Haven (War of the Princes)

by A. R. Ivanovich

  “If I wasn’t a Dragoon, that would be easy. If you’d like to take this to the sparring ring, I’m yours,” Rune said coolly.

  Kelmen glared back at him. “I’m delivering the Lodestone.”

  I looked worriedly at Rune, afraid of the remote possibility that he’d let me go.

  Rune shook his head, never breaking eye contact with the aggravated man.

  “You can go back to your other duties. Doesn’t seem fair for someone to do all the work and lose all the credit, does it?” Rune said carefully.

  Kelmen gritted his teeth. “Fair enough.”

  Slight relief released some of the pressure pent up within me. He was going to let us go. I felt the Pull of the nearest path that would lead us out.

  “We’ll deliver the Lodestone to Fallux, together,” Kelmen said, crushing all of my hopes of escape.

  For a moment I wondered if Rune would fight him. He didn’t.

  Even for all of my will to survive, I couldn’t wish harm on an innocent person. I didn’t know what Kelmen’s Ability was, but Rune did. I trusted his judgment. If the man couldn’t be incapacitated without making a scene or without killing him, I had to agree with leaving him be. It wasn’t his fault that he was a Dragoon.

  We were caught. Our escape was a failure… this time.

  It could have been worse. Rune’s quick thinking had saved both of us.

  “I have a name,” I said pointedly. It was sort of insulting that my captors didn’t see anything wrong with moving a prisoner without binding them. How helpless did they think I was? If our charade was over, I didn’t need to act the pitiful mute.

  “Lodestone,” Rune agreed. I knew he was only acting, but it still irritated me.

  I wanted to scream. We had been so close. When we began walking, I could feel the way we should go to get out. We passed it, traveling deeper within the fortress. I wished I could run for it. Just bolt for the door. All of my muscles were tense with anticipation for flight. Rune would be forced either to catch me or pay the price for helping me. I couldn’t push him to that. It would be just like the day I tried to escape from Dylan all over again. My heart hurt thinking about it. Catching me had been Dylan’s only way to protect me. My foolhardy actions had made things worse for both of us.

  Dylan.

  As upset as I was, I had to surrender to my fate, for the time being, and hope for another chance.

  Now that Kelmen was with us, Rune was like a different person. Even when the other Dragoon wasn’t looking, he remained in character. He didn’t offer me an apology or a single reassuring glance. I didn’t blame him. His life was at stake.

  When we crossed the far end of the entry hall, the sight of the huge double doors open to the outside world, was a cruel thing. A pair of Dragoons rode by on their black warhorses. The stables were just beyond them. Would Florian still be there? I hadn’t been able to see him from the tower in two days.

  My escorts led me to a room just off of the main hall. I shook from the chill of the wind blasting in from outside. My black long sleeved shirt, matching trousers and flat slip-on shoes were thin. I was grateful I had my orange scarf wrapped around my neck for warmth. My night goggles were hidden beneath the folds of woven orange cloth and now I was glad I had taken the precaution. They were no weapon, but I was fairly certain I wasn’t allowed to keep them.

  Rune motioned for Kelmen to open the twin doors. The scarred Dragoon looked surprised, but didn’t waste the offer. I could only assume he would get some kind of credit for bringing me down if he were first to open the doors.

  Kelmen squeezed the handles and swung the doors open. I’d never been here before. Bookshelves reached to the ceiling on each side of the room, clocks with exposed gears and pendulums dappled the far wall below a single, high, wrought iron window. Movable boards with wheels were pinned with maps and surrounded a large, square table with a metal frame. Its surface was a grid, obscured by many papers, notations and a number of mechanized devices I’d never seen before. The small door beside the bookshelf on the right did not escape my notice.

  Senior Commander Fallux was leaning forward, both of his palms on the surface of the table. A row of five Dragoons stood behind him. Stakes was among them. He smiled at me.

  Upon our entrance, Fallux looked up, pleased.

  “Ah, prompt. Good,” the Senior Commander said. “Kelmen, Thayer, you may stand by, but close the door, if you would.”

  Rune complied.

  I didn’t like being closed into a room with a host of Dragoons and two Commanders, one of whom was bloodthirsty and probably insane. If something happened to me, Rune couldn’t help without giving himself away.

  I wouldn’t act the victim.

  “What do you want?” I demanded of Fallux.

  “Lodestone,” he said cheerfully in that dark voice of his. “Were you so busy in your tower prison?”

  “I was, actually. I don’t appreciate being interrupted,” I said, feeling brash after our attempt of escape had been derailed.

  “And what was it you were so busy doing?” Fallux asked curiously.

  “Figuring out a way to throw you and Stakes out of my window,” I told him.

  Stakes chuckled dryly.

  Commander Fallux only smirked. “Charming. Small talk aside, I brought you here for an important purpose. I had at first thought to summon the Margrave here to meet you, but in light of certain events near the capitol of our region, I have decided to bring you to him. Don’t be upset, there are more towers in Cape Hill.”

  This couldn’t happen. They were taking me away. I’d be farther from home… far away from Rune. How would there be any hope of escape then? We had been so close. Rune and I could have been on our way to Rivermarch where we’d finally be safe, truly safe.

  “I don’t think she wants to go,” Stakes said as though he found humor in it. He gave me a soothing look. I didn’t like it.

  “Our Margrave needs Dragoon reinforcements in Cape Hill. We will provide them and bring the Lodestone,” Fallux told the Dragoons in the room. “We will leave at… leave at…”

  I noticed a fine layer of sweat on Fallux’s metal torn face. He reeled over the table and caught himself. His one clawed hand dug scars into the wooden table surface as he swayed.

  “What is this?” he demanded. He blinked his eyelids hard. Something was definitely wrong with him.

  Fallux gripped the forearm of his metallic clawed hand, blood dripped out from beneath his gauntlet.

  “Senior Commander, are you alright?” Kelmen asked stepping forward.

  “The Sting,” Fallux said and turned sluggishly to face a stocky Dragoon who stood at the end of the row, nearest him. “Bayard!” he barked, trudging up to the Dragoon.

  Fallux gripped the shorter man with hand and claw by the collar and flung him back like he was light as a child. His strength was inhuman. Bayard hit the bookshelf behind him hard, breaking several shelves. The Dragoon grunted, choked, and a shower of water poured from his mouth.

  Stunned, I stumbled backwards a step. Bayard fell to the ground. He didn’t move. I didn’t understand at first that he was dead. Fallux had killed him by controlling the water in his body. It happened so fast.

  I’d never seen anyone die before. I stared at his lifeless form, lost in a whirlwind of sinking confusion. That man had been blinking, moving and breathing only a minute ago, and now it was over for him. A tear rolled, unbidden, down my cheek. It wasn’t from sadness; I wasn’t even sure which emotion I was feeling. The man was a complete stranger to me. I simply had never in my sheltered life experienced such a swift intrusion of death.

  “I’ll get a medic, Senior Commander,” Kelmen said.

  “Poison,” Fallux said leaning on the table again and breathing heavily. “Nothing I won’t survive.”

  Bayard must have had a poison Ability and used it against Fallux, but why?

  Kelmen turned to head for the doors, but the metal handles creaked and wrapped tightly together as if forced by
an unseen entity.

  Fear expanded in me like a clay pot shattering to the floor.

  “Rune,” my mouth moved without any sound.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Stakes said to Fallux, stepping forward. He didn’t allow a moment of understanding to cross Fallux’s features. The metal frame of the table peeled away from its wooden interior like it was a living creature and wrapped around the Senior Commander. Dark iron screeched and twisted, winding around Fallux’s arms, legs, and throat, turning him to face Stakes.

  The Junior Commander revealed a thick, square device in his hand. Its brass edges were surrounded with dials and metal teeth, and a single robust tube trailed off of it. Stakes punched it onto Fallux’s chest, cutting through his armor, into his flesh.

  I felt like I was standing beside myself, watching things that I could hardly perceive as real blossoming all around me. Even knowing that it was possible for a person to control an element like water or metal, and understanding that people were capable of such acts of violence, I was pushed into a momentary bubble where everything happened slowly around me, enveloped in shock.

  Rune took the rifle off of his back, removed its two bullets, and slid them as far away from everyone as he could. It was a strange thing to do… until I understood why.

  In the very same moment, a young, pale skinned Dragoon hefted his rifle, aimed, and fired at Stakes. I flinched when the bullet made impact with Stake’s armored shoulder. The sound of the bullet tearing through leather and meeting flesh was sickening.

  Stakes grunted and barked a short laugh, leering at the inexperienced Dragoon. The bullet flew from where it was lodged in Stakes’ body, and shot the pale Dragoon in the heart.

  “No!” Kelmen shouted bursting into action and charging at Stakes.

  Before he could reach the Junior Commander, one of the other Dragoons, a tall grizzled man with one eye, intercepted him, swinging a short sword. Kelmen only had time to shield his neck by raising an arm in defense. The blade sunk into his leather bracer, through his skin and stopped. Blood spattered to the floor. Kelmen winced, jerking his arm away from the sword before flinging himself to grapple with the one-eyed man for his weapon.

  Two other Dragoons, one with red hair, the other wearing goggles, darted around the others, running straight for me.

  Rune stepped between us, unsheathing the sword that hung from his belt.

  He couldn’t stop both of them.

  The red haired Dragoon brandished his sword, aiming to cut Rune down. The sweep was blocked, but Rune’s weapon was knocked from his hand by the sheer brute force of his opponent.

  The Dragoon with the goggles dodged past Rune. I scrambled to get away from him, but stumbled over the legs of the dead Dragoon in my panic to get away. My mistake was all that the soldier needed to catch me. I thrashed and screamed as he put me in a chokehold, forcing me to face the scene.

  “Just be quiet and wait your turn,” the Dragoon said to me, ignoring my efforts to claw his arm away.

  A roar from Fallux broke over the sounds of violence in the room. The disc on his chest, thumped. It was a terrible, thick sound. I could hear the depth of damage it inflicted, even if I didn’t know its purpose. Fallux’s voice broke off.

  Stakes was gripping the bars of metal that held Fallux and loomed close to his superior.

  “Not strong enough,” Stakes said grinning as water dripped from the corners of his mouth and down from his eyes. The water was Fallux’s attempt to kill Stakes, but it was to no avail. Stakes looked like a twisted man, drooling and crying with vicious joy. “It’s the p-poison that weakened you-u.”

  Another thump went through Fallux’s chest. His eyes rolled back in his head and he gnashed his two silver fangs helplessly. He was my enemy too, but how could I not feel pity for him? It was horrible. With the second thump, all of the color in his skin and hair was sucked away. By the third, he was ashen and his head lolled limply to the side.

  Stakes stood over him triumphantly and raised the tube to his own chest. At the end of the tube, I saw a large, multi-pronged needle, and this he stabbed into his heart. Something began to move through the tube, from Fallux to Stakes.

  Completely stunned by the brutality of the moment, I realized what he had done. Stakes was draining Fallux.

  A siren wailed elsewhere in the fortress. It sounded like there was a fight outside too.

  I struggled against the man who held me with his arm around my throat, but I wasn’t strong enough.

  “Wait your turn, little Lodestone,” Stakes told me, and then hissed in pain when a metal bone pushed through his cheek. Three of his teeth fell to the floor as silver fangs replaced them and he bellowed when metallic ridges ripped from his forearms.

  Draining Fallux and absorbing his power was turning Stakes into a greater monstrosity still. It was just like Dylan said it would be. It was as disgusting as it was frightening; worse than seeing a man killed, it was the most horrific kind of theft… like rape, without the sexuality.

  He had said my turn was next… he was going to do this to me. I panicked as waves of nausea assaulted me. I didn’t notice the banging of the doors from the outside or the muted shouts beyond them. I didn’t pay attention to Kelmen, surviving a stab wound to his side and fighting on. I was vaguely aware of Rune, unarmed, using the objects around him to defend himself against an unnaturally strong attacker.

  Registering the gruesome reality of the situation, all of my fear fueled my sense of self-preservation. I would not be Stakes’ next victim. My mind flashed with images of my home, my family, Ruby and Kyle. I wouldn’t wait patiently to be murdered.

  A fire kindled within me. I gripped the arm around my throat with both hands. Squeezing my eyes closed, I reached for my only defense.

  The ends of my hair frizzed, and I heard a buzzing coming from within me. I snapped my eyes open with fierce determination and pushed The Spark out from within. Electricity covered my hands and grew like angular white vines into the arm of my captor. The Dragoon seized up as my shock lanced into him, choking me in the process. I lost concentration and The Spark vanished, but the Dragoon gave out a delayed shout as the connection was lost and then released me.

  I wrestled away from him as he sagged against the bookshelf.

  Nearby, Rune was fighting for his life. It looked as though the red haired Dragoon was getting the better of him. When I saw the man’s fist punch straight through a map board, it was plain that his Ability had something to do with physical strength. At the moment, he had Rune cornered.

  They were fighting with their fists and Rune was swinging to miss, frequently. The red haired Dragoon dodged easily and landed a heavy blow to Rune’s side and then his cheek. My friend hit the wall behind him, looking disoriented. He struggled to regain his footing, wiping a drip of blood from his lip. I could see the confidence in the other man’s eyes. He knew he had Rune beaten.

  Rune looked like he was hurting badly. His breathing was labored and pitifully small blue flames flickered into nothingness around his hands. He didn’t have the strength to use The Sear.

  Rune darted out with a jab to the other Dragoon’s side. The blow landed, but the red haired man hardly seemed to notice.

  He hurled one last punch to Rune’s temple, sending him to the floor. If I could get there quickly enough, I could help him. Rune’s enemy was faster. Gloating in his victory, the Dragoon kicked Rune in the stomach before reaching down to pull him up by the collar.

  Rune was reeling. The red haired Dragoon grinned savagely. And then, something changed. Runes blue eyes locked sharply with his opponent’s and he brought up his hands to grip the sides of the Dragoon’s forearms. It was Rune’s turn to smile. A single, slight flicker of flame was the harbinger of the blast that followed. Two powerful jets of blue fire roared from Rune’s hands, engulfing the overly confident Dragoon.

  I stopped in my tracks. Rune let the man go, but the fire didn’t. It clung to him despite his panicked efforts to put it out, until he crumbled
to the floor screaming, wounded enough to put him out of the fight.

  Rune didn’t need my help… he’d been feigning weakness the whole time, just as he had during the sparring exercise. It was a ploy to get his enemy close enough to grip him with fire.

  My Dragoon appeared hurt, to be sure. Even as he straightened up to look at me, I could see how he favored his side, and that the area around one of his cheekbones was beginning to swell. The flames on his arms extinguished and little trails of smoke twined up from where he burned the armor on his forearms. Rune may have been wounded, but he was far from defeated.

  United by a common enemy, I was glad to see that Kelmen had overcome his opponent. Stakes was still draining Fallux, and now it was three against one. We had a chance to beat him.

  Rune nodded subtly to Kelmen, a show of respect and unity. Kelmen bowed his head in return and I got the sense that even such a small display meant volumes in the world of a Dragoon. Maybe we’d have the traditional Dragoon’s help after all.

  Kelmen spun to face Stakes. He had a thick blade in his hand and stalked purposefully toward the vicious Junior Commander.

  Already the wound in his arm where a sword had sunken to the bone, had ceased bleeding. He must have a healing Ability for the beating he could take. No wonder he had such horrible scars. He probably survived far more than the average Dragoon could.

  Before Kelmen was near enough to swing, a javelin of wood lunged out from the nearest bookshelf, spearing him through the heart.

  I gasped, feeling my knees go weak with denial. One second ago, he seemed untouchable to me. The wood spike splintered before it retracted. Kelmen dropped to the ground.

  I didn’t have any further chance to react. A thick branch, the same color as the bookshelf, snaked around my waist, one of my wrists and my throat, and yanked me backwards. I screamed as I was pulled up and off of my feet, my back slamming into the middle of the tall bookshelf. My shriek ended with a cough on impact. The pressure on my throat and around my middle stole the air from my lungs and made me choke. The goggles beneath my scarf pressed harshly into the center of my neck and I clawed at the branch with my one free hand. Little black and white dots flickered at the edges of my peripheral vision.