by Jackson Lear
“So what happened?”
Desten grunted at me. “The child survived. So did the mother.”
I remained staring back at Desten, waiting for him to continue. He opted not to. “That’s only unexpected if both senior and junior Kaseras were promised the child wouldn’t survive. Considering the guilt they’ve gone through by being the orphanage’s patron for all this time, I don’t believe they agreed to have Alysia killed.”
He shrugged weakly, his energy completely drained. “Lady Kasera was awake when the ghost reached into her. That was a mistake. When the general – I think he was a commander at the time – when he stormed into the tent he tried to kill the ghost. Our man there tried to defend it but he was unarmed against an enraged soldier.”
“You didn’t tell him how you were going to save his wife?”
“Not the specifics, no. She should’ve been asleep.”
Something had been simmering in me the moment I first met Desten and his father. Despite me being a hostage they both seemed uniquely afraid of me. I figured it was because Zara had told them who I was, that I had come by the orphanage looking for their hostage, that I had spent twenty years waiting for this moment, and that I probably hadn’t come alone. But that wasn’t it at all. At that moment the tightening simmer started to whistle out, drowning every sense of reason away.
I leaned in, my dagger still ready to ruin his day. “What else happened?”
He recoiled, his eyes shifting as though we were finally on the same page. He opted to remain silent.
“What – happened?”
He shook his head at me. “Nothing.”
“Why is Kasera still the patron of the orphanage?”
A nervous glare came from my prisoner. “Why don’t you go ask him?”
I wiped the goo on the sole of his right foot. One slight problem: I had forgotten to gag him. Greaser and Runaway had to hurry to Desten, clamping their hands over his mouth and fashioning the rag into a gag again.
“Gods damn it, Raike!” shouted Greaser.
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Like hell you do. How is he going to walk like that?”
“He’ll manage.”
“It doesn’t matter why Kasera is still the patron. What matters is getting to Día before they kill her.”
“We’re not leaving until Lieutenant gets back are we? No. Then we have time for him to tell us everything about their operation.”
Runaway wiped Desten’s foot in his own piss. Slowly, Desten stopped crying out.
Greaser narrowed in on me, dropping to a calmer voice. “I understand you’re angry but this is not the way to do it. You’re a mess. Back away for a moment and come at this with a clear head.”
“I’m fine.”
“Back … away.”
I glared at him. He glared at me. I had a dagger in my hand. Greaser had fists like steel bars.
I went to the other room, poured some water into the wash bowl and washed my face. Staring into the water, it was like there was another pair of eyes looking back at me in the reflection. I hadn’t shaved in a while. I certainly hadn’t bathed in days. Whatever I had just done to Desten, nature would find a way of getting back at me. I sat on the stool, slowly wiping away some blood caught under my fingernails.
After what felt like an eternity, Greaser came in clutching one of the javelins. “You okay?”
“We need to hurry,” I said.
“Yeah,” he muttered. He stayed where he was, blocking the doorway. “That wasn’t you back there.”
“Sure it was. You’ve just never seen me close before.”
Whatever he was really thinking he kept to himself. “Listen …”
“Let’s not do this. Not now.”
“This might not be something you want to hear but the three of us have been watching you ever since this started. Watching you and watching out for you. We’ve crossed a lot of lines we shouldn’t have. We’ve started a war with a rival that is going to haunt us for years to come. We’ve started a war with a well connected and wealthy group of people. That’s going to haunt us for years to come as well. General Kasera knows you. His daughter knows you and Lieutenant. Their assassin knows you and Lieutenant. I don’t know if you suddenly woke up with a crisis of identity or if this has been building for some time but the three of us have seen it. The Captain has seen it. There’s no easy way out of this for any of us but there is a way out.”
“I don’t have time for a sermon, Greaser.”
“Better here than in front of Lieutenant. I’m just saying, we lose people all the time. Whether they’re from the company or those we interact with on the outside, we lose them. They leave, wanting nothing to do with us anymore. Some of us see it coming, others don’t, but when you don’t see it yourself and it happens, it blindsides you. Do you want to know what the Captain and I talked about that allowed you to do this?”
“Not especially.”
“It was a debate between the worst case scenario of letting you do this or keeping you locked up. He asked me if we had just lost you. I told him it was possible and if we kept you locked up it would be likely.”
I squinted back at Greaser. “Are you kicking me out?”
“No. I’m just saying it happens. One day you wake up and your soul is screaming at you for a change. Whether today’s the day or not, that change is now a part of you. The kind of life you had before wasn’t enough. Your soul is going to keep screaming until your life moves in the direction you want. When the Captain asks me what happened, I’m going to have to tell him everything. Castor, Kasera, the doctors, Vanguard. That’s a lot of trouble caused to rescue one girl. Unless she’s your daughter ...”
“She’s not.”
“Then it seems like a mission to fix things in your past. Save her, save Kiera, stop yourself from joining the company all those years ago.”
“The company saved me,” I said.
“Yeah, but we get two types of recruits. Those between the ages of fifteen and twenty, and those fresh out of the army. The first lot are angry, over-looked, and have something to prove. The second lot see company life as the better option, instead of working a field or laying bricks all day.”
“I’m not leaving the company.”
Greaser studied me for a long while. “Why does it matter if Kasera is still the patron after all these years?”
I went back to the bowl to wash my face clean. “Forget it.”
“No. Something has you spooked. Worse still, it wasn’t even me telling you the Captain thinks you’re on your way out. So what is it?”
“It’s a minor detail, nothing more.”
“Bullshit. If we’re going to die tonight because you’re distracted at least tell me what’s going on.”
Soot and dirt had managed to find its way into my five day beard. “You know how the doctors sacrifice kids to save someone else?”
“Yeah.”
“Kasera’s daughter. Twenty years ago, while still in utero. She’s why Kiera is dead.”
Greaser nodded, slowly. “Must be a strange moment, coming face to face with the reason why.”
“I don’t know. Kasera has been the orphanage’s benefactor ever since Kiera died. I figured there was some kind of connection between the two events so it made sense when she told me.”
“So what really did spook you?”
The water in the bowl was now so dirty I couldn’t even see myself in it anymore. “I was thinking … maybe Kiera dying was worth it.”
A knock came at the front door. Runaway checked it. Lieutenant had returned. “All done. Are we good here?”
Greaser looked my way. “Are we?”
“Yeah.” We moved back into the main room. “Did Myalla make it back to Kasera all right?”
“Oh yeah,” said Lieutenant. “We talked a little. She’s now convinced that she was taken by the Eyeless Ghost. She asked if Qin was going to be okay, which is nice. As far as she’s concerned I’m definitely a lieutenant i
n Kasera’s army. I promised to check up on her before her father came by and told her that if she was ever in a sore spot again she could trust the general. She seemed pleased by that so whatever demons Kasera has in his world they haven’t made their way to Myalla. Anyway, things got a little hairy a couple of hundred yards out from Kasera’s compound. We seemed to have been ‘followed.’ Then I was struck by a spell. I told her to run to Kasera as fast as she could. As soon as she was inside the gate I hurried back in case anyone did actually come.”
“So no real problems?”
“Nah. All part of selling the charade. But if she remembers the way back here then we won’t have long until Kasera sends his soldiers to search the area.”
“We’re ready to move anyway,” I said.
“How’s Qin?”
“Pissed off at us but he’s richer than he was yesterday.”
“We haven’t lost him for good, have we?”
“No, but his fee’s gone up.”
Lieutenant looked over the state of our prisoner. “What happened to him?”
I looked to Desten. “He’s just agreed to take us to Día.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
We reached the outskirts of Erast two hours before dawn and the start of the crag lands an hour later. It had been an awkward walk for all of us but Desten had it the worst. He had been reduced to a hobble thanks to the sole of one foot burning with a blistering goo. Greaser had been right. It was a mistake to go for his feet. We had given him a loin cloth and wondered if anyone was going to stop us in the street but even those who passed us kept their attention away or paused and quickly doubled back. No one wants to fuck with four guys and a disrobed prisoner in the dead of night.
At the first boulder, I gripped tightly around Desten’s neck. “Where are they?”
The chilled air had given him some courage. “You won’t make it.”
“We might not have time to stop them from sacrificing Día but we have time to kill them on their way out. Where are they?”
He nodded forward.
I pulled the tuft of hair on his crown, a delicate spot for any balding man. “Where?”
“Two miles in!”
I released my grip. He went to check his hairline and found some free hairs in his finger tips.
I asked, “How long do we have?”
He glared at me, willing me to burst into flames. A slow learner it would seem. I lifted my short sword between his legs, letting the steel kiss his balls.
“An hour before dawn!” I lowered my sword. “That’s when we do it. We summon the ghost and it will take her soul to someone else. It needs someone strong. The stronger the better.”
“Who are they trying to save?”
“I can’t. Really. Anything else …”
“How many people are we up against?”
“Ten. Five doctors. Five mercenaries. They’ll be starting any time now.”
Greaser turned to us. “Before we go in, is everyone prepared?”
The communal answer was ‘no’.
I asked: “How tired is everyone?”
“Close to ‘fucking’ but a long way from dead,” said Greaser.
“I was tapped out when we met the young Kasera woman,” said Lieutenant.
“I was the day before,” said Greaser. “I helped knock a watchman off his feet.”
We looked to Runaway. “I haven’t used any magic since we started.” Runaway was fine in a group of casters to provide that extra boost. We all were. But he was no mage. Whatever magic he had in him, he was no match for any of the mages. At best he could take on one of the mercenaries from a distance but they would’ve been prepared before they reached Erast. They’d be rested. We weren’t. I was starting to become so dizzy that I had problems remembering what had just happened.
Figuring out the level of our power at that point wasn’t easy. Lieutenant had been sent after me the night I first heard of Día. Greaser too. Lieutenant had taken me back to the compound and rested up. Greaser hadn’t. So, Lieutenant and Runaway were a day behind Greaser and me but Runaway hadn’t used any magic. I had been put on a no-food order by the Captain so I was starved. The others weren’t, which means I was a further day ahead of Greaser, but he had half a day advantage over me on not using magic. I had twenty years of anger backing me up. He had a career in the army where he had learned more about magic than I ever could. And he had come face to face with the Eyeless Ghost before. I hadn’t.
This put us in a dangerous situation. Charging a spell for the second time while still in the same round of exhaustion often confused the effect. Charging a second but completely different spell was like an icy barbed ghost passing through your soul, tearing at your ribs and lungs, leaving you to shiver as though it had just stolen a day of your life. Greaser and Lieutenant had both used one spell each. I had used two.
Greaser pulled me to the side. “Something’s spooked you. What is it?”
“Nothing. Let’s keep moving.”
We pushed on, heading deep into werewolf territory. Desten hobbled, winced, and slowed us down. I wasn’t about to hand him over to anyone else. Not yet.
Greaser tried again. “Seriously, what is it?”
“You never served with Kasera did you?”
“No.”
“Did you hear of him defeating some karl north of Galinnia?”
“I did, yeah. Apparently they were snowed in something fierce. He sent his infantry in against the karl’s camp, forcing them to retreat across the river. Then out came a catapult. Kasera used it to break the ice. A lot of the karl’s men fell into the freezing water. Whoever was left behind was stranded. The cavalry took the north side, returned along a bridge. The mages and infantry took the south. Why?”
“Was there ever any mention of Kasera wanting to hunker down for the winter and let Cryax fight the karl on his own?”
“Not that I know of. I did hear of a lot of skirmishes that didn’t really go anywhere. Why do you ask?”
“I was just thinking. If Kasera had failed that day, there would’ve been a lot of starving orphans in Erast.”
“The orphanage would’ve found someone else.”
I held my fist up in the dark. No one saw. “Hang on.”
Something lay on the ground ahead of us. Sandals. Connected to feet. A dark outfit. Someone was lying on their front, unmoving.
Runaway came up. “Werewolf?”
I took one of Greaser’s javelins, crept forward, poked the body in the back of his knee. I poked again a little higher up. Then I poked an area that no man or woman could ever maintain a fake death. Whoever it was, they wore an outfit ideal for running. A short hair cut. Male. Young. No gaping wound in his throat. I rolled him over. A wet mass fell from his gut. One of his hands had been pinned under his body, holding himself together. The slash was clean. Singular. A blade at least six inches long did this, not a claw.
“One of theirs?” asked Greaser.
“He looks a little too young,” said Lieutenant.
I handed the javelin back to Greaser. “Kasera’s daughter said she sent a runner into the crags to see if Día was here. He hadn’t returned when we met at the orphanage.”
“Then hopefully we’re close,” said Runaway.
We were surrounded by rocks, boulders, steep climbs and impossible drops. I asked Desten, “Where do we go?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been here before.”
Above me, the first hint of blue broke through the sky. I climbed onto the top of the tallest boulder I could find. The view around me was nothing but jagged rocks, rising hills, and bone-crushing falls. Rumor had it, moles the size of giants had once tried to burrow here, digging straight down a hundred feet and tossing any of the pebble-like boulders up around them. Another rumor was that an actual stone giant had fallen dead here, one which stood ten miles high. Over the centuries its body decayed, turning into the uneven landscape around me.
I couldn’t see shit up there. We could be miles away, h
eading in the wrong direction. The only chance Día had was if I did something fundamentally dangerous to narrow in on her.
I settled myself, drew in a deep breath, kept my eyes open, and charged my third spell. My vision shifted, propelling me forward one mile, two, then three. My ears tweaked at the woodland creatures to each side of me. Birds flapped, chirped. Mice scurried across the ground. I turned my attention from left to right, looking for a fire or people moving about or any kind of cry for help. The strain of maintaining this kind of focus pulled on my chest and lungs. I was holding my breath under water, desperate to take another gasp of air, but the moment I did the spell would end.
I searched again, getting the sensation that a giant squid had wrapped its tentacles around my chest and was squeezing. I maintained it for longer, refusing to give in. She was out there somewhere, surrounded by ten people who were giving their position away if only I could narrow in on them. My whole body shook, a chilling vibrato sawing through my ribs, willing me to surrender and gasp for air.
For Kiera.
Some kind of smoke two miles away caught my attention. The woodland sounds started to fade. My vision blurred, the outsides turning black. I saw them. Scouts. Three of them facing me, armed with javelins and a sword by their side.
My lungs lurched. The only thing keeping me steady was an unbridled determination. Stay focused. Do it. Do it for them. Do it for me.
Behind the scouts came an iridescent light. A lantern, casting its beam across five people, all standing, all in gray clothes. Lines across each of their faces, three men, two women. They lifted their hands with the fluid movement of someone in the prime of their life.
Above them, emerging from a tempest of black and white smoke, crackling with rising shrieks and screams, came the flowing gown of a creature hovering in mid air. A creature larger than any I had ever seen. It’s blue and gray rags fluttered in the wind, its skin sallow and chalk white against the lantern. It stretched its arms out wide, the tempest eased and in the briefest of moments I swear I saw a pin prick of light where its eyes should’ve been.
It turned. To me.
