by Mok, DK
He felt a shiver of relief, followed by the slightly plaintive thought that she’d left him behind. But no matter; she’d escaped, and Seris would certainly find a way to—
He turned and almost fell backwards out of the tent, grabbing hold of the flap just in time. It stood in the middle of his tent, like a broken corpse somehow erect. Sores scabbed its grey skin, and the hair hanging over its face was matted with blood and clots of slimy mud.
“Elhan?” said Seris.
“Man, I got bored waiting for you to rescue me,” croaked Elhan. “Are we going now or what?”
Seris stared at the haggard figure, reaching instinctively towards Elhan’s raw and bloodied wrists. She took a step back, a dark eye peering out between the filthy fronds of hair.
“Any moment now, someone’s going to look up and see one body less than there should be,” said Elhan. “I’m leaving now, with or without you. You coming?”
“How?”
“Cover your skin; put your arms around my neck,” said Elhan, and Seris complied. “Hold on.”
Before Seris had a chance to wonder whether this was such a good idea, he saw the tent flap rushing towards them. There was a sudden gush of night air, then an awful sense of weightlessness. Elhan’s arms reached out as they sailed through the darkness, her hands slapping onto a branch. Seris clung to her neck, feeling her muscles bunch and release as she pounced and grappled her way towards the ground. She smelled of moss and dried blood, and he could feel her trembling as she moved.
She leapt for one last branch, her hands just catching on the gnarled wood. One hand suddenly slipped, the other scratching vainly at the bark as they crashed through the leaves, hitting the ground with a thud. Elhan rolled smoothly to her feet and into a sprint, heading straight for the distant wall of trees. Seris scrabbled to his feet.
“Wait!” he hissed. “They said something about technology, something they’re using for the war.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
Not us, thought Seris. Me.
He ran through the trees, making a drunken beeline towards the three sealed tents he’d seen earlier. New military technologies rarely boded well, particularly for those picking up the pieces. Literally. People seemed eternally driven to find more efficient ways of killing greater numbers of people, from clubs to swords to shrapnel catapults. Seris knew well enough that you couldn’t stop progress, but sometimes you could slow it down a little. Maybe just today.
He crept urgently through the sleeping camp, diving into the shadows at every passing patrol. The guarded tents finally slid into view, the scent of smoke and acid hanging in the air. He crouched behind a covered cart, noting the tightly stitched tent flaps and the pair of brigands flanking each entrance.
Seris imagined that life as a fighter or a thief must be so much easier. A fighter just hit things until the way was clear. A thief crept around things and did whatever they pleased. A cleric, well, a cleric just toddled around healing people and getting very tired.
He suddenly noticed a shadow crawling towards the rear of the nearest tent, and he caught a flash of pale grey skin. He waited impatiently for the guards to glance away, was amazed when they actually did, and then he darted into the shadows near the back of the tent.
“Elhan?”
She didn’t look at him as she ripped a blunt knife down the thick canvas.
“We’re gonna look, then we’re gonna go, right?”
“Absolutely,” said Seris.
Elhan dragged her dagger through to the base of the tent, then squeezed through the slit into the darkness. Seris hesitated—he wasn’t fond of creeping into dark spaces, only to discover when you lit a torch that you were surrounded by salivating hellbeasts. He unhooked a lantern from a nearby cart, turning the flame down low as he pushed through the frayed gap.
He straightened up inside the dim tent, his foot knocking into something with a soft clunk. Elhan stood beside him, and he followed her gaze to the towering mound before them.
Canisters. Metal canisters, each the size of a fist, with some kind of interlocking peg at the top. Piled from floor to ceiling, spilling to the walls. There had to be thousands in this tent alone.
“Just one of these took out Penwyvern Manor,” said Elhan.
Seris couldn’t tell if it was horror or admiration in Elhan’s voice. In Seris’s eyes, each dull metal canister was already translating into casualties.
“All right,” said Seris. “Time to leave.”
Elhan was gone from the tent almost before he finished his sentence, and she was creeping towards the trees by the time Seris emerged from the jagged tear.
“You go on ahead,” said Seris.
Elhan stopped abruptly, her tone suspicious.
“Why?”
“Just go. I’ll catch up.”
“I’m cursed with despicability, not stupidity. It’s obvious you’re going to try and do something catastrophically demented that is going to endanger us both, and I’m not about—”
As Elhan stepped towards Seris, his arm moved. Elhan was fast, but today was not one of her better days. She lunged towards him, but the lantern was already swinging from his hand, arcing through the rip in the tent—
A lot can happen in the space of a heartbeat. Elhan grabbed Seris’s arm and raced away from—
The world exploded. Or so it seemed. A gigantic fireball burst from the tent, like a wad of cotton exploding from a bud, the tent disintegrating into flying ash. A cloud of orange fire unfolded, engulfing the sky in a ceiling of flame. A wave of searing heat knocked Elhan off her feet, and Seris rolled from her grasp.
The screams rising from around the camp were drowned by a second, massive explosion as another tent joined the inferno. Elhan scrambled to her feet, running desperately for the wall of trees. She glanced over her shoulder as she reached the blackened treeline, and saw Seris staggering towards her. No, he was veering off.
“Seris!”
Gods, he was going for the pole.
Seris made it to the clearing and began scrabbling frantically at the base of the wooden pole. Elhan had no idea what he expected to happen, and it appeared that neither did Seris.
“I can’t just leave him here,” he said.
“He’s probably already dead!”
“There’s a chance he’s still alive! I have to get him down—”
Seris clawed pathetically at the pole, like a legless cat trying to scratch a chair. Elhan glanced at the shadows rushing towards them from the distant trees, against a night sky dripping with flame.
Her hand moved, and a flash of silver whirled tightly through the air, slicing through the strand of taut rope. The hanging body jerked and fell. Thirty feet. It landed with a nauseating crack.
“There! He’s down!” said Elhan. “Can we go?”
Seris stared at her with an expression of utter horror. Torchlight closed in from all sides, and he quickly pulled the man over his shoulders, heading for the treeline. Arrows buzzed past as they pushed through the sickly trees and into the fens.
Seris and Elhan stumbled over the spongy earth, past grasping twigs and rotting vegetation. Their feet skidded over the slimy moss, and repeatedly they slid into swampy ditches. Barked commands and yells followed them through the darkness, chasing them across the desolate landscape.
Seris’s legs ached, but he forced himself to keep going. The body on his back was still warm, but only just.
“Prince Falon…” There was barely any breath in the voice by his ear. “Did Falon…send you?”
“Yes,” panted Seris, his feet gouging through the slick mud.
The man gasped, the noise like air rustling through dried leaves.
“Must…word back… Daughter of Ilis has risen…armies…”
“Don’t talk.” Seris’s lungs were on fire. “Will be fine… I’m a cleric… fix you up. Just yesterday…fixed girl, flail chest…severed spine… organs…let me tell you…”
“Armies…west beyond th
e Lirel Lands…” breathed the man. “Tell Falon… Garlet…sorry… Must…make him listen… Heart of stone…not stronger… Just breaks…more quietly…”
“I’m sure…will make more sense,” gasped Seris, “when you tell him yourself.”
Seris kept his gaze locked on the muddy figure of Elhan weaving ahead through the clawing trees. He had to believe they could outrun the brigands, because the alternative was to fight or die. And Seris knew which of those he did better.
It seemed to come from nowhere—a whirling shadow, a vicious thrum. There was a horrible, noiseless moment as Elhan’s back arched, the blade of a throwing dagger striking deep between her shoulder blades. It caught her in mid-stride, and as her legs gave out from under her, she seemed to fall such a long way, tumbling slowly in the shards of starlight.
The fens fell completely silent, as though a vacuum had engulfed the land. Elhan lay motionless on the earth, a large, dark stain spreading across her back. Seris’s own body felt completely numb, his mind an absolute blank, the silence consuming him like a fire. A pressure began to fill his chest, fill his head, as he dragged his feet towards her. Then, through the haze, he realised that he knew this feeling.
There was a sudden, familiar pulse, sucking the air painfully from his lungs. Seris felt the man on his back convulse with a hideous, rattling breath. The man jerked once more in a painful rictus, then was still.
“Garlet?” choked Seris.
Elhan gave a sudden gasp, shuddering to life. Jolting, as though pulled by invisible strings, her hand reached behind her back and gripped the handle of the knife. Seris gaped as Elhan slowly drew the bloody length of steel from her back, the blade shining red in the moonlight. Like a predator emerging from the grass, she rose, all shoulders and sinews, turning with malevolence in her eyes.
“Thanks for the weapon,” said Elhan, turning to face the brigands.
The atmosphere was electric. A smell like fresh lightning carried through the air, and the anticipation was palpable. Soldiers swarmed through the dilapidated castle in a buzz of tightly coordinated activity.
“Standard feet! We need measurements in standard feet,” barked Haska. “We don’t want to lose half the infantry because someone thinks ‘about this long’ is a unit of measurement.”
A squad of soldiers scurried from the packed war room.
“Koltar company on the southwest perimeter!” said Haska. “Goethos battalion to the inner north sector!”
“Why should we take the perimeter?” growled Ralgas, his lips pulling back from sharp teeth.
“Your people don’t share borders well,” said Haska. “I’d have your troops as an advance island, but it’s going to be tight as it is.”
Ralgas seemed satisfied with this, drawing back as Haska strode past.
“Wylen, report!” called Haska.
“The last of the supplies are secured,” said a slim soldier.
“Damel, get those troops into position!” said Haska as she marched from the room.
“Yes, Lord Haska,” said Damel with a salute as various captains and messengers flooded towards him like chicks around a feed trough.
Liadres fell into step beside Haska.
“How long?” she demanded.
“A few hours,” said Liadres.
“A few is what you have at the bar, soldier. I need numbers.”
“Lady Amoriel predicts it will begin in four hours, shortly before dawn. It will peak in twelve. Then we have until sunset tomorrow.”
“A window of three hours. Correct?”
“At most,” said Liadres. “But surely the preparation time is more critical?”
“Right now, everything is critical. Tell Lady Amoriel I await her good news.”
“Yes, Lord Haska,” said Liadres, loping away down a side corridor.
Haska continued towards the western tower, her head pounding as a thousand delicately balanced variables shifted and merged. All it would take was for one thing to tip slightly—
“Lord Haska,” came a baritone from behind her.
She didn’t slow as Barrat caught up. He was the most stoically impassive man Haska had ever met, and he always looked on the verge of delivering bad news—verbally or physically.
“There’s been a complication,” said Barrat.
Haska had a sinking feeling that he was being understated.
“Just the news, General,” said Haska, not breaking her stride.
“Prince Valamon has escaped.”
He raced beneath a dark violet sky, through wooded fields and wilderness. Moonlight coloured the world in blue and silver shadows, and the air smelled of freedom and fire. The taste of blood was in Valamon’s throat as the scenery streaked past like a ribbon of stars. It was as though the fear, the frustration, and the tension of the past few weeks had finally been unleashed, powering his limbs onwards.
Nothing about the land looked familiar, and every direction was an equal gamble. All Valamon knew was that he had to be long gone by the time they realised he’d made it out of the encampment.
The grassy fields gave way to sparse woodland, and on the horizon, dense forests rolled towards jagged plateaus. He glanced skyward, trying to navigate by the fading stars. It’d be dawn in a few hours, and he needed to be deep into the forests by then. His empire, his people, his family had to be warned, and he had a feeling he was a long, long way from home.
Quiet fury crackled from her like threads of lightning. The five soldiers standing before Haska made silent prayers and resolutions while Barrat stood to one side, arms folded across his broad chest. Haska eyed each of the soldiers in turn, her gaze as careful and unforgiving as a scalpel.
“Are you telling me that a half-starved, half-witted princeling in a locked cell overpowered five heavily armed soldiers, and then escaped from the middle of a massive, secret military encampment without anyone noticing?”
Haska’s voice was like an impossibly thin blade, giving the soldiers the impression that unless they stayed very still, they would find their torsos sliding off their bodies.
None of them wanted to be the first to speak, but they’d all seen on previous occasions what happened when nobody did.
“Lord Haska,” said the soldier with two black eyes, his voice faint. “His head was stuck, and Gilfrey can verify that his head was stuck…”
“Gilfrey,” said Haska. “Can you provide a slightly more coherent account?”
“Lord Haska,” said Gilfrey, the soldier with a large welt on her forehead. “The prince had his head stuck between the bars. Lurt was worried he might choke. We knew you didn’t want to kill him until we… We thought we should get him unstuck… We took a whole team down…”
Haska’s eyes were almost reptilian as she glared at the soldiers.
“Tell me,” said Haska, “did you by any chance open the cell door, at which point he suddenly became unstuck and ran away?”
“No, Lord Haska!” said the soldier with the two black eyes, traces of hysteria curling at the edges of his pupils. “Gilfrey, Marks, and I went down; Hoblas and Rexnor kept guard outside the dungeon exit. Marks kept the keys while Gilfrey and I checked the prince. His head was stuck, Lord Haska… I, I’m afraid I don’t remember what happened next…”
“I see.” Haska’s gaze snapped to Gilfrey.
Gilfrey swallowed, the welt on her head pulsing rapidly.
“The… When Leylen tried pushing his head back through the bars, the prince suddenly grabbed Leylen and smashed his face into the bars,” said Gilfrey. “I drew my sword but… I’m… I don’t remember what happened next…”
Haska didn’t blink, her gaze swivelling to Marks, the soldier in his underwear.
“Marks, I trust you have something interesting to contribute.”
Marks felt that his only real fault was being about the same height and build as the prince, and that it really wasn’t fair that he was the one left looking like an idiot.
“The prisoner took possession of Leylen’s swor
d and threw Leylen at Gilfrey, knocking her unconscious,” said Marks. “I was running aw—I was making a tactical withdrawal when something struck me from behind. I don’t recall what happened next, but I presume the prisoner used a sword to drag the keys into the cell.”
“Hoblas, Rexnor,” said Haska. “And what were you two doing while these dramatic events were unfolding?”
The soldier with the cut lip glanced at his colleague.
“We didn’t hear anything from downstairs,” said Hoblas, “the prisons being designed so you can’t hear too much of the screaming. And when the prisoner came up…”
Hoblas knew there was no good way of phrasing this. He was pretty well screwed, and he knew Lord Haska knew it, and he knew Lord Haska knew he knew it, and it was just a case of how tightly he tied the noose before jumping. He knew this was one of those situations where someone would be “made an example of”, and odds were it would either be him or Marks hanging upside down from the gatehouse tomorrow.
“He was wearing Marks’s uniform and helm,” said Rexnor, bracing herself. “By the time he stepped into the light—”
There was silence. Like snow falling on graves.
“Corbaras of the Cuprite Valley is refusing to keep his company in formation,” said Haska, her voice controlled. “Your ability to rectify this situation within the next two hours will affect how I deal with you tomorrow. Dismissed.”
The soldiers saluted sharply and tried not to jostle each other as they hurried from the room. Haska nodded at two brown-robed archers standing discreetly to one side of the room.
“If they try to leave the encampment, shoot them,” said Haska.
The two archers nodded and slipped from the room. Haska waited until the footsteps faded.
“General, helpful comments only, please.”
“The trackers say he’s headed east. We should be able to retrieve him within several hours, unless he makes it to the Lirel Lands.”
Haska exhaled sharply, leaning her palms on the table.
“Any other time and Amoriel could have him back in minutes.”
“Not if he’s already in Lirel territory.”
Haska looked at Barrat.