by D. A. Stone
***
Brock was just beginning to calm down, finishing yet another tall cup of wine behind the bar. Upon returning to find his wife bleeding and daughter in tears, he’d walked right past the wooden club and tore down his great sword, eyes blazing like an overweight demon. Gil and the blond one managed to shamble out of the Lonely Fox before Brock could cut them into slabs and toss them over the cliffs, and had they been a few moments slower Tenlon really thought that’s how they would have met their end. Brock was big, he was overcome with fury, and he carried a sword that could probably split a man in half.
“Look at me,” Brock held his hands out to Desik. “I’m shaking I’m so angry.”
After the incident with the pirates, he’d closed the tavern for the night, locking up all the doors. Tenlon didn’t think he’d have many other patrons anyway. The Volrathi would be here any day now.
“You know that’s normal,” Desik offered from the other side of the bar.
The long jacket was off again and Gerta was busy on his bicep with needle and thread. His action against the pirates had opened the wounds entirely and the bartender’s wife had set to mending him up.
“Those were Okin Burback’s men. Did you know that?” Brock asked. “I appreciate what you did, but you’ll be a marked man now. No one treats Okin’s men like that.”
“Who is he?” Desik asked.
“He’s a pirate, but even more than that, he runs things around here. He’s got a fleet of ships, including the Rapture. That one’s attacked more merchant vessels in these parts than any others combined. You’d best be making your way out of the city first chance you get.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Lanard was lying on a table with a cold washcloth over his face. Upon rising earlier he’d instantly sought to lie back down and hadn’t budged since.
“Brock, I do believe I vomited on your floor,” he announced without moving. “You may take the damages out of this evening’s jar.”
Brock smiled for the first time since returning. “You ain’t got no coins in there, you nut.”
“Then the jar is yours!” the musician professed with a wave of his hand. “Fill it with all the things I never could in this life: riches, family, true love.”
“A career,” Gemma chimed in, lifting the cloth from his face to cringe at his swollen nose.
Tenlon laughed to himself, picking up the overturned chairs with Hagart and returning them to tables. He was so close to Gemma now that his legs were shaking. They still hadn’t spoken yet. Perhaps he had missed his chance.
“Leave him be, child,” Gerta told at her daughter. “You know he’s part of this family just as much as you.”
“I’ve been tossing an idea around,” Hagart moved toward Desik at the bar. “Are you still looking to book passage on a ship?”
Tenlon’s ears perked up, but he kept helping with the scattered table and chairs.
“Our situation hasn’t changed in the last hour,” Desik said smoothly.
Brock laughed heartily at this as he returned his sword to its proper place.
“Well, it seems ours has,” the old sailor said. “Brock is like a brother, and I didn’t know the strangers asking for help at the bar would be so quick to answer his family’s call for it. I do think he’s in a bit of a debt to you and your friend here. I may be able to help.”
“I have been running up quite the bar tab,” Desik spread his hands. “I wouldn’t object to that being paid.”Hagart laughed. “How’s passage on a ship sound?”
“Even better. When is it leaving?”
“Noon tomorrow,” Hagart replied.
“Where’s it going?”
The sailor seemed uncertain. “We’ll be bouncing around from port to port, gathering some news, then find a safe spot of land for you and your friend here to make your way.”
Tenlon glanced at Desik, waiting for what he’d say. “Noon, yeah? Think it could be pushed back an hour or two? We’ve some business to attend to before departing. I can pay.”
Hagart didn’t seem to like this, but agreed. “I can wait a bit, but not long mind you. Volrathi are closing in on us as we speak.”
“And are you the man who can make such a call?”
“Of course,” Hagart said. “It’s my ship.”
Desik’s eyebrows lifted. “Perfect,” he said, shaking hands with the man. “Two hours more, maybe three.”
Tenlon wondered when Desik would bring up Lesandra and Darien coming along, though said nothing of it. They had the money to pay for their passage, but perhaps now wasn’t the time to ask for extra favors.
“There’s one other thing you should know,” Brock interjected, finishing his wine. “Gemma will be going with you.”
Tenlon’s stomach dropped. He turned to Gemma and was shocked to see her staring at him from the other side of the table. She tilted her head to one side and gave him a soft smile.
It hit him like a sledgehammer to the heart.
Only after his world stopped quaking beneath his feet and returned to normal could he gather the courage to speak. Now! His mind screamed.
“Hello,” he said to her.
“Hi,” she said back.
Chapter 18
Natalia wiped Argos’s forehead with a damp cloth, exchanging a worried glance with her handmaiden. The warrior’s fever had dropped during the night, due in part to the tea she had given him made from dry Axian leaves, but he was still in great danger from the poisoned wound to his side. The tea fought the fever, but the toxins were still spreading.
Argos was dying, and it would take someone making more than just tea to save him. They would need to find help soon, true help.
The spacious manor they’d spent the last few nights in after his collapse in the Bronze Square was thoroughly ransacked. Overturned furniture, destroyed artwork, and shattered pottery littered the two-story structure. Pantry cabinets were open and empty, mirrors and windows broken, and anything of value had been removed by the looters. She and Karin had barricaded the main entrance as best they could, but it was nothing that would stop a few angry men who wanted inside. Silence would be their greatest form of concealment.
Under the smoke-hazed night, it had taken the both of them to half-carry Argos the few blocks to the northern city wall. He had slipped in and out consciousness the entire time, blood running freely from his wound and skin hot to the touch.
The house of marble and graystone they’d found was nestled right up against the defensive wall. The doorframe to the manor and heavy oak entrance were splintered apart, but the high end of the door still clung tightly to the brass hinges and they had been able to slip through. Once Argos had been settled inside, Karin took a half-empty jug of wine she’d found and poured it over any trail of bloodspots they may have left behind. She’d rested the empty jug on the side of the street.
Upon her return they had left the door slightly ajar, leaning several pieces of furniture against it from within. A passerby outside would see the entrance still open and hopefully assume little of value would be left in such a place, while the shifting furniture would make enough noise to alert them of anyone trying to gain entrance. Natalia knew it wasn’t much and hoped to be gone from the place as soon as Argos could move. The further they were from the city, the better. That had been three nights ago.
The back of the home’s second floor boasted an open balcony that stretched out over the wall itself, offering splendid views of the northern forest and surrounding mountain ranges. The treeline to the woods was just a stone’s throw away from the wall, the forest beyond dark and threatening even in the new morning light.
Argos was propped up on a low-backed chair of leather with his axe leaning against his leg, resting in shadow away from the warm rays of sun that beamed in through the open balcony doors. He’d adamantly refused to lie down in any bed and was found crawling out of the one they’d first laid him in.
Stupid boys, Natalia had thought as she helped him to his feet. Even if it kille
d him getting there, he wanted to be in a position to fight. A chair was the compromise.
Karin gently lifted Argos’s blood-stained tunic to look at his side.
The sections of white bed sheets they had bound his torso in had a small dot of blood showing through the fabric. Natalia had had only water with which to clean the wound before stitching and though she’d stopped the bleeding, the poison was still killing him. Had she not found the Axian leaves in the corner of a kitchen cupboard for the tea and poultice, he likely would have died that first night. The days were long and quiet and she’d allowed herself little sleep, fretting over Argos every few minutes until his fever lessened.
Those had been frightening hours, but he still clung to life. Now it was time to figure a way out of here for all of them. The tea was running low and the poison spreading through his body would win out eventually, unless more skilled help was found.
“He looks better,” Karin said, sliding a piece of damp hair off his forehead.
“He looks like shit,” Argos wheezed under his breath. His eyes were rimmed and face ghostly pale.
“Still the charmer though, isn’t he?” Karin remarked.
They both heard a horse outside then, hooves drumming the thin grass between wall and forest at a steady trot. It sounded like a calm gait, yet it filled Natalia with anxiety.
Silently she gathered her bow and a single arrow before tiptoeing out onto the balcony in her bare feet for a look. The air was brisk, the stone beneath her cold and still a little slippery with morning dew. Crouching low, she moved with more care as she approached the edge of the balcony.
Remaining hidden behind a partially broken statue until the sound of hoofbeats pulled away from her, she leaned out just enough to see the rider disappear around the bend of the wall. Atop a dapple-gray mare, he was a heavyset man with long, dirt-blond hair tied back by a leather band. His sloping shoulders sat hunched over the reins in his hands, and a large sword and scabbard rested across his back.
“Ugly,” Talia whispered to herself. She swiftly returned inside.
Karin was leaning against the entranceway, folding up a fresh bed sheet. She was always busy, even during times such as this.
“Well?” she asked quietly, as if the rider were still close enough to hear. “Was it Stupid?”
“Nope.”
“Ugly then?”
She nodded.
“So you’re probably right,” Karin told her. “They’re taking turns keeping an eye on this part of the wall every hour or so. I thought it was random chance, but this seems to be a routine of theirs.”
“Yes, very much a routine,” Natalia said absently, unstringing her bow and sliding the arrow into her quiver hanging from a closet door handle. There was something about the word that stuck with her: routine.
Routines could be exploited. But how?
The first time the horse had approached three nights prior had almost stopped her heart. She was sure the sound of the animal was bringing their death sentences with it, like a trumpet heralds an execution. No one else would be mounted in the capital, except for those who’d invaded it.
Natalia had waited and listened. She knew shouts would soon come from outside, and torches would cast their wavering shadows up through the open windows. How they were discovered would not matter. The furniture below would be thrown about as men kicked their paltry barrier aside, the sounds of it echoing up to them before it was replaced by the stomp of boots hammering up the stairs.
But none of these things had happened, and the rider had continued on his way until all was quiet once more. From then on, once every so often, a mounted soldier trotted by their wall looking for anyone foolish enough to be caught in his sights.
They would watch the soldiers pass from above, hidden in the shadows of night. Sometimes it was the large man who had just come, whom they’d begun referring to as Ugly. Other times it was a skinny one, with tightly cut brown hair and a crooked nose. He held a loaded crossbow in one hand, the butt of which rested against a thigh as he rode. This one they dubbed Stupid.
Truth be told, Stupid was uglier than Ugly, but they’d named him first so there wasn’t much point to changing anything.
Stupid and Ugly. One or the other, but so far never both.
“I don’t like them,” Karin told her. “I wish their names were Gone and Never-Coming-Back.”
“I don’t like them either,” she answered, an idea beginning to blossom in her head. “Although…they may be able to help us.”
***
“Are you certain this is wise, my lady?” Karin asked fretfully.
They were outside on the edge of the balcony, with hazy sunlight pouring down on them through a cloud of smoke that hung over the capital. Argos was clumsily climbing down a rope of knotted bed sheets they’d tied to one of the statues.
“Wise? No.”
Everything had happened so quickly. The idea formed in her head and she rushed it to fruition. There was no time to analyze. They needed action, a direction. They needed out of the city. Staying put would see them dead.
Climbing down the bed sheets was first and then they were to hide in the woods. Those were the easy parts. With Ugly’s passing, the three of them had less than an hour, and getting caught unprepared would mean trouble.
Argos was a short distance from the ground when he released his grip, dropping the rest of the way. He landed like a sack of rocks, making Karin and Natalia wince.
Falling to his side, he cried out painfully before it turned into an angry laugh.
“Will you shut up?” she snapped at him from the balcony. “You said you could make the climb yourself! Now look out.”
She held his axe out upside down by the haft and let it drop. The weapon fell, blades sinking into the packed earth. The warrior struggled up to his feet, groaning from the pain. Wearily he gripped the haft and swung it over his shoulder, sliding the blade into the leather case at his back.
“You’re next, Karin,” Natalia told her.
“No, you go next. I’ll follow.”
“No,” she countered sharply. “You are next. I’ll follow you.”
“And why should that be the order?”
“Because when you refuse to climb down, I won’t be able to shove you off the ledge if I’m already on the ground.”
“Odd, isn’t it, that your reason for going after me is the same reason I’d rather you went first? What’s that called? A paradox?”
“Karin, I love you with all my heart, but in ten seconds I’m going to tie one end of this sheet to your ankle and kick you off the balcony. Is that understood?”
Karin blew a loose strand of hair out of her face before hiking up her trousers. “No need for threats now.” She threw her shoulder bag off the side and swung her legs over the stone balustrade. “We all want the same thing. To wake up from this nightmare.”
Gripping the sheet, she said a silent prayer before sliding down with a startled yelp.
Natalia looked over the edge and saw Karin had landed safely. Argos was already near the tree line, stumbling off into the woods.
“What is he doing now?” she mumbled to herself. “Karin! Go make sure he doesn’t get lost!”
Dropping Argos’s bag over the edge, she followed it with her bow and quiver. Hauling the bed sheet up, Natalia untied it from the statue and threw it back inside. Swinging her body over the ledge, she nimbly climbed down, using cracks and rain slits in the wall as foot and handholds. In moments she was on the ground.
Gathering her gear, she ran into the woods. After a short jog beneath the trees she found Argos sitting at the base of an elm and Karin trying to give him a little water from her bag. The warrior was unresponsive, having passed out again from the pain.
“That was not fun,” Karin said, corking her water.
Natalia wrapped an arm around her neck and kissed her on the cheek. “This next part is going to be even worse.”
***
Karin stood out in the open
near the tree line, watching the massive clouds and spires of smoke that reached up from her home. The wall of the city before her looked so smooth when you were on the outside of it. It was unsettling, wrapping around either side of her, extending out of sight, no openings or entrances to speak of. Just a wall to her front and forest to her back. Few places to run, nowhere to hide.
She saw the rider before hearing him, appearing on her left. Even from this distance, she could tell it was Ugly again. His bulk was distinguishable atop the speckled mare, and as he neared her, she could see the great sword strapped to his back, looking altogether like the longest sword in the world. The sight of him filled her with dread.
Had she wanted it to be Stupid? Sure, Stupid had the crossbow, but he was so much smaller than this giant.
Ugly saw her and increased his speed, the mount kicking up dust on his approach.
Yes, she would have preferred it to be Stupid.
Frantically, she waved him toward her.
“Help!” Karin called, her voice cracking from the tension. “Over here! I need help!”
The man slowed as he neared, drawing the heavy sword from his scabbard. His eyes scanned the surrounding woods.
“Are you all alone out here, little lady?” he asked in a thick eastern accent. “None o’ your friends about?”
“It’s my man,” Karin told him. “He’s sick. Been poisoned, I think.”
Ugly rested the tip of his sword in the grass, the weapon long enough for him to lean a wrist against the cross-guard. He was in his late thirties, with angry brown eyes and a large red boil rising from the center of his chin. The ride to her had loosened the leather holding his long, dirt-blond hair back, and now much of it floated about his face like thin cobwebs.
He really was the Uglier of the two, Karin decided.
His horse let out a snort, tossing its mane. “Just you and your sick man? Where did you come from?”
“I’ll do whatever you want, just please help him!”
She began to move back into the woods.
“Stay!” he snarled at her, lifting the long sword up as if it were only a dry tree branch. “Stay right where you are!”