370 days until the Arkon Shield falls

Ash was resting on Kenny’s open palm.

The scout had removed my familiar from his pocket, and I could only assume that it was because they were safe and alone. I willed my familiar slightly aloft to see beyond the scout.

Kenny and his companion were in a small chamber, a bedroom from the look of it. The door was shut, and the pair were leaning against it.

The bed was occupied.

A woman was there. Naked and bruised, she was quietly sobbing around the rag stuff in her mouth. Her left eye was blackened, and her cheeks were swollen and puffy. I jerked the familiar away. I could well guess what the woman had suffered, and not staring at her was the least I could do.

There was a corpse on the floor too.

The body was male, half-clothed, and equipped with a pair of steel shortswords. A gang member. Blood pooled around the corpse, and judging from the knife sticking out of his bare neck, one of the scouts had killed him. Kenny and his fellow, their faces grim, were staring at Ash.

I swallowed back bile. It took little imagination to guess what had happened in the room. In short, clipped words, I described the scene to Tara while I listened to what the scouts were saying with half an ear.

“…tell the captain we are sorry,” Kenny said. “He looked like he was going to kill her, and we rushed in to help.” He gestured to the woman and his face reddened in embarrassment. “We had to gag her too. We were afraid she might give us away otherwise.” He licked his lips. “But we killed her attacker quietly and are still undiscovered.”

“What with all the noises coming from the other rooms,” the second scout muttered darkly, “it’s not like anyone would’ve heard us anyway.” He scowled at Ash and jerked a thumb at the bed. “This…” His lips twisted in disgust. “This vileness is going on in all the other rooms too.” His look turned pleading. “We must do something. They’re slaves,” he added unnecessarily. I’d guessed as much already. “And helpless.”

A small silence fell in the wake of the second scout’s words. Finally, Kenny spoke up. “Do you think he’s getting any of this?”

Guiding Ash through our bond, I willed her to bob up and down in the air. At the familiar’s motion, both scouts’ gaze flew back to her. “I guess that means he is,” the second scout said.

“We are in a room, three doors down from the storeroom,” Kenny said, resuming his report. “The passageway between is well lit but empty. We haven’t found Gorkin yet, but we’ve only checked three rooms so far.” He hesitated, his gaze sliding to the woman on the bed. “We don’t want to leave her. She’s not all there at the moment,” he admitted. “Please request the captain to send in more scouts.”

Once again, I had Ash nod in acknowledgment. Opening my eyes, I relayed Kenny’s words to Tara, and Giselle who had since joined us.

Tara’s eyes narrowed, and her lips tightened, but she did not question the scouts’ actions. She gestured another six scouts forward. This time they were all women, I noted. “You two, secure the storeroom. It’s our only access point onto the floor. If anyone enters, kill them.”

The pair nodded and hurried down. Speaking rapidly to the next two women, she gave them the location of Kenny and his fellow and sent them to reinforce the men.

Finally, Tara turned to the last pair of scouts. “Can I trust you to stay on mission and ignore anything else you may hear down there?”

The two women’s jaws clenched, and I could see the outrage boiling in their eyes at Tara’s words. Despite how quietly I’d relayed Kenny’s report, all the other scouts had overheard, and from the grim mutters and dark looks, no one was happy. Still, the two women did not protest their orders.

The captain held their gazes. “We will free the slaves, I promise. But only after we’ve accomplished what we set out to do.” Her voice dropped to a purr. “Believe me, those thugs will be made to pay.”

I shivered at the leashed fury I sensed in her voice, and if it was anyone else but Tara, I would’ve laid a comforting hand on them. I knew the green-eyed captain would not appreciate the gesture, though.

The scouts jerked their heads in enthusiastic agreement.

“Good, then be on your way and find me that damn gang leader,” Tara finished, almost growling out the last words.

The two scouts slipped down the trapdoor. My gaze flitted between the two captains beside me. Tara’s rage was cold, contained, and nearly invisible. Giselle was easier to read. From her reddened face and whitened knuckles, I judged the warren captain was barely keeping herself in check. Her mood reflected that of the nearby scouts.

I, myself, was unsettled. It was one thing hearing the slaves were being mistreated. It was another entirely being in a position to stop it and doing nothing. Until we finished the mission, I knew we had to keep our outrage in check, but given what we were about to come face to face with downstairs, I wondered if any of us would manage it. This was not something we had accounted for in our planning. I turned my gaze back to Tara.

“We have to alter our plans,” she said tersely before I could voice my own thoughts. “Our people aren’t going to be happy leaving the women below behind.” She scowled. “I can’t stomach it either.”

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I nodded slowly. The original idea had been to spirit Gorkin to a safe location with the rest of the gang none the wiser. But we couldn’t do that, not anymore.

The smarter approach, I knew, would be to leave the slaves be. They had been abused for days, what was a few more hours? But sometimes, the smart choice wasn’t the best choice or even the right choice. We had to free the villagers—the ones in this building at least and put an end to their suffering now—even if we risked the mission doing it.

“Agreed,” I said finally.

“Oh, definitely agreed,” Giselle snarled.

Tara’s eyes glinted. “Then here is what we will do.”

✽✽✽

It took five minutes for the scouts to sweep the floor below.

Looking through Ash, I observed the other two scouts slip into the bedroom with the dead thug and informed Tara. She relaxed slightly. Shortly thereafter, the last pair of scouts returned.

“We’ve found him,” the first said.

Tara rose to her feet, the others too. “Where?” she demanded.

“The gang leader is in a large bedchamber at the end of the corridor. He is not alone, though,” the second scout reported. “There is at least one other thug in the room and by the sounds of it, two women.”

My lips twisted, imagining what Gorkin was about. “What’s the layout of the floor?” I asked.

“The corridor runs south to north,” one of the women replied. “The storeroom exits near the north end, and the stairway leading down is on that side as well. There are five rooms on either side of the passageway.” Her lips turned down. “They are all occupied. Gorkin’s chamber is on the south side.”

“How can you be sure it’s him?” Giselle asked.

“We peeked under the door,” the scout said, “and spotted his armor discarded on the floor.”

Tara jerked her head downwards. “That’s good enough for me. John, Giselle, you’re with me.” Her gaze flickered to the pair of scouts before her. “You two as well. We assault the room now.”

I rose to my feet. “I’m coming too.”

“You’re not,” Tara said firmly. Her eyes darted to Lance, who had also opened his mouth to volunteer. “You aren’t either. Both of you will stay here. This will be a lightning strike, and I won’t have the time to see to your protection.”

I shook my head. “We can take care of ourselves. Besides, you might need us if things go wrong.”

“No.”

“Tara—” I began sharply before stopping myself. I took a calming breath. Don’t be foolish, I had been about to say. Emotions were already running high, and now was not the time to make matters worse. “Let us wait in the storeroom at least,” I said reasonably. “That way, if something goes wrong and the alarm is raised, Lance and I can hold the stairway.”

Tara hesitated, then inclined her head. “Okay. Now, enough talk. Let’s move.”

✽✽✽

Tara, Giselle, John, and the two scouts slipped out to the storeroom while Lance and I waited in the darkened chamber with the scouts tasked with guarding it.

“What do you think makes people do such things?” Lance whispered.

“What do you mean?” I asked, only half paying attention. The stone roof had done an admirable job of blocking out the muffled cries emanating from the second floor, but there was nothing to shield us down here.

The blond man’s face was contorted, and he winced every time a muted scream or despairing moan cut the air. “That,” he said, waving his arms in the air. “I mean that. How can we do that to each other?”

“Ah,” I replied. Turning towards the other mage, I gave him my full attention. “Darkness lies in all of us, Lance,” I said quietly. My own past actions flashed through my mind. “Strip away the veneer of civilization, strip away law and order, and that—” I gestured to the sounds emanating from outside the door—“is what some men will do. But the potential to do all that is not just within men like Gorkin. It’s in us too.”

I sighed. “What matters is not what darkness you hold or how much, but how you channel it.”

Lance was silent for a long while. “You’ve seemed to have given this a lot of thought,” he said at last.

“I have,” I said with a wry chuckle. “I have my own share of darkness inside me, and I’ve yet to come to terms with it.” I left it at that, not wanting to burden the other man with my own struggles.

The conversation lapsed thereafter, and we spent the rest of the time in silence while we waited for news from Tara. It took longer than expected, but eventually, a shadow darkened the thin slit beneath the door.

The two scouts guarding the room tensed, but a second later, the coded knock we’d agreed upon sounded out, and they opened the door.

A slim figure slipped within, and her gaze found mine. “The captain wants you. We’ve secured Gorkin.”

The worry within me eased. I rose to my feet, pulling Lance with me. “Come on, let’s go get this over with.”

✽✽✽

The moment I stepped into the chamber, I knew something had gone wrong.

“My God,” I heard Lance murmur as I stumbled to a halt.

I swallowed, struggling to hold in my revulsion. The room was a scene of carnage. Blood streaked the walls, gore spattered the floor, and guts were strewn across the bed. Tara was pacing the room, muttering to herself. Giselle, John, and the others stood around the edges of the room, looking grim-faced.

Biting back my horror, I looked past the room’s gruesomeness to take in the details. There was one obviously dead thug on the floor and another on the bed. To the right were a pair of chairs and trussed up in them were two figures.

Catching sight of the diminutive forms in the chairs, Lance hurried forward. In a daze, I followed in his wake. The scouts had been wrong, I thought, inhaling slowly. The gang leader’s victims were not women; they were children.

Reaching the first figure, Lance laid his hands upon the girl’s bloodied torso and sent weaves of healing magic into her. The girl did not stir. Grief shot through me. She was already dead, I suspected.

I reached the second figure, a boy of perhaps eleven or twelve. His torso was riddled with cuts, his face was swollen and puffy, and his fingernails had been torn away. Blood and saliva dripped down from the boy’s mouth, and if not for his weak wheezing, I would have thought him dead too.

He had been beaten. Repeatedly, but not in a random manner. No, his torturers had inflicted their pain meticulously and with intent. Whatever had gone in the room, it was not what I’d first assumed. The thugs had wanted something from the boy—I glanced at the body in the other chair—and the girl too, and they’d had no compunctions about torturing the pair to get it.

It was all I could do to hold in my bubbling rage. Later, I told myself. There will be time enough later. Now, I had the boy to tend to.