Fear rose in his gut, tightening his throat, raising his pulse. His mind sluiced furiously through all the information he had heard from Lhaurent's interrogations in the Hinterhaft. No one had ever spoken of Roushenn under attack. No one had mentioned an army sweeping in on the day of the Dhenra's coronation. An assassination was one thing, but would there have been this much fighting? Not unless something had gone wrong with the Lothren's plan. Jherrick's eyes met Olea's across the ten-foot stone hall. Her slender hands gripped the bars, hard, her knuckles white and grey eyes fierce.
“Jherrick. Get me out of here!”
Jherrick fingered the key ring at his belt. He took a step forward, wide eyes on his Guard-Captain, playing the terrified innocent. “What's going on, Captain?”
“If battle is happening in Roushenn, then an attempt has been made on the Dhenra's life, just as I feared! Get me out of here, Jherrick! I'm needed up there!”
Jherrick took another step forward. If he released her, his life would be forfeit to Lhaurent. He'd be tortured, maimed, made to suffer like an animal. Fear rippled him. He'd seen in exquisite detail what Lhaurent could do to a person who betrayed him. But battle was chaos, and in chaos there was opportunity. Opportunity of all sorts. Even to break free of Lhaurent's games, perhaps. Opportunity to truly serve the Khehemni Lothren and find out what Lhaurent was really up to.
“Dammit, Jherrick, release me!” Olea’s roar was a strangled, desperate thing.
Jherrick moved forward with the keys, his decision made. Wherever it led him, whatever it meant next, he would keep his ears open and his mind sharp and play the role he'd taken for the Lothren. Mild-mannered, lack-limbed Jherrick den’Tharn, Corporal in the Palace Guard and bookkeeper of lists.
And such a fellow would assist his Captain-General however she needed him to.
He slid the keys into the lock, turned it, threw the bar back. Olea den'Alrahel sprang from her cage like a lioness. Jherrick was with her, darting to the weapons rack. He unlocked it in haste, throwing open the bracing, hauling out Olea's baldric and blades, unlocking an armor-hutch nearby to equip them both.
“Stay out the fighting.” Olea murmured, hastily buckling on lightweight leather gauntlets and greaves. She threw a full set of leather armor at Jherrick and he fumbled them like Jherrick would. He buckled on only what he needed as she spoke, equipping her baldric, checking her weapons fast. “I don't want you coming with me up to the Throne Hall. But what I need you to do is find Aldris and Fenton. Send them to me. If you see fighting, choose a different hall. Stay alive, dammit! And get my best up to me to control whatever the fuck is going on.”
“Do you think the Dhenra's been killed?” Jherrick's breath was fast, his voice appropriately scared as he checked his baldric and weapons. It wasn't entirely an act. He'd never been in a melee before, and his heart was betraying him, thundering blood through his veins.
Olea’s grey eyes had the sheen of battle in the torchlight. “If she has... then everyone involved will eat my blade before the day is out.”
Jherrick’s world closed in. A tremor passed through him like a fell wind. And he saw, suddenly, what a killer she was. He saw himself at the end of her sword, dying in the torchlight, a moment of truth in his life of duplicity. Something must have showed in his eyes because Olea clapped a hand to his shoulder, her grey gaze hard but kind.
“Breathe, Jherrick. We'll worry about all that later. Just find Aldris and Fenton.” But just as she was turning to go, a familiar voice shouted.
“OLEA!” Aldris den'Farahan's clarion tenor was unmistakable, racing down the stairs towards them. The Second-Lieutenant came crashing down the stone stairs and into the torchlight, breathing hard. Fresh blood smeared his cheek and bright blonde hair as he reached the circle of torchlight, his green eyes hard with fury. A giant mountain of a man stormed into the firelight behind Aldris.
“Olea! Thank Aeon's fuck!” Aldris exclaimed, clapping her shoulders.
“Aldris!” Olea gripped his forearm. “What happened?!”
“No time! We have to run!” Aldris was all snarl as he seized Olea's arm. His next snarl was for Jherrick. “Corporal den'Tharn, you get that grate at the end of the hall open now, or so help me I will gut the living shit right out of your body! Move!”
“Lieutenant den’Farahan?” Jherrick played the dumb desk-lad. He backed up a pace to show fear.
“NOW!” Aldris roared. “Let’s go!”
Jherrick roused himself, eyes wide and startled as his mousey alter ego, and did as he was told. Sheathing his sword, he darted towards an unused iron grate at the far end of the cells, jangling keys off his belt as he went, nearly dropping them in haste. Unlocking the grate, he swung it open for the others as they seized torches from the brackets and extra gear from the weapons rack. The grate led deep into the palace bowels, an unused part of the Unterhaft that never saw cleaning nor daylight. Aldris paced forward, head cocked and listening to the fighting above as Olea and the huge man equipped, then all three dashed for the grate. Olea nodded her thanks to Jherrick as they moved through quickly.
“Lock it.” Aldris growled. “We can't be followed.”
Jherrick did as he was told. As they turned to run, he saw the big man press a small white silk pouch to Olea's hand. “I didn’t want to leave them in the workshop.”
Olea nodded, slipping the pouch quickly into her leather belt purse. In a trice, they were running, down the dust and mold-slick stones into a deepening silence. “Aldris. Tell me what's going on.” Olea's breath was unruffled as they ran.
“The Queen signed her writs,” Aldris growled, measuring his breath, “but she’s been attacked. Run through, possibly lethal. By the Elsthemi First Sword. Elohl and Fenton got to him fast, making the First Sword miss his mark, but the Queen’s wound is deep. King Therel Alramir seems to have no knowledge of the plot, but the Chancellors are calling for his head. The Chancellors took over the Guard, ordered the Guard after King Therel and the Elsthemi contingent. Ordered them to kill. Guardsmen are fighting Elsthemi retainers in the halls. A number of Elsthemi have already fought to their deaths, giving our Guardsmen hell to the last man. King Therel, Fenton, and your brother have Elyasin, with a healer named Luc. They’re going to make a run for it.”
Olea’s face was grim, determined as they darted down another dark-thick hall by the meager flicker of the torches. “They’ll get the Queen and King Therel out. Fenton knows this place better than any of us, and Elohl is a better fighter than I am. We just have to get ourselves out now.”
Aldris suddenly turned towards a staircase that Jherrick hadn't known was there and issued them up. They came out in a niche behind a bookcase, through a grate that was already unlocked. Back in the main halls of Roushenn, they ran in terse silence, listening to the echoing sounds of fighting. A raging thunderstorm played counterpart to screams and the clank of metal, pummeling the stones of the mountain and rattling all the windows in their high gables with every slash of lightning.
But Aldris was keen, listening for the battle and not the storm. When the clank of metal and roars of enraged men sounded in halls ahead, Aldris dodged down a side corridor. When the corridor echoed with footsteps, he ducked through a panel and down servant’s stairs. When the stairway was blocked by a gate, he picked it smoothly, leading into unlit tunnels he seemed to know by touch. Jherrick found himself impressed with the Second-Lieutenant, a man Jherrick had generally dismissed as a ribald nuisance and a womanizing drunk.
The man knew the palace like a razor knows a beard.
They turned down another unused hall. Aldris picked another gate, re-locking it swiftly. This deep beneath the palace, there were no more sounds of fighting, and the echoes of thunder were muted through earth and stone.
“Aldris! This one.” Olea had stopped suddenly, at a small wrought-iron gate. Beyond, Jherrick could see a black corridor that caught the torchlight and threw it back, slick with wet. Ten paces in, the stone was treacherous with slime and seeping with wat
er. The Second-Lieutenant lifted his eyebrows but said nothing. He picked it with ease, and they were through, Aldris re-locking it.
Sliding on mold-slick stones, they tromped forward through ankle-deep water. The passage angled down, the seepage soon up to their knees. Rounding a corner, they slogged on, the water flowing now with a current. Jherrick heard a roaring in his ears. Olea jumped up to a lip in the stone, high as Jherrick's chest. She beckoned the others up just as the current around their knees began to drag hard. Creeping along the narrow lip, the party kept heads low to avoid hitting the ceiling of the arched shaft.
When suddenly, the ceiling above their heads opened up into an enormous natural grotto. Water cascaded from the passage, joining the thundering rush of a deafening waterfall. A river flowed through the underground, black and fast, barely seen by the small ring of torchlight. Cold air rushed through the space with a fell wind, chill like glaciers. The lip of stone they were on transitioned into a high retaining berm, carved from the grotto wall. Traversing the berm, they came to stairs cut into the stone. Slick with slime, the stairs wound upwards, and soon Jherrick had a sheen of sweat from climbing. At last, the stairs dug into the rock, forming a passage away from the underground river. It was a short way to another gate, this one ornate and crumbling with the rust of time. But it was unlocked, and as Aldris pushed it open, they stepped out onto the roof of the world, in the middle of the storm.
Wind whipped, merciless this far up the mountainside. Rain lashed Jherrick's face, cold and fat, nearly hail. He huddled in his blue jerkin, wishing for a hood even as his breath was stolen by the mist-wreathed view. All of Lintesh was visible below, the high rooftops of Roushenn lit suddenly with brilliance as a branching fork of summer lightning slit the black-bellied clouds. A thousand feet up the side of the Kingsmount, everyone was breathing hard from their fast climb. Jherrick watched Olea rest, her hands upon an ancient, unmortared stone railing.
Dappled with melting hail, she caught her breath, staring out over the city. At last, she turned, wet slicking her wayward curls, dripping off her reddened nose. Her grey eyes were steely as the underbelly of the storm, and thrice as terrible. Anguish suffused them. It stole Jherrick's breath far more than the coldness of the rain.
“My thanks for my freedom, gentlemen. I am in all of your debt.”
“Clever, Olea.” Aldris stepped close to her, his hands tucked under his armpits for warmth. “Taking the Weeping Tunnel. Even if they use dogs, they won’t be able to track us.”
Jherrick felt an irrational twinge of jealousy that the Second-Lieutenant was so blatantly familiar with their Captain, but Olea merely sighed hard. Her shoulders fell as she put hands to her hips, then ripped a hand through her obsidian-blue curls, tousling their wet lengths back from her face. “If Elyasin dies, it won’t matter! What happened, Aldris?!”
Aldris stepped close, laying a hand upon her shoulder. Jherrick resisted the urge to draw a blade and cut off that presumptive hand. “I’m sure they’re still doing their best.” Aldris murmured. “Elohl and Fenton will keep her safe. Trust in that. Trust in the Kingsmen now.”
Abruptly, tears began welling in Olea’s eyes. Jherrick could see them through the rain. “And what now?!” Olea shouted, seething with fury. “A nation broken, a people annihilated, the Queen dying if not dead already! We’ve failed, Aldris! I’ve failed. I couldn’t protect Alden. I couldn’t protect Uhlas, and now Elyasin! Aeon smite me down and may the gods of darkness fuck me…!”
Tears spilled to Olea's cheeks, hot, furious tears. A lone sunbeam sliced through the clouds, cutting through that black silk and falling upon her. Her grey irises shone, luminous under the darkened sky, as if they had caught fire. Her black curls glowed blue in that fey light. Jherrick watched in awe. His body thrummed with her pull. His loins roiled with it. It was more than lust, so much more. Watching his Captain-General break was a beautiful, terrible thing. Oh, he felt her pain, her misery, and his fear of discovery was immense, but it was her honor he felt in that moment. The honor that binds a faithful heart to her most sacred duty. The honor of a good woman, trying to do what was right in the world.
And as the rain slackened, mist curling around their boots, it was all Jherrick could do to not go to her. To soothe her and run his hands through those disastrously disheveled curls. To hold her, hard, and kiss away each and every tear.
Shame flooded Jherrick like the some vast, bitter sea. He suddenly thought of a dead boy's glassy eyes. Turning away, he saw the big mountain of a man step forward, wrapping Olea in his massive arms. Jherrick’s gaze strayed, out over Lintesh, now curling with evaporating mist from the breaking sun. The entire Elhambrian Valley shone emerald with the blessing of midsummer rain. The mountains stood in an austere line to the east, capped in glaciers and wreathed in storm. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Olea push the big man off with a snarl. Marching further on, she leaned on the wet-slicked stone wall, fists pressed down hard, shoulders shaking, head and damp mane hanging. At length, she could not hold it in any longer, and wrenching sobs tore through her.
Jherrick's gut twisted. A dead boy's glassy eyes. A good woman broken. A good Queen, murdered. A nation, sundered. This was what Lhaurent had wrought, using the Lothren like the dagger serves the cutthroat. Rage twisted into a cold, hard knot in Jherrick's gut, clamped his chest. His tears dried, unshed. He turned, watching the big man walk to where Olea was slowly collapsing into the stone. The man wrapped his arms around her, and it brought a scream from Olea den'Alrahel. She turned in the man's arms, buried her face in his broad chest, and wept like a child.
“I couldn’t protect them, Vargen!” Jherrick could just make out her words upon the brisk summer wind as Olea sobbed. “My parents…! Alrashesh! I was supposed to protect Elohl, keep him safe! And now the rest of them... Uhlas' entire line...!”
“I couldn’t keep my wife safe, either,” the big man sighed, kissing Olea's curls. “Or my son Khergen. Or my court. Or anyone else. Kingsmen do what we must. We must let people die, Olea. We must let battle take them. We must keep our patience and hold our spines straight for another day. Cry yourself dry, then put away your tears and come with me. I am not going to stop, not like I did before. I am done with giving up. I am a man reborn, Olea, because you need me. You need me to remind you to never give up. We will find Elohl and Fenton and the Queen. And when we do, the men behind this will already be corpses.”
A chill swept through Jherrick, watching a true Kingsman make an oath of vengeance.
It was beautiful. And terrible.
* * *
The storm had blown itself out at last, an evening wind picking up as the sun descended over the Kingsmount’s western flank, scudding clouds into high wisps above. The temperature was falling fast this high up the mountain, and Jherrick shivered in his soaked jerkin. Rubbing his chest to keep warm, he huddled with the others in a small circle upon the lookout, hunkering behind the berm to break the wind. He kept silent, seemingly loyal, devoted to his Captain-General and his Second-Lieutenant. Hanging upon Olea’s every word, he voiced no doubts at breaking from the Guard to follow a band of Kingsmen outlaws as they decided what course of action to pursue next.
“Fenton and I have a network in the city.” Aldris spoke next to Jherrick. “We should make contact with them.”
Olea shook her head, calm and collected, in command once more. “It’s too risky to go back to Lintesh. They'll be looking for us. Every Guardsman knows me, and you, Aldris. Vargen they'll remember from the palace. No. Where else?”
“The only other contact I have is up in Vennet,” Aldris growled. “But that’s a good two weeks from here! We need horses to travel hard, supplies. How are we going to accomplish all that without going back to Lintesh? Every hamlet for leagues is emptied, everyone flooding to the city for the coronation. We’ll not be able to trade for what we need.”
Olea tousled her damp curls. Jherrick absorbed that motion with his eyes. He would take a sword in the gut to hold her. J
ust to touch those curls even once. Olea nodded suddenly at two sets of steps leading from their lookout, one up the Kingsmount, one down. “Aldris, how far have you taken the upper path?”
Aldris shook his head. “Only a few leagues. There are some ruins of a fortress about four leagues up, probably an escape for the royal family at one time. The stairs go further, but Fenton says they just dead-end at an unclimbable wall of sheer volcanic glass. No way around, no way up.”
“Well, that won’t get us supplies,” Olea murmured. “We’ll have to take the lower path.”
“What about going back into the underground?” The big Kingsman, Vargen, spoke. “That river must be the one that lets out beyond the First Tier.”
Olea gave him a tired look. “Unless you are very expert at surviving getting drowned, I don’t suggest it. There are no places to walk beside that torrent. It does come out past Lintesh, though. Flows right underneath the entire city.”
Aldris grunted. “No good. There’s no way to float that beast. But we could backtrack to the tunnels and take the Unterhaft.”
Olea shook her head. “The palace will be crawling with dogs by now. If we backtrack, they’ll catch my scent from the cells, and our advantage is lost.”
“So, the lower path?” Jherrick chimed in, playing his part of young ignoramus. “Where does that go?”
Aldris’ mouth quirked. “From here to just behind Roushenn. There’s a gate behind the barracks. We keep Guardsmen on it at all times. But no one ever uses it, except huntsmen for game and the kitchen girls for herb-gathering up the mountainside.”
“Serpent’s maw or serpent’s maw,” the big Kingsman rumbled. “Either way we go, leads straight back into Roushenn.”
“We could take the path most of the way down,” Olea began, “then split from it through the woods, track around Lintesh on the mountainside. That would put us near the Alranstone grotto in the Kingswood, at the foot of the mountain on the eastern side.”
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