The Journey to Karrith

by Ted Neill

  “Then I ask you, is there anything we can do?”

  Chloe drew back, her eyes moving from the execution stage to the windlass. She shifted to look between the balustrades at the Swiftwind rocking in the surf below.

  “He would want me to get you to safety, Prince.”

  “True, but if it were one of us down there, what would he do?”

  Chloe bit her lip and balled her hands into fists. “We came together. We should leave together. But I have to get you to safety, you are the prince.”

  “But I have an idea.”

  Mounted on the back of the elk as he was, Haille could see over the heads of the gathered soldiers all the way to the stage where the commandant was still reading the sentence, the lower curl of the scroll growing thin and short as he neared the end. Val and Cody were lost in their own thoughts; only the executioner noticed Haille and Adamantus gallop into the main yard. The man in the hood was not ready for the sight of Haille, brandishing Elk Heart in the morning light, on the back of an elk whose antlers gleamed like swords. But before he could sound an alarm, Haille cleared his throat, knowing his next words, his shout, his interruption would be the very fulcrum that all the coming events would turn upon.

  “Commandant Marsch, I am Prince Haille Hillbourne of Antas, son of Talamar Hillbourne and Airre’Soleigh Pascal. I call your authority corrupt and at an end. I challenge you to single combat for the lives of my friends and to defend your honor.”

  The soldiers broke formation and turned to Haille, then the commandant, his eyes wide and white in his ash-covered face. He crushed the ends of the sentencing scroll in his fist. Val and Cody looked as shocked as he.

  “I hope you know what you are doing,” the elk said to Haille over his shoulder.

  Haille spun Elk Heart in his hand, a show of bravado he did not necessarily feel. “It’s what Yana once told me, turn an enemy’s strength into a weakness and you can win the day.”

  “Wise words in theory, but in practice he still may be many times your match.”

  The elk was right and Haille knew it. So far, his sudden appearance, escaped from the dungeon riding on an elk had had its intended effect. All eyes were trained on Haille and Adamantus. Now it was time to build on the drama of the moment. Haille spurred Adamantus forward. The soldiers parted for them as they rode up to the foot of the stage. Haille did not like surrounding himself with the commandant’s men but if all went according to plan he would only be facing the commandant himself.

  “What is this mockery?” Marsch growled.

  “It is you who make mockery of justice with your twisted notions of honor. Your daughter’s blood is on your hands,” Haille said, throwing fuel on the fire.

  “You dare—”

  “Do you meet my challenge or no?” Haille asked. He felt Adamantus’ muscles tense beneath him. In answer, Marsch threw off his black robe. Beneath, he had dressed for the occasion in his most resplendent armor: greaves, gauntlets, breastplate, and hauberk shone golden in the rising sunlight. Haille stifled a gulp and cursed inwardly as Marsch made for the stage steps and stretched out his hand. One of his men brought him his weapon of choice—not a sword but a spear with long blades on either end and serrated crossguards where each blade met the shaft. For the first time Haille saw the smallest of smiles creep into the corner of the commandant’s mouth, a thin worm of satisfaction twisting on his face. Haille knew the challenge was accepted. He knew the protocol as well, patting Adamantus on the neck and sliding down from the elk’s back, his own legs shaking as he stepped onto the grainy earth of the main yard.

  “There will be no mercy, no clemency, no matter who you claim to be, brat,” Marsch said, his teeth flashing yellow in his blackened face. “You forfeited that when you challenged my honor.”

  Haille had no words for a response. Instead he squared off with the commandant, stepping into the center of the clearing formed by the soldiers. Marsch spun his spear shaft in the air, the blades making a low whistle.

  I’ve backed myself into my own corner.

  No sooner had he thought so, than Marsch launched his attack, swinging the spear shaft down at Haille, a reaper ready to scythe away a sheaf of wheat. Haille reacted, catching the blade squarely with his sword but he had no counter except to retreat when the commandant spun the other end of the spear shaft at him, the bladed crossguard just missing Haille’s shoulder. Haille immediately realized his disadvantage. Facing such a weapon, wielded by an experienced adversary, was like facing two swords with one.

  I don’t stand a chance.

  The commandant’s next attack was similar: a strike with one end of the bladed staff followed by a swing with the other, then another with the original end. It was not long before Haille’s left shoulder was sliced open and bleeding and his clothes dirty from ducking and rolling away from the onslaught of strikes. For a moment, the commandant changed his attack, charging in with the end of the spear like a lance. Haille dodged once, and twice, and just when he was falling into a rhythm the commandant swung the spear low at his thighs. It was too late to duck so Haille leapt over the swing. The commandant used the same attack again and Haille realized it was not meant to harm him, yet, but rather to expend his energy and tire him.

  It was working. Haille knew he had to change his attack, shift some advantage to himself. The next time the commandant charged, Haille struck the shaft to the side and moved closer in. Marsch was ready for him, jabbing the crossguard out like a dirk for Haille’s gut. Haille pivoted, slipped, rolled with his own momentum out of the way just as the blade came down and gouged the earth in his wake. As the commandant did so, however, he overreached and Haille knew he had to make the best of the opportunity. He swung Elk Heart out at the commandant’s lower leg and left a gash in his boot with a red, bloody wound inside it.

  But it was not enough to slow Marsch. The commandant moved in again. Haille backed up against the stage then darted away from the next attack. He ran into the crowd of soldiers who parted for him and parted even further for Marsch who stalked him through the yard. Haille’s shoulder left a trail of blood on the ground. There was no more delaying. This was the end game. Haille could feel it. He moved with his back to the soldiers, facing the stage. Marsch strode forward, sweeping his weapon in great arcs that Haille unartfully parried, Elk Heart dropping heavily between strikes. Haille was fighting for breath. One of the blades nicked his brow. Blood was weeping, tricking down his face. Marsch showed no mercy, he was a butcher readying himself for the final blow. Haille ground his heels into the earth. He knew there was no yielding. No grace would be granted. He raised Elk Heart a last time, positioning his field of vision so that he could see Marsch approaching, the stage behind him, soldiers absorbed in the contest, Val and Cody waiting, watching, horror on their faces—all oblivious to the shadow of the windlass cage passing above and dropping down onto the stage behind them.

  The cage crashed with a great thud of wood on wood, the excess cable looping into a pool beside it. The impact jarred Gunther, who had ridden inside it, to the floor. But he recovered himself, rose to one knee, and pounded the ground with the heel of his hand. A howl rose like a coming storm, even though the sky remained clear. The curtain wall trembled, loose mortar dropping out from between the stones, just before a rush of wind blasted the entire courtyard. The whole crowd of gathered soldiers and the combatants were knocked into the air and onto the ground. Even Gunther himself was thrown to the edge of the cage by the whirlwind he had called down. The soldiers holding Val and Cody fell to the edge of the stage. The captain and his friend wasted no time. Although their hands were bound they rolled to their feet and ran into the cage. Once aboard, Gunther slammed the door behind them and signaled to Chloe at the controls to hoist them up.

  The courtyard was blanketed in a cloud of dust. Adamantus, the only figure left standing in the gale wind, galloped up beside Haille, picked up his collar in his teeth and flung him onto his back. Haille grabbed hold of the elk’s fur with his free hand
and parried a spear thrust with Elk Heart in the other. He braced himself as the elk sped across the yard to the stone steps leading to the battlements.

  Chloe was moving the cage overhead as quickly as the mechanism would allow, but it was not fast enough as the soldiers began to reform ranks and load their bows and arrows.

  “They need more time,” Haille said.

  “We’ll grant it,” Adamantus said, charging back, away from the steps, into the waiting ranks of the soldiers. The sight of Haille astride such a beast sent some running. Those that stood their ground found themselves hurled into the air by Adamantus. Others who tried to outflank them, Haille met with Elk Heart, the sword singing with each crash of arms. The blood from the cut over his eyes was draining onto Haille’s neck, wetting his collar. His shoulder was burning, but he had fight left in him yet.

  Marsch was rallying his men, bellowing orders. Adamantus turned and charged the commandant from behind. Marsch, hearing their approach, spun at the last moment, but the game had shifted now. Met with an onslaught of antlers, he was forced to fall back, crying out for reinforcements. They came in the form of reconstituted phalanxes of soldiers but Adamantus charged through like a mad boar. It took all the strength Haille had to simply hold on while the elk scattered spears, tossed swords, and trampled down foolhardy soldiers. The yard was chaos. Haille could see the cage had reached past the wall and was riding downward to the waiting Swiftwind.

  “Time to leave!” he cried out to the elk.

  The stairs to the battlement were blocked by a fresh assortment of soldiers who had formed a wall to cut off their escape. Closer by waited the steps which led to the drum tower and the commandant’s chambers. The elk galloped up the steps leaping them three, four at a time while Marsch himself led the charge after them. Adamantus reached the double doors that two guards tried in vain to hold before he kicked them both to the ground. Hooves rang out on the stone floor and Haille ducked a chandelier of candles as they passed through the entry hall.

  “Which way?” Haille cried, scanning the doors, most of which were too small for the elk and rider to pass through together.

  “The only place we know,” Adamantus said, turning up another set of stairs and bursting into the commandant’s chambers where they had met the day before. Haille dismounted once inside and locked the door behind them. He stepped out of the way just as the elk pushed a bookcase down against the door, books and folios flopping into the floor. Over it all watched the beatific face of Evangaline Marsch, impassive, alluring, her features lit bright by the rising sun.

  The door shuddered as an ax head hammered into it, its blade biting between boards and splintering the wood.

  “Well, I guess we succeeded in freeing our friends,” Haille said.

  The door splintered further. A gap appeared through which he could see the snarling faces of soldiers. Adamantus moved to tumble a second bookcase down in front of the door but it was just delaying the inevitable. They both retreated to the far end of the room, upended the commandant’s desk and positioned it as a barricade to stand behind. They took positions at either end.

  “We make for some fighting pair,” Haille said.

  “You showed true honor and courage today, Prince Haille. Your father and friends would be proud.”

  Haille could not reply as he felt something catch in his throat. The door splintered again and exploded open. Men rushed and tumbled over the fallen furniture, Marsch following close at their heels, brandishing his spear.

  “The boy is mine! The boy is mine!” he cried, making his way to the front of the melee, throwing his own men aside as he did. But he stopped at the edge of the attack, his eyes raised to his daughter above, his face gone soft . . . pleading, “No!”

  Haille could not imagine that he and the elk cut out so fierce a sight as to stop the mad commandant short. He looked to the elk and then back to the window and the face at the center of all the strife, just before she shattered in a cloud of colored glass. A shadow swung behind the face just before a wood strut slammed through her right eye, followed by joists and struts and the floorboards that made up the windlass cage. The shards of the window formed a sparkling menagerie of color, hovering, spinning, in the air, a rainbow of razor sharp edges that Haille shielded his eyes from. The shards flew into the room causing all but the commandant himself to duck. Crimson gashes erupted on his face as glass lodged in his flesh. He did not seem to notice as tears left tracks in the ash on his face and his daughter was taken from him, once more.

  Adamantus heaved the table up in his antlers and sent it hurdling down at their attackers. It struck Marsch first and sent him tumbling into the mass of his soldiers. Haille pushed open the gate of the windlass and held it aside as the elk leapt aboard. He scrambled on after and even before he closed the gate Chloe had swung them out away from the fortress, the mortared walls moving away, the sea sweeping into view below, and the wind whipping about them. Haille clasped a cage strut in one hand, Adamantus in the other. An arrow shot through the shattered remnants of the window, so Chloe, still at the controls, wasted no time pushing the machinery, its winches and weights, to move them out of bowshot. The motions were quick and abrupt and Haille felt an overwhelming sense of dizziness as he looked down on the Swiftwind and the other waiting ships, seagulls circling in the air between them, the sun glinting bright in the surf smashing up against the foot of the cliffs.

  Chloe was alone at the end of the crane and she looked over her shoulder as soldiers approached her position from the battlements. Haille read the concentration on her face as she ignored the coming threat and maneuvered them so they were just over the Swiftwind.

  “How will she—” Haille began just as the cage jumped and started to descend, the counterweight moving rapidly up from below. The soldiers were just short of Chloe now. She drew her sword, not to engage them but to smash the levers on the controls, rendering them useless. The cage jumped again as they began to descend faster. Just as the soldiers were about to reach her, Chloe clambered up from the control seat through the struts of the crane arm, balanced on the ridge of its back, and began to run.

  It was no small feat to behold. She ran without fear, her feet coming into place, balanced on the main strut of the windlass, her hair flying, her sword flashing as she discarded it—no need for it now—as balance was paramount. Haille strained his neck upwards as they continued to descend, watching Chloe as she neared the end of the arm, took . . . one . . . two . . . three . . . last strides and jumped into the air. He felt himself gasp watching her as she floated, beautifully, dangerously, helplessly, in the air. But she was not without purpose. Her trajectory carried her within reach of the main cable which she caught, her body swinging, legs wrapping around the thick line like a lover, arresting her fall. She rode now in the controlled descent of the windlass, Haille letting out a cry of triumph just before they splashed down into the water off the stern of the Swiftwind.

  Green-blue waves washed over both elk and rider, the cage sinking halfway in the choppy water. The excess cable clapped down all around them and it was not long before Chloe splashed down along with it. She surfaced gasping for air, the droplets of water sparkling in her braids like pearls in an ocean crown, her face split with a wide smile as she breaststroked over to the cage and opened it.

  “An escape for the songs,” he said.

  “A plan for the ages,” Chloe replied.

  “Not without some valuable improvisation,” the elk said.

  Ruane’s rangers tossed them lines over the stern of the Swiftwind and lifted Adamantus up in a fishing net. Dripping wet, he shook himself like a dog, as per usual, and splattered all gathered, Gunther, Katlyn, Chloe, Cody, and Val. Katlyn, having been lowered first to the Swiftwind, nearly knocked Haille off his feet when she hugged him. Victor Twenge was on deck as well, his expression difficult to read, as if he himself were still deciding how he felt about his abrupt change of sides.

  Val wasted no time, slapping Haille upside the hea
d. “That is for rescuing me and so is this,” he said, embracing Haille, pulling him close to his chest.

  Cody was next, his eyes still wet with humility and sadness but there was also joy and relief in them, plus something else. If Haille did not know better, he would have called it pride.

  “Nice work, young elk rider.”

  Chapter 29

  Celine

  A fly had just landed and subsequently drowned in the last spoonful of Gail’s porridge. She was contemplating scooping up fly and porridge in one last bite anyway, but on second thought, considering where the fly had likely been and the proliferation of waste in the city, she set aside the bowl and spoon on the wooden walkway beneath her.

  “You going to eat that?”

  The question came from Lorne, a Karrithian warrior with full beard and head of hair. The same could not be said for his teeth, which had been lost in fights, to decay, or both. But he was a survivor, as the nicks in his ax and dents in his shield could attest. She imagined his gut could handle whatever contamination the fly brought.

  “Help yourself,” Gail said. “There’s a fly in it.”

  Lorne promptly set to scooping the sides with his fingers and licking the rim. She reminded herself not to use that bowl again.

  “Can’t be choosy in such times as a siege,” Lorne said, sucking his fingers clean. “You’ll regret it later when the food is scarce.”

  “Aye, I might.”

  Or I might not have the bloody flux.

  She looked out from the raised ramparts of the castle’s curtain walls over the city and toward the host of Maurvant that continued to gather, trampling and burning the fields of wheat, barley, and beans that ringed the city. The tribesmen, having taken the bait, decided to reveal their numbers, laying siege to the city, coming to fight the combined forces of the Antans and Karrithians on a battlefield of their choosing.

  And what numbers they had! Numbers even Gail had not expected. Their camps metastasized outside the walls, their fires lighting up the night, the smoke blocking out the sun with a haze during the day. It would have been Gail’s tactic to attack them as they gathered, to keep them off balance, but the safety of the city walls had proven too tempting, an advantage that had been too good to pass up.