“When should we try it?” asked a woman.
“Now,” said Anarynd. The five women scattered and reassembled again thirty minutes later, but now there were seven of them—three with small children.
“They were there when I went to get Morwena,” said Gwyned desperately, clutching her asleep two-year-old daughter. “I couldn’t leave them if there was any chance.”
“You idiot,” hissed one of the original five. “You’ll give us away!”
“I didn’t see a single Narthani or Eywellese soldier anywhere,” said Gwyned. “There’s no one to see us.”
Another woman agreed—all of the men were on the walls and the fortifications. They started off. By the halfway point to the river side of town, they had seen only women, children, and a few of the oldest men, until they came near a walled compound with a single guard at the door. They were about to detour around the street when Anarynd stopped and stared at the compound.
“That’s a troop brothel, isn’t it?” she asked, emotionless.
“Yes,” whispered Gwyned.
“How many women do they keep in there?”
“I think around thirty to fifty,” said Gwyned, “depending on how many are still alive and when they brought in new ones.”
Anarynd peeked around the corner at the guard. “So far, we haven’t been stopped. I think we’ll make it to the opening. I’m thinking that if we get away, will I spend the rest of my life remembering the women left behind those walls?”
“Oh, merciful God, Anarynd! Don’t tell me you want to try to bring them along, too!” blurted Gwyned. “There’s a guard at the gate and who knows how many more inside! Why don’t we just run through streets screaming ‘We’re trying to escape!’”
“I have to try. Will you help or not?”
“Of course, I will, you stupid bitch, but what about the guard?”
“There’s only one at the gate. Surely, four or five women who happen to walk up to him, asking for information about what’s happening, can take care of him.”
“Like how?” asked a short, black-haired woman holding a two-year-old boy.
“Like this,” said Anarynd, pulling out an eight-inch bone-handled knife of Erdelin’s.
“Or this,” said Gwyned, holding a kitchen butcher knife.
The seven women produced five knives of different shape and length.
So much for not bringing anything except innocuous clothing, thought Anarynd.
While they watched, two Eywellese women scurried down the street and past the guard, who gave them a cursory glance and leaned back against the wall by the door. A scruffy dog ran up to the guard and then off again, dodging a boot.
“What if there are more guards inside?” asked one woman.
“Look at the key ring he’s carrying,” said Gwyned. “Why would he have so many keys and be outside the building if there were more men inside?”
“Too many of us and he’ll be suspicious,” said Anarynd. “I think three of us can surprise him if we walk up and pretend to ask him something.”
“Which three?” asked a trembling woman Anarynd didn’t know.
“I’ll be one. I can get him to look at me,” Anarynd said and clenched her jaw. She lowered her hood and shook out her long blonde hair.
“I still think you’re insane, but then so am I,” offered Gwyned. She volunteered a third woman, who nodded assent and flashed a wicked-looking, curved, bladed weapon.
Anarynd put a hand on each of the other two women. “When we get to him, I’ll try to get him to turn to face me, and the two of you move behind him. Then we’ll do what we have to.”
The three of them walked out from around the corner and toward the guard. He noticed them at thirty feet away. His eyes scanned all three, then settled on Anarynd, who tried to transform herself back to the young girl and woman who used to tease boys and men with the way she walked and tossed her hair. He licked his lips, and his eyes reflected his thoughts as they roamed over her body and face.
“Pardon me,” she said in her broken Narthani, putting her right hand on the wall a foot from the guard, “we hear all the horns and drums but don’t know what’s happening.” She flicked her hair away from her eyes back to her shoulders. He turned to face her.
The other two women didn’t exist at that moment but reappeared as Gwyned drove a knife into his back under the ribs.
He gasped and rose on his toes from the shock, but before he could move anymore, the other woman hacked at the side of his throat, and Anarynd jabbed her knife into his stomach.
All three women jumped back, as the man flayed his arms around—dying as he stood but still, by reflex, reaching for his sword. Anarynd leaped forward again and thrust her knife into his throat so hard, she lost her grip, and the hilt end of the blade ripped a gash in her palm. His eyes wide in shock and disbelief, the guard sank to his knees, Anarynd’s knife in his neck, blood flowing down his neck. His hands grasped at his wounds and his legs kicked out several times. He never made a sound.
“My God, my God, my God,” Gwyned chanted over and over.
“Quick, get him inside,” ordered Anarynd.
“And pray to Merciful God there are no more guards on the other side of the door,” moaned Gwyned.
Anarynd tested the door. It was locked. She pulled the key ring off the guard’s belt. There were ten keys. The fifth one turned the lock, and she opened the door slowly and looked inside at a small, spare room with two desks and two hallways, one to each side. No one was in the room. She pushed the door open wider, and they dragged the motionless body of the guard into the room and to one side.
Suddenly, a woman’s voice rang out from the left hall.
“Is the warning over?” called a woman.
“Well?” asked the voice again, and then a middle-aged woman in an expensive red robe and sandals appeared. She stopped when she saw the three women.
“Who . . . ?” she started to say and then noticed the guard’s body and a blood trail. The woman turned to run, but Gwyned slammed her against the wall, threw her to the ground, and held her knife at the woman’s throat.
“Shout and I’ll cut your throat,” hissed Gwyned. The blood-covered knife and the expression of the wielder made no other convincing necessary.
“Are there other guards in the building?”
The woman shook her head, her eyes wide and frightened.
“Where are the women?”
“They’re locked in the commons rooms at the end of the hall,” the woman gasped, with an arm toward the rightward hall.
Anarynd raced down the right hall. It was sixty to seventy feet long with open doors every eight feet. As she ran, she glanced into the open doors and got quick glimpses of narrow rooms with no windows and in each room, a low, wood-frame bed with a bare mattress—nothing else. Unbidden, her mind flashed that here was where the women “worked” to an endless line of Narthani soldiers. She shut the images out, as she reached the door at the end of the hall and fumbled with the keys.
This time, the eighth key turned the lock. She shoved open the door. Light from candles reflected off a sea of faces with blank or frightened expressions—all looking at her. None of the women uttered a word.
“There is no time for anything,” barked Anarynd. “All the Narthani soldiers are at the city’s walls. There are supposed to be clansmen about to attack. I and some others are trying to escape out of the city before the soldiers come back. Anyone who wants to come with us has to come RIGHT NOW.”
Dozens of women talking at once broke the silence. “Escape?” “It’s not possible!” Who are you?” “It’s a trick!” “Escape to what or where?”
The din rose and rose until Anarynd screamed, “SHUT UP or guards will come back!”
The tumult quieted.
“Is there really a chance to escape,” asked a slender, brown-haired girl of perhaps seventeen years, tears running down her cheeks.
“It’s a chance,” said Anarynd. “We don’t know if we ca
n make it, but it’s all we have.”
“They’ll kill us if we leave the building,” stated a woman in the back of the room.
“Would you rather be killed trying to escape or stay here to service Narthani until you die?” grated the young woman.
“There’s no time for talking,” reiterated Anarynd. “Those who want to come with us follow me right this moment. We’re leaving NOW. Any others just stay in this room and wait for the Narthani to come back.”
Anarynd turned and started back down the hall. She heard the drum of many footsteps behind her. By now, the other four of their original seven women had gathered with the children in the anteroom.
“Oh, God,” said Gwyned. “They’re going to hear us just from the dust we raise and the drum of footfalls.”
Anarynd turned to the women who had crowded into the room. “Pass the word on down to follow us and keep quiet!”
“What do we do about the woman?” asked Gwyned, referring to the richly dressed woman cowering in a corner.
The young woman, plus several other women, glanced to the corner. A feral look came over her. “She won’t be a problem,” she said, as the woman in the corner disappeared under a mass of brothel women. Choking sounds followed an aborted scream . . . and then nothing.
The woman nearest the outer door would guide them to the supposed opening in the defense wall. She peered into the street, then turned her head back. “No one in sight. Let’s go.”
Had there been Narthani or Eywellese men in the streets, the sight of a mob of women hustling along might have raised alarms. The few people they passed were women and children. Then they turned a corner, and in front of them walked a single armed Eywellese man. They froze. He looked them over, jerked his head to indicate move on, and strode away. All of the women breathed again.
The cluster of women wound along streets and alleys for four hundred yards until they reached a tumble of stone blocks against the inner side of the city’s outer riverside wall. Their guide walked up to the pile, then picked her way around and over blocks, Anarynd following. And there it was—a slit in the bottom of the wall. The two women could feel air coming through. They squeezed through a four-foot passage to stand on the other side of the main wall. A moon rose just over the horizon and cast a faint yellowish glow in the night. Before them lay a steep slope down to the river. The press of women squeezing through the gap forced them to move along the base of the wall. Soon, all were standing outside, and Anarynd got her first estimate of how many women there were. At least thirty!
Some started talking—to be hushed by others. Word got to Anarynd and Gwyned that some women said they couldn’t go down that slope and others said they couldn’t swim. Several turned and walked back into town. Anarynd had no time for them. It was their decision. But they might, deliberately or inadvertently, raise an alarm.
“We go NOW,” said Anarynd, and she stepped onto the slope. The lucky, or most agile, women stayed on their feet part of the way down. Several tumbled the entire distance to the river. Two went directly into the river and disappeared. Two women lay dead at the bottom, and six had injuries severe enough to be helped or carried by the others. Anarynd felt bruises on every part of her body, and she had blood coming from a dozen superficial cuts. She didn’t notice.
Crossing the river, they lost several more women. They never knew how many, since there had been no exact count at the beginning. Once across, exhausted, wet, bruised, if not worse, and with no idea where they were going, they headed for a line of trees a mile away.
Spurred on by adrenaline flowing through their veins, the exhausted women hurried as fast as their bodies would allow, while looking back every few feet, fearful of pursuers.
“We’re almost to the trees,” said Anarynd, gasping for air. “We can rest there.”
They ran and stumbled the last few yards. Anarynd’s legs trembled from exertion, but before collapsing onto the ground she turned to ensure the last of the women had reached the trees.
Suddenly, a man’s voice called out. “And who in God’s creation are you women?”
Anarynd spun and her throat constricted in fear before she recognized that the man spoke Caedelli and not with the Eywellese accent. She pulled her knife from her belt and held it against her side, so he wouldn’t see it. Gwyned and the brown-haired girl did the same.
“Who are YOU?” asked Anarynd.
“I’m Stentese, and we’ve been out killing Narthani and Eywellese. However, Hanslow is more than we can chew off, and we’re about to head back. There. I’ve told who I am; now you do the same.”
“Oh, my God,” blurted a woman. “Is it true, then, the clans have beaten the Narthani in a battle?”
“Well, I suppose it depends on what you say is a victory, but at least we drove them out of Moreland Province.”
“Please,” begged Anarynd, “we’re all slaves captured by the Narthani and the Eywellese. We escaped when they sent all men to the defenses, but they’ll be coming after us once they realize so many of us are missing. Many of us are Morelanders, plus Preddi and a few from elsewhere on Anyar.”
The man cursed, then spit to one side. “Well, that’s not part of our plan. We need to get out of here fast. Once the Narthani realize there aren’t that many of us and we aren’t attacking, they’ll send men out to look for us.”
Anarynd feared he meant he wouldn’t help them.
“Please,” she implored, “at least take the women with babies. You have to do something!”
He grunted. “Oh, we’ll take you all. It’s just got to be quick.”
With that, he turned and whistled. Another whistle answered, followed by sounds of horses—many horses. In the darkness, Anarynd couldn’t tell the number of men, but with a lot of shouting and shoving, all of the woman and children doubled up with riders, and they headed east at a trot.
CHAPTER 4: LOSS OR DRAW?
Preddi City
Despite Akuyun’s determination to keep focused on the endless paperwork, his mind roamed to the east, and he imagined events playing out in Moreland Province. He had seen Brigadier Zulfa and 6,500 Narthani troops and 2,500 Caedelli allies start for the Moreland border. Part of him had wanted to lead the invasion, but his responsibility was to all of the Narthani military forces, army and navy, and the 100,000 Narthani non-military colonists on the island.
He sighed. The waiting stack never seemed to grow smaller, no matter how many hours he spent attacking it. The current papers spread before him included cargo manifests of the latest supply ship from Narthon: uniforms, Narthani civilian clothing, replacement muskets for those becoming unserviceable, six fortification cannons of the thirty he had requested, bags of correspondence for the troops and civilians, twenty more priests of Narth who had usurped berths of new junior officers, on and on—plus ten vats of Narthani ale. The latter unrequisitioned and all spoiled; he suspected graft through someone in their quartermaster corps. He acknowledged the receipt of all of the cargo—those of use and those not. As soon as he finished with the incoming cargo, he moved on to the items for the return trip to Narthon, including a few well-connected traders, five Narthani broken from their rank and from families too important for Akuyun to consider executing, and hulls filled with grains and cured meats.
He also suspected the paper stack contained the yearly performance reviews of all officers under his command. Although he made only the primary evaluations of those immediately under him, he routinely reviewed all of the evaluations and concurred with or put aside any evaluations where he needed to talk with the evaluator. Beyond that, he didn’t care to speculate on the rest of the pile, as he doggedly continued. As usual, he made it a routine to quit by sundown to be home for evening meal with his wife, Rabia, and children.
As much as he disliked such paperwork, he normally disciplined himself to work efficiently. But not on days like today. The latest news from Zulfa outside Moreland City reported that the first day of direct contact with the Caedelli army—if clansmen m
obs could be called an army—proved inconclusive. The islanders had massed in front of the Narthani positions, milled around for hours and feinted attacks twice, but never came within firing range. Zulfa reported he would give them the next day to attack, and if they didn’t, he would continue to advance on the city to force a battle.
If a general engagement has happened, it might have been days ago, thought Akuyun, so Zulfa would have sent notice back to the closest Eywell semaphore station. In which case, I should get news any time now.
He had barely finished the thought when a knock on his office door preceded an aide, unbidden, rushing in with a piece of paper. Akuyun’s intended reprimand of the young officer for his decorum faded, as he saw the shocked look on the aide’s face.
“A semaphore message from Brigadier Zulfa, sir,” choked out the young officer.
Akuyun’s displeasure vanished, to be replaced by a knot in his stomach. “What . . . ?”
He took the paper and read the few lines.
From: Brigadier Zulfa
To: General Akuyun
Engaged Caedelli large force.
Right wing collapsed.
Lost half cannon.
3 squares destroyed.
Withdrawing to Eywell.
More later.
“Great Narth?” he exclaimed, shaken. Forced to withdraw? What could have happened?
Remembering the young officer standing in front of his desk, Akuyun composed himself. “Thank you. I take it you read the message?”
“Yes, sir. Standing orders from Major Saljurk are to read all incoming messages and prioritize getting them to you. I know anything from Brigadier Zulfa would be considered high priority . . . Should I not have read it, sir?”
“No, no. Nothing to worry about on that account. Of course, the news is not what we expected, is it?” Akuyun managed a tone he hoped conveyed his reception of disappointing news but not disaster.
Heavier Than a Mountain (Destiny's Crucible Book 3) Page 4
