46. Debt Repaid #3
“No, you should go back,” Darien cut him off, though with utmost kindness. “It’s not safe here. You’re just a kid.”
Marinos pouted. “You’re not exactly an adult either. That’s something I admire about you. You don’t let anyone look down on you because of your age; you just do what needs to be done.”
Darien shot Larissa an exasperated look, but she only shrugged in bemused silence.
No doubt it made for a nice change for Darien to take the spotlight.
Marinos skidded to a stop as their company halted around them.
A man stood in a crater that had split the street in front of them into two.
He wore priestly robes and had a hood pulled up around his face.
Tattooed runes decorated what little skin Anara could see.
A silver pendant of three intersecting triangles hung on his chest.
Marinos relaxed. “It’s just Brother Gorthr.”
Larissa stiffened beside Anara, her hands glowing in agitation. Darien tugged at her jacket to keep her from advancing.
“You’re from Perle. What are you doing here?” Anara asked.
The man pushed back his hood, revealing his bare head covered with more of the same runes. “The Hoorg do not belong to any one city; we belong to the gods.”
The Hoorg . Even Anara’s thoughts were filled with derision. She’d come across this particular religious sect often in her travels; not once had it been a pleasant experience.
“What do you want?” Larissa’s sharp voice demanded. Clearly, she had not forgotten his role in trafficking Halla as a slave into the inner sector.
Brother Gorthr approached them, sniffing deeply. “Your party carries the smell of death.”
Darien’s hands tightened into fists; Larissa glanced at him nervously. Anara growled, “This whole place smells like death. Tell us why you’re here.”
Masai shifted beside her, twirling his staffs in his hands.
Brother Gorthr lifted his hands in surrender. “I’m here to escort you the rest of the way. You can go now, Marinos.”
The boy glanced at Darien, his lower lip jutting out in defiance. “No, Halvor told me to take them to King Torsten and bring back a report.”
“Take this back to Halvor.” Gorthr offered a piece of paper to Marinos, who took it after a moment of hesitation.
The priest turned his attention to Darien.
“The King was able to locate explosives in the abandoned sentry barracks along the wall. The explosion is set to go off any minute now. If they are able to breach the wall, they’ll flood into the Court of the Aristocracy.
If you are here to help, you’d best get going. ”
Marinos shoved the paper in the inside pocket of his jacket.“Prince Darien, please let me stay and fight. This is my city—”
“It’s my city, too, Marinos.” Darien clasped the boy’s hand. “Trust me to free it for both of us. Go back to Halvor; he’s waiting for news. He needs to know what the King is planning.”
Disappointment radiated from the boy, but he nodded, unable to deny Darien’s orders. With one last hopeless glance back, Marinos turned and ran back the direction they’d come.
Anara slid beside Darien. “He’s got heart.”
“He’d get himself killed,” Darien replied. Then turning to Gorthr, he said louder, “Take me to my father.”
Climbing through the rumble only increased Anara’s dislike for the confinement of the ground.
Every inch of Anara’s body begged for transformation, for the freedom of the air, but she waited.
Her eyes shifted from rooftop to rooftop, looking for black-armored sentries, but the block was abandoned.
Then the murmur of rebels met her ears. The Second Wall was immediately before them, just beyond the end of this final block.
“We’re close,” Anara warned the others.
But as they passed by the broken white-marbled building on the corner of the street, Anara sensed the slight shift in the air, the silent anticipation. Her animal instincts sent her tackling those closest to her to the ground just as the bombs went off.
The world shook with enough force that Anara wondered if the gods themselves had come back to wreak havoc on the city of Havsiden.
Her ears rang, but not as painfully if she had not already shifted the interior canals to block out some of the shock.
Rubble from the wall flew over them, debris scattering over their group.
Anara was up first, pulling others to their feet. Nearby, Brother Gorthr stirred under the rubble. A new cut adorned Larissa’s forehead and bled red into her white hair. Seeing it at the same time, Darien scrambled to his knees, his fingers prodding near the wound.
“It’s shallow,” he yelled, probably louder than he thought he was. “Press something against it.”
He was right, but it bled profusely under the cloth a rebel handed to Larissa.
Masai stumbled to his feet, his skin coated in dust from the explosion, and reached for Larissa. “Here, let me.”
He laid his hand on her head; then, the cut was gone, leaving only a shallow scar.
Muffled cries and gunshots rang out. Down the road, the Vienám and the Safírian sentries clashed with one another as they streamed through the Wall from either side.
The rest of their group struggled to their feet, and Masai bounced between them, offering assistance wherever he could.
Kneeling beside the last rebel, he paused, his hands outstretched.
The red-headed woman lay at his feet, her eyes staring at the sky.
One of the other rebels stifled a sob, but still Masai did not move. Anara grabbed his shoulder. “You did what you could. We have to go.”
When he didn’t stand, Anara grabbed him under his arms and hoisted him to his feet. The haunted look on his face was enough to stop her next reprimand. Had he never seen death this close before?
Darien leaned down, closing the red-headed rebel’s eyes.
Anara looked away; she’d spent too many years staring at death.
There was nothing more they could do for her.
Already the scene around them was dissolving from organized lines of opposition to a melee of bodies and weapons.
Guns yielded to swords and fists as each side no longer had clear enough sight to maim the other, though shots still rang out like a persistent rhythm underlying the disarray of war.
This was it.
Darien rose, touching Larissa’s cheek with a bloody palm. She nodded, her hands glowing. Together, they ran toward the battle.
A fierce grin split Anara’s face as the blood pumped wildly through her veins.
Fear would have been the normal response, but something about the sounds of war electrified her soul like nothing else could.
She knew the moment their group was spotted from the rebels’ cries of celebration and the sentries’ shouts of anger.
Then, for Anara, there was only the fight.
Her skin trembled as the shift overcame her.
She flung herself into the sky, surveying the mass of hundreds of churning bodies.
In the middle of the chaos, Torsten was surrounded on all sides; the sentries had clearly been given their priority target, but Torsten killed as many with his handgun as he did his sword.
Still, the endless waves of sentries pressed in, cutting him off from the rebels that tried to break their ranks.
Anara cawed loudly.
Wide-eyed, Torsten turned as Anara dove, then ducked.
She transformed, exchanging her wings for paws with massive claws that she dug into the backs of two sentries.
The sentries fell forward in alarm as she howled into the sky, their break in composure allowing the Vienám to surge forward and cut their way into the midst where Torsten and Anara fought.
Torsten’s lips were tight. “Glad you made it.”
Anara’s laugh was a low rumble in the back of her throat; then, she lunged into the men around her.
They fell like paper under her sharp claws, but not without inflicting their own wounds.
She felt the sting of steel and the hot graze of a bullet ripping fur from her shoulder.
As the Vienám beat back the sentries, Anara allowed herself a moment of respite.
Falling back behind their lines, she returned to her human self and rested her back against the Second Wall.
Blood seeped from various wounds on her body. None were life-threatening, but the bullet’s path burned like Sutr ’s fire.
In the distance, high on the farthest cliff, the palace of Safír glimmered in the sunlight. Her white domes and large glass windows were out of place with the gore splashed on her streets. No doubt Regent Omiros was within, waiting with his final defense.
Anara scanned the fight, finding the familiar dark curls and white braid as Darien and Larissa fought side-by-side.
They’d joined King Torsten. Darien’s sword moved in wide arcs, more defensive than offensive.
Even now, he injured when Anara knew he could have killed.
When the fighting grew too precarious for gun play, Larissa raised glowing hands to shove the surrounding sentries off balance where they fell under rebel weapons.
The Vienám gained more ground into the Court of the Aristocracy, pushing against the broken lines of the Empress’ forces.
In the crowd, Anara caught sight of Marinos, who’d clearly snuck back to the battle in the confusion of the explosion.
The boy grappled with a sentry, knocking him down with the butt of a rifle to the sentry’s face, then followed Darien deeper into the commotion.
But where was Masai? His dark skin should’ve been a dead giveaway. Anara’s lips thinned. Anxiety welled within her as she pushed herself off the wall. Where had he gone?
“Anara, move!” Masai’s voice shouted in her ears; his arms wrapped around her waist, pushing her toward the ground and covering her body with his own.
The explosion erupted behind Anara in the same moment—not nearly as large as the blast that had broken the gate, but still significant enough that those closest to the Wall found themselves on the ground. The ones deemed unlucky by the Norn did not rise again.
Masai hissed painfully in Anara’s ears. He rolled off of her, and she found her way to her knees. Her body was no worse than it had been before besides a new scuff on her chin from where she’d hit the ground and the lip she’d bitten through during the impact.
Masai puffed out labored breaths. He clasped his ribs, his hands glowing faintly. “I think I cracked a rib.”
Anara stilled. “Did it puncture anything?”
“Let’s hope not.” He groaned in pain. “I would hate to rob you of my company prematurely.”
As Masai’s breathing evened out, Anara found she could breathe too.
His shoulders sagged more heavily than his eyelids as evidence of the cost of his efforts.
He wouldn’t be able to keep pushing himself without repercussions.
The explosion had caused a hole in the wall where she’d previously stood.
If Masai hadn’t pushed her out of the way, she would be dead.
The realization hit just as Masai’s eyes met her own.
“I should probably thank you,” she said, mirroring the sentiments he’d spoken to her only days before.
One side of his mouth tugged up as his eyebrows raised. “But you’re not going to, are you?”
“Maybe if we both survive this.” She rose, offering a hand that he took.
He supported his healing ribs with his other hand. “I plan to make good on that promise, little wolf.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I told you not to call me that—”
The windows of the palace shattered, followed by the inhuman screech of draugrs .
Anara and Masai cried out along with hundreds of other voices as Vienám and sentry alike covered their ears with their hands.
The draugr screams reverberated off each other, sending shooting pains into Anara’s skull.
With hands still covering their ears, the sentries cheered.
Invigorated, they advanced again on the Vienám.
Anara’s hands curled into claws as Masai lifted his staffs beside her, uncapping the staff he’d named Protection to reveal the blade underneath. The battle had only begun.