Chapter 2 — Ignition
Cathal Leigh could feel his youth returning to him. He felt more alive as he wound through the crowded ballroom, dodging petitioners and intercepting wine trays, his footfalls in time with the music. The usual partygoers of Leighton were in lively spirits as they filled their bellies with spirits livelier still. They were the most influential members of the town—entrepreneurs, agronomists, grand ministers, town wardens—but it was to his home they congregated, to his manor that they came to kiss the ring.
Cathal was deciding to whom he would show courtly favor to, to whom he should give the pleasure of his conversation. It was his favorite game on nights like this, but tradition dictated that he spend most of this night in the company of one man in particular.
----------------------------------------
The center of Leighton was not some market square or central plaza or anything practical for how small a town it was. The center was a small hill, not particularly high nor steep, but just slightly taller than the hills neighboring it. And atop it squatted Leigh Manor, for where else ought a grand castle be built if not atop the most soaring of mountain peaks?
Rína stood at the base of the meager hill. It was the late evening and the moonlight was intermittent amongst the heavy clouds that promised snow. All the town was asleep save for those illuminating the manor windows.
A cold wind saw Rína pulling her cloak close around herself and her delivery. Despite the cold, sweat beaded on her brow and her lungs measured an aggressive rhythm.
Lit by the reveler’s light, Rína spied a servant boy fetching firewood from behind the manor. That was her cue.
Rína took a shaky breath, steadied herself, and began her assault on the heart of Leighton’s political power. But instead of a grand palace there was a waist-high fence of piled stone to keep livestock in, instead of a perilous climb there was an overgrazed lawn at a meager slope, and instead of a battalion of elite guards, there was an intoxicated partygoer spewing onto to lawn outside the front door.
----------------------------------------
Across the ballroom, Cathal spotted the man soon to be his newest father-in-law. It was queer for Cathal to think of Mr. Haig, a man several years his junior, as his father-anything, but that was just one of the many delightful quirks of language.
Without delay, he strode across the ballroom to a small group of partygoers with whom Mr. Haig was engaged.
“...but I heard that prior to that—” a supplicant prattled.
“Leave myself and Mr. Haig to speak in private.” Cathal let his will be known to the group.
The extraneous individuals proffered their dazzled gazes before absenting in a silent dispersion.
Mr. Haig cleared his throat, “Good evening Magister, I hope you are—”
“Yes, I am doing quite well. It would be difficult to not be in high spirits,” Cathal declared, giving Mr. Haig a hearty slap on the back, “Though I noticed your pretty little thing isn’t in attendance tonight.”
“Ríoghnach?” Mr. Haig shrugged, “I told her that she would be attending, but it would appear she has chosen to throw a tantrum.”
“It’s ultimately no matter,” Cathal excused magnanimously, “Some rebelliousness from girls her age is to be expected, but thankfully obedience can be taught at any time, even post-nuptial.” Cathal elucidated, wearing a lordly grin.
----------------------------------------
Rína kept out of sight as she circled around to the back of the manor. The word still irked her. Leigh Manor was truly a manor in name only. In truth it was an embellished log cabin. The exterior of the logs had been shaved flat, given a coat of off-white paint, and additional rooms had been added to either side of the original structure, but it was still a log cabin.
Her target was the back of the manor where firewood was piled high beneath the rear awning. As she approached she began to feel her pulse flaring through her body, every rustle on the wind was an unseen guard, and every raucous laugh was an alarm. Time seemed both sluggish and fleeting as she quietly walked the last handful of meters. With shaking hands and staccato breath, Rína made a cavity in the back row of firewood.
The cavity was just large enough for the small travel cask Rína carried under arm. It was filled with oil and was half of her delivery. She placed it in the cavity, opened its top, and pulled out the rest of her delivery: a clump of soft wax and two stoppered flasks, their contents pre-measured and ready to be mixed.
Then Rína hesitated.
She had told herself multiple times that she was crossing a point of no return. Creating the stash and go-bag beneath the Andreous’ floorboards was a point of no return. Creating the chemical fuse she now held in her hand was a point of no return. Making her way to where she now stood was a point of no return. But none of them truly were.
Lighting the fuse and escaping, however? She would not be able to undo that. She’d be irrevocably setting her life on a different course, for better or worse.
As she hesitated, Rína’s eyes drifted to a nearby window. The glass was cloudy, and it muffled the voices coming from the other side, but it was enough for Rína to make out the interior of the manor.
----------------------------------------
“Speaking of post-nuptial…” Mr. Haig led.
“Hmm? Oh yes,” Cathal nodded sagely, “Have no fear, we are still of one mind that the tracts of land being cleared ought be kept… in the family.” Cathal subtly winked as he indulged in a good natured chortle.
“Good, good…” Mr. Haig nodded before his eyes caught onto something over Cathal’s own shoulder, “Oh, good evening Mrs. Leigh.”
Cathal sighed inwardly, a premonition of a headache coming to his mind as he turned and similarly addressed his most vexing of wives.
“Good evening Mr. Haig, Magister,” Veronica said as she respectfully bowed.
“What is it?” Cathal queried in an attempt to move the conversation past the normal pleasantries.
Veronica’s lip twitched—the woman seemingly disappointed she would not be wasting more of his time.
“I just wanted to inform you that I will be turning in for the night.”
“No. I don’t think you will,” Cathal corrected, “I recall we all agreed that you and Eva would be at my side for the announcement later tonight?”
“Yes, but seeing as Ríoghnach isn’t here—”
“But nothing. The plan remains the same. And Veronica,” Cathal lowered his voice and said with all sincerity, “You will not talk back to me in public, or were we not supposed to be on our best behavior in front of our guests?”
“Best behavior?” Veronica balked, “And how exactly does your best behavior factor into forcing me and Eva into participating in a sham announcement ceremony as if we were giving the whole proceedings our approval. To the hells with that, I won’t be—”
----------------------------------------
Rína couldn’t quite hear the words exchanged, but she saw the strike that sent Veronica to the ground as if through crystal. The revelers she could see froze only momentarily before returning to their festivities. The popular consensus of the room seemed to be that it was better if they all forgot what they had witnessed. Only Eva came to Veronica’s aide, helping the woman up and retreating with her to a side room.
What hesitation she felt moments ago evaporated. The fire would be a necessary distraction for her to escape, and Rína doubted it would actually burn the manor down before it could be put out. Even if it did, there were plenty of exits and no second or third story to get trapped on. At most, it would damage the Magister’s coin purse, or maybe her father’s if he was held financially liable for her actions, but it would be a win either way.
But more than anything, the Magister had it coming.
Without another thought, Rína poured one flask’s contents into the other, and plugged the full flask with the wax clump. The full flask, now a fuse, she dropped into the open barrel of oil before hiding the completed delivery beneath logs of firewood.
It was done.
And she needed to run. Now.
Rína stole one last look at the partygoers, having returned to their celebration of an engagement that would never be, before fleeing back down the hill.
Time once more moved like both cold sludge and storm winds slipping through Rína’s fingers. She was two blocks from the manor, too preoccupied with the sound of her pulse in her ears to register how quiet she was or wasn’t being.
It was then, though, that she heard the shouts from the manor. Unlike the ones she had heard earlier, these were louder, consisting of many voices. And they were coming from outside the manor, without the muffling that sound acquired as it passed through walls.
They had found her firebomb.
It couldn’t be anything else.
There was nothing else it could be.
That had to be it.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Rína was discovered.
They would know it was her.
They would be coming for her.
They were coming for her.
Right now.
The thoughts slammed into Rína as she dropped into a dead run. The apothecary shop would be the first place they would look for her, but she needed her go-bag. She would just need to get there first and leave immediately.
Her memory of the run across town was a panicked haze, but as her hand gripped the shop’s door handle she forced herself to focus. Quietly, she unlocked and opened the door.
The shop was dark and quiet, the entire Andreou family already asleep. Rína crept into the back shelves of the shop and softly lifted the floorboards. Then she was met with a decision.
She was wearing the same clothes from earlier in the day, and the heavy, ankle length skirt wouldn’t be doing herself any favors in her escape. She had a set of traveling clothes in the stash, but did she have the time to change? More importantly, did she have time to write the Andreous a farewell letter?
Forcing herself to breathe, she considered. It was possible the commotion at the manor was something else. It was possible that there weren’t townsfolk bearing down on the shop at that moment. But was she willing to risk it? No. No she was not.
Rína stuffed the travel clothes into her pack, now nearly full to bursting, slung the pack around her shoulders, and disappeared into the night.
----------------------------------------
Leighton was a small town, still burning off the baby fat from its time as a village. The original settlers were most of the current inhabitants’ parents or grandparents, with the log cabin houses almost all being constructed in the village’s early days. The homes and occasional gardens were placed haphazardly, giving one the feeling of being in a campground surrounded by tents made of wood.
It was through the dirt roads of this campground Rína now crept. The urge to run still shouted at her from the back of her mind, but running would only draw attention. Each step took her further from the apothecary and the manor, further from any possible pursuers.
Her quiet prowl was finally stopped by the town’s five meter tall palisade. There were stairs that led up to a wooden walkway that ran along the entire palisade, so actually accessing the top wasn’t a problem. The only obstacles she had were the points that the top of the palisade had been sharpened to and of course any night guards that could happen by.
Rína could see a few of the latter from where she crouched between two outermost houses. She had wanted to jump the palisade away from any guards, but unfortunately most stairs up to the palisade walkway also had a guard post nearby it. She’d have to settle with sprinting up whichever stairs were furthest from a guard post and hoping for the best.
Though an important building catching fire would probably have had the guards rushing away from their posts, but there were even odds that that wouldn’t be happening tonight. Rína didn’t have a timepiece, but she reckoned that even if the firebomb hadn’t been found, it wouldn’t go off for another fifteen or so minutes.
Rína clenched her teeth. Which was more dangerous? Making a run for the palisade and probably being seen by a guard, or hiding in place until maybe the firebomb went off and maybe being found and surrounded?
Rína could wait. But if she heard anything that might have been a search party, she would run for it. Though if she was to wait, some optimizations were in order.
Between the cover of dark and the sleeping homes between her, she had some semblance of privacy. Rína quickly changed into her traveling clothes. In place of the restricting blouse, cumbersome skirt, and simple shoes, she now wore a warm tunic, sturdy pants, and leather boots beneath her traveler’s cloak. And to be safe, she moved the essentials from her pack directly onto her person: she tucked all of her pepper flares into her waistband, tied her dirk scabbard and coin purse to either side of her hip, slotted her boot knife into her boot, and slipped the forged identity papers into her pocket.
The only thing in her hand was a small bundle of rope, one end already tied in a loop.
She was ready.
Ready to wait… to wait in the cold and dark… as time crawled slowly along.
“Hells!” Rína eventually heard from further along the palisade, followed by an exchange of indistinct words. Rína looked over to see two guards at their post having an argument. Indistinct words, half shouted, reached her ear before one guard abandoned his post and ran into town. Her eyes following him, Rína saw at the top of the town’s central hill, a fire starting at Leigh Manor.
“It worked,” Rína whispered to herself with a grin, “...but are you sure you don’t want to go, too?” Rína whispered, pleading, in the direction of the guard that stayed behind. She waited another minute as the wind brought to her distant alarms of fire, but the guard remained.
“I’ll take what I can get…” Rína grimaced. She took a steadying breath and sprinted for the palisade. Up the stairs her boots thundered.
“Who goes there!?” came the guard’s shout as Rína crested the stairs.
Eyes forward, Rína placed the loop of rope around one of the palisade’s spiked piles and threw the rest over. Standing on the palisade’s walkway, the wooden spikes came up to her chest. Grabbing one of the spikes, Rína began the awkward maneuver of throwing one of her legs over the top and slotting it between two of the spikes without getting impaled in the process.
“Hey! Stop right there!” came another shout, along with the sound of the guard’s footsteps closing in on her.
Rína had one leg over and was trying to fully straddle the palisade, but her thigh was stuck, wedged between two spikes. The guard was nearly on her. A final heave, rope in hand, sent her over the palisade, but her pack no longer weighed on her.
“In the name of the Magister of Leighton, I order you to identify yourself!” Rína, clinging to the rope, looked up into the night to see the guard’s silhouette. He had grabbed the top of her pack.
Without a reply, Rína slipped her arms out of the pack’s straps and slid down the rope.
Fire erupted on her palms as the rope took its toll of skin.
Rína’s feet hit the ground hard. Without turning back, she sprinted away from Leighton.
She left from the eastern edge of Leighton and found herself with another decision to make: to her left, to the north, was the large forest Leighton had been built up against, and to her right, to the south, were the fields and pastures that fed the town. She didn’t know if the guard would try to follow her immediately, or send a group after her later, but she knew that traveling in the open was no longer an option.
She turned north towards the forest.
Rína let herself slow to a more sustainable run. Her lungs were already heaving as she pumped her legs, and she extracted every meter they could give her.
The abrupt treeline of the forest was before her. Cast in the night’s intermittent moonlight, it looked like a hungry beast, all the gnarled roots sinking into the earth like teeth into flesh, but Rína could think of no better refuge.
----------------------------------------
Rína slumped against a fallen log. Her legs had nearly given out when she decided to let herself rest. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there, but the adrenaline had slowly waned and sleep was finally calling to her. Rína wouldn’t sleep though, not yet. She was still exposed and without shelter.
As she rested there, the scent of burning wood had slowly reached her. It reminded her of her earlier victory, though it also gave her pause. She must have covered a sizable distance through the forest, and yet she could smell the fire, despite every human’s lackluster sense of smell.
“I may have overdone it…” Rína worried to herself. She shook her head, “No helping it now.”
She stood despite her legs’ protestations. She had gone far enough into the forest that it was time to turn east, parallel to her original course…
East…
It was… Rína started north, but had to make detours around that stream, that large patch of brambles she nearly tripped into, and then there was that dell that led into a thick cluster of trees…
Rína’s eyes flickered between the indistinguishable trees painted in shadow.
Rína cursed to herself in a low whisper. Well, if she could pinpoint the direction from which the smell of smoke was coming from, then—
A shadow moved.
Rína drew the dirk at her hip as the rest of her body froze. She winced as her palm screamed against the contact. Rína’s breathing quickened. Hopefully it was just her imagination or—
The shadow stood, and silently approached.
“Hey back off! Or—fuck it.”
With her other hand, Rína grabbed the first of her pepper flares. It was awkward while also holding the dirk, but with shaking hands she struck the flare’s tip against its striking cap.
The flare burst to life, its light blinding Rína. She threw the flare before it began to billow its acrid smoke. She blinked her eyes hard, trying to regain her night vision.
She shakily held her blade forward, trying to spot the shadow, but was gone. Ahead of her, there was only a gap in the forest, slowly being filled with the flare’s dark yellow smoke.
The wind blew, and from behind the clouds the moon sent its rays filtering into the forest below. Then she saw it.
To her right and twice as close, it simply stood there, with the barest of moonlight defining its lupine silhouette.
It was a wolf, taller than a man, larger than was possible.
Rína was going to die.
The dirk left her hand in a desperate throw, but without a sound, the shadow of a wolf chose to be just to the side of her throw. Before her weapon hit the forest floor, Rína ran for her life. Another flare was in her hand, this one she lit above her head and carried like a torch.
Over roots, between trees, and along streams she ran, in a dead sprint for the second time that night. She didn’t care where, so long as it was away.
Behind her, she heard a single, solitary howl, so loud that it seemed to shake her very bones.
She left a trail of thick nausea inducing smoke behind her. The flare gave a pittance of light, but in that jostled light a thousand flitting shadows were cast among the forest. And though it allowed her to see the low branches and brambles that would bar her way, it was useless to warn her of the ground falling away from her.
Rína stomped through thin air as she was cast down the steep slope of a dell. She tucked in on herself as she careened downward. Around her she heard a landslide of leaves, the cracking of branches, and the breaking of something against a small boulder—a spike of pain shot up her leg.
Rína screamed out as she came to a stop at the bottom of the dell. The flare had landed a few meters from her and was slowly filling the bottom of the dell with its acrid smoke. Rína tried to stand but was nearly incapacitated the moment she put weight on her ankle. She collapsed back to the ground, stifling a cry.
Options. She needed options.
She forced herself to focus. Rína could feel her nausea rising as the flare’s smoke assaulted her senses. It had to go first. Her eyes began to stream, but whether from the smoke, the stress, or the pain, she couldn’t tell. Crawling over to the flare, she smothered it into the damp leaves and dirt it had fallen among.
Next…
If the monster hadn’t been deterred by the smoke she would already be dead. She was still alive, therefore it was no longer after her, therefore she was perfectly safe from now until the end of time.
Rína chuckled to herself. It was a hollow, gallow’s humor chuckle that verged on weeping, but it was all she had.
Frigid wind blew through the dell and brought with it the first flakes of snow. Rína would have to find shelter or at least some kind of cover. The dell and its slopes contained only loose dirt, slick leaves, and a single small boulder that can be cast straight to the hells. Rína sat against the slope and, using her arms and single good leg, tried to push herself up the steep incline.
She made it halfway up the slope before it gave out beneath her, sliding her back down to the bottom. Again she tried, her aching muscles already turned to mush. The second attempt again ended at the halfway point, and the third ended no more than a quarter of the way up.
Fully exhausted, body and mind, Rína laid on her back at the bottom of the dell. She had pulled her traveler’s cloak wrapped close around her, but she still shivered against the wind.
She half expected regrets to be filling her mind at that point, but couldn’t find any. Her current circumstances, though they were… Her current circumstances were distinctly preferable to what she saw through the Leigh Manor window.
“Damn it; the letter,” Rína tsked, “Writing a letter to the Andreous would have been nice…”