by Hal Emerson
Leah stopped.
“What is it?” Raven asked quickly.
“My Anchor,” she said, raising a hand to her chest. “My Anchor is gone. It – it must have fallen off somewhere. It’s a rose, with briars around it. Help me look, I have to get it –”
They both turned to look behind them and saw that already their footprints were fading into the snow. The blizzard howled around them, and even with the light of the burning city at their backs, the world seemed no more than a black and gray patchwork of frozen air. There was no way they’d be able to find anything at all.
“It’s gone Leah,” Raven said firmly. “We can’t spend time looking. We have to keep moving – we need to get to the city. It’s our only chance.”
She nodded and tore her eyes away from their backtrail as they continued on again, once more silent.
When they finally reached the city, the fire was so intense that they could feel it from nearly a hundred yards away as it consumed the outer city walls. The stone was still standing, but the wooden top of the gate had burned away and the guard towers had crumbled and left embers along the tops of the walkways, burning away staircases and supports, making the whole huge structure lean and tilt drunkenly; it looked ready to fall at the slightest touch.
“Do you think they made it out?”
“I think Autmaran is still in there,” she said grimly. “If there’s anyone left, he’ll have stayed to help get them out.”
“I don’t know how much help we’ll be,” Raven said. “But if he’s still in there we have to find him – we have to help him and anyone else we can.”
They exchanged a glance, and took deep breaths. She detached herself from him and gave him a stern look.
“Follow me,” she said. “Exactly.”
And she was off, moving with speed and grace despite her wound, dodging gouts of flame and falling debris. Raven followed her, stepping exactly where she stepped as flaming embers fell around them. They made it through the gate to find the other side of the wall engulfed in flames as buildings burned inside them.
“Something’s wrong!” Raven said, speaking loudly to be heard over the conflagration. “This fire didn’t start inside the city, it was set along the walls – coming down the mountain it looked like the whole perimeter was on fire!”
“You think Tiffenal set it to burn from the inside out?” Leah asked.
“Those traps in the tunnel were set my Bloodmages,” Raven said. “If he had enough of them with him, he could have positioned them to set the entire perimeter on fire before they retreated north.”
“Then if Autmaran and Scipio are still in control of the city,” Leah said, “they’ll have drawn the people away from the walls – they’ll be closer to the center.”
“Then that’s where we go!”
They turned and started to make their way down the main street of Roarke, passing as quickly as they could past the first ring of burning buildings – burning homes.
Shadows and light, Raven thought, how would it feel to see your home burning? How would I feel to lose my cabin in Vale after all the work I put into it?
He was jostled rudely out of his thoughts when he noticed smoke rising from his clothing. He let out a cry of alarm.
“It’s just steam!” Called Leah.
Raven realized she was right; the vapor began to curl up into the air around them, the water from their clothing evaporating and the bits of snow left behind from their long trek melting and running to the floor in puddles. Pins and needles suddenly sprang into life in the tips of his fingers and the sodden toes of his boots, painful and sharp. He winced and continued on, moving as fast as he could as his blood warmed and moved sluggishly throughout his body.
They raced down the street, and Raven, who had been so concerned about the heat and the burning flame, suddenly realized that their real challenge would be breathing long enough to burn to death. The smoke covering the city was so thick that he began to choke and found himself forced to stop as he crouched down in search of the clearer air beneath the haze. He couldn’t seem to get a full breath – his vision began to spin.
“This way!”
Leah pulled at him, yanking him forward through the smoke. Raven threw an arm over his nose and mouth and narrowed his eyes to slits in an effort to maintain visibility as they groped forward.
But despite his efforts, within five paces his eyes had begun to burn and he could barely see through a haze of sooty tears. He followed Leah blindly, hoping she knew where they were going. He stumbled over a broken piece of brick, causing him to gasp in surprise. Smoke poured into his lungs, sinking its curling tendrils deep into his chest.
Coughing and hacking, they ran down the broad avenue that led from the gate to the castle at the city’s center. Here the smoke finally began to lessen, and they could breathe more easily; a few strides after that and they could see again; and not ten yards further the air was clear enough that they could stop and catch their breath.
Water fell on Raven’s head in little droplets, and he looked up.
The blizzard was still raging high above them, coming down hard, but the heat from the fire was melting the snow before it got to them, turning it into water. Huge gouts of steam mixed with smoke had begun to curl into the dark night sky, two elemental forces of nature battling over who would control and subjugate the great city of Roarke.
And then they heard the first screams.
They turned and looked down the street, back into the fire. There were people there, shambling forward just as they had, arms over their eyes, trying to make their way forward, pouring out of buildings that were catching fire.
“THIS WAY!” Raven roared immediately, waving his arms, moving to the center of the road. “COME THIS WAY!”
Leah stepped up and joined him, both waving their arms frantically, yelling themselves hoarse. Dozens of people flocked to them, many carrying loads of clothing and belongings, some in packs, some thrown over shoulders, and others just hastily donned. Children came too, crying and coughing, and Raven felt his rage at Tiffenal deepen. These were innocents; they should have had no part in this.
They gathered around him and Leah, and he realized they needed someone to tell them what to do. Leah was looking to him, waiting for him to act. He steeled himself for the ordeal that was about to come, and moved forward.
“You three!” He said quickly, pointing to three young men who seemed to be without families. They turned to him, dazed looks in their eyes.
“Stand here and keep yelling for others who might be trapped in the smoke,” he told them, his voice hoarse but commanding. They nodded quickly and immediately began shouting as he turned back to the others.
“Who are you?” One woman asked. She was holding a crying child.
“He’s the man who’s going to save your life,” Leah said harshly. “Shut up and listen.”
“The rest of you!” Raven continued, ignoring this exchange as he motioned to the dozen or so families before him. “Follow me down this way, take me to the center of the town!”
“The castle is in the center of town!” One of them cried.
Raven spun and looked at the castle and confirmed what he’d already seen – the keep of the huge building was burning – the inside gutted and useless. He rounded on the woman who had spoken, the one with the baby.
“Is there a central square?” He asked quickly. “A gathering place, something wide and open?”
“There’s a park –”
“Wood burns! We need a square, an open square, a meeting place, a place you hear proclamation or announcements –”
“The Prince’s Yard!” Called an old man, gnarled and bent with age. “The Prince’s Yard, where the Ox Lord would practice – you Kindred cleared it out when you came in, it’s completely fallow.”
“How big is it?”
“It’s huge!”
“Go there!” Raven called. “NOW!”
He watched as they all broke into a shamblin
g run down the main boulevard, which split into two branches – they took the left one, which looked smokier, but hopefully they knew what they were doing.
“You three,” Raven said to the young men. “Stay ahead of the flames but keep calling, let people know where we’re gathering! Don’t let yourselves get trapped – if the flames come too fast, leave here and get to the Prince’s Yard. Do you understand?”
They nodded, looking scared but determined, then turned and started shouting, directing anyone who could hear them the way Raven had asked.
“Leah!” Raven called out.
She turned to him and he saw that her eyes were glazed over. Too much was happening too quickly and she was still losing blood – she was going into shock.
“Leah,” Raven said, coming close to her and grabbing her, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “We need to go down that other road – we have to go around the perimeter and make sure everyone is out of those buildings and knows where to go. Are you able to help me? Are you still here?”
She shook her head as if to clear it, but did not respond.
“Leah!” He shouted at her, shaking her. “Are you here? Are you with me?”
She locked eyes with him, and he saw that she was back, her mouth set in a grim line.
How much blood has she lost?
“Let’s go.”
They turned and ran down the right hand branch, and after a quick loop it took them back toward the walls on the north side of the city.
They passed shambling groups as they went and told them all where to go – the younger members they recruited to help them comb the city, and before long they had a pack of nearly twenty. They continued shouting directions, even though soon they could barely speak, so hard was it to yell over the sound of the constantly advancing flames. They came across a number of people who had fainted from the smoke – these were lifted onto the shoulders of the younger men and women they’d gathered with them, and taken toward the Yard.
“What’s over there?” Leah asked, pulling him to a stop. Raven looked, and saw a large park, an area that had been cultivated with grass and trees.
And standing in the middle of it, looking nearly a hundred strong, were a group of Roarke citizens, confronting a smaller band of Kindred Scouts, headed by a man in red armor.
“AUTMARAN!”
The man at the head of the Kindred forces turned and squinted through the haze; when he saw Leah and Raven his mouth dropped open in a look of absolute shock.
“How in the – what in the – how – you –”
“It doesn’t matter!” Leah called to him as they ran forward. “We’re here, we’re helping, we’re organizing a fallback –”
“THERE WILL BE NO FALLBACK!”
Raven’s head whipped around at the harsh bull-like quality of the voice, coming from the group of Roarkemen in the center of the park. A tall, well-groomed man was standing at their head – the same one that had been arguing with Autmaran when they’d left the city months ago. Next to him, carrying an ugly spiked cudgel, was a huge bear of a man dressed in an old Imperial infantry uniform, and behind them were nearly a hundred men dressed in the Imperial red and black of Roarke.
“It’s the Governor,” Autmaran said quickly to Raven. “He’s refusing to come with us. He says we started the fire, says he’ll stay here, it’ll be safe because it’s an open space –”
“Wood and grass burn!”
“I know!” Autmaran said. “He won’t listen!”
Raven glanced over the heads of the Imperial men and saw advancing flames on the other side of the park – the fire was catching quickly. They didn’t have much time before the whole park was surrounded; they had to get these people out now.
“Look,” he said quickly to the Major. “We’ve been telling people to meet at the Prince’s Yard – they’re saying it’s an open space large enough for people to gather.”
Autmaran was nodding.
“It is – the thing is huge – but it can’t hold the entire population. It just can’t. We’ll need another solution soon.”
“Like what?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet! The first thing we need to do is get the Governor to come with us, if he comes, then we won’t have any trouble with the citizens.”
He rounded on the man again and strode forward, holding his arms out to either side.
“Governor, throw down your arms! This is not the time for foolishness, we need to get the people to safety –”
“Your trickery won’t work on me again!” The tall, thin man yelled back, stepping forward and drawing a sword. A flurry of motion, as a hundred other swords were drawn from sheathes as well. Raven’s heart leapt into his throat.
“We know you set this fire!” The man continued. “And we will fight you to keep these people safe from Kindred rule! We are loyal to the Empire! The Children will come to save us!”
“ARE YOU INSANE?!”
It was Raven who’d spoken, surprising even himself.
“This city is burning because Tiffenal, Prince of Foxes, set it on fire to make an example out of all who live here! He did it to send a message to me and to the Kindred, that the Empire is willing to kill everyone and everything that stands in it’s way!”
“Who are you?” The big bear of a man standing next to the Governor asked.
Raven took a deep breath and pulled himself up to his full height.
“I am the Prince of Ravens, the Lord of Death, the Seventh Child of the Empress.”
Jaws dropped, and some men went to their knees. Raven felt sick, but said nothing. If worshiping him meant they’d do what he needed them to, then so be it.
“Don’t listen to him men!” Roared the Governor. “The Raven fights with the Kindred now! He is an Exiled Prince, a man that none of the true faith follow! Stand strong – this is a trick!”
“If you stay here,” Raven said, speaking to the men now, ignoring the Governor, “you will all die! Do you not see the flames? You are in danger here! Come with us, we are gathering, and we will find a way out of this city, for both Kindred and Roarkemen!”
“Do you agree to such a thing Exile?” The big man with the cudgel asked, eyeing Autmaran now, looking fearful despite his obvious strength and position. “Do you stand with this one – you will lead us, all of us, to safety?”
“I have led you for months now,” Autmaran said, looking around him, glancing quickly at all the soldiers, giving the impression he’d met everyone’s eye even though such a thing wasn’t possible. “I didn’t bring these men or these swords to fight you. The city is burning around us! I want to save everyone that I can, and I am standing here, pleading with you, to come with me. I guarantee you asylum among the Kindred – you will be safe among us!”
“I say so too!” Raven called. “You have my word – upon the Empress!”
The following silence was punctuated only by the sound of the conflagration around them, and Raven, even through the smoke quickly filling the park, saw men watching him with hopeful eyes.
“Good enough for me,” said the big man wielding the cudgel. He lowered the huge piece of wood, and turned to the ones behind him.
“The Empire has abandoned us!” He roared. “If we want to live, we need to help this man and his companions in whatever way we can! Is that clear?”
A huge resounding affirmative came from the gathered crowd, and immediately the soldiers broke ranks and came forward.
“STOP!” Cried the Governor, but no one listened. A few stayed behind, barely a handful, but even they looked as if they were questioning such a decision.
“Listen, all of you!” Raven said quickly, knowing time was of the essence. “Get to the Prince’s Yard, it’s where we’re gathering, we have to get as many people out of the city as possible. Spread the word to anyone you see, and help carry the wounded and the old, everyone must be evacuated!”
They moved as one, well trained Imperial men who knew how to take orders, and were off at a quick
march down the streets, fanning out, helping those they found, shouting into open doors, finding everyone they could.
“What do we do after we have them all gathered?” Leah asked quickly, looking from Autmaran to Raven and back again. “Where do they go?”
“Where is the Yard located? Is it near –?”
Raven cut off and looked back to the park. The Governor and his remaining men were gone.
We haven’t seen the last of them.
“It’s near the south wall,” Autmaran said, kneeling quickly, drawing a quick, lopsided version of Roarke in the dirt and ash at their feet.
