He and Viveka argued for a while over details, while Millie threw in a comment every so often. In fact, they had already meticulously planned where to try next, but Viveka was a stickler, and Gawin never minded when she tried to poke holes in their plans. It made them better in the end. And there was a lot that couldn't be predicted.
He whistled to Talia and they all set off again.
They traveled in human form now, to better understand how the route would go, how much time it would take to travel, and where a human couldn't cross. They had several campsites planned out mere hours from the city. The first day they left would probably be mostly taken up with getting out of the city.
The first day.... Gawin hadn't thought past the logistics of the route. It didn't feel real yet. He wasn't sure he was able to wrap his head around the idea of leaving the place he'd lived his whole life.
...Would he leave Philippa?
There was no point in pondering that yet.
~*~
The day waned on. The four of them were soon exhausted, even with breaks for food and water. But it was a joy to be outside, to hunt freely.
"Shit," Viveka muttered once they crested a ridge. She fumbled with a map and examined it.
Gawin peered over her shoulder.
"We should have turned here," Viveka pointed.
Gawin frowned. "No, that was the edge of a cliff."
She moved her finger back. "Here then?"
"Still a cliff."
"Damn. Well, either way it's wrong. We'll have to retrace our steps and figure out where to turn."
"All the way back?" Gawin asked in exasperation. At this rate he wouldn't be back to help with runs. Renat would say this was more important, but if he didn't help with runs early, then it would be too late to see Philippa after.
He and Viveka started to argue the benefits of forging ahead versus turning around.
"—wandering into a Hji scout party," Gawin was saying, when Talia shouted.
Their heads came up in alarm. While they had been bent over the map, Millie and Talia had wandered off.
Talia's shout had come from the right, and he and Viveka shifted into cat form and split up, circling the area where the shout had come from.
They needn't have worried. No guards of any nation were around. Instead, Talia and Millie stood by a sheer rock wall.
"Look what we found!" Millie said excitedly.
Viveka shifted into human form, her face irate. "We thought the Hji got you."
Gawin was similarly annoyed, but Millie and Talia were too excited to listen. When Gawin finally looked beyond them, his eyebrows rose in surprise.
"What is this?" Gawin asked. He half-shifted to better sniff the air, but couldn't detect anyone else around. A few birds chirped, the grass rustled. No guards about… and the ground was even for a long stretch. Sandy, rocky, and overgrown, yes, but nothing like the dangerous cliffs and ravines that blocked their way at every turn.
“A creek, we think.”
Viveka shuffled the papers in her hands.
They didn't have complete maps. Viveka was charting their way as they explored, and they cross-referenced her work with smuggling routes. Renat had been encouraging him to think differently and break out of the molds they'd been in, because the Hji changed everything. They couldn't rely on old pathways.
Viveka clicked her tongue as she examined an old smuggling map. It would have been unreadable to an outsider, all hatches and different colors coded specifically to the Arrowheads.
"I thought it was a stream," she said. She looked up the bone-dry creek. "But obviously it's not."
Don't get excited, he told himself as he leaned over the map. But something was connecting for him.
"Look." He traced a finger. "We took the long way around. But it we followed that route from last week—"
Talia jumped in. "Used this dry creek bed to head east—"
The other three were all smiling now.
"And connected up here!" Millie said, pointing to another trail they'd scouted.
The dry creek bed connected two potential trails that they'd scouted but ultimately had to give up on. With the dry creek, they could now move wagons safely between the two trails.
"Let's follow it, see if we can connect all the way through." He spoke practically, but now he was as excited as they were. Viveka and Millie bounded ahead in cat form, while he and Talia each took a side of the ravine to walk.
~*~
They arrived back in Carnate far later than they'd planned. The route had connected like they'd thought, but Gawin hadn't wanted to report back to Renat until they were sure. The trail would need to be cleared if they planned on having a lot of people and wagons come through, but he thought that that wouldn't take too long.
At the wall, he used light to signal to the guard they were ready. When the gate creaked open, they rushed across the open distance. It was now full dark and they did not have to be as careful as during the day.
When the gate slammed shut behind them, Gawin felt oddly relieved, despite knowing his city was surrounded by an enemy army.
This guard wasn't doing them a favor for a bribe. He was part of a crew family, and had always had a hand in underworld dealings.
Despite growing up in a crime family, the guard was surprisingly chatty, and looked curiously over the four of them when they came in empty-handed.
Gawin brushed aside the man's questions. They were not supposed to tell anyone the true nature of their mission. Even Moon, Renat's wife, thought they were out on a special run, nothing more. Renat did not want to announce the plan until they'd confirmed it was even possible. Viveka, Talia, and Millie were trustworthy, longtime crew members like Gawin.
~*~
Upon their return to the Arrowhead base, Gawin went to check in on Renat, but the crew leader was resting. He was not asleep, but Renat had pains that sometimes overcame him. At these times, Moon took over for him. Like many other things in Arrowhead, Gawin did not tell the rest of the crew.
Deciding Renat and Moon could be informed of their exciting progress tomorrow, Gawin went to Philippa's.
The house was ablaze with light when he approached. This wasn't particularly surprising. Xavier hosted often, typically other businesspeople in Carnate, to prove his shift into legitimate business. Either way, Gawin wouldn't want to be caught there and draw Xavier's ire. Xavier knew of him as second-in-command to Renat, but as far as Gawin knew, Xavier did not know about him and Philippa.
A glimpse through the windows showed him the affair was rather extravagant. Much of the city was on strict rations, but if you were wealthy or part of a smuggling ring, you were doing just fine.
Gawin slipped in through the kitchen. The head cook swatted at him with a spoon. He laughed and set his bribe on the table: calamansi fruit, a whole basketful. Cook went from glaring to bursting with cheer in the span of a few seconds—Gawin knew which hands to grease. The housekeeper already loved him; her son was connected to the Arrowheads. One of the servants passed him a bowl of rice and beans and Gawin scarfed it down before slipping from the bright kitchen to the dimly lit hallway. He took the stairs, and let himself into her rooms.
~*~
"Oh!"
Gawin jerked awake. He'd fallen asleep by the fire. Philippa had let out a startled gasp, and then laughed uproariously.
"You poor thing! How long were you waiting? Did you spent the entire day working? Didn't I say Renat was keeping you too busy?"
She'd shut the door behind her, and came up to give him a kiss, which he received sleepily.
"You look nice."
She wore all red, down to the ribbons in her hair. It made him think tonight had been a political affair, for she normally wore her father's colors when she wanted to make a show of strength.
"Don't get up, sleepyhead. Didi's on her way up with more tea. I'll ask her for another cup."
He watched her poke her head out the door, her ruched skirts flouncing. Then she made her way back to him and sat on t
he footstool to remove his boots. She covered him with a fur throw, though the fire was burning to keep out the rainy weather they'd been having.
"What was going on downstairs?"
"Oh, you know—" She launched into a slew of titles and positions and business and political jargon. After collecting tea from the maid, she set the tray by him, poured them both a cup, then took hers to her vanity. She unpinned her hair and removed her makeup while continuing to describe some merchant's plan to snatch up large tracts of war-damaged land so they could be turned for a quick profit.
As she removed her clothes, she asked him about his day. He told her, though he left out the reasoning behind his trip outside the walls.
Finally, she emerged in a silk nightgown. Gawin’s eyes followed the tantalizing glimpses of her body as the nightgown pulled against her. She took his hand and he let her lead him to bed. She pulled his shirt over his head and slipped his trousers down. Her hands brushed playfully around him, and he couldn't help but feel more and more awake.
They got under the covers and tangled up together. Philippa continued to describe her evening, but she shifted her hips against him every so often, and he wasn't listening quite as well anymore.
Finally, he sat up and turned her on her hands and knees, pushing the nightgown up her body. They had slow, quiet sex so as not to wake the rest of the household, and then fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Ursa & Amadou
The news of an attack shot a bolt of adrenaline through Ursa, waking her up. They'd arrived back from the Sledge only minutes ago, and every time she moved, she tugged at the hastily-bandaged wound Cirina had given her.
"Where?" she asked Khalil crisply, meaning her duty station.
"Northwest. Report to Lieutenant Lydalilikri."
She remembered to look in askance at Amadou. "Go," he said. "I'll talk to the commander about tonight."
Ursa grabbed her kit from her workroom and leapt from the window, transforming into a raven as she went.
~*~
The rain was still heavy enough to buffet a raven, and Ursa struggled to keep her hold on the form. She thought of shifting more like masking. The people of Carnate truly shifted, whereas she felt more like drawing the skin of another over her form. Her injured arm ached, and she could feel the weight of her kit dragging her back. Not only that, she couldn’t see very well as a raven in the dark.
In midair, she closed her eyes and shifted to a peregrine falcon, concentrating on making the mask stronger, so that the distractions of her human form faded. Taking on the falcon’s speed, she accelerated.
The wall came into view, alight with torches and mage-stones. Burnished guard uniforms reflected the light. Most had half-shifted, so they stood upright like humans but had the sharp ears and eyes of their cat-forms.
Ursa opened her beak and made a series of loud calls. The guard on the wall hailed her in response. Some whistled a welcome as she passed over them and shot out into the open land beyond the wall.
The Great Dome rippled with her passing. She did not detect any sabotage or magical poisoning, but it would be Khalil’s job to check the Dome more closely tonight.
Beyond the wall, the Hji amassed on the plain. Carnate had cleared the area of obstructions and anything the Hji could hide behind, so Ursa could make out their soldiers in formation. Not the full army, she noted. Are the rest at the front gates?
She wondered what the plan was, or what the Hji thought had changed. They had avoided open conflict for some time, preferring instead to wear down the Carnate guard with sporadic attacks from small groups of soldiers. This contingent was the largest she’d seen in some time.
Barely an hour ago, she and Amadou had run from the Sledge, and he had called rain from the skies to protect their escape. Perhaps the Hji had wanted to use the cloud cover and the darkness to do…something. The rain may have scuttled the Hji’s plans.
She couldn’t go any farther without checking in with the lieutenant.
As she wheeled about, she caught site of a black tarp raised against the rain and wind. Hji commanders sheltered beneath it, their heads bent together. But one man in black robes stood with his hands clasped behind his back. It was Nagendra, one of the Hji sorcerers.
He yelled something at the sight of her, a manic smile breaking out over his features. Whatever it was was lost to the sound of thunder.
She sent a blast of magic at him, a small undirected explosion of purple. He waved an arm and the blast dispersed, but it was more of a sign of distaste than a real attack. A sign that a real spell couldn’t be wasted on him. In the moment he was distracted, she darted back to the wall to report.
She shifted back to human form, alighting on the ground in front of the lieutenant’s door. A younger guard at the door saluted and opened the wooden door for her, so she barely needed to break stride.
“Report,” Lieutenant Lydalilikri barked as soon as she entered the front office. The others at the table fell silent. She received a mix of treatment from commanding officers: deference to her abilities, and brisk, efficient orders. Amadou had created this dynamic as the war went on, and to great effect: at the start of the conflict, the fear shown toward the sorcerers had led to misinformation and ineffective defense against the Hji. As time had gone on, the guard had realized they would not be struck down by lightning for disagreeing with, or giving orders to, a sorcerer.
“The Dome is well, but Nagendra is outside.” A ripple of consternation went through the others in the room. The sorcerers only joined a battle when it was a serious one. Ursa quickly relayed the rest of her scouting information.
“Thank you, Sorcerer. Report to the wall.”
Ursa bowed in the manner of the sorcerers, since she still hadn’t learned the guard salutes. By ‘report to the wall’, Lydalilikri meant she take up general defensive position, guarding from magical attacks. Khalil was probably on the ground outside the wall, either scouting or wreaking havoc under the cover of darkness.
The battle was already underway by the time she alighted on the wall. She forgot about her wounded arm or the Sledge or Amadou or anything else. From then on she was in the moment, weaving between guards in human and cat form, repelling charms or healing wounds, blocking arrows and laying her hands on the Dome to check it. Every so often, she remembered to lift her head and look for Khalil, but she couldn’t make him out. This was strange. Khalil had a large personality, and he often liked to light himself up with magic. It made him a target but in doing so it kept others safe, for the Hji often aimed for his arrogant figure.
She grimaced at the look on Nagendra’s face. She didn’t see him from here, but she didn’t like him.
Finally she stopped a higher-level guard.
“When did Khalil report in?”
The guard shook her head. “Sorcerer, I never saw him. I thought he was with you.”
The guard rushed on, but a frisson of unease went through her, stopping time even in the midst of battle. She crouched at the parapet. Her robes were already soaked through, and she had shed them in favor of her trousers and jacket, each spelled for protection and with leather armor laced on tight. Placing her hands on the wall, she sent an astral message to the other sorcerers. Astral messaging was difficult over long distances, so she had developed a new spell to make it easier. It was attuned to the six Carnate sorcerers.
She spoke a djinn word of power, and then, When did you last see Khalil?
Their answers came immediately, catching the tail of her spell and funneling back to her so as not to use any magic of their own. Isis, Thisbe, and Obiad as jumbled together: Hefollowedyouwentafteryououtthenorthwestwindowgaveusourassignmentsandthenhaven’tseenhimreportedtoLydalilikriIthinksaidhewasscoutingthenorthwesthills…
The spell obviously needed some tweaking. But she’d caught something in the jumble of words: Scouting the northwest hills.
Ursa glanced out to the rain-swept plain, then back down to the guardhouse where Lydalilikri gave orders. She already
knew the lieutenant would say she hadn’t seen Khalil, and Ursa should not go looking for him. It was a balance, that. If Khalil had been captured, he could be used against them. But he was only one person, and it would not be worth it to lose more guards, or another sorcerer, to rescue him.
But she did not intend to be lost. Ursa launched into the air as a peregrine.
She streaked over the battlefield. Neat lines of Hji fighters starting to sprawl and unwind as time had gone on, people scurrying from tent to tent, rain pelting their armor. She was always shocked at how many of them there were. Without its massive walls, Carnate would have been lost in days.
She turned north, leaving the plain for the rocky terrain that guarded most of Carnate’s northern side. Filled with steep ravines and sheer cliffs, this was no place to move an army, but it was easy enough for a group to travel in secret.
Luckily, she had her peregrine eyes. She swooped high above the rocks, and finally her keen vision spotted motion.
Yes, a glimmer of white light, like the kind that limned Khalil during battle. Closer now, she saw him seated on the ground, his hands bound behind him to a scraggly tree. A dark cloak had been thrown over him to muffle the shining light. She couldn't tell if he was conscious.
All around him, Hji soldiers rushed around. Maybe ten to twenty of them, building something under the direction of Nagendra. Ursa chattered to herself in annoyance. They're up to something, little nomad. The soldiers were building something circular, clearly the beginnings of a spell.
Khalil was her first priority, but she couldn't let Nagendra get away with whatever he was plotting. Not only that, there was no time to go back for help.
Ursa made up her mind. She swooped low, folded her wings, and dropped.
She hit the ground by Khalil in human form, fire exploding outward from her in a circle. The roar of the blaze masked any other sound, throwing soldiers back, burning up whatever they'd been making.
"Untie me!" Khalil shouted.
She whirled and bent to him. The magical bonds were easily dissolved, so long as her skin did not make contact with the negating charm like Khalil's had. Once freed, Khalil threw off the Hji cloak and blasted a quiver-ful of magic arrows behind Ursa.
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