Lorta caught sight of the Medasylas dismounting to approach him. As he pushed through a crowd of gaping soldiers, a red-faced Salache intercepted him, grabbing the Medasylas by the front of his robes.
“You killed my men,” bellowed the general, veins bulging from his forehead.”
To his credit, the Medasylas did not seem the least bit frightened. He just stared emotionless into Salache’s enraged face.
“That explosion took the lives of thousands of brave Aukasian soldiers.” Salache growled.
“Sacrifices that will be remembered,” Lorta said as he rode over to the two men. “Release him, General.”
Salache neither looked at Lorta nor heeded his command.
“Now!” he shouted.
Salache let go of the Medasylas’ robes, snarling, “their blood is upon your head.” After a lingering glare, he pivoted and stomped off.
Yes, Lorta would have to do something about his chief general. The man was becoming more and more insolent by the day. Lorta looked down at the Medasylas.
“Well done, Sage.” Lorta couldn’t help but grin. “Well done.”
When the emperor was distracted, Rayome took the opportunity to breathe a deep sigh of relief. They had come dangerously close to defeat. Had not the Voice returned when it did, he very well might have failed. Yes, he had indeed averted a crisis this day, and despite Salache’s dramatic outburst, the human collateral damage had been minimal, not nearly as costly as had been the technological loss. A total loss. Rayome ground his teeth in frustration. All of the Niazeride hand units destroyed and his cannon as well. He wasn’t concerned by their reduction in soldiers, for if he knew Kaiden as well as he thought he did, then this would’ve been the bulk of Salatia Taeo’s armies. Save for the wall, the capital was likely defenseless.
The wall. With the loss of his cannon, slicing through Eralium was no longer an option. No, Rayome would have to rely on the Aukasian army to batter down the east gate as clumsy and time consuming as that would be. Or, maybe not. Perhaps he could speed things up, if he were the one to batter down the gate.
Gevan stood staring at the crater that had replaced hundreds of stone buildings and dozens of paved streets. He felt sick. All those soldiers gone in the blink of an eye. He had failed to stop the Aukasian army from conquering Hirath. He had failed to convince Father to flee and return home with him. He had failed Commander Trauel and his men.
Gevan had failed.
Together Adariel and the Arch Sage plotted how she would break Yaokken free, and it came down to this one fact: the crown had to come off.
Chapter 20
Aftermath
Sitrell awoke lying face down in an empty cow pasture. He raised his head, eyes squinting as they adjusted to the light of day. He started to get up, but fell prostrate at a painful objection from his wounded side. He slipped a hand underneath his coat, and upon removing it found it covered in blood. I tore my sutures.
After the pain receded some, Sitrell attempted to get up again. This time, he moved slow enough not to aggravate his wound. He got into a position sitting on his calves and surveyed his surroundings. A wide dirt road ran aside the fenced pasture, dirt imprinted with thousand of tracks belonging to men, wagons, and horses. The Aukasian army! He looked about for soldiers, but they were gone. How long was I unconscious?
Sitrell lowered his gaze to search the ground for his father’s sword, but it was nowhere in sight. He stood, a motion that took twice as long as it should have. When he finally made it to his feet, he was facing east, overlooking the cottages and farms of Hirath’s hamlet suburbs. Sitrell took a step west, but stopped, his heart dropping at the sight before him. The hundreds of stone buildings that made up Hirath’s metropolitan center were gone. Not ruined or crumbled, but gone entirely, a shallow miles-wide crater where the city should have been.
“Dear Creator,” Sitrell whispered to himself, it coming out as half prayer and half oath.
The Amigus city had been laid to waste in such a totality as Sitrell had never thought possible by the forces of man. He wasn’t sure how long he stood gaping at the destruction, but it must have been a while as his shadow had lengthened by the time he turned away from the scene of wholesale desolation. Guilt rose in Sitrell’s heart, not because he had lobbied for the tactic of ambushing the enemy inside the city, thereby setting up the army for slaughter, but because he felt no grief. No grief at the loss of tens of thousands of his countrymen, or the destruction of an Amigus city. No grief, just numbness and his guilt over feeling numb.
Stay numb.
Almost mechanically, his survival training kicked in, and Sitrell soon found himself foraging through a cottage for something to staunch his oozing side. There were rags and cloth from which he could fashion a bandage, but he needed something more permanent. Sitrell’s found a box of tinder. As fast as he could, he loaded the cottage’s hearth with wood and made a fire, stoking it for several minutes until he had steeled his nerves. He stuck the poker’s arrow-head point into the flames while he gingerly removed his coat and white shirt.
Sitrell had to repress a rising wave of nausea as he caught the full appearance of his wound. The skin surrounding it was inflamed, torn sutures hanging out of it like ugly hairs, and a steady trickle of blood tinged yellow with pus oozing down his side. He yanked the metal poker out of the fire, satisfied that it was ready by the point’s cherry red glow. Biting down on a strap of leather he had found, he took three deep breaths and then kissed his wound with the edge of the hot poker.
A muffled scream escaped his lips as the hot metal seared his infected flesh. He had to repeat the process three more times to cauterize the wound, nearly passing out twice from the shock and pain. When finished, he lay on an animal pelt rug decorating the cottage’s floor for almost two hours before he could make himself get up again. When he did, he ate and drank what little he could find, and then rifled through the abandoned cottage’s closets until he found a replacement for his white shirt. There was also a blanket and an old overcoat that had been left behind, probably because it was moth eaten and threadbare at the elbows.
He made one last search of the pasture for Enot Trauel’s sword before the sunset stole his light. Loath to accept the loss of the sword, Sitrell made his way down a dirt road heading north. He had decided while lying on the floor of the abandoned cottage that he would join Hirath’s refugees in Micidian, an Amigus city fifty miles to the northeast. It would be a long walk, but he had not been able to find any living horses, the Aukasian army likely having taken what remained. If anything living had survived the destruction.
Remarkably, Sitrell made it out of the city and ten miles into the wild before his sickness and exhaustion made him stop to rest. He fished in a satchel he had found and drew forth a canteen. Blessedly, he had located a well on his way out of what was left of Hirath. It hadn’t had much water in it, but there had been enough to fill a canteen.
He sat on the grass of the rocky plain, pulling the old ragged coat tight around him as the night grew chill. He allowed himself only an hour’s rest before moving on. If Salatia Taeo was to have any hope at all, he needed to get word of what happened to someone. Then what? There is maybe a battalion at best in Micidian, maybe. He shook the thought out of his head, his determination taking control once more. Get to Micidian. That’s all I should focus on. After stealing one more sip of water―why am I so thirsty?―he resumed his slow march across the northern plain.
It was nearly dawn when he caught sight of Jala Tacia’s treeline on the horizon. Good. He had worried as to whether he was moving in the right direction. He made to take another drink from his canteen but realized in frustration that it was empty, it having leaked out because of a faulty stopper. No wonder it was left behind. He gritted his teeth as he tossed the tin container behind him.
Walking became increasingly more difficult as he followed the treeline on the west. It wasn’t simple fatigue, he realized, but the infection that was making him weak, feverish,
and so thirsty. After another hour, his thoughts became disconnected and slippery, and he struggled to remember where he was going and why. The world around him pitched, and Sitrell found himself lying on the ground staring southward. Where was he going? It doesn’t matter. He would remember, but first he needed to rest.
When he awoke, he found himself lying on the floor of the Workman’s Friend. For some reason, he was having a difficult time deciding if that thought reflected past or present. An overwhelming pain in the form of a deep stinging in his side drew his attention. That wasn’t right. His eyes watered. The pain wasn’t in my side but the back of my head, at least that’s how it was supposed to have been. But what had been? He felt like he should know, but couldn’t remember anything more than that his injury had occurred here, in this tavern, or was it in Hirath?
He glanced around the room, surprised to find it empty. Where were the men of the Royal Guard? Weren’t they supposed to be here? The scene looked familiar, but felt eerie and foreign. Sitrell glanced down at his side where pain like a hot poker was stabbing into his flesh. Why was he wearing a soldier’s uniform? He hadn’t even entered the academy yet, had he? Images, feelings, and pain all swirled inside his head as he worked to orient himself in the timeline of his life. What was going on?
“Sitrell?” a voice asked, “do you know me, son?”
Sitrell looked up to find his father standing over him dressed in an Amigus burial uniform.
“Father.” Sitrell sat up, grimacing as the motion flared the pain in his side. “How did you know where to find me?”
Enot Trauel smiled and knelt beside him. “Why did you come back here, son?”
“Taeborn’s Second Wonder,”
His father sighed. “I thought we had settled that matter years ago.”
Tears sprang to Sitrell’s eyes and he broke into sobs.
Why was he crying?
When Sitrell looked up, he was no longer sitting on the floor of the Workmen’s Friend, but standing with his father on the stone causeway that bridged the Nenasette River. It was white with snow in every direction, the storm bringing with it an unnatural silence. Things were just as they were on that day three months ago.
“No.” He sobbed. “Not here.”
Enot Trauel reached out to touch Sitrell’s side. “Your wound runs deep, my son.”
“I was shot,” Sitrell said, though the voice seemed to come from outside. When was I shot?
“Your injury should’ve mended by now, but you have not let it heal.”
It took him a moment, but it dawned on him that his father wasn’t talking about the ball that had passed through his side. He meant the grief that was cankering his soul.
“It has become infected.” Enot Trauel stared Sitrell in the face, his eyes full of concern.
“How do I make it go away?” Sitrell asked, tears again pooling in his eyes.
“You need to let go.”
“Let go of what?”
“Do you wish to die, son?”
Sitrell shook his head. “No.”
“Then why do you court death?”
Sitrell paused before tentatively answering, “Because I have to know.”
“Why must you glimpse that which you were not meant to see?”
Sitrell tightened his jaw, more hot tears rolling down his cheeks. “Kyen followed me into the canals that night and I sent him home alone, without anyone to guide him. He drowned because of me.”
Sitrell wiped his raw, wet cheeks. “I have to know that he isn’t gone. I have to know that something of him still exists, else…”
“Else what?”
“Else I will have robbed him of the only life he had.” Sitrell buried his head into his father’s shoulder, trembling as he sobbed.
He felt his father gently patting him on the back as he whispered, “Kyen’s death was an accident. It was not your fault.”
“Then why do I carry the guilt for it?” Sitrell raised his head and looked into his father’s face. “If it is not my fault, then why do I see Mother’s disappointment every time she looks at me? Why did the Creator punish me by taking you?”
“Oh, Son,” Enot Trauel sighed. “You still do not understand?”
A shrill whistling from above caught Sitrell’s attention and he saw a cannon ball streak down from the sky. The mortar landed in the river, sending up an explosion of water and ice.
“What’s happening?”
His father looked resigned. “This form of communication is difficult to maintain, so I must deliver my message quickly.”
The bridge shook again as another mortar crashed into the river.
“Don’t go!” Sitrell pled.
“Remember this, Son. You will soon meet a stranger who will return something precious to you.” Enot Trauel’s tone had turned urgent. “Trust him and do what he tells you, for he is a guide.”
“Is this a dream?”
“Listen, Sitrell, for this is more important than you can know.”
The bridge shook as a cannon ball struck the causeway and just as it had on that day three months back, it didn’t explode.
The world changed, and Sitrell found himself standing on the bank of the river, overlooking the bridge. His father still stood in the middle. “Father!” he screamed.
“Trust the guide.” Enot Trauel shouted back. “You will know him by the precious thing he returns to you.”
“Father, don’t go!” He reached his hand out just as the bridge exploded.
A cold rock pressed hard into Sitrell’s cheek. He blinked open his eyes and found he was lying prostrate on a grassy plain. It was dark, cold, and his throat felt like it was on fire. He gingerly rolled over and tried to sit up. Pain lanced his side, and he fell back to the ground. Where was he?
When the pain subsided and his breathing slowed, he carefully turned his head to his left and then his right. He didn’t see the Nenesette river or any snow.
Father!
The imagery of his dream flooded back into his mind. You will soon meet a stranger who will return something precious to you. Trust him and do what he tells you, for he is a guide. His father’s words echoed from his fading memory.
Was that just a dream?
Sitrell gathered his will and forced himself to sit up. He screamed as the bite of his wound sent a shock through his entire body, but he didn’t let it knock him back to the ground. He pushed through the pain and made it back to his feet.
Micidian! He was trying to get to Micidian!
Rasping, Sitrell lumbered forward, grunting with every step. He’d made it only five agonizing paces when the world pitched, and he stumbled. The pain from the abrupt motion shocked him into a full fall, and Sitrell screamed as he landed on his side. He gritted his teeth, sucking in sharp breaths through his nose. Sound faded, his vision blurred, and the last thing Sitrell saw before he lost consciousness was the silhouette of a man approaching from the south.
Gevan worked to look casual as he wound his way through a labyrinth of tents toward one of Rayome’s supply wagons. Knowing him as the disciple of the Medasylas, the Aukasian soldiers mostly treated him with deference. Well, maybe not exactly deference. It was more like they were afraid of him by association, now more than ever since Father had destroyed an entire city, an event that had incited an abundance of superstitious gossip. Gevan looked to the east horizon in the direction of Hirath. The city, or rather what was left of it, had disappeared from view over two days ago. The army had moved on, marching nonstop until reaching the borders of Amigus’ expansive pine forest, Jala Tacia, the place where they now camped.
Gevan had spent those days more in the saddle than out, wracking his brain to devise a contingency plan, some last-ditch effort to halt the army’s advance and force his father to return with him to their frontier village of Jira Hin. It was only a few hours ago, while studying a map of Amigus, that Gevan was able to come up with something. His new plan was a desperate one, but Gevan was desperate, so it fit.
&nbs
p; At last, Gevan reached Rayome’s supply wagon, pausing to wait for an Aukasian patrol to pass before rounding the canvas covered vehicle and climbing in from the back. Once inside he snatched four large canisters, a spool of wire, and a blasting box. He shoved the items into two large satchels and then hopped out of the wagon just in time to avoid the notice of another group of passing soldiers.
Gevan next made his way to the horse pickets. The soldiers’ superstitious wariness worked to his advantage, most of them pointedly avoiding him. One group went so far as to double back rather than cross his path. Once outside the circular tent-city, he mounted his horse, snapped its reins, and rode toward Draciak Eletar, the large gulley in the middle of the pine forest.
Yes, his plan was a desperate one.
Rayome watched from inside the mouth of a tent on the camp’s outer rim as the boy rode into the forest. He could hardly believe it, but Gevan had indeed fled, just as the Voice had showed him he would. He glanced down at his open palm where he held four small spools coiled with copper wire, detonator fuses. The firebombs Gevan stole would be useless without them.
He’s betrayed me. Rayome closed his fist, eyes flaring red as he crushed the four small components into fragments. My own son has betrayed me.
Once Yaokken’s sky castle was complete, he rained terror and destruction down upon the cities of his rivals. Countless lives were snuffed out, even those of women and children, but he didn’t care, so strong had the crown’s hold over him become.
Chapter 21
The Guide
The first thing Sitrell noticed when he woke was that he felt better than he had in months. He was rested, clear-minded, and no longer feverish, and was his pain, gone? He slipped a hand underneath the part of his shirt that covered his right side―where was his coat?―and found nothing; no burnt skin, no crusted blood, no infected flesh, no wound. Had everything that had happened just been a dream? Could it be that he was still in Lisidra, having bullied Leadren only the day before? Part of him hoped so.
Heroes of the Crystal Star (Valcoria Book 1) Page 25