by Ben Wolf
The Wolf had watched them return to Valkendell itself not long afterward, which seemed to confirm they were being held inside. It suggested the King and his men realized their importance as prisoners—or at least Lilly’s, as the Premieress of the Sky Realm, and perhaps Calum’s as the person who had ensured Lumen’s release.
And if the King had recognized their value, he had likely kept them alive for a reason. Perhaps he, too, wanted to bargain for something, or he wanted to use them as leverage against Lumen.
The problem was that Lumen was content to do without them entirely, so they were, in effect, useless to the King. Disposable, even.
The King hadn’t realized that, yet, but when he did, Magnus feared his friends’ lives would come to an abrupt end, right along with their supposed usefulness.
That made tonight’s rescue attempt all the more crucial.
Following a compulsory meeting with Lumen to discuss plans for their attack tomorrow morning, Magnus, Riley, and Condor went their separate ways and returned to their respective sections of the camp. Then they reunited in secret far outside the camp, shrouded in darkness, along with the small team of warriors accompanying them that night.
His voice as low and as quiet as he could make it, Magnus asked, “Is everyone ready?”
He received a wave of nods and a few whispered assents.
“Then climb on.”
At his command, the Sobeks who’d accompanied them climbed atop Magnus’s back and took seated positions between the black dorsal spines lining his back. Riley and his Werewolves had already rushed toward the city on foot, keeping low and melting into then fields of grain, tall grass, and trees along the way, while Condor disappeared into the night sky ahead of them.
Once the last of the Sobeks climbed into place, he patted Magnus’s flank. With a nod of his own, Magnus took to the sky.
They only had one shot at this, and they couldn’t fail. If they did, more than just Calum, Lilly, and Axel’s lives would be on the line.
At dinner with the King that night, this time in a large banquet hall lit by candles and torches rather than in the garden, Calum could hardly focus on the conversations they were sharing or on the elegant spread of food on the polished wooden table.
Instead, his mind continued to thrum with questions he couldn’t answer—questions that perhaps no one else could answer for him, either.
He studied the King the whole dinner long, mostly letting Lilly do the talking, while he tried to gauge whether or not the King was being disingenuous with his words or actions. True to form, the King was reserved and cautious with his words and responses, revealing nothing more than he’d already revealed to Calum back in the garden.
Just as Calum considered excusing himself to fend off the confusion stretching his mind from overwhelming him, Matthios entered the banquet hall with quick pronounced footsteps, severing the conversation with his presence.
“Your Majesty,” he said, his voice as emotionless as Calum had ever heard it, “Lumen’s army has made camp outside the city walls.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Calum’s heart rate increased, and the confusion that had threatened to overwhelm him before multiplied. He closed his eyes and breathed slow deep breaths to try to collect himself.
“Gavridel and I have already made preparations for the inevitability of an attack tomorrow morning,” Matthios continued.
The King considered Matthios’s words for a long silent moment.
When Calum dared to open his eyes again, he caught Axel smirking. He tried to get Axel to cut it out with only his facial expressions, but it didn’t work. Axel just winked at him instead, and his smirk turned into an all-out grin.
Lilly, still clad in her fire-colored dress and seated next to Calum, clutched his hand under the table. They were running out of time. With Lumen’s army primed to attack, they might not even reach the end of the three days they’d agree to with the King.
Worse yet, they weren’t any closer to truly resolving the majority of the issues they’d presented to the King than they’d been since their first slate of conversations two days earlier. They’d shared ideas and made suggestions and hoped to develop a real plan of action, but truthfully, they had little to show for it.
Had that been intentional on the King’s part? Perhaps a stalling tactic of some sort? Had he been unwilling to commit, or had he too readily met their suggestions with objections?
If Calum were honest with himself, he would’ve said no. The King had seemingly dealt with them in earnest, and even now, a flicker of hope that they might be able to resolve their differences still burned in Calum’s heart.
“Very well,” the King finally said. “Thank you, Matthios. Please send word if you require my direct intervention.”
Matthios bowed low. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
As Matthios moved to leave, Valerie entered the hall next. She curtsied to Matthios, who gave her a quick nod and then rushed out. The King’s attention fixed on Valerie next, and she bowed to him, albeit not as low as Matthios had.
“Your Majesty,” she said, smiling as usual, “if it pleases the King, I would like to request a private audience with you.”
“It cannot wait?” the King asked.
“Regrettably, no.” Valerie’s smile shrank. “It is, in fact, quite urgent.”
Rather than asking Calum and the others to give them the room, the King rose from his chair and apologized to them. “Forgive my rudeness in truncating our dinner and conversation, but I must attend to other matters.”
Without waiting for their responses, the King followed Valerie out of the banquet hall.
“Should we go after them?” Lilly asked.
“With all this food still here? And Lumen’s army at the city gates?” Axel reached for another chicken leg, bringing the total number on his plate to four. “Nah. This might be our last chance to have a good meal for a few days. Better to enjoy it. Let them panic while we feast.”
He opened his mouth almost comically wide and bit into the chicken leg.
Calum chose to ignore Axel again. He turned to Lilly. “I’m not sure what else we can do.”
“How long do you think it will take them to breach the city walls?” Lilly asked. “My Windgales will have no problem getting past their archers, ballistae, and catapults, but I can’t say the same for the Saurians, Wolves, or humans.”
“I’m not sure,” Calum said. “I doubt Lumen will attack until sunrise at the earliest, though. If the army has only just arrived, they can’t fight until they are rested and fed, and that’ll take time. My bigger concern is what might happen to us when Lumen does attack.”
Axel stopped chewing and let one the chicken leg drop to his plate. Grease still coated his lips and cheeks. He swallowed the mass of food stuffed in his cheeks and said, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. If Lumen attacks before our three days are up, does that mean the King is gonna…”
Axel’s eyes widened, and he grabbed a cloth napkin from the table. Without another word, he snatched up his half-eaten chicken leg and placed it onto the napkin, followed by several rolls, chunks of meat, cheese, and fruits.
“What are you doing?” Lilly asked.
“Stocking up,” he replied. “If we have to try to escape, we need to have food stores in case we have to hide until we can safely escape the city. You guys should do this, too.”
By the time he finished, the cloth napkin was so overloaded with food that half of it fell out onto the table when Axel tried to tie the corners together. Then, without so much as another word, he took his bundle of food and rushed toward the door to the banquet hall, occasionally dropping bits of food behind him as he went.
“As much as I hate to admit it, he’s got a point.” Lilly clarified, “About how the King might react to us when Lumen attacks, I mean. Not about the food.”
Calum nodded. He was still having trouble focusing with everything that was going on, but Lilly might’ve been right.
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nbsp; “The King said he wouldn’t let any harm come to us, but I agree that might’ve been a temporary promise.” Even as Calum said it, the idea that the King would just kill them didn’t sit right. He shook his head. “But I don’t believe it was. I don’t think he’ll go back on his word.”
“I hope not.” Lilly’s voice carried a guarded tone to it.
Calum squeezed her hand and stood. “I’ve lost my appetite. Let’s go see if we can get a glimpse of the army from one of the windows overlooking the city. I know it’s silly, but seeing Magnus lumbering around the camp would do a lot to calm my nerves right now.”
Lilly stood and gave him a smile. “It’s not silly. I understand.”
The two of them left the banquet room behind, and servants filtered in after them to clean up the remnants of their dinner.
To Axel’s relief, he’d not only managed to find his way back to the training grounds for sparring that afternoon, but he’d also located the small room where they had stored his Blood Ore armor and sword.
Better still, the area was totally unguarded thanks to the arrival of Lumen’s army. Everyone was preoccupied with preparing for the beginning of the battle tomorrow.
Axel set down his makeshift satchel of food, confused as to why it felt so much lighter than when he’d first run off with it, but right now, getting his gear back was more important. He wiped his hands clean on his trousers—really, the King’s trousers, since this current set of clothing had come from the King—and he prepared to kick open the armory door.
A thought hit him, and he stopped. Instead, he reached for the ring mounted to the front of the door and pulled. It swung open. They’d left it unlocked.
Stupid, trusting fools, he mused.
Axel grabbed a nearby torch from one of the walls and used it to light up the inside of the storage room. The distinct iridescent shine of light-blue metal caught his eye immediately.
His armor and his sword.
Axel planted the torch in an iron bracket mounted to the wall and stripped off his borrowed clothes down to his undergarments. He wouldn’t need them any longer.
As soon as he’d realized the end of his time within Valkendell was fast approaching, he’d decided it would be on his own terms rather than on anyone else’s. If he could escape, he’d just as soon do it now, in the confusion of the moment. And if they tried to kill him, he’d go down fighting.
He’d been surprised when they’d brought out his armor and sword for him to use while sparring with—or rather, beating the sunshine out of—the King’s soldiers, but he hadn’t complained. Someone had even fixed the huge dent that the gemstone warrior—the Imperator known as Gavridel, he’d learned—had left in there with his axe.
That had surprised Axel the most. Somehow, they possessed the capability to repair even Blood Ore armor if it had been damaged. He’d thought that skill was exclusive to Saurians, but apparently, he’d been wrong.
Within minutes, he’d strapped his armor back on and tightened his grip on his sword. It felt just as amazing and empowering as it had that afternoon. It felt right.
Amid the sea of silver- and black-clad soldiers throughout Solace, he’d pop out like a badger in a bakery, but he’d stand a better chance of fighting through his enemies with his armor and sword than without, so the choice was easy.
Plus, maybe he could cover himself up with a bed sheet or a blanket or something. He had to head back to his chambers to try to convince Calum and Lilly to come with him anyway— though he doubted they’d go for it—so finding something to cover himself with shouldn’t be too hard.
He snatched up his satchel of food, and then he rushed for the hallway once again.
Lumen’s eyes were always open. He lacked the ability to see everything at once, a power that, according to the oldest lore, only the King possessed, but he could still see just about everything that happened within a certain range of his presence. Wherever there was light and Lumen was nearby, he knew what was happening with relative certainty.
He’d discovered a few days before that the Dragon King and the Shadow Wolf were plotting something behind his back. Were it a coup, he needn’t be worried; they couldn’t have killed him even with the combined strength of both their armies put together, plus fighting him themselves.
Instead, he realized they were planning something equally as nefarious: they were planning to attempt a rescue of Calum, Axel, and the Premieress, Lilly.
The rescue itself wasn’t the issue; it was their insubordination that infuriated Lumen. After the trio had gone missing, Lumen had closed the issue, despite Magnus and Riley’s objections. Now they were moving forward with a rescue attempt anyway.
Insubordination could not be tolerated. If these so-called “leaders” of their races refused to adhere to Lumen’s orders, then the solution was simple:
They would be replaced.
Normal people in Solace might not have noticed an enormous black thing blotting out sections of the starry sky above, but Riley was anything but normal.
With his enhanced eyesight in the dark, he could see not only Magnus’s outline but also some definition in his wings, his head, and even vague Sobek shapes riding atop his back. And that was all while running through the fields toward the city walls at an incredible speed.
Riley thought back to when he’d just been a Wolf—a scared one, at that. Condor had stabbed him, and Axel had wanted to leave him for dead. He’d been virtually worthless to their group for most of their first journey to Western Kanarah.
Things had changed. He had changed. He was unique among all the Wolves.
Powerful. Skilled. Strong. Fast. Silent.
Finally, he was no longer weak. He had reached the pinnacle of what his kind could become, and now that he’d killed Rhaza, Riley was the only Shadow Wolf in all of Kanarah, just like Magnus was the only Dragon.
He commanded the full strength of the Wolf tribe of the Desert of the Forgotten, and he had their undying loyalty. They would beg, bite, kill, and steal for him. Or, as was the case tonight, they would sneak into the world’s most secure fortress and rescue three of Riley’s friends.
Well, two of his friends, anyway, plus Axel.
The city’s white walls reached some twenty feet high. Even in the moonlight, they glistened, smooth like alabaster but as hard as Magnus’s scales—or perhaps even harder. As such, there was no climbing up these walls. Not without a rope or a ladder, anyway. But he and his Wolves had brought neither.
As he ran toward the walls, Riley felt as though he could’ve jumped clear over them. Were it not for the plan, he would’ve. But as he was the only Wolf capable of such a feat, he had to wait. His time would soon come.
Once he reached a spot about fifteen feet from the wall, he concealed himself in the tall grass and surveyed the walls. As they’d expected, the city gates were barred shut, and dozens of guards clad in black leather armor patrolled the tops of the walls. Even in the night, Riley’s keen eyes could pick each of them out as if they were walking torches.
He glanced up at the night sky. High above, Condor waited to play his part in this plan.
Riley waited for the guards to pass each other on the wall. Whenever they did, there was a brief period of time where the guards’ attention wasn’t attuned to a small section of the wall. That was their chance to get inside.
As the two guards in question approached each other, Riley signaled the first of his Werewolves to begin his approach. Though the Werewolf’s footsteps barely registered any sound amid the tall grass, Riley heard them as if they were thundering drumbeats moving ever closer.
The two guards passed each other, and then the Werewolf reached Riley—perfect timing.
Riley crouched low and created a foothold with his hands. The Werewolf stepped onto Riley’s palms, and he jumped as Riley flung him high into the air—almost high enough that he could’ve cleared the wall had they been closer, but any closer than they already were would put the entire operation at risk.
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p; When the Werewolf reached the zenith of his leap, Condor shot in like a bolt of black lightning. He caught the Werewolf by his extended arm and carried him high over the guards’ heads and into the city.
Wisps and Windgales could only fly with as much weight as they could carry on the ground, so it was more of a glide than actual flying, but it got the job done. Condor dropped the Werewolf into a bed of shadows behind some buildings and zoomed back over the wall as Riley adjusted his position in the grass.
A couple of the guards glanced around and up to the sky, but they saw nothing. Perhaps they’d heard something when Condor had rocketed past them, but they’d never be able to see him. Nor would they see the Werewolves gliding in, either—as long as Riley got the timing right.
Before long, Riley and Condor had launched half a dozen Werewolves into the city. Then Riley himself made the leap. He landed on the city street with a roll and disappeared into the nearest shadow as if he were part of it.
It was a silent, seamless transition, so much so that a young man walking the street and facing right toward him hadn’t even noticed. Riley waited for the teenager to pass him by, then he left the security of the shadows and began to make his way through the city.
Compared to flinging his Werewolves over the city walls with perfect timing, reaching Valkendell was easy. At night, with only the moon providing light from above, the ample shadows of the buildings proved more than sufficient as a means to traverse the city.
As planned, Riley established a rendezvous point based on his scout’s recommendation, and the other Werewolves came to him. Thanks to Condor, the supplies they needed for the next phase of the plan were already there, waiting for them in the shadow of a large building across the street from Valkendell.