by RG Long
"Not yet," he said. "If they're intent on staying, they'll have a stockpile for their food. Even if they hunted all day and night, they couldn't feed the whole fort with the means from the woods."
"Yes, they do," Kell said. "They're stocked up well. Their foreign hands are keeping them supplied."
"I was among those supplies," Aladorn said, "but they didn't let me in to see where they went."
"Then we light it on fire," Darrion said. "They'll have something dry in there that can catch or lumber for repairs to the gate and interior halls. Once that's burning, they'll be too distracted to stay watch over any single part of the fortress, and we can move more freely."
"And in the end," Kell said, "you still plan to have this happen without anyone dying? Fire kills people just as easily as a blade."
"If they're as smart as they seem," Darrion said, "they'll have to abandon the stockpile if they’re smart. Or risk their necks putting out a fire."
"What about starvation?" she asked, more grimly.
Darrion hadn't fully thought his plan out. If it did work, and they could stall the bandits out with famine, they would inevitably suffer from it. He knew what it was like to be hungry, but his starvation was often vindictively done, bed without supper as punishment for his own judged actions.
"They'll be fine," he said, dismissing the concern. "And what do you care if they are forced out of their stolen home or not?"
"What's the nearest place where they can get food from here?" she asked. "Can you walk it in a day?"
"Oldrum isn’t much more than a day’s journey," Rosha said. "Especially if they use the road."
Kell shrugged.
“Then maybe they won’t starve. They’ll just be arrested and tried and potentially hanged.”
“Justice,” Darrion replied with his arms folded in front of him.
"A fire by any other means," Aladorn added, "is just as frightening. I'm not against it, and I even have a much better way of doing it that will amaze you to see."
"Then let's head up," Darrion said.
Kell looked pensive.
"To find a vantage point," he clarified.
"Up is where the leaders are," she said.
She saw wheels turning in Darrion's head, a new plan with a new target, and she immediately grabbed his wrist with a tight hold.
"Edrich of Firstmond leads these men."
"All right," Aladorn said.
He seemed out of the loop, for just once. Kell released Darrion's hand and looked them over before she began. Then, she paused. Her ears perked. The rest of them gave her their full attention, and she slipped away to hide. The rest followed, and all found a place in the dark to not be seen.
Two guards came from a floor above, slowly and quietly, with their weapons holstered on their belts. One grunted out a relieved sigh from a greasy swelling in his chest.
"I think I ate too much," he complained.
"Those days'll be over soon," the other said. "If'n the next wagon doesn't roll in, we'll all be starving ourselves an extra day at a time just to get by."
"There are deer out in the forest, though," the first, lumbering one said.
"There are bears," the smaller one snapped back.
They passed by one of the deep folds in the wall, an angular nook where Kell stood waiting. She started to edge herself out with her knives primed and ready but saw Darrion peeking out to watch her.
"At least we can starve out the girl first," the bigger one said as they faded away.
"We can tell the boys down there about it," the lanky one mocked. "We can eat our meals from now on in front of her together. Make her squirm!"
They both traded different laughs at their own cruelty as they faded off away from the keep toward the prison.
The group retreated from their hiding and rejoined in the center of the hall, all sharing the same concern. Those guards were headed for the prison, a place where four guards were resting without a single prisoner to guard.
"Whatever we plan," Kell said, "we need to do it now."
"All right then," Aladorn said. "Let's start a bonfire."
Chapter 15
THE NIGHT PRESSED ON. The hour of rest finally approached. Even bandits had to sleep. But bandits also had to eat, and in a forest fortress, they had to have a place to store their wares and living means for later use. Even a society of criminals and villains had to have the same order and conduct as a social power by the decent, lawful people the fort was initially built to protect. Naturally, it had dry storage, and according to the blueprints, it was across the yard in a detached keep built halfway into the cliffside walls.
The party had made their way up several floors in search of the supply room and a good view of the keep below. Aladorn and Darrion were the most invested while Rosha kept watch over the stairway, leaning just into sight with her spear butt at the ready, which left Kell to take to her own duties and peruse anything liftable in the room they occupied. Just a few floors up was the Bandit Lord and his fearsome posse, but they were on a still empty floor full of random things left behind from the last time the fort was abandoned.
"No windows," Aladorn sighed. "Just a door."
"Around the corner," Darrion said, pointing carefully to not protrude his hand out the open window, "are stable doors. Can you light those from here?"
"Not this way," Aladorn said. "The brighter and hotter the flame, the closer it must stay to me. But, suppose that a wandering spark could flutter in, like a firefly, and as the name suggests but does not imply to reality, it sat itself upon a bed of hay for the mares and caught it outright?"
Darrion paused and turned to Rosha. She was only half listening and perked up when she heard the word mares.
"If there are horses, there's hay," she said. "It'd be strange not to have them, I think."
"Kell," Darrion called in the loudest whisper he could.
She was across the room, looking through an assortment of all kinds of things for her belongings. Old tabards and tunics that were left to rot, documents and diaries and standards of the old rulers of the keep from ages past. All valuables with value lost from years of mildew, mold, and rot. She heard Darrion’s second call and came to them.
"Are there horses?" Darrion asked.
"Is there hay?" Aladorn asked, more directly.
"In the stockpile?" she said. "There could be."
"I imagine you didn't see inside," Aladorn said, "to guide me. I'm going to be reaching my hand around a door to find something on the other side without looking if that metaphor fits your vernacular well enough."
She sighed. She turned to the arrangement of dusty old cloth and paper things in the room and turned back with her eyes wide with an idea. No other part of her face would move but her eyes over emotion, so neither man knew what she thought when she glared at them.
"You just need a fire, right?" she asked. She pointed to the things in the room. They both got her idea immediately, though they had mixed reactions. Darrion was excited but worried, and Aladorn was disappointed.
"But the firefly magic," he quietly whined. "I wanted to do...."
"That will alert the Bandit Lord above immediately," Darrion said. "There are two ways out of the keep from up there, not just this stairway but another that reaches to the split-level floors."
"We can carry them down," Kell said. "Line both stairways."
"We'll easily be caught in this," Darrion said.
Kell turned to Rosha.
"I haven't seen anyone with a spear in here," she said. "The only one who's a threat to her is the Bandit Lord for his natural reach and strength. But even the tallest, strongest man will fall to a blade in his side."
"I'd rather not," Rosha said. She clutched her spear, blade down, close to her chest. Kell sighed with disappointment.
"There is a fair chance to make this work," Aladorn said. "Not by bussing a whole load of laundry down the stairs together, but in carefully collected amounts. That I could deal with."
; "Small fires?" Darrion asked. "Just at the foot of the stairs. That may yet work. But then the bandits will all gather inside here. Our escape will be more difficult. If we light the stockpile -."
"We light that after," Aladorn said. "I can handle a few small flames easily. It's the great summonings of roaring fire that exhaust me the most."
"So no matter what," Kell said, "we're lighting the stockpile on fire?"
"Oh, a pox on these bandits," Aladorn said, "and their miscreant ways. They can stand to lose the weight, if not with honest work than with honest punishment."
"Okay," Darrion said. "Okay, let's go."
"The way's still clear," Rosha said.
Darrion and Kell gathered up big handfuls of trash, using the most intact and driest cloaks and garments as sacks to hold the books and scrolls inside. Darrion saw symbols on them he didn't recognize, crests of minor Houses that were never brought up before, but did not care to salvage them. They had uses, and that use would lead to their destruction.
Rosha charged down the stairs, spearhead first, just in case a blind turn led to a passing patrolman they weren't expecting. Their hustle remained undetected and quiet all the way to the bottom. Darrion unloaded his items at the top of the stairs going up to the first half-floor. High enough for the smoke and flames to rise straight up and too far to be handled from below with ease.
Aladorn cupped his hands and whispered into them. Then a bright green glow came to life between his palms. He lifted it up and gave it a gentle blow to send it on his way. It passed close to Darrion's face. He could feel the impressive heat it radiated, a true firefly, as it reached up and settled on the pile.
"I can set it off from afar," Aladorn said. "Once we have the second bundle in place, and once we're safely away from the keep, we'll begin."
"What if someone finds the trap," Rosha said, "before then?"
"It'll go off anyway," Aladorn said. "They're very finicky things."
They hurried around the long, rounded corner to the other stairwell that led up along the inner curve of the keep. Two stairways spiraled up, and both ended at the peak of the keep made into the Lord's hold, but they stopped at different floors. Half the floors could only be accessed by one staircase and the rest by the other.
The unique design was made to confuse invaders, protect those within, and spread the quartered soldiers ineffective positions so they would not crowd a single stairway when entering or exiting the keep to do their jobs. It became their unintentional undoing. They boarded up the other stairs the same way, and Aladorn let a second firefly land on it before they started to run for the nearest secret exit.
"What's that?" someone called from above.
The floor above them was turned into a makeshift barracks, and not all the bandits had the mind to sleep at night.
"Is that a lightning bug?"
"No," Aladorn growled to himself, "it's a firefly."
"What's all this garbage here?" another shouted. "Somebody’s been slacking! Kick it off!"
"Uh-oh," Aladorn said.
A light blast was triggered, then another further away, as the fireflies both erupted with their full heat and caught the piles of tinder aflame with a burst from the dust that hung overhead.
"Out we go," Aladorn exclaimed.
He and Darrion led the group to a hidden path through a side entrance that laid around a blind corner. The first step was underway, and their timeline had shrunk considerably. Once they reached the outside, they could hear shouts coming from the walls of the high keep.
"There's a fire!" someone called out. "Fire in the castle!"
The screams were faint overhead but still audible. The tired and the drunk who slept outside, neglecting their patrols, were slowly stirred awake by the frenzied noise above and looked up for signs of fire from the panicked men indoors. Some looked at their own self-made campfires that had long since gone out as if they could have been the true source.
All eyes were on the keep while none remained to watch the stock room. The party of self-proclaimed heroes opened the doors and beheld the splendor of the edible plunder the bandits kept. It was all neatly organized from perishables to preserves, and the floor was lined with barrels for meads and ales and bundles for hay.
"Let's just make sure this takes," Aladorn said.
He rubbed his hands together, cupped them open, and gave a strong, steady blow. Fireflies fanned out in a flickering, hot cloud that spread around and clustered mostly by the dried-out hay bales. Aladorn glared with hot anticipation as Darrion worked the lever-lock from the inside to close once they shut the doors.
They heard the bar settle into place from outside, and then Aladorn clapped his hands together. The burst was a mighty explosion. Whatever was bagged would be on the ground. Whatever was meant to be contained would be pouring out, and whatever could catch fire would without question.
"Fireflies," Aladorn said, shaking his head at the guard’s words. "What lightning strikes indoors?"
"Yeah, yeah. Very nice," Kell said, quickly dismissing his arrogant taunt. It offended him, and he looked at her with wide, jealous eyes.
"Calm your spirit, and let us hide again."
"We're almost there," Darrion said. They re-entered the keep from the same hidden door and stayed unseen. Once the commotion shifted exclusively outside, they would take what they needed and be on their way out.
Chapter 16
THE BANDITS WERE HAVING trouble in their pilfered dormitory. The long stairs up to the split story of the keep they kept as their barracks were blocked by a sudden burst of fire. The smoke choked and gagged them as the stench of decades of mold combined with the burning to produce thick smoke and a hot, fast flame that ate the garments and pages with vigor.
"Cover it!" a bandit shouted. "Cover the fire! It'll snuff out!"
"With what!?" another shouted. "All our beds are made of hay! Cover it with hay!?"
There were no beds to speak of but piles all over the floor. A rare few had sheets laid over them that were flimsy and thin enough that the hay itself poked through in pinholes all over.
"Getcher clothes and smack it!" another bandit called out. "You don't need to cover it up all at once, just smack it down."
"Stand back!" a bandit yelled.
He came forward with a heavy war ax and dropped it with a roaring grunt into the flames. The fire kicked back and turned him away so hard he let go of his weapon, and it fell in a dangerous clatter down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairway, bandits dove away to avoid the dangerous object and the trail of burnt up debris that followed it.
"Are you daft!?" someone from below shouted. "You nearly killed someone!"
"I was trying to kill the fire!" the strongman brute shouted back.
"You may as well lie on it yourself and let it waste itself on your thick arse and hide!"
"Don't yell at me!" the brute shouted back. He stomped away, frustrated and ashamed, and leaned his head against the wall.
"Hold on," a slovenly, shifting drunkard said. "I've got this. Everyone what needs to pee, gather 'round."
"Good luck with that," the first responding bandit said.
He moved away from the inevitable mess and walked back to the round of windows on their story to lookout. They overlooked the main courtyard with the full pan of view from one end to the other. It was a defensive fortification not meant to be slept in, even at wartimes, but had long, narrow windows to fire arrows from.
Most of the windows were boarded up or leaned-to with simple wood planks to keep the draft out, but a few were still open as the men in heavy clothing who refused to leave it off in bed enjoyed the chill of the night air around them. From one of those windows, he saw a curious sight outside, a thin veil of smoke was lifting from the door to the storehouse.
"Hey," he muttered.
He turned back and saw the chaos of men trying to piss out the fire together, with one drunkenly humming a song, the strong man rubbing his head against the wall muttering to himself,
and the rest all just lying in wait for the situation to be over to avoid responsibility.
"Hey!" he shouted again.
"What?" someone called back.
"Something's up with the storehouse outside," he said.
One of the bandits stood up. He looked the room over with intensity.
"A fire here," he said, then pointed to the window, "a fire there? Could be fire anywhere! I have to tell the boss!"
He ran up the stairs, straight into the plume of smoke, and hacked and coughed his way up the long spiral stair until eventually, he outran the rank cloud of burning rot. There was nowhere for it to go but up to the peak. The stairs they ascended were built on the inside of the keep's central tower core.
He burst through to the top and tackled his way into the Lord's room.
"Edrich! Ed, we've got..."
He was stopped immediately by a blade to his throat. The lady in the Raven coat held her wrist up to him to stop him, and a tiny dagger blade stuck out from the fuzz and feathers of her cuff. The bandit was utterly frozen and glanced over to her. She had a cold, unfeeling stare in her eyes. She wasn't even alarmed.
"Hold on," Edrich said.
He stood up and walked over. She lowered her arm, and the man fell like he was being held upright by her very threat.
"What's the deal, here? I told you, boys, get some rest."
Edrich sniffed the air that the man had brought in with him. It reeked of smoke and mold.
“What’s that smell?” he snarled.
"Fire," the man sputtered. "Fire... Fire on the stairs! Fire - fire in the courtyard! Fire at the stockpile! We're on fire! The keeps is on fire! We're burning! Burning alive!"
With each word, he forot his fear of the woman’s dagger and remembered his fear of the flames. At the end, he was screaming hysterically. Edrich grabbed the man by the shoulder and smacked him with an open hand. His voice trailed off into quiet, shaking breaths.
"What are the men doing?" he asked. At that moment, another pair came up from the other direction, in less of a hurry, but with some degree of urgency.
