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The Moon Rogue
Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Emmy

The air filled with harrowed screams, some of them Emmy’s own. The screeches were punctuated with booming explosions. The stinging taste of panic tainted the air like sulfur as folk clattered along the streets, desperate to escape. The ships vomited wave upon wave of soldiers. Fighting was futile. Running was the only option. Even battle-hardened former Metakalan fighters were gathering their younglings to them and throwing the vital objects of their lives into bags.

Zecha disappeared into Charber’s house and reappeared with a sweeping bow and a quiver of arrows on his waist. Emmy headed towards the surging crowd on the street.

‘I need to get to the apothecary,’ she said. ‘Krodge is still there. I…I can’t leave her for the Masvams to kill.’

A voice that rang with justice sounded in her mind. Why not? Perhaps you could finally teach her a lesson. Emmy batted it back. No. I must be better than that.

Charo jerked an elbow at the swirling maw outside.

‘Emmy,’ she said, ‘we could be killed trying to make our way through the crowd. Who knows how many enemies are out there, whoever they are.’

‘We know who they are, Charo,’ Emmy said. ‘It can only be the Masvams. They’ve come at last and there’s nothing we can do to stop them.’

Charo had no reply.

‘Let’s go,’ Zecha said. ‘We’re definitely dead if we stay here. We might survive if we can get out.’

‘We can go to the apothecary, gather supplies, and get Krodge,’ Emmy said. ‘Then we’ll run.’

The streets pulsed with panic and fear as the trio wound through the swirling crowds. As they reached the end of Charber’s street the vista opened into the large space of the Circle, and Emmy’s chest tightened. From there they could see right down to the port. Clear as glass, there were the three towering Masvam ships. Their tall masts stretched upwards like dead trees. They bled soldiers, their curved scimitar blades glinting in the moons’ light.

Emmy jerked back, covering her pointed ears as another explosion ripped through the air. She stared wide-eyed. The ships sent burning masses through the sky, a grim imitation of the fireworks they had expected. Emmy cringed as a missile passed overhead and dealt a killing blow to buildings on the other side of the Circle.

With giant sailed vessels sending balls of fire through the air, the friends struggled to break their fascination with the macabre display. Eventually, Emmy shook her mind clear and grabbed Charo’s wrist.

‘Come on!’

They bolted the rest of the distance to the apothecary. At the door, Emmy fumbled for her keys. Taming her hands, she thrust it open and pushed the others inside. She slammed the door shut and fell against it, breathing hard.

From upstairs, Krodge screamed.

‘Emena! What’s going on?’

‘I’m coming Madame!’ Emmy called. She turned to her friends. ‘Gather what you can. Blankets, food, extra clothes. Forget everything else.’

Charo nodded and dashed to the kitchen. Zecha stayed in the shop front, his bow taut and ready in his claws. Krodge was still screaming.

‘I’ll be there in a moment, Madame!’

Emmy stumbled on the words. It would be so easy to leave Krodge to her fate. It might even be a kind of justice. The thought kept returning. Teach her a lesson. Emmy’s throat tightened as she pulled a woven satchel from under the shop counter. Krodge was not her mother after all. Krodge was her keeper, the one who shackled her to the apothecary with cruel words and terror. If the situation was reversed, Emmy told herself, Krodge wouldn’t risk a talon to save her. This could be Emmy’s chance to escape once and for all…

Unwilling to face the choice, Emmy turned to her glass cabinets, fumbled for her keys once more and jammed one in the lock.

It wouldn’t turn.

Emmy pulled and jerked at the key, but it wouldn’t twist in the lock. Krodge kept screaming. Emmy’s heart hammered in her chest. Why did I come back? I should have just left her!

‘Argh!’

Emmy wrenched the key out and shook her head. She looked from the cabinets to the keys and grimaced. There wasn’t time for niceties. It had to happen.

She plucked up her measuring scales and cast them forward. The glass shattered into countless glimmering pieces, taking many of the jars and phials with it. There was renewed screeching from Krodge. Emmy closed her eyes, berating herself for her tears. Crying over cupboards when their lives were at risk was foolish, yet she still felt sharp sorrow. Her precious order was gone.

Shaking herself, Emmy filled her satchel with what she thought she needed and what had not been destroyed. She shook her head. It wasn’t enough, but she didn’t have much choice.

A crash came from outside. She shared a harried glance with Zecha. His face was drawn. Families streamed past, females wielding weapons from glinting blades to kitchen ladles and table-top shields. Younglings hung from their fathers’ arms. Emmy spared Zecha another glance before running to her chamber.

She threw on a pair of heavy boots and ripped the headdress from her horns. The metal bent and torqued. Grabbing another bag, Emmy stopped. She bit her lip and made another decision.

She wrenched her bed aside, revealing a trapdoor. Snatching her keys, she released the heavy latch.

Inside the hidden chamber were thousands of bickles, half-bickles, cren, crom, and pip. The light of the moons’ rise made the slumbering coins sparkle. This was the money she had earned, her money, something that had once been Krodge’s but wasn’t any longer. Emmy’s coin, a well of gold, something that gave her hope on her darkest days.

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But not this day. No amount of coin could save her from the Masvams. Grabbing fistfuls of wealth, she stuffed some of her savings into the bag.

There was a thunderous smash. Zecha screamed.

‘They’re here!’

Emmy shoved the trapdoor closed, hefted her bags, and tore from the room. The usurpers bellowed. Krodge screeched.

‘I’m coming, Madame!’

Charo appeared in the doorway, armed with two knives.

‘It’s all I could find,’ she said.

Emmy grabbed her wrist and propelled her into the kitchen, bags swinging around them.

‘Krodge always kept weapons under the kitchen table,’ she said.

She threw her bags on the floor and upturned the table. It smashed on its side but revealed glinting knives—fighting knives—attached underneath by leather straps.

Crashing and smashing invaded. Zecha still screamed but Emmy couldn’t make out his words. Krodge screeched and screeched. Blood roared in Emmy’s ears as she unbuckled the knives from the table, keeping one and giving Charo the other.

‘We have to get to Zecha and Krodge,’ Emmy said. ‘Then we need to get out of here. Come on!’

She hefted her bags and flew from the kitchen, ready to take the stairs two at a time and pull Krodge from her bed—but she smashed against a hulking body that stank of sweat and seawater and blood. She bounced backwards, skidding on the rushes.

‘Well, well, well,’ the Masvam soldier said, grasping her tunic. His eyes narrowed in first realization that she was not like other Metakalans. ‘What this is? A demon, yes?’

Thick fingers snatched at her but Emmy twisted from his grasp and drew her arm up, ready to attack. She launched forward, striking out, but the knife connected with a sudden shield. It bore a sigil, a lightning bolt as strange as the Masvams’ words. The blade quivered, then clattered to the ground. Emmy drew back as Charo leapt forward. The Masvams slipped aside, sending Charo headlong into the wall. She crumpled.

One Masvam grabbed Emmy while another lifted Charo by the throat. Emmy did the only thing she could think of. She screamed.

‘Zecha!’

She was silenced when strong talons coiled around her neck.

‘You play nice,’ the Masvam whispered, his breath hot on the side of her face. His words were strange, just like Charo’s when she first arrived. They spoke another language, but it was similar enough for Emmy to understand parts. ‘Don’t try your magic or I’ll dispatch you right quick. I would arrange that gladly.’

Emmy writhed in his grasp, staring at Charo. Charo’s eyes pleaded as she stared back. Emmy sucked in a sharp breath. Her head swam from the choke-hold, white moons dancing in her vision. Her ears filled with the blows of her own heartbeat and the screeches from upstairs.

Three more Masvams tore in. One of them headed straight up the stairway.

‘Krodge…’ Emmy choked.

The hand grew tighter around her throat.

‘What keeps you?’ the oldest of the new arrivals asked. He had a hatchet face and a snarl on his lips. ‘Have you them yet or not?’

‘We got nasties, Ysmas Mamusan,’ Emmy’s captor said. ‘Tried to slash with knives. But not now. They subdued.’

Both Emmy and Charo were released from death grasps. Air raced into Emmy’s chest, sweet despite the stench of unwashed soldier. Charo tried to slip the Masvam’s grip entirely but he was on her again. He grabbed her from behind, shoving her to the wall.

‘Tie them,’ the oldest Masvam, Mamusan, barked. He glared at Emmy and crossed his hands in front of his face, some kind of ward against evil. ‘Double knots on this,’ he said. ‘Tainted.’

A soldier wrenched Emmy’s arms back. Rope bit her wrists. Charo received the same treatment. Trussed like game, they were deposited in the shop. Emmy struggled to right herself, writhing against her bindings. Question upon question came at her. Why were the Masvams tying them up? What was their goal? Masvams were famous for killing their victims. But they were also famous for their battles against other armies, soldier upon soldier. It had never been their way to attack the common folk. That was why towns like Bellim had no army, no protection. They weren’t supposed to need it. But now… Emmy shook off the questions, bringing her mind back to the present.

The apothecary was in ruins. Shelves had been torn from the walls. Soil and blood littered the floor like a gory carpet. The grand front window was in pieces, sparkling like a thousand tears. But that paled in comparison to the pitiful lump on the floor.

‘Zecha!’

Their friend was tied like a hunted carcass, bleeding from his mouth. His head lolled. His eyes were glazed. Emmy’s heart lurched and she tried to wriggle from her bindings, willing the goddess—any goddess—to help her. But it was in vain. She was bound tight.

For a moment there was silence. Emmy’s breath stuttered. Silence—nothing from upstairs. Krodge? Emmy thought. Is she… Her stomach dropped. Bile rose in her throat. Yet at the same time, the little voice was back. Justice.

‘Right, petals,’ said the older male, ‘let see us what you’ve in your bags.’

He tipped out the contents. Money spilled like a golden wave.

‘Look to this,’ he said. ‘Much coin.’

The gathered soldiers bayed.

‘Is good,’ the leader said. Then he turned to one of his wiry companions. ‘Kelom, what have you?’

‘Food and rags, Mamusan,’ the one named Kelom replied. ‘That all.’

Another Masvam appeared. His front was soaked with fresh blood. He grinned.

‘No things of worth up there,’ he said, wiping his dagger on his leg. ‘Just an old pchak with big mouth. To us no use. Finished her off, I did.’

The Masvam’s words rolled in Emmy’s head. Finished her off, I did. She looked at him. She looked at the blood. Krodge’s blood. Her stomach pitched. She’s dead… Her mistress’s words from so long ago came back to her.

‘Once I’m dead, there’ll be no-one left to protect you!’

In a strange way the old crone was right.

Emmy was filled with despair, yet it was tinged with something else. It was a kind of macabre relief. Krodge was finally gone. Unfortunately, Emmy couldn’t enjoy it.

‘Right,’ Mamusan said, brushing off death as he brushed off his hands, ‘take these to the boat. Search for more coin. Then burn it.’

Kelom bowed and turned his attention to the prisoners. Emmy screeched and writhed as he hefted her over his shoulder. She got a clout to the face as a reward.

‘Shut up,’ he grunted. ‘Demon thing.’

Battered as she was, Emmy still wanted to spit at him. Beyond the blows and the choke-holds, there was something that consumed her last strength.

Finished her off, I did.

Those words reverberated in her mind as the Masvams moved off with their new-found riches.

The dark streets were filled with the clash and wail of battle. Mamusan and the others joined a stream of Masvams bearing bodies or herding cowering Metakalans to their ships. Many were still caught in the heat of blood lust. Corpses littered the ground.

Even as she was hefted through the streets, listening to Charo bite and kick against her captor, fearing for Zecha, so limp over a Masvam’s shoulder, hearing the blasts of bombs and the snick of metal through skin, those words kept playing in Emmy’s mind.

Finished her off, I did.

When they passed a mangled corpse with its throat cut, her eyes widened. Blood pumped from the wound, spilling down his neck, but the expression etched on his face in death was worst of all. It was harrowing.

It was one of betrayal.

It wasn’t just the gore or the expression that caught her eye. It wasn’t just the loll of the head. It was the face: unmistakably Amra Bose. The words changed in her head.

Finished him off, I did.

Looking away, Emmy jerked upwards. Her gaze latched on the shop. Her home. Now gone.

The building was dark.

Then a Masvam threw a lighted torch through the broken window.

Her work. Her world. Everything she had ever known. Her memories. Her life.

Then there was fire.

Flames burst onto the street, enveloping the building in red destruction.

‘Madame!’

She cried despite knowing Krodge was dead. She cried despite the cycles of pain and torture she had endured. She cried because, though things had been bad, she never wanted it to end this way.

‘NO!’

For her outburst, she received another blow to the head. Everything went dark.

Finished her off, I did…