Fortress Al-Mir

Nyala peered around the edge of one of the many doors within Fortress Al-Mir. Something big was going on. Something she didn’t want to miss. The two months she had spent with that miserable Master taught her a few things. Maybe things more important than anything she had learned while still at Hallow Hill.

Knowing what was going on was important. Vitally so. Being able to anticipate the Master’s mood and plans for the day let her adjust herself to be exactly what he had wanted to see. Knowing saved her from several beatings that others hadn’t been so lucky to avoid. Not all of them, unfortunately, but enough that she had managed to get away with bruises whereas the others came away with scars or clipped ears.

Fortress Al-Mir was different. She knew that now. Ever since that outing a few weeks ago when she had stolen the knife from the market. Somehow, even with his back turned, he knew the instant she laid her fingers on the blade. She had thought she was going to die then and there. There would have been nothing she could have done about it. Yet, instead, he had given her his dagger just so that he could return the knife she stole to its proper owner.

He even said that she could leave if she wanted. Go home to Hallow Hill.

She couldn’t go back. Hallow Hill was a secret. Those who left weren’t allowed back. Even though she hadn’t wanted to leave, she figured she wouldn’t be welcome leading people back to the Hill. Not that she could if she wanted to. She didn’t know where it was. The people who had taken her away had thrown her into a cage with a sack over her head, dragging her away. She couldn’t even retrace her steps.

Until she figured out what she was supposed to do—what she was going to do—Nyala didn’t have anywhere else to go. That didn’t mean she was going to sit around in her room like a child. Knowing was important even if the people here weren’t going to beat her. Especially when something so big was happening.

There were people here now. Many people. At least a hundred, though with them moving around in the large room, Nyala wasn’t able to count exactly. Most looked young. As young as she was, if not younger. There wasn’t a single person in the room who looked too old. Not even middle-aged.

Beyond their ages, Nyala couldn’t help but notice the state the newcomers were in. Everyone looked half-starved and quite a few sported fading marks, minor scars, and missing bits of hair. Not that odd, all things considered. Travel was dangerous and hard work could leave bruises on the careless. Yet there was one thing that Nyala’s sharp eyes picked out above all else.

Without exception, every one of the newcomers had thick rings of black and blue bruises around their wrists.

That was familiar. With one hand clenching tight to the sheath of her dagger, Nyala’s other hand rubbed her wrists, feeling the phantom pain of heavy shackles weighing her down.

Narrowing her eyes, Nyala focused on the faces, trying to discern why there were slaves here and whether or not she should finally try to flee. She hadn’t been able to find any exits during her stealthy explorations of this place but there were plenty of doors that wouldn’t open for her. However, looking over the crowd, she started to feel the tension in the back of her neck relax.

She knew what expressions slaves wore. The downtrodden, hopelessness of being taken from a village that had either been destroyed or that they would never see again. She had seen it herself on more faces than she could count. Probably her own face as well.

Instead, among this group within Fortress Al-Mir, there was an undercurrent of hope. It wasn’t exactly joy. Plenty, especially the youngest among the group, still looked frightened as they watched with weary eyes. They weren’t slaves. At least not anymore.

They were like her.

Which was something that might have been more obvious if she looked at their actions rather than their appearance.

The more familiar orcs were moving about the room along with that monster that made Nyala shudder every time their gazes met—a disturbingly common occurrence given she had eyes everywhere on her body. They moved through the room, setting up large tents spread about. It was a bit strange to put tents indoors. She didn’t know why they didn’t just build rooms. She had seen those smaller monsters digging this place out over the past week, using some kind of magic to make tiles and brick walls that would have sparked envy in any builder back at Hallow Hill.

The older newcomers were helping the orcs and that monster, putting up tents themselves as well as bringing in low cots for sleeping, chairs, and even some tools like the kind a carpenter would use. Maybe they were planning on building more permanent dwellings.

“What are you doing out here?”

Nyala yelped, jolting as she whirled around. It wasn’t easy to sneak up on an elf, not with their hearing, yet she must have let herself get too distracted with the newcomers. Spinning around, clutching her blade tight with one hand on the hilt and the other on the sheath, she found herself faced with someone her height. At first, she thought it was a human child. Elves typically grew at a much slower rate compared to humans until their middle-late teenage years, at which point they would have a sharp growth spurt and put on several heads of height over a year. Nyala had yet to hit that spurt so someone her height could be even a few years younger than she was.

She quickly noticed a few things wrong with that assumption. This person had pointed ears, though not long like an elf. She had a round head with thin, slightly wavy pupils. Her bright red hair defied gravity as it stuck up, making her look taller than she actually was.

“You’re a gremlin.”

The gremlin smiled, showing off sharp teeth. “How come you’re not with the others?”

“Others?” Nyala blinked, stiffening as she realized she was standing fully within the doorway. More than a few of the newcomers were looking in her direction. Crushing her lips into a thin line, Nyala turned away and started walking in the opposite direction from the gremlin.

“Hey, wait! I don’t think you’re supposed to be walking around on your own.”

“I’m fine,” Nyala snapped back, breaking into a hurried jog.

“Arkk said he wanted you all together until he had a chance to speak with everyone. I don’t think you’re supposed to be walking around with this knife either. It’s dangerous, you know?”

Nyala blinked. This knife? Glancing down to her hands, she lurched to a stop when she realized both were empty. Spinning around, she glared at the gremlin. The demihuman stopped a few paces back, holding the dagger in one hand as she examined the blade.

“Not the best blade I’ve seen. The edge is a bit dull and the tip is chipped. It has seen some use. I would guess mostly at cutting thick hide but there are a few notches here that look more like damage from metal against metal. A hunting dagger used in combat? That’s my guess.”

“Give it back.”

The gremlin snapped the blade back into the sheath. Looking at Nyala for a moment, she grabbed the edge of her long jacket. It was a brown leather thing that looked worn beyond reasonable use. From the waist down, it was less a jacket and more long ribbons of leather that hung down just below the gremlin’s knees. However, that wasn’t an intentional design choice. The ribbons looked torn and ripped, likely over a great deal of time. Pinched between her fingers, the gremlin pulled open her jacket.

Nyala’s eyes boggled at the display underneath. She wore a matching leather corset that wrapped around her middle. On it, a dozen needle-sized shafts of sharp metal lined her corset, making her into a facsimile of a metal skeleton. A long bandolier hung from shoulder to hip, covered with thicker blades. The entirety of the inside of her jacket looked made up of nothing but knives arranged back and forth in rows.

“I think I’ll keep hold of it until I have a chance to talk to Arkk,” she said, moving to slip the dagger somewhere among the mess of other blades. “Why don’t you come back—”

Nyala lunged at the gremlin. That was her dagger. Arkk had given it to her so that she could defend herself. It rankled how easily it had been taken from her but she wasn’t about to sit around and let the gremlin keep it. He promised her lessons. She would never get those lessons if he thought she was so useless that she couldn’t even keep hold of his gift.

The lunge caught the gremlin off guard. They both went to the floor, Nyala on top with the gremlin twisting underneath. She grasped at the dagger, fully prepared to wrench it out of the gremlin’s grip, only for the gremlin to let go with hardly a fight. Nyala didn’t let her surprise get the best of her. Springing off the floor, she backed away, not taking her eyes off the gremlin.

“I’m all for a roll-around as much as the next woman but you’ve got to give me some warning,” she said, straightening her jacket and corset as she got to her feet. “You almost skewered yourself. And not on anything fun.”

Nyala didn’t say anything back to the gremlin. She took a step back, drawing the dagger and pointing its tip toward her enemy. Only to get the gremlin rolling her eyes.

“You’re holding it all wrong.” The gremlin produced a blade from somewhere inside her jacket. She spun it around her finger twice before gripping the hilt. The way she grabbed it was backward. If her arm were out with her thumb up, the blade would be pointed at the ground. “Like this,” she said, taking a step forward.

Nyala took a step back. She didn’t turn and flee from the much more experienced gremlin. The gremlin could probably have flung one of those daggers right at her if she wanted to hurt her. More importantly, Nyala’s sharp ears picked up on a set of familiar footsteps approaching from the large room with all the newcomers.

“Someone your size needs all the power you can scrape together,” the gremlin continued, oblivious. “You’re more likely to pierce light armor with a heavy downward slam than any wimpy jab or slash the way you’re holding it. If you—”

“What is going on out here?”

The smile on the gremlin’s face froze. She turned around, using the movement to hide the dagger back under her jacket, and faced an irritated Ilya. “I saw this one sneaking about,” she said. “I tried to bring her back but she got a knife from somewhere and I thought she needed a few pointers.”

“Lexa… Nyala is not one of our recent arrivals,” Ilya said, lips tight. “I hope you weren’t threatening her.”

“No! Of course not. I’m a thief, not a monster,” the gremlin said, turning to Nyala with an expression that pleaded for affirmation.

At the movement, Ilya’s eyes flicked up, pointedly looking at the dagger in Nyala’s hands. “What did Arkk say when he gave that to you?”

Nyala flinched, slipping it back into its sheath. “Not to use it on anyone at the fortress.”

“Then why is it out? Was Lexa threatening you?”

That pleading expression on the gremlin boiled over into silent, panicked begging. The gremlin hadn’t threatened her… Not if she really thought that one of the newcomers was running around with a knife. She could still say so and Ilya would surely believe her story over the gremlin’s… Which the gremlin knew, judging by her expression.

“Arkk also said I could seek lessons from someone if he couldn’t find the time. I saw how many daggers she had and figured she knew how to use them, so I asked.”

“Like I said, I was just giving out a few pointers,” the gremlin said, quick to latch onto the provided excuse.

Ilya looked between them. It was the same expression Nyala had seen on her mother’s face when she had been caught fighting with her brother only for both of them to claim that nothing was happening. Nyala smothered the painful feeling in her stomach that welled up at the thought of Hallow Hill and quickly moved forward.

“Lexa promised to teach me how to fight.”

The gremlin raised an eyebrow but didn’t offer any corrections to the statement, merely shrugging and nodding her head.

With a slight shake of her head and a faint sigh, Ilya turned. “I see,” she said, not sounding too happy about the prospect. “Worry about that later. There are a lot of new people here and a lot of them are scared or uncertain. Your experiences here could help reassure them. It would also be good for you and Yavin to meet them. Why not fetch him and meet us back here? It would be good for Lexa to meet him too so that there aren’t any other misunderstandings.”

Lexa let out a lame chuckle, running her fingers through her red hair.

Nyala stared at her for a moment before turning away to head back to her room. She didn’t know if she would get lessons from the gremlin. She didn’t know if she wanted lessons from the gremlin. A part of her hoped so. Or hoped that the newcomers would need a lot of attention.

Anything that would help distract her from thoughts of her lost home.

“It seems… the consul have… uh… canceled on the day’s meeting,” the nervous attendant said, shifting awkwardly before remembering something. “Your Highness,” he quickly added.

Duke Levi Woldair didn’t outwardly show his irritation in the attendant’s mannerisms or lack of decorum. His fingers drummed against the armrest of his throne. The repetitive thumping of each finger against the near-black wood was more than enough to make the attendant flinch over and over again.

“Cancelled.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that those barbarians have such pathetic manners.” The Duke stood from his throne and began walking back and forth in front of it, one hand tucked against his back while the other held tight to the ermine cloak draped over his shoulders. “They barge into our domain, demand an audience, and then renege? Did they offer any excuses or request an alternate meeting time?”

“I… don’t think they are interested in any further meetings.”

The Duke stopped and slowly turned his head. “You don’t think?”

“When the escort arrived at the consulate, they found it abandoned. Your Highness.”

“Abandoned? Was it an attack?” the Duke asked with a hint of nervousness entering his tone.

The attendant shook his head, looking like he wished it was. “No. Just deserted. From piecing together reports of those in the neighborhood… it seems as if the consul and their retinue departed Cliff in the middle of the night. About a week ago.”

The Duke froze, locking in place with an expression that would frighten a battle-hardened orc. He took a step forward, pointing at the attendant. “You—” He didn’t get any further before a lithe set of fingers gently graced his elbow. He closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath. “Get out,” the Duke said, voice soft. “Out!” he said, louder. “All of you.”

No one needed telling twice. The guards, attendants, and advisors all vanished, slipping out of the long throne room through the nearest exits. When the last door slammed shut, the Duke sank back onto his throne, cupping his eyes with the palms of his hands.

“Why? Why now? Things were going so well. The banquets, the lavish gifts… Relations with the Evestani Sultanate have never been better. I was set to marry the Sultan’s second daughter!” His fist slammed down onto his thigh. “Then the ambassadors departed. Communications turned hostile. Troops started amassing on the border, demanding entry. The special consul they sent in won’t even meet with me to tell me why. What changed? Was it something I did?”

Alya licked her lips, not sure what the best response would be. With her hand on his shoulder, they had been well on their way to forging a lasting peace between two nations that had been at war time and time again throughout her lifetime. Just when the end had come within sight, with the Princess and the Duke’s marriage only needing a date for the ceremony… this happened. “You treated them with dignity and respect. You offered a wealth of gifts… peace…” she said, trailing off, entirely at a loss of how to salvage the situation.

“And they have thrown that peace in my face,” the Duke said, thumping his head back against the high wall of the throne. “Winter is starting. They won’t march an army this time of year. Their soldiers would die of frostbitten limbs before crossing half of the Duchy.”

“Then… perhaps there is still time. We have a few months to figure out—”

“Is there a point?” the Duke snapped, angry eyes meeting her silver eyes. “They have proved themselves the barbarians we knew they were. Unable to carry on a meaningful dialog when whatever happened upset them so much.”

“The point is to avoid another war…”

“I feel we have crossed that bridge,” the Duke said, shaking his head. “We have three months of winter. Not to guess at the motivations of their childish sultan and bow down to his temperamental whims, but to prepare.”

“If we could just speak with Princess—”

“And how do you propose we do that?” the Duke asked, shaking his head. “She is deep within the Sultanate, likely locked up by her mad father for daring to consort with me.”

“Her father endorsed the marriage!”

“Her father is the one gathering an army on our border!” The Duke stood, flourishing his ermine cloak as he stepped away from the throne. He paused and turned his head. “We tried,” he said. “We failed. Perhaps our nation’s children will have a better chance. For now, we cannot afford to continue as we have been. We have to prepare or they will never get that chance.”

Alya leaned back against the wall where she had been standing just to the side of the Duke’s throne, watching the short man approach the main entryway with a forlorn look on her face.

“Fetch the messenger harpies,” he barked as he threw open the door. “And someone get White Company here as soon as possible.”

The strength in her legs faltered, leading to her slumping down onto the throne. She put a hand to her forehead, wondering much the same questions the Duke had asked. Why now? What happened in the last four months that threw away all their hard work and effort over the last fifteen years?