Sunstone - Dishonor's Bane (Book 2) (16 page)

“Power isn’t everything,” Shiro said, feeling miserable. “I don’t know how!” They ran down the street and passed the first lane and then passed another street as it curved, like all of the local streets, around the base of the castle. “Time to ditch the robes and become guards again.”

~~~

Chapter Twenty-One

~

“I’
m not—” Ashiyo smiled, and then disguised himself
as a woman. “Shiuki hates it when I do this,” he said.

Shiro, back to being Kinoru, took Ashiyo by the elbow and marched him up to the lower castle gate. “We found another sorceress. Decided she could go in with the others.” Shiro gave the guard his identity stick and they were waved past.

By the time they reached the soldier’s courtyard, no guards were about. All were out having a good time and it was beginning to get dark. They reached the empty mess, when Anata strolled up to them. “What do you have here?”

“We found a sorcerous woman at a quiet inn and decided to put her in with the others.”

Anata looked as if he had been cornered. He rubbed his chin, but couldn’t stop the shaking in his hand. “Why didn’t you take her to the Guild?”

“There seemed to be some commotion there, so I thought it better to put her in with the other women.”

The captain paled in the torchlight. “You’d better not go down into the dungeons,” he said. The man seemed evasive and nervous at Shiro’s request and he shouldn’t have been.

Shiro furrowed his brows. “Why not?”

“You are not to go to the dungeons!”

“Then what do I do with her?”

Anata took a deep breath. “Then kill her like the others were killed. You hate them enough.” Shiro now noticed his eyes were red-rimmed.

“What?”

“The Lord’s personal guard, just minutes ago. Both of you should be drunk and in the bed of a hired woman like all of the others.”

Anata crumpled to the ground and Chika dragged him through the door of the deserted mess. “I didn’t hold back this time,” she said, grimly. She rolled him behind a table after Ashiyo took off Anata’s clothes and sword.

“I must see her.” Ashiyo said, now that he was dressed appropriately and armed.

Shiro’s heart jumped as well as his stomach. He fought off the nausea that he felt. Nothing good would come of their trip to level seven. He led them through the kitchen. A single cook sang loudly to himself as he stirred a pot of soup and didn’t note their slipping through the kitchen and down into the dungeon. They heard voices down below. All of the keys were off of the pegs. The coppery smell of blood overpowered the stench he had smelled on his last trip.

Ashiyo ran down the stairs, heedless of the need for stealth. He attacked the guards, who were stacking up bodies at level one, with Anata’s sword. Shiro had to push the older man aside so the more-expert guard didn’t kill the man. It didn’t take but a moment before the guard had been dispatched.

Chika took on the other one and showed no mercy. She wasn’t Shiro’s equal with a sword, but more than competent enough to handle the guard. Shiro noticed the hardness set into the face of the youth, whose disguise she still used.

Ashiyo followed her down leaving Shiro gawking at the human destruction. Seven levels of this?

It appeared that there were at least two guards at each level. Ashiyo’s killing frenzy affected Chika and both of them dispatched all of the dungeon guards on the second level before Shiro could stop them. Down another level. Now they ran into the Lord’s personal guards. These fighters were more skilled.

Chika had begun to use her power to help her swordplay. Ashiyo barely evaded a slash when Shiro caught up to him and took over. Ashiyo stepped aside.

“Go on. I’ll only get myself killed against the Lord’s men,” Ashiyo said. He stood behind Shiro and harried the guards enough to restrict their movements.

Shiro began to slip on the stones, now covered in blood. His opponents fared no better and Chika had begun to stun her opponents before she ran them through. Shiro matched her technique and that accelerated their descent to the lowest levels. At the end, White Rose bodies mingled with those of the Lord’s guard.

They began to lay out the bodies where they fell as they moved up level by level. Nearly one hundred women had been killed. Shiro couldn’t feel any emotion, just an awful numbness in his heart and in his mind.

By the time Shiro reached level one again, he bent over, hands on knees and retched. Taking deep breaths he looked over all of the women. The senseless carnage overcame him again. This was what Anata planned on doing all over the South Isle. How could anyone find honor is such an activity? He’d never seen such evil. He spat in anger and to get the awful taste out of his mouth, but it didn’t work

Ashiyo brought up the bloody body of Shiuki to level one. Tears streamed down his face.

Shiro tried to piece together what he needed to do in the next minute, the next hour. His mind could plan no farther.

“We leave by the sewers, where they will dispose of all this,” he said, waving his hand. “If we go back the way we came, there will be plenty of witnesses, even if we are able to disguise our blood-covered clothes. There’s no one to save except ourselves.” Even he could hear the bleakness in his voice.

Ashiyo stood up. “A funeral pyre. I won’t have my love thrown away in the sewer.”

“And it might disguise our escape,” Chika said, “as much as I hate leaving my sisters here.” Shiro noticed the tracks of tears down her blood-spattered face.

They descended one last time to the bottom, arranging the bodies in more honorable poses. Ashiyo found a pair of breeches and sandals to wear. They removed the coins from the guards’ bodies.

“Have you left anything incriminating, Chika?”

She shook her head. “I have what I want to keep on me.”

“So do I. Let’s say a prayer to whatever gods we choose and leave this tomb.”

The three each said a prayer. Ashiyo could speak his own words. The man ended by attempting a chant, but couldn’t finish.

Shiro asked his family god to protect their souls. The emotion grabbed at him and his legs felt like lead as he trudged halfway up the stairs between level seven and level six. He took in a deep, fetid breath and sent flames into the dungeons. The heat drove them upward as they repeated setting fire to all of the corpses as they ascended. By the time they reached the back door, they could hardly see through the greasy smoke. Shiro unbolted the door to the sewer pathway as he checked for tell tale footprints.

“I can lock this behind us,” Ashiyo said and levitated the hinged bar of the door up and closed it. He released the spell and the bar fell into place. No one would know they came this way. They ran down the corridor, the sewer smell became worse, but Shiro, for one, preferred the smell of the sewer to the stench of the burning flesh they left behind. They continued to work their way down. No stairs here, just a pathway made out of the rough rubble of the foundation of the castle. Pillars on the sides of their route held up wooden supports kept the ceiling intact. When the fire got to here, the entire castle might come down.

The smell of sewage finally got to Chika, making her gag. “Put something around your face,” Ashiyo said.

~~~

Chapter Twenty-Two

~

T
hey all now wore masks
made from whatever cloth they could cover their mouths with. The air thickened with the smell, but they came to a channel. Filthy water ran through it, but they had no choice but to jump in. Shiro couldn’t touch bottom and they all were swept away into the current as the sewer doused the torch they had taken with them.

Shiro fought to keep his head above water and conjured a small ball of light to accompany them as they were taken down, down, down. He heard the roar of the ocean as he extinguished his light. They were about to be coughed out of Sekkoro’s sewers.

He fell for what seemed like forever, but it must have only been twenty feet, into the dark ocean. Waves washed over him as he lost his orientation in the dimness of deepening twilight, but he finally struggled to find the surface. As he shot up into the air and gasped for breath, he saw Ashiyo holding a limp Chika.

Both of them helped carry her out from the shore and then they swam further east until they spotted an inlet. All three collapsed on the tiny sandy beach. Shiro produced a tiny ball of light. Chika stopped breathing and her disguise melted away. Where was the cook? This woman was young, younger than Shiro. She had long black hair and a wrinkle-free complexion. Her body was toned and trim, like a noble goddess. A beautiful woman lay in front of him. No wonder she had never revealed her true appearance, no one would forget her.

Shiro breathed into her mouth and prayed to his family god to save her.

Ashiyo pushed on her chest after Shiro breathed in her mouth until she coughed up water. Shiro helped her sit up. She put a strong, but shapely hand to her forehead. “I died?”

Ashiyo nodded. “Your disguise disappeared so I would suppose you came very close to it.”

Chika put a hand to her face and felt her skin. “I haven’t looked like this since I arrived at Shiuki’s inn five years ago.” Tears came into her eyes. “She is dead, isn’t she? I didn’t dream of my sisters’ deaths, did I?”

Shiro shook his head. “We turned the Sekkoro dungeons into a funeral pyre.”

Ashiyo looked off towards Sekkoro. “We might have done a bit more than that.”

A glow came from the west. They all got up and staggered along the stream that created the inlet, and walked up a hill until they could see a beacon in the distance. The castle burned with a fury, lighting up the night sky.

“Serves them right,” Ashiyo said, with tears again running down his face. “A fitting send-off. Oh my Shiuki!” He fell to his knees and pounded the ground. Chika put her arms around him and they both cried as they looked on as Sekkoro burned.

Shiro stood gazing at the conflagration and the grieving pair. He had escaped with Ashiyo, but at what cost? He couldn’t blame himself for the women’s deaths, although Shiro still felt like he had let them down. Couldn’t they have used their magic to stave off the guards? Yet the guild had killed them, just as surely as the Lord Sekkoro’s guards. They had stripped the women of their ability to defend themselves. What a tragedy!

He sat down, now drained physically and emotionally. The flames likely eliminated the discovery of their escape. He plucked the drenched cloth of his clothing. At least the smell of their night’s work and flight wouldn’t dwell with them.

What a waste of life!  He’d seen little brutality in his life, and nothing had prepared him for what he had seen in the dungeons.

Ashiyo took a deep shuddering breath and looked over at Shiro. “I want to kill them all,”

“Who? Who was behind all of this?” Shiro said. “Were you the one who sent Boreko and me to the prison island?”

Ashiyo nodded. “The Guild would have killed you. No one is supposed to survive the desert. They only send those who don’t know how to transport to Diakko Island. I didn’t know Boreko very well, but I knew the Guild had trackers on you from when you left the village at the edge of the desert. You arrived after they had told me to watch out for you to come. I had no choice. Forgive me.” The man had no reserves left in him.

“There is nothing to forgive, only thanks for your deflecting our punishment. Roniki and Yushidon were ready to dispose of me anyway. They had Boreko poisoned and I had to escape before they had a chance to do the same to me. Now that I can shield my magic,” Shiro nodded to Chika, “they won’t know where to find us. What’s your story?”

Ashiyo bowed his head to collect his emotions. “Ashiyo and I grew up together. The day he tested for magic, my family had gone to another city for an aunt’s funeral. I didn’t see him until after I had come into my powers. He had become a sorcerer and helped advise the Lord Sekkoro. I became his servant and he taught me all that he knew.”

Shaking his head, Ashiyo continued. “He would have never let the Guild take Boreko. I’m not as noble as my former master. He sent me to the west to inspect an estate he considered retiring to. I stayed at the White Chrysanthemum and met Shiuki. I never would have believed I could fall so thoroughly in love at my age.” Ashiyo broke down in to sobs and then collected himself. “I returned to Sekkoro, but Shiuki and I both found excuses to visit one another. After a few years we married. We would have moved in together, but Ashiyo took ill. He made me promise him, as he lay dying, to take his identity. I pretended that I was the one to die and took places with my Master three years ago.

“Once I intervened on your behalf, the Guild had me watched. I visited one of Shiuki’s sisters to get the message to her of the latest round up of the White Rose Society and they caught me. Not knowing I wore a magical disguise, the spell is a secret closely guarded by the White Rose Society, they imprisoned me and forced me to talk.” He began to sob again. “I… I betrayed my own beloved.” Chika tried to console him but he gently pushed her away. “I’m better, thank you.”

“Why didn’t you use magic to escape?”

“There are wards in the jail cells that shield the walls and doors from magic. They made it very clear that if one were to escape they would all be killed. They killed them all anyway.” Ashiyo turned to look at the burning city.

“Did the Guild capture all of the White Rose Society?” Shiro said.

“I only gave them the locations of the society from Sekkoro to Shiuki’s White Chrysanthemum that I knew of. There might be others. Would that I could have resisted their spells.” He broke down again.

How could Shiro comfort the man? He felt useless when it came to this kind of thing and looked at Chika again reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. At least they had revived her and she could give Ashiyo the help that Shiro couldn’t provide.

He grit his teeth, their next step clear in his mind. “Then we will head east and warn the women.”

“You can’t free them all,” Chika said. “They won’t come. Where would you even take them?”

“I know a place far to the north, where I used to live. A nexus is there in a valley.  We’ll assemble there and fight the Guild.”

~~~