by Morgan Rice
Berin thought about the guards. Exactly how much did they owe him? Exactly how much would they help before they decided it was easier to take him into custody?
“I’ll find a way,” Berin promised.
Ceres shook her head quickly. “No. I’m not running away.”
“I know you’re worried about being caught,” Berin said, covering her hand with his, “but I think I have enough friends in the castle to get us both out. We could join the rebellion.”
“It’s not about that,” Ceres said. “This is my path. I’m here to fight. I’m meant to fight.”
He stared back, stunned.
“You want to stay here?” That was hard to believe, especially when it had taken so much to find her. It had felt obvious that if he could only get inside, he could have his family back. “I thought you’d want to go. That we could find Sartes together, and everything would be all right.”
“Everything will be all right,” Ceres promised him. “And you should go to find Sartes. Get him safe.”
She stood and dressed in her training clothes. For a moment, Berin thought that she might come with him after all, but she showed no sign of doing so.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “If you’re not coming with me, you should rest.”
“I can’t,” Ceres said. She turned back toward him, determination set on her face. “I’m going to train. They want to kill me, but I’m not going to let them. I’m not going to give up, and I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me run away.”
Berin swallowed at the strength there in his daughter. Even so, he didn’t want to just leave her. “I could come with you. I could help you.”
Ceres shook her head.
“It is a path for me alone, Father.”
He smiled at her, and he could feel his eyes well with tears, as he saw hers well, too. He had never been more proud of her, or loved her more.
He stepped forward as she did, and they embraced for a long time.
“I love you, Ceres,” he whispered, “and I always will.”
“I know, Father,” she replied. “And whether we ever meet again or not, you should know that I love you, too.”
CHAPTER NINE
Ceres focused, dodging, weaving, gasping for breath, bruises rising from where the sticks had struck her. Master Isel faced her in the training grounds, and she stared back. As she stood there, she wondered if she had been right to request that he train her again so soon. He had seemed doubtful she was well enough, barely recovered as she was from her injuries. Yet she had insisted, determined to get back out there, to better herself, to be ready for the next match.
To go down in the Stade fighting.
The moment she’d said that she was, Isel had taken Ceres at her word, and had pushed her harder than he’d ever pushed her before. He, too, seemed to know what was at stake.
“Move!” he cried.
Ceres tried to keep up with Master Isel’s instructions as she whirled on the sparring grounds. He was using a pair of long sticks against her, swinging them so that Ceres had to dodge and parry with the practice blade she held.
“Circle the other way!” he bellowed, as Ceres took a step to her right. She had to dodge back as he thrust with one of the sticks. “Don’t go straight back. Do you want an enemy to chase you down? No, no, not like that!”
One of the sticks swept round, knocking Ceres’s sword from her hand as it smashed into her forearm. She felt a stab of pain and watched as it landed point-first in the sand.
“Extend your sword when you are not attacking, and you will lose the arm!”
Master Isel swung around his sticks at Ceres’s head to demonstrate his point. Ceres threw herself into a roll, coming up with her sword in her hand.
Ceres leaped and dodged, blocked and avoided. Even so, some of the blows got through. One knocked the air from her lungs, and she had to force herself to keep fighting. She fought until she could barely see, sweat stinging her eyes.
Finally, Isel stepped back, studying her, signaling it was time to rest.
She leaned on her sword and took a break.
Out of the corner of her eye Ceres glimpsed Lucious stepping down onto the sands to train. He strode in wearing full armor, though no one else there wore any. He looked about him, gestured to a weapon keeper, and started to spar with him, even though the weapon keeper clearly had no experience. Lucious seemed to be delighting in slamming his practice blade into his unprotected opponent.
Ceres stopped to watch when suddenly a sharp blow from one of Master Isel’s sticks snapped her out of it.
“It was time to rest!” she exclaimed, indignant.
He smiled.
“Never trust your opponent.”
Ceres began her dance with the constantly moving sticks again. On and on it went, until finally, Master Isel stepped back.
“That will do for now,” he said with a nod. “Get water, then we go again.”
Ceres walked over to where a group of the other fighters were standing around a water barrel, drinking water out of it using a ladle. Ceres was expecting to have to edge round them or wait until they were done. Instead, a combatlord with tightly corded muscles and shaved hair passed across the ladle.
“You did well,” he said. “The first time Master Isel used the sticks with me, I got knocked flat a dozen times.”
A shorter combatlord with thinning hair nodded. When he spoke, it was obvious to Ceres that he’d come to the Empire from the northerners’ lands. “Did well with your fight too. Didn’t run. A beast like that, most people back off, but you went in. Good instincts.”
The others didn’t speak, but they didn’t need to. It was enough for Ceres that they seemed to accept her there, making room for her among them as she got the refreshment she needed.
Of course, Lucious had to be the one to spoil it for her. He pushed toward the water butt, as if he couldn’t have sent a dozen servants running for refreshments.
“Out of my way, peasants,” he snapped at the combatlords. Ceres thought she saw one of them smile.
“Thought I heard something,” he said.
Another shrugged. “Probably just the wind.”
Lucious stepped round them, and now Ceres could see his face reddening. He stood before her, and Ceres suspected that if they’d been alone he would have struck her. It was probably as well that they weren’t, she decided. She would only have gotten in trouble again for striking him back.
“You think you’re clever?” he asked her. “You think that you’re some kind of real warrior because you survived one fight in the Stade?”
“I’m not the one who ran from the arena,” she said.
That only seemed to make Lucious turn redder. He reached for his belt, where a sword sat. No, not just any sword. As he drew it, Ceres saw that it was the sword her father had made for her. She wanted to reach out and grab it in that moment, because no one like Lucious should ever get to touch something her father had made.
“Recognize this?” Lucious said. Then he did something Ceres would have thought was unthinkable: he started to strip the blade down, taking it apart to its component parts. He unwound the leather of the handle, pulling off the gold wire. He unfastened the pommel, pulling the guard free of the tang. “I’m a little bored of it.”
Ceres had to swallow her own anger. She felt the hand of one of the combatlords on her shoulder, holding her back or offering support, she wasn’t sure which. How could Lucious do something like that? Didn’t he know how much work went into a sword like that? Scraps of metal fell to the ground, but Lucious didn’t seem to care.
“Forgive me, my lord,” Master Isel said, approaching. “But I think these lay-abouts have had enough of a break. Back to work with you, all of you.”
Ceres wanted to ignore the instruction. She wanted to punch the smile right off Lucious’s face, but she went back to the sands as Master Isel instructed.
Lucious called out to her as she went. “Train as much as you w
ant. It won’t work. Tomorrow you’ll face my man in the Stade, and all the dancing around with sticks in the world won’t save you!”
CHAPTER TEN
Thanos should have been used to marching at the head of units of men, leading them into battle. He was a noble, trained in violence, and had fought in the Stade.
He’d never been in a position quite like this, though.
The band at his back looked like Empire soldiers. At least, they looked as close to Empire soldiers as they’d been able to manage while taking uniforms and armor from the dead. Yet it was easy for Thanos to see that there wasn’t the same rigid discipline among them, maintained by the threat of the lash or the executioner’s blade. The rebels didn’t quite keep step with him as they marched, and they carried their own mixture of weapons, rather than anything officially issued by the army’s quartermasters.
“This had better work,” Akila said as they marched into view of the army’s landing craft.
“It will work,” Thanos promised him. He hoped that it was true. “Just… try not to kill anyone if you don’t have to.”
“Want us to go soft on your Empire friends?” Akila asked. Thanos could hear the suspicion there.
“I want you to remember that these are just ordinary men.”
“Who chose to attack our island,” Akila pointed out.
They marched down all the beach front, where the landing boats still sat, the rowing craft dragged up above the tide line. There were guards there with them now, who looked up sharply as they approached.
“Halt, who goes!” the nearest called.
“Can’t you see?” Thanos called back. It was hard to make it sound natural. “I have troops who need to resupply on the main ships.”
The solider offered a hurried bow. “Forgive me, your highness, I didn’t know it was you. But these ships are meant to stay here. Orders.”
“Orders from someone higher than your prince?” Akila demanded, beside Thanos. To Thanos’s ears, he did a perfect impression of some toady drunk on reflected glory.
“No, of course, sir.”
“Then get these boats into the water!”
The guards stood back. Some of them actually helped the rebels carry the landing craft out into the breakers.
“I can’t believe we’ve done this,” Thanos heard a one of the rebels say. He shook his head.
“This part is just the start,” Thanos said. “We still need the main ships.”
Akila’s men set to the oars, pulling back from the beach with smooth strokes that took them in the direction of the ships further out. Those cut menacing profiles in the water, bolt throwers and fire slings in their prows adding to the sense of threat they emanated. The small boats spread out, each heading for a different ship.
“If those things fire on us,” Akila pointed out, “they’ll sink us before we get close.”
Thanos tried to project confidence. “They won’t fire.”
The rebel leader didn’t seem convinced, but he stayed silent as they approached the ships. Thanos guessed that he didn’t want to risk his fears spreading to his men. Instead, he stood there in the prow, waiting like a figurehead until the ships stood towering above them.
“Who’s down there?” a sailor asked, leaning over the side. “Do you need supplies?”
Obviously, the combination of the Empire’s boats and the Empire’s uniforms was enough. Even so Thanos could feel the tension in the moment. He could also see Akila reaching for a knife.
“It’s Thanos,” he said. “Let us aboard.”
The sailor stepped back, and they clambered up the netting that hung from the side of the ship exactly for that purpose, climbing onto the deck in a way they never could have hoped to if they’d been trying to board by force. The sailors would have cut them to pieces as they appeared over the gunwale, or simply shoved them overboard to drown. There weren’t many sailors aboard—Thanos guessed most would have gone ashore with the landing parties—but there would have been enough.
“Prince Thanos,” one asked, “do you need medical attention? You look as though you’ve been bleeding.”
Thanos stood on the deck, looking out over the bay near Haylon. From where he was, he could see the siege of the city’s waterfront, with Empire soldiers there swarming against the walls. The defenders had obviously managed to seal the city for now, but there was nowhere for them to escape to, and the attackers had the weapons on the ships with which to attack the walls. Already, parts of the city were on fire.
“No,” Thanos said. “That isn’t what we need.”
It felt bad to have to do what he did next. This man probably had a family somewhere, and was probably only there at all because he’d been made to. The only good part about this was that at least Thanos could make sure that he came through this alive.
He struck out, catching the man on the jaw as cleanly as he could, feeling the connection as his knuckles struck home. The sailor tumbled to the deck, and Akila’s people piled forward.
A sailor ran at Thanos, an awl in his hand with the sharp point set to stab downwards. Thanos ducked, catching the arm and throwing the man over his hip. He came up on top, grabbing the arm that held the weapon with both hands. He could have reached for a blade of his own, but Thanos didn’t want to kill if he could avoid it. These men weren’t the ones to blame. It was the ones who ruled them who had started this. Instead, he brought his elbow down in a short arc that ended with his opponent unconscious.
He looked up to find that Akila’s men had already taken the rest of the ship. On the ships nearby, Thanos could see violence breaking out, although with the rebels wearing Empire colors, it was almost impossible to see who was winning.
“Do you think we’re succeeding?” Thanos asked.
Akila nodded. “My men are tough. They’ll signal when they have the ships.”
Sure enough, one by one, men on the other ships nearby started to wave their success. Only a few of the ships on the fringes were left untaken.
“So now what, Prince?” Akila asked. “We have some ships. What do we do with them?”
Thanos nodded to the ballista that sat on the forecastle of their ship. “Now, we do what we can to stop the siege.”
He hated this part. He wished that there were another way, but unless they did this, the Empire’s forces would soon overwhelm Haylon. Akila and his men made their way toward the siege weapon, loading it with a bolt as long as a man was tall. They set light to it, so that Thanos could see the flames flickering as they turned it toward one of the ships they hadn’t been able to take. He thought he could see some of the sailors over there moving in sudden panic as they realized that things weren’t as they should be.
By then, it was already too late. Akila gestured to the firing lever. “You got us this far, Prince. We wouldn’t have gotten the boats without you. You should be the one to start this.”
Thanos knew it was a test. Could he do this? He looked over at the ship, where the men were still struggling to do something about the danger, then over at the city, where the Empire’s soldiers were ravaging their way along the waterfront. He couldn’t pretend not to know what the weapons would do. He’d helped to come up with this plan knowing all of that. Part of Thanos insisted that this was wrong, and that he would be killing his own soldiers. How many men would die if he did this? he wondered.
How many would die if he didn’t? Thanos had heard General Draco. There was to be no quarter for anyone who resisted. The army in front of him was there bent on pillage and destruction, so that soon, no one in the city would be safe. He had to do this.
Thanos felt the roughness of the wood as he wrapped his hand around the firing lever, then he pulled.
The first bolt sang through the air to catch in the sails of its target. The fire caught quickly, smoke coming up from the stricken ship in moments, and flames following. Sailors ran to put the flames out, but more bolts were already flying.
They struck at the ships they hadn’t been able to t
ake first, firing in volleys of flaming bolts and ceramic pots filled with tar. Many missed. Most missed, but Thanos saw enough strike home to matter, fire after fire starting on the enemy ships. He saw sailors running about, trying to stop the fires, or fire back, or get their ships to safety. He saw more and more dive into the relative safety of Haylon’s waters, preferring to take their chances with the sharks that had come there for the dead rather than risk the fire.
They turned their attention toward the city then. Thanos guessed that the troops on the waterfront would have realized that something was badly wrong, but they still seemed to be intent upon their attack. It was only as bolts started to fall among them that they started to scatter.
“Three more volleys,” Akila said. “Then we have to go. My men are already getting ready to fire the ships.”
Thanos nodded. He wished they could keep the ships, but the truth was that they didn’t have the men to hold them, or the skills to sail them. The best they could do was to deprive the Empire of its supplies.
He made his way to one of the men he’d knocked out, shaking the man until he came awake again. The sailor thrashed in his grip, trying to break free.
“We’re going to burn this ship,” he yelled, as the man struggled. “You have a choice. You can stay here to fight me, or you can take your chances swimming for shore.”
It wasn’t a choice that took the other man long to make. The sailor took one look at Thanos and dove for the side, the splash as he entered the water sending spray up high. Already, Thanos could see Akila and the rebels firing the last of their bolts at the soldiers on the shore, while others broke open the ceramic globes holding tar, spreading it over the deck. They set light to it, and instantly, Thanos could feel the heat of the flames as they rose up to consume the ship.
“Everybody off!” Akila ordered. He clapped a hand on Thanos’s shoulder. “That means you too, Prince.”
Now, it didn’t seem so much like an insult as it had. Thanos dropped over the side of the ship, pulling himself into the landing boat. Around him, Akila’s men pressed their way into position. Thanos took an oar, hauling on it as they set the boat into motion over the waves. Behind them, the Empire’s fleet was slowly turning into a bonfire.
