Ember Rising (The Green Ember Series Book 3) Page 6

  Two down. Four to go.

  Now on his feet, Picket rebounded from his swinging kick by driving his shoulder into the next brute. The wolf missed sinking his teeth into Helmer and instead settled for a slicing claw strike as he tumbled past. Helmer winced, dipping quickly as he adjusted to the wound, but kept up his considered defense. These wolves were not disciplined in any way, Picket realized. They were only angry, hungry, and desperate to be first to the kill.

  Picket spun to the path and deftly drew his sword while Helmer crouched beside him. The two rabbits worked wordlessly as the remaining pack pounced, all four at once. Helmer and Picket both dropped and rolled left to right with heavy sword swipes up across the slavering attackers’ unprotected middles. They rolled on as the four fell, howling beyond them on the path.

  Both rabbits sprang up, brandishing their blades defiantly at the wounded wolves. Two did not rise again.

  Two more.

  Now the wolves’ fury was at fever pitch. To the gluttonous hunger of their earlier anger was added the fury of being bested by their prey. Their pack brothers were slain and they themselves were painfully wounded. They came on like a storm. As quickly as they came, though, Helmer and Picket cut them down.

  And it was over.

  Picket sagged to his knees.

  “Are you okay?” Helmer managed between gulps of air.

  “Yes, Master. How is your leg?”

  “It’s still…there,” he said, smiling. “Let’s get moving. You saw how many of them there are. More will come.”

  Picket nodded and fell in behind a badly limping Helmer as they took to the woods again, going directly for the citadel.

  In a few minutes they reached the gate, a wide iron enclosure over a hole that disappeared into the earth.

  “A friend of the mending!” Helmer called as they neared. Nothing happened. The gate did not budge. “A friend of the mending!” Helmer repeated, louder and more urgent. “I know it’s an old code, soldiers! But we are friends and rabbits, and we’re running from wild wolves, so unless you want me to strip your skin and send you to Morbin’s table, open the gate!”

  After a moment, the gate cranked open, just wide enough for them to slide in. They collapsed on the ground as soon as they entered the tunnel. The gate clanged shut behind them. Picket took deep breaths and felt relief welling up within. They had arrived. The first destination of their commission was reached. They had made it to Harbone Citadel.

  “Why, Captain Helmer, could that be you?” asked a rabbit in an officer’s uniform. The crest on his chest showed a green field, with a white tree that bloomed seven yellow stars. He was standing over them and flanked by several guards.

  “None other,” Helmer answered. “And you are?”

  “I’m Lieutenant Meeker, and I was in your division in the last war, sir. Before the old king fell.”

  “Little Meeker? Meeker the Squeaker? Why, son, you were only a baby in the last war. How have you been?” Helmer asked, getting slowly to his feet to embrace him.

  “Yessir, I was. I’m an officer now, though. And was made gate commander last fall.”

  “I am so pleased, Lieutenant Meeker. Your father must be so proud.”

  Lieutenant Meeker’s face clouded, but he managed to smile through it. “What is it, son?” Helmer asked.

  “They got Father, Captain,” Meeker said, his eyes shining. “But he went out as he would have liked, charging into the pack to hold them off while a convoy of families left. The families got away and made it to Kingston in the end. But Father and some of the others…”

  “You’re right, son,” Helmer said, taking the buck’s head in his hands, “it’s exactly how he’d have liked to go out. Like the ancient king and his noble old bucks on Golden Coast. May we all die so honorably.”

  As Helmer released him, Meeker looked down at his leg. “Well, sir, I can see you are hurt. What brings you here?”

  “I need to see Lord Hewson, as soon as possible.”

  “And your best doctor, Lieutenant, if you please,” Picket added.

  Meeker looked at Picket, his gaze full of questions. The secret citadels and this long buildup to open war, breaking out with betrayals by the score, had made every wise rabbit deeply suspicious. And Picket did not begrudge the lieutenant his wary stare. But then the soldier smiled and extended his hand. “I’m Dev Meeker, and I’m pleased to meet any friend of my old captain.”

  “I’m Picket Longtreader,” he replied, taking his hand.

  The guards let out low gasps and exchanged looks. But Meeker only smiled and nodded. “Any friend of Captain Helmer’s is a friend of mine. I will be happy to countermand our newcomer laws on my own authority as gate commander.” He looked significantly at the soldiers gathered, and they all saluted. “Lord Hewson will want to see to you as well, so I will take you both to him directly.”

  “Thank you, Meeker,” Helmer said.

  “Rollins,” Meeker snapped, and a soldier stepped forward. “Please run to the hospital and beg that Doctor Wim meet us in Lord Hewson’s receiving room.”

  “Yessir!” Rollins said, and he spun to run into the deep tunnel.

  “What brings you here, sir?” Meeker asked, turning to Picket.

  “The war,” Picket said. “The war brings us here.”

  Helmer nodded. “And we bring the war.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE LAY OF THE LAND

  An hour later Picket and Helmer sat with Lord Hewson’s council at Harbone Citadel. They met in a plain room hung with three banners. The middle banner bore the double-diamond emblem of the cause, a white field with a red diamond set alongside a green. The left banner showed a green field and a white tree with branches blooming seven yellow stars. The right banner was green with white words in bold. Remember. Resist. Retake.

  “Welcome, all,” Lord Hewson said, rising. The room quieted, and many bowed to Lord Hewson and then took their seats. Doctor Wim was standing over Picket’s shoulder, stitching the last of his fresh wounds. Lord Hewson went on, “I want to be clear in saying that both Lord Captain Helmer, my old friend—indeed possibly my oldest friend—and his friend, Captain Longtreader, have the liberty of Harbone Citadel.”

  The council and gathered captains pounded the table in approval. Picket knew this was no light matter, and he felt the honor keenly. It meant they could go anywhere and were above suspicion, which had not always been the case for those named Longtreader.

  “Thank you, Lord Hewson,” Helmer said, rising to make his polite bow. Picket imitated his master’s action.

  “We are deeply honored,” Picket added.

  “By your leave?” Captain Redthaw, master of the forces at Harbone, asked Lord Hewson. The lord nodded. “The honor is all ours,” Redthaw continued, turning his attention to Helmer and Picket. “To have two such heroes here is a pleasure indeed. We regret we did not know of the battle at Rockback Valley in time to be of any aid.”

  “Indeed,” Lord Hewson said. “We would have come at once, though the cost would have been high.”

  “The cost?” Helmer asked.

  “Make no doubt, we would have come for certain,” Captain Redthaw said. “But in order to come out in any numbers, we must engage the wild wolf pack—packs, really—who haunt these regions. They exact a heavy price for any outing. Beyond light teams of archers, we dare not emerge unless we have half our forces ready to repel them while the convoy escapes.”

  “I had no idea it had gotten so bad,” Picket said. “We met them, of course, and I’m astonished at how many there are.”

  “And I’m sorry to say you could have seen only a fraction of their numbers,” Lord Hewson said, shaking his head. “It has gotten very much worse in the months since the blue fever outbreak. They preyed on our weakness after that period. When Doctor Emma—I should say, the princess— left, things were tolerably under control. But a few weeks later everything changed. It seems more of the creatures have abandoned their alliance with Morbin, where t
hey were kept moderately tame and in armies, and joined this wild pack. And it seems also, from the best intelligence we can gather—and I might add that it’s quite difficult under these circumstances to get reliable information—that several other wild packs have drifted this way and joined together.”

  “We went out to meet them on the field early on,” Captain Redthaw said, “and it went very badly.”

  “They fairly hem us in on all sides,” Councilor Greaves said, her face bending in a disgusted frown. “I’m amazed you made it in here at all, Lord Captain.”

  Picket felt a clamp around his heart. What were they to do now? “It sounds like you’re saying that you’re trapped here.” And us with you.

  “It is nearly so,” Lord Hewson answered. “We have tried to address this threat well, but so far only with disastrous results that further diminish our ability to add value to the forces fighting for the cause.”

  “And what of First Warren?” Helmer asked. “Any news from the old capitol?”

  “Unchanged,” Hewson answered. “We are the closest citadel, and so we have tried to gather all the intelligence we can about goings-on there, but it is impossible to penetrate.”

  “We assume the situation is as it has been,” Captain Redthaw added. “We have, of course, kept up maintenance on the attack catapults and the secret arms caches, as we agreed at the Third Citadel Congress. But right now we alone could do little more than annoy them and give away our best chance of future success.”

  “Captain Wilfred and the prince—may he rest in the Leapers’ arms—sometimes spoke of going to First Warren, and it has been the mad desire of many a rabbit since the fall and the afterterrors,” Lord Hewson said. “But it is the worst of all possible ideas, and I told Wilfred that time and again.”

  “Wilfred knew that there’s no way to truly retake what was lost if we don’t start at First Warren,” Helmer said, glancing at the banner on the wall.

  Remember. Resist. Retake.

  “We agree, of course,” Councilor Greaves said, “that First Warren must eventually be retaken, and we have, as Captain Redthaw said, maintained the advanced assets in accord with the agreement. No one says we will never attack. It’s only a matter of when. We at Harbone have always believed that it would be the last action of the war.”

  “And some of us believe it must almost be the first action,” Helmer said, “including our princess, King Jupiter’s heir herself.”

  At this the room went silent, and heads bowed all around. There was honest anxiety on every face. Picket felt his heart go out to them. “Just how do things lie at First Warren?” he asked, partly to redirect the conversation but also to see if he could learn anything new from these beleaguered rabbits, closest to the heart of the Great Wood.

  Lord Hewson nodded to Captain Redthaw, who stood and went to a drawer behind him, retrieved a large map, then laid it out on the table near Picket. “We are here,” he said, pointing to the edge of the large mass of forest on the page. “The Great Wood’s heart holds First Warren, the former seat of King Jupiter the Great. As you no doubt know, when the king fell the wolves came and swept into First Warren, burning and murdering as they went.

  “First Warren is not what it once was. But our new ‘lords’ rebuilt it to some extent and installed Winslow, the king’s oldest son, as a puppet governor under Garten Longtreader’s control. Under Morbin’s control. They desecrated sacred sites within the city and put the rabbits under their cruel law. The seven standing stones—the largest in all Natalia—are now topped with massive statues of the Six: Morbin, Falcowit, Gern, and the rest—the leaders of the Lords of Prey. The last, well, it has another statue.

  “The city always had a vast wall, but it had wide gates. It used to be a fortress that was defensive in capability but open in its orientation. First Warren was once the welcoming heart of the Great Wood, the many-gated city. But those days are over,” Captain Redthaw said, frowning as he went on. “They sealed the gates, filled them in with stone cut from the slave mines far away in the High Bleaks.

  “After they closed all the gates, they burned and cleared a wide circle around the city wall so the raptor sentinels could see any approach from far away. This is the Black Gap. They made the wall and gates stronger than ever. Our secret assets are staged in the Great Wood, some distance beyond the edge of the Black Gap. They govern themselves at First Warren, in a manner of speaking, but they are under the strictest watch.”

  “The Preylords at First Warren,” Lord Hewson interjected, “are under the constant leadership of one of the Six, a white falcon who is, some say, as wicked as Morbin himself. Lord Falcowit is the bane of First Warren, the cruel malevolence that broods over the city, infecting it with his limitless malice. Lord Falcowit is behind and above Prince Winslow, hovering there, unsettling any scheme that does not comport with his cruel designs.”

  “And the sentinels Lord Falcowit commands come and go in regular rotations,” Captain Redthaw said. “They sit in perches on the city gates, all around the city, from our side all the way around to the waters, where the wall is a dam. These sentinels sit and watch.”

  “And they act,” Lord Hewson added, bitter disgust showing plain. He spat.

  “They act,” Captain Redthaw said, “indeed. If there is the least hint of trouble of any kind, Lord Falcowit takes action. If the peace, as the Lords of Prey define peace, is breeched in any way, they swoop in and…take little ones.” He fairly snarled as he said this. “They take children. The monsters take children. Innocent and uninvolved? No matter. They take them.”

  “This breeds a mistrustful atmosphere, naturally,” Councilor Tarr said, speaking up for the first time. “It turns otherwise good rabbits into informers. The secret police, under Winslow’s government and the active arm of a villainous captain, take quick action to suppress any hints of insurrection.”

  “This was how it was years ago,” Lord Hewson said, “and we suspect it hasn’t changed. We assume it’s only gotten worse.”

  “But no one has been in or out for years,” Captain Redthaw said. “Even if the lunatic pack of bloodthirsty wolves wasn’t blocking the way with their hordes, we couldn’t get anywhere near First Warren. Outside of the High Bleaks, it is the most protected place in all Natalia and dangerous beyond all reckoning.”

  “It’s impossible to enter,” Councilor Tarr said. “Only a fool would try.”

  “So what can we do for you, Captain Helmer?” Lord Hewson asked.

  “Can you get word to the princess?” he asked.

  “It won’t be easy,” Hewson replied, “but we can do it. What message?”

  Helmer stood up, and Picket rose to stand beside him. Helmer said, “Tell Her Royal Highness we travel to First Warren. Say that we are going in.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  EMMA’S CAUSE

  Emma was exhausted. She had slept little since the flight from Cloud Mountain, and the pressure was mounting to get everything right on her official tour of the secret citadels. It had been a hard, hurrying journey to this first destination, and she was full of doubts.

  “Were we right to come here first?” she asked.

  “I believe so, Your Highness,” Lord Blackstar answered weakly, and Mrs. Weaver nodded her agreement.

  “Vandalia Citadel is small,” Mrs. Weaver said, “but its personnel are hardy and hopeful.”

  “Have they not been through some of the worst of the woes?” Emma asked.

  Heyna Blackstar smoothed a rumpled edge of Emma’s dress and then, glancing around, receded to her proper place as a lady in waiting. Jo and Cole stood back further still, honor guards for the princess at the head of a cadre of stone-faced soldiers.

  “All the citadels have paid a price for opposing Morbin. Vandalia has been through a particularly awful ordeal, yes,” Lord Blackstar agreed, “and so is very low indeed. But it makes them all the more eager for the rising.”

  “Remember, dear,” Mrs. Weaver said, “that we rise as you rise. Be what y
ou are so that we may be what we are.”

  “And so hasten the mending,” Lord Blackstar added, leaning on his cane.

  “May it be so,” Emma said, breathing deeply.

  Large double doors opened, and she squinted against the glare of streaming sunlight. A silhouette, thin and bent, appeared in the doorway. It was an ancient rabbit with a black medallion around his neck. He hobbled forward into the corridor.

  The rabbit lord was frail. His long, wispy fur looked like swirls of smoke and his grey eyes like a candle on the verge of burning out. When he reached Emma, he slowly began to kneel. Emma’s eyes widened, and she started to reach for the old rabbit, to insist he didn’t bow before her. But a subtle, insistent motion from Mrs. Weaver showed her that this would be deeply insulting. So she stood, every bit the princess, as the fragile lord knelt slowly and paid homage to the heir of Natalia and the rightful bearer of the Green Ember. It didn’t matter to him that the emerald stone itself was far away, with Heather, who had bravely taken Emma’s place. Emma held out her hand, and the rabbit lord kissed it. Then, placing her knuckles reverently on his forehead, he softly sang.

  “May she rise and reign,

  Rise and reign,

  May she like the sun ascend!

  May she rise and reign,

  Restore again,

  Let this darkness not be an end.

  May she rise and reign, and mend.”

  “Lord Booker,” Emma said, “please rise.”

  Lord Booker, with Emma’s helping hand, rose slowly and smiled at her. “Your Royal Highness,” he said in a thin whisper, “you are most welcome to Vandalia Citadel. We are profoundly honored to have you here. Will Your Highness come within?” This last he said while motioning to the modest hall inside the doors. She nodded and accepted his offered arm, and they led the slow procession into the small sunlit room.

  “Your Royal Highness must not hesitate to ask any service of us,” Lord Booker said, breathing hard from these small exertions. “We will do all we are able for your cause.”