by Logan Knight
“There’s some food and water over there,” she said.
“Good, let’s load up. We may have to hide out for a bit after we escape. The priest knows who I am, and he’ll probably come looking for me. I did spit on his shoe after all.”
“That’s right.” She laughed. “I forgot about that. Maybe you’ll get your chance to make good on your promise. I can’t wait to see his eyes bug out. He’s a mean bastard and deserves whatever he gets.”
The shelf Alena had pointed to contained fresh fruit, dried fruit, water skins, and salted meat from what I hoped was an animal. We loaded our packs with the dried and salted foods, then we added a couple of waterskins and threw them over our shoulders.
I crept to the locked door, put my ear to it, and listened. When I was certain the passage was empty, I slowly pulled it open and peered left and right. A second later, we stepped out, and I closed the door quietly behind us. I didn’t bother locking it, though. It wasn’t worth the time.
“They’re down this way somewhere,” a man said.
“I know that,” another man growled. “They must’ve been hiding in the priest’s kitchen. Careful going around the corner. They could be waiting for us.”
Somehow the guards knew where we were. We had to kill them, or we’d never escape.
I glanced at Alena and hoisted my sword. She nodded and did the same, so I rushed to the corner and attacked the guards before they’d rounded it.
They already had their swords drawn and met my slash, blocking strike after strike as I crashed my weapon against theirs.
Alena slashed at the one to my left, causing him to lean to one side to avoid being stabbed in the forehead. It created a gap in their defenses, which I exploited immediately, burying my blade in his neck.
With one guard out of the fight, I stepped back and sent a magical arrow into the chest of the second one. He grunted and staggered backward, but the arrow had only gone in an inch after it punched through his armor. It wasn’t nearly deep enough to kill him.
Alena struck the last guard on his helmet several times. Each blow sent the man closer to the ground. The last one dented his helmet so deeply I knew she’d broken his skull. He collapsed as blood poured from his mouth and nose.
When the guard I’d injured stabbed at me, I blocked it, knocked his sword to the side, and buried my blade in his mouth up to the cross-guard. He fell to his knees but didn’t drop completely until I dragged my sword across his teeth and out of his head, which produced an ear-splitting squeal.
When another guard rushed from the next intersection, about fifty feet down the hallway, I reacted without thinking. The arrow hit him in his left eye, and he crashed to the floor.
For a moment, the world seemed to be slipping and tilting sideways. I staggered, but Alena caught me before I fell.
“Are you okay?” she asked as she checked me for wounds.
“I don’t know. I think using magic wears me down—especially if I use it too often.”
“Then pace yourself,” she scolded.
The dizziness passed quickly, but I still felt tired. A second later, someone started blowing a horn.
“That’s an alarm,” I said. “The guards know they don’t have control of the situation, so they’re calling for help. This place is going to be swarming with enemies any second. We need to keep moving.”
We rounded the next corner and were faced with a decision. About ten feet from us, the passage opened to a small room. At the far end of it were two staircases—one going up, the other down.
The priest, if he was still within the fortress, would likely be in one of the lower levels—someplace he could be better defended. The way out, however, was almost certainly up.
I looked to the beautiful woman, who’d turned to make sure nobody would sneak up on us. Vengeance was important to me, but she was counting on me to get her out of there. She would have come with me if I’d asked, but I didn’t want to risk putting her in unnecessary danger.
“Which way?” she asked.
“Up,” I said. “If we go further down, we might get trapped. Up will take us to freedom.”
Without waiting for confirmation, I headed to where I’d be able to see the sky.
The stairs opened to the fortress battlements. The walkway at the top of the walls was about eight feet wide and was lit by a torch every ten feet or so. Suddenly I felt completely exposed. I crouched and looked for threats. They were everywhere.
Guards were rushing to the roof from other nearby stairs. Even though the moon was full and there were torches, it was difficult to see their faces, so I couldn’t tell if any of them were watching me.
A nearby guard who’d been patrolling the wall, staring out into the forest, stopped and slowly turned our direction. We hadn’t made a sound, and there was no way he could’ve known we were there. Still, he knew exactly where to look.
I raised my hands, preparing to fire an arrow at him, when another one zipped past my head and clattered off the short wall to my left.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Alena hissed.
“The prisoners are over here!” the guard who’d spotted us shouted. “Get them!”
There were three directions we could go. One was back down the stairs into the belly of the fortress. Another was to jump off the wall onto a nearby rooftop and take our chances running through the buildings until we found ourselves cornered and on the priest’s pillar. And the last option was over the wall toward the forest, but when I looked, it was at least a thirty-five-foot drop. The exterior was completely vertical, so there was nothing to slow our descent. If we went that way, I knew I’d likely break both my legs, my back, or my neck. Something told me I could do it, though.
I closed my eyes and reached into my mind. I sifted through several possibilities, marveling at how much I knew, and selected the one that made the most sense. Then I wrapped my arm around Alena’s waist and jumped, pulling her over the wall with me as I said, “Sustu Fragili”.
She screamed, but a second later, our descent slowed and we landed softly among small stones and tall grass. I was on my back, and she was straddling me, looking winded and angry.
“What the fuck?” she said.
Two arrows thudded into the dirt nearby and halted the conversation. After Alena rolled off me, I got up and we sprinted the short distance into the woods toward freedom, or so I hoped.
3
Alena and I ran through the trees and darkness as fast as we could. We hadn’t traveled far before we had to slow due to the bushes, rocks, and small ravines in our path. If we fell, we might not be able to go on.
The glow of the torches on the Black Citadel’s battlements was still visible, and if anything, it seemed to be growing brighter. They must have been lighting more, doing everything they could to give our pursuers the ability to find us easier.
“I’m not sure where we are,” Alena whispered. “I think we’re lost.”
“It doesn’t matter. We need to keep going. If we keep the fortress at our backs, we won’t have to worry about getting turned around. We need to get as much distance between them and us as we can before dawn.”
“Why before dawn?” she asked. “Why not just find a place to hide for now?”
“Because they’ve got some way of knowing where we are. They’re able to find us like they’ve been trained by tracking dogs. Everything they do is at night, though. I’m hoping when the sun comes up, we’ll finally be able to hide and get some rest. But we can’t stop until then.”
We continued moving as fast as we could but had to slow even more a while later. The trees were becoming thicker, the ground rockier, and thorny bushes snagged our clothes and tore at our legs.
“Do you smell that?” Alena asked. She reached out and took my forearm in her hand, pulling me to a stop.
I sniffed the air, trying to guess what scent she was talking about. The only thing I detected was the pleasant aroma of wildflowers. I took another few seconds to concentrate but didn’t smel
l anything foul or dangerous.
“I only smell the flowers,” I whispered.
“Those aren’t flowers,” she breathed as she gently pulled me down to a squatting position. “It means we’re close to the lair of a manticore. We must be right on top of it. The thing’s stalking us for sure. We’re going to have to fight it. Get ready.”
I didn’t know what a manticore was, but based on her reaction, I had to assume we’d just stumbled into a dangerous fight. It had to be something worse than the Xorian prison guards who I knew were following us.
I held my sword low and scanned our surroundings. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I knew some creatures could be stealthy when they wanted to be.
I watched Alena for a moment and noticed she wasn’t looking up to the trees. She was watching for the creature on the ground, so I did the same.
Something large passed through a shaft of moonlight about ten yards away. I tapped Alena gently with my elbow, and she slowly turned to where I was looking.
Alena quietly shifted her position until we were back-to-back. “It’ll try to flank us. They always attack the flank. You watch your left, and I’ll watch mine. We have to be ready.”
The creature passed through another beam of moonlight, and I started to get a sense of how big it was. It had to be the size of a cow, but it was covered in thick, dark-colored fur. It was also silent.
“Watch its claws,” Alena whispered. “They’re poisonous. Both the front and back. It can eat us both without chewing, but not until it disables us.”
I took a deep breath and prepared my magic arrow spell, focusing on the phrase which would summon the projectile. When the manticore passed through another beam of light barely two yards away, I sent an arrow where I thought it would be. The thing roared like a bear. Bullseye.
I raised myself to a high crouch and prepared to stab the creature when it came close enough.
We waited for what seemed like an eternity when Alena vanished with a gust of wind and the sweet smell of flowers. The manticore had her.
It was dark where they’d stopped, but I could see the outline of the beast. I fired another arrow into it and heard it roar. The creature leaped from the woman and squared-off with me. I was surprised and confused by what I saw.
It looked like a lion, which I’d seen before, but it had the face of a man. Then I heard Alena groan and I leaped into action. It dodged my first slash and rolled to the right, but I was ready for it and delivered a second, which caught it on its head above its eye.
The creature screamed, so I stabbed it in its disturbingly human mouth. Its cry stopped, and as I drove my sword deeper, it tried to back itself off my blade.
The manticore swiped at my arm, so I let go of the sword. As soon as the creature’s poisonous, black talon passed, I kicked the sword’s pommel, driving it the rest of the way in. The manticore collapsed and became still.
I held my hands up, ready to unleash another arrow, aware of how ill the last one had made me, but it wasn’t necessary. The creature was dead.
Alena was making little sounds somewhere in the darkness. I followed them until I found her lying on her side next to a bush.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
“Just a little scratch. I’ll be okay, but I’m going to be sick for a little while. My people are partly resistant to poison. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m good. I didn’t get scratched.”
She sat up, cradling one of her arms against her chest. I didn’t see any blood, but it was dark, so I couldn’t be sure. “Can you move?” I asked.
“Just go on,” she said. “We can split up. Maybe they’ll come after me since I’ll be slower.”
“Not a chance. We’ve come this far. I’m not leaving you behind.”
I rose to my feet and was overcome with dizziness. Neither of us would be moving quickly. With one of Alena’s arms draped over my shoulders and my arm around her waist, we marched forward as fast as we could manage.
We were both breathing heavily only a few minutes later. My exhaustion from spellcasting and hers from the poison. I listened to her breathe, paid attention to where she was putting her feet, and worried about her. I realized what I was experiencing was more than what I’d known in battle.
Soldiers always cared for their comrades. It was the shared experience, training, and hardship. This was something else.
Alena caught me watching her several times and smiled. The one time I stumbled, she tried to help me as well, but was still too weak to do so. Her effort made us both laugh.
Birds began chirping in the trees and bushes. Daylight wasn’t far away.
The sounds of pursuit increased. The prison guards, it seemed, cared little about stealth. The glow from the woods made it clear they were carrying torches, which allowed them to move faster than us because they could see their feet. There were about thirty of them, based on the number of torches I could see, and they were in a direct line between us and the lights of the fortress.
“How do they know where we are?” Alena whispered.
“I don’t know, but I wish I did. We need to keep moving. The sun’s coming up. We can find a place to hide soon, but for now, we need to stay ahead of them.”
A few minutes later, I noticed the glow of more fires. “It’s a village,” I whispered, pointing my sword toward the lights.
“No,” she said. “Don’t go there. They’re loyal to the government—specifically whoever happens to be in charge of Black Citadel. They’ll kill or capture us. If they don’t, the priest will sacrifice them instead. We can’t go there, but I know where we are now. This way. I have a place we can hide.”
I took a deep breath a few minutes later when sunlight touched the tops of the trees. “I don’t think they can track us now, or at least not as easily.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said. “Up this hill. Go between those two big rocks.”
A short time later, Alena lifted her arm from my shoulders. “See?” she whispered. “I’m feeling better already. Thank you for saving me back there. Both from the manticore and then after. The guards would’ve caught me for sure.”
She leaned close and kissed me on the cheek.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “What is a manticore, anyway? It had a human face.”
“It looks like a human face, but it’s not human. There are stories, but none of them agree on much. What they do agree on, though, is the story of the first manticore. Let’s just say it was a human who was cursed by one of the old gods.”
We stopped at a small grove of trees in front of a tall, granite cliff-face.
“Let me go first,” Alena said. “Sometimes animals like to hide out in here. I’ll make sure it’s clear before you come in. I’ll be just a minute.”
Alena squeezed between a couple thorny bushes while I kept low and scanned my surroundings. I didn’t see any sign of prison guards, though, which made me feel more confident that I’d been right about them only being able to track us at night.
A moment later, Alena poked her head out from the bushes and waved for me to follow her in.
The woody plants smelled bad, and their hooks grabbed at my clothing and left little scratches on my head and ears. Behind the bush was a short entrance to a cave. I had to turn sideways to fit through, due to the pack on my back, but once I emerged, I was greeted by the sight of a well-furnished hideout.
Several oil lamps placed around the cave’s walls provided plenty of illumination without making the place too warm. The hideout was about thirty feet deep and about half as wide with an uneven ceiling. On the floor was a thick layer of sand, which felt soft under my feet. I began to realize how exhausted I was, so I tossed my sword aside and sat down.
Stacks of supplies lined the back of the cave, but I was too tired to care. All the spellcasting had taken its toll, leaving me feeling sick and dizzy, so I wasn’t ready for anything intellectual. I only wanted to sleep.
“Home sweet home,
” Alena said. “Hey, don’t lie down in the sand. I’ve got some blankets over here. Hold on.”
She took one off a stack and spread it across the floor for me to lie down on. I was almost asleep when something started pulling on my foot. I sat up but relaxed when I saw Alena removing one of my boots. She gave me a small, tired smile, and I let her finish. The air in the cave was cool, which was a welcome change from the heat and humidity of the prison.
“You should get some rest, too,” I said.
“I will. But first I’m going to try something out of this weird cookbook. It might make you feel better.”
“Only sleep will do that,” I said just before drifting off.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been out, but when I woke up, Alena was lying on the blanket facing me. Her hand traced my bearded chin, and she smiled.
“You saved me,” she said. “You could’ve left me there. I slowed you down, but you wouldn’t leave me behind, even when I suggested it. Why?”
“It’s not my nature,” I said. “We’re a team. I’d never leave you behind. And don’t act like I did all the work. I distinctly remember you chopping a few necks as well. Where did you learn to use a sword?”
“I know how to do a lot of things,” she whispered. “But more to your question, I taught myself. Xoria is a dangerous place. It might even be more dangerous than where you’re from. A girl has to know how to defend herself, right?”
“Right,” I said. “But in Dahan, the women don’t often learn how to use swords. They live a more… traditional life. It’s not that they can’t—they just don’t. It’s part of why I find you so remarkable.”
I wasn’t sure if she’d be receptive, but I couldn’t help myself. I raised my hand and stroked her cheek with the back of my fingers. She smiled, blinked her long eyelashes, and moved her hand to my neck, and I reciprocated. She shivered but never broke eye contact. When I moved closer for a kiss, she closed her eyes and did the same.
Her soft and warm lips sent sparks of pleasure all over my body. When I tried to disengage, she moved her hand to the back of my head and held our lips together.
