Re
The journey back through the sewers was worse than the first time.
Rion could barely keep his feet beneath him, his weight shifting unpredictably between Lark and Darian as they half-carried, half-dragged him through the waist-deep filth.
The cold water seemed to revive him slightly, shocking some alertness back into his battered body, but it also made him shiver violently, his teeth chattering so hard Lark worried the sound would carry up through the stones above them.
“Almost there,” she whispered. “Just a little further.”
She did not know whether he had heard her.
His head hung forward, his chin nearly touching his chest, and his breathing had gone shallow and rapid in a way that deeply concerned her.
The chill of the water was leeching whatever warmth remained in him.
They needed to get him out soon, or hypothermia would finish what his captors had started.
Pippa waded ahead of them, one hand trailing along the tunnel wall for guidance, her body rigid with the effort of not gagging.
She had not complained once since they had entered the water, but Lark could see the toll it was taking.
They were all running on reserves that should have long since been depleted.
The tunnel ended at the wall where the grate waited below the waterline.
Lark could see the faint ripple of current where the moat pulled at the opening, the darkness of deeper water beyond.
Relief flooded through her, followed immediately by fresh anxiety.
They would need to dive through the grate and swim up to the surface of the moat, then cross to the far shore.
In his current state, Rion could not make it on his own.
She turned to Darian and caught his eyes in the gloom. He understood without words, shifting his grip on Rion, pulling him closer against his chest.
“Deep breath,” Darian murmured to Rion. “Hold it as long as you can. I’ve got you.”
Rion managed a weak nod.
Pippa went first, filling her lungs and dropping beneath the surface. Lark watched her shadow disappear through the grate and counted the seconds until she would surface on the other side.
“Now,” Darian said.
He took a deep breath, wrapped both arms around Rion’s torso, and pulled them both under.
Lark followed almost immediately, diving down through the grate and into the open water of the moat.
The cold hit her again, but this time she was ready for it, forcing her body to keep moving even as her muscles protested.
She kicked hard for the surface, breaking through into the night air with a gasp.
Pippa was already treading water nearby. A moment later, Darian surfaced with Rion clutched against his chest, hauling the other man’s head above water. Rion coughed and sputtered, but he was breathing, and his one visible eye was open.
They swam for the far shore, Lark taking position on Rion’s other side to help keep him afloat.
The current tugged at them, trying to pull them downstream toward the river, but Darian was strong enough to fight it, and Lark added what strength she could.
Together they crossed the moat in a slow, agonizing crawl that felt like it took hours but could not have been more than a few minutes.
The bank rose before them, a dark slope of mud and rock. Pippa had already pulled herself out and was reaching down to help. Lark pushed Rion up toward her waiting hands, and between the three of them they hauled him out of the water and onto solid ground.
He lay where they placed him, motionless except for the shivering that wracked his entire body. His lips had gone blue, and his skin was the color of old snow. Lark stripped off her wet jacket and wrapped it around him, knowing it would do little good but needing to do something concrete.
“We need to move,” Darian said quietly. His own teeth were chattering, his body shaking with cold, but his voice was steady. “Dawn isn’t far. When they find the guards …”
He didn't need to finish the sentence.
They got Rion to his feet again, one of his arms over Darian’s shoulder, the other over Lark’s.
His head lolled and his feet dragged, but he was moving, and that was all that mattered.
Pippa led the way through the darkness, retracing the path they had taken hours earlier, climbing the slope away from the fortress and toward the foothills where they had left their supplies.
The sky was lightening in the east by the time they reached the hollow between the boulders. The stars were fading, the darkness softening into the gray predawn light that preceded sunrise. They had perhaps an hour before full daylight.
Noctis was waiting exactly where they had left him.
The wolf rose to his feet as they approached, his body rigid with tension, his golden eyes fixed on the group stumbling toward him. Lark saw his gaze move from her to Pippa to Darian, searching, and then his entire demeanor changed as he caught Rion’s scent.
He bounded forward with a sound that was half whine, half bark, his tail wagging so hard his entire body shook with it. He reached Rion and began circling him frantically, pressing his nose against every part of him he could reach, whimpering with a desperate joy that made Lark’s throat tighten.
Rion stirred. His eye opened, focusing with difficulty on the wolf dancing around him.
“Noctis,” he breathed.
The wolf answered with another whine and shoved his head under Rion’s dangling hand, demanding to be touched. Rion’s fingers moved weakly through the dark fur, and the hint of a smile ghosted across his face.
“Good boy,” he whispered. “Good boy.”
The sight of them together, the wolf who had waited and the man who had survived, was simply too much.
She looked away before the feeling could show on her face and busied herself by quickly changing into dry clothes while Darian lowered Rion to sit against a boulder.
Noctis immediately pressed himself against his side, as though afraid to let him go.
Pippa retrieved her satchel and clutched it to her chest with visible relief. Darian began strapping his armor back on, his movements quick and efficient despite his exhaustion. They would need to travel light and fast, but he couldn't leave his equipment behind.
He handed Lark a bundle of dry clothes from his pack, and she brought them to Rion, helping him out of the wet rags he was wearing and into something that would hold some warmth.
As she helped him dress, she noted his ice-cold skin, covered with bruises, burns and cuts, every wound a fresh accounting of what had been done to him.
He moved with the stiff, painful slowness of someone whose body had been pushed far past its limits.
But at least he was conscious now, his eye tracking her movements, his breathing more even than it had been in the sewers.
“Can you walk?” she asked quietly as she fastened her own cloak around his shoulders.
He considered the question with the serious attention he gave to everything. “Not fast. Not far. But yes.”
“That will have to be enough.”
She helped him to his feet. Darian moved to take his other side, but Rion shook his head.
“I can manage,” he said. The words came out thin and reedy, but there was a thread of steel beneath them that Lark recognized. “Save your strength. You may need it later.”
Darian looked like he wanted to argue, but Pippa touched his arm, and he subsided. They compromised by giving Rion a long, sturdy bough to use as a walking stick, and Noctis positioned himself at Rion’s side like a furry crutch, ready to brace him if he stumbled.
The sky continued to brighten as they gathered the last of their supplies. Somewhere behind them, in the black fortress by the river, the dead guards would soon be discovered. The alarm would be raised. Soldiers would pour out of the gates, searching for the prisoner who had escaped.
They needed to be long gone by then.
“East,” Lark said, shouldering her pack. “Into the High Greenwood. We make for Springhope.”
No one argued. No one asked how far, or how long, or whether Rion could survive the journey. Those questions had no good answers, and asking them would only waste time they didn't have.
They turned their backs on the Ashen Citadel and began to climb.
The terrain grew steeper almost immediately, the gentle foothills giving way to rocky slopes thick with green oaks and tangled undergrowth.
Lark set a pace that pushed them hard without being reckless, fast enough to put distance between themselves and pursuit, slow enough that Rion could keep up.
He moved with grim determination, using the walking stick to haul himself over obstacles, leaning on Noctis when the ground grew too uneven.
He didn't complain. He spoke hardly at all. But Lark could see the cost written in every line of his body: the way his jaw set with each step, the way his breathing grew harsher as the slope increased. He was running on willpower alone, and willpower had limits.
They stopped briefly when the sun crested the eastern peaks, taking shelter in a thicket of young oaks to rest, drink, and assess their situation.
Rion sank to the ground with a groan, his back against a tree trunk, his eye falling closed.
Noctis curled up beside him, head resting on Rion’s thigh, watching the others with solemn attention.
Pippa produced food from her pack: dried meat, hard cheese, and a single apple. She pressed these into Rion’s hands, and after a moment he ate, slowly and mechanically, as though he had forgotten how. She offered to replace his bandages, but he refused with a flat, abrupt “no”.
Darian watched this, concern written plainly on his tired face. “How far to Springhope?” he asked.
Lark calculated distances in her head, measuring what she remembered from maps against the terrain they had already covered. “Several days. Maybe a week, depending on the paths.”
“And the pursuit?”
She looked back the way they had come. The Ashen Citadel was no longer visible, hidden behind the folds of the hills, but she could picture it clearly in her mind.
The high walls, the guarded gate, the soldiers, who could even now be discovering the bodies in the dungeon, the empty cell where their most valuable prisoner had been kept.
“They’ll follow,” she said. “But the mountains will slow them down. The path to Springhope is narrow and treacherous. An army can’t move quickly through terrain like this.”
“And we can?”
“We have to.”
The answer satisfied no one, but there was nothing more to say. They finished their brief rest and pressed on, climbing higher into the foothills as the morning sun rose warm on their backs. Behind them, somewhere in the valley below, horns sounded, their notes carrying faintly on the mountain air.
The alarm had been raised.