Path of Shadows

by Ben Wolf

  Garrick squinted at him and cocked his head to the side. “What? Why?”

  “I figured someone your size couldn’t possibly string two coherent sentences together. All brawn, no brains.” Commander Brove shrugged. “I suppose I was only partially wrong.”

  “Come a little closer and say that to me again,” Garrick said.

  “I’ll pass on your offer, thank you.” Commander Brove waved his hand at Garrick then faced Aeron again. “What really surprised me was finding such a beautiful young woman in your care—if you could even call it ‘care.’”

  Do not reveal that she is your sister, Kent pleaded with Aeron inside his head. He hoped his message would somehow find Aeron’s mind.

  Aeron wisely said nothing.

  Commander Brove continued, “She was in miserable shape when we found her—nearly frozen to death and clad in only blankets, despite there being clothing for her nearby. It begs the question, what kind of degenerates are the four of you? Who would strip a young woman down, only to let her freeze nearly to death?”

  “You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” Aeron fired back, now with anger rising in his voice.

  Careful, Aeron, Kent encouraged.

  Commander Brove chuckled. “If that were true, I wouldn’t be here.”

  No one said anything for a long moment after that.

  Finally, Commander Brove grinned at Aeron and declared, “You may come in.”

  All four Blood Mercs turned toward the door in time to see a blonde-haired woman wearing black armor enter the cellblock. Lord Valdis’s three-horned ram sigil adorned her figured breastplate.

  Falna.

  She gave Kent a wink as she walked past his cell. She’d been Commander Brove’s informant, the one who’d led him to their location. It had been a shrewd, calculated move, a cunning backup plan to safeguard against failure on Lord Valdis’s behalf.

  Kent still despised her, but he had to concede that she’d planned this contingency quite well. It was the sort of thing he would’ve done were the roles reversed.

  A pair of Lord Valdis’s soldiers, also clad in black and wearing the sigil of the three-horned ram on their chests, entered after her.

  “No…” Aeron locked eyes with an apathetic Commander Brove. “You can’t.”

  “Actually, traitor Ironglade, I can. And I will.” Commander Brove nodded to the four soldiers who’d accompanied him. One of them brandished a ring of keys and approached Kallie’s cell.

  “No!” Aeron shouted. All of his composure withered away, and he grasped the bars closest to Kallie’s cell and tried to shake them. They rattled a bit but remained sturdy. “Kallie, no! Commander, you can’t do this!”

  The cell door swung open. Lord Valdis’s soldiers hefted Kallie up and carried her out by her arms and legs.

  Mehta emerged from the shadows of his cell as well and glared at the soldiers as they carried her past.

  “No!” Aeron repeated. “Put her down! Leave her alone!”

  Falna faced Aeron’s cell, shaking her head, and Aeron went silent.

  “You can’t even take care of her out here.” Falna’s voice oozed with arrogance. “What were you thinking? Your recklessness nearly got her killed. And for what? At least where she’s going, she’ll serve a greater purpose.”

  “Commander, please…” Aeron turned to Commander Brove. “That’s my sister. They’re going to kill her. Please. You have to help me. I’ll go quietly. I won’t fight back. I’ll go to my death or to trial in Govalia or whatever you want. Just don’t let these people take my sister.”

  Commander Brove’s sneer returned, and he leaned toward Aeron’s cell. “I. Don’t. Care.”

  With a desperate roar, Aeron lashed his arm through the bars and tried to grab Commander Brove, but he missed. Commander Brove backed up a step, still sneering.

  “I’ll kill you!” Aeron screamed. “I’ll rip your black heart out of your chest!”

  Whether Aeron was referring to Commander Brove, Falna, or both, Kent didn’t know, but he fundamentally understood Aeron’s rage. He’d felt exactly that kind of helpless fury after Fane had murdered their father.

  “You have a duty!” Aeron shouted. “You swore to protect Govalia’s citizens. She’s a citizen of Govalia. You are honor-bound to ensure her wellbeing. Do your duty!”

  “She forfeited the right to be considered a citizen of Govalia by virtue of being your sister,” Commander Brove replied calmly. “Whatever happens to her is no concern of mine.”

  “You evil, wretched ball of slime!” Aeron seethed at him. “So help me, I swear by all the gods and goddesses and anyone else who’s listening that I will send you to the Underworld for this.”

  “Make all the threats you want,” Commander Brove said. “You are nothing but a neutered dog, barking and barking. Just an annoyance.”

  Falna placed two pouches, each the size of Kent’s fist, in Commander Brove’s hand, and they jingled with coins. “Thank you again for your help, Commander.”

  “The pleasure was all mine, milady.” Commander Brove gave her a slight bow. “I’m done here. Allow me to escort you out?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t you dare leave!” Aeron yelled. “Larcas Brove, don’t you walk out of this cellblock!”

  “Bye, handsome.” Falna blew Kent a kiss and exited the cellblock with Commander Brove following close behind.

  All the while, Aeron continue to scream and shout at him.

  As the last of the Govalian soldiers left the cellblock and began to pull the door shut, Kent caught sight of a shock of vivid blonde hair in the doorway. He recognized that color—so light it almost looked white. He moved his head to get a better angle, but the door shut too quickly.

  It locked with another heavy CLANK, sealing them inside, and Aeron continued to rage at Commander Brove and shake the bars.

  Kent’s heart sank.

  Tears streamed down Aeron’s hard, angry face. He slumped to his knees in front of the bars, clutching his back and exhaling long, shaky breaths.

  “We’ll get her back, Aeron,” Garrick said. “We haven’t come this far to let Lord Valdis kill her.”

  “This is the same thing he did with Wafer. He separated us, and he almost managed to kill Wafer in the process. Now it’s my sister instead.” Aeron shook his head. “What else can we do? We’re locked in here, helpless.”

  “We will find a way,” Kent countered. “We will rescue Kallie.”

  What exactly they would do, Kent didn’t know, but encouraging Aeron right now was more important than anything else. A positive mindset would prove more productive than operating from an assumption of defeat.

  “You cannot give up now,” Kent continued. “No one wants to rescue Kallie more than you, and no one is more capable of doing it.”

  “I’m not capable of anything except screwing everything up,” Aeron muttered.

  “That is not accurate, and you know it. You rescued her from Lord Valdis once. When we get out of here, you will do it again, and this time all three of us will be there to help you.”

  “If we get out of here.” Aeron sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. “At least they haven’t found Wafer yet.”

  “You can feel him?” Garrick asked. “Through your link, or whatever?”

  “Our bond, yeah,” Aeron replied. “I can feel him nearby. He’s probably spooked by now, what with the other wyverns flying around.”

  Garrick nodded. “But he’s alright?”

  Aeron shrugged. “As far as I can tell. The farther away he gets, the less I can clearly sense. He’s close enough that I know he’s alive and in the area, but if he were hurt, I probably wouldn’t be able to feel it.”

  Kent’s eyes met Garrick’s, and they shared a knowing glance. It was a good thing, what he was doing—he was getting Aeron’s mind off of his sister. It was working, too. Aeron had calmed down substantially.

  “How is your back faring?” Kent continued the conversation.

/>   Aeron groaned. “I could use a shroom.”

  “Me too,” Garrick muttered.

  The rest of them looked at him.

  “What? I’m old, and I carry the weight of this team on my back. I deserve to relax sometimes.”

  “If I had them with me, I’d share. But I don’t.” Aeron sighed again and looked between each of them. “What do we do now?”

  “We bide our time,” Kent said. “If they truly intend to return us to Govalia for a trial, that means they must remove us from these cells at some point, and then we must all journey back to Govalia as well.”

  “Kallie will be long dead by the time we get back to Govalia, unless they intend to take us there on the backs of wyverns,” Aeron said.

  “Yes. What I am saying is—”

  “What he’s saying,” Garrick cut Kent off, “is that we’re gonna get our chance to do something about it long before we make it back to Govalia. We’ll pick our moment and escape. And we’ll take some of them with us.”

  “Precisely.” Kent held up his shackled hands. “Even without access to my magic, the four of us are capable of accomplishing much.”

  Aeron gave a reluctant nod. “I just hope it’s not too late. The longer we’re stuck in here, the closer Falna takes Kallie to Lord Valdis. And the next new moon is in, what, twenty-four days?”

  “Twenty-five and a half, if my estimation is correct.” Kent peered out the window. “The new moon was a few nights back, and the cycle lasts approximately twenty-nine and a half days. If we intend to rescue Kallie in time, we must do so prior to the next new moon.”

  “And that includes travel time,” Garrick added. “Over mountains, in the winter.”

  Aeron hung his head again and moaned. “It’s hopeless.”

  “It is not hopeless,” Kent asserted. He didn’t really believe Aeron would give up, but he couldn’t even allow him to entertain the idea. “It will be challenging, but not impossible.”

  “We don’t stand a chance without those ice-forged weapons,” Garrick said. “We gotta get ‘em if we’re gonna take down Lord Valdis and his dragon.”

  “The weapons.” Kent’s breath caught in his chest.

  Not only had the Govalians taken Kent’s sword, but they also must’ve taken the ice-forged dagger from Mehta’s grandfather.

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. “They have the dagger.”

  “They have all our weapons,” Garrick uttered. “And the dagger’s hidden. They probably just think it’s a walking stick.”

  “We need to get it back, or we stand no chance of making it to Fjorst’s temple,” Kent said.

  Aeron shook his head. “We won’t have time, even if we find it. We need to go after Kallie right away.”

  “For what? To get killed before we can reach Lord Valdis again?” Garrick scoffed. “We don’t stand a chance without better weaponry.”

  “If we’re stuck in here for much longer, we won’t have time to search them out,” Aeron said. “We’ll have to take our chances. You’re strong, Mehta’s quick, Kent has magic, and I’ve got Wafer. We’ll find a way.”

  “Kid, we already had this conversation.” Garrick’s eyebrows arched down. “You saw how it went in his throne room. He didn’t even move, and you still barely escaped.”

  “Not barely,” Mehta said from the darkness of his cell. It was the first time he’d said anything since Kent had awakened behind bars. “Beautifully.”

  “No one asked you, shadowmonger,” Garrick quipped. “Point is, we can’t rely on our skills alone to take down Lord Valdis. It’s suicide.”

  Aeron let the back of his head bump the bars, and he exhaled a frustrated sigh. “But if we can’t get there and back to Xenthan in time, Kallie dies.”

  “She will die anyway if we are unprepared for facing Lord Valdis,” Kent said.

  “Look, I’d die for Kallie if I had to. If those weapons are what it takes to save her, then yeah, we have to get them,” Aeron said. “First, we need to find a way out of here, and we need to find it fast.”

  “No argument there.” Garrick clasped the bars in his hands again and pulled. The others watched him, and he stopped. “Don’t look at me. I’m not that strong.”

  “Then we wait,” Kent sat down on the hay and leaned against the bars. “For now, it is all we can do.”

  Several hours later…

  The day died in cold, gray apathy and birthed a black night marked by starless skies. Frigid winds buffeted the windows in each of the cells, and Aeron had to curl up into a ball and tuck his head between his knees just to try to stay warm in the darkness.

  The Govalians hadn’t fed them yet, nor had they returned at all after Commander Brove had let Falna take Kallie away. The several hours that had passed meant that Falna and Kallie were now several hours closer to Lord Valdis while Aeron and the Blood Mercs lagged behind.

  Worse yet, Aeron’s back pain had steadily worsened over the afternoon and evening, thanks to not only a lack of shrooms but also the hard floors and bars of the cell. Piling up the straw hadn’t done anything to relieve the pain, but by now the cold was so bad that it hardly mattered.

  He’d resigned himself to being miserable, but he repeated an old mantra from his time in the corps: Misery is temporary. You’ll get through it, or you’ll die. Either way, it comes to an end.

  At this point, only Aeron’s rage at Commander Brove and his determination to save Kallie kept him going. He would endure whatever misery, pain, and discomfort he had to save her. And once he saved Kallie, he’d ensure that Commander Brove finally got what he deserved as well.

  Aeron drifted off to sleep a handful of times but never for long enough. He kept waking up, wiping his runny nose on the fabric of his cloak, shivering hard, and then curling up even tighter against the elements.

  On and on, that cycle went until the telltale clank of the cellblock door sounded, and Aeron looked up.

  A torch entered the room first, followed by a feminine form with short, bright blonde hair nearly the color of snow.

  Aeron’s heart rate, slowed from the cold, kicked into hyperactive thrumming.

  It was Faylen Uridi.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Aeron had fallen in love with Faylen—or perhaps just the idea of her—the very first moment he saw her.

  They’d both transferred to the Wyvern Knight Corps around the same time, he from the cavalry and she from the archery division. Upon seeing her on his first day as a Featherwing, Aeron’s brain failed him in the middle of a conversation with two other recruits, and he literally stopped mid-sentence to watch as she walked by.

  But he’d noticed a slight smirk on her face as she passed. He’d never considered himself much to look at, but something about him had caught her attention as well.

  Maybe he’d stood out to her because she’d so obviously knocked every other thought out of his head.

  Over time, they’d gotten to know each other, flown missions together, and saved each other’s lives on a handful of occasions, including the time that permanently injured Aeron’s back. More recently, she’d given him a crucial piece of information that had gotten them closer to finding Kallie, though it had cost her much.

  Now she stood before him once again, and he had just as many words in his head as he had back on that first day in the Wyvern Knight Corps: zero. His heart pounded, and his anxiety resurged within his chest.

  Oh, gods… what’s about to happen now? Though she’d helped him, Faylen had made it clear that if she ever saw him again, it would be as his opponent, if not his outright enemy.

  He sprang to his feet, ignoring the miserable cold that had started to chill his bones, and a rush of thoughts flooded his mind, followed by another stab of pain in his back. It hurt so badly that he nearly fell back to the floor, but he gripped the bars instead to stop himself from toppling over. That would’ve hurt much worse.

  For whatever reason, he never remembered to straighten up slowly when not on shrooms. Over the last few mont
hs, he’d jerked upright more times than he could count, and he’d paid for it every time.

  “What are you doing here?” Aeron asked, his voice low, despite the obvious stirring of his fellow Blood Mercs in the other cells. He faced her, separated by only metal bars and icy air.

  Aeron studied her face. Mehta had intentionally harmed her to disguise the fact that she’d helped them. By now, as far as Aeron could tell from the torchlight, her wounds had totally healed.

  Even though Aeron hadn’t liked the idea at the time, it had clearly worked. Commander Brove had brought her on this excursion, after all.

  “If you know what’s good for you,” she began, “you’ll shut up and listen to me.”

  Aeron’s mouth clamped shut, and he glanced over at Kent, who now stood in his cell, also at the bars and watching their conversation intently. On the opposite side, Garrick watched as well, but Aeron couldn’t see Mehta in the cell across the way. He was hiding in the shadows, like always.

  “I heard what Brove is doing to your sister. It’s wrong,” Faylen said in hushed tones. “She’s a Govalian citizen, and your crimes have no legal bearing on her. She isn’t incriminated because of your actions because she wasn’t involved, and even if she were, they haven’t proven it in the courts yet.”

  Aeron knew and understood all of that, but he kept quiet as instructed.

  “It’s a miscarriage of justice,” she continued. “He’s not judge, jury, and executioner. It’s not his call to make. He’s wrong. And then he turned her over to an agent from another country…”

  Aeron bit his tongue. He had so much to say, but now wasn’t the time. Not yet.

  “I can’t abide it anymore. After what you told me, what I’ve seen, what I’ve done for him in ‘the service of the emperor’…” Faylen paused and stared past Aeron, into the void. “I won’t have it anymore. I won’t.”

  What is she saying? Aeron’s eyes narrowed at her.

  Faylen’s gaze sharpened, striking blue like the ice-forged steel dagger, and fixed on Aeron. “I’m letting you out of here. All of you.”