Rami thought it odd. He expected Commander Dolovan to bring the hammer down, have them all tied up and dragged through the muddy earth of the woods while muttering vile curses at their betrayal of trust. He expected her to slap their faces in a row, spit on them and heck even have her guards punch them till they had no choice but to seize half conscious begging for everything to stop.
Yet here they were, not tied up, standing on their two feet, free to start running away any second. Rami bounced his glance between Noor and Yulhan while Dolovan disbanded her guards and sent them away except for a few. Rami caught Dolovan’s undisputed right-hand-woman walk up to her superior, sheathing her sword as she threw in a glare at Rami before standing beside Dolovan quite calmly.
“You were expecting us then…tonight?” Yulhan, for the lack of better words, started the conversation that must be had.
Dolovan scoffed, adjusting her hand wraps as she carefully wound them tight around her wrists, “I was expecting you to escape much earlier,” her eyes met Rami’s and continued, “I don’t believe your spies are that good, Ascari. In fact, they don’t know the first thing about being a spy. You should be docking their pay.”
Rami only blinked in answer trying not to look too shaken to give it all away. But seeing how Dolovan then eyed both Yulhan and Noor, he knew she had already figured it out. There was no way she had not known. She was only playing the game.
“Yulhan Yurin,” Dolovan addressed Yulhan, making them all alert. Yulhan’s slightly lowered head propped up immediately, shooting a glance at Noor. Noor was about to intervene but Dolovan had already got to Yulhan, continuing to ignore Noor’s fidgets.
“What a beautiful name you have. I was told you folk from the East know how to name your offsprings quite well. It’s a shame you never introduced yourself to me earlier by your real name. Carlu was such an awful fake name, too obvious. I would have believed it if you hadn’t looked like a vermin, you know someone from the East.”
Yulhan gulped, lowering his head not knowing where this was headed. She merely patted Yulhan’s shoulder to say, “It was too easy to find out where you were from, Yulhan. There’s barely any vermin left in Keimitaan or any neighboring villages anymore. Most runaway families from the East exclusively reside in rural villages now. It only took a day to find out where you were from. Ah! Your mother sends her regards.”
Yulhan’s eyes bulged as he tore his gaze from his feet to Dolovan. His mother was never supposed to be the target of an ex-Commander of the King’s Army. She was supposed to stay in the village, unharmed and carrying on with her life.
Noor suddenly jumped onto his feet and lunged at Dolovan with his fist balled. What exactly went through Noor’s mind to do such a maneuver on his captor, he did not know. But if anything were to happen to Yulhan’s mother he would never be able to live with himself.
And Dolovan was ready for Noor’s fighting fist even before he threw it her way. She deflected it quite smoothly before kicking Noor twice in the shins and once in the stomach before the most brawled person of the trio fell to the earth in pain. Rami got to Noor in a second.
Dolovan had already gone back to continuing her conversation with Yulhan.
“Worry not, Yulhan. Your mother is safe. She merely thinks we are lovely girls from the city that had the pleasure of meeting you…very briefly. She wishes you well and hopes you return home soon.”
“Do–do you promise?” Yulhan jumped at the opportunity. He needed to know, “Do you promise not to get her involved?”
“I can but only if you are willing to not break the promise you made me,” she paused briefly then continued, “But looks like you have broken it—”
“No, no! We can go back. We can reverse this,” Yulhan’s shaky voice raised in the hopes of reassuring Dolovan.
She smiled yet held a finger up then pointed at Noor, scrambling on the muddy ground waiting for his pain to subside, “But what of him?”
“He will listen to me. He will do as I ask,” Yulhan jumped again with answers to which Noor shot a glare his way. And even if Noor disagreed with Yulhan he stayed put watching Dolovan walk her way to him. She crouched next to him with her wicked smile plastered across like she had something else up her sleeve that no one knew of.
“Do you agree?” she asked.
Noor reluctantly nodded his head.
“Answer me!” Dolovan raised her voice, “Do you agree, Noor Baaraskin?”
His name being uttered by a Commander of the King’s Army was quite haunting. He was only shocked for a moment for if she managed to find out Yulhan’s real identity Noor was not far off. He braced for the next few words to come out of her mouth for he was sure she had done her research well. He could not hide it anymore. He had to face the demons he so desperately wanted to bury for sometime.
“Answer me!” she shouted once more to which Noor simply said, “I agree. I will return to the Circle with Yulhan and help you in whatever you need.”
Rami watched as Noor capitulated. It was as if he had finally broken, letting the words tear him apart.
“And what if you run away again?”
“This will not happen again–”
“No, I mean what if you run away as you did when you served in the King’s army, Noor? What if you decide to disgrace yourself again? Abandon your station?”
A beat of silence passed and Yulhan spoke up, “That’s not true. He was injured and sent home from the Army.”
“And what were his so-called injuries then? What did he tell you?” Dolovan spat back at Yulhan. But Yulhan only looked at Noor and then at Noor's legs. In his mind, it was impossible for such a leg injury to be healed within a couple of years. But by how well Noor had climbed over walls, ran through the forests, and fought hard, Yulhan knew it was impossible. Not even with his mother’s herbs would such an injury be healed so quickly so well.
Dolovan glared back at Noor, “You were pronounced dead by the General of your division over two years ago. Either you had a deal with him or they happened to find a body that was similar to yours…”
Noor only stayed silent listening to Dolovan.
“...I was puzzled to find that none of your villagers knew of your miraculous resurrection. To them you came back from the Western borders with an injury. Oh, how perfectly well has everything turned out for you,” she mocked, kicking a stone away in distaste, “If you ever want to even think of being released from my grasp, do as I command. If else, I take you back to the Army. And you do know what the King’s Army is capable of doing to runaway soldiers, don’t you, Noor?”
The glisten in her eye from the moonlight peeking through the trees made Rami shiver. He couldn’t begin to comprehend what Noor had actually done to deserve such treatment but to know that even Noor had his head hung low avoiding her deathly gaze altogether Rami knew they were done for now. Their only hope of disappearing was gone. They were found out in every way possible. They were so exposed that Dolovan did not need her guards anymore to keep them rounded. They would do as she pleased even in her sleep. They would be loyal to her through and through.
Her gaze finally caught up to Rami helping Noor up on his feet. She gazed at him like rubbish collecting by the sidewalks being eye rolled at by pedestrians. He only stared back at her waiting for her to begin talking.
“I’m quite confused and tad touched by the fact that you decided to run away with these two. As if we wouldn’t come looking for you, Ascari,” Dolovan drew closer to him.
“Why would that be confusing?” Rami shot back at her. A part of him so desperately wanted to shout back. They were suffocating in Keimitaan because of her and here she was driving them up the wall once more.
“You’ve got the nerves to be cocky, and that too now?”
“You were demanding us—”
“Which you agreed to do! You agreed to infiltrate the Circle for me,” Dolovan pushed her finger to Rami’s shoulder emphasizing it.
And that was enough to tick Rami off. He slapped her hand away to spit back, “You forced us! You threatened to kill us if we didn’t! You threatened to kill them if they didn’t help me!”
Rami’s voice echoed through the dark forest. It was the first time Rami had ever heard himself speak so loudly. But tonight he did not care. He watched as Dolovan’s sour face turned angry.
“You do not have the upper hand—” she barely began when Rami cut her off immediately, throwing his hands in the air, surprising everyone surrounding him.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“I never had the upper hand to begin with! I am not Azul. I will never be…” Rami felt something release in his tight heart. There was ease creeping in after letting it loose finally.
“You are Azul Ascari—” Dolovan only tried before Rami spoke over her shouting back at her, “No! I’m not Azul. I am not! And you can’t make me even if you wanted to! Not anymore!”
It was becoming easier as the words spilled out of him. He was beginning to breathe better and shout louder to the world that he was not the Ravenous everyone wanted him to be. He hadn’t realized but he was shivering with excitement and flailing his hands trying to prove his point as the adrenaline filled his body pushing him beyond his boundaries.
Yulhan had crept closer to Rami and tried calming him down, “Rami, calm down–”
Yet Rami only looked at Dolovan and lashed out, “That’s it! That’s my name, Rami! You can’t make me pretend to be someone I am not! You can’t command me anymore!”
Slap!
The searing pain of a well aimed slap across one’s cheek usually took a few seconds before one would begin to realize what had even happened. That’s what happened to Rami. Dolovan’s slap made him quite literally see the stars before he was called back to earth by Yulhan who was seeing the red hand print slowly come to life on Rami’s skin.
“Rami, are you okay?” Yulhan asked only to get shouted at by Dolovan, “Stop calling him that! This is all because you entertain his delusions.”
Dolovan’s hand grabbed Rami’s collar in a forceful tug bringing him closer to her eyes as she peered into the depths of his soul, “I don’t care what you call yourself, you imbecile. You work for me now. And unless you want Black Heart to burn you alive for treason you better follow every single word I say from now on. Do you understand?”
Dolovan shook Rami as if to shake up his soul. Rami’s bulging eyes caught her death glare. He knew he was doomed now. Whatever he had pulled only a moment ago made him seem like the stupidest man on earth. It was rare but a grown adult throwing a hissy fit wasn’t really something he ever liked seeing anyway. And here he was throwing the very hissy fit he would have despised if someone else were to do so. He felt shame overtake his body, erasing the pain of the slap entirely. He felt it in his bones and he had nowhere to hide but be displayed in the open to everyone surrounding him.
“Do you understand?!” Dolovan repeated to which Rami lowered his head meekly and answered with a soft broken voice, “Yes, Commander.”
#
It was shame that Rami bore the next two days whilst traveling with ten of Azul’s best men to the North Western garrison just like Dolovan had ordered him to do. That night in the woods was a disappointment. The chance at freedom from his current circumstances let alone the chance to finally think of truly going back home to his apartment, to see his mother, was no longer even in the vicinity.
Here he was trapped once more, truly trapped that he had to now be the face of the Circle’s coin division and continue to pretend to be the ruthless coinmaster for as long as Dolovan wanted him to.
He scoffed muttering under his breath, “Why are we even doing this? What does she even want from the Circle so badly?”
To Rami’s surprise Yulhan muttered back, “Must be something very secretive that she is yet to mention it, only torturing us making sure we don’t oust her in the process.”
Rami looked to see his gentle savior walking beside him. They had been leading the pack of men since they set off at dawn the night after they returned from the woods per Dolovan’s orders. They had camped in the dense woods the first night and set off again the next morning without much discussion. Tonight was the big night, the night of the raid. The sun was already beginning to set and they were finally on their way to the garrison itself just like how Dolovan had directed them. Rami crumpled the little map of directions from Dolovan in his fist and shoved it into his pant pocket, getting reminded of her wicked eyes.
Yulhan smiled half-heartedly and glanced over at Noor, who was at the end of the pack.
“I didn’t know he was a runaway soldier. No one in the village knew. Though it makes sense now. He rarely ever left the village anymore. He refused everytime Mother wanted to take a look at his leg. He even begged us not to mention his name outside of the village in fear of being shamed for being an injured soldier worthless to the kingdom,” Yulhan let out a sarcastic laugh, “It all makes sense now.”
Rami couldn’t understand it, the tragic fault of Noor for being a runaway soldier.
“Is it so bad running away from the Army?” Rami asked to which Yulhan smirked looking at his feet.
“It’s essentially treason at this point. Especially since he had managed to fake his death,” Yulhan looked up at Rami to continue, “What do you think made him fake his death to his division? What do you think made him run back to the village and lock himself up for two years?”
Rami shook his head, unable to come up with a convincing answer. But for some reason he knew Yulhan wasn’t exactly looking for one. He was simply hurt that Noor had bore such a deep secret for so long so much so that it made Yulhan refuse to speak with Noor for the last two days.
“You should talk to him, you know,” Rami finally said to which Yulhan just shook his head in reply.
“Not when he’s kept such a secret from his best friend for two years. And on top of all that, why did he agree to leave the village now? He could have refused to rescue you from the dungeons. He could have refused to help me convince Azul to help pay our village’s debt off.”
“Debt? The village owes money?” Rami was quick to ask back. Yulhan bit his lip then sighed in annoyance, “I was not supposed to say it but we are being harassed by the debt collectors in the neighboring villages for months now. We have had a bad season with crops and none of us barely made any money. There’s a particular rowdy gang that keeps visiting the village for their money back. Noor’s father regrets his decision to borrow money from them now.”
“That’s why you two came to Keimitaan? To rescue Azul and rid your village’s debt?”
“When we first heard Azul was captured and imprisoned I came up with the idea of helping an old friend in exchange for coins. Mother agreed, almost half the village agreed despite them slandering Azul for years for being a part of the Circle.”
“And you knew you would succeed because–” Rami looked to Yulhan’s hands, pausing, catching himself before he said another word of it.
Yulhan nodded and replied in a whisper, “That’s right. A bit of Cazpin goes a long way.”
Rami glanced over at Noor slugging his way at the end, “And Noor agreed to help you do that? Break into the dungeons?”
“Agreed? Oh no, he insisted,” Yulhan exclaimed, “And that is what I cannot figure out. Why would he insist on it, knowing very well that if we were to get caught he would risk exposing himself?”
Rami remembered it then, the usually snappy Noor being ever so forlorn and secluded in Dolovan’s presence as if he wished to be invisible altogether. It made sense now. With such a secret that warranted ample punishment Rami understood why Noor was perhaps afraid to even look up.
“I suppose we have two dead men walking then,” Rami sighed, “Azul and Noor.”
#
The night sky drew in. They were finally beginning to see the garrison come into full formation. As they drew closer, Rami directed the men to an isolated area by the woods in front of the walls of the garrison that stood erected in all its glory. It was different from Keimitaan. There was not a soul in the vicinity much less a hoot from a living thing. It was only trees surrounding walls made of large stones morphing themselves into a vast barrier acting as a border between the Kingdom and the lands beyond. The garrison standing between these walls was in reality a small fort with arched large double doors that remained shut protecting the building within it.
Rami scratched his head as his men settled into a seat waiting for his cue. He went to a corner watching the high garrison walls as the moon peeked from between the towers shooting to the sky. He was lost.
“What’s happening?” Noor hissed as he walked by.
“Don’t rush him,” Yulhan stepped in, barely glancing at Noor.
But Rami only waited with nothing crossing his mind as he stared at the crumpled parchment in his hands.
“She told me to stay put here. We are at the correct place, right Yulhan?”
Yulhan nodded in reply.
“Let me look at that,” Noor grabbed the paper from Rami’s fingers. Rami let him as his mind continued to remain blank as fear started to creep in. Yulhan butted in for him. And as Noor and Yulhan bickered about who should be reading the parchment from Dolovan, Rami's nose picked up something interesting.
Is that food? What is that smell…
“Do you smell that?” he asked without much thought.
Both Yulhan and Noor paused for a moment to sniff around like dogs when suddenly it hit Rami.
“Something’s burning,” Rami locked eyes with Noor to immediately look around to see if any of his men had somehow not picked up on their mission and made a fire to keep warm in the cold night, throwing away their cover.
But the woods remained dark, only barely lit by the moon. He stared at his men as they gazed back at him in equal confusion. Suddenly, one of them sprung to his feet. His hand whipped out and pointed high. He mumbled something to which Rami squinted his eyes as if squinting was going to help him hear better.
“Speak up!” Noor said, feeling bitter.
“F–fire. Fire!” The man let it out, making Rami follow his shaking finger to finally see the source of the strange smell. It was fire indeed but it was fire in all its glory.
In a split second the calm towers that Rami was staring at only a few seconds ago were totally consumed by the majestic orange flames raging through. The crinkling of the high fire reached their ears as they all panicked feeling the radiant heat of the enormous flames envelope them almost immediately after. Giant plumes of gray began to fill the night sky as faint cries were beginning to be audible drawing closer and closer. A loud cranking sound followed as the giant arched double doors began to open.
Rami sped through hiding himself behind a giant tree copying his fellow men who were much faster at it than he was. They watched as the wooden doors fully opened and soon men, screaming for their lives, poured out, running far away from the chaos brewing within the garrison walls.
“HELP!” a gut wrenching scream of a woman sent shivers down Rami’s spine as they watched soldiers, servants, and even clergy of high ranks running away in panic as the flames grew higher and higher lighting the sky as if the sun had returned to greet the moon.
“What do we do?!” Yulhan shook Rami grabbing onto his shoulders as the overwhelming noise of fire breaking down walls grew louder.
“I don’t know. This wasn’t a part of the plan–” Rami stopped himself wondering if this was it.
Suddenly something whipped past Yulhan and struck onto the tree trunk right beside Rami’s ears. He looked only to be rudely surprised to find a glint of metal twinkle at the corner of his eye. Rami jumped in shock, making Noor push him aside and pluck the thin dagger out of the tree trunk unraveling the parchment attached to it.
There was only one word written on it in cursive Korvin, ‘Now!’. And despite not seeing the owner of the dagger that threw it at him, Rami knew it instantly. The ornate dagger heavy to the touch despite its small size was pretty much reflective of the Commander herself. She had prepared the playing field for him. And she had given her cue. Now it was time for Rami to deliver.
“Ready your weapons!”