He pursued her slower now, limping each time his full weight fell on his injured leg. Soon, a few dozen feet lay between the two of them, and then she turned, bow at the ready. When she loosed the arrow, it sailed through the air and struck its mark in the eclipser’s neck. He took several wheezing, whistling gasps for air as he fell, first to his knees, hands grabbing at the arrow buried to the fletching in the soft flesh of his neck. Eyes wide, he fell forward into the dirt, and after a moment of writhing, lay still.
Oleja had only half a second to congratulate herself on the victory before a strong hand grabbed her by the throat and threw her backwards. Stars danced in her vision as her back struck something hard. She slumped against its surface, and only after shaking the dizziness from her head did she realize she had her back against one stilt of the guard tower. The second eclipser stood before her, a woman, just as tall and intimidating as the first one. She, too, wielded a sword, and made quite sure Oleja saw it as she held it below her chin, the tip only a hair’s breadth from her neck.
Movement behind the eclipser caught Oleja’s attention. It was the boy again. He sprinted down the incline towards the lever.
If anyone was going to pull that lever and free the people in the canyon, it was going to be her.
He reached the lever and grabbed it with both hands.
“Wait!” shouted Oleja as loud as she could muster.
The boy turned, confusion plain on his face even from a distance. He hesitated, hands still on the lever.
A rock flew through the air, hurtling towards the boy. With a yelp, he ducked as it flew just over his head and slammed into the wall behind him. On impact, the lever, crank, and several gears crumpled, reduced to broken hunks of metal adorning the wall. Oleja looked to where the rock came from.
Approaching the tower were two more eclipsers, one toting a spear, while the other carried a war hammer gripped in both hands—the head so large it might have seemed comical in any situation where Oleja was not pinned against a post with a blade to her throat and reinforcements approaching. Under such circumstances, the mere idea that the eclipser possessed strength enough to wield something so large filled her ears with the pounding sounds of her heartbeat. The one with the spear approached the boy, who had nowhere to run at the end of the canyon and thus no option but to stare down the approaching eclipser. He did so with surprising boldness, though there was no hiding the fear that clutched him tightly. The eclipser grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him up to the tower.
“This is the one from the mining camp,” said the eclipser with her sword to Oleja’s throat, speaking to the others though keeping her eyes on Oleja. “The boy is just a stable hand.” Surprise filled Oleja as she heard the eclipsers speak, and in her language no less. Though it seemed silly now, she had always thought them too barbaric to communicate in such ways—she had imagined something more along the lines of grunts and howls. But that was hardly the most pressing thing about the situation.
The eclipser with the war hammer stepped up behind the one at Oleja’s throat. “That glider thing… you make that yourself?” she asked, dropping the hammer to the ground with a thunderous boom that shook the ground and made the guard tower at her back rattle and creak. Oleja kept her mouth shut, eyes locked on the eclipser’s.
“Should I pry the words out of her myself?” asked the one with the sword. Oleja’s pulse quickened.
“No, The Earthtremor may have other plans,” said the second, who seemed to be in some position of authority. “Reurl and I will go to seek council and then return. Remain here and guard the prisoners.” She grabbed a coil of rope from where it hung at her belt. The eclipser with the spear—Reurl—pushed the boy to stand against the post beside Oleja. Their captors stripped away all belongings from the two of them and piled them a few feet away, then quickly bound them, wrapping them tightly with rope—first across their shoulders, then their arms and wrists, and then down to their thighs. The boy struggled when they started to tie them up, but his rebellious efforts were quickly suppressed. Oleja let them do it. She could escape from this.
When the taut rope scraped against the gash in her forearm, Oleja winced. The eclipser who held it only sneered. Oleja kicked herself for showing any weakness. She clenched her teeth and forced through the stinging as the rope chafed against her raw and bleeding wound.
With the knots pulled tight, the two eclipsers hurried off in the direction of the walled fortress. The third stood guard, pacing around them. This was the time for escape—when there were two of them and only one eclipser. They had to make themselves scarce before the others returned.
“Oleja… Oleja what do we do,” asked the boy in a hushed tone. She shot him a glance in response but said nothing. He furrowed his brow. “What… come on, we need a plan.” She tugged against her bonds to nudge him. Still she said nothing. He turned away, blinking in confusion.
Oleja looked down to the gate and the obliterated machinery. There was no way they could get the gate open without it—the only other way would be to push the gate ajar with brute force, and given that the slab rose up taller than her at least three times over, the odds of her managing to do so seemed—at best—zero. Even an eclipser would struggle with such a task.
She could fix the mechanisms, sure, but for that she needed time—far more than she had. As ashamed as she was to admit defeat, her best course of action at the moment was to free herself so she could return and finish what she started on another day.
Freeing herself from the bonds was the easy part—the question of where to go next posed the dilemma. She could not fight all of the eclipsers herself. She had been counting on having an army for that part. She had to go somewhere, and it seemed only two options sat before her.
She could find a way to get back down into her village in the canyon. If she could scale down the wall, she might be safe inside. She could hide in the maze of mine tunnels underground. At least, until the eclipsers dug her out by whatever means necessary.
Or, she could keep running. Head out into the world beyond. She knew nothing of it—in the canyon, food was handed to her. Where would she find it for herself? And what other dangers lay waiting for her to encounter? She didn’t know the first thing about surviving out there—she had spent her whole life in that hole in the ground, and everyone she had ever known lived the same way.
But if she went back into the canyon, she’d have no glider and need a new plan. The eclipsers would learn from their mistakes; they were smarter than she expected. Getting out again would likely require several more years of planning, if she could figure out a new plan at all.
If she ran off into the wilds, at least she retained her newly-acquired freedom. At least she could return on her own terms to free the people of her village and kill the eclipsers.
Off into the wilderness it was, then.
She turned to see the boy looking at her, still lost but seeming to get more panicked as time passed. The other eclipsers would return soon, perhaps with an even larger force, or an order to kill the two of them. Oleja watched their lone captor as she paced. She walked several paces away and surveyed the way down to the gate and metal carnage on the wall that once comprised the opening mechanism.
With her tongue, Oleja dislodged the item in her mouth from where she held it inside her cheek. She clamped it between her teeth and parted her lips. The boy, still watching her, contorted his face into a look of surprise and realization. Clenched between her teeth she held a sharp piece of flint.
Oleja bowed her head and scraped the sharpest edge along the rope. It was an awkward angle, but she moved her head back and forth, sawing into the rope. Her braid fell into her face multiple times as she worked. Loose strands of hair caught in her mouth. Several long moments passed as the boy looked back and forth from her to the guard with a pleading gaze. At last, the final coarse threads snapped, and the rope started to unravel. With some help from the two of them as they pushed away from the stilt of the tower, it fell to the ground
in a heap. Oleja scooped up her bow and quiver just as the guard turned around.
“Hey, sto—” was all she managed to get out before an arrow sailed through her open mouth and she fell twitching into the dirt.
“What now?” asked the boy, following Oleja in scooping up his belongings.
“I can’t remain here. I’m leaving until I can figure out a plan to get everyone else free. You…” She paused and looked to him. He couldn’t remain any more than she could. He made a choice to aid her, whether she wanted it or not, and now they would be after him just the same. She sighed. “You should come too. It won’t be safe for you here.”
He met her gaze and his lips curled into a smile. “I’ll make sure I don’t slow you down, but unfortunately I can’t fly. I’m Pahlo, by the way. Where to?”
“Considering east will lead us straight into the heart of their camp, I’d say west—the more distance between us and them, the better.”
Pahlo cast a wary glance east. “No need to convince me.”
Oleja spun and looked west. The canyon crossed their path, but the south wall could serve as a bridge. She looked back to Pahlo.
“Best make ourselves scarce before the guards return,” she said. And then she took off running.
Chapter Six
A low fire burned between the two of them, built from scattered twigs and part of a shrub Oleja pulled from the sandy soil. It had put up a fight, something Pahlo explained was due to “roots”—parts of the plant under the ground. Oleja refused to give up. She could best even the toughest plant, no matter how much of it thought it could hide underground.
The fire popped and sent a spray of embers into the air. Skewered on a stick, Oleja roasted two small rodents over the flame, the only animals she had managed to catch all day. Foolishly, she left the village with no food and only a small supply of water, which was now almost gone. Pahlo carried little more in his own supplies. While lacking in food and water, he did have a small strip of clean bandage, which Oleja used to dress the wound on her forearm. But bandaging her wound offered no favors to her empty belly. By this point in the evening, she had expected to have free access to all the resources of her village, plus any stockpiles looted from the eclipser camp. She did not foresee a trek out into the desert, all alone save for the company of a strange boy she hardly knew. Perhaps she could have better prepared for failure, though in honesty, the only failure she could have anticipated was the death of herself and all of her people.
The desert proved more difficult than Oleja expected. Nothing she couldn’t handle, but harsher than she imagined the world beyond the canyon walls would be. For one thing, the sun was one of her least favorite celestial bodies at the moment. In the canyon, its light illuminated the ground throughout the day, but the sun itself was only visible—and shining directly down on them—for a period around midday, a time when most worked down in the mines. The canyon floor spent the rest of the day in the relatively cool shade offered to them by the immense cliffs all around.
Up on the surface, there was no escaping the sun. It shone down in full force throughout the entire day, and nothing stood tall enough to cast significant shade for her to seek refuge. In fact, the only real features of the dry, sandy landscape were the low shrubs and scraggly trees, the only spots of green amongst a great expanse of rolling red hills and flat plains that went on for ages. Oleja found herself aching to return to the enormous expanse of water she saw during her flight—the lake, Pahlo called it. There, perhaps she could immerse herself in the cool water, a break from the heat of the sun that made them burn and sweat and drink their water all too quickly.
During their walk they had reached the edge of a smaller canyon. It looked quite unlike the one Oleja had lived in all her life, as this one bore steep sloping sides that one could feasibly walk up or down, and descended not nearly so deep. Disappointingly, it also lacked a river running through the bottom. They decided not to cross it immediately, and instead follow the rim in hopes that they could go around without making the possibly treacherous descent and then grueling climb back up the other side. The canyon ran northwest, and so it did not deter them from their path too severely.
In truth, Oleja did not know what her path should be. Straying far from the canyon and her village would make for a difficult return. But what was she waiting for? Time to pass so the eclipsers could fix the gate mechanism? How long until that happened? The gate opened so rarely that there was no telling whether or not they even intended to fix it. She could do it herself, but to do so required reaching it first, and the guards from the tower would spot her before she got her tools out—if she could even get to the gate without raising the alarm.
“Careful not to burn them,” said Pahlo. Oleja looked down at the rodents. They grew crispy on one side, a result of her having not turned them in several minutes while lost in her own thoughts.
“I know what I’m doing. I like them that way.” Weariness weighed down her voice, a result of the long day of travel. It made the lie sound even less convincing.
Clearly, Pahlo picked up on it as well. He gave a single beat of laughter and then leaned back, stretching out in the sand. Over the course of the day’s walk they had exchanged stories of their captivity. Pahlo was also a slave of the eclipsers, though that much was clear upon meeting him. He worked aboveground, tending to the animals that the eclipsers kept for food and for other uses. Apparently, many slaves worked aboveground, but nowhere near the numbers from Oleja’s village. It seemed the mines were where the eclipsers concentrated their slave labor.
“They’re probably about done,” said Pahlo without even looking up to check on their supper.
“Yeah I was about to say that,” said Oleja. “Uh… hang on, I can probably…” She looked around for a second stick.
“Here, let me see it,” said Pahlo, holding out his hand. Oleja handed it to him after a moment of hesitation. He took the stick and poked one of the rodents, testing the temperature. Then, in haste to avoid a burn, he pushed the one lower on the stick down to the opposite end. After snapping the stick in the middle, he handed one half back to Oleja.
“Oh, yeah that works. Thanks.”
Pahlo ripped off a bite and chewed for a moment. “So, Oleja Raseari, what’s the plan?” He spoke through his food. The tone with which he said her name rang of playful mockery, a jab at her initial introduction. He reminded her of Ude—Ude, who probably thought she died in her attempt to free them all. She had to get back.
She swallowed a bite, then spoke. “The guard tower by the gate poses a problem. I can’t fix the opening mechanism without being seen, so I have to take the guards out first. It seems like they post two guards per tower; I can kill them both and then go to the gate, but I’ll have to surprise them and keep them from calling out or raising the alarm in any way, otherwise reinforcements will be close behind. I’ll also have to make sure I go unseen as I approach, otherwise they’ll raise the alarm and… well, you know. But that’s tricky because there’s no natural cover. So, I’d have to get there unseen, kill them before they can call out, and then fix the mechanism and open the gate before the guards change shifts. I don’t know when that is, so I might have to scope it out for a few days first. But, again, there’s no natural cover, so I’m not sure where I’d hide out.” Pahlo looked on with an increasingly skeptical expression. Normally, she would be angry at receiving such a look, but the tiredness staved off irritation. Her shoulders slumped. Pahlo mirrored her own concerns. “In other words… I’m working on it.”
“Hey, no worries, we’ll figure it out. Maybe we can find some other people who will help or something.”
We. She could do this on her own, he only tagged along because he had nowhere else to go. If she enacted a stealthy plan, the fewer bodies she had to keep hidden the better. It would be best if she went alone. And she especially didn’t need to get even more people involved—more people who would get in the way, people who could falter and leave the whole plan in shambles i
f given too much responsibility. It only expanded the possibilities for failure, multiplied the weak links. No, she had to do this alone.
Pahlo chewed, deep in thought, then perked up after a moment and turned his eyes upwards to hers.
“Why did you tell me to wait when I grabbed the lever?”
Oleja’s heart caught in her chest. What could she tell him? That she wanted to be the one to pull it so that she could be the hero? That sounded too selfish. Her heart thudded in her chest. She slowed her chewing, using it as an excuse to put off her answer. A moment passed. She swallowed.
“I saw the other two eclipsers approaching. I thought if you opened the gate, they would kill you for it.”
The lie sounded weak—she knew it did. Pahlo did not look convinced. He started to open his mouth to say more, but he was cut off by a sound in the dark—footsteps, and many of them. The flurry of footfalls sounded too soft to indicate eclipsers, but they were accompanied by something else: a dragging, scraping noise.
Oleja scanned the dark landscape until she saw the source—a shape, indistinguishable, but moving towards them.
“Grab your things…” Oleja said in a cautionary tone. She shoved the last of her supper into her mouth and rose to her feet, nocking an arrow.
Closer and closer the form drew as details presented themselves. It was not one thing, but many. Eight animals in two rows bound by harnesses and tethers, together pulling something large behind them. Oleja squinted, trying to make out the shape of their cargo. As they got closer still, the firelight helped to reveal what approached.
The creatures ran on four legs. Sand-colored fur covered their bodies, from their pointed ears and snouts to their bushy tails. They howled and snarled and gnashed their teeth at Oleja and Pahlo, but their harnesses held them back. The tethers ran down the line to a structure of metal and wood. A platform of wooden slats rested upon two long, flat beams of metal which slid across the sand. On the platform, steering the sled, stood an eclipser shrouded from head to toe in gleaming silver armor.
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