This house was constructed larger than Jhute’s, so it could accommodate an entire family. The eccentric Violets were renowned for their passion for traveling throughout the territories, ceaselessly hunting for the rare flowers and herbs they needed to make their impeccable perfumes. In addition to the trio on the buckboard, Daerec and I counted six riding on horses and two more riding on top of the roof.
“Ah, some fresh new rubes for our sport,” laughed Daerec. And without waiting for me, he sauntered towards them, comically scraping and bowing. “Lo and behold! Make way for the most infernal creature of all— the Red Harlequin!” he shouted.
The Violets merely stared at Daerec. He shrugged in my direction, puzzled. “Cannot you fools hear as well as you smell?” He teased. I unsheathed my sword to impress them, but that didn’t generate so much as an eye blink. The only thing the Violets did was change direction and slowly roll towards us, unperturbed.
“Something’s not right,” I murmured.
Daerec was now very close to them. “Tremble in fear, Violets! I say, again, this is… the Red Harlequin!”
“Daerec!” I shouted. “Come back here!”
He turned toward me, “What?”
Suddenly, two of the horsed Violets galloped straight at my friend, threatening to mow him down. At the last second, they tossed a net over him. The other four took bows out from beneath their mantles and began to ride toward me.
I ducked low to the ground to hide myself in the wheat, crawling away from the last point they had seen me. “Harlequin!” One of them shouted. It was the voice of a female chrome. Best of all, the one voice I would have recognized amongst a thousand others.
Cestia!
“Come out or we will kill your servant!” She yelled.
“I’m not his servant!” cried Daerec.
Then I heard a shout. It was Daerec again and I realized this time it was a cry of pain. “Ah! My leg! My leg! What have you done! Oh, I will kill you for this, you arrogant, spoiled wench! My leg!”
I jumped up. Daerec staggered backward, holding the shaft of an arrow that had been shot into his left thigh. My friend was now surrounded by all six horsed chromes. I could see now that one of the Violet chromes had long hair; shiny and blue-black as a raven’s wing. Yes… It was none other than my beloved Red Princess who shot Daerec. Too late I grasped, like a fool, that they were all Reds in disguise. They aimed their arrows right at me.
“Run Asheva! Don’t let them get you! Run!”
I did not listen to Daerec. Instead, I walked slowly up to Cestia and her guards, throwing down my sword, removing my dagger and also putting it on the ground.
“Let him go!” I shouted. “It’s me you want, not him.”
When I was close enough, I saw that Cestia was wearing a white mask that had a red stripe across her eye slits. Her black hair was flowing wildly in the wind.
“Kneel!” she ordered.
I did. “Princess Cestia, I need to…” I couldn’t finish my sentence because she kicked me violently in the face. Blood spurted out from my mouth. Then she kicked me in the stomach. The other Reds laughed.
“Please…I have to tell you…” I choked on my words.
“Silence!” she shouted.
She moved, around me — a raging beast, ready to attack.
“The Red Harlequin!” she spat. “What sort of creature are you anyway?”
“Let me talk,” I said but my words were immediately followed by another kick, this time in my ribs.
“Talk?” she sneered. “Talk? You killed my father and you think I want to talk with you? Samaris is shattered because of you!” Her voice broke with sorrow, but she forced herself not to cry.
“I did not kill your father,” I managed to say. “He was my friend and I cared for him.”
“Quiet!” she screamed. She gave me another vicious kick.
“He came looking for you!” Daerec protested. “Why else do you think we would be going around, trying to get ourselves noticed like this?”
“Shoot another arrow into him,” Cestia commanded. One of her guards raised his bow and took aim at Daerec’s heart.
“No, wait!” I shouted. “I beg you, leave my friend alone. Let him go. He is not to blame for my actions!”
“Never mind. I’ll shoot him myself.” She told her guard.
“I could have never killed your father!” I told her. “He was a Harlequin!”
That got her attention. She knelt close to me and I could see her indigo eyes burning beneath the eye slits of her mask. “Say that… again.”
“Your father was a Harlequin. He taught me all that…”
She whipped out a knife and stabbed me in the leg with all the strength she could muster. I cried out as a bloom of excruciating pain shot through me.
Cestia stood up and said to her soldiers: “Tie them both up. I want to hang them in our land so that my father can at least smile from his tomb at the justice I served these rogues.”
“It’s not safe to go back to the Red Kingdom, my Princess…” The guard nearest to her replied.
“I don’t care!” she snapped back. “We will hang this assassin near my father’s tomb if it’s the last thing I do. Place them inside the wagon.” She mounted her horse, adding: “And make sure they don’t bleed to death before the hanging. I want them alive and conscious when the noose breaks their necks.”
The guards removed the arrow from Daerec’s leg, bandaged both of us and then trussed us up like two pigs ready for roasting. They hustled us inside the house on wheels, which was full of weapons, slammed the door and locked it tight. Obviously, they were so sure we wouldn’t be able to shed our bonds they weren’t the least bit concerned about keeping us imprisoned with a means of defending ourselves.
“Now what, Milord?” whispered Daerec.
“Now, we wait,” I told him. Just then, the door was unlocked briefly to admit Cestia. She sat down at a table just as the house started moving.
“Great,” said Daerec. “Just the company we needed.”
Cestia remained silent, cleaning my blood from her dagger. She had not taken off her mask, but I could sense her eyes directing a similar amount of venom at Daerec. No one spoke for a while.
Finally, Daerec turned to me and said: “Are you happy now?”
I didn’t reply. I gazed at Cestia and she boldly returned my stare.
“Now that we’re all here you might as well tell her.”
Cestia pretended not to hear Daerec and continued playing with her knife.
“Go on, tell her!” insisted Daerec. “Let’s see if she really is different from the rest of the Noble rats that infested Samaris!”
No sooner had he uttered these words than Cestia placed the dagger underneath his throat.
“I may just kill you now,” she hissed. “After all, it is he that I’m after, not you.” From the tone of her voice, I knew she meant it.
“Tell her!” Daerec insisted. “Tell her she is the reason why we came out of hiding and into the Blue plains.”
“Oh, so you came looking for me? That’s odd; because I see it the other way around.”
“Well, you’re wrong! Your father saved his life in the Blue city of Ayas.” Daerec said. “That’s why we came looking for you.”
This news seemed to pique her interest. “How would he have done that?” she asked. “In the Blue Territory, no less.”
I studied her for a moment, trying to reconcile my memory of the warm, well-spoken female with this angry feline seated before me. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand how she felt, or how guilty I must certainly appear – I just wanted to believe that she would be open enough to hear my side of the story because she felt something for me, too. My feelings for her had definitely colored my natural sense of caution and now I fervently did not want Daerec to pay if I had made a mistake. I took a deep breath and started to tell her the story of how I met Chtomio.
“Your father changed after the death of your brother. He wanted to m
ake things right. He wanted to unite the territories. He had come in disguise to Ayas to give back the masks of dead Black warriors to my former nation as a token of peace. That’s how we met.”
“I’m supposed to believe such a wild tale?” she replied drily. “That the king of the Reds runs around in disguise, ending up in Ayas and saving the life of a miserable Harlequin? Are these really the kind of tricks you Harlequins are known to play on chromes? Telling nonsensical and stupid lies? Because if this is it, we overestimated your powers in a big way.”
“Think about it, Princess. How would I know about your brother’s death? How else could Minister Oris have ended up with so much power – someone had to rule while King Quadrio was gone for months at a time and your father’s greatest mistake was to trust him.”
She rolled her eyes in disbelief and moved away from us, like one disgusted by a disease-ridden dog. “My brother’s death is not unknown to others of my caste. My father knew how to delegate responsibility – though I grant you that trusting Oris was a serious lapse in judgment. But he was never the same after my brother died so not all of his choices were wise.”
It was then I noticed a cylindrical object mounted on the wall. It was something I had seen before, in Chtomio’s hands. “See that Scopium?” I said. “I recognize it as the one that belonged to your father.”
“So?”
“He showed me the trick,” I said.
“What trick?”
This time, even Daerec at me with curiosity. “Yes, what trick?” he repeated.
“The one that can make you change the color of your chrome. Surely you’ve seen it too,” I said.
“How can you change the color of your chrome? When you insist we have no chrome!” protested Daerec.
“That’s the trick,” I said. “That’s what the Scopium is for. To make you believe you have the chrome inside you.”
Cestia looked at the cylindrical object. She hesitantly picked it up. That’s when I realized she’d never looked inside it and Quadrio must not have ever shown it to her. “You haven’t used it, have you?” I asked.
“Of course I have,” she snapped. She aimed it at me and Daerec and peered down the barrel. I could tell from the time she took to fiddle with it that she was surprised.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“What I expected to see,” she answered calmly. Our transport jolted to a halt and one of the Red guards entered the house.
“There are Black soldiers ahead, my Princess,” He reported.
She nodded and then turned to us. “All right, supposing you are telling me the truth. There is only one way for you to prove it to me. And that is by keeping silent while we pass through the ranks of the Blacks.”
She fixed her eyes on me. “Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I managed to say. I was as eager for the chance to prove my sincerity as I was hopeful that I had not misjudged her.
“Now you are the one tricking us, Princess.” groused Daerec. “You want us to be quiet so that we can pass the Black soldiers and continue happily rolling onward to our death in Samaris.”
In response, Cestia’s voice again grew cold: “Very well then. You choose: either die here this very moment or give yourself a few more morsels of life until we reach Samaris.”
“What great choices!” Daerec snorted. “I already feel at home, again – the welfare of my Janis hides assured in the safe hands of a Red Ashi.”
“We shall remain silent,” I told her. Secretly, I felt a glimmer of hope that she did not give Daerec the kind of arrogant response so popular with her noble rank that would make him feel small.
“So you say.” she went out of the wagon leaving me and Daerec alone.
As the wagon lurched forward, Daerec murmured: “Not only are we tied up like hunter’s game… Soon we’re going to be killed by the Blacks! Thankfully, your good friend Daerec has a plan.”
“Shh!” I whispered. I wanted to hear what would happen outside. It was not me that I was worried about, but Cestia. Meanwhile, Daerec had managed to work his way off his chair and land on his stomach. He inched his way like a gigantic snail up and down the rough floorboards.
“Are you going to help me or not?” He said.
I shook my head and concentrated on the muffled voices outside. As they drew nearer, I began to separate the sharp, accented tones of the Blacks from those of our captors.
“Stand down, Violets. What are you carrying?” Said the rough voiced Black in charge.
“Silks to resell in Crodya,” came the reply.
I could hear the Reds’ horses nicker and stamp. They were nervous — not a good sign. Meanwhile, Daerec had found a way to pick up a knife in his mouth. He frantically shook his head to get my attention.
“Silks eh?” The Black continued. “Must be worth a lot in Crodya.”
I then heard Cestia say: “We seek no trouble. Name the bribe required to let us be on our way and we’ll gladly pay it just to get your ugly masks out of our sight.” This time, she did sound haughty.
No, no, I thought to myself. She may have been a princess, but she obviously did not know much about the Blacks. As I expected, the Black commander’s tone prickled with rage. “Tell us the price! You hear that brothers? These Violets think they can buy us off, just like that!”
I could hear the sound of more horses drawing closer. I quickly placed myself near Daerec so that he could cut my ropes.
“I’ll tell you what our price is!”
“Then do it quickly!” snapped Cestia.
“Do it quickly!” repeated the Black, mimicking her. “Well now, what do we have here? A little Violet queen. Is that how she treats all you male chromes? No wonder all you Violets do in that forgotten land of yours is play with females’ silks and perfumes!”
“Enough!” One of Cestia’s aides said. “Tell us the price and we will pay you.”
At last, I felt my ropes go slack. Daerec’s face was shiny with sweat from the strain of cutting me free. He rested while I undid his bonds.
“How about this?” said the Black. “The worthy tribute you will pay for our protection is your horses, wagon and your uppity female chrome.”
“You will show respect!” I heard, followed by a cry and a thud.
“You beasts!” someone else cursed. The talking stopped – interrupted by the clash and clang of steel swords. A nasty battle ensued around the rolling house. The walls shook from its force, making us lose our footing.
“Hurry Daerec!” I said. Fortunately for us, there was an abundance of swords and I grabbed the two closest at hand. My nostrils flared. An all too familiar sense of violent exhilaration pervaded my body. The rage I had bottled up within erupted. Love and wrath. Wrath and love. Now there was only wrath.
I burst through the back of the house, taking the fighters by surprise. The first thing I saw was the head of one of the Reds. It came rolling through the legs of a horse. I jumped on the horse of the nearest Black to me, taking advantage of my element of surprise.
“What the…” he gasped. He clearly did not expect anybody to come barreling out of that house, let alone a Harlequin. I pushed him off his saddle and before he could grasp what happened, I’d severed his head from his body. Satisfied, I watched it roll to a stop next to the head of the dead Red guard. The Black’s eyes were still wide in shock.
“A Harlequin! There’s a Harlequin!” cried another of the Blacks, stupidly stating the obvious. This Black guard attracted a swarm of his fellow soldiers who moved in behind the rolling house. When they saw me, they hesitated and I used their moment of fear as another advantage to charge through their ranks. Unfortunately, they were quick to recover and they surrounded me.
I reined my horse in to prevent it from galloping away, hoping Cestia would notice that I didn’t intend to abandon her. It was then that Daerec leaped onto the buckboard and turned the wagon around for another assault on the Blacks. In the confusion, he jumped down and fought his way over to my horse; slinging
his leg over the saddle and pulling himself up behind me. “You’ve done your good deed! Now let’s leave! This is not our war!”
I searched for Cestia and saw that she was fighting on foot like the best of her warriors. With her sword, she also carried a pouch full of throwing knives, several of which she now aimed with deadly accuracy at her adversaries. Yet the Princess and her two remaining guards were hopelessly outnumbered. They, too, were surrounded by a dozen Blacks.
“Let us leave or we shall be killed with them!” insisted Daerec.
I did not think; I just acted. I aimed my sword at the Black Cestia was fighting, jumped down from the horse and hacked my way through to him. Then I thrust my blade deep inside his chest. His blood sprayed over me like rain. Some got into my mouth and the rusty tang of it inflamed my anger all the more. I bellowed a Black war cry.
The Blacks fighting Cestia and her Red guards turned as one to me. They were both surprised and insulted that I knew their style of battle cry. Two soldiers charged me with long spears. One was knocked out of his saddle by Daerec’s horse. As for the other, I used a defensive move I’d learned from Chtomio to dodge him and avoid death. When he passed, I to sliced his hamstrings with one swift cut of my sword.
My enemy collapsed in agony. I stepped over him to make my way over to the remaining soldiers. In the meantime, yet more Black horsed guards rode to the aid of their comrades. They way outnumbered us, and we would have probably died there and then, had it not been for an unexpected event. It was one of those rare and fateful moments — so small and yet so powerful – that would, in time, change the destiny of the Territories forever.
None of us noticed the small but growing crowd of merchants watching us from the safety of the Cancerian road. When our fight reached a fever pitch, they ran for cover among the bushes. Their cowardice made me furious. I shouted at them: “Is this what you want? For these Black chrome invaders to beat you into submission and decide your fate? Aren’t you tired of living like slaves?”
Rise of the Harlequin Page 4
