Shadow Of The Mountain (25 page)

Trobe watched Draz for a moment, searching for some sign. Some…weakness, perhaps? Draz felt himself growing irritated. He’d done everything right, following Trobe’s orders to the letter. They didn’t engage the enemy and still brought back a survivor, all while hiding in a hole like frightened rabbits.

“Tell me,” the instructor said.

Draz threw a hand up, trying to put events into words, but nothing seemed to fit together.

“We…bumped into the hunting party led by the Volrathi again,” he finally uttered. “Eight of them at first, then two more arrived. They were chasing a family. I could only get the little girl back to our hide. There was a mother and father, and an…older sister.”

Trobe watched him more intently now. “What happened next?”

Draz shook his head, hearing the sound of the hoofbeats rumbling across the damp earth, the snap of the rope, the…death of the father.

And after the women finally stopped shrieking, after the tears and cries of both wife and daughter fell silent, the vile men did things to them that would haunt Draz the rest of his life. There could be no greater evil in the world than what was done to that family. And all the three of them could do was watch, watch and listen.

Draz locked gazes with the instructor.

“The rest of the family is dead,” he said breathlessly.

Trobe held the stare a moment before resting a large hand on Draz’s shoulder. He nodded his head knowingly but said nothing more of it.

The old warrior’s role with the students had subtly shifted over the last few days from rigid instructor to more of an ill-tempered older uncle. They were in this together now, it seemed.

“And the hunting party?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “What of these men who search for our doorstep? Were you seen by them?”

Draz looked to Jornan speaking with Vextis a short distance away, and just for a moment their eyes met, but the stare was broken immediately.

“No, they didn’t see us. They spoke of returning to the capital,” Draz heard himself lie to a man with whom he was always supposed to speak the truth. “Said they’d be heading out this morning at first light. Might not be back for a week or so. Something about supplies.”

“A week or so?” Trobe wondered aloud. “Do you think they‘re giving up the hunt?”

“That’s what it sounded like,” Draz answered halfheartedly.

“I asked what you thought!” Trobe’s old temper flared, causing him to stiffen. “Not what it sounded like. You can’t get your emotions tangled up in this shit! Start handling this like a soldier and stop getting down on yourself. You saved a little girl here. That’s a life. Do you understand that? You didn’t just save her day. You saved her life. Now move on from it!”

Draz felt himself standing straighter, hands gripped to his side at attention. It was all of the damned academy conditioning, he knew. His brain hears a scolding tone from a superior and his body snaps to form.

Trobe turned back to the mountain, his long green cloak twirling behind him. Draz relaxed.

“Who’s going out tonight?” he stopped and asked over his shoulder.

Draz cleared his throat. This was it. “I thought we might go out again,” he said, each word feeling like a step on cracking ice. “Last night was spent mostly in a ditch. I’d like to make sure the Gallans truly returned to the capital and also maybe bring back some game. I think the camp could use some fresh meat.”

Trobe turned. “Meat?” he seemed to weigh the word, thinking it over. “Are you certain you’re not heading back out in search of bigger game than deer?”

Draz felt his stomach tighten but pushed forward anyway. “Vextis saw some game trails yesterday that he wanted to follow, but we hadn’t the time. And I’d like to take a few more boys today. Terra’s…Terra’s parents dropped their packs in the woods and it might be nice to gather a few of her things.”

Trobe considered the proposal before finally nodding his head.

“Do it,” he answered, gaze turning a familiar cold. “But I want no stupidity from you. We’re safe here so long as our presence is not known. We haven’t the men to defend this rock as effectively as I’d like. You lead these boys when I am not around and that makes their lives your responsibility. I swear that if you get any of them killed,” he spoke harshly, “I’ll hang you from one of these trees myself.”

Trobe turned and entered the tall fissure, disappearing from them.

Draz let out a long breath, the conversation feeling as if it had taken hours though he knew it had only been minutes. Could Trobe know of their intentions?

Of course not
, his mind bit back. How could he? If he had, then surely he wouldn’t let them return the forest. Unless…he wanted to see how they would handle it. Draz suddenly felt dizzy. Jornan and Vextis approached.

“That was very smooth, Draz,” Vextis said.

Draz merely shook his head. He didn’t like this, not any of it. Jornan had laid it all out on their walk back, but it was still a foul idea.

“Are you sure you can pick up their trail, Vex?” Jornan asked.

“Without a doubt,” the slim tracker answered. “Both man and horse. Their camp cannot be that far from wherever we were last night. I’ll find them, but after that? I’m at a loss.”

“We’ll figure the details out as we go,” Jornan assured them.

“Details,” Draz said, chewing on his lower lip, clearly not convinced. “I don’t want to sound like the scared little sister of the group, but my stomach is not agreeing with this. I mean, going after these men and not telling Trobe--”

“He would never allow it,” Jornan interrupted. “And he wasn’t there. You saw what those men did…Trobe didn’t have to watch with his own eyes, didn’t have to listen to…we can’t just sit on this, Draz. I’m sorry. Even now I’m twitching just thinking about it. We need to get this wound off our souls, else it’ll fester and grow into something worse. I know it will, I can feel it.”

“We have a chance here, Draz,” Vextis put in. “So much is out of our control, but not this. We can do some good here. I know we can. You saw those men. Drunken idiots, and we’ll be tracking them this time, not the other way around.”

“The Volrathi didn’t seem drunk,” Draz reminded them. “He seemed full of piss and fire.”

Jornan and Vextis exchanged glances but kept quiet. Their proposal was on the table and nothing more needed to be said. If Draz turned it down, they’d never speak of it again. He was ranking student, and to them his words were law. They’d follow him into the fire, all of them would.

Draz scratched the back of his head, thinking it over. It was no good and he knew it. But even now he could still hear the screams of the daughter and the pleas of the mother, lashing against his heart like a nagging whip.

Maybe Vex was right. Maybe tonight really was a chance for them to turn some of this terrible shit around. Who knew where these men would be in a few days, or a week? They might never get this opportunity again. At least tonight they knew where these rapists and murderers would be: on Amorian soil, free of care and fear, free to do whatever they wanted.

Draz let out a long breath, his decision made.
These men are not free
, his mind whispered.
Not anymore. These men are dead.

“We’ll leave in an hour,” he told them. “Fetch Persus, Sedrik, and Bailen. Tell them to bring their bows, and be quiet about it.”

Chapter 14

Natalia, Karin, and Argos trekked down the thin alley, swiftly moving through the shadows cast by the high buildings of eastern Corda. The streets they slipped past were littered with still bodies, some dead so long the sun and flies had already begun their work. The one-handed warrior had given up on escaping the city by sunset, their pace nowhere near what he’d have liked it to have been. The intersecting alleyways offered the best concealment, but it was costing them too much time. The hazy sky was already darkening and smoke had settled across several of the streets they passed through. The city that surrounded them was ghostly quiet.

Argos’s concern grew with each passing minute. They had narrowly missed being seen by large groups of armed men roaming the streets on two occasions. The first time they had heard the Gallans coming and had been able to hide behind a stack of crates piled next to the side entrance of a tannery. The second was nothing more than fool’s luck, with the armed men rushing past their alley on a connecting street, thankfully in pursuit of anyone but themselves. Had one of the rushing Gallans merely tossed a look in their direction, they would have been caught in the open like lame lambs for the wolves.

It was all too close for Argos’s liking, and the cold awareness of their circumstances settled in the bowels of his belly like a slab of granite. The situation within the capital was getting tight and to fumble around here after sunset would be a dangerous venture. Still, the only option was to press on.

The civilian bodies they passed were killed by sword and spear—not the weapons of a looter, but that of a soldier. Several fallen city guards could be seen on the streets as well, their blades drawn and blood-stained lying motionless next to their twisted green cloaks. It was likely that they had killed at least a few of the enemy, but Argos saw no soldiers in Gallan armor. They would’ve been dressed in plain clothes during the initial attack then. Such deception would allow the invaders to blend in, to get right up to where they needed to be until the time was right. The city was already in a panic and Argos couldn’t imagine the citizens’ terror when weapons and soldiers appeared and began killing.

He wished that Natalia had chosen a better time to drink too much of her sleeping opiate. Four days ago they could have escaped the city with ease alongside the thronging masses of others who had fled. Instead, the surgeon had ordered her not to be moved, as excess circulation of her blood would spread the drug deeper into her body and put her further at risk.

So he had waited for her to awaken, watching his city burn and listening to the sounds of its final days. He smiled bitterly and shook his head. Women were always complicating things.

Not that he would ever speak of it. Karin had seen to that. The handmaiden had an acid tongue when she wanted, and Argos was forced to promise never to mention the incident. Not that any of it really mattered. He would’ve stood guard at Natalia’s doorway and murdered a thousand men before letting any harm befall her. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her or Kreiden, including waiting calmly in her garden as she slept while his whole world went up in flames around him.

But what other choices did he have? Abandoning Talia was never a possibility. The two of them would either leave the capital or remain, but whatever path she chose, they would do it together. Always together. He had told Kreiden he’d watch over her and that’s what he intended to do, no matter the cost or conditions.

Always together.

They continued to move through the vast network of alleys and smaller streets, past burning buildings and bloated corpses. The city of Corda was large, broken up into eight districts. The Baelik house was located on the outskirts of District Three, nestled within other clustered houses of affluence. It was an area where tall homes of stone boasted enough rooms for servants to live with their families, and the prosperous had their choice of balcony on which to take their supper. The neighborhood around the market they approached now was one such place of wealth, and the rich enjoyed their views enough to have the thirty-foot city walls lowered to a more manageable, single-story height.

This, Argos hoped, would be low enough for them to climb over and escape. He pictured District Three’s Bronze Square and the large fountain at the center. During the day it was home to a massive market of shop carts and vendors. A fine place to barter for wares or food, one could easily spend an entire afternoon taking in all there was to offer. Argos intended to skirt around this open square and scale the city wall behind the adjacent buildings, disappearing into the forest beyond.

Simple and easy, the warrior couldn’t wait to see which way of the hundreds his plan would go heinously wrong.

The trio traveled in silence for a while longer, approaching the market plaza from the south, hugging the walls down a long and narrow alley. The fires of the city were growing, loud enough to fill the air around them with their sinister roar, but for the moment the blazes could not be seen. The heights of the nearby buildings hid the towering flames from their view. The smoke clouding the sky was getting heavier, with white flecks of ash raining down on them from above like the beginnings of an unsettling snowstorm.

They saw it then at the end of their alley, and its courtyard spread wide before them: the Bronze Square marketplace.

Tentatively stepping to the corner, Argos had a look around.

The open plaza appeared to be deserted. Three-story buildings bordered all sides of the square, the most distant from them blazing full and angry in a mountain of fire so bright it lit up the market. The fountain at the center held a tall, white tree, carved from ancient stone. Under normal circumstances water would pour from its many branches to drip down into the fountain pool as if from a rainstorm, but today the tree stood soot-covered and quiet. Market carts lay overturned and broken, their contents strewn over the dusty street. Canvas-covered roofs of various stalls and platforms danced tattered and restless in the wind.

Argos’s mood turned black as he looked upon dozens of motionless bodies about the square—men, women, even children, their tiny, sandaled feet tangled up beneath piles of the dead. He couldn’t fathom the horror that must have flooded their minds before death, or the unimaginable brutality possessed by those who could commit such atrocities. Never before in all his days had he seen such horrid sights, not even in battle. This was a place of death.

“How can they do such things?” Natalia asked with whispered shock. “So many people…children… ”