Five almost screamed as he stumbled around the last turn in the narrow switchback. The image of a large cat, silhouetted in the slowly dancing shafts of moonlight as clouds shifted through the sky overhead had almost made him lose his footing, and he was afraid of falling off of the thin, slick, twisting, rocky path. If he fell down the side of the mountain now, he would die in the worst way. Slowly, and in pain. Or possibly quickly, and in terror. There were strong arguments for both methods to reign supreme.

“Shit!” he swore. “SHIT! SHITTING SHITSHITSHIT!!!” Five had never mastered the fine art of cussing. Expletives were a part of language that One used like weapons, and Four used as though she wove tapestries with the words. But, alas, Five never knew what words to use when, nor with what frequency, or even what some of the better ones might have been.

But, at the moment, Five thought he might die. While this would solve his greatest problem, it would only do so in the worst possible of ways.

He could fall down the side of the mountain and LIVE in the worst way. Possibly for as many as four days. With his power, his abilities, a bad death was worth any and all efforts preventing.

Five stood, and he panted as cold sweat dappled his sallow skin. He allowed his eyes to more fully adjust to the better lighting the naked moon above had begun to provide as the clouds above sinuously slid and slithered across the pale moon’s face, and stayed as still as his shaking frame would permit. He waited to see what the cat would do. Five hated cats. They slunk around the camps, spreading fleas, spreading disease, eating scraps, defecating and urinating on everything and anything they took a notion to despoiling.

Two had once allowed one of the horrid things to nest and reproduce messily in their tent. Two wouldn't let him evict the damned thing at any cost, and had even threatened to hold him upside down in a barrel of vinegar had Five tried to rid their tent of the wretched thing and its smelly, noisy litter.

It made him shudder to remember the pathetic mewling of the six little nuisances. And when one of the little pests had died, he had cried along with Two. They were revolting creatures, but he had loved his “siblings,” and the death of the little plague bearer had torn at Two’s emotions so strongly, that Five had cried in sympathy with the idiot.

The “large cat” on the path was nothing of the sort. Just a pile of scree, heaped in an unfortunate way, at an unfortunate place. Tumbled down from a higher slope, most likely. An unfortunate illusion of dim moonlight and harsh shadows.

Three years ago, when he had been a part of the detachment set to mapping and exploring these mountains for the best route the Army might take in its march to war, this path had been clean, clear, and a perfect dead end. Utterly useless to the Kingdom's cause. It had been a waste of time for the platoon of hardened soldiers Master Erekynt and Two had been sent along with to both map the way, and to deal with any resistance they might have encountered in the harshest of ways. And, if Master Erekynt had not died this last spring, Five would have never dared to come here. Anyone knowing where he had gone would have destroyed the reasons for his choosing this very lonely, and hidden place at all.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Nothing would meet him at the top of this trail save a shallow cave, and very beautiful view to the Southwest.

Five knew he would never be found here.

The path he had been following would come to an end in less than a hundred and fifty paces.

He would miss his siblings, he had begun to miss them even now. He briefly wondered if they would miss him, also.

A few tears gathered at the corners of his eyes as he slowly moved around the scree without disturbing it. The fewer tracks, the better.

Moving on stiff legs, he made the final approach to the cave he had known would be there.

Safe! He thought. No horrible death for him.

Tonight.

To those with access to power, a horrible death could be a way to trace him. To bind his soul to further service in the right circumstances. While this would never be as good to the Masters of the Kuljat Amulajat, tearing his potentially tortured soul away from his death, and whatever lay beyound, and binding it to their needs as a magical artifact would be a horror to Five in any regard.

He would be having none of that.

He had worked hard for this, he had done everything he could. He had ensured it would never come to pass.

Five removed the last of his four waterskins he had taken from the quartermasters’ tent and prepared for this journey those four long months ago. Three had been filled with water, and regularly refilled as he had strode along.

Sitting at the back of the cave, he drank a slow toast to his siblings from the fourth skin.

And to the Masters.

And finally to his birth family, wherever they were.

Five had been taken from then when he had been too young to remember them. In most ways, on most days, he had seen that as a blessing. This way, he had no idea who to blame for his life beyond the “Boy King,” and the Masters. The kingdom had trained him to bring death and destruction to his enemies. At sixteen, he had killed more men than any platoon of soldiers you could name, outside of mythical tales from ages ago.

He took a drink.

He wiped another cascade of tears from his eyes.

A deep breath.

Another drink.

He drank a final toast to the “Boy King.” Hamuria’s idiot ruler had turned forty (...maybe forty-one…? It was difficult to keep track) last spring, It had been well passed the time where anyone should keep up the stupid pretense that he was still the driven and determined twelve year old who had taken the throne almost twenty tears ago.

Finally, a toast to himself.

With the waterskin drained, he arranged himself as comfortably as he could. It had been a long walk.

Five felt he was due a rest.

He wished he had brought more water, his throat felt very dry.