The Deepest Prison (8)

After that, time went by in a stretch that was dull and strangely brisk all at once.

Five hard hours of moving, and we made it out of Veracruz in one piece. Far off, a wall stood up against the sky — Fel Grad, one of the strongholds of the Kingdom of Kainon. A city grown along the forest, and it looked the part: the massive barrier showed its bulk through the trees. The moment the destination caught in my sight, strength poured back into a body that had been ready to drop where it stood.

Unfortunately, the situation was nowhere near that kind.

"Quiet."

I dropped low, signaled for silence, and searched the woods. Beyond the hush of the trees, something felt wrong. Someone's there. I stopped and poured everything into my hearing, and the sounds came through like an itch under the skin. Someone was moving past the tree line. Four of them.

In that instant a dozen possibilities cut through my head. Woodcutters out for timber? Merchants crossing the border? Herb gatherers? I crept forward almost on all fours. As the distance closed, the sounds sharpened.

Not faces I wanted to see.

The worst case — the one I hadn't even wanted to picture — was laid out in front of me. Viper, Liang Wei, Battle Axe, and General. Four killers, sweeping the jungle and searching.

"People you know?" Adrian asked quietly beside me.

"Know them well. They're here to kill you."

"......"

At that flat answer, his face went sick with it.

Which left a question. How are these bastards even here? I ran the possibilities. Then it came back to me — while I was gathering intel with Viper, I'd told him we were headed for Fel Grad. At the time I'd fully intended to go through Noah to Varshavat, so the line had been a fake route, planted to cut off his interference before it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠started.

And yet.

So that's how it knots.

It had been a realistic enough path that I thought it would sell. The words had come back like a boomerang. I clicked my tongue once, short, and laid the situation out cold.

The hand I was holding wasn't generous. For weapons, a Waldstein at my waist and a single dagger inside my clothes — that was all. On top of that, the wound from the Tebe River had left my left arm with no strength in it whatsoever. Both legs and my right hand were fine, thankfully, but set against the men I had to face, it was a pitiful amount of power.

Four hunters. On this side, a one-armed man and a piece of luggage. Worst-case scenario.

Turning back here would be pointless. Somewhere behind the forest, the Empire's pursuit could hit us at any time, and we didn't have the luxury of lingering. More than that, Adrian's body couldn't take this miserable environment. He'd lost too much heat in the Tebe over too many hours, and he was down with a vicious cold. Even now his face was flushed; the fever looked like it was climbing.

Which meant we had to break through them, one way or another.

Can I?

I asked it, and the answer that came back was doubtful. If they were on Christopher's level, handling even one of them would be more than enough. In my present state, with my left arm tied down, calculating the odds was a joke in itself.

So the choices narrowed to one. The lowest-probability option, and at the same time the surest of the worst.

The only way is to buy Adrian time to move. Somehow.

I tapped the scabbard and gauged the distance to the wall rising in the distance. How long would he need to get safely inside Fel Grad? Even at his slowest, thirty minutes ought to be more than enough. The judgment made, I let out a short, empty laugh.

Thirty minutes...

That was going to be a long time.

"Hey, Adrian."

He flinched at his name.

"We're splitting up here for a bit. Going back in the shape you're in is suicide, and the two of us punching through this together doesn't have an answer."

"What are you going to do?"

His voice came out thin and shaking. I didn't use words like bait, or sacrifice. Say something like that and guilt would nail his feet to the ground. I knew it.

"If we move together, we get spotted. A hundred percent. So I'll draw them off and lose them. You use that gap and run for the wall. You know my speed. Worry about yourself."

I gave him the exact moment to move, and pointed at the right-hand end of the blocking line the four of them had spread.

"When I pull them and drag them that way, you go. You might lose your direction, so... let's see."

As it happened, the moon was hanging in the direction of Fel Grad. This time I pointed at that.

Footsteps were coming closer through the trees. We didn't have much time left. I put it in a voice that didn't leave room.

"Follow the moon. You walk looking at nothing but the moon. And remember one thing. You live, and I live. Understand?"

"......"

Adrian bit his lip and hesitated, then nodded, resolve settling into his eyes. He seemed to know this was the best of what we had.

"I understand."

"And don't take off at a sprint right from the start. It's a fair distance, so just think about walking steady. If you burn out halfway and have to rest, that's the bigger problem."

In the state he was in, even a fast walk to Fel Grad wouldn't be easy. No point forcing it. Steady movement would serve him better. A fast walk alone would cover more than three and a half kilometers in thirty minutes, and at that distance, no matter which warriors came chasing after, they weren't going to catch him.

Adrian looked me straight in the eye.

"Make me one promise. That you'll come back alive."

I didn't hesitate.

"I promise. I'll get there alive."

Cold night air circled the mountain hollow and brushed past us. Under the thin wash of moonlight, I stared at his face for a long moment. A vicious déjà vu. Over those frightened eyes lay the last face of the comrade I had never managed to protect. As if shaking off an old debt that had pressed on one corner of my chest, I opened my mouth, slow.

"All right. Then let's begin."

Adrian nodded.

"May the blessing of the Moon Goddess go with you."

"And may the peace of the night go with you."

I drew the Waldstein and walked toward the other participants.

This promise, most likely, would not be kept.

Faint moonlight threaded down between the trees in thin lines. Leaves stirred in the wind with a sound like whispering, and the rough dirt path under that light ran on, all the way to Fel Grad in the Kingdom of Kainon.

"You sure they're actually coming this way?"

Raking through the brush, Battle Axe growled it low. Grass grown tough on the rich air scraped his skin raw as he passed. Hours of coming up empty with a heavy axe on his shoulder, and his patience was starting to show its bottom.

"Fifty-fifty. They might come. They might not."

Viper, walking ahead, stopped and swept the marks on the dirt. His voice, thin as a snake, cut the damp forest air and settled low.

"He did study this route, though. I'm only calling this the most likely side."

"Damn it. We have to stop him."

Battle Axe kicked a stone at his feet, irritable.

For the record, the other nine besides Demon had already failed the mission. Getting out of Tartaros, every target they were meant to protect had died. The Empire's side had hunted the rescue subjects with a nasty fixation, and in the end the best those nine had managed was to drag their own hides clear. So now Demon alone stood on the edge of a win. If he cleared the mission by himself, the Performance of the Arena for this Ashmoon Night 200 would be his before anyone bothered to count the votes.

That was exactly why the VIP extraction had ended, three times running, in total failure — in Zero Extraction. Better that everyone failed together than that a single man succeeded.

"Hey, ox. Ease off. Your rat gets spooked by all that kicking and runs, you planning to own that?"

To Battle Axe, who would not stop muttering, General dealt the rebuke in a voice laid flat. His own mood was tangled enough already, and with the griping pouring in from the side, his irritation had climbed to the edge.

"What'd you say? You soft little gentleman — who the hell do you think you—"

Battle Axe flushed, and turned on General with his body set ugly. That was the moment.

A wet, parting slice.

Even the insects had gone quiet. Finer than wet leaves brushing, the sound of flesh opening cut the night air.

"...Huh?"

Battle Axe's eyes blew wide, grotesque. The heavy axe left its owner's hands and hit the dirt with a dull thud. In the same instant, crimson leapt from the thick column of his neck like a fountain.

"Kh—khak..."

With a sound like air leaving a bladder, the huge man folded onto the ground, a puppet with its strings cut. Three pairs of eyes flooded with shock.

"......!"

"Wh-what is—!"

Behind Battle Axe, a man came through the pitch-black dark. Red eyes flashed above an eerie mask. He didn't spare so much as a glance. He used the falling Battle Axe as a stepping stone and vanished again into the curtain of the woods.

"It's him!"

Liang Wei reset his grip on the spear and went after him at once.

"Heh. So he really did come this way."

And behind him, General followed at his leisure.

But.

The target isn't here.

Viper walked the situation back, calm. Demon, a border crossing within reach, staging an assassination in the middle of the woods while leaving his rescue subject behind? It didn't hold up. The man's first priority had to be getting the VIP out safe.

A diversion.

Viper licked his lips, a thin cold smile. Then where was the target? The answer was simple. Kill the noisiest one, pull every eye to a single point, and in that gap slip the target out the other way. A perfectly typical deception, and a reliable one. Demon's route drew itself clean in his head.

"Heh heh. The choicest prey is mine."

Viper grinned and reset the dagger in his grip. Caught in the moonlight, the blade shone violet.

Meanwhile—

Go Tae-min, sprinting through the dense brush, knotted his brow.

They saw through it.

Two presences at his back. Liang Wei, tearing the air as he stuck to the chase, and General, face easy and unhurried. Viper was nowhere among them. Go Tae-min set his teeth. Sharp, as expected — the man had read the lure for what it was in a single look. Taking Battle Axe first was the one mercy in the mess. A man with an axe that size was a bad matchup for someone who could only use one arm.

First I shake these two. As fast as I can.

He ran the forest at full power. The rough crash of brush against brush beat at his ears, but every nerve was on Viper, and on where the man he couldn't see had gone. A scenario like this had already been in the forecast. His opponents were veterans with their bones hardened in the Arena; that they wouldn't bite on a crude deception had been inside the calculation. The problem was how fast he could put Liang Wei and General down. Viper would not need long to find Adrian.

I have to settle it in one stroke.

He was still working the rough ground for the best way to drop the two of them when Liang Wei, pressed close on his heels, called ahead in an easy voice — Mandarin, smooth and coaxing.

"Heh. You've fought your way to this, and it hasn't been easy. Want me to lend you a hand?"

Go Tae-min gave him nothing.

"If I felt like it, I could let you walk. Times like these, shouldn't one's own people look after each other? There's just one condition. You join our sect."

He ignored every word of it and wrenched his body around like lightning. He turned the inertia of the sprint back on itself, and the Waldstein, loaded with that spin, cut the dark and shot for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Liang Wei's throat.

"Hmph. Still won't give it up?"

Liang Wei raised the long shaft as if he'd already expected it, and stopped the blade.

Steel met spearhead, and a savage spray of sparks leapt up.

Tch.

The surprise he'd been counting on came to nothing, and Go Tae-min clicked his tongue. Nothing for it now. He would have to meet the man head-on and end it as fast as the steel allowed. In the forest sunk into silence, sharp metal rang without rest. When Go Tae-min drove in and attacked, Liang Wei gave ground with a veteran's calm and thrust. He meant to use the spear's reach and shut the approach down at the root.

Impatience settled into Go Tae-min's eyes.

This is bad.

Change the weapon, and the red lines drawn in front of him changed with it — nothing like before. A sword lived on straight thrusts knifing in and on short cuts. A spear lived on swings that spent a long reach, and on thrusts that came down trajectories you couldn't predict. The arc of the shaft commanded a far wider field than a blade, and its force pressed hard on the radius he could defend.

Steel cried out again.

Liang Wei took the thrust and swept the spearhead in a circle, outside to in, batting it aside. Then he pressed the sword down and thrust along the straight line he'd opened. Lan-Na-Zha — the essence of Chinese spearmanship, and its foundation. Block the opponent's weapon, trap it and pin it, then stab into the gap. One strike, flowing as water and vicious all the same.

In that fraction of a moment, Go Tae-min's eyes flashed.

Now!

He didn't retreat. He kicked off the ground and threw his body forward. A hot jolt. His flank burned. Liang Wei's spearpoint raked through the flesh along his side. Instead of blocking or dodging, he had thrown his own body out as bait for the single purpose of closing the distance. Blood bought him exactly one thing.

"......!"

Liang Wei's eyes flooded with shock. For a spearman, giving up distance was death. A long, heavy shaft was nothing in close quarters but a clumsy stick.

Finally. I'm inside.

Go Tae-min's red gaze flashed. A gamble — give flesh, take bone. The instant of an opening it bought him, he did not miss.

The blade sank in.

The spear shaft tumbled across the ground. Liang Wei, the man tall as a pole, shuddered and pitched forward.

"Hah—hah, hah, hah."

Go Tae-min dragged in rough breaths. Then, clutching his side, he dropped straight into a fighting stance. Out of the dark came applause, clap by slow clap, unpleasant in its leisure.

"Oh... impressive. To think Liang Wei would die that empty a death."

General, who had followed in Liang Wei's wake. Another opponent who would not be easy.

And yet.

What?

At the sound of that voice, Go Tae-min's eyes flew open. Familiar enough to make him forget, for a moment, the pain in his flank — the tone that crawled into his ear was viciously known.

Where did I hear it?

In forest air thick with the smell of blood, fragments of memory locked together fast. Yes. He remembered. After Team Leader LeClerc and the others were all dead, coming through the radio.

That voice.

That fluent French, back then, was identical to this man's voice.

Go Tae-min's eyes went cold.

It was you.