Moments later, he felt a weakness and he sensed a glow occurring about him, just before he passed out.
He awoke moments later, to discover that he was lying prone on the wooden deck of the ship. Feet were all about him, inches from his face, poking him in the ribs, as a crowd stood all about him, heedless of his presence.
He painfully rose to all fours, and crawled across the deck, bumping heedlessly into legs of men as he went ten feet to find clear space. He was next to the railing, and by holding onto the railing he weakly pulled himself up to his feet. As soon as he did, he saw what the crowd on the ship was staring at.
Donal was standing nearby, his form noticeably glowing even in the daylight, and he had his hands extended, pointing across the water towards the shoreline, which had crept closer.
Most noticeably though was the sight of the yellow dust rising from the barrels on the deck, rising like a snake emerging from a lair, lifting up into the sky, then bending towards the shore, and heading directly towards the city around the harbor. The yellow dust was a compact line in the sky, a clear contrast to the blue sky, until it was three quarters of the way across the water, whereupon it dispersed and became a wide cloud that seemed to hazily envelope a wide swathe of shoreline as it reached its destination.
Theus watched, mesmerized, as the yellow snake continued to rise, shimmering and coursing from the barrels for several minutes, while the ship sailed closer and closer to shore. If the vaunted machines of Steep Rise were going to rain destruction down upon the Southsand fleet, it should be happening, Theus thought. The ships were drawing close to the shore; individual buildings had emerged and become discernable, even through the yellow, powdery mist that swirled throughout the city.
The rising dust suddenly seemed to hiccup, and grew thinner rapidly, then ceased to appear at all. Donal held his hands extended still, while the tail of the snake flew away from the ship, and the sails continued to billow with the following wind that was driving the fleet towards its destiny in Steep Rise.
Donal lowered his hands, and grasped the ship’s railing tightly. Theus looked at the evil magician, and saw that the man appeared to have aged several years, his hair showing prominent streaks of white and gray. His assistant Orcaze stood next to him, holding him under one arm.
“Your feast sits ripe and ready to consume,” Donal called out, his voice still strong. “Prepare for your arrival, and what follows.”
His words seemed to put an end to an enchantment that froze the surrounding audience of guard officers and ship’s crew that stood around him. Men began to scramble away, and officers called out orders. Theus watched as soldiers of the guard began to awkwardly scramble up into the masts and rigging of the ships, carrying bows and arrows on their backs as they spread about like deadly fruit blossoming from the branches of a tree.
The ship was quite close to the harbor entrance as it sailed on. Theus could see the open water between two points of stone bulwarks. He could see building features, such as windows and doors. He could see people. He saw people scrambling, running in panic, at a loss as to how to respond to the unthinkable failure of their defenses, and the terrifying arrival of an invasion force.
Orcaze and Donal moved. They began to walk slowly across the deck, heading towards Theus.
“See what your help accomplished, young battery,” Donal paused to smirk at Theus. “Thanks to the power you shared, we have rendered the city defenseless, and now we only have to let the brutes from the army and guard carry out their reign of terror to finish the task.
“I’ll look forward to further encounters with you,” he said, then motioned for Orcaze to move them on. Theus weakly watched as the pair went through a door and left the deck. He felt dirty and horrified, as well as weak.
Donal had taken energy from him, apparently with greater success than before. The magician had used Theus’s energy in part to launch the assault, the drifting invasion of yellow powder that had rendered memory stones in the city inert. And as a result, the city was about to be ransacked.
Theus watched as the ship approached the opening of the harbor. There were sailors up in the rigging, contending with the archers, sharing the spars and masts and ropes; at a shouted order from the ship’s captain, the sailors began to furl the sails, reducing the speed of the ship as it cruised into the harbor.
There were archers on the shore, dozens of men who began to fire arrows at the ship, trying to pluck off the individual members of the ship’s crew who had not been destroyed en masse by the motionless catapults that had failed to defend the city. The arrows began to fall into the water all around the ship, a few making it onto the deck. Theus watched in detached horror, until an arrow struck the wooden railing just a yard away from where he leaned, then he stepped back towards the middle of the deck.
The archers up in the ship’s sails began to fire their own arrows back in response, firing down from their lofty heights. Their arrows travelled further than the land-launched arrows, reaching the defenders along the shoreline and striking them down. Theus watched as the men of the city began to fall to the ground, or tumble into the nearby water as they were punctured by the Southsand arrows.
There were more roared orders, a cacophony of orders. The ship’s officers were shouting orders, telling the sailors to prepare to bring the slowing ship to a dock, while the officers of the army were likewise shouting orders, telling their own men to prepare to leave the ship and jump onto the wharf that was rapidly approaching.
There was confusion and pandemonium on the ship, matched only by the confusion and pandemonium on the shore. Men and women were running, some towards the dock to try to mount a final futile defense, while others were running away. Men were on horses, carts and wagons were fruitlessly attempting to flee through the crowds, and the sounds of terror rose all around.
Theus watched as new flocks of arrows flew both towards and from the ship, while the gap between the vessel and the dock narrowed. The momentum of the ship let it glide to its destination, as blood was spilled, and then when it reached the dock, the invaders were unleashed. Men boiled away from the ship, swords swinging, and destruction became rampant.
Other ships were following the flagship to the docks, and the city had far too few defenders to face the unexpected breaching of its catapult protection. Hundreds of Southsand fighters were leaving the ships and spreading unchecked through the city, infiltrating the shops and warehouses, and storming up the roads that climbed the sloping landscape, as the city was built on the hillsides that faced inward towards the harbor.
Theus’s ship was empty of its soldier component. Somewhere out in the city were Montuse and the other officers Theus knew, no longer engaging in lighthearted horseplay in the armory, no longer swinging wooden practice swords to score points against one another. Instead, they were slicing flesh and eviscerating living beings, taking lives.
Donal was out of sight. Sailors were working on their tasks, working to make the ship recover from its arrival. The dock was just ten yards away from where Theus leaned against a mast. He could see a dead Steep Rise defender lying on the stone surface, his sword still grasped in his lifeless hand.
Theus shook his head in realization.
There was nothing to prevent him from stepping off the ship. He could make his break away from Southsand, away from Donal. He would be stepping into a warzone, he knew. But there was a sword lying in front of him, and with a sword, he would be armed again, for the first time since he’d been taken prisoner.
He looked left and right, where sailors were tending to their duties in the hectic environment. There were no eyes upon him.
He stepped one step forward, and then another, and another, moving to the opening in the ship’s railing, where the planks had been hastily extended to the dock. He closed his eyes and stepped across the void, expecting to hear a shout, and hearing none. He opened his eyes, and he was stepping onto the stone surface, and there was still no cry. Then he bent and took the sword from the blo
ody grasp of the dead Steep Rise defender, and he started running towards the harborside line of warehouses that marked the beginning of the city.
There were shouts and screams and smoke surrounding him as he entered the city, the war zone. The areas nearest the harbor had already been washed over by the tide of invaders, and the wave of Southsand warriors was growing into a thinner and thinner line as it went further inland and further up the rising slopes of the city. Theus had no idea of which direction was the best for him to turn to in his pursuit of freedom. He looked to his right and saw the bright white walls and spires of an inspiring complex of buildings; that was likely to be the palace that Theus knew would be the target of a spirited attack by the invaders.
He would go in the opposite direction, away from the target of the Southsand invaders. He began weaving his way into the city, past the broken doors and heaps of debris that had somehow already begun to accumulate in the streets. He stopped and vomited once, at the sight of three gruesome bodies that had been desecrated severely in some earlier scene of battle.
Twenty minutes later he had climbed two hundred feet above the water, and he could see the vast fleet of ships that crowded the surface of the harbor. The sounds of combat were close now; he’d nearly caught up to the advancing front of Southsand soldiers. He held his sword ready, then spotted a broom sitting outside a household door. He grabbed the broom, glad to have its solid handle as a makeshift staff he could use, perhaps more effectively than a sword. He thought of Coriae, who had demonstrated such effective and brutal competence with a staff; it was the first time he’d thought of Coriae in days, he was surprised to realize.
And then a noise alerted him to be aware of his circumstances, and the doorway whose broom he had stolen burst open. A squad of men burst out of the door and Theus instinctively began to run.
The men pursued him as he started to run uphill, towards the sounds of battle. Theus saw a squad of Southand invaders, and he shouted at them, then dodged down an alley that ran to his right, a narrow, dark space between two buildings, not even wide enough for a cart to pass through.
He redoubled his efforts as he heard the echo of footsteps from his pursuers in the passage, and when the alley ended at the intersection with the next street, he turned right again, and began going downhill, back towards the harbor.
“Turn into the next doorway on the left,” he heard the voice, the invisible, inexplicable, guardian voice speak, with more clarity than he’d heard since he’d left Great Forks.
“I will!” he shouted with joy, and he ran to the door, pressing his shoulder against it as his hand twisted the handle and he struck it at full speed. The door blew open and he flew through, into a large empty room.
The voice was back in his life! He didn’t know why it had abandoned him for so long, or under such dire circumstances, (and he was bitter about the period of disappearance) but it was with him now, to a fair degree, he judged by the wavering strength of the voice that spoke to him.
“Behind the bureau, go down the ladder under the hatch,” the voice directed again, and he swerved in the direction of the heavy, carved wooden piece of furniture. There was a narrow space between the bureau and the wall, and knowing that the voice said there was a hatch, Theus looked closely enough to spot the telltale fine lines, then pried the small but heavy square of wooden flooring up on its hinges.
The square showed only a dimness below, slightly less than blackness, but Theus heard a rush of boots clattering on the cobbled road outside, near the door. Goaded by fear, he didn’t even bother to climb down the steep ladder steps, but took his chances and jumped down, praying that he’d not fall far, and that he’d land safely.
The hatch slammed shut above him a second after his feet struck a solid floor and he tumbled sideways. There was a burst of noise as boots entered the room overhead, and Theus moaned as softly as he could over the pain in his ankle, while he listened to the searchers overhead tread across the floor of the ground level of the building.
He cautiously pushed himself up onto his knees, one hand still on the ground to steady himself, but he heard no one walk directly overhead, in the space behind the bureau. After a minute had passed, and he began to feel optimistic that for the moment the hunters had missed finding him, he looked around the cellar he was concealed in.
There was one window, half blocked, that let a slim amount of light into the underground storage space. Crates and boxes were stacked haphazardly against the walls, and then, his eyes widened, as he saw that there were two people crouched fearfully in a corner, staring at him.
Chapter 14
Theus had lost his staff. He’d only held the broom handle as a makeshift staff for a few seconds at best, he momentarily reckoned, but it wasn’t at hand as he faced the two strangers. Fortunately, he did hold his purloined sword still, and he raised it in a defensive position immediately.
He stood up straight on his bad ankle, determined to not reveal the handicap the injury created by reducing his mobility.
“Don’t think you’re going to sneak up on me,” he warned. “I’ll use this blade better than anyone you’ve ever faced,’ he blustered.
One of the two strangers started to cry.
“Amelia, stop,” the other said.
Theus squinted his eyes, trying to judge what the situation was. All he had wanted to do was escape from the Southsand army, particularly their wizard. Yet somehow he had ended up injured and trapped in a dark and uncertain situation.
“We ask for mercy, my lord,” the speaking voice said. The pitch was high, Theus realized, the second time he heard it. Either it was a youngster – younger than him – or a girl.
“Come out slowly, with your hands held high,” Theus commanded. He heard a single pair of boots walk across the floor above, and then silence followed. Apparently the army squad above had given up on the search. That was one much needed bit of luck.
The pair began to approach as commanded. They crossed into the brightest part of the cellar, where the beams of light were most prominent.
“Stop there,” Theus commanded. He was pleased that they were listening to him, following his direction, and he was pleased they were where he could see them most clearly. He gingerly stepped forward to see them better. He progressed with one step, then a second, then a third. Then his ankle collapsed on the fourth step, and he fell to his knees. He quickly raised his sword defensively, fearful of being pounced upon while injured.
“He’s hurt, Amory,” a voice that was clearly a girl’s spoke.
“I just tripped in the dark,” he instantly bluffed, and stood up again.
He could see them better. They were a boy and a girl, similar enough in appearance to be brother and sister. They were young, four or five years younger than he was. He exhaled, relieved to see the odds of immediate danger begin to decline.
“Is there anyone else here with you?” Theus asked. He took one more step forward in his good foot, then carefully probed forward with the other foot, and put his weight on it, bringing him within range of a sword swing.
“No, our guards sent us down here and then we were alone,” the girl replied.
“Amelia!” the boy disciplined her. “Sshhh!”
“Guards?” Theus picked up on both the word, and the boy’s reaction to it. “Your body guards?” They might be personages; if he could rescue them, they and their relatives might be able to help secure a way out of the city, and put him on the path towards freedom.
Both were silent, and Theus studied them. Their clothes were disheveled, but seemed of good quality.
“You’re local?” he asked. “You’re from around here? Do you have relatives in the countryside?”
There was further silence.
They clearly weren’t part of the Southsand force. He decided to be truthful, or mostly truthful, to see if he could strike a deal with the pair, to share better information.
“I’m a slave in Southsand. I’m trying to escape,” he admitted. “If you h
ave a place outside the city to flee to, perhaps we could all go together. I’ll help you, if you’ll give me a safe place to go to,” he offered.
“Should we try it Amory?” the girl asked in a whisper that was audible to Theus.
“Where can we go? We need to try to find mother and father. We can’t leave the city,” the boy answered.
“The city is a mess,” Theus interjected. He wanted the youths to want to leave the city. “If your parents had any sense, and any luck, they’d have left the city already. Where would they go?” he asked. “We can go there to meet them.”
“They won’t have left the city,” Amory replied softly. There was sadness in his voice, an ache. “They’d stay and fight.”
“If they tried to fight, they’re probably dead,” Theus tried to speak realistically.
“Oh Amory,” the girl began to cry, and Thus felt bad for speaking so bluntly. She was a young girl. Even though the circumstances were grim, he could have said less, he realized.
“Where’s a safe place we can go to wait for them, if they’re still alive?” Theus asked. “We can try to go there.”
“What about the castle in the west?” Amory asked his sister.
“We can try it, if you think it’s best,” the girl threw her judgement behind her brother.
“How do we know we can trust you?” Amory asked Theus.
“I can’t give you any proof, but I haven’t tried to harm you yet, and I could have if I wanted to,” Theus replied.
“It’ll take a couple of days to get there,” the boy warned Theus.
“Are you in good shape? Can the two of you travel on a journey like that?” Theus asked doubtfully. “And who are you – boyfriend and girlfriend? Brother and sister?”
“Boyfriend?” the girl asked in a disgusted voice.
The Deadly Magician (The Memory Stones Series Book 2) Page 19
