by CM Raymond
There was much to fear beyond the walls, but the biggest threat was that the Guards might catch Karl trying to escape with a fugitive. In that sense, the load he pulled was deadlier than a band of hungry remnant.
“Hey, Karl,” a familiar Guard at the gate called to him. “Come on through.” The man waved him around the line trying to leave the city with a grin.
“Aye, Matthias,” Karl smiled. “Thank you. Always took a long time to get into the city, always got out quicker than I could squat and shit.”
Matthias attempted to rub heat into his arms as he laughed. “Damndest thing, right? Makes our work twice as hard. With that witch bitch running around and the bastard from the Boulevard, the Governor has us keeping an eye out, making sure nobody sneaks through.” He glanced at the cart Karl was hauling. “But what the hell you doing leaving? I thought you were pulling guard detail at the factory.”
“That was the plan, but I got word from the Heights that me ma isn’t doing so good. Thought I better get back and check on her.” He nodded at the cart. “Figured I’d bring some supplies back with me.”
“Shit. Your ma’s still alive?” Matthias asked. “She must be tougher than you.”
Karl grinned. “She sure as hell is tougher, but not quite as pretty.”
Matthias laughed and slapped Karl on the back. “Travel safely, friend. See you soon.”
Karl grunted and thanked the man before pulling out.
Just as he was clearing the gate, Matthias called out to him. “Hold up a second, mate.”
Karl spun to see him jogging in their direction.
Shit, he muttered under his breath. He reached his hand around and gripped his hammer, just in case.
“Hey, I know you’re good, but be safe out there. More remnant sightings recently than there’s been for years. Traveling alone might not be the best idea.”
Karl nodded. “Thanks, Matthias. That’s sound advice. But I’ll be fine. Been doing this half my life.”
The Guard patted the magitech weapon at his hip and looked over his shoulder. “I could get in trouble for this, but you interested in borrowing some fire power for the journey?”
Karl laughed and patted the hammer slung at his hip. “Now, that would just offend my girl here. I’ll be fine—and when your number’s up, it’s up. Magitech or no.”
Matthias nodded and retreated to his post. Karl exhaled.
The first step was done.
****
As evening approached, Karl and Parker’s shadows grew longer, pointing east toward the Madlands. Bare trees spotted their path, reaching skyward out of the frozen ground like sun-bleached skeletons. The air was dead still, and the silence sent a chill up Parker’s spine.
Nighttime in the wild was nothing like evening in the city, and Parker wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was damned glad he had Karl by his side.
“We should get to that stand of trees easily before dark,” Karl said, pointing into the distance. “Plenty of time to set up camp.”
They gave the mule and cart to a farmer living near the city. The only payment they asked for was that the farmer took care of it—and kept his mouth shut about where it came from. They would make the rest of the trip on foot.
“How many times have you walked this route?” Parker asked as he scanned the horizon.
Karl started counting on the fingers of both hands before he gave up with a shrug. “Let’s just say I know it better than I know my own ass.”
“That’s a fairly accurate accounting system,” Parker laughed. “You’ve seen it bad out here?”
Karl nodded. “Aye, we’ve hit some rough spells—especially in the early days. But the last ten years have been a breeze, ya know?”
Parker laughed. “Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know shit about anything outside of Arcadia. I can even get turned around in the Noble Quarter, to be honest. I’ve done a lot, but it’s all been in a very small world.”
Karl scratched his chin. “Well, welcome to a bigger one. I can tell you all about it. This passage was bad right after the Founder ended the Age of Madness. Hell, I was only a kid then myself, but I’ve heard plenty of tales. Back then, this place would have been crawling with the Mad. They’d eat your heart and screw your corpse—if you were lucky. Unlucky and they’d screw ya first. Lowland warriors and some of us rearick worked together to push the remnant back into the Madlands, to the east. We tried to exterminate the brutes but the Madlands sheltered them enough. For a while, folks even lead expeditions into the Madlands, trying to reclaim remnant territory. But most of them ended in failure…”
Karl got quiet after that, and Parker wondered if the rearick had stumbled onto something personal. He didn’t know much about his traveling companion, but he certainly seemed experienced as a fighter.
That kind of skill didn’t come without sacrifice.
They walked in silence for a little, but Parker wanted to hear more. He was riveted by the tale. He had heard next to nothing about the history of Irth outside of Arcadia. “Did the Arcadians help fight the remnant?”
Karl laughed. “Arcadians? Nah. Truth be told, there wasn’t much of an Arcadia in those early days. Mostly it was folks in the country. Stout mothers who could kick ass all night and wake up to farm the next day and brave men willing to risk their lives so their people could live better. Most of em didn’t have a wall to hide behind.” Karl walked in silence for a few strides, then continued. “But those were people raised in the Age of Madness—fighting was bred into them from day one. No offense to you, kid, but today’s generation of lowlanders don’t know dick about survival. They’re all soft, with their magitech and their fancy city. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be happy to fight alongside Ezekiel and Hannah any day. Hell, you’re even going to be a good hand in battle if we live long enough to see you trained proper, but we need an army. Not a bunch of kids and peasants from Arcadia. Nothing good will come of that approach.”
Parker jabbed Karl in the shoulder. “Screw you, short stuff. We’ve got a lot of fight in us. Growing up on the Boulevard, it may not be fighting off the remnant but it teaches you grit. Don’t underestimate our potential.”
Karl grinned and shoved Parker hard, knocking him to the ground. “Takes more than potential, kid.”
The rearick laughed as Parker rolled over in the dust, and reached down to give the kid a hand up. But Parker was ready. He grabbed Karl’s hand and pulled, planting his foot on the rearick’s chest. It gave him enough momentum to catapult Karl overhead. The older rearick hit the ground hard.
Parker’s speed allowed him to gain his feet first and he grabbed the spear and pulled it free from the sling on his back. He aimed it at Karl, who was scrambling to get up.
Parker grinned ear-to-ear. “I’ll show you some fight.”
Pulling his hammer from its sling, Karl spun it in an arc with such speed that the tool blurred before Parker’s eyes. It slammed into Parker’s spear, the force ripping it from the young man’s hands. Parker watched in awe as his spear tumbled helplessly to the ground. Karl grinned, teeth showing beneath his bushy mustaches. “I told ya before, kid, it’s gonna take more than tricks to make a fighter out of ya. But, since yer so full of energy and potential, why don’t you pick up your spear and I’ll teach you how to use it proper?”
****
Doyle rode atop a massive stallion, constantly in fear that the beast would buck his rein. The attendant had never been much of a horseman, but now he rode in front of an elite unit of the Arcadian Guard, trudging toward the Frozen North on a secret mission. The thought would have filled him with pride if he wasn’t so damned terrified.
The sound of the crunching snow under hooves filled the air, and he pulled his cloak up high to protect his burning cheeks from the whipping wind and snow. He wasn’t much of a winter person either, and he dreamed of his warm, fire and magitech heated home in the Quarter.
It was cold, damned cold.
Three-days ride had gotten them to Cella, and now the gro
up was only a day outside of the foothills. The Frozen North loomed overhead. Despite his fear and discomfort, the Chancellor’s assistant was trying his best to enjoy the hard journey. Out here, away from Adrien’s presence, Doyle was the one in charge—and he loved it. He had always fancied himself a leader but had little chance to prove it under Adrien’s thumb.
Now he called the shots.
The previous night they had bedded down in Cella, the last chunk of civilization between them and the cold mountains. They were on a mission—sent by Adrien himself to retrieve a piece of ancient technology, buried in the snowy peaks—the final component that the Chief Engineer needed to complete Adrien’s weapon.
An airship, the ultimate show of power, had been Adrien’s dream for decades. And while previous Chief Engineers had managed to design a craft strong and light enough to withstand that kind of movement, it was Elon who finally uncovered the missing link, buried in records from the old days, before the Madness overtook Irth.
An engine, strong enough to lift buildings into the heavens.
It sounded like myth to Doyle, and more than once he wondered if Elon was bluffing, a desperate act to delay the inevitable. Adrien demanded success and took in flesh what his servants couldn’t achieve in results.
But Adrien believed Elon, and now Doyle was placed under the same pressure. If Elon had lied or miscalculated, if they had been given bad intel on its location or if it was buried under a ton of ice—or if time had simply destroyed this strange device as it had most everything else from the old days, then Doyle knew it would be his head to pay.
Fool’s errand or not, he needed to get it done.
Doyle was smart enough to know that he was a terrible magician. His gifts had always been administrative in nature, which meant that he certainly had no right exploring a place unfit for human habitation. The Frozen North was famous for its unpredictable weather and treacherous passes. And that morning, as he lay in a warm bed in the charming little city, he considered sending the rest of the men—a half-dozen in all—ahead with Stellan to complete the task at hand.
If he had been honest with himself, he knew that they would likely stand a better chance without him.
Nevertheless, he packed his things, bundled up, and left the warm Inn for the ride across the tundra. While the mission could end in death, failing and returning to Adrien would yield a far more terrifying result.
And besides, he had to keep an eye on Stellan.
Adrien was certain that there was a mole inside the Academy or the Capitol. For some reason, he had focused in on Stellan and Dirk and Dietrich—his two sidekicks—based solely on the fact that they returned with nothing to report from their last mission to the Mystic’s Temple. It seemed thin to Doyle, but there was no way in hell he was going to tell the Chancellor that. If one of them was a plant, then the Frozen North would reveal it—surviving there took skills that couldn’t be faked.
As this filtered through Doyle’s mind for the dozenth time that day, Stellan approached him from behind.
“What’s the play, sir?”
His voice was gruff, and Doyle was certain that the commander of the secret Guard resented the fact that a bureaucrat had been given charge over the mission.
“The hell do you mean? We push on. Need to get that hunk of shit out of the mountains and get back to Cella.” Doyle kept his eyes trained ahead and attempted to sound confident. “You will be capable of following those orders, won’t you Stellan?”
“As you command, sir.”
They rode in silence for an hour, and the skies began to darken. The terrain was already becoming questionable, and it took Doyle all he had to keep himself steadied on the back of his steed.
Damn horses, he thought.
They had thought about using some form of magitech transport, but the tech struggled in uneven conditions. The speeders and motor carts couldn’t even handle certain paved parts of the city, let alone the wild terrain.
Stellan cleared his throat. “All due respect, sir, but I’ve spent plenty of time in the Heights. With the look of those clouds rolling in and the path ahead, it might be good for us to take cover in that valley over there and set up camp. I wouldn’t want to get caught exposed in a squall in the Heights, and those are just foothills compared to the North.”
“You afraid, Stellan?” Doyle tried to put himself back in control using a tone he had heard Adrien use a million times.
“Sometimes fear is the soundest course. I wouldn’t want to confuse wisdom with cowardice.”
Doyle laughed. “I didn’t know you were such a philosopher, Stellan, but we’re not paying you for your brain. You’re here because you can kick ass and take a dagger in the gut while still smiling. And because I need a brute like you to dig this thing out of the ice. You can leave the planning to me.”
Even as he said the words, Doyle knew it was a mistake. Stellan was the best the Guard had, and he couldn’t have made it to that post without some judgment, but it was too late to turn back on his call. They’d push on into the mountains. With some luck, they would find the device before dark and try to push back to Cella by the light of the magitech torches they carried with them.
“Don’t be a damned fool, Doyle,” Stellan retorted. The other men had crept close enough to hear the exchange. They snickered audibly. “We get caught in the peaks without fire or shelter we could be done for. Doesn’t take a philosopher to know that.”
Doyle shook his head. “No. We push on. This mission is of the highest priority to the Chancellor.”
“Oh, yeah,” someone said from behind. “Then why’d he send you?” Color rose to Doyle’s cheeks as he heard the men laughing at him.
“We keep going,” he shrieked, “And if I hear any more of your insubordination I’ll have you flogged in the square when we return.”
The men grumbled but fell largely silent as Doyle turned back around in his saddle. He leaned into the wind, pride welling up within for making such a strong call—even if he did remain uncertain.
He turned to look at Stellan, to see if the man would push back, but he simply nodded and fell back in line.
Doyle craned his neck to watch him go. There was something different about Stellan, though Doyle couldn’t put his finger on it. The man was a soldier. Fearless, and obedient unto death, but not particularly tactful. This person with him was different. Doyle could see the gears turning behind the man’s eyes.
When Adrien had first mentioned the possibility of him being the traitor, Doyle found it laughable. Now he wasn’t quite sure. If the Chancellor’s assistant could not only bring back the last piece of the puzzle and also show that Stellan was the spy on the inside, he would certainly find favor from his superior.
As the foothills became steeper, the trees became sparse—hammered away by the constant wind and ice.
After another hour, the snow came. It whipped their faces and blinded them to the path ahead. Doyle tried to trust the sure footing of the horses, while he gritted his teeth and prayed that the squall would pass.
It only snowed harder.
Shit, Doyle thought. Stellan may have been right after all.
****
Over the weeks of teaching at the Academy, Ezekiel had settled into his new role. Though he always kept his eye on building the rebellion and ultimately on the restoration of his beloved city, he nevertheless took joy in teaching the students. At his core, this was who he was—not a warrior or a savior or a legend
He was a teacher.
While many of the other instructors approached teaching history as plotting events on a timeline and making students regurgitate the seemingly disconnected events on a test, his approach was different.
