The Cadet of Tildor

by Alex Lidell

  Manicured grounds gave way to an untamed forest. Renee’s initial indignation at the duke’s careless abandon of his backlands changed to suspicion. The dense, wild vegetation, an inky black tangle in the dark of night, discouraged trespassing. Leafless branches struck Renee’s face and snatched at her clothes. She pulled her knife from under her dress and cut away the underskirt.

  A quarter hour into the hike, the dog stopped at what seemed a random clearing in the woods and scratched at the frosty ground.

  Renee crouched and felt a prolonged crack. “It’s a door.” She pulled up on a wooden edge.

  Steep, slippery stairs led them underground. The air, heavy with mold and moisture, hung like fog. Renee lowered the hinged cover over their heads, shutting away the moonlight. The door clicked shut and flashed with a small speck of blue.

  Cursing, Savoy tried in vain to reopen the exit. They were trapped.

  Darkness hugged them. Savoy’s breath warmed the back of her neck. “Wait.” He halted her with a hand on her shoulder.

  She felt him crouch, then heard a muffled crunch, like glass breaking beneath cloth. Savoy moved in front of her, a small pouch glowing blue in his hand.

  “Light sac,” he whispered. “The Mage Council divined them for the Seventh last year.”

  The stairway spiraled down, yielding to a lantern-lit corridor. A pair of leather bracelets lay discarded on the floor of a small alcove to their left. On closer look, Renee saw blue tinted metal strips interwoven with the leather bands. Mage work. She tossed the thing back into the corner.

  Khavi jogged forward, his claws ticking against the stone. The walls were uneven here, far enough apart in some places for several men to walk abreast, in others so narrow that only one person could pass at a time. After a while, Renee and Savoy spilled into a wider, main corridor.

  “Memorize the layout,” Savoy whispered. His voice was calm. “Keep it basic. Count the paces. Note odd markings.”

  She repeated his words in her head. She and Alec had practiced mapping this past autumn—she shook her head; was it truly so recent?—but basics were easier at the Academy, when her heart wasn’t pounding in her chest and she wasn’t counting footsteps that echoed against underground walls.

  Savoy’s hand halted her again. He pointed to his ear, then forward to where another hall joined the main artery from the east. Stuffing the light sac into his boot, he pulled out his knife.

  Renee had to close her eyes to catch the approaching footsteps. Once she did, they seemed deafeningly loud. Several paces ahead, Khavi froze in his tracks, turned his head, teeth glowing with reflected light.

  “I heard you taming the wild child,” said a gruff, self-satisfied voice.

  “Life’s small pleasures,” answered a baritone. “I told ’em months ago that market’s ripe for eight-yearers, if you train ’em right.”

  Savoy, expressionless, held up two fingers.

  Renee’s hands curled into fists. Gripping her knife, she stepped forward toward the junction. It was two on two, with surprise on their side. The footsteps grew louder. The speakers were nearing. Little longer until confrontation. Renee looked at Savoy, realizing that she had passed him and now held point.

  He motioned her behind him.

  Renee’s heart sped. Someone close cleared his throat. She took a quick breath and found Savoy’s eyes. “Let me,” she mouthed.

  His lips tightened—and Renee’s heart sank. Was he recalling her loss to Tanil? Or her panic over a paper? Or her struggles during the Queen’s Day dinner? She waited, motionless, and had just resigned herself to rejection when Savoy raised his brows and nodded, flattening against the wall behind her. Renee grinned. She twisted the knife in her hand, aligning the blade parallel with her forearm. She could hear rough breathing closing from the right. An instant later, two sloppy, bearded men stepped out, one of them scratching his armpit.

  Now! Renee pushed away from the stone and gripped the first guard’s tunic. They crashed into the opposite wall, the wood baton falling from his belt and skittering away. The man’s wide eyes grew larger still when her forearm pressed against his jugular. The knife felt hot in her other hand. All she had to do was plunge it into her immobilized prey. She hesitated. His lip curled.

  A thud against her back slammed through her. She twisted around to see Savoy pull the second guard off her back and snake an arm around his neck.

  Renee’s opponent used the moment to wrench himself free and now circled her. She cursed silently, watching his shoulders. He was unarmed but carried twice her weight. This fight she’d win on speed—she knew enough to understand that now. She feinted with her knife. He recoiled and swung his fist, raising his elbow too high and exposing his ribs.

  Renee saw the opening, saw where her blade must plunge into real, living flesh. And wavered once more. Flesh was a far cry from the pads they used in the salle. The opening vanished.

  “Get it done,” Savoy’s voice demanded. “Or I will.”

  The guard rushed her, pinning her against the wall, his toothy snarl catching the dim light. Decayed breath hit Renee’s face. He grabbed her wrist and slammed it against the stone. She cried out. He grinned, prying the weapon from her fingers. Now armed, he trailed the point of her own knife down her body. The blade stopped at her chest, pressing until a small crimson circle soaked the cloth by the blade’s tip.

  Blood drained from her face. Her eyes jerked in search of Savoy.

  He met her gaze with a challenging one. Letting his now limp victim slide from his grasp, Savoy crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall.

  Renee swallowed.

  The guard holding her smacked wet lips together. “I like fiery kittens,” he hissed, leaning closer. A smile distorted his mouth. He licked her cheek. “Salty.”

  That did it. Renee’s knee shot up between the pervert’s legs, sending him yelping to his knees. He groped for her, the knife slicing the air in wide, clumsy strokes. On its downward swing the blade bit into her arm.

  A surge of anger roared through her. Her hand grabbed the guard’s wrist and snapped it backward. Her fingers forced the knife from his. She flipped the blade parallel to her forearm, twisted around, and slit his neck.

  The world stopped. The silence of finished battle settled around her. The knife in her hand was wet. A man dead.

  “Clean off the blade,” Savoy said.

  She crouched over the body and wiped the blood off against her dress. Bile rose in her throat.

  “This is what you signed up for.” Savoy took her shoulders and turned her toward him. “Let me see to your arm.”

  She frowned at the gash he was wrapping with a ripped hem of his shirt. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “At the moment, I doubt you’d feel an amputation.” He secured the knot. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather we not leave a trail of blood.”

  They moved on. With two bodies behind them, time pressed. Khavi ducked into a side passage and led them, by Renee’s sense, eastward. Twists and intersections grew more frequent. Savoy stayed ahead, jogging the straightaway, pausing before corners and turns. She caught his rhythm. Stop. Look. Clear. I go. You go. Count the paces. Remember the turns.

  The underground network rivaled the city above in its complexity. Specks of blue glow shimmered at several junctures, betraying amulets tucked into the walls. The Crown could never afford such a setup, not with the materials and mage hours involved.

  The corridor bent right again, this time revealing an alcove similar to the one they saw earlier. Metal bars stretched across the stone opening. Inside, a small blond boy hugged his knees, rocking himself with slow, shaking movements. The dirty blanket on which he sat was the cell’s only furniture.

  “Diam!” Savoy sprinted to the bars.

  The boy scrambled forward to the barred door. “Korish?” he whispered, as if unsure of what he was seeing. Then his eyes widened. “Korish. Korish!” he cried, certain that now he was here, Savoy would purge all evil from the world. R
enee felt a pang. She used to think Riley omnipotent too.

  She shook away memory’s shadow and returned to work examining the cell. She saw no lock, but a blue light shone around the door’s edges.

  Savoy threw his weight against the bars. No result. He pulled. The metal doorframe remained immobile. He rubbed his shoulder and stepped back.

  “I don’t like it here,” Diam said. Favoring his left side, he lowered himself to the floor.

  “Neither do I.” Unsheathing his knife, Savoy traced the outlines of the metal door. He found the glowing amulet twisted into the metal and pounded against it with the hilt of his weapon. The knife vibrated on impact but made no dent in the construction. He glanced at Diam and pounded harder, the growing violence doing little beyond making a racket.

  Renee touched his shoulder. “It’s not working.”

  “And you know what would?” He shook her off. His hands jerked the bars.

  A slide of white fur caught her attention. Looking down, she saw Khavi crouching. Diam sat on the floor beside him. Their gazes locked.

  The hair on the back of her neck rose. “Savoy, move.” She caught his wrist and pointed at the pair.

  The intensity growing between boy and dog dried her tongue. She stepped from them. Somewhere far away, footsteps ticked against the stone. Renee’s fingers tightened around Savoy’s wrist, whether to comfort herself or to keep him at bay, she did not know. Echoes of voices—many voices—joined those of footsteps, still too distant to discern. She opened her mouth to ask Diam about the coming patrols, but clamped it shut. Khavi shimmered with a pearly, blue glow.

  “Gods,” Savoy whispered.

  Renee gripped her arms. She knew what Khavi was, but knowing was as far from seeing as the tap of a wooden sword was from a knife in a man’s throat. Even now, watching the event unfold before her, she was unsure she believed, much less understood, its nature.

  Khavi’s glow pulsated like a beating heart. The amulet’s light brightened in reply. Two mirrors feeding each other. The blue glow grew painful to watch, flared, and died.

  Savoy jerked the cage door. It opened. Rushing inside, he put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Imp.”

  “Korish!” Diam clamped skinny arms around Savoy’s waist. “What’s wrong with your hand?”

  “I’ll tell you tonight.” He motioned Renee forward. They needed to stay ahead of the coming patrol. “Diam, there is another ward locking the exit. Can Khavi open it?”

  “We’ll try.” The boy stumbled. Khavi’s tongue lolled from his exhausted muzzle.

  Savoy sheathed his knife to scoop up his brother. They hurried back the way they came, staying ahead of the approaching footsteps.

  They ran hard. The now familiar twists of the underground tunnels, the still-splayed bodies of the two guards, the lanterns lining the walls, all disappeared in a streak behind them. Renee had not expected they would get far. But they had.

  Just not far enough.

  Less than a hundred spans, a hundred running steps, to the exit remained when a horde of guards burst into the corridor behind them. Swords glimmered in the lantern light like fireflies in the night’s darkness. Even if they made it to the door, there was no time to disarm the ward.

  Savoy’s jaw tightened. “Over there.” He pointed to a narrowing in the passage, twenty paces ahead. Thrusting Diam into Renee’s arms, he pulled his knife and herded them forward.

  She sprinted for cover, Savoy’s footsteps tapping the stone behind her. Reaching the target, she lowered the boy to the ground and turned in time to see Savoy convert a rushing enemy into a human shield. He relieved his victim of a quiver and crossbow and leveled it at the oncoming wave.

  Renee drew a breath. The corridor narrowed enough here to allow Savoy to block the passage. Realizing they could not approach en masse, the advancing guards slowed. Renee put a hand on Savoy’s back to guide him as he retreated toward the safety of the exit. He loaded the weapon while he moved. They had a chance. A small one, but a chance. She focused on that.

  “Halt.” A voice boomed through the corridor.

  The guards stopped.

  Renee could not see who had spoken and continued moving until, from behind a wall of men, a ray of blue flame crept through the air. A mage.

  Savoy’s arm extended the crossbow. His muscles tensed and an arrow shot into the crowd. Despite someone’s shout of pain the ray kept extending. Renee’s gut dropped. Savoy had guessed wrong.

  The mage fire approached Savoy, cleared his head, and arched toward Diam.

  Renee shoved the boy back and Khavi leaped into the air, throwing his body into the coming stream.

  Diam screamed.

  The dog, shimmering in a blue glow, fell to the floor and whimpered, continuing to absorb the mage’s assault.

  “Fighter, toss the crossbow into the walkway,” the booming voice commanded. “Or I will kill your party.”

  Savoy turned his head toward Renee. “He can’t.” His voice was calm, almost bored. “Get them out.”

  Her fists tightened. What the mage couldn’t do was kill them all at the same time. Savoy had as much chance of holding the passage and escaping as she did of flying. “You can’t—”

  “We came for Diam. Get it done or he’ll die.” Reaching into his boot, Savoy handed her the light sac. And then he turned around, reloaded the crossbow, and presented his chest to a bolt of blue flame.

  A few heartbeats later, his body thudded down to the stone floor.

  CHAPTER 26

  Back at Hunter’s Inn, Renee leaned against the wall, arms crossed over the front of her blood-soaked dress. The bureau on which Savoy liked to sit was empty. His sword hung by the door. Outside, it had started to rain, the drops pounding the window.

  “We could speak to the governor.” Alec stared at his hands, which glowed and dimmed like flickering candles. Renee lacked energy to ask that he stop. “Tell him about the tunnels and—”

  Seaborn shook his head, his gaze never wavering from the stormy window. “The governor bows to the Vipers. Korish would not survive if the Madam discovered his identity. Official help must come from Atham and the Seventh.”

  Renee caught the hesitation in his voice, glanced at Diam, and knew he had heard it too. The Seventh would uproot the world to retrieve Savoy. But they could not bring back the dead.

  “Korish is gonna come back for his sword.” Diam scrubbed his sleeve across his dirty face and limped to where his brother’s weapon hung on the wall.

  Seaborn took down the sword and squatted next to Diam. “I think someone should take care of this for him.”

  Diam grasped the hilt and wrestled the shining weapon into ready position. Savoy took care of his tools. “It’s heavy.” The blade’s tip brushed the floor. Diam’s lips pressed together. Then, jerking his chin up, he thrust the hilt toward Renee. “You take it.”

  She looked over her shoulder at Seaborn. “When can you leave for Atham, sir?”

  “In the morning.” His eyes narrowed. “I thought you wished to pledge to King Lysian, Renee. If you returned, given the circumstance, perhaps . . . ”

  She took the sword from Diam, slid it into its sheath, and adjusted the buckle at her hip. If Savoy was alive, she would free him. And if he wasn’t, she would bring his captors to Crown’s justice. King Lysian had called on his champions to guard Tildor’s heart. She did not need a uniform to do that.

  * * *

  At dawn, Seaborn decided to kill himself. He was riding to the Academy, and he was doing it mounted on Savoy’s horse.

  “I don’t have time to hike to Atham,” he said, clipping Kye into the crossties and ignoring all pleas for sanity. His hand narrowly escaped Kye’s snapping teeth; undeterred, the stallion laid his ears back and awaited the next opportunity.

  They had agreed to let Diam stay in Catar, for now. Theoretically, this was to allow Seaborn faster travel and because returning the boy to the place from which he had already been abducted once was arguably a bad idea. Pri
vately, Renee feared Diam would simply run off if they tried. The speed with which Seaborn agreed to the plan suggested he had similar worries.

  “Great gods.” Renee stepped back as a hoof flick caught Seaborn’s thigh. He grunted, his face pale and sweaty, set his jaw, and picked up the bit.

  Never mind the beast’s pastime of destroying people who weren’t afraid of riding.

  “Find nobles who bet on Predators.” Seaborn’s fingers fumbled a simple girth knot. “If Korish is alive . . . he’s prime for the cages. Hells, the lunatic might actually enjoy it.”

  She forced a chuckle. “How long until you have news?”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “With clear weather and a mount, I’ll be in Atham in two days. I’ll need a day or two after that.”

  Renee nodded, adding another two days for the messenger to return. Under a week, then. Better than she dared hoped. “Get the Seventh here, sir. I’ll find Savoy.”

  Seaborn returned the nod, as if he believed her, then stepped back from the horse, who now stood ready for the journey. Provided the rider managed to mount. “I don’t wish an audience,” Seaborn said quietly.

  “Gods’ luck.” Renee bowed her farewell and withdrew inside the stable. Her ears strained for signs of trouble as she leaned against the wooden wall. Savoy’s sword, too big for her, weighed down both her hip and heart. In a week’s time, her world had morphed from theory to reality. Just months ago she cringed at push-ups, agonized over rebuke-filled glances, and sobbed over strikes from a wooden practice blade. They are but bruises, Savoy had told her at Rock Lake, but only now did she understand his words. A hill feels like a mountain until the real thing laughs in your face.

  Renee reconvened with Alec and Diam in their Hunter’s Inn room. The adjacent chamber, where Seaborn and Savoy had been staying, now housed other guests. Her impulse to return to the underground entrance at Duke Leon’s estate met with raised brows from Alec.