Chapter Twenty-Six
Alwyn
As shaky as their plan was, it brought Alwyn some small measure of comfort, just knowing they had one at all. Krujha had sounded so confident, so sure in his affirmation that they could figure it out as long as they worked together, he had almost believed it himself.
When he woke the next morning, there was more noise than usual in the camp. He frowned as he sat up, rubbing his eyes. He’d fallen back asleep quickly after Krujha left, still weary, but felt wide-awake now, despite the early hour.
There were more voices than he was used to hearing.
It sounded like there might be more horses about, too, and he could pick up the sound of wagon wheels creaking by.
Alwyn sat quietly on his mattress, listening, trying to make sense of it all.
He was tempted to reach out with his magic, but the risk seemed too great.
It sounded like they might be packing the camp up to move—but why?
He had no way of telling the time, but it felt like the guard who brought his breakfast came later than usual as well.
The bowl of porridge was the same as always.
Alwyn tried to peer around the orc’s silhouette as he stepped into the tent, but couldn’t make out much in the narrow view and bright light.
“Wait!” he exclaimed as the orc set down the food and turned to go. “What’s going on out there?”
He didn’t expect the guard to reply, or even acknowledge him, so he was startled when the guard paused and glanced back at him with a strange smile.
“Another camp’s joined us,” he said simply, before stepping outside the tent.
Alwyn stared at the dim place where the orc had once stood. Another camp? What did that mean? How many more had joined? The four ominous words he’d just received left him with more questions than answers.
He had to know. He’d been quite well-behaved before this, so he doubted the orcs would suspect him of sneaking out the back of his tent—after all, they’d never noticed Krujha.
First, he pushed the back panel Krujha used to slip through, then peered through the small opening it created; from where the tent was positioned, though, he couldn’t see anything other than the backs of surrounding tents, and a few crates of supplies stacked in between the rows.
He would have to try the front. Alwyn sighed, taking in as deep and steadying a breath as he could manage, then gingerly pulled at the tent flap to create enough of a gap to peek through.
This view was hardly any better, but he could at least see part of the actual camp. He caught glimpses of wagons and carts being pushed along the thoroughfare around the command tent. There were more orcs than usual walking about, but he couldn’t make sense of the commotion.
Another camp. The nearest one would have been the camp he and Krujha had fled from, not so long ago, and they only had knowledge of two other major camps that had split off from Zesh’s primary host. If it was the same camp that had killed Torlag, then from what he could remember of that chaotic night, Zesh may have just doubled his fighting force.
Nerves twisted his stomach with such intensity that he feared he might spit up his morning porridge. They had even less time than they had thought.
Should he enact the plan today instead of waiting? But then what about Krujha? The camp would be even more chaotic with all this happening, and he doubted he would have any way to signal to him that he was going ahead. But if he waited, would he even get the chance at all?
He knew what Tessarion would expect him to do.
He knew what would happen if he failed again—if he survived at all.
That should have been the deciding factor, he told himself.
Having his mentor’s approval, being in good standing in the Order, the closest thing to a family he had ever known—wasn’t that the most important thing?
But he could still feel the ghost of Krujha’s hand on his face, the echo of his promise. And those words felt more real to Alwyn than anything he’d ever heard from the Mage Princeps, and were more important to him now than any tenet of the Order of Twilight.
He couldn’t leave Krujha behind. He knew it now, though he couldn’t bring himself to give a name to the tender ache inside his chest when he thought of the orc. But he didn’t know how he was going to get them both out of this.
Alwyn ended up pacing the length of his tent nervously as he tried to think through how he would proceed with their plan, now that the timeline had been changed.
If he could just get himself alone with Zesh, he might be able to kill him—then disguise himself, find Krujha, and use whatever remained of his magic to teleport them away.
But could he take them far enough that the druid’s eyes couldn’t find them?
If he could get the two of them alone together, he could risk trying to kill them both at the same time.
It might drain him of enough power that teleportation was impossible, but that might create enough confusion in the camp that they would have a better chance of slipping away unnoticed.
Maybe, he thought, he should just try to go for it now—forget the plan, just sneak out, find Zesh and kill him, then let everything else fall where it might. Krujha was working in the kitchen; all he would need to do was get there. Maybe that was the best option now.
Just as he was working up the courage to sneak out of the tent, a rustling sound came from the back wall. For a moment, he thought it might be another one of the mice that had been plaguing him since he’d arrived. But then, to his shock, the back panel was pushed aside, revealing a familiar face.
“Krujha?!” he gaped, unable to formulate anything else. Krujha had never come to see him at any time other than late at night, when most of the camp was asleep. For him to risk coming to Alwyn’s tent now must mean that things were truly dire.
“Alwyn, listen to me,” he hissed, not stepping further in. “Not today. Just wait. But the plan is on hold now. I’ll tell you more when I can.”
“But I—” Alwyn started, but Krujha’s face was already disappearing. “Wait—wait!”
But he was already gone. The back panel slid into place, leaving Alwyn alone once again. He felt himself shiver involuntarily, pulling his dirty cloak closer around him to ward off the deep chill that had settled into his bones.
Krujha had told him to wait, so he would wait.
But the thought of now being without a plan, in a more dangerous situation than ever before, left him sick with worry.
He could do nothing else, so he crawled back under his blanket, closed his eyes, and imagined himself and Krujha as far away as they could possibly get.
In the end, no summons for him to return to the druid for the next lesson ever came.
An orc guard brought him his lunch, then his supper, though he could barely bring himself to eat with how badly his stomach ached with nerves.
He could hear incessant noise outside all through the day, only adding to his anxiety; so when things finally quieted down after sunset, he fell into an exhausted but fitful sleep.
When Alwyn woke, he started pacing again.
He tried to think through all the different variations of how he might still salvage their plan: how he would get to Krujha if he acted on his own; how he would get them away from here and back to the safety of Drol Kuggradh—or even better, Castle Aefraya.
He was sure Tessarion would allow Krujha to stay in the safety of the castle if he explained how critical he’d been to the success of their mission.
As the next day wore on, it became clear that no one would summon him today, either. Krujha never came for him, though he stayed awake for as long as he could manage, waiting—wondering whether he would pass out from exhaustion, or go mad from not knowing what was happening first.
He dreamed of the waterfall house again. The roar of it was deafening as he stood on the riverbank and looked out toward it. Even in dreams, his heart was pounding with worry.
He turned away from the river to see the little cottage in flames.
It was not the sound of the distant waterfall he’d been hearing, but the roar of wood burning away into ash.
Fire had consumed the thatch roof, bursting out of the windows, licking up the walls—and somehow, he knew the man and woman in his dreams, whose faces he could never quite make out, were trapped inside.
Terror overtook him. Alwyn turned away from the burning house and sprinted along the length of the riverbank, the light of the inferno still searing his eyes.
When he could finally see again, he was at the base of the waterfall.
He could still feel the fire biting at his limbs, and without thinking, he plunged into the churning water.
As the cold spray hit his face, Alwyn woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in the darkness of his tent. His heart was pounding, his breath coming rapidly as if he’d truly been running. Cold sweat left him shivering in the wintry air.
All his dreams of the waterfall and the cottage had been largely mundane before this. He hoped it was only because of his shot nerves that they had taken such a dark turn.
“It’s only a dream,” he whispered to himself, lying back down. The words brought no comfort. “Only a dream.”
He lay awake, staring up at the canvas walls of the tent for what felt like hours, eyes burning with exhaustion, but his heart beating too fast to settle into sleep. If he remained abandoned and alone again another day, he thought he might well and truly lose his mind.
A faint rustle came from the back of the tent.
Alwyn sat up quickly, staring at the place where Krujha always squeezed through.
He did not appear; instead, he could see faint movement in the bottom corner of the canvas, a hint of grayish-brown fur on a tiny, moving form—another mouse, looking for crumbs, or some place warm to hide.
Alwyn groaned and flopped back down on the mattress, unable to muster enough strength to get up and chase it away like he usually would.
What was the point? Another would come to take its place soon enough.
It seemed he’d only just managed to settle back down when another rustling sound came, this time from the front of the tent. Alwyn sat up, confused. It felt too early for breakfast, but maybe his internal clock was getting more out of sync than he thought.
The orc that stepped through the opening of the tent was one Alwyn didn’t recognize, but he was dressed in the same plain armor as all the other guards.
His hands were empty—this was not Alwyn’s morning meal after all.
He looked down his nose at Alwyn with an expression of obvious disgust before speaking.
“Get up,” he commanded. “The warlord wishes to see you.”
Alwyn felt his heart leap up into his throat.
This was it—his chance had finally come.
Krujha had told him to wait, but he didn’t know when the next opportunity might arise.
He stumbled out of bed and hurriedly pulled on his boots before offering his wrists to the guard.
The orc bound them with rope, then dragged Alwyn along behind him as he stepped out into the camp.
The sky was overcast and gray, making the pale light of dawn even weaker.
Alwyn had never even received his breakfast this early, much less been summoned from his captivity—something had changed.
Despite the early hour, the camp was quickly coming alive.
Tents were coming down—the camp was getting ready to move.
Alwyn’s feet felt leaden as he stumbled along after the guard, who made no change to his much longer stride to allow him to keep up.
Instead of heading for the command tent, though, the orc led him toward the northern perimeter of the camp.
The realization made his heart skip a beat—he had no idea where he was being taken, or why.
His eyes darted everywhere, trying to make sense of what was happening.
Finally, as they stepped through the fence and out of the camp, he could see Zesh just a few paces along the path, the same one that he and Krujha had taken together with the warlord, which led to the top of a nearby steep hill.
But this time there was only Zesh atop his horse, and a smaller pony lashed to it, obviously meant for Alwyn.
As they drew closer, he tried to get some sense of what was happening, trying to read Zesh’s face. But the orc’s expression was stony, his eyes cool and disinterested as Alwyn stepped closer. The warlord only gestured at the pony, commanding Alwyn to get on.
For a moment, Alwyn glanced back, his eyes searching the camp desperately for any sign of Krujha. But in all the flurry of activity, there was nothing; and Alwyn knew he couldn’t do anything to harm Zesh now, not in full view of the camp. He had no choice but to obey.
He reached up with both hands to grip the pommel of the pony’s saddle, then hauled himself up onto it.
Zesh nodded, dismissing the guard, then nudged his own horse into motion, the pony following.
Alwyn turned back one last time to look at the camp, his eyes locking on to the smoke now rising from the cooking fires of the kitchens—somehow willing Krujha to sense him, to know what was happening.
Alwyn turned again in the saddle, staring at the back of Zesh’s head, as he silently allowed himself to be led away.