Chapter 3: What They Did Inside the Fortress
Gwen spent a week making the abandoned cave-room-home livable.
Drawing water daily from the streams that cut deeply into the rock the village of Qauyl was built upon, bartering for meagre meals in case Arthur came home empty-handed. Finding a need and filling it – needlework of every kind, basic medical care, an extra pair of hands to fetch and carry, a clever tongue and the advantage of familiarity with a more advanced civilization to tweak details to ease the daily lives of the women and children of the village, in return for small shares of foodstuffs. Dinner, with enough saved for the next morning and noon and hoping there would be another dinner.
A widow and her brother. Different mothers. Yes, his eyes were very blue and that was unusual, but his mother came from the north… No, she had no children of her own. Her husband had been older than she by many years, and suffered from various ailments… Yes, her brother was past marrying age – in fact, he had a wife and family, but they'd been forced to separate though he had never given up searching, and that was why he left the village daily, and asked so many questions of the men…
Arthur had been amused to come home that night and find that he'd married and sired multiple children in the course of a few hours' gossip.
And, about the fortress sharing their mountain? The men who occupied it?
More than a hundred - if she was composing a report from her own more limited observations, things said among the women - coming and going, different ones. Maybe a dozen vehicles, truck and turf-bike, rarely north to Janada, more often southeast. Limanya or Hawava, as an educated guess. Both of those cities were hubs of various forms of travel, so upset by Aravia's civil strife that smuggling large amounts of black market weaponry and tech and whatever else was lucrative – medicines and supplies, amenities and antiquities, slaves of both genders and various ages for sex or cannon fodder – would have been easy, unnoticeable and untraceable.
They'd found the fortress of Urhavi days ago; now the problem was to get inside. That was Arthur's objective, though, she was back-up and cover. She was one hundred percent fine with that; she was good at that.
Though if they stayed in Qauyl much longer, they were going to start having to field questions about how many offers of marriage they were turning down. Both of them.
The sun had dropped below the mountains to the west, hiding the pale winding ribbon of the track they'd come in on and the wide plain between, when Gwen lugged the last bucket of water into their one-room stone home. Woven mats on the floor for sleeping and no need for blankets, one window that mostly opened to sky, and the second shutter could be propped to shield the interior from the two neighbors who could possibly see if they happened to glance over.
She discarded slippers and waja, untied the neckline of her dress and pulled her arms out of the sleeves. Letting the top half hang from the tied belt, she pulled the front of the skirt up to tuck the hem into her belt.
I'll never take my shower for granted again. Or the vanilla-scented gel or her scratchy-sponge or the pore-refining coconut-shell scrub she used on her face. Her razor, her lotions – deodorant, body-spray, nail-file… laundry sheets. Bed sheets.
For now, all she could hope for was clean water to cool her off momentarily, and rinse the saltiness of sweat from her skin.
The sound of the door-cloth rumpling was a half-second's notice before Pendragon said in Aravian, "My sister, I ask that you attend to-" And then in their native language, as he took in her state of undress, even from behind – "Ohshit. Sorry – sorry…"
Her fingers were all thumbs; even though she knew he'd flung himself around to face away, her skin warmed as if his eyes lingered over every inch. Spine and shoulder-blades and neck below her knot of hair dripping tendrils, bare arms hastily stuffed into sleeves, neck-laces clutched tight, skirt hem freed from the belt to brush the tops of her toes again.
"My brother," she said in forced Aravian because it did not do to forget themselves. "What is it that has brought you home early today?"
For a moment she watched his back – boots laced up his calves, tunic hem ragged behind his knees, jacket hiding his belt. Broad shoulders, sunburn on the back of his neck hidden by the folds of the sareq wrapped around his head.
Then she added, because evidently he wasn't going to assume, and because the waja could be left off in the privacy of one's own home, as long as there weren't unrelated guests. "You may look at me. I am covered."
He glanced over his shoulder swiftly, as if he didn't quite trust her to tell the truth, before turning the rest of the way to approach her in the remaining daylight from the window. Eyes and expression said everything an Aravian brother wouldn't bother to say, and which his sister would take for granted anyway. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm embarrassed also…
Except, she wasn't his sister, and he wasn't her brother.
She shivered in spite of the heat, still damp under the fabric of the dress that wanted to cling to her skin, now.
"This night," he said, visibly pushing all of their interpersonal upset aside. "There were trucks today. Arriving heavily laden. Certain men of the village were sent to deliver alkahol."
The local drink, cheaply brewed and plenteous and consumed like water by everyone down to the children, nightly around shared cookfires. Made life bearable, she privately thought.
"Is there a way to gain entrance?" she asked.
"It will be guarded. But over…" He made a gesture that was pure Camelot military, and told her everything.
Climb the wall, in the dark. Several stories of rough brick-stone, and the top patrolled by sentries, lit by braziers. So she'd been told, anyway. His job was surveillance, hers was cover – but infiltration was up to both of them to decide, under what circumstances they discovered.
"And inside?"
"If they celebrate," he said, and she knew he meant, whatever shipment had arrived, and whatever they planned to do with it, "they ease their guard."
And the two of them couldn't linger here forever waiting for a perfect opportunity. And making an opportunity was a risk itself.
"I will come with you," she demanded, preparing for an argument.
But his teeth gleamed in his beard - dusty-brown and not golden any longer - with his grin. He showed her the goatskin bag over his shoulder, open to reveal a jumble of cloth. "I expected no less."
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Rest, he'd told her. Try to sleep, we'll leave at moonrise.
And then he laid like a stupid lump on his pallet, unable to keep his eyes shut in the dim and then the dark, nor to keep his breathing and heartrate regular and relaxed.
Couldn't help thinking of the slope and glimmer of her bare back, damp with wash-water, as she began to turn, to look over her shoulder, to freeze with her profile showing, and no more… The curly tendrils of her hair dripping down her neck, the knotted belt keeping that shapeless bag of a dress on her hips, where her waist widened downward-
Arthur's boot slipped on the path and he caught himself, heart pumping almost too hard to hear if he'd alerted anyone to their passage through the village. Behind him, she was silent as well.
And then of course she'd had to change her clothes, to wear the male garments he'd brought for her, tuck the smaller extra knife from his boot down the back of her belt, as he carried his.
Shall I step outside? he'd asked.
She made a dismissive noise; both of them knew that an Aravian brother would not care so much for his sister's privacy. A turned back would be as much as expected. But, just as in the storage tent at Camp George, he could hear every move she made, disrobing… dressing again. Tucking her hair under a second sareq, rather than leaving it long behind and under the waja.
This might have to be their last mission together. That, or he could only agree to short-time limits, and only cold-weather conditions. He wasn't nearly this distracted during their trip to Ealdor and back.
The dust was soft and light under his soles, the heat rising palpably from the sun-warmed rock in the darkness. Qauyl was quiet as they slipped down steep slopes and crawled up fewer rises, making their way out, down, south. Around to the fortress half of the mountain.
Three days til full moon, he thought, so the light was sufficient, though he was more familiar with the route than she. It took them til the moon was nearly overhead to make their way out of sight of the village, to the point where the lights of the Urhavi could be seen, on the top of the wall high above them.
He paused to listen and to rest. She leaned against the stone of the mountain beside him, and he felt her move to gulp air.
"You all right?" he whispered in their native tongue; it wouldn't be language to give them away if they were caught, now.
"Why do you ask?" she returned, and didn't sound out of breath even though they'd packed and carried their goatskins, to be ready for any eventuality, any consequence of this incursion.
"Well… I've been out scouting this whole week, while you've been sitting with the women, sewing and gossiping…"
He anticipated her reaction and managed not to yelp when she dug her fingers into his ribs, though he had to jump and twist away. Surely she'd left bruises.
"Jackass," she said, but her voice held amusement and not offense; she knew he'd been teasing to get a rise out of her.
"Come on," he returned, moving forward again. "We're going to climb the wall. There's a window that's not quite halfway up, and it's not been lit. I don't believe it'll be watched. Once we're inside we should keep each other in sight, but not close enough for both of us to get caught if one of us is."
"Right," she said, cool and calm.
"If it's me caught, do your best to slip back out," he told her. "The mission comes first, and one of us needs to live and make it back to report."
"The mission comes first," she repeated in the same detached, professional tone.
He wondered if he was prejudiced, after all. Subconsciously sexist. Because he wouldn't abandon her, no matter what; screw the mission. And he would be relieved that she'd save herself rather than risking capture trying to do something if bad luck befell him. And maybe it would be the same if he had a male partner after all, but…
Then they were at the wall, and though the angle of moonlight didn't touch the outer face, he could estimate their position by the fires burning at the very top. Stone's toss to the front gates and the vehicle track rising from the plains. Watchmen at the top looking out to the plain for approaching threats, not down to the edges of their stronghold.
"Leave our bags here," he instructed softly, unburdening himself and bumping clumsily into her doing the same. "How are you at rock-climbing?"
"Excellent." He caught the impression of her rubbing her hands together, and heard the dry patter of dust and sand falling back to the ground as she straightened, grit coating her palms for easy gripping. "Don't hold back on the pace because of me."
Arthur grinned to himself, shrugging out of his jacket and tying it around his waist. A true Aravian would never wear it so, but again – if they were caught scaling this wall, their clothing would be the least of their worries.
"All right then," he said under his breath, briefly dusting his own hands, and reached for the first hand-holds.
Quarried rock of the mountain, but not measured and laid as precisely as the palaces of the larger cities of the kingdom. Roughly square, but of differing sizes, and it hadn't seemed to matter, matching edges. Sometimes several inches of overhang provided good grip for fingers or toes, and sometimes they had to go over a block that stuck out from the wall by that much.
The higher they climbed the more he wished for harnesses and belaying-ropes and worried that he'd slip – or she would. And hands and feet ached – wrists and calves – and where was that damn window? if he'd mistaken their angle and route and passed it…
No, there it was. Wooden sill jutting out just slightly different than the rock.
Arthur edged up to it, not showing himself in the gap, and paused to listen – though if anyone stood sentry, they might have heard the scouts climbing, breathing, gripping and rasping boots and clothing on the stone. They weren't yet close enough to the top of the wall to worry about the guards there overhearing them.
No light showed. No head stuck out to look down on them.
Arthur lifted his boot to another toehold, and hoisted himself up to the ledge. Dark room, and apparently unoccupied. He ducked inside, reaching to be sure of the floor before he let himself slither down to its support, trembly and panting and momentarily exhausted – and he was just rising on one knee when her head it its sareq showed against the starlit sky.
She hugged and clawed her way over the sill also, landing heavily beside him, one leg canted over his and she was probably too tired and too glad to be safe again to immediately move it. He was glad she didn't.
"I don't fancy the climb down," she told him in a breathless whisper.
"Well, we can get out from this side a lot easier than we could get in from outside," he responded. "Potentially."
"Potentially," she agreed sardonically.
His eyes had adjusted from the moonlight to the dark of the room enough to notice the glow of orange light around a door at the other end, five paces distant. He pushed himself to his feet and untied his jacket to shove tunic sleeves inside jacket sleeves – regretfully; he was hot as well as tired.
Making his way to the dimly-lit door, he twice barked his shins on some piece of furniture or storage – once it shifted, and the other time there was no give to the sharply-cornered shape.
She followed him without impediment, marking and avoiding his difficulties – but without so much as a snicker at his expense.
And the door had no inside latch. Dammit.
But his fingers had an idea, and he slipped his knife out from the small of his back – an Aravian knife, curved blade fixed in the handle, rather than anything more compact and convenient, made in Camelot. Slip the blade between door and jamb, and lift the latch – because it wasn't locked, just not designed to be opened from the inside.
Gwen gripped the door so it wouldn't swing away by itself, and he inched it, trying to see what lay outside without drawing undue attention to them.
"What do you see?" she whispered, leaning into his arm and putting her mouth close to his ear.
It was what he didn't see that had him widening the gap cautiously – roughly-made plank door on old hinges that rubbed rather than squeaking, so she could observe for herself.
No one in their immediate vicinity. No indication that they were noticed. He eased through the doorway, signaling her to wait…
The interior of the mountain was shaped like a horseshoe around the main entrance. Their position was near the bottom of one curve, mid-level where rooms built into the exterior wall rose atop each other, leaving a fifteen-pace dooryard that formed the rooftop of the level below. Down the middle of the horseshoe descended the slanted path where visitors or vehicles would arrive. It was all faintly lit by strategically-placed oil-burning lights, and he admired the layout.
Friend or foe had first to approach across the level sand, visible for leagues, before being admitted through gates that were barred, locked, fortified, defended. Then advance up the rise, surrounded on all sides by myriad defensible positions. Any enemy fighting their way inside would take heavy casualties at every point, and even long-range artillery bombardment might not do as much damage as hoped, to the thick old natural stone… At this point the infantry would be wiped out, almost certainly. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Though perhaps they could use white-gas to screen their movements…
"Which way?" Gwen whispered, probably as much to get him moving as to receive an answer. She could read the terrain as well as he – the only reasonable course for them was to move along the inside of the horseshoe curve to the point opposite the entrance to Urhavi.
Down, he thought, rather than up. Up was probably quarters; down would be storage. No need to unload supplies or materials and carry them farther than necessary.
"Give me a minute," he returned. "Follow at a distance."
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Merlin couldn't sleep. He had a tiny fan in his barracks room, both to keep the air moving and cooled and for a little white noise to distract from the sounds made by his neighbors up and down the hall.
But tonight, nothing was working. It was too hot, even with sheets and cover tossed aside, a low disturbing grumble of temperature or sound that kept plucking at his attention. He lay on his stomach, a corner of the pillow mashed under his cheek, and it didn't help, though usually he fell asleep almost instantly in that position. He'd taken a dose and a half of nighttime cough-and-cold, and it wasn't helping.
His eyes wouldn't stay shut, and his feet and legs wanted to move.
So he rolled wearily out of bed and let himself out into the corridor, dimly lit by one panel at the cross-hall at the end. Tightened the drawstring of his cotton sleeping trousers, he padded barefoot down the corridor, down the naked-concrete stairs. Past the uniformed door-attendant on duty, nearly horizontal in a tipped-back chair, somnolently staring at some action movie on his portable small-screen – and out the door.
No idea what time it was. Only a few stars showed above the streetlight a stone's toss from the corner of the barracks building. He wandered the gritty sidewalk for a bit, then found a seat on the top of a picnic table in the shadow of the barracks, where soldiers met to snack or smoke or play card games to pass the time.
Something. Too far away to be able to tell for sure, but it felt like someone he cared about was in danger. Something was going to happen to someone.
He wanted to do something about it, and couldn't. Impossibility didn't quiet his psyche, though.
Maybe he'd find out what and who, in a few days when it was over, and maybe he'd never find out. Maybe it felt worse now, as potential, than it would end up being, as actual.
But he felt it, and it hurt, and all he could do was wait til it stopped.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
There was more light, movement, and sound as Arthur slipped around toward the center of the horseshoe. Down a level. The music of traditional Aravian stringed instruments and percussion capered fast and complex, lilting in a way that made him feel more wary than cheerful. We are not your people. We do not tolerate outsiders well.
Smoke, and the smell of roasting meat, even so late at night. Celebration, indeed.
The doors he passed stayed shut, the few windows shuttered, and his attention had already traveled ahead, to whatever unseen means brought you down to the next level. Stairs or slope, or-
An Aravian man – a big, muscular Aravian man – emerged from one of the doorways he had yet to pass. Suddenly and close enough that both of them startled.
"Aie!" the man said, scowling suspiciously. "What is it you think to accomplish here? No man is allowed to-"
"Your pardon, my friend," Arthur returned, slowing only a little, intending to pass him and carry his attention away from Gwen, who lurked in the doorway where they'd emerged, to keep some distance between them – for this very reason. "I am not yet accustomed to our accommodations, and after the alkahol we had with dinner, I became turned around and uncertain of my way."
He wasn't listening. He didn't turn with Arthur's passage, but remained facing the way he'd come, still scowling. At Gwen, who hadn't managed to duck out of sight, though she'd lowered her head and was slouching toward them in a convincingly boyish manner.
"Who is that?" the Aravian demanded, his hand fumbling in his sash for his knife. "This is not… We have no boys, save for- Who are you?"
Arthur's knife was in his hand already. Through the throat, ruining any chance the man had for raising an alarm, then hide the body… exactly as he hadn't done, with the psychic of Essetir - he adjusted his grip even as he lunged.
The Isyadi reacted, trying to draw back, turning his head to avoid the blow – his hand leaving the hilt of his knife in his belt for an instinctively-defensive open palm.
Didn't matter. Arthur was faster, striking him with the hilt in his hand – once, twice-thrice.
He staggered, gasping. Arthur followed, choking the man's sounds back into his throat with his hand, following him as he slid down the doorjamb where he'd exited, toppling sideways against a door that spilled lamplight as it gave before his weight.
Gwen was beside him in an instant. "Inside?"
"Yeah, I think so," he said breathlessly, shoving his blade behind the back of his belt again to free his hands. "If we can manage…"
"Did you kill him?" She picked up the Isaydi's ankles, as he maneuvered in his crouch to grip two handfuls of tunic-jacket at the shoulders as easier than floppy wrists.
"No…"
Blood trickled down the sweaty temple to redden the thick dark beard, but there was an audible moan as Arthur began to drag him back through the doorway. Only time would tell if he'd made the right decision. Have to tie and gag this one and hope no one found him before they had sufficient chance to-
"Arthur," she said, dropping the Aravian's boots.
His ears had not alerted to the indication of anyone else inside, but at her word of warning Arthur spun, one hand on the unconscious man's collar, the other reaching under the hem of his jacket in case there was another threat. Instinctively he froze, feeling time and reality fracture just slightly.
This, he'd never seen before. Not in person, maybe in recordings.
Half a dozen tables, lined with pristine, state-of-the-art components. A soldering iron – a generator – other equipment for calibration and assembly…
He recognized less than half the hardware laid out, but it was enough.
Bomb-making. Pipe bombs, dirty bombs, disguised as everyday objects, loaded into large containers – in the dim reaches of the back of the room he glimpsed fifty-gallon plastic drums, rolling suitcases looking terribly out of place…
"Oh, hell," he said blankly, dropping the Isyadi and straightening.
Large-scale sales of black-market explosives… must have ended up here. And depending on where they were sent after assembly… death increased exponentially. Kingdoms ruined, ruling factions in and out of power and their policies and decisions with them – global chaos was possible, with the contents of this room. Behind him he was aware of Gwen stuffing the rest of the unconscious Isyadi into the room and closing the door, ripping material from the bottom of the man's own tunic.
Arthur turned and bent to roll the man's bulk so Gwen could bind his hands behind him with the strip of cloth, giving automatic assistance to his partner while his thoughts jack-rabbited on.
They couldn't just scout the interior of Urhavi and retreat to bring their report home. It would take them several days to return to Camp George, then to travel back to Camelot, to sit through debriefings of ever-higher officials and then be told thank you for your service, we'll take it from here… and then, never know.
"What do you want to do?" Gwen asked, moving down the side of the room as he ripped and twisted another strip of tunic-material for a gag.
He finished and moved forward at an angle to her progress, scanning the tables. Electronics, timers, receivers, switches, wires, ignition devices. Lightweight and requiring preparation; he picked at the guts of a comm-block waiting to be utilized as a switch for an initiator, like… the blasting caps in the box on that far table. He chose a half-assembled circuit board smaller than his palm also, tucking both pieces into his belt-pouch. If they acquired the explosives in bulk, presumably they'd store it-
A shadow shifted at the back of the room – footsteps grazed the stone floor – and Arthur tensed, his attention flying straight to-
A boy. No taller than Gwen, smooth chin, empty hands. Unworried face.
Blue eyes – which was unusual for this part of the world - clear in the lamplight, glancing from Gwen to Arthur.
"Why are you in here, you're not supposed to be in here?" he said, and it wasn't Aravian. He sounded a bit like Merlin, who only sounded different than everyone else in Camelot on an occasionally accented word or phrase.
"I beg your pardon, young master," Arthur began in Aravian, mentally snatching at options for what now? and finding nothing good. Keep his attention away from Gwen, so he didn't begin to recognize that she wasn't-
Blue eyes flickered to Gwen with brief dispassionate curiosity, returned to Arthur, and narrowed – like he was reaching right into Arthur's cracked-open skull to paw about like a grab-bag of offered goodies.
Damn it to hell is he a-
"You're scouts," the boy said with mild surprise, like their identify could have nothing to do with him, and his discovery of it would have no serious consequences.
-A psychic.
Arthur fancied he'd gotten pretty good at the whole, a man's mind is his castle, thing. White stone walls, seamless joints, nowhere offering finger- or toe-holds, but-
"Scouts of Camelot." The boy smiled, and it was an awful smile. Very small, very secret, very confident. I know something you don't. Advantageous for me, and awful for you, and I don't have to warn you, I'm going to enjoy watching you suffer.
Gwen, not quite between them but much closer to the boy than to Arthur, turned to look back at him for some indication of what he thought they should do. Silence the boy, obviously, but he knew now, and wouldn't let them get close without hollering out, which meant they'd have to-
It took one second for his eyes to meet her question. And the boy lunged, one hand slipping up and back in a gesture Arthur immediately recognized – retrieving a knife from behind the back of his belt – the other outstretched to grab Guinevere. Hold her still while he stabbed and stabbed and Arthur tried to lurch across the room fast enough to-
Hilt. He twisted sideways, using the motion that freed his blade to send it flying across the room without time to think, to consider what would happen if-
The knife struck and stuck in the boy's chest before he touched Gwen, toppling him backward all the way to the floor with a pained cry.
Gwen reacted immediately, spinning back defensively, then crouching next to the fallen boy to neutralize his threat or render aid, or something. Arthur's feet moved him forward so he could clearly see, past the bulk of the last table.
Oh, hell. Oh, damn. Just a kid.
The boy writhed on the floor as his tunic reddened around the blade pinning cloth to flesh. His skin was translucent-pale, eyes black-dark with utter shock, mouth dropped open to gasp for oxygen that Arthur couldn't think would do a damn bit of good.
His aim was usually unerring. This time no exception.
An enemy psychic, he reminded himself, and one allowed in the bomb-making room by himself.
Gwen bent over the boy, simultaneously restraining the wrist of the hand gripping his knife and pressing the gathered material of his tunic to the base of the blade. She made reassuring shushing noises like she couldn't help it, and that was also completely useless. Very little blood showed, but the blade, the damn blade, was too close to his heart. It was enormous between too-small ribs.
"It's all right," she soothed inanely, nonsense meant to calm with the sound, and not engender belief. "All right now, just lie still… calm down…"
A kid, and had to be new to his ability, and what choice had he been given in whom to use it for?
The boy's knife shuffled away as his fingers lost the ability to grip, and his body sagged on the dirt floor, head lolling as a soft sound of misery caught in his throat.
"I'm-" the boy gasped. "I-"
No one told you. No one said, if you cooperate with men like the Isyad, there will be consequences when others oppose them…
"I'm sorry," Arthur said to him, in their own language. "I'm sorry I didn't… I'm sorry I-"
Across the room, the big unconscious Isyadi grunted, and Arthur closed his mouth. Weakly the boy's hands and arms fluttered, as if trying to struggle away from the pain.
"Shh, shh, shh…" Was she speaking to the boy, or to Arthur? Gwen gently, slowly, slipped the blade out of his chest.
Momentarily he roused – to the pain, or maybe to the sense of inevitable death coming more quickly. Blood seeped through tunic material, spreading rapidly – the boy's eyes slid shut and he shuddered once. Not breathing, every muscle surrendering limply – dying in moments without the knife blocking its own wound.
"You saved my life," she said to Arthur on an unsteady tremor, carefully wiping the blade clean on the hem of the boy's jacket. "He would have killed me, I think."
Arthur cursed and heard tears in his voice and couldn't help it and wasn't sorry for it. Not the first man he'd killed – but the first who wasn't yet a man, not really. Now, never would be – never would contribute to the Isyad and take lives and cause destruction, either.
Gwen rocked back over her feet and rose in a smooth motion, turning to touch his shoulder and offer him the knife, hilt-first. "Arthur. We can't just… we have to keep moving."
She was right. Already the boy's body was something, not someone. But instead of turning toward the door and the waking Isyadi near it, he stepped forward, over the boy, searching the dim recesses of the back of the chamber.
The room had been empty when they dragged the big man in, he was sure of it. Then where had the boy come from?
Doorway, hidden from the rest of the chamber. Through it, a stone stairway curled to prevent him seeing more than five steps. Light flickered below, but no sound drifted up from the unseen chamber below.
If he had a rifle in hand, he'd feel better about venturing down; the knife in his hand could only be thrown once before necessitating retrieval. But if he had to pull a trigger, for sure the noise would bring the Isyadi from the rest of the fortress down on them.
"Do you want me to come, or stay here?" Gwen whispered down, hesitating at the doorway.
He didn't meet her eyes. "Better come, so we don't split up."
Each step seemed a journey entire, and his legs ached and his body ached and his heart ached. Down. And around. And though he avoided thinking of what he'd just done – he would have stabbed Gwen, though – he focused on avoiding thinking, and simply moved.
Wary at the bottom step – he could see a slice of the lower-level chamber, and still heard nothing as she paused three steps above him – he moved out.
This room, almost boringly ordinary by comparison. Storage, crates stacked against the walls, wooden slats unmarked… but for the smell. The dusty scent of straw packing, but under that was a metallic tang that made him think of brightly-striped tents hastily erected in market centers at holidays, where smaller crates were cracked open to show also-brightly-striped cylinders, and each with a wick waiting to be lit in celebration.
Fireworks. And the big cannons on the tanks, when you gripped the requisite ear-protectors to tighten the rubber seal around your ears and the whole world shuddered at the hollow boom of firing that reverberated in your bones and saturated your uniform with that smell that lingered in the air. And hundreds and thousands of paces away, targets vanished in abrupt explosions that vaporized them in a fountain of sand and earth and molecules.
"Bloody hell," Gwen said, her voice tight. "What… what can we…"
"Blow it up," Arthur said, feeling distant from his words and the suggestion and totally isolated from any such thing as repercussions. "Blow it all up."
"That'll take the whole mountain," Gwen said, looking at him wide-eyed. "What about Qauyl?"
He considered the width of rock between Urhavi and the village – and the energy of the explosion would release upwards, not sideways. "They'll feel the earth quake," he decided. "But it shouldn't be lethal there, or even very damaging. Not like it will be here – and take us with it, likely enough."
Her eyes didn't leave him, and she voiced her opinion in a moment. "Let's do it."
He loved her fiercely in that moment, for a moment, and it meant nothing and it meant everything and it might absolve him of the boy's death if he thought on it – but that wasn't the reason he didn't regret it, the feeling or his recognition of it.
So they set about swiftly arranging the room's content for maximum damage, and preparing a detonation device. Like an egg timer, if you ever wanted eggs that took half an hour to boil. Tick and jitter down the minutes, and close the circuit and that's it and that's all.
"Time for us to get clear is time for someone to find the fellow we left tied up, and possibly stop this," Gwen observed, though she could have added, and catch us.
"String," he said. Probably there was some eight-gauge wire on coils upstairs, but the longer they lingered… "Thread, whatever. And a couple grenades – that crate there on top should have them."
Not just the raw explosives, but some of the specific weapons that used them. Grenades there, low-grade missiles there. He didn't have time for fancy, though.
"The thinner the better?" she asked, and he caught the motion of her picking a thread loose from the end of her tunic, coaxing it to unravel.
Tie it delicately around the pin while she held her breath and the grenade rock-steady for him. Balance it out of sight down the back of a crate-lid, then prop that in the doorway of the stair that connected to the assembly-room above.
Anyone rushing down would shove the lid – looking like it was carelessly discarded – out of the way. The string would hold the pin while the grenade rolled loose, and… that might be countercharge enough in itself to set off the rest in a chain reaction.
He backed her to the door, where they checked to see that no one was outside to notice or question their departure from the storage chamber. Before them the slope declined away to the Urhavi's gates – the lights were brighter, the music noisier, the voices audible. He still smelled woodsmoke, and roasting meat.
Second grenade, second pin, second thread.
"Not to distract you," Gwen whispered, crouched against the exterior wall by the door, and watching toward the sounds of revelry to warn him of discovery, should it happen. Again. "But where did you learn to do this?"
Balance the grenade on top of the door and thread her tunic-string down to the latch. Once again, anyone pushing through the door would knock the grenade tumbling away from the string holding the pin…
"My sister," he answered, looping the last knot carefully before drawing it tight.
She repeated incredulously, "Your sister?"
"My… ah, we weren't allowed locks on our doors when we were kids. So we got creative, to keep each other out of our rooms and our things." He tested to make sure the door wasn't going to swing on its own, though as for drafts… he shrugged to himself. If he wanted to live safe and comfortable, he wouldn't have trained for a scout. "She was diabolical."
Gwen huffed a laugh, straightened, and he led her at a nonchalant lope down the wheel-ruts of the dusty track. Heart thudding in his chest and his heels, ears wide for any shout of suspicion or exposure – instinct said flee! though reason tempered that with caution. Couldn't be caught now; shouldn't even be stopped for questioning.
Two boxy shadow-shapes of transport trucks loomed on their left as the wall leaned higher over them with every approaching step. He snorted gently to himself to think of spark-starting them and making a motorized getaway – or letting them trundle across the desert as a decoy.
Merlin would get that joke. Merlin was probably snoring in his bed in the barracks, fan gently whirring air conditioning and faint clean scents around the room.
The gates were high and wide enough to admit a truck and a half – or a truck and two turf-bikes on either side at once, for guard or escort. Great beams bolted together, and a sally-port that was silly-tiny by comparison, just next. Tuck your elbows in and crouch to half your height – and that was only if you weren't, say, Percival's size.
But the area wasn't left unguarded. One man sprawled several paces away, tipping a two-litre plastic jug to drink from. He ignored them, but the second – leaning against the inside of the gate to smoke an orange-tipped cicala – pushed upright and met Arthur's eyes questioningly.
"The boy who sees minds desires a moment's walk outside," Arthur offered in Aravian, gesturing at Gwen – mostly behind him, and maybe in the dim light the fact that her height was similar to the boy's would be enough.
"He still complains about relieving himself at facilities such as we use?" the guard inquired, sounding at once irritated and amused – but he propped his cicala between his lips to reach with both hands to open the tiny-silly sally-port.
"It will only take a moment," Gwen said in their own language, clearly and evenly, a fair approximation of the boy's voice, and the guard didn't even pause.
Arthur crowded him a little, blocking his view of her as she bent to crawl through the opening.
"Do not venture too far," the guard said casually, slouching at his post as Arthur set his boot outside, then ducked down and through.
Run.
No, not yet…
"Aie," said the other guard's voice behind them, rising with surprise and tension. "That is not… Who are-"
Shouts rose from the interior of Urhavi. No explosions yet, though – maybe they'd discovered the bodies in the upper assembly room.
Arthur bet the door-guards would turn inward first, curious and questioning, and lengthened his stride down the great ramp of earth rising from desert floor and road-track to the fortress gates.
Ahead of him, Gwen darted to the side. "The bags!"
"No, don't – leave them!" He snatched at her and missed, skidding in the sandy dust. Any minute now – any minute the guard could unlimber his rifle and-
She came sliding back to him, holding their packs like two halves of a baby in her arms.
"Go!" he gasped, yanking both of them away from her. Giving her a shove, he blindly found the drawstring cords to sling haphazardly over his shoulder.
It was awkward going down, but instead of turning to follow the truck-path, she took off across the desert toward the far dim shapes of the rock-mountains they'd crossed with the other sjuyl, a week ago.
The whole world jostled with running, heaving with burning breath and literally any minute-
Reality and hell itself snarled rage right on his heels. A blaze of heat rippled through the seventy-percent water of his body, rearranging all his molecules and robbing him of voluntary movement. Vengeance for his choices this night flung him forward to collide with her even as her arms wind-milled at stolen balance.
His body was ground into the dust, Gwen sobbing beneath him, and every inch of skin along his back from heels to head was scoured with live coals. The pain was more than he could endure.
He might have cried out before surrendering to the refuge of darkness.
A/N: Sincerest thanks to both Gingeraffealene and Magyklover for commenting on the previous chapter! Give the wheels a nudge, keep them turning… Give the ball a kick, keep it rolling…
PS, There was a canon character introduced in the previous chapter, as in this one – but I think this chapter's canon character was probably easier to guess. And, the one introduced last chapter will return next chapter, with a name. And with a bigger role in Part 3…