by Sandell Wall
Aventine smashed through the glass like a battering ram, her armored forearms protecting her from the shards that went flying in every direction. She landed hard, breastplate hitting the far roof first, and then the rest of her landing with a clatter. Imagining an axe impaling her back, she rolled over the instant she could move. Somehow she still had her sword. Beneath her the roof shifted, protesting its new burden. She realized now that it was an overhang, not a roof. And it was going to fall.
Wood groaned and splintered as the supports for the overhang gave way. She slid towards the ground feet first. In the clearing in front of the academy she caught a glimpse of armored figures running in her direction. Too many to fight. As she plunged towards the earth, she plucked her dagger out of its sheath with her left hand.
When her boots hit the ground, she rolled. She felt rather than saw a blade slash through the space where her neck would have been. Coming out of her roll, she braced her feet and lunged forward. A pair of legs appeared in front of her and she slammed her dagger into the left thigh, digging deep and then tearing it out as she ran past. On the periphery of her vision she saw the flash of a blade. Without thinking, her right hand smashed the killing blow away with her sword. And then she was in the clear. All around her the town was coming alive with shouts and light. Dranzen’s warriors were swarming out of the academy behind her. The only direction clear of the enemy was the center of the town. So she ran, charging through the little city for all she was worth.
Legs pumping, chest heaving, Aventine’s body thundered with exertion and adrenaline. Armored plates bounced on her powerful thighs, and she felt her rugged boots digging into the gritty street with each footfall. Heavy in her hands, sword and dagger felt like anchors trying to slow her down, but she was not about to abandon them after they had thwarted Dranzen’s rune-weapons.
In front of Aventine a door swung open. She dropped her shoulder and plowed through it, sending it crashing shut. She heard a yelp of surprise and pain and hoped it had been an enemy and not an innocent citizen. Passing through the middle of town now, she was fast approaching the far side. From her left, a figure wearing the red of house Lome darted from the shadows, aiming to intercept her path. Rather than avoid the assailant, she adjusted her course to charge straight at him. She lashed out with her sword. Surprised by her attack, the enemy soldier did not get his weapon up in time and fell away with a gash on one arm.
She could see darkness ahead where the town ended and the countryside began. Her breath came in ragged gasps now. She did not know how much further she could run. In the middle of the street, between her and escape, stood a single Lomish warrior.
Aventine’s fatigued mind barely registered the enemy blocking her path. Shield up, battleaxe held loosely in his right hand, the soldier stood braced to receive Aventine’s charge. In the darkness behind the soldier, a hundred paces down the road, Aventine saw two Lomish sentries running towards them.
This is it then. I’ll go no further.
Aventine gripped her weapons tighter, ready to fight for her life. But before she could engage her adversary, she was distracted by movement behind him. A burly shadow leapt up from the dark ditch beside the road, an axe in each hand, and decapitated one of the approaching sentries with a vicious uppercut.
Holmgrim!
In one smooth motion Holmgrim pirouetted away from the falling sentry and hurled an axe at the other soldier who was just now registering that his comrade was dead. Impossible to dodge, the force of the throw picked the man up off the road and flung him into the gutter like he had been kicked by a mule.
The soldier blocking Aventine’s path spun around in alarm, unable to protect his flank now. She saw no way to kill the armored man in one strike, so she reversed her sword and smashed the pommel into the back of the soldier’s helmet. The force of the impact was brutal with all of her momentum behind the blow. Like a discarded doll, the blindsided soldier collapsed in a tumble of limbs. Aventine shot past the still form without giving it a second glance.
Out of breath, she stumbled to a stop next to the irrigation channel on the side of the road. Holmgrim had jumped in to retrieve his axe. She looked down just in time to see him wrench it out of the half-submerged body.
“The only weapons I’ve forged in years,” he said. “I’m not leaving them to rust in a ditch.” Axes secured at his waist, hidden beneath his rustic tunic, he scrambled up the muddy slope and back onto the road.
“We have to flee,” Aventine said as she sheathed her own blades.
“If you wanted to travel fast, you could have just said so. You didn’t need to provoke an entire town to chase us.”
She looked closely at his face, not sure if he was making a joke or being serious. “You’re bleeding,” she said. Blood seeped through his right sleeve and dripped down his arm.
“The wound you gave me reopened.”
“Oh,” Aventine said, pausing awkwardly. “Sorry about that.”
“Well, come on then” he said, lumbering his large frame away into the darkness.
After her mad dash through Delgrath, this pace was easy. Aventine fell into an effortless jog beside Holmgrim. The thickset barbarian ran heavy. He was at least a hand’s breadth shorter than Brax, she guessed, but he lacked her mentor’s grace and dexterity.
He might whip Brax in a wrestling match though.
Huffing and puffing, Holmgrim made no attempt to speak as they hurried away. After several miles, he stopped, pointing off the side of the road. “Here,” he said between breaths, “is a trail into the wilderness.”
“We’ll make better time on the road,” Aventine said.
“Aye, but so will they. In the countryside their numbers will work against them. And I know this land.”
“Fine, but don’t take us towards the border. We need to head towards the interior of the empire.”
“I’ve not forgotten.”
“Good for you, now lead on.”
They abandoned the road, stepping off onto a narrow trail that wound into the night. Aventine had no choice but to follow behind Holmgrim, who slowed to a fast walk. Miles away, back towards Delgrath, she could see the faint aura of what must be a mass of rune-charged warriors chasing after them.
——
Hours later she was ready to drop. Flat farmland quickly turned into rocky hills, and the effort of hiking through them sapped her remaining strength. Looking often over her shoulder, she tracked the distant glow of their pursuers. Dranzen and his men had not followed them into the wilds and were still marching down the highway.
“Idiots,” Holmgrim said. “They destroy their own night vision and we can see them from miles away.”
“They think you’re Brax, my partner,” Aventine said. “The only way they stand a chance against him is to be fully powered when they catch us.”
“He’s a terror?”
“I wouldn't want to fight him.”
“Well, that’s saying something.”
Aventine mulled this over for a few paces. Suspecting she was being mocked she finally said, “What did you mean by that?”
“Oh, just that you seem to have conflict with everyone you meet.”
“I don’t start the fights, but I do finish them.”
Holmgrim grunted. “You ever hear that saying, ‘when you have a hammer every problem looks like a nail’?”
“No, what of it?”
“Never mind. We should stop soon.”
Half a mile later they stopped to rest in a small ravine between two hills. Hidden by thick brush, they felt safe to wait for several hours. By starlight Holmgrim tightened the binding on his wound and shared food from his pack with Aventine. She was ravenous.
“I’ve not eaten a solid meal in two days,” she said between mouthfuls. The hard cheese and dried meat tasted better than anything she had ever eaten.
“What happened in the town?” Holmgrim said.
“Dranzen was waiting for me. He knew about the signal stone. The stone itse
lf was gone, stolen no doubt by Lorent.”
“No advance warning for the emperor then.”
“No, we’re it.”
Holmgrim was silent for a long time, so long that Aventine was about to lie down and try to sleep. But before she could, he said, “That was the first man I’ve slain in over twenty years.”
She did not ask about what his statement implied and was annoyed by his remorseful attitude.
He says that like he regrets it, like it’s unfortunate.
“You chose to come with me,” she said.
“I suppose I did.”
Aventine unsheathed her sword and inspected it by the light of the moon. “This sword stopped Dranzen’s flaming runeblade. His weapon gave off a terrible noise when they touched.”
“May I see it?” Holmgrim said, suddenly excited. Aventine passed him the weapon. He rubbed his finger along the metal and held it up to reflect the moon. “A runeforged blade,” he said. “Did you find this in the fort?”
“Aye, in the commander's quarters.”
“It seems fate is watching over you. There are only a few of these in existence. They are the highest award for valor in combat that the emperor bestows. Runes are carved into the soft iron and activated as the weapon is forged into steel. Their power is folded into the metal. The result is the hardest blade known to man, but the finished product cannot be inscribed with runes. However, it can withstand even the most powerful of rune artifacts.”
“You know this, how?”
“I invented the technique. I created this sword.” Holmgrim handed the weapon back to her. Mollified, Aventine did not reply immediately. When she tried to speak, he cut her off, his voice gruff and full of emotion, “No more talk. I’ve revisited too many memories this night. Get some rest if you can.”
Aventine lay back and rolled over onto her side, facing away from her companion. She knew she was not her normal self and being too hard on Holmgrim. But he reminded her of her father, and if she dwelt on that thought she knew she would break down. Ever since her escape in the forest she had felt herself growing rigid and indifferent. There was no time to process all that had happened, no time to calmly analyze the situation and find the confidence that she was doing the right thing. So Aventine hardened herself; it was the only way she knew how to survive. Less than two weeks ago she had stood with her father in the emperor’s throne room and looked forward to a bright future. She should be taking the first steps towards following her mother’s legacy. Instead, her life was falling apart, her allies had been slain or captured, and it now fell to her alone to warn the emperor of impending chaos and destruction.
Under the cold light of the moon, curled up beneath thorns and brush in a rock-strewn ravine, Aventine wept quietly into her hands.
Chapter 21
FOR TWO DAYS REMUS and the other prisoners were ignored. Food was provided at regular intervals, but that was the only attention they received. After the chaos of capture, and then being tested by the Ethari, they had expected something momentous to come next. None of them were prepared for forty-eight hours of nothing. But Remus had not let the downtime go to waste. In fact, he saw it as an opportunity.
For long hours each day, he had picked the brains of the men in his cage. Two of the men, Ellion and Grotius, the two who had not cowered with the rest, had proven up to the task of educating him on the basics of combat. Both sergeants in the Legion, they were a wealth of experience and knowledge. There was no way to experiment, which was his preferred way of learning, but he could prepare. Soon, even the cowards that wanted to bury themselves at the back of the prison were engaged, drawn to his curiosity and enthusiasm. And then in the middle of the second day, the Ethari came for them.
Just after midday mealtime Remus was crouched in the center of the cage inspecting infantry formations scratched in the dirt. Ellion stood over his shoulder, drawing arrows and diagrams on the ground with a stick.
“The inexperienced think infantry combat is only a test of brawn,” Ellion said. “Both sides line up, and the one with superior numbers or strength wins. Some battles are fought that way, I’ll concede. But a competent commander will exploit that sort of naïve thinking. See here.”
He knelt and modified the formation they were studying.
“If you face an enemy that you know is overconfident, you can draw them in by retreating your line. As they advance, and they will charge recklessly when you retreat, enclose them by moving your reserve forces around the sides. This is called a pincer movement. Now you have the enemy trapped between hammer and anvil. All that’s left is to pound them into dust.”
Grotius interrupted the lesson by scrubbing the drawings out with his foot. “They're coming,” he said, nodding towards the town.
Remus and Ellion stood, looking in the direction Grotius indicated. Out of the village strode ten fully armored and armed Ethari, heading straight for Remus’s enclosure. When they were close, the soldiers split into two groups of five. One group opened Remus’s prison, the other entered one of the adjacent cells. There were no attempts at communication. Firm, but not cruel, one of the soldiers grabbed Remus and moved him to the side. Another soldier unwound a long chain with metal clasps attached every few feet.
We all know what that’s for. We’re leaving.
At random the Ethari selected five men and secured them in the first five manacles. Next, they chained Remus in the middle. The remaining four captives brought up the rear. Now that he knew they were not human, Remus paid close attention to the Ethari. Of the five escorting them, they all had grey skin, but the shades of color varied. One of them was so pale he almost looked white, another was more black than grey. The faces of the Ethari soldiers shared an eerie similarity; they could all be brothers, even twins.
Shackled now, Remus and the rest of the prisoners shuffled out of the cage. To the left, the ten captives from the neighboring cell were being ushered out in the same manner. With an Ethari soldier leading each column, the chained men were marched into the settlement. Remus had time to inspect the village as they walked. What he saw was depressing. The buildings were squalid. Everything he could see was dirty, soot stained, and muddy. Women and old men watched their procession with fear in their eyes. There were no children, no sounds of cheer or happiness.
Near the middle of the little town they stopped at a long, squat, windowless building. From inside were rolled out racks of weapons, shields, and armor. Again, Remus was surprised by the quality of the gear. It was rudimentary, but far from junk. An Ethari soldier issued each man a weapon, shirt of armor, and a shield.
Once equipped, Remus found himself wearing a leather shirt with metal plates sewn into it. On his arm he carried a painted wooden round shield. His weapon was a chipped and battered longsword. When all twenty prisoners were kitted out, their solemn march continued.
Beyond the armory they approached the biggest building in the small town. A giant, round hut, its peaked roof was the only feat of engineering Remus had seen in the sad village. The hut’s size was enhanced by the hill it stood on; it towered over the settlement. Outside the hut stood a large group of people. They turned their attention to the chained prisoners when Remus shambled around the corner
Looks like we get a send off.
Remus recognized Dour Face, Tethana, and Fire Hair. Fire Hair stood with his fellow barbarians, and even in their company he looked the strongest and fiercest. Dour Face had an odd look on his face, like he had eaten something that disagreed with him. As they marched past, Fire Hair sneered at the fettered men, making some comment that prompted a roar of laughter from the watching barbarians. Tethana smirked.
When Remus passed in front of the big hut, Dour Face called out a command and the procession came to a halt. Curious, Remus watched Dour Face hop down and make straight for him. He was completely unprepared for what came next. Dour Face backhanded him across the face so hard that he dropped to the ground. He heard the watching barbarians laugh and cheer. Dour Face grabbed a fis
tful of his hair and knelt down to speak directly into Remus’s ear.
“Strike to kill. You cannot wound them,” he said, and then shoved Remus back down before stalking back to his place on the hill. Remus’s fellow prisoners helped him back to his feet. Tears welled up and leaked down Remus’s face. He felt betrayed. Dour Face had seemed cold and distant, but in a bizarre way he had grown to trust the grim-faced Ethari. The unexpected cruelty was shocking. It made no sense. Only as he was marching away did Dour Face’s words penetrate his dismay.
“Strike to kill.” He's trying to warn me. But why pretend to punish me?
“Blasted lunatics,” Grotius said from behind Remus. “Why string us up to fight and then abuse us?”
“It was a warning,” Remus said. “He told me ‘Strike to kill. You cannot wound them’.”
“Cannot wound them?” the man in front of Remus said. “What in the emperor’s name are we fighting?”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Remus said. “Pass the warning along.”
The message passed up and down the line as they reached the edge of town. In front of them the trees scraped the sky, hundreds of feet tall.
“I hate this blasted forest,” Grotius said.
Remus did not respond, his memories conjuring up the monster that had stalked them the last time he ventured into the woods. With practiced precision the Ethari soldiers formed an escort around the chained captives and led them single-file into the trees. They pushed the prisoners to a hard jog, running down what looked like a game trail. It was a warm day, and in his leather armor Remus started sweating freely during the first mile. Barefoot, his feet were getting tough, but he still had to watch where he stepped.
Eight miles traveled was Remus’s best guess. Late afternoon sun was filtering through the treetops when they stopped. In front of them flowed a shallow, fast-running stream. On the other side of the water the woods changed. Instead of the towering and sparse tyrant trees, the forest on the far bank was dense and choked with smaller trees and shrubs. It looked like a swamp.