Little One

by Nate Philbrick

  This far removed from the central hub of the city, the area was quiet. A soft breeze tugged at the grass growing from the cracks between the cobbles, but other than that, Moriah’s boots clipping on the stonework were unnaturally loud. It was as if this entire section of the city were holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen. As if on cue, the road broke free of the buildings on either side. It wound through an unkempt tangle of pines and briars before straightening out and cutting across a field of rubble and skeletal walls. They passed under a lone archway that stood like a final sentry in the road, and on the other side, the prison building rose from the broken ground.

  Moriah and Litty stopped under the shadow of the imposing structure. Unlike the rest of the city, the prison wasn’t grand or elegant in its architectural design. Thick, cold walls of brown stone jutted up like a fist, their windowless surface broken only by small gratings—little more than arrow slits—that provided the cells inside with just enough light for any prisoners confined within to not go blind in utter darkness. A door of the thickest planks, darkened and marred by centuries of use, remained shut at the top of a set of steps. Once upon a time, a wall would have surrounded the prison, both to keep people in and to help the wealthy citizens of the old Galaratheas convince themselves this place didn’t exist. The wall existed no longer, having succumbed long ago to nature’s will, just like the outer reaches of the city.

  Moriah felt a chill pass through here, and Litty drew closer to her, as though the mute stones of the prison were daring them to come closer. She was about to say something to comfort the little girl when a scuffling noise came faintly from one of the gratings on the first floor, followed by a muted cry. Then the prison returned to silence, the walls refusing to reveal whatever was going on inside.

  Litty tugged on her fingers. “Danny.”

  Moriah still stared at the door, the walls, the grating. “Yes,” she said, her shoulders slacking again, “Danny’s in there.”

  The little girl pulled forward with all the resilience her little body could muster, and Moriah gave in and approached the door. She rested a palm on the rough beams, reluctant to see what awaited behind them. There was someone else in there with Daniel—of that, she had no doubt. She had no choice but to hope whoever had been assigned the position was one of Tess’s squad and would sympathize enough to grant her and Litty a minute with the prisoner.

  Moriah pushed, and with a shudder and a groan the door swung inwards on rusty hinges. Inside, she paused while her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. The layout of the prison was simple. A narrow corridor lined with torches at regular intervals cut the first floor into two rows of cells, each separated by thick walls stone boarded over with stained planks, which absorbed the torchlight like a sponge soaks up water. At the far end of the corridor, a stairway led to the higher levels, but Moriah assumed these were empty and abandoned.

  She stopped again, listening. She thought she had heard another cry, but the sound was lost under the grating of the door shutting behind them. Litty clutched Moriah’s hand in a tightened fist. Her eyes were wide, and her bottom lip stuck out.

  “Stay close to me,” Moriah whispered, though she didn’t think Litty needed any urging in that regard. Together, they proceeded down the hallway one slow step at a time. The cells on either side of the corridor were open and vacant. They probably hadn’t had occupants in decades.

  Moriah stopped short. From one of the cells farther down the corridor came the sound of flesh on flesh, the steady rhythm of a beating. Interspersed between the dull impacts were the muted groans of one half-dead. Fearing the worst, Moriah picked Litty up in her arms and pressed her back up against the wall. The stones felt cold against her shoulders. She slid down the hall, making barely any sound, and as she drew closer to the occupied cell, the sounds of the beating grew sharper.

  Litty whimpered, and Moriah instinctively put a hand over her mouth. “Cover your ears,” she said in a breath of a whisper, “Don’t listen.” Litty did as she was told.

  Moriah held her breath as she neared the cell. When mere inches separated her from the open bars, she glanced into the cell, barely poking her face past the stone wall’s edge. What she saw inside churned her stomach. Maravek’s second man, Andrale, towered over Daniel’s crumpled form on the floor. Daniel’s arms wrapped around his head and neck as if in a last-ditched attempt at protecting himself. Blood trickled form a cut in the corner of his mouth, a bruise welted on his cheek, and he wasn’t moving. Andrale pulled back from the prone prisoner after one final kick to the side.

  Moriah ducked out of sight, her breath stuck in her chest. She held Litty tight against her, thankful that the girl hadn’t seen anything. Litty still clamped her hands over her ears.

  Then Andrale spoke. His voice was like the crunch of hard soles on an icy road. “You’re broken, Black. Not such a fighter when you have to face someone head on, are you?” Another kick, and then a moment of silence. Only Andrale’s breathing could be heard. “Count your blessings tonight. You’ll not die by my hands. It’ll be the rope in the morning.”

  The floorboards creaked. Moriah tensed—Andrale was leaving the cell. Like a cat in an alleyway, Moriah ducked into the next cell and sunk into the shadows in the far corner, her hand still covering Litty’s mouth.

  Andrale emerged from Daniel’s cell and stalked down the hall, sinister satisfaction gleaming on his worn face. Moriah froze like a statue until she heard him open the door and leave the building. When the door shut again, she collapsed on wobbly knees.

  Litty squirmed and wriggled, but Moriah didn’t let go. “No,” she said, “We have to go.” She couldn’t let the child see her brother as he was, lying on the floor, somewhere between light and dark, beaten and bloodied. She refused to make Litty suffer even more. “Danny’s not here.” She loathed having to lie, but it was for Litty’s own protection. She tried to sound calm. “Let’s go back and get Ducky, and then we’ll see if we can find him.”

  Moriah carried Litty from the cell and was about to dart towards the door when a voice, no more than a trickling breath, reached her ears. It was Daniel.

  “I’m sorry, little one,” was all he said, and then his head thumped against the floor, and silence swallowed his cell.

  Blinking back tears of frustration, Moriah hurried from the prison. She didn’t know if Litty had heard Daniel—he couldn’t have even known they were there—but it didn’t matter. Daniel didn’t have much time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ram hid behind an overturned cart decaying by the side of the street as a pair of Preceptors clipped by. It was the third time he’d had to divert his route to avoid being seen, although, all things considered, he didn’t really have a route. As soon as the two soldiers rounded a corner, he was on the move again, his eyes peeled for anything that might give him a clue as to Daniel’s location. He’d been wandering Galaratheas for what felt like hours, though it probably hadn’t been nearly that long since he and Koldin had split up. Thus far, his search had been unsuccessful. Each row of buildings looked just like the last, and it got to the point where he worried he’d been going in circles the entire time.

  He was just rounding another corner when he heard voices coming his way. As had become habit, he ducked into the closest hiding spot he could find—a pile of rubble in an alleyway served his purpose. Except this time, the voices were different. They were louder, cheerier, and much too conversational to be Preceptors. Sure enough, a moment later, a knot of miners from Obenon came into view from the street he had been about to turn onto.

  They passed by his hiding spot without so much as a glance in his direction, immersed in small talk revolving around one of the men’s wives and a certain mishap with a crate of belongings. The men prodded each other with elbows, and agreed to show who was who and what was what upon their return to the tavern, where, apparently, their families waited.

  Ram didn’t understand who was who or what was what, but if these men could lead him to the
rest of the villagers, then he would follow. It was more of a lead than he’d had all evening, and even if he couldn’t find Daniel, he might be able to get help from some willing souls. He gave the men time to put some distance between them and him before leaving the rubble pile and, still slinking from cover to cover, following them through Galaratheas.

  Just as they had spoken, the men soon reached an old tavern that had been transformed in the last twenty-four hours into a shelter for some of the refugees. Ram couldn’t imagine the villagers all fit in this one inn, but he didn’t have time to guess where the others might be, for something caught his eye on the second floor of the tavern. He stopped and lost sight of the miners as they entered the tavern, their voices cut off behind the closing door.

  Something small and pink hung from a line in one of the open windows facing his portion of the street—something that, although he couldn’t tell what it was at this distance—sparked a memory in his mind, and, like an itch he couldn’t reach, he knew he had to satisfy his curiosity as quickly as possible.

  Putting on an air of confidence that was pure façade, he strode into the tavern. Round tables covered the greasy floor, and a few of the townspeople—some of whom he recognized by face—moseyed around like fish in a tank. They glanced up briefly at him, and he held his breath, but no one sounded any alarm. In fact, no one spoke at all, and he realized they just didn’t care. He preferred it that way.

  Acting as if he knew exactly where he was going, Ram found a creaking staircase and quick-stepped to the second floor, where a series of rooms branched off from a hall that looked like a troupe of performers had forgotten to pack up. Empty crates and luggage were strewn about, and he had to pick his way through piles of boxes to make it to the end of the hall. Voices came from behind closed doors, but he ignored them. Trying to keep a mental image of the tavern’s orientation in his mind, he found a room at the end of the hall where no voices could be heard, and he pushed the door open. The room was empty and unfurnished, save for a washtub near the center with a towel draped over the edge and a stool off to the side.

  He entered the room and shut the door behind him. The open window let in a stream of waning sunlight, and there, he found what he was looking for. Litty’s stuffed duck, the one she had left the train to go find, was hanging in the window, probably to dry after a washing, since it looked far to clean to have been traipsing around the Untamables for the last few days. Of Litty herself, however, there was no sign, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that someone was taking care of her. If only he knew whom, and if that person would be willing to help him.

  He brushed the stuffed duck with his fingertips, recalling the events at the train station. So much had happened in so little time since then, it seemed like a distant memory. He shook his head to himself. If it hadn’t been for this little toy, none of this would have happened.

  Setting aside his retrospection, he scanned the bare room once more for any clues, and, finding none, sat on the stool to wait. Someone would come back—he was sure of this—and when they did, he would get his answers.

  * * *

  Litty had lapsed into her customary silence, so Moriah took advantage of the time as they hastened back to the tavern to worry. She worried about Daniel. Even though the man was guilty, she knew the way Maravek and Andrale treated him was wrong. She worried about herself, and the trouble she was sinking herself into by harboring Litty without permission and shirking any sort of contact with her superiors. They were bound to be wondering where she was by now. She could just picture Maravek’s beet-red face and popping veins. But most of all, she worried about the child in her arms. If what Andrale had said in Daniel’s cell was true—which she feared it was—then Litty was soon to lose the last family member she had. She would be alone, with no one to care for her. Would anyone show kindness to the kin of a murderer, albeit one who was innocent? What would happen to her after—

  A hand clamped down on her shoulder from behind, startling her so much that she yelped and spun around. Moriah pulled up short—standing before her, ragged, worn, and exhausted, was Tess Kerrigan.

  She was about to exclaim when Tess cut her off with a hand. “We need to find a safe place to talk. Alone.”

  Moriah swallowed her hundred questions and nodded. “I have a room.”

  Tess’s eyes fell on Litty, and her brow furrowed. “This is the child?” The answer was obvious, but whatever reaction Tess might have had, she hid it for the time being.

  Moriah tried to stop herself, but a question burst through her defenses. “How did you escape the Akorites? I thought—we thought—”

  “Not here.” Tess’s gaze shifted around nervously. “We have much information to exchange, I have no doubt. But it must happen behind closed doors. I don’t know whom I can trust anymore.”

  Moriah switched Litty to her other shoulder and motioned with her head. “Follow me.”

  * * *

  Ram had spent the last half hour pacing and was considering finding one of the townspeople in the tavern’s main room downstairs and asking them for information when the door to the room burst open with a sharp crack. He spun around.

  A Preceptor stormed in, her handgun raised and pointed at him. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  Ram threw his hands up and backpedalled until his back hit the wall by the window. “H—Hey, calm down now! I didn’t do anything. I was just looking for—” A second Preceptor entered the room, poised with authority, and his mouth hung open in the middle of his protest. “Preceptor Kerrigan?”

  Kerrigan saw his face, and her eyebrows shot up. She looked as surprised as he felt, but quickly regained her composure. “You can put that away, Moriah,” she said to the first soldier, “He’s with me.”

  Ram blinked. “I am?”

  “You are now.”

  Moriah stowed her weapon, and Ram lowered his hands, though he kept a wary eye on the Preceptor. He didn’t know if he could fully trust Kerrigan, and he had no idea who this other person was. He had to be on his guard, or he might lose any chance he had at finding Daniel.

  After giving him an apprehensive glance, the Preceptor named Moriah ducked out into the hallway. “You can come in now.”

  Ram craned his neck, trying to see who Moriah was talking to. A moment later, a little girl stepped into the room, toying with the frill of her faded pink dress, her eyes not quite meeting those of the three adults looking down at her.

  At the sight of her honey blond hair and lapis eyes, Ram felt a firecracker go off in his chest. He opened his mouth to speak, to ask a question, to exclaim; but nothing came out. After a moment of fumbling with his tongue, he went to the window and fetched the stuffed duck from the line. He crouched in front of the child and held out the toy. “I think this is yours, Litty.”

  Hearing her name, Litty glanced up at him, and when she saw her duck, a grin split her face, and she reached out and took it and hugged it closely against her shoulder. She mouthed a few silent words to it and swayed her shoulders to and fro, as though comforting a long lost friend.

  Moriah patted Litty on the head. “I told you Ducky would be dry, didn’t I?”

  The girl nodded with her eyes closed in satisfied contentment.

  “She’s a little angel,” said Ram without realizing he was speaking out loud.

  Tess clicked the door shut, and the sound drew Ram’s attention away from the child and the duck. “This is an unexpected gathering,” she said, her voice weary and drawn, “And I think all three of us have stories to tell.” She caught Ram’s eye with that statement, and he felt himself shrink a little. “So let’s sit and talk.” She reached for the stool, but before she could get to it, Litty scampered over and, planting her feet firmly on the floorboards, put her miniscule weight against it and shoved it towards the wall. Once she had found the right spot for it, she plopped Ducky on it and faced the others in the room with an impish grin.

  Ram snickered.

  “Have it your way, little mi
ss,” said Tess with a sigh. A hint of amusement rode her voice. She turned to Ram. “You and I crossed paths not long ago, and I would hear your story first, since it’s likely to be brief.”

  It was. He told the two Preceptors that he had found his way down into the foothills of the Untamables and reached Galaratheas earlier that evening—all of which was true, though he made no mention of Koldin or Myra—and that he had spotted the duck in the window while searching for Daniel. While he spoke, Litty entertained herself off in the corner, sitting by the stool on which Ducky was still enthroned, carrying on a silent conversation with it. He watched her closely. She was so small, so oblivious, so innocent. He shook his head to himself. A hurricane of violence and injustice billowed, and in the calm of the eye sat this little child playing with her stuffed duck.

  When he was done telling the events that had transpired since he and Tess had parted ways, the Preceptors met him with silence. His story really wasn’t that eventful, so this did not surprise him. Now that the surprise of finding Tess in Galaratheas—or rather, of her finding him—had worn off, he hoped she would come around and offer help in getting Daniel out of whatever dungeon they had thrown him in, or that she could simply give a few orders and wipe his slate clean. However, though her face clearly portrayed a mix of emotions, she said nothing of that matter. Instead, she simply relayed what had happened to her. Her story was similar to Ram’s, and she kept it equally short.

  Then Moriah gave her share.

  Ram listened, captivated, as the young Preceptor told of the departure from the valley early that day, of the arrival at Galaratheas, of all the goings-on among the villagers, and how Maravek and his men had apparently locked themselves in one of the other taverns closer to the heart of the city, making plans, though she did not know what it was they were planning. When she explained how she had found Litty by the fountain in the square and had taken her under her wing, he immediately liked her a lot more, and decided to forget the fact that she had been pointing a gun at his face not twenty minutes ago. His appreciation turned to dread, however, when Moriah recounted her near run-in with this man named Andrale in the prison facility, and he nearly burst from his position on the floor when she described the beating. A stern glance from Tess barely restrained him.