Reciprocity : Volume 1 of The Fledgegate Cycle

by Zachary Smith

  But his words fell on deaf ears. She was unfazed.

  “I won’t let you have her,” Alyra rasped, as she tried to protect her friend with her own body.

  “It is not your decision,” the soldier in charge said.

  “What do you want us to do?” one of the other soldiers asked.

  With a vicious grin, the soldier in charge replied, “Tie up the little wildcat. We will take her with us. You can kill the other one. She broke my blade.”

  Alyra started screaming again, the fear for her friend, for the life she had lost, and for the uncertainty ahead all turning to rage. They would not take her friend from her and leave her alone.

  In agony, her nerves firing all at once, destruction rose up in her. The lightning wrapped around her arms and legs, sparking and crawling over her body.

  She looked up at the soldiers as the light settled in her eyes.

  “What’s that…?” the soldiers started to ask.

  Alyra screamed again.

  Lightning blasted out from her, burning through all of the soldiers in an instant. Hearts burned out of all of their chests, popping and sizzling. Enveloped in a plume of putrid smoke. All of them were dead before the first one even started to fall.

  Alyra collapsed right there and then, on top of Rues.

  And to her relief, she heard her friend grunt as she landed on her before falling unconscious for a moment too.

  I did it. I saved her, she thought as she went out.

  Both girls began to move a few moments later. Rolling off one another, Alyra’s strength had begun to return from her earlier exhaustion. Alyra helped Rues stand slowly as her friend cradled her ribs, and Alyra looked around the alley.

  Considering what had just happened, there was little evidence of it aside from the five dead men lying sprawled around, and the pieces of a broken sword on the earth.

  But that kind of sight was hardly unusual in these parts.

  There were some barrels farther back in the alley that had not been tall enough to hide the girls, but Alyra still thought that they might help conceal the soldiers if just for a little while.

  Alyra propped Rues against the wall and put her hammer in her free hand. “Wait here. I am going to try and hide the bodies.”

  She dragged all the men farther into the alley, lining them up along the wall behind the barrel. Their legs were visible, but their bodies were hidden. It would have to be good enough. Alyra grabbed their bags and walked forward to Rues.

  Just as she got there, she saw Rues nearly fall to the ground with the slight effort of trying to pick something up. It was the hilt of the sword that had nearly taken her life. The one she had destroyed. Alyra pushed her friend back upright and scooped up the hilt. Without a word, Rues tucked it down into her bag.

  Alyra pulled Rues’ arm over her shoulder, supporting her friend and carrying both bags. “Let’s get back to the inn. We need to get someone to wrap your ribs,” she said heavily as she thought about the men she had killed. “Those were the first men I ever...” But she did not finish the sentence.

  Either it was too difficult to say, or too unimportant right now. She smiled to herself. Her friend had survived.

  ✽✽✽

  Jorick thought about the three dead men that he and Glem had left behind. It was troubling to him that so many soldiers seemed to be in the city already. Jorick turned to the main road running toward the East Gate and past the market, and since he did not know when he was ever going to get to eat again, he cut across the corner of the market to see if any of the food vendors were braving the fear of the approaching army.

  It took him a moment to find someone still at a stall. The vendor sat bored on a three-legged stool, a paltry display of breads of all types set out on the counter. It appeared to be a half-hearted attempt to sell everything he had made before having to clear out of the street, but customers were few.

  Jorick bought one of the soft breads wrapped around strips of grilled meat, and thanked the vendor. But before he could walk away, he saw a handful of soldiers enter the market. It took Jorick a moment to realize that they were wearing the uniforms of Hasdingium army regulars, and now they started working their way across the market, checking all the open stalls.

  Jorick turned to the vendor. “Those aren’t guards, those are soldiers from the south. Duck down and work your way to the opposite side of the market, and get out. Go somewhere and hide. I will try and buy you some time to get clear.”

  The vendor looked at Jorick for a fraction of a second, dropped his apron and ducked below the edge of his booth. “Thank you. Be careful.”

  “I will. Go quickly and quietly,” Jorick replied.

  Jorick looked around the stall and the market, trying to figure out how to slow the soldiers' search. But luckily, they appeared in no hurry, sauntering along as though they were on an outing. It appeared they felt victorious already, as if the market was their own. Jorick took a bite of his lunch and began to smile.

  Setting it aside after no more than three meager bites, he reached into the recently vacated stall and picked up the discarded apron. He took off his sword belt and drew his sword, slipping it in easy reach under the counter.

  He tied on the apron and grabbed the knife with which the vendor had, only a few moments ago, been slicing the meat.

  Now, he went to work on the leg of lamb, standing in the stall and started singing like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Two coppers apiece or five for a meal! Flatbread, sweetbread, rye or oat bread… La la dee, da dee. Some for me and some for the wife. La la dee da dee!”

  The soldiers across the market spread out and came toward him. Jorick continued singing as if he was a little drunk and more than a little merry, seemingly quite unaware of the men. When they got to the booth, he acted startled to see them.

  “Here now. Where did you come from? Ah well. Doesn’t matter now, does it? Market’s been slow today. Your money will spend as well as the next fella’s.”

  He tilted his head and shaded his eyes with the hand holding the knife as he looked up at the first of the soldiers.

  “You’re a big fella, aren't cha? I bet you can eat a lot. Well, worry not; I got the best food in the market right here,” Jorick said as he gestured with a broad sweep of his arms at the leg of lamb and the hot bread sizzling on the brazier.

  The soldier spoke to the others when they arrived.

  “I think he is drunk. The food does smell good though. Why don’t we just kill him and take the leg?”

  “Here now,” Jorick said, perking up at the mention of killing. “No need for killing, I am always happy to stand the good guards of the city to a meal, I am. Ask anybody. Jorick’s always there with a meal they’ll tell you,” he said, waving the knife at the other booths in the marketplace. “Why would you kill the man who feeds you the finest street meal you ever ate in your life—especially if you can come back and be fed every day?”

  He didn’t even seem nervous, making a couple of the guards appear more than a little irritated. “You’re not afraid?” one asked, challenging him.

  “Afraid? Of what? I face death every day. I could fall on my own spit and roast alive… and I dare say my fat would be just as crisp as this here suckling pig.”

  He pinched the small piece of belly fat he mustered from around his waist. It wasn’t much. He certainly did not look like a man who spent his days cooking fatty foods.

  They relaxed, laughing at him, and he offered small pieces of crispy pig skin for them to enjoy, liberally sprinkling salt on it.

  One of the guards looked him over in the greasy apron.

  “Is Jorick a common name here?”

  “I don’t think so. I never heard anybody else with it,” Jorick replied, feigning confusion. “My father had a poor sense of humor.”

  They laughed again.

  The guard who had asked turned to one of the others. “Wasn’t Jorick one of the names we got as a guard, Lieutenant? He, wants him alive
for information.”

  The guards ignored Jorick while they discussed whether or not this Jorick was the Jorick they were supposed to be on the lookout for. It seemed very unlikely. For one thing, this man certainly seemed to know how to roast and carve a pig.

  Jorick leaned forward over the counter as if he was listening to the men talk, and he made sure to retain a small smile on his lips so they could not think he felt intimidated. If anything, his demeanor looked amused and bemused, almost entertained.

  Below the level of the counter, however, nothing could be further from the truth. He grabbed hold of one of the legs of the brazier and took his sword with the other hand.

  The men turned back toward Jorick from their conversation expecting to find the congenial drunk. Instead, they found a stone-faced man staring back at them, with steely eyes.

  His voice gravelly with anger, Jorick asked. “Well? Am I him or not?” In that same instant, he flung the entire brazier of hot coals into the faces of the men and then kicked the table from the stall into them, tangling them up for a second as he stepped into the group. He had already killed three of the men before they could get the fire out of their eyes to see.

  The others were far enough away that they had not been caught by the embers. He was rapidly overwhelmed by them; knocked to the ground, he was kicked several times and stabbed in the shoulder and leg as he fell unconscious. He heard one of the men say something to the other as he went under.

  “He’s dead. Just leave them all here. If that was the Jorick we were supposed to find, we never saw him! Understood?”

  There came a murmur of assent from the other men, accompanied by mutterings of having less to carry.

  The soldiers moved deeper into the market and finally clear of it, while Jorick lay slowly bleeding out, a red rivulet finding its way to the street gutter. He was in and out of consciousness, believing he heard them leave.

  But he thought he heard another voice as he lay in a stupor.

  “Quick lads. We have to get him under the shop before anyone comes.”

  ✽✽✽

  “Let’s go find them. I think I’m in better shape than I have any right to be after that,” Glem said.

  He looked down from the wall at the crushed and burning house, thoughtfully. He frowned momentarily.

  “We are not going to find them standing here.”

  He led Kiiryas down off the wall and looked at the open gate. The field was still burning on this side, and there were no soldiers visible on the road. In fact, all was quiet and bare.

  “Nothing we can do about that unfortunately. You saw the girls inside after the North Gate was closed?”

  At Kiiryas’ nod, he continued. “If anything happened, they were supposed to head back to the inn and gather there. So, what say you that we start there? If we don’t find them there ahead of us, we can work our way to the North Gate and see if we can find them on the way.”

  Kiiryas looked at the bodies scattered around near the base of the gate. “For an old man, you sure do make an awful mess. Has no one ever taught you to clean up after yourself?”

  Glem laughed at him as he looked around.

  “I guess I do make a bit of a mess at that.”

  The two men began to work their way through the empty streets, back toward the closest thing the girls had to a home in this city.

  ✽✽✽

  “I have to see him now!”

  Lorne heard shouting in the clerk's office as he stood in the map room reviewing the reports from around the city.

  He listened intently for a moment before walking outside to see for himself the cause of the sudden disturbing ruckus.

  The Governor stood in front of Lorne’s clerk, shaking his finger in the man’s face.

  He turned to Lorne as he entered the room. “There you are. Your man wouldn’t let me through to see you.”

  “I apologize for the inconvenience sir, but we are in the middle of a battle for the city,” Lorne replied smoothly, to try and calm the florid man.

  “I understand that. Don’t you think I understand that?” the Governor shouted, his voice progressively rising and his face reddening further. “That is why I wanted to see you. I heard that the people didn’t get out the North Gate. And the merchants are already hounding me about their homes by the West Gate. Did you really have to collapse them like that?”

  “I’m afraid so. It was the safest way to seal the gate. We don’t have enough guards to protect the other gates and maintain order in the city. That gate just added to the problem.”

  “Well. Yes, yes, I can see that. But what about the other gates? I have heard a rumor that two of them have been opened by enemy agents,” the Governor declared dramatically.

  “You heard correctly, sir. The South Gate and East Gate were both sabotaged. We don’t yet know the extent of the damage.

  “The guards are all spread throughout the city trying to protect the people. At this time, we don’t believe that any soldiers have approached the South Gate. We are not sure why that is. But we have had a significant number of them enter through the East Gate.”

  “What? Then why haven’t you stopped them?” The Governor fell back heavily into one of the waiting chairs in the room, while Lorne turned to his clerk.

  “Get the Governor some wine.” He moved over near where the Governor sat. “The guard has been redeployed to the areas of the city with the worst fighting, and they are trying to slow the advance of the soldiers into the city. We have lost a lot of good men in the fighting.”

  The clerk returned and handed the Governor the wine. The Governor took a deep draught of it and sighed heavily as he began to calm down.

  “What else can we do? Think, man. There must be something else.” He held his glass out to the clerk who refilled it for him.

  “Regrettably, sir, I believe the city may be lost. As unfortunate as that is, we may have to accept it.”

  “Unfortunate! Unfortunate? What? It can’t be lost. Why are you so calm then? We’ll all be killed.”

  Lorne stepped forward close to the Governor. “I don’t have time to explain what you are obviously too stupid to have grasped on your own.” He calmly reached forward with his big hands and broke the Governor’s neck, the clerk having grabbed the hand holding the wine and carefully taken the glass from him. The clerk swirled the glass for a moment, looking at the dead man before taking a drink from it himself.

  “Not a bad vintage at all. What a shame to have wasted so much of it,” the clerk said, pointedly looking at the Governor.

  “Hand me a fresh glass, would you? We have time for a little drink. Then unfortunately, I think we are going to have to do something about him,” Lorne said.

  “If we leave him here, you will be suspected of treason.”

  Lorne thought for a moment and walked back into the map room, and dug around. When he returned, he tossed back the last of his wine and looked at the clerk, eyebrows raised.

  “Our beloved Governor fell fighting for the lives of his citizens. He was found in the alley behind the barracks, where he was killed while rushing to tell us critical information about the attack.” He took the medallion Glem had left from the forge floor and stuck it into the dead man's hand.

  “Now grab his feet. Once we get him back there, poke a few holes in him. Make it look good. It doesn’t really matter anyway. This is a Hasdingian city now.”

  The clerk finished his wine and shrugged as he grabbed the Governor by the knees, just as if he were a sack of potatoes.

  Chapter 22

  Soldiers were spreading through Eshly as Glem and Kiiryas made their way back to the inn. The two men moved directly toward the tavern, and did not go out of their way to find the soldiers that had invaded the city. But none of the ones they crossed paths with would bother anyone again. As they neared the inn, Kiiryas took them off the main roads and into the back alleys. After a few short twists and turns, they came to the kitchen door and listened quietly for a moment before enterin
g.

  A single light sat burning in the kitchen when they peeked in. When they saw only Oarf standing near the stove, stirring a fat pot atop one of the burners, they went in. Looking around the room, Eiriean was curled on the kitchen table holding her ribs.

  The girls were both sitting on one of the benches, slumped together. Rues had bandages wrapped around her ribs and both she and Alyra were bleeding copiously from multiple wounds. Glem looked over everyone with a practiced eye.

  He walked over and checked the tension on the bandages around Rues, and looked over the cuts and scrapes on both girls.

  “Rues, you are going to look like a raccoon for a few days with those black eyes, but they will heal pretty quick. There’s nothing about you that cannot fix itself, so don’t worry and you’ll be fine.” He turned to Oarf who was wringing out the hot rags from the pot on the grate. “How is Eiriean? Can she travel?”

  “She will live but I am not going to be able to move her far for at least a week. You should all leave tonight. If you can get out of the city at all, now is the time.”

  “There are more soldiers in the city every minute. I am not sure we can get out right now. I fear it would be a mistake.”

  “He can get you out.” Oarf looked at Kiiryas seriously.

  Kiiryas then looked at Oarf for a moment, then switched and looked at Eiriean’s curled body atop the table. She moaned and wept, and seemed in abject misery as well as profound pain.

  He slowly swept his gaze over the girls and Glem.

  “What about you and Eiriean?”

  “We’re staying. The cellar can be locked from underneath. We have plenty of food. It’ll be safe enough until we can travel.”

  Kiiryas considered for a moment and nodded to Oarf.

  He turned to Glem. “I know a place. We might be able to get out after it gets dark. We will have to travel light and figure out how to resupply as we go. But I believe it can work.”

  Glem nodded. “I will see to our provisioning and repacking. We’ll also help Oarf get Eiriean settled.”