The Southern Trail (Book 4) (4 page)

“It’s still down where we were hiding you in the basement,” the former minotaur answered.

“I’ll get it,” Kate volunteered, as she ran out the door.

“Let’s keep moving,” Cassius urged.  “He’s going to be slow.”

They left the back door and entered an alley, then turned.  Kate and Pesino caught up with them within seconds as they advanced along the narrow, filthy passage between two buildings.

“Turn here,” Pesino urged as they reached a street.  “We don’t want to go back to the square where Marco killed the sorcerer; there are a lot of angry soldiers there.”

They continued their slow progress, Marco remaining an impediment, and still too befuddled by the after-effects of his battle to be of much use.

“Look up there,” Cassius spoke as he pointed at the Acropolis, visible above the houses along the street.  A line of men in purple uniforms were coming into view, as men in black were falling beneath their swords, or literally falling over the side of the Acropolis as the arrival of the Nappaneen forces pressed them back.

“Your men are winning!” Kate squeezed Marco’s arm in excitement. 

“Are there more of them on the west side of town?  Should we try to take shelter behind their lines?” she asked.

Marco tried to recollect.  “There may be some men stationed at the breach in the city wall we used,” he said tentatively.  He couldn’t remember much; he knew he had fought Iamblichus in a bruising battle, but there was a foggy period of time immediately before that.

“We’ll keep heading west then,” Cassius said, and the group immediately turned into an alley on their left.

They walked in a zigzagging pattern of streets and alleys and one time a courtyard for several minutes, until they heard a series of shouts behind them. They turned another corner, and came within sight of a nearby checkpoint.  A half dozen black-uniformed guards were at the spot where the road was constricted, while a score of others loitered nearby, watching them.

“Back up!” Pesino hissed.

“You – come here!” one of the soldiers ordered as he spotted them.

“What do we do?” Cassius asked.

“I said, come here – now!” the soldier in black shouted emphatically, and a trio of his companions began to step towards the fleeing group.

“Let’s try to bluff our way through this,” Kate said, as it became evident they would not be able to flee without pursuit and battle.

The quintet started forward, and reached the checkpoint within seconds.

“Where are you going?” asked the soldier who had spoken to them; he had a heavy accent, one that seemed more lyrical than their own pronunciation.

“We’re just trying to get away from the battle.  We saw the sorcerers fighting at the square,” Cassius answered.

“What’s wrong with her?  Is she drunk?” one of the guards asked as he pointed at Marco, who still leaned on Asterion for support.

“She hurt her leg running away from the sorcerer,” Kate answered quickly.

“What’s that sword you’re carrying?  No weapons allowed in the city except for soldiers,” a third member of the guard at the checkpoint pointed to the weapon that Kate continued to carry, having recovered it from the cellar of the house they had just abandoned.  Like the others, the guard also had an accent.

“It’s an heirloom; it belonged to my grandfather,” Kate said, her eyes momentarily glancing over at Marco.

“We’ll still have to confiscate it,” the guard said, reaching for the hilt of the weapon.

“Where do you want me to put it?” Kate asked, pulling the weapon against her body.  “Can I go put it in a storage shed for you?”

“I can do it, right enough,” the guard said.  “I’ll just put it in the guardhouse over there,” he pointed at a building at the side of the street.”

“Let us do it,” Kate came and handed the sword to Marco, then she swung her wounded friend’s arm from Asterion’s shoulder to her own shoulder.  “She’s my sister,” Kate explained, as she began to immediately lead Marco over to the building.

“What are you doing?” Marco asked in a whisper.

“Just hurry up and get inside, then stick the sword up the back of my dress,” Kate responded in a whispered answer.

They reached the doorway, and Marco heard the guard coming behind them.  As soon as they entered the room, Marco bent and slid the sword up the back of Kate’s dress, acting so quickly he was afraid he might slice her.  He immediately grabbed the blade through the material at the back of her dress as soon as his hand pushing the hilt rose to the top of her thighs, and he let the hem of her dress drop back into place, just before the guard arrived.

“Where’s the sword?” the man asked.

Marco pointed to a cluttered pile of weapons scattered haphazardly in a corner.

“We threw it in there,” Kate said, as Marco continued to clutch the weapon behind her.

The guard looked at them suspiciously, then entered the room without saying anything, and slowly walked over to the weapons, while keeping an eye on the pair of captives, who slowly maneuvered so that they always faced him, and Kate’s back was hidden from view.

“Let’s go,” Kate said as the soldier took his eye off them to look at the swords and pikes that were jumbled together.  He pulled on one pike and several weapons clattered downward loudly.  Kate and Marco backed through the door, then hurried as quickly as Marco’s limp would allow.  They were nearly back at the checkpoint when the guard came to the door frame of the house.

“How do I know your sword is here?” he asked.

“It was the one on top,” Kate answered.

“They’re just a couple of girls; let them through,” another guard said from their left side.  “As long as the men don’t have any weapons.”

“Where are you going?” the guard to their right asked; “let’s move.”

“West, away from the sorcerers and the fighting.  It’ll be over soon, won’t it?” Asterion asked.

The soldiers looked at one another.  “It’ll be over soon,” agreed the one who had called them to the check point in the first place.

The guard from the weapons room returned to the check point, as other residents of the city began to line up behind Marco and his friends, also seeking to pass through the check point.

“Send them through; let’s move this along,” one of the guards said, and another one motioned with his arm for them to go.  As they did, a guard reached out and pinched Pesino, and then Marco as they went by, making Marco yelp, even as Kate pulled his head back around to face forward, before he could look at the grinning assailant and get into a fight.

“Let’s keep moving,” she whispered urgently.

They continued several yards down the street away from the checkpoint.

“That was close!” Cassius finally said.

“Nicely handled,” Pesino complimented Kate.

“Soldiers!” Asterion hissed as he looked over his shoulder.  “They’re coming after us.”  He told Marco’s weight from Kate, who was looking taxed by the weight of the injured man who was leaning on her.  Marco let the sword slide down Kate’s back, and he grabbed it as it emerged at the bottom of her dress.

All heads turned and saw that the soldiers from the check point were coming in pursuit of them, accompanied by over a dozen of the others that had watched the exchange at the gate.

They turned down an alley, and started moving at a more rapid pace, Marco hobbling in pain.

“Duck into this building,” Cassius advised, as he used his hand to rattle an unobtrusive door in the middle of the alley wall.

Asterion handed Marco’s weight to Cassius, as a soldier spotted them in the alley and hollered.

Asterion shoved his shoulder against the doorway, making the wooden frame crack, and the door gave way, allowing them all to spill inside.

A grandmother shrieked at their abrupt arrival.

“Get out, quickly!” Pesino warned.  “Go out the front way; there are soldiers coming after us,” she told the occupants as the refugees moved quickly through the apartment towards an escape.

“Take me to the stairs,” Marco ordered, feeling better.  He was regaining his wits, and though his strength was weak, he felt he had enough energy to achieve an escape for them.

“We’ll be trapped up there,” Asterion argued.

“I can get away.  I’ll be a decoy for the rest of you; you can keep going west while they focus on me for a little while,” Marco argued.  He removed his arm from around Cassius’s shoulders as they reached the steps, and he hopped up the first step.

“You’ll get yourself caught, probably killed,” Kate argued heatedly.

“No,” Pesino said smoothly, making the others look at her.  “He’s feeling very confident; he’s got some plan.  Our hero believes he can get away,” she told the others, just as they heard the sound of soldiers in the alley.

“Are you sure you can do it?” she asked him.

“I’m sure.  Now get going,” he urged them.  He turned and started to hop up the stairs, still favoring his weakened ankle.  He heard them start to run away.

“We’ll see you soon, won’t we?” Cassius asked.

“Go west; I’ll find you,” Marco called over his shoulder, and heard Cassius hurry away to join the others.  He kept climbing, going up the steps with as much speed as he could manage in the dress, and he reached the first landing, then turned and started up the next flight just as he heard soldiers enter the broken doorway that he and his companions had used to enter the building.  He began to thump his feet loudly on the steps to draw the attention of the soldiers as he climbed upward.

“Did you hear that?” he heard one soldier speak to another, although at first the words were incomprehensible.

They spoke the language of Docleatae, he realized, the language that Lady Iasco had imprinted upon his mind during their time at sea, sailing towards the Island of Ophiuchus.  And his lessons, forgotten for several weeks, had proven to be effective.

There were boots starting to climb the stairs below him.  Marco paused and pulled his sword free, thankful that Pesino or someone had the presence of mind to bring it from the fountain plaza when they had brought his body to safety.  The sword made him feel comfortable, as well it should, given its infusion with the power of Ophiuchus.

“You will always be my favorite spirit, my lady,” Marco said softly as he thought about Ophiuchus and continued to clump loudly up the stairs.

He felt the handle of his sword grow warm, and then there was a shout behind and below his position as he reached the next landing.

“You there, stop!” a man called.

Marco turned and saw a trio of soldiers with swords.  He immediately ducked out of sight and started climbing the next flight of stairs.

The sounds of the boots behind took on a rapid rhythm as his pursuers came rushing towards him.  Marco stopped, turned, and held his sword ready.

As soon as the three men rounded the corner and stepped onto the flight of steps Marco occupied, he lunged and swung his sword across their front, making them all stop and try to lean backwards.  The man in front leaned back so far, so fast, that he tumbled into the men behind him and sent them all falling to the floor of the landing.

Marco hurriedly turned and limped further upward to the next landing.

“She’s up here!” one of the men shouted, drawing the attention of other soldiers in the building.

“You won’t take me alive!” Marco shouted down at the soldiers in their own language as he kept climbing, on his way up a fourth flight of stairs.  He hoped it was the last flight; he felt winded, and the muscles in his calves were growing sore.

Boots again starting climbing behind him, so he turned and held his sword at the ready as his feet fumbled to find the steps upward and backward that he wanted to use.

Five men appeared at the bottom of the stair case.

“Stop there!  Put your sword down and come down to us!” one of the men shouted.

“Quit dreaming!” Marco shouted.  “You’re losing this city!  Run away!  Run while you can!” he blustered.

He felt the door at the top of the stairs looming over his shoulder.  This was the first door he had encountered.  It meant something was different, he knew, and he hoped that the difference was that he had reached the roof.

Marco took one glance back, reached with his free hand to open the door, and felt the wind of the open air from the building’s roof top begin to blow through the stairwell.  Men began to run up the stairs towards him, and there were more men now – five came charging up the steps, and others could be heard.  Marco hoped he had the attention of all those in the immediate vicinity, so that none were pursuing his newly-rediscovered friends while they escaped by more conventional means.

He flicked his sword as the lead soldier reached him, and he pinked the man’s shoulder.  A gust of wind caught the shawl that was wrapped around his head and blew it loose, revealing his short hair.

“That’s no woman!  It’s a man!” one of the soldiers shouted, and the group rushed at him with renewed vigor, making Marco back away from the doorway.

Numerous men came streaming up onto the roof, and quickly formed a semicircular entrapment around Marco as he backed up to the parapet of the building.

His friends had been given time to get away, he decided.  He no longer needed to stall.  He waved his golden hand in the air, in a graceful arching motion, as he remembered seeing Iasco do in the underworld.  A ribbon of energy suddenly glowed at the top of the parapet immediately behind him, making the soldiers shout in fear and astonishment.

The ribbon instantaneously shot out into the sky extending above the open airspace over the street, and arching over the buildings on the next block to the west, then descending down onto the roof of a building beyond that.

“Farewell, gentlemen,” Marco spoke in the Docleatean language to the astonished soldiers, before he stepped up onto the insubstantial-looking bridge, and began to limp away from his pursuers.

Marco hobbled as quickly as he could, while the Docleateans stood on the roof and shouted among themselves and at him.  As he reached the middle of the arch, overlooking a street below, he looked down, and saw a fleeting glimpse of his friends scurrying into an alley, unaware of his presence overhead.   He felt his energies already waning; maintaining the bridge was a drain on his weakened powers, and he knew he had to end the bridge as quickly as possible.