by B J Hanlon
“Magus…” he said and drew a small dagger.
There was a scream and soft feet tapped over the ground. The whoosh of the bristles flashed through the air. The Por Fen reacted too slow and took it in the chest. But he moved with the hit, twisting, grabbing the stick just above the bristles and smashing down on his forearm.
A snap and then a choking, blood filled rattle.
Edin saw the woman slump, blood draining from her neck as her eyes stared off toward the hearth as if she were in want of warmth.
Something rolled toward and then stopped at his side. The broom handle. Snapped with a single sharp point at the edge. Edin bent over to pick it up. His weak hand gripped it and he pointed the sharp end at the Por Fen monk.
His hand shook as the man glared down, then realization came over him. “You’re Edin de Yaultan,” he snorted. “It will be a boon for me to take your head back to the Inquisitor.” He twirled a knife in his hand launching an arterial mist over the room. “You seem out of sorts.”
Edin glared up at him. He had no words, he couldn’t even hold the handle solidly. He wanted to say something clever, he couldn’t. His mouth was as sere as a desert in the dry season.
In his mind, words fluttered by,
Flow with the Spirit
The Wind and Flame
Earth, Bolt, and Water
Ecta Mastrino must tame
Edin coughed, his brain fuzzy. He saw the man looking down at him curiously. Blood trailed down the front of his shirt as he reached for the fang on his neck. Somewhere, he thought he heard Arianne, in his head most likely.
Then a shocked look flowed over the man’s face. A red protrusion appeared in his chest. The man’s head turned slightly.
A great slurping sound came from the man as the large blade was pulled out. His knife clanked to the ground.
Behind him stood Flack, his dark skin shinning with sweat. He grinned down at Edin, “You don’t look too good.”
Edin opened his mouth but words wouldn’t come out, Flack grabbed a glass, the one with whiskey and poured it in Edin’s mouth.
“Better?”
“Help me up,” he coughed and raised his good hand.
Flack grabbed it and Edin still felt a strong pull on the wound.
Edin noticed the boy had filled out a bit. He looked stronger, bulkier. He was about to ask where he’d been when Grent appeared in the doorway. He wore a blood covered tunic, his helm was missing but he held his sword.
“Come, more will be on their way.”
Edin took a step, he felt weak but didn’t waver. A few more and he was out the door in the midst of a battlefield. Four men lay next to the door spread out like a fan someone would use on a hot day. There was no blood, if their eyes weren’t wide open and unblinking, he’d have thought they were sleeping.
The guard appeared with a pair of horses. “My wife?”
Grent shook his head and fire raged in the old man’s eyes.
Edin noticed a few others he’d seen around the tavern. Men and boys built for working the farms and fields. Some were bending over comrades, others clutching wounds and leaning against walls and carts.
In his brown cloak, Dorset was bent over one of the farmhouse boys and whispering. He groaned as his brother held his hand.
“These cratmongers are gonna pay.” Whispered Edin.
“The rest of the refugees from the tavern are evacuated. Runners have been sent to all the hamlets and cottages on the isle.” It was Placisus speaking, blood splatter covered his uniform, a head guardsman uniform. Thankfully, none of the blood looked to be his.
“Hike if you can, if you can’t use the wagons or horses.” Placisus was in command now, everyone moved.
It was a flat, two-wheeled cart barely wide enough for three bodies. They put Edin on and he leaned back.
Haethan’s tunic had a red slash at an angle across his chest and his breath was shallow. They laid him on the cart.
Placisus told him Arianne went to the city for assistance and they crossed paths.
“Why’s Flack here?” Edin glanced around and saw the young thief was gone. “I mean... where’d he go?”
Placisus shook his head. “He’s joined the Darsol Rose. He went to scout. The lad is slippery.”
“I hope Ashica doesn’t blame me…” Edin said remembering his promise to look out for the lad.
They continued, Dorset healed Edin a bit more… but he’d still lost blood.
They were both pale now. At the tavern, they found it empty, not even the dead were left. At times they spotted Flack and another man rushing through the land on either side of them.
It was beginning to turn to dusk when they reached the bridge to Delrot. A few straggling families, led by far-too-proud-of-themselves looking brosons, joined with them.
One of the two scouts would signal to Placisus letting him know of the people approaching. There were no more soldiers, no invaders. He suddenly remembered Kes’ father throwing her into the manor. A place about to burn.
Edin cursed the image. It was too much, he remembered the screams and shivered. These invaders, who were the majority of them? Common townsfolk or hardened warriors. Did any of them have a conscious, any have a soul. Were they like Edin at all… or where they the real abominations?
Carts, wooden planks, and all sorts of debris was piled up before the bridge, it was as if someone dropped the contents of a carpenter’s shop down and left it for someone else to pick up. Behind it was the open chasm and the wall-less city. There’d never been any fear of attack from within their own islands so a wall was never a necessity.
Now it was coming. I caused this. He thought.
Tall row buildings stood only a few meters from the precipice. Homes, offices, businesses… they were shuttered. On the roofs, crouching behind the crests of the pitch were defenders. Some didn’t look older than twelve.
A horn sounded and a group of men in makeshift soldier uniforms poured out from behind another barricade at the opposite end to open a path for the newcomers.
They could move the cart to grant the farmers entrance. Edin looked down into the shadows of the waterway. He could barely see the strait flowing below and couldn’t remember where it went.
The bridge groaned under the stress, but eventually, they made it over. Edin saw Le Fie, standing on a roof, his hand guiding a rope with a large object attached to one end and grunting men to the other. It looked like a mini catapult.
More were going up down the length of the rowhouses.
Healers met them, ushered them to the small square where he’d tried to get chits and instead was accused of starting a riot.
Makeshift tents and other structures were set up, the old and young were huddled around small campfires that emitted no smoke. With the exception of healers, there seemed to be no uninjured person in the camp between the ages fourteen and seventy.
A bit of a distance away, was a dark and ominous tent that had pained wails coming from it.
He saw a pale man step outside, he was nearly green. He sat on a bench, laid his head in his upturned hands and shuddered.
Edin was sure the man was crying.
Edin laid down near a fire with Grent on one side and Dorset on the other. They were exhausted. Edin closed his eyes, hoping he could get some sleep before the next attack.
19
The War for the Isles
Edin couldn’t.
A woman appeared, old and gaunt with trimmed hair and a face that reminded him of a skeleton. Her hands shook as she offered Edin a wooden bowl that smelled of a tomato stew. Edin wiped his eyes and stared at it like it held some question he couldn’t comprehend.
He began eating. She woke Dorset and he started eating. Grent was gone and the crowd around them were strangers. The woman disappeared into a nearby tent and came back out with a pair of mugs and a pitcher.
“Ale?”
“Yes please,” Edin said and took a huge gulp. He drank it down and poured another. His roomm
ate did the same.
“Keeping up with you is no laughing matter,” Dorset said.
“I do my best.”
“Like that first night you came back with Baili on your arm and as loaded as the Castilander arriving in port.”
Edin quickly looked around for Arianne. He didn’t see her and he nodded. “How is she?”
Dorset looked out toward the darkening camp. “She didn’t make it.”
Edin felt his heart drop. She was good. The first really good person to him on this island. She didn’t care he was Rihkar’s son or wasn’t trying to bribe Ashica for a better price on leathers.
“We were a bit a like you know.” Dorset said. “She was from the city, a good family, tailors and brewers.” He paused, though he looked like he had more to say. “She never quite fit in here. Like me. She moved out there, bought the tavern and convinced half the ranchers she’d wed them. All of it to get away from all the politics and the smugness of the cities. The carriage blotards who pay lip service to the mundane folk but secretly hate them.”
Edin nodded. “Sounds like where I’m from.”
Dorset pointed to a group huddled around a fire. “See them…”
An old man took off his shirt exposing an emaciated torso and thin arms, he wrapped it around a small child.
“They’re descended from some of men who helped maintain this place. They’re mundane, never had an ounce of the talent in their bodies and they starve. There’s never enough food on the table for them… its awful. But much of the praesidium treats them like showpieces as to why we need to be taxed. This place isn’t the refuge you thought it’d be.”
“I guessed.”
“Out there,” he gestured to the west beyond the rising buildings and the volcano toward the sandy beaches, the green forests, mountain ranges, and vast plains of Bestoria. “At least people have a chance to change their lives. Here, you are forced into a job, paid predetermined wages, and die. You do what your father had done and his father…”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“They want to live as much as we do… our invaders. They’re scared.”
“They attacked your wedding, murdered your father-in-law… murdered Laural…” Edin said feeling sad and angry as he was just now thinking about her.
“We’re a threat to them. And they to us. Casitas doesn’t see that, others don’t see that… they only see themselves, not the sick and poor of our own island and definitely not the fear of others…”
Edin swallowed, he thought he knew where this was going. “No.”
“We need someone that does, someone who has been on both sides.”
Edin remembered what Arianne said, ‘our people.’
“That is a world you’re familiar with, I’m certain, you don’t want it to destroyed.”
“No of course not…”
“There will never be a Utopia. That I can guarantee.” Dorset said. “You know I thought you were a drunk and an egoist when I first saw you. A man without principles, without ambition… but when those people were in trouble, you went straight to the hamlet without a thought.”
Edin said nothing.
“You’re a good man. Despite those you’ve killed. Maybe you are the leader we need.”
“No.”
“They’re coming.” Dorset nodded toward the harbor. “We’ve known peace here, we haven’t had the heroics of battle, mourning families and great deaths except from old age. We are who we are born as, nothing more. We need you. We’re here,” he waived his hand across the square, “all of us are together, we can’t hide anymore behind the mists. We need someone who’s been out there.”
“Le Fie has, Grent has…”
“A spy and a terrin soldier who isn’t one of use.” He shook his head. “We need a leader. Someone who can give us a purpose instead of wallowing away.”
Edin took a drink of ale and pressed his hand to his side. It didn’t hurt so bad now. “How about not dying first?”
“We will come out of this. Hopefully, it isn’t devastating for our people… or theirs because if you’re correct about the dematians rising. Both of our two worlds will be at risk. At that moment the bells began to ring like an orchestra rising from the smallest of notes nearest the harbor to the grand crescendo around him. He spun back.
Toward the south, he saw an orange glow lighting up the sky. People began to head toward the castle, away from the growing lights and peals.
Edin stood, his side burned only slightly as he lifted his sword belt and strapped it around his waist. Some townsfolk stood around, gaping, unable to do anything, all shocked by what was happening around them.
“Let’s go,” Edin said and began fighting the crowd as he headed toward the harbor. He shimmied past carts, abandoned in the street, around fences and dropped packs and worse, the people fleeing the opposite way.
He leapt a ginger cat that was busy cleaning itself, oblivious to everything around it.
Edin heard his name, he stopped. It took another shout for him to spot Arianne moving with the crowd toward him.
Whistles floated on the air followed by pops or raucous explosions. “They’ve started another bombardment. The harbor is alight.”
“What about the traps? The wards?” Dorset said. He’d stopped next to them and was breathing heavily still favoring his arm.
“It seems many of their ships have gone down… but every time one does another appears. The scrying dish…” She swallowed. “There are too many too count.”
Edin saw Grent fighting his way toward the harbor on the far right side of the grand boulevard. The opposite side.
He called his name, but the warrior didn’t hear.
Behind him was Le Fie, Placisus, and some city guards back in their normal uniform.
Edin ran and whipped around a woman who was just standing in the street wailing. Edin looked for a place to cut across to join the warriors but the human wall was too thick.
He had to find better access, freer movement. He glanced at the rowhouses about ten feet to the left. The problem with island living is that space was a premium and you’d want to get as many buildings in as small an area as possible. It was a problem unless he wanted a less obstructive pathway without people.
Edin noticed something just right. About four yards off the ground, a trellis hung from the wall with vines creeping down. Edin raced toward it and spied a barrel below. He leapt, put a foot on the barrel and pushed off reaching for the bottom rung. His fingers caught on one hand, missed on the other. Edin pressed his foot into the brick, reached with the other hand and pulled. He moved fast, climbing like a spider.
Edin vaulted over a small parapet to the angled roof and sprinted across. Ahead of him, in the black void of the ocean, orange orbs floated then fired onto the harbor. The docks burning. He saw giant green clouds in the ocean and then waves snuffing the fires and ships.
It was a minute before he reached the last of the buildings, he glanced down at a long drop to the road. He couldn’t be afraid of heights. Not now.
Edin leapt, he felt the talent and used the wind to hamper his fall. He landed.
A whistling sound came over his head, Edin glanced up and saw a small awning. He dove beneath it.
A moment later, his talent was suppressed as wan stones clattered to the ground near him. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to defy it.
Out of the corner of his eye, Edin spotted the small unit led by Grent. They were ahead of him and following the harbor east toward the beach. He stepped out.
“Edin, can you help?” Dorset called from above. He glanced up and saw his friend had followed, Arianne too was peaking over the parapet.
One thing he didn’t want was either of them to be in danger. This was his duty.
“Can’t, wan stones.” He didn’t wait for a reply and began running over the near deserted harbor. He dodged the flaming debris of carts, sacks, barrels, and bodies. Solider and civilian bodies.
Edin covered his he
ad each time he heard an explosion. It was merely luck that kept him from being struck.
The unit was fast, they all wore black and made it to the beach. Then began disappearing beyond a dune. A minute later, he crested it, he heard the clang of battle and saw groups of men trying to get out of their landing ships.
Edin drew his sword and began to run at them but the fighting stopped before he even had a chance.
Grent was finishing an assault on a small boarding vessel. But Le Fie wasn’t fighting, he was at the bow of the craft. A moment later, two soldiers began rowing out to sea.
Edin ran up but they were already too far out and with the crashing, exploding projectiles, he couldn’t be heard.
A hundred or more yards out, Le Fie stood with two other men. Their hands shot out and a beam of white-hot fire burst from the three. It rose above the waves toward the first ship a few hundred yards away. The ship exploded, its flames rising, charring the ship like a burnt cobb of corn.
The beam moved, tore into another and then another. The invaders ships were catching fire, burning for a moment then descending into the water. They were so close to each other, that from where Edin stood, it was an immense wall of flame.
A wave of relief and horror spread over him simultaneously as he watched the ships exploding one by one. At least thirty… but then the flame began to sputter, turning to short bursts that hit, but didn’t destroy.
Above he saw the flaming stones hurling toward him… no toward them. The boat was turning around and coming back.
Edin reached out, he had to help. He felt the water around them and pressed it into a wave to carry the small vessel. The rowers fell toward but the ship was moving fast.
Then he noticed it, a bomb on the direct path of the craft. He tried to turn, but the speed was too much.
Edin yelled, none of them saw it. They were going to get hit. He closed his eyes and felt for the energy. He was weak but could still feel it flowing through his body.
He felt it and let it flow out of his hand. A long thin rope flew out over the ocean toward the ship with great speed. Edin wished it, told it to expand and cover the boat.