The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series)

by Hal Emerson

  The man’s tone brooked no argument, and Raven found himself obeying despite his misgivings. He pulled out his dagger, the one Leah had given him, and slit the side of her heavy winter dress, revealing her side and part of her scarred chest. He saw that the harsh scratch from Tiffenal’s filed nails had cut her, but it was superficial. The wound in her side, the one from the sword, was deep, dangerously so. Raven cut the dress farther, and saw the whole left side had been filled with blood. He felt, actually felt, his face go pale as the blood drained out of it, looking at her mangled side.

  “Hold her,” the doctor said, and again Raven heard the voice of an Imperial. Could he trust this man to fix her?

  Do you have a choice?

  He moved to the side, exposing the wound to the doctor, cradling her head. The man had pulled a sewing kit as well as a number of metal implements from his bag. He went to work quickly, using alcohol, painfully strong in Raven’s nose, to sterilize the metal before swabbing some on the wound. He pulled out a waterskin and washed the blood away, revealing the cut itself, and then threaded a needle, and pushed it into her skin.

  She woke to semi-consciousness and cried out, breath coming harsh and short.

  “Hold her!” The man roared to Raven. “I think the cut nicked her kidney. This will take time.”

  The next hour was the longest of Raven’s life. Multiple times Leah cried out and even seemed close to waking, but each time she drifted back into unconsciousness. The doctor continued to work – he stopped the bleeding, his hands moving so quickly Raven could barely understand all the things he was doing. He didn’t care – all that mattered to him was that the spark of Leah’s life was slowing fading … slowly going from a roaring flame to the flicker of a dying candle.

  She cried out again, and Raven held her arms, forcing her to the ground where they had placed her down on his cloak, trying to keep her warm. Blankets were brought to cover her; men and women passed around them as the group began to move – it looked like Autmaran had organized them to head for the tunnel.

  And with every moment that passed, Raven spiraled deeper and deeper into a haze of hatred.

  His thoughts were murderous. He saw Tiffenal’s face, gloating at him, lit by the flames of Roarke, disappearing into the night. He saw Goldwyn’s body, stabbed to death. And now Leah, bleeding, close to following her father.

  He should never have touched her.

  She moved and cried again, and his vision hazed over and his impotent rage consumed him, burning his insides until he felt hollowed out. He wanted to run after Tiffenal, to find him, but knew there was no point.

  Tiffenal did not act alone.

  How had he thought he could just live a simple life among the Kindred? How could he ever have thought that the other Children wouldn’t find him and destroy what happiness he had managed to scrape out of the world? How could he ever have convinced himself to let his guard down?

  You cannot beat them. No one can. The Empress is invincible.

  And yet, in the back of his head, he heard Goldwyn’s voice, and felt his calm, warm smile. But his own words drowned that out – his mind quaked at the thought of fighting the Empire; it shook and trembled, shouting at him to find another way.

  Look what Goldwyn’s bravery got him! His death proves that the Empress can reach anywhere, that she in the only ruler this world will ever know, that she is a GOD!

  But Goldwyn had said she was just a woman. What if he was right?

  And at what point does the distinction stop mattering? She has the power of ten thousand men. She has all of the Guardians, the Bloodmages, she controls the Children with the Talismans, she has power, strength, and might beyond all thought. If She is not a God, She is the closest possible thing to one. She will find you wherever you go!

  Then what’s the point of running?

  Because if you run, you’ll live longer.

  If I run, people will die. Tomaz. Leah.

  They will die anyway! SAVE YOURSELF! Go – go now! Get on a horse, steal one, fight your way free, and go to the ends of the earth. Unless you do, you know that She will find you. All that has happened proves that. It proves that you cannot win. It proves that the Exiled all will perish!

  No. It proves that running will not help me.

  “Done,” the doctor said, sitting back with a heavy sigh.

  Raven looked down and saw that he was right. He quickly wrapped Leah in her cloak and sat her up, cradling her head.

  “Get her water,” the doctor said, watching him, speaking quickly. “Make sure she is not jostled. When she wakes tell her that she can expect to spend a good amount of time healing in Vale, but that as long as we are careful, she will recover. She was lucky, but she lost a lot of blood – you will need to keep her warm, and you will need to feed her as soon as she wakes, though that may take some time.”

  Someone shouted from down the hill – something about a man who had been burned. The doctor turned to Raven, making sure he’d understood.

  “Go,” he said, and the doctor left.

  The group was moving; within minutes Raven had found a horse, rescued from the city by the Roarke soldiers, and had tied Leah to it, careful to keep any chance of snow away from her wound and bandages. They were moving quickly now, and he saw that there were many that needed to get out of the forest as quickly as they could. There were men in nothing but nightshirts and boots, who already looked near frozen to death, women clutching crying children who were already beginning to quiet.

  There was a flurry of snow, and then Autmaran was before him on a sleek black stallion.

  “Raven,” he said quickly, out of breath. “We can’t find the entrance to the tunnel. We’ve been searching and the Scouts say they can find nothing – we need your help.”

  “Search harder, I’m staying here with Leah.”

  “I can care for her,” said a deep voice. Raven looked over and saw that another man had come up with Autmaran on a horse – the big man with the cudgel from Roarke.

  “Do you think I’m insane?” Raven almost shouted. “You tried to fight against the Kindred. I’m not leaving her in your hands!”

  “Raven,” Autmaran said quickly, leaning down and looking him straight in the eye. “If we don’t find that tunnel soon people will start to die. Hundreds. Soon, thousands, and thousands more will lose fingers and toes if we don’t get them some warmth.”

  He motioned to the big man beside him.

  “I personally vouch for Stannit,” he said. “Your first meeting with him was bad, I know that, but I’ve worked with him since getting to Vale, and he’s a man of his word. Trust him. He will keep her safe if it means giving up his life.”

  Raven looked at him once more, with great suspicion.

  “You have my word my Prince,” the big man said, watching Raven with a mix of awe and horror. The look of someone brought up on the stories of the Children.

  “Raven,” Autmaran begged him, “she will live. But if we don’t find that tunnel, many more will die.”

  He growled deep in his throat, and looked one last time at Leah.

  “FINE!”

  He threw the reins of the horse to Stannit, spun, and leapt up behind Autmaran. The Major dug his heels into the stallion’s flanks and they surged forward, running at breakneck speed.

  They passed by row upon row of Roarkians, all of whom were being helped along by Kindred soldiers. Many of the soldiers had taken off what clothing or armor they could spare and given it to the men and women who were most exposed.

  The horse jumped something on the ground, and Raven turned to look; it was the body of an elderly man, already half-buried in the falling snow.

  They turned a bend and ascended into the foothills.

  “The tunnel!” Autmaran called. “Which way do we go?”

  Raven pointed, and Autmaran turned the horse along that path.

  “Did you catch up with that Rogue?” He asked the Major.

  “Polim? No! We think he found the tunnel,
but he didn’t wait for us; we’re trying to track him now, but we lost his trail.”

  “What about his sister?”

  “Palum is faster than all of us put together!” Autmaran called back. “We think she caught up with him and went through too.”

  “Good!”

  “Good?”

  “Yes! It means I can track their lives and get a better idea of where the entrance is.”

  “Wait – I thought you said you knew where it was!”

  “Don’t worry, I can find it,” Raven said, confident.

  He reached out with the Talisman and sent his mind ahead of them, reaching forward, combing the forest, passing over Kindred and Roarkemen.

  Come on, please don’t let them be too far away already …

  They breasted a hill and found themselves on a heath that looked to have been recently torn up. Almost all evidence of it was gone, covered in the new snow, but enough remained to catch his eye.

  “Stop!” Raven cried, jumping off the horse. “This is where we fought Tiffenal – I know it is.”

  He reached out with his mind, straining, feeling for Polim.

  Please be there, I need a direction … come on …

  There.

  He spun and pointed and shouted for Autmaran, and the man rode his horse forward, running on blind faith toward a cliff face. He pulled up short and Raven’s heart sank.

  “It’s here!” Autmaran called, motioning him forward. For a moment Raven thought he was insane, that he had been mistaken when he’d felt the Rogue’s life. That couldn’t be the entrance, it was a sheer cliff wall – and then Autmaran disappeared into the mountain.

  Raven ran forward and found an impossible bend in the wall that completely concealed the entrance. No wonder no one had known about this – it was nearly invisible. Likely it had been forgotten about ages ago.

  “Get the others,” Raven said, speaking quickly. “I want to go in first – Tiffenal left traps, there may be more. I need to see what I can find.”

  “Here,” Autmaran said, pulling a hastily-made torch out of a pack on the side of his horse and tossing it and a flint and steel down to him. “You’ll need light.”

  “Make sure the soldiers gather wood as they come,” Raven said quickly, thinking ahead. “We’ll need tinder, literally anything that can burn. We’ll need to spend a night in here at least; these people won’t last much longer after what’s happened to them. Tell your men to bring the weakest and the wounded first –go!”

  “Yes, sir!” the Major said, spinning his horse and galloping away.

  “I’M NOT A SIR!” He roared after the man, but Autmaran didn’t seem to hear him. Raven turned and ran into the tunnel, racing through the first passage, knowing it was only a matter of time before the people of Roarke came seeking shelter. He reached through the Talisman again, feeling forward, trying to find anything that might alert him to a trap.

  Tiffenal is too smart for that – all of the traps were physical. No overt Bloodmagic, no trace amounts of anything that I would be able to pick up on.

  He searched the tunnel high to low but found nothing. He made his way as far forward as the underground lake, and realized the boat was gone. He reached out with his mind and felt the lives of the two Rogues fading in the distance and knew they’d at least made it safe across the lake.

  He turned and grabbed some of the torches Tiffenal had used to light the way for them and threw them in a pile together. Twenty in all from the tunnel. He looked around wildly, and, not to his surprise, found nothing else of use. It was that kind of a night.

  People began arriving, peering around the last bend of the tunnel before the lake. He waved the lit torch in his hand, motioning them forward.

  A number of them were soldiers, bearing large piles of wood. Most of it looked to be wet, but Raven hadn’t expected much else.

  “Pile it here,” he instructed quickly, pointing to a place in the middle of the large area in front of the underground lake.

  “You two – get stones to circle it. I don’t care that there’s nothing to catch fire, people get careless when they’re cold and hungry and the last thing we need is more burn victims.”

  The two soldiers saluted and ran to the lakeside to follow his instruction.

  “You five – work on this fire. I want it burning by the time I get back. And don’t give me any excuses about it being wet – make it burn. Use your own underclothes if you have to.”

  They nodded, looking grim but determined.

  “The rest of you,” he called out, motioning to all those who had gathered. “This area is about to get very cramped very fast. We need to create partitions – this area here, out of the path of any wind from the entrance, is where the sick and the elderly will go.”

  He continued on, organizing the camp, tending to the details. It was what he was good at. And it took his mind off things he’d rather not think about.

  Soon the whole lakeside was filled with people – and the fire had finally been lit. It was far from the raging bonfire Raven kept telling the soldiers to make it, but it gave light and warmth and frightened away the ghosts of fear and sorrow that came to clutch at their hearts.

  At his urging they all tried to rest, to sleep if they could, as soon as they settled down. Most just sat in shock, staring off into the distance. More and more kept coming, and soon they were using the tunnel itself, the lakeside overflowing. Raven quickly shuffled those with the warmest clothing out toward the tunnel entrance, keeping those who were very old or very young close to the fire, which more and more soldiers were feeding with wood. It was growing well now, though few seemed eager to get very close.

  Stannit came in with Leah, and Raven directed them over to where the wounded were. He checked on her quickly, brushing her hair from off her face, but she was still unconscious.

  “Stay with her until I tell you otherwise,” Raven said to Stannit, and the man nodded in deference. He hated to do it, but he had to entrust her to the man – he had to keep the rest of this camp in order until Autmaran got back.

  Another hour passed as Raven went back and forth, speaking quietly to those who looked as if they needed instructions, lending a hand with rolling boulders into the lake to gain more space.

  “Raven,” said a voice.

  He turned to see Autmaran coming in on foot – he must have tied off his horse elsewhere to help with space.

  “Good, you’re here,” Raven said quickly. “I’ve organized them all, but I’m sure they’ll be eager for you to tell them –”

  “Everything I can think of to do you already did,” the man said to him earnestly, catching his eye and trying to get Raven to stand still by holding out an arm. “I spoke to my men – you did what needed to be done, and in almost half the time I could have.”

  “I’ve had training,” Raven said dismissively, “that’s all. They are still your men, surely they wish to receive further instructions from you.”

  Autmaran watched him for a long moment and then nodded.

  “I will speak to them,” he said. “But know that I’ve told them you speak with my voice. If you give an order, it will be followed as if I had given it.”

  Raven’s jaw clenched in anger, but he didn’t saw anything. He didn’t want such responsibility – but someone needed to take it.

  “There’s a boat,” he said quietly, “on the other side of the lake now. Tiffenal used it to cross, and I think Polim and Palum used it to go back. It’s big – big enough I think to hold at least twenty in one trip. The lake isn’t wide – maybe a couple hundred yards at most. If you send your men across to get it –”

  “Done,” Autmaran said immediately and spun to grab a Scout rushing by with a layered chevron sewn to his shoulder. A sergeant. Autmaran told the man what Raven had told him, and he went immediately to the water’s edge, calling together a number of his men, all of whom began to strip down and ball their clothing up to hold over their heads as they swam. Before long, they’d all pushed of
f into the water and were disappearing into the night.

  “What’s on the other side?” Autmaran asked.

  Raven told him – about the house, and about the section of the tunnel that had caved in.

  “It was a large section,” Raven said bleakly. “It will take time to clear it, if we can at all.”

  “I know the man for the job, an Eldorian,” Autmaran said. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

  “No,” Raven responded automatically. “You’re dismissed.”

  The Major moved off before Raven realized the switch he’d just pulled. For a brief moment he considered going after the man and berating him before the whole group, and showing everyone that he wouldn’t put up with being bowed and scraped to. That part of his life was over, and they’d better get used to it.