Quint turned around to look into the face of one of his old roommates.
“Sorry about Pozella, but if we don’t get out of here, we will feel sorry for ourselves,” the officer said.
He found a uniform coat and hat on a hook that someone had left behind and put it on. Quint left with other soldiers and took a side street to avoid the imminent confrontation with Guilica’s forces. The streets were almost empty of civilians and uniformed soldiers gathered here and there. Quint did his best to avoid them until he stood in front of the wall that protected the grounds of the council’s palace. The military headquarters was on the other side of the palace and Quint needed to be creative to transverse the grounds.
He found a servants’ entrance, but it was unmanned and locked. He spotted an overturned cart near to the gate. Quint dragged a pallet off the cart and knelt on it as he cast a teleportation string. He gave the string all the power he could, and it bolted into the air. Quint had never tried such a thing before, so he lowered the height of the pallet and sped across the open field with the pallet a handspan above the grass.
Quint reached the other side without a challenge. He applied more power to his string and moved the pallet over the wall and let the pallet settle, but before it did, Quint sneezed, and the pallet tilted depositing Quint on the dirt below.
After bruising his ego more than anything else, Quint lowered the pallet all the way and quickly looked around to see if anyone saw him. He didn’t know the outside of the building on this side, but he crept around the building and entered a door he had used many times while he worked for Colonel Gerocie.
The fighting had reached all the way to the third floor with bodies he recognized and many he didn’t still bleeding out. He put his hand over his mouth to reduce the smells and entered the diplomacy corps offices. Colonel Gerocie had died in front of her desk, a sword still in her hand. There wasn’t a living soul in the office. General Obellia was a rival of the grand marshal, and it was clear who had prevailed.
The offices had cleared out, but Quint heard voices from below. He took back stairs to the basement and voices were coming from down the hall. There were two soldiers standing guard at the office Quint had made for Fedor Danko. He heard Danko’s voice and was about to enter the corridor when he realized that Danko was arguing with someone, which wasn’t surprising.
“You promised me safe passage,” Fedor said.
“If the coup was bloodless. As you can see that is not the case,” a voice said.
“You wouldn’t have failed if you could have restrained your soldiers from murdering innocent hubites. That act had two results, the world found out about your hubite hatred and when found out, you moved your timetable up weeks from what we discussed,” Fedor said.
Quint realized that Fedor was not an innocent in all of this, and he was in league with Grand Marshal Guilica. How wrong could he have been? Yet, here he was attempting to save the Dankos so he could escape from Racellia aboard Danko’s ship.
Quint sat back on the stairs and thought for a moment. He still had nowhere to go in Racellia, especially if Guilica prevailed. Danko’s ship still offered him the best way off South Fenola. He could see a way out by helping Danko. His only viable move was forward and that meant taking care of the guards.
Quint slid closer to the edge of the wall hiding him from the guards in the corridor. The shouting continued. Its result didn’t matter to Quint other than Fedor had to survive. He created a sleep string and ran into the corridor. When he saw the guards, he didn’t have to act to look surprised. They were Gerocie’s people and former colleagues. He cast the strings and the men, wearing blood spattered uniforms, dropped.
“Who is out there?” the grand marshal said. “Did you kill my men?”
Quint thought that question had an obvious answer despite the fact the men weren’t dead. If Quint replied everyone would know how young he was, so he didn’t reply. He cast a magic shield in case there was a wizard in Danko’s office.
Prepared with another sleep string, stirring between Quint’s palms, he walked closer to the office door. Two more men jumped into the corridor. Both were dressed in black and wore wizard corps insignia. They cast fire spears, but the fire splashed against Quint’s shield. He put them to sleep and advanced toward the office.
“Whoever you are, I’ll make you a rich man once all this is over,” the voice said.
Quint remained silent.
“Tell me who you are!” the voice commanded.
Quint finally stepped to the door and cast another sleep spell at an older man with salt and pepper hair. Danko and his daughter were standing behind Danko’s desk. Quint stepped forward to check the general. With all the gold braid, this had to be Guilica.
“Quint. I was hoping it would be you. Is he dead?” Danko asked.
“Sleeping. It’s time we got you on the boat.”
“How will you ever get past all the soldiers at the front of the building?” Fedor asked.
“The same way I got in,” Quint said. “Are you all right?”
Fedor snorted. “We were never in any real danger, until now. You’ve complicated things.”
Quint looked quizzically at Fedor. Why had he hoped Quint was behind the attack when he had made a mess of things? He was about to turn to Calee, when something smashed into his head. As he twisted when he fell, he saw her holding the broken shards of the vase she had just hit him with.
Chapter Thirty-Thre
e
Quint’s stomach lurched as he woke. He looked up to see sails bowing out with the wind coming at an angle behind them. Someone had put him on a blanket on the deck of a ship. He staggered to his feet and lost whatever had been left in his stomach into the ocean. His eyes, blinking into focus, showed a faint irregular line of a darker blue on the horizon.
His hands and feet were unbound, and he didn’t see anything of Fedor Danko or his daughter. Someone had wrapped a bandage around his head.
The purser walked up to him. “Stay on the rail for a bit until your stomach settles, if you’re lucky. If you’re not, you’ll stay on the rail until it does. Some stomachs never do take to the roll of the waves.”
“Danko? Did he board the ship? Did Danko bring me on board?”
The purser looked at the quarterdeck nervously and shook his head. “Some of the sailors looking for Danko found you sprawled in the back of the building where Danko had his office yesterday afternoon. They originally thought you were dead, but you twitched or something and brought you on board because I told them about you.”
“Does Danko know I’m onboard?” Quint changed his first question a little.
The purser turned to look at the ocean. “Quite honestly, he doesn’t. The captain couldn’t leave you in a heap after having said you’d be looking for Danko, too. Danko and his daughter made it back just before midnight and are in with the captain now, and we are on the ocean. We won’t be turning back to Bocarre for any reason. You said this is what you wanted.”
“It is,” Quint said. “My possessions?”
“On the ship,” the purser said. “I hope you were right about being able to do your sums since you are now my mate. That is the equivalent of an apprentice.”
