Chương 15: The Wrong Kind Of Freedom (5)

The first barrel shifted under his foot. He somehow kept his balance and climbed on the next one. Then he lunged and caught the top of the wall with both hands and pulled himself up, already breathing hard. His toes scraped for purchase. The rough stone tore at his skin. For a moment, he hung there with his arms shaking. He hauled himself higher until he could hook one knee over the top. The outside of the wall dropped into darkness, with no guards or lanterns visible below.

Teren saw nothing that looked like a trap, so he swung his other leg over and lowered himself as far as he could before dropping. He hit the ground hard. Pain burst through his bare feet and knees. He fell forward onto his hands, biting back a grunt. Still no alarm. I did it... For a few breaths, he stayed on the ground outside the compound wall. Escaping was easier than he thought it would be. I'm free! The thought lasted barely a second.

He had escaped the compound, but he was still a marked slave inside Karthane. He stood and started running. The district around the intake compound was darker than the main road had been. Narrow streets twisted between low buildings, storage yards, stables, and shuttered workshops. A few windows glowed with candlelight. A lantern hung outside a tavern somewhere ahead, voices spilling from within. Farther away, the main road toward the palace held more light from a few pale crystal lamps. Teren avoided it.

He ran through side alleys and narrow lanes, keeping to the shadows whenever he could. The ground was cold beneath his bare feet, and the autumn night had chilled the air, but fear of being caught and the excitement of freedom drove him too hard for either to slow him down. He did not stop. Cobblestone roads gave way to packed dirt, then back to stone again. Twice he nearly fell on uneven steps. Once his shoulder struck a corner wall hard enough to numb his arm. He kept running.

The city of Karthane was not silent at night. Dogs barked. A woman laughed somewhere behind a closed door. Wheels creaked. Someone shouted drunkenly from a nearby lane. A baby cried and was quickly hushed. Every sound felt like pursuit. Teren turned left, then right, then ducked through a narrow passage between two buildings that smelled of rotten vegetables. He had no plan beyond putting distance between himself and the compound.

He had no money or shoes, nowhere safe to go, and no idea where the city gates were from this angle, except that the huge wall on his left blocked that direction like a cliff. His foot came down on something sharp. Pain lanced through him. He stumbled into a wall, clapping one hand over his mouth to stop the curse. When he lifted his foot to check, he felt blood on the sole. Glass? Stone? A broken shard of pottery? It did not matter.

He put the foot down again and kept moving until the first sharp agony settled into a steady pain. He lost track of time as he ran. It might have been an hour. It might have been less. His lungs burned. His cut foot left a faint wetness on the ground whenever he passed through a patch of moonlight. Sweat cooled on his back under the thin slave tunic. At last, he slowed in the mouth of an alley between a shuttered shop and a wooden house with a sagging roof.

He bent forward with both hands on his knees, breathing hard. He heard no shouts or city bells behind him, and there was no sign of either the white fire or another runic trap. For the first time since climbing the wall, he allowed himself to look back. The intake compound was nowhere in sight. He had put a good distance behind him. Not enough to feel safe, but enough to give him hope. In a city this vast, it would be nearly impossible for the guards to find him now.

He decided he could afford to stop long enough to sit down and catch his breath. As his breathing began to steady, a sound reached him. Hooves on cobblestone. Teren went still. At first, he told himself it could be anyone. Karthane was a huge city. People rode horses, guards patrolled, and messengers traveled at night. Then the sound came again, closer, hard and steady against stone. More than one horse. Moving fast. There was no good reason for riders to be sweeping dark alleys at this hour. No good reason...

except me. Teren scrambled to push away from the wall and stood up. The alley ahead split around a half-collapsed building. One side led toward a wider street with faint lantern light. The other bent behind the sagging house into deeper dark. He chose the dark. A door stood half broken at the rear of the sagging house. Not a home perhaps, not anymore. The lower windows were boarded, one plank hanging loose. Old straw and garbage had gathered against the threshold. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road.

If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Teren managed to slip inside. The air inside the house smelled of dust, mildew, and old smoke. He crouched behind what remained of a wooden counter or table. His cut foot still throbbed. His breath was too loud. He pressed a hand over his mouth and forced it slower. Hooves reached the lane outside, and slowed down. Two horses. Maybe three. Teren lowered himself even more. A pale glow moved across the broken boards covering the window. Someone was approaching with a lantern.

"Check the back." The voice was muffled by the wall. Teren's heart slammed against his ribs. How the hell did they find him so fast? He thought he would have a few days before he had to worry about any pursuers. A horse snorted outside. Leather creaked. A boot scraped against stone. Teren looked around for a weapon. There wasn't enough light to search properly but he saw a broken length of wood near the counter, old and dry. He picked it up carefully. It was not much longer than his arm. Better than nothing.

Footsteps approached the broken rear door. Then stopped. Teren gripped the wood until splinters bit his palm. Another voice called from farther away.

"Nothing here."

"There's fresh blood on the ground," someone else reported after a moment. Teren looked at his injured foot. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! He had left a damned blood trail. The footsteps moved past the door instead of entering. A lantern beam slid across the threshold, then away. Teren did not even breathe to avoid making any sound. Hooves shifted outside. A rider muttered something too low to hear. Then the horses moved on, farther down the lane. Teren stayed crouched until his legs trembled. He counted slowly.

Twenty. Thirty. Fifty. No one came in to kill him. The guards had gone. He would live to see another sunrise... At last, he rose. His left leg had stiffened. His cut foot burned when he put weight on it. He moved to the doorway and looked out. The lane was empty. Moonlight lay in broken strips across the stones. Teren waited for another breath, then stepped outside. A man spoke from his right.

"Thought ya had better sense than that." Teren froze. The scarred yard-master stood in the shadow beside the wall, one hand resting on the hilt of a short sword. Gannik. Teren had heard a guard use the name in the previous loop. Teren had not cared then. Now he knew the name of his death. The yard-master smiled. The quiet satisfaction in it unsettled Teren more than open anger would have. Behind him, another guard stepped from the alley mouth, bow in hand. Teren recognized him too.

One of the men who had laughed when the slave mark was pressed into his forearm. The guard shrugged.

"Told ya. Run if ya want. Doesn't mean ya escape." Teren backed up one step. The broken stick was still in his hand. Gannik looked at it and gave a short laugh.

"Why don't ya put it down, and I'll make it quick." Teren didn't follow the order. He wasn't going to make it easy for these bastards. The guard with the bow sighed.

"We're not draggin' ya back, boy. Once a slave runs, the rule's simple. We even had to bring a mage to follow your mark all the way here." Teren's mouth had gone dry. These men weren't going to let him go at any cost. There was no choice but to fight for his life. He stepped back, trying to put more space between himself and the guards. His back touched the broken doorframe behind him. There was nowhere left to run with guards blocking the alley and horses somewhere nearby.

He had no crowd to disappear into and no time to find another route. He could think of only one way out of this alive, and even that might not work. He reached inward. Not calmly. Not carefully. He reached inward in desperation, searching for the impossible imperial bloodline Edras had named. For the purple mana of the Corvadryns. For the flames that should have belonged to him if this damned body was going to keep dragging him back to death. Come on... Come on! Gannik began walking toward him.

Teren pushed harder, anger and fear tangling together. He called the legendary purple flames again. Burn him! Nothing happened. Come on. Do something! Anything! No heat or light answered him.

"Damn this cursed bloodline..." Teren whispered. Gannik's eyes narrowed.

"What was that?" Teren swung the stick. The yard-master moved faster than he expected. He caught the blow on his forearm, stepped in, and drove a fist into Teren's stomach. The impact drove the breath from his lungs. Teren stumbled back through the broken doorway and nearly fell. He swung again wildly. This time the stick clipped Gannik's shoulder. The yard-master's expression hardened. The guard with the bow just laughed.

"Careful. We've got a real fighter here." Gannik drew his sword. The sound of steel against leather was quiet in the night. Teren gripped the stick with both hands. Some part of Teren knew how hopeless this was. Gannik was well trained, armed, and backed by another guard, while Teren was barefoot, injured, exhausted, and holding a piece of rotten wood. But knowing did not make him lower it. Gannik came in. Teren jabbed the stick toward his face.

Gannik knocked it aside with the sword's guard, stepped close, and cut Teren across the forearm. A sharp pain tore through his arm. The stick nearly slipped loose. Teren seized it again with both hands and swung low. Gannik easily avoided it with a half-step and kicked Teren's injured foot. His leg buckled beneath him. Teren cried out and fell against the wall. Behind him, the guard's voice sharpened.

"Enough playing." Gannik thrust. The sword entered Teren's stomach. For a moment, he did not understand what had happened. Then he felt the pressure of the blade before heat and deep pain spread through his stomach. Gannik pulled the blade free. Teren dropped to his knees. His hands went to his stomach. Blood was spilling between his fingers, warm and impossible to hold in. He looked up. Gannik stood above him, his sword dark in the moonlight.

There was no pride or satisfaction in his expression, only the indifference of a man finishing a routine task. It did not make Teren hate him any less. Teren tried once more to find the mana inside him, no longer expecting to survive. He only wanted enough power to make one of them pay for this. But whatever power lay inside him, he had no idea how to reach it. No purple fire came. The guard with the bow stepped closer, looking down at him without pity.

"Should've stayed where ya were put." Teren wanted to answer. Something sharp. Something final. But only blood came into his mouth as he tried to speak. Gannik lifted the sword. This time, Teren saw the strike coming and had no strength left to move. Steel crossed his throat. The world tilted. The moon became a thin white line above the rooftops. Then even that was gone.