To his great frustration, by the time they reached the vanguard those warriors had dispatched all the golems, leaving Lonen nothing to vent his fury upon. The Destrye were hacking apart the fallen, methodically chopping the pieces into bits too small to cause damage. Spotting a clawed arm, Lonen dismounted and chopped it in half with his battle-axe, a small thing, but satisfying.
“Too bad we can’t eat them, Your Highness,” Alby said, with a cocky grin. Lonen had put his lieutenant at the fore, trusting his former squire to recognize all manner of trouble.
“Isn’t there an old saw about eating broken glass?” Lonen returned, giving the man a smile. The golems weren’t made of glass, exactly, but Oria had explained that the monsters were made from the same substance as the Báran glass, but forged differently so as to be flexible, then animated. Their lethal claws, however, had a hard and sharp edge—as evidenced by the bleeding wounds on the warriors in the group. “Casualties?”
Alby sobered. “Two dead. Several severely wounded. They’re with the healers.”
Lonen nodded, having spotted the group working on their way past. “Were the golems looking for us—could you tell?”
“I couldn’t.” Alby frowned, troubled. “Do the creatures show surprise? There were an even two dozen of them, marching this way. Our derkesthai scouts saw them before they saw us. We set up an ambush and had them surrounded before they could do much.”
The tunnels also made for good bottleneck fighting, thankfully turning with the landscape just enough to create ambushes at blind corners. This was the first time they’d tested it, though. A pulse came along the marriage bond, followed by a bobbing lantern. Oria came striding down the tunnel, light glowing off her copper leathers, Baeltya just behind and beside her. Both women carried swords.
Lonen glanced at Alyx. “Are the swords your doing?”
She gave him a cheeky grin. “Magic is one thing, but there’s nothing like a sharp blade to boost a girl’s confidence.”
Oria had spotted him, slowing her headlong pace, taking in the piles of golem bodies. “You’re all right?” she called.
Rather than answer, he strode to her, handed her lantern to someone else, and caught her up in a fierce kiss. He only surprised her momentarily before she kissed him back with passionate fervor. “What was that for?” she asked breathlessly when he let her come up for air.
“I missed you,” he said in a low voice. “And I thought to keep you from embarrassing me further in front of my warriors.”
Her fine, fiery brows arched in disdain. “Me, a small and simple woman, embarrassing a mighty Destrye warrior? Pfft.”
“Why are you here, Oria?” he asked, still holding her close. Arill, but it felt good to touch her again.
“I felt your battle rage. And I was close, waiting for you at the oasis.”
“Did you see golems there?”
“No.” She frowned, extricating herself and scanning the area. “Let me take a look at these. Are any mostly intact still?”
“I’m afraid we chopped them all up, Your Highness,” Alby said from a discreet distance.
“Next time leave me a torso or two,” she ordered, crisp and offhand, as she knelt by a pile of the biggest pieces. It struck Lonen then how much confidence Oria had gained. With her hair bound in gleaming copper braids woven into a coronet, bound by the gleaming gold circlet of her rank, she looked queenly indeed.
Lonen signaled the others to give her room, then squatted beside her. When they’d been attacked by golems—near this same oasis—she’d been able to absorb the packets of sgath they carried in their torsos where a human had a heart. Not a tangible thing, the sgath magic would nevertheless have been dispersed when they were chopped up with iron.
“Anything?” he asked after a while.
“I really wish I could figure out how to determine who is controlling them.” Then she looked at him, the frown still on her face. “I don’t like to sound an alarm unnecessarily.”
“Just say it.”
“I’m pretty certain they were looking for us.”
~ 12 ~
“It’s not like reading a letter,” Oria said, rephrasing the same information, yet again. “I don’t get words and detailed explanations.”
“Then how do you know they were looking for us?” Arnon demanded, eyes glinting blue in the flickering light.
They’d collected several lanterns and stacked them in a circle, gathering around them like it was some sort of campfire. With the mounds of still-quivering golem bits stacked along the sloping tunnel walls nearby, it made for a strange scene, even for Oria who’d at least been familiar with the golems as mindless workers in Bára. Outside of their aura of light, the blackness of the tunnel was impenetrable. Murmurs of the vast army behind them echoed uncannily off the walls, and the air sat heavy, both dank and stale.
She didn’t know how Lonen had taken a week of it—though she now understood the vibrations of frustration and despair that had seeped through the marriage bond. Never mind the nightmares she woke from in a cold sweat, unable to understand why she saw Bára from the outside, the walls ever fading into the distance—until she realized they were Lonen’s dreams. Ones that had abated for a while in Dru and had now apparently returned in full force.
“It’s more of a feeling,” she said to Arnon, who still frowned at her. Lonen, more accustomed to magic and her inability to put some aspects into words, squeezed her hand.
“How Oria knows is irrelevant,” he said, cutting off further discussion with a chop of his hand. “What’s the latest from Arill City?”
“Nolan seems to believe he’s king,” Chuffta, listening in through her, reported via Illya. “He crowned Natly queen and Vycayla is barricaded in the Temple of Arill, stalling him as much as possible. Salaya is pretending to be Nolan’s ally and relaying information to Vycayla. But Vycayla is keeping Illya in the temple so Nolan won’t see her, since you decided that seeing any derkersthai might put his watchers on alert.”
Oria repeated that for the group, then asked Chuffta aloud, “Anything on what his priorities seem to be?”
He paused a moment, and Oria heard an echo of another derkesthai relaying the question to Illya. A kind of muffled sound down another long tunnel. “He keeps asking for Lonen and Arnon. He’s been repeatedly told that they were killed in the coup that resulted in Nolan’s liberation, but he demands to see the bodies.”
Lonen looked grim when she related that bit. “It wasn’t enough to leave him the crown and sword. Whoever is prodding him doesn’t believe we’re dead. They suspect. Maybe not this, exactly, but something. So, they’re sending golems to Dru, too, to assess the situation through other eyes.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” she said, exchanging looks with Lonen. They both knew Yar. She’d known her brother longer, of course, but Lonen had a knack for taking a person’s measure quickly and thoroughly. “I think we underestimated the ability of whoever is looking through Nolan’s mind. We should’ve gone to more trouble to make his ascension to the throne more believable.”
“We took a gamble. Besides, I wasn’t willing to offer my corpse to the cause,” Lonen replied with a crooked smile. “It was a delaying tactic anyway—and one intended to preserve Nolan’s sanity. Had we been determined to keep all knowledge from his watchers, we would’ve killed him outright.”
A silence fell as they processed that. Arnon shook his head sharply and stilled, mouth pressed in a grim line. “I have to say it. We can pass the message back that Nolan should be executed.”
“No.” Lonen’s tone was resolute.
“He’s a liability,” Arnon persisted.
“He’s also my brother who is essentially still a prisoner of war. I will not have him killed.”
“He wouldn’t have been so gentle with you, even before we went to Bára, and you know it.”
Lonen held Arnon’s gaze, gripping Oria’s hand a bit tighter, then smoothing it where it rested on his knee. “I do know that—which i
s why I’m not going to do it.”
Arnon inclined his head. “I had to argue the point.”
Lonen’s granite expression broke into a grin. “Yes, you did.” He turned to Oria. “Will they know we killed their golems?”
She winced, thinking it through. “They’ll know something did, and we might be better off assuming they know that it was here.”
Lonen nodded, unperturbed by that. He’d already expected it. “So Yar knows something is up, but not exactly what. But he can at this point summon the Trom and send them to this location. It’s what I would do.”
“Yar is not the strategist you are,” Oria pointed out.
He gave her a warm smile. “But he has advisers. I’m going to assume the worst.”
“If he does send the Trom and their dragons,” Arnon said, “then we’re better off in the tunnels instead of on open ground.”
“Unless he floods the tunnels.” Oria kicked herself for not thinking of it before. “He could. It wouldn’t be difficult. You’d be trapped, along with all the Destrye, and—”
Lonen squeezed her hand hard enough to break through her panic. “We have your derkesthai scouts and messengers, remember? They’ll forewarn us if that happens.”
Oria relaxed fractionally, though she doubted any warning would come in time to evacuate all these people. And Lonen would no doubt insist on being the last one out. “Could you and the Great One dig down to the tunnels in an emergency?” she asked Chuffta privately.
“Depending on the place, yes—but there’s a lot of rock on top of the tunnel in a lot of places, which would take a long time.”
“It’s not exactly a task worthy of one of my exalted status, sorceress,” The derkesthai king boomed in her mind. “Fire would be faster and wouldn’t get dirt in my talons.”
“Would fire burn the people inside the tunnel, though?” she asked politely, taking his cranky mind-mutter as confirmation. At least they had something of a backup plan.
“We continue as we’ve begun,” Lonen decided. “But we increase the pace. The best way to avoid a conflict with the Trom and their dragons is not to be here when they arrive. We haven’t lost all the element of surprise as they’re unlikely to predict we’ve an entire army in their tunnels.”
“We’re like fish in a barrel in these tunnels,” Alyx muttered.
Lonen nodded at her. “Yes, but if we take everyone aboveground, then we stand a good chance of being defeated at the oasis, far from our destination. We press forward.”
“And Nolan?” Arnon asked.
Lonen glanced at Oria. “Let’s end the farce. Send a message back for them to take Nolan back into custody. Not the dungeons. If they can find a way to let him believe he’s still king to preserve his sanity, do it. He can be confined to quarters—windowless—and Natly may keep him company as she chooses. Vycayla can be regent for Mago, and begin teaching him what he needs to know, should he need to take the throne.”
“It won’t come to that, Lonen,” Oria said softly, but no one acknowledged her words.
“Oria,” Lonen continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “mind your scouts. If they spot the dragons before we all reach Bára, I want you and your squadron to disappear. Do not engage.”
She gaped at his resolute expression, beyond shocked. “What? Why? We could fight them. That’s our job.”
He was shaking his head as she sputtered, keeping a firm grip on the hand she tried to yank away. “You will follow my orders, Oria, and I’ve made them clear: any hint of the Trom dragons and you and all of your derkesthai hightail it out of there.”
“None of us will like that either,” Chuffta said glumly.
“And tell Chuffta the order includes him and his,” Lonen added with narrowed eyes, sensing her rebellious thoughts, if not Chuffta’s actual words.
“We could harry them,” she said quietly, wishing the others weren’t listening so intently, so she could give Lonen a real piece of her mind. “We could be all that distracts them from going after you in the tunnels.”
“No way am I spending you and the derkesthai on a delaying tactic. We’ll need you at Bára to keep the Trom from landing. The Destrye can handle the city guard. We can take the walls and hold them after—but not if the Trom land.”
“We won’t be much use to the Destrye if you don’t make it to Bára at all,” she retorted.
“If the army doesn’t make it there, you won’t be able to take Bára without us,” he replied with cool logic. “Likewise, we won’t be able to take and keep the city without the derkesthai holding off the Trom. And we might as well not bother if we don’t have you to put on the throne and neutralize Yar and his sorcerers. Either we bring all three points of attack to Bára simultaneously, or we abandon this effort.”
“To do what?” she replied bitterly, unable to envision what future that might be.
“To live another day. To make a new plan. Promise me you’ll obey my orders, Oria.”
Her lips ached from biting down on them. “Will you walk with me a ways?”
“If you promise, here and now, before witnesses.”
Oria glanced around the small circle, all of them wearing identical expressions of weary determination. Setting off on the war had been exciting, full of anticipation and hope. Now they’d settled into the part that required fortitude—and perhaps far more courage than launching the venture. “I promise to obey your orders in this,” she said quietly, and Lonen relaxed his grip on her hand, stroking the back in a caress.
He pushed to his feet, giving his top commanders orders to relay down the line. A detail would be sent to the oasis to pass water down to each group as it passed that tunnel fork, but there would be no pausing. They’d accelerate to maximum pace. Then, sliding an arm around Oria and snugging her close to him, he walked her down the tunnel between segments of the vast Destrye army, alone but for Buttercup following loyally behind and the white shapes of derkesthai zipping along overhead like pale bats in the darkness.
He bent and brushed a kiss against her temple. “I’m sorry,” he murmured for her ears alone.
She sighed and leaned against him. “No—you know the strategy and what you say makes sense. I just don’t like being out there, knowing you’re trapped down here, and I can do nothing to help you.”
“Can you hold the water back with your magic, should it come to that?”
“Maybe.” She resolved to practice with the oasis water, to hone those skills. “And depending on where you are, Chuffta and the Great One might be able to dig an emergency egress.”
“Good thinking.”
“It won’t be fast enough, Lonen.”
His arm tightened. “We’ll have pray to Arill that they don’t find us—or think of flooding the tunnel before we all get to Bára.”
“I have a better idea.” Turning under his arm, she faced him, wrapping her arms around his waist, needing that contact with his strong body.
He studied her face with a wary expression. “What idea?”
“Chuffta and I are going ahead, to Bára.”
“Hooray! We shall save the day and everyone will write songs about us.”
“Absolutely not,” Lonen said at the same time, his granite command a low counterpoint to Chuffta’s ecstatic warbling.
“It makes sense,” she continued, as if neither of her men had spoken. “Chuffta will fly me past the bore tide flats, drop me off, and I’ll enter the city by stealth.”
“Wait, what? I want to go with you.”
“I said no, Oria.”
“I’m going to wear Tania’s mask, disguise myself to look like any other priestess, and infiltrate the city,” she said, ignoring both of them.
Lonen’s face set into obstinate ridges, tension vibrating through his body. “I thought you got rid of that vile thing.”
“No, I simply let you think so,” she replied, holding onto him when he would’ve pulled away from her. “We need every trick and tool at our disposal. They took my mask, Lonen, and I
need one to go unnoticed. I can’t take Chuffta, because he’ll draw attention.”
“I guess that’s true,” Chuffta agreed slowly.
“You’ll wait nearby and help me.”
“That’s true! I shall fly to your rescue and they’ll write songs about that.”
“I forbid it,” Lonen said. “And you just promised, in front of witnesses, to obey my orders.”
“I promised to obey you in that situation,” she qualified, watching the anger flood his face, followed by resignation. “You could never stop me from doing this, Lonen. This is the city of my birth, my people, mine to deal with. I need to find my mother.” Maybe kill her brother, though she wouldn’t say it aloud. The superstitions of the Destrye had begun to affect her. “If I stop the sorcerer sending the golems, I can open up your path.”
“We know how to destroy golems,” he replied with a vicious intensity, touching a hand to his iron axe. “The Destrye figured that out long ago.”
“Yes, I know, but why spend warriors on that, so far from Bára?” When he didn’t have an immediate retort, she pressed on. “If I can stop Yar from summoning the Trom at all, then we won’t have to fight them in the air. If I can get to him before he figures out where you are, we won’t have to worry about digging you out of the tunnels before you drown.”
“It would be a great joke of Arill’s, to drown the Destrye as our final fate,” he said, though no laughter lit his eyes.
“I don’t think it would be Arill’s joke,” she replied very seriously. “And I have no intention of letting it be Bára’s.”
“Stop him from summoning the Trom…” Lonen echoed, stark realization on his face. “You mean to go right now.”
“Yes. It’s nighttime in the world above. I can be there and inside the walls before first light.”
He set his jaw, his thoughts flying furiously through his mind as he sought an argument to stop her. “I want to forbid you from doing this.”
“In point of fact, you already did forbid me, and it didn’t take,” she said drily.
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