“You,” she said, approaching the dozen soldiers with her finger pointed. “We serve a noble purpose but have no desire to kill you. Surrender and live.”
They walked toward her, eyes wide and swords drawn, in a pyramid formation of sorts.
Nara dropped to her knees and placed her hands on the stone platform. She flared the earth rune, and both the platform and nearby stairway to the street rumbled, then collapsed under the soldiers who were about to attack. They dropped to the ground below in a pile of dirt, debris, and bruised limbs.
“Gifted!” one of them shouted. Several of the others ran, with the rest rising to face their foes, albeit from a lower elevation. With one end of the platform crushed, they would have to fight their way through Jahmai and his men to make it to the only remaining stairway if they were to reach Mykel or Nara.
“I warned you,” Nara said, then motioned with her head to Mykel and Jahmai. With Mykel leading the effort, the skirmish lasted only a few moments, and though none were killed, one was unconscious and two more had fled, including Dylan.
As Jahmai and the others tied up the defeated guards, Nara wriggled out of the chain mail with the aid of flared strength. She removed the boots as well, happy to put her bare feet on the cool platform.
She turned to Jahmai. “How long before the rest of them find us? And the forty from the garrison?”
“We’ve made a lot of noise, but it’s midday,” he answered. “I’m hoping they are eating their lunch. We have a few minutes.”
“Shall we?” Mykel asked, nodding to the building’s rear entrance double doors.
As Nara entered the royal bank, followed by the rest of her team, she gaped at the polished marble floors, giant candelabras, and torches that filled the spacious entry lobby with expansive light. Well-dressed patrons and important-looking officials were situated at desks and tables.
“Over here,” Jahmai directed. Nara followed him up a wide stairway without incident.
“And just what do you think you are doing?”
They’d reached the top, and a short, balding man holding a sheaf of papers and a quill stopped in front of Jahmai. “Royal guards and employees only, sir. I don’t care what your military rank is.”
Jahmai knocked the papers out of the man’s grip and pushed him back with a firm hand. Nara would have felt sorry for him, but she thought of how rich these people were while so many others suffered. She was a criminal now, and her sense of right and wrong was in turmoil. What would Anne think of this? Or Bylo? She decided not to care. Given her few options and the recent loss of Sammy, her anger pressed her to strike back in whatever way she could.
“Show us the tax collections,” Jahmai said, prodding the man onward.
They kept walking until they reached the end of a short hallway where two sets of thick metal bars blocked their passage into what appeared to be large vaults.
“Here,” the banker said, pointing to the vault on the right with a shaky finger. “The other vault is for customer accounts.”
“Who has the key?” one soldier asked.
“Mykel does,” Jahmai answered.
With that, Mykel handed Nara the staff and stepped forward. He gripped the bars near the latch on one side, placed his foot on the stone wall, and pulled. As he paused, the sharp intake of breath from some soldiers filled the silence, then the sound of metal bending and a loud pop was followed by the stone wall shattering as the latch and the bars slid to the left.
“I figured it would be easier for everyone if I moved the bars out of the way rather than just bend some to squeeze through,” Mykel said.
“Smart,” Nara said, smiling, then tossed the staff back to Mykel. She turned to look at the men. They were frozen in awe at Mykel’s feat. It would take time for them to get used to the new normal of their lives.
“Stop gawking and work,” Jahmai said to his men as he stormed into the vault.
Nara stepped away from the vault and looked over the balcony into the bank lobby. Few patrons remained, and two guards entered the front doors from the street, presumably the first of those from the garrison down the street. It wouldn’t take long for the rest to follow, she surmised, but they would be too late.
From this height, the earth was harder for her to reach with her magic, and the distance required more energy than usual to direct a wall of rock to block the bottom of the stairwell. It mattered not if the enemy brought forty men or a hundred. They’d have to find another way up, and the robbery would be over by then. Nara and her men would escape out the back of the building via a stone ramp that she would summon in a few moments.
She walked over to the banker-looking man with papers that Jahmai had first confronted. He had since gathered his documents and now sat on a chair at the top of the stairway, watching with wide eyes as they stole Fairmont’s tax revenue.
“What’s your name?” Nara asked.
“Wha-what do you mean?” His stuttering revealed his fear — no doubt over what would happen to him when the Queen learned of the robbery.
“Your name, sir. What is it?”
“Able. Able Wileman.” He adjusted his spectacles and fidgeted with his papers.
“Pleased to meet you, Able. My name is Nara Dall. From Dimmitt.”
“Hel—” He coughed and scratched his balding head. “Hello, Miss Dall.”
“What do you do, here?”
“Manager of accounts.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m a banker, miss.”
“Thought so. How much is in there?” She pointed to the tax vault.
“Um. Twenty thousand, give or take.”
“Gold crowns?” she asked, trying to understand the scale of that much wealth. She’d never even seen a single gold crown. Just iron pennies and copper bits.
“Yes.”
“Queen Kayna is my sister. I’m taking her money. All of it. I will put it to good use. Tell her that.”
“She’ll have my head.”
“Then maybe you should run.”
“I have nowhere to go.”
He probably didn’t. Especially after this. She wondered what his punishment would look like.
“I assume that you are good with figures? Paying people, purchasing things?”
He fidgeted with his papers, distressed and not knowing what to do with himself. “Um, I suppose so.”
Noise from below prompted Nara to look over the balcony to see several more soldiers as they entered the front of the bank. The first two were now positioning a ladder at the bottom of the stairwell to scale the barrier she had summoned. She turned back to the banker.
“Maybe you can be useful, then. Follow, if you dare.”
He nodded but didn’t move.
“Your choice.” She returned to the tax vault. More than a dozen large sacks, each bulging with coins, now sat on the floor, Mykel standing beside them.
“More soldiers are coming,” she told him. “Time to go.”
Nara went over to the back wall of the bank and placed a hand on the stone. She flared earth and the wall turned to dirt, then flowed like sand, forming a narrow stone ramp to the ground below. She peered over the edge to see the platform, the wagon, and the horses.
“Down we go,” she said and stepped down the ramp to the waiting wagon.
It took only moments for them to toss the empty crates out of the wagon and load the money, soldiers, and one fearful banker. Jahmai spurred the horses into action, and they were on their way.
As they raced through the city streets, Nara looked back at the bank from the crowded bed of the wagon.
Mykel leaned close to her. “Even if they tried to pursue us—”
“They won’t,” she said. “They’re afraid. We’re criminals now. Powerful ones.”
“We had a good reason.”
“Does it matter?” she asked. “It’s still wrong. It’s just not as wrong as what she is doing.”
“Do you regret it?”
“I’m not sure.
But Jahmai suggested it, and I couldn’t think of any other way. Maybe I’m not smart enough to lead a revolution.”
Mykel patted her on the back. “I think you’re doing great.”
The wagon bounced hard on a pothole, and she grabbed for a handhold but found a sack of money instead. She opened it, reached inside, and pulled out a handful of tiny metal coins. Gold.
“We were innocent before,” she said. “On the run from the church and the crown but having done no wrong. Can’t say that anymore.”
“There is no other way. To fight an army, you need an army. Armies need food and wages.”
“Perhaps. But doesn’t every selfish leader say such things to get what they want? What if Fairmont says we stole from the people, not the crown? They could just move the other money to the tax vault—money from merchants or farmers. Or they could double the taxes to fill their coffers again. Put an even greater burden on the poor folks to replace what we took.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m open to suggestions if you have a better idea.”
But she didn’t. She was neither politician nor bureaucrat, just a village girl out of her depth.
She put the coins back in the bag and looked at the road ahead, wondering where this conflict would take them next.
“We’ll need a base. A place to gather strength,” she said. “Any ideas?”
“How about the hills near Keetna? A week or two of good marching from here.”
“Right in the middle of the Great Land, far from the big cities. And Keetna has flatland to the south. Farmers. Food we could buy.”
“And they know us there,” Mykel said.
“Yes,” Nara agreed, eager to see Nilly. And Mimi. Familiar faces in the middle of the chaos.
“We’ll need you to build a place for us,” Mykel said.
He was right. These soldiers had no place to lay their heads, and once they returned to the outpost to collect the others, they’d be leaving Junn. Scarcely more than a dozen men—hardly an army. But they would build an army to take on Fairmont, and it would require a headquarters.
She thought about what such a fortification would look like. It would have to be underground, as the high walls of a fort would attract attention. The hilly region north of Keetna would be perfect for that. Many tunnels for entry, for easy defense, and for escape. Yes, Keetna would work.
She nodded. “Keetna it is.”
16
The Project
Sammy woke to rough hands pulling him out of the cage and a deep voice yelling.
“Move, runt!” the soldier said.
He wondered where he was going. They took two kids from the big cage yesterday, a boy and a girl, but they never came back. As Sammy walked outside the building and across a bumpy, flat area, the soldier pushed at his shoulder to get him to walk faster. It was bright outside, and he squinted his eyes. He saw a high fence surrounding some brick buildings, and the soldier directed Sammy into a door of a building, then down a stairway to a basement. The basement had a dirt floor, dirt walls, and two cages.
The soldier pushed Sammy into a cage and closed the steel door, the sound of the metal ringing in his ears. He was in jail again, but he had done nothing wrong. And now he was alone. That wasn’t fair, and it made him mad and scared him too. People shouldn’t be able to put kids in jail, and he wished Serah were here.
After a little while, Sammy’s eyes started to adjust to the light. A cot rested in the corner of his jail cell, so he sat on it. On the other side of the bars, he heard something move.
“Hello,” he said. He peered through the bars, but it was very dark, and he couldn’t see much. “Is anyone there?”
He heard soft footsteps as someone came near. He thought it was a woman, but he couldn’t tell for sure. It was too dark to see her face.
“Hello,” a voice said. It was a woman.
She reached through the bars and pressed her hand on Sammy’s hand. It was warm and soft and he shook her hand, then held onto it for a long time. She finally pulled her hand away.
“What did you do?” Sammy asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
“Me neither.”
“Where are you from?”
“Dimmitt.”
“Where is that?”
“Um. I don’t really know. It’s on an island. We go fishing. And trap coneys. I go to school too.” Talking about Dimmitt made him sad. He wanted to tell her about Mykel and Nara and Simon, and maybe even about Lina. But he couldn’t say the words. He was alone and talking about them would just make him even sadder.
“I miss my home too,” she said.
The way she spoke was soft and fancy. He wondered where her home was but didn’t ask. It was weird, sitting in the dark and talking to someone he couldn’t see. He wanted to ask lots of questions, but this wasn’t like a normal conversation. People talked when running around the woods or playing soldier and robber. You should talk when you are doing things with someone, or quiet in whispers at church, or maybe in class. But they were in jail, and it was dark, and he didn’t know what to say.
The woman moved back into the darkness, and his cell felt colder. Then he heard a bad scraping sound. She was moving a cot, and it clanged when it hit the bars between them. Then he heard her lie down on the cot, and her warm hand touched his hand again. He laid his head on his cot, still holding her hand.
“I’m Sammy,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Pleased to meet you, Sammy. My name is Kayna.”
17
Veneti
The hard seat of the wagon had been unkind over the many miles, and Anne’s lower back ached as the driver steered the horses to avoid yet another pothole in the old road.
“It’s just up around the bend here,” the driver said. “Market day today. You can find some good root vegetables sold by the monks hereabouts. But they have no cabbages.”
The man’s voice was deep and unsteady. Age was unkind to hardworking farmers, evidence he bore in his slouched posture and deeply wrinkled face.
“It would have been a much longer trip without your help,” she said. “Thank you, Armen.”
“My pleasure, ma’am,” he said. “It was good to have the company.”
The journey west had begun with many footsteps and several nights spent camping in the cool spring air, but men like Armen had been kind with the occasional rides.
The wagon rounded the bend, and the village of Veneti came into view. It was much bigger than the last time she was here, but still modest compared to many other villages. Sharply-sloped roofs adorned most of the homes and buildings, designed to shed the snow load that accumulated in these mountainous regions west of Fairmont.
Shoeless children played in the rivulets of water that danced across the old roadway, enjoying the snow runoff from the higher peaks that surrounded the village. The true blessing in this place, however, was the grand edifice on the side of the mountain behind Veneti. High stone walls surrounded the monastery that had stood for many years as a center of service, learning and study. And of faith. It had been the home of her dear friend Bylo, long before he knew his role in this world. But Veneti had been more than that to Anne.
Armen pulled to a stop. “Well, that’s it for me,” he said, getting out.
She carefully stepped down, one hand on the small of her back as she straightened herself. Her shoes touched the ground and she paused a moment. Long wagon rides were not part of her normal routine, and although she was grateful for the lift, she would be sore for several days.
She walked to the back of the wagon and retrieved her pack, slung it over one shoulder, and approached Armen, who was removing the wood posts that would make a canopy for his stand. Cabbages filled much of the wagon, stuffed into more than a dozen baskets.
“Setting up so far from the market?”
“I like to get the out-of-town folks as they come in.” He pointed back down the road. “Before they spend all their money. They li
ke cabbages. Use them in their caribou soup.”
“Sounds delicious. I’d like to buy one if you don’t mind.”
Armen raised his eyebrows briefly, then reached for the nearest cabbage. “It’s on the house,” he said, smiling as he offered the cabbage with a largely toothless grin.
“Why, thank you, sir,” Anne said, taking it. “I pray that you earn many coins today.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
As she walked into Veneti, she passed a bakery where a boy stood in the doorway eating a biscuit. The smells of fresh bread and rolls made her stomach grumble. She looked up as she walked, seeing a raven staring down from atop a nearby shop building, eyeing her cabbage, most likely. She looked to her left and saw a young lady approaching on the opposite side of the street. A puppy with an odd pattern of black-and-brown fur strained against a leash in the girl’s hand, but the girl held it fast as it bounced about, splashing in the street puddles as they walked. This was it! The young man she was looking for was nearby, but she didn’t want to turn to look at him for fear of missing this opportunity. It had to be just right.
“Come here,” Anne said to the young girl.
The girl slowed, looked both ways, then crossed the street. The puppy followed reluctantly at first, then lurched forward, pulling at the leash as Anne knelt to greet the girl, still holding the cabbage in one hand.
“Does your mama make caribou soup?”
“No. But my grandmama does.” The girl’s voice was squeaky, delightful, and Anne suppressed a smile. Though she had foreseen this meeting and knew what the girl would look like, she always wondered how the child would sound. What a doll.
“It’s yours,” Anne said, handing the cabbage to the girl. “Got it special, just for you.”
The raven overhead cawed loudly and flapped its wings. Anne turned to the left. At the edge of the road was a young man holding a basket of bread. His jaw went slack, eyes wide in astonishment.
“You’re her,” he said.
Anne walked over to him. “Was it close?”
The Godseeker Duet Page 41