Death Flag

  “You’re cutting it close, eh Captain?” the man asked, screwing his only good eye around to examine the taller man.

  “Any changes?” he asked impatiently. He knew that he was cutting the time as close as anyone else, and it didn’t allow for small talk.

  “No,” the man answered curtly. “You’re sure about this? You’re almost certain to start a war tonight.”

  “Just wait for me here,” he said by way of an answer and then turned away and started down before the other man could say anything else.

  The steps were narrow, barely wide enough for a grown man to walk down comfortably without turning sideways, but that didn’t bother him. He had never been afraid of heights before, and he was confident enough with his footing that even the slick, damp steps didn’t give him much reason for concern. He hastened his step as he spiraled downward into darkness, not bothering with any source of light. As long as he kept his right hand against the wall, he knew exactly where to step. If nothing else, the city’s builders had been precise in everything they did—and that included spacing the steps in an escape tunnel evenly.

  He reached bottom after only a few minutes and then followed the curve of the wall there around until he reached a tunnel. He felt the stone underneath his fingers turn abruptly to the right, and he knew that he was headed the right way. Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself forward and broke into a sprint, completely blind to anything on either side or in front of him, and started counting. Rumors and mythos said that creatures haunted the tunnels below the oldest parts of the city where he was going, but he very much doubted that he was going to run into those tonight. The larger sewer rats’ populations were kept in check by the local Hunters’ guild, and the larger creatures never ventured this far up unless something spurred them from their dens deep underground. As such, he had nothing to fear.

  He counted until he reached thirty-five and then slowed to a walk. It was only a short sprint, but it left him gasping for air, and the muffled sound of his heavy breathing echoed back to him from the stone walls. He reached out with his right hand once again and began tracing his way forward at a normal walk. Twenty-two paces ahead, he felt the toe of his boot bump into a wall, letting him know that he had reached his destination. Either his stride was off or he miscounted—both of which were possible, but neither of which was very likely. There should have been twenty-five paces from the end of his sprint, and that meant that the information was wrong.

  He crouched down in the darkness and felt around in the corner. Three stones up on the right-hand wall and two stones to the right—he pressed in as hard as he could and was rewarded by a grating noise as the stone slid back and then a loud click as the bolt that held the door shut was triggered and released. He pushed forward with his left hand, and the wall that he had stubbed his toe on only moments ago swung open soundlessly. The air was slightly different in this room. It had a slightly-fresher note to it, and it didn’t stink as heavily of mold and mildew as the tunnel had. He walked five steps forward and reached his hand out, his palm instantly wrapping around a cold steel bar. Taking one last breath, he began climbing the steel ladder.

  Four hundred and fifty rungs later, he reached his hand out into the dark abyss beside him for the first time. His heart fluttered for a moment when his hand didn’t immediately come into contact with anything like he expected. Squeezing his eyes shut and taking a breath to steady himself, he reached out with his right leg and felt around in the darkness for the step that was supposed to be there. His first couple of swipes missed, and some primal instinct that he couldn’t repress threatened to swell up inside of him and set his nerves on edge, causing him to retract his leg and start over. He clenched the ladder with his left hand as tightly as he could and then stretched out leg again, feeling around in the darkness. At last, he felt the toe of his boot strike the solid stone step that was supposed to be there. He shifted back to the ladder, readjusted down a step, and then reached out in the darkness with his foot again. This time, he felt it make contact almost immediately. Four hundred and forty-nine rungs. That was the second time his information had been wrong.

  He pushed off from the ladder and shifted his weight as he stepped onto the narrow landing and inched forward. He only made it about three inches before his toes hit stone, giving him just enough room to stand on the small ledge without his feet hanging over. He reached out into the darkness and felt around the stone jam on his right, counted three stones down from the top, and pressed in. Just as before, there was a grating sound as a stone was depressed into the wall and the sound of a click as a door opened. He pressed forward once again, the door there swung open, and he was assaulted by the sweet, cloying smells of thick perfumes and powders.

  Although the room was only dimly lit, he blinked against the seemingly-bright light several times to fix his vision before taking another step. He swept his gaze around the room, finding everything just as it had been described to him. It wasn’t unusual for his information to be slightly inaccurate, but when it put his life on the line, it tended to make him extra cautious. The two slip ups so far were rather minor in the grand scheme of what he was trying to accomplish, but even the smallest mistake could unravel everything he had worked so hard to orchestrate. There was a dressing counter next to where he emerged from the hidden door; several large, thick carpets on the floor; well-woven tapestries on the walls; and silk curtains draped over the barren stone and around the windows. A large bed occupied most of the far wall, and it was there that he spied the reason he had come.

  A young woman who was just coming into the prime of her life sat on its edge, staring at him through large eyes and long eyelashes. She had jet-black hair and fair skin that was so light it was almost entirely pale. She had delicate features with a small, rounded nose and high cheekbones, and she studied him as he stepped into the room through pale-blue eyes. She started at first upon seeing him, but recognizing who he was, she stood up and glided across the room toward him.

  “You’ve come,” she said, her voice quiet and harmonious in the way that only a young woman’s could.

  His eyes swept around the room once again before answering. He asked, “You’re certain about this? Anything could happen once you’re out of this castle and in the streets. You’re not only risking your life; you’re risking this entire country. The men are loyal to you to a fault: they will lay their lives down without so much as a question if I give the order, and most would volunteer to do it—but I will not casually waste their lives on the whims of a capricious young woman vying for power amongst the royalty.”

  The Princess Vanessa’s nose scrunched up as she looked at him, clearly attempting to measure the merit in his words, and it only belied exactly how young she really was. It was a cute and endearing expression on a young woman, but that wasn’t what he needed at the moment—what he needed was a stone-hearted princess who was capable of overthrowing her father’s corrupt rule and restoring power and justice to the people, where it belonged. He needed someone who was willing to make the sacrifices that were necessary to achieve that change. He needed her to be ten years older and a hundred years wiser and more experienced, not young and whimsical.

  “There’s no turning back from this,” he continued. “Once we leave this room, you are utterly in my care, and my men are in yours. Once we cross the border, we will all be marked men, and our lives will be forfeit if we are caught. Do you understand?”

  Her eyes widened slightly, and the expression flickered on her face as the reality of his words sank in, but she didn’t shrink away from him. “I have no doubt that I am in good hands,” she said tactfully. “Your reputation precedes you, Captain. I am certain there is no safer place to be.”

  “Good. Let’s—” He stopped mid-sentence, and his gaze locked onto the door on the far side of the room. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he heard something there. He held his breath and listened intently, but the sound wasn’t repeated again. “Let’s go,” he finis
hed in a voice that was barely audible. He cast one more glance around the room and then ushered the princess toward the hidden passageway. If rumors were correct, it had been built as a means of escaping from the castle in case there were ever riots in the streets or the city fell to invaders. It didn’t lead far outside the castle walls, but it provided enough distance to allow for a fast escape. It was only a short ride from the alleyway he had entered to the water’s edge, and once there, they could make an easy escape by sea.

  The princess seemed to know exactly what she was doing as she expertly swung out and grabbed ahold of the ladder. He waited for her to start down and then stepped out himself, his left foot grazing the first of the four hundred and forty-nine rungs that would carry them down into the awaiting abyss and the start of their escape. Just as he reached back to swing the hidden door shut behind him, the door to the princess’s chamber exploded inward in a shower of splinters and a cloud of smoke.

  He instantly pushed himself off of the ladder and back into the room, materializing his long, two-handed sword the minute both feet were on solid ground again. He hoisted the sword in front of him as he ran, charging the door with the hopes of catching whoever had shattered it by surprise. His luck held out, and he managed to clear the room before the first person came out of the smoke. He lunged toward the man, and his sword came around in a loose, diagonal slash that sliced the man open from his left shoulder to his right waist. He planted his feet as he landed, swapped his sword into his left hand, and shoved forward with his right, pushing the man back into the smoke-filled hole.

  He heard another man cry out in shock out before both hit the ground, and he pushed himself forward several steps. He jabbed the sword down with his left hand at an awkward angle, stabbing at the two fallen men blindly in the hopes of hitting one. He felt resistance as the tip of his blade dug into a body there, and someone cried in pain this time, so he could only hope that it had struck something important. He pulled his blade free with his next step, shifted his body to the side, and swung in a wide, waist-high, horizontal arc that was designed to catch anyone standing too close. His blade tore through the empty air until the very end of his swing when he felt and heard it strike against metal. He stepped out into the hallway completely and turned to face the man who had parried his blade. A quick glance over his shoulder told him that this was the last man left standing, but he also knew that the castle guards would be on their way. The fact that they weren’t on the scene already likely meant that someone had paid them to be somewhere else at this exact time.

  He took a quick glance at his opponent in order to apprise who would be foolish enough to attack the crown princess in her own chambers, hoping to glean some information. Unfortunately, his opponent was clothed completely in black cloth with his face covered, there was nothing to give him away or indicate who he might be, which meant that any one of a dozen organizations or a handful of countries might have paid him to be there. The man struck out with a fast slash using his short sword, and the weak attack was easily swatted away allowing him to reposition and forward for a second time. He quickly turned to the right and allowed the sword to pass by harmlessly before before bringing his his fist around in a quick-but-powerful jab. Pain shot through his knuckles as they cracked across the assassin’s jaw, rocking him to the side. He brought his sword around in a low slash in the next moment without ever turning his body to face his assailant and stabbed the point of his sword into the man’s stomach before he could recover. The assassin screamed out loudly as the steel blade pierced into him, and someone shouted back from a nearby stairwell. He withdrew his sword as the assassin collapsed to the ground, and the guards burst onto the scene. They hadn’t been paid to be somewhere else: they had been paid to look the other way completely.

  He had no intentions of fighting the king’s household guard. He had no doubt that he could handle them, especially in a somewhat narrow hallway where they would never manage to surround him, but it was something that he just didn’t have the time to do. The boat he had managed to prepare was going to sail at dawn no matter the circumstances, and if he and the the princess weren’t on it, they were going to be stranded without a way out of the country.

  The guards stumbled once they saw the scene in the hallway. Blood was splattered all over the walls, there was rubble from the cracked stone, splinters from the heavy wooden door that had been blasted open, and a fine lay of dust still hung in the air. There were three dead bodies piled up, and one man standing over them wielding a bloodied sword.

  Recognition flickered across the lead guard’s face, and he instantly swelled up and turned red with rage. “You!” he shouted. “I knew I recognized you at the tournament! No one else could ever wield a sword the way you do!”

  He turned and fled back into the princess’ quarters before they could make a move on him. Stashed away his sword the moment he was through the door, he turned and used both hands to grab ahold of an ornate stand next that was used to hold pitchers of wine and a basin of water. He heaved back as hard as he could, and the heavy, wrought-iron monstrosity came crashing down in the doorway, momentarily sealing it off. He was on his feet again a moment later and across the room in an instant. He grabbed ahold of the stone wall as he ran and swung out onto the ladder with very little regard for his own safety. His left hand grabbed ahold of the rung, and he had the stone wall shut behind him a moment later. He very much doubted that anyone knew about the presence of the door, much less how to open it, but he wasn’t willing to take any chances. Now that they knew the princess was making an escape, and that he was helping her, the alarm would be raised. He could hear men shouting even through the heavy stone wall and the sound of the pounding against it even as he started his descent down the pitch-black well.

  Despite the haste at which he moved, the princess somehow managed to stay ahead of him—which spoke well for both her determination and athletic ability. He had heard that she often worked to keep her body in shape unlike most of the royal family, who spent their days lounging about and relishing in the trappings of wealth, but he had always suspected that it was so that she would be able to ensnare a handsome young husband, not flee the country as a traitor and wanted criminal. He encountered her waiting for him at the bottom, and the fact that her sweet perfume stood out in stark contrast to the mold was the only thing that let him know she was waiting there. She latched onto his belt from behind with a single finger, and she was able to use that to follow him as the two silently and quickly made their way down the tunnel and then up the spiral staircase. She did stumble a few times in the dark, clearly unused to moving across the wet, uneven stones, but he never had to stop and catch her or pressure her to keep up,.By the time they reached the wooden door that led back to the alleyway, he was soundly impressed with her tenacity and ability.

  Curiously, they reached the heavy wooden door without finding the man who should still have been waiting there. The old one-eyed man wasn’t the kind of person you’d want sitting across from you in a game of cards with a sack of gold on the line, but he also wasn’t the type who would ever shirk his duty either. He pushed the princess back against the wall protectively and leaned his head against the door, straining to hear anything that might be happening on the other side. It was dull and muted, but he could still make out the unmistakable sound of men fighting. It was impossible to think that the sound of a sword striking armor was anything else, and the sounds of men shouting in the streets capped it off.

  He pulled the door open cautiously and almost tripped backward when the body propped up against it fell inward. He recognized the dull thud for what it was, and now that the door was open, there was just enough light to see by. He dropped to his knees and propped the old man up, pressing his fingers against his throat to see if he was still alive. His fingers slipped through sticky, wet blood, and the old man coughed as he came to. His body shook and then stiffened as he realized that he wasn’t alone, but a quick word set him at ease.

  “Si
lan, what happened?” he asked quietly, leaning over the old man.

  “Betrayed,” Silan gasped back in a strained and wheezy voice. “They found out you were taking her. Using it as an excuse to purge the town.

  “Damn it,” he swore gruffly. “I knew it. That’s why the information was bad. Those damn pirates must have sold us out. It had to be them! That’s why there were assassins in her room: they were trying to get to her before I did. They’re going to clean up everyone who is even remotely unhappy with the way things are going and all the known members of the resistance in one fell swoop before anyone can react. Without the princess alive, there’s no one to organize the rest of the nobles and no one for the foreign powers to support except for the king or another one of his damn lackeys.”

  He felt the princess edge closer until her body was almost pressed up against his back completely. She leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Can we still escape?”

  “Yes,” he said confidently, shaking his head once to dispel the thoughts her perfume and closeness created. “There is another ship in the harbor, although the port authority doesn’t know he’s there. I’m going to owe the that man something awful, but I think he will smuggle us out with the rest of his cargo.”

  “Smuggle?” the princess asked, both shocked and amused.

  “Go,” Silan wheezed. “Get out while you can . . .” The old man drew in one final breath, and it rattled out of his lungs as he left the world.

  He pushed Silan’s body back into the alley once he checked to make sure that it was clear and then ushered the princess through before tugging the door shut. If anyone found Silan’s body, they’d hopefully think that it was just another casualty of the night and not anything connected directly to the princess’s escape.