Zane Halloway: Omnibus Edition

by P. T. Hylton

  Zane tried another attack, and she parried. He attacked again, using a classic form, trying to get her to engage in some swordplay. If she would only fight like a sensible person, he might be able to regain some momentum. No such luck. She twisted away from his sword and dove forward in another attempt at a killing blow. This one sliced into Zane’s left arm.

  And suddenly, Julia froze. A deep voice behind her said, “Don’t move. Either of you.”

  Zane recognized that voice. It was the elf, the one who’d caught him and Lily on their first visit to the Oasis. Zane could just see the elf’s outline in the darkness, but from the way Julia abruptly stopped moving, it was safe to assume the elf was holding a sword or a knife to her back.

  Zane had never been so happy to be caught breaking in anywhere.

  “There’s another one,” Zane said, quickly. “Behind me. He’s an expert with throwing knives.”

  A low, considered murmur came from the elf’s throat. “And that is supposed to frighten me?”

  “Not at all,” Zane said. “As you may have noticed, this woman was trying to kill me. Her husband was very likely about to move in to finish the job.” Not that she needed the help, Zane didn’t add.

  “Three intruders, then.” The fury was clear in the elf’s voice. “You come bringing violence to this place of peace? Why? Our elderly residents have come here to escape the world of violence in their final years. Why bring it to them? What danger could these elderly abditus possibly represent to you?”

  Suddenly, Julia was in motion. She spun, dropping to one knee. She stabbed upward, and Zane heard a soft cry of pain as her sword slid into the elf’s chest. Just as quickly, she spun back around, sword raised, ready to engage Zane once again. She didn’t waver. She must have been supremely confident the elf was dead.

  Zane heard something behind him. Footsteps approaching. Julia’s husband, Tomas. Those footsteps sent a chill through Zane, not because the man was approaching, but because he wasn’t bothering to muffle the sound of his approach. He wasn’t sneaking up on Zane, just coming to assist in finishing the job. Zane’s mind spun, trying to think of something, anything, to save himself.

  He wasn’t going to win this fight, not by skill or luck or guile. There was only one other option left. He wasn’t positive of their exact position, but there were some shrubs around the base of the wall. If he was wrong, or even if he was right and he landed incorrectly and broke a leg, the Pruits would climb down and kill him. Still, it was his only possible escape. He had to try.

  He dashed to the edge and jumped off the wall.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Fascinating,” Ewrkind said, for about the twentieth time that morning.

  Lily suppressed a smile.

  They’d been traveling for five days now. The elves were doing their best to remain the stoic warriors they felt they should be, Ewrkind chief among them, but they weren’t entirely successful in hiding their surprise and wonder at the way things worked in the world beyond the Blue Wall. It had started immediately, as they tried to mask their glee, excitement, and nervousness as they passed through the Blue Wall’s gate and into the city of Barnes proper for the first time. It continued as they moved through Barnes, passing crowds of wide-eyed, gap-mouthed humans who’d gathered to watch this strange procession of elves. For the first time in these elves’ lives, they were seeing a large group of humans together. Some responded with wonder at the variety in the humans’ physical appearances. Some responded in barely restrained anger at the sight of their long-time captors. But Ewrkind simply responded with, “Fascinating.”

  The elves reacted with even more wonder as they exited the city and began to travel through the countryside. Some of them were clearly moved by many of the things Lily took for granted. Their first view of the grassy, rolling hills that stretched as far as the eye could see. Their first crossing of the mighty Harken River. And the forest! When they’d come across their first forest, in reality just a small patch of woods, the elves had struggled to contain their emotions. Their people had lived in forests, forests much grander than these, for centuries. Whether they were responding to it because they knew forests were their ancestral home or because of something else, some deeper primal connection to the woods, Lily did not know.

  It was very strange to see adults, even adult elves, experience nature for the first time. The guilt was a cold ball in Lily’s stomach as she remembered Ewrkind’s angry words during the negotiation in his home. He was right. She could have worked to help free to elves, but she’d done nothing.

  “It’s endlessly fascinating,” Ewrkind said as he rode alongside her. For the most part, he’d been quiet on this journey. Whether it was the weight of leading his people into battle or simply that he was overwhelmed at the outside world, Lily did not know. She suspected it was a combination of both.

  “What’s fascinating?” she asked.

  Ewrkind gestured to the forest alongside the road. “Things out here. The world. It’s not like I imagined.”

  “How so?”

  Ewrkind paused for a long time before answering. “I thought it would be…crowded. I spent my life behind the Blue Wall, and I knew that wasn’t fair. I knew we should be allowed to live free. But I thought you’d locked us up because there wasn’t enough space for all of us. And now…I don’t understand. If your people were afraid of us, why not have us go somewhere else? There is nothing but somewhere elses! It’s endless!”

  To that, Lily had no answer.

  The elves traveled in tight packs, their horses riding close together as they must have when riding through the streets of the elvish ghetto. They kept to themselves, rarely speaking to Lily or the other humans.

  Prince Christopher, for his part, was quiet and somber. Lily wondered if the prince had overstepped his bounds, if he was wondering how his brother was going to react when he learned what had been promised, or if he was simply uncomfortable with being so outnumbered by members of a race his family had long imprisoned. A few days into their travels, Lily began to suspect it was something else. She’d spent a good amount of time in Prince Christopher’s presence during her apprenticeship at the palace, and she’d always seen him as a bit of a spoiled child. He’d been raised with privilege but, unlike his older brother, no expectation of responsibility. He’d been quick to snap at those beneath him, sometimes with impatience and sometimes to mask his own lack of confidence. It seemed the past few weeks were changing him. When he looked at the elves, there was worry in his eyes, but Lily didn’t think it was a concern for his physical safety. Lily suspected Prince Christopher might actually be concerned with the long-term ramifications of what they were doing here.

  They reached the Opel camps by the edge of the Harken River on the evening of the fifth day, just before sunset. The guards on the perimeter camp reacted as Lily would have expected them to at seeing a small army of elves approaching: first with shock, then with hostility. Prince Christopher defused the situation by riding ahead and assuring them these were allies.

  Prince Christopher rode back to Lily and Ewrkind. He looked at the leader of the elves. “Will you do me a favor? Have your elves wait here for a few hours.”

  A low growl came from Ewrkind’s throat. “In a few hours it will be too dark to set up camp.”

  “Then have them set up camp here,” the prince said, a hint of irritation in his voice. He took a deep breath before continuing. “Just for tonight. Look, most of these men in camp have never seen an elf before, let alone five hundred of them. We start parading through camp, they’re liable to think we’re under attack.”

  Ewrkind’s eyes flashed with anger. “So you’d segregate us yet again.”

  The prince put a hand on the elf’s arm. “It’s just for tonight,” he repeated. “Come, my friend. The king will be anxious to meet you.”

  In the end, they decided to allow Ewrkind to bring one more elf with him. So, Prince Christopher and his guards, Lily, Ewrkind, and Gabel rode into camp.

&
nbsp; Lily felt a cold chill run through her as they entered the camp and she got her first look at the soldiers. There were men with terrible burns on their faces. Men with pink-stained bandages covering the stumps at the ends of arms and legs where hands and feet should have been. Injured men laying on the ground, bodies covered with thin blankets, apparently unattended. For every apparently healthy man, she saw at least two who were not. But all of them, even the abditus who were rushing from person to person applying balms, stopped what they were doing to watch the elves pass. They were so shocked most of them forgot to salute their passing prince. Prince Christopher didn’t seem to notice. His face was ashen and his eyes were narrow as he observed the decimation around them.

  “My God,” Ewrkind said in a low voice. “So this is war.”

  When they reached the king’s tent, a canvas structure approximately the size of a small house in the part of the world Lily came from, a member of the King’s Guard quickly waved Lily, Ewrkind, and the prince inside. Gabel would have to wait outside.

  King Edward sat in a large chair at the head of a huge square table. Jacob Von Ridden sat across from him. There was a third man at the table, one Lily had only met a few times. Brewner, general of the Opelean Army. A large map was spread on the table in front of them. All three men looked exhausted. They looked thinner, too, if that was possible after only two weeks.

  The king greeted his brother and Lily, and they introduced Ewrkind. Lily had coached Ewrkind on royal etiquette, but the elf did only the bare minimum to avoid outright treason, bowing slightly and muttering a barely audible, “Your Majesty.”

  The king had chairs brought in for the newcomers. When they were all seated, he said, “Jacob, brief them on the situation.”

  Jacob paused only a moment, glancing at Lily, before beginning. “To be blunt, things are not going well. Tavel’s ground force is superior to our own.”

  “Arguable,” General Brewner said.

  Jacob ignored the comment and continued, “Yet we were holding our position and minimizing our casualties. Until yesterday when we first faced the Craggish.”

  Lily grimaced.

  “We had the high ground,” the general said. His voice, usually proud and articulate with a military clip, sounded hesitant. “It should have been enough. I’ve been a military man for twenty years, and it should have been enough, I tell you.”

  The king nodded toward Jacob.

  Jacob said, “We saw the Tavel forces marching toward us up the hill, a thin line of Craggish in front of them, and we thought the victory would be an easy one. The Craggish are fierce warriors, we knew, but they were spread so thin. If we could cut through that front line, we could have our way with the Tavellers. So we attacked, sending arrows and Cull Flames down toward them. The Taveller abditus deflected some of it with their tangles, but much of it managed to get through. Then came the counter attack.”

  Jacob paused and glanced over at the general as if he wasn’t sure how much to say.

  “Oh, just tell it, damn you!” the general said, waving a hand at Jacob in frustration. “Don’t leave anything out for my sake.”

  Jacob turned back toward the new arrivals. “The Craggish were abditus, it turned out. They shot fireballs at us, larger than the kind produced by a Cull Flame. We had a double detail of our own abditus up front with our most powerful tangles, because of what Lily had told us about the strength of Craggish thorns. The fireballs burned through our tangles like they weren’t even there.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” the general said. “Irving Farns himself couldn’t have devised a tangle to stop the hellfire they unleashed on us. We lost half our best abditus in one wave. Then the real attack began.” He paused and shuddered at the memory. “There were more Craggish mixed in with the Taveller troops, and they quickly made their presence known. Only one in ten of our enemies were Craggish, but they seemed to land half the blows.”

  Jacob said, “Our men fought bravely, but…”

  “Be honest,” the general said. “It was a bloodbath. And that was even before that damn turncoat showed up and targeted our best soldiers.”

  Lily felt a sudden lump of ice in her stomach. That damn turncoat. He could only mean Caleb. Lily knew the general was sensitive about the situation with Caleb; he had come up through the general’s army, after all.

  “Longstrain,” the king muttered. “His continued existence is an embarrassment to our nation. Even when he’s not battling his former brothers-in-arms.”

  “And yet you sent your best assassins after Zane Halloway.” The words were out of Lily’s mouth before she could stop them.

  “Lily, please,” Jacob said.

  The king’s eyes flashed with anger. “If not for Zane, those Craggish would be raining down fire on the Tavellers’ heads rather than ours.”

  That wasn’t true, Lily knew. The High Prince of the Crags had said he was planning to remain neutral before Zane’s supposed assassination attempt against him. Saying that probably wouldn’t help her case, though.

  “Many pardons, Your Majesty,” she said.

  The king waved away the apology. “Regardless, we lost nearly a quarter of our men in a single battle, and we lost valuable high ground when we had to fall back. The question now is what we are going to do about it.”

  A small growl escaped Ewrkind’s throat before he spoke. “What do we do, Your Majesty? We retake the high ground and we kill these Craggish abditus.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It had been six days since Zane’s unfortunate encounter with the Pruits on the wall of the Oasis. He’d spent much of the time since wondering how they could have known he’d go to see his old abditus mentor, how they even knew of the existence of the Oasis. Had they followed him there? It was possible but didn’t seem likely. Otherwise, why not kill him sooner, like when he was climbing the wall? He would have made an easy enough target. No, Zane believed they’d been waiting for him at the Oasis.

  He’d looked over his shoulder a lot over the last six days. He’d doubled back on his trail, rushed ahead and lain in wait, crossed rivers multiple times…in short, he’d used all his tricks to lose a trail. He hadn’t seen any pursuers, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. That was the thing about the Pruits; they could make even Zane Halloway paranoid.

  This, Zane realized, was how it felt to be hunted. This was how his victims must have felt, the ones who knew he was coming but could do nothing to stop him.

  It was also very likely that the Pruits knew his destination and were waiting for him there, which was part of why he was being so cautious.

  He grimaced and rolled his left shoulder back and forth. It was still tender, but he was able to move it in a complete circle. That was an improvement. Miraculously, it was the only part of him that was injured in his jump from the wall. He’d hit the bushes and rolled, coming down too hard on his shoulder. But nothing was broken. He’d been lucky.

  Zane frowned at the thought. This was what he’d been reduced to, merely surviving because of luck.

  He’d spent much of the day observing the Opelean camp outside the city of Harken, and he’d been gratified to see hundreds of elves camped on the north end. Lily had come through in securing the only ally who could possibly stand a chance against the Craggish. He briefly wondered what might have happened if he hadn’t interfered in Sicar, if he’d just let her do her official duty and not taken the job with Nicholas. Maybe Lily would have succeeded in securing that ally as well.

  He pushed the thought away. It was too close to self-pity, and he didn’t have the luxury of self-pity.

  At nightfall, Zane had headed south, moving around Harken and toward the Tavel and Craggish camps. He was surprised at how far the enemy had pushed into Opelean territory, though he probably shouldn’t have been, after seeing all the injured soldiers in the Opel camps.

  Now Zane watched from the darkness on the top of a small embankment. He’d been watching for two hours, and he’d learned much. He was f
inally ready to make his move.

  The Craggish soldiers were clearly experienced in guarding against intruders. Zane remembered something Nicholas had told him back in Sicar: the most valuable spices in the Crags grew only at extreme altitudes, and the farms that were elevated enough to grow these spices were valuable territory, constantly under attack from rival farms. Perhaps that was what gave these Craggish their experience in protecting against intruders. Whatever the reason, they knew what they were doing. They stood in the shadows, their faces turned away from the light, looking out into the darkness. In general, they kept as far away from the torches as they could, knowing the fires would only illuminate a small area at the cost of blinding them to the larger surroundings. They also cycled new, fresh guards in every hour. Zane’s chances of catching any of these guards drowsy at their stations were slim.

  Still, all was not lost. The Craggish might have been trained to spot intruders at the spice farms, but Zane was a master of working the Opel terrain to his advantage, and he dipped and bobbed forward, zig-zagging closer and closer to the camp. Once he reached the perimeter, it was easy to slip through a gap in the coverage. Quick as that, Zane was in the Craggish camp.

  After that, blending in was a simple enough exercise. He wore an oversized coat with a large hood pulled over his head. He stood up straight and exaggerated his movement just enough to give off the persona of a larger frame. He then used his best trick, the one that had allowed him to pass unnoticed in a hundred areas where he shouldn’t have been: he walked confidently and with purpose, like a man who knew where he was going and who had every right to be there. Whether they took him to be Craggish or a Taveller Zane did not know, but no one stopped him.

  Zane moved toward the center of the camp and quickly spotted the tent he was looking for. It was larger than the others around it, and it was guarded by three large Cragsmen. They didn’t appear to be the type likely to fall asleep on the job, either. But the thing about tents was they were made of canvas, which meant there were other ways in.