Shadow Of The Mountain (34 page)

Karin was leaning against the entranceway, folding up a fresh bed sheet. She was always busy, even during times such as this.

“Well?” she asked quietly, as if the rider were still close enough to hear. “Was it Stupid?”

“Nope.”

“Ugly then?”

She nodded.

“So you’re probably right,” Karin told her. “They’re taking turns keeping an eye on this part of the wall every hour or so. I thought it was random chance, but this seems to be a routine of theirs.”

“Yes, very much a routine,” Natalia said absently, unstringing her bow and sliding the arrow into her quiver hanging from a closet door handle. There was something about the word that stuck with her: routine.

Routines could be exploited. But how?

The first time the horse had approached three nights prior had almost stopped her heart. She was sure the sound of the animal was bringing their death sentences with it, like a trumpet heralds an execution. No one else would be mounted in the capital, except for those who’d invaded it.

Natalia had waited and listened. She knew shouts would soon come from outside, and torches would cast their wavering shadows up through the open windows. How they were discovered would not matter. The furniture below would be thrown about as men kicked their paltry barrier aside, the sounds of it echoing up to them before it was replaced by the stomp of boots hammering up the stairs.

But none of these things had happened, and the rider had continued on his way until all was quiet once more. From then on, once every so often, a mounted soldier trotted by their wall looking for anyone foolish enough to be caught in his sights.

They would watch the soldiers pass from above, hidden in the shadows of night. Sometimes it was the large man who had just come, whom they’d begun referring to as Ugly. Other times it was a skinny one, with tightly cut brown hair and a crooked nose. He held a loaded crossbow in one hand, the butt of which rested against a thigh as he rode. This one they dubbed Stupid.

Truth be told, Stupid was uglier than Ugly, but they’d named him first so there wasn’t much point to changing anything.

Stupid and Ugly. One or the other, but so far never both.

“I don’t like them,” Karin told her. “I wish their names were Gone and Never-Coming-Back.”

“I don’t like them either,” she answered, an idea beginning to blossom in her head. “Although…they may be able to help us.”

***

“Are you certain this is wise, my lady?” Karin asked fretfully.

They were outside on the edge of the balcony, with hazy sunlight pouring down on them through a cloud of smoke that hung over the capital. Argos was clumsily climbing down a rope of knotted bed sheets they’d tied to one of the statues.

“Wise? No.”

Everything had happened so quickly. The idea formed in her head and she rushed it to fruition. There was no time to analyze. They needed action, a direction. They needed out of the city. Staying put would see them dead.

Climbing down the bed sheets was first and then they were to hide in the woods. Those were the easy parts. With Ugly’s passing, the three of them had less than an hour, and getting caught unprepared would mean trouble.

Argos was a short distance from the ground when he released his grip, dropping the rest of the way. He landed like a sack of rocks, making Karin and Natalia wince.

Falling to his side, he cried out painfully before it turned into an angry laugh.

“Will you shut up?” she snapped at him from the balcony. “You said you could make the climb yourself! Now look out.”

She held his axe out upside down by the haft and let it drop. The weapon fell, blades sinking into the packed earth. The warrior struggled up to his feet, groaning from the pain. Wearily he gripped the haft and swung it over his shoulder, sliding the blade into the leather case at his back.

“You’re next, Karin,” Natalia told her.

“No, you go next. I’ll follow.”

“No,” she countered sharply. “You are next. I’ll follow you.”

“And why should that be the order?”

“Because when you refuse to climb down, I won’t be able to shove you off the ledge if I’m already on the ground.”

“Odd, isn’t it, that your reason for going after me is the same reason I’d rather you went first? What’s that called? A paradox?”

“Karin, I love you with all my heart, but in ten seconds I’m going to tie one end of this sheet to your ankle and kick you off the balcony. Is that understood?”

Karin blew a loose strand of hair out of her face before hiking up her trousers. “No need for threats now.” She threw her shoulder bag off the side and swung her legs over the stone balustrade. “We all want the same thing. To wake up from this nightmare.”

Gripping the sheet, she said a silent prayer before sliding down with a startled yelp.

Natalia looked over the edge and saw Karin had landed safely. Argos was already near the tree line, stumbling off into the woods.

“What is he doing now?” she mumbled to herself. “Karin! Go make sure he doesn’t get lost!”

Dropping Argos’s bag over the edge, she followed it with her bow and quiver. Hauling the bed sheet up, Natalia untied it from the statue and threw it back inside. Swinging her body over the ledge, she nimbly climbed down, using cracks and rain slits in the wall as foot and handholds. In moments she was on the ground.

Gathering her gear, she ran into the woods. After a short jog beneath the trees she found Argos sitting at the base of an elm and Karin trying to give him a little water from her bag. The warrior was unresponsive, having passed out again from the pain.

“That was not fun,” Karin said, corking her water.

Natalia wrapped an arm around her neck and kissed her on the cheek. “This next part is going to be even worse.”

***

Karin stood out in the open near the tree line, watching the massive clouds and spires of smoke that reached up from her home. The wall of the city before her looked so smooth when you were on the outside of it. It was unsettling, wrapping around either side of her, extending out of sight, no openings or entrances to speak of. Just a wall to her front and forest to her back. Few places to run, nowhere to hide.

She saw the rider before hearing him, appearing on her left. Even from this distance, she could tell it was Ugly again. His bulk was distinguishable atop the speckled mare, and as he neared her, she could see the great sword strapped to his back, looking altogether like the longest sword in the world. The sight of him filled her with dread.

Had she wanted it to be Stupid? Sure, Stupid had the crossbow, but he was so much smaller than this giant.

Ugly saw her and increased his speed, the mount kicking up dust on his approach.

Yes, she would have preferred it to be Stupid.

Frantically, she waved him toward her.

“Help!” Karin called, her voice cracking from the tension. “Over here! I need help!”

The man slowed as he neared, drawing the heavy sword from his scabbard. His eyes scanned the surrounding woods.

“Are you all alone out here, little lady?” he asked in a thick eastern accent. “None o’ your friends about?”

“It’s my man,” Karin told him. “He’s sick. Been poisoned, I think.”

Ugly rested the tip of his sword in the grass, the weapon long enough for him to lean a wrist against the cross-guard. He was in his late thirties, with angry brown eyes and a large red boil rising from the center of his chin. The ride to her had loosened the leather holding his long, dirt-blond hair back, and now much of it floated about his face like thin cobwebs.

He really was the Uglier of the two, Karin decided.

His horse let out a snort, tossing its mane. “Just you and your sick man? Where did you come from?”

“I’ll do whatever you want, just please help him!”

She began to move back into the woods.

“Stay!” he snarled at her, lifting the long sword up as if it were only a dry tree branch. “Stay right where you are!”

“He’s over here,” Karin told him, pointing into the woods. “He needs help.” She moved off again.

“I said stay where you--”

Natalia rose from the bushes on his right, close enough to reach out and touch him, arrow already notched, bow already bent.

She aimed and released.

The arrow leapt out with a snap, driving through the side of his throat and up into his jaw.

Karin saw the barbed tip punch through his cheek before he fell from his saddle.

The horse bolted, startled from all the sudden movement.

“Karin!” Natalia cried out. “Go after the horse--”

Ugly rolled to his back, awkwardly swinging his sword out at their feet, but he was too far away and the weapon cleaved into the bushes. The women both backed further out of reach.

Blood and fear of death had transformed Ugly’s face, making it bloated and red. His mouth hung open, eyes glazing over and watery. The wound to his throat was streaming out crimson and he placed a free hand against his neck to stem the flow. Blood gushed down his arm and stained the front of his tunic. Each breath he took was a nightmarish gargle of bubbles and gags, the sounds filling the quiet forest around them.

Rolling over, his hands scratched at the ground, fighting to get to his feet, sword forgotten.

Karin came in with a melon-sized rock held above her head. Giving the stone a great throw, she struck him on the collar, just missing his face by inches.

Visibly terrified, he scrambled to his feet with a painful sob and took off back toward the wall.

Natalia rushed into the bushes and pulled another arrow from her hidden quiver. By the time she had it notched and drew back, he was over twenty paces distant, still shambling away in a pitiful manner.

Lining him up and reigning in her breaths, she exhaled slowly and released.

The arrow streaked through the air to hammer into his back, entering just above the empty scabbard that bounced to and fro with each step he took. Out from the trees and once more under the sun, his legs buckled and he fell in a heap.

Retrieving her quiver, she looped it around her neck and drew another arrow as she ran toward him. Ugly wasn’t moving, but she approached him with care, bow bent and ready.

He’d landed on his side and was covered in dust and blood. Her first arrow still stuck out from his throat, wobbling gently with each of his remaining breaths. The arrow from behind had missed the heart, and he rolled to his back as she came near, his weight eventually snapping the shaft as he lay flat.

Natalia looked at his face and instantly wished she hadn‘t.

His long hair was wild and tossed every which way, his lower jaw trembling. Less blood was pumping from his neck now, trickling out like a thin stream of rain down a windowpane. His tunic was stained dark and trousers wet with urine. He watched her for what felt like an eternity before closing his eyes. She saw tears running down his dusty cheeks.

Karin arrived next to her, the rock once more in her grasp. She lifted it above her head.

“Best turn away now, my lady,” she said with a hard voice that Natalia had never heard before.

Ugly’s eyes opened and looked up at the rock, then darted to Natalia, round and full of terror, begging for…what? Mercy? Help?

Holding her gaze, he brought a limp hand to his chest and tapped the spot near his heart. The move seemed to drain all strength from him and the arm fell away.

“No,” Natalia halted her. “I’ll do it.”

The wood of her lewth bow groaned as she drew back, aiming for the place on his chest he’d asked for, aiming for the heart.

Looking at this dying man, she didn’t see someone who’d burnt her city, who’d murdered her people and destroyed her home. She saw no evil in him at all. He had the scared eyes of a little boy, just a child.

Natalia knew that somewhere, at some point in time, he had been a baby, with tiny fingers and tiny toes and parents who held him in their arms and loved him. He would have been their world, their joy, their purpose. They would have kept him warm and away from harm, tucked him in at night, kissing his forehead as he slept. He was their everything.

And now she was to kill him.

Her arms shook from the strain of the bent bow and she closed her eyes to try and hide from what she had to do. Suddenly there was an image of Kreiden coming up behind her, wrapping his strong arms around her in an embrace. She could feel him there, watching her, with her. Tears welled up with nowhere to go.

“I curse you,” she whispered angrily, the tears springing free as she opened her eyes. “For coming here and making me do this. I curse you all.”

Natalia let fly and her arrow thudded into his heart. Ugly’s mouth opened in a solitary moan, then his body relaxed to stillness.

***

Natalia led the way through the northern forests, moving at a steady run. It took her two miles to find one of the slender game trails she and Kreiden used for lengthy treks in the spring and fall. All the valleys between the mountains were crisscrossed with them, you just needed to know where to look.

Behind her cantered Ugly’s dapple-gray mare weighed down by Argos, Karin, and their meager supplies. They’d hid Ugly’s body as best they could, but time was not on their side and the task had been done poorly. Someone would be looking for him, and if they looked hard enough, they’d find him.

Distance is what they needed now. Away from the burning capital and deeper into the northern woods. Wiping a sleeve across her sweat-covered forehead, she tossed a look back.

Argos sat in the saddle with the handmaiden behind him, her arms clasped around his waist to keep him from falling off. He looked like death, gaunt and pale. They had him chewing on the remaining Axian leaves, but the young man wasn’t even conscious most of the time. His minutes were running out.

She ran harder.

Kreiden had taken her hiking out here once. They’d spent the night on Landis Lake and he’d pointed out the mountain refuge to her amidst the white-tipped peaks in the distance. He had spoken of the Gambit with reverence, as if it were holy ground. After surviving the assassination attempt against Healianos in their barracks, Kreiden had quietly struggled with the trauma of the event. She knew that fitful sleep had eluded the young warrior for a time. Kreiden would later tell her that the Gambit was one of the few places he had felt secure, protected, in the days following the attack. For her husband, it had truly become a sanctuary in the clouds.