Storm of Prophecy: Book 1, Dark Awakening (46 page)

In the next instant, there was a loud boom in the distant sky. Stacy jumped and then looked to see where it had come from. Her heart caught in her throat when she gazed left and saw a small red cloud of flame rise over the tree tops. It looked small but Stacy knew it was not. It was set off from a city that was far away, meant as a warning. It was a flare.

Not every town had one. Those that were too small or were established late as a thin collection of only a few households did not. Flares were red spherical objects created by wizards with the gift for crafting and were used whenever a city came under attack. Everyone knew about them, but more importantly, anyone was capable of activating one. All you had to do was touch it and wish for it to work, even a normal could handle that. Even better, flares had spells on them that helped them deploy themselves. They could fly through the air until they found an opening, regardless of what it was, and escape to fly high into the sky. The large fiery explosion could be seen and heard for miles. Their use was rare, and Stacy had never before seen one set off.

Until now.

Another went off and then another, turning an otherwise tranquil forest night into a restless and tense one for them all. Stacy heard someone crawling on the ground next to her. “Why are so many flares going off!” The frightened voice of the seer whispered.

“Our quarry has gotten more ambitious,” she answered, stating the obvious to the worried young man.

She then heard the botanical mage whisper to the cerebist woman, “tell the masters what has happened.”

“I already did.”

“Good,” he whispered back, “now we wait for reinforcements, and pray those poor souls can last until they arrive.”

Anxiety crept over Stacy even more succinctly when another flare went off.

It was going to be a long wait.

Chapter
XIX

V
incent awoke partway through the night, his nose still in the pit of his bent arm. It had been a highly unpleasant night like all others in his infernal cell, sitting with his back to the wall near the gate and his knees pulled up. A pile of his leavings had accumulated in the corner opposite where he sat and still made the place smell terrible.

In a vain effort to maintain his edge over this past week, he had done push-ups and other exercises while trying his best to ignore the smell. It had worked to an extent, though there was simply not enough room for him to practice using his sword. He had tried magic instead, mostly heating or freezing the blade of his knife or sword for as long as he could before exhaustion claimed him. Since he did not have his whetstone, he spent many hours using his power to sharpen each blade beyond what he had achieved before and beyond what he thought possible.

He even tried once placing the very tip of his knife at the edge of the puddle of urine and sending an extreme wave of cold to freeze it and his other waste. This worked for a time until it inevitably thawed out and he was left to suffer once more. He then decided that it was better to just let it dry out: that way it released most of the odor it would and then became somewhat less of a nuisance.

It was the morning of the day he was to be released, the end of his punishment, yet Vincent’s patience for it had ended a long time ago. He wanted out. He didn’t know if the night was all the way over or if it was only partway into the earliest hours of the morning when all still slept, but didn’t care. He wanted out now.

“Guard!” He yelled out angrily. “My time is up! Let me out!”

A distant call came back from the detention area’s main room. “It’s not yet sunrise outside.”

Vincent hadn’t seen the sun or the outside for over a week. “Close enough! Let me out!”

“I’m not allowed,” the voice came back quietly from the other room.

Frustration seared through him. The masters had already proven their point, and he had suffered more than enough. “No one’s going to check between then and now!” He shouted back. “Just do it!”

Several moments passed. At first Vincent thought the guard was considering it and then he thought he was just going to ignore him. Before Vincent could repeat the demand, his voice sounded back. “Alright, I suppose it couldn’t hurt none.”

Vincent heard his steps making small clanks on the stone of the hallway and his keys jangling. The jailor on duty hid his nose in his sleeve the same way Vincent had. When he approached the gate, blocking some of the light from the orb on the wall just outside, he held his breath while he fumbled for the right key. Vincent stood and waited, watching the other plug his nose, insert the key, and give it a twist.

As soon as it was unlocked, Vincent pushed it open, just missing the jailor as he stepped back. “Thank you,” Vincent said in pronounced relief.

The jailor replied with a nasal, “you’re welcome,” as Vincent strode past.

Each swift and widely spaced step felt strange and good at the same time. He was finally free. Though it was only a week, it had felt like an eternity, and a measure of bitterness had seeped into his soul as a result.

Terrible as the things were that had happened, which in turn contributed to his incarceration, he now couldn’t care less for what the masters saw as outside of procedure save for trying to avoid future punishments. He had tried to do the right thing, and they didn’t like it. Unexpected and unavoidable consequences had come about, and they didn’t like it. Well that was just fine, he decided. Next time, they could take the risks; they could bear the responsibility when things didn’t turn out well. If they even tried to do anything at all. Now he would focus primarily on doing what they told him to. That’s what they really wanted after all, wasn’t it? They couldn’t stand him doing otherwise. How dare he take matters into his own hands. Well, no more.

What had hurt Vincent even worse during this past week was when he requested to be the one to write the letters to the parents of Stan and Craig. He had asked to be the one to send his tearful regrets at how their sons had been slain in the defense of the keep and all it stood for, only to be denied. After receiving word of what he desired, the masters responded by having a guard deliver a note to him saying that his request was refused because they felt he obviously didn’t have enough concern for their well being in the first place. He had crumpled that note in the tightest fist he had ever made, so much that his hand had bled from his own nails biting into his palm. That was fine too, he decided. The masters were in charge. So be it.

Vincent bounded stiffly up the dark stairway lit by intermittent light orbs, trying to put everything behind him in more way than one. When he reached the hall at the top, near the dining area, he took an immediate left. The place was deserted. It was so early that it was perhaps hours before anyone would be cooking, eating, or even waiting.

He went across the empty dining hall toward the wall on his left and went down a staircase to the common area used for laundry. There he dumped one of the empty half-barrels of its soapy water, and took it along with its washboard and a bar of soap back up the stairs. He left the keep, explaining only once to the soldiers atop the towers near the gatehouse what he was doing, and then passed through the campus and left through the outer gate. The fresh air was wonderful.

Vincent walked a ways in the dark to a small stream that lay two miles west of the keep. It did not flow all year round, only in early and late spring, and was now hardly wider than the bucket he brought. It was deeper than he would have thought. After filling up the half-barrel, he took everything off and began washing his clothes. He supposed he could have changed or tried this back at the keep, but right now he wanted to be away from there.

He kept things simple and somewhat quick. He soaked his clothes a little in the soapy water, scrubbed them a little on the washboard, and then rinsed them in the stream before setting them aside on top of some grass. Afterward, he cleaned himself up as good as he could with the stream’s water and the soap he had brought with him. He finished by filling up the bucket and dumping it on himself. Not wanting to waste any time on hanging his clothes to dry, he wringed each article tightly to get the water out. This didn’t work quite as well as he would have hoped, but he was beyond caring. He still felt refreshed as he put it all back on, including his dark blue cloak, and the sun finally began to rise.

Taking advantage of the light it provided, he filled the bucket, pulled out his knife, and shaved using his reflection in the still water as a guide. When he was done, he splashed some water in his face, cleaned off the knife, and returned it to its sheath. Before gathering everything up, he took out his sword and swung it several times, in everyway possible, testing its weight on his arms. Surprisingly, every technique was still fresh in his mind, and his body responded more or less accordingly even if at some times he felt a little stiff. He sent his sword home in its scabbard and used his hands to take several generous drinks from the stream. Lastly, he swept up the three items he borrowed, tossing the bar of soap inside the half barrel along with the washboard before starting back toward the keep.

The view was amazing and stretched his eyes in a way that they hadn’t been for days. In front of him in the distance, he saw Gadrale Keep rising mightily from the grassland at the top of a rise, the sun hitting its flat, planar rooftop and its crenulated towers. From high in the air, the crystalline pointed roof to the Tower of Prophecy glinted in his eyes. More dimly lit around these were the keep’s defensive wall and the smaller perimeter wall surrounding the campus. At his left, he could see the sunlight shining on the green mountains fading to blue in the distance, and on his right, he could gaze for a vast stretch into the northwest edge of the Badlands. Along the ground, grass and brush swayed lightly in a gentle breeze and he heard faint bird calls. He was relieved in many ways, but his nose seemed to feel it the most profoundly; everything smelled fresher than he had ever known it to.

As he reached the corner of the perimeter wall on the outside, he heard the deep, even-patterned beating of drums,
dun dun d-dun dun, dun dun d-dun dun
, and noticed something unusual happening at the campus gate. Both iron bar doors were swung outward as far as they could go, and he saw a figure in blue robes walk out carrying a wooden box with a dark polish in the crook of his left arm. It was Master Anthony. Immediately behind him was a portly middle-aged man wearing the gray robes of a cerebist and a pretty young woman with dark brown hair and a light blue dress who Vincent recognized as a seeress. She carried no staff, and he took this to mean that she was a more advanced student who did not require one. He had even heard it said that the Master Seeress did not even need to close her eyes. Close by walked a number of wizards wearing red and blue robes.

And then came the soldiers.

They marched in five columns with their commanding officer walking out in front, wearing half-plate armor adorned with a red tabard and a pointed helm. A dark handlebar mustache was below his nose, and a battle horn hung from around his neck. He wore a sword at his side and a red-trimmed black cape that billowed only the slightest bit behind him as he walked. In his left arm, he held a shiny kite shield made of steel.

In the center of the first row following him was the flag bearer, holding high the king’s banner, a wide red flag with two triangular tails flapping in the wind at its end, the bold black lion crest undulating in its center. At his side and behind him, swordsmen marched, carrying round wooden shields adorned with a shiny metal cap in the center and a band of metal around the outer edge. They wore their red tabards atop suits of chain mail, keeping their heads protected only by the chain coifs that covered them. Without raising their knees much, they marched with short strides. One loud mass of simultaneous metal clanks followed each collective step.

Vincent watched row after row pass, and all the while the deep drumming continued,
dun dun d-dun dun, dun dun d-dun dun
. The drummers appeared intermittently at their sides. Soon after came men sporting long vicious-looking halberds with steel bands running up the length of the haft. Tall though the weapons were, the flag still waved much higher from its place further down the road leading to the city. Next came men with similar shields as the swordsmen, who wore iron helms instead of just coifs, and walked resting the upper hafts of heavy bearded axes atop their shoulders. Lastly, men marched carrying shields and spears, wearing leather and short-swords at their sides.