by Aldrea Alien
“The sort of armed company that people might just mention to prostitutes?” Authril asked.
The man’s russet brows rose in the middle. “Talfaltaners are a seafaring people. A long march across land is not exactly routine for them. There is the river, of course. It flows into the sea. However…” He shook his head. “It goes right through Wintervale. Several thousand armed men entering the capital wouldn’t be idle talk. Even less so if they sailed their ships upriver.”
“Maybe the king knew,” Dylan murmured. If Tracker was correct in there being over a thousand spellsters, then their lives had to be quite a drain on resources. And there would always be the constant fear of someone escaping.
The hound’s expression grew hard. Those generous lips thinned and his eyes became like chips of granite. “No. I refuse to believe he would suddenly decide to destroy every spellster and certainly not the servants. Something else is afoot here. I just need a little more information to figure out what.”
“Then, what do we do?” Marin asked.
Tracker leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees and pressing his lips to his steepled hands. “My main mission is to keep Dylan safe. That should have meant bringing him here but…”
Katarina hummed, thoughtfully tapping her lips with her forefinger. “Where else would you take an unleashed spellster in Demarn?”
There was nowhere else. Spellsters were either leashed, in the tower or dead. That left him with two options and he didn’t fancy the latter.
A soft, mirthless chuckle shook the hound’s shoulders. “That is the question, is it not, my dear hedgewitch?” Sighing, he rubbed at his temples. “Ordinarily, I would not suggest this, but it will have to be Wintervale. The king has an alchemist. I am sure she would be capable of leashing him.”
“Then we should leave at once,” Authril said. “Make for the capital as quickly as we can and tell the king.”
“No,” Dylan whispered. He couldn’t. Not yet. He looked around them, his empty stomach cramping as his gaze settled on a man who’d been gutted like a boar. So many. But that made it harder to comprehend.
Thousands of people lived here. They couldn’t all be dead.
Clearing his raw throat, he continued, “There must be someone alive.” Somewhere in the upper floors, perhaps. This wasn’t like the army camps. The tower was overflowing with magic. Any ordinary attackers should’ve met resistance like in the garden. The lower level would not be the most populated. “I’m not leaving until we’ve searched everywhere.”
“Are you serious?” Authril blurted, those sea-green eyes bulging. “That would take days.”
“If that is however long it takes us, my dear warrior,” Tracker snapped, “then it cannot be helped. But Marin is right, this happened not too long ago. If we walk away now, we could be condemning more lives.” The hound bowed his head and, in a far milder tone, asked, “Dylan? Where do you suggest we begin searching?”
“I… don’t know.”
Marin coughed. “The tracks suggest the invaders split into two groups. They both came through the gates, probably at once, but the majority entered the gardens whilst a small group went straight to the tower.”
Tracker nodded. “I noticed, dear woman.”
“If I were trying to hold back an attack,” the hunter continued, “I’d go somewhere I could fortify.”
“This is your home,” Tracker said to Dylan. “Where would that be?”
Dylan shook his head. “I don’t—” He’d never had to think of where someone could go to defend themselves if the tower was attacked. “There’s nowhere.” Not even a means of escape. Once an enemy breached the outer walls, anyone within the tower complex would be trapped.
“Let us start with something simple, then. The tower is a single building.” The hound’s gaze lifted as he spoke, eyeing the structure over his shoulder. “Very few places to leave from once you get inside. People up the top are likely to get trapped.” His attention snapped back to Dylan. “Does it have a dungeon?”
Dylan nodded. “They’re isolation cells, now.”
“Then that is where we will begin. Start from the bottom up. Do you know the way?”
“I do.” He’d only been in the old dungeons once, but the way down had etched itself into his mind.
“All right,” Tracker murmured before turning to the others. “Our dear spellster and I will check the old dungeons then move on to the lower levels and work our way up from there. The rest of you should search the servant quarters. See if we cannot unearth some trace of whoever did this if not survivors.”
Marin narrowed her eyes at the hound. “And the reason we’re splitting up is…?”
“Yes,” Authril said. “We’d be just as capable of searching the tower.”
The flat-lipped smile the man gave suggested Tracker thought otherwise. “If there are still people alive in the tower, they are likely to be spellsters. Very frightened spellsters. Considering what we have already witnessed, it would not be too great a stretch to assume they would attack before letting you speak. Ask yourself whether you would be able to shield yourself from such an attack.”
“You’ll be in the same boat.”
“Not quite, my dear warrior. My status as a hound gives me certain… abilities not accessible to ordinary people. I will be quite safe should we stumble upon anyone able to retaliate in such a fashion.” Bouncing to his feet, he offered his hand to Dylan. “Come, my dear man. This will not be a pleasant business, but the quicker we do it, the greater our chances of finding someone still alive.”
Dylan stood and went to lead the way back inside the tower doors, when Tracker laid a hand on his arm. The man had drawn his sword as if expecting an opponent to erupt from the shadows at any moment.
“If I may?” the man said. “It would be best if you allowed me to go first, in case there are some stragglers. Just tell me where to go.”
Bowing his head in acquiescence, Dylan trailed behind the hound. There seemed a marked lack of certainty in the elf’s voice. Tracker doubted anyone was still alive. But there had to be, even if it was nothing more than a single child huddled in a closet or a baby tucked out of sight.
Whoever had attacked, be it Talfaltaners or someone else, they couldn’t have gotten everyone.
Tracker led the way down to the tower’s isolation cells, their way lit only by the fire merrily flickering in Dylan’s hand. The steps were smaller and darker than Dylan remembered. Each one was only wide enough for half of his foot, forcing him to walk sideways like those weird pinching shellfish he’d heard Sulin talk about.
His chest tightened at the thought of his old roommate. If someone like Fredrick could die, then what hope did an alchemist have? Or Henrie, for that matter? The man was good in offence, but his shield work was appalling. They both would’ve been cut down in a heartbeat.
He stumbled on a rocky step, sending him pitching forwards. Dylan fought the sudden, potentially fatal, grip of gravity. The fire in his hand extinguished, throwing them into blackness as he sought to brace himself on the walls. In the last flicker of light, he caught Tracker spinning to face him.
His descent was halted only by a pair of hands reaching through the darkness to grasp his waist. Wiry arms lifted Dylan off the floor and kept him upright until he could get his feet back under him.
“Be careful,” Tracker whispered, the man’s breath hot in Dylan’s ear and pebbling his skin.
He grunted, thankful the darkness hid his burning cheeks. He’d crossed half the country and survived several attacks to almost meet his end via a simple flight of stairs…
Well, it certainly would’ve been embarrassing to explain such a demise to the Seven Sisters.
They continued on as soon as Dylan reignited the flame. Tracker grew more guarded with every step. It was subtle, the slight cocking of his head and the way his fingers tightened on his sword hilt, adjusting their grip in preparation to attack. “And stay alert,” he mumbled over his shoulder.
&n
bsp; Dylan couldn’t be any more alert if he tried. The buzz of a not-quite-formed barrier hummed around him. He flexed the fingers of his other hand, ready to attack at the slightest sign of danger. “Do you think—”
The hound held up a fist, warning him back into silence. The door at the bottom of the stairs was shut. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it? Surely, attackers wouldn’t shut a door behind them.
Dylan strained to hear anything above the sound of his breath and the soft pad of the hound’s boots on the steps.
The last time he’d been here—the one and only time he’d ever done anything to warrant isolation—the cells had echoed with the wails of others. Apologies, mostly, alongside pleas to be released and promises to live within the tower laws. The sound had chilled his blood back then.
Never had he thought silence would be worse.
The hound stood before the door. There were no openings within the iron-bound planks. Nothing to peer through to assess what lingered on the other side. The elf tipped his head, turning an ear towards the door. Did the man’s superior hearing pick up something he couldn’t? Dylan didn’t dare ask.
Motioning for him to stay put, Tracker flung the door wide open. The boom of it hitting the wall echoed into the stillness and had Dylan’s heart racing. There were no cries. Not of anger or fear.
Tracker stood frozen in the doorway, the hand that had grasped his sword hilt so fiercely now hung limp at his side. Cold shock flickered across his face, there for a heartbeat.
Dylan dared to take another step down. “What—?”
In one mad burst of energy, the man whirled and slammed Dylan against the wall. “There is no one here. We should check the other levels.”
Frowning, Dylan pushed the man aside and carried on down the stairs.
“Dylan, stop.” Those long fingers wrapped around his wrist, a steady pull keeping him from the entrance. The elf really was stronger than he looked. “There is no one here that we can help. And if someone hid down here, we would have heard them by now. You do not need to see what became of the rest.”
He jerked free of the man’s grip. A scathing glare kept the hound in place whilst Dylan descended the remaining stairs in silence. He was well aware of what waited below, but he had to see for himself, had to listen to that kernel of hope wedged in his core.
No, he hadn’t caught any sounds from within and he believed Tracker hadn’t either. And yet, there clearly wasn’t any danger in searching deeper. There were several dozen cells off the main room and the man couldn’t have seen into all of them from the doorway, especially not in the pitch blackness. Dylan had to be sure none of them harboured a silent, terrified survivor before they moved on.
With his stomach already quaking, he peered around the edge of the doorway.
The stench of death hit him with enough force to churn his stomach. Bodies littered the floor near the entrance. Guardians for the most part, along with a few hapless servants. Covering his mouth with his sleeve, he lit one of the torches and pressed further into the room.
All the cell doors stood open. The purple sheen of infitialis greeted him as he passed each one. This close to so much of the metal, he could feel a numbness leeching into his bones. A number of spellsters lay prone in the doorways. Not a one of them was whole.
Taking a deep breath, he continued searching each cell until he reached the very last door, behind which was the small corpse of a boy.
He stared at that body, trying to determine why the attackers would even seek down here. These spellsters had been surrounded by walls of infitialis. They were as harmless as could be made without leashing and yet… Even they hadn’t been spared.
Tracker’s hand hooked into the crook of Dylan’s arm. “Come on,” he murmured. “There is nothing to be done here.”
Dylan followed the man up the stairs, the going slow as he ascended in the same crab-like motion. At the top, he directed the hound to the alchemist testing and training rooms. Although the rooms were also located beneath the tower, they were in a completely different section.
The walls were thick and covered in dried blood. The air putrid with decaying flesh and the metallic hum of raw infitialis. Dylan searched each body, determined to find out if anything had happened to his old roommate. There was no guarantee that the man had been down here at the time of attack, but he examined each likely corpse until there were no more.
He spotted a few familiar faces amongst the dead. Like Mary. The poor woman was the reason he’d started on the path of being a weapon in the army. Last he heard, she’d been punished for her misjudgement. Clearly, the overseers had thought her still capable enough to work with the other alchemists, if not with the metal.
After finding no sign of life, they returned to the parts of the tower above ground.
Even though much of the lower level had been cleared by the women whilst the hound had dashed after him, Tracker insisted on rechecking. Dylan wasn’t sure what the man expected, but their search proved just as fruitless and they turned to the stairs leading up to the tower’s public area.
He held his breath as they climbed. Depending on when the attack began, this level could be the most populated.
They split up as they reached the landing. Dylan headed for the bathing chambers whilst Tracker searched the various dining halls. He needed only to peek into each of the two bathing chambers to know they were empty. That ruled out a morning attack. He checked the infirmary next. That held a handful of corpses, most them being the healers he’d trained under.
For the first time in memory, silence reigned wherever he stepped. It was unnatural. Abhorrent. Like the miasma that followed him from room to room. The smoke in the garden hadn’t found its way this far into the tower, but the stench still clung to his clothes. A sickening, choking scent overlaid by the stink of rotting bodies.
How could this have happened? The tower was supposed to be safe, a haven for every spellster within Demarn. All the bad things he’d ever heard about—senseless murder, beatings that left people crippled, desperate folk stealing for whatever reason—happened beyond these walls. Here, a person might be punished, and harshly, but never without cause.
Now, their little group was quite possibly the only living thing here.
His feet, left to their own devices, had led him to the upper level of the library. The dead were here, too. In fewer number than the lower level. They huddled between the shelves, some half out of cabinets that they’d attempted to conceal themselves in.
He walked the mezzanine, surrounded by the silence, his way lit only by the fire in his hand. He’d spent decades perusing these shelves alongside other like-minded people. Now, there was only him left to recall what lay within each leather-bound tome.
Wasted years. What had he done with that knowledge? Decode a few mouldering scrolls and a tablet they’d unearthed in the mountains that bordered the Udynea Empire.
Would the crown seek to rebuild the tower? There would always be spellsters, that was why they made a place to keep them… Safe. It’d been true for so long. These walls hadn’t ever seen bloodshed, not since the first slabs were laid centuries ago. And now it was all gone. There would still be spellsters and the kingdom had nowhere to put them.
He leant on the railing and closed his eyes. So many innocent lives were going to suffer. Men and women killed just for being born the way they were. Children would be slaughtered purely because their magic was feared. Marin had called this place a prison, but to those who needed it, this place was a haven.
The muffled echo of footsteps drew his gaze down to the library entrance on the lower level. The flash of light and a darkly dressed figure appeared in the doorway. It was gone before he could react, then reappeared in the less threatening form of the hound.
“There you are.” The relief in the man’s voice was almost thick enough to taste.
“I thought we agreed to meet back at the stairs in an hour?” That time couldn’t have passed already. What had Tracker seen that
made him so eager to come look for him instead? “What are you doing down there anyway? Are you checking up on me?”
“Of course not.” The hound waved a hand as if to brush aside the very notion. “But now that you mention it.” Tracker halted before the bookshelves below the railing. “I do hope you are not contemplating jumping from such a height.”
“And if I was?” Dylan rather doubted the fall would kill him, not unless he was extremely unlucky.
“Then you put me in the rather messy business of trying to stop you.” Tracker looked about him and stowed the torch in a nearby sconce. “I am coming up.”
Before Dylan could object to the company, the hound had scaled the shelves and clambered over the railing. “There are stairs, you know.”
The elf shrugged. “This was faster. Now…” He pressed closer, his attention suddenly intensely focused on Dylan. “How are you feeling?”
“We’ve searched three levels and found no one.” And he was beginning to doubt they would. “The tower’s empty.” His home was a husk. Twenty-nine years of living within these walls, never had he thought he’d return to such carnage. He indicated the room with a sweep of his arm. “The people I knew, that I’ve grown up alongside are…” Dead. He couldn’t say it. “How am I supposed to feel? How would you feel if you returned to… wherever you hounds come from and found this?”
Tracker bowed his head. He remained silent for a long time and then… “That is not a fair comparison,” he whispered. “Hounds are taught not to get attached. To anyone. Especially fellow hounds. We are trained to obey orders and attachments could mean the difference between being compromised or not.” The hound’s fingers slid over Dylan’s hand, slow and almost as if by chance. “It may not seem so obvious—it has been some years since—but I know what it feels like to lose those dear to you.”
Dylan took a deep breath. “When does it stop hurting?”
A small, pitying smile curved the man’s lips. “I will let you know if it ever truly does. In my experience, you grow accustomed to the ache. I suppose it is like losing a piece of your body. You know it can never come back, but life rather insists you go on.”
