by Kody Boye
“Dear God,” Stella said.
“There was fire everywhere. In the bank, in the streets, swarming the outskirts of buildings. We were lucky we happened to get it contained so quickly.”
“This is why we were led away,” Anna said. “So they would have a free pass at this.”
“Where were the king’s mages when this happened?” Adrian asked. “Did they not help you when our people were being assaulted in the streets?”
“They were with the king, ensuring his protection. Honestly, sir, we handled everything just fine. There was only that one casualty.”
“Where’s Cabara?” Carmen asked.
“Who?” the guard frowned.
“Cabara Matthers. Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” the man replied, frowning. “If you’re talking about the woman who used to run reconnaissance for the king, she used to live out in the slums, but that was before she bought a house and—”
“Nevermind,” Carmen said. “We need to find her. Now. She’s the one who orchestrated this entire heist.”
“I knew we shouldn’t have left,” Ignatius said. “Something about the letter just didn’t feel right.”
“It would’ve happened anyway,” Carmen replied.
“But Colby would still be alive.”
“We’d probably all be dead if we’d been here when the bank was assaulted,” Carmen said, turning to look at her commander, but refusing to bow to the subtle accusations coming from his direction. “Don’t tell me we wouldn’t have tried to stop them on their way out.”
“We would’ve,” Ignatius said.
“And if this mage is capable of such destruction? How would we, a bunch of ungifted Dwarves, have fared against him?”
“We wouldn’t have,” Stella said. “Which is exactly the point.”
Carmen sighed and reached up to press a hand to her head. She still couldn’t get his face out of his mind. His eyes, his lips, the look of shock painted upon his features that’d persisted even after death. He—
No.
She couldn’t keep thinking about it. She’d go mad if she continued to think on it any further.
Sighing, she turned and began to walk away from the group, but not before a hand settled upon her shoulder. She instantly tensed, thinking it was Ignatius trying to stop her, but relaxed almost instantly when she realized it was only Anna. “Carmen,” the red-headed woman said.
“I need to find Cabara,” Carmen said. “This needs to end. Now.”
“Cabarra probably isn’t even in the city at this point,” Stella said. “If you plan on going to her place of residence, at least let us go with you.”
“I can go alone.”
“No,” Anna said. “The Watch sticks together, especially its women. Right Stella?”
“Right,” Stella said.
“Adrian, Ignatius, you stay here and see if you can do anything about possibly figuring out where her people went. Me, Stella and Carmen will go to the house.”
With that, they turned and began to make their way down the road.
- - -
Anna trained her blunderbuss on the door as Carmen reached around the corner and took hold of the doorknob.
“On three,” Carmen said, nodding to Stella, who flanked the opposite side of the door. “One, two, three!”
She thrust the door open.
No one appeared, no shot returned, no trap was sprung.
Carmen threw herself into the home and immediately began her search.
The place was a mess. Filled with scattered clothes, torn furniture, charred papers and flame-licked stone, it appeared whomever had last been here had tried to set a fire only to fail in the process.
“She’s gone,” Carmen said, matter-of-factly. “There’s no way she could be here anymore.”
“We need to search for clues,” Stella said. “Something that might give us indication as to where they went.”
“We know where they are,” Anna replied. “They’re holed up in the northeastern part of the mines, near where we just were.”
“That doesn’t mean they’ll still be there by the time we get back, Anna. We need to think beyond the caves and try to decide where it is they might be.”
Where would I hide, Carmen thought, if I were a thief who’d just pulled off a massive heist?
The only places she could think of were beyond the walls—possibly even beyond the graveyards or in places that wouldn’t be easily accessible to most people. Somewhere like—
She stopped.
She lifted her eyes.
Though nothing greeted her, she imagined the terrain that had once been set before them and realized, with utter clarity, that they had been attacked from above.
“They’re on the next level up,” Carmen replied.
“The next level?” Stella frowned. “You mean the level above where we were initially?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we were being attacked from above,” Anna replied.
“But there was no way to get up there,” Stella said.
“Not from that location, anyway,” Carmen replied, turning and starting for the doorway. “We need to let Ignatius know what’s happening now, before they decide to move.”
“You don’t think Colby’s dynamite scared them off?”
“I think Colby’s dynamite killed the people who were trying to pick us off, and scared the rest of them out of hiding.”
“Which I shot and killed,” Anna said.
“Which means that we took care of that division.”
“Which means that there could still be more,” Stella sighed. “Carmen—I know you’re upset over Colby’s death—”
“Upset is an understatement.”
“—but we have to think about this rationally. We can’t just go in there, guns a’blazing, and expect to take out an entire bandit troop. Not just the five of us.”
“Who says it’ll just be the five of us?” Carmen asked.
Anna and Stella stared. “You mean,” Anna started, “that you’d be willing to ask for help?”
“There’s no way any of us are going to be able to fight a mage. Which is why we need to fight fire with fire.”
“And who are we going to turn to?” Stella asked.
“The king himself.”
- - -
Carmen, Stella, Anna, Adrian and Ignatius stood outside the king’s throne room and waited for the highest man in all of the kingdom to address them. Her heart pounding, her mind racing, her muscles cramping in her hands and her feet anxiously shuffling along the floor, Carmen tried her hardest to keep it together, but to no avail.
“We’ve been standing out here forever,” Carmen said. “Why isn’t he seeing us?”
“Someone’s already in there,” Stella responded. “Can’t you hear them?”
She could, but she’d thought that this would’ve been a simple meeting—that a matter of politics could’ve taken a backseat to something as dire as a robbery and a murder within plain day.
Apparently not, she thought.
The door opened and out came a guard, who looked at the five of them before saying, “Come in.”
Inside, the king stood in his grand regalia—his crown sparkling above a pair of contemptuous eyes that burned with rage. “Sir Armstrong,” the man said.
“My lord,” Ignatius said, bowing before returning his eyes to the king. “I’m sorry to disturb you at this unforgiving time. It’s just—”
“We need a mage to accompany us into the Far Roads,” Carmen said. “And a whirligig or something larger to get us there.”
“Carmen!” Anna gasped. “You can’t just speak out of turn like that.”
“I don’t care if I’m out of turn,” Carmen said. “I’m pissed.”
“As am I,” the king said, narrowing his eyes at her as he tightened his hands around the intricate ornaments on the armrests of his throne. “Something needs to be done about this. Now. Te
ll me everything you know.”
Carmen began simply enough: by stating that they’d made their way to the Old Grounds after receiving word from the Plainsview Homestead that corpse bugs had been attacking their settlement. They’d discovered the graves had been tampered with, had dealt with the problem accordingly, then had returned to discover that all but one inhabitant of the farmlands was gone.
“That’s when I turned to Cabara Matthers to try and speed things along,” Carmen said. “Which turned out to be nothing more than an intricate ruse to lead us away from the city long enough for the robbery to occur.”
“You took advice from a second party?” the king frowned.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I couldn’t just sit idly by and wait while innocent people were in danger.”
“You have a courageous heart, Miss Delarosa, but you let your emotions rule your decisions. It’s going to get someone hurt someday. Or killed.”
“Someone’s already died,” Carmen replied.
The king looked around at the group. “The sixth,” he said.
“Was killed when we tried to exchange the gold for the ransom,” Ignatius sighed. “It was my fault, sir. I didn’t declare what I was doing. They could have thought I was drawing a weapon.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Anna said. “There’s no weapon small enough for you to draw it from your side.”
“Unless I was using a handheld crossbow,” Ignatius said.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No it—”
“QUIET!” the king roared.
Anna and Ignatius silenced instantly.
The king, trembling with rage, turned his attention on Carmen. “You said you know where they are,” he said. “How?”
“I said we needed a whirligig,” Carmen replied, “because we were attacked from above. I believe the group is somewhere on the second level, section A, location B, site—” She continued to list off the areas she’d studied from the map, knowing that she had to make herself sound convincing if she was ever to get what she wanted.
While doing so, the king nodded and waited, stroking his beard and watching her with eyes calm yet completely calculating. By the time he finished, he raised his hand and said, “All right. I’ll deploy a miniature airship for you and a number of armed guards and mages to enter the Roads and deal with this bandit problem of ours. We can’t have ruffians like this attacking the city and killing people in broad daylight.”
“No sir. We can’t.”
“How are we going to find them?” Ignatius asked. “The Far Roads are huge. Just because we’ll have a contingency of men doesn’t mean—”
“One of our Seven is Gifted with the Sight,” the king said. “They will be able to determine where it is these bandits have hidden—so long as we have something one of them has touched on hand.”
Ignatius drew the scroll of bloodied parchment and pushed it out toward the king.
After a moment’s hesitation, the king reached forward and took the piece of parchment from Ignatius. “I will have the men ready and the ship prepared to be deployed by tomorrow at dawn,” he said, tightening his hold on the parchment in his hand. “Until then, ladies and gentlemen.”
Carmen and the rest of the group nodded before turning and exiting the throne room.
This was it.
Tomorrow, they would leave Dorenborough and end this miserable game.
Somehow, though, Carmen knew that this was only the beginning.
Chapter 9
The airship resembled what many could have considered a flying boat—with large curved planks, many intricate sails, and several glowing fixtures upon its surface that sparkled with untold energy. Carmen—having only just risen from sleep to find the construct hovering outside her window—stared openly and with her mouth agape at something she could have never possibly imagined even in her wildest of dreams.
“Is it—”
“Magic?” Stella asked, cutting Carmen off before she could continue. “Yes. It is.”
“Speaking of magic,” Carmen replied, turning to face the woman. “Have you met the mage who will be accompanying us?”
“Not yet. I imagine we’ll be meeting with him soon.”
“So you already know it’s a man?”
“Ignatius send they’d be sending one of the king’s seven. The seven are usually men. Unless—”
“A woman happened to enter their ranks,” Carmen nodded. “All right then. Are we almost ready to leave?”
“I believe so,” Stella replied, giving her a once-over before smirking. “Why? Do you plan on fighting an entire bandit clan in your pajamas?”
“No,” Carmen mumbled, looking down at the soft red nightgown that looked and felt like velvet upon her skin. “They’re cute jammies though.”
“They’d never see you coming,” Stella replied. “Go on. Get dressed. I’ll meet you out front.”
While Carmen disrobed from her nightclothes and pushed herself into her uniform and armor, she listened to the distinct whirring of the airship and tried her hardest not to let her attention fall to the modern Dwarven ingenuity, but to no avail. Years ago, they’d never been able to incorporate magical apparatuses within the Dwarven technology. Now it was everywhere—from the capital, to the automatons, to these new flying ships. She could only imagine the sizes they could be built to, but here, beneath the mountain, there wasn’t much need for massive ones, but still—it’d be pretty impressive to see these flying out in the open air, away from the mountain and within the open skies of Minonivna.
With a shake of her head, Carmen finished attaching the last few pieces of her armor before she clipped her mace to her side and made her way down the stairs.
Outside—in the cool, early light of morning—Carmen looked on in awe as the dirt below parted for the energy emanating from the ship’s surface.
“Ain’t that somethin’?” Stella asked over the noise of the machine.
“It sure is!” Carmen said, wanting to grin, but knowing that doing so would not serve any true purpose. Her joy over seeing such modern ingenuity was quickly overshadowed with the knowledge that they would soon be entering the open air—and as such, be perfectly exposed to any mage or sharpshooter who wished to open fire upon them.
Carmen turned as the sound of approaching footsteps entered her ears. Anna and Adrian—both already dressed and garbed in their finest armors—stepped up alongside them to look at the machine. “They never get old,” Anna said.
“Aren’t they fucking cool?” Adrian asked, sounding like a kid who’d just entered a candy store for the first time. “I mean, look at it. It’s flying, in the air, without wings.”
“It has wings you idiot.”
“I mean without flapping ‘em, you idiot,” Adrian replied. Anna reached out and smacked her brother upside the head. “Hey!” he cried.
“Don’t call your older sister an idiot.”
“You’re older by what? Three or four minutes?”
“Who cares. Let’s just look at the machine and wait until we’re told what to do.”
“Which will be soon,” Ignatius said as he appeared upon the top of the wall, then began to descend toward the four of them. Accompanying him was a Dwarven man in fine black robes, his distinction amongst the nobility marked only by the crest stitched upon his left breast. “Ladies and gentleman, I’d like to introduce you to Kairan Firebringer, the mage who will be accompanying us into the Far Roads.”
“It’s an honor to be among men and women such as yourselves,” the mage said, bowing his head.
“Could you do some magic for us?” Carmen asked. “I mean, just to prove that you’re who you say you are and all.”
“Carmen,” Ignatius said.
Carmen ignored her commander and stared at the mage head-on.
With a smile, Kairan lifted his hand and formed, within his palm, a teardrop of water, which he then lifted into the air and hovered before Carmen’s face. “Satisfactory?” the man asked.
“I thought you were a firebringer,” Carmen replied.
The droplet burst into steam and was quickly replaced by a plume of red flame.
“Nevermind,” Carmen said, which instantly prompted laughs amongst the group.
“I assure you: I am perfectly capable.”
“I didn’t think you weren’t. I just wanted to see what you could do.”
“Understandable. It’s not often you see magic, especially magic that can kill.”
“And you’re the one with the Sight?” Carmen asked. “How do we know we can trust you?”
“I know that your name is Carmen Delarosa,” the man replied. “That you are from Ehknac, twenty-one, daughter of Madeline and Brutus—that you spoke with a woman named Cabara Matthers thinking that she could help you and that you exchanged five gold coins for her services.”
How does he, Carmen thought, but stopped before she could continue.
So—he did have the Sight; or at least an incredible amount of intuition.
With a nod, Carmen closed her eyes and thought back to Cabara—about how she’d attempted to set fire to her home and Xaspraine and how he’d orchestrated the attack on the farmlands.
They’re gonna die, she thought, nodding to the mage as he turned to regard the airship above. Either by my hand, or Anna’s, or Ignatius’ or Adrian’s or Stella’s. And if it’s not by any of us, by Kairan’s.
The mage would set the world ablaze before he let any of the bandits get away. This she knew, because unlike most men, there was something in Kairan’s eyes that showed true malice—something that guaranteed that, were it to come down to life or death, he would be willing to choose the latter to serve his country and purpose.
With a nod, Carmen returned her gaze to Ignatius and gestured up to the airship. “How’re we supposed to get up?” she asked.
Ignatius raised a hand.
From somewhere upon the ship a rope ladder was thrown over, then positioned to dangle just above a section of the wall.
“Shall we?” their commander asked.
Carmen—the closest to the wall besides Ignatius—was the first to mount its steps and make her way upon its surface, then to take hold of the rope ladder with the wooden slats. She pushed her foot up onto one of the rungs, then pulled herself up, grimacing as her weight was bound only by the volition of the simple rope ladder. She looked down at her party and offered a meek, if somewhat-nervous smile before she turned her eyes up and began to haul herself up toward the ship.
