way through it, blade drawn and raised. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the cottage, Levee had already disappeared into a separate room somewhere inside.
“Melah?” he called for her again, softer this time. Still, Levee didn’t answer.
The gypsy was too intent on finding some sign of her adopted family. She moved from room to room in search of some hint that they had made it out alive when she stumbled upon a rug in the communal room.
Milo had mentioned it years before. The cellar was where he stored much of their harvest, but it had also been named their safe room should trouble ever knock on their door. Levee dropped to one knee, her breath trapped in her lungs as she reached for the cellar latch.
“Get back, or I’ll cut your head right off your greasy neck!” cried a voice that had Levee scrambling aside and into an upturned couch.
Jaycent was there in an instant, Lumiere swatting the blade right out of the hand of the assailant’s with embarrassing ease. The prince drew back in disgust. “Not even Shadow’s minions are that foul with a blade.”
“No, but they’re awful at watchin’ their backs,” came a cold southern twang Jaycent surely recognized. The prince stiffened when the rude poke of a scimitar pressed against his waist, its threat emphasized by a thick palm curled around the neck of his tunic.
“I confess, I did not expect a warm welcome from you, Sarrokian,” Jaycent used his free hand to dig his fingers beneath the strangling fabric around his neck. “But I would at least expect you to aim your blade at Levee’s assailant, not her protector.”
“Milo!” Levee launched to her feet and the prince gagged when the hand on his collar jerked away, pulled by the momentum of Levee’s excited pounce.
Blades clattered to the floor as Milo stumbled back, his eyes wide in shock as his arms were suddenly filled with the missing piece of his heart. “L-Levee?”
“You’re alive,” she mumbled into his tunic.
“So are you,” Milo’s voice cracked as he gathered her up into his arms and squeezed her tight against his chest. Jaycent tensed at the sight, but only for a moment. The tears in Milo’s eyes softened the prince’s jealous notions. Levee was part of the Sarrokian’s family.
And family was something even Jaycent sorely missed.
“So if that is Levee,” the gypsy’s former assailant took a step toward Jaycent who tucked his sword back into his belt. “Then who is this?”
Jaycent chuckled as he caught a glimpse of his reflection against a broken piece of glass, his face coated in stubble and his hair shaggy. Of course the farmer was at a loss. He looked nothing like the pampered noble they had known before. “My name, sirrah, is Jaycent Connor.”
“Your Highness!” he gasped. Voices echoed his exclamation from beneath the floorboards and Jaycent lifted his boot to see several pairs of eyes staring up at him through the cracks.
“Well met,” he smiled.
The cellar door flopped open and two small children ran toward him, their little arms wrapping around his legs.
“They said you were dead,” a girl with white blonde curls pouted.
Jaycent held his hands slightly aloft, caught off guard by the children’s unabashed affection.
“Oh Your Highness, I’m so sorry. Please! Do forgive them,” a round-faced woman the prince guessed was their mother crawled up the ladder and into the communal room, her face white with dread. “They are just glad to see their prince alive. We all are.”
“Yes…” Milo muttered. “Where have you been?”
“That is a long tale,” confessed the prince. He gave the little girl’s hand a gentle squeeze, then turned to the red-headed boy on his right and ruffled his hair. “And this is a poor place for refugees to be hiding. Why do you linger here?”
“We didn’t have much of a choice after Nevaharday turned against herself,” Milo explained. “We’re plannin’ to make for Sarrokye at daybreak, when the mimics and their night mares are weakest.”
“But what about your hip?” Levee’s face clouded with concern.
The Sarrokian shrugged. “I’ll manage. I always do.”
The prince observed the way Milo stood, clearly favoring one leg. “Sarrokye is a week’s journey from here. That is a long way to travel, Milo, particularly on foot.”
“With all due respect, Yer Highness, I ain’t got a lot of choices. I’ll make it there one way or another.”
Jaycent nodded. “With your resolve, I believe you.”
Now Milo was truly confused, for this was not the prince he had come to know before the war. “And if I couldn’t manage,” he added, “I’ve made certain these folks know the way.”
“We won’t let you fall behind,” Rab assured.
Jaycent squeezed the sandy-haired farmer’s shoulder, moved by the compassion of his people. If he had any doubts about returning, the folks of New Haven had dashed them away.
“Stay together and give Nevaharday’s gates a wide berth to the east. I am certain you will make it past Shadow’s minions safely.”
“Who?” the farmer that had mistaken Levee as an enemy asked.
“Shadow,” the gypsy repeated. “He is the one who led the army against Nevaharday.”
“Aye, and that is where my road leads,” the prince turned to Milo. “We came this way to see if we could find any sign of how you fared. It is only a brief stop. I need to get inside the city’s walls so I may find Diego and the general.”
“Ain’t no way you’re doin’ that,” the Sarrokian shook his head. “Shadow’s got the place locked down. Even if you manage to get in somehow, there’s no tellin’ the difference between friend and foe.”
“It is imperative I find Diego and the general. Besides, I have slipped in and out of that city more times than I can count. I know every nook, cranny, hidden tunnel, and door.”
The Sarrokian scoffed. “I grew up sneakin’ in and outta buildings too, and I’m bettin’ copper you won’t make it ten feet inside the gate.”
“Milo,” Levee pulled away from her childhood friend with a reprimanding scowl.
“Look,” the Sarrokian moved to prop the door shut with a chair, shielding them from the outside road. “There’s no gettin’ into that place. Not tonight. Stick around at least until daybreak when the monsters are weak against the light. Meanwhile, you can fill us in on this Shadow fella.”
Jaycen
t rubbed his forehead, frustrated. “Diego and the others may not have that long.”
The ears of those crowded in the small communal room went back and they murmured amongst each other, but Milo held his ground. “That’s assumin’ they’re even alive.”
“I respect your concern,” the prince stood tall, his voice resuming its noble air, “but I must decline your advice.”
“It’s your choice. But if that’s the road you’re pickin’ then Levee is stayin’ with us,” the Sarrokian put an arm around the gypsy’s shoulder only for his jaw to go slack when she pulled away to Jaycent’s side.
“This is our mission,” Levee corrected. “I’m going with the prince.”
Milo stiffened. “Darlin’,” his voice was low, incredulous. “I know you want to help, but what he’s talkin’ about is suicide.”
Levee put her hands on her hips. “No, Milo. It’s a risk.”
“Aye. A big one I don’t think you fully understand!” Panic was tight in his throat and his eyes flicked toward the prince, who clearly sensed the Sarrokian’s blame. “Where’s your voice, Highness?”
“We can’t run from this enemy, Milo,” the gypsy argued before Jaycent could put in a word of his own. “Even if you escape to Sarrokye, Shadow’s arm would eventually extend there, too.”
The Sarrokian turned to His Highness. “How do you two know this?”
“As I said before,” the prince sighed, “it is a long tale.”
Milo used his cane to flip an overturned chair back on its feet and set it in front of the prince. “We have all night. Why don’t you start talkin’?”
Jaycent tossed an impatient look toward Levee who in turn crossed her arms. “They need an answer, Jaycent. Tell them so they can warn the people in Sarrokye.”
The prince gave another sigh and took a seat. The two children climbed into his lap while the others gathered chairs or settled onto the floor to listen.
Jaycent started with Kotu’s betrayal and the underground trek that led them to the ruins of Bresan T’ahnya. He used his hands to describe Tobi’s powerful spells, and even showed Milo the journal with Connor’s riddle written inside.
The Rogue Trilogy Page 40