A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Four
Nemo stood on the precipice of the roof. The toe of his boots over the edge. He leaned out with his hand. Yeah I can reach the height of the wall if I stretch, he thought glimpsing over the palace complex wall and up at the roof he had leapt off barely a week ago.
Vispa stood on the ground looking up at him. She decried him as mad, a she shielded her eyes from the sun’s glare. Nemo didn’t listen. This was the only way he had now. The tunnel would certainly be guarded or caved in. The front gate sealed until a new governor arrived from the far north. This was the only way.
‘At least wait till sun down or close to it,’ Vispa said up to him.
‘Stop talking so loud,’ he said.
‘Huh?’ She said cupping her hand around her ear.
‘I’m coming down,’ he sat on the edge of the roof and dropped down into a two wheel cart propped against the wall of the house. He dusted his hands as he landed.
‘At least wait till dark,’ Vispa said. Her face pleading.
‘Sure. Sunset is a good time. It will be a changing of the guard. I think,’ Nemo hoped it was. Either way the palace grounds would be crawling with soldiers of all ranks. And whatever the “governing council” was would be well guarded too.
‘Good. This is insane. You have escaped this place twice and snuck in once and now you want to break in for a second time. You’re insane,’ Vispa said waving her hands.
‘It is necessary,’ Nemo said.
Vispa sighed and dropped her hands to her sides, ‘I know. For your family. I wish I knew what it was you felt. But I don’t. I never knew mine,’ she pinched the bridge of her nose.
Nemo reached out with a hand and held her shoulder. He pulled her close and embraced her. She curled up in his arms. She did not cry but her eyes were red and cheeks warm. The two stood embracing as the sun dipped into the day’s decline.
Vispa sniffed, ‘You’re the only person who has helped me without expecting something in return,’ her voice croaked.
Nemo was struck by her words. The shock a physical blow, ‘I find that hard to believe,’ he said knowing how close knit his own town had been. People helped others. That was what had made it such a prosperous place.
‘It’s true. Growing up on the streets in a city at war. Even the temples had to refuse help. Too many orphans and not enough food. They helped where they could but the kids of dead parents have a way of being a nuisance and ended up kicked out of everywhere they go. So we stayed together and remained as long as we could contribute something. There was no charity. It became too much and I left and ended up… in worse places,’ Vispa wiped her nose on her arm and pulled away. ‘Some people seemed to genuinely want to help. For awhile. And then I became a burden and needed to pay. A kid growing up on the streets doesn’t have many above board skills, and few below board ones either that don’t involve stealing,’ Vispa ran her fingers along the hilt of her knife.
Nemo remained silent. Waiting for her to continue. Words would only complicate the matter.
‘I moved from place to place. Some, more unsavoury than others,’ she looked coy and rolled her eyes with embarrassment, ‘it wasn’t all bad. There were good times often just before they became awful again. The Resistance was just the last in a long string of gangs, brothels, and thievery,’ Vispa said. She shrank into herself at the mention of specifics. Eyes bunched and lips twisted to a snarl.
Delara flashed in his mind. What has she been through in Beargarth and elsewhere? Anything as unspeakable as Vispa? ‘The ripples of war are only ever tragic,’ Nemo said more to himself than Vispa. ‘Those things don’t define you. You don’t need to beg or do unsavoury things to survive. You can choose to live a different way,’ Nemo felt his blood boil.
‘I didn’t beg,’ Vispa argued. ‘I did what I had to to survive.’
‘Everyone does. It just depends on what you mean by survive. Charity is good but there is little of it. Especially from anyone you have mentioned,’ Nemo said. He gripped Vispa by the shoulders. ‘You don’t have to act the child to get a free meal. You aren’t one anymore and haven’t been for a long time. That doesn’t mean you can’t accept charity it means don’t expect it,’ Nemo pulled her towards him and hugged her firmly.
‘But what else am I meant to do?’
‘Find a path for you. Be kind to others. Be strong for those around you. Remember when you where teaching me how to pickpocket?’
‘Yeah,’ she sobbed.
‘That. Giving something. Doubling it without taking anything,’ Nemo said.
‘Like when you gave me that bundle of food?’
‘Sure. I had eaten, you were hungry.’
‘Is this what you taught your children?’
‘I have tried to. But they are still young and still learning,’ he looked her in the eyes and smiled. ‘You will find someway to make your life your own. But you must want to make it into something. No matter how simple or ambitious. Make it your own.’
Long shadows spilt over the pair as the sun disappeared behind the high palace buildings and towers. A cold air whipped through the narrow streets of the city.
‘Come on. It’s time,’ Nemo said patting Vispa on the arm. He clambered up onto the cart against the nearby one storey building and pulled himself up on to the roof.
‘Are you serious? Two of us will be seen.’
‘You snuck into the Guard Square, I think you’ll be fine,’ Nemo crouched on the edge of the roof and stuck his hand out for Vispa.
She sighed and shook her head, ‘Fine, I will be be quiet as a mouse. You, however, well we will see,’ she gripped Nemo’s forearm in one hand and jumped up to catch the lip of the roof with the other.
‘I could drop you,’ Nemo said as she hung in his grip.
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Don’t test me,’ he said lifting his forefinger up from her arm
She gasped and Nemo pulled her up onto the roof with a laugh.
‘That’s not funny.’
‘You wouldn’t have even felt the fall,’ Nemo said repositioning to face the complex wall. ‘I will go first,’ he said.
‘It’s only fair you be the first to crash to the ground,’ Vispa said crouching on the roof. A tile slipped under her foot and she snatched for the cap tiles. Her hand hovered over the tip of the roof as the tile beneath her foot lodged in place. ‘Hurry up,’ she said through gritted teeth.
Nemo stepped backwards from the edge. The aim was the top of the wall. There were no hooks, nails, lantern holders, or planters to hold on to. A sheer wall of ageing plaster and a squared peak. An austere structure for such a considerable palace construct of imported materials. The flat top only a few feet higher than Nemo and a good six foot ahead of him. A considerable distance to leap. More so for the untrained jumper.
I did it once. The other way. I can do it again. He ignored the fact it was easier to jump down to something than up to it.
Nemo readied himself. One foot behind the other. Knees bent and thighs pulsing with power.
‘Come on,’ Vispa groaned.
Go! Nemo pushed off with one foot and the three steps from him to the edge of the roof vanished in a flash of movement. He felt the lip of the roof and open air beneath his toes and sprung off from the tiled platform.
He pawed at the air. With each grasp feeling further away from the wall. He rose to the peak and for a moment saw over it into the lush gardens of the palace. The watered ground green with grass and flowers blooming in colours unimaginable. The grey, dour, wall rose fast to obstruct his vision. He lashed out with open hands and felt the bite of rigid plaster tear through his palms. His left hand landed first and was dragged over and off by his own weight. Blood welled over his palm filling his lines of fate. He shuddered and his right shoulder popped and screamed. He dug in his fingers feeling the course wall poke and prod under his right hand. His breath was knocked out of him.
He coughed and swung his left hand back up onto the wall. Nemo pulled himself up enough to see over. Scanning the nearest roof and doorways in a hurry. No one, good. Either guard change or sheer luck, he pulled himself up onto the top of the wall and turned to Vispa.
He gestured for her to follow. Standing with his arm out over the precipice between them.
‘Come on. Now or never,’ he whispered to her. He wasn’t sure whether she heard as she continued to peer down the road beneath them. Checking corners and doorways as anxious as a first time thief.
‘Come on,’ he said louder than he should have.
‘Don’t rush me,’ she spat back. She checked her corners again before taking a few steps back. She barrelled forward and pushed off early, too far from the edge to make it.
Nemo watched as she clasped at air. Her eyes so wide with terror he thought the corners would split. She reached out for the edge of the wall.
And missed.
Nemo dropped to his knees atop the wall and leaned out.
She slipped passed the peak and her fingertips brushed the wall. The veins and tendons of her hand fighting to burst out of her skin.
Nemo felt her arm whisper past his hand and he grabbed wildly as if catching an annoying fly. His fingers dug into skin and muscle.
Vispa bounded off the wall ribs first.
Nemo slammed his palm onto the wall as Vispa began to pull him over the edge. The pain ricocheted up from his wrist, through his elbow, and into his shoulder.
She swayed in the air against the wall for a moment. Neither spoke. Nemo waited for the pain to dissipate before pulling Vispa up to safety.
‘Don’t leave me hanging here,’ Vispa called up in a shaking voice.
‘Just a second,’ he sucked his teeth as his wrist pulsed with pain and his shoulder throbbed. He began to pull Vispa up.
‘You are not as light as you look,’ he said.
‘Rude!,’ Vispa said as she hooked her arms over the wall and helped herself up onto the wall.
Nemo sat on the wall and judged the distance to the grass below. He caught his breath before leaping down.
‘That’s nearer than I thought,’ Vispa said.
‘The palace is built higher than that around it. The centre buildings higher again. For a better view. It works, I’ve seen it. Or maybe it’s for some other reason. The view is worth it though,’ Nemo said dangling his legs over the wall. ‘Ready?’
‘Sure.’
Nemo dropped down into the palace grounds. He bent his knees and rolled as he hit the ground to absorb the shock. He landed in a patch of flowers and bushes. Crushing a few colourful heads and petals under his weight.
Vispa followed landing on her feet and falling to her knees with a thud. She hissed in pain as he hands worked through thick, luscious, grass.
‘What is this?’ She asked.
‘Grass,’ Nemo said running his fingers through the blades around him.
‘Why is it here?’ She pinched a blade out of the ground and rolled it in her fingers.
‘Because Stipi, or the Consul before him, decided to plant it and thought the wealth of water was worth it,’ Nemo said feeling the fine blades soft against his bleeding hand.
Vispa bit into the leaf of grass she had plucked. She chewed it for three or four bites and then spat it out. ‘It doesn’t taste very good. What’s it for?’
‘Animals graze on it up north where it grows everywhere. But here I suspect it’s for decoration,’ Nemo said kneeling behind the bushes. He kept an eye out for guards, palace servants, or anyone that would raise the alarm. A servant was likely the worst, they would run without question. At least a soldier might make a stand before alerting others.
‘This could be a crop instead of something useless,’ Vispa cursed.
‘Probably,’ Nemo brushed his hand across the tips of a hundred blades for the pleasure of it. He could see why water would be spent on such a thing.
‘We aren’t here for grass though,’ Vispa said crouching near to Nemo.
‘No. We aren’t.’
‘Any ideas where they would be?’
‘One or two. Fleeing over the rooftops gave me a pretty good view. So I know there isn’t anyone being held in the front half, nor near the tower,’ he pointed up at the grey stone building overlooking the compound.
‘Which leaves?’
‘The rear. Where the barracks are, the stables, that sort of thing,’ Nemo said.
‘Great. How do we get there?’
‘That way,’ Nemo pointed along the wall decorated with shrubbery.
With the wall on the right they could see a long stretch of grass and flower beds reaching deeper into the complex until a gate. On the left were the rectangular squares and gardens which made up the majority of the palace. All wooden walkways and lounge rooms for different times of day. Raised walkways of imported northern wood, dark and heavy, linked the buildings over ground and the floors above.
‘Keep behind the bushes as much as you can,’ Nemo whispered to Vispa as he darted back towards the wall and through a sharp, sparse, bush no taller than his waist. He crouched behind it and scurried along his shoulders brushing against the plastered wall as branches scratched at his cheek.
He could hear Vispa curse behind him. Branches snapped in his ears and crunched under foot. He halted.
‘Why have you stopped?’
‘We are too loud.’
‘There is no one around. Best hurry,’ Vispa shoved him.
‘Hold on,’ he overbalanced and stamped one step forward. He closed his eye and listened. Crows cawed and pigeons cooed nestled within the eaves of the palace rippled with sound. Light chatter echoed from the streets on the other side of the palace wall. The day was done and people returned home. Nemo listened deeper. One thing was missing. Marching. ‘Alright, let’s go,’ he hurried along the wall towards the gate at the far end of the complex.
Nemo knelt in the dirt behind a lush green plant growing in the corner. Small white flower buds peeked out from between short and thin green leaves. It loomed over him and with a slight nudge of a branch or two he could see the gate he wanted to go through. Where it led was anyone’s guess but all he knew was it had to be a way into where the Thesusian’s held their slaves. And if not he would be closer than he was now.
Vispa crouched near him. ‘What do you see?’
‘A gate.’
‘Okay. Is it locked?’ Vispa sniffed and her expression soured.
‘I can’t tell. I can’t see a keyhole or bar across it,’ Nemo squinted through leaves and flower buds. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Can you not smell that? Smells like rot,’ she lay down in the dirt.
‘Can’t smell that. What do you see?’ Nemo asked.
‘No legs. Which is good. And opposite is that building with a closed door,’
‘I don’t know what that is but it has no windows on this side,’ Nemo lent into the bush to gain a look up at the floors above.
Vispa rolled in the dirt till she was facing away from the hopeful gate, ‘Well, I can’t see anyone over that way,’ she went silent.
‘What?’
‘Shh. I see someone.’
‘Where?’ Nemo lowered himself into the dirt next to Vispa.
She pointed up to a balcony. A lone archer stood mindless of his duty. His bow slung over one shoulder and leaning with one hand against the balustrade. A door was closed behind him, the only way off the balcony jutting out over a doorway.
‘Do you think he can see us?’ Vispa asked.
‘Odd way of raising the alarm if he can.’
‘Okay, so he hasn’t seen us. Yet,’ Vispa said pointedly.
‘He will if we move to the gate,’ Nemo said.
‘What do we do then?’ She shuffled to face Nemo.
‘We wait,’ he said.
‘Or… we don’t,’ Vispa said pointing up at the archer. The soldier turned on his heels and sat against the balustrade.
‘It’s like he wants to be assigned to stable duty,’ Nemo said. He rose to a crouch and began pushing his way out of the bushes and shrubbery. Low and fast he darted across to the building opposite. He pressed himself against the course brick building and checked the balcony. He couldn’t see it and waved for Vispa to join him.
Vispa scarpered out from under the foliage. Kicking up dust and fallen twigs in her wake. She skidded to a halt next to Nemo. ‘What?’
‘Look,’ Nemo pointed up.
‘I can’t see him.’
‘Exactly.’ Nemo stood up and pushed his fist into his lower back.
‘Are you crazy? Someone else might see you,’ Vispa tugged on his jacket sleeve.
Nemo strode towards the gate. It was more barricade than gate. Iron bars driven into a solid wooden frame. Three slide locks, top, middle, and bottom, drove into the stone surround. It would take a battering ram to break through. Must be the armoury or something like that, Nemo tried to slide the top lock open. It slid free without effort or sound.
‘It’s open?’ Vispa appeared at his knees, still crouched and pressed against the building.
‘Seems so,’ Nemo said opening the next lock.
The gate seemed to sag as the final bolt opened. The gate swung open. He caught it with and waited for a noise on the other side. Silence.
Nemo pulled the door open and dove inside. He imagined hurrying into a stables and darting behind a wheelbarrow full of hay as a stableboy came to close the gate thinking the wind had opened it. Nemo saw the image of stables flash before his eye as his mind guessed ahead. The image spasmed and distorted into something far worse.
He first noticed that the inside of the gate was unmarred by bolts, locks, or handles. A simple, solid, construct of iron and timber. The bolts hadn’t been locked because they didn’t need to be.
Stepping through the gate he was first struck by the stench of human waste and the buzz of whirling flies. The acrid scent of near death washed over him in waves. Too potent to become used to for anything longer than a minute or two.
Vispa gagged as she followed him through the gate. She pulled it closed behind her and it sighed open a touch. ‘Found the smell.’
Nemo covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve. The whole sordid scene appearing to him piecemeal across the yard. Each time he looked up he saw something new. Something worse.
No cells or gaols. No cages or cuffs. Only wretched people lying in their own waste. Smeared with blood and faeces up to their knees and over their hands. With all the freedom in the world and no desire to use it. No collars or chains. Only squalor and pain.
All along the outer wall men and women sagged in their skin. Bones and joints contorting their form into the monstrous. No guards patrolled. No guards held whips. There were no whipping posts. One man lay against the wall, his head lolling to one side, eyes vacant and deep. His clothes little more than rags covered in filth. Hair matted with blood and puss. The ground beneath him damp with urine and stained with worse. Resting on his chest was a tablet of thin stone chiseled with words and held by a string around his neck.
Nemo approached the wretched case with a tentative step. Nemo kept a hand on his knife incase the man lashed out. He neared the man has he murmured to himself about fish.
The tablet came into focus and still Nemo could not read it. It was in Thesusian. A language he never learned to read, write, or even speak very well. He didn’t recognise the man. Nor was he sure he could under the yellowing eyes, the sunken cheeks, and lank frame. The village of Beargarth produced stout men well fed and active dawn to dusk with ruddy cheeks and a strong grip. This poor, muttering, soul was left to ruin. One he didn’t choose nor could be blamed for. Forced upon him with knife and whip and left to rot when all that was good and beautiful had been drained away.
‘Why are these people here?’ Vispa asked under her breath.
‘I don’t know. Can you read Thesusian?’
‘A little,’ Vispa said.
‘What does that say?’ Nemo pointed to the tablet around the man’s neck.
She crouched before the man. His head remaining to one side staring into the distant horrors in the courtyard, or maybe to some far flung fantasy. Nemo hoped the man day dreamed.
‘Name, age, profession, skills, price, viability,’ her finger tracked the words in mid air. Each one sat in a box and words next to it in another box chiseled into the tablet.
‘Viability?’
‘It says. None,’ Vispa squinted. ‘I think that means none. Or nothing.’
‘I get the idea,’ Nemo scowled. ‘They are the slaves worth nothing. Tested, the soldiers have their fun, those sadistic enough to try, and then they are left to rot here.’
‘Why not just kill them?’ Vispa said.
‘That’s a morbid thought. Carts of dead men and women are hard to bury,’ Nemo said.
‘I suppose so.’
‘It doesn’t look like they are feeding them and the water in that bucket looks green,’ Nemo pointed to a bucket with a rope tied to the handle sitting by a circular stone wall of a well.
‘What? So they are just left to die here?’ Vispa said.
‘Seems so,’ Nemo said. He had nothing else to offer. The utter depravity to simply let people die instead of letting them return to their lives was beyond the pale. The Republic’s mercy revealed its worth again. Nothing. Less than nothing in fact.
‘Do you think—,’ Vispa began.
‘Don’t say it,’ Nemo interrupted.
‘It’s possible.’
‘Of course it is. Doesn’t mean we should talk about it,’ Nemo snapped. He walked passed the man lost in his own demise. Looking at the faces of those slowly dying. Avoiding the ones raging to themselves and ignoring the questions by others who still had a little sense left.
‘What are their names?’ Vispa asked.
‘Mani, Delara, and Avaya,’ Nemo said, ‘Why?’
‘I can read the tablets. Even the names are in Thesusian.’
‘Thank you,’ Nemo said. Vispa didn’t respond. She was out of ear shot and headed to the opposite wall to search.
A woman cradled her knees and hid her face in the crevice between. She was topless and her back was covered in weals and scabs, blisters and puss. Her lank hair coated her head, arms, and shoulders like moss atop a rock.
He carried on unable to help or console. No one to fight and no way of liberty for the poor souls too weak to run or too mad to understand.
‘Are you here to help?’ A voice croaked.
Nemo looked down to his left. A man, older than he, sat hunched over a patch of dirt scrawled with words. With a stick he scratched into the ground over and over. Not once looking up to Nemo. His bald scalp peeling and stained with large brown spots. Nemo carried on passed him.
‘Are you here to help?’ He repeated.
Nemo turned back, ‘I’m looking for someone,’ he said.
‘Not here to help then,’ the man said scratching at the ground with a stick.
Nemo felt a pang of guilt. No, I guess not. All he could do was see their suffering and nothing more. They could run out of the prison yard and be shot full of arrows or impaled on a halberd. None would make it anywhere near the gates or over the wall. And there were too many to sneak out. Weak and hungry would they be able to climb a wall. He continued on hoping the old man would leave him alone.
He searched the faces of those unfit for a slaves work. He recognised none. He tried to imagine them as soldiers, as farmers, as bakers, and blacksmiths. Tailors, brewers, cooks, stablehands, none of these things. Not a soul could do something. Too weak and frail to pull on their boots, let alone raise a plow or hammer. Even if they were here. Would I recognise them? He thought.
‘Nemo, come here,’ Vispa called from a few feet away.
‘Shh, remember where you are,’ Nemo barked under his breath louder than he should.
She waved him over.
He made his way to her. Passing a shambolic structure of wooden posts and torn canvas stretched over head. A crowd of people pressed against one another underneath. The stench stung his nostrils. A grime that clung to the skin crawled across him as he walked by.
‘What is it?’ He said scratching behind his ear.
‘This tablet says Mani,’ Vispa pointed to a woman on the ground.
Her hair loose about her shoulders sitting with her legs outstretched. She wore no shoes and her feet were black with dirt. Arms limp at her side and her eyes focussed on a square of dust unique to her. The tablet sank into her abdomen and her ribs showed through her clothing, thin and threadbare as it was.
Nemo pictured his wife. Full cheeks and thick hair always tied back. This woman, this Mani, lacked everything he held dear. Her face sank into itself, cracked lips parted, and eyelids loose at the base of the eyes.
‘That can’t be her,’ Nemo said, his voice a mere crack in the wind.
Vispa bent over and squinted at the tablet, ‘Farmer. Skills include embroidery, butchery, minor metal working, and other undefined abilities.’
‘Stop. Is that really what it says?’
‘I think so. I was never taught its just what I have picked up,’ Vispa avoided eye contact as she spoke.
‘Right,’ Nemo pinched his temples. It’s her, he told himself.
‘She seems skilled I don’t understand why she would be here,’ Vispa said.
Stop talking, Nemo wanted to say. He knew Vispa was trying to help, or nervous and filling the silence, either way didn’t change truth. Running a nail under his eyelids he caught a dampness. Kneeling beside Mani he reached for her chin.
She moaned and said, ‘No,’ with barely a whisper.
Nemo turned her head towards him. Her lips cracked and split. Her teeth darkened. Skin covered in a thin layer of grime. Her eyes fluttered from open to closed without seeing anything. ‘Mani. It’s me,’ Nemo said.
Mani groaned and pulled her chin out of his grip. ‘Leave me be,’ she said.
‘What are we going to do?’
Nemo looked away. He felt eyes on him. Other prisoners lucid enough like the old man. ‘I don’t know. We still need to find Delara and Avaya.’ He paced a few steps, 'I’m going to move her,’ Nemo said. He picked Mani up, one arm under her knees the other supporting her neck.
‘What are you doing? Leave me alone,’ Mani breathed.
‘I’m moving you somewhere more convenient while I find Avaya and Delara,’ Nemo said walking through the yard to the gate he had entered by.
‘I haven’t seen those two in a long time. I hope they’re okay,’ Mani said. Her eyes shut and her head nestled against Nemo’s chest.
‘Me too,’ he said thankful she remembered their names at least.
‘Vispa,’ he called. ‘Are there other ways out of this place?’
‘I’ll have a look,’ she darted off I search around the perimeter of the courtyard.
He carried Mani around the well. The shimmer on the surface of algae staining the bucket of water a putrid green caught his eye. He had no waterskin on his belt. Mani would go thirsty a while longer.
Vispa ran light footed across the yard, ‘I found one,’ she said. A waterskin pounding against her thigh as she came to a halt.
‘Great,’ Nemo said lowering Mani to the ground beside his planned escape. ‘I need that water,’ he pointed to Vispa’s belt.
‘For her?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Vispa frowned down at Mani. Her face softened before she untied the knot holding it in place. ‘Here,’ she handed it to Nemo.
‘Thank you,’ Nemo crouched beside his wife and bade her drink. ‘It’s water,’ he said cupping her chin and pouring small drops into her mouth.
She swallowed some, wincing as she swallowed, and more dribbled down her chin.
Nemo tried a few more times until Mani shifted and palmed him away. She keeled onto her side, her forehead touching the dust, and returned to sleep, or some crude version of it.
‘Thank you,’ he said corking the waterskin and returning it. Nemo reached down and tried to help Mani up, she pushed him away happy to lie face down in the dirt.
‘You have the rest. I can’t imagine you were well looked after on your trip here,’ she smiled.
Nemo unstoppered and drank three gulps. He shook the skin, the faint ripples of water sounded inside. ‘Here, have the rest. You need it to,’ he pushed it into Vispa’s chest.
She drained the skin before retying it to her belt.
‘So, where was this other way out?’ Nemo asked.
‘This way,’ Vispa said running off with a silent tread.
Tucked away in the corner of the yard, away from the prisoners and any prying eyes, was a door. An entrance to a one storey building. Nemo pushed on the door and it opened without a sound.
‘No one’s inside,’ Vispa said.
Nemo stepped through the door into the shadowed interior. Orbs of light were sprinkled about the single roomed building. Flickering from the breeze created by the door opening.
‘What is this place?’ Nemo asked walking towards a door on the other side.
‘I don’t know. Probably some guard house.’
‘There’s no windows,’ Nemo said.
‘Plenty of buildings don’t have windows,’ Vispa shrugged.
‘Yes. But not guard houses. It doesn’t matter, there’s no one in here,’ Nemo neared the door on the opposite side of the building and pulled it open enough to peer out with one eye. He saw the face of a soldier, standing dutifully in his uniform.
The guard turned, ‘Who’s there?’ He said bounding towards the door.
Nemo slammed the door and hid amongst the gloom, crouching behind a desk. He waved for Vispa to get down. She dropped to the ground, prone.
The guard barged into the room, the door slamming against the wall rattling the candles in their holders. His halberd in two hands he stepped into the building, passing Nemo crouched behind the desk.
Nemo, knife in hand, stepped behind the guard as he turned to face Vispa.
‘You, don’t move,’ he shouted at Vispa who froze in terror.
Nemo pulled the guard back by the forehead and slid his knife along his gullet. The guard gargled his speech as a torrent of blood spilled forth.
‘Get up,’ Nemo reached out to Vispa. His hand drenched in blood.
She jumped up and rummaged over the soldier’s belt. She pulled his coin pouch and sword from him and added them to her own.
‘Why do you need that?’
‘Just incase,’ she said shifting her long knife to make room for the sword.
‘Fine. We need to get moving,’ Nemo pressed himself to the wall by the door and closed it so he could peer out with his eye.
Nemo stepped out of the windowless building. Cage carts lined up across the square, empty. Horses saddled, with manes tied down where waiting for their lancers. Stablehands led workhorses towards the wagons.
‘Get down,’ Nemo whispered and dropped into a crouch before stepping back into the gloom of the building. He closed the door, leaving a slither to peak through.
Two stablehands, boy and girl, no older than ten summers led a draught horse. Docile and pliant the horse followed the girl as the boy lifted the shafts to attach to the girth on the horse.
‘Only stablehands,’ Nemo said.
‘Shh.’
The duo watched the children link the draught to the cart. The two ran off into the stables opposite once it was done.
‘They’ll be back with another horse in a short while. There are four wagons to hitch. I’m guessing one of them is the one I came here on ready to pick up the slaves for auction back in the Republic,’ Nemo said.
‘Which means we don’t have much time.’
‘No. We don’t.’
Nemo watched the horse bite at the bit. Shaking its mane it settled into its role. Like all good horses it knew how to obey. And like well taught horses it would make nary a sound should Nemo and Vispa reveal themselves save, perhaps, a quick stomping of a hoof or quiet neigh.
The question wasn’t whether they could traverse the portcullis square but where to go.
‘Are we going?’ Vispa asked.
‘Where would we go? Avaya and Delara must be close otherwise why have the cages ready to load here. But where?’ Nemo scanned the square from the dark of the windowless building. Stables opposite and a downed portcullis to the right.
A faint coughing echoed from what sounded like under the floorboards.
‘What was that?’ Nemo asked.
‘I thought it was you,’ Vispa said returning from somewhere else.
‘Where have you been?’
‘I was looking around the room. Here,’ she passed him a bundle of tablets each with a scratched grid on them but lacking any information next to the subjects running down the left side.
‘What are these?’
‘Blank tablets like those around their necks,’ she pointed over her shoulder.
‘So this is where they assess potential slaves?’ The truth dawned on him.
‘Must be. They can’t be held far away either.’
The muffled coughing rippled through the air. A distant thing.
Nemo and Vispa watched each other not cough. Nemo padded towards the man he thought dead on the floor and rolled him over. Lifeless eyes stared back at him. The soldiers blood stained the boards deep and dripped down between the cracks. As he watched a pool of blood seep over a floorboards edge he caught a glint of something. He peered down through the slim crack between the boards, not more than blades width apart. A flower of light passed by his vision as he angled to see below.
‘There’s light coming from underneath the floor,’ Nemo said.
‘What?’
‘Look here,’ he pointed to the blood infused board under his foot.
Vispa stood over him peering down, ‘Must be a basement.’
‘We should find the way down,’ Nemo said standing and taking a weak flamed candle from the table nearby. ‘A door. A grate. A trapdoor in the floor boards. Anything. Find it.’ He approached the rear wall of the building with its grand fireplace, at least in size if not appearance, of straight hewed stone.
The wall, lacking any wash, stood sparse and purely functional, much like the fireplace, oversized for the room. Neither side of the fireplace had a secret door shrouded by musty curtains. Neither the bare boards moved nor did any have an untoward handle, lock, or mechanism of the kind.
Within a few minutes the two of them had scoured the room for a door. Careful not to make a sound they moved the dead man and found nothing underneath him.
‘Maybe the way in is somewhere else from another building or something?’ Vispa said.
‘Maybe. But why have the tablets in here if you couldn’t see who you were… assessing,’ Stipi’s word was ash upon his tongue.
Vispa walked the perimeter of the room staring intently at the floor. ‘Maybe it wasn’t built for this purpose?’
‘More than likely. The palace is centuries old. I can’t imagine there was much space to build new. And the gate at the rear is a private passage out of the city that cuts across north and south districts. That has always been there, which means so has this,’ Nemo said watching Vispa.
She stepped in front of the fireplace.
‘You could fit in that thing,’ Nemo said.
Vispa looked up wide eyed, ‘Huh?’
‘The fireplace,’ he pointed.
‘I could,’ she stepped into the fireplace. The grate was bare and free of coals or wood. No furnishings or pokers dressed the sides. ‘Maybe this was a kitchen at some point? This is big enough for a sizeable oven,’ she jumped on the spot.
The grate beneath her feet squeaked and groaned under her nimble weight. She jumped back and looked down at the bed of the fireplace. It hadn’t moved. ‘This thing has hinges,’ she said.
At the rear, in the soot black crevices were a row of hinges all along the grate.
‘What? I guess that makes sense to clean it,’ Nemo said joining Vispa in the fireplace. He crouched down, candle in hand, and cleaned the thick, black, soot away with a wipe of his finger. ‘Help me lift the grate,’ Nemo said.
Vispa knelt beside him and wormed her fingers through the iron grill.
Nemo did the same on the left side, ‘In three, two, one, lift,’ he said.
The duo lifted the grate. The hinges whined and shuddered with the weight of the iron grate as wide as the fireplace.
‘Anything there?’
The grate rested against the back of the fireplace. Yet still he held it in place with one hand while he lowered the flickering candle into the space beneath. ‘There’s a ladder,’ he said.
Vispa peered down the hole beneath the fireplace, ‘It doesn’t go very far.’
Nemo leaned over the edge and could see the feet of the ladder ringed by soot and soil.
‘Is someone coming down?’
‘Are we being moved again?’
‘Is someone freeing us?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Voices rippled up from underground. Eager and desperate. No one appeared beneath the ladder rungs.
‘I’m going down,’ Nemo said to Vispa stepping down to the first rung.
‘I’ll follow.’
‘No. Stay up here and make sure no one comes in. Though if they do…,’ Nemo faltered. ‘Fine. Come down after me.’ Nemo descended into the heat of the underground. His scalp itched with the humidity and his hands greased against the ladder rungs.
He hopped from three rungs up and landed in the dust and soil of the basement. If it could be called that. The walls were held in place by lengths of wood nailed together. The ceiling was floorboards and joists. The ground, unworked, rose and fell in mounds and dips based on how often someone had sat in one place or another.
At the far end, where the floorboard ceiling changed to support struts and joists, was a tunnel. Nemo knew where that went without looking. It linked with the tunnels he had escaped from. If he followed it, no doubt, he would arrive at his old gaol under the palace and that enormous cavern where he had witnessed a woman being whipped.
The Republic, knowing slavery would be abhorred by the recently conquered peoples of the Free Cities were keeping it hidden in plain sight. No doubt under the pretence that those in the caged wagons where prisoners of war, members of a resistance group, or some other fabrication. And with recent promises of self-governance rather than diktats from the Senate a thousand miles it seemed the populace where happy to go along with the smoke and mirrors. Or maybe they believed it, tired of an unwinnable war, and wishing a return to regular life without drama or stress. The Republic offered such a thing in one hand with the stick in the other. Give up the Resistance members. A train of captors, rebels or not, would work as a fine grease for others to be betrayed.
All around where men and women in chains about their necks, wrists, and ankles. Like those Nemo had been in a short while ago. The band around the neck and the cuffs around wrists and ankles were joined by a chain near the lower back to a longer chain which was fastened to a post in the centre of the room.
Trails of chains stretched from the post. Each tugged or slackened creating a background melody to the whole room. As Nemo observed the room those enchained looked away. Embarrassed or afraid of the condition in which they found themselves. With wrists trapped by their legs by the chain going under their groin no one could move far, or quickly.
The chatter was incessant. Fear of being chosen to go up top. Those nearest the centre of the room turned their backs to Nemo. Hiding themselves and the tablets around their necks.
Vispa dropped from the ladder with a thud. She gasped at the state of it all. ‘What are we going to do?’ She said standing next to Nemo.
‘I don’t know if there is anything we can do. And I didn’t come here to free slaves,’ Nemo said masking his words behind his hand and speaking direct to Vispa.
‘I know but…,’ Vispa looked around the room. Her meaning obvious.
Nemo grunted. She was right. But so was he. It was impossible to save two dozen or more slaves from the centre of the Republic’s power in Tanussi. But it was also the right thing to do.
‘Da?’ A small voice broke through the chatter of those enchained.
Nemo spun on his heels to see a child’s face looking up at him. With hands clapped in irons, and a gorget about his throat. A face blackened by soot and dust and hair wild and unclipped.
Nemo fell to his knees and crawled towards his son. ‘Avaya,’ he cried out and flung his arms around him. Tears ran down his cheeks in silent weeping and he clung to Avaya never wanting to let go.
Avaya cried too and shivered in the embrace of his father.
Nemo rained kisses down upon Avaya’s head before wiping away the soot and dust with the tears streaming down his son’s face. ‘Where’s Delara? Where’s your sister?’
Avaya nodded beside him. And, there, in the dust of the basement cave was a girl, taller than Nemo remembered, sleeping with her head turned away.
‘Vispa. Can you pick the locks?’ Nemo asked.
‘Told you you’d need me,’ she said and pulled her picks from a pouch on her belt.
‘Turn round so Vispa can get you free,’ Nemo told Avaya.
Avaya nodded and turned as much as he could pulling the chain connecting him to the centre post taut.
Nemo knelt beside Delara. Her legs sprouted out the end of her dress and her torso stretched the bodice, pulling the waist line above her waist. How much she has grown, he thought. He placed a hand on her shoulder, careful not to trap her dark hair in his grip. He gently shook her awake. The chains and cuffs rattled.
‘What is it?’ She whispered sleepily.
‘It’s da. I’m here to take you home,’ Nemo said.
‘Da?’ She said breathless. She reached to rub her eyes but the chain on her cuffs was too short and pulled against her leg.
Nemo reached over to wipe her eye.
She flinched as he neared and turned her face towards him.
Nemo rubbed the sleep from her eye.
Confusion turned to joy as she recognised him. And then shock.
‘Your eye? What happened?’
Nemo stifled himself, offered a grimace, and said, ‘A story for another time, Delara. It’s time we got you out of here.’
Two arms appeared either side of Nemo’s neck. Avaya’s head pressed against Nemo’s.
‘I knew you’d come back,’ his son said.
Vispa set to work on Delara’s shackles. Popping the first, around her neck, in seconds.
‘Are you freeing us?’ A voice asked.
‘Me next, please,’ another pleaded.
‘Get us out of here!’
‘You’ll die,’ Nemo said.
‘We’ll die anyway. Better here, at home, than in some unknown land,’ a woman next to Delara begged. The skin of her wrists raw from where she had tried to squeeze her hands through the cuffs. Her hands were clasped and she begged towards Nemo.
‘How long?’ He asked Vispa.
‘Too long.’
‘You sure?’
‘Definitely. We can’t spend the best part of an hour uncuffing everyone. Someone is bound to turn up. You saw, they were already hitching the draught horses,’ Vispa said as her picks ticked and pricked about inside the lock around Delara’s ankles.
Nemo sighed and ran a hand through his hair. ‘You’re right.’
Avaya still clung to him. ‘Where’s ma?’ words muffled through hair.
‘She’s… come on we need to go and fetch her,’ Nemo said. He stood up, forcing Avaya to let go, and pulled Delara to her feet. The shackles removed and staining the sandy floor.
Delara held onto his hand as he noticed her height. Taller than Vispa and nearly as tall as himself. He yearned for the lost time.
‘Come on,’ Vispa said half way up the ladder.
‘Are you not helping us too?’ A man shouted. The rattling of chains growing furious. Others began yelling for Vispa and Nemo to free them.
‘Avaya follow Vispa,’ he said.
Avaya ran to the ladder.
‘Follow your brother,’ he told Delara giving her a push up the ladder.
Someone kicked his leg. He grimaced and his sword was part drawn before even thought. Those still shackled around him withdrew at the sight.
Grunting he sheathed his sword and bounded up the ladder. The cacophony of anger following him up and out of the fireplace. Growing and pounding on the floorboards beneath them.
‘This way,’ Nemo said ushering the three towards the door back to the courtyard, and escape. Light streamed at them, too bright to repel. Nemo shaded his eye with a hand and dashed across the yard.
Mani remained where Nemo had placed her. Lost to the world save for a blank stare which fluttered into unconsciousness.
‘Mani. We need to go. Can you walk?’ Nemo said crouching by her side.
She garbled her response. A mix of nonsense and reality. Her head bobbed but her eyes remained closed.
‘Mani?’
‘Walk,’ she said.
‘Da, is Ma going to be okay?’ Avaya asked. He bit at his finger as he asked.
‘I think so. She needs food and water and a good sleep is all,’ Nemo said hoping that was all it was.
Nemo put an arm around her and guided her up. Her legs were weak and wobbled. She wheezed as he lifted her. Once up and standing she wobbled backwards and forwards. Nemo held her up. Her legs stiffened and managed to take a step. Her weight pulled at Nemo. She was too weak to walk alone.
‘Through there,’ Nemo pointed with a nod towards the door.
The din of the prisoners underground echoed out of the building.
‘Hurry up,’ Nemo said practically dragging Mani along with him.
Footsteps boomed from inside, ‘Silence!’ Someone bellowed, ‘If you don’t cease that racket I’ll have you all whipped,’ the threat sounded sincere.
Nemo filed out of the yard last to the quiet of the slaves.
‘Who was here?’ The soldier shouted.
‘Hurry. Into the bushes.’
‘How are you going to?’ Vispa asked.
‘I’ll… just go,’ Nemo commanded. ‘You can reach the top of the wall from where we got in. Just a little jump and you should be able to grab the ledge.’
‘That might be a little too obvious,’ Vispa raised an eyebrow.
‘We are going to have to be obvious here. At least I will be. It will work. Trust me,’ Nemo said steeling a look up to where the archer was stationed less than an hour ago. The balcony was deserted.
Nemo darted out across the green. Mani lagged behind. Nemo stopped and picked her up as before. He ran across the grass. His eardrums beat a tumultuous riff as he ran. The others skirted the wall desperate to keep pace.
Avaya was the first to reach the point. He didn’t stop.
‘Stop,’ Nemo whispered as loud as he could.
Avaya crawled back a few steps and met up with Vispa and Delara.
‘Halt! In the name of the Governing Council I order you to halt,’ a soldier roared behind Nemo. The clatter of armour and the heavy thud of military boots thundered out from the slave yard.
‘Hold your mother,’ Nemo said to Delara as he lowered Mani’s feet to the ground. She rested against Delara’s shoulder. His daughter recoiled at the strange woman leaning against her. ‘It is her. I know it doesn’t look or sound like it.’
‘I know it is, Da. Just…,’ Delara began to sob.
‘I know,’ Nemo cupped his daughter’s head in his hands and felt warm tears against his lips.
‘I can’t reach that,’ Vispa interjected.
‘Sure you can. I’m going to give you a lift,’ Nemo said.
‘Halt!’ The soldier roared again. His jerkin lined with silver trim.
Great. An officer. Nemo formed a platform with his hands and braced with his back against the wall. Bushes pricked at his lower back and ankles. ‘Come on. Quicker,’ he said.
Vispa stepped onto his hand and Nemo lifted her up in one motion. She coughed and thudded against the wall.
‘Got it?’
‘Yeah,’ she wheezed. ‘Push me up a bit more.’
Nemo helped her up a few more inches and she wiggled the rest of the way to the peak. He lifted Avaya into the air by his legs and Vispa reached down to him. She clasped the outstretched hand and pulled Avaya to the summit of the wall.
‘Draw!’ The officer shouted as he and three regulars neared.
‘Delara get up there. Hide Mani in the bushes. She’ll be safe,’ Nemo shouted as his sword shot from its scabbard.
‘But… What about you?’
‘I’ll be with you shortly. You can do it.’
The three soldiers lined up in front of the officer. Each with their straight swords pointed at Nemo. They advanced in a line, each step timed.
‘Where am I going?’ Vispa shouted from the wall top. She grunted and heaved as Delara jumped and scraped the wall with her hands and nails.
The first swung at Nemo. At his neck. Nemo deflected the blow and slid his scimitar down the length of the blade hoping to catch the man’s knuckles. The fair haired soldier disengaged early.
‘Just… find…’ Nemo wanted to say the eastern temple. Zhuzi will help. But then all would be revealed and as fast as they escaped they would be back in chains. ‘Get somewhere safe and wait. I will find you,’ he said instead hoping Vispa would pick a spot they both knew. ‘But wait until I lift Mani up to you,’ Nemo added hearing Delara scrape the plaster as she was pulled up.
He lunged for the centre man. The scare on his cheek from a close arrow. The man was lucky. That did not bode well for Nemo. Sheer determination could lose to luck. A slight misstep or an overzealous swing. His attack was parried.
The fair haired trooper slashed at Nemo’s arm. He pirouetted away flashing steel as he went. He kicked an arc of grass into the air as he stabilised, his sword spinning an arc against his enemies.
‘I know you. You look a little different now but you are wanted for the murder of Governor Stipi, escaping from the city gaol, murder of countless soldiers, and attempted assassination of General Arridaios,’ the officer said. ‘This man is the most wanted man in the Republic,’ he shouted. ‘To arms! To arms!’ He roared.
Others would be at his heels soon. Six more, a dozen, three dozen, who knew how many heard and patrolled the palace. Hundreds with my luck.
Nemo pulled a knife from his belt and flung it in one motion. The man on his left collapsed to his knees and the grass beneath him turned vivid red. The knife jutting out of his neck. Three to go, Nemo thought.
He rounded towards the fair haired soldier. Mani lay in the bushes unconscious. Nemo failed to recall if he had removed the tablet around her neck. Not that it mattered. It was clear she was a slave left to die from her emaciated appearance.
Breaking into a wild thrust at the fair haired man’s groin he pushed into his opponents space. The man parried with an awkward bat of his sword. Nemo flicked the curved tip of his scimitar upwards, turning the sword in his hand so the edge faced up. The sword arced leftward and slit between arm and torso. The stitching parted and skin split. The Thesusian winced and cursed as he retreated back towards the officer, still refusing to join the fray.
Nemo pursued. Having the advantage of walking forward he fell upon his enemy with a savage twist of his blade. Cutting through the poor, surprised, defence and opening his enemy’s throat.
His scarred comrade had attempted to intervene with a slash. A second or less too late. Nemo twirled and blocked in a tight arc. The ricochet of the blow numbing his hand.
Finally, or unfortunately, the officer engaged. His sword pointed front and in his other hand a shield no more than half a foot across. Nemo had seen such a shield only in use in show matches between sword masters. Never in duels or war. Too defensive. A knife served better to parry and attack with.
Nemo retreated two steps and planted his feet. Holding his sword in both hands and weighing the approaching enemies. Horns sounded across the palace grounds. He was running out of time. One hundred heart beats. Less? He felt his heart pound in his chest. A fast beat.
The officer and the scarred soldier attacked at once. Both slashing across Nemo’s unarmoured body. Deft, he stepped back and felt the breeze from the swords flashing by. The scarred man’s blade swung low and followed through. The officer returned to his stance.
Nemo leapt forward and stamped with his left foot on the sword blade pinning it to the ground. He swiped across the man’s arm and hand trapped in place holding onto the sword. The soldier yelped and dropped the sword.
The officer attacked with an overhead skull shattering swing. Nemo blocked the heavier sword overhead with the flat of his blade. Holding the curve with the flat of his palm. He pushed back, forcing the officer to disengage.
Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, his heart beat raced ahead. His heart beat pounded in his ears. Sweat ran down the side of his nose and tickled the hairs on his upper lip. He snorted air and launched into barrage of swings.
The officer blocked each in turn and held his ground. Nemo stopped after the fifth swing failed to break through.
The scarred man snatched for his sword, with his injured hand, and Nemo flicked his scimitar at him. The man ran back. Nemo kicked the sword into the bushes behind him and near Mani.
The soldier drew a knife in his blood drenched hand and snarled.
The officer barked at him in Thesusian without taking his eyes off Nemo.
He questioned the command and the officer repeated.
Nemo understood the meaning once the soldier sheathed his knife and ran. Get help, always a misunderstood command by the lower ranks. Thinking it is weakness when it is good sense.
The officer padded around Nemo, careful not to engage for more than two or three bouts. Sweat lined Nemo’s face and his stomach turned. He’d lost count. He didn’t have the time for games. Lunging forward he thrust at the officers face. A reckless blow meant to confuse rather than strike true.
The officer ducked the blow and thrust at Nemo. Nemo panicked, expecting his opponent to step back, he twisted his body and stepped to the right. The cold steel sliced across his skin. He hissed at the stinging pain. Blood sheeted down his side. Yet little could be seen on the blade.
Not deep then. The lack of depth didn’t stop the pain. His flesh split as he over balanced and stretched himself. Losing sight of the scarred soldier Nemo pressed the disadvantage. Stepping over the first man he slew and pulling the knife from his neck.
Now he was whole. Now he could fight.
Nemo pirouetted towards his enemy spinning his sword low and his dagger high. He didn’t expect to hit but to gain ground.
The officer stepped back and held his blade across him in a defensive posture.
Nemo smiled to himself as he caused an arc of grass to leap through the air with his foot as he halted. His sword arm extending and catching the tip of the straight sword. The blade held in place by a stern grip. The knife, ignored, met its target. Two half fingers, one flying through the air, the other falling to the ground.
The officer lost grip of his sword as blood spurted out from two stumps on his hand. He screamed, dropped his sword, and stared dumbfounded at his hand. The screaming stopped. His eyes rolled back. And Nemo pulled his sword out of the man’s neck.
Warm blood mixed with warmer sweat on the tip of his nose. He rubbed it with his wrist, smearing blood across his cheek.
He rested his sword against the trunk of a bush and secreted his knife in his belt.
Vispa and Delara knelt upon the wall. Delara was green, her eyes unfocussed.
‘Where’s Avaya,’ Nemo said lifting Mani in his arms.
‘Down on the ground. He is safe,’ Vispa said.
‘Good. Don’t let Delara throw up,’ he said. Has she ever seen a man be killed? Has she ever seen a fight? He knew he should feel guilty for showing her such carnage. Yet it remained far in the distance lacking weight. It had to be done, he thought as he lifted Mani up over his head.
His arms shook and bulged. His eye pulsed with blood, ‘Take her,’ he shouted up to Vispa and Delara.
He felt them fumble with his wife’s arms and legs and, eventually, the weight lessened and Mani left his grasp.
‘We’ve got her, we’ve got her,’ Vispa said.
Nemo stood with his arms in the air ready to catch her. He looked up, his wife a shadowy shape against the blue sky. The edges of her form seeming brighter than the sky.
‘Good. Go to the Eastern Temple. Ask for Zhuzi,’ Nemo told Vispa as loud as he dared.
‘Who?’
‘Zhuzi.’
‘Zoo si?’ Vispa said.
‘No, Zhuzi. Just go,’ he said.
‘Are you coming?’ Delara said detached. Her eyes vacant from the gore.
‘Yes,’ he said looking over his shoulder. Two guards ran towards him, halberds out front. Nemo stepped back from the wall, sheathed his sword, and ran. He placed a boot vertical and ran two steps up the wall before launching himself upward. He hit the wall, felt the scrape of Vispa’s hand, and fell to the ground. He coughed, winded from the impact.
‘Come on. They are almost here,’ Vispa shouted with her hand reaching down towards him.
He scrambled to his feet and leapt. He felt her fingers slip between his as the blood slicked down his arm.
‘It’s no use. Go. Just go. I will find another way,’ Nemo said.
‘Da!’ Delara cried suddenly.
Nemo turned and saw two halberds careening for his midriff. He drew his sword batting one and side stepping the other.
‘Go!’ He yelled again. ‘I will see you again. I promise,’ his voice softening as he locked eyes with Delara.
A halberd spun through the air toward him. He swung to block, his sword locking between the spikes on the side. He pulled it towards him sending the wielder to his knees. The halberd flew behind Nemo and soil flicked into the air as it struck the ground.
‘Go,’ he said again, pleading now.
Vispa pulled on Delara, as Mani rested her head on her lap. Delara ignored her. Vispa shouted, Nemo didn’t hear. The ringing of metal drowning out all else.
Delara descended the wall, on the other side, and Nemo focussed on his assailants. Only two, for now, easy, he told himself feeling blood drip from his side.
He backed away from the warriors. Each tentative to step forward and engage. The one he had disarmed struggled with his sword. His hand shaking as he drew the weapon. He flexed his fingers over the hilt and screamed as he swung.
Nemo batted the blade away and nothing more. Prevented by the halberd from engaging too close. He continued to walk backwards. There, he reached his goal. An open stretch of ground trailing off to his left. Between two buildings and covered with canvas sheets. A cool outdoor corridor safe from enemies above and a passage towards escape. He hoped.
The halberd thrust toward him. He jumped to the left and deflected the blade. He landed and spun on his heels into a sprint. The cool air was a relief sent in waves and blades of sunlight pierced overhead flashing before his eyes.
The soldiers clinked behind him as they chased. The iron strips on their leather jerkins rubbing as they ran. The rattling grew softer as Nemo hurried ahead searching for a passage on his right.
A door burst open ahead of him and four more men appeared. An arrow whistled from above tearing through a canvas sheet planting itself in the ground proud as a rose. A little late, Nemo thought.
He dove to the left and swerved around the four new assailants. All brandished shining weapons and wore polished armour. All lacked grey hair or scars. Unforged recruits he assumed. Or perhaps not soldiers but only ever city guards. He ducked a wild swing from the leader of the pack.
A second and third arrow kicked up sand as it struck the ground. A shimmer of light waved ahead cutting into the uniform shadow of the corridor. Nemo darted right down another passage and then left. He paused under in the underpass. A corridor cut into the side of a building allowing access to one of the many courtyards.
He breathed haggardly and his shirt stuck to him. Not far, he thought hearing the thud of boots above him.
The entrance to the tunnels was in one of these courtyards but to him they all appeared the same. A wooden walkway around the edge with a cornucopia of flora in the centre. Some where empty, the one he needed had been as such. The one he had entered not at all. In the centre, towering above the height of the roof tiles, was a tree with enormous feather-like leaves. At its base were berry bushes and flowering plants and smaller, though no less sturdy, trees bearing yellow and orange fruit.
The rattle of armour behind spurred him onwards. He dashed out under the cover of the balcony above. His boots thudded along the raised walkway. Soldiers shouted. He ducked at the sound of a twang. An arrow struck the wall behind him. He dove for cover in the next half tunnel.
The four that had barged out of the door and the two from early thundered towards him. He drank air, his lungs aflame and his head pounding.
The next courtyard was clear and barren, and nestled under the cover of the balcony was an open gate. Beside it two guards rigid in their duty. I guess guarding that is more important than catching intruders, Nemo thought striding towards his escape.
The six behind him were closing in. Archers would be racing across the balconies all too eager to create a feathered corpse. Yet, his escape was ten steps away and only two men blocked his path.
He had expected the tunnels to be blocked off and sealed after he had infiltrated the palace through them. Perhaps they didn’t know how I got in or are these tunnels that important, Nemo thought eyeing his first target.
A heavy gorget sat around the soldier’s neck. His head clad in iron save for his eyes, nose, and mouth. His torso was covered with a plate of mail fashioned after a muscular man. His thighs were covered with strips of leather riveted with iron and the tops of his feet were guarded as well.
So much metal. So little flesh. The duo eyed Nemo neither breaking from their stance.
‘I’ll start then,’ Nemo said as he swiped for the man’s arm. The halberd flashed from one hand to the other and blocked Nemo’s swing with excessive force. The man smiled, his blue eyes glinting with the light.
The other soldier held his lance in two hands. Waiting. Biding his time to strike. A thrust with the end knocked Nemo off balance catching him unawares in his blind spot to his right.
Nemo drew his knife and heard the clatter of steel as those chasing him caught up. I don’t have time for this. He swiped left and right pushed his enemies to either side of him. Forcing them to encircle him. Those helmets aren’t protecting much, he thought and with final flurry of strikes darted down the stairs and into the tunnels.
Darkness greeted him with a warm velvet embrace. Clouding his vision and dulling his senses. The shadows swirled into people and dissolved into salt. From staring at the twinkle of the night sky to seeing a person and then nothingness. He checked behind him and his eye stung. The clatter of iron grew and grew with no sign of dampening.
He was confident he remembered the way. Dashing through the tunnels like a madman possessed. Why have they snuffed out the torches? He cursed his luck reaching the end of its tether.
Passages and turns, nooks and crannies, all passed him in a blur. The end of this is a right. Then a left, then… his mind trailed. The harder he thought the further the memory went. I can remember this, he told himself. He darted left not knowing why but feeling his way through the memory.
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘Someone get a light!’
The soldiers and guards cursed and swore behind him. The clatter of iron ceased and an argument began.
A booming voice silenced the lot of them and spoke Tanussian with a thick Thesusian accent. Nemo failed to catch the words and before he had time to listen they had faded in the distance.
He slowed his pace to a silent crawl and listened for movement. There was none. He was free. Free to find the exit to the blasted tunnels.
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