This is where her life began, and ended, and began again. The room stunk of bad memories, with only more bad memories to come, she knew. She hated the room.
Les, Teveres and Garren were already privy to the plan; they took up places aok with ongainst the wall that bordered the stairs to the first floor. Aia's question was answered in their thoughts. We wait.
Four Justices crowded around Aia forming a living shield, one to each side of her. Adreth and Adria stood in front of the entire group, pistolets at their sides. They were steady, no fear in their thoughts or their stances, only angry anticipation. They would stand there for days if necessary, as long as it took to get what they wanted. Adreth sent the remaining six Justices down the stairs to secure the exit.
No one spoke, so Aia listened - to the Justices, to her friends, to the dreams and studies of the students in the halls. It gave her something to concentrate on other than the sun rising outside the window by the lounge overlooking the University garden, where she once enjoyed walking with Kyren. The higher the sun went, the more worried she became.
Was the plan wrong? Did they not know that students would be waking, walking the halls and taking seats in the lounge? The sun went higher, 8 o'clock, the time of waking for most students.
Something shook. Far beneath them, the earth itself was a rattling. The chairs in the lounge shifted. Aia gasped, and a Justice reached out a hand to grab her arm with a tourniquet grip, perhaps more for his benefit than for hers.
The shaking lasted three or four seconds and abruptly stopped. Aia looked at the faces of her companions for a clue, but none came. In Adreth’s mind, she heard, Just like it was in Feya. This is the day. We were right. When he started to calculate how fast he could get the group to the ground floor if the University started crumbling to the ground, she pulled away from his consciousness. She couldn’t handle hearing that kind of talk.
"That wasn't good," Adria stated the obvious.
"Oh, no," Adreth replied, eagerness in his voice. "This might be what we were waiting for."
Crack-crack, the sounds from earlier in the tunnels mirrored the sounds above in the stairwells. People died, two or three of them, Aia couldn't tell exactly how many. They were far above them at least 7 or 8 floors, almost beyond the range of her senses.
Voices could be heard from further up the stairwell. First they were faint, then louder, coming from all sides, out in the gardens. Presences began closing in, giving Aia a prickly, warning feeling all over her skin. The University was full of people, causing a static sensation that there was always someone else around the next corner, but a group of those presences were edging towards them, slowly but surely.
"There are people coming down.”
"How many?" asked Adreth.
"I... I don't know, fifteen, maybe twenty?”
The sound of footsteps became the sound of running. Aia braced herself as the Justices grew excited. Teveres moved closer to Aia's bodyguards, situating himself between the guards andthesound o Adreth, in the middle of everything.
"They're coming," Aia squeaked, "Two floors up... one..."
Leniq, flowing robes the color of a raging fire, came into view. He was descending from the third floor amidst a sea of Justices.
Leniq's Justices and those surrounding Aia tensed in recognition at the same moment. Only Adreth relaxed. Stepping out of the group, Adreth held his arms out forming an X in front of his body, fists clenched. Aia had seen Justices greet each other on the streets in the same fashion. The gesture gave Leniq's entourage pause.
Tension was beginning to ratchet higher. Teveres pushed forward towards Adreth, who approached Leniq tentatively.
Aia kept herself invisible in the crowd and began to sharpen her focus. Leniq didn't seem to notice her yet. She keyed in to Leniq's unspoken voice.
The High Priest’s unforgiving stare settled on Les and Teveres. They've brought them here, just as was promised, just as we wanted.
"Adreth," Leniq purred, a safe distance between himself and the escaped prisoners. His personal Justices formed a triangle of protection around him. "I’m so glad to see you outside your cage.”
Adreth’s sword hand twitched. "There doesn't need to be any bloodshed today, priest. We are only looking for answers."
"And you think I should entertain them? You see, you are outnumbered, and I do not have a prison to take you to after today. You can surrender, or we can take you by force. It is your call, Lieutenant."
Memories of men in blue, offering him something - a position in the government - inner turmoil over the choice. Leniq committed to the Celet's mission to save lives, the ones he could, because they promised...
The cracking sound could be heard again, this time outside of the University, in the streets of Nivenea. Aia shuddered. Lives were being abruptly snuffed out, the sudden loss of their energy distracting her from her task. Slowly the cracking increased in number and frequency. There was fighting below the University, in the streets of Nivenea.
The kelspar will be taken no matter what they do, they cannot stop us... if only the fool would just give up; it would be a shame to kill him…
A brazen Teveres stepped up beside Leniq.
"I haven’t seen you in quite a while, priest,” Leniq commented, looking Teveres up and down. "I was so sorry to hear about your father… and your woman.”
Aia almost cried out at the power of the lie the High Priest was spouting. He wasn’t sorry - not sorry at all.
Making the deal with the Followers, sending the assassins. Dayle had to die, he wouldn’t shut up, wouldn’t agree to what we all knew was the right choice. The Celet would never have stopped. It's the only way, there's no turning back now, in Leniq's mind, his own reassurance that he had saved the Children of Elseth from genocide. We are worth too much. It’s a shame the boy is so much like Dayle, he could have been useful. I wish they’d just let him go, they’re not going to learn anything from him, he’d die before he’d cooperate…
"If you know so much about me, I bet you know I could snap your life out of your body right now," said Teveres.
"Before you've found out all my secrets? I doubt you'd try." Child, if you knew what was good for you you’d kill me right now.
Teveres restrained himself. A flare of power, just enough to quicken Aia’s pulse, came from him. It was almost as if Adreth could sense it; he touched Teveres’s hand, just briefly, and cautiously took a step forward.
"I've worked beside you all," Adreth said, looking to the Justices who surrounded Leniq. "You can't side with this man, knowing who he answers to. His loyalty is not to Nivenea, it’s to the Followers, and to the ones who would rape our land. Don’t stand there and side against your own people, your flesh and blood - you know that this is the wrong choice!”
"That might have worked on the garrison guards," said Leniq, "but it won't work on my guard. You can rally all of the Justices you want, and you will never have enough. You’re on the losing side. I think you know that.”
“What I know is that what has been happening in this city is wrong. It is dangerous, and it is going to kill this society. If you plan to side with the Celet, and you plan to fight me, then I will go down fighting.” He slowly smiled an empty, deranged smile. “And I’m taking you with me.”
Leniq's thoughts, the deaths in the streets below and the encroaching Celet were overtaxing her senses. Aia tried to block them all out, but her nervousness drew away from her focus. She lost track over everything, just for a moment.
A crystal clear feeling of intent came from above. She looked up into the stairwell and saw an individual crouched on the stairs in a dark blue uniform with a pistolet carefully aimed in their direction. In his mind she heard words, but they were neither Leyvada nor Kaldari. The harsh consonants and strange cadence had to be the language of the infamous Celet.
"Up there!" she shouted out in surprise.
She realized just a moment too late that the pistolet was pointed at her. Her breath hitched - she�
�d seen the wounds and she knew the danger. The man was about to drill a hole in her. Would moving save her? Would anything?
The man collapsed to the floor, slumping against the stone banister in tandem with the pulse of Teveres's power. Aia gasped, her muscles tensing and relaxing alld rspan> at once.
The sound that followed reminded her of the snapping, echoing impacts they heard in the tunnels, except it was so much closer. It collided with her skull, assaulting her ears in a way she did not know possible. Her hands went to protect her head and a scream let loose from her throat. Adreth and the Justices flanking her on either side immediately protected her, grabbing her by the arms and throwing her to the ground. Her vision spun.
The vibrations of energy and the vibrations of sound all pooled together. Teveres’s healthy, natural energy collapsed in on itself, replaced by the screeching discordance of capping. She struggled to catch a glimpse of him over the shoulders of the Justices who pushed her to the ground, reaching out with her healing to bring Teveres's life force back into balance. The discordance poured out of his body. She threw all of her strength against it, drowning in the flow of physical pain and energetic disorderliness which would not cease. Her efforts were useless. His energy was hemorrhaging, and it just wouldn’t stop.
The Justices were yelling at her to go, pushing her towards the stairs leading to the first floor, where the Justices securing the exit waited for them. She scrambled, clawing and kicking at the people trying to sweep her away. She had to know that he was coming, too.
When she finally glimpsed him he was doubled over, his weight rested on his hands. He gasped with every breath, his back drenched in crimson just next to his shoulder blade on the right side. The weapon left a gaping hole through to his lungs. His parted lips dripped blood on the floor.
Drip, drip, drip.
"Teveres!" Aia's horrified shouting made her voice hoarse. Her ears were still too stunned to fully register the sound. If he heard her, she could not tell. His hair fell over his face, his body shuddered. His agony - the burning, the breathlessness, the sharp, rending pain - was overwhelming, gripping her stomach with nausea. With his defenses down she could clearly discern his every thought that sped through his mind… the confusion, the fear, the confusion, and thoughts of her. There could be no deception.
Aia... He called her name incoherently above the cacophony of his muddled cognition. He was fading.
Everything was moving so fast that time ran slowly in comparison. She could not fight through the muscles of the Justices pushing her down the stairs towards relative safety. She hurt all over; her failed attempts at reversing the capping drained her energy to its lowest levels.
"Come on," Les's voice was almost too soft and kind to hear from beside her. He grasped her arm and tugged, more a psychological pull than the kind of physical force the Justices employed. "Come on, we've got to go, just go."
More men and women in blue armed with pistolets of varying were coming down from the third level. The Celet let Leniq and his companions thread in between them, disappearing into the maze of hallways that made up the University. In the face of superior numbers and weapons, Adreth gave the order to retreat.
Only Garren moved against the t agce of suide. He pushed Teveres to the side, partly shielded, while he tore throwing knives from his hip one after another. Garren's knives sang true, hitting the aggressors in sequence. It stopped only a few of them.
Garren was drawing his sword when she heard two more shots. The Kaldari giant faltered, his leg giving out under him. He dropped his sword, blood trickling from fingertips. He gave a guttural roar, grabbing the sword with his working hand before it hit the floor. His defiance was palpable even when the Celet swarmed him. Several large men grabbed for Teveres and carried him off into their ranks.
Aia was dragged halfway down the flight of stairs when Garren and Teveres were lost from her vision. The entire incident from the first fall of blood couldn't have taken more than a handful of seconds, but it felt like so much more. She realized that a male Justice had hauled her up over his shoulder, forcing her down the stairs with him.
"No, let me go!" she shrieked, sinking her nails into the man's back. "We can't just leave them behind!"
Teveres, you have to fight it.
Blankness met her senses. He was in the dreamless unconscious, far from her reach. More deafening sounds heralded the Celet's attacks, some of them finding the flesh of the Justices who trailed behind. The world was a mess of panic, shouting, and jostled bodies desperately seeking refuge from it all.
Adreth surrounded himself with his associates, barking orders at them. The farther they ran from Teveres and Garren, the more she ached. She would fight harder if her muscles weren't raging with pain, her every nerve on fire. She collapsed against the Justice who held her, wishing she could cry, but too filled with adrenaline for anything to come. The light of the outside world contacted her skin as they moved away from the University into the contested streets she once called home.
She couldn't help but feel that she left part of herself behind.
Chapter 18
The running, shooting, and shouting came from all around them. It wasn't long before the Justice who carried Aia from the University had to set her down. For a moment she didn't know what to do - and then the panic set in.
She ran harder, faster, and longer than she had run in her entire life. All of her thoughts of Garren and Teveres were pushed away by the pure need of survival. The streets were being flooded with blue-uniformed Celet, the blood of their victims spread on the cobblestone streets. They seemed to come out from every corner, from the sewers.
Adreth knew the city better than she did. He led them through alleyways and overhangs she had never seen before, his pistolet pointed behind him firing occasional shots. They lost someone on their way to the alleys, but no one stopped or looked back. A few Justices from the prison joined with them from the streets. The rumbling beneath their feet came and went agceleyanother three times while they made their way across the city.
Pure, life-threatening chaos.
Aia's chest was burning, pleading with her to stop when they finally caught sight of the wall. She kept telling herself that once they cleared the wall everything would slow down, but she knew that kind of thinking was fantastical. For all she knew the Celet had the city surrounded; as exhausted as she was inside and out, she didn't have the focus to reach that far with her senses.
Adreth gave them a moment to rest on a comparatively quiet corner, pressed up against a stone house. The alleyway behind them was bare.
"We clear the wall," he growled breathlessly, "east pedestrian gate, horses. We ride up, ride fast, we do not stop until we reach Dalyer's farm, southeast ridge. If there is no one, we rest, we regroup, we agree?"
Murmurs of 'yes' through the group.
"Good. Then follow me." One breath, two breaths, and he was off again. Aia wished she could suck the beastliness out of him and use some of it for herself. She imagined that Les, who had gone nearly as red in the face as she had, wished for the same.
They made it to the stables, but so had the Celet. They stood face-to-face with the hills, officially beyond Nivenea's border. Behind them was the wall, the streets of Nivenea visible beyond an open-swinging metal gate. A small shack where the stable keeper lived was to their left and a fleet of terrified horses were going wild inside the pen. A dozen Celet were at the ready surrounding the stable fence by the hill, armed with their deadly invisible arrows against Adreth's ragtag team of escaped prisoners and the harmless Deldri.
Aia and Les dropped to the ground when shots fired. They managed to roll up against a water trough, sheltering them from the Celet ambushers. A Justice fell beside Aia, and she ached to reach out to heal him. Her energy was gone, and so was his. A pistolet had torn through his face.
Blood everywhere, oh gods why won't it just stop. Aia hugged the ground, praying, Torvid my beloved, if you ever existed just let me live through today
Glancing sidelong at Adreth hunched behind a stone slab workbench, Aia would have thought he trained for years on the pistolet. He and the others had taken cover and were firing shots as they could. Several Celet dropped. The Justices who had not picked up pistolets fought valiantly, their swords challenging powerful weapon machines. Some of them were dying.
Les pulled his bow from his back and nocked an arrow, his breathing unsteady. He wasn't someone who was accustomed to literally being under fire, and yet he was in this position, helpless to change it. He peered out from their cover, aimed quickly, and took the shot. Aia watched him with a peculiar sense of envy. With only her dagger at her side and her healing powers expended, she had nothing to offer.
From between fenceposts Aia could see that there were still at least a half dozen Celet standing. The banging noise had ceased from their side of the fight, meaning that Adreth's weapon was somehow incapacitated. The Celet were yelling at each other in their gibberish language, so beyond any recognizable words.
"This does not end here," Adreth called out to his crew. "On my count, move forward! On three - two - one -"
Aia watched as Adreth pulled his sword from his side, gripped one edge of the workbench and flung himself over. He shouted while he charged, his five remaining Justices following him into the fray. Aia flinched when a young woman fell wounded onto the hay-covered ground.
Aia and Les hung back momentarily, looking around. Something new, someone else was coming. Facing Nivenea's wall, she and Les were open to anything coming from the streets. There was nothing at first. And yet...
Above on the wall's parapet two stories high, Aia glimpsed the top of someone's head as they ran towards the gate. They have the girl, the woman was thinking in clear Leyvada. This is going to bring me a fortune.
More heads sped past in the same direction, some thinking in Leyvada, some in Celet. It was too loud to hear if they were talking.
Tragedy (Forsaken Lands) Page 28