The Twin Princes

by J. M. Topp

  Eymeg wiped his face of the frigid dripping water and spat. Jolien leapt onto Vos and blew a strand of hair from her face. She helped Gosfridus onto her saddle. Vos whinnied lightly in protest. Eymeg frowned and picked himself up.

  ‘Vos can’t carry all of us,’ said Eymeg with a frown.

  ‘You’re right. How kind of you to offer a lady and a young boy to ride the horse while you, the man of this group of travellers, lead on ahead to ward of dangers of all kinds,’ said Jolien with a sly grin.

  Eymeg watched as droplets of water fell from his hair onto his chest, and glared again at Jolien as he tightened the straps of the saddle. Jolien turned to face the city.

  ‘How much time do we intend to spend in that city?’ asked Gosfridus from behind Jolien. She slapped the reins of the thoroughbred and began to make her way to Aivaterra.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ said Eymeg as he made his stride beside the horse. He pulled on Vos’s bit and led them into a thick field of wheat. ‘Andre has something for me.’

  He stopped the broodmare when he thought it too close to continue on mount. Eymeg walked in front of his horse’s face. ‘Now look, Vos. You have been a good steed to me. I haven’t gone anywhere you haven’t been afraid of going. You’re worth ten Aivaterran horses.’ Vos snorted and licked Eymeg’s face. ‘You’ve earned your freedom.’ He slipped the bit from Vos’s mouth and then undid the saddle, allowing the heavy leather to fall to the ground. Vos whinnied and leapt forward when Eymeg slapped her side hard.

  Vos sped off into the night most likely to return to Floddenvale.

  ‘It’s a shame,’ said Eymeg, knowing she would be caught and abused by bandits or killed and eaten by starving peasants.

  JOLIEN CROUCHED IN the wheat fields, and Eymeg knelt beside her. Gosfridus stumbled behind them and fell on his face. He sneezed loudly. Eymeg reached back and picked him up by the cloak around his neck. He frowned and shook his head, turning toward the noise of rustling armour in the night. Aivaterran guards walked beside the half-built walls. They carried spears in their hands and strolled about, patrolling the edge of the city. Their steel caps and spearpoints glinted in the firelight from their torches. A soldier on horseback, halberd in hand, rode atop the wall stopping from time to time to inspect the wall and speak to his men.

  ‘What is that?’ asked Jolien, pointing to the wall. Eymeg squinted and saw a body hanging from a noose. A sign hung around the neck of the man. Eymeg couldn’t see well enough in the darkness to read it, but he didn’t have to know what it meant.

  ‘It’s a warning to all those who try to break into the city.’

  ‘We have the pass, don’t we?’ whispered Gosfridus, his voice cracking.

  ‘We do, but I am also a wanted man, it seems.’ Eymeg shook his head. ‘Come, let’s move closer.’

  ‘What good is the pass if we were simply going to break in anyway?’ muttered Jolien, but Eymeg ignored the question. He crept through the tall grass, careful to keep his head as low as possible, but then the tall grass ended. An open field of short grass lay before him a good thirty yards. They would be fully exposed and would have nowhere to run. He eyed the horseman, who trotted past them, his eyes scanning the fields.

  ‘We aren’t going to make it,’ whispered Jolien.

  ‘Wait—there, look,’ said Eymeg, pointing just below the dead man swinging in the soft breeze. He could see a hole just big enough to push through.

  ‘That’s probably where that man was captured,’ said Jolien.

  ‘Oh—fucking—well,’ said Eymeg as he grabbed Jolien and rushed through the open field. Gosfridus picked himself up and ran after them as fast as he could. No one shouted, and no alarms were raised. Eymeg stared down at his legs as they pushed hard against the ground. Jolien pulled her hand away, and to Eymeg’s surprise, despite her long, tattered dress, she was able to keep up with him. After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the cold stone walls. Jolien went in first and then Gosfridus without any difficulty.

  Eymeg put in his boot after the serf.

  ‘Oi! There’s someone there!’

  Eymeg’s heart stopped in his chest.

  ‘Hurry, Eymeg,’ whispered Jolien hoarsely through the hole. Eymeg crouched, but his cloak was too heavy. He fell to his knees but still couldn’t fit through.

  ‘It’s too small,’ he snapped.

  ‘Stop playing around and let’s go!’ whispered Jolien hoarsely. Eymeg bit his lip and looked up at the dead man hanging by the rope. With all his strength, Eymeg leapt up and grabbed hold of the body. Fortunately for him, the corpse hadn’t been dead long enough for his joints to lose their strength. The rope was sturdy enough to carry the weight of both of them. Eymeg pulled himself up and held onto the rope the dead man hung from. The body swayed in the harsh breath of the wind. Eymeg swallowed hard and fought to control his breathing.

  Three Aivaterran pikemen rushed to the hole with torches in hand. Eymeg hid his head behind the dead man’s neck. The putrid smell of decaying flesh rose up to his nostrils, and flies that had been feeding on the corpse’s flesh bit at Eymeg, but Eymeg didn’t move. The rope creaked, and he looked at the face of the dead man. Rikfried’s crusted eyes stared off into the distance. Eymeg’s eyes widened, but then he closed them as the torchlight illuminated the walls.

  ‘I swear I saw a shadow,’ said one of the pikemen.

  ‘There’s nothing here, Ysgremiah.’

  The horseman rode up to them. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Ysgremiah said he saw something, the damn blind bastard.’

  ‘Wait,’ the horseman said. ‘What is that?’

  Shit. Eymeg’s arms were beginning to burn, and the strands of rope were cutting into his hand. He wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.

  ‘It looks like gold.’ The horseman dismounted and knelt to the ground. He picked up a golden medallion and held it in his hands. ‘I wonder who this belonged to? Mine now.’

  ‘I saw it first,’ complained the man named Ysgremiah. ‘It belongs to me.’

  ‘You saw a shadow, you fool. It’s not anyone else’s fault you didn’t claim that gold,’ said the horseman as he dropped the golden medallion into his satchel. ‘Back to your posts now. The sun will rise in a few hours, and I’ve been wanting some of Mónika’s spiced ale since the shift started.’ The three pikemen grimaced at the sound of the horseman’s preferred drink. They all meandered away. Eymeg looked down at the ground and then let himself fall silently. He pushed his way through the hole, making some of the brick crumble on top of him. The wall groaned but held up.

  Jolien rushed at him and hugged him with tears in her eyes. Eymeg, being caught off guard, chuckled lightly. Jolien stiffened and pushed herself away from him. Gosfridus stared on, a marked dampness spreading through his trousers.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ Jolien said, viciously wiping tears from her face.

  ‘Your medallion, you dropped it,’ said Eymeg.

  ‘I didn’t drop it. I…I threw it.’

  ‘Why would you do that? It was valuable. Probably would have paid for a nice house in the city.’

  Jolien bit her lip. ‘Yeah, it probably was a waste for your stupid face. We have to leave. There are patrols on this side of the wall as well. Come, Gosfridus.’ She grabbed the altar boy’s hand and looked to the faint light from a torch flickering in the distance. Eymeg nodded, and they snuck through the half-destroyed houses and rubble. Eymeg glanced back and saw the two dangling feet of the late Rikfried on the other side of the wall through the hole.

  ‘Fool,’ Eymeg whispered. The shadows the moonlight cast covered their traces as they made their way into the waking city.

  THE SUN HAD risen in the sky, and Eymeg, Jolien, and Gosfridus still hadn’t made their way across the centre of the city of Aivaterra. Everything was being rebuilt, it seemed. Towering chapels had been toppled down, and workers were busy collecting the stone. They would put it all back together with plaster and other building materials only f
ound in Alder Isle. The once well-built roads that had been the fame of the city had craters in them where barrels of blackstone had exploded. Eymeg guided Jolien down the Street of Thorns, which was famed for being the first street to be laid with brick in Aivaterra and also for being the landing place of Oredmere in this world. Or was it in Yorveth? Eymeg had never known which to believe. All priests differed in their stories of the origins of their god.

  Now, the Street of Thorns was the centre for sword-and-armour vending stalls, as most of the Market Square had been destroyed. Aivaterran men, women, and children scurried about the wide stone street. The looks on their faces were not quite right. They didn’t make eye contact with Eymeg. They stared at the cobblestone street, walking briskly but as if in a trance. He couldn’t blame them. He had heard of the events that had taken place in the city. The majority of the populace had either died at the hands of daemons or at the command of the Hallowed Masters in the blasting of the city with the explosives known as blackstones. Eymeg pushed his way through the crowds and rubbed shoulder to shoulder with the passersby as he walked down the street with Jolien close behind him. Gosfridus struggled to match their quick pace.

  At the end of the Street of Thorns stood a shop famous throughout the entire world. The Iron Aegis. Yet when Eymeg walked up to the front door, he couldn’t hear the sounds typical of a blacksmith shop, and no smoke was exiting the chimney. Eymeg knocked on the door three times.

  Nothing.

  ‘Well, that’s perfect.’ Jolien pouted, crossing her arms.

  ‘Shut up, woman,’ hissed Eymeg. He peered through the cracks of the wooden door, but there was only darkness inside. He pushed the door, but it wouldn’t budge. It was barred on the other side. He knocked once more, as hard as he could. Where could he be?

  ‘Who are you looking for?’ asked Gosfridus, staring at the sign above the shop.

  ‘The blacksmith who works here. His name is Andre,’ said Eymeg, looking down the street. Jolien sniffed and put her hands into her sleeves. The winds weren’t so intense inside the city, but the cold held a sting to it—which was strange, as it was supposed to be the dead of summer. The heat of Aivaterra was legendary, reaching temperatures making it nearly unbearable to even stand in the street. Yet now Eymeg would have believed it if someone had told him it was approaching the end of fall. He pounded on the door once more and listened for any movement from within.

  Not a peep.

  ‘You looking for Andre, sir?’

  Eymeg turned to look at a woman beside the shop. Her face was covered in wrinkles, and a white mop of hair rested atop her head. She sat at a spinning wheel, slowly intertwining the fibres of cloth together. She turned to Eymeg, revealing that she was blind. Her irises were entirely white, moving in all directions as if to catch any light.

  ‘Do you know where he is?’ asked Eymeg, leaning on the halberd tied to his belt.

  ‘He tried to kill himself, he did,’ she said, spinning thread over thread. ‘I smelt the smoke of flesh, unlike the smoke usual from a smithing shop, and told my grandson to fetch the guard.’

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  ‘He is being kept in a house at the Southern End. Oredmere knows how much we need such a skilled blacksmith at a time like this. He was badly burned when he was found. The Hallowed Masters pampered him like royalty. Andre must be living it up now, the poor bastard.’ The woman coughed. ‘It is said he lost his hands in the fire. ’ad to have ’em sliced clean off.’

  Eymeg turned to Jolien. ‘We need to find Andre. He has a message for me.’

  ‘You are a newcomer, aren’t you? You weren’t here for the invasion, and you didn’t see the retaking of the city. I told my grandson to get away from the window and keep low to the ground, just in case one of those barrels exploded near the house. He did say, though, that two horrible and gigantic monsters followed them. One a snake and the other a giant bull.’ The woman shivered. ‘What horrible times we live in where devils breathe the air same as us and walk the ground we tread on.’

  ‘You have been very kind in telling this to me,’ said Eymeg as he fished a silver coin from his pocket. He handed it to the woman, but she shook her head.

  ‘You are kind, sir, but Oredmere will reward me in his own way.’ She smiled warmly.

  ‘Pshh, too blind to see that he is indeed doing that—’ began Jolien, but Eymeg shushed her, thanking the woman once more.

  They made their way down the Street of Thorns, slowly through the crowds, but just at the end of the street, two Aivaterran pikemen turned the corner. ‘Hey! You there!’ they shouted at Eymeg, pointing at him.

  Eymeg stopped in his tracks and turned, bumping into Jolien. He grabbed her hand.

  ‘Fuck. They recognised me,’ he whispered as he led Jolien the other way. Gosfridus scurried behind them.

  ‘Murderer!’ shouted one of the pikemen. People began to scurry and scream, trying to find who the pikemen were yelling at.

  Eymeg pointed at a man, shouting, ‘There he is, the murderer!’ This allowed him a gap in the crowds as people began to push toward the shocked man to apprehend him. Eymeg darted into an alley, pulling Jolien behind him. They ran from alley to alley, making sure to get as far from the Street of Thorns as possible. Turning this way and that, ducking into random alleyways with Gosfridus panting behind them, Eymeg turned back to see that no Aivaterran guards were following them. Finally, he exited the alley and sat down beside a few wooden crates. He drew his hood over his head. Jolien walked up beside him, panting. She froze as the two pikemen emerged from the alley. They were closer on their heels than Eymeg had thought. Jolien knelt and pretended to be making conversation with Gosfridus, who nearly barreled into her. The pikemen ran past Eymeg and Jolien, in search of a target still running away.

  ‘That was too close,’ said Jolien.

  ‘By Oredmere,’ was all Gosfridus managed to say.

  Eymeg gasped and stood up, pulling his hood back. His eyes didn’t even meet Jolien’s.

  ‘Eymeg, what are you doing? They might see you!’ she said, but he wasn’t paying attention to her. He walked to the other end of the street where a poster had been nailed to a signpost. He pulled the sign down and looked at it. Jolien walked up beside him, and a look of horror clouded over her face.

  There, etched into the parchment in crisp black ink, was Jolien’s face. The words WANTED FOR MURDER, were written eloquently beneath the portrait. Eymeg could barely believe his eyes. He pulled the poster from the peg in the wall.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ whispered Jolien. Shocked, she snatched the parchment away from him. ‘They think I killed Lord Fastolph?’

  From the corner of his eye, Eymeg saw three Aivaterran guards jump at Jolien, grabbing her arms. Within seconds, she was in their grasp. She tried fighting them off but to no avail. Eymeg, realising the guards didn’t suspect him, took a step back and put a hand out to push Gosfridus back.

  ‘What are you doing?’ yelled Gosfridus at the guards. Eymeg huddled into the crowds with Gosfridus as a knight-captain emerged from the alley riding on horseback. He wore bronze armour, and his faceplate was that of a viper. He pulled his visor up and stared at Jolien.

  ‘Well, miss, I do believe finding you was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Foolish for you to come here, I think,’ said the knight-captain. ‘By order of the Hallowed Masters, I, Knight-Captain Ansfrid of the Bronze Vipers place you under arrest for the murder of Lord Fastolph and his men. You are charged with murder, terrorism, and intrusion of this holy city. Men, take her to the dungeons.’

  ‘No! I didn’t do anything—’ But Jolien’s words were cut short by a fist to her stomach, dealt by one of the Aivaterran guards. They pulled her away, holding her by the arms. She looked back with an intense glare. Ansfrid’s eyes caught Eymeg looking away. The knight-captain studied him and Gosfridus carefully and then approached them as the guards led Jolien away.

  ‘Are you with the lady?’ he asked.

  ‘No,
sah,’ said Eymeg, mimicking the accent of an Aivaterran shepherd. He nodded curtly. ‘Never met her ’fore in m’life.’

  ‘You bastard!’ shouted Jolien, but another blow to the stomach silenced her tongue.

  ‘Shame, she would have relished the company.’ Ansfrid led his warhorse down the street casually. Eymeg stared as Jolien disappeared out of sight.

  Gosfridus glared up at him. ‘You are a coward.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  The World Beneath

  ‘YOU COULD HAVE stopped me from leaving,’ whispered Robyn as he disappeared into the flames. ‘Come. Join me beneath the waves, or did you forget you loved me? Why can’t you just—’

  ELYMIAH GASPED AWAKE. Her torch flickered dimly at her feet as the flame began to fade amongst the loose and crumbled stone. She reached for it, but something stopped her arm from moving. She turned to her metal arm to see that her steel hand had been stuck in the concrete trap door. It was completely crushed. Since there was no pain, it was clear it was only the steel part and not the flesh.

  ‘Shit,’ she whispered as she untied the thick leather straps on her chest and arm. She pulled herself from the trapped steel prosthetic. She considered shouting to see if Coda or Theodric would hear her, but then, whatever had set that trap might hear her as well. She gripped Alamánd in her right hand. The weight of her sword gave her small comfort. At least she had not lost that. She sheathed the weapon and patted her pouch to make sure the pistol was still there at her side. Pulling it out, she put three small lead balls into the barrels, just like Artus had taught her. Elymiah realised she could either hold her pistol or the torch. With a heavy sigh, she put her gun back into her pouch and picked the torch up.