Tears of Liscor, page 53
part #9 of The Wandering Inn Series
Erin clamped her lips together. She walked down the last of the stairs in silence, much to everyone’s relief. The Drake stopped by a door, opened it with a key, and pointed inside. Erin stepped apprehensively into the prison and looked around.
It was actually pretty nice, as prisons went. Okay, sure, it was clearly a prison and there were cells, but they were big ones, some clearly meant to lock up groups while others were smaller. At the far end, a few cells looked enchanted; the metal bars were semi-translucent or seemed to glow, suggesting that they were reinforced or magicked in some way. And the furthest cell didn’t even have bars; the opening was encircled by a double-layer of tightly-written runes which glowed pale yellow in the dim light.
But the thing that surprised Erin most was…that there weren’t many cells to begin with. Liscor didn’t believe in having large prison populations. Troublemakers were fined, ejected from the city…or killed. The patrol of guards led Erin down the short jail, and she saw several people behind bars. Drakes and a few Humans, all who looked like they’d been in some sort of fight. A pair of Gnolls, one of whom had been very unhappily sick, a Garuda…
“Bevussa?”
Erin stopped, much to the annoyance of her captors. Bevussa waved at Erin and smiled weakly from behind the enchanted bars of her cell.
“Hey Erin. Fancy seeing you here.”
“What are you doing here?”
The young woman ignored the Drake who was trying to lead her onwards. Bevussa grinned sheepishly.
“I, uh, got into a fight at the Adventurer’s Guild and punched a few people. You know, over the lottery? I’m in here for the day. Some of the other Gold-ranks are too. Keldrass is in the other cell. Say hi to him, would you?”
Erin blinked. The Drake growled at her, and she remembered to keep moving.
“Whoops, sorry about that. Hey, Keldrass! Bevussa says hi.”
“Tell her to eat her own tail.”
“Shove yours up your ass, Keldrass! I wasn’t even aiming for you!”
It definitely seemed like Erin had missed something. She kept walking and noticed they were headed to the back of the enchanted cells. She gulped. The City Watch wasn’t taking this lightly, for all they were treating her and the Hobs nice. She turned her head. Four Hobs stared at her back. Erin whispered quickly.
“Okay guys, look. I’m not sure what’s in there, but I do know how to survive jail. According to TV. The trick is that the instant we get in there, we have to find the biggest guy—or girl—and beat them up.”
The Hobs brightened up considerably. They could certainly do that! One of the female Gnolls looked askance. She glanced at her companions.
“Is she serious? She does know we’re putting them in separate cells, yes? What kind of prisons do Humans have?”
The others shook their heads. Erin blushed. She reached the end of the hallway, and the Drake pointed.
“In there.”
“Oh. Just me? Uh, thanks for not hitting me or anything.”
Erin gingerly approached the cell. It was fairly spacious—fourteen feet by fourteen feet, quite unlike the image of cells Erin had seen in her world.
“Hands.”
She jumped, but the Drake only wanted to unlock her shackles. Erin blinked as he took them off and then pointed. She backed slowly into the cell. The Drake grunted irritably as he closed and locked her cell door with a magic key. She thought he’d just leave her there, but to her surprise, he looked at her.
“You’re lucky we owe you one, Human. You helped during the Face-Eater Moth attack and with Skinner. And the Raskghar. My kid likes those hamburgers. Don’t make this a habit.”
“Oh. Thanks?”
The Drake grunted and walked past Erin. She heard more cells opening and saw Headscratcher entering the cell across from her. Doors closed, the City Watch marched past her. The Drake paused again in front of Erin’s cell.
“Don’t cause trouble. Don’t shout. You can talk if you want. Odds are Olesm lets you out in a few hours or tomorrow for hitting him. There will be a fine. If you’re here long, you get fed.”
“Got it.”
He nodded. Erin was left alone. She stared at the faintly glowing bars of her cell and gingerly touched them. They felt warm, but they didn’t shock her or explode. She gripped them with both hands and stared out. Two Hobs, Headscratcher, and Badarrow, were in her line of sight. Rabbiteater and Shorthilt were presumably locked up on her side of the dungeon.
“So…about my theory of beating up the biggest guy here. Uh, anyone see him?”
The Hobs dutifully looked around. The cells they were in were largely uninhabited, even by Gold-rank adventurers. Erin spotted empty cells around them, and then she looked at the furthest cell, the one guarded by runes. She saw someone standing there, immobile as a statue. Her heart leapt, and she recoiled.
“Calruz?”
The Minotaur stared blankly ahead from behind the barrier to his cell. There were no bars in front of him, but the air looked…twisted. The runes shone constantly. Despite that, the Minotaur’s feet were still shackled. Not his hands—it was hard to put cuffs on someone with only one arm.
He didn’t move at first. The Minotaur was looking forwards, and he’d been so still that Erin had missed him in the shadows cast from the glowing runes. He stood at the left side of his cell. He looked…different. Erin had seen him after the Watch had arrested him. Then Calruz had been burned, wounded, barely recognizable. Now, he was still unrecognizable but for different reasons.
Some of the hair had begun growing on the places Calruz had been burned. It was uneven, and the Minotaur’s fur was uncombed, dirty. His face was grimy, and the scars on his arms and legs stood out. He looked nothing like the proud captain of the Horns of Hammerad that Erin had known.
“Uh…Calruz?”
Erin and the Hobs stared at him. The Minotaur did not respond. The Redfangs eyed him. He was clearly the biggest person in the dungeon by far. They eyed his bulging muscles then patted their own arms for reassurance. Erin stared at Calruz and then looked at the Goblins.
“I don’t think we have to beat him up. It’s more like…an option? Don’t worry about it.”
The Hobs relaxed a bit. Erin stared at them and realized they hadn’t really gotten the joke from the start. She scratched her head and noticed that they were still shackled both hand and foot. She searched for something to say, but she really didn’t have anything.
She’d punched Olesm. Numbtongue had gotten away. Liscor was in danger again. Only this time, it sounded really bad. The Goblin Lord. Erin hesitated, then sat down. She looked around her cell and decided it did fall behind prisons from her world in two ways: there was only a bucket in the corner for a toilet and there was no bed. Drakes clearly believed that you should also suffer while in prison. She wondered if there was a torture chamber in Liscor too. Probably not.
She sat down on the cold stone floor and shivered. Headscratcher was gingerly pulling at the bars of his cell, and Badarrow had already lain down. Erin stared at them.
“Sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to get you into this.”
The Hobs looked at her. Headscratcher looked incredibly guilty and shook his head. He pointed slightly up and to the side, mimed shooting an arrow, made a snarling expression and then a look of shock, and tapped his chest and pointed at Badarrow, who nodded. He shook his head twice and then tapped his chest again before opening his hand and slapping his palm across his right arm, grimacing. Erin stared at him.
“I have no idea what you just said.”
Headscratcher sagged. Erin wished Numbtongue were here. Well, not here, but the Hob was the only one of the Goblins who was able to fully speak English, and her understanding of Goblins’ sign language wasn’t nearly advanced enough to interpret what that had meant. She looked around her cell again, but there was nothing to really look at. So she talked.
“I think they’ll let us go soon. Tomorrow, like the Drake said. Me, at least. I didn’t really expect Olesm to arrest me, you know. I mean, I guess after I punched him, yeah. But…I think he’s trying to protect all of you in his way. But it’s wrong. You know?”
Headscratcher shrugged. A Goblin’s reply. Erin half-smiled. Then her face fell.
“Is Bird going to be alright? Klbkch said the Queen could save him. But can she? It looked bad. Really bad.”
The Hobs looked at each other silently. Erin could read that. They didn’t think Bird had a chance. But she refused to believe that. The Queen had brought Klbkch back to life, after all! She could do the same for Bird. Klbkch had said she would save him if she wished. That meant she would do it. She would, right?
Hadn’t she given Bird money for his new bow?
Erin felt sick as she remembered Bird bleeding. She looked up, about to ask Headscratcher what had happened, even if he didn’t make sense, when she saw Calruz had moved. The Minotaur had turned. He was staring at her from his cell. Erin jerked and scrambled back. The Minotaur stared at her with a vacant expression. But then his eyes sharpened.
He moved forwards, and the air rippled as he pressed his hand against the magical wall of his cell. His lips opened, and he made a rasping sound. Erin stared as the Hobs stood up warily and stared at Calruz. The Minotaur made the sound again, then coughed. He was trying to speak.
“You. I know you.”
He looked at Erin. She stared at him, heart racing. Calruz looked at her, blinking. Erin hesitated. She remembered Calruz. She looked down at her hands and remembered him roaring at her, teaching her how to punch. How to fight. Back then—
And now. She looked at Calruz and remembered what Ceria had told her, what Elirr had spoken about. Of Mrsha. She thought of the Raskghar and the bloody stone where Gnolls had died. Calruz blinked at Erin.
“I know you.”
“That makes one of us.”
Erin turned away from Calruz. She couldn’t look at him right now. Not yet. She sensed Calruz’s eyes on her, but kept her gaze ahead. She stared at Headscratcher. The Hob stared at Calruz and then looked at Erin. He stared at her and then spoke.
“Sorry.”
She blinked. The word was rough, and Headscratcher said it awkwardly, but he had said it. Badarrow opened his eyes. Rabbiteater and Shorthilt came to the front of their cells, looking at Erin sidelong. She sat behind the glowing bars of her cell.
“It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.”
“No. Us. Sorry.”
Headscratcher tapped his chest insistently. Erin stared at him and shook her head.
“It was another Hob, right?”
That was what Numbtongue had shouted at her in the panicked moments. Headscratcher nodded.
“Bad Hob. Us fight. Sorry.”
“It’s not—”
Erin bowed her head. She listened to the echoing voices in the prison as other people in the cells spoke quietly as well. She heard her heart beating altogether too fast and heard something else. Drum beats in her head. A warning she hadn’t noticed.
“I think something bad is happening, guys. I think Liscor really is in danger this time. Do you…think so?”
She looked up at the Hobs, hoping they’d disagree. But they sat or lay on the ground or, in Headscratcher’s case, just stood. The Hob looked at her, and his red eyes glowed in the dim light. Slowly, he nodded.
“Yes. I think is bad. Very bad.”
Erin nodded as well. Her stomach churned, and she looked north, past Badarrow. She didn’t know how, but she knew it was north. She could hear something coming.
“Yeah. Me too.”
——
“War. This is an act of war.”
Niers Astoragon strode across the maps in the war room in the citadel that was his home and the base of the Forgotten Wing company. His students looked down at him as they pored over the map. Niers stepped over a hill and nearly walked straight into the High Passes. He grunted and kicked; the magical projection wavered, and he walked through the mountain range, emerging in the flooded basin that was Liscor.
Illusory water ran around Niers’ boots as he stared down at the city protruding from the water. Rainclouds hovered around Niers’ stomach, pouring rain down into the basin. The Titan of Baleros frowned and stroked at his chin irritably. He was growing a beard after going clean-shaven for a few months, and the stubble irritated him.
“It’s not raining in Liscor anymore. Someone adjust the projection and get these clouds out of here. Keep the water.”
“Yes, sir.”
One of his students moved and delicately tapped something on the map. The magical rendering of Liscor changed as Marian, a Centaur and one of Niers’ advanced students, changed the timescale of the map ahead slightly. The rainclouds vanished, and the water levels began to lower.
“Stop. That will do for now.”
Marian took her hand away. Niers stared down at Liscor, now surrounded by mud and stagnant water in the valleys. He made a face and walked through the High Passes again.
“I hate magical maps. Where the hell did we put the paper ones? Venaz, Yerranola, find me a decent map of Liscor instead of this.”
The Minotaur and Selphid wearing a Dullahan’s body moved back from the table and began checking the maps stored by location on the far wall. Niers let them work as he kicked his way back through the mountains again.
Magical maps weren’t actually all that bad. They were a hundred times as expensive as an enchanted sword given the cost to make them, yes, and they could only depict what the [Mage] who created them knew—hence the vague, cloud-shrouded tops of the High Passes and other sections of the map which were featureless—but a single magical map could replace a hundred paper ones.
The one Niers was using could depict every known location in the world to great detail. Obviously, the trees and grass and so on were just made up, but the large geographical features were all there. It was worth a fortune in gold, so much so that a good number of [Kings] wouldn’t have been able to afford such a map. Niers stomped across it in his boots, grumbling and kicking at cities and watching them vanish and reappear as he waited for his students to get him a proper map.
The trouble with magical maps for Niers was height. The High Passes were as tall as he was, which meant that he couldn’t see everything. He nodded as Venaz pulled out a map of Izril.
“That one will do. Lay it here.”
“Professor. Let me.”
A scaly claw descended, and Niers looked up. Umina, the Lizardfolk girl and one of his youngest in the advanced class he taught, offered him a perch. Niers leapt up two feet into the air and landed on Umina’s claw. Venaz replaced the maps, and Niers hopped down.
“Better. Now, as I was saying. War.”
He grabbed a pin and stuck it into the map, marking a spot just north of the High Passes’ other entrance. Niers pointed to the pin and spoke crisply to his assembled students. They straightened up, looking both nervous and intent. They knew this wasn’t a game. Niers had called them into the war room for a special lesson, and they were all aware of what was happening.
“The Humans are marching on Liscor. They’re driving the Goblins ahead of them, and they intend to take the city using the Goblins as a pretext. Normally, that would be suicide even with the army they’ve brought. Liscor is a Drake city, which means they’re fortified and their walls are extremely hard to crack with magic. But somehow, some way, the Humans are prepared. Tyrion Veltras has trebuchets. You’ve all read the [Message] that Liscor just sent out. Now, tell me what’s going on and what’s about to happen.”
He looked at his students. They hesitated, but they knew better than to wait for him to single one of them out. Wil, one of the Humans of the group, cleared his throat and lifted a slip of paper.
“Liscor made the first report, Professor, but the analysis was confirmed by multiple [Strategists] and [Tacticians] within minutes. It appears that somehow, the Drakes were all aware of the Humans’ plans at the same time.”
“I suppose they all coordinated beforehand? Or have the Drakes learned telepathy?”
Niers raised one eyebrow. Wil hesitated.
“No, sir. It’s all too quick to be a coincidence. Either the Drakes knew ahead of time or, more likely, someone tipped them off. About the trebuchets, that is.”
“Good.”
Niers nodded, and Wil breathed a sigh of relief. The Fraerling looked at another of his students, a Dullahan holding his head up for a better view.
“Cameral? What are the Drakes saying?”
The Dullahan shifted his head to address Niers directly.
“They’re panicking. There are countless requests coming in for confirmation, asking for instructions, or outright denying the reports. The Walled Cities have begun a closed communication, and there’s no way of knowing what they’re saying, but I have every official announcement they’ve put out.”
“And?”
“They’re not moving yet. Which is unusual. Liscor’s put out an all-call warning and request for immediate reinforcements, but Pallass has yet to respond. Given the speed at which Drakes usually handle messages of this kind, this is unusual. And the other Walled Cities are equally slow to react. Salazsar’s pledged aid, as has Oteslia, but the other four Walled Cities are…they’re not replying.”
“And why is that?”
Niers prodded Cameral further. The Dullahan was good at explaining the situation, but he was reluctant to give out his personal take on the situation, which was a trait Niers had noticed in many of his Dullahan students. They regarded being wrong as a failing, and so they said nothing, which was even worse. Cameral wavered, but then someone snorted to his left. Venaz leaned forwards.
“It means they’re wavering. They think Liscor will fall, so they’re not replying.”
Niers sighed. Venaz snorted, clearly pleased to have gotten the jump on Cameral. He had no problems stating his mind.
“Do you have proof, Venaz, or is this a hunch?”
The Minotaur straightened at the reprimand in Niers’ voice.
“I do, sir. Look at this. This is a message from Manus. It disputes Liscor’s claim and requests confirmation, despite the confirmation from over a dozen [Strategists]. They know the attack’s coming, but they want to buy time. Pretend it isn’t so they don’t have to respond right away.”
