As he learned, Tingai mutated larger and larger animals. Rodents, squirrels, wild dogs, even some of the local monkeys, were all used to refine his art. When he chanced upon a stranger who was passing through the area and weak from a fever, he knew the situation for what it was. He kept the man in one of the larger cages and fed him, nursing him back to health, though keeping him sedated from his own concoction of herbal drugs. When he was healthy again, Tingai began treatments on him.
In the end, the man died, though not before providing valuable information on how a person could be changed into something more. He was anxious to find his next subject.
One of Tingai’s mutant monkeys escaped while he was trying to clean its cage. He thought the creature a loss until several people showed up at his hideout with its body. One of those people was Ayim Rasaad. She questioned him about the creature and when Tingai explained his work and showed her some examples, she told him that if he worked for her, he would be assured all the subjects he would ever need. She didn’t have to ask him twice, once she had agreed to one small condition.
“I want to be called ‘Baron Tingai,’” he said. He had heard of an important man once, in a story his parents had told him. The man had a title, he was called a “baron.” Tingai was going to be just as important as any man in a story, and he liked the ring of the title with his name. Rasaad answered him satisfactorily. “Of course, Baron Tingai.”
All in all, it had been a good arrangement. He had increased his skill a hundredfold and had successfully mutated many different types of creatures. He was working now on trying to combine talents of different creatures into one superior mutation. When he finally figured out the supreme mixture, he could create an army of them, which is really what Ayim Rasaad had sponsored him for to begin with. Yes, things could be worse. Once he got some sleep and made this trip with her, he would be able to continue with his work. He was on the verge of something great, he could feel it.
Chapter 28
It wasn’t long until the party started seeing signs that they would soon reach the home of the man who attacked the hapaki village.
“The road is wider, more frequently used here,” Sam said. “Does that mean we’re close to this Agago place?”
“Yes,” Inoria answered. We’ll reach it before the end of the day. We should probably start thinking about what we’ll do when we get there.”
What will we do when we get there? Sam thought. How big is their army? How tall are their walls?
Skitter sent reassuring thoughts to Sam’s mind, trying to let his friend know he was there with him and that he trusted that Sam would come up with something. He was, after all, Skitter sent, almost as smart as a hapaki.
Rindu spoke up, “Have you seen the stronghold here before? Do you know its configuration?”
“No,” Emerius answered. “We haven’t had need before to get too close to it. We knew its location and stayed far enough away so as not to arouse suspicion.”
“I see,” Rindu said. “Then perhaps the first thing we should do is scout the area. Nalia is adept at moving unseen and unheard, but—”
“We’ll do it,” Inoria said. “None of you can move as invisibly as we do in the forest.”
“Continue on the road for another two hours and then stop,” Emerius said. “We will scout ahead and come back for you. Then we can design a plan to breach Agago and reclaim the captives.”
Emerius looked at his sister. “What do you think, In?” he said.
“I like them.”
“Of course you do” Emerius said. “They’re people, and not from our village. I mean, what do you think about this whole thing, about joining forces with them? I think you and I will do just fine getting into the fortress ourselves and then freeing the prisoners. We don’t really need them.”
“I think we do,” she answered. “Besides, they have their own captives to free. We can’t take that away from them.”
“I guess you’re right. I just don’t like having to rely on others. It’s always been just you and me, at least since Mother and Father died.”
“I know,” Inoria said, squeezing his shoulder, “but times are changing so maybe that should, too. You know, your hero Suka Templar would help them and accept their help.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said. “Fine, we’ll come back for them. Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The twins had left Oro in an area alongside the road. The big bear was happy to curl up his great bulk and take a nap, waiting for the others to arrive. He was much too large and cumbersome to move quietly through the trees.
Inoria and Emerius flitted through the shadows as if they were made of darkness. They left no trail and made no sound. So silently did they move that at one point, Emerius put his hand on a doe that was standing, sniffing the air for danger. The deer started and bounded away.
They soon came to where the road widened and found a cleared area around a set of high walls. Agago. They watched the walls, tried to get a sense of any weaknesses. They were stone, of course, and appeared to be well-built. Twenty-five feet high, they were not the mammoth size Emerius had heard some fortresses and castles had, but climbing them would not be an easy task, either. The gates, heavy wood in multiple layers with bronze banding, looked secure.
There were a few guards walking about on the tops of the walls, their figures appearing and disappearing as they passed by the crenellations. Emerius counted only four in total, though he expected there were at least that many walking on the other sides of the battlements as well. Still, it seemed like a small number to him. But what did he know about maintaining security at a fortress? He was a hunter and woodsman.
“The walls seem to be solid, though the blocks don’t fit that tightly so we can probably climb them, if necessary,” Inoria said.
“Maybe. Let’s look around on the other sides. There might be a door or something else that provides easier passage.”
They stayed in the forest, deep enough so that they couldn’t be seen from the walls, and circled the entire fortress. Even moving silently and carefully, it only took an hour and a half to travel the perimeter.
They found that there was another gate, almost directly across from the first, which opened onto another road. That road seemed to have had use within the last few days. A large force had come through the gate onto it and moved on toward the east.
“How many do you think are in the fortress?” Inoria asked.
“I don’t know,” Emerius answered, still looking at the jumbled mass of tracks from the cover of nearby foliage. “It looks to me as if at least two hundred left, though. With the size of the fortress, I wouldn’t think there were any more than that left. Come on, I think we have the information we need. Let’s get back to the others. I want to crack this nut soon and get our people back.”
Inoria smiled as they made their way back through the trees to where they would meet the rest of their party.
Sam sat on a fallen tree, eyeing the huge bear sleeping nearby. The rakkeben were resting a dozen feet away. They looked toward Oro occasionally, especially when some dream or another caused the animal to make a noise. At times, he emitted a grunt or a growl.
The bear’s head suddenly lifted, his eyes scanning the clearing quickly and then locking on one location in the trees. The rakkeben, too, lifted their heads to look in the same direction, just as Emerius and Inoria made their way into the open. Sam realized that the slight breeze was coming from where the twins were. That was probably the only reason even their bear noticed them. If they had been staking prey, they would have come from downwind.
“Well?” Sam said. “What’s the situation?”
Emerius smirked. “No problem. We can get inside. We can do it either the slow, quiet way or we can do it the loud and quick way.”
“Stealth would be better,” Nalia said. “We would not want to battle all the forces in the fortress at once.”
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Inoria s
aid. “He’s just being goofy, trying to pretend he’s a hero. We’ll do it the smart way.”
“Let’s move toward the fortress,” Emerius said. “We found a perfect place to wait for dark. It’s close to the walls, but not so close anyone will find us.”
As they mounted up and moved, the twins explained the configuration of the walls and the buildings.
“We’re not sure how many people are still behind the walls,” Inoria said. “It looks like at least half of them left within the last few days. Hopefully the captives are still here.”
“And Tingai,” Emerius said. “I want to see his face as I put several arrows into him. In non-lethal places, of course. I want to be able to make him suffer before he dies.”
Sam looked at Emerius out of the corner of his eye. He thought he probably agreed, but it sounded so—he didn’t know—villainous.
One thing is for sure, Skitter sent. That man needs to be stopped. Hapaki don’t believe in killing in general, but in this case, I think it is necessary. The suffering part is not, though. Killing him quickly will stop him from ever attacking innocents again.
You’re right, Sam sent back. Emerius is just angry at the death Tingai has already caused and the uncertainty that he will get his brother and his friends back. Humans sometimes engage in vengeance to ease their emotional suffering.
Skitter paused to think about it. I know. I’ve seen it in your memories and in your emotions. It’s not logical, though. There is nothing gained by torturing or causing injury. Maybe humans will figure that out eventually and then they’ll be happy like the hapaki.
I hope so, Sam sent. I really do.
“How will we enter the fortress?” Rindu asked. “What part do we play?”
Emerius answered, “In and I will go over the walls. They are easily climbable. Once we get to the top, we’ll take care of any of the sentries along the walls. Then we’ll open the gate and allow the rest of you to come in. Simple.”
Rindu nodded. Sam remembered how Rindu had scaled the walls of the Gray Fortress and chuckled. These walls were like building blocks compared to that.
“Something funny?” Emerius scowled.
“No, not really” Sam said. “I was just thinking of another time we had to scale some walls. It sounds like a simple enough plan to me. Let’s wait until three hours after full dark.”
“Is this your operation or mine?” Emerius said, getting agitated.
“It is ours,” Rindu interrupted. “We should not fight amongst ourselves. There are plenty of enemies behind those walls for all of us. Remember our purpose here. We must rescue the captives, both human and hapaki.”
“And kill Tingai,” Emerius added. “Slowly.”
Three hours after full dark, Emerius and Inoria gave the others instructions to move to the edge of the trees and watch the gate. Before heading toward the wall, Emerius knelt and spoke softly to Oro. The bear sat on his haunches and waited patiently.
“Tell the rakkeben to stay here with Oro. I don’t want them jumping in the way when the arrows start to fly,” Emerius told Sam.
Sam looked like he would argue, but then seemed to realize that what he was told was practical, so he whispered to his wolf. The other two did the same and the rakkeben moved to an area near Oro. The hapaki seemed content to stay on the perch strapped to Sam’s rakkeban.
Emerius made the hand signal indicating that he would go first and that Inoria should watch and cover him. He hardly needed to do so. They had been working together for years, hunting, tracking, even participating in the odd battle now and then. Always together. They had a set of complex hand signals that they had devised and had started to teach Ancha, but they really didn’t need to use them with each other. They each knew what the other was thinking, reacting to it before any signals were even traded. He saw the slight tilt of her head and knew she had already started scanning for guards, her bow out with an arrow nocked.
The walls really weren’t hard to climb at all. They obviously weren’t made to prevent skilled climbers from ascending the wall and infiltrating the fortress. They were the kind of brute force methods Tingai used. Militarily, it seemed that he was rather simple. His strategy: throw soldiers at a problem until it was gone. At least, that’s what he had heard from the occasional trader.
Using the large spaces where the blocks of the wall met imperfectly, Emerius made his way up, slowly and silently. He hugged the wall, placing the toes of his soft boots into the crevices as he reached one hand up to find a handhold in another of the cracks. Then, he straightened one of his legs while raising the other to a higher foothold and pulling up with one arm. His other hand then stretched for a higher hold. In this smooth, methodical way, he ate up the distance and was carefully poking his head through one of the crenels at the top in no time.
He looked to the left, to the right, saw nothing, and, with a powerful pull, launched himself up so that his feet cleared the top of the battlement and swung inward to land softly on the walkway.
Emerius looked down to Inoria. He could hardly see her standing stone still in the midst of the bushes. If he didn’t know exactly where she was and didn’t have such excellent night vision, he would never have been able to pick her out. He nodded to her and she nodded back. Taking the bow off his back, he nocked an arrow in an effortless motion, and began to scan the area in earnest for signs of guards. Inoria moved swiftly to the wall and began her climb.
Emerius noticed a small movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked down quickly to see that Inoria was only halfway up the wall, exposed and vulnerable. Looking back at the location where he saw the movement, he couldn’t make out any specific shape.
“Remember,” his father had told him, “whether you are stalking or being stalked, the key to success is understanding more than your opponent. In the dark, people and animals notice things in this order: movement, shape, color. If you have trouble focusing on something that is not moving, look through the side of your eye. The parts inside that make good night vision are thicker on the sides. The parts that see color better will not help.”
Emerius tilted his head and looked from the side of his eye. There, he saw it now. It was a guard who had moved into a shadowy spot to take a drink from a small flask he held. He was close enough to see In when she topped the wall. He would have to be eliminated.
The hunter slowly drew back his nocked arrow, doing so in such a manner that the movement didn’t capture the guard’s attention. He sighted from the side of his eye and then, memorizing the position, turned his head to face where he knew the guard to be. He closed his eyes, pictured where the guard was, exhaled slowly while tensing his stomach muscles, and then released the bowstring, soft and smooth as butter.
The sharp twang seemed very loud to Emerius, but he hoped the sound didn’t carry. He heard the arrow strike with a sort of soft thump, indicating that his aim was true and that he didn’t hit bone. There was a muffled thunk and a soft clink of the man falling and his flask joining him on the stone of the walkway.
Inoria made it to the top of the wall and pulled herself up easily, swinging her legs over the battlement and onto the walkway. “What was that?” She signed to him.
“There was a guard sneaking away for a drink,” he signed back. “It was his last.”
She nodded, and they headed toward the stairs to the ground level. They were just on the other side of the downed guard. As they passed him, Emerius reached down to retrieve his arrow. As he thought, it entered the man’s head through his right eye, a perfect shot. He put his foot on the guard’s face and yanked his arrow, being sure to grip the shaft and not damage his fletching. He wiped it on the dead soldier’s clothes and nocked it for further use.
“Nice shot,” Inoria signed. “Side of the eye shot?”
“Yep,” he said, not able to keep the pride out of his voice as he answered her verbally with a soft whisper.
Inoria shook her head and helped him tie a rope to the guard and lower the body to the grou
nd outside the wall so it wouldn’t be found. They wrapped the rope in such a way that once the corpse was down, one of them could let go of their side of it and the other could tug, rolling the body over and unwinding the rope from around him. Either of them could do this themselves, but it was easier with two. They didn’t want the bodies found by another patrol that could set the alarm. Simply throwing it over the wall would make too much noise.
As they approached the stairs, Inoria signed that she would clear their half of the battlements and he could clear the area down below. He nodded and made his way silently down the stairs. Before he even got to the ground level, he heard an arrow being launched by his sister’s bow and another of the guards falling to the walkway.
The stairs he was using were exposed, built into the wall itself, so he looked around carefully as he descended. He was a quarter of the way around the wall from the gate, but because the guards moved about on patrol, they had to clear at least half the perimeter of the walls.
When it was all said and done, there were nine bodies that had to be lowered outside the wall or hidden on the ground level inside the wall. Only twice were there pairs. Taking out two within a fraction of a second in the dark took skill and focus. A missed shot could cause a guard to be injured instead of instantly killed and then the alarm would be sounded. As it was, though, all the twins’ shots were perfect and there were no problems.
They stood at the gate. Emerius signed to Inoria, “Get ready. If this gate squeals or makes other loud noises, we are going to have some company.”
“Ready,” she signed back.
Emerius lifted the heavy crossbar and slowly set it off to the side. He made no noise doing so. Then, he tensed his torso and bunched his shoulders, lifting up slightly on the gate as he tried to swing it in, knowing that if there was less weight on the hinges, the sound would be lessened.
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 74