“Why what?”
“Why plan an assault on Pellon when they held Pellon?” Akella questioned. “The mountain men have always been weak at siege warfare – they are excellent guerrilla fighters and raiders but terrible at traditional assaults. Which means they were in a much stronger position when they held the city. So why walk away from a walled city – a walled city with a castle – if they only planned to turn around and siege it a few months later?”
It was the question Megs had raised when they’d first learned they were about to break camp and travel to Pellon. No one had provided Akella with a satisfying answer then, and she doubted Linna would now.
Linna shrugged. “Who knows. They’re mountain men. Maybe they had a shaman who predicted their gods would bless them if they attacked Pellon from the outside instead of protecting it from the inside. Maybe they don’t like the big Imperial cities and decided holding Pellon was going to be too much trouble. Or maybe they didn’t think they’d be able to defend Pellon without taking major casualties. General Alric always said they gave up Pellon so they could get the entire Imperial Army in one place and take us out in one final battle. If that was their plan, at least they’ve succeeded at getting us all in one place. And now with the build up of tribes in the north and south, it seems like that’s exactly what they want to do.”
Akella wasn’t convinced. The Empire tended to discount cultures that did not organize themselves in the same Wise Man–dictated way they organized and arranged their own realms. Preyla knew the Empire always looked down on the Adessian Islands for that reason.
And Imperial arrogance meant they tended to overlook things. Akella couldn’t shake the feeling that they were overlooking something now. There was something the Empress and her advisors weren’t seeing, she was sure of it. Something that hung like a foreboding winter cloud over the entire military campaign. When that cloud broke and the storm finally began…. Well, who could say if Preyla would deign to show the Empire mercy.
“I’m going with you,” Akella announced.
“What? No, you can’t go –”
“Your lantern is broken, which means I could either give you mine and make my way back to the castle in the dark, or I could make you find your way out of this sewer in the dark, or I could just go with you and we share it. I choose the third option.”
Linna was shaking her head. “No. I’m doing this on my own. I didn’t invite you.”
Akella flashed a grin. “And I have always had a habit of inviting myself, even when I am not welcome.”
“No,” Linna repeated emphatically. “You’re not. Going.”
“Are you going to stop me?”
Linna drew her short sword. “Yes.”
Akella snorted. “So you’ll run me through if I refuse to turn around?”
“If I have to.”
“Alright.” Akella held up both hands and took a step forward. Then she took another step, so that the point of Linna’s sword rested on the button of her overcoat. Lantern light glinted off the blade. “Go ahead, Linna. Run me through. That’s the only way you’re stopping me from following you.”
The girl’s almost-black eyes flashed in anger, and for a moment Akella thought that calling her bluff might have been a mistake.
She’s going to gut me like a fish and leave me to die.Panic rose in Akella’s throat, but she did not flinch or break eye contact with Linna.
But finally the girl heaved a deep sigh and slammed the sword back into its scabbard. “I really can’t stand you sometimes.”
“I get that a lot.”
Linna grumbled something inaudible, something that sounded like it might have been, Why does that not surprise me? Then she asked, “Where does this tunnel end?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Linna demanded, anger returning.
“Calm down,” Akella said. “I didn’t follow it to its end. There’s a shaft that goes up to an alleyway about one hundred, one hundred fifty yards behind me.” She paused. “If you want a way out of the city without going through the main gates, I can take you. You don’t have to follow the tunnel all the way to its end.”
Linna shook her head. “I stand out. If a passing patrol sees me in Pellon, word could get back to the Empress, and she might send someone to stop me. It’s better to stay underground.”
And she would stand out even more if she had the Imperial Army’s sole Adessian with her. Linna and Akella weren’t so different in some ways – outcasts, both of them.
“Very well,” Akella said. “Let’s find out where this tunnel ends.”
The tunnel ended, it turned out, in a marshy culvert beside the riverbank almost a quarter mile west of the city. Akella wasn’t surprised; she’d always assume it would lead to the river eventually. Fortunately, the iron bars that were supposed to stop anyone from entering the tunnel from that direction were so ancient and poorly maintained that all it took was a few solid kicks to destroy what remained of its hinges; unfortunately, the sewer had gotten progressively narrower the closer it got to the river, so that Linna and Akella had to crawl on hands and knees the last few hundred yards. By the time they emerged from the tunnel, they were both soggy and filthy.
Akella’s teeth chattered as they finally stretched their aching limbs and used handfuls of dead reeds to try to clean off some of the muck. “If we would’ve exited through the other tunnel, we’d be considerably drier,” she told Linna. “As it is, the mountain men will smell us the moment the wind shifts in their direction.”
Behind them, the sky was just beginning to change from the black of night to the deep violet of the hours just before dawn.
“The Commander is about to leave for the north with two brigades, and General Alric is about to leave for the south with the same number as soon as there’s light enough that the horses won’t stumble and break a leg. That puts us an hour ahead of them at most,” Linna said, speaking more to herself than to Akella as she glanced over her shoulder towards Pellon. “Getting out took longer than I expected. We need to stay ahead of them, or it’s all for nothing.”
With that, Linna glanced at the sky, oriented herself in a direction Akella took to be southeast, and started away from the frozen river. Akella followed just behind her, turning the wick of the lantern down to a mere flicker. They wouldn’t need its light at all in another hour or so, which meant she’d probably have to abandon it somewhere. That was a shame, because who knew if she’d ever get it back, and then she’d have to nick another one before she took Megs to the cottage she’d found.
Megs. Had the sergeant woken up in Akella’s bed wondering where she’d gone? Was she disappointed to wake alone? Did she look forward to seeing Akella again as much as Akella looked forward to seeing her?
“Where exactly are we going?” Akella asked Linna once they’d climbed the riverbank. She glanced towards Pellon, where guards would be patrolling the walls. They would certainly raise an alarm if they saw two silhouettes skulking through the burned out hamlets at the city’s foot.
“Mostly east,” Linna answered from ahead of her. “A little south.”
“Yes, but where? Do you have a map, or are we going strictly from memory?”
Linna pulled up short and gave a long-suffering sigh. Unfastening her coat and pulling off a wool-lined leather glove with her teeth, she reached inside an inner pocket and produced a scrap of folded parchment. Akella was dismayed to see the girl wasn’t wearing her armor underneath her winter gear. The girl had decided to sneak into a camp of thousands of mountain men, and she hadn’t bothered to wear armor. Of course, Akella wasn’t wearing armor, but that was beside the point – she never wore armor.
Before she could ask Linna about the armor, though, the girl unfolded the parchment paper and pointed at a hastily sketched map. A circle in one corner was marked Pellon; an X in the opposite corner was marked Quanca Carin.
“We’re going here,” Linna said, pointing to the X. “Like I said – mostly east, a little south. The camp is right in between the hills and this forest.” She traced her finger across the parchment towards the X. “There are abandoned villages that stretch from the hills to the river, and apparently the mountain men set up in one of them. General Alric has cavalry with him, so he’ll have to go this way.” Linna traced a line around the rough squiggle that Akella took to be the boundary of a forest. “But since we’re on foot, we can cut straight through the woods. It’s more direct. And probably less snow to slow us down. If the general leaves at first light and we run most of the way, we should get there well ahead of him.” She looked at Akella. “I hope you like forests. And running.”
Akella grunted. “Don’t care much for either.”
“Then go back. Because that’s what I’m doing whether you approve or not.”
“I said I don’t care for it, not that I wouldn’t do it.” At least it explained why Linna hadn’t worn armor. If she was planning on running most of the way, the extra weight would slow her down and bring exhaustion sooner. Akella straightened up, pushing the crude map away. “Come on. We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?”