Shadowmage

by Max Keith

  “Three,” the smith replied firmly. With the end of the nightmare in sight now, he was not about to extend it. “I see it.”

  “Okay.” The mage took a breath. It occurred to him there were probably holds in the rock at their feet even now, little ridges and cracks they could use to climb up to the path, but he did not want to mess with a good thing. Against everyone’s best judgement, his plan had worked; why change it now? “When you get to the path, try to wrap the canvas around a rock or something. That way, if we fall, it may hold us.”

  “Aye.” Firkis gathered himself. “And… step!”

  They scrambled higher, everyone’s breath rasping, the sweat drenching the creaking canvas. “Slow and steady,” Alorin warned. A mistake now would break their hearts, if not their necks.

  “Shit.” Firkis sounded annoyed. “There’s a parapet.”

  “Walk up it!” Poildrin’s legs were screaming, and he could not imagine Aimee would be conscious for long. He’d had grand plans of reconnaissance, of stealth, of caution, but at this point he was simply hoping not to shit himself with fear and effort. “Get up there!”

  A groan from above and a sudden sharp change in the angle of the line announced the smith’s success. “Finally,” he exulted, really more of a groan; the rest of them were jerked sharply up, and with a muted squawk Aimee found herself dragged half over the parapet.

  “Ouch.” She sounded surprisingly present. “Fuck this.”

  By now Alorin, groping steadily in a strangely slanted crouch, had found two decent handholds just beneath the path, and then it was only Poildrin, dangling exhausted above the slowly swaying barrel while his gasping companions dragged him up.

  The parapet was loose and crumbly; a rock flew out from beneath his knee as he lurched over, but at last he found himself flopped on his back, laughing giddily while Alorin untied herself and crawled over him to haul the barrel up. A few more moments’ effort, and they lay sprawled along the rocky trail, the knotted canvas disappearing in its deceptively graceful arc up to the ledge far above. He listened as someone got a waterskin open; they’d traveled very light for obvious reasons, with nothing but weapons and water. If they got through the fortress, they could get anything else they needed; if not, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  He let them rest five minutes or so, while the stars pricked the velvet sky above and the moon began its march. Behind him his friends were shifting nervously, their heads craning back as if they weren’t able to believe what they’d just done, which made sense; Poildrin couldn’t believe it either. Just down the path sat Alorin Kaye on top of the squat little barrel, watching him with no emotion, and it was that stare that guilted him into getting his act together. “Right,” he croaked. “Let’s get going.”

  Up the path, he saw moonlight on Firkis’ wicked double-bitted axe as he hacked through the canvas that still secured them to the far-off ledge. When he got through, the dead end flew noiselessly off into the night, slithering up the path and over the parapet to swing with gentle majesty out over the void. Everyone had their knives and daggers out, hacking themselves free, Aimee down on her knees peering over the parapet. “The path seems deserted,” she announced, relieved.

  “If it’s resupply they use this for, they wouldn’t take the risk at night.” Poildrin gazed south into the darkness, trying to remember what he’d seen at the Royal position that evening. “I doubt they’ve got anything that can shoot this far. Yet.”

  Aimee did not sound amused. “You’re a fountain of hope tonight,” she hissed. Alorin was already thinking about the next step.

  “The trail’s not too steep,” she observed. “We can roll the barrel, I think.”

  “Great.” The mage sighed, gathered his wits, and settled his belt over his bony hips. “Let’s get going, then.”

  Firkis passed them all. The plan was that he should lead, his strength needed once they reached the gate at the cave below. He hadn’t liked any of this. “We’re just going to walk through the fucking fortress?”

  Poildrin had shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Guards every two paces, that’s why not.”

  “It’s okay,” the mage had soothed. “If we can’t get out, we’ll just find a place to hide until the sack. We pay taxes to the King; why not let his armies rescue us?”

  “Because they’ll rape Aimee and Alorin, then kill us all.”

  “Pshaw,” Poildrin had scoffed. “We’ll kill Aimee before we let anyone rape her.”

  “Thanks.” Aimee had been eating her lunch at that time, and had scowled at the thrust of their conversation. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Don't worry about a thing,” he’d reassured the smith, and he hoped the man would keep himself cool now. At least he started off, rolling the barrel ponderously down switchback after switchback, Alorin coming right behind him with her shortsword out.

  Poildrin counted eleven switchbacks, separated by long and sometimes tentative stretches of descending pathway, before they found themselves on the last bend. Firkis stopped the gently rolling barrel with some difficulty, and the rest of them waited in the dark while Poildrin crept forward, his grey cloak blending into the night. Meanwhile, Alorin knelt and pulled out one of her crossbow bolts, carefully prepared up above.

  The gate, as he’d hoped it would be, was wide open; he’d noticed a nice, high chunk of wall leading off at an angle toward the babbling river, blocking the Royals from patrolling this way and the four of them from simply walking to join the army. Clustered in the mouth of the yawning archway were ten or twelve Imperials of the Third Legion, their tall red plumes waving gently in the breeze by the light of a broad bonfire they’d lit for warmth. The mage squinted, looking for a long, straight slope along which Firkis could roll the barrel, preferably right into the tunnel. He studied the scene a moment longer, then nodded and stole back toward his friends.

  “Aim just left of the bonfire,” he whispered to the smith, “and then dive out of the way and let Alorin do her thing.” He hesitated, but it needed to be said: he turned toward the valkyrie and winced. “Don’t miss.”

  “Never,” she scoffed, and then she was off, melting into the shadows and dropping into a ditch that ran along the road. They gave her a moment to get into position, and then the mage and the smith stared at each other.

  “Okay, Firkis,” he muttered. “Good luck.”

  “Aye.” Getting the barrel to move was a small challenge, but Firkis’ ponderous strength was well up to the task; the barrel got sluggishly into motion, crunching and popping as it crushed pebbles underneath, and then he was trotting with it, aiming carefully, and then running, and the barrel was suddenly flying over the packed earth as it rolled, straight on target, for the gate.

  Around the time the younger and more alert legionaries heard the ponderous grating roar of the big barrel, a little flare of light announced that Alorin had gotten a good spark out of her tinderbox. The barrel whizzed toward her, and then past, and then she stood silhouetted against the light of the bonfire and calmly shot the flaming bolt into the wildly twirling barrel.

  For a moment or two, nothing really happened. And then, without warning, everything happened. With a whooshing sheet of flame the barrel, well-tarred, caught and kindled, moving now like a comet brought to earth, and suddenly the legionaries were scattering in fright and holding their noses as, sparking crazily, the mad barrel thundered toward them. Poildrin was not surprised they broke and ran so easily.

  Because, as everyone knows, there’s nothing a man will run away from faster than a massive rolling barrel of burning shit.

  The smell, foul and eye-watering and pervasive, was suddenly everywhere, a heavy pall of black smoke trailing behind, and Poildrin gave Aimee’s arm a rough squeeze and drew her down the widening path at a dead run. Ahead was all flickering motion and sickly stench, the shapes of soldiers and dogs and Firkis and Alorin racing in all directions. Shouts and even screams started to rise as the panic and confusion grew, and then Alorin’s head start
brought her pelting into the tunnel mouth right behind the bouncing, disintegrating barrel. Firkis, panting, followed her.

  This was the moment they’d all been dreading: the inside of the tunnel was unknown, its murder holes undoubtedly manned, and the barrel would be filling it with reeking smoke; the four of them would be following right behind. This required a certain degree of bravery. Worse, they all knew there’d come a point where the barrel at last lost its battle with the fire, leaving a slick sheen of old, burning shit splashed from wall to wall.

  Poildrin and his companions knew exactly how badly it would smell, having spent the day shoveling the mess out of the latrine hole and into the barrel, which they’d emptied for a nice lunch. And as the valkyrie and the smith disappeared into the furnace ahead, with Aimee panting alongside him, the mage gathered himself and plunged in, the four of them completely unnoticed in the smoky night by the overwhelmed guards.

  They ran on.

  The tunnel was a hellpit, exactly the image of the kind of place the priests told bad children they’d be sent if they didn’t smarten up. Swinging an arm wide ahead of him to bat a way through the smoke, he knew there was nothing at all to do but run on with his sleeve held uselessly before his face. Here and there he spotted little hunks of flickering and ashy wood, felt the sucking mess beneath his soles as he sprinted, trying to hold his breath, toward where the end of the tunnel had to be.

  It came sooner than he’d thought it might, though later than he’d wanted it to. There was a marked lessening of the smoke, and then he slowly processed that he was almost through and fumbled for his dagger.

  The plan from here had been sketchy in the extreme, and had relied on whatever soldiers manned the inner side of the tunnel being as confused as their mates outside; if they weren’t, well, that was what the dagger was for. He listened, over the rasp of his own straining breath, for a clash of steel from Alorin and Firkis, but heard nothing; the alternate plan was for all of them to jam their weapons away as fast as possible, keep on going, and melt into what would certainly be a crowd of people, filing out into the night to fight the fire.

  “Franx!” he heard as he stumbled from the tunnel, and he moved blindly toward the voice, tumbling into the waiting arms of Alorin Kaye. She was peering eagerly for her friends, her boots caked with charred shit, ash in her fine white hair. “Firkis is right over there,” the valkyrie coughed, and Poildrin just nodded, rammed his dagger back into his sheath, and plunged in the direction she pointed, straight into the edge of a growing and murmuring crowd.

  Things went swiftly after that.

  Aimee had never seen a fortress before, so she was unprepared for how many holes there were in the walls, holes through which four desperate suckers could squeeze. There were sewers, cisterns, posterns, arrow slits, and just plain windows, and any number of them were large enough to allow even Firkis to slide through; every soldier in the fortress that night was turned north to listen to the excitement at the tunnel-gate, and nobody really cared about anyone leaving a besieged fortress anyway, especially civilians. Fewer mouths.

  The streets of the Starkhorn had been just as Poildrin and Firkis remembered, leading straight and clean toward the gate-tower, and shoving through the excited crowds of the fortress’ children had been the most difficult part. Once out, tumbling through a large shuttered port designed for a fougasse, the four of them had reeled their way out into the night toward the river, praying for nothing more than a pool to plunge their sweaty, stained bodies into. And then, thrashing out onto the south bank of the River Gethell, the companions drifted on into the night toward the waiting ring of the King’s watchfires.

  * * *

  They stood on a hillock on the right of the Royal line a few days later, combed and washed and perfumed and waiting to go home on their borrowed Army horses, watching the King’s regiments file into the opened gate of the Starkhorn. Above them glowered mountain after mountain after mountain, bulling their way into the north with neither mercy nor remorse. Poildrin thought, if he squinted just so, that he could make out the little squiggle in the cliff face behind the fortress where the torn shelter and the emptied latrine waited for Jerren’s next set of friends.

  There was no sign of the knotted length of canvas, twisting and tattering in the wind as it flogged itself against the face; it was too fine to see at this distance, and it hardly mattered. The drooping canvas would never survive more than two winters.

  Over to the west, at the far left by where the Gethell came foaming over its falls as it came out of the hills, stood the clustered masses of the fort’s late garrison, the Third Imperial Legion, watching impassively as their enemy marched in. They’d been persuaded to leave, as far as they were going to tell their Emperor, by the overwhelming numbers the King and his regent had sent, but that would have taken months. In truth, they’d left early thanks to Lady Algar of Traxtell, now perched at the gatehouse with the King’s victorious general; from afar, she resembled an apple.

  Above them floated the Royal banner.

  The mage sighed. Once upon a time, he’d been stirred by the sight of marching armies; those days were long done now, and he fidgeted yet again with the stirrup leathers of the borrowed saddle. Raxillene’s Tower was three days away; that was quite awhile on an unfamiliar horse.

  “You, umm, will be leaving soon?” The soldier was nervous, as the King’s forces always were around those who worked for the Princess. “It’s just that we’ve got things to do, and – “

  “Yes, captain. We’re going.” He nodded to his companions, mounted, and kicked the horse sideways. “You’ll be happy to get back to your real duties, no doubt, but we appreciate your exertions on our behalf.” He smiled mirthlessly. “We shall be informing the Princess Raxillene of your superb conduct.”

  Yes, that was exactly what the captain was afraid of. He nodded vaguely. The general had assigned him to them the night they’d arrived, bedraggled and stinking of ashy shit. He’d ostensibly been there to serve them, but in truth he’d been there to watch them. And he was well aware they knew it.

  “Shall we?” Aimee was already on her way, urging her horse toward the eastward road toward the village of Shiffe, where they’d stay the night.

  The sounds of the conquest faded behind them as they rode, still with the peaks on their left, until they rounded the first curve of the last pass and, at last, found themselves riding through silence. The road wound gently up, topping out at a notch between two spiky peaks, and Poildrin was not surprised by the little group he found there.

  “Well met, friends.” Florin, on a fat bay stallion, did not smile as he waited for them. “M’lady of Upper Thead is yonder,” he added, jerking a chin up toward the pass. “We did not intend to see you here, I must say.”

  “If I’m being honest, Master Florin,” Aimee replied loftily, “I shall say I am entirely unsatisfied by the attempts your people have made at accommodating us. Particularly that last lodging place; we found it drafty, and a bit uncomfortable.”

  The innkeeper spat. “Noted, madam. You’re always welcome not to come back.”

  “A generous offer,” she smirked, not looking at him as she rode past. “I, for one, will take you up on it.”

  “Splendid.” Shrewd, tired eyes fell on Poildrin. “I wonder about the rest of you, however.”

  “Who can say what the future holds?” The mage craned his neck to catch a glimpse of Jerren, up ahead beside a loose picket line of their own horses, all looking sleek and well-fed. “Nice meeting you, Master Florin.”

  The big man nodded sourly as they filed up the slope, and now Pixie lifted her regal grey head and trumpeted loudly, Alorin grinning in a most un-Alorin-like way as she spurred up the path.

  “As promised,” Jerren said gravely, her eyes flickering over each of them. “Your horses are sound and well rested. Shall I suppose you were able to keep my pledge safely?”

  With equal gravity, for Alorin Kaye was a woman who believed matters like this required a
certain solemnity, she drew the little brass frog from around her own neck and untied it. “I thank you.” She held it out, noting the relief on the other woman’s face. “A curious talisman, m’lady.”

  “I’m glad to have it back.” She nodded to Aimee and Firkis, and her gaze finally found Poildrin. They stared at each other, then he watched as she tied the frog around her own neck. “Until next time, Poildrin Franx.”

  He nodded back. “I’ll be counting the days,” he replied quietly. And so Jerren and Florin got four fine Army saddle horses, and Poildrin was left with his friends looking uncertainly at him, waiting for him to tell them what they ought to get up to next. He sighed.

  He knew they ought to get up to going home.

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