Blood and Oak- Wolves Will Eat

by Garrett Bettencourt

  Kaitlin heard footsteps nearby and scrambled back onto the tower roof in a panic. She pulled a valari from her belt and peeked over the parapet. As her heart pounded in her chest, she summoned Rune’s words.

  “You’re going to live. And you’re going to be free because…you’re the Red Hart.”

  The soldier stepped out onto the terrace, pistol in his hand. Kaitlin raised the weapon high, ready to ambush the intruder.

  “Katie?” the man called out.

  Kaitlin blinked. She recognized her brother’s blue Navy coat and long auburn hair. “Johnny?”

  He turned around and looked up at her. “Kait!”

  She leaped off the parapet and landed near John’s feet with a practiced tumble. In the next second, she had her arms around him, hugging him as tight as she could. “You found me.”

  “Course I did, Rabbit. But we haven’t a second to lose. Ethan will need our help soon.” John looked down at the bey’s grain storehouse. Half a dozen Nizam-I Djedid were at the main entrance on the Bey’s Road, pounding at it with pickaxes or sledgehammers.

  Warm tears ran down Kaitlin’s cheeks. “I thought you and Da might have left without me.”

  John looked at her incredulously. “Leave you? Are you daft, lass? I would have pulled down this whole damn city if that’s what it took to find you.”

  “But I messed up the plan.”

  “Kait, the plan worked like magic, thanks to you.” John took her hand, and soon, they were racing down the tower steps. “You’ve got the city chasing fairy lights while we steal a ship!”

  The compliment should have been flattering. But as Kaitlin went round and round the tower, following her brother down the steps, she could think only of the bloodshed spreading across the city. Bloodshed, due in no small part to her.

  A couple of minutes later, John pried a stone tile off the floor of the tower, revealing a hole with a ladder leading down. They climbed down into the bey’s smuggling tunnel, and John took up a lantern burning at the foot of the ladder.

  “Hurry, Kait.” John led the way through a dirt tunnel.

  Kaitlin had to admit--there was something strange about seeing her big brother armed to the teeth. A half dozen pistols clattered on his chest. A sharp sword jangled at his belt. Bags and canteens swung from his bandolier. A match smoldered in a linstock across his back. Five years ago, he’d been the ordinary son of a merchant captain. Before the pirates, she never saw either of her brothers pick up a weapon. The Johnny she remembered read to her at night, brought her wafers when she was seasick, and played games with her in the ship’s cabin. The man in front of her now was as deadly and determined as any soldier in Tunis.

  “We’re here,” John said. They exited the passage and passed under the wooden floor of the granary, which was only inches above their heads. Walls and pillars of limestone enclosed a space like a burial tomb. John waved away a spider web and hurried up a ladder at the center. He threw open a trap door above his head. A sound rushed in like rain on a copper roof. “Quickly now.”

  “Coming, Johnny.” Kaitlin climbed into the granary and a world of pouring rain. But it wasn’t falling water. Grains of bulgur fell in streams from the edges of every mezzanine. Holes were poked in scores of sacks, which were stacked around the edges. A cluster of them hung from a net of ropes halfway between the floor and ceiling, suspended from a pulley high above. A rope anchored the load to a cleat on a wooden beam nearby. Cones of grain were piling up in a square perimeter. Two great doors in the roof were open to the sky, and even more grain poured in from the corners. Dust rose like mist, collecting in her nostrils with a woody scent. There was a beauty to the spectacle--as if she stood at the center of a flaxen waterfall.

  “God’s bloody wounds!” Kaitlin cried. “Who poked all those holes?”

  “Ethan—while I was climbing the tower to get you.” John took her hand and led her toward one of the many ladders. “Hurry, Kait.”

  The double doors of the granary shook with a violent impact. The rope lashing the handles burst apart. Nizam-I Djedid soldiers crashed into the granary, scimitars and rifles rattling. Falling grain splashed off their red coats as they passed under the mezzanine. It scattered across the floor and crunched under their boots. More than a dozen men fanned out and aimed the long barrels of their guns at John and Kaitlin.

  “Halt!” said the lead soldier in Arabic. “Drop your weapons and surrender!”

  “Kait, translate what I say,” said John. He fixed the armed men with a menacing glare. “You won’t want to fire those guns.”

  Dust collected on Kaitlin’s perspiring cheeks. Now she knew the reason for the bulgur rain. She translated. The moment the soldiers heard her words, they hesitated.

  “That is,” John added, “unless you want to die in a ball of flame.”

  The lead soldier narrowed his eyes, his manicured mustache twitching with suspicion. Kaitlin translated every word her brother spoke.

  “A little grain dust isn’t dangerous. But enough of it near a spark—now that’s as good as gunpowder.”

  Several of the soldiers shifted uneasily as they looked around the granary. It was alive with the pitter-patter of falling kernels. Their eyes widened as they gained new appreciation for the dust clogging the air.

  The lead soldier glared and reluctantly holstered his pistol. “Draw scimitars,” he commanded.

  The group drew their powerful curved swords in a cacophony of ringing steel. The odds seemed little improved. Kaitlin counted a semi-circle of sixteen soldiers moving in unison as they closed in on her and John. In the gray light of the granary, everything about them was blinding bright—from their polished boots, to their red jackets and blue trousers, to the talon-like points of their blades. John drew his rapier and dagger as he backed away, keeping Kaitlin behind him. The rain of bulgur tapped and pinged on hats, clothes, and swords. Then Kaitlin’s back stopped at a piling under the first mezzanine. A stream of the cereal went skittering down her collar and under her shirt.

  The lead soldier spoke, and Kaitlin translated for John. “‘Surrender, by order of the Chronicler, and you will not be harmed. You are outnumbered. You cannot win.’”

  “Kait…” John looked at the soldiers as if he were about to issue a biting quip. Then he said something puzzling. “Grab the rope behind me and hold tight.”

  Kaitlin opened her mouth to translate but frowned instead. “What?”

  “Do it, now!”

  She looked at the piling to her right and saw the line of rope tethered to the cleat. Thinking quickly, she grabbed on.

  “Attack!” the lead soldier cried. The whole group charged.

  John raised his sword as if to lunge, then spun around and sliced through the rope tethered to the cleat. The pulley whined, and she launched upward. The net of sacks came crashing down and landed on four of the soldiers with a ground-shaking impact. Kaitlin found herself dangling in mid-air, the sound of clanging swords rising over the patter of falling grain. Her brother was fighting off soldiers from all sides, his sword and dagger flying. She swung herself onto a pile of sacks and tumbled onto the second mezzanine.

  Kaitlin rolled to her feet. She vaulted on top of the wall of bulgur and peered over the edge. Her brother was slicing his sword in every direction, wielding his dagger like a claw, swatting away each blow. She could hardly believe her eyes as he fought off multiple men, his movements lightning-quick. Still, the soldiers had him surrounded and were rapidly closing in. She could see that the Djedid were holding back. They wanted her brother alive—for the Chronicler.

  In the next second, Kaitlin was throwing valaris as fast as she could draw them from her belt. The wooden sticks spun into the frenzy of soldiers, glancing off cheekbones, cracking heads, thudding into backs. A few soldiers stumbled with the impacts, but mostly her attacks were a nuisance. She gave her last throw all the might she could muster. It struck the lead soldier in the between the shoulder blades.

  There was an ear-splitting bang! and
a bloody hole appeared below his neck. As the mustachioed attacker dropped, Kaitlin realized it wasn’t the result of her efforts. She looked up through the open double doors in the ceiling. Ethan was on the roof kneeling at the western edge, aiming his musket down into the granary. From his vantage, he could fire without igniting the dust. He took up a fresh rifle.

  John was pinned against a piling, his rapier and dagger each holding off a scimitar. A soldier was about to seize his arms when Ethan fired again. The bullet tore through the top of the trooper’s shoulder. Kaitlin jumped down onto the mezzanine, then took a running charge at the sacks. She shoved a pile of bulgur over the edge and it tumbled onto a half-dozen Djedid. John slashed one distracted soldier with his sword, then punched another with the basketwork. He slipped away from the mob and ran for a ladder directly below her.

  Another set of doors crashed open. A squad of Janissaries stormed in through a side entrance. The Djedid backed off and locked eyes with their mortal enemy. John froze, suddenly caught between the city’s two opposing factions. The Janissaries raised their muskets at the Nizam-I Djedid. The Djedid halted, finding themselves in a standoff. In the split-second of distraction, John threw himself to the floor.

  One of the Djedid raised a hand and cried, “No! You’ll ignite the--”

  The Janissaries fired. Bullets struck two troopers. There was a flash of heat. Janissaries vanished into a cloud of fire. The rush of air threw Kaitlin off balance. Janissaries screamed as the fire engulfed their bodies and reduced them to flaming silhouettes. Kaitlin had never heard such a chilling sound in all her life. John ran for the opposite side of the granary and jumped onto a ladder. Soldiers fled in all directions. Flames whooshed through the sacks like a slavering beast, billowing across the ground floor. Men were scrambling up every available ladder, desperate to escape the firestorm.

  “Kait!” cried Ethan from above. “Hurry—up here!” He pointed to a flight of steps directly beneath his position, which led from the third mezzanine onto the roof. With careful aim, he picked off another Djedid soldier trying to drag John off the ladder. “I’ll cover him.”

  “I can’t leave Johnny,” Kaitlin said. One of the many ropes hanging from the ceiling was tied to a cleat on a nearby support beam, and she ran for it.

  Kaitlin jumped onto the rope with both hands, feet dangling over a two-story drop. She unwound the slack from the cleat and rappelled down the beam at breakneck speed. Her feet were skipping down the piling, the rope whistling through her goatskin gloves, falling grains pelting her face. When she reached the first mezzanine, she planted her feet firmly on the beam and looked across to the south side. John was directly across from her, locked in a melee. Smoke and fire billowed up beneath her. John’s sword stung a soldier’s upper chest with a thrust. The attacker fell back, clutching the wound. Two Janissaries came on from the other side, their swords clanging off John’s. All over the granary, soldiers were swarming up ladders, fighting each other as much as chasing after John.

  Kaitlin kicked off the beam and went swinging across the granary. She caught the piling closest to her brother and yelled, “Johnny!”

  John looked up at her. The fire swept through the sacks to his left. The Janissaries blocked his escape on the right. He stuck his dagger through his belt and took a running leap toward Kaitlin. He caught the rope with his free hand and kicked off the beam.

  Brother and sister went swinging across the granary. The falling grain spilled down their shirt collars, stuck in their hair, collected in their shoes. They landed on the mezzanine near the ladder to the next level. Janissaries were coming off a lower ladder nearby. Ahead, Djedid troops were running up a ramp from the ground floor.

  The blaze was already eating its way across most of the first mezzanine. Soon, it would enfulf the second. The air was hot as an oven. The smoke carried a smell like roasting chestnuts. Flaming kernels created a rain of embers. There was another smell—like burning meat, but not of any animal kind. Kaitlin wanted to throw up.

  John grabbed her hand. “We have to move, Kait!”

  They raced up the stairs onto the second tier, coughing on the smoke, squinting in the heat, running for the next ascending ladder. All the while, the sound of men screaming, fighting, and shouting rose against the roar of the flames. The granary had become a battleground between the Djedid and the Janissaries. All around them, sacks and barrels were catching fire. The ladder they needed was on the other side of a bank of black smoke, and a group of Djedid troopers were climbing up after them.

  “Hold your breath!” John said.

  She took a deep breath, and he led onward. She plunged into a world of darkness, grains snapping and popping on a heated wind. She could feel the crunch of bulgur under her shoes. The heat wicked all moisture from her face. It clawed at her eyes and her flesh. Her lungs burned as she resisted the urge to breathe. In the impenetrable blackness, her brother’s hand was the only sign he was there. With growing panic, she realized that if he passed out, she had no idea how she could help him.

  The veil of smoke thinned and they scrambled up a ladder leading to the third mezzanine. John stumbled against the wall, his face beet red. He doubled over, coughing and gasping for air.

  “Johnny!” Kaitlin said. “Are you all right?”

  He kept choking, looking at her with bloodshot eyes. There were shouts from the north side, and Kaitlin saw three Janissaries bounding around the mezzanine corner, cutting John and Kaitlin off from the stairway to the roof.

  “Get…behind me, Kait,” John rasped.

  Kaitlin could hardly believe her eyes as her brother drew his sword. Barely able to breathe, John was somehow on his feet, charging to meet the soldiers. Kaitlin sent a valari spinning toward the first soldier, and the bent stick glanced the Janissary across his hair lip sneer. John thrust his sword and pricked the man through the eye. Kaitlin gasped at the shocking ease of the attack. One little flash of a sword and a man fell face-down-dead.

  Two more Janissaries charged John. A heavy scimitar raked his dagger. He parried a thrust from a dirk. He hacked and cut, his blade sending jets of falling grain flying through the air. Kaitlin pulled another valari from her belt and wound for a throw. A hand seized her arm.

  A Djedid soldier dragged Kaitlin across the mezzanine, bulgur sweepings grinding against her face.

  “Johnny, help!” she screamed.

  But John was too far away. She struggled against her captor, but he was a powerful man with a portly stomach.

  “I’ve got the thief!” he cried.

  A soldier with waxed and pointed whiskers grabbed her by the feet. His fitted jacket rained soot on her face as she struggled. The portly soldier held both her wrists in one hand as he clapped shackles on her with the other. Sweat poured down his face in the blistering heat.

  “Johnny!” Kaitlin cried. But it was no use. On and on they dragged her until they reached the ladder of the mezzanine. “Johnny, help!”

  A third soldier hauled her onto her feet. His cheek was cut deep and coating his beard shadow with blood. He yelled so loud, his spit landed on her face. “Quit fighting, you little whore!”

  “Feck you! Let go of me!” Kaitlin screamed. She fought and kicked, but she was no match for them as they herded her toward the ladder.

  John exploded out of the smoke, his teeth bared like fangs. He seized Whiskers by the bandolier on his back, his hands digging in like claws. He lifted Whiskers off his feet and flung him screaming off the mezzanine. The man landed with a hollow plod. Kaitlin dashed out of John’s way--whether to escape the troopers or her brother she didn’t know. John stabbed Portly through the gut. Then smashed Cut Face with his sword pommel, tearing a patch of flesh from his lacerated cheek. Kaitlin’s eyes went wide, unable to keep up with her brother’s dizzying movements. He stabbed a stomach, sliced a throat, bashed a face. She was frozen as her brother tore the two men apart like an animal, his eyes blazing with hate.

  The Portly soldier landed on his back, a red coil oo
zing out of his slashed gut. Cut Face slumped against the wall, the flesh of his throat hanging in red flaps. John reached for Kaitlin. She flinched and jumped back, staring at the blood covering his outstretched hand.

  John blinked, registering Kaitlin’s open-mouthed shock.

  Coming to her senses, Kaitlin snatched a key off Cut Face’s belt. She let John take her hands, which were still wearing the shackles, and lead her away at a run. Flames roared through the granary, reaching from the ground floor to the edges of the highest mezzanine. Kaitlin and John sprinted up the last flight of steps and came stumbling onto the granary roof, the heat of an inferno nipping at their heels.

  Kaitlin found herself in an Apocalyptic world. Columns of black smoke rose off the granary, adding to a growing storm cloud. Burning bulgur blew on the air. Heat washed out of the trapdoors, the bright flames climbing up after them like the gates of Hell. Hundreds of Tunisians cried and wailed in the streets below as they watched their harvest burn. The key slipped out of Kaitlin’s shackled hands. She fell to hands and knees and frantically searched through a layer of grain sweepings.

  “You all right, Kait?” Ethan Auldon knelt at her side, covered in gray ash.

  “Where is it?” Kaitlin cried in a panic. “Get these off of me! I need the key. Where’s the key?”

  “It’s all right, Kait.” Ethan swept his hands through the grain, helping her look. “Just keep calm. We’ll find it.”

  “Where is it?” Kaitlin cried again. Her heart was racing. Her lungs heaving. There was a creaking in the roof as it threatened to collapse. Her knees were stinging from the heat below. Her hands were shaking as she scattered the ash. “I have to find it! Get these off me! Get these off me!”

  A frightening smile spreads across Maajid’s face. “You want your mam? Well, you will never see her again. She went to the bastedan and fetched a handsome price. And soon, you will too.”