Through the Flames

by Billings, Ryne

  “Come in,” he said as he turned to face the door, taking in his surroundings as he did so. The only pieces of furniture in the small room were the bed and a chest that he could put his belongings in. There was something about the simplicity of the room that he liked, in all honesty.

  “Caleb, are you ready to go?” Katie asked as she entered the room. Unlike the night before, she had taken to wearing a dagger at her left hip. It seemed that she had left her six knives in her room though. Apparently, she noticed that he was eyeing her belt. “The city guard will recognize me. I’d prefer that they don’t think I’m trying to cause some trouble.”

  “You must be pretty infamous,” he remarked as he lifted his sword from its place on the bed. As he attached it to his belt so that it would hang at his left hip, he said, “I’m still curious as to what you meant yesterday. You and your friend spoke of you being sent away from Caldreth by his uncle.”

  “I’d prefer that we not speak of it,” Katie said with a sigh as she looked away from him. “I don’t want to lie to you, so I’m going to speak plainly. My past is not your concern. I’m just paying the debt that I owe you.”

  “I know,” Caleb said as he looked at the girl that he had only known for a couple of days. “I can’t expect you to tell me much, and I never asked you about your past. All I said was that I’m curious.”

  “You were prodding me to see how I’d react,” Katie noted as she made eye contact with the young met that stood before her. “You play a dangerous game. What would you do if I had decided to let you do this on your own?”

  “Nicolas would help me in that case,” he answered with a shrug. “He’s made it clear that he wants to help me.”

  “Weren’t you opposed to getting help from criminals earlier?” she asked, surprised by his words.

  “He can’t be that bad if he’s willing to help,” Caleb replied, shrugging once more.

  “You are downright infuriating,” Katie said with a heavy sigh. “Why can’t you be predictable for once?”

  “That would be relatively boring,” he answered as he rested his right hand on the handle of his knife. “Are we ready to go or what?”

  Without answering, Katie turned on her heel and left the room, annoyance clear in her eyes as she did so.

  Once she was gone, Caleb withdrew his knife and held it directly in front of him, the blade level with his eyes. Through the polished steel of the blade, he could clearly see his reflection.

  What would you think of me if you were here now, Gabriel? he thought as he focused on the image of his eyes. They were no longer full of life. Instead, they seemed to radiate coldness. ‘You should be here at my side right now. Together, we could manage anything.’

  With bitter thoughts surfacing, he flipped the knife in his hand so that he held it in a reverse grip. With a single, flowing move, he sheathed the knife and exhaled a deep breath.

  “It’s time to go,” he said as he began to follow after Katie, closing the open door as he passed through it.

  Moments after exiting the room, Caleb heard a voice that he had not expected to hear so soon.

  “So, leaving already?”

  His eyes immediately went to his right where Nicolas was leaning against the wall with his hands interlocked before him.

  “My father always told me that I should never keep a woman waiting,” Caleb said, stiffening at his own words. The mere thought of his father sent pain rippling through him.

  “He must have been a great man,” Nicolas mused with a small smile. “I’ve heard his name before, believe it or not. They say that he was once a good friend of High General Staloc.”

  “Is there anything you don’t know?” Caleb asked, not pleased by the older man’s words.

  His smile grew at the blond’s question. “There are many things that I don’t know. For starts, I have absolutely no idea how you were able to kill the men that Katie said you did. By her testament, you were able to single-handedly fight off a very talented swordsman. By your testament, however, you were a mere hunter.”

  “Apprentice hunter,” Caleb muttered.

  “Excuse me?” Nicolas asked, not entirely catching what Caleb had said under his breath.

  “I was an apprentice hunter. I’ve only see sixteen years,” Caleb said, speaking clearly.

  “Age is irrelevant, though I suppose it does indeed make you a former apprentice instead of a former hunter,” Nicolas said with a shrug. “After all, you can’t tell me that you ever intend to become a hunter now. What is it that you intend to do once this is all over?”

  “Once it’s all over?” Caleb asked, looking confused.

  Nicolas laughed at that response. “I should have known. You have no intentions of doing anything after this is over. You believe that you’re marching towards death.”

  The piercing focus of Caleb’s eyes upon Nicolas was all the confirmation that he needed to know that his words were true.

  “I won’t press the matter any further, but you need to thing on what you will do once everything is settled. You’re too young to be doomed to an empty life,” he said with a sigh. “I feel ridiculous telling you that you’re too young when I’m only four years older, but the point is the same regardless.”

  “You sound sure that I’m going to live through this,” Caleb said in surprise.

  “A dead man won’t get revenge,” Nicolas said with a shrug. “If you intend to kill them, then you’ll have to be alive when you kill the last one. I highly doubt that you’re going to trip and fall on your sword after your goal is complete, especially with Katie around.”

  Caleb broke eye contact with Nicolas at that last part. He understood the man’s words completely. Shame filled him as he realized that he had indeed considered such a thing.

  “Well, I’m not one for lengthy farewells, and I fully expect to see you tonight, so I’ll let you go without another word,” Nicolas said as he pushed away from the wall with his hands and began to walk towards Caleb. Without a word, he strode past the blond and took a left down the hall.

  You’re not the type of man I thought you’d be, Caleb thought as he put his hand on the wall and took a deep breath. Why can’t everything be simple? He’s a lawbreaker, so he should be a bad guy… but he isn’t.

  Shaking his head away from such thoughts, he moved away from the wall and began to walk towards the direction that Katie no doubt went towards.

  It did not take him long to navigate through the halls of the inn and come through the front door.

  “It took you long enough,” Katie remarked from where she was leaning against the wall to his right. “How long does it take you to walk through a few doors?”

  “What’s with these people, always leaning against the wall when I go through a door?” he muttered under his breath.

  “What was that?” she asked immediately. “Did you say something about me?” The sharp look that she gave him nearly made him repeat his words louder, but he resisted the urge.

  “I was just talking to myself,” he said with a shrug. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Good,” Katie said with a small smile. “Let’s head to Caldreth then.”

  The sudden change in the redhead’s tone threw Caleb for a loop.

  What did Hector like to tell me? he thought. Oh yeah, it was something like, “If you think you understand a woman, then you need to lay off the mead.” I can definitely understand what he’s talking about now.

  “You really need to stop zoning out,” Katie remarked.

  “Sorry,” Caleb said as his attention went back to the present.

  With that, they made their way away from the inn and towards the large city of Caldreth. Fortunately, only a five mile journey stood before them.

  * * * * *

  So many words could be used to describe Caldreth upon a visitor’s first glance, but only one word came to Caleb’s mind.

  “Wow.”

  Katie looked towards him with a grin as they stood about a hundred feet away
from the city’s grand wall. Composed of dark gray stone and standing at fifteen feet tall, the wall was nothing if not grand.

  The wall stretched across a good five miles, giving Caleb a good guess as to the sheer size of the city. His eyes were mainly focused on the large iron gates that sat in the center of the wall in an archway. Because of the bars of the gate, he was unable to see through it clearly.

  “It’s nothing compared to Zabryan,” Katie remarked softly. “I suppose it’s shocking to see it for the first time though.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Caleb said. His throat felt dry at that moment. From everything that Hector had told him about the city, over a thousand people lived there. Such a prospect was overwhelming at the least.

  “It appears that we are their first visitors of the day,” Katie mused. “They don’t appear to have opened the gates yet.”

  Almost as if on cue, the gates began to slowly creep open, groaning as the hinges that held them up were put to the test.

  Two guards wearing dark blue brigandine cuirasses emerged as the gates were fully opened. The embroidered insignia of the black bear upon those cuirasses was all the proof that was needed to verify that they were indeed guards of Caldreth.

  One of the guards, a man in his late thirties with short auburn hair and a goatee, looked at the pair immediately and looked surprised. “Is that Katie?”

  His companion, a man in his mid-thirties with short dark brown hair and a clean shaven face, peered at them as well. “I believe so. It’s been a few weeks since her punishment ended, hasn’t it?”

  “Are you two going to gossip all day? I’d like to get settled back in, if you don’t mind,” Katie said as she began to pop her fingers.

  “Yeah, yeah, we know,” the auburn haired guard said as he rolled his eyes. “We know the drill, and you do too. So who accompanies you? He doesn’t look like your normal company.”

  Katie opened her mouth to speak, but she was beaten to the punch by her companion. “I’m Caleb of Kirakath. Katie and I met as we were headed here. It’s a good thing too. Did you know that your roads are plagued by highwaymen?”

  The guards bristled at the last question.

  “That’s enough from you,” Katie said with a sigh as she laid a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. Looking towards the guards, she said, “Can we pass or not?”

  The only reply that they were given was a waving hand gesture by one of the guards.

  With that, she led Caleb through the gates, only stopping when they were out of earshot.

  As they managed to get far enough away, Caleb’s eyes immediately went to his surroundings, truly taking in the city for the first time.

  Directly in front of the gates, there seemed to be a completely empty semi-circle that was enclosed by the wall and the buildings that seemed to be built around the small area. There were only three gaps in the buildings that framed the arch of the semi-circle. One was the main street, while the others were side streets.

  Off in the distance, he could see a large stone structure, though it was too far off to see clearly.

  “Try not to offend anyone else,” she said with a sigh. “Now, I have business to take care of. I’ll meet up with you at nightfall back at the inn. Don’t get lost.”

  With her words spoken, Katie made her way to the side street to their left.

  “Where should I go?” he asked himself in a whisper. A sudden gust of wind swept over him, seeming to push him towards the right at that moment. “I guess right it is.”

  With that decision made, Caleb began to walk towards the side streets to his right.

  Chapter 10

  With a deep breath, Katie stilled herself.

  Nearly an hour had passed since she left Caleb near the front gates of Caldreth, and she was standing in front of the door of an unmarked tavern.

  While the fact that the tavern did not have a sign or a name would have made some people suspicious, that was not the case with the tavern before her. It was only accessible through a back alley, and it was just about as far away from Castle Caldreth as one could get while still being inside the city.

  Placing her hand on the door handle, she slowly turned it and pushed the door open.

  As the door opened, she immediately became aware that every table inside the tavern was occupied, along with all of the seats at the bar. The fact that twenty sets of eyes were upon her was more worrying than anything, but she pushed her anxiety to the side and walked through the door as if she did not even notice the observers.

  She quickly walked along a straight path that would have taken her between the bar and the collections of tables, but she only managed to get halfway past the bar when a man turned on his stool and placed a burly hand on her shoulder.

  “Where’re you going so fast, sweetie?” the man asked, his words slurring together enough that she had to focus to understand them.

  Katie’s eyes suddenly turned to him, their edge far greater than what could normally be seen. With a sweeping wave of her arm, she knocked his hand from her shoulder and proceeded to spin on her heel. Before he could react, her hand was on the back of his head, gripping his hair forcefully.

  The sound of wood cracking resounded as she slammed the man’s face into the far with every ounce of her strength.

  The intoxicated man slipped from his stool as he fell into a state of unconsciousness with a bloody face.

  Other than the sudden sound of the man hitting the ground, the tavern grew quiet with Katie’s actions. The tension in the room was great, despite the fact that no one appeared to have any intention of rising from their seats.

  The silence was only broken as the sound of clapping rang through the tavern.

  Katie’s eyes darted towards the direction that she had been walking towards originally. A man in his mid-thirties, dressed in fine clothes of a dark shade was making his way towards her. His hands came together three times, clapping with a look of amusement upon his face.

  “I wondered if you had actually returned after all this time. It appears that you have indeed,” the man said as he stopped a dozen feet away. “I suppose you’ve been gone away for too long if someone’s actually willing to try to lay a hand on you. I seem to recall that the last person who did it lost his hand.”

  “Nicolas can be overprotective,” she said stiffly. “It has been a while, Alexander. You’re just the man I came to see.”

  His interest was piqued at those words. “Oh?”

  “I’d rather discuss it in private,” she said as she glanced at the attentive patrons of the tavern.

  “Of course,” Alexander said with a smile that reminded her of a snake. “Follow me.”

  With that, he turned around and made his way through the doorway that he had come from originally.

  Following his example, Katie walked into the room and shut the door. With a cursory glance around the room, she saw that the only things in the room were lamps, a table, and two chairs.

  Knowing him, there’s at least one secret storage area in this room, she thought as she took a seat at the table across from him.

  “Before we get to business, I’d like to know where you’ve been,” Alexander said, becoming serious in tone and manner. “I can tell that something happened.”

  Though she frowned, Katie found that she could not deny him an answer. “I was captured by slavers on my way back to Caldreth.”

  “I see,” Alexander said with a frown. That was clearly not what he had expected to hear. “I take it that they are dead now? I don’t imagine that you would have left them alive, even if you did manage to escape.”

  “They’re dead, but I didn’t play too big of a role in their deaths,” she said with a sigh. “I was helpless until someone else showed up. It is that someone else that brings me here today too.”

  “Is it the young man that you were seen with when you arrived at the front gates?” Alexander asked after a few moments of thought.

  Unlike with Nicolas, Katie could not even feign surprise at her as
sociate’s information. Alexander would not have been the successful leader of the Thieves’ Guild of Caldreth if he was not well-informed, after all.

  “Yes, he is the one,” she confirmed. “His name is Caleb of Kirakath, and I want to make sure that no one harasses him while we’re here.”

  “That will cost you,” Alexander said with a sigh. “Business is business. I can’t let him pass freely, even if he did save you from a terrible life.”

  Without saying a word, Katie removed five crowns from her coin purse and placed them on the table between them. “He is not to be harassed by anyone.”