The Vitalis Chronicles: White Shores (20 page)

“Tricky bastard,” came a voice as it planted a knee in Ardin's back and roughly tied his hands behind him. “Still can't believe a kid like this skewered Wilks. Of all the ways to go, I never figured it'd be some hillbilly runt.”

The Hunter hoisted Ardin to his feet roughly.

A second Hunter, sleek and dark in his tight leather armor punched Ardin in the stomach as soon as he was up. The boy buckled, but was held up by the first. The pain of his arms twisting behind his back kept him from going completely limp. How were they not dead?

“Took us a good while to find you though, didn't it you little weasel?”

The night sky glimmered faintly in the smooth shield that covered his eyes. It looked like it was the shape of a loose figure eight. In contrast his tight-fitting helmet barely reflected anything at all; they were almost invisible in the night. He grabbed Ardin's hair and looked straight into his eyes.

“Gotta hand it to you for that,” he spat from behind the mask that covered his mouth. “It doesn't usually take us so long to find little whelps like you.”

He struck Ardin squarely in the left eye as he finished the sentence, as if to add punctuation to the insult.

“Hey now,” Ardin's captor objected. “Don't beat him up too badly, he's still gotta walk a good ways.”

“Forget the courts.” The second stood straight to look his partner in the eye. “This kid killed a handful of us and you're gonna let it slide? Not to mention the soldiers in Levanton.”

Ardin's stomach lurched at the thought. Somehow he felt, in this instance, justice would not fall on his side. How did they know he had anything to do with any soldiers in Levanton?

“We don't know this is the same kid,” said his captor, as if in response to his thoughts. “Justice will be served in due course.”

“You're so naïve, Sam, with all your idealistic bullshit.”

“It's what we fight to protect, isn't it?”

“Like I said.” The Hunter bowed down to look Ardin in the face again. “Naive, my pal Sam, don't you think?”

He paused, as if waiting for a response, but got none.

“You see?” he said, “His silence makes your idiocy out for what it is. He knows I'm not letting him walk out of here alive.”

“C'mon Lucius,” Sam protested. “We can't just murder the kid.”

Where was Alisia? Why wasn't she doing anything? They hadn't even turned on their
MARD
sticks. He could see one strapped tightly to the thigh of the Hunter in front of him.

“It's not murder if he attacked us! He killed a handful of us before the damned witch saved his worthless corpse!”

“That was back in the forest. It's not self defense days later, Lucius.”

“No one would know, Sam. Untie the little bastard and let's finish him. Who's to say he didn't attack us again?”

“You can't be serious,” Sam sounded genuinely appalled. “Just get on your wireless and let them know we found him already.”

“No!” Lucius was vehement, venom jumped from his lips with the word. “You know he'll slip through the cracks! Even if some jury does believe he was capable of doing it, they still won't find him guilty. And if they do find him guilty, they'll slap him on the wrist out of sympathy for the way he was raised or some garbage!”

“It doesn't matter, Lucius.”

Sam's arms were growing tense behind Ardin's back. The soldier's grip was tightening on his bonds.

“We swore an oath, and we'll uphold it even when it doesn't play out the way we want it to.”

“The way it should!” Lucius yelled. “Not the way we want it to, even if that does line up with how it should go, how it needs to go!”

“She's not with him anymore, Lucius. Just let it go!”

Ardin could barely see the man moving as the last embers finally died in the fire, but he heard the distinct sound of a pistol being drawn from a leather holster.

“Untie him, Sam.”

“Lucius, I–”

“Untie him, you bastard, or I'll do it after I empty his skull!”

There was a moment of indecision, Ardin could feel the hesitation before Sam's grip loosened. He could feel him untying his hands, roughly yanking on the cords until they came free and his hands fell to his sides.

“This is wrong, Lucius.”

“Yeah, Sam, I suppose in some screwed up way it is. But it's all so right at the same time.”

Ardin tried to act, tried to call up the fire that had surprised him before. He clenched his fists and tried to will it into existence, but was met with nothing save the cold reality of his situation. He looked around briefly for Alisia but could only see the silhouettes of the trees around him and the dull reflection of leather as his captors backed away from him.

She had abandoned him.

“The captain will see right through this, Lucius.”

“Not if you keep your damned mouth shut, Sam.”

“He'll be suspicious!”

“He can keep his suspicions, damn your eyes.” He was tiring of the game. “He won't have any evidence to support them.”

“Lucius,” Sam pleaded one last time. “Think about what you're about to do.”

“I'm about to kill a seditious, murderous sack of guts, and in the process, do Elandir a damned favor is what I'm about to do. And you're gonna tell everyone what a goddamned hero I am when we drag his rotting corpse back to the city gates! That's what you're gonna do.”

The hammer cocked back invisibly in the darkness

“Lucius! Don't do it, Lucius, please.”

Ardin focused hard, willing whatever it was within himself to come alive and rescue him, but it lay dormant. Sleeping. Apathetic. He was trapped.

Then, to his surprise, the trees lit up as white fire filled the clearing and blew the Hunters back through the smoking branches. Ardin felt the heat surround him, felt it brush against his skin briefly, but he was left untouched as it swirled around and out from him.

He took a few moments to collect himself, cringing in an unwillingness to believe his luck, before opening his eyes. They were greeted with the same black night that they had left behind, but his captors were nowhere to be seen in his limited field of view.

He began to relax, his arms dropping to his sides as he looked down. His hands moved up in response and he stared at them in the dark. They didn't feel the same as they had when the heat had gone out from them; in fact, he hadn't felt anything this time.

“Did I...” he began to himself. “Did I really just do that?”

“No,” came the assertive response from the dark.

He jumped in spite of himself as he furtively scanned the darkness.

“I did.”

He finally recognized the voice. “Well thanks for waiting until the last moment! I thought you'd left me here to die on my own!”

“I did.” Alisia's form grew out of the darkness as she approached him.

“You di... you what?”

“Are you alright?” She appeared to be checking him over in the darkness.

“You left me here to die?”

“Try not to make a big deal about it. We need to go, their companions will be coming soon and now they'll know there's a Mage about.”

She grabbed his wrist lightly and started to pull him back towards the gorge.

“Not make a big de... you just said you left me here to die!” He was greeted by a silent tug as she led him westward into the trees. “Well at least do me the honor of telling me why you decided to come back!”

She turned abruptly, closing the distance between them as he came to a startled halt.

“I don't like being left owing debts,” she said simply as she let go of his wrist and turned to walk away.

“You d... she doesn't...” he mumbled to himself for a moment before she turned at the limit of his ability to see in the darkness.

“Well,” her hazy silhouette said from between the trees. “Are you coming or did you want to wait for more of your friends to show up?”

The memory of the Hunters jolted its way through his mind and he immediately started walking. He knew he'd find far less kindness in their hands than he would hers.

“I thought you killed those guys the first time!”

“I guess not.”

“Do you know where we're going?” he asked as she turned and kept walking.

“Not really,” she replied, almost in a self-satisfied tone, he thought to himself. “But as long as you learn to fend for yourself, we should make better time.”

She laughed lightly as the night moved ever onward and they made their way towards the Rent.

G
ENERAL FLAVIAN BRUTUS
barked orders at the two colonels that stood in front of him. They were in a small office in the barracks that the City Guard called home. Their commander was a gray colonel whose honor at the end of his long career was to head up the Guard and the Mayor's security. It was his office the general had commandeered earlier that night. He only begrudged his superior ever so slightly for the inconvenience.

The colonel knew it was his responsibility to protect the city, but the general seemed to have it in his head that his own neck was on the line. The colonel was happy to allow the ax to pass.

“Do you understand me?” Brutus looked intently from one face to the other.

“Aye sir,” came the response.

“Then get to it.” Bags were forming under Brutus' eyes. “I'll be at the main gates in twenty minutes.”

“Aye sir.” The two colonels saluted their general and then moved quickly to give their orders to their own subordinates.

Brutus sank into the high leather chair that stood behind him in the small office. For what the room lacked in size, it made up for in luxury and pomp. This was actually nicer than his own office, he remarked to himself. The big general leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk, resting his head in his hands as he rubbed his forehead. He had ordered every drain and air duct connected to the city walls under guard and had placed larger contingencies of soldiers at every entrance.

The Hunters only had three working shelters, devices that provided a radius of space within which the Shadow couldn't jump between states. It wasn't much, but it would have to be enough. Two of the things didn't even have functioning batteries and had to be plugged in to operate.

He wasn't sure they would prove tactically viable to stop Silvers, or whatever the thing was. Brutus sighed as he sat up and collected his hat from the corner of the desk. He stood, straightening his jacket before he clasped his weapons belt around his waist. All he carried were a pistol and his saber. If he had to draw either tonight, he was uncertain they would ever see use again.

Walking out of the empty barracks and into the full streets was another experience all together. It had been two hours since the original alarm had sounded and people were still mulling about the streets, curious why the perimeter lights had yet to be turned off. He pushed his way through the crowds, the people oblivious to his rank in the tumult and thus more difficult to get through.

He cursed under his breath as he tripped over a group of kids running gaily through the crowd. The damned alarms were supposed to be people's orders to get indoors, but no one listened anymore. Peace had made people soft, unreliable in a crisis. They saw these things as a spectacle, something to watch and criticize as it happened in front of them.

It took him longer than twenty minutes to make it to the city gates, but he eventually did. The gates were tall as they stood closed and locked in place, but only half as tall as the walls which ran continuously over them. Though thinner than the walls they were placed in line with the exterior to maintain a smooth outward appearance.

That way they also rotated on their hinges so as to line up evenly with the interior face of the entrance as if to create a simple hole to walk through. If you were guessing conservatively they were a few stories high at least. But they were also beautiful, ornately decorated on the interior. They were intimidatingly tall, twice as high as they were wide.

Brutus loved seeing the awestruck faces of visitors from other City States as they walked through them for the first time. Fear, that's what crossed their faces. The fear of Elandir; the fear of his city and his army. Perhaps someday they would know that fear in their own cities, but tonight he had other things to think about.

He passed through the ring of soldiers working on keeping onlookers at bay some distance from the gates. The area directly in front of them was broad and open. It served as the main gate to the city and provided plenty of space for traffic. A monument stood almost as tall as the gates in the center of the square. Although the term square was misleading for such a large, circular space.

Such nuances of irony escaped men like Flavian Brutus however, and he took the entrance to his city for granted as he pressed towards a command post erected by the monument.

Brutus looked around for the colonel of the Guard but didn't see him. He grumbled under his breath about the finer points of the colonel's character flaws. After a minute he found the major who had command of the soldiers surrounding the gate. “Where's your damned colonel, Major?”

“He took a squad to quell some unrest that was breaking out near the market, sir.”

“He couldn't send you, Major?”

“Sorry sir, he gave me direct orders to watch over my own men here, sir.”

Brutus swore under his breath. It shouldn't have bothered him so much but it did. He looked around, seeing no sign of the Shade as of yet. He was worried that this was all for nothing; there were few things Brutus hated more than being made to look the fool. Then again the general wasn't sure which was worse, looking like an idiot in front of the city or having to face the King of the Shades.

“Where's the damned shelter?” he asked in order to get his mind off the situation.

“It's right over here sir.” The major walked him around to the side of the statue facing the gates. “There sir.” He pointed half-way up the tall, square pillar that made up the base of the monument. On top of it rested a towering likeness of Elandir's namesake, its founder and guardian. He stood holding a sickle in one hand and a large book in the other, representing Elandir's traditional success in agriculture and education.