“Of course, my Lord,” Cantor inclined his head.
Another tremor shook their feet. Cantor’s face visibly paled and he looked back at the door frantically.
“Are you certain you have the situation under control?” Prianhe asked with annoyance. He stepped back over to the window and looked out at the courtyard below.
“You’ve nothing to fear, my Lord. My men will handle it.”
Prianhe continued to watch the courtyard below, enjoying the lush green grass and swaying willow trees that gave a pleasant departure from the bleak grayness that met his eyes everywhere else he looked. “As I said, there are at least four fugitives, two men and two women. One man is older with the unmistakable look of a veteran soldier. He has a scar that splits his face from mouth to ear. The other man is young and tall. He is a trival, possibly very strong as well. Of the women, one carries a strange sword, thin and curved, and she dresses like a man, in trousers and short hair. The other is a noblewoman. We believe her name is Relador, though her first name escapes me. Whether she is aiding the trival or being held against her will is unclear. Her motives have yet to be determined, but we must tread cautiously as her grandfather is a former member of the Council of Nine. If she is found to be in league with the trival, justice will be swift and severe. However, their capture is our King's utmost priority. The two men must be taken alive. Am I clear on that?”
He turned and looked at Cantor. The Governor looked completely stricken. His face was pale and damp, and he seemed on the cusp of sicking up. Baneur, who had remained silent standing a few steps to the side of the Governor, looked equally pallid and sick.
“What is it?” Prianhe questioned the men. “What’s gotten into you two?”
Cantor stuttered audibly several times as he struggled to answer the question.
“Lady Relador is here in the palace,” Baneur blurted out, drawing a grateful acknowledgment from Cantor.
Prianhe felt his pulse race. A momentary surge of joy and elation nearly caused him to break his coolly superior façade. Then a thought occurred to him suddenly. Those explosions that shook the floor. Cantor had said it was a trival attempting escape. The sickly look on Cantor’s face, like a man caught cheating on his spouse, put everything inextricably into perspective.
Another loud crack sounded off in the courtyard below.
Prianhe turned again to the courtyard as if an unknown force were pulling him on a rope. His eyes fell down to the group of people that emerged suddenly from somewhere below. There was a bent iron door and several pieces of rubble lying in the grass beside them. They huddled briefly, all eyes on the beautiful blonde who seemed to be giving the orders. An elderly man, scarred with gruesome burns that covered the left side of his head and neck, stepped up to the wall that stood as a barrier between the palace and the surrounding city. He raised his hand, burned horribly like his head, and a section of the wall blew apart, spraying chunks of stone into the air that landed safely to the side as though guided by an unseen force. Just as the group turned to go, the blonde leader looked up at his window as if she knew she were being watched and gasped as their eyes met. Then she turned at a sprint and ran after her friends, disappearing into the city streets beyond the palace walls.
Prianhe turned to the Governor and the Turk, his eyes alight with rage. If there had been any time, he would have beaten each man senseless as punishment for their combined stupidity. But every second counted, and Desirmor’s hound had caught his quarry's scent.
“Lock down the city. No-one leaves or enters. Do you understand?!” he shouted at Cantor. The Governor weakly nodded, visibly flinching as though he expected to be struck. “Get every trival in the city. Get every soldier you have, imperial or local. Find them. If they get away, I’ll see to it that Desirmor gives the order for your death, and I will personally carry out the execution.” He turned to Baneur, “You come with me.”
Prianhe took off at a trot with the Turk on his heels. It was time to be smart. Farrushaw would obviously try to get out of the city, but would he waste his time on the gates, or would he search for other means. He had no idea where to start looking, but he meant to find them. Find them and feast on their hearts.
Chapter twenty One: The Price of Escape
Nehrea Alla’Dushura was only seven years old when her father was taken away. Until that day, they had lived comfortably in a nice area in the northwest realm of Nal’Dahara. Her father had been a blacksmith, specializing in small things. Pots and pans, utensils and buckles, pins and locks were just a few of the many items he made every day at his customer’s bequest.
Rarely did he make weapons. Her father was a devout man of God, adhering faithfully to the principals of creation. Violence, he had often told her, was never in the Creator’s intent. Weapons were engines for violence, and only increased the divide between light and dark. He had raised her to be passive, fair, and democratic. Anything could be resolved through bipartisan negotiation and debate.
A wealthy merchant, a man of enormous power and a close friend of the Governor at the time, came to have a chalice crafted. The cup was meant as a dedication for the promotion of a high ranking member of the merchant's guild, and the man had entrusted Nehrea’s father to bring his vision to life.
When her father finished the chalice and presented his work to the merchant, the man became enraged. The cup, it seemed, was missing one of the jewels her father had been given to set into the golden molding. The merchant accused him of theft, despite her father’s pleas that it was a simple oversight. The Governor passed swift judgment. Nehrea’s father was to be made a slave to the merchant as punishment for the missing gem.
The fallout of this event led to Nehrea’s life of poverty. Within a year, her mother, unable to meet the monetary demands of keeping a home in the city was forced to move to a smaller place on the outskirts of town. Soon after that, they moved into the Cortella, where they occupied a tiny one room hut, with no beds and only a single wooden chair. Each night Nehrea and her mother nestled together on a blanket, laid out on the hard dirt floor, using each other for warmth.
She only saw her father one time after his enslavement. He was a thin, frail man, carrying burdens at the docks. Nehrea was there with her mother begging the incoming passengers of traeggers and the workers of merchant vessels for charity. Despite knowing he would be beaten soundly for laying down his burdens, when her father saw them, he took them up in a deep embrace, his eyes dripping with tears. “Keep faith,” he had told her, as his slave masters dragged him away, lashing him severely with a long bull whip. Often when she woke at night, his cries of pain echoed hauntingly in her ears.
On the day of her sixteenth birthday, members of the local guard came sweeping through the Cortella looking for pretty girls to come serve at the palace. She had heard of other girls who had been taken away, and in truth, the prospect of sleeping in the relative warmth of the palace rather than the cold hard ground of her hut was enticing. It was her own mother who brought one of the recruiters to see her. To her mother, it was the best she could do for her daughter. Nehrea understood. Even after the Governor had raped her that first night, delighting in her pleas and protests, she still didn’t blame her mother. How could she have known that Governor Cantor was a monster?
The truth was that Nehrea only had herself to blame. Everything that had gone wrong in her life was all her own fault. It had been no mistake that the chalice had been missing a gem. Nehrea had taken it.
She had been down in the shop that day, watching her father work. The rain had been falling heavily, and with no choice but to stay indoors, Nehrea had decided to stay close to her father. A customer had come to the front counter and her father had left her alone in his work shop. The gem stones had been sitting there in a dish, dazzling and beautiful. She had never seen such wondrous things before. An emerald, brilliant and green, no larger than a kernel of corn called to her. Green had always been her favorite color. It was only one stone. Surely no-one would notice.
She had been too young to understand the consequences of such innocent intentions.
Every time the Governor called her to his bed, forced himself upon her, beat and abused her until she screamed and cried, Nehrea thought of that tiny piece of emerald. That was how she survived. The gem was a reminder of her need for penance, a symbol of the unending punishment she felt she deserved for inadvertently destroying her family and losing everything that could have been -- a loving doting father, a comfortable home, a chance at a normal life.
For over five years she endured the Governor’s abuses, and now she was running through the alleys of her city, uncertain and afraid, but feeling for the first time in her life like a woman with choices. She felt free.
It had been barely a half hour since the hideous man with the burns had torn a hole in the courtyard wall. They had run desperately through alleys and side streets, though Nehrea was certain that no-one knew where they were going. She had simply followed. She followed the handsome stranger with the brilliant green eyes, whose lingering gazes brought weakness to her knees. And all along, she clutched a tiny leather pouch tightly in her hand because the gem inside was a constant reminder of how one selfish choice could bring a lifetime of regret.
“Hold on,” Sim told her, stopping in a thin alley with plenty of crates and barrels to get lost behind.
They waited for everyone to catch up. The Lady Relador was the last join them, bending over at the waist in an effort to regain her breath. It was several moments, with everyone laboring and winded, before Sim addressed the group.
“Where are we going? Does anyone have a plan?” he asked.
“We have to get out of the city,” Quinn panted.
“There’s more,” Enaya announced gravely. “I saw Navan Prianhe. He was in the castle. He saw us in the courtyard from a window above.”
“You’re certain it was him?” Farrus asked. He had taken a knee, worn down by the flight from the castle.
“There was no mistaking him, Farrus. We need to get out of this city and…” Enaya’s throat seemed to close up. She looked on the verge of tears.
“What is it, Enaya?” Sim asked with concern. Nehrea was endeared to the tender way his eyes could look. She wasn’t used to being around men who could exhibit such obvious regard.
“My family, Sim.” The tears found their way down Enaya’s flushed cheeks. “Now that I’ve been discovered, they are all almost certainly going to be punished. Killed even. My mother, Sim. My grandfather. I have to warn them.”
Sim stepped forward and took her into a tender embrace. She melted into his chest, weeping heavily within his strong arms. Nehrea watched with a mixture of pity and envy. She wondered if there was a feeling of security to be found wrapped in all those muscles.
“We’ll figure something out, Enaya,” he reassured her, gently stroking the long golden tresses that fell wildly about her shoulders.
“Prianhe won’t make it easy,” Farrus started. He spoke with the passive assurance of a military man -- gruff, monotone, and inconsequential. “He’ll seal the gates. No-one in and no-one out. There’s already a sizeable Imperial presence in the area due to the crime coming out of the Cortella, so count on every last soldier having a detailed description of each of us. They’ll have just about every trival they’ve got near the walls, ready. They’ll shut down the port. They’ll start searching buildings, offer rewards for our capture. We haven’t got much of a chance without a traveler on our side.”
“We have to assume that the gates are already closed,” Givara said sternly. Nehrea didn’t know yet what to make of the Lady Relador’s strange female guardian. Disheveled as she looked after being chained in the palace dungeon, the woman still carried herself with the cool dignified grace of a monarch.
“So where are we going to go?” Sim asked again. He released Enaya who had calmed down enough to wipe the tears from her face and attempt to stand up straight.
“I have an idea,” Quinn Gracin put in timidly. All eyes fell on the scarred old man, who looked nervous and unworthy of speaking. “I know a man who might help us. He’s a traveler, unregistered, but he’s a bit of a rogue.”
“A traveler is exactly what we need right now, Master Gracin,” Enaya said hopefully. “Are you certain we can count on him to help us?”
“Actually, I’m very doubtful,” he answered with a shake of his hairless head. “His name is Beck. He’s a criminal. He uses his power for thievery amongst other things. It’s only by chance that I know where to find him. You see he tried to rob me once and…”
“Spare us the story, Master Gracin. We haven’t the time,” Enaya cut him off. “Is there any way to make him help us?”
Quinn scratched the scar where his left ear had been, thoughtfully. “I’ll be honest, my Lady. I don’t know. Beck is a bad man. The price would be high, and he’d be just as likely to agree and bring us to the palace dungeon as he would to actually take us somewhere we’d want to go.”
Enaya looked around. With a sad shake of her head she spoke to the group. “I don’t see another choice. Do you?”
Nehrea looked around at the silent stares of the group as no-one placed an objection. Nehrea considered speaking up. She had heard of Beck. He was the most wanted criminal in all of Nal’Dahara. Thievery wasn’t his only vice. He also had a taste for women. She knew of several unexplained deaths that had been laid at his feet. The prospect of throwing their hopes in with such a deplorable miscreant gave her chills. But she knew, just as the others did, that any hope of escaping the city by other means was hopeless.
“Lead the way, Master Gracin,” Enaya ordered him.
He nodded his head and led the group down the rest of the alley. They were in the western part of the city, an area of shops and guilds that catered to the middle class. Nehrea knew that if they continued moving west, they would come to the warehouses and mills that drove the cities working class.
They moved slowly. Quinn led them through alleyways mainly, only using main streets sparingly, and only as a means to get to another cross section. There were several instances where they saw uniformed men, but quickly ducked for cover behind anything they could find. It went on like that for an hour, gradually working their way south.
Soon the buildings they moved between became increasingly decrepit. Quinn did his best to lead them away from people, but in the southern sections of Nal’Dahara, the street traffic, even on the cross streets, increased. The alleys became harder to move within. They were littered with debris and garbage. Homeless vagrants were also a common sight, often getting stepped upon as the party progressed to their destination.
Nehrea noticed Enaya covering her nose to diminish the hot smell of refuse that hung like a fog in this lower end of the city. Though it offended her own senses, Nehrea had grown up in far worse conditions. She imagined that a lady of Enaya’s station in life had probably never walked around in such moldering areas of a city. It gave her a small measure of pride that she could bear a hardship better than the privileged blonde noble. Perhaps it was the way Enaya looked at Sim, or her life of wealth and nobility that stoked Nehrea’s feelings of rivalry. However, she would have to put her feelings about the woman aside if she hoped to live through this escape.
As they came to the end of an alley that led to a street filled with some tough looking taverns and a few obvious bordellos, Quinn halted the party and motioned for them to keep silent. A group of six soldiers dressed in proper imperial uniforms, unadorned to mark them as low level infantry, stood huddled in the center of the street. They were almost certainly part of the search, yet they were hanging about cavalierly, talking and jesting as though they had nothing to do.
“What do you think Farrus?” Quinn asked the stoic old soldier who had crept up to the head of the alley to take a peek.
“Which way are we going?” he asked, quietly. Quinn pointed to the left. “How much farther?”
“Another ten streets down. There’s an abandoned butcher’s shop. We have to enter
through the back,” Quinn told him.
Farrus grunted under his breath and continued watching the soldiers. “Enaya, I want you, Nehrea and Givara to go first.”
“What? Why?” Enaya asked perplexed.
“They may not be paying attention. It’s possible they’ll only notice us if we move in a group of six. If you girls go first and they don’t move on you, we’ll follow. If they do…” Farrus shrugged. “If they do, then Sim and I will come up behind them and take them out.”
“That doesn’t sound very well thought out,” Enaya said, unsurely.
“Really?” Farrus broke with his normal monotone and inflected some sarcasm into his voice. “What, with all the time I’ve had to sit around and plan things out?”
“Well, you don’t have to get snippy,” Enaya said with a huff.
“Every second we waste, makes getting out of this city that much harder. Unless you’ve got a better idea, I suggest you do as you're told and get out there.”
Enaya pursed her lips but said nothing further. Givara grinned widely at Farrus, her green eyes beaming. Nehrea didn’t understand. Did the guardian delight in her master's grief?
“Let’s go,” Enaya said, then stepped out into the street.
Nehrea and Givara followed close behind. They made an effort to ignore the soldiers in the street, turning left and walking at a brisk pace. Once they had made it several steps down the street, thinking for a fleeting moment that they were in the clear, a soldier called out after them.
“Hold on there, pretty ladies, what’s the hurry?”
Nehrea would have stopped, but Enaya didn’t even break stride. She continued ahead as though she hadn’t heard the man.
The soldier was undaunted. Followed by the rest of his group, he trotted up alongside them, easily keeping pace and gazing at them with the leering smile of a classless fool.
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