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Trapped

A tale from Cēna Barēkara

By Ruth KPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 9 min read
1
Trapped
Photo by Carmine De Fazio on Unsplash

“It is your sister’s men. Iola has found us.” Panic suffused Tun’s dark purple features and he wrung his thin hands together.

“Alert the Kandak. Fallback to rally point bravo; we cannot allow her to trap us here.” Arawelo rushed past Maddox, went to the cage, and opened the door. She picked the little girl up, hugged her close for a second before handing her to Maddox. The little girl wailed with her tiny hands out to Arawelo and the woman's face fell.

“Take her.” Arawelo dashed a hand over her eyes and Maddox felt a thrill of shock to see tears sparkling on her lashes. “I defied my mother and betrayed my clan to bring her here to you so that she would at last be safe. You must take her out of here.”

“Your sister is no match for my knights.”

Arawelo’s light purple face paled to a sickly lavender and she shook her head as she tore open a hole in the back of the tent with her bare hands. “You cannot defeat my sister. I do not know how she has found us, but you must leave now. Run, while you still can. Keep her safe. When it is over, I will try to find you again.” Arawelo caught Maddox’s arm and met his eyes. “I am here to help, Commander. Whether you believe me or not.”

The little girl felt heavy in his arms. Arawelo gave the child one last kiss on her forehead before pressing her palms against Maddox’s golden breastplate and shoving him out of the hole in the tent wall. He caught his balance just in time to see black armored Suṭō Guardians rush out of the treeline and clash with Maddox’s bodyguard detail. Maddox smiled; his knights were well-trained, war hardened, and brave. The Suṭō wouldn’t last long.

The smile fell from his lips as sorcerers followed the Guardians. Glistening black bolts of corrupted magic boiled in their palms and Maddox couldn’t help but cry out in shock as their first salvo decimated his bodyguards. Arawelo had been right. His knights had never stood a chance.

One noticed Maddox standing there watching. Black smoke wavered through the man’s fingers, built into a mass of writhing magic. Maddox had a split second to move the child, to throw himself to the ground, but he still caught a glancing blow from the bolt. Smoke billowed from his breastplate and he set his teeth as the hot metal bit at his skin.

His few remaining knights rushed in. The sorcerer turned away from Maddox, set his sights on new prey, and Maddox fled. By the Blessed Writ and all the Gods Above, he ran, left his knights to die at the treeline and dove deep into the woods. Guilt burned him as badly as the blazing metal on his chest but the warm weight he carried over his shoulder was more important. The child was an innocent; the Suṭō would hurt her, of that he was sure.

The little girl whimpered. “Your cloak,” she choked out as she squirmed in his arms. “It’s too hot.”

Maddox cursed. With one hand he ripped away his enchanted cloak, his precious gift from Queen Kittur, and left it behind to smolder on the ground. The child wormed her way around to his back and wrapped her arms around his neck so that his breastplate couldn’t burn her torso. Smart, she was smart and quick and she deserved to live.

His heart pounded in his ears as his arms and legs pumped. He skidded around a tree and paused, looked left and right, searching for a way out. Shouting voices behind him launched him into motion once more. He dashed forward a few paces, then slid to a stop and sprinted the opposite way. Frustration and fatigue burned deep in his chest; he was the rabbit, the Suṭō, the dogs. He had to find a way out.

He didn’t know where he was. He’d never been here, never explored these woods. All he saw was an endless carpet of trees and at last the pain of his wounds made him slow to a halt. He set the child down on the ground to shimmy out of his burning armor, let it clang to the ground. More scars. How many more would the Suṭō give him before they at last let him rest?

“It is alright,” Maddox told the girl as he lifted her into his arms once more. He held her tightly against his burly chest, heedless of the pain of his wounds as he began to run once more. “We will make it out of here.”

Even as he said the words, Maddox knew it was a lie. They were running in the wrong direction. They needed to go south but the Suṭō were pushing them north. A force of Suṭō sorcerers and Guardians stood between Maddox and his army, herding him further and further away from safety. There were no towns ahead, nowhere to hide. There was only the forest, and beyond that, the Surakhi'ā Strait.

He skidded to a halt next to a large overturned log and paused, breathing hard, sweat dripping off the tip of his nose. He could hear the Suṭō sweeping the forest behind him, shouting to one another as they crashed through the underbrush. The little girl in his arms whimpered and her hands clutched at the edges of his sweat soaked tunic

There was no way out for them. No matter where they turned, the Suṭō would be there. Maddox knew Leo with his reserve force would be closing in even now, but they would never make it in time. The Suṭō would be long gone and Maddox and the child would be in their clutches.

Something bounced onto his shoulder and thumped to the ground. Maddox glanced up to see they knelt beneath a pear tree, one heavy with sickly sweet, overripe fruit. The pear at his feet rolled across the leaves before settling down beneath the fallen log. A depression beneath the log, with what looked like room to hide a person if they were small enough.

The child was tiny. He set her gently down on her feet and knelt in front of her. She stared up at him with hungry, frightened eyes, and he felt his heart twist in sympathy. She couldn’t be more than seven years old. Who knew what she’d had to endure during her years of captivity. It was a wonder she wasn’t any more feral; living in a cage would break even the most stubborn of minds.

He swiped a thumb over her cheek, brushed away tear tracks and handed her a bit of bread from his ration pouch. She took it with both hands to nibble at the crust.

“What is your name?” Maddox pitched his voice low, tried to keep his fear and panic off his face.

The little girl’s eyes threw him off guard. They swirled like pools of pure silver; he’d never seen eyes like that before. What manner of being was this child?

“Boudicca,” the little girl whispered.

“Boudicca. That is a very pretty name.” Maddox clasped his hands in front of him and held the child’s gaze. “I need your help, Boudicca. Do you think you can help me?”

She paused, her eyes flicking to the depths of the forest where she could still hear the Suṭō searching, then gave him a solemn nod.

“We are going to play a little game. You are going to hide here until you see knights in gold armor. Do you know what knights are?” A pause, then another nod. “Good. They are going to come get you but you have to hold very still and be very quiet until they come. Do you think you can do that?”

“You don’t want the bad men to find me.”

The whispered words landed like little darts to his heart and Maddox winced. She was so very smart. So why would she love Arawelo and still distrust the rest of the Suṭō? It looked as though Arawelo had been this child’s warden, maybe for years, even if she had smuggled her out of Zamīna Suṭō at the end.

There wasn’t time to ask. Every second that passed saw the Suṭō coming closer, convinced that their prey had gone to ground. Maddox nodded and patted the child’s snarled grey hair.

“No. I do not want them to find you.” He sniffled and took her slim shoulders in his hands. “When the knights come, I need you to find a Ṭhaḍā named Leo. Tell him he needs to go to Earth and find the Light.”

A thought entered his mind and he shied away from it for a second. It was too soon, too soon to feel what he felt for Ripley, yet he may not get a second chance to tell her this. If he never saw her again, if he died here, he wanted her to know.

“If you see the Light, can you tell her…” Maddox paused and swallowed hard. “Tell her I love her.”

The look the little girl gave him seemed almost knowing but she nodded at him silently. He pulled away from her and began to dig at the dirt with his burnt fingers. It reminded him of a time when he had clawed at the floor of a tower in Mairīvina, of how desperately he had tried to dig Ripley out of the ground. He had failed her there. Let him not fail this child, by the Blessed Writ and all the Ancients, let him save this one.

He carved a decent sized hole in the loamy dirt and nodded, satisfied, then held out his hands to the child. She gave him a trusting look as he lay her down into the dirt. “Stay here,” he ordered as he began to cover her with the dirt he had unearthed. “Stay quiet until the bad men have passed. Can you do that for me?”

She nodded, her face grave but her bottom lip began to tremble. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then began to cover her face with leaves, careful to not bury her so deep that she couldn’t breathe. He stood and looked down. There was no sign of the child; the dirt and leaves covered her from head to toe and camouflaged her against the side of the log.

He whirled and ran in the opposite direction, headed southeast, along the line of Suṭō. They shouted and followed him as he led them away from the child in her burrow. Between one step and the next he drew his sword, set his jaw and readied himself. There would be sorcerers and his sword would be little help against their spells. But it would have to be enough; he would take down as many of them as he could, keep them too busy to think of turning and hunting down the girl.

Rushing footfalls at his back and sides let him know that they were surrounding him, closing the sides of their trap. Once he reached their rear line, there would be no escape. Determined, he kept going. They would kill him but they wouldn’t find the child. Soon Leo would be here, retracing Maddox’s steps. He would find Boudicca and then Maddox’s body. The army would fall into Leo’s skilled hands and he would lead them to victory.

And Ripley? She would mourn him, of course, he knew that much. But he also knew she wouldn’t rest until his murderers had been brought to justice. He’d seen it before; her black wings wreathed with soot and flames, her eyes filled with rage and the promise of death. Her wrath would be swift and painful and, in the end, he would be avenged.

Maddox bared his teeth in a feral smile as he charged the Suṭō line.

Fantasy
1

About the Creator

Ruth K

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