Path of Fire (Saga of The Wolf Book 3)

by Kris A Hiatt

  His comment earned him a quick punch in the ribs from one of his escorts and he was told to shut his mouth.

  “Probably,” Raythien replied.

  ~~~

  Kiril watched in horror as Raythien bashed Treace over the head with his bow.

  “I’m going to kill that bastard,” Moff promised.

  She wanted to rush to Treace’s aid, but she knew doing so wouldn’t accomplish anything. She couldn’t fight off both of the armed men and Raythien by herself. Raythien would put several arrows into her long before she could get into melee range anyway, so she stayed put.

  “He planned this whole thing,” Moff went on. “And I’m going to make sure he pays.”

  Kiril didn’t doubt Moff’s sincerity in the least. But she doubted that he’d get the chance to make good on it unless they ran. If Raythien did plan this, then surely his next move was going to be against them. They couldn’t just sit under the tree and wait for him to attack them too. “We have to go.”

  “We’re not leaving him!”

  “Raythien knows we are here. I’m sure he’ll send men to get us too,” Kiril explained.

  “We aren’t leaving him,” Moff reiterated.

  “I’m not saying we leave him,” Kiril went on. “I’m saying we can’t stay here. We move off and hide somewhere else and then come back at night and bust him out.”

  Moff nodded his head but the grimace on his face told her that he still didn’t like the idea.

  Just as Moff started to move, two of the men pulled Treace to his feet and began to drag him away. Raythien turned and looked right at her. Well, in her direction at least. She didn’t think he could see her through all the tree branches. They had waited too long to move. He was about to motion for his men to come after them.

  But he didn’t. He simply turned and walked after the other men.

  She grabbed Moff’s arm, pulling him to a stop. “Wait.”

  “What is it?”

  “They’re leaving,” she explained. “Why would they just leave? We’re right here. We’d be easy prey for that number of them.”

  Moff took a quick look for himself before settling down next to her again. “He doesn’t need us, he’s got Treace. He thinks we’ll do as Treace commanded and go back to Haven. That or he thinks we’re too scared to try to break him out.”

  “Maybe,” she told him. Though she had her doubts. “Do you know where the jail is in town?”

  “Yeah,” Moff confirmed. Then he quickly added, “Not that I’ve been in there.”

  She didn’t care if he’d been in there or not, and judging by his reaction, he most certainly had been in the jail before. If they were going to hold Treace anywhere, she guessed that would be the place. “Let’s go then, I’m freezing.”

  “We aren’t going to try to get him out now are we?”

  “No, Moff,” she explained. “We’re getting further from town so we can light a small fire. We’ll come back after dark to get him.”

  Chapter 17

  Treace’s head still ached miserably and he was thirsty. At least he wasn’t cold. The two guards here in the jail kept the fire well fed. “Can I get some water?”

  The two men exchanged glances but didn’t bother to reply.

  “I’ve been in here all day with no food or water,” Treace told them. He was going to pretend to be weak but he knew he wasn’t a good actor. Besides, the fact that he hadn’t seen a single person in town that he recognized on his trip to the jail made him angry. He should have recognized someone while he was dragged through town. Either they had killed the townsfolk or were keeping them held hostage somewhere. He hoped for the latter.

  They simply continued looking at him but didn’t bother to reply.

  “My hands are bound and I’m in a cell, just slide the water through the bars,” Treace told them. He had asked for his binds to be removed when he was put in the cell, but the men ignored that request as well.

  “We ain’t falling for none of your tricks,” one man told him. “You ain’t escaping this jail.”

  It wasn’t the first reference either one of them had made about Treace’s previous escape from his cell in Kadenton. Granted, he was certain they had no idea that it was actually Disdane and Brental that had orchestrated that, but it wasn’t going to do him any good trying convince them of it either.

  “You think the King would be pissed if he happened to die trying to escape?” the other man asked.

  This speaker was a few years older than the first, and much, much uglier. His greasy hair was as well kempt as a rat’s nest and his beard wasn’t much better. But his most prominent feature was his eyes. They were large, almost too large for his face, and filled with hate.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” the other replied.

  This man bathed more frequently than the other and didn’t have the same amount of hate in his eyes, but surely there was no love in them either. Treace thought there was a little fear in there, but he couldn’t be sure. Considering all Treace had allegedly done, he supposed he couldn’t blame the man for that.

  “I think the King wants to kill him himself,” the ugly one stated from safety of his leaned back chair. “But I don’t think he’d be too mad if he found out that he was skewered while trying to escape again either. In fact, I’m thinking he might even commend us for what we did.”

  The man may have sounded confident, but Treace knew he was bluffing. He was simply trying to get under Treace’s skin, which Treace wasn’t going to allow.

  “If he tries to escape,” the other replied.

  “I hope he does try.”

  The ugly one was right. Once Shamir arrived in town, Treace was certainly going to be killed. He needed to get out of here tonight if he was going to stay alive. The cell was constructed well enough, he wasn’t getting out by trying to break through the bars. And he wasn’t going to be able to go through the back wall or try to break up the floor. Both were built using the massive timber from Lake City. But, thanks to Kiril, he had an idea. He just hoped he didn’t stone-face himself trying to do what he had in mind. But he needed to wait longer. It wasn’t yet late enough and many men were still awake. He could hear them talking as they walked by. It seemed as if they were throwing a party to celebrate the capture of The Wolf.

  He hoped to ruin that celebration.

  ~~~

  Kiril snuck forward with Moffred leading the way. Many small fires dotted the city and she could easily hear the cheering and laughter from the people inhabiting it. “It sounds like they’re celebrating something.”

  “They probably are,” Moff replied. “They caught Treace.”

  Kiril’s mind went somewhere she didn’t like. She pictured the men standing around Treace’s dead body, celebrating their victory. She shook the dark thought from her mind and focused on where they needed to go. She continued to follow Moff as he picked a path into town.

  “Shit,” Moff cursed through a whisper a few moments later.

  “What is it?” she asked, also whispering.

  “Those sentries aren’t moving,” he said, putting his arm in line with her face, pointing his finger at two men standing around a small fire.

  They had watched the patrols around the city for some time and had already moved through the outer perimeter. Now that they were just inside of the town proper, there were more buildings to hide behind, but there were also more men around them. These two had a fire going and it cast light from the building they were stationed at to the one in between them, which was where Moff was leading her. “How much further?”

  “Too far just to shoot them and then hope for the best if that’s what you mean. The patrol would spot them on the ground well before we made it to Treace.”

  It was what she had in mind. But they couldn’t just run out into the light without quickly being spotted. They’d have to turn back and find another path in.

  Moffred leaned his bow against the building and bent low. He scooped up snow in his hands and began packing
it into a ball.

  “You’re going to throw a snowball at them?”

  “Not at them,” Moff replied. “Past them to the icicles of the building behind them. When they look, run to the next building.”

  “Risky.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  She thought about it for a moment. She thought about trying to light the small stack of wood next to them on fire much like she did the pine tree, but that would just produce more light. She shook her head.

  “Then get ready to run.”

  Moff stepped away from the building but remained in its shadow. He drew his arm back and let the snowball fly.

  It flew high and disappeared into the darkness. It either went over the building or landed softly in the snow on the roof. Either way, the men never even flinched.

  “Don’t judge,” Moff told her and began to get another snowball ready.

  He threw another one and this time connected with his target. The icicles shattered and fell into the snow below with a light thudding sound. The men flinched and instinctively put their hands on their swords as they turned to face the sound.

  Kiril didn’t know if they looked back in time to see her slide into position behind Moff and into the shadows of the next building or not, but after a few moments of silence with no calls ringing out and no one rounding the corner to follow, she decided it must have worked.

  Moff must have thought so to, because he let the tension out of his bow and turned back to their original path to keep going.

  “Down!” Moff whispered back, placing his back against the closest building.

  Kiril hopped over behind him and slid down to a kneeling position, keeping her arms facing the ground so that no firelight would glint off the metal of her arm braces.

  Two sentries walked by, one holding a torch, the other a bottle. It seemed they were also celebrating.

  “I bet the King beheads him,” the one holding the torch suggested.

  “I say he hangs him,” the other replied, taking a big drink from the bottle.

  Kiril could only assume they were speaking of Treace and that dark image of them celebrating over Treace’s dead body returned once again.

  “I’ll take that bet,” came the reply from the one with the torch as they passed their position.

  “It won’t come to that,” Moff confidently whispered back to her.

  She hoped he was right.

  ~~~

  The two men outside Treace’s cell had already drank half the bottle that Raythien had dropped off to them. He said it was a reward for all of their hard work in taking Kilindric and capturing The Wolf. Treace thought that was odd, he had never seen men on duty drink before, but he knew Shamir’s laws were far different from those in Haven. Raythien had given him a soft look and a quick nod before he left the building a short while ago. Even though there was compassion in his eyes, Treace wanted to poke them out.

  “To your death!” the ugly one toasted, raising the bottle high in a salute to Treace before taking a long drink.

  “May it be swift!” the other added.

  The ugly man nearly spit out his drink and gave the other a hard look. “May it not be swift, you idiot!”

  “May it not be swift!” the other man corrected himself, taking the bottle from his companion.

  It was clear that the uglier man had a far stronger tolerance for alcohol. The other was already nearly drunk, if not already there. Treace decided that now was the time. He needed help from at least one of them and if he waited any longer they may not have enough sense left in them to do so.

  He turned his back to them and closed his eyes. He fell into The Calm quickly and focused on anger and anticipation; the two emotions he’d need to fuel his magic.

  He willed each to become stronger, to build until he didn’t think he could contain them in their locked positions anymore. He released his magic and opened his eyes.

  The back wall and part of the ceiling was on fire. Intense heat radiated from the fire. He backed up to the bars of the cell.

  “What in the hell?” the ugly one asked.

  “Get me out of here!” Treace yelled.

  Smoke started to quickly fill the room. He didn’t think he’d be able to get those timbers to light so easily. It was much easier than trying to boil water with a finger!

  The younger man jumped to his feet and began fumbling with the keys.

  “What are you doing?” his companion asked.

  “We can’t let him burn in there. The King will kill us if he’s dead when he gets here,” the man bemoaned, confirming to Treace that the previous discussion about him being dead when Shamir got there was nothing more than a bluff.

  The older man must have decided the other was right because he stepped aside but drew his sword through a fit of coughing.

  Treace tucked his nose and mouth into the crook of his arm as best as he could and tried not to breathe in the smoke that nearly filled the small building. The fabric of his shirt helped with the air, but it did nothing to help with the burning of his eyes from the smoke. Still, Treace held his breath as best as he could, careful to only inhale through his shirt.

  The man with the keys dropped them on the floor, earning him a hearty berating from his companion. They were stumbling around, obviously drunk, and the process of opening the cell was taking far too long. As it was, Treace had already spent more time in a burning building than he cared to.

  The man finally got the cell door open and the three of them staggered out into the fresh air moments later. The two guards hunched over coughing, trying to get clean air into their lungs. Treace had the benefit of breathing through his shirt, so he inhaled far less smoke than they did, but he imagined his eyes burned just as much as theirs did.

  Treace took the time to get one good breath of air in before he kicked out hard at the side of the ugly man’s knee. The knee buckled under that blow and the man went down hard, groaning in pain.

  Treace regained his balance and cocked both arms back and brought them up and to his left as quickly and powerfully as he could.

  The back of his left hand connected solidly with the younger man’s nose, which sent the man flying backward into the snow. The momentum of Treace’s swing nearly made him lose his feet, but he managed to stay upright.

  He hoped that would be enough to secure his escape, but just as he was about to take a step, the older man pressed the point of his sword toward Treace, making him come to an immediate halt.

  The man stood up, hobbling on his bad leg, and grinned at Treace.

  That grin was gone in an instant when an arrow flew by and struck the man in the neck. He dropped the sword immediately and went to the ground clutching at the arrow that surely had sealed his fate. The light from the now raging inferno behind him made the blood pouring from the wound clearly visible.

  Treace ignored the dying man and grabbed the weapon from the snow. He turned quickly to face the direction the arrow had come from to find Raythien slinging his bow back over his shoulder.

  Treace started to back away slowly and kept his sword at the ready.

  Raythien bent over and picked a sack up off the ground. “I came to get you out, but it looks like you didn’t need much help.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe you?” Treace asked.

  “I shot him in the neck,” Raythien offered.

  “You could have been aiming for my back and missed,” Treace replied.

  “Why would I have these otherwise?” Raythien asked, pulling Treace’s swords from the sack. “What possible reason could I have for bringing these to the cell? And for the record, I don’t miss,” Raythien said, seeming wounded that Treace would question his accuracy with a bow.

  “Why?” Treace asked. He wasn’t speaking of missing shots and he doubted that Raythien would mistake his question.

  “Are we going to keep talking or can we just escape?”

  Treace looked at the fire that was no longer contained to the inside of the
building and realized that it was going to be a popular place very soon.

  “Shall we?” Raythien asked, gesturing forward as if nothing was out of the ordinary about the whole escape.

  “Let’s go,” Treace replied, deciding that if Raythien had wanted him dead, he’d most likely already be dead. There was truth in the man’s words that he couldn’t deny. There wasn’t a good explanation for why he’d bring Treace’s weapons with him to the cell. He’d find out the full truth of the story later. But for now, he’d settle with getting out of here in one piece.

  Raythien moved past him, handing off Treace’s swords as he did so. “This way.”

  Treace tossed down the guard’s sword and gripped his swords firmly in his hands. It felt good to have his weapons back. He followed Raythien’s lead into the shadows of a nearby building.

  “There should only be two patrols out here,” Raythien informed him.

  “The alcohol, the celebration, the limited patrols. It’s all your doing isn’t it?” Treace asked in barely more than a whisper. He didn’t know why he didn’t see it sooner. Raythien may have knocked him over the head, but if he hadn’t, both of them would most likely still be in that cell together waiting for Shamir’s judgement. At least by Raythien pretending to be a spy, he was able to get information from the men and stay out of a cell. Brilliant move.

  “I told you that you could trust me,” Raythien said quietly as he continued to move from shadow to shadow.

  Oddly enough, Treace decided that he did. Funny, considering that it wasn’t long ago he was thinking about how he wanted to poke the man’s eyes out.

  They rounded a corner, easily avoiding one of the two patrols. They were moving quickly back the opposite direction. A quick look back told Treace why. The fire from the jail was clearly visible over the tops of the other buildings. As the patrol moved on, Treace noted something moving in the darkness a few buildings down from them, closer to where the patrol was headed. It was a darker blob inside the shadow. “Wait,” Treace whispered to Raythien, grabbing his arm. “Look.”

  They watched that blob in the darkness turn into two and move across the road in the direction of the fire. It was Moff and Kiril! Without the light from the burning building, Treace never would have seen them. They didn’t listen to him after all. He wasn’t as surprised as he thought he’d be that they didn’t leave. “We have to get them.”