Vol.7, Ch.3, P.9
Though the going proved slow and uneasy, Raakel, Lise, and I had managed to lead our charges to Merkulov’s west end. At present, after quitting the southerly gardens and stealing our way hither across the Acadēmī̆a grounds, we were all halted and sheltering in view of the grand college frontage.
“Madame! No hostiles reported in the vicinity!” advised a knightly subordinate of mine.
“Very good,” I nodded.
Luckily, we’d also reunited with some comrades along the way: namely, a few members of my Order, as well as a handful of Praetorians that’d been roving and saving whomever they could. Of course, our new total gave us little cause still to relax, and I yet kept the princess close at hand. But at the very least, things were seeming less dire than before.
The skies rumbled above. Clouds had gathered. A restless wind was in the air. But at that moment, one more person was happily added to our company.
“Your Highness!” he called. “O, pray tell me you are unharmed!”
’Twas Captain Björn of the Praetorians who, discovering us, now came quickly hither from the grand college’s entrance.
“Björn!” Her Highness gasped. “Yes, I am hale. And so seemest thou! A solace for a sore heart doth this be.”
Then, for the first time this day, the princess shone with joy. ’Twas plain to see that she trusted to and thought fondly of the old captain. And I’d rejoiced, too, at their meeting, when I noted much blood staining the captain’s garb and armour. He held a dagger in hand, which he wedged into his belt as he came. The blade of it also was tinted red, as if wiped time and again through many battles. Had he been fighting his way out of that college? I had to wonder altogether, whilst relieved that we hadn’t approached the building any nearer than we’d done.
“And you all seem sound enough, I’m glad to see,” he said, looking then through the rest of us. “And you, my lads! Thank heavens!” he called aside, whence now came his Praetorians in wonder and relief.
“Björn,” said Her Highness, after the cheer had settled down. “How camest thou hither west? What hath befallen thee?”
The captain sighed. “Much, my Princess,” he answered. “Till not a while ago, I was accompanying the war-chief Rolf. But alas, he—”
“What!?” I yelped, feeling my heart jump right inside my bosom. And to the side, I caught Lise herself wide of eye at the same news.
♰
Thence did we share our goings-on and any information of avail. For his part, Björn recounted his chance meeting with Rolf somewhere around the north-eastern grounds, and of their westward journey hither. It eased me immensely to hear that Rolf’d survived the evil at the steeple, and that though they’d crossed many a foe, the two had somehow managed largely unharmed. Still, there lingered questions. Though I now knew why Rolf’d been nowhere to be seen—we’d each ended up going opposite ways, after all!—it disheartened me to miss him even as the captain was now with us.
Regardless, I could but wonder at it all. Rolf and Björn? Together? Having commuted to Redelberne no few times before, I’d become rather acquainted with the Praetorians, and ever had this old captain of theirs come across as rather an old-fashioned curmudgeon—exactly the sort to turn up his nose at so… well, “special” a person as Rolf. I could only imagine what compromises had allowed such a coalition.
“Long indeed hast thou striven with him,” Her Highness reflected quietly upon Björn’s account. “But wherefore this college? What lieth therein?”
“A leader, Highness,” answered Björn. “We came and slew inside the seeming commander to these conspirators. But, as the dust settled, the war-chief Rolf deduced the mastermind to be some other man entirely—that we had missed our mark.”
“And thereafter were ye two separated…” the princess mulled aloud. “And thy tidings of enemy reinforcements: of that thou art certain?”
“Certain, indeed,” Björn said gravely. “Numbers now approach too soon to be any friend of ours. Nay; ’tis a foesome flag they fly in their hearts, if not overhead.”
Out of the frying pan, as the saying goes… Here we were, glad to find some friends at last, only to be told that the enemy’ve got friends of their own. As Björn’d measured during his account, ’twas a host no smaller than a cohort that now galloped against us—a number far too great for us to resist, especially with persons so vital to conduct.
“Your Mightiness,” uttered one such person to me, “our situation seems rather… ill, does it not?”
’Twas the lord chancellor. By the cold sweat upon his face—colder now than it’d seemed ever before—he appeared mere steps away from despair. I had to pity him, truth be told, being trapped alongside Her Highness as he was, and with naught to look forward to but a terrible reckoning.
“There’s little worry. Succour is to come soon also from our side, I’m sure,” responded Lise. She then turned to our Praetorian captain and—very boorishly, I must add—said, “You there, Moustache-Man. Has aught of this spoken Rolf?”
One needn’t be of the Guard to mark their captain a loather of ill-mannered urchins. And indeed he showed it here, as with a twitch of his fiery moustache, Björn glared upon Lise. Nevertheless, he did reply duly, if not none too happily. “Yes, as a matter of fact: the Himmel’s swiftest, he guessed, ride now to forestall the reinforcements, just as you say, bearing numbers few but fierce.”
“Good,” nodded Lise. “Small matter be the enemies outside, then. If things go well, why, even the gates may be freed before we know it.”
A passing hopeful thing to say. Though if Rolf himself had reasoned as much, then perhaps there really was some hope in the offing. Presuming so, I then began to weigh our next course of action. Ought we continue eluding the enemies here? And seek what comrades as we may whilst we’re at it? Or ought we chance couching anear the south gates for Lise’s succour? Craving another opinion, I turned to my friend and Owlcrane.
“Say, Raa—”
And stopped.
“…kel?”
She wasn’t here. No, nowhere at all. How very odd… She had been up till but a moment ago. I scanned about more carefully, but no luck. ’Twas surely unthinkable for a leader as herself to disappear like this, not least amidst a battlefield, and in such a plight as we were now. Dumbfounded, I felt my breath halting. But no sooner had I done than did a strange flash blind the air. And then, like some laughter mocking me in my confusion, a vast and sudden noise split my ears.
“Hkh!?”
Everything shook, air and earth. A hot gust then threatened to knock us all to the ground. And next we knew, yonder afore us, all the grand college had erupted in a mountain of flame.
For a moment, I stood in horror, staring at the sheer, unbridled destruction. Several sections of the building had blown up. And against a sky that darkled all of a sudden, the timbers that composed them infinitely spilt upon us in a rain of embers and burning smithers.
“Highness!” cried Björn behind me. And as I heard him shelter the princess, so did an uncanny trickle of ruin hiss all ’round, and the earth drum when many beams and joists fell to smite it without relent. And amidst the devastation, there fell also a smattering of gear, armour, weapons… and flesh—all charred, smoking, and sundered.
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