Little One

by Nate Philbrick

  Moriah herself didn’t seem to enjoy that part of her story. “When Daniel spoke—when he said what he said, his voice was……broken. He sounded so defeated. And yet, at the same time, I don’t think he was concerned about himself at all. He only spoke for her.” She gestured with her chin at Litty in the corner.

  Ram did all he could to keep his voice calm. “Of course he was thinking about her. He’s thought of nothing but getting her back from the moment he saw her on the platform in Obenon.”

  “Which is exactly what’s put him behind bars,” said Tess. “I’ll be the first to admit that if Maravek is a bear, Andrale is the demon clinging to his shoulder, and I’ve grown to loathe the both of them. But that doesn’t negate the fact that Daniel brought this upon himself.”

  “They’re not really going to hang him, are they?” Ram was met with uncomfortable silence, and he could take it no longer. He jumped to his feet, startling Litty in the process. He had almost forgotten she was there, and he hoped she was indeed as oblivious as she looked. He jabbed a finger at Tess, no longer caring that she had the authority to put him behind bars as well. “Can’t you see? Don’t you understand? Daniel saved your life. How can you be so blinded—so loyal to a man that left you for dead—that you can’t even see the truth that’s been right in front of you this whole time?”

  Tess motioned to lower his voice. “You can’t prove—”

  “Prove, schmove! What more proof do you need?” He threw his hands in the air. “The pieces all connected back with the Akorites—you saw for yourself what Ider Grasp did to Tarvin. For once in your life, just forget about your duties and loyalties, and do the right thing. You can change this. You can change all of this. You’re a Second Preceptor, for crying out loud!”

  Tess hesitated, her mouth half-open. “It’s not that simple, Ramsey. My job was to evacuate the people from Obenon. That task is completed, and I no longer have authority here. Maravek is in charge, and even if Ider Grasp rose from the dead and tried to take my life a second time, it wouldn’t change his mind.”

  Ram took a few deep breaths and let the truth sink in. In her corner, Litty had put her fingers into her ears. He lingered on her for a moment before saying, “Then help Daniel escape.” There was a long pause during which only the sound of his pumping blood filled his ears. He knew his face must have been bright red, but he didn’t care.

  Moriah stirred, as if rousing from a trance. “He’s right.”

  Tess shot a glance at her, but said nothing.

  Ram waited for a response, but when he received none, he made up his mind. “You can sit here and mope as much as you want. I’m not about to let my friend hang for saving your life.” He turned to Moriah. “Litty will be safe here?”

  The Preceptor nodded. “She’ll have everything she needs. That’s a promise.”

  “Good.” He made for the door. “You know, someone a lot wiser than me showed me that fighting doesn’t always mean shooting guns. Sometimes, fighting simply means doing what’s right in the face of adversity.” He turned his back on the Preceptors. “I hope you understand that before it’s too late.” He left the room and hurried down the hall.

  * * *

  Once the door shut behind Ram, the room was silent for a long time. Moriah had a lot that she wanted to say, but she recognized the turmoil on her superior’s face and resisted the urge to rant. Litty pulled her fingers from her ears and resumed playing with Ducky as though nothing had happened.

  After several minutes, Tess heaved a long sigh and went over to the window, where she stared out at the darkening city. “Do you really think it’s true, Moriah? Did Daniel truly save my life? If so, I’m the one who wrongly condemned him in the first place, and the blame falls on me.”

  Moriah hesitated. “It’s not too late to change that.”

  Tess rested her elbows on the window sill and let her face drop into her palms. “Somewhere out there, the Akorites are putting themselves together to strike at Maravek once more. They’ll have their vengeance, one way or another. How can I directly oppose the man I’ve sworn to protect?”

  “That’s a choice you’re going to have to make,” said Moriah.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The drone of the airplanes echoed in the valley like a horde of angry wasps. Two—no, three of them banked low over Obenon as the townspeople froze in the streets like wax figures, faces upturned towards sky in shock and fear.

  Daniel stood among them, his arms laden with a box of wheat lamps to be delivered to the workers at the mines. The three aircraft zoomed north through the peaks of the mountains like roaring hawks, the hum of their engines fading as they veered from sight. For the longest time, no one spoke, and no one moved, as though, if they all held perfectly still, the planes wouldn’t come back. But then the droning returned, and the planes set a straight course for Obenon, flying even lower than before. Daniel didn’t know how the pilots dared navigate the vertical peaks of these mountains at such low altitude.

  One of the nearby miner-wives broke the silence. “They’ve come.”

  It was a simple statement, and an obvious one at that. But the truth of her words sent the villagers into a frenzy of activity unseen in years. Almost immediately, as if on cue, the sirens went off, blaring their wailing keen of alarm. In a manner that toed the line between trained discipline and panicked chaos, families grouped together and dashed into their homes to the safety of the bomb shelters built under every building.

  A line of Preceptors came from their headquarters off the town square and barked orders to the mass of people, trying with some measure of success to avoid a complete stampede. Doors slammed. Children cried, and then were swept up by mothers and rushed towards safety.

  Daniel stood rooted in place until his mind confirmed somewhere in its recesses that this was finally happening and that he wasn’t just having a nightmare. He dropped the box, the wheat lamps scattering all over the road, and took off towards his home a few blocks away.

  The Akorite bombers were as swift as they were loud. All but drowned out by the sirens, their engines roared overhead. Daniel didn’t look at them. He kept his eyes on the street ahead of him as he pushed through knots of people scrambling to get to shelter. Shoulders knocked against him, and he fell to the ground, bashing his knee against the concrete. Barely feeling the pain, he got back up.

  And then the first bomb hit. The explosion shocked the valley into mind-searing silence, and a fraction of a second later, a billow of concrete and fire blasted into the sky two blocks away, and the ground shook as though an earthquake were splitting the town in half.

  Screams somehow forced their way through the ringing in his ears.

  Daniel knew he should be terrified out of his mind, but he felt as though the fear would only hit once he made it home. Now, all that mattered was moving as fast as his legs would carry him.

  The second plane swooped over the town, and this time the bomb landed on the town square. A second explosion rocked Obenon. To Daniel’s horror, most of the screams were cut off.

  The sirens wailed, and he ran.

  His mother met him at the door of their house, carrying a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. “The shelter,” she cried, “Quickly!” A frantic glance. “Where’s your father?”

  Daniel pulled up short. “He’s not here already?”

  “I thought he was with you.” She glanced at the people behind Daniel, still scrambling for safety. “I’m going to find him.”

  “Mom, no—”

  She pressed the bundle into his arms. “Go to the shelter right now, and don’t take your eyes off her. I’ll be back!” She brushed past him.

  “I need you, Mom, not her!”

  His mother stopped and looked over her shoulder. “But she needs you.” Her tone softened. “I’ll be right back with your father. Just—please. She’s your sister.”

  He watched her go in smoldering silence. Only then did the muffled squalling from the blankets reach his ears. He glared down a
t the bundle. “She always does this.” He ducked inside and slammed the door behind him.

  Then, so close that he felt his bones rattle, the third bomb hit.

  * * *

  Daniel woke from the dream with the screams still echoing in his ears. Curled in a fetal position, he clenched his eyes shut until the voices faded. “I’m sorry, little one.” His breath crackled in his lungs. “So sorry.” Pain emanated from his ribs and coursed through his limbs. He didn’t think anything was broken, but at the same time, he knew he wouldn’t be able to move for a long time, and not just because of the physical beating.

  Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth to the floorboard under his face, creating a dark stain on the wood. The sound of the miniscule splash filled his ears like a bomb. It gave him something to focus his senses on—anything other than the undeniable fact that he had failed. He had failed his parents, he had failed Litty, and he had failed himself. There was nothing he could do.

  He remained curled in that position for a long time, and even when the pain centered in his side receded, he didn’t move. There simply wasn’t any reason why he should move. He didn’t move when the rays of sun disappeared from the window and the cell sunk into darkness, and he didn’t move when the footsteps padded like whispers down the hall towards him.

  “Funny,” said a voice just beyond the bars, “You’re not quite what I imagined you like.”

  It barely registered. Daniel ignored the voice. Probably just another Preceptor here to taunt him before they carried him away to hang.

  “From what they’ve said about you,” the voice went on, “I would have imagined you’d be scraping your fingers raw trying to get out one way or another. Are you really that easily broken?”

  Daniel found it somewhere within himself to respond. “Go away.” He uncurled a fraction of an inch and spat out blood.

  “I’m not one of them, Daniel. Believe it or not, there are people who still care about you, and whereas I’m not personally in that category, it’s in my interest to get you out of here.”

  Still, Daniel did not look up. “You can’t help me,” he said. “No one can.”

  There followed a moment of silence. Then, “Keep telling yourself that. I guess that’s really all that can be expected. From what I hear, you have a way of only seeing your own troubles, anyways.”

  The voice paused, but if it was waiting for an answer, Daniel wasn’t about to humor it.

  “I have a question for you. If the door were to just swing open, would you walk out? Or would you stay there and just assume that leaving this building would be the worst thing to happen in Galaratheas since the day it fell? You won’t answer that, of course, but just looking at you I can tell what the answer is.” Another pause. “What if I told you that the man you killed really was going to murder Preceptor Kerrigan, and that you’re not half the villain you seem to have come to believe you are?”

  Before the stranger could continue, and before Daniel could tell him to leave again, a door burst open somewhere down the hall, and harsh voices bounced off the stone walls.

  “We won’t be able to help you tonight,” the voice said with renewed urgency, “But keep your chin up, and know that when the time comes, you’ll not be alone.”

  Then, like a specter returning to the underworld, the stranger was gone. Boots clapped down the hall, and a pair of Preceptors unlocked the door. They showed no sign of having seen nor heard the stranger, and it made little difference to Daniel if they had. For all he knew, the stranger could have been a figment of his own imagination—yes, that’s what it was. No one could have snuck past the guards so easily. He was delirious—maybe he had lost more blood than he realized.

  When the Preceptors hauled him to his feet, he gave no resistance. As they dragged him down the hall towards the only exit, his mind retreated behind a shield of numb indifference. Come what may, he was done fighting.

  * * *

  The sky flamed with red and orange waves when Ram heard a hushed voice call his name from somewhere above. He craned his neck and spun in two full rotations before spotting Koldin, positioned atop the broken roof of an abandoned building like a crow on the mast of a decaying ship. With his dark clothes melting into the shadows, the Akorite was all but invisible, and if he hadn’t called out, Ram would have likely walked right under him.

  Ram ascended the flight of steps that led to the rooftop, stepping lightly around missing stones and crumbling sections, and joined his friend at the edge of the building. Koldin knelt, gazing out over the city like a vigilante. Galaratheas expanded around them like a sea of pearls gleaming like lamps in the dying rays of the sun. Inky clouds gathered on the northern horizon, and a breath of wind was picking up from that direction.

  “I found Litty,” said Ram. “And there’s news about—”

  Koldin motioned for him to be silent with a raised hand. Ram was about to question why when he saw what Koldin had been staring at. A line of Preceptors wound through the veins of Galaratheas below, no more than a few blocks away. There were a dozen or so of them, silent yet purposeful in the way they carried themselves. Though the distance and the waning light made it hard to tell, Ram didn’t see Kerrigan or Moriah in the procession.

  “See that man in the front of the line?” Koldin kept his voice to a bare whisper.

  Ram squinted. The Preceptor in question was a mountain of a man, striding along with his chin high and an unmistakable air of arrogance and pride. He nodded.

  “That’s Dom Maravek.”

  The name sent a shiver down Ram’s spine, not only because this was the man who had taken Daniel prisoner and ordered—or at least did nothing to stop—his beating, but also because he knew the Akorite beside him wanted nothing more than to put a knife between his ribs.

  He crouched a bit lower. “They’re not looking for us, are they?”

  Koldin shook his head. “Look closer.”

  Ram did so, and finally noticed that one of the members of the procession was not a Preceptor at all. In fact, the man’s head hung low, his feet dragged along the cobbles, his hands were tied behind his back, and—Ram’s gut twisted. “It’s Daniel.”

  “I was able to speak with him briefly before the Preceptors came for him. Judging by your earlier statement, I’m going to assume you know what their plans are for him.”

  Ram watched the Preceptors until the line disappeared down a street that ran between taller buildings. “There has to be something we can do.”

  “He’s not the man you described him to be. I’m no phycologist, but I can see it in a man’s eyes when he’s given up. They’ve gotten into his head, for sure, but I think most of it is his own doing. Even if we were to rush down and kill every last Preceptor, he’d likely still put the noose around his own neck.”

  Ram let the news sink in. “I don’t understand. I’ll have you know, he’s a fighter.”

  “Not anymore.”

  For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Ram broke the silence. “We have to help him, somehow.” His voice lacked any sort of confidence, and it was an accurate reflection of his spirit.

  Koldin shifted his position against the white stones. “I’ve seen this happen before, during the war. When you strip a man of everything he has to fight for and make him feel empty, he’ll melt away. The same thing will happen to Nikolai once Maravek is dead. Maravek and his henchmen have gone beyond that, though. They’ve convinced Daniel—easily enough, mind you—that he’s the villain, and that everything bad that’s happened since the evacuation has been his fault.” He paused. “Daniel’s a dying ember, but,” he held up a finger, “Even the coldest of coals can flame again with a strong enough spark.”

  Ram sensed a flicker of vitality in Koldin’s voice and gaze, and he realized the Akorite was as thirsty for action as he was, perhaps even more so.

  Koldin held up two fingers. “You said you found Litty. Is there anyone in this graveyard of a city that you think you can trust to help us?”

 
Ram blinked, and a glimmer of hope jumped to life in his mind. He nodded. “There is one person.”

  * * *

  Daniel shivered in spite of the warm air of the summer night. Maybe it was the sweat soaking through his shirt, as much a result of the turmoil roiling in him as of the brisk march to the hanging courtyard from the prison facility. Maybe it was fear. He didn’t know. But the shivers continued to rack his body, and he could not stop them.

  The Preceptors, led by Dom Maravek himself, had bound and gagged him and taken him halfway across Galaratheas to a courtyard in ruins, far removed from the heart of the city. They had shoved him into a small building—little more than a stone shed, with no flooring and no furnishings. He sat in an uncomfortable position on the hard ground, his hands still tied behind his back and his mouth still covered by a stale cloth.

  A slit of a window allowed for a trickle of moonlight to illuminate his glum surroundings, but off in the distance he heard the foreboding rumbling of thunder, and he figured even the light of the moon would soon abandon him.

  Once the Preceptors were gone, and when they didn’t come back for over an hour, Daniel figured that this is where they intended to keep him until his execution in the morning. That simple statement of fact should have terrified him, but he was so withdrawn into a protective shell of numb, impassive iron that it struck him as little more than a logical conclusion. He was still acutely aware of his sensory surroundings—the cords biting his wrists, the ache in his back and ribs, the cold stone against his shoulders, and the unforgiving ground numbing his backside—but none of it translated into feeling or emotion. He allowed himself to sink into the recesses of indifference. It was easier that way. He knew that in a few short hours, he would hang for his crimes, but rather than panic, or beg, or writhe in self-pity, he simply accepted it as necessary fact.