Chapter 22

  “It looks like we may all be in the city longer than we expected.” Rues explained to the blacksmith. “We were in the group trying to leave through the North Gate, and we were partway across the big clearing outside of town when archers started shooting hundreds of arrows at us. Everyone turned and ran for the gates. A lot of us made it inside. Some of us didn’t.”

  Rues stared at the ground for a moment before she continued.

  “We got separated from the rest of our group when we eventually got back into the gates, and while everyone else was trying to figure out what had happened, boulders started falling inside the wall. Everything only got worse after that. We got into the allies off the entry road and came here.”

  “You made a good choice in doing that,” the smith replied. “Take a few minutes and catch your breath, and then you can figure out what you need to do next.”

  Alyra looked up. “We have to get back to the inn. That is where Oarf and Eiriean will go.”

  The blacksmith looked around when they suddenly heard the sounds of fighting outside in the streets over the noise of the forge that had now begun operating again.

  He strode to the main door and looked down the street a couple blocks, toward the west road. There were men fighting there, but it was hard to tell if it was guards or soldiers, or even the men of the city at that distance. But it didn’t matter. He dragged the heavy door shut and slipped the catch to lock it.

  “Close the other door and damp the forges,” he said to his apprentice. “Maybe they will think the building is empty and pass by.”

  Alyra cocked her head back and forth several times, trying to hear over the hissing of the forges being put out. “I think they are going door to door. It sounds like they are kicking in some of them. Do you think the bolts will hold?”

  The blacksmith looked at the two girls. “Depends on the soldiers and the tools they have. For most, I would say that they will hold pretty well. For soldiers though, even a small ram would go through the door. On the outside, when the main door is closed, it matches the rest of the wall. The smaller door in the back is the one that we come through in the morning. That is the obvious one.”

  “They’re coming from the side of the main door,” Alyra said.

  “Then you get yourself over by the back door. If they come in, I will slow them down. You run. You too, lad,” the blacksmith said to his apprentice.

  “No, if they come in, I’ll fight,” the young man said as he took two long bars of steel from the fire's remains.

  The blacksmith looked at him for a moment and then nodded.

  They could hear the men outside talking now, a whisper away. “I think I saw a door here somewhere from when we were down the way. I know I saw smoke from the stacks too. Look around, men. It has to be here somewhere. Look closely…”

  “Line up, we’ll use the small ram. It will just make its own door.”

  “Ready? On three. Heave one. Heave two. Heave three.”

  The sound of the ram slamming into the wall echoed through the shop, but the well-built wall didn’t give.

  The soldiers outside were lined up with one of the huge uprights along the face of the building.

  “Heave one. Heave two. Heave three.”

  The second strike to the upright was accompanied by a loud crack that echoed inside the smithy.

  “There it goes. Once more. Heave one. Heave two. Heave three!”

  The great post broke a couple feet above the ground, the bottom of it going in toward the forges, but the top of it falling sideways into the locked door.

  The weight of the post collapsed the door, buckling it in the middle and opening a gaping wound into the dark interior of the smithy. The soldiers working quickly grabbed the pieces of the door and pulled it away, opening up the interior.

  The girls ran for the back door of the smithy as the first soldiers strode boldly in through the destroyed main door.

  “Run. Run now!” the blacksmith shouted over his shoulder.

  The soldiers entered the smithy as a group, swords drawn, their heavy boots clattering on the harsh tiled floor. The blacksmith and his apprentice swung their steel from the fire, trying to maintain as much distance from the soldiers as they could. The apprentice even took a shovel and flung the hot coals from deep in the scalding forges at the soldiers.

  The coal—exposed to massive amounts of oxygen so suddenly—flared up like meteors as the great chunks of black and glowing red flew at the soldiers. Several of the men had their clothing catch fire momentarily, slowing their advance. It was enough. The girls slipped quietly out the back of the smithy, and they could hear the two men die as they started to run.

  They ran sideways down the alley, hearts beating too fast, small whimpers escaping from their mouths. Desperately, they were looking for a way out. Any way at all. They ran and ran.

  “We have to get back to the inn. They won’t know to look for us here,” Rues panted. They ran alleyway to street to alleyway, trying to take the shortest route back to the inn.

  Several times, they had to turn back because an alleyway dead ended, slowing them down. They were turning around again when their luck ran out, and soldiers crossed the entrance to the alley in which they stood. They pressed themselves to the walls now, hoping against hope that they would not be noticed but the movement was enough to attract attention.

  One of the soldiers looked down the alley.

  “Hold up. There's someone down this way. It looks like there are just two of them.” He gestured with his head toward some of the soldiers standing nearby.

  “You four, come with me. The rest of you can continue the patrol. Remember the General's orders. You don’t have to kill them, but everyone has to submit. No exceptions.”

  “Yes, sir,” the soldiers responded.

  “Let’s go talk to them. You lot, keep going.”

  The five soldiers turned into the alley and started walking slowly toward Rues and Alyra.

  “Looks like that one has a sword,” one of the men said as Alyra drew when they were about halfway.

  “You’d think a breath of air could blow her over, but see how she wields that thing.”

  “Yes, looks can be deceptive,” said another man.

  Alyra looked at Rues for a moment. “He said they don’t have to kill if we submit. There are too many of them for us to fight.”

  Rues looked at Alyra and drew her hammer. “If we weren’t going to fight, then you shouldn’t have drawn your sword,” Rues said, looking pointedly at the blade.

  Alyra stared for a moment at her hands, as if just realizing that she held her sword, as Rues had said.

  “What do we do?” she whispered.

  Rues turned back to the approaching men. “See if they’ll talk. If not, we fight,” she said over her shoulder to Alyra as she stepped in front of her. “At least them, we tried what we could.”

  The men inched closer, one putting his palms out flat as if to say, look, we are not killers. They drew no weapons.

  “We don’t want to have to hurt you. Just put the weapons down and submit, and we can all be on our way,” the lead soldier said loudly.

  “Where are you from?” asked Rues loudly, as if it was somehow her business. She sounded older than her years.

  “Godegiselern.”

  “You are a long way from home and in the wrong kingdom,” Rues replied, still assertive and almost sounding like Glem.

  “This city is part of the Kingdom of Hasdingium now. As is all the land south of here. Submit to the King and you won’t be harmed. If you know what is good for you—”

  “But you know we cannot submit to you. Our village was south of here until two weeks ago. We are the only ones left. Your men killed my family!” Rues was screaming by the time she finished speaking, and she was near hysterical. Although quite fearsome and adept with her hammer, she still had the mind of a teenager. So, not knowing what else to do, she raised her hammer and threw herself down the alley at the men.

  Alyra followed her friend, yelling her own war cry as she held her sword up. The soldiers looked at the girls charging them and laughed as they drew their own weapons.

  This was an amusing sight to them, especially after making what they had considered a gentile and gracious approach.

  “It is not quite what I had expected,” said one.

  “Nor me,” commented the other.

  The one in charge stepped forward to meet Rues’ charge, raising his sword to block her hammer. She swung down on him, hitting his blade and shattering it like glass. The force behind her strike was more that of a full-grown man; it was clear she was stronger than she appeared, and very capable in a fight.

  The soldier was startled for a moment as his blade exploded from the force. As Rues recovered from the swing, he stepped forward into her reach and drove the pommel of the broken sword into her skull, knocking her instantly unconscious.

  She crumpled to the ground at his feet.

  One of the other soldiers then stepped forward and kicked Rues as she lay on the ground. They started beating Rues’ unconscious form in anger at her having the gall to attack them. Their boots drove into her side, her back, her legs and eventually, her head, not caring anymore that she was just a girl.

  Blood was streaming from her nose and ears as they beat her savagely. Alyra, only a few steps behind her, seemed miles away. She neared the soldiers like a banshee, screaming and hacking at them. There was no finesse or skill, just anger and unbridled rage in her attacks. But the soldiers turned them easily, laughing at her infantile attempts to hurt them.

  “You killed her! You killed her!” she screamed over and over at the soldiers as she hacked at them.

  One of the soldiers stepped around behind her while her attention was still riveted on the others. He kicked her feet out from her as she drew back for another swing, then he grabbed both of her hands that were holding her sword in one of his, and deftly took the blade away from her.

  She twisted as she fell, still trying to bite him. He dropped her and as she landed on her knees, he kicked her in the ribs for good measure. “It will teach you not to think of fighting me.”

  But his words fell on deaf ears. She was unfazed.

  “I won’t let you have her,” Alyra rasped, as she tried to protect her friend with her own body.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “It is not your decision,” the soldier in charge said.

  “What do you want us to do?” one of the other soldiers asked.

  With a vicious grin, the soldier in charge replied, “Tie up the little wildcat. We will take her with us. You can kill the other one. She broke my blade.”

  Alyra started screaming again, the fear for her friend, for the life she had lost, and for the uncertainty ahead all turning to rage. They would not take her friend from her and leave her alone.

  In agony, her nerves firing all at once, destruction rose up in her. The lightning wrapped around her arms and legs, sparking and crawling over her body.

  She looked up at the soldiers as the light settled in her eyes.

  “What’s that…?” the soldiers started to ask.

  Alyra screamed again.

  Lightning blasted out from her, burning through all of the soldiers in an instant. Hearts burned out of all of their chests, popping and sizzling. Enveloped in a plume of putrid smoke. All of them were dead before the first one even started to fall.

  Alyra collapsed right there and then, on top of Rues.

  And to her relief, she heard her friend grunt as she landed on her before falling unconscious for a moment too.

  I did it. I saved her, she thought as she went out.

  Both girls began to move a few moments later. Rolling off one another, Alyra’s strength had begun to return from her earlier exhaustion. Alyra helped Rues stand slowly as her friend cradled her ribs, and Alyra looked around the alley.

  Considering what had just happened, there was little evidence of it aside from the five dead men lying sprawled around, and the pieces of a broken sword on the earth.

  But that kind of sight was hardly unusual in these parts.

  There were some barrels farther back in the alley that had not been tall enough to hide the girls, but Alyra still thought that they might help conceal the soldiers if just for a little while.

  Alyra propped Rues against the wall and put her hammer in her free hand. “Wait here. I am going to try and hide the bodies.”

  She dragged all the men farther into the alley, lining them up along the wall behind the barrel. Their legs were visible, but their bodies were hidden. It would have to be good enough. Alyra grabbed their bags and walked forward to Rues.

  Just as she got there, she saw Rues nearly fall to the ground with the slight effort of trying to pick something up. It was the hilt of the sword that had nearly taken her life. The one she had destroyed. Alyra pushed her friend back upright and scooped up the hilt. Without a word, Rues tucked it down into her bag.

  Alyra pulled Rues’ arm over her shoulder, supporting her friend and carrying both bags. “Let’s get back to the inn. We need to get someone to wrap your ribs,” she said heavily as she thought about the men she had killed. “Those were the first men I ever...” But she did not finish the sentence.

  Either it was too difficult to say, or too unimportant right now. She smiled to herself. Her friend had survived.

  ***

  Jorick thought about the three dead men that he and Glem had left behind. It was troubling to him that so many soldiers seemed to be in the city already. Jorick turned to the main road running toward the East Gate and past the market, and since he did not know when he was ever going to get to eat again, he cut across the corner of the market to see if any of the food vendors were braving the fear of the approaching army.

  It took him a moment to find someone still at a stall. The vendor sat bored on a three-legged stool, a paltry display of breads of all types set out on the counter. It appeared to be a half-hearted attempt to sell everything he had made before having to clear out of the street, but customers were few.

  Jorick bought one of the soft breads wrapped around strips of grilled meat, and thanked the vendor. But before he could walk away, he saw a handful of soldiers enter the market. It took Jorick a moment to realize that they were wearing the uniforms of Hasdingium army regulars, and now they started working their way across the market, checking all the open stalls.

  Jorick turned to the vendor. “Those aren’t guards, those are soldiers from the south. Duck down and work your way to the opposite side of the market, and get out. Go somewhere and hide. I will try and buy you some time to get clear.”

  The vendor looked at Jorick for a fraction of a second, dropped his apron and ducked below the edge of his booth. “Thank you. Be careful.”

  “I will. Go quickly and quietly,” Jorick replied.

  Jorick looked around the stall and the market, trying to figure out how to slow the soldiers' search. But luckily, they appeared in no hurry, sauntering along as though they were on an outing. It appeared they felt victorious already, as if the market was their own. Jorick took a bite of his lunch and began to smile.

  Setting it aside after no more than three meager bites, he reached into the recently vacated stall and picked up the discarded apron. He took off his sword belt and drew his sword, slipping it in easy reach under the counter.

  He tied on the apron and grabbed the knife with which the vendor had, only a few moments ago, been slicing the meat.

  Now, he went to work on the leg of lamb, standing in the stall and started singing like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Two coppers apiece or five for a meal! Flatbread, sweetbread, rye or oat bread… La la dee, da dee. Some for me and some for the wife. La la dee da dee!”

  The soldiers across the market spread out and came toward him. Jorick continued singing as if he was a little drunk and more than a little merry, seemingly quite unaware of the men. When they got to the booth, he acted startled to see them.

  “Here now. Where did you come from? Ah well. Doesn’t matter now, does it? Market’s been slow today. Your money will spend as well as the next fella’s.”

  He tilted his head and shaded his eyes with the hand holding the knife as he looked up at the first of the soldiers.

  “You’re a big fella, aren't cha? I bet you can eat a lot. Well, worry not; I got the best food in the market right here,” Jorick said as he gestured with a broad sweep of his arms at the leg of lamb and the hot bread sizzling on the brazier.

  The soldier spoke to the others when they arrived.

  “I think he is drunk. The food does smell good though. Why don’t we just kill him and take the leg?”

  “Here now,” Jorick said, perking up at the mention of killing. “No need for killing, I am always happy to stand the good guards of the city to a meal, I am. Ask anybody. Jorick’s always there with a meal they’ll tell you,” he said, waving the knife at the other booths in the marketplace. “Why would you kill the man who feeds you the finest street meal you ever ate in your life—especially if you can come back and be fed every day?”

  He didn’t even seem nervous, making a couple of the guards appear more than a little irritated. “You’re not afraid?” one asked, challenging him.

  “Afraid? Of what? I face death every day. I could fall on my own spit and roast alive… and I dare say my fat would be just as crisp as this here suckling pig.”

  He pinched the small piece of belly fat he mustered from around his waist. It wasn’t much. He certainly did not look like a man who spent his days cooking fatty foods.

  They relaxed, laughing at him, and he offered small pieces of crispy pig skin for them to enjoy, liberally sprinkling salt on it.

  One of the guards looked him over in the greasy apron.

  “Is Jorick a common name here?”

  “I don’t think so. I never heard anybody else with it,” Jorick replied, feigning confusion. “My father had a poor sense of humor.”

  They laughed again.

  The guard who had asked turned to one of the others. “Wasn’t Jorick one of the names we got as a guard, Lieutenant? He, wants him alive for information.”

  The guards ignored Jorick while they discussed whether or not this Jorick was the Jorick they were supposed to be on the lookout for. It seemed very unlikely. For one thing, this man certainly seemed to know how to roast and carve a pig.

  Jorick leaned forward over the counter as if he was listening to the men talk, and he made sure to retain a small smile on his lips so they could not think he felt intimidated. If anything, his demeanor looked amused and bemused, almost entertained.

  Below the level of the counter, however, nothing could be further from the truth. He grabbed hold of one of the legs of the brazier and took his sword with the other hand.

  The men turned back toward Jorick from their conversation expecting to find the congenial drunk. Instead, they found a stone-faced man staring back at them, with steely eyes.

  His voice gravelly with anger, Jorick asked. “Well? Am I him or not?” In that same instant, he flung the entire brazier of hot coals into the faces of the men and then kicked the table from the stall into them, tangling them up for a second as he stepped into the group. He had already killed three of the men before they could get the fire out of their eyes to see.

  The others were far enough away that they had not been caught by the embers. He was rapidly overwhelmed by them; knocked to the ground, he was kicked several times and stabbed in the shoulder and leg as he fell unconscious. He heard one of the men say something to the other as he went under.

  “He’s dead. Just leave them all here. If that was the Jorick we were supposed to find, we never saw him! Understood?”

  There came a murmur of assent from the other men, accompanied by mutterings of having less to carry.

  The soldiers moved deeper into the market and finally clear of it, while Jorick lay slowly bleeding out, a red rivulet finding its way to the street gutter. He was in and out of consciousness, believing he heard them leave.

  But he thought he heard another voice as he lay in a stupor.

  “Quick lads. We have to get him under the shop before anyone comes.”

  ***

  “Let’s go find them. I think I’m in better shape than I have any right to be after that,” Glem said.

  He looked down from the wall at the crushed and burning house, thoughtfully. He frowned momentarily.

  “We are not going to find them standing here.”

  He led Kiiryas down off the wall and looked at the open gate. The field was still burning on this side, and there were no soldiers visible on the road. In fact, all was quiet and bare.

  “Nothing we can do about that unfortunately. You saw the girls inside after the North Gate was closed?”

  At Kiiryas’ nod, he continued. “If anything happened, they were supposed to head back to the inn and gather there. So, what say you that we start there? If we don’t find them there ahead of us, we can work our way to the North Gate and see if we can find them on the way.”

  Kiiryas looked at the bodies scattered around near the base of the gate. “For an old man, you sure do make an awful mess. Has no one ever taught you to clean up after yourself?”

  Glem laughed at him as he looked around.

  “I guess I do make a bit of a mess at that.”

  The two men began to work their way through the empty streets, back toward the closest thing the girls had to a home in this city.

  ***

  “I have to see him now!”

  Lorne heard shouting in the clerk's office as he stood in the map room reviewing the reports from around the city.

  He listened intently for a moment before walking outside to see for himself the cause of the sudden disturbing ruckus.

  The Governor stood in front of Lorne’s clerk, shaking his finger in the man’s face.

  He turned to Lorne as he entered the room. “There you are. Your man wouldn’t let me through to see you.”

  “I apologize for the inconvenience sir, but we are in the middle of a battle for the city,” Lorne replied smoothly, to try and calm the florid man.

  “I understand that. Don’t you think I understand that?” the Governor shouted, his voice progressively rising and his face reddening further. “That is why I wanted to see you. I heard that the people didn’t get out the North Gate. And the merchants are already hounding me about their homes by the West Gate. Did you really have to collapse them like that?”

  “I’m afraid so. It was the safest way to seal the gate. We don’t have enough guards to protect the other gates and maintain order in the city. That gate just added to the problem.”

  “Well. Yes, yes, I can see that. But what about the other gates? I have heard a rumor that two of them have been opened by enemy agents,” the Governor declared dramatically.

  “You heard correctly, sir. The South Gate and East Gate were both sabotaged. We don’t yet know the extent of the damage.

  “The guards are all spread throughout the city trying to protect the people. At this time, we don’t believe that any soldiers have approached the South Gate. We are not sure why that is. But we have had a significant number of them enter through the East Gate.”

  “What? Then why haven’t you stopped them?” The Governor fell back heavily into one of the waiting chairs in the room, while Lorne turned to his clerk.

  “Get the Governor some wine.” He moved over near where the Governor sat. “The guard has been redeployed to the areas of the city with the worst fighting, and they are trying to slow the advance of the soldiers into the city. We have lost a lot of good men in the fighting.”

  The clerk returned and handed the Governor the wine. The Governor took a deep draught of it and sighed heavily as he began to calm down.

  “What else can we do? Think, man. There must be something else.” He held his glass out to the clerk who refilled it for him.

  “Regrettably, sir, I believe the city may be lost. As unfortunate as that is, we may have to accept it.”

  “Unfortunate! Unfortunate? What? It can’t be lost. Why are you so calm then? We’ll all be killed.”

  Lorne stepped forward close to the Governor. “I don’t have time to explain what you are obviously too stupid to have grasped on your own.” He calmly reached forward with his big hands and broke the Governor’s neck, the clerk having grabbed the hand holding the wine and carefully taken the glass from him. The clerk swirled the glass for a moment, looking at the dead man before taking a drink from it himself.

  “Not a bad vintage at all. What a shame to have wasted so much of it,” the clerk said, pointedly looking at the Governor.

  “Hand me a fresh glass, would you? We have time for a little drink. Then unfortunately, I think we are going to have to do something about him,” Lorne said.

  “If we leave him here, you will be suspected of treason.”

  Lorne thought for a moment and walked back into the map room, and dug around. When he returned, he tossed back the last of his wine and looked at the clerk, eyebrows raised.

  “Our beloved Governor fell fighting for the lives of his citizens. He was found in the alley behind the barracks, where he was killed while rushing to tell us critical information about the attack.” He took the medallion Glem had left from the forge floor and stuck it into the dead man's hand.

  “Now grab his feet. Once we get him back there, poke a few holes in him. Make it look good. It doesn’t really matter anyway. This is a Hasdingian city now.”

  The clerk finished his wine and shrugged as he grabbed the Governor by the knees, just as if he were a sack of potatoes.