46
~ AKELLA ~
There were only three walled cities in the Adessian Islands – Tak’u Sai, Ke Yala, and Ke Weyo, the biggest, second biggest, and third biggest cities in the islands, respectively. Even Tak’u Sai – which, roughly translated, meant “Coast of Emeralds” in the common tongue – was on the small side when compared to Pellon. And yet here on the continent, Pellon was considered a second-class kind of city, a place that thrived only because the Emperor’s Road ended there, and farmers needed a hub where they could sell their grain to merchants who would take it back to the ever-ravenous Capital Lands.
Glorified farmer’s hub or not, the thing about cities big enough to build walls was that they were also big enough to attract certain people who wanted to pass in and out of those walls without being seen. And there were usually only three ways those people could manage that feat – they could sneak in, they could bribe the guards, or they could build a tunnel. A tunnel was ultimately the most effective way for murderers, smugglers, thieves, and all manner of other criminal elements to sneak themselves and/or their goods in and out of a walled city. Whether in the Islands or the continent, Akella had never met a walled city that didn’t have at least one tunnel snaking beneath the wall’s foot.
She stood on an unburned wardrobe still leaning against the stone wall of what was left of a three-story building, her head poking above what used to be the roofline. The sewage tunnel had taken her deeper into Pellon than she’d thought it would; the castle was a hulking black shape far to the north of her, lantern light shining out here and there from its windows like the multiple eyes of some monster about to pounce on the city below.
Akella was scanning for a building that abutted the city walls. That was usually the start point (or end point, depending on which direction one was traveling) for a tunnel. The closer the tunnel was to the wall, the shorter it would be, and the easier it would be to maintain. But Pellon’s engineers had been careful. As far as she could see, the closest building to the outer wall was still a good thirty yards from its foot. That left Akella with two options: Find another sewage tunnel – and she was sure there had to be at least one beneath the western wall that would lead to the river, or investigate the wall’s guard towers. The first option was more certain. Smugglers were lazy; they would not build new tunnels when they could simply use the sewers. The second option was a toss of the dice, because there were at least fifteen guard towers and absolutely zero guarantee that the basement level of any of them had a tunnel leading away from it.
But Akella still bore the faint aroma of the first sewer she’d crawled through, and she wasn’t interested in making it worse. Besides, knowing what provisions were inside those towers might come in handy at some point. And it wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. She nodded to herself and hopped off the wardrobe.
Which direction to choose? Thanks to the Emperor’s Road, most of Pellon’s traffic would come from the west. She’d already deduced, though, that there was probably at least one sewage tunnel beneath the western wall, so why go to the effort to dig a fresh tunnel on that side of the city? She doubted she’d find a tunnel leading beneath the eastern wall, either. Besides the fact that the only thing east of the city were the Sunrise Mountains, the castle was situated close to the city’s eastern wall. Far too easy for a smuggler to be spotted by a guard on the castle wall.
That left north or south. Meravin mushrooms would probably enter from the north, and Preyla knew there was always a healthy black market for those. But the sea was south of the city – far to the south, to be sure, but Adessian smugglers like herself, along with those who did business with them, would enter Pellon from that direction. Perhaps it was because she missed the sea and her kinsmen, perhaps it was because the cold winter wind blew out of the north and she didn’t want it in her face as she walked, but regardless of the reason, Akella decided to start her search along the city’s southern wall.
It had to be at least eight of the clock, maybe closer to nine, by the time Akella started slamming her shoulder against the first tower door she reached. The door finally gave way, but if she had to hit each door this hard, her shoulder was going to be black and blue in the morning. As she had hoped, there was a storage cellar beneath the tower, but a thorough examination yielded nothing but rotten potatoes and wine that had soured long ago.
Very well. She would move onto the next.
The second guard tower also revealed no smuggler’s tunnels; the third tower was surrounded by so many drunken soldiers that she steered clear of it; the fourth tower’s storeroom had been picked so bare there weren’t even rotten potatoes to find; and the fifth held nothing but barrels of pitch. Excellent for lighting enemies on fire, but still not what she was looking for.
By the time Akella reached the sixth and final guard tower along the city’s southern border, she despaired that she might never find a tunnel. Perhaps she was wrong; perhaps there were no smugglers in Pellon because there was nothing worth smuggling into or out of the city. She warred with herself. It was past eleven of the clock now. She was so cold she couldn’t feel her fingers anymore, her shoulders ached from using them to bust tower doors open, and both feet were blocks of ice within her boots. The cell of the dead Wise Man might not be much, but it had a bed and blankets and that sounded oh so welcoming right now. She didn’t actually need to surprise Megs with a trip outside of Pellon’s borders; Megs would be just as delighted if Akella found an abandoned inn that wasn’t charred beyond recognition, stole some provisions from the castle, and cooked Megs a feast she wouldn’t soon forget.
But it wasn’t in Akella’s makeup to give up on a task she’d appointed to herself. Her sailors had known that about her. They’d nicknamed her Loteké, an Adessian word that meant something between “relentless” and “crazy” and had no equivalent in the common tongue. Once their rizalt had chosen a destination, they knew she would not stop until she’d reached it.
She’d decided to take Megs out of Pellon for one night, and she was going to stick to that decision. Besides, it was unthinkable that Pellon didn’t have a single illicit tunnel leading away from its guard towers. She knew for a fact that the East was riddled with addicts of white cactus flower, a banned Terintan narcotic that had addicts in every Imperial city. She’d dabbled in the flower’s black market herself for a time, transporting it from Negusto into Birsid and Reit. There had to have been addicts in Pellon, too, and wherever there were addicts, there were criminal networks that provided them with their drug.
Like most of the rest of Pellon’s walls, the last tower along the city’s southern wall was locked. But this time, the door wasn’t just locked with an internal mechanism that was easy enough to break with enough velocity from Akella’s shoulder. No, this door had an actual iron padlock on it.
A padlock might be a good sign. A padlock might mean there was something more valuable within this tower than any of the others she’d explored so far.
She gave it an experimental tug. She didn’t really expect it would give. It didn’t. Either she needed a key or something that might be able to break the padlock. An iron rod would work – a fire poker, perhaps? She could place it in the gap between the shackle and padlock body, give a hard twist, and break it. Maybe. Or barring that, enough force might rip the hasp clean off the door.
She fingered the padlock, holding her lantern closer to it. Rusty. It had definitely seen better days. With enough leverage…
She glanced around. Behind her, snow-covered piles of rubble that had once been buildings rose unevenly like haphazard burial mounds. Finding a fire poker or some equivalent iron rod in that mess might take until dawn.
Loteké,she thought. I really must be crazy.
With a sigh, she headed towards the closest mound of rubble.
“First Sergeant Megs,” she said aloud, “I hope you’re worth all this.”
An hour later, Akella walked back towards the padlocked tower door with a splintered tribesman’s spear, iron spearhead still attached. The spearhead wasn’t narrow enough to fit through the shackle of the padlock, but maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to pry the hasp from the door. She tried not to think about the fact that even if she did manage to get the padlock off, she’d still have to deal with the weaker lock in the door itself. Her bruised shoulder was still throbbing.
She set her lantern down, shoved the spearhead between the door and the frame, and heaved. The hasp didn’t even screech in protest. She tried again, this time wiggling the ragged spear haft back and forth. Despite the cold, a bead of sweat formed on the back of her neck. This time, her efforts yielded a loosened hasp. She’d be able to rip it off after all. With a grin, Akella braced one booted foot against the doorframe, wrapped her good hand around the haft, and pulled with all her strength.
Wood cracked like a mast being taken down by a hurricane, but instead of the screws connecting hasp to doorframe giving, it was the spear that gave way. Akella flew backwards as the haft separated from the spearhead, landing hard on her arse in a pile of scorched gravel and broken timbers covered by a drift of snow. She supposed she should be grateful for the snow for breaking her fall, but now her entire backside was coated in the stuff.
She stood back up and dusted as much of the snow off as she could, then realized with a start she still held the broken spear shaft in her hand. She threw it angrily into the pile of rubble across from the guard tower.
“Bloody continent and its bloody winter!” she shouted at stones and timbers. Not satisfied, she kicked a rock, sending it skipping over the pile.
“Oi!” called a voice. “You there. Whadda’ye think yer doin’?”
A ginger-bearded sergeant approached along the base of the wall, helm pulled so low over his forehead so that Akella could hardly make out his eyes.
Time to come up with that plausible excuse. Good thing she’d had hours to think one up.
Akella held up her palms to show that she was unarmed. “Ho, Sergeant. Good evening to you.”
“G’evening to you, too, though it’s more like midnight than evening,” he replied. His hand rested on the pommel of his short sword, and he didn’t come any closer. “I asked ye what ye was doing.”
Keeping her open palms up, Akella tilted her head sideways towards the tower door. “I was – well, to be honest, Sergeant, I needed to open that tower door.”
“Needed?” he scoffed, taking a step in her direction. “What is it exactly ye need –”
He stopped short, both in speech and movement. The hand on his sword pommel slowly lifted, forefinger pointing at Akella.
Her brow creased, confused.
“It’s – yer that Adessian, ain’t ye? The one what saved our ship during the storm a few months back?”
Suddenly he was striding towards Akella. She flinched backwards, bumping up against the doorframe. But then he extended a gloved hand. She eyed it for a moment before realizing he was trying to shake her hand. She took his hand awkwardly, and he pumped it up and down.
“I was in the Empress’s battalion – Eagle Battalion, that is – so I was on that ship when the storm hit.” He spoke rapidly, eagerly. Akella was fairly certain she smelled alcohol on his breath. “They reassigned me to Elk Battalion back in Tergos. First Division instead o’ Third. But listen to me talk! You, you saved the whole sorry lot of us. We’d be at the bottom o’ the sea without ye. Saved the Empress, too, ye did. Yer more goddess to us than Mother Moon ’erself.”
“There’s only one goddess, and her domain is the sea,” Akella said. The Sergeant’s smile faltered for a moment. “But yes. I took command of the Balus that night.”
His grin returned twofold. “Then I really am in the presence of an authentic bloody hero, ain’t I? I owe ye my life. The Empress owes ye her life.”
Akella inspected the man quickly, subtly enough that he wouldn’t notice her doing it. She took in the wear on his armor, the sergeant’s insignia on his shoulder, and – most importantly – the key ring hanging from his belt.
“No, no,” she said. “The common Imperial soldiers – you’re the real heroes. First Division in particular.” She gave a sympathetic frown. “We heard about your general falling to mountain men. I was there the day the Empress told the Commander of the Palace Guard to take charge of First Division. And it was your division who took the risk of first entering Pellon.”
It pained Akella to call Imperial soldiers heroes, and she also wasn’t present when the Empress ordered her concubine to take command of the division on the northern part of the front. That had been Linna. But it wouldn’t hurt the sergeant to think Akella was closer to the Empress than she really was.
“Aye, well, just our job, innit?” the sergeant said, drawing himself a few inches taller. He sounded to Akella like a falsely humble goodwife whose baking had just been unexpectedly complimented. He pushed his helm up an inch, revealing blue eyes that took on the sparkle of curiosity. “We figured it’d be a trap, mountain men clearing outta Pellon an’ all. Figured the second we entered the city, they’d spring up from their gopher holes an’ cut us all down.” He spread his hands. “But they ain’t anywhere t’be seen, is they? Heard the Imperial Army was cinchin’ the noose ’round their necks and shrunk on back ’fore they could get theirselves strangled.”
The Sergeant chuckled. When his laughter trailed off, he studied Akella for a moment longer than was comfortable. Then he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Ye say ye need to get into that guard tower there?”
“Aye, Sergeant. I do.”
“Ain’t supposed to let anyone in.” He made a face, and Akella opened her mouth to argue that she was here on direct, secret orders of the Empress, but the Sergeant kept talking. “Me muster’s charged with mannin’ the city walls and towers. Ye believe that? One muster – or what’s left of us – for all the walls an’ all the towers? One o’the men in me squad’s from right here in Pellon, says that even in peace times there’s close to a hunnert an’ fifty city guardsmen along the walls an’ gates an’ what-not, even in the dead o’ night. An’ here our muster’s down t’sixty-five. Sixty-five, Captain. Ye ask me – no one ever does, but ye ask me – we ought t’have three times that many men on the walls. But the Commandant tol’ us the rest of Elk Battalion’s gotta shore up the city ’fore the next blizzard hits.” He made a face, eyes scanning the tower behind Akella. “I’m from the Capital Lands, I am. Not far from Boling. Ye know Boling?”
“Think I’ve been there once or twice.” Akella thought it would be better not to tell him under what circumstances.
“Aye, well, I think I saw snow once in me life in the Capital Lands,” he went on, not really acknowledging Akella’s response. “A bit o’ white stuff on the ground, but the dirt still showed through most places. An’ here? They get enough snow to bury a man up t’his waist every week. Every week, Mother Moon save ye.”
Akella nodded. “Sergeant, about the tower…”
He slapped his helm. “Oi, listen t’me go on!” The sergeant gave Akella an exaggerated, conspiratorial wink. “I mighta had a bit too much ale ’fore me shift, I did, tryna keep me’self warm.” He pulled the keyring from its spot at his belt. “What was it ye needed from this tower?”
This was going to be even easier than she thought.
“Sergeant,” Akella said with a regretful sigh, “I’d like to tell you what I’m here to look for, truly I would, but … well, the Empress, you understand, she doesn’t want me to –”
He held up a hand. “Say no more, Captain. Say no more.”