These things troubled my own thoughts, squeezing my heart until I couldn’t breathe and think on it at the same time. Days had passed on this journey, endless days if spent in torture, and a great possibility loomed that Queen Perseathea had been beaten to the point of her mind escaping her.
The thought of it made me feel guilty. She was doing all of this to protect me. The Gragorian came to GarTaynia for me. Captured our Queen… my blood mother, for me. And knowing this sunk guilt into my stomach like a cold and heavy stone.
When Laidea did turn to face us, her lips held tight, reminding me of the stoic images carved into our Temple walls. Etches of great warriors long past, bruised and beaten, but refusing to fall. Still and solid, I could see her searching out the right words again, just like the day we spoke in the valley. Words didn’t come easily to Laidea, and even with her courage, she seemed to fall weak under heartfelt expression. The woman kept such secret pain inside herself.
I’d tried many times too, refusing to speak my pain, hoping that would deem it unreal. My mother Balena always taught me that if I would recognize illusion for illusion, it would melt away, like ice on a river stone warmed by the sun. A lie’s survival is dependant on my mistaking it for the truth. But, I’d yet to master this Amazon psalm, always too blinded by my heart to truly discriminate. I imagined Laidea struggled just this same way, the real battlefield inside her mind, never easing, never slowing. And the burden showed heavy in her eyes.
“What do you need us to do?” Hippolyta broke the silence for Laidea, her question proving how well she could read the Commander’s face.
Laidea lifted her chin. “We have to kill all of them… but one.”
Chapter 51
On light and soundless feet, we kept a covert pace until the smoky scent of fire wafted over. The Commander motioned the braves into a sentinel of trees, and as they retreated, we warriors pulled our arrows. Stepping into the thick of dead woods, Laidea led us, bows pulled taut. The men came into view, a group of soldiers indulging in drink around a campfire. At a count of twelve, they doubled our number. That meant all but one us would pick out two men. With a silent discussion of glances, it was decided that Laidea would claim only one target, and then hurry her position as the rest of us took our second kill.
The Commander scrutinized the men, deciding the leader. Once she targeted him, she gestured to us, and we spread out into line, pulling bows back up. I eyed the medium built soldier with red hair, aiming my arrow for his throat. Waiting for him to drop the wine skins from his bearded lips. Waiting for the Commander’s signal.
And a twig snapped behind me. A bolt like ice shot under my skin. Kelius, Saratiese, and I looked over our shoulders. I could see nothing in this dark behind us, it being especially offset by the bright flicker of campfire ahead. I glanced to Kelius and Saratiese with a shrug, then brought my attention back. All twelve soldiers were now staring directly into our location.
Don’t move! Laidea’s eyes bulged the warning. So with bows stretched tight, all six of us stood as still as stone. Hearts pounding. The men spoke in a guarded whisper, eyes still pinning the trees where we hid. My breath hastened fast. Racing in and out. Drying my throat. As the parch tickled up my throat, I begged myself not to cough.
A middle-aged soldier hefted to his feet, his black eyes studying the trees. Laidea glanced down our line. Stay your place. More mumbles circulated from the campfire as the man lumbered around to take a closer look.
Snap! Hippolyta flit a look over her shoulder, my eyes quick after. A deer grazed about forty steps back. I sighed a slight breath of relief. We weren’t being surrounded. Yet. But as soon as I turned back to the campfire, my chest tightened. The stocky soldier was approaching me. Twenty paces and he would cross our line. I sucked in a breath. Holding it. He was the only soldier Laidea had decided not to kill.
Fifteen paces. The Commander looked down our line, pressing us still with her eyes. Keeping us in place. Don’t run. Don’t shoot. I pulled my bow tighter, my fingers tips trembling with cold sweat. I didn’t know whether to target the approaching leader or the two men I’d been appointed.
Ten paces. The itch climbed back into my throat. Tickling. Torturing. And then… the soldier halted. Peering into our dark trees. Looking right at me. His eyes hunted, their whites glaring in the night before me. Taunting the cough crawling around in my throat. He took a cautious step in the dry leaves. Then another. Crunching. Crackling.
Five paces. His hand snaked down to the sword at his hip. The soldiers around the fire lifted to their feet, hovering a hand at their own weapons. Waiting for his word. The man now stood so close I could smell the smoky aroma of pork emanating his stained tunic. Hear his cumbersome breathing, burdened under his heavy frame.
And my cough forced out.
“Kuhff.” I tried to muffle it behind tight lips, but defiant, it pried out.
“Get them!”
The burly soldier shouted, drawing his sword and darting right for me. The band of soldiers sprung from around the campfire in a clatter of noise, pulling their blades. I sprinted a few paces to my left, avoiding the hefty soldier’s charge. Hiding behind a tree.
Laidea bolted to the right. Hippolyta snapped her first arrow free. Then Malaia. And Kelius. Saratiese plucked off her first shot. I shifted around the tree, whizzing my first arrow through the throat of my red headed target.
The other soldiers cursed out, scattering as the chosen six dropped. On their knees in the dirt, the fallen clutched confused fingers at the stabbing arrows, throats bleeding them out.
We scattered, pulling second arrows. Laidea sprinted, hopping a log and tackling into the middle-aged soldier, toppling him into a heavy heap. Five more arrows plucked free, as the two wrestled in the dead leaves before us. Shrieks pierced the night, and the last of the men dropped. Panicked. Gargling. Bleeding out of their necks until the last breath abandoned them.
I peered out from my newest hiding place, a crackly refuse of stiff underbrush. A stone’s throw from the campfire, Laidea pinned her captive, her sword point drawing a dribble of blood from this last soldier’s throat.
“Are you of highest rank?”
The scarlet faced man looked up at her with disdain, spitting into her face. This only brought Laidea to lift into a half sprawl, digging her boots in the dust, and pressuring the sharp edged tip into the man’s already laden breath.
“I asked you a question.”
“I am Lieutenant.” He heaved out in a heavy breath, the delicate skin of his throat breaking slowly under her sword point. “You witch.”
Laidea leaned back, pulling her blade to rest heavy at the man’s collar bone. Smearing the spit from her cheek with a stiff forearm, she cocked an eyebrow, then gently pushed her iron tip back into its’ skewer on his neck. Slicing the skin wider. Pushing blood up around her silver point.
“This will happen quick or slow.”
The Lieutenant gritted his teeth, straining a darker scarlet. “Not by your hand, Amazon witch.”
Laidea pulled up into posture again, easing her sword out of his neck. He sprung up at this, but froze as her blade snuck up his nostril. She pushed the point partway up his nose, urging him back into compliancy. Blood dribbled his nostril, trickling red under her bright blade.
“I am not a witch, but I am a destroyer.” She said, her words calm. Solid. “Look on me long, soldier. I am the one who will take your last breath.” She smiled. “As if it were a trophy.”
“Because I am a man?” He scoffed, his voice distorted by the blade up his nose.
“No.” She sliced up further, methodically splitting the skin. The cartilage. “Because you have kinship with the king of destruction. The rapist of a nation. A lord of murder.”
The soldier gritted out, holding his breath under the dice of his nostril, blood draining his upper lip, oozing into his mouth. Laidea leaned into him, hovering close.
“I do not kill good men, Lieutenant. I kill Gragore’s men. And Gragore ha
s Queen Perseathea of GarTaynia. That puts you in a lot of danger.”
The Lieutenant gave a sideways glance to the eleven men lying dead on the forest floor around him.
“And, you sent that little yearling of a man Sae-mond to lie to me. Which tempts me to pick at your brain with this blade right now.” Laidea went on, easing her sword tip up into the tighter recesses of his nose. Slicing slowly. Drawing out the pain.
“It was you who told him to manipulate my emotions, wasn’t it? Told him he stood superior to a woman? Right?”
The Lieutenant held his tongue, instead tensing his jaw and grounding out moans of pain. His eyes stared up at the Commander glassy, and she could see in him that he knew she could very easily cut into his brain this way. The tinged smell of his blood caught the night breeze as it dripped his chin, encouraging her. Reminding her of Sae-mond’s lies. Of Gragore. But mostly, reminding her of Perseathea.
“But your words were unfair, weren’t they? Because you did not warn the boy of the challenge an Amazon would pose, mush less a small company of our warriors. We are not like your women.”
“The boy was never intended to live.” The man spat out in grunts. “Only to lead you to us.”
Laidea slipped her blade out of his nose, but shifted it quick to his other nostril. Hovering the bloody point just on the inside. Begging him to move.
“But now your men are dead and no one else is coming for you this night.”
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.” The Commander dropped a heavy gaze to the soldier, leaning back into him. Face to face. “I want you to tell me everything. Do that, and I will show you mercy. If you do not, I will cut your brain out piece by piece, and I will make certain you feel every slash and nick.”
After the Lieutenant confessed, Laidea honored her word, and with one swift slice, cut him ear to ear, bleeding him quick into the dark rest.
Chapter 52
Dead leaves rustled in the night wind, clacking the tree branches like bones. A low fog slithered before of me and I took in a cold breath. This was my life now. Everything before this quest seemed as if it had been left somewhere far behind. GarTaynia, my Allegiance Ceremony, the battles… all of it seemed to have happened a hundred years ago. All that existed now… black trees, skulking fog, and a full moon. And knowing, fearing, what lay just beyond it.
I’d pretended to be brave this far into our journey, but I did so feeling like a liar. I knew what was expected of a warrior and I tried to duplicate that with my actions, but in my heart, I felt like a coward. If anyone truly knew me, could see me on the inside, they would know just how scared I was. Maybe they could see my fear. My guilt.
I wanted, needed, to be a brave warrior. An Amazon. It’s all I’d ever wanted. But I struggled with the child hidden within my spirit. I needed my mother Balena, missed her deeply. But, I’m a woman of sixteen summers. Even if I am afraid, that means nothing more than I have to do it afraid.
Just beyond the tangle of dead trees, and the ocean of brittle grass after, a gray beast loomed before me. More a mountain than a fortress, it towered, a mammoth monster of mortar and rock stretching into the black sky. Uncountable torches lined the walls, flickering like hellish jewels in the night, casting an eerie glow over the citadel. Soldiers paced those walls like a procession of fire ants, dwarfed in the shadows of the gray devil stone.
“Stay the plan. ” Laidea whispered. “At any cost.”
We nodded without a word, severing our group into the two smaller companies we’d discussed after the Lieutenant’s confession. I stood at one end, glancing down the row to Saratiese standing on the other. We were in separate groups, and neither of us felt comfortable with it. I forced a smile anyway, trying to signal to her with my eyes. Trying to assure her.
The field swayed to and fro in the brisk breeze, only a whisper above my trembling breath. I led my company back into the trees we had just emerged, settled, and watched Saratiese disappear deeper into the meadow. I watched until I could see her no longer. Then, the waiting began with the wind rising through the grass and the torches crackling on the walls.
As time tarried, I had no idea how long I’d been waiting, only that it felt like forever. My chest tightened. Laidea’s company had made no sign of the plan. I knelt in the dry pine needles, an elbow propped on my knee as I watched the field. My company, Valasca, Malaia, Kelius, and Tilliandre crouched beside me. All of us waited under the same tense silence.
Then, one lone flame glowed up in the grass on the distant right side of the fortress. Not a breath later, another glow climbed up on the far left. Diminutive licks of flame began dotting the field, soon breeding into strips of fire, bursting into a blaze.
The orange glow ripped across the dry grass, prompting the men on the walls to trickle down to battle the flames. The signal. We headed across the field, keeping low, staying under the cover of grass. I shifted my eyes to the wall. No soldiers noticed my company or Laidea’s, but instead ran about, combating the fires eating up their dead field.
With the heat rising, sweat made a path down my forehead as I kept pace. The trees we needed to reach were still more than halfway across the field. Ten paces more and I stopped. A group of soldiers huddled in a circle just a few short paces from where we crouched. The men oddly sounded like the fires were no more than a jest to them. Soon enough, their low voices and sputtered laughs denoted their intoxication.
Burrowing my chin into my cloak, I slowed my breathing, chest burning in the billows of smoke. Glancing back to my friends, I gestured to the drunken men, then to the moon’s position. Time is slipping. Patting Kelius on the shoulder, I then gestured to her young sister, Tilliandre. The warrior glanced to Tilliandre, then back over the grass to the soldiers. After a few moments, she let out a burdened sigh, then nodded in agreement. I summoned Tilliandre with my finger.
At twelve winters, Tilliandre was one of the youngest braves on the quest. She framed so small, with skin such a dark sable, that she blended well into the night. The girl crawled over to me light, making no sound. I made a motion to my sword, then pointed to the soldiers. With wide eyes, she glanced to her sister Kelius for approval, and in getting it, disappeared into the blades.
Tilliandre snuck around to the opposite side of the soldiers. Lifting, she eased up into her full posture, angling her eyes just over the swaying blade tips. After the soldiers proved several more moments of clumsy movement and jesting, Tilliandre sunk back down to her knees, crawling toward the group of men. Knees scraping the dirt without a sound, the brave barely moved the grass shrouding her.
Nearing the deep voices, she held her breath. Her stare trailed up the closest soldier’s back, focusing on his helmet. A dull black, the helmet included thick slips of leather that hung down over the man’s ears. If he noticed her touch, that helmet would jerk. Biting her bottom lip, Tilliandre floated an elfin hand up to his sword. Grazing fingers over the course leather of its’ scabbard, she flitted her attention up to his helmet. The black iron moved in nod to his conversation, but he seemed unaware of her presence just behind him.
Drifting eyes back down to his sword, she slipped her other hand under the overlap of his armor, sliding cautious fingers along the strap. Reaching for the buckle. Working both sets of fingers, the brave manipulated the strap, but her shaking hands fumbled there, unable to pull the snug strap loose. And his helmet jerked.
Tillliandre’s hands froze around the man’s waist. A booming laugh hit the air, and a jiggle moved the soldier’s stomach, then he settled back into his stance. Letting out a slow breath, the brave moved her fingers back to the buckle. With sweat trickling into her dark eyes, the leather at last loosened, sliding out clear. Arms shaking, she concentrated, begging the belt not to slip his hip. Sliding the belt from his middle, little by little, she steadied the scabbard into her small hands. Creeping back a pace, she stared down at her sweaty palms, the sheathed sword shaking there.
Waiting, I watched the fires he
ating up the night, my sweaty forehead cooling only in the brisk breeze. My heart was in my throat. I couldn’t stop thinking about Saratiese and worrying if she was safe. As if sensing that, a soft hand settled on my shoulder, and Valasca crouched down next to me. I could see it in her eyes. The brave’s expressions were always loud and she hid nothing with this one. The soldiers block our path. What do we do if Tilliandre doesn’t return?
I gave my friend a reassuring glance, then took her hand, examining the plum colored bruises. Valasca winced under the touch, but wiggled her thumbs, smiling.
Malaia reached around Valasca, tapping my shoulder, then pointed to the field. Snaking back through the grass came Tilliandre. The girl’s thick, black tresses bobbed above her head as she crept, her hands brimmed by five sword belts. The brave laid the swords in front of me, and we all began strapping the weapons on.
My heart pounded as I stepped out, the blades crunching beneath my feet as I led my company to the sharp right of the soldiers. Sneaking by them in a crouch, I could hear the girls right behind me, sucking in sharp breaths and holding them, trying not to cough in the smoke.
"Halt! Halt!" A voice shot out from the wall.
I dropped to my stomach in the grass. My company followed. We laid still as death, holding our breath. Praying.
"Movement off the west wall!”
I didn’t move, hoping desperately to fade into the edge of the black field. A surge of heavy boots trampled toward us. My heart raged in my chest like a storm. Armor clanged in a jangle of sprinting. Several shouts cut into my ears. Gripping my sword, I slid it from my hip. Waiting, I white knuckled the hilt. Gritting my teeth. Primed to jolt up.
Amazon: Signs of the Secret Page 27
