Embers of Empire

by Michaela Strauther

  Her mother stared at her. “I don’t believe you were just out and roaming.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Etzimek told me a man attacked you on the streets when I lost track of you two. He told me that an older boy saved you. He also told me that the boy was giving you information about this place—”

  “Information that you refused to give me!” Sathryn interjected.

  “He also told me that you might have run off with said boy. Is that where you were? Off with some boy?” Her mother looked at her. “Were you?”

  Sathryn shook her head and tried to keep any hints from her voice. “Maybe if you answered my questions . . .”

  Her mother sighed and looked away. “Oh my goodness, Sathryn, what is it that you wish so much to know? I told you where your father was!” Her mother glanced over at the Lynot woman and her child, who was no longer crying, and apologized.

  The Lynot smiled and shook her head.

  “He was in a rebel group. The group warred against the kings, and so some died, and others were taken to a prison. The ones that were captured will be put on trial—”

  “I know all that already.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  Sathryn wanted to know why for so long her mother had lived under the kings and didn’t see the dismay they caused through their reign. She wanted to know what made her see it, if it was like what had happened to Julian’s mother. But she had to explain all this without mentioning Julian. Just before she replied, however, there was a rustle in the doorway, and Sathryn turned to see Etzimek emerging from the strands of grass looking upset before he saw her. He rushed to hug her and caught her face in his calloused hands.

  “I was so worried,” he murmured, “because Mother sent me to find you but I couldn’t—you weren’t—are you okay? Where were you?”

  She peeled his hands from her face and shrugged. “Just looking around. You don’t have to get upset. I was safe.”

  Etzimek ran his hands through his hair and groaned. “You don’t know that! Have you already forgotten the man that attacked you? There are creatures out there plummeting to rock bottom, and they aren’t afraid to drag you down with them.” His eyes glossed over.

  She’d never seen Etzimek cry—well—only once, when they first left Pomek and couldn’t take anything but the clothes they wore, couldn’t announce their departure to friends or relatives, couldn’t get enough sleep, food, money, or anything. Her perfect older brother stood in front of her on the verge of tears just because she had wandered off.

  It would have made her smile had she not been thinking about how Etzimek had told their mother about Julian.

  “Okay.” Sathryn looked between Etzimek and her mother. “I won’t leave again.”

  Her mother stood from the bed and grabbed her bag from the floor. “You most certainly aren’t. I’m going out to get the food. You are staying here with Etzimek.” With that, her mother turned toward the door, her coat pulled around her, and left.

  That Lynot woman was trying to sleep now. She held the baby against her and her eyes were closed, but she couldn’t have been asleep already.

  “You told Mother about Julian,” Sathryn whispered to Etzimek.

  He nodded, sitting beside her on the bed. “I had to. Is that where you were? If it was, I would tell her again if I needed to.”

  Sathryn didn’t answer him.

  “Is that where you were?” She didn’t answer. “Sathryn?”

  “Yes! Fine! You figured it out, that’s where I was. I was with Julian.”

  Etzimek shook his head and closed his eyes. “Why? Now is not the time to be sneaking off to see a boy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t just trying to see him, Etzimek. I’m not like that. He seems like the only one here willing to give me answers, willing to explain things to me. You and Mother weren’t doing that.”

  He glared at her. “We were telling as much as we knew you could handle.”

  “Then you don’t know what I can handle,” she answered.

  Etzimek’s hand rested along her shoulders and he pulled her into him. “I guess not. What did he tell you?”

  He was talking about Julian. Sathryn rested against Etzimek, something she didn’t do often, and told him all about what had happened, keeping her voice low enough that the Lynot wouldn’t be able to hear, whether she was awake and listening or not. She told him about how she had found out where Julian lived, about the prying Faerie woman—though she lied about how much money she gave her. Etzimek would have been upset. She told him about the party, leaving out details about the children, and told him about how it was celebrating crossbreeds of different creatures. When she got to the part about Julian—about how everyone thought she was his mistress—he pretended to be upset, but she felt him laughing.

  She glossed over a lot of what Julian told and showed her—the parts about his mother and his underground chamber full of lethal weapons. She had a feeling that he didn’t want anyone else to know about it. She talked about what he said about prison and trials, and even told him that the kings could turn into actual dragons. She couldn’t tell if he had known this already or not. When she finished, Etzimek was quiet for a while.

  After what seemed like forever, he pulled himself away from her so that he could look at her. “Nothing else?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing else.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  She shrugged. “I have a question for you now.”

  His eyes narrowed even more.

  “Are you going with that army tomorrow? That Dominus guy from earlier today said he would send people to every hut to make sure all able-bodied men went with him.”

  Etzimek sighed. “I guess that means I have to go, doesn’t it?” He shrugged, offering her a small smile.

  “Do you want to go?”

  He tried to hide the doubt. “I want to help. If that means I go, I guess I’ll go.”

  The Lynot turned on her mattress. “My husband left with a rebel army a few months ago.”

  Sathryn nor Etzimek responded.

  “He was captured and taken to prison. Many of the men died. My husband wrote to me, said those men are the lucky ones—”

  “Must you say that?” Sathryn snapped.

  Etzimek’s jaw clenched.

  The Lynot said nothing more as their mother shuffled through the door. Her bag was stuffed as full as she could get it with food, and she placed it on the bed. “It’s nothing special, just some fruit, bread, cheese . . .” Her voice trailed off as Sathryn grabbed for food, picking up anything her hands touched.

  Etzimek scolded her and pulled her back. “Sathryn, please. This has to last us a while. We don’t have the money to just eat up everything and buy more like we could in Pomek. We must be conservative.” Her mother nodded, agreeing, and allowed Etzimek to distribute the food. He handed Sathryn a piece of bread, cheese, and a handful of nuts. “You need protein and fats to keep you full.”

  “No, I need more food to keep me full,” she grumbled. Etzimek glared at her.

  Once they finished eating, her mother lay back down, still exhausted from their long walk. “Keep an eye on her, Etzimek.”

  The next morning, Sathryn awoke to a loud growl followed by repetitive shrieking. Etzimek and her mother were both already awake and rushing around the room, grabbing bags and coats and shoes.

  “What’s going on?” Sathryn smelled smoke floating through the doorway. The growls were getting louder.

  “Get up.” Etzimek pulled the blankets from her body and tossed a bag at her.

  She looked at her mother, who was gathering all she could carry from the hut: blankets, food, and money. The Lynot woman was there too, her children crying in the corner so loudly that they matched the volume of the groans and snarls outside.

  “They found us.” Sathryn’s mother hurried around the room. “We have to leave again. Now.”

  “Who? The kings? How did th
ey already find us? It’s only been a day.” Sathryn stood from her bed and grabbed her bag from the floor, slinging it on her back.

  No one replied. The shrieks and cries and roars erupting from outside were closer.

  The shriek erupted again, and through the cracks in the mud-brick wall, Sathryn saw fire.

  Before they could run outside, a tall, barrel-chested figure rushed through the doorway—half human, half animal. One of the Beastmen. Its body was matted with thick, black, curly hair, its hands and bare feet too large for its frame and its head much too small. It surveyed the room, sniffing the air like a dog, and for a while, everything was quiet.

  Then, its eyes rested on her mother, and before Sathryn could move, the beast hurled itself at her mother, throwing her over its shoulder and racing out of the doorway. As its fingertips brushed the walls of the hut, the bricks caught fire.

  Etzimek shouted something from the other side of the hut, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. He rushed toward her and grabbed her arm, dragging her to the door just as the flames along the bricks grew. “They’re setting the camp on fire,” Etzimek shouted once they were both outside. “We have to go!”

  The roof of the hut, made of slabs of wood and straw, collapsed. Inside, someone screamed. “The woman.” Sathryn looked up at Etzimek. He was pulling at her arm and shouting at her to move. “The woman is still in there!” Sathryn shouted back at him.

  The thick smoke obscured Etzimek’s face. Over the cries and shouts from the massive crowds of people running about the camp, she could hardly hear his reply. She yanked her arm from his grip and rushed back inside.

  A blanket of thatch from the roof had crashed down across the beds, trapping the Lynot woman under its weight. She was screaming, but Sathryn couldn’t hear it over the shrieks outside. The Lynot mouthed things at her children sitting on the bed. One was older than the other two, and was pulling at the wood trapping their mother while the other two cried.

  The bed caught fire, but the children didn’t move. Sathryn ran to the bed, leaping over falling, burning sticks, and grabbed all three kids, a boy and two girls. By the time she ran back outside, the whole thing had swallowed itself in black ashes and orange flames.

  All around her, the same thing was happening to every single one of the huts she had seen standing only yesterday, their gray bricks and wood roofs reduced to no more than charred rubble. The Beastmen, inhumanly fast and strong, lumbered around the camp, killing people at random with their large claws and setting everything they could alight. However, some of them, Sathryn noticed, were being hit by arrows. As they rushed across the land, they would be hit in the leg or chest. This wasn’t enough to kill them, but it slowed them down.

  Etzimek grabbed her arm, slung her over his shoulder, and ran, leaving the Lynot children behind.

  “Wait!” Sathryn screamed at him, beating on his back, but he wouldn’t stop running.

  The children huddled in a small cluster, looking around at the fire and crowds and Beastmen. Sathryn’s eyes stayed trained on them until Etzimek rushed into a cluster of trees, closing them from her vision.

  He set her down in the grass below, then sat beside her, panting and wiping the sweat from his face.

  Despite all the things she needed to say to him, she couldn’t say a thing. Every time she tried to speak, her lungs rejected her request and choked her with thick, black smoke and dust instead. Her ears rang; her eyes watered. And she hadn’t noticed before, but her skin was burning. Patches of her clothing had burned away through her skin, leaving blotches of the skin along her arms and legs a startling bright-red color against her light-brown complexion. She ran gentle fingers over the redness, but snatched them away at the tingling in her arm.

  “They took Mother.” She hardly recognized her raspy voice.

  Etzimek nodded, breathless. “I’m going to go get her.” He stood on weak, tired legs. But when he looked back over at Sathryn, he must have seen something—her dirty face, the cuts along her head and arms, her burned skin—because he sat back down and inspected her.

  “You’re hurt.” He pulled out a small canteen from his bag and screwed open the cap, then ripped off a piece of cloth from his coat and used it as a rag. Once wet, he dabbed it over her burnt skin.

  “Sathryn!” a familiar voice shouted from within the thicket of trees.

  They were far enough away from the noise that she could hear who it was. Julian emerged from her right, carrying a bow-and-arrow set in one hand, a long knife in the other, and a large bag on his back. He rushed to her, concern strewn across his face, and nodded to Etzimek, who shoved him back so hard he fell.

  “What are you doing?” Etzimek was so much bigger than Julian in both height and build. “Why must you weasel your way into everything?!”

  Julian, brushing the dirt and ash from his clothing, kept his voice calm. “I was just going to help. She looks hurt. I saw her get burned back there.”

  Etzimek was enraged. “So you’re spying on us now?”

  Julian shook his head, his face grave. “I’ve been up here for a while, shooting at the Beastmen to slow them down.” He gestured to his bow. “I just happened to see you both. I can help her.” Julian pulled off his bag and set his bow, arrows, and knife on the ground.

  Stress lined Etzimek’s face. “I’ll go find Mother.” Julian tossed him the knife. Etzimek didn’t even reach for it—he let it fall to the ground.

  “You’ll need it,” Julian warned. “One stab with it and those beasts will die.”

  Etzimek stared at it for a second, then bent down and picked it up. “Thank you.” He looked at Sathryn, and though he didn’t say anything, his look told her all she needed to know. Then, he turned and ran back toward what was left of the camp, tearing through the trees and kicking up dirt behind him.

  Sathryn tried shouting at him—“wait,” or maybe “come back”—but hardly anything came out. Her voice was still as dry as the ground underneath her.

  Julian was rummaging through his pack. When he looked up, a small bag in his hand, his expression was mournful. “Don’t cry. You’re too dehydrated already.” He offered her a small smile, but she couldn’t return it.

  He pulled out a small canteen and handed it to her. She opened it and drank. The water was warm, but she drank anyway. It washed away the coating of dust she felt sticking to the sides of her throat.

  Inside the small bag were a bunch of clear, glass vials filled with liquid of different colors. He opened a green one, placing the rest back in the bag. “Where are your burns?”

  She held up her arms, but there were more red spots down along her legs. And even though she couldn’t feel it before—shock, perhaps, or adrenaline—the cold of the air bit her exposed skin like a serpent would a rat. He poured some of the thick, green liquid into his hands and rubbed it gently over the red splotches decorating her skin, apologizing when she flinched. Then, he wrapped each spot with strips of clean cloth from his bag.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  They waited in silence for Etzimek. The sounds from the camp were obstructed by the trees so that everything outside of the rustling leaves and Julian’s light breathing sounded muffled.

  It felt wrong to be sitting there doing nothing, especially since those creatures had taken her mother—shouldn’t she be panicking right about now?

  “They took her.” Sathryn looked over at Julian. She was resting against a large tree, one that had probably been alive more years than she and Julian combined, and Julian sat beside her.

  He looked at her. “Your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  He was quiet for a moment. She could only imagine the thoughts racing around his mind—probably thoughts of his own mother.

  “Will they kill her?” asked Sathryn.

  He didn’t reply for a long time—what felt like forever, but what was more likely a couple of seconds. “No. If they wanted to kill her, they wou
ld have done it on sight. If they took her, they probably want to bring her back to the kings.” His voice was hopeful, but mention of the kings didn’t make her feel better.

  “Is she going to be okay?” She didn’t look at him.

  Julian took a deep breath. “I don’t know. But your brother . . .”

  “I don’t think he’ll find her,” Sathryn said. “She’s already long gone.”

  Julian stood. “Do you want me to find your brother? Bring him back?”

  It had been much too long since Etzimek left. “If you’re going, I’m coming with you.”

  Just as she stood, the smell of smoke drifted into the air again. At first, she thought it was the wind blowing in the smell from the camp, but after looking around, turning in circles to find that smell, she saw it.

  At the edge of the cluster of trees, the giant, hefty frame of a Beastman stood still, watching Julian and Sathryn with cold, dark eyes.

  Julian beside her slowly bent down and grabbed his bag, slung it across his back, and handed her a knife. “It’s not poisonous if you touch the blade,” he said quietly. “Not like my other ones.” He held a bow in his hands and a quiver dangled from his shoulder.

  “Now Sathryn . . . ” His eyes never left the beast. “I don’t know what you know about the Beastmen, but make sure you know this—they are unpredictable. You see how that one is watching us?”

  As he said it, the beast crept toward them. He was moving so slowly that it was almost comical.

  “Don’t let him fool you. They’re fast, and they have unbelievable stamina. They can climb, they can swim—they can’t fly, but neither can we. We won’t be able to outrun them.”

  “How reassuring,” Sathryn said. The knife he had given her was heavy in her hand.

  “Lucky for us, they aren’t too clever.” The beast dragged its hand along the tree trunks, setting them alight with its claws. He was still moving toward them, his eyes never leaving theirs.

  Julian moved backward. Sathryn followed him.

  “We need to keep this distance between him and us,” Julian said. “When I say so, we turn around and we sprint as fast as we can to the opposite edge of the woods. When I say so, we split up—I’ll go right, you go left. If he follows you, make a lot of turns while you run. Confuse him. I’ll circle back around and attack him. If he follows me, do you think you’ll be able to attack him? All you must do is run up from behind and stab him. Aim for the head or neck—”