by Ryan Cahill
He jumped, broken out of his pensiveness by the chesty, phlegm-filled cough of an old man who sat in the other corner of the common room. He looked like he had been sitting there so long that he had been painted into the chair.
Rhett reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out his coin purse. He set it down on his lap, just below the table, so as not to attract any unwanted eyes. There were not many people in the common room – the old man who sounded like he was about to lose a lung, the drunk at the bar who was struggling to keep his eyes open, a handful of tired merchants, two serving girls, and the innkeeper, who was a nice man, if a little past his best. Rhett didn’t think any of them would be paying him much attention.
He opened the drawstrings of the purse, taking a quick count of his coin. He had half-hoped to magically find more than he expected. He was not pleasantly surprised.
The trip to Gisa would be far shorter than the trip to Falstide, maybe only a week and a half by horse. Their money would go a lot further. They wouldn’t have to ration the food. They could stay in nice beds every night. It would be safer.
He picked out a coin from his purse; a copper mark. Rolling it across his fingers, he looked over at the letter and then up nodding at the innkeeper, who nodded back and started pouring another tankard of ale.
“Here you go, young man. This one’s on the house. Just give my best to Tanner. I’m sure I owe him one at this stage.” Forn placed the ale down in front of Rhett. He picked up the empty tankard, his bony hands wrapping around the metal handle. Rhett looked closer and realised that, although his skin looked old and worn and his hair was thin and grey, the man’s eyes were bright and full of life. How did his uncle know this man so well?
“That is not necessary but very much appreciated, Master Blackwell. My uncle mentioned your kindness in his letters. He did not overstate it one bit.” Rhett smiled and raised his tankard to the older man, who nodded thankfully in response.
“May I ask,” he said, “how are you getting to Berona? Is it by Gisa or Falstide?”
Rhett hesitated. He truthfully wasn’t sure himself.
“I… I only ask as I’ve heard some bad news out of Falstide as of late. Large number of bandits along the road from Baylomon and in the Argonan Marshes. I’ve heard stories of other things, coming down from the Marin Mountains. It’s no place to be travelling, not now. The Blood Moon don’t be far away. And it does be stirring up all sorts of trouble. I’ll tell you that much for free.” The older man shook his head, absently wiping the inside of the tankard with his cloth.
“Well, the original plan was to travel through Falstide, but Gisa might be an option. We haven’t decided yet. Won’t have to decide until we reach Midhaven. The Blood Moon?”
Forn nodded and turned back towards the bar, still absently wiping away at the inside of the tankard. “Gisa would be my choice, young man,” he called back over his shoulder, “if you have the coin.” He ignored Rhett’s question about the moon. Poor man. The years are eating away at his mind. Just as they are eating away at his inn.
Rhett stared down into his purse. He took a deep draught of the bitter ale. It’s going to take a long time to acquire this taste. He sighed heavily as he rolled the coin across fingers, back and forth.
CHAPTER 17
Divided
The echoes of hurried footfall bounced off the high walls of the narrow street, chased by the voices of men shouting commands into the night. Shockwaves vibrated up through Calen’s legs as his feet pounded on the cobbled steps. His chest burned as they ran.
They had thrown what they could into their bags. Calen strapped his sword belt on. Dann threw his bow over his shoulder. Rist stuffed his book into his bag. They followed Erik down the stairs and out the back of the inn. Dahlen and Aeson were waiting for them, both of whom had their armour on and their swords drawn. Dahlen spun his two blades around, loosening his hands for what was to come.
All the horses in the stable were dead. Their throats had been slit while they were still tethered to their posts. The man who had tried to sneak into their room hadn’t risked the chance of them escaping by horseback.
“Here, down this street. Oliver’s Apothecary has access to the tunnels.” The words escaped Dahlen’s mouth between puffs of breath. They had been dashing through the streets at a full sprint since they left the stable yard, mostly down backstreets and staircases. It was tough on even the hardiest of lungs. They had been lucky enough not to run into any of the men chasing them so far, but their voices were never far from earshot.
“Who—” Dann stopped to take a breath. “Who the hell is after us? Who was that at the room?”
They made their way down another cobbled staircase, with tight walls on either side. A quick right at the bottom was followed by a sharp left. Calen had no idea where they were. If he lost the others, he would be dead in a matter of minutes.
“It’s the empire,” Dahlen whispered. “Whoever was outside the rooms was hired, but the men chasing us right now are definitely soldiers. There’s too many of them, and they’re organised. How they found us, I’m not sure.”
“We can discuss it later,” Aeson snapped, “for now, we need to move.”
“They’re here!” came a yell in the night. The soldiers came bursting out of a side street. The cover of night made sure that they were on top of the group before they saw them.
Calen pulled his sword free from its scabbard just in time to block a heavy downstroke. He tried to focus on his forms, but his brain was racing. Stay alive. Just stay alive.
He swung his blade across again, parrying blow after blow with more luck than skill. Dann had an arrow nocked and stood back-to-back with Dahlen. The two of them fared much the same as himself. Aeson and Erik both had the upper hand, by the looks of it. The silhouettes of three corpses were draped at their feet.
Calen panicked for a second, unable to find Rist in the chaos. A metallic ringing chimed through the air as he met another overhead blow. He let out a breath. Rist was behind Dahlen and Dann, standing over the body of a fallen soldier. Something seemed a bit off, but Calen just couldn’t put his finger on it.
He needed to focus.
The soldier in front of him swung for Calen’s head, then tripped over something obscured by the night. Calen caught the soldier’s blade with his own, sweeping the backswing across the man’s torso. The soldier fell to the ground, his hands grabbing at the wound that had opened his stomach. Blood spluttered from his open mouth. The air caught in Calen’s chest. He thought he was going to be sick.
“Calen… Calen!”
Calen barely even noticed Rist calling him. He hadn’t felt the din of fighting ebb away. The look of panic on the man’s face as he died was burned into his mind.
“Calen, we need to go. Now. Come on!”
He had to focus, but his eyes remained fixed on the corpse that lay sprawled on the ground. Three.
He wasn’t sure whether to count the Urak. He had watched the life drain from its eyes. It knew what was happening. It counted.
He eventually moved, and his chest burned again as they continued through the maze of streets.
“Only about ten minutes,” Erik called. “I think.”
“You think?” Dann shouted.
“Look, it’s dark, okay? Ten minutes. Just try to keep up.”
Dann grunted in agreement.
A weight crashed on top of Calen, throwing him against the wall, knocking precious air straight out of his lungs. Calen grabbed the soldier with his free hand, pushing him back just far enough to drive his sword up into his ribcage. He felt the body go limp as he slid the sword back out.
Four.
“You okay?” Dann called.
“Yeah,” Calen replied, sighing. “Let’s keep going.”
The spiralling twists and turns continued. They ran through back streets, up and down staircases, around corners, and down back alleys. Their pace didn’t slow. The burning in Calen’s chest was joined by an ache in his legs.
The city felt endless.
Calen heard a howl behind him, followed by the ringing of swords colliding. He twisted around. Rist was on the ground, face-down, the contents of his bag strewn out across the cobbled stone. Calen didn’t think he could take losing anyone else.
Rist moved. Calen allowed himself to release the breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding. Dahlen had gone back for Rist and was surrounded by three soldiers. His twin swords spun in a blur as he weaved between them like a dancer.
Calen looked pleadingly towards Aeson and Erik. Their eyes were fixed on Dahlen.
“Go! We’ll catch up.” Dahlen ducked out of the way of a blade that swung through the air where his head had been, driving a deep gash across one of the soldier’s legs.
Calen tightened his grip on his sword. He was about to break into a run for Dahlen and Rist when a hand caught his shoulder.
“No,” Aeson said firmly, his eyes locked on Calen’s.
“I—”
“No. You will do none of us any good by ending up at the pointy end of a Lorian sword.”
The shouts of more soldiers echoed through the city, closing in on them.
“Dahlen can handle himself,” Aeson continued. “And he can look after Rist. We need to keep going. There is no sense in risking us all. There are other ways out of the city, and Dahlen knows them.”
A hundred thoughts raced around Calen’s mind. Every fibre in his burning body told him to run to Rist, who had just gotten himself to his feet, but what Aeson said made sense. He had never seen someone handle a sword in the way that Dahlen, Erik, and Aeson could. Maybe his father. The thought put knots in his stomach. Images of Vars’s lifeless body flashed through his mind. Calen pushed them away. “Okay.” Calen sighed and looked back at Dahlen and Rist. Two bodies lay at Dahlen’s feet now, but fresh soldiers replaced them.
“Calen, we can’t just leave him!” shouted Dann. His knuckles were white, wrapped around the grip of his bow.
Calen looked over at Dann, then back at Rist. Aeson sighed and then nodded. Calen let his eyes rest on Dann’s. If they tried to help, they might all get hemmed in. Dahlen and Rist were working their way towards an empty side street.
“We have to, Dann. Aeson is right. Dahlen will look after him. We need to trust them.” Calen saw the struggle in Dann’s face. He and Rist always poked fun at each other, but the three of them were like brothers. No matter how annoying they could be at times, they would all die for each other.
Dann’s gaze fixed on Rist for a second. He had a sword in his hands now, which he must have taken off one of the fallen soldiers. Then Dann looked back at Calen and nodded begrudgingly. They set off in a sprint.
“It’s only a few minutes now,” Erik said. It was obvious he was trying to reassure himself as much as he was Calen and Dann. Calen had forgotten that as close as Rist was to being his brother, Dahlen was actually Erik’s brother. Calen felt a pang of guilt for hesitating when Erik didn’t.
“Here it is,” Erik said as they approached a small building, nestled against the city wall, connected to a large inn on one side and a small alley on the other. A hand-painted sign hung above the front door, which read, ‘Oliver’s Apothecary: Happiness and Health’. They followed Erik around to the side of the apothecary. He crouched down and tilted a half-rotted wooden barrel on its side, revealing a heavy iron key. “Well, good news at last. The key is here,” he said with a half-hearted chuckle.
“You weren’t sure it would be here?” Dann said. “We ran halfway across this city, nearly died more than once, and you weren’t even sure the key would be here?”
Erik shrugged. “We didn’t have many options. I tossed a coin.”
Dann’s eyes widened. “You tossed a fucking coin?”
Erik shrugged again. “Yup.”
Dann’s face twisted in disbelief as he muttered, “A coin… he tossed a fucking coin.”
Calen had to stifle a laugh. The occasion didn’t really call for laughter, but he found that was often when he struggled to suppress it the most. Dann saw it on his face and threw a filthy look in his direction.
Erik slotted the key into the rusty lock on the side door. It took a push to get it into place, but once it was in, it turned with little difficulty. The door drifted inward on its own, revealing a staircase that descended into blackness.
“Well, you all coming?” Erik said, stepping through the doorway. Dann followed Erik down the stairs. His head twisted around, attempting to find some light. Aeson gestured for Calen to go next, then followed, closing the door behind him. It was as black as pitch. Calen had to feel his way down the staircase with his hands, one running along the damp stone wall and the other along the splintered handrail. The heavy smell of mould and rotted wood filled his nostrils.
“So, how do you know about this place?” Dann asked.
“Oliver is a contact of ours. His grandfather built this tunnel a long time ago. He used it to smuggle Altwied blood into the city.”
“Altwied blood? I’ve heard that stuff can do miracles. Pity it’s illegal.”
“It can. With just a few drops, I’ve seen men survive injuries they had no right to survive.”
Calen’s mother had mentioned Altwied blood before. Petals from the Altwied flower, ground up and mixed with water. The empire outright banned it in the South. Calen had heard rumours from travellers that this was not the case in the North.
“Dad, could you give us some light?”
Give us some light?
Calen heard a hesitant grunt from Aeson.
“I think we’re past the point of secrets, Dad, and I don’t want to trip over something in this dank tunnel. We have a ways to walk.”
Aeson replied with another grunt.
“How do you expect him to—”
Dann’s words were cut short. Tiny fragments of light appeared in front of Aeson, coalescing into a small orb. It floated in the air, illuminating the tunnel with a clear white light.
“What in the name of The Mother and The Father is that?” Dann yelped, pushing his back up against the moss-covered stone wall of the tunnel.
“Calm yourself, boy,” Aeson said. There was no patience in his voice. “It is a baldír. We don’t really have time for questions about it now. Ask your questions once we’ve safely made it to The Wilted Leaf. For now, just accept it. We have about another twenty minutes of walking before we get to the hatch at the other side.”
Calen had a hundred questions that each led to a hundred more. He suppressed them. Dann opened his mouth to speak but closed it again. Calen saw it in his eyes; his mind was doing cartwheels. Calen’s mind was doing the same.
Magic? Actual magic? For some reason, it seemed almost acceptable that a giant could use magic. But not a man.
Now that there was light, Calen could see that the tunnel was barely three feet wide at any point. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years. Moss coated the walls, with a stone poking through here and there. The wooden support beams looked as if they would collapse any second from rot. The ground was soft and pliable; his boot sank in with every step.
They walked in silence for what felt like hours. The only noises came from the squelching of the soft mud below their feet and the squeaky chattering of rats, barely aware of the intruders in their tunnel. An abrupt loss of light signified the end of the tunnel, as the orb disappeared. It was quickly replaced by a sliver of moonlight, which flowed in from the gap in the hatch that Erik had just pushed open.
“There’re no stairs here. We’ll have to pull ourselves up,” Erik whispered. A loud puff of air let Calen know that Erik had just followed his own instructions.
Calen felt a slight flash of relief when he pulled himself up and out of the tunnel. It was nice to have enough space to reach out his arms and stretch his legs. He was happy that the light came from the sky and not a small floating orb.
“Come on, this isn’t the time to stop. We need to make it to The Wilted Leaf. Therin will be waiting for us there, and
that’s where the others will be heading.”
“The others?”
Everyone’s head swung around to see Therin slumped on his horse about twenty feet away. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and he looked as though he was about to fall from the saddle.
Dahlen swung one blade overhead and blocked the downward strike from the soldier, then plunged his second blade straight through the man’s belly. One more for the gods.
Ignoring the aches in his shoulders and back, he looked over at Rist. The boy wasn’t as useless as he had initially thought. Two bodies lay at his feet, and he was holding his own against the third. He looked tired, though – far more tired than Dahlen would have expected. His shoulders drooped from the unfamiliar weight of the blade, his steps were laboured, and his eyes looked glassy. He wasn’t going to last long.
A ferocious shout came from Dahlen’s left. He side-stepped the incoming strike by the skin of his teeth. As he did, he stuck his foot out, sending the soldier barrelling down the cobblestone staircase to the left. He wouldn’t be getting up from that for a while.
Without hesitation, Dahlen lunged at the man who was attacking Rist.
Leaning in with his shoulder, he hit the man hard in the ribs, sending him crashing into the stone wall at his back. Dahlen followed through with his sword, up through the jaw. The man slumped, sliding down the wall like a snail.
Dahlen paused for a moment to catch his breath. “Are you okay?” he asked Rist, trying to fill his lungs with air. That tackle hit him almost as hard as it did the soldier. Rist’s eyes looked heavy. He fell to his knees, letting his sword fall. The clanging of metal on stone rang out through the now eerily silent street.
“Whoa!” Dahlen’s muscles screamed in protest as he leapt to support Rist’s slumping shoulders. “Rist, look at me. Are you okay?” Dahlen checked Rist’s body for wounds. Confusion set in when he could not find any. “Are you hurt?”