Alexa Drey- the Gates of Striker Bay

by Ember Lane

  “With what I’ve seen today, I’d say most places are safe enough as long as I walk in her shadow. Besides, I’m of an age, a true age, where the speed of my walk is directly related to the danger I head toward.”

  “But what if that danger rushes to you?” Melinka sat back, her manner victorious.

  “Then I have Pog,” Faulk replied easily.

  “Striker Bay,” I told him. “That’s where we’re headed, and from there, in all likelihood, Ruse.”

  Faulk took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Ruse—a land of legend, and each legend as bad as the worst you’d imagine. Ruse? Would I be able to help you there?” He spread his arms wide. “I suppose I’d come with my own unique set of benefits. No lock would bar your way, and another’s traps have never bested me. I can normally spot a hidden passage.” He stared up at the ceiling. “Yes, I'll consider putting my talents to some use, if you’ll have me, that is. All joking aside.”

  “Say yes,” Pog urged.

  “I can’t imagine why you’d want another grumpy, old man with you,” Melinka said, but her voice had a hint of humor. “Surely two’s enough.”

  “But with three,” I pointed out, “at least it won’t be the same old voices.”

  “A good point,” Melinka said. “I vote yes.”

  “And I vote”—Mezzerain thumped the table—“I vote no vote. Faulk helped us today, and we need every bit of help we can get. If he’s foolish enough to want to accompany us, no one should stand in his way.”

  “Well, that saves me asking,” Sutech added. “After all, my usefulness was completed when I was ganged up on by Alexa and my daughter. Still, if Faulk’s in, I’ll consider it an open invite and throw my lot in too.”

  Mezzerain wagged his finger. “Not so fast there, Charm. Faulk isn’t the enemy.” Mezzerain sat back, clearly pleased to have trapped Sutech and wrapped him in his words.

  “Am I?” Sutech posed the question that had been on all our lips since we came to Valkyrie.

  I chose to answer, in hope more than anything else. “No, no, I don’t think you are, not anymore.”

  Sutech signaled a waitress over. “The question, though mine in the first place, was for me to answer too. Shall we eat? My treat.”

  “I think we can call that an admission fee,” Mezzerain said, clearly happy to be bossing the situation.

  “Then perhaps Faulk should pay half,” Sutech pointed out.

  “No job, no pay—I’m now just a poor, ex-trapmaster. I shall have to decline.”

  Mezzerain rolled his eyes. “I’ve never met a poor trapmaster.”

  I let my gaze roam the table and then around the inn. The celebrations were muted, that temperance born of surprise and shock. A day that had begun with no hope had suddenly offered them everything they’d dreamed about. For us five, now six, we were content to lurk on the periphery of their joy. But if I could celebrate anything it was the firm friendships that bonded us. Maybe we did need Faulk; maybe he could ground us, stop us flying where a walk would do.

  Sutech still considered his allegiance, even as we ate, leaving his own question unanswered. My gut told me he wouldn’t be able to fight us once we returned to Mandrake, but that very much depended on what had passed while we’d been away. What if Lincoln destroyed something he loved? Or what if his forces had destroyed Lincoln? Would our newfound accord just vanish? I suspected it might.

  “So, where next?” Faulk asked.

  “South to Striker Bay,” Mezzerain told him.

  “But you’re intent on breaking Ruse and the combinium's stranglehold on Valkyrie?”

  “And all else.”

  “Well, might I suggest that Pangor is on the way. I hear they have a tower of an identical design to Douglas’s. In fact, I know it as I helped build it.”

  “You could get us in?” I asked.

  “Pangor is no Douglas. It has a much larger population. Do you want an observation and nothing more?”

  “Your voice is as good as any here, Faulk. If you’ve got something on your mind, it’s better out in the open.” I watched him. This was no impulse but something he’d been thinking about for a while—you could tell.

  Faulk held his hands up. “Look, don’t take this as criticism, but we got away with it today—one tower, one fort, and not a lot of chance for Ruse to react. Pangor would be a different matter. They have enough troops there to begin rounding up innocents and slaughtering them.”

  “So, your suggestions,” Sutech asked, a slight snap to his words as though his trust for Faulk had evaporated.

  Faulk explained.

  We crouched low in the reed grass, the moonlight turning the broad river silver. Faulk was right; Pangor was much larger, and the bridge in was heavily guarded.

  It had taken us two days to get here. We could have done it in one by sea, but stealth was our ally now, and if the combinium was looking in any direction, it would be the sea route from Douglas to Pangor.

  Faulk rifled his tool bag and brought out a spyglass. “Ten, maybe more on the bridge, no way through there.”

  “One way,” I muttered.

  “But that wouldn’t serve our stealth. They don’t know where you are; we should keep it that way.”

  Fortunately, Faulk had working knowledge of Pangor, and he had a plan. Pangor occupied a basin at the mouth of the river Pangrell. Apart from a few dwellings and one inn, its main mass was planted on the south coast where it boasted a stone stronghold and a city wall on all sides, barring the river and sea. It was as Faulk had told us: a different prospect to Douglas.

  “So see that sprinkling of farms to the east?”

  I took the spyglass from him. “Three dots of amber,” I replied.

  “That is where we head. I lodged there for a while—it’s a safe house. Tower work is good, but the months are dry ones between first and second fix. Certain folks always had work…”

  “You worked on a farm?” Mezzerain asked, clearly confused by the choice.

  “Not quite,” Faulk replied but didn’t elaborate further.

  We retreated from the bank, returning to our horses, and we rode east and away from Pangor. If Faulk had one fault, it was a lack of explanation. We were taking a lot on trust, but at the same time he was the only one with local knowledge. Both Mezzerain and Melinka heralded from the east side of Valkyrie, and one had been away for a while, the other in Horn’s Isle. No, Faulk was as close to a guide as we could have hoped for.

  “So why are we traveling away from the city?” Sutech asked.

  “We need another crossing. There’s a ford about two miles up. We’ll take that.”

  When we came close, Faulk reined his horse to a stop. “Pog?”

  Pog immediately dismounted, vanishing forward and into the thick undergrowth. We waited, not a word spoken, until he returned and was back on his horse with barely a breath of noise. “A small party of soldiers, nothing much, just a hut and fire.”

  “And now?” Mezzerain asked.

  “A small party of dead soldiers,” Pog said, puffing himself up with pride. “We can rest up once you all drag the bodies away. I’m stealth and silence, not brawn and bluster.”

  I scowled at him. Sometimes he was just a little reckless: effective, but reckless.

  Mezzerain, Sutech, and Faulk cleared the corpses. I gathered firewood and built a fire, lighting it with a fast dribble of mana, and Melinka vanished into the woods, soon coming back with a small pig.

  “They change the guard around an hour after first light—we’ve got until then.” Faulk was well informed for a simple trapmaster, but soon as we sat around the fire and waited for the pig to cook, he began to admit his involvement with Joss the Nine and the resistance.

  “Recruited here,” he said, munching on a salted meat stick. “They wanted information on the priests, the tower, the lot. What better than a trapmaster? I get a free pass—access to any part of the tower I want.” He looked reticent, like he’d enjoyed his ignorance more than his part in the resista
nce. “They weren’t so organized then: mistakes were made, folks hung. It’s better now, now that Joss is in charge.”

  “Did you know we were coming to Douglas?” I asked.

  “We knew there was a fair chance—it’s the next biggest settlement to Speaker’s Isle. We were told to look out for you. Why do you think I wasn’t too surprised when you showed up on our boat? You stuck out like a sore thumb.”

  “And Pangor?” Mezzerain asked. “Do they know we’re coming?”

  “They?”

  “The resistance—whatever you want to call it.”

  Faulk nodded. “I sent word. You know the way, Mezzerain; it has to be greased. This is Valkyrie even if under Ruse’s banner. We’re all honorable but only up to a point.” He glanced at me. “This is the problem we face as far as I can see it. Everyone whispers her name now. Alexa Drey, ended the tower in Kyrie, in Douglas. Consorts with the witches of Speaker’s Isle, with Melinka, and Mezzerain. She’s a savior now, but if she fails in one town, no other will trust her—the plan will be undone. On the other hand, if Pangor falls, if there is an uprising from within, Striker Bay becomes a cauldron of anticipation.”

  “What are you getting at?” Sutech snapped.

  “She should be a ghost in Pangor. Folks might think they’ve seen her; rumors might spread, but no one will be sure.”

  “Stealth isn’t my usual way. Tell me, are you with Joss the Nine or us?”

  “Everything I told you was true. I merely left out my involvement with Joss. It’s how he survives; he wouldn’t know me if he saw me.”

  Melinka cut the pig up, serving us with its pork and a crusty roll each. “Why are you telling us about him now?”

  Faulk took a bite from his bread. “Because he’s here, and he’s already seeding Pangor’s rebellion. An army of six won’t cut it here, but one of her…one hint of her, the spark—that’s what I’ve been trying to say. She must be the spark, but the rebellion must be Joss the Nines.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us he was here?” Mezzerain growled.

  “Because I only saw the sign when we were looking over Pangor earlier. Joss is here; the banners fly slightly lower than they should. Only those who know, know.”

  “No more secrets,” Melinka said, using her cool, calm, and collected tone—the one that could kill if you ignored it.

  “No need,” Faulk said. “I have no more. The rest of what I said stands. I’m not great at fighting, but I am good at stealth and subterfuge. It’s what Joss used me for, so I suggest you do too.”

  Though he said all the right things, his omissions bugged me. By him not trusting us, he’d eroded the same in me. But I had to accept that this was an occupied land, and trust would be in short supply. Spies lurked everywhere.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Faulk looked up at the night sky. “Two keep watch downstream; the rest of us sleep, then tomorrow we meet up with Joss.”

  Mezzerain volunteered immediately, like he trusted no one else. Melinka joined him. I didn’t argue, but sleep evaded me. While I knew I couldn’t march into every hostile situation and just blast everyone to hell and back, I was beginning to wonder why not.

  The priests here offered little resistance; their magic was so inferior to my own. It struck me that ShadowDancer might have bitten off more than he could chew. Could it be as simple as him not being able to recruit enough priests? I didn’t know a whole load about how their power originated, but I did know that when I faced them it was like localized power backed up by something more. So it stood to reason that the weaker the average priest, the feebler their power was.

  Following that line of thought, if I continued to pick off the weaker towers, the power I faced would increase and not decrease. That was my best guess, and it explained why I had found the last two towers so easy. It wasn’t all to do with my enhanced power.

  That reasoning spurred me on. Rather than feeling all powerful, I had to prepare. I began to retreat into myself, to seek out my power, to shape it, and cycle it around my body. I reached out to the forest, to the trees and their shadows, to the shallow river and its wide ford, under its rocks and across its glinting surface. I sucked all its mana away, my thirst for it insatiable. My limits growing, seemingly unleashed from their tethers as my consciousness crawled out in an ever-increasing circle.

  I began to feel part of something, something so much larger than myself. Filamentous, fungal, a greater being, and that being wasn’t a combined consciousness. It wasn’t some guild but was the symbiosis of the land itself. It was nature’s harmony, her balance, and it towered up to the stars and down to the hot core, the place of demons.

  My calling was beyond that of a few battles. It was the very victory we so desperately sought. It was the future of our kind, of mankind, and of every plant and animal we had brought with us.

  I saw myself on a bed of green, lying star shaped, with every conceivable animal radiating out from me. But that only told the two-dimensional story. Under, my body molded with that earth, pale roots plunging down into a crust of thick loam, beyond a layer of rock and into the planet’s hot power. From me, from that vision of my body lying on nature’s bed, my body drank the land’s mana with the thirst of a radiating forest fire, and I understood for the first time that the land wanted to give me its power, fought to give it to me, and desperately wanted my success to be absolute.

  And so I opened myself to it wholeheartedly, completely, and it flooded into me, filling me with its power. Just as I bathed in my newfound glory, I felt an urgent tugging. I felt a sharp slap to my cheek and opened my eyes to see Melinka staring down at me.

  “Stop!” she cried. “Hide your power now! You are like a beacon, a pulse of good in a land of terror. If the combinium were unaware of our presence, I’d be amazed if they didn’t know now. Did Grandma Lumin not teach you anything?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Your concealment, it should be in there somewhere. Retreat behind its lies and chaos. Faulk, we must leave now—this instant. This place has been compromised.”

  “My skills vanished with my shamanic tree. I can’t see them anymore.”

  “They’ll still be there,” she assured me. “Just hidden—not improving. Tease it out. Have faith in Poleyna’s design.”

  We broke camp before dawn had even risen.

  They got me halfway across the river, completely unprepared, still a little dazed from the land’s visions.

  It was a sharp strike, a probe like a jab to the chin, knocking me clean off my horse and into the ice-cold water. I quickly formed a defensive shield, working feverishly on my concealment, stitching it together like a web of hemp and imagining a tough, impenetrable shell. I then slowly added camouflage over the top, knitting together a tapestry of low-level emissions like one might sense from a bird or a rabbit, a hedgerow, or a tree.

  But whatever I did now it wouldn’t alter the fact that they knew I was here, and they’d prepare. We kicked our horses to a run, galloping as fast as we dared through the forest then along its edge before making a mad dash through brimming farmland and to the buildings Faulk had indicated earlier.

  A young woman welcomed us, around my age, and bundled us into a barn, putting the horses in stalls, feeding them, filling their troughs with water, and unsaddling them. She moved with quiet efficiency and soon had the horses looking like they’d been there all night.

  “Come on, no time to waste. The priests are up to something; their tower flared bright orange not an hour ago.”

  She darted out of the barn, holding its door while we all piled through, then putting its catch over and leading us straight to the farmhouse. Inside, a man, presumably her husband, held a trapdoor open. We hurried down a set of steps and into an underground chamber, mud for walls, bunks for ten, a table and chairs and little else. She lit a candle, placing it on the table and setting the strike down by it.

  “Make yourself at home,” the woman said. “We’ll serve you lunch in an hour. In the
meantime, hold tight, whatever you hear. There'll be someone along if we get taken.”

  “Taken?” I asked but knew the answer all too well. “I’m sorry. I was careless.”

  She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “Never be sorry. They spied your power. Such strength is hard to conceal, but that same strength may tip the balance. You began an uprising in Kyrie; now its fires stoke discontent throughout Valkyrie. It is what we’ve prepared for—never say sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  The woman cocked her head. “Humble and powerful—a rare combination. Keep that light, Alexa; hold it tightly.” She placed her foot on the lowest step, ready to run up, but before she did, she hesitated. “Thank you. Thank you for caring when it isn’t even your land.”

  I watched her run up the stairs. “Wait! What’s your name?”

  “Names don’t matter, deeds do. But you can call me Eve.”

  She vanished upward, the trapdoor soon slamming and a scrape as a table or some such thing was pulled over.

  “Well, there goes stealth,” Faulk said. “I suppose they’ll suspect a full frontal assault? Might as well look at the exact opposite.”

  “I can do either,” I muttered, more out of frustration than anything.

  “But what if they prepare?” Mezzerain said, sitting at the table. “What will you do if they put a hundred children in the tower? They will change tactics, and they may find something that works. You have to be ready to do the same.”

  I thumped the table. Just as my confidence was at its fullest, my power brimming, one lapse had cost me dearly.

  Faulk dumped his ever-present tool bag on the table, sitting and bringing out a picklock or two. “They might know that we are coming, but they don’t know when. While brute force was your ally in Douglas, so stealth must be the key here. It’s like I said, you have to be the spark. Let’s think: how can we use the fact the combinium know she’s here? We must be able to make it an advantage.”

  “What do you suggest?” Melinka asked as she sat on a bunk, testing its thin mattress.