“Why do we keep going?”
The question shattered
the silence that reigned for as long as anyone could remember. Blank faces
slowly moved towards the unfamiliar sound. The speaker was barely an adult.
Dirt and blood covered his face, but his stature gave his age away. The
shuffling feet came to a stop as they turned to face the speaker. He lowered
his face, feeling shame for being the one who finally broke. His clothing was
the same as the others, burned, bloodied, and falling apart. His hair was a
singed mess, with half of his head showing signs of new growth. His ribs were
visible through the remains of whatever he was wearing during the attack, his
face gaunt from attrition, but his eyes, his eyes had a spark, a spark that had
left the others after the first day. As the group came to a halt he lifted his
head and looked at them. His eyes held a light, one that no member of the group
had seen for a long time. The closest shied away from the light. He saw this,
and slowly turned and looked each member in the eye. Each took a step back.
“Why do we keep going?”
Silence was still king
among the group. A few mouthed words but none were spoken. Heads dropped and
more steps were taken away when the boy’s eyes passed them. A small portion met
and held his eyes and the light they held. These men stood up straighter, their
expressions hardened. They shared the light.
“Why do we keep going?”
“… for life…” one
muttered.
“... for the promise…”
from the second.
“… for the forgotten…”
from the third
“… for revenge…” said the final speaker.
The other stragglers had
left. Of the doomed band only five remained. Silence returned. The boy turned
in the direction opposite of the stragglers and began walking. And the four
followed.
Tryse twitched his head
to the side. A sure sign Whispers was feeding him information. He turned to
face Ceecil with a small grin on his face. “They’re on this route, they’ll be
here in a few minutes.” They had been positioned on one of the routes the Lord
had taken when entering (city). They tried to keep it a secret, but people were
seen and the People had taken notice. They had tracked one of the men employed
by the Soune and found where the Lord had been staying. It was a brief visit.
Their cell had been notified only hours before and given this location. They
had been supplied with weapons to bring down the armored carriage he would be
traveling in.
Whispers was tracking him
from the rooftops. The narrow and winding streets made traveling through the
city slow. Tryse and Ceecil were waiting in one of the shops run by the People.
Whispers would do something to distract the driver and Tryse would plant the
first bomb. Ceecil would place the second charge, and by that time the other
teams would be there for the execution.
Tryse was eager. His
family had been killed in one of the many purges. The Lord had wiped out entire
cities based on rumor, and Tryse had somehow managed to survive. His story was
a burning fire within the People. He jumped ranks quickly, eager to get into a
place where he could do the most damage. He had found Ceecil dumped in a back
alley as a child, left to the elements. He had taken her to the People and they
had raised her. Education went right along with subterfuge and weapons
training. They became close over the past few years; Tryse had lost a younger
sister and Ceecil knew that’s how he saw her.
Growing up with the
People Ceecil saw remarkable and evil things. When the Lord’s Soune found a
cell he gave them no quarter, and then planted the bodies so everyone could see
what became of the opposition. Tryse seemed above it all. No matter how bad the
mission was he would always come through, and save his team along the way.
After the initial infatuation with him the pettiness of the higher-ups put him
back to a cell leader. He had chosen Ceecil and Whispers to go with him. This
hadn’t made the leadership popular, but Tryse only spoke of remaining unified.
Ceecil had never seen
Whispers before joining with Tryse. She’d heard of him, but even what she heard
didn’t make sense. Their first mission was to follow and detain a suspected
agent of the Soune. She and Tryse sat by while Whispers was on lookout. During
this mission she saw Tryse tilting his head and mouthing words when no one was
around. She thought the leaders were right in demoting Tryse, that he’d been
shaken too badly too many times and had lost his mind. Tryse led her right to
the agent with no problems. They cornered him in an alley away from population
and got the information they needed. The agent was scared, constantly asking if
they heard the voices. After this Ceecil had some idea of what Whispers could
do, and who Tryse had been in communication with.
Tryse put a hand on her
shoulder, pulling her back into the moment. “Little sister, we will only have
moments. Are you prepared?” She nodded once. He gave her a smile that had
warmed the hearts of hundreds, and he was off. Ceecil cracked the window and
heard the slow-paced carriage seconds away. The driver was swatting at
something that was buzzing around his head, cursing loudly. He didn’t notice a
small form slip underneath the harness and leave a small item behind.
The explosion was only
seconds behind Tryse. It illuminated the street and showed him diving for
cover. Ceecil was running before he got back and placed her charge on the
carriage door. It seemed to be made of poor wood, but the first blast wiped the
façade away and revealed a durable steel chamber. She placed the bomb on the
door and ran back to Tryse as fast as she could.
The
explosion didn’t come. Ceecil panicked. Tryse waved her over, yelling
something. She looked back in time to see a sickly purple glow coming from
inside the carriage. She was tackled to the ground just as the entire carriage
was pulsed outward, maintaining it's shape, just in pieces. She saw the Lord cowering on a bench and a being made of the
same purple color floating over him. The Lord started yelling something, begging for his life for... Forgiveness? There was a flash. A pile of bones
replaced where the Lord had been sitting. There were several more flashes as more bodies became bones. She
watched the thing scoop something out of the rubble and float off, the carriage losing whatever power was holding it in place and falling in pieces. Ceecil saw the door, yelled at Tryse, but it was too late. The door landed and the second bomb went off, hurling everything in every direction. She felt two pieces of shrapnel land on Tryse, and he let out a soft moan. The
outriders had started to come back, she could feel the hooves of their horses
on the pavement. It looked at her right before it disappeared, its' anger burning in
her eyes. She tried to move Tryse but he wasn’t responding. She felt his blood
on her body before passing out.
“What in the name of the
Lord happened?” The man screaming woke Ceecil, who found herself in a dark room
bound to a chair. A flickering torch – No,
that’s no torch, that’s one of those lights that doesn’t burn – gave her
glimpses of her confines. She was in a corner, tied to a thick wooden chair.
There were grooves below her hands, grooves that came from the constant strain
and rubbing of rope on wood. The room, cell, was stone. There were no windows.
Three men were standing over a body, one that had been badly burned and had
limbs missing. You were there. You
remember the light, oh Tryse… Ceecil began to lose consciousness when a
hand slapped her. She tried to jump out, to run out of this place and back to
the streets. The ropes burned into her wrists and ankles, causing more pain.
“Shut that one up. I need
answers!” The angry man, the one yelling, the one dressed in a nightgown that
was embroidered with a familiar seal. Oh
Gods, the son. The one they talk about, who takes people in the night and then
never brings them back. Oh Gods… He was flailing. His whole body was
flailing. Rolls of fat bounced every direction whenever he threw up his arms or
started screaming. He turned at looked at her, his eyes were sunken behind a
twisted face. He had no hair but for a small patch below his lower-lip. “What
is this urchin doing here?”
“Lord-heir, this is the
only witness to what happened. There was another urchin with her, but he was
killed by debris from the explosion. She’s young, scared, we need her to calm
down so she can tell us what happened.” This man was the complete opposite of
the lord-heir. He was in uniform, with his helmet held under his right arm. His
left hand wrested on the handle of a pistol clipped into his belt. His hair was
cut closely, his face looked scarred. His eyes were prominent, holding his
unobtrusive nose between them. They were a light blue, and Ceecil felt she
could trust this man. She stopped whimpering and tried to pull her hands up to
her chest, but felt the rope burning through her skin instead.
The nice man walked over
and knelt beside her, setting his helmet on the ground and resting his hand on her
shoulder. “Lass, we need to know what happened. You were the only person alive
when we found the carriage. Were you there with others?”
Don’t
let them know about Whispers, they’ll kill him.
“I… I was with my friend, Tryse. We were hoping to see the carriage after we
heard it was coming through our part of town. Right as it reached us there was
an explosion… That’s when I saw Tryse... laying on the ground with blood
pouring from his eyes-” she couldn’t stop the cry that exploded from her. She
tried to pull her hands up again, but this time they made it. Ceecil saw a
faint glint off a knife the nice man had just sheathed. His arm came over her
shoulders and he was holding her, combing his hand through her hair. The
kindness just added to the emotion Ceecil had been hiding and she didn’t stop
sobbing until they left her in the room.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Lord-Heir was the
first through the door, followed by the region’s Suone, chief intelligence
agent, and, after a moment or two, the head of the Lord-Heir’s bodyguard. They
all went into the same carriage and when the door closed they were moving. The
Lord-Heir was still having one of his fits. The Soune, Milo, attempting to calm
him while Josav, the body guard, sat passively.
“Lord-heir, you must
regain your senses! That urchin child in there is the only person who knows
exactly what happened! If you can hold off for only a few moments so we can
figure out what kind of an attack this was we can…” He trailed off as he looked
at Josav, who was idly trimming his nails. “Does this not concern you, Josav?”
“No.”
“Then, please, enlighten
the lord-heir and I about what you saw.”
He stopped trimming his
nails, then looked at both of their faces. The Lord-Heir looked as though he
was going to have a mess for one of his many servants to clean after he
departed the carriage. The Soune was glaring at him, but within that glare was
a cry for help. “It is not my job to question a current investigation, just to
protect, so I have nothing to say.”
The Lord-Heir began
screaming again. “You stupid bastard, I am your ruler now and I am commanding
you to tell me what happened!”
“This concerns the safety
of the Lord-heir, please, tell us what you think.” Milo had managed to calm the
Lord-heir down with a simple whisper in his ear.
Josav returned to
cleaning his nails. “I was one of the first at the blast site. The horses and
driver were blown into pieces, what happened in the carriage was much more
contained. It was a bomb that killed the horses and driver. This explains our
urchins being there. Tryse, the dead one, set off an initial charge, one meant
to slow them to a stop while Ceecil, yes, our lovely street rat in holding, was
supposed to run under the carriage and set the second charge. Here’s where
things get a little fuzzy. We found Ceecil behind a makeshift barrier, not in
pieces like the rest of them. Tryse was there too, but his luck had run out as
a secondary charge blew the top of the carriage off, killing, no, vaporizing
most of the inhabitants. Our magi identified what remains… err, remained.
Lord-heir, your brother is missing.”
Josav looked up from his
retelling. The Lord-heir was flapping again, and the Soune was, again, trying
to calm him down. It’s really
inconvenient the Lord had to go and blow himself up while leaving this buffoon
as the standing ruler. He finished trimming his nails and put the smaller
knife back in one of his pouches. The Lord-heir was breathing normally, and only
a small trickle of sweat was coming from his brow. “I need to see the remains.”
“All that is left are
piles of bones. There’s nothing more to be seen, Lord-heir.”
His right eye started
twitching. Despite this sure-tell of an oncoming rage his voice remained level.
“Bring the Magi back and have them show me who the bodies belong to. This deals
with the Lineage. We need to assure the people they will have a leader, despite
this… atrocity. Josav, after you send the message I want to in charge of this
investigation. Do not let me down.”
“They had left, back to
Sklosburg. I’ll send a runner to bring them back. We may as well keep the area
cordoned-off and find a place to rest for the day. I believe the Lord’s
premises are off limits due to the investigation, so let’s find someplace
relatively unhostile to spend the day.” The Lord-heir and Soune nodded in
agreement. Josav told the carriage driver to take them to the nearest reputable
inn.
______________________________________________________________________________
Ceecil was still bound to
the chair by her feet. When the men left the light, leaving her in near
darkness. She managed to stop crying after reliving the entire event in her
head, and finally looked around her cell. She could clearly see the outline of
the stone door. It had light coming from the other side. Ceecil quickly looked
in hopes to find something she could use to cut through the rope on her ankles.
She and the chair were the only things in the room. She started moving her feet
back and forth, hoping one would someone slip from the binding. All she managed
to do was create more injuries on her ankles. She buried her face in her hands
yet again, softly sobbing, recognizing she would never escape this new hell.
A light started coming
through her fingers, a light different from the not-torch on the wall. It was
purple. It’s the light from before, from
when…Tryse… Darkness came to her yet again.
______________________________________________________________________________
After leaving the Soune
and Lord-heir to deal with the politics Josav started heading back to question
the girl. She was in a tough spot, and he hoped she’d be more willing to
cooperate and answer the questions instead of falling into an emotional wreck.
She had been holding back, using the sobs as a cover. These urchins ran a tight
ship, usually three or four members. Ceecil and the dead boy weren’t the only
two running this job, there had to be one more. A spotter. Something to look
into after questioning the girl.
He walked into the
holding area, and found two piles of bones, similar to the ones in the
carriage. Josav drew his pistol and began slowly moving towards the cell
holding Ceecil. More bones were neatly piled along the hallway and outside the
holding cell. The door was shut. A strange purple glow was radiating from the
door itself. He reached for the handle and felt an intense pain. He screamed as
he pulled his hand away, cradling it in his arm. He looked at the door again,
realizing it was not a door, but a field set up by a magi. He pulled his hand
out and saw the skin on the inside of his hand had been burned off. He let out
a frustrated grunt. All he could do was wait.
______________________________________________________________________________
She came to panting,
screaming, crying, and wanting anything or anybody to make that light stop. It
was growing slowly, until it stopped in front of her cell. The door vanished
and a puff of dust blew inside the room, coating everything. The thing was
here. Ceecil tried to hide behind her arms as the thing approached her. The
glow went through her arms, through her eyelids, and into her mind. She gasped,
throwing her arms to the side. Her eyes were forced open by some unseen force
and she saw the thing that killed so many that night. It looked into her eyes,
into her soul, then nothing.
______________________________________________________________________________
Each second felt like an
hour. Others came trickling in, none of them had the Sight; they all had to
wait without knowing what was happening. A screaming child grabbed all of their
attention, coming from the other side of the barrier. Everyone stood up,
weapons drawn. A burst of energy threw them all against the wall. As they
regained their senses the door dissipated. Josav rushed into the cell. A small
pile of burned bones was around the chair, the ankles still bound to it. He
stared for a moment, then let out a scream and threw his helmet across the
room.
“Everyone get the hell
out! Go!” The other people began leaving as fast as they could, leaving Josav
running his hands through his hair. The girl was dead. This investigation was
dead. The Lord was dead. Soon the country would know, and chaos would reign. He
finally sat down in front of the chair, examining it. Magi would find something
to lead them to the killer. Something to show the country they knew what was
happening, I just need something…
