Valen turned and shouted across the battlements, “Fall back!” Other soldiers echoed his cry, eager to be behind a stone wall and under a roof.
“Go on.” Valen looked at the man, wondering why he remained. “Get everyone inside.” Valen saw the man’s uniform, trying to determine his rank, and realized this was not a soldier from his army at all. Underneath the blue velvet overcoat was a white shirt and overalls. He was a villager who wore a lowly officer’s coat and had come to fight.
“What about you, Your Highness?”
Valen wondered if he should say anything about the man’s station and decided against it. If he wanted to fight, then so be it. They needed all the men they could get.
The man stood in front of him, awaiting his answer. Valen wiped sweat from his forehead. “I’m not going in until everyone out here is safely behind those walls.”
But the counterfeit soldier refused to leave. He stepped toward Valen, blocking his path. “Sir, you must be protected. You must be the first to go back.”
“That’s the damndest thing I’ve ever heard. I have to man these battlements.” Valen pushed forward but the man grabbed his arm.
“No, Your Highness. We need you alive. We need a leader.”
Valen froze in place with the man’s words. His father had died only a few moments ago and it hadn’t sunk in he was their new king. In fact, if something happened to him, the next in line would be Bellanina, and she wasn’t even old enough to lace her own slippers. He might as well put her bunnyfly in charge. Ducking under the overhang of the turret, Valen realized just how important his decisions and actions were.
“You’re right.” He stumbled back, his hurt arm falling to dangle limply at his side as the battle stress caught up to him and weariness set in.
The man supported his weight. “I’ll see to it all remaining soldiers get inside.”
Before Valen could react, two passing healers ushered him down the twirling stone staircase leading from the turret to the inner battlements. As he looked back, he saw the velvet-coated back of the fake soldier as he entered the cloud of mist.
* * * *
“What do we do? Run across the courtyard, out in the open?” The healer turned to Valen with eyes wild with fear. They’d reached the bottom of the turret. The mist had seeped over the fortress walls and was flooding the main square. A hundred meters separated them from the fortified training hall.
Valen peered out into the mist, seeing only vague shadows. “We have to. We can’t stay here. There isn’t any food or water, and we don’t know how long we’ll be trapped.”
The healer was reluctant to go. “Can’t we wait until help gets here?”
“We are the help.” Valen put a hand on her shoulder and surveyed the ragtag group following him. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
He wondered how many Elyndra had managed to get past the remaining soldiers on the walls. If any had made it through, the soldiers would be picked off like deer in an open field. He didn’t think the healers or the wounded would be able to outrun them.
Valen shouted to the crowd flooding the stairway, “Are there any archers left?”
“Yes, sir.” Valen recognized the young man as John Hall, barely graduated from the academy.
“Will you cover us as we run across?”
The young man nodded and pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back. “I’ll do the best I can.”
“Good.” Valen tried to summon a reassuring smile. “Once we’re out of sight, run like Hell’s on your heels, you hear me?”
John nodded, taking position in the doorway. “I will, Your Highness.”
“Come on.” Valen took the old healer’s arm. “Let’s go.”
Running through the mist was like a strange, ethereal dream, the courtyard turning into an otherworldly cloud city. It was eerie and calm, unlike the chaos raging behind them on the crumbling walls.
“Stay together,” Valen ordered between heaves of air. He dragged both old women forward as they huddled under their healers’ shawls, half-paralyzed by fear. Behind him, he could hear faint shifts of wind as John fired shafts of arrows through the air.
A man screamed to his right, and Valen whirled around in time to see him plucked from the flagstone, his legs dangling in the air, grasping for the ground. Another solider went to help, but Valen held him back. “It’s useless. We have to keep going.” The healer on his left arm sobbed, but Valen pulled her along.
The remaining survivors retreated in a cluster. Up above, they could still hear John’s arrows as they found their targets. Valen was thankful the archer had a good eye and aim.
When they reached the supply hall, it was empty. Valen ushered the soldiers in as fast as he could, watching the sky above. He waited for John, leaving the door open halfway and praying the young lad had managed to run behind them. In a few moments, the archer appeared out of nowhere, spooking Valen for a split second as he threw his body against the door.
“Well done, John.” Valen patted him gently on the back.
The archer shook his head, steadying himself and gasping for air. “That was close.”
“It’s because of you we are all here alive.”
John waved him away with his bow. “Nonsense. It’s because of you, Your Highness, that we’ve made it this far.”
Valen felt a pang of gratitude. His eyes brimmed with tears, but he held them back. There was no time for emotional exchanges.
After he secured the door behind him, Valen turned and surveyed the room. There were a dozen soldiers, all in varying conditions, and two healers—the remnants of Ravencliff’s great and illustrious army. He hoped the others had made it off the battlements and found an alternate hiding place.
He was glad to see Allyn there. Although he was uninjured, dark circles framed his eyes. Valen remembered with a sharp pang the young man’s father was also gone.
Suppressing a wave of grief, Valen looked at the men with the least serious wounds. “Help me board the windows. Put anything you can in their way, but leave a hole big enough for us to see out. John, keep watch outside. If anyone is alive out there, cover them as they find shelter.”
“Yes, sir.”
Valen saw the stronger of the two healers rummaging around. She counted the cans and bottles, making lists. “How many supplies do we have?” He eyed the small cupboards. This was a weapons depot. It was not used for the storage of food or water. What was left were the soldier’s packed lunches, a few bags of rice and a pitcher of ale.
The old woman’s lips quivered. “With fifteen people, two days, at most.”
“Ration the food.” Valen pointed toward a table at the far end. “Give priority to the weak and wounded.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” The healer bowed her head and collected the supplies. Valen hoped his instructions gave her strength. He could use some strength himself. Their fate rested in his hands now.
Valen picked his way through the throng of wounded soldiers to gaze through the small hole in the boards. Mist drowned the courtyard and he felt as though his castle had been dropped into another land.
“What will we do, Your Highness?” John clutched his quiver. Less than a dozen arrows were left. He found a crude knife and began sharpening the end of a few scraps of wood for makeshift arrows.
“Wait.” Valen thought of Star, riding her midnight horse through the countryside, her white hair shining behind her like a celestial flag. “There is still hope left.”
Identification Tags
The ruby pendant disappeared into the sphere. Nothing happened and Star lowered her shoulders in defeat. The sphere likely disintegrated the ruby before it could cause a disturbance in the field. She turned to the Forgotten One, expecting to see an expression of relief, but his features were tinged with fear. He stared at the globe as if it would explode right there and kill them both.
A crackling sound tickled her ears and she smelled sulfurous smoke. Star whirled back around and saw dark, tiny bursts peppering the sphere’s surface, like sun spots. The dark blobs spread as fast as spilled ink, spiraling out in ebony ripples in dark, ominous tides. Tiny explosions disturbed the surface, sending sparks flying through the air like falling stars. The humming pulsated now, becoming louder with each sound wave.
She ducked and shielded her face with her arm. It didn’t take a scientist to know the sphere had lost its equilibrium and could not be contained. Soon the pressure would force it to burst.
She unsheathed her dagger and cut the rope holding the man’s heels together. “Go on! Get out of here.”
The man refused to move. She pulled him up, but his limbs fell limp. “It doesn’t matter now. All is lost. Everything I’ve ever worked for is done.”
Star shook his arm. “Why can’t our people be different? Why can’t we change our fate?”
The man shook his head slowly, as if he knew so much and she, so little. “You are just like all the rest of them, don’t you see? Too nice to set rules on life.” He looked as if he’d told her she had some grotesque disease. “Your heart is too big.”
Tears streaked Star’s face. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
The man closed his eyes. “William Wordsworth had it right, two thousand and eight hundred years back in 1802.” He then recited lines, as if he chanted a spell that would undo all that Star had done.
The world is too much with us, late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
Little we see in Nature that is ours,
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
Star took his arm and tried to drag him up, but a large spark from the sphere barreled toward them, landing on the console like a meteor and setting all the wires aflame. The force of the explosion threw Star backward underneath the tables. She landed several feet away. Rubbing her bruised elbow, she heard the man scream and looked up with horror. The orb grew larger with each second. It had engulfed the area around it with its spinning particles, absorbing the console.
The man shouted, “Now only you know the truth!” As he spoke, he vanished into the orb’s light as if he’d never existed at all.
Star pulled herself out from under the table and scrambled to her feet. Without looking back, she threw herself into the hallway and stumbled down the metal corridor, falling each time another explosion hit. The air behind her grew so hot she thought her hair would burn. Smoke poured around her and she had to feel her way down the first stairwell, coughing until her lungs ached.
It seemed like she would never outrun the explosion. Cables and hoses fell from the ceiling, tangling her arms and legs as she ran. Steam blew in hot bursts of air over her head, the pipes exploding under the pressure. Somewhere behind her, she heard a man scream.
She descended level after level of burning inferno. She counted her steps, two at a time, trying to make sense of the structure and ensure she headed toward the exit.
Another explosion hit and Star tumbled onto the floor. The machine retched like an earthquake rumbled underneath it. A puff of smoke filled the air. Star coughed and wheezed, spitting ash. Dizziness threatened to overtake her and she forced herself to breath deeply until she could regain a measure of control.
When the air cleared, she opened her eyes and screamed. A man lay on the floor beside her, the back of his head crushed by a fallen panel from the ceiling. Star looked into his vacant eyes, noticed his freshly shaven skin, and watched as the blood trickled down across his forehead, funneling around his ear. Underneath his chin was the same clasp on his robe with the pewter engraving of the man with the beast. Star took the metal inscription in her hand and ripped it from his robe in one clean yank. She would need it for proof when she got back.
If she got back.
A rumbling tremor threatened another seismic quake. Star picked herself up, dropped the clasp into her pocket and continued her sprint to safety. The air felt cooler as she ran and she knew she was close to the outside. A fresh breeze flooded in, and she turned the corner and saw the hallway where she came in, the door carelessly left open. Star felt a pang of guilt for leaving Windracer out there and silently prayed her horse was safe.
She stopped at the threshold of the machine. Fires raged below her in all directions and she felt as though she stood witness to the end of the world. She looked for Leer but her eyes played tricks on her. In one instant, she saw the burning outline of a horse. The next it was just flames, all-consuming, with nothing left.
She heard Windracer’s whinny and saw the black horse pulling back on the reins tying her to the rock wall. The fires spread and soon she would also be in danger. Star ran across the front of the machine to Windracer. “We’re going to be all right!”
Star untied the reins and jumped on Windracer’s back. There was no way down to the cocoons, and no way to tell if Leer had made it. Smoke and flame filled the entire gorge and the machine would soon blow. She had to get out of the canyon before it exploded. There was nowhere else to go.
Sniffing back tears, Star kicked Windracer’s sides and they took off up the ledge. She kept looking over her shoulder only to see sparks fly through the haze as the machine gave its final chug of mist. As she ascended the path up to the ledge, Star stopped at the cavern where she and Leer had stayed the previous night, holding on to the distant hope he’d made it and was waiting for her.
Windracer offered a snort of protest, but Star led her up the ledge despite the raging fire growing below and the time bomb ticking at the canyon’s center. She passed the place where Leer had kissed her, and then the inner cavern where they’d made camp. The floor was still littered with their footprints, their sleeping bags placed side by side.
The cavern was empty. And she had just wasted more precious seconds.
Star looked at the opposite wall and stifled a sob. Leer had left his tags hanging on an outcropping, as if he already knew he wouldn’t live. She dismounted and ran over. Star took the tags in her palm, the metal chiming. She smoothed her fingertips over the indentations etched in silver. The numbers seemed random, but to her they held all the significance in the world. In a rash decision, she put the chain around her own neck, the tags resting between her breasts where Valen’s ruby heart once nestled.