by Dan Decker
“Don't touch it,” Adar said, “you'll make me lose my place.”
Jorad backed away and wished that the Severing had never happened. One day he'd like to understand why it was that they had lost all of the knowledge of their fathers.
“I think we’re in luck.” Adar touched a point on the globe, and it expanded until there was an exact miniature replica of the city of Zecarani sitting in the air. It took up less than three feet of space. Jorad could see Adar through the image on the other side. There were markings above the small city, similar to that above the arches. Adar didn’t look surprised in the slightest.
Something clicked, and Jorad understood what this was. This globe was a key. It would tell which arch to use. The translucent globe took on new meaning and the power of the Arches sunk into him. This globe could be used to travel anywhere in the world.
Soret had let out a small shriek when the image had appeared, and similar reactions had escaped the others, except for Tere, who stared expressionlessly at the tiny ghostlike city. Jorad bet Tere was thinking that it wouldn’t have taken him fifteen years to find Adar if he had access to this.
“It looks like there’s an arch that opens up into Zecarani,” Adar said. “We need to hurry.” On their way, Adar stopped and pointed out another arch. “This arch will put you within two days travel of Rarbon. For some reason, the arch into Rarbon doesn't work.”
Jorad examined the indecipherable symbols above it, he suspected now that it was an ancient numbering system, but they all looked the same to him, and he wouldn’t recognize it again without help, so he took out a dagger and used it to make a mark on one of the bricks of the arch. Adar grimaced at the defacement but said nothing.
Was there an arch to Neberan? If there was, why hadn't they used it to get to Zecarani and save them two weeks of travel time? Lous would still be alive. Jorad was about to ask Adar when Tere spoke.
“You’ve been back to Rarbon,” Tere said. “All this time, you’ve come and gone as you pleased.”
Adar didn’t answer as they continued. Jorad thought back to the times when Adar would disappear, sometimes for days at a time. He could have gone anywhere. Despite Adar’s insistence that Jorad had been here before, he didn’t have a memory of it. He must have been a small boy to forget a place like this.
It had taken several stops and turns before Adar found the right arch. When he thumbed it open, they were looking into the city of Zecarani. With one-step, they would travel miles. Jorad had made sure to pay close attention on the way. He didn't want to get lost in here.
“I’m going to move fast,” Adar said. “More than two will slow me down. Tarner and Karn, care to join me?”
“I’ll go,” Tere broke in, “Tarner will stay.”
“You're a wanted man.”
“After yesterday, we all are.”
After a piercing look, Adar nodded his head. “The rest of you stay here and keep the door closed while we’re gone.”
“Melyah! Have we lost all decency?” Jorad took a step towards the door and both Tere and Adar moved to block him. They looked odd standing as close as they were and both going to great effort to avoid touching the other. “We can’t sit here and do nothing. Many people are about to die, and I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t help them. There’s plenty of room here for refugees.”
“Stop,” Adar said. “Think. If you get killed, our chance of getting into Rarbon’s Portal is gone.”
“I refuse to sit by. If you don’t like it, then you’d better stay to keep me from going.” Jorad folded his arms and met Adar’s glare who finally gave another slight nod of his head.
“You’ll need this.” Adar tossed Jorad the bag with the Hunwei head. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Chapter 27
Adar was greeted by thunder from the overcast sky when he stepped out of the arch into Zecarani. He turned around and saw that he had just stepped out of a large rock. Rather than move the rock, which was more than ten feet tall, the surrounding buildings had been built around it. There were scratches where it looked like somebody had tried to take a chisel or hammer to it, and he wondered if it had been protected in some way. There wasn't anything on this side to indicate that there was an arch hidden here.
The buildings on either side of the rock rose up multiple stories and behind it was another building of a similar height. The tall buildings kept Adar from discerning their location, and that bothered him. Time was too short as it was, he couldn't afford to waste time figuring out where they were.
As Tere and Karn followed him out of the arch, Adar wished that he had a better choice than to leave Tarner with the others, but if things came to a head with Tere, he wanted to deal with Tere on his own terms and didn't want Tarner interfering. His suggestion to bring Tarner and Karn had been calculated. As Adar had hoped, Tere demanded he replace Tarner, instead of insisting they both go. That’s why Adar also wanted Karn. Tere wasn’t likely to attack Karn, and Karn had already promised Adar not to interfere if it came to blows again.
Even though Adar didn’t trust Tarner, it should be enough that Tarner knew how important it was to get into the Rarbon Portal. Tarner gave a short nod to Adar. He was a hard man to read and spoke little. When he did speak, it was usually in short statements. There could be little doubt that he was a cunning man, though. Adar had carefully observed Tarner over the last couple of weeks. He very rarely did anything that hadn't been well thought out.
“We don't know that the Hunwei only attack at night,” Adar said. “Watch your backs.”
“Same to you,” Jorad said, not bothering to be covert as he stared at Tere.
“Let’s finish this,” Tere said, ignoring Jorad.
With a last look at Jorad and an admonishment to be careful, Adar headed out of the alleyway. He'd done what he could for Jorad, and now he needed to focus on getting the tablet and dealing with Tere. Interacting with the man was like walking barefoot on the flat side of a sword that was suspended above hot coals. Stray just a little and things would get unpleasant fast. Adar had seen blood lust before, but for Tere, it went much deeper than that, the oath barely held him as it was. Why did the man burn so deeply wanting him dead?
Adar was unsure if guilt or anger drove Tere. The coincidence of Tere finding Adar moments after he’d discovered Nelion’s body bothered him, and he struggled to push it away, he needed more evidence before he could lay that at Tere’s feet.
Thinking of Nelion reminded Adar of the sadness that had never gone away and the bitterness that had been a constant companion.
It didn’t matter who plunged the knife into her chest, he thought, when I married her I condemned her to death, I knew the capabilities of my father.
He focused and pushed that all away. Zecarani had hours. Despite his concern for Jorad's plan, he felt a little pride at Jorad’s stubbornness to do what he could to help the people. It was a pity there wasn’t more time to try to help everybody. Even with the rotting head, Jorad likely wouldn’t be able to convince many unless the Hunwei attacked while they were still here.
Adar broke into a trot and at the same moment, there was a flash of lighting followed several seconds later by thunder. Three men running through town shouldn’t cause too much disturbance in this storm. If it did, well too bad, there was too little time.
As they left the alley, Adar looked around, memorizing the location of the arch. The two buildings that formed the alley they'd just come from were among the tallest on this street. The top of the town hall was visible ahead, and Adar broke into a run. It wasn't going to be hard to find this place again once he had the tablet.
As they ran through the street, the reality of the situation bothered Adar. All of the people he was passing were going to die or be taken captive. He avoided making eye contact as he pushed himself to run faster. It would be too much to hope that he would figure Daren's tablet out soon enough to save the town, but it was a possibility. The tablet was a weapon that could kill many Hunwei at a tim
e. Adar had never shared this information with Jorad because he'd wanted to keep Jorad focused on getting to Rarbon. Because of Tere's actions, Adar was now faced with the situation of getting the tablet or risk it falling into the hands of the Hunwei.
The rain was starting to fall by the time they reached the town hall which looked much the same as it had the day before. He came to a stop at the small side door they had used yesterday, and he rapped on it with his knuckles. The door that had been here originally had been made from a much harder wood and was intricately carved. His knock had a hollow sound to it. Adar couldn't imagine how the original door had been damaged enough to be replaced. The builders had done something to the wood to strengthen it and keep it from deteriorating.
Adar didn't wait for the door to fully open before he yanked it open the rest of the way and barged inside. Two guards were the only people in sight.
The first opened his mouth to speak as Tere lunged at him; Karn stepped up to help take the guard down. Adar grabbed the other. Several moments later both guards lay unconscious on the ground.
Explosions rocked the city and Adar grabbed the wall to steady himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Karn lose his balance and latch onto the table to keep from falling. Adar looked back out the door and saw that the Hunwei were indeed beginning their attack. They had used the cloud cover to get into position so they could drop out of the sky.
He could count half a dozen ships in the section of sky he could see through the doorway. It reminded him of the mural on the meeting chamber ceiling of the town hall. He considered the possibility that it might have been based on a prophecy until he remembered that the humans in the depiction had been armed with ships as well. That wasn't going to happen today.
He had been hoping that the Hunwei only attacked at night, it would have made them more predictable. If Jorad and the others weren't already back into the Arches by now, they would be soon. Xarda and Tarner would make sure that Jorad was protected.
He hoped.
“We’re out of time,” Tere yelled. “They’re here.”
Adar pushed himself up and tried to avoid thinking about how stupid it was to be here. This was his last chance to get the tablet and he refused to fail. Karn was all ready to go, and Tere was steadying himself when more flashes of light lit the sky.
Explosions rocked the ground again, and Adar found himself wobbling. There were a few tense seconds when he made eye contact with Tere and the thought of Nelion lying still with a dagger plunging out of her chest came to his mind unbidden. As Adar struggled with his anger, he looked away from Tere and went through the door leading to the meeting chamber. Either Tere’s oath would hold, or Adar would kill him. It was as simple as that.
The meeting chamber of the town hall was empty, but mortar and rock were falling from the ceiling. Much of the mural that had covered the ceiling had already fallen to the floor. The amount of damage surprised Adar. The town hall had been built before the Severing, back when they could build buildings to last. That meant that the Hunwei were targeting this building and that its defenses had weakened in the intervening time. They would be here soon.
After waiting several precious moments to see if it would get any better, Adar gave up. Taking a deep breath, he plunged into the chaos. Even though he kept a hand above his eyes, they still filled with dust.
He ran into a hard object and tripped.
“Melyah!” In his blindness, he’d strayed from the aisle and into a bench. As he picked himself up and tried to gain a better idea of where he was, he spotted the far side of the room. As he made his way over, several times he came within a hair’s breadth of a large chunk of rock falling on his head. He forged ahead and found Tere waiting for him beside a door.
“Karn?”
Tere shook his head. “Thought he was with you.”
Adar examined the meeting hall looking for Karn. He could make out patches of sky through holes in the assembly room ceiling. It wouldn’t be much longer before the ceiling caved in. They waited for a few more seconds as the dust began to settle but Karn didn’t show up. There was another explosion and a large piece of the ceiling fell.
On the other side of the meeting room, Adar could make out several shapes through the falling dust. Hunwei. He pulled up his blaster, firing off several shots before he ducked behind a bench to avoid their return fire.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tere slipped through the nearest door. Adar crawled after him as blasts flew overhead. Wherever Karn was now, he was on his own.
On the other side, Adar almost charged into Tere, who’d come to a stop because three Hunwei were coming their way from down the hall. Tere already had his blaster up and fired into the first, knocking him over with a gaping hole in the middle of his chest. Tere dived out of the away as the other two fired at him.
Adar dropped and fired at the same time, hitting the second Hunwei in the leg. The Hunwei howled as the bottom half of his leg disappeared in a bloody mess, and he tumbled over. Tere lunged at the legs of the third, and they both went over. Adar didn’t have time to wonder why Tere hadn’t just fired his blaster because, at the same moment, a fourth came from around a corner up ahead. Adar aimed and pulled his trigger, but nothing happened.
Melyah! He tried again with the same result.
He threw the blaster away and moved to the side as a blast hit the wall where he’d been moments before. Tere, using the blaster of the third Hunwei, fired a shot taking down the fourth. The third Hunwei grabbed his blaster back, wrenching it out of Tere’s hands. Adar scrambled to pick up a blaster off the first dead Hunwei and shot Tere’s Hunwei in the head. Afterward, he finished off the one that was grabbing his leg and howling.
When Adar was done, he picked up another blaster off a dead Hunwei and slung it onto his shoulder. If the weapon could stop working without warning, it would be best to have several. Tere grabbed several blasters as well.
“The Melyah cursed thing stopped working,” Tere said.
“Mine too.” Adar pushed further into the town hall, expecting that at anytime Tere would try to put a hole in his back.
Chapter 28
As the sizzle of lightning flashed across the sky, thunder filled the air. Jorad looked up at the sky expecting that the invasion had already begun, but he only saw flashes of lightning with more accompanying thunder. It was hard to tell the difference between the thunder and explosions that accompanied a Hunwei invasion. Resisting the urge to look up again with the next flash of lightning, he stepped out into the street that connected to the alley with the arch.
It was mostly empty. Several people turned a corner and disappeared from view. Jorad called out to the nearest man who was hurrying past, anxious to get home before the storm. The man turned and looked at Jorad but didn't stop. It was a pity that the man hadn't stopped, but Jorad wasn't going to waste time chasing him down.
It had turned out that everyone wanted to help warn Zecarani. Jorad tried without success to convince at least Soret to stay at the arch, but she was the most adamant of any of them. He couldn’t blame her. She’d lost so much. After they’d dumped their packs in the Arches, they'd entered Zecarani. Jorad had suggested that they keep the arch open, focus first on the closest buildings, and work from there. Nobody had disagreed.
Xarda and Wes went one direction while Tarner and Leron went the other. After they had worked this street, they would meet at the Arch with the people they’d collected. Anybody that could help they would enlist and everybody else would go into the Arches.
Jorad went across the street to the closest shop, which turned out to be a bakery. As he walked up the wooden stairs to the door, the smell of bread fresh out of the oven greeted them. He could see the baker at the counter on the far side of the wall through the two small windows. Upon entering, the first thing he noticed was a large cake that sat out on the counter, it was decorated with strawberries. He’d forgotten the other day that he wanted to introduce Soret to real cake. No time for that now.
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br /> The baker greeted them. He was a rather large man wearing an apron that looked like it hadn't been washed in years. Underneath the fresh cover of white flour, there were dark stains. The sight made Jorad's desire for the cake vanish. The door to the kitchen was opposite the entrance. It was open, and Jorad could make out the back of a woman as she stirred something in a large wooden bowl. Beside her was a small girl sitting on the floor playing with several dolls.
“The Hunwei are about to attack,” Jorad said. “You don’t have time to grab much, gather your family and have them meet us out here in the street. I know a safe way out of the city.” As he spoke, the baker’s face had shown several different emotions, starting with a smile—clearly expecting a joke—but now he was frowning.
“Hunwei? How stupid do you think I am? I follow you out into the street, and your friends come in from the back and rob me. I wasn’t born yesterday, son.”
Jorad reached into the bag, pulled out the Hunwei head, and set it on the counter beside the cake. “Ok. You tell me what this is then.”
The baker cringed, moving the cake further away. “Get that smelly thing off my counter.”
“Take a close look. Ever see a man or an animal that has horns like that? That’s a Hunwei, sure as anything. Meet us or not. When the bombing starts, you’ll be convinced. I just hope it’s not too late by then.” Jorad stuffed the head back into the bag, and they left with the baker staring after them, uncertain what to make of the encounter.
The next several shops and houses went about as well. Once Tarner and Xarda had finished with their side of the street, they helped Jorad and Soret with theirs. When they met back in front of the alley, they’d only managed to collect a handful of people. A mother with small children, several older women, a group of young men, and an old man that looked drunk. While Wes showed the mother and children into the arch, Jorad pulled out the head for the benefit of the others. Several drops of rain fell onto his head as their new recruits examined it.