The Orphan's Secret

by R. J. Francis

  “Xander?” said Marco.

  “I’m here, sir.”

  “Dagan?” No response. “Dagan?” Dagan’s horse was there, but the glowing saddle was empty.

  “And we can’t go back.” Elaina’s voice crackled with panic.

  “No,” said Alessa.

  Just then, Syan slumped forward. Since the group was already stopped, Jaimin tuned out for a moment to get a look inside Syan’s torso. Syan’s chest cavity was filled with blood. His heart was still.

  “We’ve lost Syan too,” Jaimin told the others. The prince’s voice was subdued, desperate.

  “You tried,” Alessa said. “Leave him here. We’ve got to keep moving.”

  Jaimin slid off the horse and tried to ease his protector’s body down, but Syan slipped through his grasp and awkwardly dropped to the road. Jaimin dragged the body to the side of the road.

  Just then, more bows crackled to the south. Jaimin heard a thud as another bolt struck an ally, who landed on the hard-packed ground. He knew from the direction of the sound it could only be Elaina.

  Nastasha thought hard about where Raquel and Devon might have ended up. How had their escape from the dungeon played out? Had they applied their evil talent to escape the castle and slip into the woods? Or were they sitting comfortably with Radovan somewhere, telling him all about the passages in the castle walls and the evacuation sites in the caves? Nastasha could only hope the two were still hooded and bound somewhere. And she prayed she could intercept them before they revealed Arra’s secrets.

  She rode straight into the city to see where the invaders were leading their prisoners. Edgy Destaurian soldiers roamed the streets, handing out small folded notes to the baffled townspeople, and ordering them to stay in their homes. Each soldier Nastasha passed saluted her.

  On the main street that connected the market square with the castle’s drawbridge, Nastasha noticed a few notes on the ground, and she dismounted to pick one up. She led her horse into a dim alley, where she unfolded the document and read:

  People of Arra:

  A glorious future of prosperity and peace awaits you.

  Now is a time for celebration,

  For no longer will the few hide behind high walls

  enjoying the fruits of your labor.

  You and your many children will enjoy all the riches of the land!

  Go about your business tomorrow, but be wise;

  There are hateful men among you who cannot see the truth.

  What crap! Nastasha thought. He knows Arrans are smarter than that. Hearing a scuffle nearby, she hopped back up on to her horse and rode out to the street. An old man in his nightclothes had just been wrestled to the ground by two of Radovan’s men. The man was writhing, scrabbling at the pavement, and screaming old-time profanities Nastasha had only read in books. The Destaurians fettered his wrists, scooped him up by the armpits and tried to lead him off, but he refused to walk. Flustered, they took hold of the back of his nightshirt and dragged him up the street, across the drawbridge, and into the castle. Nastasha followed them, keeping some distance. Soldiers posted at the barbican saluted her.

  She hoped the enemies wouldn’t notice that she carried a standard crossbow, not a powered one. Aside from this detail, her disguise was convincing.

  The Destaurians threw their cantankerous captive down in the center of the courtyard. The man lay on his side, moaning loudly, with his pajama pants torn and bloodied. A high ranking officer approached the man’s captors and pointed them in the direction of the academy. The prisoner slowly stood, ready to comply. He didn’t have enough skin left on his knees to continue his protest.

  Nastasha rode ahead of them to the academy’s entrance, dismounted, and tied her horse to a rail. The old prisoner’s escorts saluted her as they approached.

  “I’ll take him from here,” Nastasha said gruffly, doing her best to fake the Destaurian dialect.

  “I’m sorry, Sir, what was that?” one of them asked.

  “I’ll handle this one,” she said again, modifying her inflection and hoping beyond hope they didn’t recognize her true nationality—or her true gender.

  “Of course, Sir.” They handed over the shackled Arran, and she escorted him into the academy complex. Now she just had to find out where in the academy they had been taking him.

  She’d walked these corridors daily, never imagining she’d be here under these circumstances. “They will take the castle back,” the old man she was leading said. “And they’ll split open every last one of you.” Nastasha didn’t respond. Despite his loyalty to King Julian, this man was too volatile to be let in on her secret.

  The double doors to the dining hall were open a crack. Nastasha peeked inside. This is the place! She nudged open one of the doors and a pair of eager cadets took her prisoner off her hands. She then surveyed the familiar chamber.

  The servants of the royal court—more than a hundred men and women—were seated at the dining tables. They were unbound, but they looked terrified. Soldiers spaced around the room’s perimeter had their gun-bows trained on the detainees, scanning for any threatening misbehavior. In the back of the room, a few dozen Arran civilians knelt in three rows on the stone floor with their hands bound behind their backs. Nastasha’s prisoner was escorted to the back row and made to kneel.

  In the front of the hall, where Nastasha and Elaina had discussed Kalmise, two prisoners in black hoods knelt facing the wall. Their hands were chained behind them, and they were chained to each other as well. As she made her way up the aisle, Nastasha saw long black hair hanging from beneath the hood of the prisoner on the left. This could be them! she thought.

  Just then a voice rang out from the back of the room. “What are you all sitting there for?” Everyone turned to look. The old man Nastasha had brought in still had some fight in him. “Rise up,” he yelled. “There are more of us than there are of them!”

  Crack! came the reply. A bolt split open the man’s skull like a coconut, splattering pieces of brain onto his neighbors. His body dropped. Nastasha cringed, as did everyone else in the room—even the Destaurian who had shot the man.

  One of the soldiers nearest Nastasha signaled for her to step out of earshot of the hooded captives. “Thank you for coming so quickly,” he whispered. “These two have quite a story. They want an audience with the general. They say they can provide critical information about the movements of the Arran army.”

  “Nice,” Nastasha whispered back, marveling at her luck. “What’s your assessment? Are they are telling the truth?”

  The soldier wasn’t sure what to say. It didn’t matter—she wasn’t going to let him answer anyway. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll deliver them to the general myself.”

  “Of course, Sir.” The soldier helped the two captives to their feet. Nastasha was now sure she had her pair. She grasped Devon’s arm and led the two up the aisle. Many in the room were still distracted by the gruesome scene toward the back. Cadets had been called in to clean up the mess, and one of them had just started vomiting.

  Nastasha had no idea whether touching Devon through his clothing would allow enough physical contact for him to try his tricks on her, but if Devon and his daughter thought they had a shot at making a deal with the general, why would they try anything rash? She dismissed a few non-verbal offers by her subordinates to assist with the high-profile escort, and was soon alone with the two hooded menaces in the hall.

  “Why don’t you take these hoods off?” Raquel whined. “I can’t breathe.”

  Nastasha didn’t answer. She couldn’t risk revealing her identity.

  She walked them around a corner and ushered them into her mathematics classroom.

  The creaking of the door’s hinges as it swung shut served to mask the sound of Nastasha’s unsheathing her short sword. The windows were thickly draped; the only light came from the narrow space beneath the door.

  As she stood behind the two fugitives, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, Nastasha wondered
what to do. Did she have a duty to deliver these prisoners alive to the Arran army? What were the chances she could find a wagon or some other way of transporting them northward?

  Even if she could get them out using the secret tunnels, how could she get them through the forest undetected?

  The risk was just too great, she decided. She couldn’t let them live.

  Letting go of Devon’s arm, she held the sword out in front of her. The blade’s edge caught the light from beneath the door. She could smell on the steel the blood of a nurse and the blood of a soldier. She’d already taken three lives in the name of Arra—or, no, four! Shouldn’t two more be easy? She wanted to believe that it was duty, not anger, that would guide her blade into the flesh of these traitors. They had forfeited their own lives; she was just carrying out the sentence. Don’t hesitate, she told herself. Be like Elaina.

  Schlunk! Nastasha jammed the short sword into Devon’s back with all her strength. He yelped and flailed, still chained to his daughter, and still impaled.

  “Daddy, no!” Raquel squealed.

  Raquel knew she was next, and she tried to bolt, but her father lurched, pulling her backward and down by their common chain. Nastasha held tightly to her sword’s hilt, while kicking at the back of Raquel’s knees to send her to the floor where she could better control her.

  Whack! Out of nowhere, Raquel’s elbow struck Nastasha on the mouth, knocking off her helmet, and sending her reeling backward, without the sword, into one of the many small desks in the room.

  Slink! Raquel’s chains jangled to the floor.

  Shit! She got free! How? Nastasha righted herself just in time to see Raquel pull off her hood and extract the blade from her father, who was now on one knee. Don’t look in her eyes, Nastasha reminded herself. Backed up against a desk, she struck a defensive posture, fixing her gaze on the girl’s abdomen, trying to pick up the sword’s dim outline in her peripheral vision.

  “You!” cried Raquel. There was no time for any more words; both girls knew death was the only way out of this fight.

  Devon collapsed at his daughter’s feet, buying Nastasha a few seconds to get into an aisle and put some distance between her and her adversary. Raquel vaulted her father, but Nastasha tipped over a desk to block the way.

  Crawling up onto a different desk, Nastasha jumped from desktop to desktop. She made it all the way across the room, where she turned and drew her only other weapon: her crossbow. Raquel ducked for cover.

  Nastasha only had one shot, so accuracy was critical, but she had to be careful not to make eye contact with her target.

  Raquel was in a tough spot herself. She could stay low, but Nastasha would eventually find a clear shot. If she could somehow distract her…

  Raquel set down the sword and shoved a desk in Nastasha’s direction. The desk slammed into the next desk, which, in turn, slid up against the next. She pushed and pushed, hoping to topple the desk on which Nastasha stood, but the growing mass of wood became too heavy. She snuck a peek to see if Nastasha had been tipped. No.

  Just then, Nastasha remembered something she had read about the “night blind spot.” She had read that rhodopsin, a protein in the retina that helps people see in dark places, can’t form in a certain area of the retina, so people who find themselves in low light can’t clearly see what’s in the direct center of their view. So when Raquel made her next move and sprinted for the door, Nastasha took the risk of looking directly at her.

  Fthoom! Nastasha’s bolt sprang from its track. It pierced Raquel’s neck, and she spun and dropped to the floor.

  Nastasha approached her cautiously.

  Gurgling and wheezing, Raquel lay with her head against a chair leg, her neck bent unnaturally, facing away. Nastasha stepped forward, taking her time to load and launch several more bolts into Raquel’s back to end her life for certain.

  When the wheezing stopped, Nastasha closed in to pick up her sword.

  Suddenly, Raquel’s torso shook sharply and she swiveled her head around to face Nastasha. In the low light, another gruesome, indelible image of war burned itself into Nastasha’s mind: a girl, barely clinging to life, with a bolt lodged in her neck and her hair fanned out on the stone floor in an expanding puddle of blood. She was missing a front tooth, and she still had bruises all over her face from her brawl with the queen. Nastasha sheathed her sword, without bothering to clear the blood from it this time, and was so stricken with pity for Raquel she couldn’t help but make eye contact with her.

  “You’ve won,” Raquel said, her voice like sandpaper. Malice had left her eyes.

  “This didn’t have to happen,” said Nastasha.

  “You just didn’t know,” wheezed Raquel, blood running from her mouth. Her eyes remained open, but she said nothing further.

  Nastasha stood up, retrieved her helmet, and stepped back out into the hall, where she checked her garb for blood stains. With her tongue, she felt the crack in her lip where Raquel had elbowed her. Taking a deep breath and burying her feelings, she strode back to her horse and left the castle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Four young Destaurian archers advanced quietly through the darkness toward the Arrans. The one they called Pex—the one the others envied for his gorgeous girlfriend—whispered “Stop.” He had a clean shot.

  Through his long range scope, he saw an Arran, kneeling, silhouetted against an eerie blue light. “Whoever that is, mender, you should’ve let’m die,” Pex whispered. He drew back the trigger and fired the shot that instantly killed the Prince of Arra.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jaimin’s head rested on a cold, slime-coated wooden beam. He squinted to make sense of where he was. He was standing, but couldn’t feel his legs.

  Or maybe he could now…

  He turned to see more beams of wood–some horizontal, some vertical, some angled. Grey light eked in through distant holes. Wind gusted outside, swaying whatever building he was in and prompting a pop nearby, and then a creak in the rafters. On his left, a trough was rotting. Animals had lived here.

  Jaimin had no memory of how he came to be in this place. Nor did he wonder.

  Then something twitched. Someone else was here: a man, balled up on the dust floor, facing into the corner.

  “Hey,” Jaimin called to him. The man just shivered.

  “Hey, there,” Jaimin said again, approaching the man and touching him gently on the shoulder. The man turned about slowly, looking utterly confused. It was Julian.

  “Dad?” Jaimin knelt before him. “Dad? What are you doing here?”

  “I…” Julian said, “I’m dead.”

  “Dead? What are you talking about? How long have you been here?”

  Julian shook his head.

  “Where are we?”

  Again he shook his head. “A barn?”

  “Come on. Get up.” Jaimin couldn’t stand to see his father looking so helpless. Julian slowly stood. The structure around them creaked like an old ship as wind again gusted outside.

  “I couldn’t breathe,” Julian said. “That’s all I remember.”

  “And you wound up here?”

  “It seems like weeks.”

  “Arra’s under attack. There’s a war on,” Jaimin said.

  “Are you dead too?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I don’t even know where here is,” Jaimin said. “Some sort of barn? Let’s find out.” He looked around and saw the barn’s sliding door. It was open a bit. “Come on, let’s see what’s outside.”

  But Julian was reluctant.

  “Dad?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  This man was not quite like the father he’d known. All semblance of arrogance was gone—his armor was shed. Jaimin felt oddly protective of him.

  “Take my hand. It’s all right,” Jaimin said.

  Julian reached out and Jaimin firmly grasped his hand. It had been many years since Jaimin had touched his father. He
led the dazed king toward the door.

  A fierce wind peppered Jaimin’s cheeks with dirt and gravel as the two men stepped outside. A patch of bare ground lay before what was indeed a decaying barn. The empty sky glowed with a grey so bright it strained the eyes. Nothing showed much color.

  A path of reality a stone’s throw wide led straight off into a misty swamp of dirt and knee-high grasses, and to the left or right of the path the sky faded to a black void, which seemed to be the source and destination of the relentless wind.

  Jaimin approached the blackness near the face of the barn and strained to see into it. As he neared the void, he felt an aversion to it: an emotional resistance, and he had to stop.

  “I think that path is the only way,” Jaimin told his father. “There, into the swamp.”

  “Let’s go. I’ve had enough of this place,” Julian said.

  They walked out into the swamp and found it muddy but walkable, and so they proceeded, stepping over branches and around deep puddles, following whatever solid ground they could find as the barn vanished behind them and more swamp appeared before them.

  In his mind, Jaimin began to revisit random scenes from his life. He found he couldn’t think too deeply about any of the scenes, or care that much; they just were what they were, scene after scene. His father was absorbed too, probably in the same review. They walked for hours in silence, not tiring physically but losing hope as time went on that there was anything but more swamp ahead. The wind died down a bit.

  “I was unfair to you, Jaimin,” said Julian after they had walked quite a way.

  “What?”

  “In life. You needed so much more than I could give.”

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  “Please forgive me.”

  Jaimin didn’t answer. He kept walking. He had no idea what to say. After a few more steps he noticed the ground had grown drier. Looking around, he spotted an occasional young tree. And there was just a hint of green here and there on their narrow strip of world.

  Jaimin’s thoughts turned inward again, and he began to recall the moments just before he’d found himself in the old barn. He’d rushed to Elaina’s side, entering her still body to find no damage. But then there was some sort of impact that tore him from that world.