by L. Penelope
On the whole, the refugees were not a talkative bunch. The only sounds were footsteps that echoed against the oddly smooth cave walls and the soft babbling of the youngest children. The group did not dawdle, either, deftly navigating the twisting path, which edged steeply downward, leveled off, then dipped low again.
They took no breaks, and not even the smaller children walking on their own complained. Nor did the elders, who were remarkably spry for their ages. Hours passed like this, the silence companionable but complete.
Slowly, the air began to change. A thick humidity replaced the cool, earthy scent of the mountain. They extinguished their lanterns when light glowed softly up ahead. Over the thump of their footsteps, water trickled, insects whirred, birds called.
Home.
The tunnel ended abruptly, leaving them at the edge of a huge cavern, much like the one they’d entered on the other side with some key differences. This cave was filled with trees and vines and greenery. Rain poured down through openings in the rock far overhead. A narrow and somewhat hidden path led down to the forest floor. Just beyond it, a stream of water flowed gently down, vanishing below. The view stole his breath.
The group formed a queue, as the path was only wide enough for one. Jasminda disappeared from sight first. Not being able to see her made Jack’s palms itch. He was returning to civilization and, with it, all his duties and responsibilities. Not the least of which was Jasminda.
She had stolen into his life—his very complicated life—and he was in no hurry for her to leave. But the war on the horizon would make everything immeasurably harder. Anti-Lagrimari sentiments would kick into effect once again, and Jasminda’s Elsiran blood would not protect her from the ire of the people who saw only her skin. He could tell from the way she spoke, the haunted look in her eye when the refugees discussed Elsira, that it never had.
The path ended in a wide cave mouth overlooking the Elsiran Borderlands. A steady rain fell from the overcast sky. Jack had little sense of the time of day but was very glad to be once again on Elsiran soil.
Still in the shadow of the mountain, the group wound their way through a thick copse of trees; Jack struggled to get his bearings. How far had their trip through the mountain taken them? How close was his army base?
A gathering of flimsy structures became visible a few thousand paces ahead. This was a place he recognized: the community was called Baalingrove, one of the settlements of former Lagrimari prisoners of war. It was here he had first met Darvyn years ago.
As always, Jack was struck by the living conditions of the settlers: makeshift wooden shacks with leaky tin roofs, tiny patches of garden, no running water, no electricity—though the last wasn’t uncommon in the Borderlands. The men gardened and hunted in the foothills, but survived in large part due to the kindness of the Sisterhood, devoted followers of the Queen who provided food and supplies. Neither the Prince Regent nor the Council saw fit to do any more, and the Elsirans preferred to pretend the settlers didn’t exist.
The refugees walked through what amounted to the main road of the settlement, an unpaved path that was slowly becoming a river of mud in the insistent precipitation.
Unease prickled his spine. No one emerged from any of the shacks to peer at the group of newcomers. So far they hadn’t seen a single soul in a place that housed nearly one hundred men.
Jack approached Gerda and pulled her to the side. “Why don’t you and the civilians stay here? I think something may be wrong.”
“We go together.” Gerda’s response was maddening.
“There might be danger.” Jack’s plea fell on deaf ears.
Turwig patted his arm. “There is danger everywhere, son. Who’s to say it won’t find us here as well?”
Jack muttered under his breath and moved to the front, but stopped when angry voices rent the air, shouting in Elsiran. He couldn’t make out the words through the clatter of rain on metal but recognized the heavy Borderlander accent. Gunshots rang out.
“For Sovereign’s sake, get the children back!” he shouted.
He shared a frenzied glance with Rozyl, who pursed her lips and made a hand signal to her crew. One of the men peeled off and helped direct the mothers and children to squat behind the nearest shacks.
Jack and the four armed Keepers remained on the main path, along with Jasminda and the elders.
“Go with them,” he told Jasminda. She merely rolled her eyes and cocked her pistol.
The voices came from the edge of the settlement. As they approached, gunfire continued to pop, and the shouting grew louder. Movement flickered in the corner of Jack’s eye; a Lagrimari woman sat huddled with two children behind another shack under the limited protection of the roof’s overhang. She had not been part of his group. Her eyes widened when she saw him, confusion crossing her features as she took in his companions.
Rozyl rushed over to speak with her. “What happened here?”
“There was some trouble in the town, I think. A girl went missing. Seems her father got it in his head that one of the settlers took her, and a mob of farmers came here to search.” The woman’s eyes kept darting to Jack. He took a few steps back, aware that, to her, he must look like one of the men in the mob.
“Are you injured?” Rozyl’s voice was softer and kinder than he’d heard it before.
“No, but my boy’s up there. He wanted to fight with the men. I can’t leave him.” She pointed toward where the noise of battle was audible.
“Not even for the safety of these little ones?” Jasminda said. The solemn, dripping faces of two boys, each under five, stared up at them.
“We made it out together. I won’t lose one of them now.”
Jack’s heart stung for the woman. “Are you a refugee?” he asked. She shrank back at his voice, her face twisted in fear. Her gaze, full of questions, shot to Rozyl.
“He’s”—Rozyl looked back at Jack and shrugged—“with us.”
The mother’s expression was still rigid with suspicion. “We crossed with ten others two days ago, but I don’t know what became of them once the fighting started.”
Jack broke away to investigate, only dimly aware of the others trailing behind him. A turn in the road revealed a makeshift barricade made from an overturned wagon. It offered only meager protection but blocked the mouth of the narrow dirt road.
A half-dozen Lagrimari crouched in the sodden muck behind the barrier. Around twenty more were gathered nearby, seeking cover behind the dilapidated structures on the edge of the settlement. Several were armed with hunting rifles, the others with pitchforks, machetes, and one man even held a sword. A boy of about twelve was among their number. He must have been the woman’s son.
In the road and scattered among the living were the bodies of more settlers. Some had been shot where they stood, but many had wounds in their backs. They’d been cut down while trying to flee the violence.
The insistent rain created a river of blood that streamed down the road. The carnage here was senseless. Jack vibrated with anger.
On the other side of the overturned wagon, a small band of Elsiran farmers, only a dozen strong, clustered together at the base of a tree. They were all armed, but most clutched their rifles like bats, striking at the icicles and dirt clods being flung at them. Every so often, one would get a shot off in the direction of the settlers.
The way the boy knelt among the older men, looking slightly off to the side, his body alert but unmoving, made Jack believe it was he who was singing the spell to attack the farmers.
The Elsirans were penned in a tight group. Whenever one of them tried to break out of it toward the settlers, a chunk of mud or an icicle would hit him in the face or body, knocking him back. Two of them did manage to peel off and run away, back down the road toward the town.
The settlers cheered, and one man finally noticed Rozyl and her group advancing on the barricade with their rifles drawn. The Keepers took up positions and began firing on the farmers. The ice-and-mud attack stopped as the
boy looked up, startled. This gave the farmers a chance to dive for cover among the nearby trees and shrubbery. Then the Elsirans returned fire.
The armed settlers must have been out of ammunition, for they didn’t shoot, but Rozyl and her team were methodical, efficiently finding their targets and hitting them as man after man fell.
Jack felt no sympathy for the farmers, though they were his countrymen. There had been incidents such as these over the years, when tensions between citizens and settlers had bubbled over, but this would go down as the worst yet.
Jasminda crouched at his side. “I convinced the woman and her children to wait with the others.”
The woman’s son was staring up in awe as the Keepers made short work of the remaining farmers. Those who hadn’t been shot were now beating a quick retreat.
“I knew many of the men who lived here.” Jack’s voice sounded hollow in his own ears. He was soaked to the skin, but the numbness in his limbs had nothing to do with the weather.
A dead settler lay only a dozen paces away, eyes open and sightless. Jack stayed low as he moved to the man’s side to close his eyes. “May you find serenity in the World After.”
The gunshots stopped, and now the sound of engines took their place. Through the gaps in the trees lining the road ahead, thick wheels churned through the mud.
Jack’s tension flared, then quickly fled. An open-topped four-wheeler drove up bearing four Elsiran soldiers. On its heels were two transports, a dozen men to each if they were following protocol. Sure enough, twenty-four men hopped out of the trucks and dispersed strategically, forming a perimeter around the settlement. The soldiers in the four-wheeler exited, guns drawn, and advanced on the barrier.
Jack stood ready to greet his men. Before he’d taken more than two steps, the soldiers opened fire. They gave no warning, no orders or instructions, just began shooting. Those at the barrier dove for cover, and Jack stood, dumbfounded, until Jasminda pulled him down again.
What in Sovereign’s name?
“Can you do the thing with the ice and mud?” The idea of firing upon his own men was something he could not fathom at the moment, and he didn’t want the other Lagrimari to do so, either. He needed a distraction.
“I think so.” Jasminda drew in a breath and closed her eyes.
The firing stopped as the ooze on the ground rose into a wall of mud to block the view of the soldiers. Jack ran to the barricade, passing the shocked Lagrimari gathered there, and hurdled across.
“All right, Jasminda,” he called, pulling out his weapon. When the mud once again fell to the earth, Jack stood face-to-face, pistol drawn, with the lead officer, a captain he recognized but had never personally spoken to before. From the corner of his eye, he saw the soldiers nearby train their weapons on him.
“Hold your fire!” the captain shouted, a dazed look coming over him.
“Do you know who I am?” Jack asked through clenched teeth.
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Who am I, then?” he pressed.
“High Commander Alliaseen.”
Soldiers nearby gasped in shock.
“I-I have to ask for your identification code, sir.”
“Ylisum two five three zero nine.” Jack squeezed his hand around the butt of the pistol still pointed at the captain’s head, anger vibrating through his every fiber. “Verified?”
“Verified.” A moment was all it took for the demeanor of the other soldiers to change radically. Guns were put away swiftly, and the men all stood at attention. Jack lowered his weapon as well and tried to control his breathing.
“Commander, I am Captain Daveen Pillos. We had heard you’d been lost.”
“I was found, Captain.” Jack took in another steadying breath and unclamped his jaw by sheer will. “On whose order were you firing upon these settlers?”
Pillos’s gaze darted to the barricade and back. “No one’s order, sir. We were engaging combatants.”
“When you engaged these combatants, were they firing upon you?”
A tic jumped in the captain’s jaw. “No, sir. But reports said they had attacked some civilians.”
“Under the rules of engagement, under what conditions is it permissible to fire upon residents of your own country when you are not under immediate threat of harm?”
Pillos blinked rapidly as if trying to recall.
Jack exhaled in exasperation. “Has martial law been declared, Captain?”
“No, sir.”
“Then am I correct in stating there are no conditions under which it is permissible to fire upon residents of your own country when you are not under immediate threat of harm?”
“Y-yes, sir. But, sir … they are settlers.”
Jack took a step back and raised his voice so that all present could hear. “Yes, Captain. These are settlers. And as of the Treaty of the Seventh Breach, they have non-enemy status in Elsira. Unless they directly provoke you and are not, as in this case, merely defending themselves against attack, it is our sworn duty as defenders of Elsira to protect them. Is it not?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack took a deep breath, exhausted from the display of leadership. Pillos was doubtless no different than most of his men, than most of Elsira, if he could stand to believe such a thing.
“See if anyone needs medical attention and gather their weapons. But for Sovereign’s sake, don’t shoot anyone.”
Pillos gave the commands, his eyes darting back to Jack every few seconds. “What are we to do with them all, sir?”
Jack scrubbed a hand down his face. “Call in transportation and take them to the Eastern Base for now. And contact the Sisterhood. More refugees will be arriving.”
Jack recalled Jasminda’s words in the cave. The Lagrimari were coming here searching for a better life, but if this was what they’d find when they arrived, maybe they were better off in Lagrimar.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Beware the Master of Monkeys. He would sell you the night as a cloak for the sun.
—COLLECTED FOLKTALES
Jasminda’s gaze followed Jack as he dealt with the soldiers. After the initial incident, the men’s sudden change in attitude and obvious deference toward him piqued her curiosity. He only had to say a few words and they would take off like startled horses.
Several soldiers came over to ask, somewhat hesitantly, for the weapons of the Lagrimari. The settlers understood the commands and translated for the others. Rozyl scowled but added her rifle to the pile.
Once the guns had all been put away, the other refugees were brought out from their hiding places, including nearly two dozen people she hadn’t seen before who’d hidden in the trees just beyond the settlement. They all gathered, seated behind the remains of the makeshift barrier, still wanting some distance between themselves and the Elsirans.
Gerda sat next to Jasminda as she watched Jack giving commands and instructing his men.
“You follow him very closely,” Gerda said. “Do you think he will disappear?”
Jasminda pulled her gaze away. “I’d almost forgotten he was one of them.” Her heart tied itself in a knot. He’d been so different, so kind, but now, standing in a huddle of other Elsirans, it was difficult to pick him out from the group. The idea of finding warmth and comfort from his presence seemed foreign.
What had she expected? She knew he was on a mission. He’d risked his life to gain information to save his country. With the cornerstone gone, her only use to him was in unlocking the mystery of the caldera. Just because she’d grown to think of him as a possibility, perhaps even as a friend, did not mean he felt the same. She was an ally; she must do her part and he do his.
With a sigh, she pulled out the pouch that held the caldera.
“Watch over me while I try this again?” she asked Gerda. Jasminda had been insensible to the world during the last vision.
Gerda patted her shoulder. “Of course.”
Jasminda inhaled deeply, unwrapped the caldera, and lowered her palm.
In the distance, the clouds have not yet begun to form, but I feel them coming. A raw wind races across the mountain ridge, but I do nothing to block its bite. The sensation of the air whipping against my skin grounds me.
Above my head, Eero turns circles in the air, riding on the wind. I briefly wonder who taught him the trick, but no one needed to. He has been a quick study. He swoops before me, hovering just out of reach. I grab for him anyway, knowing it will make him smile, and he races away.
“You will burn yourself out,” I call up to him, making sure my voice carries as his form becomes smaller and smaller. Within minutes, I sense him weakening. He has just enough Song left to land gracefully by my side, laughing, his face full of joy.
“A little more, please,” he says, holding out his hand.
“More? So you can waste it flying through the air like a deranged bird? There is a reason you do not see any other Songbearers tearing through the skies disturbing the clouds.”
He snorts. “Because you are stodgy curmudgeons with no sense of adventure.”
I roll my eyes. “No, because we respect the energy and do not squander it on frivolity. If you needed to fly to escape danger or forestall some terrible event, that would be one thing.”
His resonant chuckle echoes off the mountain peaks behind us. “If you give me a little more, I will endeavor to seek out some poor soul in peril and give aid straightaway.”
I turn away from him and cross my arms.
“My dearest, most beautiful and talented sister.” He leans into me and makes his most pitiful face to engage my sympathy.
“Your only sister.”
“Yes, and a more wonderful sister there could never be. I promise not to squander it. I shall give the Song the respect it deserves. Please?”
I want to hold my ground against him. But in the weeks since Yllis discovered the spell that allows gifting a portion of a Song from one to another, Eero has been happier than I have seen him since the loss of our parents. Perhaps happier than I have ever seen him.