Angered shouts and a stray arrow clamoured off the walls of the ladder shaft. Someone shook the ladder, but I hardly felt the vibrations from where I was.
I’d used the name Patela for so long that it instinctively drew my attention below, but I didn’t heed the calls to come back and brushed off the accusations of cowardice. Ulia started to climb when it was clear I wouldn’t stop.
“You’ll die with them, you mutt!” “Go up and grab her!” “Bring it down. Pull it off the walls.”
I reached the top and slammed the vault door, the wiring from the barrels in the way. The first slam cut through the wax coating, and it took three more to snap the thin silver inside. I spun the locking mechanism and tested the handle—it didn’t budge.
I picked up the ends of the wires and followed them out of the cellar. The first led to a barrel in the now barren treasure room. I yanked it out from afar despite them no longer being connected and replaced the stopper that had been discarded to the side. I went to refill the barrels with water directly before acknowledging it wasn’t the best idea.
Instead, I filled a bucket and tested the mana-made water on a single piece of dragon’s breath before pouring it all in. It took more than a few trips with the bucket, but I was soon onto the next barrel.
The second and third were in the lobby and kitchen; they got the same treatment as the last. The inn coming down was assured with just one, so altogether, the three had enough dragon’s breath stuffed in them that I worried for the nearby buildings.
The lamps along the wall hadn’t been topped up with oil, and the few still lit were burning low and casting long shadows. The water heating had been turned off before everyone left, so I was alone in an ice-cold inn with enough explosives to level the street, stilling at every noise and dark corner.
I worried that the elder was not lying and that the knights had been alerted and would be outside in mere moments. I drained the mana from my crystal, prepared to disappear at the slightest bump on the door and headed through the kitchen. A winter coat with a hole in the elbows was the only one left near the locked back door. It would have to suffice.
I donned the worn-out coat and rubbed my hands together, dreading the midnight chill waiting for me. The night air rushed through the gap the second I opened the door, and a shiver went down my spine.
My knapsack was in the same place I’d left it, but now covered in frost. The gauntlet was too difficult to wear and conceal with the amount of mana it used up, so it stayed in the bag.
The garden’s back gate creaked into the silent night as I left, not bothering to lock it. I ignored the eeriness of the streets glowing in the sporadic lamp posts and ran. The knapsack bounced against my back as I turned down empty alleys towards the only place I could call for help.
The knights’ bastion came into view, one of the few well-lit places in the city. I approached the guardhouse, rehearsing my most convincing argument for why they should let me in to talk with their superiors. Climbing the gate and getting past the unknown bubble enchantment wasn’t feasible or wise when getting the Remnant’s help was paramount.
I strode up to a counter sticking out of the guardhouse.
“Good evening. There’s—” I started and promptly shut my mouth.
The young guard was wrapped so thoroughly in blankets that I barely caught his closed eyes. I leaned through the window, searching for others inside the cramped structure. Instead, I found a spear leaning against the wall within reach and small cards with a signature on each piled in a neat little stack.
I poked one of them, guessing they were handed out to authorised guests.
The gravel path between the gate and bastion crunched beneath my boots. Patrols leant against the walls within the light and strolled around corners with spears draped over their shoulders. My gait was steady but quick as I marched towards the reinforced double doors left open a crack. No one shouted for me to stop as I entered the warmth of the heated foyer and pushed the door shut again.
“Can I help you?”
The lady was sunk into a plush chair with her legs tucked beneath her. She was dressed in a red and white style similar to the knights but was probably more used to being behind the desk. She was in the only decorated corner of the otherwise bare room, with bookshelves that reached the ceiling behind the selection of rigid chairs.
She shut the book she’d been reading and set it down, walking over to the horseshoe-shaped desk that took up an entire wall.
I read through the signs posted on each of the foyer doors, finally finding the one I wanted: communication.
“Is Captain Tometh in?”
Her eyebrows raised, and the smile twitched at the corner of her lips. “At this hour? May I ask why?”
I sidestepped closer to the door labelled ‘communication’ before answering. “He said I needed to go directly to him with this information.”
“What might that be? Anything you can tell the good captain can be shared here.”
I shrugged, which frustrated the woman. “I already went through all of this with the guard outside. Can I just leave the information with you? If he gets mad that I’m not around to answer his questions about the witch, then you can explain why?”
She glowered while mulling over my words before motioning for me to pass her the paper I’d taken from the guard house. She leaned over the front of her desk for a seal and aggressively added another stamp of approval to the signature. “Take the door to the back left, spiral staircase at the end of the hall all the way to the top floor. He’ll be in his office.”
I resisted frowning since the communications area was to the right and went for the door, feeling her gaze on the back of my head the whole way. Beyond the door was a long carpeted hallway that led to one of the corner turrets. Instead of listening to her advice, I took the staircase to the immediate right.
The hallway along the next floor ran along the edge of the building, looking out over a paved courtyard and towards the communications area. I hesitated; perhaps the captain would contact Drasda for reinforcements after I talked to him without my sneaking about. However, there was an even greater likelihood he’d lock me up for even appearing in front of him.
I carried on, following the signage for communications down different corridors to a different turret from the one I was directed to. The staircase was similar to the one that led to Jeremy’s office, possibly older by the smoothed indents in the stairs from thousands of steps. The final sign posted outside a door at the top of the tower left me baffled because it was filled with the minds of birds.
The rhythmic coos and hoots erupted as I opened the unlocked door to stacks of caged birds, all turning to me while ruffling their feathers. “Ah.”
Each had a destination in mind, eager to get their journey started.
I shut the door. It wasn’t the type of communications area I was expecting to find, and I didn’t want to get involved in locating if any of them flew to Drasda. I twisted around, trying to remember which turret had the receiving disk on and where that would be in relation to where I was.
Rather than going back down and potentially having to run into someone in the otherwise empty corridors, I took the way up to the battlements of the turret.
I’d gotten used to the relatively dry and warm corridors and shivered as the chilled air hit my cheeks. The battlements were raised above the flat roof that connected the four of them. Unlike the palace walls, these were not soaked in mana, and I had an easy time climbing down, crossing the rooftop and climbing back up to the one with the receiver.
I dug my fingers into the groves in the stone, widening them into handholds. A fluctuation in the mana above drew my attention to the large storm eagle sitting atop the corner battlements. I stilled in my precarious position, clinging to the side of the wall and groaning. “What do you want?”
Alp opened his wings, showing off a section with a missing feather that I’d hit with a blade in the castle. “One little favour. One little task. Yet you attack Alp?”
I secured my footing to free up a hand to retaliate if he did anything. “Ask someone else.”
The mana contained in his feathers started to slide over itself, eliciting sparks across his wings.
I raised my hand to stall the onslaught of lightning. “I can still get it. I’ll get your headdress. Not now. Not tomorrow. But you think I’m the only one who can, so fighting me isn’t helpful to you.”
The lightning building up in his wings flaked off in small orbs and floated down close enough to make my hair stand on end. “Alp finds one. Alp can find others.”
“Wait, wait,” I said, preparing to drop down as bolts of lightning jumped from his wings to the air and stone. “There’s only one Alp, so there can also be only one of me.”
The weird creature tried to shrug despite his lack of shoulders. “Many Alp.”
That statement chilled my blood more than the bolt connecting to where my face had been moments before. I hit the rooftop hard and rolled, my knapsack digging into my back. I watched as the eagle extended his wings and leapt off. I hadn’t quite perfected jumping off tall buildings and cushioning my fall, and I didn’t want to attempt that in the middle of a fight with a bird.
I extended my claws, hit the closest window with blades, and jumped through the shattered panes and torn curtains. I’d been avoiding the windows since some had light spilling out of the rooms and were occupied, but this one was empty besides the stacked crates covered in cloth.
Alp landed and spun around, hopping towards the window. He morphed into his mandrill form and walked into the window frame, holding each side to extend his arms across the threshold. The two mages next door left their room in a rush and bashed open the door to our room. I ducked behind a row of crates.
The two mages paused upon seeing the large primate hanging in their window but started a spell the moment Alp screeched at them. The mana bolt one cast hit him in the chest without piercing his skin, yet still threw him back onto the roof.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
As the mages went to investigate, I ducked out of the room behind them. I went to run up the spiral staircase to the top of the tower, but someone I hadn’t noticed was coming down. There wasn’t anywhere to hide. I pulled the signed and stamped paper from where it was crumpled in my pocket.
The woman in her gambeson rounded the last turn and almost tripped when noticing me. I realised I hadn’t put any mana back into my crystal but made sure the paper was in view. I lifted a shaking finger towards the door and opened my mouth with a trembling lip.
“Wait here,” she said, patting my shoulders and checking me for injuries before running into the room after her comrades. One of the mages had climbed out while the other shouted at him from the window, directing them to where the mandrill had gone. As soon as my saviour turned away, I sprinted for the staircase.
This turret was strangely not as nice as the one housing the messenger birds. A draft came down the stairs, carrying in the cold air to the rest of the building. Droplets collected into small puddles along the stone steps, almost causing me to lose my footing on the way up.
I paused and backtracked at the top of the tower, finding the room I wanted. It resembled that near Jeremy’s office, with silver and gold wiring trailing up and across the walls towards the gold dish outside from a set of desks along the wall.
The door had been left ajar while the seat was knocked over, most likely by the woman who’d come rushing down the stairs. I shut the door and turned the lock, quietly apologising for causing her an inconvenience. Shouting from the rooftop below drifted up to the window, sounding like they’d lost the creature that tried to break in.
I picked up the chair and settled at a desk covered in iron instruments, gold panels, and mana crystals. An iron plate with a golden centre was wired to a stand currently occupied by a mana crystal. The crystal was partly filled with the beginnings of a set of pulses meant to be sent out.
I put a finger to the cold crystal and drained it entirely, feeling the woman's boredom when creating the report.
A chalk chart was written across a board with letters and arrows towards corresponding sequences. Another chart was laid out beside it where those letters were swapped out with others, their cypher. I ignored that part and studied the sequences I would need, deciding to keep the message short with how overwhelming keeping the taps and holds straight in my mind.
I held a finger above the gold plate while still staring at the chart to ensure I wasn’t inaccurate and started tapping.
After the first word, I realised I had no clue how to put a space between words, but I carried on, hoping whoever read this would understand. After the second word, I sensed the woman coming back up the spiral staircases, and I discarded all concerns about grammar and tapped faster.
The door handle shook.
It shook again with more force. I signed off the message and restrained my mana, carefully picking up the crystal and placing it inside the iron box on a raised platform of gold.
I looked to the ceiling for the pulses, but nothing happened. I twisted the heavy block of iron around, followed the wire out under the desk and traced it along the walls. The door shook on its hinges from a kick, distracting me from the task.
A small lever was needed to bridge a gap in the wire, and I pulled it. A moment later, the pulses went out. The woman was shouting if the other two mages had the key as they came to see what was wrong.
I removed the crystal from the box and placed it back on the stand. The mages had a heated discussion on the other side of the door, agreeing no one was inside and they could get a spare from the captains. The disagreement came on who would ask. I went for the window and climbed out, having to leave the iron latch open as I closed it again.
The sky was empty of storm eagles and the grounds clear of mandrills, but I still kept searching for the annoying creature. I landed on the rooftop and went in through the broken window, crunching across glass shards as the mages' voices echoed down the stairs.
I ran from the turret, putting as much distance between myself and the incidents as possible. The long hallways led me back to the spiral stairs leading up to the messenger birds, and I followed my original instructions to see if I could find the captain, hopefully in an amenable mood despite the late hour and impending news of a break-in.
I stuck my hand down the neckline of my cloak and pushed a trickle of mana into the crystal resting near my chest as I walked down the hallway lined with placards. Most of the rooms barricaded by heavy wooden doors with iron rivets lining the edges were empty, but a few held solitary mages.
‘Captain Tometh, 2nd Mounted Expeditionary,’ read one of the few newly polished placards.
A mage was inside, and I took a steadying breath before raising my fist to knock.
“Enter.”
My knuckles froze just off the door, and I sighed, already feeling like I was on the back foot. I pulled down the handle and swiftly opened the heavy door.
The room was warmly lit, which helped to suppress its ruggedness. The bare grey stone blocks were in every direction without any decoration. The bottom of the door had scratched the rough stone flooring, and there was no carpet to soften the walk to the captain’s desk. A bed tucked in the corner was the only comfort in sight.
He hadn’t looked up yet, even after I closed the door and unconsciously straightened my back to stand before him. Captain Tometh’s brown hair had recently been clipped short, and he still had the same miniature helmet pendant that swung over the page he continued to scribble across.
“You have—” He raised a finger to stop me, still not looking up.
I narrowed my eyes. “You have a witch problem.”
That got his attention, and he leaned back to stare up at me with his piercing green eyes. “I always have a witch problem. Does the young madam want to be more specific? Or perhaps we can start with a greeting like civilised folk?”
“Valeria,” I said, the name feeling weird on my tongue after so long. “We met—”
“I remember,” he said, steepling his fingers together. “The ‘not-a-witch’ from Ulasa. Funny thing that I can sense you now, isn’t it? Are you having a pleasant enough evening?”
I made a face and tilted my head. “Not really.”
“What trouble brings you to my city, or more so, my office? Not of your cause, I hope?” he asked. “What happened to bring our paths together again?”
“You heard about what happened in Drasda? At the opera house?” I said, deciding it was a good enough start to the story.
“A sad stature of affairs, that. The results of weak leadership. Allowing witches to run amok in your city. The duke’s grandfather was famous for his leadership and strength; it’s how he got the title. Two generations is all it takes to dilute a once great bloodline blessed by the Mother. At least the youngest Riker shows some promise.”
“Well,” I said, ignoring his barbed comments. “The duke sent me with the witch who escaped so we could learn who made the dragon’s breath.”
The captain leaned forward on his desk. “You’re not in Drasda, girl. Aiding those crones is a crime punishable by death here.”
“Then your entire city would be put to death because there are plenty living amongst you.”
He flipped over a piece of paper, laid a pencil across it, and fixed me with a glare. “Start writing names.”
I shook my head. “That won’t do you any good. They’re all gone. Left a few hours ago.”
The captain stood, anger radiating off him despite his stoic expression. “Why now? When your information is useless to us! Why at all?”
I used the excuse of walking towards a map on the wall to put some space between us. “They said you knew of them, and that was why they left.”
“It pains me to say we did not. When will they return?”
I shook my head. “They won’t. They’re leaving with that as an excuse because the city is about to be attacked.”
The captain fell back into his chair, unimpressed. “I have four hundred warriors with many more able to be called upon. I don’t think they have those numbers across the whole of Werl.”
“The ghouls outnumber you a hundred to one.”
He shook his head. “We tried drawing those things out to the defences to cull them before. Too inefficient, and you only get the weak stragglers left on the exterior.”
I walked back to the desk, and now that he wasn’t looking like he’d jump over it at me, I picked up the pencil. I drew the new lure rune across the page and slid it back to him. We still hadn’t been taught the imbuing process, but I knew its shape. “Feel anything?”
He studied the rune, looking over the page at me with scepticism. “Faintly.”
“If a witch did that with the proper materials and knowledge, those creatures would come running towards it.”
“Your evidence?” he said, drumming his fingers across the desk. “And what details can you offer? Where did the witches go? Which areas will be hit? How many ghouls?”
“My only suggestion is to read those four hundred and call up everyone you can. Evacuate the area,” I said, going back to the map to mark where the inn is. “If you go to the Marchland Inn, here, you’ll find barrels of dragon’s breath that I stopped from levelling that entire street on the witches’ way out. And as for the witches themselves…well—”
We both turned to the door as a mage approached and knocked. The captain raised an eyebrow at me, but I shrugged. “Enter.”
The same woman who had come down the spiral staircase came in and paused while locking eyes with me.
“Yes?” Captain Tometh prodded.
“Ah, sir. We had an incident in the south tower. A window was shattered inwards.”
The captain looked at me in accusation, but I pulled out the signed and stamped card. “I came in through the front door; just ask the lady in the foyer.”
“It wasn’t her, but she was there. Bendril says it was some creature with a painted face. They scared it off, but it didn’t trip the perimeter enchantments. Where did you go after? I asked you to stay put.”
“Hmm? Oh, I didn’t want to be in the way. I took a wrong turn on the way here.”
“On the opposite side of the building?”
“Ignore the girl and her strange tendencies; otherwise, you’ll notice too many to keep straight in your head,” the captain said while I looked at him with indignation. “Go gather the other captains in the Map room. I have to go out with our friend here, but I will be back at least before some of them can be woken. Stress that this meeting is not optional.”
Jeremy
My daydream was interrupted by the opening of my office door without the usual knock. I’d been resting my head on the desk, so considering it was the middle of the night, perhaps it would be called a regular dream.
“Sorry to wake you, sir.”
“I wasn’t sleeping, you’re fine.”
“Right,” she said, the dark circles under her eyes betraying the playful tone in her voice. “I have a message for you.”
She held up a paper, and I sighed, motioning to the growing pile on my desk. Without Valeria to offer any insight, we were back to manual code-breaking, so the information was weeks old when it got to my desk.
“Ah, no, sir. It’s from today. This evening—”
I shook my head. “I still have no timeline for when we will be getting our sources back for the code-breaking.”
My subordinate snapped her fingers at me, and I knitted my brows in muted shock.
“If you would let me finish…sir. It’s not encoded. We used our sequence at first, but since it came from the capital’s direction, we tried the remnants.”
She slid over one of the two slips of paper she had.
‘ikthrcapitalsityationdirebron geveryobeeidopon’
“...This is illegible rubbish? You’re sure this is not code?”
“We thought the same, but a few words shine through like ‘capital,’ so we accounted for spacing, common mistakes, similar sequences, and a lot of trial and error to arrive at this.”
“You all seem to have a lot of time on your hands despite the hour,” I remarked, wondering what task I could assign them to occupy themselves.
The second slip of paper was far more illuminating.
‘At the capital. Situation dire. Bring everyone. Eidolon.’
I felt none of the drowsiness carried over from my nap, my mind racing with names and travel times. “Go wake the duke. Then have runners fetch Faraya, Yistopher, and senior captains. Crap, get the generals too.”
“Wake the duke, sir? Now?”
“Now,” I said, standing up to drag the man out of bed if I had to.