by Lee LaCroix
“Did you manage to find the antidote?” Malic inquired as he sat down on the chair.
“Yes, yes, I did. He seems to be doing better already,” Kayten explained, feeling at Novas’ head and patting his hair.
“I hope so. He should be feeling well by the morning. Sleep will do him wonders, and it would probably be good for you too,” Malic suggested.
Kayten looked about at the small room and the bed; there was hardly enough room for her and Novas, but she would make due. Malic would either sleep on the chair or the gritty floor.
“I can’t begin to thank you,” Kayten began.
“Think nothing of it,” Malic replied and then turned to stare out the window.
Kayten rustled up beside Novas, became comfortable, and retired to a short sleep.
Chapter Seven
In a surprising and pleasing change, Garreth did not awake the next morning from the invasion of the new day’s light onto his eyes, but to the smell of sweet spices and the aroma of cooking food. It was not long before Ayden was thumping down the stairs of the basement with large clay pot in his hand, and he set it in the table at the center of the room that was surrounded by the fourteen remaining members of the Amberclast crew. The sailors and seaman awoke one-by-one and brought their attention to the clattering of bowls and spoons and their growing hunger. They dug into the mash of sweet yams and dates, having a large bowlful and cleaning the remains with a round of flatbread. The crew drank from the jug of water that was carried down after, quenching their thirsts after being so parched the day before. Each man and Ilsa sat with their full bellies against the wall and thought little about what the day would bring them. All except Garreth. He stood up and looked around the room before he paced around the table and took his place at the center of them.
“It had crossed my mind to steal a ship last night and set a course back to Malquia as fast as we could. But I had no doubt you were all tired by the rigours of the day, and your efforts upon a foreign ship would be utterly wasted. Aside from Novas and Kayten missing,” Garreth began,
“And having no compass for navigation!” Sevrad interjected.
Garreth nodded and continued.
“… the town of Nacosst suffers under the grip of the Vandari. If what Ayden and Raldeen have said are true, these locals are no less victims of the Order’s treachery than Amatharsus was under the banners of the Blackwoods. The Vandari have forced its language upon the people under penalty of torture and death. The taxes they have erected here only serve Vandar and its interests. The once bustling harbour, cornerstone of Nacosst’s trade, industry, and recreation has been converted into a military outpost. We know now it was from here that the Order struck out at our shores, and we cannot allow another magnificent Malquian vessel such as the Amberclast become molested by their forces. With the help of Raldeen’s neighbours and Ayden’s crew, we have decided to remove the Vandari from the town, and we need your help,” Garreth explained.
“Well, that’s lovely and all, but what about the Order. Won’t they march an army here once they realize they’ve been overthrown?” one of the sailors piped up.
“Yes! Yes, they would. But they won’t realize it. If a patrol happens to visit, they would be brought into the city unaware and then separated and ambushed. It may be a bit more difficult if they visit from sea, but I have faith in the group we’ve put together,” Garreth explained.
The sailor sat with a set face, still unconvinced, but Garreth moved on in his discussion. Before he had finished explaining his plan, the crew had come back to life again, and they began to itch for payback against the ones who had destroyed their home and livelihood. They followed him, their steps quick and lively, out of the basement and pooled around the front door. Ayden left after to collect his friends, and then Garreth looked up and down the street for Vandari or the timid denizens who may give away their plot. He led them across the street, from alleyway to alleyway, and headed straight to the commotion of the midday market.
Suspicious of the market alleyways after last night’s prison break, a pair of Vandari stood at the brink of one and peered down its shady depth, looking for anything amiss. As if fearful, they did not step into its borders but instead stayed in the open sun and clear view of the marketplace customers. But that was their fatal flaw. As they turned around to continue their patrol, two figures leapt from the recess of a side doorway and pulled at the guard’s shoulder plates, knocking them onto their backs. The two guards were in the cover of the alley as they began to spit and gurgle, slit throats frothing, and Sevrad and Ilsa pulled them around the corner and began to take their armour and weapons.
All around the market, similar two person teams led the Vandari to their dooms until each group, the complete twelve of them, were fully armed and armoured. It was not long after noon when the last team arrived behind the wide stall of the most successful fish merchant, who had giant swordfish and eels stretched from one end to the other. Soon, Ilsa had cleared them all, overseeing that the spilled blood had been removed, and they were ready to proceed with their plan. Taken from a tablecloth in Ayden’s basement, she began to hand out a pair of blood red sashes to each of the crew members and asked them to tie it around their waist and necks. Garreth looked over the men and then sent them, two-by-two, into the docks and up towards the garrison. Standing upon a nearby crate, Garreth and Ilsa watched over the shallow wall as the groups made their way past the sentries at the gate to the garrison courtyard and spread out inside. He watched the pair of captain Vern and Sevrad disappear inside the building and waited for their return. Soon, they both appeared from inside, and Sevrad spread his arms high and wide as if stretching. Garreth watched the man’s fingers as they flexed and extended. Five, ten, fifteen, eighteen Vandari inside, Garreth counted. Garreth bellowed and then lost sight of them behind a wall.
“Your turn,” Garreth told Ilsa, and she leapt over the wall, landing behind a wagon.
Like a robin flitting from branch to branch, Ilsa made her way towards the garrison gate as she darted from crate to pillar before she dove behind the curve in the wall nearest to the guards. She crept towards one, pressing again the wall. As she pulled one towards the ground, Garreth dropped the other from a distance with his bow. Ilsa placed her victim against the ground and spun across the gap of the gate, catching Garreth’s target before he had a chance to fall into plain sight of the other guards. Garreth leapt over the wall and waited with Ilsa outside the gate.
He peered around the corner and saw the Amberclast crew loitering about, ready to spring into action as the Vandari did. There were three watchtowers on the garrison’s borders that overlooked the town, the docks, and the sea to the north. There was little cover inside the courtyard of the garrison, and Garreth found the only other place to hide to be had was a pair of ballistae that sat unwound and unmanned, pointing over the sea. Garreth followed on Ilsa’s heels as she dove inside the gates, and they put their backs against the ballista. Garreth looked about, knowing that time was of the essence due to the limited cover of the ballista’s slim framework; it wouldn’t be long before they were spotted by careful eyes. Garreth did not even have to move to send an arrow into the first of the watchtowers, and the scout’s hand missed the rung of the alarm when he dropped to the floor. The absence of any guards still unnoticed, Garreth leaned around the corner and sent a second arrow to the watchtower overlooking the docks. This watchman fell undisturbed as well. Before Ilsa and Garreth had a chance to plan their next move, the hollow clanging of the bronzed bell at the north watchtower rang out, and the chorus of unsheathing swords made the two’s hairs stand on end.
Garreth and Ilsa charged the closest group of guards, and the pair were discovered almost immediately as shouts were heard from all around the courtyard. The Vandari tossed the chairs and the table they were sitting on and prepared for a fight, withdrawing their swords and shields. However, there was no way they could prepare for Darkbreaker’s assault to their senses. Even in the undiminished
glare of the noonday desert sun, the sword’s dazzling light sent them staggering and falling to their knees. Those guards had heard the rumours, from the botched assault on Bouldershade, on Deepshine, and the sinking of the Amberclast, about the warriors of light that blinded and bloodied their foes. The greater the light that Darkbreaker threw out, the greater the shadows were for Ilsa to hide behind, and she approached the backs of dazzled soldiers, changing their daze to eternal slumber and laying them to the sandy floor.
The Vandari began to leave their posts and head to the flashy spectacle of battle. Few even made it there, however, for the red-sashed infiltrators stalked up behind them unaware and shanked them above the hip where their armour was bound together. Garreth and Ilsa finished off the last of the Vandari in the courtyard when the door to the garrison flew open, smashing against the wall beside it, and more Vandari spilled from it. Unaware of the treachery of the disguised Amberclast crew, the Vandari charged through their ranks and were struck down as their backs were turned. Only seven had come out of the garrison in the first rush. Soon, those seven were laid out on the ground, and Garreth and Ilsa crept towards the door.
“How should we proceed?” Garreth asked as Vern, Sevrad, and Ilsa surrounded him.
“I’ve got an idea,” Ilsa replied as she ferreted out two woody spheres from her jerkin.
Garreth nodded, and Sevrad and Vern looked on, curious and unaware, as Ilsa broke the seal on the two orbs and cast them inside. Like the intimating viper, a high-pitched hissing resounded beyond those doors, and a thick smoke began to pour out of the door.
“Lead your men in when the smoke clears. Her and I have a bit of experience with this kind of thing,” Garreth boasted before sprinting into the foggy room, and Ilsa followed him with a grin.
The bursts of Darkbreaker’s light were like explosions in the smoky room. For the brief moment between absolute brightness and contrasting darkness, the Vandari could perceive their foes for a mere moment, and they struck out at shadows and illusion. Ilsa found this reaping to be simple, for all of the guards had backed themselves against the wall. Like a mystical embodiment of sleep, she sat them in comfortable positions as they fell to the floor. Garreth was keen to keep Darkbreaker in front of him; as long as its moonstone core was in plain sight, it would feed on the blossoming light that would blind him. By the time Vern led his men inside, the rest of the Vandari were found on the floor. They found Garreth and Ilsa at the end of a hallway, peering inside the slit of the open door.
“Come on and let’s finish this!” a voice boomed from within.
Garreth opened the door another measure and then walked inside. The commander of the garrison pointed a sword at Garreth that was deep and dark like the moonstone core of Garreth’s Darkbreaker. Where the common Vandari had a reinforced leather breastplate, this leader of men wore a jacket of scaled mail that stretched from collar to hip and a weave of loose chainmail below that. His armour was of a burnished gold shade. By his posture and challenging voice, it was clear to Garreth who was overseeing the port. As Garreth, Ilsa, Vern, and Sevrad entered the room, so did the commander and his three bodyguards move from behind the desk. They met in the middle of the long room in a clash of blades and metal.
The commander lunged at Garreth with an overhead swing, and Garreth lay Darkbreaker’s flat over his other hand and absorbed the blow. Not overly surprised when Darkbreaker did not shine alight, Garreth was correct in guessing that the commander wielded a mursame blade. All that sunsteel the Order had extorted from Malquia during their occupation of Deepshine had gone to some use, Garreth figured.
“I had this made especially for you. When I heard you were upon the Malquian ship, I could not resist getting one of these shiny swords that are quite popular amongst our officers,” the commander taunted as he flourished the sword around. “Soon, your smoke and flashing lights will be completely useless!”
“Malquia was not defended with trickery but with strength of heart and steel. Let me remind you of that!” Garreth shouted as he charged at the man.
It had been a while since he had been in a fair swordfight, and in a way, he was craving one. He savoured ever lick of flame that shot up his arms as their weapons collided, danced to the melody of the clashing blades, and beheld the spark of their grinding swords with fury and delight.
The commander lashed out at Garreth with a series of sweeping blows, slashing at his sides and attacking swift and strong. Garreth held his grip on high, letting the sword hang down in front of him, and drew Darkbreaker’s length from side to side, intersecting each blow with a sturdy stance and keen precision. Garreth had been watching the man and his florid display, for it was a feat of acrobatics to keep up such a flurry of slashes. In the single moment that the commander’s back was turned, Garreth struck. When his blade did not meet Garreth’s, the commander took a step too far, lost his balance and rhythm, and did not see Darkbreaker careening from towards him from above. Garreth clipped him on the elbow, slicing off a section of mail and bruising the arm. The commander stepped away and rolled his arm around to dull the pain.
A moment later, the commander charged in with a rolling growl, eager to exact revenge for the increasing number of offences. He leapt back into the fray with another downwards swing, but Garreth was ready for him this time. Garreth unwound Darkbreaker from behind him and unleashed a slash that met strike with strike as the two blades met. A splitting sound like the shattering of the Royal Palace’s stained glass windows was heard, and the commander’s mursame blade was broken in two before its point careened away and stuck into the wall. Darkbreaker slid through the layering of the commander’s scale mail, impaling him. Garreth stepped back and withdrew the sword, letting the commander fall to the ground. His three allies stood nearby, for their foes were ended moments before.
Garreth led the three out of the office and through the entranceway where the rest of the crew were waiting. They made their way out of the garrison to see a large group of citizens grouped around the courtyard gates. There were some panicked shouts as the blood-stained warriors came marching out. At the sight of Garreth and Ilsa, Ayden led his grandfather out of the crowd towards them.
“Okay, it’s your turn,” Garreth said to the elder.
Raldeen made his to the top of a shipping crate. His shiny, bald head barely poked up from the top of the crowd that gathered around him.
“People of Nacosst, my friends and fellow neighbours, be not afraid. Change is coming once again, but I promise you this time it is for the better. I am sure you all remember the days when the Vandari first arrived here, first with smiles and promises and then with threats and swords. We here, at the edge of the sandy beyond, forsake the nomadic life that our fathers and mothers have lived before us as they moved around this land like the shifting sand. But we have put down roots here at the borders of the sea, and we can no longer delude ourselves with the notion of prudence. The Vandari have already taken these docks from us, this woody hallow we built long ago where our children could swim safely and we could fish all day. The Vandar take a portion of everything we own and produce… these taxes, so we may be protected. Protected from what, I ask? Themselves? And lastly, most importantly, they demand that we forsake the words that we have known for generations, forsake the ideas that drive our culture, all in exchange for membership in their one-sided games of trade. This is too much, I declare! There too much to lose and no reason to do so any longer,” Raldeen began, his voice loud and often cracking.
“Today, we have expelled the last of the Vandari here, and we have begun to put plans into motion to keep them out for good, so our business, our pleasure, our culture, and our freedoms may go unmolested as they once were. These men with soldier’s garb in red are actually seafarers from a distant land. You all have heard the rumours about wars across the sea and even quieter tongues that tell of the Order’s defeat. These are those warriors, those heroes, that stood against their armies and lived to tell the tale, victorious in their undertak
ing. Now they stand before us, ready to help the Kal’reth to win their homeland back. But they cannot do it alone! They will need the help and cooperation of everyone here. Please raise your hands and your voices to tell me that you are with me,” Raldeen asked.
The crowd was silent for a time, but a small crowd of boys in the back began to whistle and cheer, and the crowd broke forth in shouting and applause. Only the merchants, scowling over the disruption of their lucrative trade contracts, left scowling and trudged back to the market while some prepared to make the long trek to Erawal to inform the Vandari there of this treachery.
Raldeen led some of the more vocal volunteers back to his home where a round table discussion was had concerning how to handle the Order. Already, a handful of men, learned in both the Vandarian and old tongue, volunteered to take the guard’s places at the gate and around the city and lead any scouts of the Order to a cunning ambush. Another team was dispatched to prepare the siege weaponry at the garrison and to calibrate the machines to destroy any docked Vandarian ships in a surprise attack. Many of the more concerned didn’t leave until they felt their families were going to be safe, but the wine soothed them a bit.
Garreth did not move to speak his mind; it was still his primary intention of finding Berault’s attacker even if Raldeen believed otherwise. Garreth frowned as he thought of his son, and he was still not ready to think of him as dead. Garreth and Ilsa saw the crew of the Amberclast to the only vessel left in the docks. It was a smaller ship, but Sevrad found all the navigational tools he needed and thought they should make it back to Malquia without too much difficulty.