Blade of the North Page 14

  “Inspiring,” Storm says, the sarcasm dripping from her tongue.

  After that, Storm wishes us well and reminds us that there is always a place here for us if we should need it. She gives us enough food and water to last three days. “After that,” she says, “you should be able to buy our own. Especially with Aveline’s jewels,” she adds with a wry smile.

  We offer our thanks to Storm and Karam for what they have taught us. My words don’t seem enough though. I feel more confident than I have in my entire life. I want to hug Storm to express my thankfulness, but I know I would look like a foolish little girl if I do. Even so, I lean a little closer to her. “Thank you,” I say, as sincerely as I can.

  She doesn’t seem repelled by my earnestness. Instead, she holds my eyes with hers. “Remember who you are,” she whispers to me, “and have a purpose that befits you.”

  Her words are just for me and I nod my head. I want to ask her more, to learn more from her. But now it is time to leave and I don’t have the chance to think about what she has said. Maybe I will later. For now, as Jondar and his scouts lead us through the forest, I must turn my attention to Malikaran and killing the emperor. Saving Father is the only purpose I have.

  We walk until late afternoon the following day. Here, on the eastern side of the Daishen Forest, Jondar leads us to the Vulpera River.

  “The river will lead you out of the forest,” Jondar says. “Keep following it for another day and it will take you to the town of Regsen. From there you should be able to board a ship to take you to Lusena.”

  Lusena. The name stirs a sudden fear in my heart. Lusena, the country bordering Naren to the east.

  Lusena, whose capital is Malikaran, the royal city of Tigranik.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I have never seen a river so clear and blue as the Vulpera River. It cuts a beautiful blue streak as it flows between its lush green banks. Fish swim playfully below the surface, skittering in and out of the submerged reeds. Dragonflies hover over the water, and birds call to one another from the trees above. In such a scenic, unspoiled land as this, it is hard to believe that a war still wages on.

  Eventually leaving the forest, we come out into more open country, the trees smaller and sparser. Away from the massive trees at the heart of the Daishen Forest, I’m reminded of just how long I was there. As the sun streams down, I need to shield my eyes from the painful glare reflecting off the river. I’ve been hidden too long in the depths of the forest below its massive canopy and my eyes have grown accustomed to the dark. Now they have to reacquaint themselves with the light.

  It’s strange how much my friendships have changed since leaving Farley. On the journey to Tolos, my time was mostly spent with Rose and Dain. They were, and always have been, my best friends. Now, leaving the forest, I find myself more and more in the company of Aveline and Jarryd. It’s not that I no longer like Rose or Dain. It’s simply that I have grown closer to Aveline. And wherever Aveline goes, Jarryd is with her.

  I’m not sure what to make of Rose and her increasing friendship with Dain. I feel a little jealous even though I know that’s not fair. After all, Dain and I were never more than friends. But there was a possibility that we could have been more. Maybe that’s what is making me jealous? Or maybe it’s that my best friend would rather spend more time with Dain than with me? But that’s not fair either. After all, I’ve grown closer to Aveline than I would ever have imagined, and I talk with her much more than I do with Rose.

  Even Theolin has changed who she spends her time with. Although in her case the change has been forced. Bianca and Tom stayed behind to help in the defence of Tolos. Bree was killed in the flight from Tolos, and Miya chose to stay with the assassins. I feel sorry for her. As if the pain and loss from Farley weren’t enough, she has since lost her closest friends. Now she walks alongside Alek. Neither of them talks very much, which is sad. Even though Theolin was always full of horrible words about me, at least she used to laugh. Although to be fair, much of her laughter was directed at me as well. But now she doesn’t laugh at all. She merely looks grim. Which makes her a perfect companion for Alek. He does laugh sometimes now, but it is not his old, carefree laugh. It is a bitter laugh, filled with grief and resentment.

  On the second afternoon, I judge that we can’t be too far from Regsen. Since leaving the assassins, I’ve grown increasingly nervous at the thought of being in a large town full of people. Around the assassins, I was learning, growing more skilful and confident. And strange to say, I felt safe, protected. Now I am about to be back in the real world and will have to look out for myself. But as scary as that thought is, the doubts that have begun to assail me are worse. While we were with Storm, I had no doubt we would be able to assassinate Tigranik. Now, doubt is all I have. And if we can’t reach the emperor, Father will die.

  “How will we get close to Tigranik,” I ask Aveline.

  She turns her piercing eyes on me. “First we get to Malikaran. Then we make a plan.” She makes it sound easy, and her voice betrays none of the doubts I’m feeling.

  “Stop!” Jarryd orders, his voice a commanding whisper.

  We all stop and turn towards him.

  “What is it?” Aveline asks.

  “Listen,” he says.

  I listen. All I can hear is the wind blowing through the trees.

  “We’re in trouble,” Jarryd says.

  “Why?” I say. “I can’t hear anything.”

  There is a sudden whirring noise then an arrow imbeds itself in the ground at my feet. Then another. Then a third and a fourth, making a circle around us. Fear freezes my feet to the ground.

  A group of men appears through the trees. I quickly count ten of them, all wearing matching armour. Four of them are carrying bows with their arrows aimed at us, the others are brandishing swords. They have us surrounded before we can react.

  “You’re right,” Alek whispers. “We’re in trouble,” he says, echoing Jarryd, but sounding like he doesn’t care.

  “Do what they say,” Dain whispers. “We can’t fight out of this yet.”

  “No one move!” one of the men orders us. He is the only one with a blue plume on top of his helmet, so I assume he is an officer.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Aveline demands. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Captain Marwell,” the man answers. “Captain of the Regsen garrison. These soldiers are with me, and I’m taking you all into custody to answer questions.”

  “Questions?” Aveline says, indignant. “What questions could you have for us? We are peaceful travellers who - ”

  Marwell’s laugh cuts her off. “Peaceful travellers? No one who comes out of that forest is peaceful.” His face turns serious. “Search them!”

  The other soldiers search us and find our hidden knives.

  “Peaceful travellers?” Marewell sneers. “Of course you are.”

  “Peaceful but not stupid,” Aveline says, vainly trying to save us. I wish I had half her courage. “We carry knives for our protection. It’s not against the law.” She is about to say more but Jarryd touches her arm, and she stops.

  Marwell’s mocking smile is frightening. “That shows where you’ve come from, girl. Or at least where you’re not from. You’re in Naren now. And Naren is under the protection of Emperor Tigranik. That means no one carries any weapons, not even knives. After all, what is there to be afraid of? Now come with me. And if any of you make any trouble, I’ll slit your throat.”

  It doesn’t take long until Marwell and his soldiers have marched us within sight of Regsen. It is a large town, probably two or three times bigger than Farely, and surrounded by a solid stone wall. The Vulpera River flows beside the town until it merges into the much larger Serat River. The rivers form a y shape and Regsen sits neatly in the fork between the two. The land surrounding the town, where it hasn’t been turned into farmland, is lush green.

  Nobody pays us much attention as we are led through the gates and into the town proper. The buil
dings here are bigger, and the streets wider, than those in Farley. And they are all clean, which is surprising given the large number of hawkers and street merchants trying to offload their wares.

  The salty smell of the Serat River tingles my nose as Marwell leads us through the town. We pass along Regsen harbour, full of old warehouses on one side, and ships at dock on the other. Regsen must be an important trading town, as many ships are waiting out in the harbour for their turn to dock. Leaving the harbour, we turn off into a small side street. Marwell stops in front of a square, stone building. He opens the door and guides us inside.

  The small room is occupied only by a soldier seated at a desk by the door. “Take ‘em down to the cells and lock ‘em up,” Marwell orders the man. “I’m going to inform the mayor about our new guests.”

  The soldier behind the desk stands up and opens a door on the far wall. “This way,” he says, before taking a lantern from the wall and leading us down a set of stairs into a dark corridor. Following behind us, three of the soldiers who captured us prod us with their swords, ensuring we don’t fall behind.

  At the end of the corridor, the soldier carrying the lamp unlocks a wooden door and we are pushed inside. The door is closed and bolted shut, leaving us in total darkness.

  “What are they going to do to us?” Rose asks, a tremble of fear in her voice.

  “They want to know about the assassins, no doubt,” Theolin answers.

  “We can’t tell them anything,” Dain insists.

  “I don’t think it will that simple,” Alek says.

  There is silence then for a long time. I sit with my back against the cold stone wall, worrying. How do we escape from here? I have to think of something. Otherwise, everything I’ve done has been for nothing, and no one will be able to save Father.

  Eventually, a light appears in the gap beneath the door. The door opens and light streams into the cell, blinding me. When I’m able to open my eyes there are two soldiers on either side of the door, and another man standing in the doorway.

  “So, some runaways from the Daishen Forest,” the man says. “The training was too hard for you, was it?”

  Undeterred as always, Aveline stands up and faces him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We are simply on our way to visit friends in Lusena.”

  Really? We are? When did Aveline come up with that story?

  “Oh, of course you are,” the man replies, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “That’s why you carry knives with you when all weapons are forbidden.”

  “I don’t know who you are,” Aveline says defiantly, “but I demand you release us.”

  The man laughs. “I’m Rini Veneen. Mayor Rini Veneen. Now the emperor, you see, is suspicious of the assassins in Daishen Forest and wants them eradicated. But he can’t spare the soldiers to search through such a hideously dense forest. So one of my charges as Mayor of Regsen is to stamp out the assassins on the emperor’s behalf. This means anyone who comes from the forest is immediately suspect. Especially if they carry knives with them. So I will not be releasing you. Unless you tell me what I want to know, I will need to be… more persuasive with you.” A vicious smile comes onto his face. “I enjoy making people talk.”

  Despite the chill of the cell I begin to sweat.

  “Tell me where you are from,” the mayor continues. He looks searchingly into our faces as he talks, doubtless hoping to see something in our expressions that he can use. “I know you’re not from Naren. So where did you come from? Tarmaik? Rillayd? Hammel?”

  He is looking directly at me when he says Hammel and instinctively I gasp. A foolish, childish mistake. And he seizes on it.

  “From Hammel then. Since you don’t know the laws forbidding the carrying of weapons, you must have been gone from Hammel for a long time.”

  A sense of dread suddenly envelops me. “What do you mean?” I ask, my voice quiet, my mouth dry.

  “Hammel is now under the peace of the emperor,” the mayor replies. “Since Tolos fell - ”

  “No!” I cry. “Tolos can’t have fallen. They were going to hold out for six months!”

  The mayor’s laugh makes me want to throw up. “Six months? Dear girl, Tolos didn’t even last six weeks. The engineers in the emperor’s army are very, very good.”

  He says a few more things before he leaves with the soldiers, but I don’t hear any of it. Tolos has fallen.

  Father…

  As the door closes and the light disappears, I slump to the ground, engulfed by a world of darkness.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been on the ground, but when I come back to my senses, hands are on my shoulders. My face is wet with tears and my body is still shuddering as I cry.

  Tolos has fallen. Father… Father is dead. Having seen the death and destruction in Farley I can imagine all too vividly the scenes in Tolos. Dead bodies piled high or littered through the streets. Fire ravaging the buildings. Smoke, the smell of blood and death. And somewhere… somewhere in the city lies the body of my father. Dead.

  There is a slim chance of course that he was captured rather than killed. But that would mean eventual repatriation into the emperor’s army. But Father would rather die than fight for the emperor. A fresh flood of tears flows down my cheeks as another wave of despair engulfs me.

  Slowly, when my crying subsides, the voices around me filter through my grief.

  “She’ll be okay,” Aveline’s voice says beside me. “Just let her get over the shock.”

  “We have to do something quickly or she’ll be the first one they break,” Theolin says.

  “True,” Alek agrees. “I don’t have any love for Storm or Karam, but I’m not keen to see them caught either.”

  “I don’t want to be… tortured,” Rose says, her voice unsteady.

  “Aveline’s right,” Dain says, his voice coming from the other side of the cell. “Sara’s strong – she’ll be okay.” But his voice doesn’t sound as confident as his words.

  “I’ll be alright,” I lie through my tears. How can I be alright knowing that Father is dead?

  “I’m sorry,” Theolin says gruffly. “I know the hope you were holding onto.”

  Coming from Theolin, those words mean more to me than all the condolences of the others. It doesn’t lessen my grief, but it does help sober me.

  “What… what do you mean tortured?” I ask Rose.

  “That’s what the mayor said,” she replies. “If we don’t tell him about the assassins, he will torture us until we give him the information he wants.”

  “We need to get out of this cell before that happens,” Aveline says.

  “Great idea,” Theolin mutters. “Wish I’d thought of it myself.”

  “That’s not helpful,” Jarryd reproaches her. “We need a plan, so all ideas will be appreciated. Otherwise, we won’t need to worry about Storm and the assassins – we’ll be dead before then.”

  “A slow death,” Alek reminds us.

  “So… how do we get out?” Jarryd asks.

  “It’s pitch black in here,” Dain says, “We can’t see anything.”

  “Doesn’t mean we can’t make a plan,” Theolin grumbles. “Come on, at least feel around the cell. We might find something useful.”

  The others agree then I hear them moving about. Still sitting on the floor, I can either give in to my misery or I can join in and help. Reluctantly, I put my grief aside for later, get onto my hands and knees and crawl around the cell. I find a couple of rocks, but they are too small to be of any use. I bump into someone then hear Jarryd apologise. A few of the others collide as well as we search our lightless cell. We’re no better than blind mice scuttling around the floor, scavenging for a scrap of food.

  “Anyone found anything?” Aveline asks after a few minutes.

  “Only Rose’s foot,” Dain says.

  “I’ve got the door,” I say, my hand feeling the gap beneath the wooden door.

  “And I’ve got the wall,” Theolin says mockingly. “Great fi
nd.”

  I ignore her and feel around the door. There is not much of a gap anywhere – but at the top, the wood juts out slightly into the cell. Otherwise, the door fits snugly in its place.

  We continue searching for what seems like hours, but no one finds anything of use.

  “Now what?” Jarryd asks.

  “What if we rush them?” Dain suggests.

  “You’ll impale yourself on their swords,” Alek replies.

  “One of us could pretend to be sick,” Rose offers.

  “They won’t care,” Theolin counters. “They don’t exactly plan on looking after us.”

  It doesn’t seem like there is anything we can do. There is certainly nothing in the room we can use. The only thing I noticed was…

  Slowly a plan begins to form in my mind. “What if one of us was missing when they come in,” I say.

  “And how will one of us go missing?” Theolin asks derisively.

  “The door juts out slightly into the cell,” I explain. “If someone like Dain could stand on it and balance there when the door opens - ”

  “I could jump down on top of them when they come into the room!” Dain says. “Brilliant!”

  But it isn’t brilliant. After Alek and Jarryd help Dain up to the top of the door, he falls back down. Three times.

  “There’s not enough there for me to stand on,” he says.

  Although I can’t see anything in the dark, I can tell that the others are dejected. Like me.

  “What about you, Fairgrey?” Theolin asks.

  “What do you mean?” I reply.

  “You’ve got better balance than all of us,” she says. “If anyone can perch up there, it’s you.” I can tell by Theolin’s voice that the admission hasn’t come easily for her.

  “I’ll try,” I say. Dain helps me up onto his shoulders, and I quickly discover that he was right – the door doesn’t jut out far enough to stand on. But I can’t give up. With Dain still supporting me, I move my hands over the wall, searching for a crack I can put my foot into. There’s nothing. This is maddening! There must be some way to make this work. I try the top of the door again, moving my feet in all directions, trying to find enough room to – there! If I press my face against the wall, I think I can… yes! Just enough of the door sticks out for me to fit my toes on. Raising myself up onto my toes, my balance is precarious, but I can do it. “I can balance,” I say.