6 Hugo
Hugo
Eira was perplexing him, but none of that mattered now.
Hugo heard the door crack sharply before it splintered, and he turned his head quickly enough to see the familiar armor of
a member of the Iron Retinue on the other side of what had been a door only a moment ago.
Shit.
Had they followed him here? They would kill everyone in this bar to get to him if they had to. Hugo had never felt more stupid
than at this moment; he’d been so cautious until he saw Eira walking down the street the day before. He’d let his guard down,
apparently far enough for someone from the Iron Retinue to find him.
The screams began anew as eerily tall soldiers clad in full iron plate armor with the Iron Empire’s sigil, a simple shield with two swords crossed over it, stepped in and started looking around, yanking people toward them and examining their faces as they tried to flee.
Hugo tossed up his cloak’s hood, trying to obscure his face as he searched for a way out.
This was bad; the people in this tavern were stirring into a panic, and the more they panicked, the more likely the Iron Retinue would be to kill them for trying to avoid their scrutiny.
Eira made to stand and he grabbed Eira’s arm. “We have to go!” he shouted over the din.
The Iron Retinue could have walked in and avoided all this panic. Who was the commander that told them to barge in like this?
“Obviously!” Eira shouted back, tugging her arm away. He didn’t let go.
“Do you know another way out?” Hugo asked, standing and getting closer to her. She smelled like rosemary and mead, and he
tried to not let it distract him.
She looked at him, fear turning into something else—determination. “Yes,” she said, starting to head in the direction of the
bar.
Hugo followed, one hand on his belt where his sword was hidden beneath his cloak, the other on her arm. He didn’t want to
fight here if he didn’t have to. If he could get Eira and himself out of Cilirien, he might be able to get them back into
hiding without the Iron Retinue killing them both.
Maybe.
The swell of the crowd was immense as the patrons tried to leave through the cracked and warped tavern door. Hugo followed
Eira in the opposite direction, hand still on her soft arm, as she fought through the crowd and slid under the bar gate.
Hugo followed, moving around the back of the bar in a crouch. He saw the bartender ahead of them lock eyes with Eira and motion
her forward.
As the two of them arrived at the door the barmaid was holding for them, she looked to Eira and asked in a hushed tone, “Do
you know him?”
Eira looked back and Hugo watched her think about it, her steely gray eyes weighing her options in her head, considering leaving him here with nothing between him and three members of the Iron Retinue but his sword.
Hugo watched one man slam to the floor, a swift backhand from an Iron Retinue soldier knocking him out cold. Just let them look at you and stop panicking, Hugo thought as he carelessly lifted his head slightly too far over the top of the bar to see what was going on. They’d
all be fine once the knights realized the other patrons weren’t Hugo Venton.
Hugo watched as one of the soldiers pointed in their direction.
“We have to go,” Hugo growled, snapping his head back down and looking toward the two conspiring women.
“Yes,” Eira finally said to the barmaid, and she ushered them through the kitchen door before locking and barring it.
The three of them ran through the back of the tavern, through the kitchens and to the back door.
“Thank you,” Eira said as they exited the building. The two of them watched the barmaid lock the door behind her, the sounds
of screams and the commanding shouts of the knights muffled but still present on the other side.
“I’m going to the city guard,” the woman said, wiping her hands on her apron before stepping away. “Hopefully they’ll be able
to calm things down.”
Eira hugged her as Hugo watched the door. They weren’t going to stop coming, not now that they knew he was here.
“Good idea,” Eira said, rubbing her hands on the woman’s shoulders. “Go get the city guard. That’s all you can do.”
The door shuddered in its frame as someone, or something, slammed into it from the other side. Eira jumped at the sound, startled,
and looked to Hugo, who flared his eyes to tell her they had to go now.
He grabbed her arm.
“Let’s go!” he yelled before turning toward a dark alleyway across from the tavern’s back door.
They ran, hearing the banging of the door behind them fade as they moved along.
“This isn’t the direction of my house. We have to go to my house!” Eira shouted, grabbing at Hugo’s hand on her arm.
“No,” Hugo said, not slowing down. He ferried her to where he knew his horse was. “We’re getting out of this town.”
“No, I’m going home.” Her tone was resolute, the determination in her eyes as clear as could be.
Hugo heard the crack of the door behind them and the still-muffled voice of one of the guards shout “Get them both!” as he
tried to figure out how to explain to her that she needed to come with him in as few words as possible.
She looked at him, brow furrowed in frustration and concern, and he could almost see her weighing the odds of each choice
before her—stay, or go.
“You need to trust me. If you don’t come with me, you’re going to be killed. They will not give you a chance to explain yourself
now. They do not care who you are or that you want to go home. They will kill you because you’re here with me,” Hugo said.
Eira stopped dead in her tracks, nearly causing Hugo to fall. Those legs always were like the roots of a tree when she didn’t
want to move.
“No,” she said. “I don’t know you. I do not trust you.”
“That was the town’s potion witch!” another guard said as he started pushing through the splintering back door of the tavern.
Eira gasped, looking in their direction and seeing that the barrier was nearly broken.
Eira didn’t know him? What wasn’t she understanding about this? And why was this charade continuing with no one else around?
Hugo hadn’t changed that much in the last three years . . . had he?
“Eira,” Hugo pleaded. “Please, we need to go.”
“I need to get my rabbit,” was all she said, hands up as she frantically looked around to figure out which direction her house was in.
“Your rabbit?!” he exclaimed in a fierce whisper.
“Pennyroyal, yes,” she said, crossing her arms. “And I need a change of clothing.”
Hugo placed his hands on her arms, pleading, “I cannot let you go home, it’s not safe.”
“I will not leave without my rabbit,” she said stubbornly.
Hugo watched her bag move slightly.
“Eira, we have no time to argue about this.” He quickly tugged open her bag to see the pointy, furry ears of a rabbit. Thank
goodness.
“Your rabbit is here, and we need to go now.”
She looked into her bag and a frustrated smile blossomed over her face at the sight of the rabbit. “I told you not to come
tonight! You must stop slipping into my bag when I’m putting my boots on!”
Hugo watched the rabbit snap her teeth in response. This whole situation was insane. “We need to go,” he said, tugging Eira
again.
Finally, she relented and started running again, closing her bag as she followed him through the winding alleyways he’d mapped
out when he’d arrived a few days ago. It always paid to have an escape route, and he had never been happier for his obsessive
precautions than he was in this moment.
After what felt like an eternity, he spotted the stables where Arthur was.
They ran to the chestnut-colored horse, who immediately started nuzzling Hugo.
“I missed you too,” Hugo said, patting the gelding’s neck quickly before throwing Eira onto the saddle, feeling his body stir
as he grabbed her waist. “But we need a quick escape, buddy.”
The horse whinnied, and Hugo heard the clanking of plate armor in the distance.
“Shit,” he muttered before jumping on the horse in front of Eira and cracking the reins. He felt her thick arms wrap around his waist and instantly felt a rush of heat at her touch. He’d dreamed of this moment for so long, but in these circumstances, he couldn’t truly enjoy the moment.
“Let’s go, Arthur,” he said, shaking his head to clear it as the horse ran out of the stables.
“You’re going to need to hold on tight, my lady.” Hugo could see members of the Iron Retinue in the middle distance.
“Stop!” they shouted, running toward him and Eira.
“Go, Arthur!” Hugo said as Arthur broke into a gallop toward the open road out of Cilirien.
“Are those knights from the capital?” Eira asked, clutching Hugo’s waist as she looked back at the soldiers chasing them.
“Why did they attack the Honeyed Horn?”
“I don’t really want to stick around to find out,” Hugo said as they kicked up a cloud of dust in their wake, not ready to
explain that he was the reason they were here.
He could hear the soldiers’ shouts waning, and he looked back to see Eira watching the lights of Cilirien fade into the distance.
Before long, Hugo directed Arthur to take them off of the Empire’s Road. He remembered a stream from when he had first come
into Cilirien. They could use it to hide their scent and tracks and, hopefully, the Iron Retinue would lose their trail altogether.
He listened as Eira’s ragged breaths slowed to a normal rate, leaving just the sound of Arthur’s hooves beating into the ground
and rattling tree branches as they sped past. Hugo strained his ears, searching for any sound in the night that wasn’t them
tearing through the forest.
The woods were blissfully quiet.
After riding through the shallow river for a few moments, Hugo headed northwest. There were a half a dozen smaller towns between Cilirien and Redfield; he figured he’d better skip to the second or third just to be safe.
“Where are we going?” Eira finally spoke, making Hugo tense. He’d almost forgotten she was there, her with her rabbit and
her strange behavior, pretending not to know him.
He didn’t answer, kicking Arthur into a gallop and hoping they could get to somewhere safe so that they could sleep and warm
up—it was nearing winter, and neither of them had dressed for a long night outside.
She elbowed him and he winced, grumbling.
“Don’t do that when I’m steering a horse,” he snarled.
“Answer me or I’m going to find the first member of the Iron Retinue wherever you take me and tell them you kidnapped me,”
she huffed indignantly.
“I explained that you were in danger, and you needed to come with me, and you did—that’s hardly kidnapping,” Hugo said.
Ugh, he thought. This may have been a massive mistake.
Hugo still wasn’t sure what game Eira was playing with her pretense that he was a stranger .
. . but she was playing it convincingly.
“I’m taking us to a town so that we can sleep, but it can’t be the first town after Cilirien because the Iron Retinue is going
to be looking for us,” he explained as he bit down his desire to call her out for her games.
“Why are they looking for you?” she questioned again. “I’m not stupid. The Iron Retinue doesn’t care about a little potions
witch in a town like Cilirien. I’m no elemental caster.”
“Now that you’ve been seen with me, they’ll be looking for you too,” Hugo said, dodging the question and speeding Arthur into
a gallop again. He could vaguely see the town he’d stayed in a few nights ago through the trees, which meant they were about
a quarter of the way to their destination. He heard Eira open her bag and start whispering to the rabbit to soothe the creature
as what he had just told her sat between them in a silence that felt heavier than any he’d felt before.
“Oh. Fantastic,” Eira said before letting them fall into silence again.
Hugo hoped desperately that the late night would carry them through the forest with no issue, and as quickly as possible,
because he wasn’t ready to have any more conversations with Eira tonight.
The two fell into a strained silence—Hugo could feel how much Eira wanted to say something, but after a short while, the weight
of her behind Hugo’s back became heavier as she fell asleep on him. His life was about to get much more complex, and Hugo
wasn’t exactly sure how happy he was about that.