by Watson Davis
“What are we going to do now?” Rucker asked, shivering, pulling his jacket around himself to stay warm. “They’re going to catch us.”
“I’m getting out of here.” I knelt down to his level, looking him in the eye. “At least, I’m going to try. Do you want to come with me? It could go very wrong. I can take you back to the cells.”
He looked past me, his eyes wide. “I don’t want someone to clean my guts up off the floor of the altar room. So, yeah. Let’s go.”
“Great.” I started to rise, my chest tightening, wondering what to do next.
A gruff voice said in a harsh caricature of a whisper, “Scream came from over this way.”
“Yah,” another gruff voice answered.
I held my position, motionless, arms wrapped around Rucker, one hand over his mouth. Two orcs ran past, their monstrous feet pounding the stones of the path.
I snatched Rucker up, darted along the library wall, setting him down and dragging him after me, past one of the master’s houses, around the west end of the sanctuary, to another path, stopping once to allow another monk to run past.
I grabbed the nape of his neck, spinning him around to face me, whispering, “Act like I’m a monk and you’re an acolyte, got it?”
He nodded.
I pushed at his slave collar, tucking it beneath the collar of his jacket and his cloak, pulling the hood up over his fool head, and did the same to mine. “Keep this up and act like you’re cold.”
Rucker glared up at me, saying, “I am cold.”
“Good.” I spun him around, directing him back out from beneath the trees, out onto the path. “Follow me.”
We walked down the path through the student dormitories, comfortable, like we belonged. Monks gathered at the doors talking among themselves. I swaggered, head back, shoulders back, chest high, guiding Rucker through the darkness. The Tower of Corrections loomed in the distance, golden lights shining from its windows.
An instructor whose name I couldn’t recall, one of the instructors of scribery, stepped out of one of the buildings with the same swagger, and seeing us, jogged forward, raising his hand. “Heyo. What news?”
I stopped, tightening my hand on Rucker’s neck, swallowing. I inclined my head, hoping I calculated the difference in our ranks correctly. I licked my lips and with my best Nayen accent, said, “A fight in the laundry, I believe. The guardians seek tracks nearby. I’ve heard no more than that.”
“Ah.” He nodded, seemingly satisfied until he furrowed his forehead and gestured toward Rucker. “And him? Why do you have an acolyte out so late?”
Yes. Why the hell would a monk be guiding an acolyte around in the middle of the night? Think. Think. I looked at him, forcing my eyes to stay steady with his, forcing a breath into my lungs, my chest seeming to squeeze shut. “There is a mess in the Tower of Corrections, a loss of bowel control. Syo-see said to grab one of the newest to clean it up. She hates cleaning.”
“Yes.” He laughed, head back, mouth open. “That is a true fact.” He bent toward Rucker, poking the boy in his chest. “Looks like you’ve been sparring, and not doing so well at it. I’ll have you in my classes soon enough, and then you’ll learn the true meaning of work.”
I smiled, nodded. “Good night.”
“Night.” He turned, hand raising in a wave, walking back toward the group of masters.
I pushed Rucker forward, keeping my back straight, my breathing steady even as my lungs screamed for me to gasp for breath. We passed through the narrow walkway to the archery field expecting to cross that to the Tower of Corrections. But instead of the empty field I expected, five large tents filled the area, a central cook fire burning in the middle, dark smoke rising, cinders popping.
I turned abruptly, changing our tack to the tower of the front gate.
“What’s wrong?” Rucker whispered.
“There are soldiers camping on the field, some human, some orcan. Orcs have better night vision. I might be able to pass for a southlander in the darkness with a human, but not with an orc, not without my magic.” I swallowed, my throat feeling tight.
We marched up to the tower, climbing the outside steps up the wall, to the battlements. As I’d hoped, most of the guardians had left their posts on the wall, but there was still one.
Rucker and I reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the battlement walkway, the door to the tower on our right and a guard with a pike on his shoulder approaching us from our left. A golden light from the lanterns inside the tower lit the walkway by the door, so I stepped away from it, into the shadows, toward the guard, hoping he wouldn’t see my pale skin or my platinum hair.
“Ho, there,” the guard called out, raising his left hand, right hand balancing the pike against his shoulder, his long and short swords in the broad sash around his waist. “What news?”
“They’ve found some tracks by the laundry, still trying to figure out what happened.” I ambled toward him.
“Ah.” He nodded. He squinted, his head inching forward, a quizzical expression on his face.
I smiled, continuing to get closer to him.
He blinked. “Do I know—”
I moved then, using what I’d learned after all this time of watching them practice their katas, working through their strikes, their blocks. I lunged forward, closing the distance, bringing my hand up and around, striking with the inside ridge of my right hand at his throat, my left reaching forward and down toward the short blade in his sash.
He dodged backwards, whipping his left hand in a block, striking with his forearm at mine. His right hand released the pike. The butt end hit the stone walkway with a thud before falling over the edge to the dirt below.
My left hand grabbed the hilt of the short blade, whipping it around, slicing his right arm, blood spraying. I reversed the action of the blade, continuing my lunge by crossing my feet as the instructors taught, and I drove the squared-off point of the sword into his throat, pushing it and him over the outside edge of the wall, through the gap in the parapets.
Hands shaking, heart pounding, gasping for breath, my mouth dry, my hands wet and sticky, I spun around, eyes searching the grounds below, looking for any witnesses, expecting to hear an alarm, a cry.
Rucker waited, motionless, staring at me, pointing at the space in the wall where I’d thrown the man. “You killed him.”
“Yes.” I jogged to Rucker, my head swiveling, looking this way, that way, expecting to be called out at any moment. “Now, let’s get a rope out of the tower and go over the side.”
# # #
I lowered Rucker to the ground from a narrow window in the tower, the rope cinched around his waist. With him safely down, and the rope removed from his waist, I tied the rope to a table, wedged the table into the window, and slid out. The thought of climbing out the window seemed so easy in my head when I had thought of it, even without the use of my magic, but the actual doing of it came close to killing me. All the angles seemed wrong, and I slid down a good portion of the wall, the rope burning my hands as I tried to grip it with enough force to stop myself. By the time I let myself drop to the ground, my hands were bloody messes, aching and stinging bloody messes.
Rucker waited for me.
I pointed to where I’d pushed the man over the side. “Let’s go get the guard’s weapons and then we’re going to have to run.”
“Run?” Rucker looked at me as though I’d turned myself into an orc. “I’m so tired, and hungry, and sore. I can’t run. Where are we going to go? When are we going to get some sleep?”
“Come on.” I grabbed his arm and we jogged to the guard’s corpse.
The dead man lay with his eyes open, his head tilted backward at a strange angle, his arms and legs in positions arms and legs should never be in. The short sword, the blade broken from the impact with the ground, slid out, pulling at the man’s skin, and I handed it to Rucker along with the scabbard from the man’s sash. His long sword and scabbard still intact, I took them for myself
, slipping the scabbard in my sash, keeping it out of the way of my legs.
The sky deepened and brightened, shifting from black to blue, the morning dew forming a crusty frost on the grass. I knelt, turning Rucker to face me, and I stared deep into his eyes. “To get away, we’re going to have to run. When we get tired, we’re going to have to keep running. If you think you can’t run anymore, just try to make one more step, and then one more step after that, but keep going. And remember, this is what you asked for.”
“Great.” He nodded, his breath coming out as a visible wisp, a small cloud. “Just don’t be so mean.”
“Then, let’s go.” I jumped to my feet, and I ran across the open field, concentrating on the tree line, so close, getting closer, the trees inviting me forward, my lungs burning, no longer accustomed to this sort of exertion, my muscles burning and weak from having so little to eat, but I realized that Rucker was no longer beside me. I turned to find him, to chastise him, but he was so far away, over halfway across the field back toward the monastery wall, bent over, huffing for breath, grasping his side with his hands, taking one small step after another, tears streaming down his face.
Beyond him on the walls, the monks had found the rope, had found the table, and had probably found the missing monk. The forest waited behind me, a few steps and I’d have at least a chance of freedom. This forest may not be my forest, it may not have the same trees, the same underbrush, the same creatures, but no damned southlanders or orcans would be able to track me. The collar at my neck crackled, stinging me with its energy.
The gates opened.
I am a fool and if I can’t be free, I can at least be gloriously dead.
I sprinted toward Rucker, shouting at him to keep running as I passed him, whipping the sword out and throwing myself at the monks and soldiers charging towards us, faces grim, weapons drawn. I twisted, turned, swinging the blade, a berserker’s desperation filling me, the knowledge of my death a calmness in me, the last of my clan, the last Brightfox, a fitting end, screaming a battle cry honoring all my dead ancestors.
A sword sang as it came toward me, I ducked and bowed beneath it, slicing upward at the arm holding it. An orcan spear, rough-hewn, a chipped obsidian spearhead, darted in toward me, slicing my leg before I could withdraw it. A sharp pain in my shoulder from behind. My sword bit into an orc’s ribs and stuck fast, the creature’s falling yanking it from my grasp. A sword struck, taking me in the abdomen.
They descended upon me, trapping me beneath their weight, ripping the sword from my hand.
# # #
The loose gravel of Archbishop Diyune’s meditation garden cutting into my back, pressing against my skull, I lay on my back encircled by the feet of monks, instructors, and soldiers, a clear blue sky above me, warblers and pipits singing without a single care in the world, a shadow moving across my face chilling the air. A gray-skinned orc sat on my chest, glaring into my eyes, the edges of his lips pulled back from his teeth and his tusks, the point of his sword against my throat, my wrists held by a human soldier and another orc, their knees on my wrists.
A voice rumbled, “You should kill it.”
“His spirit is strong, his magic stronger.” Archbishop Diyune sighed. He walked to my side, the gravel crunching beneath his sandaled feet. He peered down at me with sadness in his eyes. “He’s been very useful in the empress’ rituals, a steady source of raw magic and a surprising complex soul.” His eyes left mine, looking across from me at someone out of my sight. “It’s so rare to find one that doesn’t burn out during the ceremony, let alone one that can hold on for ceremony after ceremony. I hate to lose him.”
“It looks familiar,” the voice said.
I turned my head, following it to the source of that sound, and the source of the shadow, finding the giantess, General Esmela Silverhewer. My anger and hate bubbling up in my soul, I fought to rise, to attack her, the slayer of my people. The only word I could say was, “Kill.”
“Be still, you,” the orc on my chest whispered, applying the weight of his body to the sword at my throat, the point penetrating my skin. “Be still, or I will still you.”
“He’s one of those Onei you brought in a couple of years ago.” Archbishop Diyune placed his foot on my shoulder, on a wound I didn’t even know was there, and he pressed down on it. “The ones you caught in Birgita, the ones that ambushed you.”
Eyes squeezing almost shut, I groaned, fighting to escape from that pressure, thought of the blade at my throat erased by the pain.
“Ah? Ha, ha, ha. Of course.” Silverhewer smiled, a horrible grimace of a smile, her tusks jutting out from her lower jaw, her upper lips rising up showing her shiny, gray teeth. She bent down, her horrid face coming closer to me to study me, gray eyes twinkling. “That’s why he looks familiar. His mother had that same sort of spark. I kept her around to fight in our games. She was brilliant with a bow, until I burned out her eyes. Now I keep her around as a pet to do my housework. She’s still a fighter. You should definitely kill this one, though.”
I stopped struggling, forgetting the pain, staring up at this hideous monster, my heart thundering. My mother?
“Yes.” Archbishop Diyune nodded. “I’ll exhaust his reserves in the next sacrifice. That way, at least I get something out of him.”
She’s alive?
The Rift
“In you go.” Lyu-ra shoved me back into the cell, applying an extra magical shock from the collar to drive me forward.
I grimaced, my muscles spasming from the spell, stumbling forward, my ankles secured together by a short chain, another short chain connecting the manacles around my wrists and to my ankles.
Two of the younger sacrifices scurried out of my way, but still I dodged to keep from landing on them and injuring them, my chains catching, tripping me. I fell to my knees.
Rucker slammed into my back, doubtlessly thrown at me by Lyu-ra, knocking me forward to land on my hands. I moaned from the pain from my torn flesh, from my hands, to my shoulders, to the gashes and punctures in my abdomen, my throat, my legs. I sank forward, resting my forehead on the cold stone floor, eyes closed, Rucker on my back.
“What happened to you two?” Cole asked, pulling Rucker from me, setting him aside.
I twisted my head to an angle where I could see them. My voice cracked from thirst and exhaustion, saying, “So close. Almost got away.”
“Oh, Rucker, poor baby, how badly are you injured?” Aissal asked, turning Rucker to examine him, her hands caressing his face, exploring his arms and legs, pulling at his hands, twisting his head, checking for serious injury.
Rucker kicked my calf. “He ran away and left me behind.” He bent, spitting on me, his bruised face snarling. “You left me, you asshole.”
“I came back for you,” I whispered. “Besides, I told you to run faster.”
“Wait.” Cole knelt by me, grabbing my shoulder, turning me roughly to my side, to lay on my pierced shoulder. “You two escaped from the cell? How?”
“I wanted to wake everyone,” Rucker said, casting about for support, gesturing to everyone, playing to them, speaking to them. “I wanted all of us to go, to leave together as a group, and fight our way out. But no, Caldane said no to that idea, the great Onei, running away like a coward.”
“I should have killed you and left your body in the trough for the wights,” I said, wanting to hurt him, wanting him to shut up, wanting him to see my side. “I got caught because your weakness slowed me down.”
“You didn’t look slowed down running like a rabbit with your white tail raised in the air.”
“How about when I ran back to try to gain you time to make the tree line?” I spat at him. “How did I look when I pulled my sword and attacked Silverhewer’s soldiers?”
“You could have let us out?” Cole lifted me up, his hands around my neck, choking me, pushing me backward, my shackled feet flailing to find balance, driving me into the wall, pinning me there. “We could have escaped?”
�
�No,” I said. “I could have escaped, alone, and been halfway to my homeland.”
He placed his left forearm up under my chin, drawing his right fist back. Aissal grabbed his arm. “Cole, don’t. He’s hurt.”
“He’s going to be dead,” Cole said, spit flying from his mouth into my face. “And I’m not going to let some damned Nayen monk kill him, not some damned Summoned orcan. I’m going to kill him with my own hands.”
“One person can sneak out. Two?” I shook my head, moved my chin, pointing it toward all the kids standing around in a semicircle around us. “Ten? Twenty? No way. The more you add, the less the chance. I should have left the stupid brat behind. I won’t make that same mistake again.”
“Cole. Leave him be.” Aissal put herself in between us, her back against me, facing Cole, her hands on his chest.
Cole growled but he backed off, pulling his arm from my throat, anger still in his eyes. I slid down the wall, my knees buckling beneath me.
Aissal turned to me, putting her hands on either side of my chest, trying to hold me up, failing, only slowing my descent. I sat, tilted, and would have fallen to my right if Aissal had not slowed me, turned me, laid me down gently.
“And the last thing I want is some damned Summoned touching me.” I reached out as far as I could, pushing at her, only the chains keeping me from tossing her across the cell.
In the background, Cole muttered, “I wouldn’t want some damned Summoned wench touching me, either.”
Aissal stiffened, her blue skin darkening, her lips compressing into a hard line, her eyes glistening in the cold morning light streaming in from the barred windows. She pressed the puncture wound on my abdomen, hard and numb now.