by CW Thomas
She reached down to help her stepbrother, but Broderick, ever the independent one, ignored her outstretched hand. He pushed himself up and shook his head.
Dana led him down the northeastern turret, through the kitchen, and into the castle’s dimly lit cellar. Khalous was there, funneling women and children into the narrow tunnel. The look on his face when he saw Dana and Broderick was nothing short of rage.
“Why in all the bloody hells are you two still here? By the gods, get your asses in the tunnel now!”
Dana and Broderick hurried into the dark tunnel. It was one of several that had been dug many centuries ago as an emergency exit for the king and queen. Each tunnel wove under Aberdour before emptying out in a discreet location far away from the city. The northern tunnel, she knew, led to a cave that zigzagged through dark mountainous crags until it emerged on the eastern slopes of a rocky hillside. The southern tunnel went to a cave in the low-lying woods, much like the eastern tunnel that they were in now.
The underground passageway was almost completely dark, with rocks and severed roots tugging at the tips of Dana’s leather shoes. Khalous trailed behind them with a torch that battled with their shadows to properly light the way.
“Dana?” Broderick said. “Where are mama and papa?”
She couldn’t answer. She didn’t want to. She had already witnessed the hearts of her other siblings break at the news, and she didn’t think she could stomach breaking another.
Choking back her grief, she said, “They are gone.”
The tunnel shook, rattling dirt from the ceiling as a gust of air surged toward them from the castle.
“What was that?” Broderick asked.
“Soldiers have collapsed the entrance,” she guessed.
Dana stopped and looked behind her. She saw Khalous standing motionless in the tunnel, his black and silver hair nearly scraping the roof, shoulders sagging, head bowed, chest heaving as he sobbed silently.
The moment Dana had been dreading finally came.
Reaching for her brother, she pulled Broderick in tight and wept into his shoulder. To her surprise, he didn’t push her away like he usually did.
“We’re never going back. Are we?” Broderick said.
Dana sniffled, wiping her eyes. “I don’t know.”
She looked at the captain. For as long as she’d known Khalous he had been committed to serving her family, honor bound to the kingdom of Aberdour and the family of Kingsley and Lilyanna Falls. In the cramped tunnel, under the weight of the siege above, she felt the split running through his soul.
“Khalous?” she asked.
The old captain opened his eyes and walked toward her. “Best keep moving.” His deep voice echoed with an eerie calm through the dark passage. “There’s no going back now.”
BRAYDEN
The tunnel emptied out into a copse of maples, its ingress discretely covered by a natural formation of mossy boulders, cool and damp under the forest canopy. With his sister Lia in tow Brayden wove his way from the cave’s mouth down a widening slope to join a large group of refugees that had also escaped the attack on Aberdour. He counted about eighty people, peasants in patched leggings and tunics of brown and gray, faded reds and oranges. They clung to one another in scattered piles, children to their mothers, wives to their husbands, sobbing together and nursing teary eyes and minor wounds. He saw a couple of his family’s servants, a baker he knew who lived a short walk from the castle, and other nameless faces he knew he’d seen before.
A handful of priests and nuns had fled Aberdour’s chapel and were now moving from group to group inspecting wounds and offering comfort, though what comfort could possibly be found in this moment Brayden couldn’t imagine.
Lia tugged on his shirt and whimpered something about mother and father, but Brayden’s mind was too scattered to comprehend her words at first.
“Are they really…” she started asked.
He looked at her, confused. “What?”
“Mama and papa. Are they really gone?”
All words had deserted him. Even if he knew what to say, the hot coals in his throat wouldn’t let him speak. After a perhaps too revealing hesitation, he saw fresh tears float to the lids under Lia’s eyes.
Taking his ten-year-old sister by the hand, Brayden walked through the crowd, looking for his other siblings.
One of the nuns recognized him as he passed and exclaimed, “My Lord Brayden! Thank the Allgod you’re alive!”
“Have you seen Brynlee or Scarlett?” he asked.
The nun’s eyes became sympathetic. “I am sorry, my lord. I’ve not.”
Another tear slid unbidden down the prince’s cheek. He wiped it away with his fingers, trying not to imagine the horrible things that might have befallen his sisters.
“What about Dana?” Lia asked.
He paused, weakening against the fear hammering on the doors of his heart. The last he had seen of his older sister she was being attacked by a black viper.
“We got separated,” he said.
Lia pressed herself into him, sobbing into his tan jacket. He held her for a moment, his eyes scanning the crowd for his siblings, but all he saw was disquiet and sorrow in a crowd of faces he didn’t know.
The final words of Lord Kingsley echoed through Brayden’s mind: “You’re a man now, son.”
The phrase made Brayden angry. How was he a man? How did this horrible situation make him any more of a man than he was when he woke up this morning? He hated the idea of becoming a man, the responsibility, the weight of purpose. In his final moment Kingsley had charged Brayden with becoming something he didn’t want to be, something he didn’t even know how to be.
A few moments later, Khalous Marloch emerged from the tunnel with Dana and Broderick in tow. Lia sprang toward her sister and dove into her, arms enveloping her. Dana squeezed her in reply and dropped a kiss atop her head. “It’s all right, Little Bit.”
“Hate it when you call me that,” Lia said.
Brayden felt himself growing nervous when Khalous locked eyes with him. The veteran soldier of Aberdour strode toward him, his face speckled with dirt. The captain knelt and looked up into Brayden’s eyes.
“The time has come to be brave, my lord,” Khalous said. His words were loud enough for only Brayden to hear. “The time for being afraid is gone. I need you to be strong and do as I say and help me lead your siblings away from this place.”
After a brief pause that Brayden realized revealed just how frightened he was, he forced a rapid nod.
“Where are we going?” asked Broderick.
Khalous stood, and walked forward to address the crowd. When he spoke, he sounded like a bear, authoritative and mad: “We need to move out of here, quickly! Black vipers will soon be scouring these woods.”
“To the White Wood!” someone shouted, a voice in the crowd that Brayden could not see. “Hide behind the northern falls.”
“We were flanked from the falls!” said another. “The enemy came in through the secret path. Wildmen from the deep north. They slaughtered–massacred my sons.”
“Where do you expect us to run to?” asked a worried father from deep within the crowd. “We can’t run south. That’s Jackdaw territory.”
Jackdaws. The word made Brayden’s heart grow even colder. The cannibalistic barbarians hadn’t ventured within sight of the city in many years, but they still occupied pockets of the southern woods.
“We have two ships in the harbor to take us to Efferous,” Khalous said. “We need to get there as soon as possible.”
“Black vipers took my wife,” said another man. “We have to go back!” A few other men, two holding common short swords and a third with a pickaxe, met his words with guttural shouts.
“We can’t go back,” Khalous said.
“To all the hells with that!” spat the man with the pickaxe. “Those bastards murdered my son and are surely doing the unthinkable…” his voice cracked, “…to my daughter.” He pushed through the
crowd as he spoke, making his way back up the hill toward the city. “I’m going back. If anyone wishes to join me, so be it.”
Brayden watched a handful of angry husbands and fathers go with him.
“Any man who goes back is as good as dead,” Khalous said, pushing his voice above the rising commotion of the people. “We need to move east. Now!”
More protests followed, but Khalous ignored them. He gathered with Brayden and his siblings along with two other members of the King’s Shield, Pick, and a muscled brawler named Connell Stone. Most people called him Stoneman, but Brayden knew it had less to do with his last name and more with his immoveable stature.
“You two,” Khalous said, gesturing toward his soldiers. “Get them out. And if the vipers come, get bloody.”
“Bloody, sir?” Pick said with a smirk.
“Bloody bloody,” Khalous growled.
Stoneman faced the mob and in a guttural voice that boomed through the trees, he said, “Anybody who’s not headed back into Aberdour to die, follow me! If we hurry we can reach the shore by nightfall.” He started moving east through the trees with Pick and a confused, frightened, injured, and angry crowd of refugees.
Khalous’ eyes went to Brayden, and then moved from Dana, to Lia, and then Broderick. “Where are Brynlee and Scarlett?”
Tears rolled down Dana’s cheeks. “I–I lost them,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry.”
“Damn the stones!” Khalous said. He whipped around to face the direction of Aberdour. For a moment it looked like he was about to abandon his own advice and charge back into the city, sword drawn and hungry for blood.
When Brayden saw the weight of Dana’s guilt settle upon her, he said, “It wasn’t her fault. Black vipers attacked us. We all got separated.”
Khalous faced them again. “No one is blaming anyone.” He paused, his demeanor calming. “Listen to me, all of you. You all are more important to the realm than you realize. I need all of you to run. Stay with me, but if I fall behind, or if anything happens to me, you need to take your siblings and run. You four are all that remains of Edhen’s rightful heirs. You need to run. You need to survive. Understand?”
Though he quivered when he did so, Brayden nodded.
Khalous started down the slope on the trail of the refugees of Aberdour.
“What about Brynlee and Scarlett?” Lia blurted. “We’re not just going to leave them.”
But Khalous kept walking.
“No. Stop!” Lia said, but the captain ignored her. “I said stop!”
Khalous whipped around, eyes fixed with anger. “To what end, your highness? To be thrown in their cages along with them? To be tortured and bled until you beg for death?”
“We have to go back!” Lia shouted, nearly cutting him off.
“You do and I’ll kill you myself to spare you from the consequences of your own idiocy,” he roared.
“Khalous!” snapped Dana.
The captain stopped, took a breath, and the red of his face began to diminish. The moment defused, and he walked away.
Brayden watched as one by one his siblings tore themselves from their home, away from their sisters, and followed after the mob of refugees. When Brayden followed suit he felt like he was abandoning Brynlee and Scarlett. Every footstep he took brought the weight of the guilt down upon him more and more.
When he glanced back he saw Lia still rooted to her place under the trees, alone on the patch of earth outside the tunnel’s entrance. He went back and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Listen,” he said, mustering the strength within him to speak, “we’ll come back. I promise. Some day we’ll come back and get them. But right now if we stay here, we die.”
She frowned. After another look back at the walls of Aberdour, Lia stomped down the trail after her siblings. Brayden noticed her tiny hands had balled into fists.
Minus the ten or so men who returned to Aberdour to fight, there were about seventy people in all making their way through the woods behind the men of the King’s Shield. There were forlorn men in patched leggings and haggard women in tattered peasant gowns, humble servants of the castle and a handful of priests, nuns, and orphans.
Later in the day, the group crossed a rocky hilltop from which they could see between the thinning trees a monumental swathe of dark blue ocean. The green light of the woods was growing somber as scudding dark clouds from out over the sea filled the sky above.
Behind him, to the west, Brayden saw the gray and brown city of Aberdour seated like a woodland king on the hills of Edhen. At its back rose a narrow four hundred foot waterfall while a broad expanse of green field stretched before it to the south—the vast acres of his father’s majestic kingdom. Brayden knew much of it: from the vertical cliffs that hugged the Falls of Edhen to the hills of Berstane beyond; the forest of Kintore to the west, where Lia was so fond of absconding, and the Aviemore Wood to the south where he had hunted quail with his father earlier in the morning. Brayden thought the sight was magnificent, and felt a small part of himself die at the thought of never seeing it again.
Around mid-afternoon, Brayden heard voices at the front of the crowd. He jogged ahead through the trees until he saw Khalous conversing with a battle-worn soldier bearing the maroon crest of a mighty horse on his dirty breastplate.
“What is it?” Dana asked.
“Soldiers from Montrose,” Brayden said.
“I thought Montrose fell moons ago.”
Indeed it had. Aberdour’s western kin in the kingdom of Montrose had experienced the onslaught of black vipers just before the start of winter. Many of its refugees had fled to the forests of Aberdour.
“We were going to make our way south to buy passage to Efferous,” the soldier said, “but Lady Earline has fallen ill.”
“The queen?” Khalous said, shocked. “She’s alive? Why didn’t you send word?”
“Rumors were that Aberdour had joined the Black King.”
“Nonsense!”
With a newfound quickness in his steps Khalous forged ahead over a sudden rise in the forest floor. Brayden hurried after him, eager to see what lay ahead.
The rise overlooked a secluded crevice in the hillside below. Crowded within it and huddled against the wall of earth was a conglomerate of cream-colored tents, a couple wagons, and a central fire pit. A handful of dingy soldiers, and a dozen weary men, women, and children had taken refuge in the nook.
“We rest here!” Khalous shouted to the refugees.
Everyone formed up in tight groups to rest and tend to the wounded.
Brayden watched the captain make his way down the edge of the alcove to the queen who was reclining on a bed of sticks and leaves under a pile of blankets.
“Uh-oh,” Broderick muttered. “It’s Clint.”
Brayden follow his brother’s gaze to a lone figure hurrying up the hill in their direction. Clint Brackenrig, prince of Montrose.
“Sanctimonious swine,” Lia muttered.
“You don’t even know what that means,” Broderick said.
“Well that’s what Old Betha calls him.”
“Quiet,” Dana said.
When Clint neared, Brayden greeted him with a guarded, “Cousin.”
The boy, merely a year older than Brayden, was tall for his age, and big, but not necessarily fat. He carried himself like a prince among ants with close-set dark eyes and a penchant for fine clothing. Today he wore a gray tunic decorated with lion silhouettes, black slacks, and high boots with shiny silver buckles. Brayden noted that although Clint looked sharply dressed, he appeared tired and distraught.
“What are you lot doing here?” Clint said, dislike painted over every inch of his face. “Bring the armies of the high king right to us, you will.”
“We didn’t know you were out here,” Brayden said. “If we had we would have come to help a long time ago.”
“Why didn’t your mother send word?” Dana asked. “Lilyanna is her sister, she would have gladly sent someone.”
“Can’t trust anyone these days,” Clint said with sneer. “Word was that the reason my kingdom fell was because Aberdour sided with the high king.”
“That’s a lie!” Broderick blurted.
“Your father bowed to the high king, they said. Chose to roll over like a dog instead of stand and fight like the rest of the realm.”
Broderick flung himself at Clint, but Brayden restrained him.
“Our father was no traitor,” Dana said. “He died defending Aberdour.”
Brayden helped his sister wrestle Broderick away from their cousin. Then he turned back to Clint and said, “Mind how you talk about our father.” To his surprise his words looked like they struck a chord of guilt in his cousin, if only for a moment.
“You need to go,” Clint said. “This is our spot.”
“We wouldn’t stay even if you gave us an engraved invitation,” Lia said as she sauntered past Clint on her way to Khalous.
Brayden followed his sister down into the camp. At the back of the steep nook he saw a cave that dipped under a sagging cluster of tangled roots and damp gray rocks. There were remnants of fish from a recent meal piled near the fire pit and a freshly skinned fawn strung up in a tree branch along the outer edge of the camp. It was clear that the people had been here for some time.
Lady Earline Brackenrig, the queen of Montrose, was well into her story by the time he was close enough to hear her words. “With my husband’s health the way it had been, the city just wasn’t ready when the soldiers came. Clint and I were already long gone though. I had prepared these supplies weeks in advance, and we were ready to leave at a moment’s notice. We’d be on Efferous now, but…” She tapped her leg.
Khalous lifted a corner of the blanket and peeked underneath. Whatever he saw made him twist his head away, his nose wrinkling.
Earline noticed Brayden and his siblings and her eyes filled with tears of relief and sympathy. She beckoned them over with outstretched arms. “Oh, my darlings,” she said, kissing Brayden with her thin, pale lips. “I heard about what happened. I am so, so sorry.” She hugged them all, her limbs shaking with pain and weakness.