Chapter 34
The rain lashed down, and her fingers had gone numb around the hilt of the blade where she gripped it. Arla could hardly see Kase and Jaz pressed against the side of the rock face a hundred metres from her, and she didn’t even know where Sebastian was anymore.
Hark, at least, was pressed tightly at her side, their shoulders so close together they were almost fused. The rain hadn’t relented for the hour they had stood in cover of the rockface, waiting for the moment to drop into the camp and destroy what Elrod had worked so hard to build.
‘How does Elrod know they’re magics? Some of these people are from Hadalyn and I’d never have known they had a single drop of magic in their blood,’ she said quietly.
Hark leaned closer to her and she hated that she was beginning to enjoy the feel of his body against hers.
‘Some have ink tattooed on their skin – usually the dragonhart symbol on the inside of their wrists. The others – and the children – well, Elrod has spies all over the kingdoms waiting for one of them to slip up so he can take them. Most have limited control over their power. When they slip it’s… Well, people notice.’
She didn’t want to know what that meant or what Elrod did when he captured them after a slip.
She took in a shuddering breath and turned her attention back to the scene below.
Kase had already leapt down onto the back of an unsuspecting soldier brandishing a whip, and he hadn’t uttered a sound as her blade had sliced across his throat.
It had taken her mere moments to drag his body beyond the sight of the camp and scale the rockface.
Arla couldn’t help but be impressed by the girl.
She was ruthless, and strong, and knew how to handle herself.
Kase was someone Arla could come to like, if she could temper that mouth of hers.
A low, rumbling sound began in the distance, the noise of hundreds of feet being forced to march from one end of the camp to the other, where huge metal cages mounted on the back of wagons waited to carry the next batch of slaves to their death, or whatever else Elrod had in store for them.
It was the signal the crew had all waited for, the moment they hoped to infiltrate the crowd and turn them against the guards.
Arla wasn’t fully sold on the plan – not when too much of it relied on rumours and magic she still didn’t fully believe in.
She was far more confident in what a blade could do, and was glad she’d strapped so many to her so that she could pass them off to slaves.
Arla Reinhart would not rely on some made-up magic tricks to slaughter a camp full of Kastonian soldiers.
It’s real, you fool.
The blur of women, and men, and children began to take form in the distance, and with it, came the thundering of heavy, sharp hailstones that pelted her so harshly she had no other option than to lean into Hark for some sort of protection.
His body was a solid comfort against the rock that was becoming quickly slippery beneath their feet.
She found herself pressing as closely into him as she could, and instead of shrugging her off or making some jibe like, how could she ever be an assassin if she couldn’t handle a little rain, she was surprised to find his arm link with hers and hold her tightly against him.
‘This storm’s going to get worse, you know. We need to get moving,’ he said, his jaw rigid with what she thought was worry.
‘A little longer,’ she said in a low voice, eyes scanning the approaching group of slaves and uniformed soldiers.
‘Reinhart, as much as I admire your lack of enthusiasm for bloodshed this morning, I don’t think we can hold out much longer. Kase and Jaz are going to be difficult to reach as it is.’
It was worry. His gaze was a rapid, everchanging thing as it crossed between the slaves, to Kase and Jaz, and then back to her. She’d been wrong to ever doubt him as an ambassador; he filled the role beautifully. He cared for the people more than anyone else.
‘A few more minutes, please,’ she urged, shuddering against the thick flakes of snow now beginning to fall from the sky.
‘Because you said please.’ He smirked, and she realised she’d missed that from him in recent days. Everything had been too serious, too dangerous, too scary to warrant the usual bickering between them. When exactly had the snide remarks morphed into playful banter?
‘Don’t get used to it,’ she murmured.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you saying please. Especially when the next time I expect to hear that word is when you’re begging me to touch you.’
Gods.
He wasn’t even looking at her, which was good because she was certain there was a red bloom spreading over her cheeks. She sucked in cool air and cleared her throat.
‘Why can’t they escape the chains if they have magic?’
‘The cuffs are made of iron,’ Hark replied quietly, his eyes never straying from those who marched below them. ‘It nullifies the magic. No one knows why.’
Iron.
The iron her king had lied to her about.
The slaves marched closer, their feet a drumbeat for a war that was about to be rained upon the soldiers flanking them.
A crack echoed over the noise of the wind, a chilling, sickening sound that turned Arla’s stomach.
Hark’s arm squeezed hers, as if to anchor her against the blind rage into which she was about to descend.
But rather than that red-hot, boiling anger she felt in her heart, an eerie calm settled over her, focusing her attention on the bloodied, exposed backs of slaves and the whips shredding the flesh there.
Sound became a faraway thing, only her own breath gracing her ears and sharpening her into a lethal killing machine.
Her fingers twitched, aching to feel the smooth wood of the bow on her back as she rained down arrows upon the soldiers.
Through the storm she saw two shadows drop into the crowd, Kase and Jaz merging with the slaves and becoming unidentifiable within the sea of heads.
Just a few minutes longer, a few metres closer before she and Hark would follow their lead and lower themselves into the throng, knives drawn, hands deadly before they would split open this camp and destroy those who ran it.
‘You know, if we die—’ Hark began, and had she not become so used to the way he spoke, to the way she could identify the amusement in his voice, she might have mistaken it for worry.
‘Stop right there. I’m not going to die.’
‘Smartass.’ He elbowed her lightly.
The ground beneath them became a writhing mass of bodies as the first line of slaves passed under the cliff. Arla unclasped her cloak, her fingers lingering on the soft material as she pushed down the regret at abandoning such a lovely item at the northern border.
‘Ready?’ Hark asked, letting go of her arm and rolling his shoulders.
They were silent as they fell through the air.
* * *
For half a second, she was caught up in the knot of people fleeing the swords and death of Kastonia as their soldiers invaded Hadalyn.
A heartbeat later, she was reassuring the people around her that she was not going to hurt them, but that they needed to do as instructed when the time came.
Her knives were a comfort at her sides, her bow fastened tightly against her spine in the hopes no solider would notice her or it.
Hark’s dark head of wavy hair two rows in front of her was a comfort, too.
Onwards they marched, the dull outline of the mounted cages close enough that she could see the shackles chained to the bars. Cyrus hadn’t sent her on many northern-border jobs, but it had never been as cold or stormy as this.
Another crack shuddered through the valley, setting Arla’s jaw rigid and causing her to grind her teeth together. Those gods-damned whips.
A tiny, soft hand crawled into her own. Arla’s heart squeezed at the sight of the head of tight, brown ringlets and the cold face that stared up at her.
Gods, the children were so young. Children walking in this dreadful cold, chained ankle to wrist. Children about to be carted to whatever hell Elrod had in mind, whatever sacrifices he was ready to demand of them.
Arla couldn’t shake the image of it being Ettie or Neb who walked beside her.
‘Are you here to save us?’ the tiny voice whispered, barely audible over the crunch of marching meet and the endless clinking of chains.
‘I’m going to try.’ Arla offered a weak smile. She would make no promises. Never any promises, but something in her very core was screaming at her to save them.
‘HALLLLTTTT!’
Almost instantly the mass of slaves stopped, most stumbling into the backs of those in front of them.
Arla flexed her fingers, squeezing the little girl’s hand lightly before finding the hilt of one of her knives. One chance. She had once chance to end this.
A tremor ran through the crowd – a shivering, wicked thing.
Arla stood her ground, twisting the knife in her palm, waiting, waiting, waiting.
It would be this part of their stupid, unreliable plan with too many people involved that would cause them to stumble – would take away the element of surprise they had gained by striking at this time of the day, in the middle of a snowstorm.
A murmur reached her ears, a barely audible sound but it was the one she had been waiting for. Kase and Jaz were moving then, preparing the slaves, ready for a quick getaway when the time came.
Arla had spent enough hours within the bosom of crowds to know when things were about to turn dangerous. She could feel the prickle of anticipation in the air, the throbbing heart of violence about to be unleashed.
The people were shifting, changing the internal structure of the rows and rows of slaves, shuffling to put Arla, Hark, and his crew in positions where they were sure to be unexpected.
A body slammed into the back of her, and as she spun to see the commotion and its cause, a scrawny, barely clothed woman was dragged from the crowd and hauled by her skinny arms to the front of the group.
The commander’s eyes were cruel – even from a distance Arla could see the disdain and violence simmering there, waiting for an excuse to be unleashed. Maybe he didn’t need one. Maybe he’d be violent without reason. It wouldn’t be out of character for a Kastonian, would it?
Not a sound left the slave’s lips as the solider that had hauled her to the front struck her behind the knees, dropping her to the freezing ground at the feet of the commander.
White-hot, blinding fury coursed through Arla, her hands trembling with the effort to keep her knife in her grip instead of planting it in the chest of the sadistic Kastonian guard.
The woman was still alive, though Arla didn’t know how.
Even from eight rows back, she could see the woman’s collarbones jutting out at awkward angles, the greasy, knotted hair lying limp across her bare shoulders.
The thin scrap of fabric hardly covered her decency.
Arla couldn’t fathom how the woman hadn’t died from the cold alone.
This place… Gods, it was evil. The devastating, faraway look in the hollowed-out faces of these slaves told her everything she needed to know about the things they had endured. Not anymore.
Her fingers reached instinctively for the dragonhart brooch she had tucked into the pocket of her trousers for safekeeping.
When her fingers brushed the metal, she was certain something in the centre of her chest awoke, and it was a raging, wild thing that protested against what it saw.
Arla’s hand lingered there on the brooch, for some reason unwilling to let it go.
The commander spat at the kneeling woman, and the sneer on his face was plain to see. The woman, to her credit, didn’t balk under him. Didn’t shake. Didn’t look away as he undoubtedly told her all the things he would do to her. All the things this kingdom would do to her.
The hand that swung for the woman’s face was suddenly blood red, and only now did the slave cry out.
Arla never missed with a blade.