by James Abbott
‘I can’t fight with them,’ replied Davlor, wiping his nose on his sleeve. ‘Call me stuck in my ways if you want, but I can’t.’
Xavir looked at the young man harshly. ‘You either fight with them, or you die in here – your choice.’
‘But they’re our enemies,’ Davlor whined.
‘And now I say they are our allies. When have I ever let any of you down?’ Xavir snapped. ‘When you found flint pressed into your backs in the courtyard, who dealt out your retaliation? When you initiated a fight, who stepped in before you were thrown over the wall? Who demands you exercise so that you do not wilt like a leaf in autumn? Who intimidates the guards to spare you an extra spear in your ribs? Here is your chance to be free men. If we manage to escape, you will find alliances much harder to forge on the outside with a brand on your arm.’
Xavir’s attention was drawn to soft footsteps on stone, somewhere in the distance. He was annoyed at himself for having lost count.
‘It’s time,’ he declared.
The prisoners filtered through into the corridor, uniting with more of their own kin as well as those from Valderon’s gang.
Xavir held them back at the edge of what was left of daylight and checked that the soldier before them was Landril and not another. When he was certain the way was clear, with a motion of Xavir’s hand, the gangs filtered into the quadrangle, concealing themselves in the darkness under walkways. Xavir scanned his surroundings. There was little cover: two large carts up ahead and a handful of wooden water casks down along to the right.
He sought out Valderon, and the two clasped arms openly in front of their own men. Aside from one or two glances of surprise, the others appeared to take this truce with nothing but indifference.
‘We have no weapons,’ Valderon said quietly, ‘save the one sword in the hands of your spymaster.’
Xavir moved across to Landril, took his sword and offered it to Valderon. ‘There.’
The broad warrior accepted it with a nod, hefting the blade and testing its weight, the way an old soldier would, getting used to the feel of a sword once again. ‘It is cheap and crude but, Goddess willing, it will kill.’
Xavir watched him warily, wondering for a moment if their trust would hold.
Valderon placed the tip of the blade to the stone and stood upright. ‘You need no weapon?’ His voice was quiet.
‘I’ll get one soon enough.’
‘How will you kill?’
‘Easily enough,’ Xavir replied. ‘Have your men been informed to stay together with mine? That we are no longer fighting?’
‘They’ll do whatever I do,’ Valderon hissed. ‘What about your mob?’
‘They will show discipline. Now, come. We haven’t much time.’
Landril
Amidst the throng of forty or so prisoners Landril followed Xavir and Valderon, warily scanning the surroundings for in-rushing guards. He hoped they’d soon be distracted by an all-out prison riot, as he had thrown a set of stolen keys into the midst of another cell, which meant that it would not be too long until there were dozens more prisoners causing chaos and attacking the guards. He was glad to be finally getting out of here.
Waving for silence, Xavir steered the men down a shallow walkway and into another quadrangle, making sure to keep them in the shadows as they moved. Darkness was almost complete, but Landril appreciated the caution.
Xavir’s urgent whisper stopped the men in their tracks. There were footsteps approaching. Xavir and Valderon strode forwards purposefully. Landril could not see the ensuing skirmish, but heard the muted grunts and rattle of armour. Within seconds they had returned to distribute two more swords and pieces of armour back along the lines to the gang. Should all of these prisoners be armed? How much trust could anyone put in a bunch of cut-throats and traitors? Landril was indifferent to whether some of them died on the way to freedom, but Xavir appeared to want to see they were looked after.
The group surged forwards through an archway and stopped suddenly as three soldiers spotted them. Valderon sprinted towards them, Xavir at his side. Valderon smacked back the helmet of one and dragged his blade back across the man’s throat. Xavir picked up the fallen man’s weapon before it could hit the ground, and within a heartbeat spun it into the throat of the guard behind. By the time the man died, Valderon had already dispatched the other.
Xavir began stripping the armour off the guards again and spread the kit back through the gang members. He whispered for each them to take one item each, be it a sword or a helmet. All would have one item, he instructed. Then all would have two items. They would progress as equals.
As the prisoners trampled over the bodies of the guards and made their way into another small courtyard, a noise erupted from the far end of the tunnel. Though the sound was probably augmented by the walls around him, Landril guessed the rest of the prisoners were now attempting their escape.
Xavir and Valderon’s united force burst out into the open and were immediately confronted by guards. Those prisoners with swords, Jedral and Tylos among them, muscled their way into the fight; Jedral slammed guards backwards with force, whilst Tylos deftly opened necks with a flick of the wrist.
Despite the others in combat, Landril was focused on Xavir and Valderon in amazement. The two of them, Xavir especially so, appeared to move at twice the speed of everyone else, as if they inhabited some special dimension of their own. Their swords flashed in blood-spraying arcs as one guard after another fell to their blows. Xavir wielded his blade with one hand, using his other to grapple with his opponent’s weapon arm. Every time a soldier made an effort to prevent a blow, he was pounded back against the wall, or sent hurtling back into his fellow guards behind. And with each death, and Xavir’s command, weapons and armour filtered back through the throng, another prisoner became armed, and the gangs became more dangerous. Soon even Landril was gripping a blade again, not that it was much good in his hands.
Fifteen guards now lay dead on the flagstones. Xavir and Valderon had killed most of them.
Somewhere in the distance a braying roar went up.
A bell began to toll repeatedly.
Ignoring the cacophony, the veteran warriors moved to a heavy oak door and lifted the beam that barred it. Upon opening it, the gangs piled through into another open space; directly ahead lay one of the main double doors that marked the limits of Hell’s Keep.
And standing before that exit were two rows of soldiers, a good forty men in all. Xavir scanned their lines and then ordered his men to spread out into two groups, with himself at the head of one, Valderon the other. Each wing marched cautiously towards the flanks of the soldiers’ lines. Still, the guards did not move, and Landril reckoned they had received orders to hold the gate no matter what. The prisoners rushed the final yards in a surging, screaming charge. Xavir was weaponless, but that didn’t stop him as he dodged a clumsy stroke, pulled the arm of the wielder forwards and wrenched the blade free. Other gang members surged past Landril, who now found himself at the back of the raucous mob.
The guards separated into two smaller and more manageable forces to face off against their attackers. Xavir was somewhere in their midst, and all Landril could glimpse was the tip of his blade whirring through the air.
He could see where some of the prisoners were taking out years of pent-up frustration on the soldiers, hacking into them beyond the point of death before stripping them of their armour and weapons.
If we get out of here alive and spread our tale, Landril thought, poets will not want to sing about this.
He saw one of Xavir’s men, Jedral, wrench off one guard’s helm and beat his oppressor to death with it. He smiled with a feral grin the whole time. Only the black man from Chambrek, Tylos, seemed to rise above the savagery and killed quickly and dispassionately.
Several inmates were killed in the melee, their lack of armour leaving them exposed to even untrained blows. Landril was glad he had not got to know these faces well enough. As the mob trampl
ed over the ruined corpses of the guards, and the fighting diminished, Xavir gave orders to open the gates. Four men moved with him to lift the heavy beam that lay across the double doors. Meanwhile Valderon moved towards the lever and chains and began to haul open the doors. As the gates drew back with a clamour . . .
‘Archers!’
Xavir pointed to the walkway above, where prison guards with bows were hastily assembling. They were also lining up along the walkways above the gate and would have a perfect aim at the fleeing prisoners. One arrow thwacked into the door by Landril’s ear, forcing him to duck reactively, as if it would do any good.
‘Pick up a body,’ Xavir ordered. ‘As we rehearsed. Pick up any corpse. Haul it across your back.’
His men stared at each other until Xavir bellowed: ‘Just do it!’
‘By the Goddess,’ Landril sighed, and wincing and struggling, managed to drag one of the dead guards onto his back just in time to feel an arrow thud into the corpse. A man to his right took an arrow to his calf and collapsed with the body on top of him. More arrows began to clatter around them.
‘Now link up as best you can,’ Xavir ordered. ‘Corpse to corpse. Do not leave yourselves exposed.’ Xavir and Valderon made the act of carrying bodies look effortless.
Landril stumbled along with the heavy body on his back and joined the remaining prisoners pushing towards the open gate, while arrows slammed into dead flesh, or pinged off armour and stone.
They moved out onto the stony track before Hell’s Keep. Landril could not see the mountainside either side of them in this gloom, merely the first few yards of the descending slope. As if to illuminate them, but more likely to send a signal across the Silkspire Mountains, a beacon sparked to life at the top of the highest tower of the keep. The wind assailed them and made the going even harder; Landril’s legs already burned with the weight of the body on his back.
‘Keep low,’ Xavir shouted, gripping the arms of the dead man around his shoulder and wearing him like a shawl. ‘Maintain a steady pace and your body will thank you. Do not run ahead if the guards chase us; do not turn back and try to be a hero.’
‘The arrows will start up again any moment,’ Valderon advised. ‘They’ll be useless in this wind. We can dump our corpses when we are properly out of range. It’s the witches we need to worry about next.’
Landril peered back nervously as the first few arrows of the reassembled soldiers flew from the top of the keep, whistling by in the dozens and clattering into the ground around them in the darkness. There were about a dozen other prisoners surrounding him; grim-faced and covered in blood. Ahead of them was the black void of the mountainside at night, and a single isolated track into nothingness.
Well we’re not dead yet, Landril thought.
Witches
They zigzagged down the mountainside, Xavir checking back at the beacon that flared above the prison, but there had been no pursuit and no other prisoners escaping. It seemed that their small group were the only ones to have gained their freedom. Now they just needed to keep it.
Once they were well beyond the range of the arrows, and their corpse-shields had been dumped into the undergrowth, the prisoners stood staring at him and Valderon, waiting breathlessly for guidance.
‘Sun will break in a matter of hours.’ Valderon gestured towards the east, away from the bright half-moon. It would be a little while until their eyes adjusted fully to the dark. ‘We should keep moving so the cold doesn’t claim us.’
Xavir twisted back to glance at the others. ‘Are there any injuries?’
The remaining prisoners glanced at each other but none confirmed any wounds. Xavir suspected that even if they were injured, they would not admit it. Bravery was all well and good, but they would only be as strong as their weakest man. He counted who made it: Davlor. Landril. Grend. Jedral. Tylos. Barros. Krund. And from Valderon’s gang, Harrand and Galo.
Eleven of us. Fewer than he thought had made it out.
‘Good,’ Xavir said. ‘Dump any armour you think you can’t carry over a long distance. We run now at a steady pace. Down the mountain track until we get to the bottom. It will take hours until it begins to level off. We will rest, but we must be swift if we are to get well ahead before light.’
‘Are we free?’ someone asked.
‘We still have the . . . witches to deal with before we can use that word.’ Xavir then turned to Valderon. ‘You have the stone?’
Valderon reached into an internal sling he had made for himself out of a rag. Inside this, wrapped in a grubby cloth, was a red witchstone about the size of his thumb.
Davlor gasped. ‘There was a witchstone! I bloody knew it.’
‘How did you get such a thing?’ Tylos asked from behind Xavir.
‘One of the guards had claimed the prisoners stole it from the witches,’ Valderon said. ‘It had been traded for an undisclosed favour. That stone made its way into my possession.’
‘We have everything we need, then,’ Xavir said. ‘Let us continue.’
The prisoners ran down the mountain track and through the night. The path was narrow and wound around knuckles of granite and through thickets of spear-tipped gorse. Now and then one of the men fell – tripping those behind – but there were few complaints.
The prisoners rested three times, on each occasion when they were near to fruit bushes to provide quick bursts of nourishment. On one plateau, which the men optimistically thought was the bottom, there was a deep pool, and Xavir encouraged the men to drink water.
Dawn broke over the mountaintops, the presence of light welcomed as a gentle warmth developed and Xavir could fully examine their surroundings. The foothills were far more lush than the sparse, rocky heights they’d been travelling through. Blue-green oak copses dotted the view, but there were no settlements that he could see, no lines of smoke from chimneys. They were on the far side of the continent, on the eastern fringes of Frengleland. It had for centuries been a place where no man had good reason to come. A few merchants might have used the handful of roads through to the old and inhospitable lands, but the more savvy traders used the shipping networks further north.
Xavir paused for a moment. If their journey hadn’t been so urgent, he might have enjoyed the sound of birds starting their daily business, or even the sight of dawn breaking, something that he had not experienced in years.
Valderon joined him. ‘The run has been punishing. I have been wasting away in that rotten keep.’
‘As have I, if I’m honest,’ Xavir replied.
‘If this is what it is like to be old and out of shape,’ Valderon said, half-jokingly, ‘it is better to die young and in glory.’
‘We’re a long way from glory yet,’ Xavir replied seriously.
‘That may be so.’ Valderon’s chuckle diminished into an awkward silence. ‘You were a warrior and you said you’d tell me more. You fought for Cedius the Wise, I presume.’
‘I did.’
‘As did I. I am of the Clan Gerentius. I was a sergeant in the King’s Legion, First Cohort. I cannot recall your face among the men, though, comrade. What unit did you serve in?’
‘I commanded Cedius’s private force. The Solar Cohort.’
Valderon’s eyes widened. ‘The Legion of Six.’
Xavir nodded grimly. While the legion’s deeds were legendary, not all of them were deeds to be proud of. Valderon clapped him on the shoulder, with sympathy or comradeship – Xavir didn’t care to know. He was faintly aware that the other men had gathered around to watch the conversation.
‘How far to the witches?’ Valderon asked. There was something different in his tone and posture now. Whereas before Valderon had treated Xavir as equal, Xavir observed a newfound respect – as if, acting on old military instincts, Valderon now viewed him as a more senior commander.
Xavir shrugged. ‘I thought we’d be close to the wretched creatures by now.’ He peered into the dawn mists below, but an outcrop of rock jutted out to obscure their view. ‘Perhaps o
nly a little way to go. I only ever saw down here a few times over the years, on a clear day, but the magic could be seen even in the mist. Have we lost anyone on the way?’
‘Fortunately not,’ Valderon said, with a smile. ‘Nor have we let anyone catch up with us. We can see the track for a good while back up there and no one is in pursuit. Would you say we’ve done it?’
‘Not until we’re past the witches,’ Xavir replied, focusing on the track ahead.
*
The land began to level out again. The sky brightened properly and the surrounding hills were filled with lush trees coming to the end of their season. But the escapees were too tired to enjoy such things. They were just glad that their run had now petered out into a plodding march.
Xavir spotted the danger in the clearing ahead: a faint crackle of magic could be seen, almost like a net glowing with purple light. The wall of magic crossed their path and extended along these lower inclines, blocking their route. It disappeared through the trees at the other end and then reappeared further up the slope and around the base of the mountain. It extended in the other direction, too, this vast unnatural barrier.
Xavir called a halt and the men sank to the floor to rest, many of them fell into a deep sleep.
He and Valderon stood looking at the magic that barred their way.
‘Have you any experience with witches?’ Xavir asked.
‘Not much,’ Valderon admitted. ‘A few of them skilled in elements such as fire were used strategically alongside us on campaign. They had their uses. But apart from that, no, I’ve had very little interaction. Thank the Goddess.’
‘Very well,’ Xavir said. ‘It’s best if I handle this on my own, if that sits well with you. The sight of more than one warrior advancing to their dwelling will be more likely to be considered a threat.’
‘You think them near?’
‘I do. Though this blasted wall likely extends for miles around the mountain, I would say they are stationed near the path so as to keep an eye on unwanted visitors.’