Chapter 6
Rory
Now
It was going to be fine, I told myself, everything was going to be fine. I dug deep to find my internal cheerleader. I could do this!
Once. I could do this once. But, like, not because I would die the first time.
I was going to be brave this one time, because someone I cared about was in trouble and needed help, and starting right after we had Kinnek back, I would stop caring about people.
Instead I would ask the presence if it would turn me into a shrub, a really fancy one with tiny berries and no attachments whatsoever.
And, naturally, when I wondered whether shrubbery was in fact a goal I could aim for, I wondered whether Inkiri would mind. If I were a shrub. With cute little berries he could eat off me.
The presence was mildly amused, because of course it was. It wasn’t going to have to do anything scary.
After Inkiri locked eyes with me and told me he would protect me, Vergis squeezed my hands to let me know I needed to do magic.
“Dispense,” he mumbled. It was what he’d started saying, since sometimes, I got distracted and didn’t…dispense right away.
Fudge it all, but if it had been anyone but Vergis’s dad we were going to save, I would have told Vergis that I was not an effing paper towel dispenser. Nor a soap dispenser. Magic was probably more like soap and less like paper towels.
I closed my eyes, acutely aware of everything around us. Charles and his guns. Lueris and the four bulky Raikengana, Lissir, and of course Ink, who stood close enough that I could smell his sun-warmed skin.
Get us close to where Kinnek is, I told the magic, even as I mentally waved it over to power up Vergis.
The presence—the land—acknowledged that, and we were off.
There were ten of us in all. Vergis, Inkiri, and Lissir were the ones the land cared about most, I felt that.
It also cared about Charles, either because Charles was Vergis’s dad or because Charles had already come to protect me once during the raspberry incident that had ended with the revelation that there was a bunker in which the cola asshat now resided.
It is good he is here since two of your knights stayed with your mate’s blood, the land told me as we hopped through the veils.
Well, okay. The land could be prickly if it didn’t like a person, and it didn’t like that Zeddira required medical attention.
You need to protect everyone though, even Lueris and the other protectors, I told it. Remember, no bloodletting.
Remember that I told you such a thing is not within my power, Rory. We are here.
“Here” was not the dark camp made up of tents and orc-like Koa Esher with a cloud of doom looming above that I’d expected, but instead a very fancy estate.
It was almost a castle, from the size of it and the gray ivy-encrusted stone I spied from where we’d arrived…
which was in the middle of a golf course.
We were stuck in one of those sandy pits, and the castle was right across a small and no doubt artificial lake, framed by formerly neatly pruned trees that had taken the chance the apocalypse had given them and were growing wild now, with mistletoe berries in the upper branches.
The once perfectly mown green lawns were mottled, long grasses growing there now and making any games a thing of the past.
Charles dropped into a crouch, and everyone followed, Inkiri pulling me down as well.
Charles looked at me. “Where is he?”
He was calm and held his gun as if he was ready to use it. He was. And he might. Violence might happen. Actually, there was a high probability that violence was going to happen. I needed to get used to the idea.
Inkiri and the other protectors closed in around me and Vergis, moving quickly despite sticking so low to the ground, and Lissir unsheathed one of his sickle-like swords.
He had a look in his fiery eyes that I’d not seen there before, and his mouth pressed into a thin line that quirked up on one side ever so slightly.
I turned in to the presence, and it reacted immediately.
I will guide you. There are many of them here, a lot who have the strange magic.
“Follow me,” I told them, and Lueris translated.
I started crouch-walking in the direction the land was pointing me—toward the castle—but Inkiri stopped me.
“No. Tell us.”
The land kind of nodded, and it did the thing where I had to close my eyes so I wasn’t hit square over the head with a bout of vertigo.
The land was already complying with what Inkiri had asked, so I just let it. My attention moved outside of myself, just like that time I’d gone to the Stone of Destiny to meet that strange girl. I took in the surroundings.
From our position, we could only see maybe the top two or three floors of the tallest buildings, but the place had a tidy rectangular wall and a courtyard the weeds were busy reclaiming.
A weathered sign by the front door read “Castle Doonhall, Hotel, Spa, Club.” There were cola asshats there, both the twisty-horned type and the more normal-looking bagua, all dressed in white in varying stages of cleanliness.
The whole building complex seemed like the kind of place that once would have looked pretentious and polished; a place where you’d have gone to do fancy stuff, like playing golf and eating overpriced food and gossiping about others.
My parents would’ve liked it here. For all I knew, they might have vacationed here before the apocalypse without telling me so they didn’t feel obligated to take me along.
But that was just my mind trying to get away from what I had to do, which was to find Kinnek and help save him.
At an angle to the neat rectangle of the main buildings, there were a few others that looked newer—housing for staff and additional event space, maybe.
The land directed my attention to the second to last of these. On its door, there were words in a foreign script, and it wasn’t Lugarran, which I’d have been able to read out loud by now, even if I didn’t know too many words.
Outside that door, there were cola assholes, laughing and drinking together, probably complimenting each other on how awesome it was being on Earth and kidnapping people.
Kinnek was in there, and my blood boiled as much as fear for him made my skin run cold. Before the land let me go back to myself, I heard something; not quite a scream, but more than a sigh. When I came back, I was both angry and scared, and I knew we had to effing hurry.
I blinked at Inkiri, doing my best to be concise.
“The castle. There’s a courtyard.” I drew the outlines of what I’d seen in the sand with my finger.
“Rectangle. The big building in the middle is the one we see now, but there are smaller ones that form the sides of the rectangle, and there are Koa Esher inside.” Lueris translated as I spoke, and everyone paid close attention.
“We don’t need to go there.” I indicated the courtyard.
“We need to go here, to the buildings behind the castle. There’s a bunch of them, newer ones, and Kinnek is in here.
” Which was when it hit me. “Fudge.” I let out a trembling sigh.
“Slaves. He—” I checked with the presence, and my stomach turned.
“There are more. We need to get all of them out.”
Everyone but Lueris was quiet, and when he was done translating, no one spoke for a few seconds. I started feeling queasy. Inkiri must’ve noticed, because he put a gentle hand on my neck, running a finger underneath my scarf.
“We go in for Kinnek,” Charles said at last. “We can try to get the others out, but herding too many freed hostages at once can get dangerous pretty fast, and we’re not going to risk that.”
I gasped. “But they all need our help. They’re hurting them! We have to save everyone.”
Charles’s jaw tensed. “We can try, but we’re not geared out for a rescue mission of that scale. If we get it wrong, you could get hurt, your mate could get hurt, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good. So we go in for Kinnek.”
I made a wheezing sound, but nodded.
He repeated what we were going to do in Lugarra, or at least I thought so. I couldn’t follow it. My understanding of the language was still limited, and if someone spoke too fast or used too many words I didn’t know, I was lost.
Like Inkiri right before we’d left, Charles had that commanding tone of voice though, and it came through clear enough.
He was like a director with a vision, a director who did not have suggestions or notes for you, but who directed every step, every gesture, every emotion you were to put into the performance.
It was as intimidating as it was impressive.
Maybe it should’ve calmed me to be told what to do, but the unease in my belly wouldn’t settle. The situation reminded me of something else. Rain and darkness, cold. Two girls running from men who wanted to hurt them.
Charles addressed the protectors, whose names I didn’t even know apart from Tador, the tactician Lissir had cozied up to. Vergis was getting his gun ready and putting extra ammunition into his pockets from the duffel Charles had brought. What did you call them? Clips? Magazines?
Even Inkiri was getting ready, his eyes going to the castle, his hand settling on one of his swords. I felt so useless, and I didn’t want to be. I closed my eyes.
Can you help us? With the fog? Like you did for that girl back at the Stone? I asked the land.
Yes, easily.
I opened my eyes. “Where—” My voice cracked, and Inkiri clicked at me. “Which way are we going? I mean, I’m not sure that matters. The land can help us. It can make everything foggy.” I checked back in with it. “And it can draw up a storm, even a thunderstorm, if we need that.”
“Fog yes, thunderstorm no,” Charles said.
Vergis spoke up. “No, neither. If the Koa Esher see fog appearing for no reason, they’ll know it’s magic. It’ll put them on edge, and they’ll be extra vigilant. It’s better to stick close to the buildings, like you said, Dad, and catch them by surprise.”
Charles nodded. “Right. Magic. Not my department.”