14 - Night Labor

  Michael was a laborer. More importantly, Michael was a night laborer. From sunset to the early hours before sunrise, Michael labored in the graveyard of old St. Simmons Parish. Michael’s family did not particularly like that, but Michael certainly preferred the solitude. Kept his wife from nagging. He did most things an old grave keeper did - kept the weeds down, planted flowers along the walkways, dug graves for the following day’s services if any, and chased away grave robbers. Michael was intimidating and entirely forgettable.

  That was the point of him.

  The tower stood at the edge of a cliff - ninety-three meters all told. From the base of the cliff to the height of the wall stood a sheer drop of stone and earth that ended in the rear yard of the poor parish. That was ideal for him. There were only two occupants - a priest who could barely see a length in front of him and a sharp old nun who had her hands full with the priest. That left the graveyard unattended for the most part. Tall crypts with two hundred year old names and wild trees with little strength but excellent coverage clustered near the base of the cliff, too. No eyes, then, and no one who cared enough to come looking.

  If it hadn’t been for Wallace’s insistence on getting the monster out of there, he wouldn’t have been so bent on finding a perfect solution. It would have been easy to simply slip into the tower, eliminate the problem, and slip out again with no one the wiser. His position within Adern’s rank and file would be secure. But retrieving the monster risked things he would rather not risk. Still, it wasn’t like he could say no. Once they asked for something, it was expected you could deliver. Either that or you were dead weight. And he was determined not to be dead weight.

  So, he became Michael.

  “You’re late,” said the old nun as he approached the back door.

  He doffed his cap and bowed a little bow.

  “Sorry, sister. I had an emergency with one of the twins, you see, and the missus-“

  “I don’t particularly care to hear your excuses,” the sister interrupted, sniffing dispassionately.

  He closed his mouth and nodded solemnly. Michael always took her word very seriously.

  “Since you were an hour late, I expect you to be an hour late leaving,” she said. “The far back plots need weeding and you’re running out of daylight.”

  “Don’t worry, sister. I have my lanterns. I’ll get the job done tonight, you’ll see,” he said, smiling dumbly.

  The old nun sniffed again and nodded stiffly before shutting the door in his face. His smile dropped immediately. Nasty old crone.

  He turned and picked up his tools - shovel, rope, and lanterns - and deposited them into a waiting wheelbarrow, adjusting the tarp over it. The gravel crunched beneath the creaking wheel and the steady of tread of his feet. The sky slowly transitioned from orange to gray in the time it took for him to make it to the back lots.

  Jeremiah Dalton had lived a little bit longer ago than most of the graveyard’s residents. The old nun had once bragged to him that he was her so-many-greats grandfather on her father’s side and he lived nearly two hundred fifty years ago. Behind that crypt a small gravestone, unmarked and uncared for, marked the boundary between the parish and the cliff face. He suspected it belonged to a child. The bones he found while digging around here had been quite small. On his second night, he had given the little child a home in the crypt next to Jeremiah. He was certain the old man wouldn’t have minded, or if he had, he was also certain that he didn’t care.

  It was here that he halted and let the barrow down gently. He took his shovel and swung it ‘round before burying it in the earth before the small gravestone. The metal head scraped across dirt and rocks then flung its burden to the side. Over and over. It didn’t take long. When it was done, he leaned in and plucked the small chest from the earth, wiping off the clinging soil with a sleeve.

  The lid creaked open. It hadn’t taken him very long at all to smuggle in the tools he needed tonight. It truly was wonderfully quiet and isolated. He pulled out his boots with the spiked toe he’d convinced a blacksmith to make back in Isam years ago, then a pair of gloves that he promptly tucked into his belt, and a boot knife. He armed himself quickly, glancing at the sky. The light was fading fast. He hesitated, then turned to his lanterns. Three. Always three. It lit up enough of the area for him to see even after a full moon. Tomorrow was a burial. An older man, which meant a larger grave, too. He would have three hours before someone got suspicious because the lanterns weren’t moving. Michael was a slow worker.

  He lit each one and placed them around the hole he’d half dug yesterday. Then he turned back to the chest. He pulled two more things - a mask which he tied around the bottom of his face and a small dark vial he immediately placed into a pouch packed with scraps of cloth. Back up. He didn’t care what Wallace wanted - if he couldn’t get the monster out, he would kill the thing, and if he couldn’t kill the thing and got caught, at least he wouldn’t be alive long enough to give anything away.

  He slid the now-empty chest back into the hole and covered it with dirt. Taking the shovel, he thrust it into the half dug hole. If the nun for some reason decided to come back tonight and scold him, she’d only think he was sneaking off halfway through to go drinking or something. Then, he turned to the cliff.

  The light had completely faded now. The moon was only half full, but plenty of light still shone, illuminating the cracks and crevices of the cliff face. He put one hand to the stone and began to climb.

  Slowly, steadily, counting his breaths, he made his way up. His hand felt for the places where the stone had given way and his feet searched for grips. Where there were none, he carefully and methodically dug the toe of his boot into the cliff side, careful to remain as quiet as possible. This high up, the winds covered most sounds. He slipped only once. His hand reached for the next lip, the next crevice, trusting the rock to hold. Then he felt it - a shift, a fracture. He grasped tightly to the rock as it gave way, foot plunging into darkness. His heart pounded. It was the only sound he could hear in the moment. A sigh of relief escaped his lips. He adjusted his grip on the rock face, found a better toe hold, and began again.

  Once he reached the base of the wall - seventy meters up - he shifted, dug his toes more firmly into the cliff face and reached for the gloves.

  Archmage Veylan Caelan had put a lot of thought into the defenses of this place. Magic could neither enter nor escape. Made the perfect fortress. And the perfect prison. But the archmage had only considered the powerful magics. The ones a siege company might use to batter the place to bits. Or a monster might use to attempt to escape one. It did not account for small magics.

  Using his teeth, he slipped one glove on, then adjusted his grip so he could slip on the other. He hadn’t wanted to use these on the cliff face. Far too uneven. They worked better on smoother surfaces anyways. But his grip on the cliff face began to weaken with the added material between his fingers and stone. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the stone sewn at the base of the glove. The rune on its back glowed. He raised it to the wall. It stuck. The other one, too. A steady breath left his lips. Good. Very good.

  He’d mapped the guard rotations once before - at least as much of it that he had been able. It was all he had been able to afford. Anymore and his method of infiltration would have been compromised. But it hadn’t been easy to figure out how to get the rest of the way in from the watchtower he’d hidden himself in.

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  Silver Hound. Riven Hawthorne. He was as clever as the rumors made him out to be. The rotations had no set time or pattern that was obvious from the start. Typically, a guard on one section would lapse into a repetitive sequence after a few hours. It was natural. Inevitable.

  Not the Second Order.

  They liked to be contrary. Fifteen minutes one way, three the next. Seven. Two. Seven again. Then four. It was odd. He knew what they were doing - varying the timing so that one attempting to infiltrate would have a difficult time of it just finding when to sneak past. And they covered each other’s blind spots as much as possible. Even their change of guard routine was subtly designed to keep blind spots from occurring. He had never even gotten a good enough look past the wall to determine how much time he needed either. Not great.

  But he had found a weakness. One. A person.

  It had been chance. He hadn’t meant to stay that long, but one of the knights had taken up residence near his hiding spot and he hadn’t been able to breathe let alone leave. Then the boy came delivering tea. He wasn’t certain where High Commander Voss had found this lad or why he kept him around. Must have been some sort of sympathy. Whatever. He was thankful for it. The moment the boy tripped over his own feet and stumbled yet still presented the tray dutifully, cheeks bright red as the knight chuckled and sipped with a contented sigh, he knew - that would be the way in.

  Tonight, the lad carried his tray of mugs up to the top of the wall, balancing it between two hands.

  “Bless you, lad,” one of the knights said in relief.

  Claiming a mug, he sipped steadily. The scent of herbs wafted over the top of the wall. Tea, or something. It didn’t matter. The weary lines were more prominent in the tilt of that mug, in the way his shoulders relaxed. As he’d told Wallace, they were growing tired. And with exhaustion came mistakes.

  The boy turned to serve the others. The mug lifted once more.

  He ghosted over the wall, took the five steps to the other side and leapt over, clinging to the other side before the cup dropped back to the knight’s chest. He stayed there, stilling his breath and listening hard. A satisfied sigh. The knight hadn’t even seen a shadow.

  Good.

  He resisted the urge to breathe his own sigh and glanced down. The shadows were perfect in the corner of the tower, but the longer he hung here, the more chance there was of someone seeing. He scaled down and landed behind the stable.

  It was surprisingly simple from there to figure out where the monster was hidden. He peered around the corner, but as he suspected, while Hawthorne had been careful about the wall, he hadn’t had enough personnel to be careful about the yard. If he hadn’t managed to get past the wall, it wouldn’t have mattered. But he had. And now it was to his advantage.

  He had thirteen minutes. He made for the base of the tower - the only logical place to hold it - and found the small window in its base. It was built for air, nothing more, but as he knelt beside it, he could see enough.

  Nothing. Empty? Impossible. Unless Voss had really killed the monster and this whole thing was a ploy to get a rest for Adern. But…all the signs pointed towards it being alive. The guards. The exclusivity. The paranoia. He leaned closer, craning his neck to see around the corners of the bars.

  A flash of amber. Instinct screamed. He threw himself backward, narrowly escaping the claws that grasped at air where his head had been moments before. His breath caught. A loud snarl tore from the window. It reached, lashing out in rage as it attempted to beat the bars down to reach him. Inside the metal door burst open. Outside, footsteps. Moments away. He fought the urge to swear out loud and hid himself in the shadows then stilled, heart hammering in his ears. Three came racing from the walls. The others braced, eyes trained inward now.

  “Dammit! Get that thing off there now!” came the cry.

  One of them lashed out with the butt of his spear. The Monster pulled back its hand with frightening speed. The spear missed, striking rock. The response was instantaneous. Crimson flared. He braced himself.

  But it did not come.

  “Get him off!” another shouted as they also came closer, beating the bars with their own spear butts.

  The monster snarled. Hands on the inside grabbed it, pulling it off the bars. The sounds of a beating, of wood striking flesh, echoed in the cell. A whimper, then skittering, the wound of chains dragging on stone, and then silence.

  “You okay?” one outside called down.

  “Yeah. Damn thing…” he trailed off into mutterings.

  He watched, tense. At the top of the wall, the boy peered over the edge, tray precariously held as he stared down, eyes wide. Then, still mumbling, one of the knights smacked the butt of his spear onto the stone before all three began walking away. He counted in his head. One, two, three…

  When he finally reached twenty - when the knights were on the top step of the wall, when the boy had resumed his rounds to deliver tea, when the night finally lay still again - only then did he allow himself to breathe again. But he did not relax. This was not what Wallace had told him. Monster, half dead from a blast of mage’s fire. Monster, shackled and weakened. Extraction was impossible. How was he expected to get that thing out?

  He crept over to the window again and peered inside. The shape in the corner huddled. As soon as it sniffed him out, the amber eyes were back again. A growl rumbled in its throat. Crimson magic licked at the collar around its neck. He frowned as it was absorbed into the metal. So, that’s how they were controlling it. He frowned. That looked sophisticated. The Archmage’s work. That meant no way to get it off without the Archmage’s help.

  Shit.

  The monster pressed itself to the wall, shivering and growling all at once. The chains rattled. How the hell did it survive that blast and so well, too? They either had damn good healers or that thing was just impossible to kill. Inhuman, whatever it was. He considered his options. Wallace would be angry if he didn’t deliver the monster, but getting it out would be impossible now. There was no way. He had banked on its magic. Just a glimpse of that collar told him everything he needed. Just…impossible.

  But Wallace would be even more angry to find that he’d left the thing in the hands of the enemy. What if they managed to get it to fight Savidor instead? Voss had already managed to get that thing’s magic under control. The results would be catastrophic.

  Better the choice that left it crippled than the choice that left it fighting. He could beg for forgiveness later.

  The only question was how.

  The metal door suddenly scraped open. HE flinched back from the window and watched as the two guards quickly yet cautiously slid in a tray of food before slamming it shut again. The monster pounced, throwing it against the wall beneath the window. For a moment, its chest heaved. The chains rattled as it stood tall over the mess.

  Then it crouched beneath the window and began to feed. The sounds of chomping and gnawing reached his ears.

  That was it.

  He reached into the pouch. His last resort. He would use it now. He chose a vial and put a hand over his mouth, making sure his cloth mask was tightly over his orifices. Then, he popped off the cork and closed one eye, measuring the distance and tipped ever so slightly. The first drops missed, splashing on stone. But the second set hit the meat dead on. The third splashed on its nose. It twitched and grumbled but didn’t stop eating, as if the inconvenience weren’t worth the pause. He dropped more for good measure. Three drops would have killed him. For the monster, he used it all.

  He could hear the “thank yous” on the wall again. The boy was making his final rounds. He re-corked the vial and stuffed it into the pouch once more, then raced for the wall. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the stone in the base of the gloves one more time. One more time, the runes came to life. He scaled the wall and crouched there on the edge, listening. The footsteps of the boy approached. He peeked over the side. One mug left. The knight who waited for it was also half distracted, eyes staring down at the tower as if waiting for the monster to awaken again.

  Perfect.

  He paused and pulled one glove off with his teeth then pried a loose pebble from the wall. With a flick, he sent it wide in the opposite direction. The reaction was perfect. The boy startled and tripped over his own feet. The mug clattered across the stone walkway. The other knights immediately glanced towards the tower, attention on high alert after the incident with the monster. Five seconds. It was all he needed. He pulled himself up. Five steps. Then over. Done. He waited.

  “Damn it, I’m going to be jumpy all night thanks to that thing,” one knight said to another.

  “S-sorry, sir,” said the boy to the knight who didn’t get his tea.

  “S’alright, boy.”

  “I’ll go get another one right away!”

  The footsteps clattered down the steps. He used the sound as cover. Putting the other glove back on, he moved quickly down the side of the wall, then down the cliff.

  When he finally got down to the graveyard once more, he moved quickly. He couldn’t risk it further staying here. Michael was quitting. Tonight. Without leave. He left the buried chest, the tools, and the shovel in the half dug grave. Tearing off the mask, he disappeared into the night.