Chapter Fifty-nine

“Master Corwin, something is going on!” Eloyin cried out when the noise began, “I hear the noise of armor, weapons… and I heard your name!”

Corwin paled. “No… he didn’t…”

He rose to his feet and threw on his pants. It was as impossible to imagine as could be, but at the same time the obvious answer grabbed hold of him and would not let go. ‘Brotus has turned on me… you foolish, stupid boy!’ He felt his heart rip in half at the betrayal atop betrayal while Eloyin looked at him with dismay.

“Master Corwin…?” She said in a small voice as she stepped back, “If they’re here for you, and you’re not here…”

“They won’t come inside this room.” He said and added, “Just stay in here, if they get me out in the hall, they won’t need to look any further.”

Eloyin looked at him with a vastly different expression then, something closer to respect than he’d ever seen on the face of an elf, and with one deep, hard swallow of the lump in his throat, he stepped out of the room and closed the door. It locked behind him just as he saw the soldiers charging down the hall with weapons out and eyes fixed on him.

“Seize the fat man! The other one is assigned to that room!” The lead warrior shouted.

Corwin did his best to put on a face of surprise, “What’s wr-” He didn’t get to finish before he was tackled and the beating began.

A dozen paces away, screams of pain went up from the room to which Speranzi had been assigned, then a voice of masculine outrage, the fall of a body… and the screams were still getting worse while Corwin was dragged toward the far stairs.

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Veterans that they were, the Black Quivers were seldom far from weapons or armor, but with the previous night’s wine still thudding in the heads of most of them, and unaware that there was even a threat, the sudden arrival of soldiers fully armed and battle ready, bashing through the barracks door and catching them still in their beds?

Covers flew off and soldiers sat up, or started to before pike points were leveled at their chests. The polished and gleaming armor of the city’s paladin corps glinted in the light that shone through the windows.

Cries of alarm and shock were muffled beneath the clatter of clanging armor, heavy booted feet and shaking wooden floors.

Micah managed to rise halfway out of his bunk, but before he could go the rest of the way, he felt the prick of a halberd’s tip at his chest and found himself looking up at a dark-haired behemoth. ‘Ambush… I hate ambushes…!’ Micah thought but snapped out, “Who are you and what is the meaning of this?! We’re guests in this city!”

“You are now prisoners in this city, suspected of harboring runaway slaves! As for who I am, I am Vice Commander of the Paladin Order of Wenmark, Metani Paen! Surrender, or die.” The realization that they were confronted with the force of the law of the city, coupled with being caught utterly unawares, spurred cooperation.

With a low growl out of his throat and a snarl on his lips, Micah spat out the word, “We yield…this is the worst day of my entire life.”

“So far.” Metani answered, and one by one they were manacled, metal bracelets affixed tight behind their backs, and the company that stood and survived in a hundred battles, yielded without a struggle.

As they exited the barracks they heard the sounds of the rescued slaves shrieking and howling in the darkness beneath the ground. Accustomed to the sounds of fighting and the smell of blood, both the paladins and the mercenaries alike recognized the noise of desperation in the face of the inevitable.

Before the last of the hundred-man company exited the door, the noise from below faded away to grunts and moans and the sound of dragging feet. The survivors were smeared with blood and dirt, others were unconscious, and across the grass lay the bodies of half their number were laid out on the grass unmoving except for the blood that still ran out of gaping wounds from their chests, bellies, and thighs.

Micah scanned the area, and did not see Ahmarantha. ‘He must have hidden when he heard them coming. Plus, I doubt they know to look for him anyway…’ A swelling of pity came up for the young boy, after all it was obvious fairly quickly that Wenmark was not a city an elf wanted to be trapped in.

‘Where is the commander…?’ He wondered… until a banshee cry of rage split the air and the body of a paladin came sailing out the door with an arrow sticking out the back of his helmet and collapsing with a crash against the far wall.

Speranzi appeared a moment later, an arrow nocked, she let fly at close range toward a soldier who was out of view, though not out of hearing as he fell backward into his comrades with a crash of metal and a cry of pain and anguish.

She nocked two more arrows and sent them into the throats of two paladins who attempted a rush from within, they fell backward with arrows in their eyes and without an accompanying scream to declare their deaths. Her steel blue eyes and demonic glare sent shivers down the spines of the brave paladins of Wenmark, but did not stop their advance.

Another arrow launched from her quiver and toward Paladin Somat, and with an icy glare of hatred the paladin’s sword smacked it with contempt toward the ground.

For one second the two veterans and one-time heroes of the war against the Demon God Damaxa glared across the space between them, hatred colder than the coldest winter ice held them firm in the moment before Damadeqi shouted, “Submit, or they all die where they stand!”

Speranzi looked over her shoulder to see her soldiers held fast with their hands behind their backs, then not far from her soldiers, the elven laborers she intended to protect… half of them dead, the others in pain…

“Swear on your life that you won’t kill them!” Speranzi shouted back, “Swear, and I will surrender! Or would you like me to bring down more of your paladins before I die!” She nocked another arrow and had her bow bent, ready to fire before the commander of the paladins could offer up her answer.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Wait!” Damadeqi shouted as the bow pointed at another of her warriors. “I will see them imprisoned… but I won’t have them killed.”

“Your oath!” Speranzi said and drew her bow a little harder.

“I give you my oath, on the names of all the gods known and lost, I will not let anyone captured here, be killed.” Damadeqi answered and sheathed her sword.

“Good enough.” Speranzi relaxed her bow, put her arrow back into its quiver… then dropped to her knees with head bowed and hands up. ‘Without Illyana’s key I might not have gotten close enough to Damadeqi to haggle even that much… dangerous as she is, she never could bear to see her soldiers die in front of her. At least that’s one good quality in that bitch.’ Speranzi thought and cast a prayer to the gods for Illyana’s safety and in thanks for the advantageous instructions, even if the elf probably meant for Speranzi to escape instead of going on the attack.

The paladins who survived the brief rampage may not have intended to kill her…

But that did not preclude beating her halfway there. Fists and boots struck Speranzi’s body, though she was protected by her armor, her head and face were exposed, she felt her jaw crack and heard her ears ringing as the thrashing went on until finally, blessedly, she fell to the ground and heard her opposite number shout, “Hold! Chain her up and let her trash carry her! We need her alive for trial!”

“What about her employer? The merchant ‘Corwin’?” The Vice Commander asked while keeping one eye on the dismayed line of shackled mercenaries.

“They’ll bring him down shortly, I’m sure.” Damadeqi said and spat into the grass, watching the unconscious mercenary being dragged away in shackles to be thrown bodily over the shoulder of one of the captives. The scrape of her body over the grass was like the noise of wind through trees, and the smell of blood and rage still lingered on her as she was hurled like a sack of potatoes to land on Micah’s shoulder.

The Paladin Commander waited until the merchant himself was dragged out, blood running down his face, his fat body bare from the waist up, the ample flesh jiggling as he was dragged by the scruff of his beard, one eye swelling from where he’d been punched at least once.

He was flung face down into the ground and his hands pulled behind his back. “Don’t knock him out unless you plan on carrying him.” Damadeqi snapped, “He won’t fit over anyone else’s shoulders and I’m not unshackling anyone to carry him.”

“Why?! Why?!” Corwin cried out, or tried to, the blood in his mouth made it sputter and spew onto the ground and the toes of the boots close to his lips. He grunted as a boot pressed down hard on his calf and he was hauled up by the hair on his head.

“Shut up.” A burly paladin snapped, and leveled a vicious kick into his gut that promptly doubled him over to retch, red wine, spit, blood, and his most recent meal spilled in chunks onto the path between the wings of the building.

Corwin heaved, gasped, and gulped as the air was knocked out of him, his body became limp, weak, and he was hauled bodily to his feet. “Walk!” A warrior snapped and shoved him away to join the trudging line of captives.

‘What happened… what went wrong…?! Did they get Brotus…? Ahmarantha?!’ He wondered, then saw the limp body of Speranzi, and the bodies of the elves, listless and wounded but alive… and the dead left behind for collection… and all he could do was just… weep.

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Ahmarantha’s life among humans was one he knew could have been much worse than it was. His youth, his childlike appearance, all of these he knew lent him some favor in the eyes of humans. Even the worst human supremacist would seldom kill a child of his kind. And of those who might have, whose sadistic urges drove them more than any gentle tendencies, or even the contempt of humans disgusted with those who abused children… well, the cost they would incur in coin kept them at bay. But when Ahmarantha saw the soldiers charging toward the barracks and the pit that served as the workers quarters lay, he felt his heart jump into his throat. ‘That can’t be good!’ Ahmarantha thought as his heart started to race. Humans in armor were never a good sign, humans in armor running anywhere was worse.

He dropped his broom, sprinted out of the stable, and ran along the far wall of the opposite wing of the Golden Roan. Occasionally he saw the men of his kind through the windows of the first floor, but such was the early hour of the day that there were no clients for them to service and as such, they were all still sleeping.

‘Just one… come on, just one early riser…’ It was a dreadful risk to take, he knew that without question. ‘How many slaves have you seen sell each other out for something as petty as fresh straw or a honey cake?’ He asked himself that question and felt his stomach twist in knots at the answer.

‘Too many.’ The answer was far, far too many.

The grass bent beneath his feet and sweat was already beading on his brow as his instincts carried him to run with speed beyond his limits, behind him, shouting and the noise of armor clanging about were complemented by the noise of dozens of heavy boots on wood, so many that it was like thunder over the floors of the building they seized, a coming storm that Ahmarantha could only flee in terror.

‘Corwin… is Corwin okay?’ He wondered, and if there were any doubts left about the man’s intent to set the elves free, it vanished with the realization that other humans had definitely come for them, all of them. ‘Even that nightmare of a woman…’ He realized as he spotted his wellspring of hope in the desert of despair. One of his kind was awake. Awake and stretching out.

Ahmarantha raced to the window and looked over in the direction he’d come. They were surrounding the stables still. He pounded on the window with his open palm. The elf inside, a fit, bare-chested male, took a step back in surprise when he saw the face of a young boy pressed to the glass and slapping against the panes.

“Please!” Ahmarantha begged, “Open up! Let me in!” He didn’t shout, but with his eyes and his whole-body quavering, frequent glances away toward the stables, even if his plea were inaudible entirely, there was no question about what he wanted.

The slave within was hesitant, though he came closer, Ahmarantha’s pounding became more frequent, ‘Please. Help me. Don’t let them take me.’ He mouthed the words so close to the window that his breath fogged it over briefly.

Still the adult within hesitated, then with a muffled word “Fuck!” barked out, he opened the window, extended his hand, and when Ahmarantha grabbed it, the adult yanked him into the room and slammed the window shut, locking it from the inside.

“Get in the wardrobe!” He ordered the boy, “And stay there! Don’t make a sound. I don’t know what the hell you’re getting me into… but if they find you, I’m not dying over you, I saw nothing!” He snapped at the quavering young boy.

Ahmarantha didn’t hesitate to follow the directions of his senior, the doors sealed him in the darkness as soon as the older elf slammed them closed, and then after a flurry of noise outside, he heard the mattress squeak as the prostitute lay back down again and let out a steady, constant snore.

Far out of view, Ahmarantha’s sharp senses caught that the noise was dying down, whatever was happening, it was all but over. ‘Please… please… please…’ He prayed in silence to something, anything that might listen.

It didn’t take long before he heard the tapping of metal clad knuckles against glass. “Locked from the inside, and that one is asleep. I guess we got them all.” The muffled voice said and Ahmarantha pressed his eye to the crack in the wardrobe to look out.

“Still, it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Even if we didn’t, there’s nowhere for an elf in Wenmark to go.” He let out a vicious bark of laughter, and the two halberd bearing soldiers walked away.

The prostitute didn’t even start to move, and nor did Ahmarantha, not for more than an hour after all the noise finally died down.

Only then did the prostitute roll off the bed, approach the wardrobe, and swing it open, “Boy,” he said with a frown, “you’d better tell me everything, and make it quick.”

Ahmarantha nodded mutely, skipping the thanks, and telling the adult of his race, everything he knew.