“She must have been helping to hold back the Kelsavaxians from entering the city!” Ragar said smugly, sounding pleased that his actions seemed to have been vindicated.
I couldn’t disagree with him about that because the timing was too good. The deep horn somewhere on the training grounds sounded again, this time more urgently.
Dusk perked up his ears. “That has to be an all-alert sound. If we do not get moving now, we may be trapped in here by the tides of battle!”
“What about her?” Jason asked, referring to the unconscious Conductivus. “We should take her with us, Lise,” he said, turning to me.
“Wouldn’t she slow us down?” I asked.
“Not if Ragar carries her,” Jason replied.
“If we do that, Lise, we will become a target for every Chirasnivian,” Dusk argued.
“When she wakes up, she’ll send her ghosts after us,” Heather said nervously.
“She can do that whether she’s with us or not. At least if she isn’t with us, they can’t affect us directly the way they can when the Conductivus is nearby,” Auraus said.
“Good point,” I said. “She stays here.” I looked at the Wind-rider. “Auraus, is there any magic that you can cast that will keep her asleep for a long time?”
Auraus shook her head. “I am afraid not.”
“Lise, we could always ….” Ragar began, but a sharp look from me cut him off from finishing what I suspected was a terminal solution to the problem.
“No, Ragar,” I said with annoyance. “No killing people not offering us a threat. We’ve had this same conversation at least twice before on this point.”
“She will be dangerous when she wakes,” he warned.
“I don’t care,” I said stubbornly.
“Lise, if we are going, we need to go now,” Dusk said urgently, looking out the window.
His eyes bugged out and he dashed out the door.
“Dusk!” I yelped, as we all rushed to the door.
We saw him do a football tackle on an Under-elf, bring the warrior down just past the gatehouse door.
“Help me!” he exclaimed as he struggled to keep the Under-elf from getting away.
Ragar pushed past me, and between the two of them they pulled the hapless Under-elf into the gate house. The mountain-cat-elf managed to bash the warrior on the back of the head, and the Under-elf went limp.
“You wanna explain yourself?” I asked Dusk evenly.
“Lise, he must be a courier!” Dusk replied, indicating the red arm bands that I now saw the warrior wore in addition to the red waist cloth. “He must be being sent to alert the civilians that they need to bear arms!”
“How do you know that?” Heather asked.
“The same device is used on the Surface, so I admit that I am extrapolating here,” Dusk replied, “but it makes too much sense to not believe it.”
“What does that have to do with you capturing him?” I wanted to know.
“One, whatever part of Chirasniv he was being sent to mobilize will be left unmobilized until someone else notices a section isn’t coming; and two, taking his place will be a great disguise.”
“But there’s only one pair of armbands,” Heather objected.
“This is war now,” said Dusk. “It is to be hoped that the civilians will be thinking that things will be handled differently than in peace time.” The Miscere Surface-elf turned to me. “Lise. You should pick one of us to wear the armbands, and the rest of us can fall in behind that person and act like an escort squad. It might be the fastest way to get to the Art section of Central Court.”
That sold me. “You do it, Dusk,” I said without hesitation. “You are the only Elf of any kind among us …”
Ragar cleared his throat, and I slanted an apologetic look briefly at him.
“… that still looks like an Elf. With your makeup you look just like an Under-elf.”
“Especially because of the eyes,” added Auraus. “Don’t forget that he inherited Quiris’ amber-colored eyes.”
“Good point,” I said. “All right Dusk, you’re definitely it. Heather and I can guide you from behind which way you need to lead us to Central Court.”
Dusk grabbed the arm bands off the courier as the sounds of battle started getting closer.
“Let us go!” he said urgently, motioning to Ragar to wrap himself deeply in the cloak and hood of his get-up again.
Quickly we formed into pairs behind the amber-eyed Surface-elf’s lead: Heather and I, then Jason and Auraus, and Ragar behind them once more as rear guard. We quick marched out of there and kept to the sides of the huge cavern. Chirasnivians battled Kelsavaxians across the smooth, rocky flooring, fading in and out of sight depending on how far away from us the fights were. It took only a few minutes before we were completely behind the Chirasnivian lines.
“Let us run for it. Couriers should be moving quickly to get their assignments done, so our pace should not cause too much alarm,” Dusk said, breaking into a run.
We ran around the perimeter of the cavern to the cavern that led to the jousting field and eventually to the cells, if Chirasniv was built like Kelsavax.
“Was there an entrance through the Military Ring through there?” I asked in general.
“I don’t know,” said Heather. “The only one I am sure of is the one by Allocations.”
“All right. Let’s not chance getting lost,” I said. “Head to Allocations.”
We quick-timed it, avoiding straggling civilians by directing them towards the battle. I felt bad that we were heaping more combatants on the battle pyre, but they would have gotten there eventually anyway and it helped to draw suspicions away from us. We reached the tunnel that went all the way through the Military Ring and had to press against the tunnel wall. We inched our way forward against a steady stream of Under-elves headed towards the training grounds and the main battle. Eventually we won past them and made it into the countryside, as I called it—the place where the food was grown or tended and where the Kobolds, Troglodytes, and others like them lived. The first thing I noticed was that the mushroom and other fungi fields were all empty and the pens where the workers were housed were all full, with guards standing a grumpy watch over their charges. The warriors eyed us and called out to us to stop as we quick marched by on the well-defined rocky lanes, but Dusk pointed to his arm bands. We took a chance in ignoring them by pretending we were too busy. We were lucky. They didn’t leave their posts to chase after us. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that it was going to work all the way through to the Civilian Ring.
As we neared the hallway leading into the next Ring, a familiar stone door with a wide, cleared area in front of it and illuminated by torches caught my eye. Like a slap in the face I remembered that this was the cavern where the Exchange was. And that that door led to it.
“The Exchange!” I hissed, and everybody stopped short.
“No, Lise,” Dusk said immediately, turning around to look me square in the eyes. “We cannot stop now. We will attract too much attention if we tried to rescue unwilling beings. Remember their attitudes before?”
“But we can’t just leave them to the devices of the warriors, either,” Jason argued.
“They will be safe enough in there,” Auraus stated. “In my opinion, either the Chirasnivians win, and it is life as usual for them, or the Kelsavaxians will win, and they will be kicked out to go to the Surface.”
I ground my teeth, not liking the idea of life as usual for those who had voluntarily remained behind out of fear, but realistically we had come back to Chirasniv a second time only for Arghen.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s get going, Dusk.”
The Civilian Ring had more stragglers headed towards the battle, although these were far more reluctant that those we’d passed in the Military Ring. Their amber eyes flickered to the armbands that Dusk wore, and then slid off of him and us. The flimsy plan was working!
“Too easy,” Jason muttered uneasily behind me. Ragar shushed him.
We made it through to the ring that I still privately called Parks and Recreation, the series of caverns surrounding the Leadership Ring with the playgrounds and relaxation places of the Under-elves. This time, however, dead silence covered the multi-colored moss beds, mushroom trees, and private boulder nooks like a shroud.
“Everybody who is going must already be at the battle,” Heather ventured softly as we descended the path down into the manicured park-like area.
I took a quick sip of the energy drink in my waterskin as we headed at a quick pace for the Leadership Ring. I couldn’t stop myself from peeking into the particular boulder enclosure where we’d rescued Emalai from her owners. I wondered if the bodies of Jodron and Descora that we’d hidden in the way back had been found yet.
If Jodron’s and Descora’s souls had had anything to do about it, they probably would have, I grimaced to myself.
We made it up to the Leadership Ring entrance only to discover there was a quad of Under-elves warriors blocking the way in.