The Godseeker Duet

by David A Willson

  “Shift change, I think,” Mykel said.

  Some soldiers were leaving, several were talking with one another, and only a couple appeared to be serious about guarding the place.

  “What do they keep in there?” Nara asked.

  “Who knows? Armor. Weapons, probably. Maybe some horses.”

  “Cages on wagons, I’d wager.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe some kidnapped kids?”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “Probably sent those north right away.”

  “We’ll know soon.”

  There were several buildings in the middle of the outpost, including one very large one, and a tall tower with a single guard in it. The guard was sitting, eating something. From this perspective, it looked like no one was working.

  “At night we’ll have the advantage,” Mykel said. “They can’t see much.”

  They would have even more of an advantage with no light at all. “The torches,” Nara said. “I’ll take care of the ones on the outside first.”

  “Yes. But there will still be a lot of them. Some soldiers are leaving, but I bet they’ll still have plenty. When they wake—”

  “Don’t kill them if you don’t have to.”

  “Yup.” He didn’t sound convincing.

  “Is it stupid to attack them, then hope they’ll join us?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Nara shrugged. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  If they held any hope of getting these men to follow her, to be part of an effort to resist Kayna, killing them would not be a great move. But some would probably die. Junn was close to Dimmitt, and some of these very soldiers could have been responsible for Sammy’s death. Mykel wanted justice, and so did she. It was a new feeling for her, this bitterness. It was at once sweet and foul. It disturbed her, but not enough to change her mind. This outpost would fall, regardless of the cost.

  “Leave the gifted to me, if there are any,” she said. “If we’re going to build an army to stand against my sister, we will need more than bullies with swords.”

  She’d changed her tune, talking like this. Accepting that there would be deaths was a big shift for her. Mykel hadn’t commented on her change of heart. Not on the boat ride from Dimmitt, nor as he stole backpacks from an outfitter’s shop and bread from a bakery. They would need to break the rules to keep going, and Nara had not stopped him. Too much had happened. So much that it was hard to talk about, even with the person who was closest to her in the whole world. She wanted to say something kind, to comfort him, or maybe just to reach out and ask him to hold her, but she didn’t know how to start. Instead, she lay on the forest floor and waited, watching.

  Two hours later, the sun finally disappeared over the horizon and many soldiers dispersed, heading inside one of the larger buildings. A barracks, then. No surprise.

  “You ready?” Mykel asked, standing and gripping the ivory staff at his side.

  Nara nodded, getting to her feet to join him. She hung her pack on a tree branch above her and stepped out of the damp foliage. A breeze brought a chill to her skin, and she balled her hands into fists, clenching them.

  “How do you want to play this?” he asked.

  Nara thought about the question as she looked around. There might be something she could do to make it easier for these soldiers to switch allegiances.

  “Stay here,” she said.

  “Where are you going?” The concern in his voice was clear.

  She put her palm on his chest, pushing gently, hoping to better make her point. “Stay here. Please. I mean it. I want to make them an offer.”

  “What kind of offer?”

  “I want to give them a chance to give up. Do the right thing.”

  “Not alone you don’t.”

  “Trust me,” she said, holding up her hand.

  She turned toward the high walls of the outpost, then walked down the slope of wet weeds and bushes. The ground became irregular as she descended, uneven, with divots and mounds where trees had been removed, probably when they cleared this area, years before. At the bottom, she came to a large flat area with spotty patches of grass, and a packed-dirt road that led to the main gate. Rain fell in increasing frequency upon the ground as she walked. The sun was long gone, but the road grew brighter as she approached the gate, lit up by the many torches on the wall, each set in a sconce with a lid to prevent water from extinguishing the flame.

  “Ho, there!” someone called from on the wall above the gate.

  “Hello,” she answered. “Open up, please.”

  “Nobody enters. This is an outpost of the Queen’s army. Piss off, child.”

  “I am not a child,” she said. She cleared her throat. “I bring a message of warning. And of invitation.”

  The soldier laughed, and a couple more appeared on the wall, looking down.

  “What’s this, Derg?”

  “Some idiot girl who has let the water seep into her skull,” said the first.

  “My name is Nara Dall, of Dimmitt. I am the Queen's enemy, and I bring you a message. Surrender. All of you. Join me right now against the witch who holds the throne, and I will spare you. I’ll see that you get fed. And that you no longer have to do her bidding. No kidnapping of children. No murdering of innocents. One chance. Right here. Throw open your gates.”

  The laughter from atop the wall was delayed, but when it came, it was raucous. She wasn’t surprised. A moment later, after their guffaws ran out of steam, one spoke. “How about I make you a counteroffer, Neera. I open the gate, and you give us all a good time for a few hours. I have ale and a warm fire, and we know ways to keep young ladies entertained.”

  Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “I gave you a chance,” she said, then turned and walked away.

  A few moments later, she was back with Mykel near their hiding place atop the rise.

  “That was foolish of you.”

  “We’ll see. Now they know I am not unreasonable. Nobody willingly follows a tyrant. I will be different from her, Mykel.”

  They stood for a moment, looking at the scene.

  “It would be nice not to have to fight them all at once,” he said.

  “That might be hard to do. Once we’re inside, it will be chaos. We won’t even know where they are all coming from. There will be the one in the tower and those on the walls, but once the soldiers in the barracks come out, we’ll be in the middle, surrounded.”

  “I could take twenty myself. More, probably. But I’d rather they came a few at a time.”

  “Unless something goes wrong. They may have gifted,” Nara said. She engaged her vision to look for sources of magic, cepps or gifted who were using their talents. She saw nothing. “I’ll take care of the torches. Once it’s dark, we go in.”

  “Over the gate or through it?”

  She smiled. Yes, Mykel could bash that gate in, and probably wanted to, but that would give the entire outpost warning and such overconfidence was probably unwise in battle planning. She remembered Anne’s words on the matter. 'Be efficient with your energy, girl. When you run out, you die. Or someone else does.'

  That advice should apply to Mykel as well.

  “We go over,” Nara said. “Surprise is safer. We are two against many, and we must be smart about it.”

  Nara made her way down quietly to the front left edge of the outpost wall, avoiding the brightly lit areas near the torches. She peeked out from behind a large rock, focusing on the closest torch. Closing her eyes, she summoned the motion rune, then held it in her vision as she concentrated on the sconce. Feeding it just a breath of energy, she pushed on the lid of the sconce, deforming it, bending it out of the way so it no longer protected the torch from the steady rain.

  She stepped back from the wall, hiding behind a fairly large rock, and looked at the torch. She could hear the sizzle of rainwater as it spattered the flames and evaporated. The torch was dimming. Her plan was working. She moved around the left side of the wall a
nd saw several more torches. A sentry walked the top of the wall but didn’t seem very attentive, looking mostly at the inside of the outpost. She disabled the sconces on the two torches she could see, then skulked her way through the rocks and mounds until she reached the torches on the back side. In this way, she encircled the entire outpost, never getting so close to the wall that she could be seen, but close enough to disable their exterior lighting. It wouldn’t take them long to notice.

  Finally finished with the torches, she was walking back toward Mykel when she heard something from a sentry on the front wall.

  “Is the old woman still awake?” The man was shouting down inside the walls to someone Nara couldn’t see. “Torches are going out. Wake that wench and send her out to light new ones.”

  There were civilians in there.

  A few moments later, Nara met Mykel near a fallen tree. “Be mindful of the innocents,” Nara said.

  “Is anyone who serves Kayna innocent?”

  “Yes.”

  Mykel sighed, then nodded.

  Nara led him to the left side of the outpost.

  “Jump or climb?” Mykel asked.

  “You can do what you want, but let me get close before you blow our cover. I’m climbing.”

  Just then, a creaking sound revealed the front gate swinging open. A middle-aged woman in a sopping-wet overcoat made her way toward a sconce holding a sputtering torch in one hand and two unlit torches in the other.

  “An open front door,” Nara whispered. “Even better.” She dashed toward the gate in the near darkness.

  “Who’s there?” the woman asked as Nara approached.

  In a burst from the shadows behind the woman, Nara grabbed the woman’s torch and threw it into the rocks far beyond.

  “Wha . . . ?”

  “Run away, good woman,” Nara said, whispering into her ear. “This outpost will be a dangerous place tonight. Don’t scream. Just run.”

  “What’s going on down there?” came from the wall above.

  “Uh . . . nothing,” the woman answered, then promptly dropped her other torches, lifted her skirts, and ran away.

  With the exterior torches now extinguished, it was time to pick the fight. Nara flared earth, and the bottom of the gate became trapped on either side by stone. It would move nowhere now, and only one person could come through at a time.

  “Brilliant,” Mykel said. “But they’ll have archers on the wall in no time once this starts.”

  “I can handle them.”

  Nara retreated to the left side of the fort, watching for archers while Mykel moved to the roadway in front of the gate. He would be in plain view once the soldiers found some light. Several moments of shouting and frustrated voices inside the fort were followed by three soldiers bearing torches, exiting through the gate, one at a time. Two tried to push on the gate to open it further.

  “It’s stuck,” one said. “A bunch of rock down here blocking it.”

  “I believe we’re to blame for that,” Mykel bellowed, quickly grabbing their attention.

  The soldiers turned toward him, holding their torches high in an effort to see him. The rain made hissing sounds as it hit the flames.

  The soldiers pulled swords from scabbards as they snapped into action. Once they got close enough to see it was a single unarmored man with a staff, they seemed to relax.

  “You’re under arrest,” said one. They were the only words spoken before Mykel moved. In a few heartbeats, all three were on the ground in various stages of discomfort. A sword lay broken, along with a leg, an arm, and several ribs. One man remained conscious, whimpering softly. A moment later, a loud bell rang and more soldiers streamed out of the front gate. Several appeared on the wall, and Nara saw an archer. It was her turn.

  The archer nocked an arrow, aiming at Mykel. Nara flared motion and pulled. Or pushed, actually, from the opposite direction. That was how the motion rune worked—you always had to push. But her aim was way off, and the archer launched off the wall as if a catapult had thrown him way too hard, and in Mykel’s direction. She changed perspectives in her mind, imagined being below him, and gently pushed upward to slow his fall, but his sideways momentum was so great that if the fall didn’t kill him, an impact with a tree or a rock surely would have. She switched perspectives again to counter his lateral momentum but was too late. He hit the ground hard in front of the outpost, bouncing and rolling, his bow flying off to one side. When he came to a stop, he didn’t move. She hoped she hadn’t just killed the man.

  More soldiers poured out of the gate. “Surrender now and you’ll live,” Mykel said, but he didn’t give them long to consider before engaging them, whirling with his staff and flinging the men to the ground in short order.

  Two more archers reached the top of the wall, and Nara focused on a bow this time, flaring motion and pushing it out of his hands. That was way easier. She pushed on the second bow, but the archer was holding so tightly, he almost came with it, and barely kept himself from falling from the wall. Disarming them was a much better strategy. She would have to learn to be smarter about these things.

  Mykel had now defeated a dozen soldiers, each lying in various degrees of consciousness on the ground. Nara heard a sound near the front gate. They were stacking crates to bar the entrance. Smart play. They were changing the confrontation, probably directed by a commander within. She would need to get to him somehow.

  She flared protection and approached the gate again.

  “Nara, stay back,” Mykel said.

  “I’ve got protection up. I’ll be fine.” She walked up to the gate and yelled. “I repeat my offer. My name is Nara Dall. Surrender. All of you. No harm will come to you. Follow me against the Queen and—”

  An arrow fired through the doorway hit her in the chest. Even with protection up, it hurt. A lot. Her temper flared, and all thought of restraint abandoned her. These men had killed Sammy and so many others in Dimmit. Burned her town. She’d shown patience, but they refused her offer of leniency. They understood force and nothing else. She would learn to speak their language.

  Flaring earth, she commanded the ground to erupt below the gate, dislodging it to one side with a horrendous snapping sound. She flared strength and leaped through the now wide-open gate, soaring through the air at least thirty feet. The inside of the fort was plain, with several buildings against the inner walls and a tower in the middle. More than a dozen soldiers stood about, eyes wide in surprise at her entry.

  Several soldiers screamed, “Gifted!”

  She flared speed and felled two soldiers in the middle with strength-enhanced punches to their chests, knocking them back, one into the wall of a building, the other into a hitching post near a horse that whinnied in surprise. Several more emerged from the barracks with swords, running straight at her. She flared earth and their feet became one with the dirt, stopping them abruptly.

  Several arrows whizzed by her without striking, luckily, as she realized that she’d dropped protection when she leaped in through the door. She flared protection and speed, then turned toward three archers atop a smaller building. They launched arrows at her again; she dodged two and caught the third in her right hand, spun around, preserving part of its momentum and flared strength to throw it right back at the archer. It sank into the archer’s leg just above the knee, dropping him instantly with a howl of pain.

  More soldiers streamed out of the barracks, but now Mykel was inside the fort. Finally. Under the power of the speed rune, her sense of timing was wildly distorted, and it was easy to forget how slowly other people moved. Mykel battled several near the barracks, then disappeared inside, sounds of conflict continuing.

  Nara’s eyes darted across the scene, seeing that some soldiers were now retreating in the face of a superior threat. But where was their commander? As if in answer to her query, a door on one of the larger buildings opened and a single figure emerged in silver armor. Royal livery was emblazoned on his breast—a gold dragon rampant on a red backgroun
d. The man carried a sword at his side but didn’t draw it. He shouted for the soldiers to stop fighting.

  As she looked at him, the first enemy figure of authority she’d met, she experienced an odd feeling. It was a combination of anger she held for these people and the power she felt at having them before her, unable to defend themselves in any significant way. But the need to turn their allegiances in a different direction tempered her desire for justice.

  I really don’t know what I’m doing.

  The leader approached, a man in his mid-thirties who had far too much grey hair for his age. He stopped about twenty feet away, then motioned to his soldiers to stay further back. They obeyed. The sounds of fighting in the barracks ceased, and Nara turned to see Mykel emerge, seemingly uninjured. He walked to her side, nobody barring his way.

  Nara turned back to the commander.

  “So you’re her,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  “I am.”

  “They warned me about you. Even put a price on your head.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten thousand crowns. And five for him.”

  “Is that a lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “You won’t beat me,” she said. “Not ever.”

  “Oh, I know that. They won’t even give me gifted to fight with. Too precious, apparently. Only for rounding up little kids and torching their parents. How they expect me to earn a bounty for capturing the likes of you with only these few brave men, I have no idea.” He gestured to the soldiers as he spoke.

  “Brave men who kidnap children and murder their families, you mean.”

  “True. But when one’s life is threatened, or one’s family is at risk, brave men will do what they are told. Killing them won’t stop the horrors.”

  “Maybe we kill you instead,” Mykel said.

  “Yeah, that would work. For a while. Until they replace me and it all starts again. I don’t like it any more than you, but if you want to stop this madness, you will have to get to the heart of the problem. And she’s not here.”