A Tribute at the Gates

by C. J. Aaron

  The guard fumbled, pulling a small metal flask out of his back pocket, taking a large gulp before offering it to Cavlin.

  “Care for a swig, friend?” the guard slurred. From up close, Ryl could see his bloodshot eyes. Cavlin shook his head.

  “Going to join the celebration?” the guard slurred. “Usually riders in the middle of the night are bad news. Never seen the master so happy to see these two. Opened the casks right up. Took his favorite henchmen to go celebrate with one of the herds, if you know what I mean.”

  The guard hiccupped, seemingly holding back vomit with his fist. Cavlin took a step back. Ryl felt his blood begin to boil with the guard’s admission. First Tabenville, now Cadsae. The depravity had spread unchecked. He watched Cavlin’s fists squeeze themselves together so tightly his knuckles turned white.

  “We don’t wanna to be left out of the fun,” Cavlin joked with the guard, doing his best to hold back his emotion. “Where’d he go?”

  “Second one, I thinks,” the drunken guard said with a uncoordinated wave of his hand.

  “Good, got my eye on a different one,” Cavlin whispered devilishly, putting his arm around the guard’s shoulder, turning him around, walking him back in the direction he came. “Keep this a secret between us, will ya?”

  “Oh, right,” the guard chuckled absently. Cavlin stopped, the guard continued moving in direction of the smithy mumbling incoherently to himself.

  Cavlin turned, quickly making up the ground to Ryl. The pair continued moving toward the common house.

  “This depravity ends now,” Cavlin hissed. “This is where I leave you, I need to get to the captain. Get inside, take off your uniform and burn it with the baton. Go to your room and stay there. Swear any tribute that sees you to secrecy, they’ll listen. Do not leave until the either the captain or the sub-master takes control of the plaza.”

  They had reached the small offshoot from the road that entered the first common house. A section of low fencing supported a raised lantern, a scraggly bush stood as the only decor.

  “Millis didn’t tell you the whole breadth of the plan,” Cavlin confessed. “They were to march overnight as soon as the fire was contained. They should be here by sun up.”

  The change of plans surprised Ryl. The tributes would be exhausted from two nights without sleep, but the thought of time spent in the relative luxury of the common houses of Cadsae would spur them on to greater speed. They, along with their escort, would enter the plaza like a conquering army.

  “It’s been a pleasure, my young friend,” Cavlin said softly. “Stay safe.” He clapped Ryl on the back before heading quickly toward the gate.

  Wasting no time, Ryl quickly walked the short path entering the relative safety of the common house.

  47

  Ryl quickly closed the door behind him, using his hands to stop it from slamming back into place. He made a rapid, cautious survey of the common room. At this hour, he’d have been surprised to find it occupied by anyone. He quickly removed the guard uniform that had been his costume for the second night, moving quietly across the room, depositing it and the baton in the small fire that still burned in the fireplace.

  The blaze flared up as the fabric quickly took to flame. He stepped back as the heat blanketed his face. Within moments the clothing was unrecognizable, the baton would be nothing more than ash soon, too. Crossing the room, Ryl made for the stairs. He longed for his bed, for a long rest. He knew that wouldn’t happen tonight. He would hide nervously until either the captain or sub-master arrived.

  Ryl crept quietly up the stairs, careful to avoid the extraordinarily squeaky floorboards that were camouflaged among the others. His homecoming was bittersweet. He was always excited to see his friends again, yet with this night waning, he would only have a day left with them.

  He made the landing of the first level without incident. The stairs were remarkably quieter than he remembered them. His mind flashed back to joy-filled memories of he and Elias sneaking around at all hours of the night, and to the look on Sarial’s face as she caught the two boys in the act almost every time. Would he ever see his friend again? No one knew where the tributes went after they left. He choked down the hope at its source. His friend was gone.

  His thoughts turned to Sarial. She’d been like a mother to him, to all the tributes in The Stocks. On the seldom occasions over the last several cycles that he’d built up the courage to think of his biological parents, it was her face that he saw on his mother’s. He paused outside her door. She must have been devastated with the news that Ryl would be added to this cycle’s Harvest. The thought of her having to unfairly suffer the heartbreak if the word of his apparent death spread to her before he could see her tugged at him.

  He raised his hand to knock on her door.

  From her room, there was the unmistakable thump of fist hitting flesh along with a muffled cry. Another thump followed immediately and the moan silenced. He heard the drag of an object across the floor. The tear of fabric.

  A muted laugh, a man’s laugh.

  A hushed voice.

  A man’s voice. Ryl recognized it immediately.

  The master.

  Starting in his chest, he felt the blood beginning to boil within his veins, the intense heat spread outward as it began to envelope the whole of his body. Pure rage burned white hot within his veins. As the heat spread, it brought with it an astonishing serenity. Without hesitation or thought to the consequences, Ryl calmly stepped through the door, letting it close behind him with a click.

  The scene before him sent his raging blood into overdrive. Sarial lay unmoving on her bed, the left side of her face bloodied and bruised, left eye swollen shut. Blood leaked from her nose and the corner of her mouth, trickling down the side of her face, staining her sheets crimson.

  Her clothes were torn. The bodice ripped off her right shoulder exposing her breasts, the lower portion torn nearly in half revealing her legs that hung limp off her bed to her upper thighs. The master had undone the belt on his pants that he was forcefully trying to wriggle down his paunchy legs. A few paces away, the master’s bodyguard fiddled greedily with his belt, hungry eyes devouring Sarial’s unconscious body. The blood flowing through Ryl’s veins matched the intensity of the pure unmitigated revulsion he felt with every fiber of his being.

  The cruel beady eyes of the master and bodyguard turned at him at the sound of the door. In an instant, the look of shock morphed into one on unadulterated hatred, contorting the master’s husky face.

  “You,” Master Delsith growled. “You’re dead.”

  The statement spilled from the master’s lips, simultaneously a bewildered statement of fact and a threat. The small pack slowly slipped from Ryl’s shoulder.

  The burning in his veins reached an agonizing temperature. Ryl felt a tearing pain rake through his body from somewhere deep within, followed by a searing heat. Time ground to a standstill as the torrid blood in conjunction with the sheer fury of his will melted through the unseen barrier in his body. The heat incinerated the restraints that had denied access to his power. An acute clarity followed in its wake.

  The master’s face was seemingly frozen into a grotesque snarl. The movements were so slight that Ryl could see the individual muscles flex and relax as his body reacted to the intrusion.

  There was no verbal response needed. Ryl could see the path, he knew what must be done.

  Ryl erupted forward in between the master and the bodyguard. The men moved in slow motion, eyes growing wide as they tried to track his movements. He saw them filling with horror as the realization set in. Their eyes were witnessing what their brains hadn’t yet accepted. They were doomed.

  One hand of the bodyguard fumbled frantically to remove his fingers from his belt, the other crept slowly toward the dagger sheathed on his side. Delsith began bending forward ever so slowly at the waist. His left hand began wrenching up on his pants that were halfway down his fleshy thighs. His right hand made its sluggish course acros
s his distended belly to the dagger hanging off the left side of his pants.

  Ryl was between them in an instant, his body dropping to a crouch as his arms launched for both daggers simultaneously. It was a race of hands, each trying desperately to gain hold before the other. Their fastest reaction amounted to nothing more than a feeble attempt.

  His fingers closed around the hilt of the master’s dagger, then the bodyguard’s. With coordinated motion, he ripped them from their sheathes. Still in a crouch, Ryl spun to the left, pulling both arms in toward his chest, tips of the blades pointing outward. As his spin neared its halfway point, he let his right arm stretch out, angling up toward the bodyguard.

  The blade passed through his neck with virtually no resistance, severing it nearly to the spine. In slow motion, he witnessed the instant the pain registered in the guard’s brain. His eyes bulged is shock, then went lifeless as the carotid artery began spewing his life blood out of his body.

  An instant after that attack, Ryl’s left arm pushed out, leading with the flat of his forearm toward the bulging stomach of the master. He slammed the knife into Delsith’s burly gut, burying the blade to its hilt. The pure venomous hatred that was written across the master’s face began morphing instant by instant to that of agony and fear.

  As Ryl’s body finished its full rotation, he spun his right hand upward so that the palm of his fist, closed tightly around the knife faced the ceiling. Leading with the bloodied blade of the dagger first, he smashed his hand into the master’s left temple sinking the blade as deep as it could go. He locked eyes with the master. He watched the life flicker out of the master’s eyes knowing that the last image he saw was of Ryl.

  Master Delsith was dead.

  He wrenched the knife out of the master’s lifeless gut, tossing it at his feet. The two men were dead, their bodies hadn’t yet realized their plight. Time inched forward at a snail’s pace.

  Ryl casually took two steps back, closing his eyes. He felt the pure, burning power that coursed through his veins cool as he exhaled a calming breath. His hair blew across his face as time leaped back to normal. There was a sickening splash of blood on the floor, the wet gurgling of air escaping dying lungs, and two distinct thumps as the lifeless bodies of the master and his bodyguard connected with the floor.

  Careful to avoid the blood that was spreading rapidly across the floor, Ryl leaped over the master’s corpse, sliding to his knees at Sarial’s side. With tears welling in his eyes, he looked down at her face, battered and bruised. He covered her naked torso delicately with the scraps of her tattered dress, choking back a sob of relief as he saw her breath come shallow and faint.

  “Sarial, I’m here,” he whispered, knowing she couldn’t hear him. “Don’t fear, they’ll never harm you again. Hang on Sarial, hang on for me. I’ll bring help.”

  At the sound, her fingers twitched on her left hand, lying limp on the bed. Ryl gave it a gentle squeeze, leaning down to kiss the back of her pale hand. A tear rolled off his cheek, soaking into the bed at her side. With one last look at Sarial, the woman he loved unconditionally as his mother, Ryl sprang over the lifeless body of the master, grabbing his pack before slipping silently from the room.

  His feet barely registered touching the stairs as he descended at lightning speed. He raced across the common area, slowly opening the door to the square. Seeing no movement in the square or on the palisades, he reached out, grabbing ahold of the lantern that hung off to the left side of the door, tearing it from the wall. Ryl tossed the lantern to the ground a pace away from the common house. The flames hit the oil, igniting a burst of flames.

  Ryl reached back with his right hand, focusing on the alexen within his blood. Through thousands of attempts, hour after hour of practice, he’d not produced even the slightest breeze. Now, the solution to his frustration was there, as if he’d known all along. The unseen block that had been holding him back all of those times was gone.

  He swung his hand forward aiming toward the flames of the shattered lantern. He felt the alexen connect with the wind. Invisible tendrils spread out from his arm grabbing the latent energy in the air, forcing it forward in a single, focused blast. The burning liquid sprayed outward in a splatter of flames, immediately igniting the shrub and fence.

  Without the time to think about what had just happened, Ryl cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify the volume and screamed.

  “Fire. Fire. The common house is on fire.”

  48

  Leaving the door ajar, Ryl raced through the common room, taking the stairs three at a time. Reaching the landing, he repeated his alarm.

  “The common house is on fire. Everyone up, everyone out.”

  From all directions, Ryl began hearing the creaking of opening doors, the thud of running feet, and the frightened alarms of the tributes roused from their sleep to a nightmare. From outside came the muffled report of alarms from the palisades. Ryl raced down the hallway to his room, brushing past the tributes exiting their rooms without hesitation. He reached his door, number 10, in moments.

  Ryl burst through the door. Aelin was sleepily standing up from his bed.

  “Ryl?” the boy asked, confused, rubbing his eyes.

  “Time to go, my friend,” Ryl said, scooping the half-sleeping boy up in his arms. “The building’s on fire, you know.”

  “What?” was all Aelin could reply before the pair sped from the room, joining the throng of tributes rushing toward the exit. A pair of guards stormed through the main door, screaming the warning to evacuate as the mass of tributes arrived on the first floor. The confused guards turned from criers to ushers in an instant as the tributes streamed past them into the courtyard.

  Guards were already pouring through the gate, while the palisades had blossomed to life. An array of torches lined the top of the wall in both directions. Orders were shouted from above and below. The first of the guards carrying water reached the side of the common house, tossing a bucket on the base of the building that had just begun to smolder from the fire.

  Ryl and Aelin were in the middle of the pack that poured from the common house into the square. In all the commotion, the boy hadn’t made a sound since leaving the room. It only took a second for Ryl to recognize the gargantuan frame of Zed, the blacksmith of The Stocks, and Aelin’s mentor. He pushed through the crowd, reaching the big man, who looked at him with a confused smile.

  “Zed,” Ryl said hurriedly. “Watch out for Aelin. I’ll be back.”

  Before the Zed could respond, Ryl tossed the boy into the blacksmith’s arms and turned away, melting back into the crowd. It took him but a moment to locate who he was looking for. Mender Jeffers, half-dressed in his nightshirt, was rushing out of the clinic toward the commotion. Ryl caught the mender as he reached the crowd of tributes.

  “Jeffers,” Ryl said quickly. “Call for a sweep of the building. There are tributes still inside.”

  “Ryl? What?” Jeffers stumbled through his words, his eyes wide in shock at seeing Ryl standing before him. Ryl grabbed the mender by the shoulders, giving him a quick shake.

  “Order the sweep of the building. Now,” he demanded.

  A memory flashed before Ryl’s eyes. Jeffers lingered with him in the common house during his recovery, the awkward smile between the mender and Sarial.

  “Sarial,” Ryl blurted out without thinking. “I can’t find her anywhere.”

  Whether it was the effect of her name, the urgency in his voice, or the shock from the physical contact, Jeffers sprang into action cornering the first guard he saw. Ryl couldn't hear the conversation over the confusion in the square. Judging from the body language of the guard and the overly-animated motions from the mender he knew the message was understood. The visibly startled guard, hurried off, forcing his way through the crowd toward the common house.

  Ryl hadn't stopped for a breath since stumbling into Sarial's room. He felt alive like never before and, at the same time, drained beyond the point of exhaustion. He hadn't the t
ime to reflect on the events of the last several minutes or the change he felt coursing through his body. He squatted down, resting on the balls of his feet, closing his eyes, resting his head in his hands.

  “Not exactly following orders, tribute,” came the gruff voice from over his shoulder. Ryl stood slowly, turning to face the speaker. Cavlin stood a pace away, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes scanning the growing crowd.

  “You were supposed to wait for the captain or sub-master to take the square, not storm it yourself,” Cavlin said, flashing him a brief, sly smile before reverting back to his usual dry expression. “No matter. I had just sat down with the captain when the alarm was raised. He's here now.”

  Cavlin pointed toward the entrance to the common house. The captain was standing in a small group of officers looking significantly more agitated than normal. Runners came and went as they tried to maintain order in the growing chaos that was the square. Mender Jeffers was pacing behind the gathering of officers.

  “Fire again, eh?” Cavlin asked.

  “So it seems,” Ryl responded, inadvertently throwing out an innocent feeling over the guard. “An accident for once.”

  Cavlin simply nodded his head in response.

  Thanks to the rapid response, the flames had been extinguished before they could spread across the walls of the common house. Their small haggard bush and meager fence, however, had been reduced to ash. Awakened by the alarms and commotion, tributes had begun gathering outside the other common houses as well, curious to see what was happening.

  Ryl began searching the crowd for traces of his closest friends. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the door of the common house burst open. The guard’s face was white as he hurried toward Captain Le'Dral.

  The plaza was too loud to hear any of the conversation. The look on the face of the captain was telling enough. The captain’s mouth fell open, he paused for a moment in shock at the news Ryl already knew. Mender Jeffers pacing stopped abruptly.