Authors: Usman Ijaz
“We’re too open here!” Owain shouted to him over
the din of the crowd. He squeezed off another shot at the rooftops closest to
them, and cursed when it missed. “He’s fast!”
“We have to fall back,” Hamar said. Owain nodded
wordlessly. They began to retreat then, with Owain keeping a watch on their
trail, and Hamar, wincing at the pain in his side with every step, keeping an
eye up ahead. The pain was a distant feeling he found; there, but bearable,
overridden by the urgency of the situation.
From behind him came the abrupt sounds of
several shots fired in a consecutive rumble. He wheeled around. Owain lay on
the ground, still moving, barely. Hamar looked at the knife protruding from his
throat and the one piercing his chest and cursed aloud. He forced his mind to
acknowledge what his eyes showed him; his companion was dead already. He gave a
silent prayer for his fallen comrade and turned and pushed his way through the
panicked crowd.
He fought through the crowd and they fell back
before him, all too aware of his guns. He scanned the rooftops behind him, and
caught sight of a lean man with his face masked leap from one angled rooftop to
another, following him. The man darted back before he could so much as raise his
gun. Hamar cursed. How many of the bastards were there?
He looked ahead, and in the milling crowd saw a
lone priest trying to calm the folk, limping from one panic-stricken person to
another. The priest was dressed in the fashion of the priesthood, a black robe
with the bottom half of his face covered. Hamar could have laughed at the
priests attempts to calm this wild herd. He looked behind him, saw a figure
leaping from one roof to another, exposed at last, and raised his gun.
He felt the blade as it sliced into his chest.
He looked before him, and stared into the priest’s cold, green eyes.
Hamar struggled to breathe, but all that came
from his mouth were froths of blood. The priest moved before him in fluid
motion with no hint of a limp and planted a knife in the nape of his neck.
Hamar fell to the ground, life fading, and the last sight before his eyes was
that of the priest’s calm gaze looking down on him.
His last thought was of Alexis and the boys.
5
The Legionnaire led the boys up the angled street
at as fast a run as the frenzied crowd allowed. The sound of the guns had some
raising their heads and looking about hoping to catch a glimpse of the source.
The sound of those gunshots worried Alexis. Cold anger that he was not doing
anything to help his comrades swelled in him. It was an effort for him to keep
moving and not simply turn back.
“Alexis, what’s going on?” Adrian asked.
“I don’t know,” Alexis told him absently, hating
the worry that tinged his own voice. He couldn’t help but feel a coward.
I
should be helping them!
But underneath the anger and the feelings of
cowardice lay a deep shame as well; he desperately wanted to turn back and
prove himself. He reminded himself firmly that this was not the time.
They ran through the sea of people, with Alexis
looking over his shoulder every few steps. Each shot they heard caused their
heads to jerk around towards the noise. They continued to run, pushing through
the curious and frightened throng of Haven. Then they heard three consecutive
shots, and Alexis stopped for a moment. He looked back the way they had come,
but there was nothing to be seen through the crowd. For a few moments his heart
was still, and the desire to go back and see if that had been the end of it was
almost too great to ignore, but he resisted the urge.
They continued to run, and after those few shots
they heard nothing.
They had left their horses behind, with them it
would have been near impossible to get through the crowd, but Alexis wished
that they had them as they came out onto the Great Road. He looked both ways of
the wide highway frantically, trying to decide which way to go. He looked east
and west, but the road was too open, they could easily be ridden down and shot
whichever way they went. He came to a decision at last.
“Into the woods,” he said, and darted across the
road, pulling the boys along with him.
“What about Hamar and Owain?” Connor panted.
“They’re better Legionnaires than me, so enough
with the questions!”
The three disappeared into the green embrace of
the forest.
6
When all was said and done that eventful morning
in Haven, three bodies littered the streets. When the Haven Guard arrived, they
found only the dead. The people stood far back and watched as the Guard
searched the bodies. They were eager to watch, but none wanted to be close
enough to inherit the blame. While a few were searching the bodies the others
went around the gathered crowd to gain an account of what had happened. No one
seemed to know what had occurred, however. The many tales that were told were
all baffled ramblings, and many simply contradicted one another.
Among the crowd of watchers was a small girl and
a tall, rigid man. They watched the Guard search the bodies, and then watched
as the deceased were carried away on the back of wagons.
“The boy and the other Legionnaire escaped,”
said the girl as they walked away. “I should have kept a better watch.” Her
dark hair fell to her shoulders in straight waves, framing a small heart-shaped
face with large green eyes, tilted as were the man’s. She wore a loose tunic
and carried a wicker pack on her back.
“Yes, you should have, but not to worry,” said
the man. “They cannot go far.” His dark hair was closely cropped and looked
disheveled, as though he had just awoken that moment. His small, tilted black
eyes scanned everything with a perpetual tightness that made onlookers shy away
from his gaze. Lean and tall, he moved with the intensity of a wolf.
“We don’t know where they went, Amon,” the girl
said.
“I said not to worry about it,” the man growled.
“We have plenty of time to catch up to them. And when we next meet ...” he
sighed deeply as if tired, “... they will wish they had died this day.”
1
The water was calm and quiet, the king saw.
His own face stared back at him from the black
water, illuminated by the lamps on the walls. The green eyes were the only
features that he could recall from his youth. His face had grown fuller with
age, and he had a beard now which covered the lower half of his face, a light yellow
tinged with gray, as was his hair.
Aeiron Methoran wondered then how long he had
been there, forestalling all his other duties to stare into the plinth of black
water, hoping it would wake and show him a glimpse of what was happening, or
what was to come. Anything to prepare him or help him. But there was only the
blackness of the still water. He resisted the thought that perhaps that was the
answer the Krillen wished to show him and that he should simply accept it.
“My lord?”
Aeiron turned to find Nemar standing in the open
doorway to the small room. Behind the seer he could see the guard on duty.
Nemar entered cautiously, reading his face.
“It hasn’t shown anything?”
Aeiron straightened from the plinth and looked
to the seer. “Nothing.”
“A sign that nothing has gone wrong, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” said Aeiron, though he didn’t believe
it. What he did believe was that the Krillen showed what it wanted and only
when it wanted to. God knew the damn thing didn’t have a mind of its own, but
that was how it felt to Aeiron.
And how else would something from the Ruins
work?
He wondered if it was desperateness or foolishness that had led his
ancestors to steal this small bit of water from Urd’s Well, before it was lost
completely to the Ruins. A little bit of both, he decided as he left the lone
chamber with Nemar at his heels. Aeiron nodded to the small boy that stood
outside in the hall. There was always a page waiting outside with the guard, to
run and fetch Nemar or the King should the Krillen light up. An important but
dull duty, the king knew.
“Have you had any word from Hamar?” Aeiron
asked.
“Not since the last, your highness, before they
left Port Hope.”
Aeiron sighed inside. He hadn’t expected much,
but it was difficult to be unaware of what was happening. They had sent their
plan rolling into motion, now they waited to see if it would succeed or veer
off course and crumble. The halls they walked were pure white with bass
carvings and paintings of scenes from the Great Book along the walls. Sunlight
poured in through the fluted colonnades along the outer wall. From outside and
below came the sounds of a bustling city, sweetened by the calls of birds in
the gardens filling the air.
Aeiron stopped and walked out onto one of the
balconies that interrupted the colonnade. The wind immediately tugged at his
velvet cloak, and made him glad for the thick garb he wore. It didn’t matter to
him how much silk he wore or how much thread-of-gold it was sewn with as long
as it did its job and kept him warm. This day he was dressed in an elegant
white coat and breeches, both of which he would have gladly traded for
something closer to Nemar’s simple garb if it wasn’t expected of him to dress
so. He leaned forward on the balustrade, and watched the guards on patrol
below. There were two Legionnaires among the regular guardsmen. Aeiron could
pick them out easily though they all wore white uniforms. The Legionnaires
walked with an assured calmness, a confidence in their skills. He looked to the
east, towards the Legion Compound that lay well away from the city. It was
there that raw recruits would be pushed to their limits, deal with their strict
teachers, and with one another. There they would be weeded out even further,
until only a few remained, and perhaps of those few some Legionnaires would
emerge. What stopped many from graduating was the test in the Forest of Trials,
but the tests were the same for everyone and he would not make it easier for
any of them. Aeiron wanted his Legion to be filled only with capable and superb
men.
“How many other countries have Legions of their
own, Nemar?” Aeiron asked.
Nemar thought on it a moment. “In Cahrad, only
Grandal and Arath-Dar, though there seems to be talk that Teihr might soon
start one. Xian-Anoura had a Legion once, but it fell apart, as you know. In
Naban ... I believe three countries, my lord.”
“And do you believe that a small group of men
can protect an entire country?” Aeiron asked with subtle calmness in his voice.
“Perhaps, your highness...,” Nemar said
cautiously. “But the Legion also inspires courage and patriotism in others.”
Aeiron said nothing. His seer was right, of
course; the Legion inspired others to believe in their country. It was why he
had created the Legion within only a year and a half of his rise to the throne,
though everyone around him had advised him against it. Still watching the guards
below, his voice still calm, he asked Nemar, “And how much faith do you have in
our Legion?”
“They uphold this country under your leadership,
your highness. Grandal’s Legion is known to be among the hardest group of men
anywhere in the world. It is why no one dares to try and invade us.”
Our army might also have something to do
with that
, Aeiron thought wryly. “Do you believe then
that three men of the Legion are enough to carry out what I have placed upon
them?”
Nemar remained quiet as he fought to think of a
reply. Aeiron could see the seer trying to state what he believed in an
acceptable manner.
“Perhaps,” said Nemar at last. He licked his
lips. “If I may ask, your highness, why only send three to guard the child?”
Aeiron suddenly felt too weary for talk. He had
gone over this very question countless times in his mind. He let out a tired
sigh. “Because too many would have been noticed sooner. We both know that there
are spies in Grandal, spies for Fuilla, for Gregory, for Jerome, and for every
other king and queen and lord that gets it in his mind that he wants to learn
what is happening here. They have their spies, and we have ours. But this is
too important a task to let the others know about and possibly damn us all. You
can’t know how many nights I spent waking, wondering whether to tell the others
of what the Krillen had shown us. In the end I based my judgment on my heart.
So I sent three; where more would have been noticed and remarked, three seemed
enough to guard the boy and seem inconspicuous.”
“I see,” Nemar said, deep in thought. “And what
of King Robert, your highness? Did you decide to tell him? We could use Teihr’s
aid in this.”
Aeiron kept his silence for several moments as
he conferred on his doubts. “I sent a letter once Hamar and Owain had left,
explaining to Robert everything the Krillen had shown us. He is the only other
king I can think of who might be willing to do the right thing and not plot his
own rise to greatness ... and yet for all that I still wonder if I am in right
in telling him.”
But then, am I right in withholding this information from
the rest of the world?