“Imperial schooner at the docks,” came a cry from above.
“What?” Aram called, racing to the other side of the deck. He peered toward land through his spyglass.
“We can expect extra soldiers in town,” Jasher said. He wore a patch over his injured eye and a bandage on his arm.
Even without a spyglass Jason could make out the dark form of the docked ship ahead. They just couldn’t catch a break! Now they would be sandwiched between strong forces.
“Eight of you should take the remaining launch and land away from the dock,” Heg said. “Let the Valiant draw away attention. We’ll bombard the schooner, the dock, and the incoming ships with pitch.”
“Might be our best choice under the circumstances,” Farfalee said. “We’ll leave behind an orantium sphere.”
“Take it,” Heg urged. “You need them both more than we will. I’ll stay and lead the effort. We’ll make sure the Valiant burns. We’ll fight until you’re away, then make our escape into the wild.”
Considering the large number of enemy troops involved, Jason wondered how many of the drinlings would survive to escape. Once again, others would risk their lives to try to get him to Darian.
“Who will go ashore in the launch?” Aram asked.
“Jasher, Aram, Jason, Corinne, Nia, and I,” Farfalee listed. “And two drinlings. Who do you suggest, Heg?”
“Del is our best remaining swordsman,” Heg said. “And Zoo has shown great composure under pressure.”
“We could probably squeeze ten into the launch,” Jasher said. “We might need the extra swords to win through to the horses.”
“Thag and Fet,” Heg said. “Our hardiest fighters. Maces should serve as well as swords.”
“We had best prepare the launch,” Aram said. “The breeze is picking up. We’ll reach the dock swiftly.”
“Try to catch up with us,” Farfalee urged Heg. “Find horses if you can. It will be a long ride to the far side of the Fuming Waste. We can use all of the protection we can get.”
“If we win free, we’ll follow you,” Heg promised, “whether mounted or afoot.”
Jasher approached Corinne, holding Drake’s breastplate. “It cracked, but it will still serve. It’s light and will offer better protection than leather.”
“Thank you,” she said as she strapped it on.
Jasher turned to Jason. “I’ll carry one of our last orantium spheres. You carry the other. Don’t hesitate to use it.”
Jason accepted it gingerly. Orantium was a powerful weapon, but the prospect of an accidental detonation made him nervous.
Jason, Corinne, Jasher, and Farfalee all wore torivorian swords. Farfalee had offered hers to Aram, but the half giant had refused in favor of his own enormous blade. The ten companions climbed into the launch along with packs full of provisions. Thag and Aram manned the oars. The overloaded launch floated lower in the water than Jason liked.
As the launch diverged from the Valiant, Jason tried to pay equal attention to the coast and the enemy ships. The town of Gulba looked quiet, with only a few lit windows. It was neither a large town nor a tiny hamlet. The enemy ships were converging rapidly, chasing the Valiant into port like a pack uniting for the kill.
“Speed could save us,” Jasher whispered, loud enough to be heard over the sloshing oars and Aram’s jingling armor. “We nab horses and we get out of town.”
As the Valiant approached the dock, the drinling crew began launching fiery pitch at the schooner and the piers. By the time the interceptor collided with the opposite side of the schooner’s pier, flames were leaping from some of the dockside buildings and spreading across both piers. Fire climbed the schooner’s sails and blossomed aboard the Valiant as well.
The launch landed on a muddy little beach near a modest inlet sheltering smaller vessels. Farfalee sprang out first, a pack on her back, an arrow set to her bowstring. Alarm bells rang. Voices hollered. Figures could be seen running to the flaming docks, as well as disembarking from the Valiant. The Intrepid led the charge as the imperial flotilla sailed for the piers, driven by the rising wind.
Jason slung a pack onto his back, picked up his titan-crab shield, and stepped out of the launch and onto firm mud. Jasher and Aram held their swords ready, so Jason drew his as well, the blade silver-white in the moonlight. Positioned at the right angle, the torivorian metal picked up orange highlights from the burning dock.
“Heg told me the way to the stable,” Zoo said. “Stay close.”
Jason was glad that somebody knew where they were going. From his current position he could see no evidence of horses or a stable. Away from the dock most of the buildings were lost in shadow. A few had soft firelight or luminous kelp glowing behind shuttered windows.
As the group trotted away from the launch, Jason questioned whether he should hold the orantium sphere ready instead of his shield. He decided that he could drop the shield and reach the sphere easily enough if needed. The sphere would not block arrows. Jason had practiced fighting with a shield at Mianamon but had spent more time with only a sword in his hand.
Zoo led them between buildings, keeping to the shadows wherever possible. Disorderly clusters of people ran toward the waterfront, some only half dressed, a few in uniforms. Most were too focused on the dockside fire to notice anything else, but as the group rounded a corner, a pair of uniformed men down the road paused, looking their way.
“Who goes there?” one of them asked, drawing a sword.
Farfalee answered with an arrow. As the other ran for cover, she dropped him as well.
Running lightly, Zoo led them down a side street. At the next corner Zoo halted, then peeked her head around slowly. “We found it,” she whispered. “There’s a guard outside with a crossbow.”
Jason was impressed with how clearly Zoo was speaking English now. The drinlings learned so fast.
Farfalee pulled an arrow to her cheek, stepped around the corner, and released. She nocked and released a second shot in a swift motion, then readied a third.
They sped to the large stable, a long wooden building with a gently sloped roof. From inside they heard horses stamping and whinnying. One seemed to almost scream. Zoo collected the fallen guard’s crossbow.
Thag and Aram yanked the big doors open. The stable contained sixteen stalls on each side. Three soldiers were working their way down the stalls, slaughtering the horses. They had started at the far end and only had a few stalls left.
The soldiers looked surprised as the doors opened. Thag and Aram closed swiftly. One soldier charged forward. The other two backed away, their dripping weapons raised defensively.
Aram sidestepped a swing and clubbed the attacker with the flat of his blade. The soldier rebounded off the side of a stall and flopped to the floor. Racing past Aram, Thag engaged the next soldier, landing a crushing blow with his mace. The final soldier went down with an arrow through him. Aram stomped a heavy boot on the chest of the man he had toppled. “Where can we find more horses?”
“Gone,” the man chuckled bleakly. “We set loose the steeds in the corral. I yield, by the way, if that matters.”
Jason glanced around the stable. Only three horses remained standing.
“Three mounts,” Jasher spat. “We have three horses.”
A shadowy figure slipped through the door at the far end of the barn. Farfalee drew an arrow to her cheek, but hesitated. Zoo loosed a quarrel from her captured crossbow.
The figure caught the quarrel in one hand and rushed forward with inhuman speed. The lurker plunged the quarrel into Zoo, then stood back calmly.
Jason stared warily at the torivor. It stood so near, unmoving. His thoughts turned to Drake, and he felt queasy. At least the lurker had no swords. Still, what were they supposed to do now?
Thag approached the lurker from behind, mace raised.
“No,” Aram ordered. “We need you.” Aram looked down at the man beneath his boot. “How many horses did you scatter?”
Suddenly unw
illing to speak, the man glanced at the lurker. The dark figure raised both arms. The horses in the stalls began to whicker and stamp. One reared.
Corinne raced at the lurker. Farfalee and Jasher both moved to stop her, but they did not react in time. Corinne held the tip of her sword level with the dark figure’s chest. “Enough!” she cried angrily. “You’ve done enough!”
The torivor lowered its arms and retreated before her, shuffling back as she stalked forward. The tip of her sword shifted left at the same time as the lurker attempted to dodge left, then back to the right an instant before it skipped to the right. She kept advancing. It kept retreating.
Jason held his breath and watched in horror. It was as if Corinne had stepped in front of a speeding train. Her destruction was inevitable. Sure, a torivorian blade could injure a torivor. But you had to hit it. Now that Corinne had attacked, she had opened the door for the lurker to retaliate. Jason couldn’t get thoughts of Drake out of his head. The idea of Corinne sharing a similar fate was too much. If anything, Jason would have wanted to step in front of a lurker to protect her, not the other way around! He knew too well how even an unarmed torivor could wreak havoc against opponents.
Raising his sword, Jason strode forward. Maybe if he could slip past Corinne, he could distract the torivor enough for Corinne to make a move. Jasher’s hand clamped down on his shoulder firm enough to restrain him. “Too late,” Jasher murmured. “The way is too narrow. This is up to her now.”
Jason could see that Jasher was right. If he tried to dodge past her, he’d probably just end up distracting her and getting them both killed. The chance to help her had passed. He didn’t resist the seedman’s grasp. The sword in his hand made him feel like a poser. Jason wished he could rewind time. Nobody should attack an unarmed lurker! Why hadn’t somebody tackled her? Why hadn’t he tackled her?
“Get out,” Corinne said steadily. “Leave and do not return or I will slay you.”
Corinne stopped advancing and began to move her sword into a variety of defensive positions. The lurker would twitch and she would adjust. Jason found himself flinching with each tiny movement. She swiped at it, missed, and stepped back into a defensive stance. Her blade kept moving as if dueling an imagined foe, blocking invisible blows, occasionally poking forward in halfhearted thrusts. The lurker crowded toward her, knees bent, arms extended, feinting with its head and hands. She seemed to anticipate every feint, moving with the featureless creature instead of reacting to it.
Corinne shuffled back and lowered her sword to her side. The torivor flashed toward her at the same moment as she lunged, thrusting her blade forward. The lurker stopped just shy of the sharp tip. The torivor slapped at the flat of her blade, but she twisted it so the black palm tore open against the edge, bleeding light.
Corinne shifted the tip of her blade left, then right, keeping it pointed directly at the lurker as it sidestepped. The dark figure jumped up and back, sailing almost high enough to reach the rafters. Then it fell flat to the floor and blurred toward her legs. Corinne stabbed downward, the blade piercing the floorboards as well as the torivor. It disappeared with a blinding burst of light.
There was silence in the stable for a moment. Corinne looked over her shoulder at her friends, her expression tired and relieved.
Jason did not realize he had been frozen in horrified shock until it began to melt away. He blinked. She had survived. No, not just survived. She had killed it.
“Well done,” Farfalee said, making no effort to hide her disbelief.
“How many horses?” Aram repeated menacingly, leaning his weight onto the fallen soldier.
The man beneath his boot looked flabbergasted. “She just . . . How did she . . . ?”
“We kill lurkers all the time,” Aram replied casually. He leaned more heavily on the man, his boot pressing down with rib-creaking force. “Last chance.”
Jason stood beside Aram, glaring down at the trapped soldier. The man glanced his way. He kept his expression hard.
“We scattered twenty or so,” the man huffed with difficulty. “Emptied the corral.”
Aram reduced the pressure. “Which way did they run?”
“Inland,” the man said. “You won’t catch them. It’s a wide wilderness. The darkling spooked them.”
“What other horses remain in town?”
“None,” the soldier replied. “They were all kept here. They made us get rid of our own horses as well. We just got the order. We were supposed to eliminate any means for you to escape by land.”
“There have to be outlying farms with livestock,” Aram said.
“Sure, here and there. Nothing close.”
Jasher, Farfalee, and Nia had already led the three remaining horses from their stalls. Thag had run past Corinne to watch the far door. Fet guarded the near door. Del knelt beside Zoo, leaning in close and feeling her neck. “She’s gone,” the drinling said, rising to help saddle the horses.
Jason looked at Zoo lying motionless. She had been so alive just moments ago. Another casualty from a lurker. Another fallen friend. When would it end?
“There has to be some mount you spared,” Aram insisted. “Do you have a commander?”
“Captain Finley and Morgan the mercenary are currently astride their mounts,” the man said. “That’s all. You’re lucky to have three. We knew you were coming. We were making quick work of it.”
“Jason, Corinne, and Farfalee will ride,” Jasher said. “They have to get away. The rest of us can fan out, head into the wilderness on foot, try to find our own mounts and catch up.”
“I don’t like it,” Farfalee said. “We’ll be too vulnerable.”
“We’ll be at your heels,” Nia said. “Drinlings can keep up with horses over long distances. We can’t outpace a gallop, but we can run day and night without tiring, eating as we go.”
Jason moved toward one of the horses. Corinne stood beside another, looking a little shell-shocked.
“Where is your commander?” Aram asked the soldier under his boot.
“What am I?” the man complained. “An oracle? I suppose he’s managing the defense of the waterfront.”
“The horses may not have strayed far,” Farfalee said. “Once away from the lurker, they could have slowed. We should go after them together.”
“Some of us could ride double,” Jason suggested. “Especially if it’s just until we find more horses.”
Farfalee nodded eagerly. “What if Jason and Corinne shared a mount? Jasher could join me, and Aram could take the third, just until we see if we can catch up to some of the scattered horses. We could bring extra bridles.”
“Those ships are bringing more troops than we can handle,” Jasher said. “You should get away while you can.”
“Those ships could also be used to—”
Jasher interrupted Farfalee by placing a finger on her lips. He nodded at the soldier on the floor. “We should wait before getting too specific.”
Jason looked at the man on the ground. His wide eyes lacked focus. His face gleamed with sweat.
“Are we finished with him?” Farfalee asked.
“Anything else to tell us?” Aram questioned.
The man licked his lips, eyes anxious. “Can’t believe that girl killed a darkling. That’s a sight I never expected to see. Quick as a rock viper, that one.”
Crouching, Aram clenched both arms in a snug hold around the soldier’s head and neck. The soldier soon went boneless. “He’ll stay that way for some time,” Aram promised.
“The ships in pursuit could shuttle soldiers ahead of us,” Farfalee continued. “Anyone watching the Valiant could tell we wanted to go north. If we escape from here, they might head us off. We need warriors who can help us fight our way through ambushes, and we need woodsmen who can help us avoid them.”
“Fine,” Jasher said, lighting a strand of luminescent seaweed. “It will be hard to track the horses in the dark, but not impossible. If it comes to it, you three ride ahead.”
“We need to move,” Aram said.
“Are you all right?” Jason asked as Corinne mounted up behind him.
“Better than the lurker,” she replied.
“That was amazing.”
“I could feel its mind,” she said. “Just like Father taught me. The concentration was tiring, but it could hide nothing. Even at the start I knew it would raise its arms and scare the horses right before it did. With it tracking us, I knew we’d never get away. Since it had no weapons, I decided to take a chance.”
“Incoming soldiers,” Fet warned from his position by the door. “Four. Wait, four and a rider.”
Having collected extra bridles, Jasher and Farfalee sat astride their horse.
“Go,” Aram urged. “I’ll claim the inbound horse.”
Nia climbed onto the third horse. Jasher and Farfalee led the way to the far end of the stable. Aram, Fet, and Thag crouched into position at either side of the stable door. As he rode down the central aisle of the stable, Jason noticed that not all of the stalls had dead horses inside. Some had been empty. He idly wondered whether the soldiers had saved their own horses, sending them off into the night to be collected later.
As Jason reached the door at the far end of the stable, soldiers came through the door near Aram. “We have a problem!” the lead soldier cried, hustling into the stable, trailed closely by the other three. “Fugitives fleeing on horseback!”
Fixated on the fleeing horses and the bodies in the aisle, the new arrivals did not see the danger lurking at either side of the door. Aram, Fet, and Thag attacked from behind, dropping all four effortlessly. Just before Jason lost his view into the stable, he saw Aram heading out the door, presumably to find the man on horseback.
The gate to the large corral hung open. They trotted over to it. Del stayed with them on foot, sword in hand, eyes roving the night. Jasher leaned down, studying the ground beyond the gate with a glowing strand of seaweed in hand. Behind them, from a distance, Jason heard the clamor of weapons and the shouts of many voices. Dockside flames rose above the rooftops.