by Nat Russo
Odd. One adda should have been enough to handle that load.
Aelron merely had to make his way across the village center, under the festival awning, and out onto the eastern road.
But he couldn’t. The words of the dead magus were too specific to ignore.
Garrison commander.
The wagon train was having a tough time of it. Whatever was in the last wagon sank the cart into the mud up to its axle when it entered the village center.
Aelron glanced around the circle of buildings.
Across the festival grounds, thirty or forty paces away, was a sturdy building with a tiled roof.
That must be it. The building serving as the current garrison headquarters.
He lingered, uncertain whether he would draw more attention walking in the open or ducking from tent to tent. He’d lost track of the constable and didn’t want any surprises.
One of the adda roared as the team heaved the wagon train out of the mud. Someone wearing a tall hat and thick chain of office ran from a festival tent to the wagon.
Constable Chicanery. There you are.
This changed things. With the constable hassling the wagon driver—probably warning the adda about churlishness—Aelron should have no problem heading straight for the building.
He strode under the festival canopy in the village center. Now was the time to move.
Music started up as the rain beyond the awning intensified, but a nearby lightning strike and thunderclap caused some in the crowd to scream and jump, including a musician. When the other band members stopped yelling at the startled man, they started playing again, and once more Aelron threaded his way through the crowd of dancing villagers.
Fifteen paces to the end of the awning.
Aelron drew his hood over his head, pulling it down over his forehead as far as it would go. When he dropped his arms, a woman in an orange dress grabbed him and spun him around, dancing in time to the music. He went along with it for a couple of spins before releasing her into the arms of another dancer.
Judging from the periodic waterfalls draining into buckets, the villagers had made collection points for the torrential rain. But they hadn’t been efficient about it. The awning still sagged in the center.
Cold metal touched his right hand. A singing man was trying to hand him a tankard. Aelron nodded and took the proffered drink, which made the man happy enough to bother someone else.
Ten more paces.
Twenty or so people stood between him and the awning’s end. The undulating crowd moved back and forth across his path, dancing this way and that to the rising music. Another singing man worked his way through the crowd, handing out tankards. Must be some kind of tradition. Aelron wished he’d known about it before he’d given up his ring. Hunger could make a person make bad decisions.
He put it out of his mind and picked up his pace.
Not too fast. You’re just another reveler.
Aelron cursed as the woman in the black dress from the ale tent marched up to him. The look on her face told him she wanted to make a scene.
“So that’s how you play, is it?” she said, slurring her words. “Steal a kiss, get a few quick feels, and run off to find more soft skin to fondle?”
All eyes were on her, and that meant all eyes were on Aelron by association. He couldn’t risk being the center of attention for long. He had to get her away from the crowd and make sure she stayed away.
“There you are, my gorgeous girl,” Aelron said. “Why didn’t you follow me? I found the perfect place for us.”
“You…what?”
“Beyond that tent,” he said, nodding toward the sturdy building.
“The temporary barracks?”
So I was right. That’s the garrison building.
“I don’t understand,” the woman said. “Why don’t we just go back to my—”
“Think of how exciting it will be! Just yards from the crowd, and they’ll have no idea what’s going on.”
She smiled. “Look at what a freak you are! Let’s be on about it then. I’m Jayne, by the way.”
He grabbed her hand and started walking toward the temporary barracks at a quick pace.
“Just promise me one thing,” Aelron said. “Can you do that?”
Jayne smirked. “There’s a lot I can do if you ask me.”
“Don’t ask me any questions. Any at all. Do you understand?”
“But what—”
“That sounds like a question.”
A cold bead of sweat ran down his back. If she asked him the wrong thing at the wrong time, it could jeopardize everything.
People started reacting to how fast they were moving, so he slowed down.
You belong here, Aelron. You’re just another face in the crowd. Just another inbred farmer like that moron constable.
The constable.
Aelron glanced at the wagon train and a nervous chill shuddered through him. He couldn’t see the man’s tall hat. But after a moment, the constable walked back into view, looking under the canvas tarp and yelling at the wagon driver. The driver was giving as well as he was getting, though—he kept waving his arms and pointing at the cabin wagon. The constable put his hand up to his chin.
At least someone figured out how to shut that old man up.
When they reached the back of the tent, which was covered by the barracks awning, Aelron spun Jayne around, threaded his arms up through hers, and pressed his forearm against the artery in her neck. She struggled for a moment, but soon she was limp in his arms. He laid her down in the shadows and stood.
“Sorry, Jayne. You’ll have one hell of a headache, but you’ll live.”
He took one last look around the corner of the tent.
The constable was arguing with the wagon driver, holding onto the man’s arm. The adda had pulled the wagon free of the mud, but the constable had a tighter grip than the soft ground. He wasn’t letting that driver go anywhere.
Aelron turned toward the barracks and had to suppress the urge to jump back.
The constable stood three feet away, gaping.
Aelron stole a quick glance toward the wagon and cursed as the man in the tall hat, who he’d thought was Constable Chicanery, faced the village.
Malvol’s stones, he must be a deputy!
“Ale rod!” the constable yelled through the pouring rain, staring at the limp form of Jayne at his feet. “What have you done?”
Aelron backhanded the constable across the jaw with one hand while grabbing his chain of office with the other.
The constable tried to cry out, but Aelron slipped behind him and shoved the large medallion at the end of the chain into his mouth, muffling any sound.
Aelron swept the constable’s legs out from under him and planted him face-first into the dirt, raising his left hand to strike the back of the constable’s neck with enough force to kill.
But as he drew back, he stopped. Was there no way out of this town without leaving a path of destruction behind him? Constable Chicanery might be an idiot, but he didn’t deserve this.
The constable spit the medallion out of his mouth and inhaled.
Aelron pulled the medallion off the constable’s neck and struck as a bright flash of lightning lit the village and surrounding landscape.
The constable lay unconscious on the ground. But in that split second of light, Aelron had seen guards leaving the barracks entrance.
He slipped around the corner of the building and leaned out to take a better look from a concealed position.
Jayne and the constable were less than ten feet from the guards, but the guards walked right past them into the village center.
As the last guard emerged and ran down the wooden steps into the village, Aelron jogged around the side of the building, taking advantage of the noise produced by the intensifying storm. Strolling through the front door wouldn’t be a good idea.
The more he studied the building the more he realized it was an old farmhouse that must have been
repurposed. There should be a root cellar entrance nearby.
He ran past a row of hoes and rakes leaning against the wall. As he rounded the corner to the back of the farmhouse, a sloped door came into view.
There you are.
The door was latched, but he could change that. He ran back and grabbed one of the hoes from the side of the building. He slipped one end of the hoe through the latch on the cellar door and lifted up from the other. The latch wasn’t strong—security wouldn’t be a big concern in a village like this—and it snapped in half with little effort. He pulled the latch away from the locking anchors and opened the door.
It was dark inside, and the smell of mold and mildew was overpowering, but this was the best way into the building without drawing attention.
He pulled the door shut above him and climbed down a rickety ladder, thankful it held his weight.
A sliver of light toward the ceiling in the far wall revealed where he needed to go.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness with ease, having come in from the dark stormy night, so it didn’t take long for him to pick a path across the room. Creaks and groans from the ceiling told him people were moving around above him, and every so often a shadow would cross the sliver of light. His instinct had been right. Had he broken a window, or made the stupid decision to come in through the front door, he would have been caught.
From the sounds of the movement and muffled conversations, he estimated four people in the room above and two in the hallway.
He found the ladder leading up into the house, but something was strange about it. There were mounting brackets and holes for a much larger structure—something akin to a staircase. What had happened to it?
A shadow lingered in front of the sliver of light. When it vanished somewhere into the hallway, Aelron climbed the ladder and cracked the door open.
The door led into the building’s main hall. Aelron could see the front entrance at the far end, and no guards were in sight. But the door hid the other side of the hall from view.
There was only one way he was going to find out if he was alone or not. Only one way that sounded good, at least.
He pushed the door open and ducked below the doorway, clinging to the ladder. When no one reacted to the swinging door, he climbed out into the hallway and stood up, taking a quick inventory of everything in view.
Five paces to the front door. Two side halls. Four rooms on this level. Stairs climb one level higher.
If the Shandarian army did things the way the rangers did, the garrison commander’s office would be near the front entrance, at the end of the hall.
It’ll be one of the first two rooms.
Aelron closed the door slowly, cringing when the hinges creaked, and started off down the hall.
There were voices coming from the nearest room on the right, and the door was wide open.
Probably not the commander’s office.
He needed to get past that doorway to the one beyond.
The closed door across from it swung open and a soldier stepped out into the hallway, buttoning his pants.
Privy chamber. The farmer who built this place must have been rich.
Aelron pressed himself flat against the wall, still as a snake before it strikes.
Two rooms left. The commander’s office has to be one of them.
The soldier walked across the hall into the open doorway.
Two choices remained, and neither was good, but one had the advantage. If he tried the door across from the open room, anyone inside would be able to see what he was doing. His best chance would be to try the door on the same side as the open room.
But I have to get past that open door first.
Footsteps on the stairs behind made him curse his luck. If he didn’t get out of this hallway fast, whoever was on those stairs would see him. They’d bring whatever was left of the garrison down on him.
He pressed his back against the wall next to the open door and leaned around. Four soldiers sat at a dining table.
Those footsteps were getting closer. A few steps farther and they’d see him.
He lowered his hood and stepped across the doorway without slowing until he stood before the closed door.
The grinding noise of a bench sliding away from a table came from the open room he’d passed.
“Warren?” a soldier shouted. “Get your adda-smelling arse in here.”
Aelron was out of options and time. He pushed the door open, hoping no soldiers were on the other side, and stepped into the room.
“I’m right here,” a voice responded. It was the soldier on the stairs.
“Thought that was you,” the first voice said.
Aelron closed the door behind him and turned around.
A writing desk was pushed up against the wall of what appeared to be an old kitchen pantry. A seal of office leaned precariously against an inkwell, and parchments were scattered around, including a sizable stack on the floor. If Aelron didn’t know any better, he’d say someone had thrown them.
But the most interesting thing on the desk gave Aelron a chill.
A small white statuette, depicting a grinning man with his hands clasped behind his back. It was the same figure the rangers had found days ago.
But is it the same object, or merely a copy? Is this what the Council magus wanted me to find?
He stepped toward the desk and the wooden floor creaked and groaned.
“You hear that?” a soldier asked.
Malvol’s festering arse.
Whatever secret the magus thought the garrison commander harbored, Aelron wouldn’t decipher it now.
Aelron darted out into the hall…straight into a soldier.
“Who the hell are you?” the soldier asked.
Aelron struck a point between the soldier’s ribs with a single knuckle, and all air escaped the man’s lungs. The soldier collapsed as four others ran out into the hallway.
“Feels scary, I know,” Aelron said, as the soldier gasped for air. “You’ll be able to breathe again in a minute.”
There’d be no way to fight all four of these soldiers in such tight quarters, but that worked as much to his advantage as his disadvantage. What was difficult for him would be difficult for them. He had to get out of the building. Between the storm and the revelry, there was a chance he could evade them.
Aelron bolted toward the front entrance and pulled the door open.
As he ran down the stairs into the mud, the adda-drawn wagon train rode toward the east entrance of the town. It was promising, but if he made his way straight to the wagon, it wouldn’t do him much good. He’d only succeed if he could lose the soldiers in the crowd.
A bartender bent over to pick up a rain collection bucket under the canopy.
That’s it! I’ll lead them under the canopy and into the crowd.
He hesitated to make sure the guards saw him disappear into the crowd. When he was satisfied they were following, he raised his hood and kept as many people between him and them as possible.
He circled around the crowd to the southern side of the canopy. The soldiers had grown frantic, checking every person who wore a dark cloak.
They weren’t very smart. That was a sure way to get themselves killed if he had been one of the people they’d checked.
The soldier he’d struck in the house was back on his feet and running for the canopy. When he reached it, Aelron pulled a dagger from his cloak and ran for the eastern support poles. It was time for that sagging canopy to work in his favor.
As Aelron ran past the first pole, he sliced through the canopy’s lashings. He repeated the process on each support until he reached the northeast pole. With as much force as he could muster, he threw his shoulder into the pole and ran out from under the canopy.
The villagers’ muffled cries were all the indication of success Aelron needed. The canopy had come down on everyone.
The adda-drawn wagon train had reached the eastern entrance. This was his only chance.
Aelron sprinted for the tarp-covered flat wagon at the end of the train. With dagger in hand, he severed a tie holding the canvas tarp down and crawled in, pulling the tarp back down over himself.
When the wagon train had pulled out into the darkness of the country road, he peeked through the gap between the tarp and the wagon.
The guards had made their way out of the collapsed awning and were starting a building-to-building search.
Aelron wasn’t sure where this wagon was going, but he hoped it was better than where he’d been.
Zorian stepped onto the marble stairs that led up to the palace entrance. The walk from the harbor had been a long one, and he wanted to sit somewhere. But Admiral Unega’s order that Lucian—the ambitious temple priest—accompany him was complicating matters. Zorian couldn’t afford that clerical upstart getting the emperor’s ear first. Lucian’s presence frustrated Zorian. Countering Unega was going to be difficult as it was without having one of his lackeys interfering.
The entrance to the imperial palace in Dar Rodon reminded Zorian of the grand temples of Barathos. It had the look of new construction to it, though it was unclear whether it was indeed new or simply whitewashed. The palace may be a royal residence, but it exuded piety. Not the piety of a humble pilgrim performing a ritual at the end of a long pilgrimage, nor the piety of a hermit who spent his day in prayer. This was the piety of a wealthy noble who wanted the world to see how religious he was.
The palace spanned more than five-hundred feet across and four-hundred tall. Its white stone reflected the orange afternoon sun to such a degree that Zorian had to shield his eyes. He, Lucian, and Tullias—Zorian’s manservant—climbed the marble steps behind Lieutenant Belding and several palace guards, who had joined them at the docks once their landing craft was secured. Not even Belding’s voluminous hat was enough to block the palace’s radiant glow.
Lucian stumbled on an uneven step, but he regained his balance with a well-placed hand on Tullias’s back.
Zorian’s frustration peaked.
“You will not speak to the emperor unless I am present and you are directly addressed,” Zorian said. “Is that clear?”