Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
As the midday sun beamed down hot and shimmering, Fieran gripped the wheel of the truck as it rumbled down the narrow macadam pavement that had replaced the dirt several miles back. They must be nearing a larger town or crossroads of some type.
Dacha sat in the passenger seat, a map unfolded on his lap, while Aaruk remained out of sight in the back of the truck. All of them wore Mongavarian uniforms with their caps pulled low and, for Dacha and Fieran, covering the tips of their ears.
“I think we should be nearing the town of Highmeadow.” The map crinkled as Dacha pointed.
“Do we try to go around?” Fieran peered ahead, but he couldn’t see any places to turn within sight.
“I do not think we will have much of a choice but to drive through the town.” Dacha frowned as he carefully folded the map.
“There are no roads that bypass the town on the map. Perhaps there is a farm track that is not marked, but we would have no way to know if it goes in the direction we wish to go or if it dead-ends at some farmer’s field. ”
“Then it’s good we prepared as best we could.” Fieran patted his front pocket.
Before leaving Ludin, the former prisoners had gathered all of the identification papers they could find from the various dead Mongavarian officers and soldiers.
Fieran, Dacha, and Aaruk had taken the papers that featured pictures closest in look to them.
It wasn’t like the photographs were that detailed, small and grainy as they were.
Then they’d ensured they had Mongavarian uniforms that matched the ranks listed on their identification papers.
A forged document with the commander’s seal completed their disguise.
It wouldn’t hold up once news of the escape spread, but they’d have two days, maybe more, before the boots on the ground got word of what happened.
The road crested a hill, and as the land beyond came into view, Fieran tightened his grip on the wheel.
The buildings of a small town clustered in the valley below.
Most of the homes were wood with wood shingles of the style found in many small Escarlish villages.
A few bigger brick buildings lined the main street while a large brick factory building, complete with brick chimneys puffing black smoke, loomed to one side.
But what had Fieran nearly slamming on the brakes were the Mongavarian soldiers patrolling a post before the town, a wooden gate blocking the way.
He shared a look with Dacha before he focused forward. He drew in a deep breath, trying to calm his thundering heart. “Aaruk, we’re nearing the town and a checkpoint. Stay in the back. Hopefully our papers are good enough that they won’t search us.”
“You mean the papers your friend forged?” Aaruk’s voice came from the back, but he didn’t peek his head into the front.
“Yeah, those.” Fieran swallowed and tried to remember everything Uncle Edmund had taught him about speaking in a Mongavarian accent.
But as Uncle Edmund had taught them, if he played this right, he wouldn’t have to speak at all.
He slowed, then halted the truck before the board set to block the way.
One of the guards approached Fieran’s side of the vehicle while the other remained at his post, his rifle held loosely in his hands rather than aimed at Dacha.
The soldier halted next to Fieran. “Papers?”
Fieran reached into his pocket and pulled out his papers. He handed them over, trying for the haughty look Rothilion had worn when he’d taken over the squadron.
Dacha, too, pulled out his identification papers along with the crisply folded forged document. He handed those to Fieran. With his hair short and his jaw hard, he was doing a far better job of appearing aloof and haughty than Fieran was.
Fieran handed all of the papers over to the soldier.
The soldier didn’t do more than give the identification papers a cursory glance.
When he unfolded the forged document, his eyes dropped to the seal, then widened.
He shoved the whole stack back at Fieran as hastily as if the papers were on fire.
“Sorry, sirs. I wouldn’t have stopped you if I’d known you were operating on orders for Colonel Haggan. ”
Fieran tipped his head in a nod toward the man, still giving him that supercilious I’m too important to even speak with a lowly private look.
“And, sirs?” The soldier shifted. “I wouldn’t stop in town, if I were you. You probably haven’t heard, but this village is on lockdown after the riots. No one is supposed to go in or out. You’re an exception, of course. So watch to make sure no one tries to hitch a ride.”
Fieran gave another, more agreeable nod, as if he was a commander appreciating the warning, as he returned Dacha’s papers and stuffed his own back into his pocket.
Then the two soldiers hurried forward and opened the bar blocking their way. Fieran released the brake and drove forward.
Inside, the town was far too quiet and still for the middle of the day.
No one was out and about besides the handful of Mongavarian soldiers pacing along the sidewalks, rifles to their shoulders.
They saluted as Fieran and Dacha passed, and Fieran had to work hard not to snap an Escarlish salute in return out of habit.
He took an extra moment each time, making sure he tipped his hand with the slightly more angled salute the Mongavarians used.
He also eased the truck to a greater speed so that he and Dacha were passing the soldiers so quickly that the soldiers wouldn’t get a good look at any returning salutes.
A few of the common people peered out of windows, the curtains fluttering back into place, as they passed by.
Near the center of town, some of the shop windows were broken, and a military vehicle had been shoved into an alley, its paint blackened from a fire. There were a few darker brown spots on the sidewalk that could only be dried blood.
Something bad had gone down here. Fieran clamped his mouth shut to keep from asking Dacha what he thought.
At the far side of town, the guards didn’t stop them, but instead lifted the bar out of their way. The accommodating guard at the other end must have radioed ahead.
Once they were rolling down the road at a good clip and well away from town, Fieran released a breath and glanced at Dacha. “That went well.”
“Yes.” Dacha tapped his fingers on the door handle next to him, his knees bouncing.
“And riots?” If Fieran hadn’t been busy driving, he might have been jittery as well.
“It seems the Mongavarian people no longer support the war.” Dacha gestured over his shoulder in the direction of the town. “At least, those in that town do not.”
“That’s good for the Alliance, right?” Fieran glanced from the road to Dacha and back. “They will be much more ready to surrender if the people are rioting instead of rallying in the face of the invasion and increased bombings.”
“Perhaps.” Dacha gave a small shrug. “We do not know if the riots are a localized thing or something that is occurring across a larger part of Mongavaria. But it will likely make our task harder.”
“It will?” Fieran could only see good things if Mongavaria was on the brink of falling apart.
“Yes.” Dacha’s drumming fingers clenched into a fist. “We were fortunate back there. The Mongavarian government will increase scrutiny and restrict movements. We might not be able to pass as easily next time.”
No, they wouldn’t. Fieran flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. No matter how hard it was, he would do whatever it took to reach Pip.
They’d parked the truck inside an abandoned barn next to the bombed-out farmhouse only a mile away from a Mongavarian factory town. The town itself had some damage—collapsed walls and shattered bricks—but the factories themselves were untouched.
Sitting on a hay bale in the barn’s loft, Fieran chewed on a piece of stringy smoked beef and glanced through a hole in the wall, keeping watch while Dacha and Aaruk settled onto their bedrolls for the night.
Fieran’s gaze landed on the blackened remains of the farmhouse once again.
Had a family been inside when the bomb had fallen? Had the grieving man left his farm, unwilling to stay after losing a wife and children? Or had the whole family been killed in one swift blow, and that was why it was now abandoned?
At the beginning of this war, Fieran had been so horrified when Mongavaria targeted civilians at Bridgetown.
And yet here the Alliance was, killing civilians. Everyone knew bombs weren’t accurate. Yet the deaths were considered an acceptable loss to fight the war. By this point, the Alliance had probably killed far more civilians than Mongavaria had at Bridgetown.
Fieran wasn’t the only one who had lost his innocent optimism to this war. The whole of the Alliance had lost its innocence. They were now ruthless and bloodied and prepared to cross lines they’d never imagined crossing before.
Fieran hadn’t escorted the bombing mission that had destroyed this farmhouse. If he had, the factory would have been far more damaged.
But he had still escorted plenty of bombing raids. He likely had the blood of civilians on his hands as surely as he did soldiers’, and he’d carry that for the rest of his life.
Yet he’d seen what Mongavaria had done to the ogres. They’d been keeping them in cages like animals, experimenting on them, killing them as they stole their magic. Those horrors had to be stopped.
Still, he mourned the horrors that were committed in order to stop other horrors. War was awful. Death was awful, even when it happened to an enemy.
Outside, the darkness closed in deeper around the barn. Crickets chirped so loudly in the grass and from the hay that Fieran wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to hear anything above the racket.