Warlord, page 21
“You’re the only one who doesn’t get it. The muzzles are off. We’re not dogs on a leash anymore. We control our own destiny. We’re responsible for ourselves. No more orders from petty politicians who only want to enrich themselves and stay in power while they whittle away at our rights day by day. This is our chance to make something better. We don’t have to be the enablers for a bunch of pedophiles and traitors anymore.”
“You’re conflating a lot of stuff.”
“You feel the same way, Colt. You just don’t want to admit it. If we’d made it where we were supposed to, this exact same scenario was going to play out eventually. No way we were going to let the Foggy Bottom crowd and the Georgetown idiots start up a new America for their own benefit. The military would’ve had to take charge to reestablish order for the common good. The captain and Mike and I had discussed that very possibility. I know most of the team had, too. You and Karlo grumbled about the same thing. Don’t deny it.”
“I won’t but, this isn’t the way.”
“Yeah, it is. We have to take the initiative. Baby Blue is key. And it’s still functional. But Karlo’s right. We can’t plan like it’s always going to be. We’re going to arm and train the Tarns just like we would some oppressed freedom fighters, and we’re going to help them secure their future and ours. And put ourselves where we deserve to be. If our future’s gone, then we’re going to take back from the universe everything it took from us and more. Anything less is a waste of our capabilities. And we’re going to do it right. This is a full military campaign, and the rules of war will apply. I won’t have any civilian massacres or revenge killings. The Tarn army will grow under our guidance and leadership, and when it’s over, we’re not going to turn our backs on them like America’s done to most of its allies. We’re the good guys.”
I coughed an ironic laugh and my ribs hurt. “I’m glad you’ve got it all figured out, Lawrence of Arabia.”
“You can laugh, Colt. But you’ll be laughing from here.” He turned to go. “I’ll have them bring you some amenities. There’s no need to treat you worse than you deserve.”
The door swung to close, and Bryant paused it to get his last digs in where I could just see his face mock me from the crack.
“You won’t be seeing us for a long time. The campaign starts in a week. Don’t know how long we’ll be on the march, but I’m not stopping until we’ve won. Maybe by then I can get you a better deal for a parole somewhere safe. It’s not personal, Colt. Maybe it was. But seeing you in your place makes me feel a little more noble, like I should be charitable in victory. See you around.”
The door swung the last few degrees shut.
I wept in the dark.
20
Every day I got stronger and the pain subsided. I remembered all my SERE training. I knew my brain was going to be fine as I recovered the dusty files of lessons buried deep in the back of the rusty metal cabinet that held all my many years of training. The key to it all was to keep hope alive. And I had to be ready for the opportunity of escape. I exercised and built myself up. It was important not only to my physical but my mental well-being. My conditions improved. I had clothing, a mat to lie on, and a small amber stone to provide light. And as much as anything, it was that which gave me hope.
It was the same warm light that had bathed the princess on her recovery bed as I sat beside her each night during our first days together. The memories of those happy times alone with her on this alien world. I held them as dearly as would a man shipwrecked on a deserted island, imagining her companionship and inventing conversations to ease the silence of my isolation.
Bryant said she’d wanted to see me. That she’d shown her temper. Had she forgiven me? Or was it to scold me for my failure to protect her. I transcribed his words onto pages in my imagination and ran my finger over them as I read, so many times that the ink smeared and faded. Every time I rewrote them, the sentences were slightly different until I was unsure what had been actually said. It was a solitary game of telephone, each retelling warping the details until my imagined tale was unrecognizable from the original. But in my deepest heart, I prayed I would see her again—though a part of me lived in terror that it was a foolish, impossible dream. But maybe, I could live to get my hands around Bryant’s throat. He just had to open the door again.
All the while, I kept the rage inside me simmering just beneath the top of the pot.
I was doing handstand push-ups, the gravity not enough to let me get much of a workout otherwise, when I felt a rumble on the other side of the door. I folded back to standing and when the door cracked, a Tarn I’d never seen before peered in cautiously. The door opened wider, and beside him was Beraal. She spoke, though I could not understand her. She beckoned me to come to her and my pulse raced. She thrust at me a thin silver band.
“Deacon Benjamin Colt, we must hurry. We are in grave peril.”
In the last phase of SERE school—the POW camp—the end of the ordeal comes as the prisoners are assembled on the gravel of the prison yard. The sound of footsteps on the rocks was enough after a few days to seize you with fear. It meant the guards were coming to pull you from your cell for interrogation. With head bowed and the movement of the cadre all around, suddenly, the order to come to attention is given. As the Stars and Stripes raise to full height and the national anthem blares over the loudspeakers. I defy anyone who’s gone through the same to tell me they didn’t have hot, sweet tears running down their face. I felt the brief elation again, and immediately strangled it.
“Wait.” I removed the sword scabbard from the unconscious guard and, grabbing his leather harness, tossed him into the cell. It was the first real test of my strength and the power my muscles generated was therapy complete. I eased the thick door closed until it clicked. On the ground was a rifle. It wasn’t one of my own, but any rifle was better than no rifle.
And with a rifle in my hands, all things were possible.
“Beraal, who is this?”
Her Tarn conspirator faced down the dim corridor with a rifle of his own. The bands worked at a partly telepathic level. We spoke in sub-vocalizations but heard each other clearly.
“Fel Fargas. He is not of my clan, but his people once were.”
I wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth, but it was important I know how he came to be her compatriot in my escape. The risk of discovery and death were highest the first minutes of an escape. I wasn’t about to be a lemming following the herd out of here without some vital information critical to my survival.
“Why is he risking his life to help us, Beraal?”
The Tarn answered for himself. “I owe you a life, Deacon Benjamin Colt.” He was thicker than when last I’d seen him, but I recognized the chipped tusk. I’d placed myself between our wounded prisoner and his fellow Tarns and had not thought about him again. Now here he was.
“A pup raised even distantly in the ways of the Korund can never turn back on the true warrior code, no matter how long mixed with the Mydreen,” Beraal said. “But more important than our distant kinship, the honor he learned from his maternal dynasty lives.”
“It is true,” Fel Fargas said. “Yet there is no time. We must hurry.”
“Where are we going? Where’s the princess?”
“We free the princess now, Benjamin Colt.”
“Where is she? How?”
“Talis Darmon is close by. Mounts are waiting. We flee the city for the Korund Mountains.”
I had a million questions but for now, it was enough. I trusted Beraal.
“Karlo Rinaldo Columbo gave me your decipher. He knew of my plan but was unable to smuggle further help to me. His clan watch him closely.”
“Are they gone?”
“Your war clan has been departed for many days, the chieftain and his army with them. Who knows when they may return? The time is now.”
That was language I understood like a commandment.
“Where is Talis Darmon?”
Fel Fargas pointed. “The dungeon is deep. We are in the lowest cavern. Come. We must move stealthily. There are checkpoints at the many descents. Long empty the dungeons have been. My people do not take prisoners or jail our own kind. I have used the guard’s indolence to our advantage, but my submission of them could be discovered at any moment.”
I moved with him, ready for war.
We ascended and came to a natural cave, where a Tarn lay. I recovered the rifle propped against the wall and slung it on my back. I thought about taking his sword also, but instinctively discarded the notion, imagining the long weapon bouncing noisily against the extra rifle on my back as we stalked.
Another level, another subdued guard lay undiscovered. We followed more turns and ascended until our path began to level and Fel Fargas held me back with two arms. He straightened and strode boldly around the bend and hailed. “Gol Garin sends me to relieve you.”
“About time,” the voice echoed my way. “It’s dull duty and a waste. The puny Red prisoners don’t need such. Have you seen the White demon? I hear he’s as weak as—”
The pulse of Fel’s rifle fizzed and I was on the move.
“What’s the ruckus?” a voice from deep around the curving tunnel yelled and loud footfalls grew louder. I leaped past Fel and charged. The Tarn appeared in front of me as though materialized Baby Blue–style from nothing, and I buttstroked him in the face. I followed him to the ground and finished him, his skull spilling its contents.
Beraal was behind me. “Here!”
My heart pounded in my ears. “How do we open the door?”
Fel Fargas was beside me with a faceted gem and placed it into a recess. I reached over him to fling the door aside.
As stunning as the radiance of a topaz crystal, my princess waited. Realization brought her face to life and she gasped. “Deacon Benjamin Colt! I never dared to hope.”
She was in my arms at last.
* * *
The most dangerous part of our escape waited. The guard at the ground level entrance lay propped against a wall on a cushion, posed as though sleeping with his rifle across his lap. Fel Fargas covered the exit door. “There are two more guards below us on other paths. They can appear anytime. We must move.” Beraal produced cloaks and draped them over us. The hood fell over my face, and I fought with it to stay in place. Beraal had a rifle, and I pushed my spare into Talis Darmon’s hands.
“Can you use this, Princess?”
She grinned. “With pleasure.”
“Don’t fire unless I say. And don’t shoot one of us by mistake. Keep your finger away from the trigger until you mean to shoot.”
“Not to worry, Benjamin Colt. I have skills beyond your knowledge of me.”
“We go now,” Fel Fargas said. “Follow closely.” He opened the door slowly, moved from side to side as he pierced the darkness ahead, then motioned. We stepped out onto the street. We were in a part of the city indistinct from any other to my recognition.
“Where to?” The moons had not risen and the streets were equally dark between the walls and towers that blocked the stars above.
“I have mounts waiting in the old temple square. It’s a deserted area of the city, but we must be alert and cautious. We move slowly, not with haste. If we go quickly, it will bring attention, especially at this time of rest.”
“How long until sunrise?”
“Two segments at most.”
It’s a difficult thing to remain calm and stroll like a tired man coming off a night shift at a factory while your heart hammers in your chest like an engine missing a cylinder. I followed at my new best friend’s shoulder as he wove our course through the eerily silent city. We transitioned into a part of the city I’d never visited, the buildings little more than rubble around us. The second hand on the stopwatch in my head sped as I counted down the minutes until our darkness evaporated.
We came into an opening where a small Tarn stood by three of the giant arkall.
“This is where I leave you.”
“You’re not coming with us, Fel Fargas?”
“No. If I am found missing, it will be known it was I who assisted you. My kin would forfeit their lives in the torture fires to reveal what they knew.”
“You have my eternal thanks, Fel Fargas.”
“My debt to you is repaid.”
“And mine to you owed.”
The women were already mounted. I moved to the riderless beast and swung onto its wide back. It grunted and shifted under me as the Tarn passed me the reins from its collar.
“Go now,” Fel Fargas said. “Keep a cautious pace until you’re out of the city, then flee for your lives. Go.”
“My kin will welcome you if you choose to leave,” Beraal replied. “Your bravery and honor will be sung when the legend is composed.”
“GO!” Fel Fargas urged a final time before departing with the youth who’d watched the mounts. I let my beast take its own course after Beraal and Talis Dorman as they led our way. We rode through more neglected streets and remnants of once grand structures until we were outside the city, and I took deep breaths again. Ahead were the featureless dark peaks of the mountains whose heights of proportion were insane to my eyes though they beckoned safety in the distance.
“Hold tight,” Beraal said over her shoulder and with her middle arms slapped the hind quarters of her beast on both sides. Talis Darmon followed, and without command, my own broke into a run after them.
We fled.
* * *
The ride was smoother than I anticipated, the eight legs of my arkall working in syncopated coordination as it coursed over the desert like a sailboat over calm waters, my motion reminding me of riding tiny swells on a gentle lake. Beraal drove us at a blistering pace, never slowing, and I looked behind us for pursuers like a guilty man, dreading the inevitable sunrise.
By the time the world took on the faintest red colors, we were closer to the first foothills, and when we rounded a draw between spurs, Beraal halted. The sparse dim twinkles of the city were behind us, but not far enough away that I felt any great comfort.
Atop her arkall, Beraal spoke. “We can continue mounted for a while longer. We will take a route through the bottoms where we can. It will be circuitous and slow, but we must evade observation. By now our escape will have been discovered. The gadron will be tracking us, not that they’ll need them. We must push into the steep country and abandon the arkall. Then we push with all our might into the wilderness.”
“Agreed. Princess, are you well?” There hadn’t been a moment to speak to her beyond what had to be said to get us this far.
“I am now, Benjamin Colt. If our freedom is short, then I’m alive while it lasts, and I am with you again. I—” she stammered. “I ask your forgiveness for cursing you and condemning you an oath breaker. I don’t know if you even heard my anguished spell against you, but I promise I did not mean it. I knew you were a man of honor and courage. I never once thought your promise to me was idle. And my faith in you is as firm as the mountains themselves. I swear.”
“I never doubted, my princess.”
She flustered slightly. “Not now, Benjamin Colt. Not now.”
“Follow,” Beraal commanded.
We climbed through gentle gullies and steep valleys until we leaned forward in the saddle to stay mounted. Finally, Beraal halted and dismounted. “We can go no farther as riders, and there’s no point in leading the arkall with us. The way ahead is treacherous. It is best if we kill them. They will eventually take path back to the city. Perhaps rapidly. It is the best option.”
Without hesitation, Talis shot her mount behind its skull and deftly rode its collapse and leaped off. Beraal did the same, and I had no choice but to follow. It was a foul thing to do, and I felt dirty as I completed the deed. The dumb beasts had gotten us far, and it was the unkindest way to repay them for their service. The women gathered satchels off the saddles, and I took mine.
“We have water and food, but it will not last long. I’m a city Tarn, but I was raised Korundi. I know the mountains and its ways since the first day of my hatching. Come.”
We climbed. The sun was high by the time we left the safety of channeled cuts between jagged peaks and reached natural contours ringed by scree that became our new trail, ever higher. I plodded along behind Beraal with Talis Darmon between us. We stopped to sip precious water and I scanned the expanse at our shoulders. I squinted. Tiny dots of movement were on the plains near the city but soon dropped below our line of vision behind the sharp ridgelines we’d left below. I wished I had my spotting scope. I wished I had my MK 22. From the right spot, I could hold off an entire army of Tarns on such high ground.
“They’re on us.”
“Yes,” Beraal said with a tactical detachment I admired. “A small party. I’ve watched larger parties head westward.”
I squinted at the far plains where I was once deposited like a hail stone. Clearly, Beraal had amazing eyesight, well beyond the capabilities of my own twenty-fifteen vision.
“They suspect we flee to the safety of the kingdom of King Osric Darmon. Which is why we take the harsh path to the Korundi. It will be a long journey and will take many weeks. It is desperate, and I apologize there was not time to seek your assent.”
“I trust your judgment, Beraal.”
Talis Darmon beamed. “As you should, Benjamin Colt. Beraal has guarded and taught me since I was a hatchling, all these many years. None are wiser, none more loyal. It was her courage that brought us together again.”
“Thank you again, Beraal. I don’t doubt your reasoning. What lies ahead?”
“The Mydreen will pursue. If we can reach any Korundi, they will shelter us without fail. The desert Tarns lie to themselves that they do not fear the mountains and heights, but it will not deter them completely. The promise of what awaits their failure on Domeel Doreen’s return will drive them to death itself rather than return without us. They will be slower than us by far, but they will still follow. We must press our advantage. We climb.”
