Gasps swept through the tent. The two armoured men who had jumped from their seats, swords in hand, looked at General Ibonek. Then they shifted their attention to the scrappy kid, their foreheads creased before returning their gaze to the general. Their hands wavered on their swords, unsure whether to keep the blades raised or to sheathe them. When their eyes took in Elliott and the weapons on his back, they decided it was better to keep the swords up.
The woman who was sat beside the general was halfway to rising from her chair, her palms on the armrests, a frown and uncertainty creasing her face as she studied Taalan’s. The two officers seated on the edges of the gathering remained glued to their seats, eyes wide, mouths agape. Even the servants looked shocked, though they did their best to keep their heads down, one or two stealing a look at the man who Ibonek was bowing to.
Elliott was a little annoyed with himself as he eyed Taalan up and down. He was a skinny lad, not quite filled out yet, but he didn’t look like he’d been among the refugees for long. He certainly didn’t have that malnourished look that the others had. Elliott had known Taalan was someone different, but he’d thought Taalan might have been an apprentice of some sort. Perhaps apprenticed to the mage that had brought him here. The last thing he would have guessed is him being royalty. He didn’t carry himself with that sort of arrogance. And hadn’t Korin said the King and his family had been executed?
Taalan walked forward and placed his hands on General Ibonek’s shoulders, gesturing for him to stand. “Do you think we could get some privacy?”
Ibonek glanced around the room, at the guards and the other officers who had been sitting with him. “Keep this to yourselves. I better not hear even a whisper that others know. Everyone out.”
The guards at the entrance were the first to leave, followed by the servants with their trays. The other five men and women who had been sitting in the high chairs also moved towards the tent entrance, the two who had their swords out deciding they could sheathe them but still casting wary glances at Elliott. As the older woman behind Ibonek stepped past him, Taalan spoke.
“Not you, General Thessa.”
She stumbled with a soft clang of metal as one mailed leg brushed into the other, her eyes on Taalan’s face.
As the others were leaving, Elliott stepped away from Taalan and walked to the side of the table, sweeping his eyes over the miniature model of the region. A large black square was placed almost in the centre of the table. Just above it and on its left were four small red rectangles. Further above, small pyramids lined the top and right edges of the table from where Elliott stood, and beside the pyramids were small brown sticks topped with green tufts. It seemed to represent the mountain ranges and the forest at their base.
Once the tent had emptied, Taalan spoke to the woman with a smile on his face. “Have you recognised me yet, Auntie?”
Her eyes widened at the way he’d addressed her. She looked closer at his face, her forehead creased as she tried to recall something.
“Aldric?” Thessa stepped closer, placing the palm of her hand on Taalan’s cheek. “It can’t be.” She put her other hand on the other side of his face, pulling at the skin, rubbing it as she stared at him in wonder, like she couldn’t believe her touch nor her eyes. “How? You…died.” She couldn’t hold back any longer, tears forming in her brown eyes. “We went to your funeral,” she accused, even as she wrapped an arm around his neck, her other hand on the back of his head pulling him towards her for an embrace. She sobbed into his shoulder as silent tears fell from his eyes.
Elliott continued scanning the table. There were small circular yellow discs between the brown sticks with green tufts. Further south, near the base of the table, there was a lone pyramid surrounded by two red rectangles. He looked up at Taalan, the woman still holding him. Elliott coughed and drew their attention.
“Hate to break up a family reunion, but there’ll be plenty of time for you two to cry later. What’s this?” he asked, pointing at the lone pyramid.
A flash of displeasure crossed Ibonek’s eyes. “Who is this man who speaks with such insolence to the King, Your Majesty?”
Elliott cocked his head at the general, at least a century younger than himself, though he looked twice as old. “Is a king without a crown still a king?”
“There’s no need for formalities from you, Ibonek,” Taalan said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Thessa stepped back, eyes still not quite believing Taalan was alive. “And I don’t think Elliott here is the type to care much about formalities.”
“Who is he?” Ibonek asked, eyes fixed on Elliott.
Taalan walked around the table, coming to stand by Elliott’s side.
“An ally,” Taalan replied, “whose help we need.” He studied the table and its miniature models, his right hand hovering above the pyramid to the south. Elliott saw a slight tremble in the man’s hand, a slight pursing of his lips like he was debating something to himself.
“It’s another town,” Taalan said a moment later, blue eyes meeting Elliott’s black. Beyond him, Elliott saw a look of puzzlement flash across Ibonek’s face, before it was gone as quickly as it had come. So, not a town then. Something else. The boy was lying to him.
“The red are the enemy, I assume? Yellow’s your troops?” Elliott glanced at Ibonek.
“That’s right.”
“How many men here?”
“Two-and-a-half thousand per red. About two hundred per yellow.”
That would be fifteen thousand men the Bizaynians had between the two locations. Possibly more that weren’t marked on the map. The Rhianians had around two thousand scattered across the forest.
“I could kill all the soldiers, if you wanted. You could take back the towns.”
Taalan turned to Ibonek and Thessa. Both of them were frowning like they’d heard Elliott say the sky was pink.
“What do you think?” Taalan asked.
Ibonek blinked a couple of times like Taalan had lost his mind, but he answered the question anyway, though he continued frowning at Elliott.
“There wouldn’t be much point to taking back the town. It would only be a matter of time before the Bizaynians sent another force. A much larger, stronger one that would destroy us along with the town.”
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“What were your plans here then?” Elliott asked. “Why stay in enemy territory?”
Ibonek looked at Taalan, who nodded.
“We’ve been skirmishing with their forces. Killing scout parties. Trying to disrupt them while rescuing as many Rhianians as we could, but we haven’t heard from our contact in the town for over a week. We were just discussing what to do next before you entered.”
“What did you decide?” Taalan asked.
“I believe it’s best to head south. The only other route away from the Bizaynians is through the mountains, which isn’t practical.”
“You also wanted to go south?” Elliott asked Taalan.
Taalan nodded. “It’s the closest allied nation. Their queen is my father’s cousin.”
“How far south?”
“Three hundred miles to the border. Five hundred to the city.”
“Bring the refugees to the forest, then take them south?”
“Yes,” Taalan smiled at Elliott. “Let them eat and rest tonight. And then we can leave in the morning.” He looked at Ibonek.
“We can make the arrangements. How many refugees will you bring?”
“All of them,” Taalan replied.
“All of them?” Ibonek said, eyes wide. “Ho–” His eyes fell on Elliott. The man’s forehead creased as he tried to understand what he saw in front of him, but he turned back to Taalan. “That’s about four hundred people. We already saved over a hundred. We can feed them but moving that many through…enemy territory will be difficult. It will take two weeks or more to get to the border, and that’s if the Bizaynians don’t find us first. We should expect casualties, Your Majesty.”
“I’ll take you all. First thing in the morning. Shouldn’t take more than an hour at most,” Elliott said, his eyes on the map and that pyramid to the south. The map didn’t seem to be to scale exactly, but the pyramid was marked somewhere to the southeast of the town, close to the forest.
“Aldric, who is this man? This charlatan?” Thessa said, having finally composed herself. “First, he claims he could destroy the Bizaynian troops like he’s discussing cleaning the latrine. Now, he thinks he can move more than two thousand people over five hundred miles in an hour?”
[Teleport]
He appeared behind Thessa, just to the left of Ibonek. They wouldn’t have even realised it yet. The human eye, at its fastest, could register movement within a hundredth of a second. He was moving faster. He drew both their swords and put them against their throats, as their brains caught up to their eyes. Ibonek slowly shifted his eyes to the blade beneath his chin, before moving them to the left to see who was holding the sword at his neck. Thessa remained very still in front of him.
“I don’t make claims that I can’t deliver,” Elliott whispered to them. Taalan had turned to see where Elliott had gone and looked at him with tight lips. “You two, on the other hand, are both generals of a defeated army of a conquered kingdom, hiding like rats. Who’re the real charlatans here?”
He let go of the swords.
[Teleport]
He was back beside Taalan, eyes studying the table as the swords dropped to the carpeted floor with a muffled thud.
“Do you want to get them to make the arrangements? We need to get moving. I have some business to attend to.”
“Business?” Taalan asked, not in any way concerned with what he’d just seen. He hadn’t even been phased by the flight. The kid knew Elliott was strong.
“I need to visit a friend. By the way, is it Taalan or Aldric?”
“Taalan, for now.”
Elliott nodded as Taalan walked towards the generals, still shocked as they picked up their swords and sheathed them. The three made their way to the exit, both Ibonek and Thessa shooting troubled glances at Elliott. “I need a large space for the gateway. As big as the square I made back in town,” Elliott called after them, before returning to the map.
Looking at that lone pyramid with the five thousand troops around it, he was certain the boy hadn’t told him the truth. Ibonek confirmed as much with his brief confusion when Taalan said it was a town. Clearly, the general didn’t feel it was something worth lying about. Elliott walked away from the table and headed towards the entrance to the tent. No reason why he couldn’t make a little detour to confirm what that pyramid actually represented.
Outside the tent, three guards were still there, eyes fixed ahead, hands gripping their halberds. The camp looked much as it had when they’d arrived – soldiers huddled around their campfires, bowls of food in one hand, bread in the other, though they had their eyes on the generals walking past them with Taalan, one or two sneaking a look at Elliott with the small armoury on his back.
Elliott followed after the generals as they walked toward the far side of the clearing, between the horses and the eating area. Faint smells of the meaty broth drifted past. At the edge of the clearing, soldiers were hastily removing the tents and clearing the area. Other soldiers ran ropes from the edge of the forest to the centre of the clearing, cordoning off an area roughly twice the size of the square he had made in the town.
“That’s a good size,” Elliott said as he joined the two generals and Taalan as they overlooked the soldiers, leaving with their tents, several only half-dressed, who had clearly been enjoying some sleep before being made to move.
It took a few minutes, but once the last of the soldiers had cleared the area, Elliott wasted no time, releasing mana from his reserves, marking a line of circular sigils on the grassy land that matched the sigils of the [Portal Node]. When he completed the final stroke, a brilliant glare of white light hovered a hair’s breadth above the line of sigils. A moment later, the white light rose upwards like someone was pulling up a screen. It stretched the width of the five huts he had destroyed back in town and stood a metre taller than himself. Some of those in the clearing murmured in awe as the brilliant white screen shimmered, before falling silent, their expressions darkening when the gateway revealed the reality of the slums.
A mass of bodies with fearful eyes had crammed into the square on the other side of the gateway. Elliott might have overestimated the size needed. Those men and women, with children hugging their legs or in their arms barely took half the space of the square. They all turned their eyes to the gateway, their expressions changing from fear, to disbelief, to desperate hope.
Two men from the front row forced their feet forwards, like men trapped in a desert seeing a mirage of an oasis – not quite believing it was real, but compelled to believe in it anyway. One step became two. Two steps became four. Then the two of them took a step through the gateway, hesitantly placing their feet on the ground as if they expected to fall through. When their feet touched solid ground, they looked up at the encampment, the corners of their lips curving upwards for probably the first time in months.
Then the dam broke, the others standing behind surging forwards in a crush of bodies.
Rose and Korin along with Daveran and Taalan’s guards did their best to calm the refugees down and get them to move in an orderly manner, but it was Isabel, standing to one side with her hands behind her back who commanded order.
“Stop where you are,” she bellowed, her voice carrying to the end of the square and across the clearing on this side of the gateway. Everyone stopped moving.
“My master promised to save you. I won’t have you dishonour him by killing yourselves in your haste. You will move like civilised people, in rows, from front to back. Now, line up and move only when you’re told to.”
The refugees obeyed, arranging themselves into ragged lines. Isabel nodded at a grateful Rose and Daveran, as they gestured the first row through. Mothers clutched newborns, fathers held toddlers by their hands as they moved through the gateway. The elderly, supported by the young, the injured by the able, moved in an orderly procession, some glancing towards Isabel as if looking for her approval.
On Elliott’s side of the gateway, soldiers stood ready to greet the arrivals, gently guiding them towards the cooking fires and the tents. It took roughly ten minutes in all, before the square stood empty and Rose and Korin, followed Daveran and Taalan’s men through the gateway, Elsie still asleep in Rose’s hands, Isabel still waiting on the other side.
“Stay here,” Elliott commanded Rose and Korin as he placed another [Portal Node] where he stood. A smaller one this time. He turned to Taalan. “Keep this area clear. I’ll be back shortly. Rose, make sure nothing happens to Elsie, or you’ll answer for it.”
The young mage nodded though she looked at Elsie with the eyes of an older sister. Elliott kept his smile to himself, as he stepped through the gateway and walked towards Isabel. He had a quick check over his shoulder, making sure the others were out of the way before he let the gateway go and dismissed the [Portal Node] on this side.
“Sir,” Isabel nodded at him.
“Show me where he lives.”
