by Philip Smith
“The Shahir must never… leather scroll… understand?”
“Yes, Mother,” Paige sobbed, her heart breaking into pieces.
“Alwasu?”
Paige looked at the light in her mother’s blue eyes, which faded a bit more with each breath. She looked up at her daughter one final time, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
“I… love you…”
Elenass’s head slowly rolled back as she released her final breath. Paige cried out in agony, gulping the huge tears that were welling up in her eyes and dropping onto her mother’s still, peaceful face. She could hear the sound of more troops’ heavy boots on the wooden platforms and bridges. She looked up and saw more of them, organized now and being led in droves from the Great Hall, breaking into homes and dragging terrified villagers out into the cold night air.
Paige took one last look at her mother, then stood shakily.
“I love you too, Mother,” she sobbed, then turned and took off into the night.
◆◆◆
Alaire’s hands were raw, his arms shaking, his body drenched in sweat by the time he made it back above the platforms of Kapernaum. He decided then and there that he preferred crawling through sewage passages to shambling along pipes a hundred or more paces above ground, but he hadn’t the luxury of reminiscing about past escapes and encounters. Heaving with one final effort, he climbed up and over the railing of a bridge that spanned the far west side of the village. Most of the fighting seemed to be directed at the eastern side of town where the Burgess’s House, Lift Systems, and the Pump House all resided. The west part of town was made up of the smaller, more spaced-out homes. Many of the villagers were now rushing into their homes, grabbing whatever weapons and food they could carry and retreating down emergency rope ladders to the floor below, hopeful they could outpace the soldiers.
The chieftain dashed across the bridges and decks, pushing his way past panicking citizens, admonishing them to get to the lower levels as quickly as possible. Mothers with babies wrapped their precious cargo to their backs with nong shawls, while men did what they could to help smaller children down the ladders. Alaire helped in passing where he could but knew his own family took precedence, so he surged onward.
“Chief!”
He was about four platforms from home when the voice of a woman cut through the sea of haunting screams. He turned to see a young mother dragging a crying toddler behind her while trying to manage a sack filled with bread and blankets. Behind her, a group of three soldiers were advancing, swords drawn. The chief looked about frantically, his eyes alighting on a rope ladder hanging across the next bridge.
“Get to the ladder. Hurry!”
“Chief, I can’t carry Toulya! Please, help me!”
Alaire’s eyes flickered back to the soldiers jogging towards them. They were so sure in their complete victory that they weren’t even bothering to run anymore, which kindled an anger in the chief he had not felt in a long time. As the men moved towards them, the chief grabbed the young woman’s hand and dragged her over to the bridge between them and the rope ladder.
“Savahnah, where is your husband?” he urged.
“Dead.”
Alaire’s grip tightened on her hand, his upper lip twitching in an effort to contain another wave of rage crashing in his chest.
“Get to the forest and hide, you hear? Do you have a blanket? A towel?”
The woman nodded, her eyes red with tears. She pulled a thin quilt from her bag and handed it to him, her hands shaking. The soldiers were only about forty paces away now, making their way to the platform Alaire had just left. The chief felt a slight sense of panic setting in. He snatched the toddler up from the floor and tossed the kid onto his mother’s back. The child cried as he wrapped his tiny arms around Savahnah’s neck. Alaire yanked the quilt around both of them and tied the toddler onto her.
“Listen here, little man, hold tight to your mother and don’t let go, alright?” He urged. “Savahnah, good luck, my dear. I hope we meet again in happier times. Now go!”
The sobbing mother nodded and scrambled down the first several rungs of the swinging ladder. The chief looked back up just in time to see the soldiers spot him from across the platform and began running. Alaire knew the disadvantage. He had no weapon, and he was running out of time. The jingle of the soldier’s mail resonated in his ears as they charged. He balled his fists up, ready to play his odds, but a sound like a gurgling faucet caught his ears. He glanced up.
“Oh, Xandla, you miracle worker, you.”
Water flowed through the wooden pipe hanging above his head about three feet up. Without wasting a moment, he leapt up and grasped it, pulling as hard as he could. The soldiers were only a stone’s throw from him now, and he could hear them shouting at each other as they advanced. The chief let one last prayer escape his lips as he yanked once again, and finally he pulled the pipe out of its beeswax mould. A torrent of water blasted out of the pipe and hurtled towards the soldiers like a rushing river. The men had nowhere to run now that they were on the bridge. The water slammed into the first two assailants, tripping them up and knocking them backwards, soaking the deck around them. The others slipped on the wood, one of them hitting the rail hard enough to tumble over, grasping at the bridge planks for dear life.
Alaire immediately turned on his heel and dashed across the next bridge. Only three more to go before home, and he was running out of time.
◆◆◆
Paige dashed across the village, now swarming with Imperial soldiers and fleeing clansmen. Choking on her own sobs, the princess tried to lose the shouting soldiers trailing her like a pack of hounds on a fox. She used all the secret passages and shortcuts she knew, fear rushing through her veins and driving her legs forward. She admonished every person she passed to make for the forest floor and run for the south, the direction it would be hardest for the soldiers to pursue.
Within a few moments of hard running, she reached her house and quickly unlocked the door. She bolted the heavy wooden beam across the entrance, her hands shaking.
“Get the scroll. Father’s desk,” she muttered to herself through the tears. She was having a hard time thinking clearly, but her mother’s final words had burned deeply enough into her mind that she didn’t need to be.
She ran to her father’s study and threw open the doors, taking a candle stub from it’s wall mount. She lit it with a quick flick of a match her father had left on the giant oak desk at the center of the room. Wasting no time, she began shuffling through the mountain of papers on his desk. But there was no leather scroll. Papa typically hated using parchment. Because his handwriting was so bad, he felt it was a waste of good paper. But with not a single leather scroll to be found, Paige began to feel panicked.
Get the scroll. Father’s desk.
It struck her that perhaps it was not on her father’s desk but in her father’s desk. She checked all four drawers on either side. The first three only held more papers and envelopes, but the fourth one on the right hand side, bottom drawer, was locked. Paige immediately grabbed a letter opener and jammed it into the lock. With a quick jerk downwards, the princess broke the lock and pulled the drawer out.
Empty.
But why would Papa have a locked, empty drawer?
Unperturbed, she felt all around the bottom of the drawer. There! A small indentation just big enough for a fingertip in the back of the drawer. She pulled up and felt the entire bottom of the drawer give way, sliding up to reveal a hidden compartment.
“Got you,” she spat. There, covered in dust, lay a single scroll bound with a thick cowhide thong. All in all the piece was only about a hand’s length and the thickness of two fingers rolled up. She didn’t take time to speculate as to what it was or why, but she knew she had to get moving.
She bolted into the room she and Olivan had shared as long as she could remember. She ripped her wet, tattered dress over her head and threw on the first shirt she could pull out of her wardrobe, tossing on
a pair of men’s trousers over the moccasins she was already wearing and stuffing the green cloth into them. She hurriedly used the enchanted hairpin and a leather cord to pull her hair up out of her face, then pulled her leather jerkin over her shirt and cinched her belt. The belt buckle jingled as she tried to strap it as tightly as her shaking fingers would allow.
A telltale creaking sound made her freeze in her place. That part of the floor never made that sound unless someone was standing on it. Paige sucked in her breath and held it, biting her lip to keep from crying out. She grasped her mother’s pin in her hand and whispered to it as she moved to the side of the door.
“Klaíomh,” she whispered, and a blue shower of sparks shot forth as the hairpin morphed into the elegant sword once again. She held it close to her rapid beating heart. She could hear the soft patter of footsteps outside in the hallway, and she gripped the sword till her knuckles turned white.
The doorknob jiggled and slowly turned, swinging open without a sound. Paige held her breath, set her jaw, then lunged around the doorway, swinging Klaíomh with all her might. Paige felt a strong, rough grip catch her hand before she had time to bring the blow home.
“Easy, bobcat!”
Paige let out a cry of relief that immediately turned into wrenching sobs as she collapsed into her Papa’s arms. His hands were raw and bloody and his clothes were drenched in sweat, but he was here and alive. Her father squeezed her tightly for the briefest of moments before pulling her away to look at her.
“Paige, why do you have your mother’s sword? Where is she?”
“She… she…” Paige tried to get the phrase out, but she found herself choking on the words that lodged themselves painfully at her Adam’s apple. A horrified expression suddenly dripped onto his face, and Paige felt his grip tighten.
“Paige, where is she?”
Paige couldn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Alaire sank to the floor, his knees shaking and buckling under him. Her Papa’s eyes filled with huge tears that welled up and began spilling over to drip down his scruffy cheek and get caught in his beard. He began to sob, big, ugly, guttural sobs from the deep pit of his soul. He slammed his fist into the floor repeatedly. It took him a moment to compose himself enough to stand back up and look his weeping daughter back in the eye.
“What about your sister, have you seen her?”
Paige shook her head.
“Was she not at the lower end?” Alaire wiped his eyes with his bloody hands and shook his own head. “Matildra said she had gotten up before the crash. She was nowhere between here and the platform that I saw.”
“Is she… could she be…?” Paige stammered, but her Papa shook his head violently.
“Until we track her down, we won’t know. For now, we need to get to the forest. Are you set?”
Paige nodded furiously.
“Alright, I have to get something out of my study, you stay here.”
“This?” Paige asked, yanking the scroll from her belt and handing it to him. For the first time since the invasion, relief flooded Alaire’s face.
“Oh, thank the Creator,” he breathed quietly. “Yes, everything depends on us keeping this safe. Now we must—”
BANG. BANG. BANG.
They both leapt to attention. Paige stuffed the leather scroll into her belt, her breath coming out in short, hasty gasps as her heartbeat pounded in her ears.
“Ala’haran! Come out, coward!”
The words cut through the air, and Paige and her father dashed over to the window that rested between her bed and Olivian’s. Outside stood a body of twenty or so soldiers all dressed in bright crimson with crimson turbans wound about pointed helms. They carried torches and curved swords, while a group of about five held a makeshift battering ram at the ready. They were all standing about one man who was pounding the door. Paige couldn’t distinguish many features through the ripples of the glass, but she could tell he was tall with a lean, fit frame. He was dressed in crimson and white robes, a white plume tucked into the center of his black turban, which accented his closely-cropped beard, black as panther fur. The man’s gloved hands grasped a bloodied and broken villager by the scruff of the neck. The Alatarian had obviously been beat until he had given up the location of the chief’s residence, thought to his credit it looked like he was only inches from death himself. The resplendent officer pounded on the front door again, barking at the occupants.
“Ala’haran, open up in the name of the Great Shahir! Come out now and I shall grant you a merciful death.”
“Get to the balcony,” Papa snapped. Fire was in his eyes now, replacing the tears he had been shedding with wild, barely controlled rage.
“But what about you?”
“I’ll be along shortly. Grab some rope off the terrace and tie us two lead lines from the garden, but don’t toss them over till I come out there. We’ll have to make a hasty retreat. Can you do that for me?”
Paige nodded. Alaire planted a quick kiss on her forehead as he hugged her with one arm.
“That’s my girl. Hop to. I’ll be along shortly.”
The sound of a ram smashing against the door snapped Paige into action. Her papa shoved her out the door to her room, and she dashed down the hallway to the double doors leading out into the terrace. She could hear her father shouting at the intruders as he ran downstairs to the parlor and grabbed his broadsword from the mantelpiece. Paige flung open one of the doors and leapt out onto the terrace, the cold night air slapping her in the face.
Normally, the view from the terrace would have been something she would have relished on a night this brisk. But before her all she saw was panic, terror, and absolute destruction. Kapernaum was filled with the sounds of screaming and the crackle of tongues of fire licking their way up to the heavens across the faces of buildings. Ice coursing through her veins, Paige wrenched the lid off a box with shaking hands. Digging about in the crate ever so briefly, she soon found the two coils of rope she’d been looking for. They were a bit old. but she didn’t have other options at this point. She ran over to the railing and began tying each line to the support beam underneath.
As she cinched the rope in place, she glanced over the edge to make sure the path was clear. There was enough of an overhang on the balcony that, if they slid straight down, they had a fairly clear shot to the forest floor. Several lower decks were scattered to the left or right of their descent path, but it wouldn’t be a problem, assuming the escapees kept a straight drop and the decks stayed empty of soldiers for the next couple minutes.
Laying the rope coils out, the princess dashed back inside. Her heartbeat skipped when she heard the sound of steel clashing on steel on the floor below, and she bolted to the stairs, screeching to a halt at the top. Papa stood steadfast, halfway up the stairs, hacking and slashing his broadsword at two of the crimson cloaked soldiers. A pile of dead and wounded invaders lay on the floor just inside the doorway, which was hanging by a single hinge amidst splinters and shards the battering ram had left behind. One by one the men were pouring in and trying to shove their way up the stairs after Alaire, but the chief had the advantage of the narrow stairway. Sweat dripped from his brow as he drove yet another soldier backwards with a wounded left side.
“Enough!”
The officer with the white plume muscled his way through the hole where the front door used to be, a gilded sword drawn. His coal black eyes glinted like obsidian, a look of pure disgust mixed with absolute vehemence. The soldiers backed away from the stairs, standing at attention as the leader strode forward.
“I love what you’ve done with the place.” The officer waved his hand and gestured outside to the burning village. “Not bad for a traitor.”
Papa began pushing Paige back up the stairs, his sword extended towards the officer.
“Against you, Feridar? Absolutely.”
“Where is it!?” screamed Feridar, throwing a part of the door out of his way with a tremendous amount of force.
“Somewher
e you will never get it,” Papa spat, backing up a few more paces.
“Give it to me!”
“You know I’ll die before that happens.”
“THAT CAN BE ARRANGED!”
The man lurched forward, lunging at Paige’s father. Not having much time to react, Papa hurled the broadsword with all his might. Feridar grabbed one of the soldiers to his left and yanked him off balance, the broadsword striking him in the gap of his armor where his cuirass met the pauldrons at the neck. The rabid leader pitched his soldier aside to bleed out but the movement had given Paige’s father the window he needed.
“Hurry!” Papa shouted, charging up the steps. He didn’t have to tell Paige twice. The duo bounded down the hallway to the terrace doors and leapt back into the cold night air. Papa slammed the doors shut and took one of the wooden benches beside Elenass’s squash boxes and leveraged it against the door. No sooner had the wedge been placed when the sound of armored men shouting and banging against the heavy oak doors pulsated through the wood.
