“Even if I could best you in combat,” she says, staring at the point of the dagger. She looks me in the eye as she finishes, “I could never kill you.” The dagger clangs to the floor and she sags. Then she drops to the ground sobbing.
I’m stunned by the truth I saw in her eyes. I’m about to say something, but then she suddenly picks up the dagger and with a furious yell throws it across the room.
Instead I set down my knife on the bed and then crouch, still warily holding my hammer. She refuses to look at me. “Why?” I ask.
She sniffs and her eyes narrow inquisitively, asking to clarify the question.
“Why can’t you kill me?”
Her lip shakes again and she looks away. “You remember when I said that you taught me to love?” she breathes timidly.
I nod. She shakes her head and says nothing more, so gently I caress the side of her face and guide her to look at me. She looks up like a child expecting a wounding remark.
“What about it?” I ask.
She holds my hand, tilting her head sideways into my palm, the stubs of my fourth and fifth fingers barely making it to her jaw. Her gaze falls downward, to the ground, as she says, “I can’t kill you because…” She shakes her head and begins to cry again. Then, still holding my hand, she looks up and says, “I love you, Kadmus.”
I’m shocked. And quite at a loss for words. Her lips turn up as she looks into my stunned face, tears still welling in her eyes. She obviously did not expect me to respond the way I did.
The words that have been longing to escape my tongue finally make it out into the air. They are out really before I know what is happening. I am almost as surprised as she is to hear them.
“And I love you.”
A grin breaks out across her face and she squeezes my hand. She lets go as I pull her into an embrace, but then her attitude suddenly changes as someone knocks vigorously on my door. “Captain?” a voice calls. “Captain, you in there?”
She rises and I follow suit. Her face has fallen. “I have to leave,” she whispers hurriedly. “Archeantus knows. He’s sent the guard after me.”
“You’ll never make it,” I say. She makes to say something, but I interrupt, “Not alone.”
“You can’t mean to say that you’ll be coming with me!”
“No,” I reply. “But I’ll help you out.”
“But if you’re caught, they’ll surely-”
“Do what?” I ask. She doesn’t answer. “They could do anything they wanted to me. And it would be worth it to save you.”
Her only reply is to gaze up at me with her incredible eyes.
“Go,” I command, gesturing. “Hide there. In the wardrobe.”
She dashes to the wardrobe and I close the doors behind her. Then I walk to the door, where the soldiers are still banging.
“Is there a problem?” I ask, after unbolting and opening the door.
“Is the lady Aela in here?” one of them asks. “Lord Archeantus has requested her presence.”
“No, not here,” I reply. “I haven’t seen her since dinner.”
“Would you mind if we searched your room, Captain?”
“Excuse me?” I say. “Do you not trust one of your own captains? Why would you need to search for her anyway? Surely she would not run from a summons such as Lord Archeantus’!”
“Right, sir,” says the guard. “Our mistake. Sorry to bother you.”
I shut and bolt the door as they walk away.
Aela comes out of the wardrobe as soon as I open the door. “How are we going to get out?” she asks.
“Don’t know,” I reply. “We could go down the balcony.”
“But how are we going to get out of the city?
I remember the Torrent. The grate above the water.
“The sewers,” I reply. “That’s how.”
At first her expression shows disgust, but she warms up to the idea when she doesn’t have one of her own. “Fine,” she says. “How do we get there?”
“Do you have everything you will need?” I reply. “Food, weapons?”
She shakes her head. “I did not have time to get any. I followed you straight here after you left the table.”
“We will need to get you some,” I reply. “Stay here. Bolt the door behind me. Don’t allow anyone in.”
“How will I know if it’s you?” she questions.
“Well, I won’t be banging so hard,” I reply. She accepts my answer and I leave the room.
I hear the door click behind me. Then the clank of the bolt. Good.
The kitchens are down a floor, but first I need her pack. Quickly I hurry to the room where she and my friends had been told they would be staying. Guards patrol the hallways.
Good thing she’s not here.
“Oh, Kadmus,” says Percival, jumping up as I enter the room. “Have you seen Aela? Everyone’s looking for her for some reason.”
“No I haven’t,” I reply, bending down to pick up her pack. In the other hand I grasp her two swords and her bow, and then tie them to the pack with the sword belt.
“What are you doing?” James asks.
“Part of the summons,” I reply. “She’s requested to be moved to another room, so I’m doing that for her.”
James whistles. “Which room, then?”
“Don’t know,” I reply. “Does it matter?” Then I nod at Percival as I leave the room.
Let them think what they will. I don’t care. That’s not important right now.
I stop at the kitchens on the way back up to my room and cram a couple of loaves of bread, some cheese, and dried meat into her pack. It’s not exactly fancy, but I don’t know how long the trip will be and it will get the job done.
Some of the guards give me funny looks as I carry the laden pack up the stairs, but they say nothing.
I knock twice next to the door handle, using only my first knuckle. There are a few moments of silence. Then the bolt unlatches and she lets me inside.
“Thank you,” she says, flinging the pack onto her back. She has donned her dark cloak, put up the hood, and tightened the sword belt around her waist. “How do I get out?”
“Follow me,” I reply, throwing on a similar cloak and slipping a glove onto my left hand. I do not take my hammer; it would give me away. I do not plan on shedding the blood of my allies, in any case.
Warily I peak out of the door. Seeing no one, I usher her out and into the hall.
Still my thoughts clang around like deranged dingflies. Do I even know her anymore?
Why hadn’t I seen this before?
I brush them to the side and we dart soundlessly down the hall towards the stairs.
Guards’ voices ring out from the spiral stairwell. My eyes widen and I hurry her back, to one of the doors in the hall. She hides in the arch of the door, making herself as small as possible in the corner of the stone arch and wood of the door. I stand in front of her.
Two guards rise from the stairwell and watch me as I lean casually against the arch.
“Going out for a walk, Captain?” asks the one on the left.
“Indeed,” I reply. “There’s something about the night.”
They nod and continue on their way, but I don’t prod Aela until they are out of sight. “Let’s go,” I whisper.
Our footsteps are a little louder on the stairs, but soon we are on the ground floor. We rush to the end of the hall and down a straight flight of stairs. I stop and she halts just behind me, waiting for me to scope out the next hallway.
An orange light glows from the far right end of the hallway, suggesting guards coming towards us. I back up into the stairwell, but detect the same torchlight infringing at the top of the stairs. Aela’s gaze asks me what to do.
“Run,” I reply. Then I dash into the hall.
If we’re fast enough, we can make it to the left end of the hall before the guards at the opposite end come around the corner. Aela pants next to me, and just when we round the corner I hear a guard bark, �
��Hey!”
“Dingflies,” I mutter. We continue to sprint until we come to the door that will lead us into the Torrent. “Inside,” I urge. Then I shut the door behind us.
“What the-” says a guard as he turns towards us. I hide my face in my lifted hood and ram him solidly with my shoulder, sending him plummeting off of the stone edge and into the water.
We continue running along the edge, towards the grate. The bottom of the hole sits just above the water, and the stone walkways end abruptly just before running into the hole. We stop on the edge, looking for a way in.
The guards from the hallway burst onto the walkway and run straight at us, swords held high. Similarly running guards come from the other side, so we cannot jump to the next walkway. “Kadmus…” Aela says under breath.
“Jump,” I command. Then I leap into the water.
I come up spluttering, though swimming in the Torrent is much easier than in a rocky beach with waves trying to kill me, while wearing a suit of armor. “Come on,” I push, repositioning my hood to cover my face.
We swim to the edge of the grate and I watch as two of the guards, one on each side, each string their bows.
“Oh, come on,” I breathe. I pull myself up onto the edge of the hole, holding myself up by clinging to the grate. The center of the grate, a small square in the metal bars, flies open on its hinges when I pull.
Aela has hardly pulled herself halfway onto the edge. The guards each nock an arrow.
“No,” I seethe, gripping Aela just below her arms. With a grunt I lift her all the way up and into the grate.
“No!” she screams, turning to watch the archers fire.
In one motion, I take hold of the grate, launch myself up and throw myself into the cavity. Searing pain explodes across my left leg and I grunt in pain. “Shut the grate,” I command.
“But your leg-”
“Do it!” She does as I say, arrows clacking around the grate. One of them flies between the bars, but misses me by several feet. Something else distracts the guards; they are yelling, but turning away from us.
“Your leg!” Aela points.
I rip the arrow from my thigh, snarling as blood seeps through my pants.
“Let me bind it!” she says frantically.
“Not yet,” I reply. “We’re not safe here.”
The guards yell from the Torrent. One of them falls in the water and another is slowly clambering onto the grate. A huge cloaked figure, dual-wielding axes, throws two guards from the edge and kills another.
“Who is that?” I ask. “He with you?” He looks straight at the gate and eviscerates another guard.
“No idea,” she replies. The figure takes an arrow in the shoulder, but does not slow. He runs straight for us. “We need to leave,” Aela panics. “Come on.” She places herself under my left shoulder and lifts. I cannot place my weight completely on my left leg, or I will fall.
We do not have long to walk.
The slope grades downward and we come to an intersection. There are three options. Forward, left, or right.
The grate creaks as the someone opens the hatch. Yells follow.
“Where do we go, Kadmus?” Aela asks, breathing hard.
“I need light,” I reply. She responds by digging in her pack for something. She comes out with a small object, puts her pack back on, and then grabs a torch from its sconce. Within moments the torch burns brightly. The light shines across the skin of my left hand and I suddenly realize that I must have lost my glove in my rush to get inside the grate. I shake my head and focus. That’s doesn’t matter.
I look at the water. There would be no point in bringing clean lake water in if it couldn’t get out. Therefore the water must let out somewhere.
The water levels are low. Nonetheless, I see a glint of torchlight on the ripples, and that reveals to me their direction. “Right,” I utter.
We hurry as fast as we are able along the right tunnel. I hold the torch in my right hand, as Aela is preoccupied under my left shoulder. My guess proves correct when I see that the tunnel continues to grade downward and the water picks up speed.
The guards clang noisily behind us. “Which way did they go?”
“I don’t know!”
“Split up! We can go down every tunnel!”
“Are you mad? We’ll get lost down here! Never go by yourself in this place!”
There’s the crash of steel on steel followed grunting. “How many are there?” a guard screams.
I and Aela listen, trying to find out how much time we have. “At least this will buy us a minute or two,” I gasp. She smiles.
I lean heavily on her with every left step. “You doing okay?” I ask.
“Am I?” she asks. “It’s your leg!”
I smile faintly. “Just making sure.”
Then we hear the footsteps behind us. They are loud and obviously not at all trying to hide their presence.
“Go,” I tell her. “Leave me. I’m slowing you down.”
“I can’t do that,” she says.
“Yes you can,” I reply.
“No,” she responds sternly. Then looking into my eyes, she says, “No one deserves to die by the side of the road.”
I recall having spoken the same words to her when I had first met her. Then I nod. “Okay.”
“Or in this case under the road,” she adds as we continue.
Despite the circumstance, I find a grin crossing my face.
We hear the echoes of the guards’ voices. “I think they went this way!” one of them yells.
Still the footsteps behind. I glance behind, but see nothing.
The slope evens out and we walk onto a stone walkway that skirts around the edge of a large circular room. Water laps at the edge of the walkway. The ceiling is domed. This is where the stench is the worst.
Aela’s nose wrinkles. “As if it wasn’t bad enough.”
“Don’t say that or you may have to get in.”
She doesn’t find that very funny.
“We can’t hear them any more,” she says as we turn down the corridor that smells freshest.
“Not their voices,” I reply. “You hear the footsteps?”
“Yes,” she says.
The corridor slopes downward for a short time, and then evens out again. That’s when we see the light.
It’s dim, as it is still night time. But it is light nonetheless.
It peaks at us from around the corner. Our pace quickens and we follow the corridor left, where the water exits the sewer with a roar.
“We’ll have to jump,” Aela says, looking out. “We’re about ten feet up.”
“Could be worse,” I reply.
Then we jump.
The water is cold. I surface, Aela gripping me tightly. We make our way to the bank and climb up. There I rip a section from my shirt and tie it hastily around my leg; the cold water has helped staunch the flow of blood, but the bandage will keep infection away.
We have come out at a pool southwest of Poalai. The roar, I realize, was not the water leaving the sewers, but rather the enormous falls crashing down a cascade probably fifty feet high. The pool roils, and from it stems a river that winds off into the trees of the forest. I’m sitting, leaning against a rotting log.
“What are you going to do?” Aela asks, helping me stand. Then she steps away from me and gazes at me tenderly.
“I don’t know,” I respond. “Go back in the morning I suppose.” There’s a pause. “What will you do?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she replies. “I don’t want to go back to Diagrall.”
“Then don’t,” I reply.
“And go where?” she retorts. I do not answer, and she continues, “They’ll kill me if I go back with you. The blood of many good men is on my hands.”
“I can convince them,” I reply. “I can.”
“Can you?” she questions. Then she takes a deep breath. “They will be unhappy I was not able to fulfill my mission.”
; I nod.
“There is a price on your head, Kadmus,” she warns. “There will be more who will try and take it.”
“When will I see you again?” I ask softly.
She stares into my eyes. “I will find you.” Then she makes to leave.
“Aela, wait!” I plead. She stops and turns towards me.
I lean forward and take her hand, pulling her towards me. Before I know what I am doing, I have pulled her into a tight embrace and have planted my lips on hers.
Her arms move up my back and clutch me snugly as my arms tighten, pulling her closer. Elation shoots through my body. I do not know how long it lasts. But it is over too soon.
She pulls away and I lean forward, hungry for more. My forehead rests against hers and our eyes lock. “I should go,” she says.
I nod. “Promise me I will see you again.”
She nods. “I promise.”
Then she pulls herself from my arms and, with tears in her eyes, darts away into the trees. Within moments she disappears into the shadow of the night.
I stand there for only a moment longer. Then I hear a noise from the sewer.
I turn and gaze upon the hole in the cliff, straightening my stance and setting my shoulders back. My left foot hovers about an inch from the ground and I have to hop to face the tunnel, but I will meet with courage the fate that befalls me.
The immense figure emerges from the tunnel.
I cannot get away. I have no weapons with which to defend myself. So I stand and wait for him to come.
He searches for a way down that doesn’t involve getting wet. His gaze falls upon me, and then he climbs out of the tunnel, onto a large rock, and skillfully maneuvers his way down the cliff. He straightens about ten feet from me and lifts his hood, and that’s when I realize that this is no normal person.
He’s an orc.
For a moment I am hopeful that it is Ullrog, but after another moment it becomes dreadfully obvious that it is not. His skin is not the muddy green that Ullrog’s would be. His skin is gray so that he blends into the night.
Dragonhammer: Volume II Page 33