The Last Warrior

by Susan Grant

  “Good luck, my friend,” Markam said. “To both of us, actually.”

  Then his oldest friend walked out, slamming the thick door closed behind him. The thunder echoed off the dungeon walls, the sound of boots hitting stone quickly faded and Tao was left alone with a chest thick with disbelief and a mind racing through a dwindling arsenal of options.

  THE SUNS HADN’T YET peeked above the horizon when Elsabeth gave up trying to sleep and climbed up to the eaves to feed the pigeons. Her mother had always been the one to care for the messenger birds whose journeys could take them as far as the Barrier Peaks. Elsabeth had, by necessity, handed the running of the clinic over to others, but the aviary was hers to keep, in memory of her mother.

  The interior of the roost was a simmering, cooing mass of gray and rainbow-hued feathers, bobbing heads, clawed feet and pecking beaks. “Hello, my friends.”

  Cuh-choo-coo, cuh-choo-coo—their melody greeted. She shook a tin can of dried beans, calling them to breakfast. As they ate their feed, she filled the water dishes and trough and added grit to the floor of the pen.

  A loud fluttering of wings erupted at the landing outside. The flock scattered, noisily reacting, as a large blue male strutted inside, immediately committing himself to breakfast. “Prometheus! If you stay out all night carousing, you do it at the risk of being dinner for an alley kitt.”

  The bird strutted by, wearing a slender tube tied to its leg. A message.

  A jolt went though her, sweeping her grogginess away. Her eyes opened wide. For most of the night she’d tossed and turned, suffering bursts of disjointed dreams, or had lain awake, worrying about Beck’s treachery, Markam’s plans, Aza’s fears and Tao’s return. Now, this message promised action.

  “What do you have for me, little one?” She carefully unfastened the rolled paper and unfurled it. It was blank, and green.

  “The green flag,” she whispered. She’d been the one to think up the way Markam should alert her to an emergency so she would not be caught unawares. Red meant stay at home, and green—she crushed the paper in her hand—come to the palace as soon as feasible.

  In her gut, she knew why: if Markam had summoned her, General Tao was in danger, if not already dead. She didn’t want to analyze why she desperately hoped it wasn’t the latter.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE WEATHER HAD TURNED during the night, summer to autumn, the thick, humid heat of the past week replaced by the crackling air of harvest season. From the hooks behind the door she snatched a wool wrap and yanked it around her shoulders. She burst out her front door and ran around back to the medical clinic, where the current practitioner, Chun, slept with his family. The young physician, once mentored by her father, was trying to button a shirt with one hand as he answered her furious knocking at the door.

  “Green flag,” she said. “Don’t know more. Tell Navi. Be at the Kurel canteen when Little Lume is straight up.” The young accountant, Navi, also worked at the palace. At high noon in the mess hall, no one would think anything strange about the royal tutor deep in conversation with the palace accountant and guest healer.

  A nod from Chun assured her he knew what to do.

  She waited at the ghetto gates until the suns lifted above the horizon, slowly, like two old men climbing out of bed. Then she darted toward the palace, her mind considering a multitude of possibilities for the summons. The streets were quiet, most windows still shuttered after the festivities had gone on late into the night. The streets stank of stale liquor, manure and urine. On the palace grounds, General Tao’s soldiers lay sleeping here and there, some with empty bottles clutched in their hands, others with women in their arms.

  She hurried past them, her heart skittering, instinct calling out danger. Crossing the bustling upper bailey, she nodded to the regular staff, all the while pretending the green piece of paper hadn’t been balled in her fist only a short time ago. A guard stood at the workers’ entrance. Only his mouth was visible below the shadow of his helmet. Alarm twanged like the first pluck of a taut string. The entrance had always been unguarded before.

  He waved her through. The only thing she could think to do next was to report to the classroom as normal and await contact from Markam. Before she’d traveled more than halfway across the grand foyer, Markam fell in step with her, his hands clasped behind his back. Shadows under his eyes proved he’d had no more rest than she.

  “How do you do that,” she half scolded, “appearing out of thin air?”

  “You’re simply not observant enough, Elsabeth. I was here the entire time.” Very subtly, he scanned the area to be sure no one was listening. “It’s begun. Xim arrested Tao last night. For treason.”

  Her heart dropped like a stone down a well. She’d cautioned the general not to let down his guard, fearing she’d revealed too much. Instead it carelessly had been too little. He hadn’t retired to his chambers with that dancer; instead, he must have gone to seek answers after she’d refused to give him any.

  Markam quickly summed up the events leading to Tao’s arrest and the planned trial, the assured guilty verdict and the inevitable hanging. “Opportunity coincided with intent. A single moment, a slip of the tongue and Xim pounced.”

  Poor Aza. “Is there no hope the king will grant clemency? The general’s his brother-in-law.”

  “None. Xim must follow through. If he blinks, Tao looks all the more powerful.”

  “General Tao is a hero. Xim will have to convince the people the man they cheered yesterday isn’t one, after all.”

  “Torture and truth potions will extract any confession Xim desires, all in front of so-called neutral observers and witness-scribes who will provide the testimony to the people. A death sentence will swiftly follow, before any real protests can form.”

  He sounded so certain. She blurted out, “You can’t leave him to die.”

  “Of course not. He’ll have been freed by then. Getting him off palace grounds isn’t the problem. It’s stowing the man where Xim can’t find him.”

  Suddenly she didn’t like the expression on Markam’s face. “No.” She shook her head. “Not Kurel Town.”

  “There’s no safer place, Elsabeth. You know this.”

  “Tao’s estate lands. He owns countless acres.”

  “Too predictable.”

  “In the countryside, then. The wilds. Not as far as the Plains or the Peaks, but far enough away from here.”

  “True, he could probably survive out there, for a time, while the weather is mild, but when winter comes where will he go? A hunter’s cabin? A shepherd’s hut?”

  “The snows are months away. We have time.”

  “And if Riders find him? They’ve roamed wide since the drought. They’ll steal his horse and leave him out to dry like a piece of jerky. Or, worse, enslave him.”

  Few in the capital had ever laid eyes on the elusive plainsmen, but evidence of their existence surfaced when livestock would go missing, especially in the late-summer months when the Riders occasionally raided Tassagon herds to pad their winter coffers. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for the general to be abducted by the Riders. They were said to be a mix of Tassagon savagery and Kurel scholarship, and fiercely independent. But they could kill the general as easily as they could spare him and, in either case, he might never be heard from again. Her mind analyzed every alternative, even as she swallowed the realization that Markam was right. There was no safer place to hide Tao but where few Tassagons dared tread.

  But General Uhr-Tao in the ghetto?

  Dread coursed through her with the sense that this was a rash, even suicidal move. For centuries, only the Kurel had kept the fires of science and technology burning. Many of the precious, secret volumes that other humans had long forgotten, the last existing links to the origins of the founders of their world, were hidden within the ghetto. Within the Log of Uhrth was the very prophecy that directed her actions now. Yet, could she justify bringing a Tassagon Uhr-warrior within reach of that precious book?


  She felt as if she were sliding toward a cliff, grasping for a way to stop her fall, but finding no way to keep from plunging over the edge.

  “Let’s not be rash.” She made fists behind her back as if that would somehow contain her anxiousness. “The army and also the common people love him. This could cause a spontaneous uprising. There could be violence in the streets, Tassagonian against Tassagonian, not just against Kurel.” While she wanted Xim deposed, her Kurel sensibilities had always insisted a new king gain the throne in a nonviolent fashion. A peaceful revolution. The events now spinning out of control made her palms sweat with the dread of having to explain her role in any violence to the Kurel elders. “We need to be in charge of when and how Xim is removed from the throne.”

  Markam agreed with a firm nod. “Tao’s escape will give the people hope. It will tide them over, and buy us time.”

  “And make Uhr-Tao a folk hero. Xim won’t like it.”

  “Precisely. He’ll focus on Tao instead of the army left in his possession. This buys us time, as well.”

  “All this buying of time,” she snapped. “We’re racking up quite a debt. At some point, we’re going to have to pay what we owe.”

  “One always has to pay, Elsabeth. One way or the other.” A chill ran through her with the fatalistic turn to his voice.

  “An Uhr-warrior in the ghetto…” A hunter let loose in the midst of the flock. Her heart drummed a warning. Swallowing, she stared straight down the hallway to the classroom and pretended she didn’t hear it. Remember your vow. “I’ll have to let the elders know. If I’m caught harboring the king’s number-one fugitive, there will be severe consequences, including banishment. And when I tell them, they may order him to leave.”

  “You’ll advocate for him.”

  “It’ll take more than that. He’ll have to fit in. His commitment to following our ways will have to advocate for him.” Elsabeth groaned silently, imagining the training this would require.

  “Tao will cooperate,” Markam assured her. “He’ll understand the reasoning behind his asylum.”

  “In my home. He’ll have to live with me.” No other option existed. She had to be the one to take him in. By Uhrth, she would be personally responsible when she brought the Butcher of the Hinterlands to live amongst her people.

  A Kurel bookworm sheltering a Tassagon Uhr-warrior.

  Mercy.

  Remember what you’re fighting for, what all of us are fighting for. The fate of humanity seemed to be falling more and more squarely on her shoulders with every word they spoke. She took a steadying breath and turned to Markam. “I assume you’ve thought of the best way to get him out without anyone noticing.”

  Markam’s eyes glinted craftily. “With a little polishing, yes.” Together, they cobbled together the plan to free the kingdom’s most important prisoner. It was outrageous, the idea of sneaking him out under everyone’s noses—madly so—and it just might work.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  TAO SAT HUNCHED OVER on the floor, his ears alert for the opening of the dungeon door as he hammered a metal button torn from his uniform with a chunk of stone. His fingers were bloodied, his concentration intense, as he fashioned a key.

  He held the flattened piece of metal up to the pitiful light of a smoky torch. The button was relatively malleable, but it had taken hours to craft the correct shape. This was his second attempt, after having nearly broken the key by rushing. Spotting the bent seam, he went back to work, crouched in the play of torchlight on the filthy floor, dashing away the sweat dribbling in his eyes with the back of his arm.

  He’d unlock the cell door, but leave it closed, and wait for a guard to come check on him. He’d surprise and disarm the guard, leave him hog-tied and make his way up to the next level’s sealed door wait for a guard to open it, overcome the man, go to the next door and repeat. The part where he got out of the palace was still vague, but had a lot to do with changing into a guard’s uniform and running like hell. Not the best-laid plan, but it beat sitting here until someone else figured out what to do. No matter what Markam promised, one didn’t advance by waiting on the actions of others. Men made their own destinies.

  After some chipping away at the edges, Tao deemed the sliver of metal ready for another test. He limped to the cell door on stiff legs, stretched his arm through the bars and contorted his wrist toward the lock, then slipped the key in and jiggled, trying to play it just right to unhinge the crude mechanism inside.

  A scrabbling sound came from deep within the shadows at the opposite end of the dungeon from the door. Rats. Were they coming back to see if he’d been served dinner yet? “A waste of time, fellows,” he said, hearing hoarseness in his voice. “No one’s been by all day.” No food, no water.

  No Markam.

  Tao worked the key, taking care not to snap the delicate piece. He wiggled the key the rest of the way into the lock and turned. The clank when the mechanism gave way was just about the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

  A distant sound like a heavy metal grate dragging over stone yanked his attention back outside the cell. That was no rodent. The twang of a bow took him by surprise. Before he could fully process what had happened, a wet rag had soared past on an arrowhead and doused the torch nearest him. Two more arrows extinguished the rest, plunging the dungeon into darkness.

  With the memory of the Furs’ eerie howls preceding an attack in his mind, Tao scoured the blackness for enemies. If these people had a way in, they had a way out. As soon as they came close enough for him to see how many he was dealing with, he’d make his move to take them. He’d have to be accurate, and quick. If he was captured and dragged back here, he was going to hang. Of that he was certain.

  “Friendly, not hostile,” a female voice assured him tersely, as any soldier would do coming unexpectedly upon another squad. “We’ll get you out—if you’re still interested.”

  “I sure as hell don’t plan on staying here until judgment day.” Blindly, he grabbed the bars. “If you’ve got a torch, light it.”

  “There’s a certain way we have to handle this, General, and you being in charge isn’t it. We’ll get you out, but you must do exactly as I tell you to do.”

  He’d never taken orders from a woman before.

  She apparently mistook his silence. “You must do exactly as I tell you,” she repeated.

  “Do you think me mad, woman? I will do as you say.”

  A lantern sparked to life. Two faces floated in front of him. Tao squinted, trying to make out these strangers dressed in simple workers’ clothing—driver’s ware, roughly woven baggy trousers and shirts covered by black cloaks. One was a male, young, not much more than a boy, with dark gold skin and shaggy black hair. The other, most definitely female, with a pale oval face. Hair the color of a copper coin peeked out from under her cap. Like Elsabeth’s hair.

  Exactly like Elsabeth’s. The tutor. “You do more than teach children,” he observed.

  “My job description is expanding daily.” A key in her hand caught the light as she reached for the door.

  “It’s open.” He walked forward and pushed on it. The two Kurel gaped at him, and he held out an open hand with the key resting on his palm. “Uhrth helps those who help themselves.”

  A small nod from Elsabeth, the tiniest glint of admiration. “We’re going out through the spillway pipes,” she said. “No guard will think we’re that suicidal, to use what drains into the moat, and the tassagators. We’ll end up at the loading docks. There we’ll board a covered wagon. You’ll hide in back. Now, come. Hurry.”

  They set off running. Running for his life—with two Kurel running for theirs as well. For his sake.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE KUREL LED TAO INTO a passage that led from the dungeons to the very bowels of the palace, where the air was so dense he imagined it could be sliced with a blade. There was barely enough light to see the pair with their black cloaks as they sprinted and then crawled through the ever-narrowing passageway. H
ere the scent of dampness was strong, and yet familiar. The odor brought him back to childhood, when danger was excitedly imagined, never imminent.

  Pipes, dead ahead.

  The boy unlatched a heavy iron grate, lowering it carefully. Torn spider webs draped the opening. Light from the lantern penetrated the tunnel only as deep as the length of a man. Tao helped the boy replace the grate after they slipped through the opening. Then they were on their way, the lantern flickering as it swung from the boy’s hand. The silence was as heavy as the air at this depth, the entire palace atop them, floor upon floor. The very thought threatened to turn him claustrophobic.

  Inside, their footsteps echoed unimaginably loudly after all their stealthy silence. “It’s slippery,” Elsabeth warned. “The muck is like ice.” She and the boy hesitated at a confluence of pipes, the boy holding the lantern high until Elsabeth found a marker they’d left and snatched it off the dank wall.

  “Keep to the right.” Tao knew the labyrinths of the drainage pipes as well as any formerly mischievous child raised in one of the noble families could. It had been years, but racing through the darkened passages, it came back as if it were yesterday. “I know the pipes well.”

  “That’s what Markam said.”

  “So, you’re in on his plan to free me. A Markam loyalist.”

  Her disdainful gaze sought him out in the gloom. “Markam is helping me—us. The Kurel. Any enemy of this king is an ally of ours. That’s why I’m helping you.” She looked him up and down, as if finding it difficult to absorb the very concept. “I also promised Markam.” She seemed no more pleased with that promise than she did helping him to hurt the king. “I’m going to hide you where no one will look,” she said. “The ghetto.”

  By the arks. K-Town. Markam had promised he’d disappear. The man had been telling the truth. “They’ll come looking for me. Not too thoroughly in your ghetto, true, but Xim won’t give up that easily.”