by D. M. Murray
“They’re Cannan,” Evelyne whispered. “The spirit still hunts us.”
*
They continued along their path driven by the urge that continually washed over Evelyne. After the chaotic attack in the alleyway there had been no further trouble, save for the cries ringing out all around them as the raiding parties laid waste to all in their path. They kept to the back streets, their eyes hungrily searching for the slightest betrayal of movement, ever ready to strike out in defence. They had been darting from alley to alley for nearly half an hour when Evelyne whispered for them to stop.
“What is it?” Kalfinar asked.
“The feeling is strong, we’re very close,” Evelyne said, her eyes troubled.
Broden sneaked a glance around the corner of the last building on the alley and turned back in, exhaling a long sigh, heavy with frustration. “It’s no less than the palace of fucking Canna,” the big captain said, leaning back against the wall with his head tilted towards the starry night sky.
“The palace?” Kalfinar questioned. “Evelyne, is there no indication of who exactly we’re looking for?”
Evelyne pulled down her veil and gave Kalfinar a tired look. “I don’t have such insight. All I can feel is a strength, a bond. It grows stronger or weaker. Right now, the bond is very strong, and stronger still when I turn towards the palace. They are within its walls, as we will soon need to be.”
“Wonderful!” Kalfinar huffed, earning a flat stare from Evelyne.
“How are we to get inside the palace?” Broden questioned, raising his palms to the sky in exasperation.
“We’ll work that out,” Kalfinar responded, his eyes darting up into the darkness of the alleyway, “but for now, we need to get off the streets. We’ll shelter in one of these merchant houses.” Kalfinar made towards the nearest door recess of a merchant house exiting onto the alleyway.
“Kal,” Broden whispered towards his cousin through his teeth, “what of the owners?”
“The owners will comply.” Kalfinar’s response was deadly low. He did not look up as he spoke and continued, gripping the door handle and finding it locked. “I suppose I should at least knock,” he muttered before stepping backwards and slamming his foot hard into the door, sending splinters shattering into the darkness inside.
In the next instant Kalfinar had someone in a firm grip. The assailant, invisible in the darkness as Kalfinar entered, leapt forward, only for Kalfinar to pin him against the wall, his sword to his throat.
“Drop the weapon and I promise you the morning light will meet you,” Kalfinar said, switching to flawless Cannan.
The man held his wicked curved dagger tight in his hand, his wrist held firm by Kalfinar’s other hand. “Dog, you shall have to kill me and have my blood on your soul.”
The man struggled again as Broden and Evelyne entered. Evelyne tried to shut the door behind them, though it could not be closed fully due to the trauma of Kalfinar’s kick. The hinges were bent and twisted from the force of his entry.
“Are you alone?” Kalfinar asked.
“Answer me or make your peace with the world.” Kalfinar pressed his sword edge to the man’s throat, emphasising his point.
“Kal, stop it!” Evelyne hissed.
“I am alone, Solansian,” the man sighed, releasing his wicked blade as he did so, sending it clanging on the wooden floor with a soft metallic din. He spoke in the tongue of the Cullanain.
Kalfinar eyed the man in the dark of the room, his eyes adjusting within moments. He watched the man’s eyes as he spoke. “We’re not Solansian. We’re from the Free Provinces, of the Cullanain.” The man’s eyes betrayed his relief. Kalfinar continued, “Now, don’t lie to me. Are you alone?”
“I am. I swear upon holy Nabruuk.”
“Don’t try anything stupid,” Kalfinar said as he released his grip.
The man quickly lit a candle lamp, casting a warm glow around his modest shop floor. Kalfinar and his companions watched in silence as the man repaired his door lock, pulling a hammer from a bag and driving long metal nails through the door and frame.
“What are you doing?” Kalfinar asked. There was a hint of alarm in his voice.
The merchant turned to him with nails protruding from his mouth. “There are raiders afoot tonight. Surely you can hear the screams and the explosions. That is why I believed you to be Solansians. I do not want any more unwanted visitors this night.” The man turned and hammered home further nails, securing the rear entrance to the building.
“What is your name?” Evelyne asked, stepping from behind Broden.
“My lady,” the man ceased hammering and turned to Evelyne before executing a sweeping bow. “My name is Rondo Alaman al’ Hastimun.”
“Well, Rondo Alaman al’ Hastimun, it is a pleasure to meet you this night. I apologise for the manner of our intrusion, but I am afraid we were in rather a rush.” Evelyne smiled apologetically to the merchant before shaking his hand. She nudged Broden before casting a scowl towards Kalfinar.
Broden introduced himself and shook Rondo’s hand, likewise apologising for the abrupt nature of the entry to his home. Rondo dabbed a rag to his neck, stemming the slight blood flow from the small cut in his neck.
“That one is Kalfinar, and he is sorry, Rondo,” Evelyne said, her words snapping Kalfinar from his concentration as he listened to the distant cries beyond the merchants shop.
Kalfinar spoke, “You must understand I had no choice.” Kalfinar shook the merchant’s hand and offered a dismal smile.
“No choice. Right.” The merchant sounded unconvinced. “Come, follow me.” Rondo guided them upstairs to his living quarters and lit a small fire, warming some water to make chai.
The floor of the room was lined with rich rugs and several fine velvet chairs lounged beneath gold-framed paintings. The nature of the room seemed to contradict the means by which the merchant operated, if his small shop was anything to go by, Kalfinar thought. There’s more to this man than meets the eye.
Rondo was a small man, an inch or so shorter than Evelyne. His beard was long and black, trimmed to a fine point, which waggled from his chin as he spoke, a style typical of Cannan men. Unusually, he wore a set of polished glass lenses upon his nose, improving what must have been poor vision.
The three companions sat on low cushioned seats whilst the small merchant busied himself with the tea. Kalfinar and Broden shifted uncomfortably, there was no time for such matters, however Evelyne cast them both wicked stares, and so they remained seated, albeit fidgeting. Once warmed, Rondo poured them small mugs of sweet, spiced chai and a plate of sugared dates. He smiled and drank his tea with his uninvited guests.
“Rondo, why did you assume we were Solansian?” Kalfinar asked.
The small merchant shifted almost imperceptibly, though Kalfinar caught it. “I didn’t realise I had,” Rondo said.
The silence hung heavily in the air between them as Kalfinar locked eyes with the merchant. He did not to need to utter a word.
Rondo broke his stare and spoke, “Sorry, my new friend, but in my line of work I need to be careful. I can tell you are a man of sound intentions, I can feel it.” Rondo smiled uncomfortably, he shifted again and leaned forward. “I am sometimes employed in the less permissible trades in Canna. In your tongue, you would call me a smuggler, but that is insulting. Your language is crude and ugly. What I do for a living is much more refined than that.”
The three companions looked at one another and then back to the small merchant.
He continued, “Towards the end of our last harvest, I received some other uninvited guests. They greeted me much the manner you did this night. They were the same men who visited me some months earlier seeking me to do some ill deeds for them.”
The merchant paused and shifted uncomfortably after he spoke, which Kalfinar took as the man assessing if he was too free with his words. “We are friends of Canna’s, Rondo,” Kalfinar reassured the man. “We are here on a cause so grave that it will imp
act upon us all should we fail.” Evelyne’s stare snapped hard on Kalfinar, and now he felt perhaps he had revealed too much. Kalfinar nodded and acknowledged his fault before continuing, “What ill deeds are you speaking of?”
The small merchant poured some more chai into his cup and drank. He coughed as the hot brew caught his throat. “My friend, I was requested, at first, to, ahem,” Rondo coughed once more, “to use my maritime contacts to intercept any grain shipments to the Free Provinces ports and to redirect them to the Salt Coast in Solansia.” Rondo wiped the sides of his mouth with a napkin.
“What do you mean by ‘maritime contacts’?” Broden asked.
“Pirates,” Kalfinar added, jumping in ahead of the small merchant.
Rondo’s face adopted a grimace. “Well, I would call them privateers. My privateers.” The small man laughed, though it was a sound devoid of all humour. “Well, they were my privateers. You see, I did not agree to such a doing. Why would I? The Free Provinces and Canna have been on good terms thee last years, and is a valuable trade partner. As I was not agreeable, the Solansian’s returned and tried to force my hand. They kidnapped my daughter, Eshanta, and took her off with them.” The merchant’s face became drawn with sorrow. “She is lost to me now, but still I did not bend to their will, and so they bought my crews with riches beyond my means. Now they raid their own homes alongside those Solansian dogs.” Rondo cocked his ear to the sounds of chaos outside in the city. “There, the sound of sons stealing from their own mothers; killing their own neighbours. Curse the dogs.” The small merchant spat onto his rug in disgust.
“I am sorry to hear of your daughter, Rondo,” Evelyne said. “I am sure we have been sent here to your home by fate, not fortune. You have a role in what plays out before us.”
The small man looked up at Evelyne, his eyes watery behind his polished eye lenses. “What is truly unfolding then, my lady?”
“We’ve found ourselves in a position where Solansia has grown to some significant strength and has attacked the Free Provinces, and now appears to attack Canna. There is some power at work granting them strength and we are working to prevent this,” Evelyne spoke quickly, for screams and sounds of steel clashing grew closer.
“My lady, how do you mean to prevent this?”
“There are some key elements we must collect that together will break the back of the source of the enemy’s strength. Right now, I am seeking an element within the walls of the palace.”
The noises grew closer still, the voices becoming identifiable as being accented in Solansian.
“You seek something within the walls. Do you know what it is and where it lies?” Rondo asked, his shoulders beginning to shift uncomfortably as the sounds of the raiders drew closer.
“I know, I just need a way in—”
Kalfinar cut off Evelyne as he rose to his feet and moved to put out the light before heading to the small window overlooking the alleyway.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Rondo, six men just cut down a pair of Cannan soldiers and appear to be coming our way.” Kalfinar drew his sword and a hatchet as he spoke, his actions mirrored by his large cousin.
The small merchant rose in a flash and lifted two curved short swords that hung on his wall. “Let them come,” the small man whispered ominously as the banging on his door started.
They ran down the stairs to meet the thunder that fell upon the shop door.
“Let them come,” the small Cannan muttered once more, adopting a crouched stance beside the two taller warriors, his curved short swords glinting as his hands twisted and rolled, anticipating the breakthrough of the raiders.
And come they did.
The raider’s crashed through the backdoor to the shop. The raiders spilled inside, their accented shouts blending cruelly into screams as they met flashes of blades in the dark. The six men fell swiftly, though it was a certainty that their cries would draw more raiders soon.
Rondo wiped his blades clean on the vest of the man he felled, the one raider not dispatched by the swords of the two bigger men beside him. “Come, I know of safe passages. We must go now!” Rondo said hurriedly. “
They began to filter out of the backdoor, Kalfinar first, glancing side to side, his eyes acutely adjusting the shifts and tricks of the night shadows. Bodies lay like tumbled piles of rags in the street. Suddenly, a crash came from behind as the front door of the shop exploded into a cloud of splinters, sending Evelyne to the ground, struck in the back. Rondo quickly dragged her from the frame of the rear door as further raiders spilled in. Kalfinar and Broden dashed inside.
“Watch her!” Kalfinar barked to Rondo as he met the attackers, his and Broden’s swords wheeling in the dark, cutting deeply and taking life before them as though it were but a wheat harvest.
The fight did not last long and the shop floor was now treacherous, such was the clutter of blood and bodies. Evelyne had come around by the time they had retreated from the shop. She groaned as Rondo helped her to her feet. They moved off into the night.
“Are you alright?” Broden asked as he came to Evelyne’s side.
“I’m fine, Broden,” Evelyne replied. “Just banged my head as I fell.”
“We’ll need to take those splinters out and treat them or they’ll fester,” the big captain said, nodding towards the thick arrows of wood protruding from the back of Evelyne’s arm.
She smiled and nodded weakly as they moved forward.
“Is there somewhere close?” Kalfinar asked as he walked in front of his companions.
“Just there.” Rondo pointed to a warehouse door before them.
“That’s handy,” Kalfinar snapped, his paranoia beginning to get the better of him.
“I am a man who must be careful, friend, trust me,” Rondo replied, his voice showing no sign of the offence. “Come, help me open it.”
They opened the door and squeezed everyone inside before shutting it over with a creak.
“Come, I have a passage to somewhere safe.” The small merchant moved purposefully in the dark, his feet knowing exactly where to step in the blackness. His invisible shuffling stopped and he risked striking a fire stick before them. “Down here.” He stood on a near-invisible lever before him and the stack of heavy pallets holding clay pots shifted by some strange mechanics, revealing a staircase winding below the warehouse floor. “Come, my friends,” Rondo said, ushering them down the stairs before following, his hand pressing an unseen button, drawing the pallets back over.
The spiralling staircase was encased in blackness and they fumbled their way down the first few steps uncomfortably until Rondo lit another fire stick and quickly shed light all around as he brought it to contact with an oil lamp slotted within a wall hook.
“Here.” Rondo passed the lamp to Kalfinar who was at the head of the party. “Take this and keep on going until you reach the first level below.” The small man struck another fire stick and lit another oil lamp.
“The first level below? What is this place?” Broden whispered to his companions, though the closeness of their quarters earned him no discretion.
Rondo chuckled, “This is where the other half of Nabruuk lives.”
The next ten minutes were spent in relative silence as they made their way down the winding staircase, stopping at apparent crossroads in the stairs only to be directed further by Rondo. The staircase appeared to be a descending maze, impossible to navigate unless one was familiar with its secrets, or at least in its good favour. They finally arrived at a vestibule before a thick wooden door fortified with iron straps.
“Think it’s time you told us more about this place,” Kalfinar grumbled in the flickering lamplight.
The little merchant smiled and approached the large door, hammering a practiced tattoo upon it. Moments later, a slat was drawn back and a single ugly eye stared out at them.
“Who are they?” the voice called out in Cannan, its tone aggressive and unfriendly.
Rondo replied, slipping bac
k to his native tongue, “Friends of the Free Provinces. Lords Kalfinar and Broden, and the Lady Evelyne.”
“You vouch for them, Rondo?” the voice questioned again. “You know it will mean your life?”
“Agurk, just open the damned door,” Rondo replied, his tone becoming irritated. “We have business that must be attended to.” There was silence behind the door for long moments before Rondo finally exhaled heavily, “Yes, I vouch for them at the forfeit of my life.” He turned to his companions. “Hear that?” he asked. “Don’t go picking any fights in here or I’ll be strung up for shish in the market!”
The locks of the heavy door were systematically undone, a process that seemed to take considerable time. The door grudgingly swung open, revealing an orange lamp glow that lit an antechamber and seven unwelcoming faces within. The man Rondo had conversed with, Agurk, moved from behind the door, his massive frame filling it. The giant stood before them, the dark skin of his arms flexing as he folded them before his chest. Kalfinar observed the man had lost an eye through some violent event in the past, leaving a ragged scar across his cheek, eye and forehead.
“Remove your weapons.” Agurk growled with a thickly accented voice. He nodded towards their swords. “You too, Rondo,” the huge man added.
Rondo adopted an offended look, his arms spread in front of him. “Agurk, there’s no need for this. You know me. We took chai together just yesterday.”
“I know. Don’t blame me. Boss says so,” the big man said, his tone betraying frustration. “Anyway, there’re raiders in the city. You can’t expect me to let armed strangers in, can you?”
“I’m not hostage to these people and I’m no traitor to Canna,” Rondo said with a plaintiff tone.
Agurk shrugged his shoulders and crossed his broad forearms in front of his chest. He nodded towards a woven basket in the corner of the antechamber. “Weapons in there.”
Kalfinar undid his sword belt and wrapped the leather around the scabbard before placing it in the basket along with his hatchet and two knives. His companions complied, appeasing Agurk and relaxing the other door guards who waited within the antechamber.