Raya and Benn were sharing a small bowl of stew when a knock came at their door. Raya stood up nervously. Every unexpected situation made her worry: had the enemies of the revolution found her? When Dondar opened the peephole, he shrugged and opened the door. It was Ailo who strode into their dining area. The lantern, hanging above the door, lit up his short, silver robe, as he rested his hands on the pommel of his curved sword. “Afternoon,” he mumbled.
“Welcome,” Raya said, quietly. The guard had sworn to protect their home of Creek Stead, but he rarely entered the establishment directly these days, giving Raya more privacy and secrecy in the rebellion.
Ailo scratched the scruff on his chin and smiled. “Axar will see you now,” he said.
They walked quietly to Axar’s house, across the rise and fall of the Low Dales. It was getting late enough that the sun cast long shadows from the palaces and mansions of the Inner City across the hilltops. They passed a handful of travellers along the way, guiding wagons or families or simple approaching their homes. Benn seemed quiet today, perhaps intimidated by their warrior-guide. Raya asked him about the stew, and if he’d had any dreams lately, but he only said, “Nothing unusual.”
Axar received them at his front door, wearing an open-fronted red robe and wearing his normal straight sword at his waist. The dark-skinned man waved his hand and bade them enter, the jewelry around his neck clinking. “Refreshments for my guests, at once,” he told a servant.
In his living quarters, Axar sat on a wide couch, meant for two or three, with his knees spread and his arms lounged across the back of it. Ailo leaned against the wall near a lantern and smiling as Dondar awkwardly found a spot leaning against a table, as ready for action as the other warrior. Axar had other guards in the house—Raya had seen them sitting in a room off the entry hallway, but for Dondar, Ailo was the threat to keenly eye.
Benn and Raya sat in two adjacent chairs facing Axar, as servants placed a platter of cheese and biscuits on the table before them. Mugs were set out, one for each of the guards, and for Axar, Raya, and Benn, and ale was poured into each. “Now,” Axar said, lifting his cup and taking a sip. “What is it you needed to ask me about?”
“Dago Ai Ji Malzo,” she replied.
Axar let out his breath with a bitter sigh and set down the cup. “Again you ask me of this man,” he said, sighing. “I told you—Dago was the mercenary of Nalisa Orr, one of Lotha’s compatriots. I saw him on the road near Elpan, and found out he had killed her. What other relevance does the name have?”
Ailo started to whittle a design into a small wooden block, working his thumb and knife along the length of it.
“He killed a man, here in Ith. Master Nerlav,” Raya said, “Or so I was told by the widow.”
“It’s true, Dago killed many men.” Axar shook his head and put a block of cheese in his mouth, slowly chewing it.
Raya blinked and looked at Benn in frustration. She looked back at the magician. “Was he a hired mercenary or a prisoner? You’ve mentioned both, and I’ve heard from others that he was captured by a sorceress.”
“Are you certain you want this truth?” Axar asked. He raised a finger as he took a drink and then lowered the mug once more. “It will not please you.”
Raya set her jaw and leaned forward. Her bowstring tugged at her tunic uncomfortably. “Yes,” she said. “The whole story this time.”
Axar raised his hands like a theatre performer beginning his dance. “Very well. Dago was captured, and offered employment. He should have considered it, but did not. After killing Nalisa Orr and escaping, he came to Ith. I’m uncertain if it was damage sustained to his mind in captivity or before that, but he was not well calm here. He fought everyone—refugees at the gate, slaves in the bathhouse. He did kill your…” Axar’s voice became jeering, “‘Master Nerlav’!”
Ailo chuckled, tossing the scraps from his whittling into the lantern, to create a puff of scented smoke.
“And then?” Raya questioned.
Axar sighed. “Then he went east, where I suspect you encountered him in Olston. Do you really want the grisly finale?”
Raya nodded, irritated.
The magician leaned forward and picked up another cube of cheese. “Your old friend, Lotha, did the deed,” Axar whispered, and popped the morsel into his mouth.
“Lotha?” Benn asked.
Gods, Raya thought, is it true? When Lotha had asked the woman if she’d heard the name Dago, she had said never. Similarly, she’d been unaware of the fate of the Olston guardsman that had disappeared the same evening. “Why would Lotha kill him?” Raya asked, finally taking a sip of her ale.
“To put down the mad animal,” Axar said, with a shrug. “There’s only one way to deal with someone who broke like Dago did. He was a loose cannon who knew too much about their plans.”
That was nothing like the Lotha that Raya knew. When last they’d spoken, they had agreed to meet in Ith after travelling from Vagren through Olston, to investigate Axar’s involvement with the Mage Kings. When Raya tried to investigate Axar, he had offered her information and a job, and she’d settled into the role to learn what she could. But now, she needed to find Lotha, and get answers to these accusations.
“I told you before,” Axar said, seeing the look on Raya’s face. “Lotha and her allies want chaos in Ith, long enough for a new order to emerge. If they told you otherwise, they lied.”
“So they wanted Dago to kill people here?” Raya asked. “To cause the chaos he did?”
“No, I meant—” Axar trailed off as Ailo paced across the carpeted floor toward one window. A light was shining through the opening, casting distorted shadows into the room. Dondar stood up stiffly, suddenly alert.
“There’s a fire,” Ailo said, curiously. “The servant quarters are ablaze.”
“What?” Axar snapped, starting to his feet.
Dondar paced to another window. “And there,” he said. “Another fire.”
Raya’s nerves flared once more. “The house is on fire? What’s the best way out?” Axar marched toward the door, hand on his sword.
“We’re under attack,” Axar exclaimed. “We must prepare.”
“We need to get out,” Dondar said, and Ailo suddenly agreed with him. They brushed past Axar for the door at the back of the house, while Raya followed closely. The other guards and servants had already flung the door open, but as Raya reached the threshold, she saw an arrow shaft embed in the leg of one servant out front. The man felt to his knees and flailed his hands back toward the house as he attempted to crawl to safety. Another arrow in his ribs knocked him facedown. The other servants dashed back toward the house as more arrows flew, and another man died.
“We must fight back,” Axar said, slamming the door shut as soon as Raya and the others were back inside. “Anyone who can use a bow, get to a window. Pick off anyone you see moving outside.”
“Is there any other way out?” Raya asked, while Dondar grabbed a spare bow from one of the guards and leaned against one of the walls for cover.
“No. The cellar won’t burn, but we’d be trapped down there,” Ailo said, as he notched an arrow. The first of many shafts entered the window and nearly hit him in the face as he approached the opening. He ducked aside, and the arrow hit the table, toppling the pitcher of ale.
Breathing heavily, Raya unslung her bow from her shoulders. She had only fired at people once before. Dondar pulled his bowstring back, pivoted into a window opening and let fly a shaft. As soon as it left the bow, the flames licking the house flickered off and followed it, a blinding line of fire that soared after the arrow and into the night. The shaft hit a man in the neck, and flames engulfed the body before it hit the earth. Raya glanced back at Axar, before letting her own arrow fly, to see the magician holding his hands toward the flaming wall. Her arrow led a fiery charge, just like Dondar’s, and landed no where near an enemy. It set ablaze a patch of grass, illuminating more enemies. Benn and Ailo let shafts fly and took out two of those Raya had lit up.
As their arrows flew, the enemies returned in force. Wooden slats of the house were knocked free and decorations of their room set ablaze. Axar’s magic kept the flames at bay as much as possible, but the exterior of the house became an infernal cage, and the heat at the windows grew blisteringly until Raya was so far back from the window she could barely let fly at any target, even the ground!
Is this how we die? she wondered, staring at Dondar as the flames licked his clothes and his arrows guided gouts of blaze towards their attackers. Is it the Mage Kings? Raya suspected she had other enemies, but it was all she could think. Enemy guards in the night, eliminating the resistance. Had they already killed Carack already? Or Thea Roganna?
She leaned forward and sent another arrow out, striking one of their enemies in the leg and illuminating a few near him. One let an arrow soar toward the house, and Dondar cried out as it grazed his shoulder. He fell back against the cover of the inner wall, but the heat there made him raise his hands around his face. Raya covered his loss of footing with her own shot, but another arrow grazed her. A line of red-hot pain along her cheek, and she nearly dropped her bow. She stumbled to cover, but stepped on the toppled ale pitcher and rolled her ankle. As she sprawled across the table she felt the joint pop and screeched as she landed against Axar’s cushioned couch.
“Raya!” Benn and Dondar exclaimed, stumbling toward her as she stared at her twisted foot in pain and shock.
An arrow flew through the window, and lodged under Dondar’s collarbone, sending the man reeling against the wall. The old guard only grunted, as his blood splattered his neck, and he fell to one knee. Axar was there at once, laying his hand on Dondar’s shoulder.
“We have to go,” Benn murmured. “Or hide…”
Raya, despite her agony, watched Axar tearing Dondar’s shirt open. The guard’s eyes had rolled back behind his twitching eyelids, but Axar expertly broke the arrow and used his knife to swiftly remove the arrowhead. “He’ll need healing,” Axar mumbled.
“We have to go,” Raya gasped. “To the cellar.” The roof seized inward once, cracking beams sending sparks and embers singing down upon them.
“We won’t survive,” Axar said. “There is only one way, but I know not what its price will be. We must Journey—a spell, that will take us away from here. But I know not how much time shall pass. All we have done may be in vain… T-The unknown will—”
Raya grabbed his hand to shake him from his fearful daze. Though she nearly bit her tongue at the pain in her ankle, she cried out only two words: “Do it!”
Axar nodded to her, then to himself. He spreads his hands, as more sparks fell. Ailo stumbled away from the window at last, and fell to his knees next to his master. The moment stretched awkwardly on—an arrow zipped past Ailo’s head and sent the lantern on the wall rolling onto the couch near Raya. No sooner than it had landed there, it vanished, along with the couch, the flaming walls, and the evening shadows. Everything was there one second, and somewhere else entirely the next. Raya blinked her eyes.