14 – 5
The street is hauntingly lifeless. A smear of baleful moonlight stains a pale swathe down mist-laden cobblestones and casts long, pale shadows off the lampposts that line them. Every wick is as cold and dark as the buildings we pass by; the echo of our steps silenced in the banks of vapor swirling around our feet. The air is still and hushed, as if the lake itself dare not breathe.
We come to a corner; Juliana pressing us against it with a long sweep of her arm. I tuck my fingers into her belt and Clarke curls hers around my elbow. This is the third corner we've come to, the third one we've stopped at, and the third time Juliana has peered around the edge. Before now, there'd been nothing to see; no watchful eyes in curtained, candlelit windows or bored, yawning guardsmen on patrol. She pulls back, leans her head against the wall, and sighs through her nose.
What did she see? I get her attention by tugging her belt; look up at her and hope what I want to know is clear on my face. She leans down to whisper, Clarke crowding in behind me to hear, “Guards, three of 'em.”
Clarke's grip on me tightens. “Are they coming this way?” she asks, hushed.
Juliana shakes her head. “They're stationary,” she answers, “not a patrol.”
“How do we get past them?!” I whisper. We need to keep moving; every moment spent standing here is one we could be found in. Juliana takes a moment for a second look. A shrill, honking laugh drifts down to us.
“Now!” she hisses, and darts out into the street. We follow; pulled by a hand tucked into a belt and another dug into an elbow. It's about fifteen feet of open road to cross until we are safely out of sight once more. In the corner of my eye, I see them: three men in Guardsman's garb standing around a lantern set on the ground. They're slapping each other's shoulders and laughing, paying no mind to their surroundings, yet I am convinced that this will be the stride where they see us; this one, then this one, and then we're across.
Out of sight. For now.
Juliana staggers to a lamppost and leans heavily against it; pressing her flushed, sweating face to the cold metal and breathing harshly through her nose. She allows herself three, each deeper and slower than the last, before pulling away from the post. “I'm fine,” she rasps. She wipes the sweat from her brow with her sleeve and turns, waving for us to follow. The next stretch of sheltered road passes in a silence broken by her increasingly ragged breathing and dragging strides.
Clarke squeezes my elbow as we slow to check the next intersection; draws my attention to the alarm and shock in her eyes. How did we miss this, she seems to ask?
How did we? We're already up against the wall when Juliana sweeps her arm back. She passes a tired, pleased smile over her shoulder before sliding ahead to take her narrow-eyed peek around the corner. We missed it because we were meant to, I should think; because she hid it from us and now, no longer can. She ducks back, shakes her head, and across we go.
It's a dead end anyway: a two-storied house with dark, shuttered windows. Our next chance for a path to the docks is up ahead. We have to take it. If we don't, we'll have to come close to one of the city's two remaining gates. Merigold had made a point of assigning a large number of her Guardsmen to both, far too many for us to risk it.
Handcarts line the street, no more than a dozen; each one filled with piles of nets, spools of line, and boxes of hooks and leaden weights. The pungent smell of fish fills the air. We're close. Juliana's slowed to the point that the three of us are side-by-side. It's easy to catch her eye. “Here,” I gasp, flapping my hand at the upcoming intersection. She jerks her head in a nod.
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We slow to a stop, breathing hard. If this intersection is a compass, we stand on the line of east-to-west; south is to our left; and north, to our right. Our heading is north, but it's from the south that comes what we've feared and awaited since we began: the sights and sounds of a patrol on approach. Clarke and I freeze. Juliana seizes us by the backs of our necks and hauls us as deep into the shadows as possible. Their sounds grow louder; their lights, brighter. “We can't stay here,” I whisper.
Juliana grunts. Then she's pushing us ahead and we're turning north. I catch a glimpse of the patrol; a half-dozen men with lanterns in hand and leather-wrapped clubs on their belts. They haven't seen us. If we do this right, they never will. They'll turn west on the compass and join their fellows at the gate.
I hear the lake ahead of us, the gentle slap of little waves on dock and shore.
We're so close.
- - -
We make three paces; just three. That's when the price of Juliana's over-extending herself comes due.
It starts small, nothing more than a stumble quickly righted. For a moment we are allowed to believe that its fine; then her fingers dig deep into my shoulder and pull, hard and sudden, towards the street. I keep my balance until the side of my boot catches on a sunken cobblestone. My ankle twinges as the force of that pull twists me; gives full visibility to the awful sight of Juliana falling; falling, and taking us with her. Clarke cries out in dismay, I in pained surprise, and either would be enough to give us away.
We land hard in a sprawl of limbs, Clarke draped over me atop Juliana. I can feel her trembling beneath me; tremors running through muscles once as strong and solid as stone. “I'm sorry,” she gasps. I can feel the damp warmth of her sweat-through clothes, “I – I'm sorry.”
Not nearly far enough away, one of the Guardsmen calls out, “Who's that, then?” It's followed by, “Do you see that, there?” to one of his peers. They must. They get louder and faster.
Clarke is rolling off my legs as I sit up. “Forget it,” I say to Juliana, coming up to crouch at her side. “Give me your hand.”
She does, weakly slapping her palm into mine; Clarke at her other side, hauling on her shoulder and elbow. We sit her up together. She's pale, woozy, and utterly, utterly exhausted. Clarke gives me a worried look that I return. “I didn't mean to,” Juliana assures us.
“We know,” Clarke answers her, “it's alright. Now come on, we're almost there!”
It takes all three of us to get her back on her feet, her arms limp across our shoulders. The patrol is now close enough that the light of their lamps illuminate us in full. I can't see their faces, but they know ours well enough. One of them shouts, “It's them! Sound the whistle!”
A high, warbling shrill splits the night. Almost immediately it is echoed by one more distant; in turn, echoed by one further still. “Stay where you are,” a different Guardsman orders, “it'll go better for you if you cooperate.”
I meet Clarke's eyes. Her fear and fury have turned them a pale, icy blue. A shiver trails its cold finger down my spine. She lifts her free hand, streamers of frost curling from her palm.
“She's using magic!” a Guardsman cries.
“Close your eyes,” she says. I do.
The brightest, most brilliant light I have ever seen erupts into the dark of night. Cries of surprise, fear, and pain come from the Guardsmen. I blink the spots from my eyes and see them recoiling; wiping the tears streaming from their open, sightless eyes. If the Goddess is listening, I have but one prayer for Her: make it permanent.
“Run,” Juliana rasps. We lurch into a slow, stumbling gait. The sounds of the lake grow louder; so too do the birdlike cries of those whistles. They're getting closer, catching up, and soon will have surrounded us. We must be gone from here before then. We must.
The cobblestone street gives way to wooden planks, warped and splintered from years of lake-water and sunlight. Boats float in their berths; the creak of their mooring cleats joining the chorus of sounds that promise freedom and safety. We need only reach them.
“Which one?” I ask, gasping for air. Three Guardsmen at full sprint round a building to the east. Clarke cries out her warning and flicks her gathered power into the air. The world turns white, even behind my closed lids.
“This one,” Juliana answers, jerking her chin at the nearest. She pulls free of our support and staggers over to it. One of the blinded three fumbles a whistle from around his neck and blows it. Answers comes, loud and swift, from the south and the east. They're closing us in. “Hurry!” she shouts hoarsely, “Get in!”
The fishing boat rocks as Clarke drops in without trouble. She rushes to the front and begins to unwind the rope holding boat to berth. Juliana works at the other, her shaking hands making a fumble of the task. I kneel and bat her efforts away, bending my own to the soaked, swollen rope. Stop, the Guard cries, stop what you're doing!
Clarke finishes with her end. She turns back to help Juliana into the boat. Whatever she sees behind me makes her eyes widen and her hand fall to the hollow of her throat. “No!” she shouts, “Don't!”
I look over my shoulder. The Guardsman's face is twisted into a sneer, his eyes alight with vicious glee. He holds a crossbow in his hands. The point of its bolt is aimed steadily at my back. Fear stills me; my hands falling to my sides. This close, he cannot miss. We are caught.
Coda
Got you.