Arrival at Harrowdeep

Leon knew they were getting close when the road stopped pretending to be a road.

The old imperial survey route narrowed beneath the trees, its stone bed disappearing beneath moss and leaf mold. Roots had lifted whole sections into shallow ridges. Here and there, weathered marker posts still leaned beside the trail, their imperial emblems chiseled away years ago.

He raised a hand.

“We’re close.”

The others slowed behind him.

Morning had burned most of the mist out of the woods, but the light beneath the canopy remained thin and green. Harrowdeep lay somewhere ahead, hidden inside the low ridge Leon remembered too well.

Not dangerous, he had told them when they first hired him.

Abandoned.

Mostly.

He was beginning to regret the confidence with which he had said it.

The departure from Dunmere had been deliberately uneventful.

Sandore had left Sergeant Tern in command of the soldiers who remained behind. Pell and Ellis stayed with him at the station house, helping hold the village’s improvised defenses and keeping watch for patrols or another animal attack. Fen remained as well, both because Dunmere had use for a medic and because someone needed to maintain communications, organize the evidence already gathered, and be ready if the party returned with wounded.

It left five of them for Harrowdeep.

Sandore.

Miuki.

Kameutsu.

Pixal.

Leon.

A smaller group.

A much more dangerous one.

Miuki, at least, looked nothing like the woman Fen had ordered into a wagon the evening before. A few extra scratches on her armor were the only visible signs that remained of the serious injuries that she had received just over twelve hours before.

Leon had tested that shortly after sunrise.

“You sure you’re good?”

Miuki looked at him.

“I am capable of walking.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

Her expression had flattened slightly.

Leon pointed at her left side.

“You got hit by a rhinoceros yesterday.”

“Bristleback.”

“Giant pig.”

Miuki had ignored that.

Leon had nodded toward the place where her shield normally rested.

“And you’re missing something.”

Miuki looked down.

Then back at him.

Green light gathered around her forearm.

Leaves and tiny white flowers spun once through the morning air, and a translucent shield formed in her hand with a soft rush like wind through branches.

Leon stared.

Miuki held it for a moment.

Then dismissed it.

The shield dissolved into green light and drifting petals.

“I recover quickly.”

Leon considered that.

“Right, would’ve been useful information yesterday.”

“You did not ask yesterday.”

He laughed despite himself.

Now, a few short hours later, he pointed through the trees.

“The ridge is past that rise. Main entrance should be on the southern face.”

Sandore stopped the group.

The change in him was immediate.

He had been walking as a traveler.

Now he was the captain again.

“Kame.”

The Galapa ranger stepped closer.

“Captain.”

“Move ahead. Eyes on the site only. I want numbers, positions, and anything that looks like an alarm system. Do not engage.”

Kame nodded once.

Pixal raised a hand.

“I’ll go.”

Sandore did not even look toward her before answering.

“No. Kame goes.”

Pixal’s hand remained in the air.

For a moment nobody spoke.

Then she lowered it very slowly.

• • •

Pixal had spent most of her life ignoring orders.

Imperial orders had meant fences.

Remnant orders had meant tables with restraints.

Engrassian orders were generally better dressed.

That did not make obedience an instinct.

She looked at Sandore.

He had already turned back toward Kame and was asking about the slope ahead.

Not dismissing her.

Worse.

Deciding.

“Kame is good,” Pixal said.

Sandore glanced toward her.

“Yes.”

“I am better at not being seen.”

“Possibly.”

“Possibly?”

Kame, to his credit, found something fascinating about a nearby tree.

Pixal took one step forward.

“I got into your formation yesterday without any of you noticing.”

“Yes.”

“I found the attack route in Dunmere.”

“Yes.”

“I found you in the Low Lanterns before you found me.”

Sandore’s expression did not change.

“Yes.”

Pixal smiled brightly.

“Then explain the problem.”

Sandore faced her fully now.

“There isn’t one.”

“That sounds promising.”

“Kame is scouting.”

Pixal’s smile stayed in place.

It became considerably less cheerful.

“So there is a problem.”

Sandore’s voice remained level.

“No. There is a decision.”

There it was.

Captain Greycastle had put his boots back on.

Pixal could have been over the trees before he finished another sentence.

She knew it.

He knew it.

More importantly, she knew that he knew she knew it.

Her wings shifted.

She bent slightly at the knees.

A hand caught her sleeve.

Pixal looked down.

Miuki had her.

Not tightly.

She did not need to.

“Do not,” Miuki said.

Pixal looked at her.

“I was stretching.”

“No.”

“I stretch aggressively.”

Miuki’s face remained completely serious.

Pixal sighed.

“You people are very suspicious.”

Miuki released her sleeve only when Pixal straightened.

Then, quietly, “Thank you.”

That stopped her.

Pixal blinked.

“For what?”

“My armor.”

Miuki touched the repaired seam beneath her bracer.

Pixal’s eyes flicked there despite herself.

The prayer cord was hidden again.

So was the tattoo beneath it.

“You repaired it when you did not need to.”

Pixal shrugged.

“You looked terrible.”

“I did.”

The admission was so simple that Pixal almost missed what Miuki was doing.

Almost.

Miuki continued.

“You want access to the research inside Harrowdeep.”

“Yes.”

“All of it.”

“Yes.”

“If you want the Captain to let you operate with us, then cooperate with us.”

Pixal glanced toward Sandore.

“He doesn’t trust me.”

“No.”

The answer came without hesitation.

Pixal looked back.

Miuki’s expression softened by perhaps half a degree.

“He does not believe you will betray us.”

“That is almost nice.”

“He does not trust you to exercise restraint.”

Pixal opened her mouth.

Closed it.

“That is less nice.”

“It is also not entirely unreasonable.”

Pixal placed one hand over her heart.

“Lieutenant.”

Miuki ignored the performance.

“Trust Kame.”

Pixal looked toward the ranger.

He was checking the tension on his bowstring while Sandore finished giving him instructions.

Quiet.

Competent.

Patient.

Annoyingly difficult to dislike.

Pixal sighed.

“Fine.”

Miuki released a breath so small Pixal might have imagined it.

Pixal pointed after Kame.

“But if the cute turtle gets caught, I am going after him.”

Kame paused.

Just slightly.

Then continued preparing his bow.

Pixal smiled.

He had heard her.

Good.

Sandore looked as though he had several comments available and had wisely decided against all of them.

Kame disappeared into the trees.

• • •

Kame did not sneak.

Sneaking implied trying not to be noticed.

This was simpler.

He moved where attention was not.

The forest offered plenty of places.

A shadow beneath a fallen cedar.

A strip of fern between exposed roots.

A shallow cut where rainwater had worn through the hillside.

He climbed slowly toward the ridge, letting the ground tell him what had changed since Leon last walked it.

Boots.

Several sizes.

Repeated traffic.

Wagon wheels.

Crates dragged over soil near the road.

No attempt to hide any of it close to the entrance.

Whoever occupied Harrowdeep expected secrecy to come from isolation, not concealment.

Kame stopped beneath a tangle of mountain laurel.

The entrance stood ahead.

Leon had described an old stone arch built into the ridge.

That part remained.

The survey emblem above it had been hammered almost completely away.

Crates sat stacked along one side of the approach. A narrow wagon had been pulled beneath a canvas cover. Smoke from a small cookfire drifted between the trees.

Kame counted.

Six men on the ground.

Most looked like trappers.

Mixed leather.

Outdoor boots.

Personal weapons rather than issued gear.

The same sort of people they had encountered on the road.

Hired hands.

One man was different.

Military coat.

Dark wool.

Old cut.

No insignia.

The cloth had faded where badges had once been sewn.

Remnant.

Kame watched him move.

Weight balanced.

Weapon kept close.

He turned his body rather than just his head when checking the tree line.

Infantry.

Experienced.

Kame shifted his attention upward.

The lookout tower was crude enough to insult the word tower.

Four heavy posts.

Cross-bracing.

A ladder.

A platform just above the lower branches.

Someone had built it quickly but not carelessly.

A second figure sat above the entrance with a bow across his knees.

Another stripped military jacket.

Lighter gear.

Eyes always moving.

Scout.

Beside him hung a brass bell.

Not decorative.

A rope ran from its clapper to the platform rail.

Kame studied the distances.

The scout could see the road.

The entrance.

Most of the southern slope.

If alarmed, he could ring the bell before anyone on the ground knew what had happened.

Kame backed away.

He did not hurry until the tower had disappeared behind two layers of trees.

Then he returned to the others.

Sandore was waiting exactly where Kame had left him.

“Captain.”

Sandore nodded.

“Report.”

“Six on the ground. Five appear hired. Trappers or cutters. One military.”

“Remnant?”

“Likely. Jacket has had the insignia stripped. He moves like infantry.”

Sandore’s jaw tightened.

“One additional scout in a wooden lookout. Also Remnant, I think. Bow. Good view of the approach.”

“Alarm?”

“Brass bell beside him.”

Sandore looked toward the ridge.

“Entrance?”

“Open. At least from where I could see it.”

Pixal leaned closer.

“So we kill the bell first.”

Sandore looked at her.

Pixal smiled.

“What? I cooperated.”

Leon crouched beside Kame.

“How high?”

“Thirty feet, perhaps.”

“Clear shot?”

“From one side, but we’d only get a single shot. If one arrow isn’t enough then they’ll be on full alert.”

Pixal looked between them.

“I have a better idea.”

Sandore’s eyes narrowed.

Pixal pointed at herself, then Kame.

“The cute turtle and I can handle the lookout.”

Kame continued studying the rough map he had scratched into the dirt.

He saw no reason to object to the tactical proposal.

The nickname did not appear relevant.

Sandore did.

“How?”

Pixal smiled.

“You let me worry about that.”

“No.”

Her smile twitched.

Sandore pointed to the tower position on Kame’s map.

“You tell me what you intend to do before you do it.”

For a moment Pixal looked prepared to argue simply because the sentence existed.

Then she glanced at Miuki.

Miuki said nothing.

Pixal exhaled.

“I can get to the tower without crossing the ground between us.”

Leon looked up.

“How?”

“Magic.”

“That is not a plan.”

“It is when I do it.”

Sandore waited.

Pixal rolled her eyes.

“I can step through shadow. I can appear in the tower as long as there is enough shadow on or under the platform.”

Sandore studied her.

Kame saw the moment something in the captain’s expression changed.

Not doubt.

Recognition.

Pixal noticed too.

“Ah.”

Sandore stared at her.

“That is how you keep doing that.”

Pixal grinned.

“Doing what?”

“Appearing beside or behind me.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

Sandore closed his eyes for half a second.

Kame returned to the dirt map.

“If Pixal reaches the tower, I can take the scout from here.”

He marked a point west of the trail.

“Far range. Clear angle through the branches.”

Pixal crouched beside him.

“Precisely,” she said, “Tuttle and I hit him at the same time.”

Her attention shifted to the ground positions.

“One more thing.”

Sandore looked down.

Pixal tapped the entrance.

“When this starts, someone is going to run inside.”

Leon nodded.

“Probably.”

“They don’t need to beat us. They just need to warn everyone below.”

That was not teasing.

Kame noticed Sandore notice it.

Pixal continued.

“Once the scout is down, I stay near the door. If anyone makes a break for it, I’ll stop them.”

A small silence followed.

It was an offer.

Perhaps more than that.

A demonstration.

Sandore looked at her for a long moment.

Then nodded.

“Do it.”

Pixal’s smile returned.

This one was different.

“See? Teamwork.”

• • •

They moved into position.

No one spoke.

Kame led them through the woods until the tower showed intermittently between branches.

Far range.

Close enough.

Leon disappeared to the right with Miuki.

Sandore remained lower on the slope.

Pixal crouched beside Kame.

The scout above them shifted on the platform.

Kame lifted his bow.

He waited.

Pixal leaned toward him.

“When I wink, shoot.”

Kame looked at her.

“That is not necessary.”

“It improves morale.”

“Whose?”

“Mine.”

She winked.

At him first.

Then, for reasons Kame did not understand, toward Sandore somewhere behind them.

And vanished.

There was no flash.

No rush of wings.

One moment Pixal crouched beside him.

The next, the space was empty.

Kame’s arrow was already drawn.

The shadow beneath the tower shifted.

Pixal rolled out of it behind the scout.

The man sensed something.

Too late.

Pixal’s dagger entered beneath his ribs from behind.

Kame released.

The arrow crossed the clearing.

It struck the scout squarely in the chest at almost the same instant.

The man jerked once.

Pixal caught him before he could fall against the bell.

She lowered him silently to the boards.

Then looked down toward Kame.

Her eyes were bright.

She gave him a tiny wave.

Kame lowered his bow.

Effective.

He would give her that.

Below, Leon moved.

• • •

Leon hit the first trapper hard enough that the man never understood the fight had started.

One moment he was turning toward a noise above.

The next moment, Leon’s heel connected with the side of his head.

The trapper folded.

Leon landed, pivoted, and immediately found four more people reaching for weapons.

“Looks like fun times.”

Someone shouted.

Miuki came out of the brush like the forest had thrown her.

Green light erupted behind her.

Butterfly wings unfolded in a luminous sweep.

Lumen formed in her hand.

Shield in the other.

She crossed the clearing in three impossible strides and drove directly at the man in the stripped military coat.

The veteran reacted faster than Leon expected.

He twisted aside.

Miuki’s blade cut empty air.

“Contact!” the veteran shouted.

Then, louder:

“Warn the facility!”

One of the remaining trappers broke for the entrance.

Leon saw him go.

So did everyone else.

The veteran stepped into Miuki before she could pursue.

Steel struck green light.

Her shield caught the blow and turned it aside with a shower of sparks.

Then the rest of the hired men reached Leon.

Four.

That seemed excessive.

The first swung a hatchet.

Leon slipped it and drove an elbow into the man’s jaw.

The second clubbed him across the shoulder.

Ouch.

The third caught him in the ribs.

Bigger ouch.

The fourth tried to get behind him.

Leon turned, grabbed an arm, and threw its owner into somebody else.

He heard movement near the entrance.

The runner was almost there.

Then Pixal stepped out from behind a stack of crates.

She seemed to simply unfold from the shadow.

The trapper saw her one heartbeat before she moved.

Her dagger went into his back.

He stumbled.

Pixal pulled the blade free and let him fall at the threshold.

Then she looked at Leon and gave him a little wave.

Leon ducked another swing.

“Great!”

The cutters closed again.

Then the air changed.

Heat rolled across Leon’s back.

“What the hell—”

Sandore stepped out of the brush.

Fire answered him.

Not a torch flame.

Not a thrown bolt.

A sheet of orange-white heat tore across the clearing.

Three of the men around Leon disappeared inside it.

For an instant they were silhouettes.

Then they were not.

Leon threw an arm across his face.

The smell hit a moment later.

Burned cloth.

Burned leather.

Something worse.

When he lowered his arm, three men were on the ground.

No.

Not men anymore.

Shapes.

Blackened.

Still smoking.

Leon stared.

He had seen Sandore’s fire before.

On wolves.

On the road.

Against a massive boar trying to tear his lieutenant apart.

This was different.

People made the difference.

The last trapper stared too.

His weapon slipped slightly in his hand.

Leon looked at Sandore.

The captain’s face was calm.

Not pleased.

Not angry.

Calm.

The trapper raised his weapon again.

Leon moved before Sandore did.

One step.

Pivot.

Right hand across the jaw.

The man dropped.

Leon caught him by the coat before his skull hit the ground and lowered him the last few inches.

“Stay down.”

He checked the man’s breathing.

Alive.

Good.

Behind him, steel rang.

Miuki and the Remnant veteran were still fighting.

Leon straightened.

For half a second, his eyes returned to the bodies Sandore had burned.

Three hired men.

Maybe Imperialists.

Maybe not.

Maybe men who needed money.

Maybe men who had known exactly what they were helping.

Leon did not know.

That was the problem.

Leon lived in that uncertainty.

Sandore apparently did not.

Or perhaps he did, and it simply did not matter once weapons were drawn.

The realization unsettled him more than the fire.

Sandore Greycastle had spent the last two days treating people well.

Not just politely.

Well.

He listened to Kame despite the difference in rank.

He paid attention to when his subordinates were uncomfortable or in distress.

He was patient and made no threats, demands, or arrests during his foray in the Low Lanterns.

He had taken Dunmere’s anger without hiding behind rank.

He had let Pixal needle him far beyond what most officers would tolerate.

He had gone out of his way to keep civilians alive.

And when armed men surrounded and attacked someone under his command, Sandore had burned them to death without hesitation.

Leon looked at him again.

Soldier.

That’s what it was.

Not cruelty.

Not rage.

A line.

On one side of it, Sandore would listen, negotiate, protect, explain.

On the other, someone had chosen to threaten his people with a weapon.

That simplified things for him.

Leon was not sure he liked it.

He understood it, but that was not the same thing.

The unconscious trapper at Leon’s feet groaned.

Sandore looked over.

“Alive?”

“Yes,” Leon replied. “This one too.” He indicated the one he had kicked to initiate the fight.

“Bind them.”

No hesitation there either.

No suggestion that Leon finish what he had started.

The threat was gone.

So was Sandore’s reason to kill them.

Leon exhaled.

All right.

He could work with that.

Across the clearing, the Remnant veteran realized the same thing everyone else had.

He was alone.

The man backed away from Miuki.

Her wings burned green behind her.

Kame emerged from the trees with another arrow already drawn.

Pixal stood by the entrance, dagger wet in one hand.

Sandore’s palms still glowed faintly with heat.

Leon flexed his fingers.

The veteran looked at all of them.

Then something changed in his face.

Fear disappeared.

Or hardened into something else.

He raised his spear.

“Ad victoriam imperialem!”

Leon knew the phrase.

Everyone did.

To imperial victory.

The old battlecry had outlived the emperor.

The veteran charged Miuki.

His spear slipped past her shield.

Steel opened a line across her side.

Leon started forward.

Miuki did not step back.

Lumen flashed.

Her sword struck the veteran across the torso.

He staggered.

Kame’s arrow hit him before he recovered.

The veteran dropped to one knee.

Then forward.

Silence followed.

Not complete silence.

The cookfire still cracked.

Someone’s dropped weapon rolled once over stone.

Pixal hummed quietly as she skipped around the body near the door and headed back to the rest of the group.

But the fight was over.

Leon knelt beside one unconscious trapper and pulled the man’s arms behind him. The other lay where Leon had dropped him at the start of the fight, waiting to be bound next.

Sandore approached.

“We leave them here.”

Leon looked up.

“When we come back out, we take them with us.”

Leon tightened the knot.

Yep. That was it.

The line.

Once you were no longer a threat, you crossed back over it.

Miuki dismissed her wings, but kept her sword and shield for another moment.

Sandore looked toward her wound.

“Lieutenant?”

“Minor, sir.”

Sandore nodded.

“Kame?”

The ranger had already moved to the entrance.

“No signs of alarm, Captain.”

Pixal looked up toward the tower.

“Obviously.”

Sandore ignored that.

“Any movement inside?”

Kame listened.

“None I can hear.”

Pixal wiped her dagger clean on the dead runner’s coat.

“They don’t know.”

“Then we keep it that way,” Sandore said.

He looked toward the old survey arch.

Leon followed his gaze.

Four months ago, Leon had walked out of that entrance believing the dangerous part of Harrowdeep was over.

Now fresh boot marks crossed his old path.

Crates sat where there had been dust.

People were guarding a ruin that had needed no guards before.

Something new waited below.

Miuki’s sword and shield dissolved into drifting green leaves.

Then she stepped toward the entrance.

“Kame, point. Leon, just behind. Miuki, stay close to me. Pixal—”

Pixal raised an eyebrow.

Sandore paused.

“Stay where you can do the most good.”

“May I take point then, Captain?” she said with a wide smile.

Sandore looked at Kame.

The Galapa nodded. “I can cover our flank.”

Pixal beamed. “Thank you, Mr. Turtle.”

“Move,” said Sandore.

They did.

The five of them crossed beneath the broken imperial arch before anyone inside Harrowdeep could learn the guards were dead.