Death Flag

  “Don’t forget the ring that Warren found,” he said softly, using the reminder as an olive branch. “If it’s a group from K’yer Utane, or if they have actually do somehow have dealings with the valley, they aren’t likely to hurt Erin. Some of them can be real heels, but I don’t think you have to worry about any of them harming her, even way out here.”

  She nodded slightly, but she didn’t look any more placated than she had before.

  “And it actually might not be anything,” he said at last, “but that man mentioned a name I’ve heard before. Two names, actually: Garin Fane and Janos.”

  Warren walked over and sat down next to the wall, filling a spot in the narrow cave on Shayna’s right and Madison’s left. Madison walked over and sat on her right and leaned back against the wall, positioning himself so that he could watch the outside. He didn’t just want to keep an eye on the weather. He also wanted to know whether or not someone or something else was suddenly going to decide to seek refuge in the same hole that they had.

  Shayna made a face as if trying to recall what she had heard. “He said something about Janos’s treasure?”

  “Yeah.” Madison nodded slightly. “I don’t know anything about that, but I do know something about Janos. I was actually on his ship once.” There was a sharp intake of breath, and Madison glanced over at Warren. “What is it?’ he asked.

  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Warren admitted. “You being who you are and all. But Janos is something of a figure, even in modern times. What were you doing on a ship under his command?”

  Madison thought back to his original encounter and how he had ended up on the deck of a ship after being ripped away from his home and everything he knew. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he answered honestly without giving anything away. “But that’s not important. What is important is that Fane was the one who sank the ship, and now, I think I know why. There was something a dying sailor said just before he passed . . . What was it? Everything was so hectic then and there was so much confusion because of the battle and the sea monster . . .”

  Warren and Shayna shared a knowing look as Madison closed his eyes and thought back to that time. He had been desperate to find a way off that ship and to land, and when he had been tied up and pushed against the ship’s railing, the dying man had said something about the people on board. “There was a bunch of chanting in the night?” Madison couldn’t recall the man’s exact words. He had practically written them off as the ramblings of a delusional, dying man, but now they might have a meaning he hadn’t anticipated before. “They were carrying something that Fane wanted, but none of the sailors knew anything about it—or at least they weren’t talking under torture. I don’t really remember everything, but Fane was willing to sink the ship and butcher everyone on board to get it. I thought it would have gone down with the ship when that monster attacked, but I guess I was wrong. Do you think Janos could have somehow survived? That he could have made it off that ship with whatever it is that they’re after? Whatever this thing is that the goddess wants?”

  “What makes you think that Janos survived?” Warren asked.

  “If you had something that important . . . something that people were willing to dedicate every resource on half of a continent to find, would you trust it with someone else?”

  “You have a point,” Warren conceded. “But have you considered the other alternative?”

  “What’s that?” Madison asked.

  “That’s the reason they’re after you,” Shayna said quietly. “They think that you have it. Every slaver and pirate on this side of the continent is after you . . .”

  Warren nodded. “Did anyone else make it off that ship aside from you? Or were you the only one?”

  “To be honest? I don’t know. I went overboard when the creature attacked. I wasn’t going to stick around to find out how that fight ended. Everyone on the deck except for me and one other man was dead by that point unless they were a member of Fane’s crew, and the only people alive were below deck. They found a way to bar themselves in with the passengers at the last minute, and the pirates were still hacking away at the door when the ship started to go down. I guess someone else could have made it off and survived aside from me, but it doesn’t seem likely.”

  “Janos is well known throughout most of the civilized world,” Warren commented. “He’s something of a living legend, actually. Well, maybe not living anymore, but you get the point. I’m sure you know all of this, but he served as a naval commander back east until things started to go downhill. Rumor has it that he refused to serve his lord any more for some reason and then he turned to piracy. He worked as a smuggler and a mercenary for years, and he has a well-earned reputation for being the best. For everything you’ve heard about Garin Fane being evil, Janos was just as cunning and smart and crafty. So, is there a chance that he made it off that ship in the middle of a battle and ran off right from under Fane’s nose? You bet there is. But she’s right: they think that you have whatever it is they’re after. If they want it that badly, they’ll hunt you until the ends of the earth.”

  Madison glanced down at the tattoo on his arm that was now uncovered due to his lack of bandages and armor. As long as he wore it, the symbol of the Legion or whatever it meant, they would know exactly how to find him. No one else would be stupid enough to wear one like it—or so he had been led to believe. He had also heard something eerily similar during his conversation with the dragon lady. She had said that he had already come close to his way home. Madison felt a sinking feeling and a sense of dread form in the pit of his stomach. If she had been talking about this lost treasure, it was on the bottom of the ocean now. The dragon had warned him that the witch had marked him so that he would never be able to escape his punishment. He hadn’t been convinced at the time, but there was no denying it now: the skull was a mark of death.

  CHAPTER 20

  The rain started coming down about an hour later, and by midday, it had settled in as a heavy downpour that was unlikely to leave anytime soon. The sky had darkened quickly, pushing away the first rays of the morning sun that Madison had carefully watched during their ascent until the sky was filled with dark, voluminous clouds and fat, heavy raindrops began petering down.

  The three sat in silence as Madison ran over everything he could possibly remember from the moment he had met the witch until he was cast off the ship. He played every terrifying moment back over in his head time and again as if it were stuck on repeat, and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something. There were simply too many factors that he might not know about to begin with, and he had been so disoriented at the time that it was entirely possible that he had forgotten some of them completely. No matter what, however, he knew that there was a clue there, some connection that he hadn’t quite put together yet. There were too many things revolving around that instance for it to simply be a coincidence.

  The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that he was right: the dragon had been trying to tell him that Janos’s treasure was something that would have been capable of delivering him home. After all, every sci-fi show he had ever watched that revolved around teleportation or wormholes required that the person enter and exit from designated coordinates. He had absolutely no idea how the magic that moved him to this world might work, he simply accepted that it did. As such, all he could do was hope that it was somehow bound to a specific location, such as where the boat had been in the water, rather than to an object like everyone else seemed to think.

  There was also the possibility that the witch had planned everything out from the beginning. Madison suspected more than anything else that it wasn’t mere coincidence that he landed on that boat. If the magic wasn’t tied to any specific thing, then he could have landed anywhere on the continent. He had covered miles and miles of forests and coasts, and he had seen slavers and fighters and bandits and trolls and dragons in his short time in this world. She could have dropped him
into a live volcano if she wanted to, yet she had chosen that specific location at that specific time for a reason. He had to give her enough credit to assume that she knew exactly what she was doing. If that was the case, then he had to figure out why. Had she simply expected Fane to kill him? Or had she been taunting him? If she wanted him dead, she could have just killed him outright. If she wanted him to suffer, to live out his punishment before he was killed, that definitely wasn’t the place or time.

  Madison glanced over at the other two people whom he was sharing the small cave with. Shayna was still on edge despite her best efforts to remain calm and keep her cool, something that he knew that she was horrible at it under even the best of circumstances. He had witnessed her get into fights over lesser provocations and at the drop of a hat, and he also knew that it was taking every shred of self-control she had not to charge out of the cave, up the cliff, and into the encampment and attempt to rescue Erin. He knew that she was feeling guilty about her inability to protect Erin the same way he was. The only difference was that she was worried about her family, and Madison was worried about someone he should have been able to keep safe. He felt responsible for what happened, but she loved her—and he knew that must be heart-wrenching for her not knowing how she was or what was going to happen to her. He also knew that the only thing stopping her from running up there the first chance she got was the knowledge that it wouldn’t do any good.

  He had promised that he would come up with some sort of plan while they were here, but he really didn’t have much to go on. He had to either make it up a vertical cliff face in plain sight with no cover, or he had to walk up the only road leading in or out. The rain had been steadily falling in a downpour for hours, and it blocked out almost every sight or sound beyond what they could see immediately outside their small grotto. For all he knew, they might have pulled up stakes and left at the first sign of wind a rain. The trees up top would offer a small amount of protection from the weather, but not much. They were destined to receive the brunt of it simply because of how high up they were and how exposed they were to the elements.

  Warren had settled in quickly enough, and he seemed to have been the only one smart enough to bring something with him to occupy his time. As soon as it became apparent that they weren’t going to go anywhere soon, he produced one of the small, smokeless torches from his bag along with a wax-sealed pouch that contained a book, and he set about reading. Madison was somewhat curious what was interesting enough for him to haul around with him, but he didn’t ask. He knew that it would have been an invitation to Warren to start lecturing on whatever topic he was researching, and Madison wasn’t in the mood to hear it. He still had to come up with a plan on how to assault an impossible position with three people and come out alive with four.

  -----

  The rain slowed to a constant drizzle at some point in the late afternoon, but it didn’t come to a complete stop until after nightfall. By then, Shayna was practically chewing on her nails in frustration, and Madison had needed to step in on several different occasions and physically stop her from running out into the rain. Finally, when the rain had slowed down enough, he had agreed to let her go out on a scouting mission. He didn’t want to slight Warren since he was technically the one who had been trained as a ranger and had functioned as their scout the entire time, but he needed Shayna’s ability to see in the dark more than he needed Warren’s ego intact and unbruised, and he needed to give her something productive to do before she went crazy. Thankfully, if the young man felt slighted in any way, he kept it to himself.

  Shayna returned about half an hour later, dripping wet and more enthusiastic than ever.

  “There’s only a single lookout,” she reported eagerly. “There’s a rocky outcrop about halfway up, maybe a little higher, and there’s a single man stationed there. If we move now, I think we can catch him off-guard.”

  “You’re positive?” Madison asked.

  “Yes,” she answered confidently. “The Cat’s Eyes spell lets me see perfectly. I watched for a while, and that’s the only place they could possibly station anyone as a lookout without them being all the way at the top. I watched the rim for a while as well, but I never saw anyone there—not even any movement. Now, come on! We need to go before they change the watch!”

  “Not yet,” Madison answered, scratching at his beard. He was badly in need of a shave, and he knew it. He hadn’t even seen a razor since coming to this world, and his five o’clock shadow had already turned into the ragged start of a rugged beard that would make any lumberjack jealous.

  “What do you mean ‘not yet’?!” she cried indignantly. “How can you say—?”

  Madison quickly held up a hand, silencing the protests he knew were coming. “Warren,” he said, turning back to the other man. “How long will it take you to get back to the spot where we had that fight this morning?”

  “If I go alone?” Warren asked as if anticipating that Madison was going to want something from him. “Maybe about half an hour, there and back, if I use the magic. I think I told you, but I can move faster alone that I can with other people since I don’t have to worry about them keeping pace or missing their footing and breaking an ankle.”

  “Good,” Madison answered. “I want you to go back there and make sure our little friend is still sound asleep and hasn’t drowned. I don’t care what kind of condition he’s in beyond that, but it wouldn’t do for me to break my word just because the weather decided to turn bad.”

  Shayna stepped forward and punched him in the shoulder before he could explain everything else to her. “You want to waste time saving Erin so that you can go check on the condition of a bandit? The condition of someone you were happy enough leaving for dead? I’ve about had it with—”

  Madison held up his hand, silencing her for a second time. It was amazing how well that worked, and he vaguely wondered why he hadn’t thought about doing that the day he met her back at K’yer Utane. “The second thing I want, Warren”—he stressed the name to make it a point that she had interrupted him—“is for you to strip one of the dead bodies. Bring me back clothes, armor, and whatever weapons one of them happened to be carrying at the time. If you can’t find something exact, just piece together whatever you can.”

  “Only one?” Warren asked expectantly.

  “Only one,” Madison confirmed. “I didn’t think about pilfering the bodies, so rummage through them if you have time, but be quick about it. If you don’t want to waste the time now, you can do it on our way out.”

  “Got it,” Warren answered. The book and torch he had been using instantly vanished into thin air as he put them away, and moments later, he had disappeared out into the light drizzle.

  “You think you’re going alone?” Shayna asked in a huff. “You’re planning on sneaking in there alone, aren’t you? You think that I’m going to let you go off alone to save Erin? No. Get him back here and tell him to get two outfits. I’m going with you.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Madison said calmly. “It won’t work.”

  “Why not?” Shayna demanded, planting her hands on her hips and staring up at him. “Why is one person better than two?”

  “Really?” Madison asked. “First, because you’d have to be about the shortest bandit anyone had ever seen. Number two, because you’d have to be about the most female bandit anyone had ever seen.” He reached up and flipped her long, black hair out of her hood and put it on display to prove his point. Everyone we’ve come across so far has been a guy. I’m not discounting the usefulness of you or women in general, but suddenly throwing you into the works is like stringing up a red flag and saying, ‘Look at me!’”

  Shayna glowered at him. “You really do expect me to just wait here while you go in there alone, don’t you? Do you seriously think you can find her and get her out all on your own? That’s—”

  “No,” Madison said quickly. “I intend to take out the guard as soon as the watch changes and then get as much recon as I can b
efore signaling down for you and Warren to join me. If I can handle the situation on my own, of course I’ll do it. But I’m not going to risk her life or yours simply because you don’t have the patience to stand around and wait any longer. The minute we go charging up that trail, there’s a chance that they will simply slit her throat and be done with it. And I’m not going to take that chance. Now, if you want to be useful”—he stuffed her long ponytail back down into her armor and pulled her hood up over her head—“then go and keep watch. I need to know exactly when the guard is changed, and you’re the only one who can do that for me. I’ll come and find you with Warren as soon as he returns.”

  He couldn’t read her expression since her face was hidden in shadows by the deep cowl, but she turned and left after a moment without saying a word. All he could do now was wait and hope that she didn’t try and do something reckless on her own before he could put the meager plan into action that he had somehow concocted.

  Warren showed up soon after that, bringing with him exactly what Madison had asked for. Half of an hour after he first put things into motion, Madison had stripped away all of his own clothing, stashed it away into his footlocker, and dressed in the pilfered clothing. He almost hated to wear the poor things, and he was somewhat curious why Warren had chosen them intentionally. They were little more than rags, completely covered in filth, and he doubted that they had ever been washed. They were so filthy, in fact, that he couldn’t help but wonder how sanitary it was to put on someone else’s clothing that had never seen a bar of soap or clean, running water.

  Madison shuddered and pushed the idea out of his mind, stepping out into the cool night air for the first time. It was hard to believe that they had passed the entire day sitting inside the cave and waiting for the rain to stop, but they had. Even harder to believe was the fact that he still hadn’t slept. He wasn’t feeling nearly as energetic as he had before the fight with the bandits, but he had no doubt that he could keep going all night long if he needed to. He knew that it was the magical effects of the Rush he had drunk while under the mountain in his desperate need to save Shayna, but it still gave him a slight pause for concern. He had munched on some dried oats and a little jerky throughout the day, and there was no short supply of water to drink at the moment, but the fact that he hadn’t slept in days and wasn’t even the least bit tired or hungry was starting to wear on him a little. He had been told that there were side effects to taking the Rush, but these seemed rather mild in comparison to the numerous warnings he had received from Rae and Burke.