The Last Archer: A Green Ember Story

by S D Smith

  For the slave who sang.

  Gern didn’t know who it was. Nor did Morbin know the secret singer’s name.

  But Heather knew. Heather had heard that voice a thousand times.

  The singer was Sween Longtreader, her beloved mother.

  “Here!” Garten shouted, signaling for a waiting bird to stoop. Heather followed her uncle onto the raptor’s back. At Garten’s command, the eagle leapt free of the platform and dropped, descending quickly into the predawn darkness. Heather’s heart was in her throat, because of the sudden drop but also because she feared for her mother.

  The bird extended its wings, caught the current of wind, and sailed forward through the vast area of uncountable trees. Heather saw, by the light of perched torches, that the trees were crowded with elaborate structures of various sizes and shapes. These all clung to the trees, dwellings nestled in the curve of huge limbs. She had never seen structures of this size. Though the sun still slept, there was a buzz of humming industry and innumerable lamplights illuminating a busy hive of hurry all around. She saw silhouetted forms scurrying in and out, and all along dimly lit paths. Many were rabbit forms. She streaked by in dizzy flight, wondering a thousand things about those lives lived among the enemy’s trees. Did these rabbits even see the raptors as enemies?

  The bird twisted through the massive heights of the High Bleaks, the historic home of the Lords of Prey. Heather was seeing what no free rabbit had ever seen, the swollen base from which the Preylords hatched their hateful scheme of conquest and enslavement on all of Natalia.

  And it had worked. She was, she realized with a pang, joining the slaves. She was no longer free.

  But Emma, the princess and heir of King Jupiter, was free. And so the cause for which Heather had traded her liberty, and very likely her life, was alive.

  That truth was like a flint strike in her heart. A spark of hope.

  They broke through the corridor of tall trees, and Heather gasped at the sudden gaping space. In the middle of the impossibly high forest lay a barren area, a giant crater in the hard stone of the mountain. A river ran down the mountain and spilled down the high wall in a waterfall. A heap of trash, impossibly wide, rested against the lip of the plunging pit. The vast dump was burning and wafted scatterings of ash into the acrid air. Ash floated over the pit and drifted snow-like down and down on a small city at its rocky bottom.

  “This is Akolan,” Garten called above the howling wind. “It’s one of two cities I superintend. The other is First Warren, the former stronghold of the old king. This one, far away in the High Bleaks, is Akolan. It’s your home now, if you can stay alive. Your family has a bad habit of trying to get killed.”

  Did he mean Mother? Did he know she was the slave who sang?

  “Of course I know,” he said, reading her face. He looked away. “I would know that voice anywhere.”

  “Is she…?” Heather began.

  “She put herself in great danger, of course.” There was a look of mixed appreciation and anger on her uncle’s face. “But she has a knack for getting away.”

  “She does?”

  “She escaped from my trap all those years ago,” he said, eyes staring off into a hazy past. Then he shook his head and went on. “She’s no helpless doe. Like you, there’s far more to her than what’s obvious.”

  “Is your brother—is my father here?” she asked, suddenly desperate to know. “And Jacks?”

  Uncle Garten’s eyes flashed. “We will not speak of him!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly.

  They were circling the great pit now, avoiding the worst of the falling ash. Heather saw a thousand firelights below and the outlines of neighborhoods sprawled across the bottom of the city cut from stone. She thought she made out a circle in the center, with several distinct groupings of light surrounding this wall in the middle of the city. For that is what it was, a wall. And within that wall blazed the most light.

  “For Sween’s sake,” Uncle Garten went on, calmer, as they began to drop into the massive cavern, “I do not acknowledge any connection. She knows I won’t go out of my way to hurt her, but neither will I assure her safety. I am, after all, Morbin’s ambassador. That is my first duty.”

  Heather wanted to say so much, ask so much, yet she knew she must choose her words carefully. But her own anger was beginning to boil.

  “To whom are you an ambassador, Uncle?”

  “To Bleston—now Kylen, I suppose,” he said, “to First Warren, and to everyone here,” he pointed at the grim city below, “in Akolan.”

  “To this prison camp of a city?”

  “Yes.”

  “To these rabbits you helped enslave?”

  “Yes,” he said, his words growing harder.

  “I’m sure Grandfather would be proud,” she said.

  “You should know, oh great Scribe of the Cause, that we each tell ourselves a story about our place in the world.”

  “But the story needs to be true,” she said.

  “Who is to say what’s true?” he asked. “All who claim to know it are only seeking power. Which side is right? History will decide in a hundred years.”

  “If you’re on the side that murders, betrays, and enslaves,” she said, “that might give a hint.”

  “To the Lepers’ District!” Garten shouted forward, enraged. The bird swooped hard left and dipped down, finally gliding above the far northern edge of the city. They flew past the moonlit waterfall, heard its constant roar and rumble in the otherwise quiet night. There were few lights to be seen here on the edge of the pit, and a foul stench rose from the mangled hovels below. She couldn’t quite make out the ground but could feel that they weren’t quite near enough to land.

  “Here’s where you get off,” Garten said bitterly. He rammed his elbow into her head, knocking her back to roll off the bird’s back.

  She fell into the dank, foul darkness below.

  Chapter Two

  AN EMERALD GEM INSIDE

  Heather screamed. Panic rose as she fell, limbs flailing, hands grasping for hold in the putrid air. There was nothing to grab, nothing to hold. There was only the air, the night, and a wild, terrific fear.

  She struck a canvas sheet, slung taut and pegged in the rock. It gave way against her force, first stretching, then tearing in two in a spray of ash, spilling her into a hard-floored hovel. Heather crunched onto the stone, her shoulder bearing much of the impact. She screamed again, this time from pain. Her eyes bolted wide with fright, and she rolled to an awkward crouch, scanning her surroundings.

  Heather was in a dingy tent, further wrecked by her graceless entrance. A foul stench filled her nostrils, and she gagged, glancing over at a fire, over which hung a giant pot. Retching repeatedly, she tried to think clearly. Her uncle had called this the “Lepers’ District,” and she was beginning to understand why.

  She heard moaning outside but could only see the jumbled squalor inside the tent, illuminated by the fire and the pale glow of distant stars through the ash falling above the rent canvas.

  The moaning grew louder, and she heard muffled whispers, groaning grumbles that rose to an angry pitch. She didn’t know what to do. Feeling for the satchel always strapped over her neck and shoulder, she thought of her duty as a healer and felt compassion for any rabbit set apart as a leper in this foul, putrid prison. But this bag held far more than medicine. There was an emerald gem inside. Her satchel suddenly felt so heavy that it was hard to hold up.

  She needed to eat. She needed to sleep. She needed to get away from whoever was groaning outside this tent.

  She had to survive. For Mother. For… did she dare hope? It had been so long since that awful day in Nick Hollow when last she saw her father, a dim grey blur in a haze of smoke, surrounded by countless prowling wolves. To have any hope of seeing him and Jacks again, she had to act now. No matter how tired, wounded, and afraid she was.

  Now. Now!

  Heather crossed the stone floor and grabbed at a hal
f-lit log, catching it up and spinning to face the first of the surging forms breaking through the tent flap opposite her. She didn’t hesitate. Heather flung the fiery brand.

  The burning log sailed into the corner, striking the rope tied to the peg, splitting the knot and collapsing that side of the tent. Energized to find her feet were still as fleet as ever, in three strides she bounded through the split canvas and into the night. She sped through a dark street, kicking up a thin chalky residue of ash, while the crowd was left behind, confounded.

  Heather had no idea where to go, but she thought anywhere that took her far away from the stench of the Lepers’ District was the right direction. She sped on.

  The streets were only narrow stone-bottomed paths between tattered tents and ramshackle sheds. She heard the groaning crowd behind as she ran on. After a hard run of several minutes, cutting unpredictable patterns through the shanty-packed blocks of streets, she paused to catch her breath. She looked to the impenetrable sky, obscured by the falling ash, not knowing whether the sunrise was something to hope for or not. Does the sun even shine in this forsaken crater?

  She heard a muffled curse around the corner, answered by an angry retort. This sent her running again. Glancing back at the pit wall, she shifted her pattern of escape to take her as far from the edge of the high pit as possible. Breaking through the narrow streets, she found she was running free of the hovels and into a rock-strewn waste. In the distance she saw, by moonlight, the vague curve of the high central wall she had spotted from above. She jogged on, forward toward a faint glow in the distance. Soon she saw the outline of more buildings and, getting closer, she saw by scattered lamplights a neat neighborhood of modest stone houses. Here the ash was mostly cleared away, swept in dusty heaps at the street corners.

  She slowed a moment, taking in the stunning contrast between this flickering vision and what she had just escaped. This neighborhood, which seemed to stretch for miles and miles, was only remarkable in contrast to the tract of squalid shacks she had left behind.

  She entered a wide street, lined on both sides by two-story homes. Stone staircases were cut into the sides of the houses. Hearing footsteps and harsh whispers, she darted up the stone stairway on the side of the nearest home. Reaching the top, she dropped down and crawled through a film of grey dust to the rooftop edge, peering over at the moonlit street below.

  She saw three shadowy figures emerge on the far side of the block, walking quickly. Then another group rounded the corner, and the two halted some ten steps apart.

  “What’s o’clock, friends?” an older rabbit asked.

  “’Tis seven, I think,” a younger replied. “What’s the word?” he asked as the groups merged. Heather watched them warily. It can’t be seven o’clock. What can they mean? A code, perhaps?

  “Preylords spotted,” the older rabbit replied. “Dropped a package in the LD.”

  “They didn’t land, did they?”

  “No,” the older rabbit said, “our scout says it was a drop-off. He was dropped pretty hard.”

  “Did the L’s get him?”

  “No, they did the usual routine. But he bolted before they could close in.”

  “Great,” he said, grumbling. “Stretch,” he called.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get your bucks together. We’ve got to find this interloper, and quick.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “When you find him, bring him to the LT’s.”

  “Aye, sir,” Stretch said. “Wisp, Gripple, and Dote, let’s go.” She heard quick footsteps fading into the night, and the group thinned.

  “Speaking of LT,” the younger rabbit said, “did she make it back?”

  “Not yet. That’s why he’s still at home. Waiting for her.”

  “I’m headed that way.”

  “May your feet find the next stone,” the older rabbit said, then hurried off.

  “Aye,” the younger said. He heaved a long sigh and headed back the way he had come.

  The group broke up, and Heather remained motionless.

  What was she supposed to do? There were bands of rabbits looking for her, and she didn’t know who to trust. She was hungry, frightened, and exhausted.

  Heather glanced up and down the street, then crouched to creep along the wall. She paused to gaze across the rooftops toward the massive cliff at the pit’s edge and the long, thin waterfall that left the crater’s lip high above and fell into a reservoir beyond the Lepers’ District. She could see movement in the “LD,” as the rabbits below had called it, torches darting through the streets between ramshackle sheds. Even here, she could still catch the faintest whiff of that horrific smell. She looked around, taking in the spreading rooftops in every direction, separated sometimes by a larger road that gathered the threads of several lanes. The tops were caked with ash. Then she saw the curving wall in the middle distance, higher than her rooftop, so it was impossible to see what was on the other side. She crept down the steps and leaned back into a patch of darkness against the house wall. She felt the need to move, but she didn’t know where to go. Surely not to that tall wall that seemed to stretch on and on into the night. But where?

  She decided she would head toward the reservoir and try to get some water. That would at least satisfy her thirst, and then she could decide after where to turn. Looking carefully back and forth, she stepped into the street and began to jog.

  “Hold it!” she heard from behind her. She stopped, glancing around for possible avenues of escape. “Arms where I can see them!” Heather obeyed, her mind screaming at her to run, run, run!

  “Got something here,” she heard. It was a gruff voice, similar to those she had heard earlier.

  “Good work.” Another voice. Older.

  “Who are you, and what are doing out after curfew?” the older one asked.

  “I’m Mags,” she said slowly, “and I was with Stretch. We’re looking for the package that fell in the LD.”

  “A nightpad, huh?”

  “Just doing my job,” she said. Every escape route was risky. If she ran for the nearest lane, she had no idea if it would even connect to anything. She might be trapped. She assumed they had weapons.

  “Your job,” the older one said, walking up behind her, “is to do as you’re told and follow the law.”

  “Right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’ll just head home.” She took a step and heard a click. A bolt flew past her ear and sank, with a thud, into the wall beyond.

  They had crossbows.

  “Make another move, and you’ll never be home again.”

  “Understood,” she answered, nodding as she fought back tears. They had her. She was caught again. Who were they, and what would they do with her? She was tired and discouraged.

  “Where’s your preymark?” the younger rabbit asked, moving into view. He wore a black uniform with a round red collar. His armor was dark, and at one shoulder stood out the small sharp silhouette of wings.

  “What?” the older said, grabbing at the white cloth on the neck of her medic’s uniform. “No preymark?”

  “I left it at home,” she said, with no idea what they could mean. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Let’s take her in,” the older one said as they grabbed her wrists and bound them tight.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked, a sob starting in her throat as she was spun around to face two large rabbits in grey uniforms.

  “Longtreaders, of course,” the shorter one said. “Where else would we take you?”

  Chapter Three

  THE FAMILY NAME

  They were taking her to “Longtreaders”! Her heart leapt. She wanted to say “That’s my family!’ and explain all the horrible things that had led her to be here. But something told her to keep silent. Maybe it was the angry caution of the two officers who had caught her. Maybe it was that she had seen so much betrayal she could never trust anyone again.

  Kyle—or Prince Kylen as he was known now—had been the fi
rst to turn her usually trusting heart wary. He had betrayed her beloved Smalls to the enemy, and it took an incredible rescue from Picket to reverse Kyle’s crime. Then there was Perkinson, a close friend to both she and Picket, who had gained their trust and pretended to be their friend while he murdered Lord Ramnor and enabled the great treachery of Prince Bleston. And, of course, her uncle, Garten Longtreader, the legendary betrayer of King Jupiter himself. He had brought their family name into dishonor and, much worse, had been the architect of Morbin’s victory, which set in motion the tyranny that had spread to every corner of Natalia.

  She walked on, prodded occasionally by the gruff older rabbit. “Get on with ya.”

  “I’m tired,” she said, barely audible.

  “You should be in your bed, then, and not out rambling in the night without your prey-mark like a causer.”

  A causer? What can that mean? She was too tired to think it through. Her mind was spent. All that remained was a dull, callous caution that urged her into silence. She trudged on, down stone streets, until they crossed a wide space toward that massive wall, which seemed to wrap around the entire center of the city. The ash fell heavy now, making it hard to see. Guards with long pikes and crossbows slung at the ready stood outside a wide gate in the wall. She saw by torchlight the black wings on their left shoulders. When they came near, the guards crouched in a defensive posture. They shouted, “Who goes there?”

  “Loyal fellows,” her captors replied.

  “Then what is the sign?”

  “We are here and alive!” they called back together, and they walked on, pushing her ahead as the guards called up to others on top of the wall, then formed a line, through which she was led, as the gate slowly opened just wide enough for them to enter. She heard the guards shuffling back into place as the gate clanked shut behind her.

  She was inside a massive compound encircled by the wall. It was dark, but she saw the outline of many buildings in the moonlight and some activity of uniformed rabbits like the ones at the gate and those who led her on. They turned left and walked alongside the wall until they came to a large stone building with a broad banner above the door. She couldn’t make out the symbol, though she strained to see it.