by CM Raymond
Hannah smiled. “Sounds good, rearick. Just make sure you’re sober enough to walk when we get back. I am not carrying you back to the ship.”
“Aye aye, captain.” He raised his glass in salute, spilling half of it.
“We’ll be fine,” Parker said. “Don’t worry about us, just worry about getting back here safely.”
“Preferably with a prince or two on your arm,” Hadley winked. “Because I’d rather not see what the Baseeki do to liars.”
She nodded. “I’ll find him. And if not, well, it’s been nice knowing ya. I’ll write to you from wherever the Oracle lives.”
“I’d cherish them forever,” the mystic said.
Hannah couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw Parker’s eyes roll. She gave him a lingering pat on the hand, then turned to leave.
Looking back, she said, “While I’m gone, keep an eye out for that Vatan woman. She stopped by this morning and was a little too forceful in her performance of a caring person. She wants something, I just don’t know what.”
Karl yelled from his cot. “She’s probably just interested in my stunnin’ good looks. Ha!”
Before Hannah could think of a reply, Laurel grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the door. “Come on, come on. Enough of this sap. Let’s get to the action.” The druid was bouncing on her toes, clearly ready to be back in the woods.
“Don’t worry,” Hannah said. “I have a feeling that before this is done, we’ll get to see plenty of action.”
****
Hannah and Laurel walked toward the edge of the village, the same spot where Parker had snuck in. Sef and Vatan stood before them, a dozen men behind.
“Might the Mother and Father be gracious on your journey,” Sef said. “My gratitude goes with you, but do not bring my fury with deceit.”
“You won’t be disappointed,” Hannah said.
Sef looked past her and waved to the group of guards. Dardanus stepped forward. He looked even larger in the light of the day. He stood more than three feet taller than Hannah, dark, black hair fell to his shoulders. He was strikingly handsome—despite his weirdly proportioned body. His feet were even larger than his hands, and on top of his long, lean legs, Hannah couldn’t help but think of him like a giant walking frog.
Despite their thin nature, it was clear that the Baseeki’s arms and legs were built like iron.
Sef reached up and placed a hand on Dardanus’s broad shoulder, eyes still on Hannah. “I’m sending my best eight with you. They are my personal guard, not only strong, but also loyal. Dardanus here will be invaluable on the search and rescue.”
“Good to know,” Hannah smiled tentatively. “And S, since I’m going after your son, do me a favor, will you?”
“What is it, Arcadian?”
“Don’t be a dick to the guys you have in lock up. I know you don’t trust us yet, but as long as they are out of play, treat them well. They’re good men, all three of them.”
Sef flushed, and she could tell he was almost ashamed of the deal they had worked out. In Hannah’s estimation, he was indeed a good man, attempting to do right by his people. The precaution of locking up Parker, Hadley, and Karl was the sensible option—and she had been the one to suggest it.
“Other than the bars, I will care for them as if they were one of my own… Unless, of course, you turn on us. Then they will have all of the righteous justice of Baseek turned on them.”
The tone of his voice sent a chill through her, and she knew he would make good on his promise.
Without another word, Dardanus and his men took to the hill. Hannah and Laurel had nothing to do but follow suit.
They walked the first mile toward the summit in silence, and for a moment, Hannah wondered if she had stepped into a trap. She cursed herself and considered what line of action Ezekiel would have taken. But he wasn’t here, and all she could do was to trust her instincts and follow Dardanus’s lead.
By the top, she and Laurel were breathing heavy. Weeks on the ship had done nothing for their fitness, even with semi-regular training sessions with the rearick. But the others, the guards from Baseek, looked as if they had been lounging in the sun all day. Their home, where the steep rocky crags met the ocean, had shaped them for peak health and fitness. Hannah knew if they wanted to finish her and the druid off, now would be their best bet.
They didn’t. Instead, the men pulled out skins filled with deliciously sweet water and passed them around, not skipping the new members of their party.
Hannah decided to break the silence. “Let me ask you a question, Big D. Sef mentioned Baseeki justice. What exactly does that entail?”
The big man shrugged. “Simple. We tie boulders to the feet of the accused and throw them from the cliffs. Let the sea decide who is guilty.”
Hannah had a brief mental image of Parker sinking to his death. She tried her best to shake it away.
“Now, let me ask you a question, Arcadian,” Dardanus said, looking into the sky. “What is it? Some sort of hovering cart or something?”
The other men shared his gaze, which was directed at the airship, floating low enough to make out the shape of its hull.
“Yeah. Something like that. It’s an airship, I guess. We call it the Unlawful—kind of an inside joke. As far as I know, it’s the only one of its kind.”
Dardanus’s stern face softened a little. “But how does it stay up there like that? Why doesn’t it crash down on our heads?”
Hannah grabbed the skin of water from another guard and soothed her burning throat with the cool drink. She then took some time to tell them the short story about Adrien and Arcadia, and about the way he built the ship with the intention of taking over all of Irth. She closed the story with his final demise, taking time to really make the part about his death ring in their ears.
“I imagine,” he replied, “that if you didn’t kill your former ruler, his ship would have drifted over us sometime anyway.”
Hannah nodded. She hadn’t thought about it before, but, if they hadn’t halted the maniac’s devices, it was very likely that after taking Cella, he may have turned the ship east toward Baseek, leveling every little village between Arcadia and the hill they stood on.
Hannah shrugged. “Probably true. Who knows? It’s a big world, bigger than any of us know. But I imagine if all went according to plan, he would have kept rolling. Those who submitted he would have squeezed for anything of value. Those who resisted would have been razed to the ground.The ship has some powerful weaponry.”
Shading his eyes with his hand, Dardanus narrowed his gaze, inspecting the underside of the ship. “Those two things that look like mini tree trunks?”
“Mmm, hmm.”
“Damn. If I can see them from here, they must be enormous.”
Hannah watched his face change. “Big enough to destroy my quarter of Arcadia in under thirty seconds. Killed half the people I knew in the process.”
His eyes drifted down from the airship and back to Hannah. “Guess if you meant us ill, you wouldn’t need to walk into Baseek and fight us hand to hand.”
A tiny grin formed on her face. “No. I don’t expect we would have. Unless, of course, we decided we just couldn’t live without those tiny huts on the water. I mean, it is a pretty nice piece of property you have there.”
For the first time in Hannah’s hearing, Dardanus laughed, and it was a hearty one. “Yeah,” he said, getting control of his laughter. “I guess at least from a hundred feet up, they wouldn’t seem like much, would they?”
“I mean no offense, Dard. That was a damned nice bed I slept in, but we flew over hundreds of castles and all kinds of shit that I couldn’t explain what it was or how it was built. We don’t want anything from you and yours. Came down to get some supplies, and we kind of fell into this.”
“Like a big pile of horseshite.”
Hannah smiled. “Nah. I don’t believe in destiny or fate—although they make for pretty words around the campfire. Don’t tell anyo
ne, but I’m still not even sure about how I feel about the Matriarch and the Patriarch. But for some reason, I do believe we’re here for a reason. Not sure how to explain that with all I just said. So, what do you say we go make my transcendent destiny complete?”
“Sounds good to me.” He made the sign of a circle over his head, and the men fell in behind him. Only this time, Hannah stayed in the front with Dardanus. Laurel wandered at her own pace, taking in the land around her. Now that she was out of her cage, she was loving every minute of this little trip.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They stayed atop the ridgeline for several hours, moving to the east. Rocks and boulders were strewn along the ground as they approach the cliffs that stood out from the hills. Hannah and Laurel were swift and passed over them with relative ease. But compared to the men from Baseek, they were like children just learning to walk. It was as if the men got more agile when there were obstacles to be crossed.
As the ground smoothed out for a few hundred yards, Hannah walked in silence, taking in the world around her. While everything—the hills, trees, dirt, and plants—were something like those in her homeland, it wasn’t the same. Her eyes combed the rocks, seeing how they were different than the cliffs of the Heights,
Her head jerked ninety degrees when she heard a snap down in the tree line.
Watching for movement, she saw none. She pushed away her thoughts and tried to swipe the area with her mind, looking for some sign of other sentient beings. Nothing.
“What is it?” Dardanus asked, pulling up beside her.
“It’s just… Well, nothing. Just got spooked.”
He grinned. “A lot out here to spook ya, especially after dark. Let’s keep the pace up.”
Falling in beside him, she asked, “Where we heading to, anyway?”
“There’s a spot up there.” He pointed to the cliffs, which appeared seamless to her untrained eye. “A place where there is a break in the rocks. There’s a patch of flat land before the cliffs rise again. It’s really quite beautiful. I used to go there when I was a kid to camp out. Guess it’s a bit of a Baseeki tradition, because Vatan told us that Samet would hike up there often by himself. A little getaway, just like it was for me. Thought we should see what we might find there.”
Hannah nodded and looked back over her shoulder for any movement in the trees behind them, but it seemed they were alone.
“Sounds like a pretty good life,” she said as they hit another pile of rocks on their approach to the cliffs.
Her breathing got heavier, while Dardanus spoke as if out for a leisurely walk. “Yeah. It has been. Until recently.”
“What’s happened?” she wheezed.
“Nothing much has happened. That’s the worst part of the whole thing. Most of our problems have included the kilgin or some of the roamers. I’m fine taking these guys and a few other hands to deal with them. But you can’t fight words with our fists and rocks.”
His earnest words struck her, and she began to suspect that there was more to the guard than brawn and brute strength. She kept silent, hoping he would continue his story.
“People started to talk about the Kofken village and how they wanted what we have. Some folks were even proposing we attack them first.”
“You don’t believe it, do you?” Hannah asked.
“Hell, I’m related to half those folks. Some by blood, some by marriage. Hard to imagine they would turn on us. But in the center of the heart lies a little piece of darkness, you know? Just depends on whether or not we let it grow... and what we do with it if it does.”
Hannah walked in silence for a moment, thinking of her own heart when Will and her father were killed. If it weren’t for Ezekiel, she had no idea how she would have directed her passions, and who might have gotten in the way of them. She didn’t know if there was darkness in all of them, but she did get a glimpse of her own. The magician helped her turn that darkness to light, the passion to power.
“You still think the stories are shite?”
Dardanus smiled. “I’m not out here because I am one of the sharpest knives in the drawer. All I can do is think as I can.” He paused. Hannah wanted to argue, but she allowed him to continue. “Didn’t think all those words were worth one shiny shit when a few were speaking them, but, you know, as more and more people were talking about it, and when…”
“Yeah?” Hannah goaded him on.
“Well, when Vatan and Sef actually started to consider the possibility, it became harder to deny. Something happened to Samet”
Dardanus didn’t miss a beat as he scrambled up a precarious rock and mantled up over its lip. He reached down and grabbed Hannah’s hand, hauling her in like she weighed nothing, then did the same for Laurel.
“So, you think they have him?” Hannah asked as they picked their way through the rocks on the other side.
“Dunno,” he said. Then he stopped short and look Hannah dead in the eyes. “Actually, no. No, I don’t. I’m going to need more evidence than a shit ton of he said, she said to believe the people of Kofken would stoop so low. It would be like them blaming us of the same.”
Hannah walked carefully as rocks shifted beneath each step. Catching a glimpse of Laurel over her shoulder, she saw that the druid walked a bit more lithely. Once she had her footing underneath her, Hannah said, “Sounds to me like you’re a lot sharper than most of the knives I’ve thrown.”
Dardanus flushed a shade of pink and kept his remaining words to himself.
A few more yards down the stony path, the sound of rocks rolling into some brush caught their attention from her right. Hannah spun, as did Dardanus.
“Someone’s following us,” she said, with more confidence than she had felt before.
Dardanus held up his hand, telling her to stay. She complied, letting the massive man do what he did best. He walked silently across the rocks. From his right hand, hung a rope with two rocks attached, one on either end. She had heard one of the men call them bolas. They swayed back and forth with his stride. It was a simple weapon, but Hannah could only assume he would give a magitech wielding Capitol Guard a run for his money.
Laurel stood by Hannah’s side. “Someone is hiding in that brush.” She nodded in the direction that Dardanus was walking.
“Girl, how the hell do you know that?”
“Come on,” Laurel said with a grin. “It’s plants. If there’s something I know…”
Hannah held her hand up. “OK, I get it. Another thing you’re going to have to show me.”
Dardanus stopped and stood tall five yards from the brush where Laurel had pointed. He swung the bolas at his side, which made the gentlest whooshing sound. A slight shake of the shrub, and he launched his weapon.
“The hell!” a shrill voice cried out.
Before it could utter another word, the long right arm of the guard shot into the bush. When he pulled it back, a young girl emerged, held a foot off the ground by Dardanus’s big hand. His bola was wrapped around her ankles. Hannah and Laurel rushed to him with the other guards close behind.
The girl kicked in the air, not close enough to Dardanus to make contact. The words coming from her mouth sounded altogether crass, though Hannah couldn’t make any of them out. She wondered if she were about to meet someone from Kofken, until she noticed her missing hand.
“Hey, I know you,” Hannah said with a smile. “You tried to bash my head in with a rock.”
The girl glared at Hannah for a second, then said. “Technically, it was your weird looking friend I was trying to hit.”
Hannah laughed, making a mental note to let Parker know how the local woman viewed him.
Letting her drop to the ground, Dardanus shouted at the girl. “The hell you doing out here, Aysa? You should know better, especially now with Samet missing.”
She pushed herself to her feet and pulled the hem of her leather vest down toward her belt. She was young, younger than Laurel, but she carried herself like someone twice her age.
; “Well, since all of you were busy sitting around the fire talking with the damned visitors, I decided it was time someone went looking for Sam. I’d have found him, too, if you brutes didn’t get in my way.”
“And what makes you think the enemy wouldn’t have gotten you first?”
Aysa, knowing he was right, turned a shade of red. “Sam is a chance worth taking.”
Dardanus crossed his arm as he looked down on her. She stood tall, as if trying to appear larger than she was in front of the chief’s guard. Stealing a glance at Hannah and Laurel, she said, “And, who the hell are these two anyway?”
Dardanus’s face was stern. “They have been commissioned to help me find the son of the chief, by Sef himself. Unlike you, who are here without permission. Now, it’s time for you to climb back down the hill to the village and let the adults handle this.”
“Like hell I will,” she spat at Dardanus, though her eyes were still on Hannah.
Hannah’s heart skipped a beat when the girl spoke. She had spunk and fight, two things evidently helpful in situations like these. “Nice to meet you,” she interjected. “You know, without getting into a fight.”
The girl nodded and turned back to Dardanus, “Send me back. Once I’m beyond the edge of that rock, I’ll be off on the chase again. You can’t stop me. You want me with you or near you?”
“Ah, damnit, Aysa. Don’t do it like this.”
“Like what?”
Dardanus shook his head. “For one, Sef will have your ass if you don’t get it back to the village.”
“And?”
“And I’ll kick your ass myself if you get in our way.” Dardanus shifted his weight from one foot to another. Evidently, talking Aysa out of the mission was more harrowing to him than hunting down roamers, remnant, or nefarious Kofkens.
Hannah read it all, and she liked it. She liked the girl. Aysa reminded her of a younger version of herself, and she’d be glad to have the girl along for the journey.