by Alex Janaway
Vidar staggered behind his desk and collapsed into his chair, his face red, his brow covered in sweat. The bolt was buried deep into his belly and blood was dripping on to the floor.
She pointed her knife at the wound. ‘That’s one of them slow bleeders. Takes an age to die. Real slow.’
Vidar’s cut hand moved to his belly. ‘What the fuck do you want?’ he breathed.
‘Me?’ Cade took the seat on the opposite side of the table. ‘Nothing much. An easy life mostly. Wine. Money. Women. Mostly wine.’ She stretched her neck and winced. ‘Right now, I got none of that.’
‘You want money?’ he asked, his face a mask of pain.
‘I’d love some. But what would I spend it on?’ Cade looked around the office. ‘Might take this place, though.’
‘What do you think is going to happen? You think you can escape?’ Vidar growled.
‘I’m certainly gonna try,’ she said, brightly.
‘Damn you, girl. Didn’t I treat you right? Didn’t I make your life better?’
Cade dipped her head. ‘Yes, you did. Thanks a lot. Problem is, times change. A little bird told me the elves aren’t happy and, business being business and all that, I doubt we had much of a future.’
‘You won’t get away with this,’ said Vidar. ‘Stop this foolishness and we can work something out.’
Cade huffed and raised her stubby, triangular-shaped knife.
‘You know, I kept this a secret from everyone. Found it a long time back. It was my ‘ace’, my last throw of the dice. I think I always planned to save it for you. I daydreamed about shoving in your neck and watching the surprise on your face. But life has a funny way of ruining the best laid plans. I ended up killing a man with it instead. Is that irony?’ She looked at him. He looked back.
‘I think you would have treated us as well as any cattle could be treated. And when we became too old, too infirm, you would have put us out of our misery. Good for you. So,’ she tapped the tabletop with the side of her knife, ‘in appreciation, of all that you’ve done for us, for me, I am going to offer you a choice. Believe me, it’s the best one you’ll get today. I can get up and walk away. You can take your leave. No one will stop you. You can walk right on out of here. Not sure how far you’ll get with that stuck in you but hey, hope springs eternal.’
He shouted, ‘I won’t last one mile, damn your–’
‘Or,’ Cade held a hand up, ‘I can end you now. I’ll do it real quick. A nice deep cut. You’ll bleed out fast.’
‘That’s no choice,’ Vidar whispered.
‘Oh, believe me, it’s a choice,’ said Cade. ‘One most folk don’t get to make for themselves.’
‘I don’t want to die,’ said Vidar.
‘Neither do any of us but most of us don’t get a say in the matter.’ She looked at him and smiled. ‘Choose.’
Cade emerged from the office, clutching a bottle of brandy. She’d found it and several other bottles in a cabinet. Sweet.
Issar and several others were standing at the bottom of the square, talking quietly. He watched as she clumped across to look down at them from the balcony.
‘You alright?’ asked Issar.
She waved the bottle at him. ‘Gradually losing all feeling.’
‘We were starting to get worried.’
Cade took another swig as Issar regarded her with disapproval.
‘I’ve got Rula here, she’s going to look at you,’ he said, indicating the slight, blonde woman carrying a small hessian sack with her. Rula, the midwife.
‘Get on up here then.’
Cade walked back to the office and opened the door, waiting for Issar and Rula.
‘Don’t mind him,’ she said, indicating Vidar as they walked by her.
Rula shot her a concerned glance. Cade smiled back and followed her in, then took up her usual spot on the chair opposite Vidar. The dwarf stared back at her with dead eyes.
‘What happened?’ asked Issar.
‘He decided he was going to die slow. Typical stubborn dwarf. I decided to keep him company. Least I could do,’ Cade replied.
Rula put her sack on the table then inspected Cade, eyeing the bottle in particular. ‘How much you had of that?’ she asked.
‘This? Um, half?’ said Cade.
‘Save the rest. Give it here,’ she ordered, reaching out and pulling the bottle from Cade’s free hand.
‘Hey!’ she protested.
‘We’ll need it for the wounds,’ Rula said sourly. She put the bottle on the table next to her sack. ‘Issar, help me with this.’
Cade swore as he peeled off the shirt, which was stuck to her skin with sweat and dried blood.
‘You two weren’t with the first group,’ she mumbled. ‘I take it that means the reinforcements arrived?’
‘They did, we did,’ said Issar.
They finished levering the shirt off and Rula got to work on the makeshift bandages.
‘Everything working out?’ asked Cade.
‘It appears to be. We’ve got the plateau sealed off. Your crew did a good job, swept through the warehouse and joined up with the other works parties to pick off the dwarves scattered around the place. But they got into a shooting match over at the barracks. Got a bunch dug in over there.’
‘Always knew it would be. Where’s Devlin?’
‘He’s out there now. He wants to start sending out the squads to liberate the other mines while it’s still daylight.’
Rula had finished unwrapping the sodden shoulder bandage and tutted when she saw the wound.
‘How bad is it?’ asked Cade.
‘Jagged cut, not clean. It’s gonna scar,’ Rula stated.
‘Adds character, so I’m told,’ replied Cade.
‘I’m going to stitch it up,’ said Rula, reaching for her sack. Rooting through it she pulled out a pile of bandages. ‘These are boiled clean. Better than what Issar patched you up with.’
‘Hey, I was working with what I had,’ protested Issar.
Rula eyed him with a scowl. Cade was happy that she’d been picked. They had a number of folk whose job it was to patch up the injuries gained in the mines and Rula was the best of the bunch.
Rula took the bottle of brandy in one hand and a cloth in the other. She cocked her head at Cade.
‘You know what I’m going to do with this?’
‘Waste it?’ asked Cade.
Rula ignored her and poured a little of the brandy over the hole in her shoulder.
‘Oh, fuck damn! Fuck!’ Cade hissed. ‘That stings!’
‘That it will,’ agreed Rula, leaning forward to run the cloth over the wound. ‘Count yourself lucky. No one at the mines ever had any alcohol to clean their wounds.’
Cade snorted and watched as Rula pulled a leather wallet from the sack. ‘Now for the fun part.’ She opened the wallet and pulled out a needle and some twine. Cade moaned. This was gonna hurt.
Rula looked at Issar. ‘Hold her down.’
Cade shook her head.
‘You are so in the shit for this, Issar.’
‘No need to thank me,’ he replied and braced her back.
Twenty minutes later Cade, arm in a sling and supported by Rula, arrived at the centre of the plateau. A large number of people were gathered behind the bakery. A couple were propped up against its side, carrying wounds.
Devlin waved a hand and beckoned them over. ‘You’ve looked better,’ he said.
‘No shit, and here was me thinking the alcohol was giving me a healthy glow,’ Cade replied.
‘I’ll take a look at those,’ said Rula, pointing at the wounded.
‘Crossbow wounds,’ replied Devlin as she walked by. ‘But they should live. We left everyone else where they fell.’
‘It was that bad?’ asked Cade.
‘The dwarves got their shit together faster than I’d hoped. Some of ours tried to rush the barracks and got their arses handed to them. Go have a look.’
Cade followed him to the edge of the
bakery. From here she could see that others had taken up positions, from other buildings, all looking towards the barracks at the centre. A long, two-storied building that housed the guards and other workers from the plateau.
She eyed Devlin.
‘You’ll be fine. They aren’t trying to snipe us. Saving their ammunition for any assaults.’
She edged closer and a crossbow-armed Tissan made way for her. She moved her right eye just past the edge. It gave her a view of the ground, some fifty yards away to the entrance of the barracks. There were a number of bodies on the ground, some of them dwarves. And there were more bodies by the door.
She squinted at the barracks. From this position it was difficult to see anything.
‘Do we know how many are in there?’
‘We don’t, but they got bows at each upstairs window. And there’ll be more downstairs at the doors.’
Cade pulled back and sat against the wall. ‘We could just burn them out,’ she suggested.
‘That’s what I thought too but then I heard about Geir.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s dead. And so is Vidar.’
Cade scratched her head. What was he on about? Oh. Shit.
‘Sorry, I kinda forgot in all the excitement.’
Devlin pursed his lips. ‘We needed one of them for intelligence.’
Cade chewed her lip. Devlin was right. They had discussed this. They needed a dwarf who spoke the Imperial tongue to tell them just where they were so they could plan a route out. ‘Leave it with me. Anything else?’
‘Most of our people are here now. We’ve got as many weapons as we could find and enough people to wield them. The dwarves here aren’t going anywhere. I want to start the liberation.’
‘Makes sense. You crack on with that.’ She’d found maps in Vidar’s office. And let’s face it, she thought, they all knew which way west was. All the same, not having a guide was a problem. She took another look at the barracks.
‘What are you going to do?’ Devlin asked.
‘I’m going to have a chat with our friends over there, see if anyone understands me.’
Devlin shook his head.
‘Just don’t get yourself killed,’ he said.
‘Believe me. I’ve had enough damage for one day.’
He placed a hand on her uninjured shoulder. ‘Almost there,’ he said with a smile.
Cade nodded, but did not share his enthusiasm. This was just the start. Devlin stood and ran off, barking orders as he went. A number of the crew peeled off to follow him. She sat back and took another look at the barracks. Then she turned to look at the companions.
‘Alrighty then. Anybody got a white sheet and a stick?’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – OWEN
Patience.
For a while, Owen believed he’d had all the time in the world with his whole life mapped out for him. Just him and Arno, soaring through the skies, until they were both too old to carry on. But that was before Eagle’s Rest, before Em. And now he felt he had no time to waste. He had purpose, a need to take the fight to the enemy. To rebuild what was left of humanity and to teach the bastard races of this land that there were consequences to their actions. And now, against all his expectations, he had been betrayed by his own kind. After everything. His own damned kind. There had been a few days, at the start of his captivity, when he had despaired. How could they achieve anything if they could not trust each other? They were doing the work of their enemies for them, squabbling over dirt, putting their self-preservation higher than that of the whole. But he had come through that, and now he was ready to pick himself up and carry on. There were good people out there still, fighting for all of them. He held on to that, kept it close to his heart. And he had a responsibility to those of his people still alive; to warn them that Eagle’s Rest had been taken. And what of Arno? Had his friend escaped? Was he wounded? Had he tried some damn fool attempt to free him? Owen needed to know.
Patience.
He waited in his room, listening for the comings and goings of those outside his door; the voices, names spoken, the state of their occupation. He listened for any word of his folk outside the walls; nothing was said. He measured out the days by his meals, scant though they were. And he had worked out that when night fell, there was no guard on the door. Besides the food drops, no one came to visit him, not even Gerat. By his reckoning, it had been ten days since he had been confined. Time enough for them to have grown a little lax perhaps? It was time to find out. He sat close to the door, his ear pressed against it. There had been no sound for some a while, no light came from under the crack. He gently raised his hand letting it touch the latch, and applied upward pressure. It lifted and reached its natural apex. Applying a little force against the wood he felt it move, just slightly, a half inch, no more, before it met resistance. He pushed a little harder but the door would move no more. He held his position, ears straining for the sound of movement, of any reaction to his activity.
Nothing.
What had he learned?
The bar they had added to the door was not tightly fitted. The bracket it slid into protruded from the frame. It was, in all likelihood, a shit piece of work. A running jump or a well-placed kick or two would probably dislodge it. And wake everyone up. But that didn’t matter, he had something to work with. They had done a bad job; the first bad decision. The second was putting him in his own room. He lowered his hand and released his hold on the latch when it fell back into place, and moved away from the door.
He made his way back to his bed and reached underneath the frame. His questing hand fell upon a leather package, and he pulled it forth. He sat on his mattress and placed the package on his lap. His fingers located the laces that held it together, undid them, and pulled the flap open so he could get at the contents. He had been an Imperial Eagle Rider only for a short time, but he had been a Highlander all his life. The package held his first ever tool kit, given to him by his father, so that he could maintain Arno’s tack. All of the tools were smaller than the kit he flew with now. In those early days Arno was a still a growing bird. But this was all to the good. He ran his fingertips over lengths of wood and metal, felt the marks of time in the pits and ridges, and felt the sharp prick of his awl. That would do perfectly. He took hold of the wooden handle, shaped like a small apple, and pulled it out. The tool, used for punching holes in leather, had a length of six inches, the metal rod thin but sturdy.
Returning to the door, he settled down and went through the process again. As the door opened up, he released his grip on the latch and adjusted his position. He ran his left hand along the open gap until his fingers met the cold metal of the bracket and the warmer underside of the wooden bar. Now he had his bearings, he raised his right hand, holding the awl and probed with the tip at a slight angle, away from the door. As it met the bar, he pushed hard, rotating the handle to dig in the tool. Then, maintaining upwards pressure, he pulled the awl towards him, and the bar shifted. Not far, not by much. But then, it didn’t need to. Owen repeated the action, upwards, digging in to get purchase and then a slight shift to the right. It was slow work. Sometimes the awl didn’t take and the resultant ‘clunk’ filled Owen with dread. How could anyone not hear that racket? Moments of held breath, then relief followed as time and again no alarm was sounded. The door opened. Just slightly, just by a few inches. He sat there looking through the gap. It was still dark, yet slightly, very slightly, less so than his room. A little ambient light was making its presence felt along the passages leading off from the main hall above.
Owen remained seated on the floor. Get up, you fool. He went to his clothes chest, withdrew a cloak, a small knapsack which held some of his spare flying gear, and warm clothes for the nights ahead. He added a couple of apples that he had saved from the meagre meals given to him over his confinement. Donning the cloak, he squeezed himself through the narrow gap he had made and stepped out into the passage. He barred the door behind him. He knew where he had to go; t
his place held no secrets from him. In his hand he clutched the awl like a weapon. A weapon he wanted to use on just one person. And, if he were younger or a little more naive, he would have gone looking. But that was not his priority right now. Not this night. He had been made a fool of, but it was a lesson he wouldn’t let go to waste. He turned right and made for the stairs that led to the hall.
Walking softly but with purpose, he climbed the stairs. In the hall, the embers of a fire glowed. There were people lying around the edges of the pits and among the tables and chairs, deep in slumber. A gentle chorus of snores filled the hall. He passed by a table upon which the remains of a meal were scattered. A hunk of meat on the bone sat in the middle of plate. He collected it and continued on to the doors, pulling the hood of the cloak over his head. Opening the left side he stepped through and into the night. A figure stood at the top of the steps, resting against a wooden pillar, wrapped in dark furs. The figure turned to look at him.
‘You relieving me or Una?’ asked a scratchy, high-pitched voice.
Owen made a show of raising the meat to his mouth and taking a bite. ‘Una,’ he mumbled.
A sigh.
‘Fine.’
The figure turned away, no longer interested.
Owen tucked the awl into his belt and marched off down the steps, away from the hall, heading for the gate. The night was overcast, there was little natural light. From the hall, he would be lost from view. He paused for a moment and looked up. Should he? He couldn’t help it. ‘Arno? You there?’ He waited for a few seconds, looking for something: a call in the night, the whoosh of beating wings. Nothing. And it filled his heart with sadness. He tried to tell himself it meant nothing, that Arno could be miles from here, well beyond the range of his Gift. But in truth, the silence meant everything.
