“Something’s wrong,” Edmund said, clutching his brow. “Athena’s angry! Wait … I can hear something.”
He tugged the crystal from his pocket and the group leaned in to see. Only … it was black.
No. There was a dim glow, filtering through.
He closed his eyes and cocked his head to one side.
“A man is speaking…,” he whispered. “Athena can hear him. They’ve got her trapped somewhere, I can sense it. A cupboard or something like it.”
“What’s he—?” Rotter asked, only to be silenced by a raised finger from Edmund.
“It’s one of the king’s guards,” Edmund said, his brow furrowing. “He’s telling someone that … it was a good thing they read the note before they sent her on her way. That General Barcroft will be pleased.”
“Barcroft?” Alice whispered.
“They must be rebels,” Edmund said. “I can hear footsteps … the bastards are leaving.”
He cursed and smacked the ground with his fist.
“To hell with them!”
But Arcturus was barely listening. They were being hunted, deep in enemy territory. And nobody was coming to save them.
CHAPTER
28
THE SUN WAS SETTING by the time Rotter allowed them to make camp. He had pushed them hard all day, hacking a path through the undergrowth with his sword, taking them away from the trail and then curving to follow its direction around the mountains.
Now they huddled together, deep within a broad-leafed bush, eating the squashed remains of some guava that Rotter had found on the ground and saved in his pack.
“What if I send Valens?” Elaine said, speaking up for what seemed to Arcturus the first time that day.
“No paper left; I used it all with the scroll for Athena and the message to your parents,” Edmund said, poking dejectedly at his mud-stained boots with a twig. “I thought of that already.”
Alice hugged the sad-faced noble, and kissed him on the cheek. Gelert had not returned—as far as Edmund could tell, the demon was lost, wandering aimlessly in the jungle, attempting to catch their scent. A Canid’s sense of smell was far more powerful than a dog’s, but it was still a dangerous situation.
“What do we do now?” Elaine whispered, shuffling closer to Arcturus and laying her head on his shoulder.
“We could wait it out,” Rotter said. “Hope that Harold and the others make it back and send rescuers searching for us. We could survive a day or two in the jungle, if we find a water source.”
“They may be in a worse spot than we are,” Edmund muttered. “We saw a hundred rebels following us. But there are at least another hundred unaccounted for. Maybe they followed Harold and the others.”
“We can’t rely on anyone to save us now,” Arcturus said firmly. “The only ones who are getting us out of this are ourselves.”
They looked at him, surprised at his candor. He realized he had not spoken for quite some time—but he was getting sick of letting others decide his fate. Noble or not, trustworthy or not, they were all in the same boat. Or bush, anyway.
“So what do you suggest?” Edmund asked. “We head for the front lines? Hope we don’t run into the rebels ahead of us?”
“Yes,” Arcturus said. “That’s what the plan was anyway, right? The rebels and Athena’s capture haven’t changed that.”
Edmund grunted and went back to cleaning his boots. Arcturus did not take offense—both the boy’s demons were in jeopardy. He was not sure how he would cope if Sacharissa were lost in the wilderness, or trapped somewhere by rebels hell-bent on his destruction.
“There’s something else we need to speak about,” Alice said, changing the subject. “Arcturus … why are the rebels looking for you?”
Arcturus felt icy fear surge through his veins.
“I don’t know,” he said, hugging his knees closer to his chest.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rotter asked.
Arcturus stared at him. How could Rotter know? Even Arcturus didn’t know, and that was after his strange conversation with Crawley.
“A common summoner. He could be the rebel figurehead. Even their leader. The nobles would not seem so high and mighty when commoners can summon too.”
“But…,” Arcturus began.
“They could take him around the land,” Rotter continued, “proving that some commoners can summon. It is only the fear of your demons that keeps the common man down.”
“I’m not a commoner!” Arcturus snapped.
He regretted his words as soon as he said them.
“What do you mean?” Edmund said, looking up from his boot. Alice simply stared at him, wide-eyed.
“I’m … I’m not what you think I am,” he muttered, avoiding their eyes.
Silence. Arcturus paused, his heart twisting with instant regret at his outburst.
“I’m Lord Faversham’s son. His bastard son. That’s why I can summon.”
He cursed himself silently. Telling them that didn’t help … it probably made things worse.
“I … I didn’t know,” Edmund said.
“It’s why they tried to kill me. Charles and Rook. So nobody would find out that I’m Faversham’s bastard.”
“That makes two of us,” Rotter said, patting Arcturus’s back. “Never knew my father either. ’Tis nothing to be ashamed of.”
“And we won’t tell a soul, will we, Edmund?” Alice said firmly.
“Of course not,” Edmund said.
Arcturus didn’t know what to believe, but that was the least of his concerns.
“It doesn’t matter,” Arcturus sniffed, feeling the hot sting of tears at the corners of his eyes. “They don’t know that. They’ll want me anyway.”
“Well, at least they don’t want to kill you,” Elaine said brightly, looking up at him.
That didn’t make Arcturus feel better. But in that moment, he knew he had to choose a side. He had shared too much with his impulsive outburst already, but the nobles would need more if they were going to trust him.
In for a penny, in for a shilling.
“I may be a half noble, but Provost Forsyth says there are true commoners out there who have manifested the ability to summon,” Arcturus said, the words spilling out after keeping them pent up inside for so long.
He knew it was a secret, but he’d be damned if he was going to keep it now. He didn’t owe the provost a thing.
“What … how?” Alice said, her brows furrowing in disbelief.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s true. It’s only what he told me.”
“Look, I don’t know about you, but this can all wait for another time.” Rotter sighed. “It’s irrelevant. What matters now is that we get ourselves out of this mess.”
Edmund nodded.
“I agree with Arcturus’s assessment. Nothing has changed. We get to the front lines, only instead of waiting for rescue we meet up with a band of soldiers like yours, Rotter. Then head for Corcillum.”
“What if the soldiers are rebels, like the king’s guards that captured Athena?” Alice asked. “What if they’re working for General Barcroft too?”
“Who is that anyway?” Arcturus asked. The guards who had captured Athena had mentioned that name.
“He’s the general that commands the southwestern portion of the front lines,” Rotter answered. “He’s my boss, technically, about a dozen ranks above me anyway. A good man, so I’m told. Petitions the king to get us the supplies we need to keep on fighting.”
“Well, he’s a traitor, if those guards are working for him,” Edmund said. “Maybe he got sick of asking, thought he could do a better job.”
“Can you blame him?” Rotter said, lifting a flap of rusted chain mail. “This could have been my grandfather’s.”
“That’s dangerous talk,” Edmund warned.
“After all I’ve done for you…,” Rotter began angrily.
“That’s enough!” Arcturus said, holding up his hand. “It’s been
a long night, we’re all tired, and we all know we’re on the same side. Let’s just get some rest and make it to the front lines. We can decide if we can trust the soldiers then.”
CHAPTER
29
SLEEP DID NOT COME easily that night. Hunched in the darkness, with nary a wyrdlight to illuminate their makeshift shelter within the bushes, Arcturus could hardly see his own hand in front of his face.
And the noises. Arcturus had never thought the jungle could be so loud. Grunts, howls and screeches filled the air around them, accompanied by the incessant chirr of crickets and the whine of mosquitoes. It was all he could do not to despair, and nobody begrudged him when he summoned Sacharissa later that night, pressing himself against the curve of her back to take comfort from her warmth, and feel the slow rise and fall of her chest.
It was only when morning came that Arcturus allowed himself to end his attempts to sleep—all he had managed was a cycle of jerking awake in fear, only to sink back into the darkness and let exhaustion drag him over the edge of slumber once more.
Yet, as the first tendrils of light filtered through the trees, and the birds began their morning calls, the world lost its hard edge. He could see pink flowers opening to catch the morning glory, and the sweet scent filtered through the trees, lingering in his consciousness as Sacharissa breathed in the myriad of smells that greeted the sun. Tropical birds flitted in the branches above, their feathers fanned out in a blaze of yellows, reds and blues.
As the night terrors faded from memory, Arcturus felt a sudden tightness of his bladder, and the dryness of his throat raged more keenly than ever. Their paltry meal of dank fruit had assuaged it the night before, but now he found himself sitting up and seeking a nearby tree.
The others were still sleeping, and Arcturus could not help but smile at the sight of them. Alice and Edmund were curled in each other’s arms, while Elaine had surreptitiously taken hold of Sacharissa’s tail, curling herself around it like it was a cuddly toy. Even Rotter seemed oblivious to the world, spread-eagled like a bearskin with his mouth wide open enough to catch flies.
Not wishing to disturb them, Arcturus ordered Sacharissa to stay put with a thought and ducked out of their leafy den, careful not to make too much noise.
Embarrassment at being caught took him farther into the jungle, along with the desire to find something to eat. Hunger gnawed at his belly—the thought of the trampled guava they had eaten the previous night seemed like the sweetest ambrosia now.
Once he had put some distance between him and their camp, Arcturus ducked under a sheet of hanging moss and found a nearby tree.
As he sighed with relief, he heard something. At first, he thought it a birdcall, but then it came again, louder this time. A scream. Coming from ahead of him.
Arcturus buttoned his trousers and pulled the crossbow around from the sling across his back, swiftly loading it and leveling it at the thickets ahead of him.
It came again, and now he recognized it was a woman’s voice, wailing in agony. Could it be Josephine? Panic thundered through Arcturus’s heart. There was no time to get the others.
Indecision froze him still, and now he could sense Sacharissa, rising from her sleep to wake the others.
Then Arcturus was running, tearing through the undergrowth in a mad dash, disregarding the thorns and branches that tore at his skin.
It was a root that saved him. Tripping him before he reached the screams. Before he reached the orcs. He tumbled as it caught on his toes, ripping through the snarled branches and vines that blocked his path and rolling to a dead stop a few feet away from the clearing where the screams came from.
The wind was knocked from his chest, gusting out of his mouth and leaving him gasping like a beached fish. Perhaps if he had groaned, they would have heard him. But as it was, he could only pant noiselessly as he stared through the screen of leaves at the scene in the glade beyond.
There were four of them, standing in a small space among the trees, made possible by a fallen tree. Each of the orcs was a giant, their bodies corded with gray-skinned muscle, and adorned with alien swirls of war paint, daubed on by fingers dipped in ochers of reds, yellows and orange.
Seen from a distance, they may well have been men, were it not for their monstrous faces. Tusks jutted from their lips—fierce canines as long as curved daggers, making their speech garbled as they talked among themselves. Stranger still were their jutting, gorilla-like brows, sloping back to reach thick tufts of black hair, styled in a broad mix of topknots, shaved patches and bowl-shaped mops.
Arcturus lay frozen to the ground in terror, unable to take his eyes from the creatures as they barked in their strange, guttural language. They were facing in his direction. Directly in front of him, another orc lay injured on the ground.
From her anatomy, Arcturus could tell she was female—though her modesty was covered by the same grass skirt that all the orcs wore, along with a fiber-woven shawl draped across her shoulders and chest.
She was crying, and from his position, Arcturus could see her face was bruised and swollen, with blood dripping from her lips. A large male orc stood over her, his fist raised in the air. The female orc cringed away from him as the aggressor made to hit her, and then he laughed as she tried to drag herself away from him on the mud-slick ground.
The male orc stopped as the crackle of branches resounded in the foliage on the opposite side of the clearing. Arcturus’s eyes widened as new arrivals emerged from the trees.
Rhinos. Great gray beasts with wrinkled skins and small, watery eyes, their long horns pushing through the tangle of lianas and leafage like icebreakers on a northern trade ship. And on their backs rode orcs, each one dressed in rattling animal-bone armor, held together by twisted sinew wound through drilled holes. All wore headdresses of multicolored feathers, and swung wooden clubs nonchalantly in their hands. These were larger, nobler creatures than those already in the clearing.
Upon their arrival, the four orcs turned and fell to their knees, bowing their heads respectfully. The female orc lay forgotten and, weakly, she crawled herself back away from the others. Back toward Arcturus.
Her hand fell a foot away from Arcturus’s face, and he could see the black nails digging into the ground as she tried to reach safety. Then she stopped, her strength failing her as she gasped for breath.
Arcturus tried to retreat in terror, only to find his back pressed against a sapling, his skin grazing against its rough bark. Beyond, more orcs emerged from the trees.
Even with the female orc so close, he could not tear his eyes away from the new arrivals. For these were not just rhino riders, but also younger, smaller orcs, their necks lassoed tightly in a long rope chain, stumbling along the forest floor, dragged by their mounted captors. They were prisoners, their faces badly bloodied, some limping from wounds, others nursing broken bones.
All the captives were adolescent males, if the size of their tusks and relatively smaller stature were a sign. Of course, even these young orc pups would stand head and shoulders above Arcturus, but from his vantage point in the bushes, he couldn’t help but pity the poor creatures as a rhino rider lashed them forward with a long, curling whip.
Then his view was obscured as the female orc pulled herself into the bushes, and suddenly Arcturus was staring into her dark, tear-filled eyes. She stared at him, shock plain across her swollen features. Frantically, Arcturus held a finger up to his lips, hoping she would understand.
Still she stared, and beyond, Arcturus could hear the leader of the rhino riders snarling orders. The four orcs that had been assaulting the young female stood, and one yelled out in annoyance and strode toward them.
For a moment the female stared at him, her eyes wide with panic. Then she was being dragged back into the clearing, the male orc laughing as he pulled her by her foot.
The female clawed wildly at the vegetation around her, her hands tugging up roots and snapping young boughs as the orc heaved at her legs. Then, suddenly, Arcturus
was jerked after her, her hand curling around his ankle like an iron shackle.
Sobbing with terror, Arcturus grasped at the sapling behind him, and it felt as if his arms would tear from their very sockets as the bull orc heaved.
He kicked out, looking down at the female and shaking his head in a desperate plea. Their eyes locked for a split second … and she let go.
Then she was gone, back into the clearing, where the thud of flesh against flesh could be heard, the male orc’s fist rising and falling over and over. It was a pitiless, sadistic display of violence, and Arcturus could do nothing but watch in horror as the female’s raised arms fell away, too weak to defend herself against the blows that rained down upon her.
In his mind, Arcturus could sense Sacharissa now, following his scent through the undergrowth. He could feel her panic mirroring his own, and shared the flashes of pain as she ripped through thorny branches. The Canid knew he was in trouble. She was coming for him.
The rest of the orcs were almost gone now, disappearing back into the jungle in a tumult of snapping branches and guttural yells from the riders. Still the bull orc continued his beating, laughing as the female’s head lolled to the side.
Arcturus’s anger rose like bile in his throat, sickened by the display of cruelty.
The bull orc lifted the female by her hair, clutching at the long black braid that fell down her back. She hung there, limp, as the orc raised his fist once more. It was the killing blow.
Arcturus could not watch. Would not. Instead, his hand scrabbled at the ground beside him. Met the stock of his crossbow.
He didn’t think. Didn’t even aim. He just raised it and shot in one smooth motion, yelling through the fear, ignoring the madness of it all. The weapon’s butt slammed into his shoulder, and the male orc fell back, a feathered bolt seeming to grow out of his eye.
Arcturus scrambled through the leaves, the dirk from his boot clutched in his hand. He half lunged, half fell onto the male orc, stabbing down, cursing with every breath, plunging the dirk again and again into the orc’s chest. The orc writhed beneath him, his hands slapping at Arcturus, scratching at his bare chest.