5.

 

If a chance to escape was ever to be offered to him, it would be soon.

Bueralan, chained to both Ugly and Handsome, followed Mother Estalia through a series of narrow, overgrown paths in what he believed was a slim road that ended close to the back of the funeral pyres. An illegal road, an unofficial road, a child’s road: the saboteur had no idea who had made the path, but it was as old as the villages that the tireless Estalia left behind with her soldier’s pace. Beside her were her four priests and a fifth, the odd man out, Lieutenant Dural. The latter had fanned a small regiment of soldiers around all of them, including Bueralan. “My preference with the prisoner,” he had said to Estalia before they set out, “is to cut the tendons in his heels now.”

“How would he swim?” she asked.

“He wouldn’t,” he replied. “He would be forced to stay with me, where he would not be a danger.”

“That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant.”

She started down the path before he could object, leaving the Leeran Army, the sound of trees being felled, the sight of soldiers in orderly lines being moved across four villages and the newly erected pens of livestock that had just been constructed. Considering himself lucky, Bueralan followed her at a reasonable pace, not wishing to give Dural a chance to cripple him.

Still, the walk was not easy for Bueralan. He struggled to keep up with the pace that was set, the wasted muscles in his legs and back protesting, especially when he went up inclines, of which there was more than one to varying degrees in the Mountains of Ger. Without any other choice, he pushed through the pain, reminding himself that if he fell, he would be taken back to the cage—or simply not get up again. Both would take away his chance to reach Leera, to reach Dark—both of which were in the opposite direction of the wall that rose in front of him and the people within. The images he had seen after the sacrifice of the pale horse had stayed with him, and he had no doubt of the truth of what he had seen. He was running out of time to reach them before they pushed the cathedral doors open, he knew.

He had no choice. Mireea was just a payment, but Dark … Dark. They will take their time. He repeated the words like a mantra as the midday’s sun began to sink. They would not rush. It was three days’ ride to Leera, at a push, and they would not push. He was safe, in as much as anyone in an army was safe, and Dark would know that they had time. They would discover an empty city, a city stripped to make siege engines, to fuel a war. There would be only one part of it with people, one whole, and that would be the church. The very building Orlan wanted them to enter, the building that held the child he wanted them to kill, a murder that none of them wanted to be part of.

They’ll wait.

They’ll watch.

They must.

As the afternoon’s sun rose, Mother Estalia called a stop. Of herself and the four priests, only she spoke, though he was sure that all five communicated with each other. The small force came to a halt in a small clearing, a shallow stream to the side that ran downhill, a flow well enough now to drink from, but which would evaporate as the dry season set in. From it, the priests took water in silent turns and took it around to the soldiers, though not Bueralan. After a moment, the saboteur sighed and, despite the chains, sank to the ground and lay on his back, staring at the fragmented orb that passed above him as he rested his muscles.

Shortly, he saw Dural approach, holding a canteen of water.

“How is he?” asked the soldier.

“We’ll probably be carrying him by the end of the day, sir,” Handsome said to him. “I doubt that he has the strength for much more.”

“There isn’t much more,” Dural replied. “Just watch him.”

He drank what the lieutenant left for him and, soon after he had finished, Estalia rose and set the pace again.

How long would they watch the church? The building would be large, difficult to map from the outside, impossible to know every corner and room and hard to know how many people it held. A week, he answered. They would watch it for a week. A week would allow them to understand the daily routine of the building. Kae would argue for a second week, would argue more caution, but it would not be given. Zean would argue that there were other considerations and the others would agree with him, even the older swordsman. But if there was enough variation …

There would not be.

Ahead, up a steep incline, the pyres appeared, their metal structures barely visible. Looking at it now, Bueralan wondered how it was that he had survived the chase off the ledge: not only did it drop more sharply than he had thought, but the tall green grass looked more dangerous than it had when he had followed, hiding the shape of the land, the holes and the trees and the creatures that lived in both. But he had survived to follow a Quor’lo down the mountain, to where it stretched out gently and men and women had dug shafts to find a fortune to last generations, the openings of which were now peppered with wooden covers.

One of them was open.

Without being asked, the saboteur approached it, Ugly and Handsome behind him. He was aware, as his naked foot pushed at the cover to reveal the inky darkness beneath, that others had gathered around him, that they watched him and followed his gaze down the broken ladder into the darkness, where—

“There is no water,” Mother Estalia said. “You said the mines were flooded.”

The ladder continued, broken in places, but more intact than Bueralan had previously thought. “It was,” he said. “But look at the wall. There is a crack running through it. Something has caused the wall to fracture.”

“The explosion, I would imagine.” She peered down at the wooden covering. “The lock has clearly been broken.”

Bueralan did not reply. Instead, he watched as Estalia turned to those around her and began issuing orders for ropes to be set, for a path down the shaft to be made. She wanted it to be strong enough to take herself, her four priests, Ugly and Handsome and himself.

“Won’t you please reconsider,” Dural said, as the men around him began to move, to prepare what she asked. “Any of our men would gladly take his place.”

“They are needed up here,” she replied. “Lieutenant, he has been given to us for a reason. Do not doubt that.”

One week, Bueralan thought. I have a week to reach Dark before they enter the church. They reached Ranan this morning.