It was time to act like a Shieldsman again. Straightening his shoulders, Rand approached the caravan with his weapon drawn.
“Step back from those traders!” he barked at the looters. “In the name of the King.”
The men offered him little regard. “A hand of Iam, come to set us straight,” one of them sneered.
“Can’t you see?” said another, gesturing toward the covered sun, then the chaos overrunning the district. “There is no light to judge us now. Iam is gone.”
A boom shook the earth as if in response to the man’s words, like the quake which had preceded the splitting of the Royal Crypt and Pi’s rebirth. Then there was a flash atop Mount Lister, blinding at first, then it appeared more like a vortex. Light and shadow, swirling, distorting all the air around it so even the eclipse wasn’t visible.
All the city likely trembled in fear from the sight of the anomaly, but not Rand. He knew what it was: Redstar’s dark magic corrupting the world because Torsten had made it out of the Glass Castle to face him down.
I should be at his side, he thought, anger mounting within him. But he’d put himself in this position. He directed that rage toward the looters and took a hard step toward them. They fled like the cowards they were.
“Ye better run!” the dwarf shouted. He hopped down from the back of the cart and approached Rand. “What in the name of Meungor’s axe was that up there?”
“A chance to end this lunacy,” Rand replied.
“Looks more like the opposite to me. Either way, I be glad we’re gettin out of here. You must be the one Valin sent.” The dwarf stowed a battle-axe a few sizes too large for him behind his back.
“He did.”
“About time.” He bowed. “Grint Strongiron at your service, Sir Knight.”
Rand thought about correcting him, but he wasn’t even sure if he should use his real name.
“That’s Zane and Dorblo,” Grint continued before Rand could respond. “Fine warriors, but barely got one brain between the two of em.”
“Watch it, Grint,” Zane said as the two mercenaries moved to the front of the cart where the horse waited. They looked so similar they could've been brothers, perhaps even twins.
Grint set his hands on his broad hips and stared back into the city. Rand joined him. Screams still echoed as the cultists' reign of terror endured. Far down the street, through a brush of smoke, Rand saw a guard chasing one who held what looked like a swaddled infant. Others flung torches through the stained glass windows of a South Corner chapel. Citizens flocked to the streets, sprinting in every direction, faces painted for a Dawning they would never forget.
It was the kind of unholy anarchy Shieldsmen trained for but never imagined they’d see.
“Bastards wouldn’t open the gate, even when we were attacked,” the dwarf said. “Care to prod them along before we wind up as sacrifices?”
All the screams blended, and in them, Rand could hear those of Tessa and the others he’d hung. All sounding so similar, desperate not to die when all hope seemed lost. Rand felt that familiar aching for a drink swell up in him. Anything to take the edge off; to help him abdicate his sworn duties to the Glass without guilt overwhelming him.
“Move yer arse, Shieldsman.” Grint nudged him in the side. “Ain’t no good, me dying here and not bein able to spend what Valin’s payin.”
Rand shook out his head and realized that he wasn’t as helpless as he thought. Maybe he couldn’t fight the rioters, but he could offer the people of South Corner and Dockside a way out. They were trapped within the walls like chickens in a coup filled with wolves.
“You!” he shouted up to one of the gate guards. “Open up and let these people out!”
“We ain’t supposed to!” he replied, voice shaking. “City's on lockdown at night ever since the Caleef got out.”
“In the name of the King and the King’s Shield, open that gate and let these people out or there will be nobody left to fill this city!”
The guard ducked out of sight, and Rand swore inwardly. He couldn’t blame them for not being prepared to handle such a dire situation—he didn’t fare much better in his. He was about to climb the gate himself when the portcullis finally stirred, then started to rattle open.
“Well done.” Grint slapped Rand on the back and climbed up onto the front of the caravan to take the reins. Either Zane or Dorblo—Rand didn’t know one from another—offered to help him up, but he denied the man with a flurry of dwarven curses. “Ye comin?” he shouted back.
“One second.” Rand turned back to the city and walked to the center of the snowy road. A cultist tried to scurry past, but Rand grabbed him by the robe and slammed him to the ground. “Flee the city!” he yelled. “Let them take your homes, but never your light! Run!”
All it took was one person to find sense in the pandemonium for Rand’s orders to start spreading. “Run for the gate!” a woman cried out. “The gates are open!” shouted another. Then the handful of guards trying to impede rampaging cultists relayed the order.
It wasn’t much, but it was the best Rand could do.
He jogged back and kept pace with the caravan as it rolled through the archway. People trickled through around them, out into the frozen farmland where they’d be safe as long as they kept away from the Drav Cra camps outside Yarrington’s main entry. If Rand knew anything, it was that structures could be repaired, but horror lived in men forever, scratching away at their sanity, and all these cultists were after was madness. The more people who escaped that, the better off they’d be, homeless or not.
A young woman tripped on a rock on her way by, her baby tumbling from her arms. Rand knelt to pick up the crying infant.
“Rand Langley, the great deserter,” someone said. “What is it Valin Tehr’s got his hands into this time?”
Rand handed the baby over and helped the women up, then glared at the source of the voice. Captain Henry of the Dockside guard stood before the caravan with a group of Glass soldiers who looked like they might as well belong to Valin’s gang as well. Grimy, hawkish, aching for a fight when they should be in the city helping the innocent.
“Dunno what yer talkin about,” Grint said. “We be nothin but traders tryin to survive. Ye seen what’s going on back th—”
“Shut your filthy mouth, dwarf!” Henry snapped.
The brother mercenaries stood out front of the horse, and their hands fell to the hilts of their swords. “Only we speak to him like that,” one said.
“Would you really assault a captain of the Glass army?” Henry asked.
Rand hurried between them before things escalated and faced the guard captain he had served under so many moons ago. “Move aside, or you’ll find out.”
Henry grinned, half his teeth black and rotten. “You hear that boys? The Queen’s hangman has decided to move up from hanging priests and handmaidens.” The others laughed with him.
Rand didn’t ask politely a second time. He unsheathed his sword and pointed it at the crooked captain. He knew it probably wasn’t the smartest move, but the craziness at his back had his adrenaline pumping. “Do not test me. Not today.”
Henry didn’t back down. “How about you show me what’s inside that there cart first?”
“Furs,” Grint said.
“Don’t have enough of that around here?” Henry nodded toward the distant glow of Drav Cra campfires by the city’s main gates.
“That’s why we be leavin with them.”
“You think you’re smarter than me, half-pint?” Henry spat, stomping forward.
The mercenary brothers drew their weapons as well.
“Now,” Henry said, “I ain’t gonna ask again. Let me take a gander inside the caravan, and I’ll see what we can do about letting you pass. No traders allowed to leave the city without inspection these days, haven’t you heard?”
“You know we can’t let you,” Rand said. “So why don’t you go back into the city and help the people you’re sworn to?”
; “Says the man who took a more sacred oath. Shouldn’t you be helping them? No, instead you’re here, deserting your people again. I saw those bodies you helped sling over the wall for our whore Queen. One of them was my baby cousin. A rotten scoundrel he was, but blood is blood.”
“Step aside, or I’ll show you blood,” Rand said through clenched teeth.
“You going to make us carve through you? This ought to be good. By Iam, what could Valin possibly have in there? The Glass-yigging-Crown?”
“Like he said, just furs,” one of the mercenaries repeated.
“Then what’s there to hide? I can keep a secret. I saw Valin take the deserter here in right after he tried to murder the Prime Minister and didn’t tell a soul. Just open it up and give us a stake, and we can all move on with our lives.”
“One more word and the only person who’ll get hurt is you,” Rand said.
“I’d like to see you try.” Henry stepped closer, not even bothering to reveal his weapon. “You aren’t a killer, boy. You weren’t when you were a guard, and you aren’t now. You’re a coward, hanging old men and women for made-up crimes.”
He took another step, and Rand flinched without meaning to. The captain’s words brought those memories he constantly fought so hard to keep down surging back in full force. The rope creaking, bodies swinging in the wind, Tessa...
“You won’t touch a Glass soldier,” Henry said. “You don’t have the balls. So, move, you cowardly son of a whore, before someone gives you what you deserv—”
“Enough!” Rand screamed. He slashed the man’s right leg and sent him to a knee, then kicked him onto his back. The other guards armed themselves and circled him, but Rand held his blade to Henry’s neck. His hand quaked, the tip of his swords inches away from taking another Glassman’s life. It took every ounce of his willpower not to let rage consume him and drive him to deal the killing blow.
Henry laughed through the pain. “See boys?” He stifled a grimace. “He doesn’t have it in him to kill me. I’m not weak enough prey.”
“You’re plenty weak,” Rand said, seething. He steadied his sword and glared up at the circling guards. “I may be done killing Glassman, but my employer isn’t. You will go back and help the people of this city, or he’ll hear about this.” Rand turned his attention back to Henry. “I’m sure his giant would love a word with you.”
For the first time, Henry’s expression darkened. Rand tried not to show how much it stung him inside to speak those words—to finally claim out loud that no matter what the reason was, he worked for Valin Tehr now.
“Now get up.” Rand grabbed Henry by the collar and dragged him out of the way of the caravan.
“Shouldn’t we kill them?” Dorblo asked quietly. “You know, just in case.”
“These men won’t say a word,” Rand said. “I know cowards when I see them, I’ve been one. Now, Captain, go and serve your people the right way while I tend to mine.”
Henry’s brow furrowed, and Rand realized what his words might sound like, that he’d betrayed the Glass Kingdom and now served a new monarch when really all he meant was Sigrid. Through everything, she was the only constant—the only person he had left. And if acting like a heartless mercenary under Valin’s thumb was what it took to win her freedom, he’d become like Codar if he had to.
“Go!” he roared.
Henry’s men scampered away. Two stopped to help Henry to his feet. “Valin may have your back now,” the captain snarled, limping along. “But if I ever see you again, it’ll be the end of you, deserter. I’ll hang you off the shogging barrack’s tower! You hear me!”
“Well done, knight,” Grint said. The two mercenaries agreed.
Rand sheathed his sword while gazing back toward Yarrington. He hadn’t noticed, but the strange anomaly atop Mount Lister had subsided, and now only Celeste blocked the sun on its descent behind the mountain. That meant that either Torsten or Redstar had finally claimed the other.
The reddish glow of fire hung over the city itself, pillars of smoke rising here and there. Most of the rioting seemed to keep toward South Corner and Dockside, where the guard presence was due to be lighter, especially with Henry and his men away. More frightened families poured through the southern gate, making Grint’s caravan seem like it was just a part of the exodus.
Then Rand turned toward the road. He’d been on it before, but only this time did his heart race. Someone within the carriage pulled the tarp back and startled him. “They’re gone, why are we still sitting around?” Bartholomew Darkings asked. He wore the familiar scowl of a nobleman who thought himself superior to everyone around him, like so many who occupied the Glass Castle. In the back of the carriage, the Caleef sat, dressed in rags like an ordinary Shesaitju peasant. A muzzle covered his mouth, and his arms and legs were bound.
“Ye heard the man.” Grint snapped on the reins.
As the rickety, wooden wheels turned, the sound of ropes creaking once again crept into Rand’s head along with the desire for a drink. This time, he quickly silenced them. Instead, he pictured his sister’s crooked smile, the way she snapped back at handsy drunkards, and more than anything, the way she never gave up on him. Failure to his Order, now a traitor to the Crown—but he refused to desert her.
“For you, Sig,” Rand whispered to himself, “and only you,” then he set off away from the only home he’d ever known, with a foreign king in tow.
XXXII
THE THIEF
Whitney swept through his cottage, tearing through the cupboards, checking under his hay-filled mattress looking for the map he’d been drawing for years now. He was about to flip the bed over in frustration when he noticed that the back window wasn’t closed, rattling from a slight breeze.
He hurried over to it and checked the lock. Busted. He peered outside and saw that the grass leading up to it was disturbed, the barely visible path leading into the forest.
“Still sloppy, you little devil.” He left the candle behind and went back outside. He didn’t need light to find his old hiding place. “I knew I saw him—er, me—snooping around,” he grumbled.
The path of trampled brush led through the forest to the creek, the same spot he and Kazimir had disposed of that thug's body what felt like a lifetime ago. It was the point exactly halfway between Whitney and Sora’s homes where they met up nearly every day; where he had hidden so many of his prizes—as if there was anything to call a prize in Troborough.
Whitney saw the candlelight and slowed to a creep. If there was anything he knew he could do, it was sneak up on himself. He sneaked up behind a thick tree trunk and peered over at Young Whitney. Only he wasn’t alone. He and Sora kneeled in the dirt side by side, pouring over Big Whitney’s map.
“All right, you thieving whelp, give that here!” Whitney jumped out and shouted.
His younger self nearly leaped out of his shoes. Sora flinched, then reached down for the whittling knife strapped to her belt. Only, she had no intention to wield it against Big Whitney. Her hand was exposed, and the candlelight revealed a few pale scars. She hid it behind her back when she noticed hin looking.
So, Wetzel started training her even before I left? Whitney wondered how he'd missed that when they were together so often. Were kids really that oblivious?
“I knew you were a freak, Willis.” The name dripped with venom off Young Whitney’s lips, as if he somehow didn’t realize they looked exactly the same. In fact, Big Whitney had shown no signs of aging in six years, and soon they’d be twins.
Young Whitney tossed the unfurled map onto the ground. It was a hand-drawn plan of Troborough with an amorphous barrier drawn around it. Arrows lined the entire thing with notes scrawled around the edges. Houses had X’s over them, the Twilight Manor, Gilly’s tailor shop—all places he’d searched ceiling to cellar for a break in Elsewhere’s barrier.
He’d grown up thinking Troborough was small, but when every inch had to be covered, it seemed endless. Still, after years there was nary a blank spot
on the drawing. His next plan was to start climbing trees and searching higher up on the invisible barrier. Then there was that curious mental block anytime Whitney tried to go near Wetzel's shack as if Elsewhere was determined to keep him away.
“What in the name of the fallen gods is this?” Young Whitney hissed.
Whitney surrendered his position of power without thinking. He fell to his knees and gathered the map. It was only a matter of time before his troublesome younger self ran out of people to rob and turned to him.
“I’ve always known it was off, you showing up out of the blue one day and never leaving,” Young Whitney went on. “What the yig do you want with us?”
“Relax, Whitney,” Sora said. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation.”
Ever the optimist, Big Whitney thought.
There wasn’t one. Even the truth seemed foolish after every conversation with Kazimir reinforced how pointless this project was. Luckily, Whitney had been preparing for just this moment.
“I was a cartographer before I came here,” he said. “I do it to pass the time.”
“Liar.” Young Whitney ripped the map out from under him and held it up, earning a scolding from Sora for being cruel. He ignored her. “Look, right here. It says barrier. There isn’t anything natural about that. You’re with the Crown, aren’t you? They’re going to turn this place into a fortress before the Black Sands invade, aren’t they?”
“I swear, I just make maps.” He extended his hand for it. Young Whitney pulled it back, crumpling the edge.
“C’mon, Whit,” Sora implored. “Look at his face. He’s being honest.”
“That’s just because you’re bad at reading people,” Young Whitney said. “You thought my father was kind.”
Big Whitney considered smacking his younger self before realizing he wasn’t just doing it for Sora’s sake, but for his father’s—a man he’d spent a lifetime hating before watching the life drain slowly from his crippled body.
The Redstar Rising Trilogy: (Buried Goddess Saga Box Set 1: Books 1-3) Page 111
