Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
“W hy do they call you that… ‘The Speaker’?” I asked a while later as we walked along, using the tunnels Pete had built over the years, preparing for this exact moment so we could escape undetected.
His lips twisted into a wry smile. “A bit of a joke between my father and I when I was a boy. He was more powerful then, you see, but I was cocky and brash. I told him that, if he was a Whisper, when I grew up, I would become a shout. It’s an homage to him and his influence that I erred on the side of humility and went with something in between.”
By the time we emerged from the tunnel exit a short while later, everyone was up to speed, and just as shocked as I was that we’d stumbled upon the legend that was The Speaker…a Whisper who, if legend was right, might be as strong as Relyk. We walked the last couple of miles in silence, and I imagined everyone was doing the same as me… trying to get their heads around all that had changed in the blink of an eye.
“I missed this so much. Fresh air, no stupid flyers spreading lies…” The Speaker raised his hands to either side and let out a sigh. Endless hills rolled toward the horizon, flanked by clusters of imposing mountains whose snowy peaks stretched into the clouds. Trees larger than any I’d ever seen peppered the ground in bunches, billowing in the cool wind.
There was just so much…space. Moll’s hand found my arm as I slowed to a halt, dumfounded.
“Incredible,” I murmured, sucking in a deep breath that tasted like…freedom.
The Speaker gestured all around, but his eyes stayed fixed on me. “Behold, child of prophecy. This is what Relyk has denied you. What he has tried to deny all those in The Hollow, The Smudge, and even Little Alabaster.”
I nodded, still taking in the landscape. Fetch took to the sky, unbidden, flipping through the air in a series of flamboyant maneuvers.
“Will he be alright with the flying mantises?” Wards kept our skies at least somewhat safe, but out here…
“He’s far faster than any mantis. Let him get a taste of true freedom as well!” The Speaker said.
“How far is your balloon from here?” Duncan asked, considerably less enthused than Moll and I were. Maybe because he still didn’t trust that the man before us was who he said he was. Or maybe because traveling was old hat to him and he wasn’t impressed.
But for us, just being on the other side of the Great Wall was both scary and electrifying.
“Not far. Just a moment.” The Speaker strode over to a nearby rock, lifting up his shirt as he sat.
I leaned closer, curious as a small, metallic disk at the center of his chest came into view. He gripped the edges between his thumb and forefinger and yanked on it, hard. Blood dripped down to his belly as he pulled it free, revealing the thin, three-inch spike that’d been buried in his flesh.
His body spasmed for a moment, and he waved off Crispin as he moved closer to help. The Speaker let out a long sigh before carefully setting the pin into his bag. “Much better.”
“What the hell was that?” Moll said, giving voice to my thoughts.
“Relyk has a ward over The Hollow that alerts him to any hint of strong magic in the city. I’ve been suppressing mine all these years.” His face lit up as he said it, and he reopened his pouch. “Which reminds me…”
He unfolded an indigo hat, peppered with bright yellow stars, and gave it a few shakes before setting it on his head. The tip flopped to one side as he rose, raising a fist. “And, just like that, The Speaker returns!”
“Is it magic?” I asked, suddenly dizzy. I’d seen that hat, stars and all, on the old man in one of Relyk’s paintings.
Pete turned his back, and I saw the moment the painting had encapsulated right then. The only thing missing was me standing directly beside him, fist held high.
Holiest of shits, that was wild. It was also exhilarating. Instead of questioning my sanity yet again, it confirmed what Gayelette had told me. I was on the right path. Thank the gods!
“Nah. It’s just an old wizard’s hat.”
“Relyk had a painting of this. Or, at least, of the two of us, at any rate. We were in a hot air balloon together leaving Alabaster.” My chest ached as I stared at him, stricken with a sudden, horrible realization. “Bertrand, my friend, overheard Relyk saying that he needed me alive and now I know why. He wanted me to lead him to you. And I did it. You came out of hiding because of me.”
He patted my back gently. “I was only in hiding waiting for you, Harmony. Waiting for us to fulfill our destinies. Don’t despair. Things are exactly as they are meant to be.” He turned to look out at the endless expanse of hills as he began muttering to himself. “Now let me see… Was it that one? No, maybe…”
He settled on one of the hills after a long moment, jabbing his finger toward it. “My balloon is just behind that hill. I think. Most likely. Should only be a couple hours’ walk. Maybe half a day? Hard to say this far away.”
Moll and I exchanged nervous glances. Was this truly the heroic revolutionary of legend that could lead an army to defeat the sorcerer? Was it possible that whatever magic and skill he’d had twenty-five years ago was gone? He’d been more serious down in the tunnel room, but now he seemed out of touch and almost childlike. And where was all the magic? He hadn’t shown us a spit of it yet…
My lack of sleep caught up with me as we marched, and I was running on fumes by the time we reached the hill’s base. I turned back toward the city for the hundredth time, squinting as I searched the sky for other balloons.
“Still no one following us.”
“They’ve got to check all of Alabaster before they venture over The Great Wall,” The Speaker said. “Even if Relyk knows we planned to leave in a balloon, he doesn’t know we’ve got one already. Which means we’ve got a head start.”
“And what of the mantises once we’re in the air?” Crispin asked. “The falcons are faster, but we won’t be. It usually takes three guards on deck just to hold them off during flight.”
“My balloon Libby is a heck of a lot different than your Imperial balloons. She’s made for speed. Plus, your guards aren’t me.” He grinned, wiggling his fingers as he said it. “They don’t have magic.”
I was beginning to wonder if he did either, but I left that unsaid as I rubbed the grit from my burning eyes. “How much further?”
His face scrunched up for a moment, as if considering. “An hour at most.”
I let out a breath, forcing myself to keep trudging along. Just a bit further and you can sleep, I reminded myself, praying The Speaker’s balloon was large and steady enough to make that a reality. It had been in hiding for as long as him. For all we knew, it could be destroyed by now.
Duncan moved to my side, his hand dropping lightly to my shoulder. “Do you need to take a break? It’s not like they’re right on our tails, it should be fine to?—”
“Sir,” Crispin called from behind, and I turned to see him pointing to something in the sky.
I squinted, heart thumping. “Balloon?”
He didn’t bother answering as two flying mantises emerged from a cloud in the distance.
“Fucking hell,” Moll swore, her fingers digging into my palm as three more filed out behind them.
“Maybe they haven’t spotted us yet.” My blood froze as the first of their screeches split the air, and I could almost feel the bloodlust rolling off them as they changed course, heading straight our way. The man at the amphitheater had been right; these were no simple predators, they were mindless killing machines. They jostled and crashed into one another as they hurtled toward us, but their eyes never strayed from their prey.
Us.
Duncan leapt in front of me, drawing his sword. “You and Molly stay behind Crispin and me, and see if you can find a chance to make a break for it. I assume you’re best at long range, Speaker?”
A wave of anger washed away my panic, and I grabbed Duncan’s uninjured shoulder. “I won’t let you pull that hero shit again this time. I’m going to fight by your side, or you’re going to have to fight me before you take on those fuckers.” I pulled the incapacitator from my pouch, sliding the extender to max length. It gave me a good four feet.
Duncan scowled, cursing as he pulled a dagger from his belt. “Let me and Crispin fight. You look for opportunities to stun one of them while they’re distracted. And take this just in case one of them gets by us.”
I glanced over as Crispin handed his own dagger to Moll. She pulled it close to her chest, turning to shoot me a nod. A shiver rolled through me as I glanced back to the sky. The closer they got, the bigger they looked. It was five on five, in a way, but three on one had looked like a barely even match in the amphitheater, and those had all been trained guards.
Were we really going to die at the claws of these mindless beasts, after all we’d been through?
Our fate seemed to be in The Speaker’s hands, and I winced at the thought. He was more like someone’s harmless, addled uncle than a hero.
I inched closer to Moll, heart slowing to a near standstill as the mantises closed in.
Fifty feet. Thirty. Twenty.
Duncan roared, he and Crispin leaping forward in unison as the first three mantises slammed into the ground. The clanging of steel split the air, but my attention was fixed on the other mantis, which was hurtling directly at us.
I leapt between it and Moll as it landed. “Fetch, go!”
I sent him to the skies as I pulled the trigger on my incapacitator. A rush of adrenaline surged through me as it lit up, blasting the monster with a surge of energy that left it stunned.
I dashed in with my dagger to finish the job while it flopped, but there was no time.
The final mantis streaked into my field of vision as Fetch screeched in warning.
Behind!
Moll whirled, holding out her shorter incapacitator toward the diving beast, and time slowed to a near-halt. Fuck fuck fuck. The largest of the bunch by a country mile, the mantis would lop her head off before she even got in range. So what do I do?
I broke into a full-on sprint, screaming as loudly as I could and holding my dagger out toward its chest. If I could just get it to focus on me, then maybe she could?—
My eardrums screamed with pain as a thunderclap dropped me to my knees, but my eyes never wavered as a bolt of purple lightning streaked out from behind me. It slammed into the giant mantis in a flash of light, leaving nothing but a mist of green guts where its torso should’ve been.
Moll’s incapacitator went off then, blasting uselessly into the air, but it didn’t matter. She was alive.
The Speaker whooped from behind, the sound barely audible through the ringing in my ears, and I couldn’t blame him. Hope welled up in my chest as I rose, charging toward the still-immobilized smaller mantis. It flailed, as if desperately trying to control its unresponsive body, but I was too fast, burying my dagger to the hilt, right into the center of his forehead.
A wave of sick washed over me as I tore the blade free, but I pushed past it, stabbing the mantis again for good measure.
Now it was time to help Duncan.
I spun, moving to do so, only to find him staring back at me. His eyes were narrowed, blazing silver, and a single mantis lay behind him, hacked into four pieces. The other two were already a hundred yards away, flying into the distance, fleeing us. Maybe fleeing the purple lightning.
A wide-eyed Crispin jabbed his finger toward the large mantis that The Speaker had vaporized. “What the hell happened there?”
The Speaker shrugged, his wizard’s hat flopping as he cracked and flexed his knuckles. “I may have put a bit too much power into it. I’m a little rusty.”
“If you have magic like that at your fingertips, we might have a chance,” Duncan said, pulling me close. I leaned in, not even bothered by the green blood splattered all over his shirt.
“It will take more than just me. The true extent of Relyk’s magic hasn’t been seen in decades.” The Speaker’s tone had lost its whimsical, song-like lilt. “As much as I hate to admit it, his powers eclipse mine ten-fold.”
Ten-fold?
That was…so many fold…
I sucked in a breath, turning toward the obliterated corpse he’d left behind just a few minutes earlier. “Then how could we even hope to win?”
His eyes shimmered, and his lips tipped into a grin. “Because, child of the prophecy...we have you! You’re the key, Harmony. And now that I’ve used my magic this close to the city, we’re marked.” He seemed almost giddy at the thought rather than terrified.
“You think he’s already sensed it, then? Your magic?”
“Not just yet, but his wards will alert him that we were here, and once we get to the balloon, I’ll need to use magic to move quickly. It will leave a trail behind us. The die has been cast.” He swiped the tip of his wizard hat out of his face and whirled, throwing his arm to the side in a flash of light. A gout of flame surged from his fingertips, scorching a patch of grass a dozen feet away.
“What are you?—?”
“Taking the fight to our people. To our village. Let him come. When he does, we’ll be ready to face him, and it’ll be the last thing he ever does.”
The fire in his eyes now went far beyond the fervor for the crown he’d faked as Preacher Pete. And, as crazy as it was?
I was actually starting to believe him.