by CW Thomas
“Why did you not send word to Aberdour?” Khalous asked. “The king would have sent someone to help immediately.”
“Word reached us through Clive’s brother that Kingsley had betrayed the realm, bowed to the high king just like those cowards in Turnberry and Tranent had done. Fools, the lot of them. Bloody fools.”
“That’s not true,” Brayden said. “Our father was faithful to the old kings to the very end.”
“My lady,” Khalous began, taking her hand, “we don’t have much time. The high king’s army will be swarming these hills before the day is over. You need to leave this place.”
She lay back down. “We knew this was coming. For three years we’ve waited for the Black King’s tide. What can we do but stand our ground and show them true courage, a courage that will never bow?” Earline closed her eyes and lay still, so still that, for a moment, it looked as though she had died. At last her mouth opened and she spoke in a soft, tearful tone, “Take Clint with you. Please.”
Khalous stood and addressed the Montrosian soldier. “Can we move her?”
The soldier wagged his head in despair. “She’s too weak. And the infection is…” He stopped.
Brayden could see the defeat on Khalous’ face. He put a hand on Brayden’s shoulder and said, “Take your sisters and your brother and go rest your legs for a moment.”
Brayden would have much rather overheard the rest of their conversation, but now that the company had stopped he felt the weariness of their long journey creeping over him. When he sat down on a stump next to the empty fire pit he wasn’t sure he would be able to get back up.
His siblings said nothing as they waited next to him. Lia’s eyes were downcast, devoid of the passion and proclivity to mischief that usually twinkled behind her hazel gaze. Dana stared at her lap as she sat on her knees in the dirt, her pale beauty marred by old tears that had carved paths along her dusty cheeks.
“He’s not really coming with us, is he?” asked Broderick as he sulked with his chin in his hands. “Clint. He’s not coming, right?”
“If we leave him here the black vipers will get him,” Brayden said.
“So?” said. Lia.
At first, none of them responded, but then Broderick sniggered. Not long after that Dana giggled, though Brayden could tell that she was trying her hardest to hide it. The moment of levity that followed as all four of them broke down into a fit of snickers felt out of place, almost rude, but Brayden couldn’t help it.
Their amusement faded almost as quickly as it had come over them.
“Do you think Brynlee and Scarlett are all right?” Lia asked.
Dana put her arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. “I hope so, Little Bit.”
Lia squirmed. “Stop calling me that.”
“Why?” Dana asked, hugging her closer. “Because you’re such a little bit of charm?”
“Stop.”
“A little bit of pretty cute?”
“Dana!”
Broderick chortled. “Plus you’re about as tall as the dog.”
“Shut up!”
Broderick pointed to a sheathed knife tucked into Brayden’s belt. “Hey, why do you have father’s dagger?”
Brayden looked down at the weapon, having almost forgotten that he slipped it from Kingsley’s corpse back in Aberdour. His mind went blank as he tried to think of a response to his brother’s question.
He pulled the sheath out from his belt and withdrew the blade halfway as Broderick and his sisters watched.
“I don’t know,” he muttered.
Brayden saw Khalous walking over to them when Ariella, one of the nun’s from Aberdour’s orphanage, stepped in front of him. The petite nun had cast aside her linen head covering, exposing a tousled ponytail of gold, brown, and gray that hung midway down her back. Her brown and tan robes were covered with dark stains and muddy smears.
“The boy with the arrow wound,” she said just loud enough that Brayden could hear. “He has lost too much blood. I’m afraid we can’t take him any further.”
Khalous frowned. “Are there any other injured who can’t carry on?”
“Some,” Ariella said. “Most will not survive the day even if we stopped to tend to them properly. Even then, I have nothing to care for them with.”
A second nun, an older woman wearing a simple white coif over her salt and pepper hair, joined Khalous and Ariella. “I would like to stay with the wounded,” she said.
“Out of the question,” Khalous said. “No one stays behind.”
“Don’t be a fool. You can’t carry them all. Someone needs to get these children to safety and it surely won’t be me and these tired old feet.”
Khalous started to protest again, but Ariella placed a calming hand on his elbow. “We have no choice.”
Before Khalous could protest any further, the old nun ambled over to a group of injured refugees, most of whom were lying prostrate on the ground, motionless and bleeding. Others sat slumped against rocks nursing debilitating wounds.
“Are they really going to leave them behind?” Lia asked in disbelief.
“They have to, Lia,” said Dana.
“They won’t make it anyway,” said Broderick without a tinge of sympathy in his tone. “They’ll just slow us down.”
Lia slapped him on the thigh.
“Owe!” he said. “What’d you do that for?”
Lia glared at him.
“Behave yourselves,” said Khalous as he approached them. “I want all of you to stick close to me. We’ll be at the harbor soon, so—”
“Captain!” said Pick as he sprinted into the camp, his dark blue cloak rolling in the wind behind him. “They’re coming!”
“How far?”
Pick didn’t have to answer because the distant echo of barking dogs did it for him.
The collective panic of the people began to rise. Nervous mutters circulated throughout the crowd. At Khalous’ orders they mustered their strength and hurried out of the alcove, leaving the tents and carriages behind along with the wounded few.
Brayden saw a hysterical woman pleading for her husband to come with her. She tugged on the sleeves of his shirt as he lay on the ground holding his mangled leg. He ordered her to leave without him.
Not too far away a nun pried two small children from their crippled mother. The woman blew them kisses from shaking fingers as her other hand clutched a broken arrow shaft protruding from her ribs.
“Goodbye, my darlings,” she said.
The children fought and cried.
“Aren’t you coming mother?” Brayden heard Clint say. He watched his cousin standing over the paralyzed queen as she lay on her bed of forest brush.
“Clint, my baby boy, be strong now for me,” she said.
One of the soldiers tried pulling Clint away, but he shoved the man back and threw himself down next to Earline. “No, mother, you’re coming with us! Someone carry her. Now! I order you to carry her!”
The sounds of the dogs drew closer until the provoking shouts of their masters could be heard as well.
“Come on,” Dana said, tugging at Brayden’s sleeve.
Brayden and his siblings took off through the forest, hot on the heels of the soldiers of the King’s Shield. In front of them the trees gave way to tall grass where the scent of sea salt hung heavy in the air.
“We’re almost there,” Brayden said.
“Faster!” someone shouted.
Echoing after them through the trees came the horrible wails of the wounded citizens they had left behind as an onslaught of vicious snarling assailed them.
When the sounds of his mother’s agony reached his ears, Clint loosed a girlish scream that sent shivers down Brayden’s spine. The boy cursed the gods and kicked against the Montrosian soldiers fighting to keep him moving toward the harbor.
Lia tried to look back, but Brayden told her not to.
“Just keep moving!” he shouted.
He pressed on as fast as he could go.
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The ocean appeared between the trees in front of them, blue and beautiful, its color darkening under the gray clouds above. The waves were rising and starting to spin off white tails of spume.
“There it is,” Brayden said. “Come on!”
Behind him a young boy screamed as a mangy dog plowed into him. The frenzied mastiff, big and hardy, latched onto the boy’s leg with its powerful jaws and throttled him to the ground. The mastiff was a common war dog, bred for its aggression and strong fighting spirit. It tussled along the ground with the boy until his screaming stopped.
Brayden averted his eyes and forged ahead.
The harbor sat just up the beach to Brayden’s left, a long row of simple pinewood shacks and businesses anchored to the rocks and extending out over the water. A long pier connected them all where fisherman met daily to barter and trade. Docked by the pier were two double-masted trade ships bearing the blue and silver colors of Aberdour. They rocked on the choppy waters, their ropes bending in the wind.
An increasing number of curious fishermen were standing on the rugged pier, watching the fleeing refugees pour from the forest.
Pick perched himself on a dock post with his bow drawn and ready. He released an arrow that flew over Brayden’s head and landed in the shoulder of a large brown mutt. The dog yelped and fell to the ground, disappearing into the tall grass. More arrows sailed from the harbor as fishermen gathered together in a brave but futile attempt to stem the tide of black vipers flowing from the forest.
Brayden sprinted across the sand and up the steps onto the pier behind Khalous.
There he met a man he had not noticed before, a dirty man in torn rags with broken shackles on his feet.
“Give me your bow,” he said to Khalous.
Brayden saw the captain’s hesitation.
“It’s all right,” said Lia. “You can trust Khile.”
As if her word wasn’t enough, the mysterious man named Khile added, “For the west.”
It was like he had spoken a secret code that broke through Khalous’ reservations. To Brayden’s surprise, the captain handed over his bow and quiver.
Khile spun around into a crouch and had let fly a single arrow before Brayden even noticed that he had drawn one back. By the time the arrow hit its mark, right below the helmet of a black viper, Khile had released another. It struck the neck of a second viper and sent him crashing into the sand. Khile loosed his arrows with the speed and agility of a top ranked archer.
When he had finished, he turned, almost stumbling into Brayden. He grabbed him and spun him around, shoving him in the direction of the closest ship, shouting, “Go!”
Brayden raced toward the ship and charged up onto the gangplank.
He turned to allow Dana and Broderick to slip past him, and that’s when he noticed that Lia had fallen behind. She lay on the deck, trapped underneath Khile who was locked in combat with an enemy soldier.
Using his bow Khile wrestled against the enemy’s sword. He slammed his shin into the soldier’s crotch, and smacked him across the face with the bow.
More black vipers stomped onto the pier, cutting down the refugees as they fled.
“Lia!” Brayden called, but she was held back by combat.
Pick and Stoneman hurried up the gangplank, blue cloaks trailing at their backs. Pick grabbed Brayden and dragged him onto the ship. He protested, reaching for Lia, but everything was happening too fast. Stoneman kicked the gangplank away. Two sailors untethered the ship from the dock.
“Faster!” bellowed a bearded captain to his rowers. “Heave, heave, heave!”
Two black vipers ran to the end of the dock and jumped on board the ship, but their lives came to a devastating end when they ran headlong into Stoneman. The muscle bound soldier of the King’s Shield plowed into them like a bull, stabbing each through the chest with a wide dagger. He lifted them off their feet and thrust their bodies overboard.
“Lia!” came the scream of Dana through desperate tears.
Brayden ran up onto the back of the ship to join his sister. She and Broderick were peering over the top of the wooden railing at Lia. She had made it safely aboard the second trade ship along with the mysterious bowman named Khile.
Brayden watched as long oars emerged from the ship’s hull and pushed it out to sea.
“Lia!” Dana shouted.
Brayden put his hands on her shoulders. “She’s safe. We’ll meet up with her on Efferous.”
After a quick headcount, Brayden estimated that roughly fifty of the seventy refugees who had fled Aberdour had made it onto one of the two ships.
Standing next to him, looking over the ship’s railing, was Broderick. His eyes were glued to the massacre happening on the pier, where black vipers cut down the last of the fleeing citizens. Swords cut through flesh, arrows pierced chests, and legs, and necks. The fishermen put up a decent fight, but only until the forces of the enemy overwhelmed them.
“Don’t watch,” Brayden said. “There’s nothing we can do.” He tried to pry Broderick away, but he wouldn’t move. His brother watched the slaughter, his eyes unblinking, until the scene was too far away to see.
Brayden looked over at the second vessel trailing behind them to the north. He saw Lia leaning on the railing, pinning after them. He lifted an open hand in her direction, trying to reassure her. They would be reunited soon. It wouldn’t be long, he knew, a day or so.
He sat down next to Dana, shivering as the cold ocean wind blew over them.
Khalous stomped up onto the deck looking frayed and dour. “Best get below,” he said. He gazed into the winds that blew his silver hair almost straight back. “There’s a storm ahead.”
LIA
She tried not to think about the sounds of the dogs, their snarling and barking, but the awful wails of the children who were attacked kept echoing in Lia’s head. Hugging her knees on the floor of the trade ship, she kept her head low so that no one would see her uncontrollable sobs of terror and grief.
In one day she had lost more than she ever knew she had. She could still smell the hay in the barn of Thomas and Abigail, feel the soft coats of their horses. She could still hear her father’s laughter echoing through the halls of Aberdour’s castle, and her mother’s stew, seasoned with garlic and salt, so hot on her tongue. Brynlee’s warm embrace. The patter of Scarlett’s feet.
She flinched when Khile slid down next to her. He put one arm across her back. She would’ve shied away had she not been so cold. Instead she leaned into him, hoping he would put his other arm around her, which he did. She lay there for several moments, head buried out of sight, snuggled into the arms of a stranger who, at present, was her only friend.
Across from her came the whimpering of a little girl. She looked up to see a girl about Brynlee’s age, nursing a bloody cut on her forehead while she cried next to a young woman.
“There, there,” the woman cooed. “It’s all right.”
There were about twenty-five other people crowded onto the deck of the ship, Lia noticed, clinging to each other for warmth and security. Most of them were children, but there were a few adults, two nuns and two priests.
Khile nudged her with his elbow.
“How are you holding up, kid?” he asked.
“My name is Lia,” she said. “And I’m not a kid.”
“Fair enough.”
She kept her head down, trying to seem calm as she picked at a fraying thread on the dark green sleeve of her tunic.
“Where did you learn to use a bow like that?” she asked.
Khile hesitated, thinking. “We all have to be good at something, I suppose.”
His answer didn’t satisfy her, but she could tell he wasn’t going to say anything more about it. Not now anyway.
She pointed to the shackles on his feet, both of which bore one link from the chain that used to join them. “And those?”
He clicked them together like he found them amusing. “Those are for the things I’m not so good at.”
She looked at him, irritated by his ambiguity. “Very well. Keep your secrets.”
He raised an impenitent eyebrow at her. “If you wanted to get some sleep now would be a good time. We’ll be on Efferous by morning.”
His words were a clear dismissal of her questions, but she didn’t care. Now that he mentioned it, she did feel exhausted, physically and emotionally, but she knew she’d find no rest right now. Every time she shut her eyes she saw wild dogs with scruffy fur coming after her. When she succeeded in pushing those thoughts away her mind conjured visions of Brynlee and Scarlett. What torment were they enduring at the hands of the black vipers?
A strong wave rocked the vessel. From the forward deck came some indiscernible shouts from the captain, which prompted crewmen to hurry about the ship, yanking on weather worn ropes and rickety pulleys. Lia understood none of it, but after a second wave hit the ship, sending a spray of water up over the side, she knew that something was wrong.
She stood with Khile and scanned their surroundings. Behind them lay nothing but dark blue water and a red sunset. Ahead of them, however, in the slate-colored air to the east, dazzling forks of lightning snaked through the sky, illuminating bleary sheets of oncoming rain.
The ship dipped low and rose up on a high wave. Lia lost her footing and tumbled back into the side rail. It struck her hard across the back, knocking the wind out of her lungs.
“Hang on to something!” came a shout, but from where she couldn’t tell.
Khile grabbed her, pulled her down, and flatted them onto the deck.
The ship trembled. The sails lurched forward. Lia heard people screaming all around her, a sound that was soon overpowered by the deep groaning of the ship’s massive wooden beams.
Her stomach hurt, and though she wasn’t gasping anymore, it still felt as though she couldn’t get her breath back, or that it had returned but badly out of rhythm.
Lia and Khile slid across the deck as the ship pitched to one side from the impact of a massive, immoveable object. Or was it another, even stronger wave? Crewmen fell over, one of the ropes snapped, and the ship moaned like a massive beast lamenting a fatal wound.