Chapter 15 #2
When would Leukos arrive?
“Shall I arrange transport for the items back to the palace, Your Highness?” Hyllus asked, his signal that Leukos was near.
It was time to act.
“Yes, I think that is enough for today.”
As the other guards and attendants were scattered throughout the marketplace seeing to her goods, several men and women driving carts came down from the palace to help load everything in.
“The day is quite bright, Your Highness. I’ll have your palanquin brought.”
As Aurora was helped into the golden palanquin, two attendants, fresh from the palace, picked it up and wended through the marketplace.
But with all the carts, the way quickly became blocked.
Her palanquin turned down a side street to avoid the crush, a few carts following behind.
Then she felt the ripple of strange magic settle on her. Aurora’s heart sped up.
The rest of her carts, attendants, and guards were mired in the marketplace, but Leukos and his men had taken her and were headed to Batea’s palace, next to the main one.
When they reached Batea’s, Aurora kept quiet as Hyllus, his disguise now removed, helped her from the palanquin.
Surrounding her were Viridian soldiers armed to the teeth and ready for battle.
None outside the range of this strange magic could perceive them. Leukos had mentioned before that he possessed the wild magic of visual illusions, but she had never imagined what he might be truly capable of. No wonder he wasn’t concerned about slipping out of the palace undetected.
“Batea is known for allowing her most vicious beasts to wander her home. They will sense our presence even if they can’t see us, so keep quiet.
The kennels are in the rear of her residence.
I want soldiers at every chokepoint. Once we start killing the beasts, the alarms will be raised and we need as much time as we can get.
Focus on the serpents. Leave Drakon to Her Highness, the avatar, myself, and the other nobles.
The oracle and the avatar are on our side.
Show them the might and honour of Viridis.
Do not falter. For today we win peace for Trisia and our queen. ”
The soldiers pressed their hands to their hearts and then turned to move as one.
“Stay close, Aurora,” Hyllus said, drawing the holy sword.
She felt ill. This was it. The day she completed her mission. As she stood in front of the high wooden doors of Batea’s palace, the red paint covering them made her think of blood—and Drakon’s scales.
I’m so close, Fae. Triad preserve me.
“Hyllus, you…you’ll take me with you when this is over, right?”
He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.
“You have my word. You brought your artefacts with you?”
“Yes,” she said.
Aurora was as ready as she could be to flee the moment they’d slain the beasts.
“Don’t lose them. A battlefield can get chaotic. At all times, prioritize your own safety. Everyone else here knows how to take care of themselves.”
Aurora released a shaky breath as one of the Viridian soldiers in the front used wild magic to put the few guards at the back entrance to the side palace into a deep sleep. As they snuck into the back, pulling the comatose guards away from the back alley, the soldiers kept completely silent.
Inside the palace, the rooms and hallways were dark.
Those that bore windows or allowed light through showed them beautifully, if sparsely, decorated with frescoes of lively hunting scenes, courtly games, and frolicking animals.
Rooms that might have seated guests for a night of drinking or debate instead hosted racks of gleaming weapons.
According to her studies, this palace was often given to favoured relatives or in-laws.
If buildings could say something about their owners, this one said Batea preferred bloodshed over entertaining.
They trekked through quiet halls, putting to sleep any attendants that they came across, hiding them inside a maze of dark storage rooms. Leukos communicated solely in hand signals to soldiers who then blocked doorways and tight corners.
When they finally neared the yard, Aurora was forced to shield her eyes against the sudden light.
She stumbled as everyone stopped. In front of the entrance to the yard stood a veritable flock of brightly coloured chickens.
But why were they stopping when the kennels were so close Aurora could smell the cumulative musk of hundreds of animals on the breeze?
Leukos stepped forward and produced an illusion of a cat amongst the chickens. Aurora expected them to flee from the obvious predator in their midst.
She was wrong.
Instead, the vicious fowl pounced on the illusion with such ferocity Aurora doubted her own eyes.
She released a gasp, at which point the attention of the birds were divided.
Leukos’ illusory cat sped off into the distance, the majority of the beasts following in pursuit while the few that remained ripped each other to shreds or raced towards her.
Aurora stumbled back, horrified. Leukos unsheathed his sword and slew the first wave of birds that neared her, then the remnants once they ceased killing each other.
That done, he motioned for everyone to follow, save for the few who were tasked with guarding the entrance to the enormous, sprawling yard.
“That won’t last long. Incapacitate the animal handlers and spread out. Find the serpents.”
The yard stretched out like a vineyard with rolling hills and greenery aplenty spaced between fences twice as tall as the tallest giant Aurora had ever seen, and pits that seemed to swallow the light itself.
As the soldiers dealt with the animal handlers in residence, others scouted the pens, pits, and cages.
“Here!” a soldier called.
Aurora and Hyllus raced over. Inside one of the pits, several of the serpents lay coiled, one raising its horned, scaly head, an enormous black tongue flicking out to taste the air.
Hyllus drew his sword, transforming it into a giant bow made of light.
He nocked it back and released an arrow into the eye of the most curious of the giant serpents, killing it in an instant.
That woke the rest, who bellowed loud enough to make Aurora’s ears ring.
Hyllus and the soldiers dealt with the rest just as swiftly, sticking the beasts full of arrows.
But their roars alerted some of the keepers the guards hadn’t subdued. They panicked and ran, opening the enclosures of several beasts, forcing soldiers to confront new threats as the keepers escaped the Viridians’ grasp.
“This is only a fraction of those we saw at the Colonnades. Find the rest and kill them!” Leukos shouted.
Aurora followed Hyllus as they raced through the kennels, Leukos shouting at soldiers to regroup and face the freed beasts. Chimeras sporting talons, fangs, tough hides, and wicked tempers slowed their progress, stirring up an even greater number of beasts.
“Hyllus, wait,” she hissed.
“Aurora, what is it?”
She pulled him down to whisper in his ear.
“Can you use your sight to find Drakon? He should be connected to me, right?”
Hyllus looked around.
“Not here, it’s too da—”
A massive explosion in Batea’s palace interrupted him. Smoke poured out of the atrium and part of the collapsed roof. Screams and shouting carried on the breeze.
No, we haven’t found Drakon yet!
She couldn’t fail here. If she did, then Theron would lock her away and prevent her from ever getting rid of the beast.
“What are you two doing? That means the Aurean soldiers know what we’re about! Keep up, Your Highness!” Leukos shouted, dragging her along with him.
They passed by the pits containing more serpents. Hyllus paused to kill whatever the soldiers hadn’t, but no matter how deep into the kennels they got, there was no sign of Drakon. How hard was it to find a beast the size of a house?
“There!” Leukos shouted, pointing into the distance.
Aurora’s heart stuttered in her chest.
Rising as if from some primordial darkness was Drakon.
Red scales flashed amidst the black clouds that held him aloft.
He wended through the air as if it were desert sand.
But he wasn’t inside the kennels at all.
Far from it. Wherever he had slithered out of was well outside the bounds of Batea’s palace, and he was swiftly flying further away, passing by the main palace.
Had Batea known they would come after him?
Aurora gripped her calendar artefact, praying that it would help her magic stretch the enormous distance between her and the beast. Calling upon her magic, she fed it her anger, her fear, her malice.
There slithered the beast that had taken Fae from her.
All her pain, all her suffering, all of it was for this moment alone.
“Ready when you are,” Hyllus called to her in the melee, doing his best to shield her from the jostling of the soldiers as they created a small pocket of safety around her.
Would her magic stretch so far? No, it had to. It would, because that was why she’d been sent back to the ancient past.
Screams, shouts, and the howls of enraged beasts faded as she focused solely on Drakon. She had to be quick now, or Drakon would get away.
Like Hyllus with his divine bow, Aurora gave her magic shape in her mind. A bow, big and deadly enough to stop that monster in his tracks. She readied her shot, careful to control how much magic she expended.
“Your Highness!”
No sooner had Leukos shouted at her than her head hit the ground, dazing her.
Knives sank into her flesh. Yet only a shocked gurgle escaped her lips.
The air had been ripped from her lungs. She was moving, knocked this way and that, deepening the wounds inflicted upon her.
Black fur and blood were all that greeted her vision.
“Shadow cat! Avatar! Soldiers! With me! Hurry!”
But Leukos’ commands were already distant.