Lightning Tracks

by A. A. Kinsela

  ‘Here’s a reassignment order for the Bandála contingent at the aqueducts. I need that whole section of wall cleared.’

  Nick and Artemis looked at one another.

  ‘Julian,’ Nick mouthed, and Artemis nodded.

  A murmur drifted from the corridor, but Nick couldn’t hear the words.

  ‘I’ll need three hours,’ Julian said. ‘Once the Bandála have moved off the wall, you hold onto that reassignment order and wait for me to return.’ There was a short silence, then Julian asked, ‘Do you smell that? It’s some kind of flower. Jasmine, perhaps.’

  Artemis sniffed her hair and shut her eyes, as if telling herself off.

  The person in the corridor muttered something.

  ‘Yes, we need to hurry,’ Julian said.

  Footsteps faded and the door creaked shut.

  ‘What do you think Julian’s up to?’ Artemis whispered.

  Nick crawled out from under the desk. ‘I have no idea, but I’m going to find out.’

  When she didn’t emerge, he leaned down. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘One minute.’ She pulled a small metal latch on the underside of the desk and the secret compartment opened again. She scrambled out, grabbed the old reassignment order, and closed the lid.

  ‘Wait, Artemis. We can’t take that.’

  ‘We have to. If we’re sprung tonight, we’ve got nothing. Julian will destroy any evidence that we might be able to use against him, and we won’t get another opportunity to return.’

  Nick nodded. ‘Alright. But let’s hide it where no one will find it.’

  ‘The old governor’s house. Everyone avoids it because they think it’s haunted.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They climbed out Valerius’ office window and jogged through the city to the crumbling basalt building in the eastern quarter. After they scaled the wall, Artemis tugged a leather satchel out from under a rock and used the thin metal tools to pick the lock on the back door. Once inside the house, Artemis tossed the reassignment order onto a high shelf.

  ‘That’ll do for now. We’ll come back for it later.’

  She buckled the lock picking toolkit onto her belt. Nick raised his eyebrows.

  ‘We’re going to need it,’ she said.

  They hurried out to the eastern wall and hid inside the foyer of a crumbling apartment block. The aqueducts soared above their heads, and the huge stone arches supporting the water channels cast long moon shadows across the houses.

  ‘Incredible,’ Nick breathed.

  ‘This is the most heavily guarded section of wall.’ Artemis pointed to the fortifications above them. ‘The top tier of the aqueducts always has four soldiers stationed at either side. There’s another six or so posted nearby.’

  ‘Not quite what I meant, but good to know.’ Nick scanned the wall. ‘I can’t see anyone up there. Julian’s reassignment order has cleared the way.’

  ‘Except for that other soldier he had with him,’ Artemis said.

  ‘How are we going to follow Julian?’

  ‘We can use the lower tier. It’s never guarded because it’s so dangerous.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nick hesitated then asked, ‘How dangerous?’

  ‘We have to climb around a deep pit to reach the opening.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  She smiled and shook her head.

  ‘Crap.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘Alright. Let’s get this over with.’

  Keeping low, they darted across the street, crept into an empty guardhouse, and headed up the spiral stairs. Three storeys above the street, Artemis stopped at a small door, drew out the lock picking tools, and inserted two thin metal sticks into the keyhole. Nick glanced up and down the stairwell, listening for footsteps. A loud click made him jump.

  ‘We’re in,’ Artemis said.

  They stepped into a narrow corridor, and Artemis locked the door behind them. Then she squeezed past Nick and led the way down the passage. Up ahead, he heard a rushing noise like a waterfall. The corridor ended at a wooden balcony overlooking a vast, black chasm. To their right, up high, was an archway – the opening to the lower tier of the aqueducts. A smooth film of water gushed past an iron portcullis and disappeared into the abyss below.

  ‘Oh my god,’ Nick whimpered.

  Artemis walked along a rickety wooden platform to a weight and pulley system that Nick supposed worked the portcullis. A wooden ladder was bolted to the chasm wall, leading up to the aqueduct. Some of the rungs were missing.

  ‘Do you know how deep the pit is?’ Nick asked, staring down into the hole.

  ‘I’ve never been down there, but I’ve heard that the underground reserves are so big you can’t see the other side of them.’

  She winched the portcullis open then clambered up the ladder. Nick drew an unsteady breath, grasped the first rung, then the second, then the third. His palms were sweaty, making it difficult for him to grip the wood. He felt for the ladder rungs with his feet. He didn’t want to glance down and see the blackness below.

  ‘Be careful when you step out onto the channel,’ Artemis said. ‘The current’s strong. Keep hold of the ladder.’

  Nick staggered as the water pushed against his boots, nearly sweeping his feet from under him. If he lost his footing now, he’d slide over the edge and plunge into the blackness below. The thought made him shudder. He grabbed onto an arch support before letting go of the ladder, and followed Artemis along the channel. The water reached halfway to their knees, and flowed so fast that they struggled to move any quicker than a walk. As they got closer to the far side, the slope of the mountain rose up to meet the aqueducts until the ground was within jumping distance. Artemis swung off the side and dropped into a crouch on the dry leaves. Nick landed beside her, his boots squelching.

  ‘Can you see which way Julian went?’ he asked.

  She searched the ground and pointed to a trail of disturbed leaves. They tracked Julian along the folds of the hill to a stream, then into a gully where a waterfall hissed over the cliffs and plunged into a dark pool.

  ‘This is Blackrock Falls,’ Artemis whispered.

  Nick remembered the map hidden in his bedroom and tilted his head to see if he could hear the song gate, but all he heard was the roar of water. Artemis grabbed his arm and pulled him down as Julian stepped into the moonlight on the other side of the stream. They crept through the trees and slithered between a tumble of jagged boulders next to the waterfall.

  Julian stood with his back to the waterfall, watching the cliff on the north side of the gorge. For several minutes, nothing happened. Then a man with hands gloved and face masked in black detached himself from the night and abseiled into the gully. When he reached the bottom, he shook the rope to loosen it from its anchor, and it slumped to the ground. Once he’d looped the rope across his chest, he approached Julian. He was a tall man with a powerful stride and sweeping hazel gaze that seemed to take in every detail of his surrounds. Nick went rigid. He’d seen those eyes once before and dreamed about them many times since.

  Alexander.

  Chilling fear crept over Nick, and he rose to his knees to get a better look at the assassin. Artemis snatched him into a headlock, with a hand clamped over his mouth.

  ‘You can’t face him unarmed, Nick. You won’t stand a chance,’ she muttered in his ear.

  He tried to reply that he wasn’t stupid enough to step into the open, but her chokehold only tightened till white sparks danced across his vision.

  ‘If you go out there, Alexander will kill you. Do you hear me?’

  He went limp, nodding. Her grip loosened. He rolled away from her, gulping air and blinking to regain his focus.

  ‘Shit, Artemis! I wasn’t going to jump out. I just wanted to get a look at him, that’s all.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  Rubbing his neck, he wriggled farther away from her and peered through a gap in the boulders. The roar of the waterfall masked Alexander and Julian’s voices, so Nick watched th
eir body language. Julian held his hands out in an appeal. Alexander stood with his arms folded across his chest, shaking his head from time to time. After what appeared to be a tense, one-sided negotiation, Julian saluted in a manner Nick had never seen before and walked away. Alexander stayed by the waterfall, his steady gaze following Julian as if he was tracking a moving target. Nick half expected Alexander to swing the bow off his shoulder and shoot Julian in the back. But he didn’t. He just waited until Julian was well out of sight before turning around and walking into the waterfall.

  Nick blinked. He searched Artemis’s face for an explanation but she looked as astonished as he felt. Before she could stop him, he scooted around the boulders and ducked under the waterfall. He shook the water from his eyes and saw a cavern several metres deep, yawning into the mountainside. It sloped upwards and ended at a sheer rock wall.

  Wiping her dripping fringe aside, Artemis asked, ‘Did you see where he went?’

  ‘No. He’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? How can he be gone?’ She turned in a circle. ‘There must be another way out.’

  An icy breath passed over Nick’s skin.

  ‘Do you feel that?’ Artemis asked, shivering.

  They went to the back wall of the cavern. Artemis ran her hands across the stones then pointed out a section of the wall. Nick caught the shift of air on his fingers before he noticed long cracks in the rock. When he stepped back, he could see the rough outline of a door.

  ‘Why would Alexander abseil into the valley then leave through a secret passage?’ he asked.

  ‘He probably doesn’t want Julian knowing that it’s here. See if you can find a keyhole or handle.’

  They studied the door for a good few minutes, running their palms over the smooth rock till Nick’s fingers tripped over another set of grooves.

  ‘Got it,’ he said.

  He prised the edges till one side popped out to reveal a metal handle underneath. When he pulled the handle, the door swung open without a sound.

  ‘That’s not a good sign,’ Artemis murmured. ‘The hinges are oiled. That means someone comes here often enough to maintain it.’

  A narrow tunnel burrowed into the mountainside. Nick’s damp dreadlocks tickled his neck as a gust of Antarctic wind blew into the cavern. It went straight through his wet clothes, making his teeth chatter. An iron frame reinforced the back of the door, and in the tunnel wooden beams supported the roof.

  ‘If the Bandála knew about this tunnel,’ Artemis said, ‘they’d have made sure it was at least guarded, if not destroyed.’

  Nick swung the door shut. ‘We have to tell David.’

  Chapter 31: Traitor

  Nick and Artemis hurried back through the bush and along the aqueduct. They shut the portcullis on the lower tier then jogged to the governor’s house to retrieve Julian’s old reassignment order. The city was already beginning to stir. The bakers had their ovens going and the scent of fresh bread and wood smoke drenched the air. Nick’s stomach gurgled.

  As they made their way uphill to the temple, the sky began to lighten. It was a still, quiet morning, with mist clinging to the mountains and flocks of black cockatoos soaring towards the pink clouds. Sunlight bloomed over the battlements, making Auremos shine as if it was made of gold.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Artemis said.

  ‘Yeah. I can understand why...’ Nick trailed off.

  She peered at him. ‘Why the Korelians want it back?’

  He nodded.

  ‘This was the heart of their civilisation. Or it was, before the Bandála took it.’

  A breeze tossed her fringe, and Nick wanted more than ever to touch her hair, but as he was about to reach out she turned away and began the walk down the other side of the hill.

  When they arrived at Market Square, Kráytos strode out of the apartments to meet them.

  ‘What are you doing here, Nick? When did you leave?’

  ‘Around midnight, sir.’

  ‘The soldier I posted at the front door didn’t tell me you’d gone.’

  ‘That’s because she didn’t know.’

  Kráytos released a frustrated sigh.

  ‘Yell at me later,’ Nick said. ‘Right now I have to see David.’

  ‘He’ll be the one doing the yelling.’

  Nick and Artemis hurried upstairs and made a beeline for the kitchen pantry. He tossed her a couple of plums, which she devoured, then he stuffed a handful of nuts into his mouth before rapping on David and Xanthe’s bedroom door. Someone groaned their way out of sleep, feet slapped the floorboards and David appeared, bare-chested, unshaven and tousled.

  ‘What?’ he croaked.

  ‘We have to talk,’ Nick said.

  Xanthe stepped into view. ‘It’s a bit early, Nick,’ she said with a yawn. ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No. Julian left the aqueducts unguarded for three hours this morning so he could sneak out to Blackrock Falls for a meeting with Alexander.’

  Xanthe and David both stared.

  Artemis pulled the reassignment order from her pocket and passed it to David. ‘This was hidden in a secret compartment in Julian’s desk.’

  David unwound the leather binding and scanned the document. Xanthe peered over his shoulder, her eyes wide.

  ‘I didn’t write this,’ David said, glancing at Xanthe. ‘If the Bandála soldiers followed these orders, it would have left a large section of the eastern wall unprotected.’

  ‘The Bandála did follow those orders,’ Nick said. ‘That’s how Julian’s been able to leave the city without anyone knowing. Last night, he gave a reassignment order like this one to the soldiers on the aqueducts so that he could sneak out again.’

  ‘You followed him?’ Xanthe asked.

  Nick nodded. ‘He didn’t see us. Neither did Alexander.’

  David looked at Artemis. ‘You went with Nick?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied. ‘We used the lower tier of the aqueducts to avoid detection. We also discovered a secret tunnel.’

  David and Xanthe both straightened and demanded, ‘Where?’

  ‘In a cavern behind the falls,’ Nick said. ‘We saw Alexander walk under the waterfall. The tunnel goes straight through the mountain.’

  ‘The general knew where it was?’ Xanthe asked.

  ‘Yes. Did you know it was there?’

  David and Xanthe exchanged worried looks.

  ‘We knew one existed,’ Xanthe said, ‘but we’ve never been able to locate it.’

  ‘Where’s the reassignment order from last night?’ David asked.

  ‘Probably back in Julian’s office,’ Nick said. Then his stomach dropped. ‘Crap!’

  ‘The desk!’ Artemis gasped. ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’

  David leaned forward. ‘Why didn’t you think of what?’

  Nick pointed to the old reassignment order. ‘We stole that from the secret compartment in Julian’s desk. If he goes to hide the new one...’

  ‘He’ll realise the old one’s missing,’ Xanthe finished. She yanked on her boots and jacket then scooted out, calling over her shoulder, ‘I’ll find Julian before he destroys the evidence.’

  David tugged on his shoes. ‘Nick, Artemis, come with me.’

  The three of them hurried downstairs.

  ‘Kráytos, station one soldier at the front door,’ David said as he strode across the foyer. ‘Take the rest of your guard after Xanthe and arrest Commander Julian then meet me at the council chamber.’

  Parents pulled children away and merchants steered carthorses aside as Nick, Artemis and David bolted through the streets. They leapt up the council chamber steps, startling a pair of Bandála guards, and dashed inside. The main chamber was empty.

  ‘Valerius!’ David shouted. ‘Are you here?’

  The old prefect emerged from his office with a book in one hand and an oil lamp in the other. ‘It seems I’ve had another nightly visitor to my office,’ he grumbled, frowning at Nick. His gaze moved across Artemis and Dav
id. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘We have a serious problem,’ David said, and repeated what Nick had told him. When he showed Valerius the reassignment order, the prefect’s expression changed from grim concern to simmering fury. His ebony glare rested on Nick.

  ‘Did you hear what Julian and Alexander spoke about?’

  Nick shook his head. ‘The waterfall was too noisy.’

  ‘Xanthe’s gone to find him,’ David added, then he banged the table. ‘How could he do this? How? He’s been a Bandála officer for over ten years. I trusted him. We all did.’

  ‘Not all of us,’ Nick muttered under his breath.

  Valerius turned to Artemis. ‘How much time will you need to complete an authentication analysis?’

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ she replied. ‘I’ll need writing samples from Julian and Rayámina.’

  ‘I’ll get them,’ David said, and disappeared into the corridor.

  Valerius handed her the reassignment order. She sat at the council table, picked up a quill, dipped it in ink, and began circling random letters.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Nick asked, peering over her shoulder.

  ‘Proving this document is a fake.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Handwriting comparison.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could do that.’

  She tucked her fringe behind her ears. ‘There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Nick. Now be quiet so I can concentrate.’

  When David returned with an armload of documents, she sifted through them and set a few aside.

  Valerius steered Nick towards the front door. ‘You can watch out for Xanthe. Stay near the entrance guards. I don’t want you getting mobbed.’

  Nick slumped on the council chamber steps, feeling a bit useless. A few people stopped mid-stride to stare at him and point. One Bandála soldier saluted in his direction, and Nick glanced behind him before realising the gesture was directed at him. He moved into the shadow of a column to hide and stifled a yawn. He’d gone the whole night without sleep. If he could just rest for ten minutes, he reckoned he could get through the rest of the day. He leaned his back against the column and shut his eyes.

  Someone nudged his shoulder. He jolted awake and almost sprawled down the steps.