Rebels and Fools (The Renegade Chronicles Book 1)

by David Michael Williams

  As a Knight of Superius, Ragellan had participated in more than a few battles, and he knew that this one was bound to be long and bloody. He and Horcalus were unarmed and in the midst of the melee. Fortunately, for the moment, the scrimmages were confined to the perimeter of the common room, but should the city’s soldiers push the pirates back…

  “Where is Plake?” Horcalus shouted.

  When Ragellan looked back at the bar, he could not believe his eyes. Plake was gone. Too frustrated to even swear, Ragellan frantically looked all around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the familiar ram-skin tunic and dung-stained pants. He looked back toward the stairs, thinking that perhaps Plake had wisely retreated back up to their rooms.

  Instead, he saw Othello descending them and making his way to them. The archer had his bow strewn over one shoulder and carried two scabbards in his hands. Wordlessly, Othello thrust the covered weapons at the knights.

  “Did you see Plake on your way down?” Ragellan asked the forester.

  “No,” Othello said and then pointed to the group of pirates who had rushed the Captain of the Three Guards. “He fights beside the man we saw leaving Leslie Beryl’s office.”

  Ragellan didn’t fully understand what Othello was saying, but a second look proved that Plake was indeed among the pirates harassing the guards near the inn’s entrance. The rancher had acquired a club and was doing his best to bat at the guards without getting too near their blades.

  Alongside Plake fought a dark-haired pirate with a gleaming cutlass. Klye had mentioned seeing someone leaving Leslie’s office when he and the others had entered it, but he hadn’t gotten a good look at him. Ragellan didn’t doubt Othello’s words—though he couldn’t fathom what the pirates had to do with Leslie Beryl.

  “We have to flee!” Horcalus urged. “Plake can fend for himself. Let him join the pirates, if he wishes.”

  Ragellan was tempted to do just that, but Klye had entrusted the rancher to his care. If Plake were captured, he would undoubtedly tell the guards everything he knew about the Renegades. Besides, as angry as he was with Plake at that moment, Ragellan could not bring himself to simply abandon him.

  As a Superian Commander, he had never left a man behind, and he would not do so now.

  “We get Plake first. Then we leave.” He knew Horcalus would never question his orders; he could only hope that the forester would follow suit. “Othello, go up and get the rest of our supplies. We’ll grab Plake and rendezvous with you at the docks.”

  It was the first place that came to mind. It was also the only place in Port Town he knew how to get to. As the archer made his way back to the stairs, Ragellan turned back to where he had last seen Plake and his pirate friend, but Plake was gone.

  “Feol’s fools,” Ragellan swore. “Did you see where Plake wandered off to?”

  But before Horcalus could answer, three guardsmen approached, having broken through the barricade of pirate bodies.

  “Drop your weapons and surrender!” one of the guards commanded.

  He and Horcalus were not pirates, but they were rogue knights. Ragellan had no intention of being taken by the law, and since there was nothing he could say right then that to convince the soldiers to leave them alone, he decided to let his weapon do the talking for him.

  Drawing his broadsword, Ragellan lunged forward at the guard, startling his opponents and Horcalus alike.

  * * *

  Three more arrows bounced off the tunnel wall, all of them perilously close to their intended targets. Klye yanked Leslie down to her knees. The unknown archers were firing from farther back and from the opposite side of the canal. He could make out nothing but vague shapes moving along the other ledge.

  “Where did all this fog come from?” Scout asked, but they had no time to ponder the mysteries of weather.

  Klye could hear footsteps coming from the way they had come—from their side of the canal. He reflexively reached for a sword but found only air.

  “We have to run,” Leslie said, voicing his own thoughts.

  Their assailants would have a much harder time hitting a moving target, especially in the fog…

  “Follow me,” Scout said, “and try not to get lost.”

  A few arrows plinked past them as they ran. He kept a hand on Leslie’s upper arm because he knew he was the more surefooted of the two. She didn’t object.

  The archers following them on the other side of the water must have found it too difficult to shoot and run at the same time, for soon the arrows stopped altogether. But Klye could hear them shouting, calling across the canal to one another.

  They spoke in a language he didn’t recognize. The harsh syllables were even more angry-sounding than the Korekish tongue. He thought he even heard a few growls, but it must have been his imagination. Klye wondered if Scout, who had boasted of his intelligence earlier, could identify the language, but he was breathing too hard to pose the sarcastic question.

  After a few more turns, Klye was sure they had lost the archers, for the opposite ledge had disappeared, branching off into another tunnel. There hadn’t been a bridge or any other way for their pursuers to cross over, except through the water itself.

  To his chagrin, Klye thought he heard splashing somewhere behind him.

  What could these people want? he wondered. Were they city guards, hunting for Renegades? That didn’t explain the strange language they spoke or how they would have known he and his companions were Renegades to begin to with.

  He almost plowed right into Scout, who had come to a sudden stop.

  “What is it?” Leslie asked breathlessly.

  “A dead end.”

  Klye’s heart sank, but then Scout said, “Oh, wait. There are some rungs in the side of the wall. They must lead up to the surface.”

  “Get going,” Klye ordered.

  The hooded Renegade ran over to the rungs and began to climb them with the grace of a spider monkey. Leslie followed, though she stopped halfway up because Scout was in her way.

  “Damn,” Scout said. “The grate is stuck.”

  Klye was going to suggest that he use his knife as he had done before at the Cathedral, but suddenly he and Leslie had a problem of their own. Four silhouettes rounded the corner in the distance, and once again he heard the queer language they spoke. He could only hope it was the group that had been following them on their side of the canal and that they weren’t equipped with bows and arrows like their allies.

  “Hurry up, Scout. They’re coming,” Leslie said.

  Klye had no idea who the foes could be, but as they came closer, he was certain of one thing: they weren’t human.

  The creatures moved with an animal-like gait and with a hunched manner that reminded him of a slinking raccoon. The fog was too thick to make out any details aside from the fact that while they had a slimmer build than men, they matched him in height.

  Just what in the hells had made its home in Port Town’s sewers? he wondered.

  “Got it,” Scout said, and Klye heard the scraping of the grate being pushed aside.

  “Go!” Klye said to Leslie, who was staring, wide-eyed, at the oncoming creatures. He gave her rump a not-so-gentle shove. “Move! I’ll be right behind you.”

  “You don’t even have a sword,” she argued. “You go first. I’ll—Klye!”

  Klye gasped as a sharp, burning pain exploded in his upper arm. Apparently, there was at least one archer in the group.

  “I’m all right,” he lied. This wasn’t the first time he’d taken an arrow, but this hurt worse than any of the others had. The initial burning sensation immediately gave way to a chill that was now surging through his arm and shoulder, numbing the pain but making him dizzy in the process.

  Another arrow sailed between them, lodging itself between two stones in the wall.

  Leslie jumped down from the rungs and pushed Klye toward them. “You are in my jurisdiction, Klye. Get moving!”

  Klye didn’t argue. If he stayed down there much longer, he
wasn’t sure he would be able to pull himself up the rungs. The freezing sensation was spreading to his chest, and his forehead was damp with cold, slick sweat.

  It took him longer to climb up than it should have, and he hoped his sluggishness wouldn’t cost Leslie Beryl her life.

  Arms—Scout’s arms—pulled him out of the hole once he reached the top.

  “Hurry, Les,” Scout cried while Klye struggled to his feet.

  Klye looked around. They were in a room, a cellar by the looks of it. He leaned up against a web-covered wall and examined the shaft that protruded from his arm. It was a short bolt, most likely fired from a small variety of bow, maybe even a crossbow. Gingerly, he pulled at the shaft, but it was in deep, and even the minor tug sent waves of nausea through his body.

  Klye opened his eyes with a jerk, realizing that he must have closed them after pulling on the arrow. A fog thicker than that in the sewers had filled his brain, but he forced it away when he heard Leslie’s voice coming up through the grate.

  “Let go, you bastard!”

  Certain that she wasn’t addressing Scout, Klye flung himself back down beside the hole.

  “I can almost reach her, but one of those things has her leg,” Scout told him.

  An arrow pinged off the wall near Leslie’s head. In spite of the creature clinging onto her, Leslie managed to climb up another step.

  “You’re almost there,” coached Scout. “I can almost reach your hand. Just one more step.”

  “Ow! This thing has claws!” Leslie’s voice sounded like it was floating through water.

  Klye watched as Leslie, still clinging to the rungs with her left hand, drew her sword with her right and swung down at the creature. It shrieked and immediately released her leg.

  “Take my sword,” she said and raised it up at the hole.

  Without thinking—there didn’t seem time for that—Klye grabbed the weapon, cutting himself on the edge of the blade. He ignored the pain and cast the sword aside. Scout was already helping Leslie up through the hole. The two of them seemed to be moving unnaturally fast.

  “They’re right behind me,” Leslie said, retrieving her sword. “We might be able to cut them down one by one as they come up, but there might be more on the way. We…Klye, are you all right?”

  Judging by Leslie’s worried expression, Klye knew he didn’t look all right.

  “I’ll be fine,” he assured her, but it took all of his concentration not to collapse. He felt like he had downed an entire bottle of hard spirits, and Klye had never cared for the disorienting effects of drinking.

  He could only watch as Scout put the grate back in place. The last thing he saw was Scout and Leslie struggling to push a large chest over to the hole. Then he could fight the dizziness no longer and slumped to the floor.

  Passage IX

  DeGrange knew he ought to concentrate all his mental capacity on dispatching the buccaneers in the inn—that one thoughtless maneuver could well be his last—but he found his thoughts drifting from the bedlam raging around him to his morning meeting with Crofton Beryl.

  Whereas the night before, the mayor had been reluctant to deal with the pirates, today he wanted the Three Guards to confront them on both fronts. The coastal guard was to attack the two pirate ships, while DeGrange led a unit of city guards and pier guards into the inn where the other pirates were hiding. He had no idea what had changed the mayor’s mind, but there was a light in the mayor’s eyes that troubled him.

  Looking like he hadn’t slept all night, Crofton Beryl had ordered an all-out attack on the pirates, dismissing DeGrange’s strategies as unnecessary.

  “Surround the inn and order them to surrender. If they do not, then kill them,” the mayor had said. “What is so difficult about that?”

  DeGrange had grudgingly agreed to the mayor’s simple tactic. If the mayor wanted to make a statement to the other criminals in Port Town, the showy siege of Oars and Omens would do the trick.

  But they had underestimated the number of pirates holed up in the place. Now DeGrange and his men were overwhelmed by the enemy, without any proper route for reinforcements to join the battle.

  The Captain of the Three Guards found himself up against the man who had ordered the pirates to attack, presumably their leader. Realizing this one-eyed buccaneer had probably fought his way to the top, DeGrange tried, again, to shut out everything else and concentrate on cutting him down.

  However, something else the mayor had said troubled DeGrange even more than his change of heart toward the pirate problem. Somehow, Mayor Beryl had gotten the idea in his head that Father Elezar, the High Priest of Aladon’s Cathedral, was a Renegade sympathizer. Elezar and the mayor had once been good friends. How could he believe something so preposterous?

  DeGrange had stationed a few of his men outside of the church—he couldn’t defy the mayor’s orders, after all—but he knew it was a waste of time and manpower. The High Priest was no Renegade, just as the pirates were not in league with the Renegades, as the mayor had also predicted.

  Had Crofton Beryl gone completely mad, seeing Renegades at every turn?

  After the pirates were dealt with, DeGrange swore he would do something about Crofton Beryl. The man was no longer fit to govern the city. His wife’s death had surely affected him more than anyone had guessed. As he parried the swing of the one-eyed pirate’s cutlass, he wondered if the mayor would accuse him of being a Renegade next.

  A mob of pirates and pier guards surged between DeGrange and his foe, and the pirate king was lost among the crowd. DeGrange sought to pursue him, but his eyes caught movement by the stairs. Fearing that even more pirates were arriving to join the fray, he let the pirate king go and prepared to warn his men to watch their flank.

  He was relieved when it turned out to be but one man descending from the inn’s second story. The fellow didn’t even look like a pirate. DeGrange was about to rejoin the fray when light caught the fellow’s eyes. He paused, certain that he knew this tall man with startlingly green eyes—but from where?

  Something was different about him…he had been wearing something else…

  That’s it! DeGrange thought, practically shouting the words out loud. Green Eyes had worn a long, brown robe when he was in the company of two other monks at the Cathedral. Then he recalled the cloaked figure he had seen aboard Stalwart Mariner.

  Green Eyes wasn’t wearing the robes anymore; he wore a quiver full of arrows on his back and a bow slung over his shoulder. He carried two sheathed swords in his hands.

  A pirate with black hair and the beginnings of a bluish beard came forward, and DeGrange met him sword to sword. He countered stroke after stroke, but his head was spinning as he remembered another bit of news the mayor had told him this morning.

  Word had come from Continae that two rogue Knights of Superius had escaped the Citadel Dungeon. Might the Renegade knights and their accomplices have stowed away on Stalwart Mariner?

  He spared a quick glance at Green Eyes and saw the man hand the swords over to two men. DeGrange almost dropped his sword when he was finally able to get a good look at them. By the gods above and below, Green Eyes’ friends perfectly matched the description of the rogue knights!

  “Take those two men alive!” DeGrange shouted to the guards that were in earshot, gesturing at the rogue knights with free hand. “The King of Superius himself has issued a reward for their capture. Take them alive!”

  He cared nothing for the bounty, but if he captured the rogue knights, he would at least have the answers to some of his questions. Green Eyes and his friends had been trying to get into the Cathedral when he found them the night before. Could Crofton Beryl have been right about Father Elezar after all?

  DeGrange failed to see his opponent’s ruse for what it was. He swung his sword to the right, attempting to parry the strike that never came. Instead, the pirate feinted and came in from the left, scoring a direct hit to DeGrange’s middle.

  He knew it was a fatal blow before he
even hit the floor. As his lifeblood flowed onto the worn wooden planks, he cursed himself for getting so distracted in the midst of a melee.

  As he began to cough, DeGrange realized he wasn’t truly angry with the pirate who had stabbed and who had moved on to the next opponent. DeGrange had faced death time and time again as a protector of the city. It had only been a matter of time before he ended up at the end of some ne’er-do-well’s sword.

  What irked him more than anything was that he would never solve the mystery of the rogue knights and the High Priest. The pain in his gut was a mere annoyance in comparison. He watched three city guardsmen push their way over to where the rogue knights were standing, though Green Eyes was nowhere in sight.

  Let the living deal with treacherous knights, murderous pirates, and mad mayors. His last thought was a prayer to the gods, beseeching them to watch over his wife and daughter.

  Then he closed his eyes and died.

  * * *

  Though his broadsword was heavier than the guardsman’s weapon—a smaller, curved sword—Ragellan proved quicker than his opponent, who belatedly attempted to parry the stroke. The flat of Ragellan’s blade connected with the side of the soldier’s unprotected head. Stunned, the soldier fell to the floor.

  But there were two more to take his place.

  “Surrender, and you will not be harmed,” urged one of the guards.

  Ragellan paused only an instant before launching himself into an offensive routine. The poor guards didn’t stand a chance. He and Horcalus had been trained by the best swordsmen in Superius. While Ragellan’s new adversary was quicker than the last, the knight used his strength to compensate.

  He struck harder with every stroke, the broadsword sounding like an old cowbell as it clanged against the other blade. To the soldier’s credit, he didn’t let go of his weapon, though his wrist was surely suffering from the repeated impacts.

  The guardsman stubbornly maintained his grip on the sword, unable to do much else but defend against the knight’s barrage of steel. He parried again and again, until a fine crack formed near the middle of his cutlass. The next time he intercepted the broadsword, his cutlass shattered into several pieces.