المجلد 8.5 - البارت الاول

Volume 8.5 amongst the fallen
JASMINE FLAMESWORTH

Drip…drip…drip…

I'll need to speak to Dalmore about that leak, I thought through the dull ache in my skull. I attempted to roll over and pull my pillow over my head to muffle the constant drizzling, but instead of my pillow, I came away with a handful of damp straw.

Sitting up caused the inside of my head to slosh, which made it even harder to focus on my surroundings.

My bleary eyes scanned the room through a bottle-glass blur that suggested a night of significant over-indulgence on my part. I recognized the room. It was a cold, wet stone enclosure about ten feet square. A single barred door led into and out of the jail cell. There wasn't even a window, because the cells were in the base of the Wall itself.

Despite the lack of windows, the cells were always damp. I glared grumpily up at the steady dripping from between the stones above my head. This sent a sharp, stabbing pain up my neck and into my skull, and my eyes snapped shut.

I rubbed a dirty palm into one eye socket, trying to push away the pain. It helped, a little.

I couldn't remember enough to be sure what I was in for this time. I'd been at the Underwall Inn, keeping an eye on the other patrons to earn my keep, I remembered that much. There were never more than a handful of people at the inn at once, but since the Council had fallen, tensions always ran high.

The few soldiers who even stayed at the Wall—mostly because there was nowhere else for them to go—were just as angry and afraid as everyone else. When one of them had a rough day and a few too many drinks, things were likely to get violent. I'd tossed more than a few soldiers out on their heads since the rest of the Twin Horns went underground and I…well, I didn't.

Then, something clicked into place. I half-remembered the face of a big, loud-mouthed, gorilla-armed soldier.

I leaned back against the cold wall of the cell as I puzzled through the prior evening's events. It'd been another dreary day, and I'd had a few too many drinks. The soldier had been boasting endlessly about how tough he was.

What was it that he had said? Something about his sword, I was sure. I dug the tip of my finger into my temple, the pressure giving me some relief from my hangover.

Things started to come back into focus, and the goon’s rumbled bragging resounded in my aching skull. He’d been going on and on about the Alacryans, and then he’d said, "Let's just see them Alacryan scum try an' take the Wall, aye lads? I'd beat the life out of 'em one by one, an' wouldn't even need to take ol' Mankiller from its sheath, aye?"

Mankiller? I thought, scoffing and causing a jolt of pain to arc through my head. I pressed the heel of my hand back into my closed eye. "How limited was his vocabulary to name his sword by its designed purpose?" I asked myself, sneering despite the hangover. My voice was raw and weak.

I had cracked up drunkenly into my beer when he talked about his oversized kitchen knife, and the big brute had turned to ask me what was so funny. I could have just waved him off, but instead, I had told him exactly how ridiculous his sword's name was. To make sure he'd understood the insult, I then said he couldn't beat the life out of a three-legged dog with his hunk of rot-iron, much less an Alacryan mage.

An image of the big man, easily twice my size, lying unconscious on the floor oozed into my sluggish mind. He'd been missing a few teeth.

That's the problem with fighting soldiers though. There are always other soldiers.

One was currently looking at me through the barred door of the cell, I realized dully. He was a pimply young man, around my age, with shaggy reddish hair. "Can I help you?" I asked, then wished I hadn't when my insides roiled dangerously.

"Senior Captain has given the order to release you, Flamesworth," the soldier said, emphasizing my name. He grinned at me. "The senior captain has also asked that I inform you that this will be the last time. Any more…altercations…and he'll chuck you out. Not enough resources to keep riff-raff like you in jail."

No, I thought bitterly, just scheming, treasonous nobility like my father.

"Understand?" the soldier asked, squinting through the bars. I nodded, which wasn't any better than speaking.

A key rattled in the lock and the hinges wailed as the door was pulled outward. The soldier stood to the side and jerked his head. "Come on then, I can't babysit you all day."

I slid up the filthy wall until I was on my feet and stumbled out of the door. The soldier led me down a long hallway filled with identical cells, almost all of them empty, then up a narrow, winding stone stair, then practically pushed me out a thick wooden door that opened into an alley at the base of the Wall.

"Like I said, this was the last time. Pull yourself together, or get the hell out of town, yeah?" With those final supportive words, he slammed the door shut, and I heard the bar fall into place on the other side.

I leaned against the rough wooden planks of the building making up the other wall of the alley, resting for a moment before beginning the slow slog back to the Underwall Inn, where I was staying.

I passed a few people on the way, but the Underwall wasn't far, and there weren’t many of us left at the Wall. A couple of soldiers gave me cold stares, but it was hard to tell if it was because of the fight, because of my bad reputation, or because they were just sick of working for free and waiting to die every damned day.

That's what life was like at the Wall, after all. Etistin, Blackbend, and Xyrus had all fallen. The other major cities, too, most likely. Elenoir was fully under control of the Alacryans. Darv, from what I'd heard, had broken into all out civil war.

All around the Wall, the Alacryans had seized control. We'd only been spared for so long because the Wall no longer held any strategic value. They didn't need to get past it to take anywhere else, unless they planned on marching into the Beast Glades, and they'd already proven that they could get in there easily enough.

No one, including me, expected our reprieve to last forever. Eventually, a force would march on the Wall, or even worse, one of their retainers would arrive to lay waste to the soldiers here. Most of the garrison had already been emptied, sent to Etistin to die, and many others fled, stripping off their uniforms and throwing down their weapons so they could go home and hope to make the best of life under Vritra rule.

Not everyone had somewhere to go, though.



Rock Bottom (Part 2)

The door screeched as I pushed my way into the Underwall. Dalmore looked over from his place behind the bar. He set down the mug he'd been cleaning—he was meticulous about those mugs, cleaning them constantly, over and over again—and pointed back at the door.

"Oh no, not this time. You're done." Dalmore was a stocky man in his middle years. He had clay colored skin, slightly wrinkled, and short, dark hair that was quickly receding away from his forehead. "Sorry to say it, Jasmine, but you've been more trouble than you're worth."

I rolled my eyes and kicked my leg over a wobbly stool right in front of him. A row of freshly cleaned mugs sat on the bar, so I grabbed one and turned it upright, then looked at Dalmore expectantly. His eyebrows rose and his frown deepened simultaneously, but he didn't move to pour me a drink.

"Be reasonable, Dal. If you didn't have me around, who would keep those soldiers from cutting your throat and stealing your beer?"

He scoffed. "You'll be the reason they slit my throat. I was damned happy to have a member of the Twin Horns sticking 'round here to keep an eye on things, but you've cost me three times what you've saved. No, we're done, Jasmine. I want you out. Now."

I met the innkeeper's hard gaze. "Can I at least have something to dull this hangover before I go?"

***

Ten minutes later, I was climbing up the cliff face next to the wall and regretting it. My foot slipped from a rock, sending a jolt through my body that nearly made me vomit, but I gritted my teeth and got my footing.

Putting one hand over another, and occasionally throwing out a blast of air to correct myself if I lost my balance, I made my slow, nauseating way to the ledge where Arthur and I had sat and talked after he fought with Reynolds.

We'd both wallowed in the muck of the worst of our impulses regarding our families. At least we'd had families back then. It hadn't been long after that conversation when Reynolds died and Arthur placed my own father under arrest.

Angry, unwelcome tears built up in the corners of my eyes, but I bit them back, then hissed in pain and wiped at my lip with the back of my hand. It came away bloody.

I threw my head back to shout out a curse, but all that came out was a shuddering breath.

"If only we'd known how much worse it could get, right Arthur?" The wind grabbed my words and carried them over the Wall and off into the Beast Glades.

Somewhere below me, in the Wall's finest prison cell, my father sat and nursed his wounded pride. I don't think the lisp from his burned tongue bothered him nearly as much as the knowledge that the Flamesworths had been stripped of their station and holdings, even if it didn't mean a thing now.

I'd been to visit him just once, after news of the fall of Etistin and the Council. He hadn't wanted to see me, of course, so I satisfied myself by shooting barbed comments through the barred doors, telling him how Senyir had left the Wall the day after he was arrested, unable to stand the shame, and how suddenly Aunt Hester and I, instead of being outcasts, were the only Flamesworths who hadn't lost everything because of his selfishness.

I hadn't been back since. If the Council hadn't fallen, he probably would have been executed already. As it was, though, the new senior captain, Albanth Kelris, didn't have the stomach to take my father's head himself.

The cold wind conjured goosebumps along my exposed arms and neck, and I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. There was no Arthur to create a barrier with fire mana, just like there was no Arthur to stand between us and the Alacryan army anymore. I conjured a current of air to swirl invisibly around me to keep my own body heat in.

"Sorry," I said softly, picturing Arthur not as he was when he flew around over our heads, raining deadly magic down on thousands of mana beasts, but rather how he had been when I mentored him, adventuring together in the Beast Glades, a ten-year-old boy who had somehow made me feel like a child.

I couldn't keep myself from wondering what would happen to Dicathen without Arthur. The Alacryans had outplayed us at every turn, defeating our strongest warriors and executing our leaders before most of us even knew we'd lost the war. Without him, what hope was there of retaking our continent?

That was exactly why I'd stayed behind when the others ran off to join in the underground rebellion. Helen, somehow, seemed to find hope that the Alacryans could be thrown from our shores. I shook my head and pulled my knees tighter against my chest. Helen had been like a mother to me, but I just couldn't share her eternal optimism.

Hope had died with Arthur.

With this dour thought fogging my tired mind, I drew a flask from my dimension ring, poured a splash on the ground for Arthur, and took a long, thirsty swig.



Not a Safe Life (Part 1)

LILIA HELSTEA

The heels of my shoes clacked on the stone slabs of the street and echoed back at me from the tall walls of the surrounding houses, making it sound like I was being followed. I kept looking behind me just to make sure, but I was the only one in the street, and for good reason. It was past curfew, which meant trouble if an Alacryan patrol caught me, but I'd been kept late at Xyrus Academy, again.

The Testers must have found it humorous to let us out so late that we had to scurry home in the gloom of twilight, like mice rushing for our dens. Damned these Alacryans, I thought bitterly. It'd been less than a month since they'd occupied Xyrus, but already it felt like a lifetime, or maybe like they had arrived only yesterday.

Time had taken on the uncertain quality of a dream, where it seemed to move fast or slow on a whim, and generally in opposition to my needs.

This felt inextricably connected with the presence of our new overlords. The Vritra, I thought, the word ringing in my mind like a curse.

The Vritra, who had defeated our Lances. They had even killed Arthur. When I thought of the strange, otherworldly boy who had moved in with us when we were just children, I grew melancholy. Arthur was the reason I'd become a mage; without his training, I wouldn't have awakened. He was also, I remembered with some embarrassment, my first love.

Love? I asked myself. Yes, I think so. Young and foolish, perhaps, but love.

I'd never had a chance with him, of course, not when I was competing against the likes of an actual princess…

I shook away the thought and actually laughed out loud at myself. How long ago had that been? It seemed like a different lifetime.

Movement ahead caught my attention and I stopped, immediately tense, my heart beating in my throat and all thoughts of anything but my own safety rushing out of my head. A figure had walked from the alley and stopped in the middle of the street, watching me. The figure was wearing a hooded cloak with the hood pulled down, but there was something familiar about the build, the way the figure stood…

"You're out late," he said. The voice was cold and angry, grinding through his teeth in a way that scraped off the kindness and self-assuredness that I had always heard in it before.

"J-Jarrod? Jarrod Redner?" I took a step forward, peering into the shadows of his hood. "Is that you?"

Jarrod threw off his hood and glared at me. The handsome boy who had served with me on the student council at Xyrus Academy was almost entirely gone. A gaunt scarecrow, made loosely in Jarrod's likeness, glared back at me, his face twisted with malice.

The ferocity of his glare made me flinch back, and I nearly lost my footing as I stepped on a loose stone.

"Scared, Lilia?" He sneered. "You should be. I can't believe you of all people turned dog for the Alacryans, but I'm going to make you pay. I'm going to make your whole family pay!"

I fixed my frightened gaze on the boy who had been my friend, at once confused, angry, and very afraid. "What the hell are you talking about, Jarrod? What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me, Lilia?" he asked through gritted teeth. Jarrod took a threatening step forward, giving me a clearer view of his gaunt cheeks, sunken eyes, and yellowing bruises. "You Helsteas are all a bunch of filthy traitors, that's what!"

Mana built up in his right hand, but he hesitated, his eyes softening as he stared at me.

I raised my own hands in a placating gesture. I couldn't imagine what had been done to him, and I certainly didn't want to fight him.

Unfortunately, he didn't give me a choice.

With a grunt, Jarrod sent a disk of condensed air toward me. I waved my hands, conjuring a sheet of water in front of me to quietly absorb the force of his spell.

A face momentarily appeared in the window of the house adjacent to me: a wide-eyed, frightened old man. He disappeared almost as quickly.

"We're not traitors!" I shouted, my voice shaking. "Just give me a chance to—"

"Stop, Lilia," Jarrod hissed, cutting me off. "I know your dad made a deal with the Alacryans so you would be spared the worst of their experimentation." Mana condensed in his hand as he prepared another spell.

I matched him, conjuring five floating balls of pure mana, each the size of my fist. They orbited around me, waiting for his attack.

Jarrod formed the wind-attribute mana into a spear and hurled it at me, then threw two crescents of condensed air behind it. Three of my little white moons shot outwards, intersecting his spells and deflecting them or breaking them apart.

The last two I fired directly at him, forcing him to expend mana to conjure his own shield.

"Jarrod, this is stupid. We shouldn't—"

Jarrod leaned forward and pressed out with both hands, creating a tunnel of wind that blew my words back into my face. I conjured a liquid panel of water to dampen the full force of the spell, but the wind tunnel began to break apart into spinning disks and cutting crescents that curved around the barrier.

A wind-crescent nicked my arm as I tried to dodge a disk, and I realized I would be cut to ribbons if I didn't do something. Working quickly, I cast Sunken Tomb, a difficult spell I'd never had to use before. A thick barrier of dense water-attribute mana formed around me, entirely encasing me, but also pressing down on me so that I couldn't move.

Attack after attack sunk into the barrier, but nothing got through, and after several more seconds the gale subsided and the attacks stopped.

I released my concentration on the spell, letting the water splash down to the ground at my feet.

Jarrod was panting, his shoulders drooping, his hands clenched into tight fists. He looked more like a wild mana beast than the boy I'd gone to school with.

Clearly, something horrible had happened to him. I wasn't angry with him anymore. I felt bad for him…I felt bad that my family had escaped the worst of the Alacryan occupation, while so many others suffered horribly at their hands.

"Jarrod…" I took a careful step toward him. "Talk to me, Jarrod. What happened?"

A shiver ran through him and Jarrod deflated, sinking down onto his knees, his hands pulling at his dirty blond hair.

"They—they took—took my family!" he said, his words choked out through a constricted throat. "They took everyone, and—and now they're l-looking for me…" He looked up to meet my eyes. "I'm sorry, Lilia. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have…I don't know what to do."

I heard a shout in the distance. Guards.

Forcing myself to be brave, I rushed to Jarrod and kneeled down in front of him, resting my hand on his trembling shoulder.

"Listen to me very carefully, Jarrod Redner. I'm not the enemy. I bear you no ill will whatsoever, and I'll help you if I can, but the guards are coming." The sound of armor-clad boots on stone emphasized my warning. "Go. Quickly! Meet me at my house in a few hours. Wait until after midnight."

Jarrod's tired, dirty face turned up to me, confusion clear in his shining eyes.

I reached under his arm and hoisted him to his feet. "Or would you rather get caught!" I hissed.

My gaze flicked back down the road, where the sound of running steps was quickly growing louder, and I felt Jarrod stiffen.

Finally, my old friend stumbled weakly toward the alley and disappeared into the darkness—and not an instant too soon. Four Alacryan soldiers came around a corner about forty feet away, weapons and spells ready.

I glanced quickly around at the windows, hoping no one had watched our altercation too closely, then threw my hands up and yelled, "Oh, thank goodness you're here!" and began jogging toward the soldiers.

"Stop!" one yelled as another pointed a glowing spear at me. I did.

"Please," I said, effecting my most damsel-in-distress voice, "I was just attacked."

The front guard's eyes darted from me to the puddle of water still soaking the ground, then to the buildings around us, where a few of Jarrod's spells had chipped away bits of brick and wood.

"Why are you out after curfew?" he asked, his gravelly voice laced with suspicion.

"I'm coming from the Academy. My name is Lilia Helstea, daughter of Vincent Helstea. He's a merchant, licensed to continue working by the new governor. Please, the man who attacked me went that way!" I pointed down the street, away from the alley where Jarrod had disappeared.

The mage with the glowing spear still had it trained on me, but one of the others had walked up to the closest building. He ran his fingers along a deep cut in the stone. "Definitely spell damage, sir."

The patrol leader nodded at his comrade and waved a hand at the others. His features softened and he took several steps toward me. "Not the first report we've had of natives attacking upstanding citizens. What did this attacker look like?"

My mind raced as I invented a description for my imaginary attacker. "He was cloaked and hooded, but he was older, maybe in his forties…reddish beard…dirty, like he'd been living in the streets."

The patrol leader nodded seriously. "We'll find him. You get home now. Don't want anyone to think you're up to something. It wouldn't be good for your family's status."

I looked at the man's boots and gave him a deep bow, hoping he couldn't hear the grinding of my teeth as I did so. "Thank you for your kindness and generosity, sir."

I didn't look up until the four Alacryans had rushed off in the wrong direction to search for my attacker.






Not a Safe Life (Part 2)

"You did what, exactly?" Father asked, his eyes wide with surprise.

He leaned forward and rested his face in his hands. I had never thought of him as old, but he seemed to have aged considerably since the war with the Alacryans had started. His dark hair was going gray and receding back from his temples. He'd gained weight, too, so that his usually fashionable suits clung to him too tightly.

"I couldn't just—"

"He attacked you, Lilia!" Father snapped, standing so suddenly his chair toppled over. "And in return you invite him into our home! What were you thinking?"

My heart was racing; I couldn't remember the last time my father had yelled at me.

"We could lose everything, Lilia. Don't you understand?"

"I understand that too many others have lost everything already!" I returned, my own temper flaring. "I'm not a child, Father. I know what you've done to protect me—"

"Not just you, Lilia," he said fiercely. "What about your mother? Or the dozens of men and women who are still able to support themselves because we've stayed in business—who are protected by my agreement with the Alacryans? This could jeopardize everything I've worked for."

"You didn't see him."

Father slammed his hand on his desk, making me jump. "Are you going to save them all, Lilia? Are you going to throw the Alacryans out of Dicathen, return the dead to life, restore everything to the way it used to be? Tell me, did Arthur Leywin give you these amazing powers when he trained you to be a mage? Because, if he did, I'll be happy to see it."

Father was breathing hard, but I returned his angry glare with a look of forced calm. Inside, I was trembling, but I didn't let my surprise and fear into my voice. "No, Father. I'd be happy if I could save just this one."

His mouth opened to respond, then slowly closed again as he regarded me. "My wise, kind daughter…"

He fidgeted around for a moment, righting his chair and adjusted a few items on his desk that had been moved when he hit it. Finally, he sat back down. "I'm sorry, Lilia. One boy is not worth the risk."

"What if it was Arthur?" I snapped, my own frustration boiling over in the face of his calm. "What if it was Ellie? What lengths would you go to if it was the child of your best friend? To what lengths"—my voice rose to a shout—"would Reynolds and Alice have gone if it was me?"

Father leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand down his face. A light knock on the office door interrupted the tension.

To me, he said, "It's just not the same, Lilia. Alice and Reynolds were family." Father's eyes lost focus as he stared into the middle distance. "Go get some dinner. It's late." Then, louder, he said, "Come in."

Mother eased the office door open and gave me a kindly, worried smile. I squeezed her hand as I walked out of the room, but couldn't meet her eyes.

My feet carried me automatically to the dining room, where cold leftovers were still sitting on the table. I picked at the ham and olives just to give my hands something to do as I thought.

Logically speaking, Father was right. Involving ourselves in any effort to work against the Alacryans, were it discovered, would end with us dead and all our assets given away to some other household. It was a foolish risk to take for someone who had just tried to kill me.

And yet…

Wasn't this fear exactly what the invaders relied on to keep us in line?

The Alacryans hadn't won Xyrus City by force. In fact, there had been hardly any resistance at all. With most of the Tri-Union's forces concentrated at Etistin, Xyrus City had been caught entirely off guard when Alacryan soldiers began marching out of the teleportation gates and announcing the Council's destruction.

In the face of defeat, most of the citizens of Xyrus had simply laid low, stayed out of the way, and hoped for the best. Once the Alacryans controlled the entire continent, there didn't seem any reason to continue hiding. Father thought the only way to protect ourselves was to operate out in the open.

But I wanted to do something. If I could help just one person…

Standing, I decided to march straight back to my father's office and make my case again, better this time.

I was up the stairs and halfway along the hall before I noticed heavy sobs and whispered conversation coming from the slightly open office door. With my body nearly pressed against the wall, I crept closer until I could just see into the office.

My mother was leaning against the desk and cradling my father's head against her stomach. Her hands feathered through his hair, and she was making gentle shushing noises, like she'd done for me so many times before.

He was sobbing into her shirt, his shoulders shaking.

"Alice and Reynolds were adventurers, dear," my mother said softly. "They weren't meant for a safe life. You don't have to compare yourself to them."

Father tried to speak but couldn't get the words out.

Tears welled up behind my own eyes. I'd seen my father cry before, of course, but this outpouring of emotion seemed so…hopeless.

Feeling suddenly guilty for listening in from the outside, I pushed my way into the office and ran to my parents. Father's shoulders only shook harder when I wrapped my arms around him and Mother. We stayed like that for awhile, exhausting ourselves of tears.

When I felt like I could speak without choking up again, I looked my father in the eyes. "Just living safely isn't enough anymore."

He nodded and wiped his tears away with his sleeve. "I know, Lilia. I know. We'll figure something out, okay? Together."