The Witchstone Amulet

by Mason Thomas

  His voice remained low and severe, bitterness and anger lacing every word.

  The room was a small single-room apartment, with a bed against one wall and a round table in a corner. The table and the floor around it were buried beneath books and rolls of parchment documents, hastily deposited. Rescued from the hideout, no doubt. Incriminating details that should they fall into the hands of the palace could put even more people in danger. The cupboard was stocked with various bags, jugs, and crates. More were stacked in the corner. Provisions for long-term hole up.

  “How many made it out?” Zinnuvial asked.

  “Yet unclear,” Quinnar said. Now that Corrad was gone, his air of dominion seemed to languish. The Quinnar of before, who flaunted his superiority like a parade float, was gone. Now Hunter faced a man crushed beneath the heft of fatigue, grief, and failure. “We are still trying to ascertain the damage. Scouts have only started to report in.” He leaned his backside on the edge of the table and entwined his arms. “I am sorry, Hunter, this means I will not be able to honor our agreement quite yet.”

  Hunter’s insides twisted. He’d already figured that to be the case, but hearing Quinnar say it stabbed at his hopes. Another delay before he could begin his search for a way home. How many more days before he could put this resistance fight behind him once and for all?

  He sighed inwardly, feeling like a self-absorbed ass. People died tonight, he reminded himself.

  “What of Dax?” he asked. He was afraid to hear the answer.

  Silence.

  Quinnar lifted his eyes Hunter’s way, as if to read how much Hunter might now know or had guessed. “No word. He left before the attack began.”

  Hunter rubbed the corner of his eye where a pain flared behind it. “Because you sent him into there on this stupid and reckless mission of yours.”

  Quinnar looked off at the wall in front of him. “He volunteered. He came to me last night and said he was going.”

  “Of course he did.” Hunter wanted to hate Quinnar but was surprised he couldn’t. Not now. Not after what happened. His simmering anger was aimed more at Dax. The fucker could have declined the mission. But his maddening sense of duty governed every decision he made. Underneath Hunter’s fury, a sickening pool of worry ate at his insides. “If he fails, he’s dead. And if he succeeds, your problems have only just begun.”

  Quinnar let his chin drop. “I’m quite certain our problems cannot become worse.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  Quinnar tried to smile, but the attempt was largely a sad failure. “Rest,” he said. “We control all of the tenements on this floor. But I would ask that you remain here for now.”

  “Anything I can do to help? Since I’m here.”

  “A generous offer. Considering. But… best, I think, if you remain here and out of sight for the time being.”

  Hunter nodded. Quinnar moved toward the door, and Hunter and Zinnuvial exchanged a glance.

  “I will keep you apprised,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Thanks,” Hunter replied. It was all he could ask for at the moment.

  She followed Quinnar out of the room, leaving Hunter with the quiet sobs of Uri in the corner.

  Hunter frowned. He could understand Uri being upset by the attack—the loss of life, loss of his home, the fear for his own life as they fled—but Hunter suspected there was more to it. Uri’s reaction seemed triggered by more than just fear and grief. The members of the resistance were at best tolerant or dismissive of him. Others were outright hostile. His reaction didn’t seem to fit.

  He crossed the room, sat on the floor next to him, and leaned against the wall.

  “Uri, what’s going on?” he asked.

  Uri’s eyes remained downcast. He tried to rein in the sobs, and hiccupped instead. He wiped his cheeks and under his nose with his sleeves. “Didn’t think they’d—” He cut himself off, a lump forming in his throat as if he’d swallowed his tongue. His shoulders constricted, and he turned his face away.

  Sudden dread burned a hole through Hunter’s gut. “Didn’t think they’d what?”

  Uri didn’t reply.

  Hunter took in a long breath to calm himself, but he felt the tide of panic and horror pressing in under his skin. “Who are you talking about, Uri?”

  Still, Uri remained silent. His breathing was hard, like a trapped animal.

  “Holy shit, Uri,” Hunter breathed. “What have you done?”

  A sharp defensiveness leapt into Uri’s voice. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Do you hate them so much that you would do this?”

  He looked up, a flash of fire in his red and puffy eyes. “I don’t hate them! They are my friends.”

  “Some are. Some were cruel to you.” Hunter bent and turned his head to look directly into Uri’s eyes. “You were the one who gave up the location of the hideout.”

  Uri turned his eyes away with a sudden intake of breath but didn’t say anything.

  “I suppose,” Hunter continued, “you were the one who tipped off the Black Brotherhood, too, when I was sent to warn Yvenne.” A knot of anger flared in his stomach—that betrayal had almost gotten him killed as well—but he forced the anger to remain out of his voice, forced a level of calm he did not feel. “I remember how you came into the room during the meeting just long enough to hear the plan.”

  Uri’s face hardened. He huffed and stared down at his boots.

  “No point in denying any of it now,” Hunter said. It made sense now why Uri resisted Hunter’s plan to get him out of the hideout. He was the mole, and if he left, he couldn’t fulfill the mission.

  Why now, though, he wondered. Why did the raid on the hideout happen now? What was the trigger? He considered that maybe Uri was nervous, that he was close to being found out. But that wouldn’t have mattered to the palace. They wouldn’t spring the ambush on Uri’s outlook. Then Hunter remembered that Quinnar had sent word to have many of the resistance’s supporters retreat back to the hideout. It explained why so many were in the tunnels tonight. Members from all over the city had fled into the hideout to avoid getting picked up by the city guard. Had that been the plan all along? Trick the resistance into calling back their members, then strike?

  “Tell Quinnar whatever you want,” Uri grumbled. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Not exactly an admission, per se, but it was enough to convince Hunter he was right. “I think it does matter. I’ve no intention saying of anything to Quinnar. Not yet. Because I suspect you had a good reason to do what you did.”

  “You should have left me in there.”

  “So you could die with the others? No. That’s not the way this ends. Talk to me. Or I will get Quinnar and you can tell him.”

  A thick silence settled between them while Uri stared at the floor between his boots.

  “I didn’t want to,” Uri said eventually in a very small voice.

  “I believe you,” Hunter replied. “What did they have over you?”

  “Over me?” Uri asked, confused.

  “How did they force you to do this?”

  Uri looked tentative, afraid to speak. “You’ll not tell Quinnar?”

  Hunter bit the inside of his cheek in thought. “Not if I can avoid it.”

  Uri took in a prolonged breath and let it out slowly—a stalling tactic. He was clearly still reluctant to own up to it. “My mother.”

  Hunter stayed quiet and let him talk. After holding this secret in, he knew that once Uri’s words started to flow, it would be hard to stop them.

  “I started running errands for the resistance about a year ago. Didn’t know what I was running, but they gave me a coin each time. Over time, I learned more. Did more. Ma found out what I was doing. She was really mad about that—mostly because she feared it would get us kicked out of the city. We struggled enough as it is. Scared, she asked someone we knew what we should do.”

  “And they turned you in.”

  Uri nodded. “Came home
and she wasn’t there. But two city guards and a man in black leather armor were at our table eating our food. The man in black said they had her in the palace dungeon. Said if I didn’t do what they told me to do, they would execute her. Put the head on a spike where I’d see it. But if I helped them, they said they would let her go. I don’t think they ever intended to do that. But I hoped they would.”

  “Bad men are like that.”

  Uri made another slow affirming nod.

  “They told me how to infiltrate the resistance. Build their trust. It worked. But when I began to know some of them better, like Dax, men who were kind to me despite my skin, I started to hope that the resistance would win and stop the men who had my mother. It felt good to be a part of what they were doing. I pretended that the time I was to betray them would never come.”

  A fresh batch of tears pooled at the corners of his eyes.

  “This isn’t your fault, Uri.” He tried to force confidence into the words, but his voice was weaker than he intended. Images of bodies on the ground, the blood that was everywhere—all of it shouldered its way into his mind.

  “It is,” Uri replied. “I know what I’ve done. And when they find out, they will kill me.”

  “They won’t find out,” Hunter said. “Not from me.”

  Uri made a face that said he didn’t believe him.

  “You have my word,” Hunter added. The boy had been played. Used. And left to face the consequences of what he’d done. But it wasn’t his fault. Hunter forced himself to repeat his own words in his head, forced himself to at least pretend he believed them. Regardless of the carnage his actions had caused, it wasn’t his fault.

  “I betrayed everyone,” Uri continued. His voice took on a strange and cold quality that made Hunter uneasy. Uri’s affect became detached, and it made the hair on Hunter’s arms lift. “Even those that treated me kindly. And for what? They probably killed my mother weeks ago. I don’t know, maybe I’ll just tell Quinnar myself.”

  Hunter grabbed his arm. “Listen to me. They gave you no choice but to do what they said.”

  Uri didn’t respond. Instead he stared at the ground between his bent knees.

  But something that Uri said made Hunter’s inside congeal into cement. Even those that treated him kindly.

  He rose to his feet and crossed the room, fingers raking through his hair.

  “Dax,” he said. He kept his back to Uri, unable to bring himself to look at him. “You told them of the plan to send Dax into the palace.”

  A long, thick silence followed that felt like waiting for an executioner’s ax. “I had to.”

  Did he? Hunter screamed into his head. Did he have to tell them about Dax? He fought the urge to spin about and drag Uri from the floor and shake him. The acidic truth ate at his gut. They knew about Dax. They knew he was going to enter the palace and try to assassinate the imposter. Uri might as well have slit Dax’s throat himself.

  His feet stammered. His insides retreated until nothing remained but a cold void. He wanted to launch out of the room and call for Quinnar. He had to be told. Maybe something could be done to get a warning to Dax. Find a way to abort the mission. Get him the fuck out of there. Something!

  But if Hunter told Quinnar what he knew, he’d also have to tell him where he got the information. Exposing Uri.

  He’d made a promise. And if he broke it, Hunter knew what would happen to Uri.

  Dax was smart, he told himself. Skilled in ways that Hunter would never be able to understand. There was a solid chance he could slip through their net and escape unharmed. There was a chance. But all Hunter could do now was wait. And hope.

  But hope was in thin supply.

  27

  THE HOURS that followed in silence were agony. The two of them didn’t speak again. Hunter couldn’t bring himself to give the boy any more comfort even though he knew he should, and Uri clearly needed it. Hunter was too heartsick, too angry, and too worried for Dax to muster up the strength and put it all aside. Uri eventually curled up on the bed and fell asleep while Hunter sat on the floor and stared at the walls.

  He must have fallen asleep himself for a time, because his eyes sprung open when he heard the latch on the door.

  Quinnar, Zinnuvial, and Corrad moved into the room as Hunter crawled to his feet. The three of them looked haggard, exhausted. Even Corrad, for all his conceit and bullishness, seemed defeated. He leaned against the doorjamb, blocking most of the light from the hall outside, looking sulky and hostile. Quinnar stepped into the center of the room, thumbs tucked into the front of his belt. He didn’t waste any time on pretense, and Hunter could see on his face the news was not good. He had the look of a man who’d lost everything.

  “We’ve received word from our sources inside. Dax has been captured. They knew he was coming.”

  The room seemed to shrink as a raw stillness filled the space between them like a toxic cloud. He forced himself not to look in the direction of the bed, at Uri. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not that Uri was asleep and hadn’t heard the news.

  “I knew you’d want to know,” Quinnar added as he turned to leave. Corrad and Zinnuvial moved to follow him.

  “But he’s alive,” Hunter prodded.

  Quinnar nodded, hand on the latch. “For now. His public execution is being arranged. For as early as tomorrow.”

  “The imposter made an unscheduled appearance on the balcony,” Zinnuvial said. “Likely to send a message to us that the mission had failed and that she was still alive.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “My hands are tied, Hunter. There isn’t anything we can do,” Quinnar said.

  No. That wasn’t acceptable. “Someone has to go in there and rescue him.”

  “That is not possible.”

  “You’re just going to sit with your thumb up your ass while he’s executed?”

  Anger flashed behind Quinnar’s eyes as he took a hard step closer to Hunter. “I will not risk more people. Not even for him. Our losses this day have been too great already.” His lower lip trembled as he spoke. This decision to leave Dax to his fate was shredding away at his insides.

  Hunter understood. But he wasn’t about to accept it. He closed his eyes and pulled in a breath. “Then I’ll do it.”

  The words spilled out of his mouth before he was consciously aware of it. His heart rate quickened. He knew he was being impulsive and stupid. But why wouldn’t he volunteer? How many times had Dax saved his life? Hunter owed him at least that.

  But from a dark corner of his mind, Hunter knew he wasn’t being fully honest with himself. That wasn’t the real reason. He needed an answer. He needed to look Dax in the eye and ask why he came to him last night.

  From the doorway, Corrad made a low grunt of a laugh.

  “You?” Quinnar replied with genuine surprise.

  He rested his thumb and forefinger on his hipbones and stared at the floorboards a moment. What the fuck was he doing? “Tell me how to get in there. And I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  Zinnuvial shook her head. “You’ll be captured or dead before you step one foot into the castle yard.”

  Corrad shrugged. “Let the dolt try. All the better, I say. He gets himself killed, problem solved.”

  Quinnar threw him a stern glare to silence him. “Zinnuvial is right. You wouldn’t make it past the outer walls. Every inch of the perimeter will be watched. Dax was skilled at such matters, and we can see what happened to him.”

  Only because someone was tipped off, Hunter thought. “How did Dax get in?”

  “Scaled the south wall,” Zinnuvial said.

  Hunter couldn’t hide his surprise. “He climbed it?”

  Zinnuvial nodded.

  They were right about that, at least. He’d never be able to do that. Not without a grappling hook and rope anyway—and that would be rather conspicuous. “Well, no place is impenetrable. There has to be another way in.”

  The three of them seemed to stiffen, and H
unter felt some cryptic communication pass between them. Corrad raised his eyebrows at Zinnuvial. “Tell him,” he prodded with a sinister grin.

  Quinnar looked annoyed. “We’ve been over this. A thousand times.”

  Hunter felt the spark of hope renew in his gut. “I’m right, aren’t I. You know of a way in.”

  Zinnuvial sighed, clearly reluctant. “There may be. It has not been tried.”

  “I’m listening,” Hunter replied.

  Quinnar shook his head. “This will only serve to get you killed.”

  “I’ll decide for myself, thank you,” Hunter said. “Tell me.”

  Zinnuvial put her hands on her hips and looked at the floor. “Water from the river is diverted through a conduit underneath the castle. It’s their source for clean water and for removing waste. Some have speculated a person could swim through it to get inside.”

  “The conduit entrance is far west at the outskirts of city,” Quinnar added. “It’s there to prevent soiled water from the city contaminating their supply. We’ve calculated the distance, Hunter. It’s too far for one person to traverse underwater.”

  “No other access points along the way?”

  “None that we’ve found,” Quinnar replied.

  “If there are any, they are a safely guarded secret,” Zinnuvial added. “The designers must have anticipated the potential threat.”

  Corrad leaned in with a grin. “And there is no guarantee there aren’t any metal grates blocking access along the way or if the conduit is even wide enough throughout. It might narrow or break up into smaller pipes. No one knows.”

  Hunter wasn’t small, certainly. But with all the cooking, cleaning, and bathing happening within the walls, the water needs of the castle would be extensive. It stood to reason that the conduit in would be big enough to sustain those needs.