by Lisa Cassidy
“We’ll also die shot full of arrows unless we work out the pattern of the guards patrolling up there,” Jenna’s caustic voice came back. “Though I can’t believe they’re foolish enough to light their walls up like that.”
“They’re not fools.” Alyx shot Jenna a look that was lost in the darkness. “They’re in a well-fortified base in the middle of their own country.”
“Before we try and break in, how certain are you that this is their base?”
“The place is full of Hunters. I literally can’t sense anything for miles but blankness.”
Jenna paused a moment, eyes searching hers. “Our goal is to kill the mage whose magic is creating those Hunter medallions. There are no guarantees he or she is in there. We could be sneaking into a base full of skilled warriors for no reason.”
“I know,” Alyx acknowledged. “But I have to try. And even if the mage isn’t there…well, we can at least take out some Hunters before we go. Besides, this is their base—someone in there has to know where the mage is.”
A moment’s consideration, then, “I hope you can climb, because we won’t be getting in by strolling through those front gates.”
She smiled. “I can climb.”
A long silence fell. Jenna’s attention was focused fully on the wall. Alyx could barely make out more than dim shadows of guards despite the moonlight, but she trusted in Jenna’s Taliath vision. The cold ate deeper into her bones. She tried her best to ignore it.
“They’re patrolling the closest wall too frequently,” Jenna said eventually. “We wouldn’t make the distance from here to the wall before the patrolling pair turned back and saw us. We need to hope for clouds to move in and cover up the moonlight. Then, the valley floor should be mostly darkness and the lanterns on the walls will blind the guards to our approach.”
“Great,” Alyx muttered. She huddled under her cloak, drawing her knees in and wrapping her arms around them. In silence they hunkered down, waiting, eyes trained on the fortress. Within an hour, a cold breeze kicked up and a light snowfall began drifting around them. Their breath frosted in the biting air. Nearby, an owl hooted. Alyx started losing feeling in her toes and fingers.
She was about to suggest to Jenna that they move—death from cold was becoming a greater possibility than arrows—when slowly, inexorably, the moonlight began to dim. Clouds from the north were spreading over the night sky. Relief loosened the knot of anxiety in her chest.
Darkness spread over the valley floor until Alyx could only see the pinpricks of lantern light at the top of the walls. At a nod from Jenna, they both stood, stretching stiffened limbs and summoning resolve.
“Ready?” Jenna asked.
Checking her staff and knife were secured, she took a deep breath and nodded. “Ready.”
Within five paces, Alyx hit the wall of blankness and her magic vanished from existence. Ignoring the instinctive clutch of panic that roused, she focused on Jenna’s back and kept running, head down and eyes trained on the wall looming ahead.
They reached it without any alarm sounding and pressed themselves against the icy stone. Her heart hammered in her chest. Glancing back, she saw a line of their footprints leading across the open space, but the snowfall was growing heavier and already the prints were filling in. As if in direct support of what she planned, the night darkened further, thick clouds drifting to shroud the moon.
“Follow me,” Jenna said, then began climbing the wall.
It wasn’t easy—the wall was high and the gaps in the stone weren’t large—but she’d climbed enough trees and walls in her youth to manage it well enough, and Jenna had natural Taliath agility. By the time Alyx reached the top, her arms burned and weariness shuddered through her body. She rolled onto the flat surface and lay there, sucking in air and willing away the pain in her muscles.
It was dark in the shadows between the flickering lanterns, and there was no sign of guards. Urgency thrummed through her. They were somewhere on the wall and could be marching along any moment.
Jenna touched her arm, then pointed down the wall before making a questioning gesture. Was Alyx okay to climb down?
“I’m fine,” she muttered, refusing to acknowledge her trembling limbs.
Together they knelt and edged themselves out and over the other side of the wall. Climbing down was easier than climbing up, and Alyx’s boots soon thudded softly into a thick pile of snow at the bottom. Again, they crouched there for a few moments, looking for signs of life.
A dark and empty yard sat between them and the nearest building. A closed door led inside—there was no way to tell whether it was locked or what it led to. Footsteps echoed above and they both pressed themselves into the wall until the guards passed them and continued on.
Jenna moved then, ducking across the open space. She tried the handle, and finding it unlocked, cautiously eased it open. When no cries of alarm sounded, she waved Alyx over. Glancing above, Alyx took a breath and dashed over across the yard.
The hall beyond the door was dark, but there was a faint glimmer of light down at the end. Heart thumping so loudly she was afraid it could be heard, Alyx crept down the corridor after Jenna and they peered around the corner. Lanterns lit this corridor, much wider than the one they were in. A guard stood at another cross-hallway a short distance away.
Jenna turned, raising a single eyebrow. Alyx tried to calm her nerves. They were inside, exactly where she’d hoped to be, and nobody knew they were there. So far, her plan was working out fine. At that thought, her nerves turned to a tangled churn of anticipation, anger, and bitterness. Doing her best to ignore it and focus on the next step, Alyx met Jenna’s blue gaze, then nodded.
While Jenna quietly drew a knife, Alyx deliberately scraped her staff along the stone wall before backing into the shadows. The moment the guard appeared to investigate the noise, Jenna leapt at him. He didn’t even have time to reach for his sword before he was being dragged back into the hall, Jenna’s knife at his throat.
“Do as I say, or I kill you,” she murmured in his ear.
He nodded, once, his body stiff with tension. Alyx emerged from the shadows and stepped up to him. His eyes were dilated with terror, sweat beading on his forehead. Jenna’s knife pressed unwavering against his skin.
Ignoring the man’s distress, Alyx summoned the iron resolve that had brought her this far, infusing her voice with it. “Tell me where the mage who creates your medallions is.”
“I’m not—”
“Tell her.” Jenna’s blade bit into his throat. Blood welled and began to drip. “And I’ll let you live. Lie, and I’ll come back and kill you.”
“One level above.” Terror slurred the words as they poured out of him. “Take a…a right back into the main hall and head down…I don’t know, uh…about fifty paces. There’ll be a stairwell on your left. Take that up. After that you’ll need to cross to the other side of the compound. She’s in the north-western corner. Her room is on the right at the end of a long hallway.”
For a moment all Alyx could hear was the rushing of relief flooding through her. The gamble had paid off—the mage was here! Even Jenna’s hard mask dropped for a moment as she turned to Alyx with a triumphant look.
Alyx leaned closer. “How will I know which is the right hallway?”
He swallowed, his fear overcoming his ability to think clearly. “I…uhm…there’s a tapestry hanging on the wall, I think it’s a picture of the ocean.”
Quicker than thought, Jenna withdrew her knife, spun it, and slammed the hilt into the back of the guard’s head. He slumped to the ground, out cold. Together, Alyx and Jenna dragged his limp body further back into the shadows of the hallway.
“They could find him at any moment.” Jenna was completely calm.
“Or notice he’s missing from his post,” Alyx agreed. “Time to run.”
They headed out into the main hall and found the stairwell. From there the guard’s directions were easy enough to follow. They sacrificed stealth for
speed, moving through the hallways at a run. At any moment Alyx expected to hear alarm bells ringing, or a guard challenging them, but most of the corridors they passed through were dark, the occupants of the keep presumably asleep. Nobody was expecting attack from inside the keep, not here in the middle of Shivasa.
Alyx’s heart leapt when they came to the end of another corridor to see a large tapestry depicting an ocean hanging from the wall opposite. Jenna saw it at the same time she did and they slowed, pressing themselves close to the wall and inching forward to peer around the corner.
There were six guards lining the hallway to the left, confirming someone important was sleeping down there. All were Hunters. Alyx’s eyes went straight to the last door on the right.
Her quarry was only metres away. The tangle of emotion was back, threatening her resolve, but she squashed it. This had to be done.
“That’s a lot of guards,” Jenna murmured.
Alyx hefted her staff. “We can take them.”
“Without a doubt.”
Jenna moved first, launching out into the hall at a graceful run. Huntress whistled through the air, biting into the neck of the closest Hunter before he knew what was coming. She ducked the next Hunter’s swing, spun past him, and slashed her sword across the back of his neck before countering the blow of the third.
Alyx, two paces behind, dodged the second falling man to find Jenna had already killed the third and fourth and was advancing quickly on the last two. These had seen sense and were attacking as a pair. Even then Jenna defeated them with insulting ease, and Alyx found herself simply standing there and watching, admiring the Taliath speed and grace.
“You just going to stand there and stare all day?” Jenna snapped. Blood dripped from Huntress to the floor and there was a fierce look on the woman’s face that Alyx had never seen before. “There’s no way that went unheard. The third one screamed like a baby. More will come.”
“Right!” Broken from her daze, Alyx ran past Jenna, heading for the door at the end of the hall.
“Do what you need to do,” Jenna called after her. “I’ll hold off any more Hunters that come.”
Almost before the words were out of her mouth a loud bell started clanging. Urgency spurring her on, Alyx pushed open the door. Only her glance back to check that Jenna was okay saved her from the mage knife that came spinning out of the room beyond.
Heart pounding at the near miss, she kept moving through the doorway, fingers itching to summon her shield. No more knives came, and she found herself in a well-lit room facing an older woman. Another alarm bell pealed. The shrill sound reverberated painfully through her eardrums, but she barely noticed, her entire focus on the mage before her. Despite the late hour, the woman was fully dressed in black mage robes.
This was her target. Her presence sucked at Alyx’s magic, voiding it, killing it. The sensation was terrible, like all the air was being pulled from her lungs, her chest compressing until it collapsed in on itself. She would have to do this quickly or she might pass out. Even then she hesitated, fingers curling at her sides.
The woman looked at Alyx with contempt. “You’re her, aren’t you, the Magor-lier? He told me about you. And now you’ve come here to what…get yourself killed?”
“I’m here to kill you,” she said calmly.
“Even if you managed that, you’d never get out alive. Without your magic, you can’t defeat enough Hunters to escape.”
There was something twisted in the woman’s eyes, a darkness Alyx hadn’t seen before, not even in Galien. She’d come here not knowing what she’d do if she found a prisoner, an innocent victim of Shakar’s. But this was no innocent. She allowed the anger to take over then, halting her constant fight to hold back the bitter need to destroy, let it fill her with purpose and strength.
“Alyx, hurry!” Jenna’s voice shouted.
The mage’s gaze snapped to the door before returning to Alyx, surprise flashing over her face.
“Didn’t I mention?” Alyx lifted an eyebrow. “I brought a Taliath with me. Once you’re dead, she’s going to get me out of here.”
Alyx leaped forward, tackling the woman and sending them both crashing to the ground. The mage fought bitterly, but Alyx was coldly determined, younger, and a better fighter. Holding the mage off with one arm and her body, she reached for her knife, pulled it from its sheath, and then drove it into the woman’s chest.
The woman’s struggles ceased instantly, her eyes glazing over until she slumped, lifeless, to the floor. Blood pooled on her chest and flowed to the ground. Alyx sat back, gasping, trying to catch her breath. The anger vanished as quickly as she’d allowed it to consume her. With trembling hands, she pulled her knife from the mage’s chest and wiped it on the carpet before sheathing it in her boot.
The horrible sucking on her magic was gone. The mage was dead. Turning, she heaved, emptying her stomach onto the plush carpet. Sweat slicked her skin.
“Time to go!” Jenna bellowed. She ran into the room, sword dripping more blood. Her gaze took in the dead mage, and she paused, holding out her free hand. Alyx blinked, staring at it.
“Alyx!”
The alarm bells broke through her daze. She grabbed Jenna’s hand, was hauled to her feet. The Taliath led her to the window, then threw a nearby chair through it, breaking the glass.
The drop was long, but a high drift of snow broke their fall. Running soldiers were everywhere, but nobody seemed to know what was happening or where the attackers were.
Jenna killed another four Hunters on their way back to the nearest outer wall, and once there they found the stairs to the top. She killed both guards that rushed them, leaving the top of the wall momentarily clear.
“Go, quickly!” Jenna urged, waiting for Alyx to begin climbing down before sheathing Huntress and doing the same.
It had stopped snowing and the sky was clear again, moonlight shining off the white surface. Together, they ran for the trees. Alyx’s legs were like rubber and her heart pounded in her chest. She kept stumbling.
Glancing back, she saw lights along the top of the wall, and still heard the ringing bells. Halfway across the clear area her magic re-appeared, like a bubble had burst. She staggered with the relief of it, then righted herself, kept running hard. Moments later they reached the trees, then kept going until they reached the horses. Once there, Alyx dropped to her knees, lungs burning.
“You okay?” Jenna demanded.
“Fine. Just need a…second.”
When she’d caught her breath, Alyx sat up, her gaze falling on her hands. They were covered in drying blood, the stuff having splattered all the way up her forearms. Ignoring the sick slide of nausea, she buried her arms in the snow and scrubbed at them, cleaning off as much blood as she could.
Her thoughts were too fast, scrambling, colliding with each other.
She had to go. They would be coming after her and Jenna. The tracks they’d left would bring the Hunters right to them. They had to go.
“Alyx!” Jenna’s cold voice broke through her daze. “Tell me you had an escape plan.”
Nodding, Alyx staggered to her feet. “Grab the saddlebags. We’re leaving the horses.”
Jenna seemed confused, but with a worried glance back towards the Hunter base, quickly unbuckled the saddlebags and crossed back to Alyx. She reached out and took Jenna’s hand then drew upon her magic, and they shot up into the sky, the sheer thrill of flight dispelling all the exhaustion and horror for one blissful moment.
Chapter 16
It was late afternoon two days later when Alyx and Jenna landed in the middle of the Rionnan army camp. She’d been forced to stop twice to rest on the way back after the trembling weakness had returned to her limbs, almost causing her to drop them both from the sky.
Jenna hadn’t commented on either occasion, merely standing watch until Alyx was strong enough to fly again. Now two soldiers standing a short distance away were staring at them in awe. More were running closer, coming to see if they w
ere a threat.
Ignoring them, Alyx turned to Jenna. “Give me the saddlebags. Lord-General Isharan is still the commander up here, right? He’ll know who you are and can organise a horse and supplies enough to get you back to Alistriem,” she said quickly. “If you get there before me, let them know I’m okay and won’t be long after you.”
“Where are you going?” Jenna was looking at her like she’d lost her mind.
“I have something I need to do…to see.”
“And who will protect you while you’re off sightseeing?” Jenna demanded.
Alyx laughed. “Are you saying you actually care about my safety?”
She huffed an irritated breath. “Your insane mission just succeeded. Don’t be a fool and risk yourself further.”
“I’m not doing anything foolish.” Alyx took a step back towards the young Taliath. Her feelings on Jenna had shifted over the past days, but she still wasn’t sure what they were. “Go back to Cayr for me, keep him safe. He’s going to need you in the days ahead.”
Now it was Jenna’s turn to laugh as she shoved the saddlebags into Alyx’s outstretched hands. “I don’t owe you any more favours, Alyx Egalion.”
“Then do as you wish.” Alyx turned and began walking away. “I’ll see you around, Jenna Aridlen.”
“Alyx?”
She stopped and looked back over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised.
“You don’t need to destroy the Mage Council,” Jenna said. “You just need to make them irrelevant.”
Alyx smiled.
She spent two and half days flying northeast, stopping several times along the way to rest. Whenever she pushed herself too hard, the trembling in her limbs would start, and she’d be forced to drop to the ground and find somewhere to make a basic camp. Slowly, though, her rest stops grew shorter, the length of flying time longer.
She was growing strong again.
While she wasn’t exactly sure of the location she was heading to, in the end it was easy to find Tennan. She’d been flying up the eastern coastline of Tregaya, and not long after midday, spotted what looked like a large town below her. Dropping lower, she saw that most of the town had been reduced to rubble.
