The Last Warrior (6 page)

T
HE WEATHER HAD TURNED
during the night, summer to autumn, the thick, humid heat of the past week replaced by the crackling air of harvest season. From the hooks behind the door she snatched a wool wrap and yanked it around her shoulders. She burst out her front door and ran around back to the medical clinic, where the current practitioner, Chun, slept with his family. The young physician, once mentored by her father, was trying to button a shirt with one hand as he answered her furious knocking at the door.

“Green flag,” she said. “Don't know more. Tell Navi. Be at the Kurel canteen when Little Lume is straight up.” The young accountant, Navi, also worked at the palace. At high noon in the mess hall, no one would think anything strange about the royal tutor deep in conversation with the palace accountant and guest healer.

A nod from Chun assured her he knew what to do.

She waited at the ghetto gates until the suns lifted above the horizon, slowly, like two old men climbing out of bed. Then she darted toward the palace, her mind considering a multitude of possibilities for the summons. The streets were quiet, most windows still shuttered after the festivities had gone on late into the night. The streets stank of stale liquor, manure and urine. On the palace grounds, General Tao's soldiers lay sleeping here and there, some with empty bottles clutched in their hands, others with women in their arms.

She hurried past them, her heart skittering, instinct calling out danger. Crossing the bustling upper bailey, she nodded to the regular staff, all the while pretending the green piece of paper hadn't been balled in her fist only a short time ago. A guard stood at the workers' entrance. Only his mouth was visible below the shadow of his helmet. Alarm twanged like the first pluck of a taut string. The entrance had always been unguarded before.

He waved her through. The only thing she could think to do next was to report to the classroom as normal and await contact from Markam. Before she'd traveled more than halfway across the grand foyer, Markam fell in step with her, his hands clasped behind his back. Shadows under his eyes proved he'd had no more rest than she.

“How do you do that,” she half scolded, “appearing out of thin air?”

“You're simply not observant enough, Elsabeth. I was here the entire time.” Very subtly, he scanned the area to be sure no one was listening. “It's begun. Xim arrested Tao last night. For treason.”

Her heart dropped like a stone down a well. She'd cautioned the general not to let down his guard, fearing she'd revealed too much. Instead it carelessly had been too little. He hadn't retired to his chambers with that dancer; instead, he must have gone to seek answers after she'd refused to give him any.

Markam quickly summed up the events leading to Tao's arrest and the planned trial, the assured guilty verdict and the inevitable hanging. “Opportunity coincided with intent. A single moment, a slip of the tongue and Xim pounced.”

Poor Aza.
“Is there no hope the king will grant clemency? The general's his brother-in-law.”

“None. Xim must follow through. If he blinks, Tao looks all the more powerful.”

“General Tao is a hero. Xim will have to convince the people the man they cheered yesterday isn't one, after all.”

“Torture and truth potions will extract any confession Xim desires, all in front of so-called neutral observers and witness-scribes who will provide the
testimony to the people. A death sentence will swiftly follow, before any real protests can form.”

He sounded so certain. She blurted out, “You can't leave him to die.”

“Of course not. He'll have been freed by then. Getting him off palace grounds isn't the problem. It's stowing the man where Xim can't find him.”

Suddenly she didn't like the expression on Markam's face. “No.” She shook her head. “Not Kurel Town.”

“There's no safer place, Elsabeth. You know this.”

“Tao's estate lands. He owns countless acres.”

“Too predictable.”

“In the countryside, then. The wilds. Not as far as the Plains or the Peaks, but far enough away from here.”

“True, he could probably survive out there, for a time, while the weather is mild, but when winter comes where will he go? A hunter's cabin? A shepherd's hut?”

“The snows are months away. We have time.”

“And if Riders find him? They've roamed wide since the drought. They'll steal his horse and leave him out to dry like a piece of jerky. Or, worse, enslave him.”

Few in the capital had ever laid eyes on the elusive plainsmen, but evidence of their existence surfaced when livestock would go missing, especially in the
late-summer months when the Riders occasionally raided Tassagon herds to pad their winter coffers. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad for the general to be abducted by the Riders. They were said to be a mix of Tassagon savagery and Kurel scholarship, and fiercely independent. But they could kill the general as easily as they could spare him and, in either case, he might never be heard from again. Her mind analyzed every alternative, even as she swallowed the realization that Markam was right. There was no safer place to hide Tao but where few Tassagons dared tread.

But General Uhr-Tao in the ghetto?

Dread coursed through her with the sense that this was a rash, even suicidal move. For centuries, only the Kurel had kept the fires of science and technology burning. Many of the precious, secret volumes that other humans had long forgotten, the last existing links to the origins of the founders of their world, were hidden within the ghetto. Within the Log of Uhrth was the very prophecy that directed her actions now. Yet, could she justify bringing a Tassagon Uhr-warrior within reach of that precious book?

She felt as if she were sliding toward a cliff, grasping for a way to stop her fall, but finding no way to keep from plunging over the edge.

“Let's not be rash.” She made fists behind her back as if that would somehow contain her anxiousness.
“The army and also the common people love him. This could cause a spontaneous uprising. There could be violence in the streets, Tassagonian against Tassagonian, not just against Kurel.” While she wanted Xim deposed, her Kurel sensibilities had always insisted a new king gain the throne in a nonviolent fashion. A peaceful revolution. The events now spinning out of control made her palms sweat with the dread of having to explain her role in any violence to the Kurel elders. “We need to be in charge of when and how Xim is removed from the throne.”

Markam agreed with a firm nod. “Tao's escape will give the people hope. It will tide them over, and buy us time.”

“And make Uhr-Tao a folk hero. Xim won't like it.”

“Precisely. He'll focus on Tao instead of the army left in his possession. This buys us time, as well.”

“All this buying of time,” she snapped. “We're racking up quite a debt. At some point, we're going to have to pay what we owe.”

“One always has to pay, Elsabeth. One way or the other.” A chill ran through her with the fatalistic turn to his voice.

“An Uhr-warrior in the ghetto…” A hunter let loose in the midst of the flock. Her heart drummed a warning. Swallowing, she stared straight down the hallway
to the classroom and pretended she didn't hear it.
Remember your vow.
“I'll have to let the elders know. If I'm caught harboring the king's number-one fugitive, there will be severe consequences, including banishment. And when I tell them, they may order him to leave.”

“You'll advocate for him.”

“It'll take more than that. He'll have to fit in. His commitment to following our ways will have to advocate for him.” Elsabeth groaned silently, imagining the training this would require.

“Tao will cooperate,” Markam assured her. “He'll understand the reasoning behind his asylum.”

“In my home. He'll have to live with me.” No other option existed. She had to be the one to take him in. By Uhrth, she would be personally responsible when she brought the Butcher of the Hinterlands to live amongst her people.

A Kurel bookworm sheltering a Tassagon Uhr-warrior.

Mercy.

Remember what you're fighting for, what all of us are fighting for.
The fate of humanity seemed to be falling more and more squarely on her shoulders with every word they spoke. She took a steadying breath and turned to Markam. “I assume you've thought of the best way to get him out without anyone noticing.”

Markam's eyes glinted craftily. “With a little polishing, yes.” Together, they cobbled together the plan to free the kingdom's most important prisoner. It was outrageous, the idea of sneaking him out under
everyone's
noses—madly so—and it just might work.

T
AO SAT HUNCHED OVER
on the floor, his ears alert for the opening of the dungeon door as he hammered a metal button torn from his uniform with a chunk of stone. His fingers were bloodied, his concentration intense, as he fashioned a key.

He held the flattened piece of metal up to the pitiful light of a smoky torch. The button was relatively malleable, but it had taken hours to craft the correct shape. This was his second attempt, after having nearly broken the key by rushing. Spotting the bent seam, he went back to work, crouched in the play of torchlight on the filthy floor, dashing away the sweat dribbling in his eyes with the back of his arm.

He'd unlock the cell door, but leave it closed, and wait for a guard to come check on him. He'd surprise and disarm the guard, leave him hog-tied and make his way up to the next level's sealed door wait for a guard to open it, overcome the man, go to the next door and repeat. The part where he got out of the palace was still
vague, but had a lot to do with changing into a guard's uniform and running like hell. Not the best-laid plan, but it beat sitting here until someone else figured out what to do. No matter what Markam promised, one didn't advance by waiting on the actions of others. Men made their own destinies.

After some chipping away at the edges, Tao deemed the sliver of metal ready for another test. He limped to the cell door on stiff legs, stretched his arm through the bars and contorted his wrist toward the lock, then slipped the key in and jiggled, trying to play it just right to unhinge the crude mechanism inside.

A scrabbling sound came from deep within the shadows at the opposite end of the dungeon from the door. Rats. Were they coming back to see if he'd been served dinner yet? “A waste of time, fellows,” he said, hearing hoarseness in his voice. “No one's been by all day.” No food, no water.

No Markam.

Tao worked the key, taking care not to snap the delicate piece. He wiggled the key the rest of the way into the lock and turned. The clank when the mechanism gave way was just about the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

A distant sound like a heavy metal grate dragging over stone yanked his attention back outside the cell. That was no rodent. The
twang
of a bow took him by surprise. Before
he could fully process what had happened, a wet rag had soared past on an arrowhead and doused the torch nearest him. Two more arrows extinguished the rest, plunging the dungeon into darkness.

With the memory of the Furs' eerie howls preceding an attack in his mind, Tao scoured the blackness for enemies. If these people had a way in, they had a way out. As soon as they came close enough for him to see how many he was dealing with, he'd make his move to take them. He'd have to be accurate, and quick. If he was captured and dragged back here, he was going to hang. Of that he was certain.

“Friendly, not hostile,” a female voice assured him tersely, as any soldier would do coming unexpectedly upon another squad. “We'll get you out—if you're still interested.”

“I sure as hell don't plan on staying here until judgment day.” Blindly, he grabbed the bars. “If you've got a torch, light it.”

“There's a certain way we have to handle this, General, and you being in charge isn't it. We'll get you out, but you must do exactly as I tell you to do.”

He'd never taken orders from a woman before.

She apparently mistook his silence. “You must do exactly as I tell you,” she repeated.

“Do you think me mad, woman? I will do as you say.”

A lantern sparked to life. Two faces floated in front
of him. Tao squinted, trying to make out these strangers dressed in simple workers' clothing—driver's ware, roughly woven baggy trousers and shirts covered by black cloaks. One was a male, young, not much more than a boy, with dark gold skin and shaggy black hair. The other, most definitely female, with a pale oval face. Hair the color of a copper coin peeked out from under her cap. Like Elsabeth's hair.

Exactly
like Elsabeth's. The tutor. “You do more than teach children,” he observed.

“My job description is expanding daily.” A key in her hand caught the light as she reached for the door.

“It's open.” He walked forward and pushed on it. The two Kurel gaped at him, and he held out an open hand with the key resting on his palm. “Uhrth helps those who help themselves.”

A small nod from Elsabeth, the tiniest glint of admiration. “We're going out through the spillway pipes,” she said. “No guard will think we're that suicidal, to use what drains into the moat, and the tassagators. We'll end up at the loading docks. There we'll board a covered wagon. You'll hide in back. Now, come. Hurry.”

They set off running. Running for his life—with two Kurel running for theirs as well. For his sake.

T
HE
K
UREL LED
T
AO INTO
a passage that led from the dungeons to the very bowels of the palace, where the air was so dense he imagined it could be sliced with a blade. There was barely enough light to see the pair with their black cloaks as they sprinted and then crawled through the ever-narrowing passageway. Here the scent of dampness was strong, and yet familiar. The odor brought him back to childhood, when danger was excitedly imagined, never imminent.

Pipes, dead ahead.

The boy unlatched a heavy iron grate, lowering it carefully. Torn spider webs draped the opening. Light from the lantern penetrated the tunnel only as deep as the length of a man. Tao helped the boy replace the grate after they slipped through the opening. Then they were on their way, the lantern flickering as it swung from the boy's hand. The silence was as heavy as the air at this depth, the entire palace atop them, floor
upon floor. The very thought threatened to turn him claustrophobic.

Inside, their footsteps echoed unimaginably loudly after all their stealthy silence. “It's slippery,” Elsabeth warned. “The muck is like ice.” She and the boy hesitated at a confluence of pipes, the boy holding the lantern high until Elsabeth found a marker they'd left and snatched it off the dank wall.

“Keep to the right.” Tao knew the labyrinths of the drainage pipes as well as any formerly mischievous child raised in one of the noble families could. It had been years, but racing through the darkened passages, it came back as if it were yesterday. “I know the pipes well.”

“That's what Markam said.”

“So, you're in on his plan to free me. A Markam loyalist.”

Her disdainful gaze sought him out in the gloom. “Markam is helping
me
—us. The Kurel. Any enemy of this king is an ally of ours. That's why I'm helping you.” She looked him up and down, as if finding it difficult to absorb the very concept. “I also promised Markam.” She seemed no more pleased with that promise than she did helping him to hurt the king. “I'm going to hide you where no one will look,” she said. “The ghetto.”

By the arks.
K-Town. Markam had promised he'd disappear. The man had been telling the truth. “They'll
come looking for me. Not too thoroughly in your ghetto, true, but Xim won't give up that easily.”

“Let them come.” The tutor's face looked paler in the shadows as they clambered in the wake of Navi's lantern. “We'll be ready.”

He sensed her grit, and could believe her. Of all things, he'd just inherited a Kurel guardian, one who actually seemed credible in her willingness to wage a fight.

His situation was becoming more bizarre by the minute.

The boy threw glances over his shoulder at Tao, acting equal parts awestruck and nervous, but the tutor was cool, businesslike and in control, rather like he was when leading his men. If some Kurel could be this capable, why hadn't any ever signed up to fight?

Spongers, every last one.

Elsabeth said, “In case we get separated, head to the loading docks. Down by the kitchens. Do you remember where?”

How could he forget? They'd stowed away in the departing supply wagons as boys, never knowing what new places they'd see before being discovered by the drivers and shooed away. “Yes. I do.”

“We can't dally. The kitchen staff returns at midnight.” She lurched into a run. “Follow, Tassagon.”

The boy was ahead of them now, keeping a breakneck pace.
Literally,
Tao thought with increasing
concern. Several times the youth slid and almost fell, righting himself with a body that could bend and recover like a sapling. The lantern flickered with each crash, a bouncing ball of light. Tao could barely focus on the details racing past him. A wrong turn could put them out into the moat, where the pipes channeled the monsoon waters in season. Ahead was one such turn.

“Go right,” he called to the boy. Tao had done this a hundred times, but never so fast and so dark. Here, the liquid under his boots was slicker and foul—algae, affording little traction as the spillway pipe angled steeply downward.

The Kurel boy fell to his rear, bumping along the pipe's inner ribs in an effort to slow down and make the turn. Ahead the outlet yawned like an open mouth. He was slowing, but not fast enough.

“Navi, go right,” Elsabeth warned from behind Tao.

“Right—
now,
” Tao yelled.

Navi's heels finally caught, but the sudden deceleration pitched him forward. Straining, clawing for a handhold, he fought to stay in place, but gravity had other ideas. He crashed into the grate, hands first. For a heart-clamping moment Tao thought the grate would hold for the boy, but the force of his palms jarred it loose.

“Navi!” Elsabeth skidded to a stop next to Tao, both
of them sucking in air as they peered out, just above the misty waters of the moat.

Somehow the youth hung on as the grate swung open like a door, but as it bounced off the stones on the exterior of the castle wall, he lost his hold and fell for only seconds before they heard the splash of his landing. “
By the arks.
He's in the moat.” Elsabeth whirled to Tao, panic etched on her once-composed face. “The tassagators—”

“Stay put.”

Tao dove in after the boy. Hitting the water was a cold explosive shock. Within the depths of the moat, crushed by the weight of the black water, he knew his imagination was playing tricks when he sensed the twitch of awareness of untold primitive minds.

Bubbles streamed past his face until he slowed his descent and reversed his course with powerful kicks. Was the motion in the water ahead of him the churning wake left from the boy's plunge? Or was it the stirring of a powerful, reptilian tail? Eyes wide open, he saw only waving fronds of underwater plants in the dim moonlight. Then, ahead, the dark form of Navi struggling upward in slow motion.

Tao grabbed him. He surfaced, explosively, shoving the boy toward the grate, the lowest rungs still several feet above their heads. “Climb,” he gasped. “Go.”

Navi clambered up the hanging grate. It swung
crazily. Tao reached up to hold it in place to muffle any noise and keep from drawing attention to the moat.

Elsabeth snatched the boy's hand, and they disappeared inside the pipe. Tao scrambled up after them, hoisting the full weight of his body out of the moat up with his arms.

Rung over rung… His battered fingers closed over cold slippery iron, each grab hauling him higher. With his strength flagging from a day of no food or water, his waterlogged boots weighed him down like anchors.

This is nothing compared to that Furs hunt in the Sarcen Swamps.
They'd slogged through mud up to their necks, Gorr all around them, while fighting off clouds of ravenous sting flies. In the end, it had been a major victory, finding and destroying three heavily populated dens, but it had been hell to get there.
But you did.
With the thought to spur him on, Tao pulled himself higher on the grate and away from the water to keep the beasties from having a taste of him.

He threw one arm over the lip of the pipe opening, then the other, his weight on his elbows and forearms, his legs pedaling in the air. Elsabeth and Navi grabbed at him, almost frantically, trying to drag him the rest of the way inside.

A splash, a spray of water shooting across his back. “Come on, come on,” the tutor urged in a whisper. “Hurry.
Hurry.
They're all around you.”

A larger splash. Something hit him. In the legs.
Hard.
It yanked him out the pipe, but he caught a rung with one hand, stopping his fall. For a second he felt nothing at all below the waist. It was if the entire lower half of his body had departed. Then, a blow of pain rammed into him with crushing intensity, roaring up his body like an out-of-control fire so hot, he was sure he was being burned alive.

Gator bite.