Chapter Twelve The Vow in the Dark #2
They moved in a low crouch through brush, circling the ridge that overlooked the rear of the camp. The smoke was thicker now, because the fire had not died. It had grown, fed by stored straw and dried grain.
Shouts rose from within the fence. Orders. Curses. The clatter of buckets. Men running. Blackwood was a boiling pot.
Caelan guided them to the thorn hedge seam where they had slipped out, the hidden mouth Ivor had shown them earlier.
Ivor crouched, hands already working. “Third branch,” he muttered. “Broken stake. Twist.”
The hedge shifted and opened.
Ewan went first this time, slipping through with quick economy. Elara followed, biting back a sound as a thorn scraped her cheek. Morna went next, cloak wrapped tight.
Caelan paused before following, glancing back into the darkness beyond the hedge.
Morna saw it. The pull in him, the temptation to keep going, to flee, to abandon the camp, to abandon everything that reminded him of what he had become.
She reached out and caught his sleeve. “With us,” she whispered.
Caelan’s eyes flicked to her hand, then to her face. He nodded once, a harsh motion, and pushed through the hedge after her.
They were inside Blackwood again.
Smoke hit them like a wall. Heat pulsed from the storehouse, orange light painting the yard in violent flashes.
Prisoners ran with buckets, some with genuine purpose, some using the chaos to move where they were not permitted. Guards shouted at one another, trying to form lines. The camp’s careful order had cracked, and in the cracks, possibility lived.
Caelan crouched behind a stack of barrels and scanned the yard the way he would scan an inventory list, counting what mattered, ignoring what did not.
“The gate,” he whispered. “They will open it to bring water carts and men.”
Ivor’s lips curled. “You want to leave through the front.”
Ewan’s eyes widened. “That is madness.”
Caelan’s gaze was flat. “It is predictable. Which means it will be watched less carefully than the fence.”
Morna’s mind raced. “We will need cover.”
Caelan glanced at her. “We will find it.”
He moved first, and the rest of them followed because there was nothing else to do.
They slipped along the ditch line, mud sucking at their boots. Morna felt the old nausea rise again at the stench, but she forced it down. She had no room for weakness.
A guard barreled past, shouting, “To the storehouse. Move.”
Caelan grabbed a bucket from a fallen pile and thrust it into Ewan’s hands. “Carry,” he murmured. To Morna he handed a coil of rope, rough and frayed. To Elara he shoved a wet cloth. “On your head,” he said, and she did it without question, making herself look like another runner in the chaos.
Ivor glanced around. “What do I carry.”
Caelan’s eyes narrowed, and Morna almost smiled at the old irritation flickering through him. “Your mouth,” Caelan said. “Keep it shut.”
Ivor’s grin flashed despite the danger.
They joined the stream of bodies moving toward the storehouse. Heat pressed against Morna’s skin as they neared it. The fire roared, not a simple blaze, but a hungry beast. Sparks flew and landed on people’s sleeves. Someone screamed as a burning ember caught in hair.
Morna’s healer’s instincts flared. She wanted to move to help, to slap flame out, to soothe panic. But survival demanded cruelty now, a different kind.
Caelan pushed them through the crowd, eyes fixed on the gate beyond the storehouse yard. It was open. Men surged in and out. Two water carts rattled through, pulled by horses made frantic by smoke.
A line of guards stood near the gate, trying to direct traffic. Valerius was not among them, but Morna felt his presence anyway, as if the air itself carried his attention.
Caelan halted behind a stack of sacks and leaned close. “We need a cart,” he whispered.
Ewan’s voice trembled. “How.”
Caelan’s gaze flicked to the carts. “We become cargo.”
Ivor let out a low whistle. “Bold.”
Morna looked at the nearest cart, piled with empty barrels meant for water. Under the barrels was a bed of straw, damp from spilled water.
“Straw will itch,” Morna whispered.
Caelan’s lips tightened. “Better than a rope.”
Elara swallowed hard. “We cannot all fit.”
“We can,” Caelan said. “If we choose the right one.”
A shout rose near the gate. “Clear the lane. Clear it.”
One cart rolled through, emptying, then turned back toward the river line.
Caelan’s eyes followed it. “That one,” he said. “The next pass, it will be heavier and slower. The guards will be focused on speed.”
They moved, slipping between bodies, keeping their buckets and rope and cloth visible. Morna kept her head down. Her pulse hammered. The camp’s noise was a living thing.
Near the gate, a guard grabbed Morna’s rope and yanked. “What is this.”
Caelan stepped forward instantly, voice sharp. “For the barrels,” he snapped. “To lash them. They keep rolling when the horses startle.”
The guard blinked, thrown off by the authority in Caelan’s tone. Caelan had the kind of voice men obeyed without thinking, the voice of a quartermaster who had managed warriors and their pride.
The guard grunted. “Fine. Move.”
They moved past.
Morna’s knees wanted to buckle with relief, but she forced them steady.
The cart Caelan had chosen rolled in again, this time loaded with two full barrels, water sloshing. A man on the cart shouted for space.
Caelan motioned them toward the side of the lane, behind a stack of firewood.
“Now,” he whispered.
They waited until the cart slowed, forced by the crowd.
Ewan moved first, darting to the back and slipping his hands under the straw. He pulled it up, creating a hollow. Elara followed, small enough to vanish quickly. Morna went next, heart pounding so hard she feared it would shake the straw loose.
Ivor was last, and he whispered as he slid under, “If I suffocate, I will haunt you.”
Caelan did not climb in immediately. He stood at the cart’s side, bucket in hand, as if helping. Then he stepped onto the wheel spoke and swung himself up, dropping into the straw with a grunt as the cart lurched forward.
Straw pressed against Morna’s face. The smell was damp and sour. Water sloshed above them, and every movement made the barrels creak.
Morna forced her breathing shallow.
The cart rolled toward the gate.
A guard’s voice above them. “What’s this.”
The driver snapped, “Water.”
“Barrels are shifting.”
Caelan’s hand shoved the rope upward through the straw. “Lash them,” he muttered.
The driver, unaware of the hidden bodies, took the rope and tied it around the barrels, muttering curses.
Morna listened, heart in her throat.
Another guard spoke, closer. “Hold.”
The cart stopped.
Morna’s body went rigid. Elara’s breath hitched. Ewan’s hand found Morna’s wrist in the dark, gripping hard.
Valerius’s voice cut through the noise, calm and close. “Stop that cart.”
Morna’s blood turned to ice.
The straw above them shifted as a heavy boot stepped onto the cart bed.
Valerius.
His presence was unmistakable, even without seeing him. He carried certainty like a scent.
The cart rocked. The barrels creaked.
Valerius spoke to the driver. “You were near the rear fence. You saw prisoners.”
“I saw smoke,” the driver said, voice fearful. “That is all. We’re trying to put the fire out.”
Valerius’s tone was mild. “You will answer my questions carefully. Or you will join the prisoners.”
Silence. Then the driver swallowed. “I saw no one. I swear it.”
Valerius paused. Morna imagined him looking down, his mind tallying possibilities. He did not need evidence to suspect. He only needed the idea.
Morna’s fingers dug into the straw, nails biting her palm. She could feel Caelan beside her, tense as a drawn bow. She knew he was ready to spring up, to distract, to die.
She pressed her foot against his shin, a silent warning.
Valerius’s boot shifted. He paced a slow step, then another. Straw rustled above Morna’s face. The scent of leather and smoke seeped down.
Then Valerius said softly, almost conversational, “Quartermaster.”
Caelan’s body jolted.
Morna’s heart stopped.
Valerius chuckled once. “You are not the only man in Blackwood who knows how to hide. The difference is that most of them hide from hunger, not from me.”
He stepped closer to the barrels.
Morna’s mind screamed. If he lifted one handful of straw, he would see skin, cloth, breath.