by A. Q. Owen
That gave me an idea.
I hurried over to the bin and carefully turned it over onto its side. Then I carried it out to the edge of the alley as quietly as possible so the guards wouldn’t see a floating garbage can. Not yet, at least.
Then I picked up the bin and threw it against the wall near the building’s corner. The sound of the metal container smashing against the bricks startled the guards almost to the point where they jumped out of their uniforms.
Their heads instantly turned my way. They noticed the garbage can rolling out of the alley and immediately left their posts to investigate.
“What was that?” one of the men atop the tower to the right shouted.
“Checking it out now!” one of the ground guards said. “Probably a squirrel or something.”
The two men cautiously approached where I was crouched at the corner of the alley. I picked up a can sitting next to an old dumpster and tossed it deeper into the side street.
The metal clank as it hit the wall and asphalt once more roused the guards to full alert as they stalked into the alley with their spears held at their waists.
Once they were out of sight from the tower guards, I removed my sword carefully from its sheath and stepped up behind the guard on the right. I held the tip just behind the back of his skull for a second before shoving it up quickly. The sharp metal went into his brain, killing him before he could even make a peep.
He dropped to the ground as the other guard turned to see what was wrong with his partner. I swiped the blade across his throat, cutting artery and vein all at once. Blood gushed from the wound despite the man grasping at it desperately.
In less than thirty seconds he was on the ground, unmoving, soaked in crimson.
I hurried back to the gate and immediately realized the only thing keeping it shut was a padlock and chain. One of the guards must have been holding the key.
I sighed, irritated at my carelessness, and rushed back to the bodies in the alley. One of the men on top of the closest tower shouted down again. “What’s going on down there? You find anything?”
“Not yet!” I yelled back in my most masculine, gruff voice. I had a bad feeling they didn’t buy it.
All the more reason for me to hurry with the key.
The first guy didn’t have it. Luckily, it didn’t take long to find it on the second guy’s belt.
I grabbed the key and ran back to the gate. Time was running out. I had to move fast. I inserted the first of three keys into the lock and was glad to see it did the trick. The padlock fell to the ground, and I yanked off the chain and pulled back the gate wide enough for me to slip through.
Inside the fencing was a sort of holding yard. There’d been grass there at one point a long time ago. Now it was nothing but dirt, worn down over time by the prisoners who came through. My eyes darted around, scanning the area for a sign of any captives.
There was a building made from cinder blocks straight ahead. Two more guards stood on either side of the entrance, similarly equipped to the two I’d killed moments before. That had to be the prison.
Getting inside might not prove difficult, but finding my parents once I was there? That was a different challenge altogether.
The time for shenanigans was over. I charged the front door with sword in hand. The guards never saw me as I approached. I slit both their throats in seconds and used one of the other keys to open the metal doors.
Inside, I found a dark hallway lit only by beams of light coming through occasional windows lining the path.
“Hello? Dak? Is that you?” a voice echoed through the corridor.
A guard appeared around the corner from another hallway. He had a puzzled look on his face.
I started walking toward him, but his expression turned from curiosity to menace. “What are you doing here? Who are you? This is a restricted area!”
Crap. He could see me.
I ran forward, taking the offensive. For a second, the guard panicked. It was all the time I needed. I jumped, planted one foot on the wall, then the next, and then leaped at the guard with my sword pointing at his shoulder. He couldn’t recover fast enough, and the tip of my blade sank deep into his collar until it hit the bone. My body crashed into him, and the momentum knocked him onto his back.
He started to yell for help, but I clapped my hand over his mouth as I sat atop his chest.
“Don’t say a word,” I warned him, still holding the hilt of my sword with one hand. “Now, I know this hurts, but it can get a whole lot worse if you make a bad decision. So, if you try to yell for help or sound an alarm, I’m going to make sure your life ends in the most painful way possible. Are we clear?”
His eyes were full of fear. He couldn’t nod fast enough.
“Good. Now. I’m looking for two prisoners. Their names are Paul and Mary Rollins. They were brought here three years ago. Do you know where they are?”
I pulled my hand back from his lips and waited for his answer. “You can go to hell.”
I twisted the sword so the tip scraped and dug into his collarbone. He started to yell, but I clamped my hand over his mouth again and all he could muster was a low moan.
“I told you not to be stupid, didn’t I? Think. Where are Paul and Mary Rollins? Do you know who they are? I need to know what happened to them.”
The guard swallowed, still in agony. “Okay,” he muttered into my palm. “Okay. I’ll talk. Please, just don’t do that anymore.”
“Don’t you make me do it again.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
“Where are they?”
“What…what do they look like?”
Great. He didn’t know the names. I shouldn’t have been surprised that a lowly guard didn’t know where Paul and Mary Rollins were. They probably weren’t privy to that sort of information. After all, prisoners were just a number to most guards. At least that’s how I understood the system to work.
I gave him the description of my parents, laying out every single detail.
The man blinked several times as he tried to recall anything about the couple. Then his eyes went wide. An epiphany hit him.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. I remember. It was three years ago. They were definitely here.”
“Were?”
He gave a worried nod. “Yes. Please, I…it’s not my fault.”
“What’s not your fault?” I asked with menace.
“They…they were here until two months ago. The only reason I remember is because they were both so nice to me. Most of the prisoners that come through here are bitter, angry people. Not that I blame them. I would be, too, if I was herded in here like cattle.”
Darius wasn’t lying. My parents were alive. At least they had been up until two months ago.
“Where are they now?”
“You have to believe me. I don’t know. Honest. All I know is they were marked to be sold as slaves, probably to one of the warlords or the bandits.”
I frowned. “The zealots sell slaves to the warlords and bandits of the outlands?”
“Some…sometimes. Yeah. Please, you gotta believe me. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
I sat up straight and looked down the corridor. I could hear the sounds of other people locked in cells.
“What about the people in this place? What are you going to do with them?”
“It…it just depends. Sometimes we have to kill them. Sometimes we sell them. It all depends on what the grand leader says.”
I knew of the grand leader, the king of the southern kingdom. This city was his seat of power. He liked to believe his arm stretched out over the entire south, but I knew better. It didn’t go beyond the walls and fences wrapping around the perimeter.
I stood up and pulled the sword from the man’s shoulder. He winced as I did so but looked grateful…right up to the second I waved the blade in front of his nose.
“Help me release the prisoners,” I commanded.
“What?”
“Do yo
u want me to do the other shoulder? Or would you prefer I cut your head off right now?”
“No. No please. But if I let the prisoners go, I’ll be killed for treason.”
“I can kill you right now if you’d prefer. Unlock the cells. Do it.”
The guard nodded and scrambled to his feet. He started to reach down for his spear, but I put the edge of my sword between his hand and the weapon.
“Leave it.”
“Right,” he said. “The locking mechanism. It’s just around the corner here.” He inched his way toward the side hall.
I followed close behind to make sure he wasn’t up to something.
A lever on the wall was locked with a padlock.
“That the thing that opens the cells?” I asked.
He gave a terrified nod as he fumbled with his keys. Blood stained his black uniform, but he didn’t care. He’d been close to execution a moment before. Now he took nothing for granted.
He slid the key into the padlock, and a moment later the lock dropped to the floor with a clank.
“Open them,” I said, still keeping my sword close enough to threaten him.
He swallowed and then pulled down on the lever. Loud metal noises came from the ceiling and echoed down through the hall. It was followed immediately by a creaking sound the likes of which I’d never heard before. I looked down the corridor and saw the doors swinging open to all the cells.
“I’m going to let you live because you helped me,” I told the guard. “Do yourself a favor and get out of town. Something horrible is coming tonight. You won’t want to be here when it arrives.”
His eyebrows pinched together. He had no idea what I was talking about, and I didn’t have time to explain. I had to get the prisoners out of there. If he didn’t know where my parents were, maybe one of them did.
The guard ran out the door and into the courtyard.
I looked down the hallway at the faces of the confused prisoners. They wandered toward me like zombies. Most of them were skinny, deprived of food and water for most of their stay.
“My name is Eve Rollins,” I said, booming my voice down the length of the hall. “Does anyone here know what happened to Paul and Mary Rollins?”
The people continued shuffling toward me with blank, vapid eyes peering through me.
“Anyone? Anyone at all?”
“I do,” a feeble voice said from the middle of the crowd. An elderly woman stepped forward and stood in the middle of the hallway. She looked like she was frail enough to break in half with a twig. “I know where they went.”
15
“Sold?”
I almost didn’t believe the old woman—except I had no reason not to.
“Sold to who?”
The woman looked up sheepishly at me. I could tell there wasn’t a lie in her eyes. “A warlord who calls himself Matthias. He set himself up in the mountains to the east, in Old Appalachia.”
My forehead wrinkled.
“Appalachia?”
She nodded. “In what used to be western North Carolina. He overran the palace there. Claimed it as his own.”
Palace? My concern deepened. She must have been talking about the old Biltmore Estate. The estate was a massive piece of property, stretching into the forests surrounding Asheville, and was home to the largest private residence in the former United States. If there was a warlord there, he’d be hard to reach. The journey would take days, maybe more than a week on horseback. Between here and there, danger would lurk at every turn.
“You’re certain of this?”
She gave the weakest smile I’d ever seen. “Yes. I was there the day they were sold. I was offered to the warlord’s emissary, as well, but they had no use for an old woman like me. They told me to die in prison with the rest of the useless riffraff.
I could tell the comment had hurt her, but she also had a little spunk that made me think the warlord was better off not having her on the premises.
On top of the long and arduous journey to Appalachia, getting into the Biltmore would be nearly impossible. The place had been a veritable fortress when it was merely a tourist destination. I couldn’t imagine how tough it would be to access now that someone was using it as their military stronghold.
“Thank you,” I said to the woman in my kindest voice.
She gave a slight nod.
“What are we going to do?” a man asked to my right. I turned to see who’d spoken and found one of the few men in the group who still had some muscle to him. He had a long, thick red beard and a bald head. His arms were lined with tattoos of skulls, flags, and other tributes to things from his past life.
There was no way I could get to my parents in the immediate future. I knew that. If I left these people here, the guards would come back and in greater numbers. They’d probably execute some of the prisoners to set an example.
Even if that worst-case scenario didn’t happen, I couldn’t just leave them here. They’d be put back in their cells, some sold off as slaves and others simply left to rot.
Then an idea popped into my head.
“I need your help,” I said to the tattooed guy.
“Help?”
I nodded. “I’m going to get you out of here. Once you leave this prison, where you go and what you do are your choice, but know this: There’s an army coming this way, an army bent on destroying the city and everyone in it. I’m going to stay and fight.”
“With the zealots?” Tattoo asked. “They’re the ones who put us in here.”
“No,” I shook my head. “I’m not helping them. There are others, those who ran from the zealots. They’ve been hiding out underground. If we defeat this army, we can all leave this place together and go somewhere safe.”
“And set up our own city.”
“Sure, if that’s what you want. But if you stay here, you’re going to die. If you come with me, you only may die.”
“Fighting in some war could have the same result.”
I was starting to see who the leader of this rabble was. “That’s true. Which is why I’m not forcing it on anyone. But we could use your help. If you want to fight for your freedom then follow me once we leave this prison. And if not, I won’t judge you. Fair?”
The people looked around at each other, their eyes full of doubt. The truth was they were in no condition to fight, but I knew Diggs could use all the help he could get.
“Lead the way,” Tattoo said.
I gave a curt nod. “Wait at the door. Let me take out the guards.”
The words had barely left my lips when the alarm started blaring in the distance. The guys on the tower must have seen their dead comrades outside the main entrance. In hindsight, I probably should have dragged them in to buy more time. No going back now. We’d be surrounded by guards any second.
I stepped forward and waited at the doors for a moment, clearing my mind of all the worries and thoughts rushing through it. A cold chill filled my veins once more, and I kicked open the door.
The guards at the top of the towers took aim with their bows and let their arrows fly. An instant later, a shield of ice formed in front of me. The frozen wall knocked the arrows harmlessly to the ground.
“She’s a magician!” someone shouted from the back.
I shook my head. “Stay here for a second,” I ordered the people immediately behind me. I darted back into the corridor and looked to the far end, just beyond where the last of the prisoners were standing. “Ice wall,” I said.
A cold gust rolled through the hallway and a barrier of ice grew out of the floor and reached all the way to the ceiling, just as a battalion of guards ran around the corner at the end.
They banged on the wall with their swords and spears, but nothing they could do would get them through the two-feet of ice.
I returned to the courtyard and found the tower guards firing their arrows on our position.
“Suppressing fire,” Tattoo said.
I raised an eyebrow. He must have been former milita
ry to use a term like that.
“I got it,” I said.
I took off running, and the world slowed again. I saw the arrows spinning through the air as if they were in slow motion. Dust flew up behind my feet as I sprinted to the other side of the courtyard and skidded to a stop under the towers.
I looked up at the staircase leading to the top of the nearest tower, but there was a gate in the way with a padlock keeping it secure.
I remembered something about locks being easier to break if they were frozen. I closed my eyes for a second and focused all my energy on the padlock. “Freeze,” I said.
Dark clouds started forming overhead. Another gust of frigid air washed over the courtyard. I watched as the padlock suddenly grew frosty and then covered in a thin layer of ice.
I took my sword and smashed the hilt against the frozen lock. Nothing happened at first. So I hit it again, harder this time. On the second try, the lock smashed into a hundred pieces.
I didn’t stick around to wonder at what I’d just done. There would be time for that on the way to Appalachia.
I yanked open the door and ran up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time until I reached the top. The guards were still firing arrows down at the prison entrance, apparently unaware that I was right behind them.
Running to the first one, I put my sword through his back and then kicked him over the railing. He tumbled down the three-story fall to the ground.
The second guard saw what happened and turned his bow with a notched arrow in my direction. His movement was too slow, though, and I stepped to him in an instant, slicing through the tip of the arrow a second before he loosed it. The tipless arrow soared into the distance as I ducked to the side. He whipped the bow around and struck me in the face, knocking me back a step. I recovered and rushed him, but now he’d produced a short sword from his belt. I slashed my weapon at an angle to cut him in half through his collar, but he blocked the attack easily and punched me in the face with his free hand.
The blow drove me back again, this time sending a deeper, throbbing pain through my jaw.
“I don’t like hitting a woman,” the guard said. “In your case, I think I’ll make an exception.”