Chapter 32: A Fresh Start

Habbot stood on the edge of the roof, chewing a lit cigar between his few remaining teeth.

“Ay, gents, drop the load!” he shouted with a fierce wave of his hand.

From every roof they could, townsfolk of Augustate slums carried great big blankets, aprons, and shirts full of baking flour.

“What are they planning?” Ike asked, watching the townspeople swing their bundles of flour into the air. Soon, the huge amounts of flour hung in the air like dust. The running guards paused, coughing and hacking and swatting at the air as flour filled their lungs and blocked their sights.

Clove handed over a traveling bag to Ike, and the both of them followed Ronan and Maritza as they ran for the gate at the edge of town. The group of four Nightblades pumped their hands back and forth as each of them sprinted beside the other.

In the distance and back on the rooftops, Habbot called out to the once shoeless girl and said, “Alright lass, give it here!”

She handed Habbot a quarter filled bottle of rum with a cloth hanging out of its neck. “Good lass, now run along with the others.”

She departed and Habbot brought the rag to the burning edge of his cigar. He took a few forced drags, and then the cloth ignited.

“Tis an old war trick, it is,” Habbot shouted to the townspeople who were spreading second rounds of flour into the air. “We’d call it a Baker’s Firecracker.”

Habbot tossed the lit rum bottle at a guard covered in flour. The bottle shattered, then spread red flames all over the guard’s armor. Habbot would’ve felt bad for injuring guards only doing their job, except Habbot had been around in Augustate to know that the guards never truly did do their job, and were just as rotten and evil as Lord Wallace.

Next, the fires on the guard jumped to the cloud of flour, and the flour detonated like an explosion from a cannonball. Habbot threw his cigar into the foggy mist of flour, and his cigar created another deafening explosion as the flour turned to flames that fell upon the scrambling guards.

Ronan checked over his shoulder, saw the distance they were putting between themselves and the guards pursuing them, then said, “We need to find horses. Then surely we can outrun them.”

“There’s a stable up ahead,” Maritza exclaimed. “Right beyond the town’s gate.”

Nightblades poured out from the alley, and using their Butterfly magic, leapt great distances to try and catch up with the fleeing squad of Ronan and his friends.

Augustate children and teenagers flooded the streets. Armed with stale bread hard as stones, a hundred youngsters pelted the pursuing Nightblades, cutting them off before they could reach Ronan.

Huffing and puffing and running as fast as he ever had, Ronan shoved open the large metal gate to Augustate and made for the stable. A white horse and a beige one stood closest to the stable’s wooden fences, grazing. Ronan jumped the fence, and slashed the reins holding the two horses to the fence.

“Ay!” shouted an older looking man with a liver spot under his eye. “What do you think you’re doing?”

But Ronan ignored the elderly stable owner, knowing far more was at stake than this man’s wallet. Ronan hopped onto the white horse’s stirrup, saddled himself, and held a hand out to Maritza. She jumped up and placed her arms around his muscular chest.

Ike and Clove hopped the fence next, and Ike boarded the beige horse.

“Oh no you don’t,” Clove said, yanking Ike off the horse and back to her side. Clove climbed onto the horse’s saddle then helped Ike up.

“I’m taking the reins on this one,” Clove insisted.

Arrows pelted the grass by the four, and two horses jittered and neighed. Archers on the gate’s garrison were readying a second launch of arrows.

Ike hugged Clove from behind and declared, “Take the reins, but just get moving, dear!”

The elderly man limped in front of the two horses with his hands upright.

“You can’t do this!” he shouted.

But he was cut down by the second round of arrows.

The horses darted off as more arrows slammed into the ground beside them. One arrow struck Ike in the back, but thankfully his thick set of traveling gear protected him from the arrow’s tip.

“Keep going,” Maritza said to Ronan. “Keep going and don’t look back.”

For hours, they rode selfishly, not even allowing their stolen horses a rest when the animals quivered with weakness.

Finally, when the four had been riding until night fell through the forest glades, the beige horse collapsed.

Ike and Clove led it to a watering hole, and fed it oatcakes and sugar cubes from their satchels. Ronan and Maritza did the same for the white horse, and the group built a small fire, and allowed themselves a moment to collect their thoughts.

In the dead of night, only insects chirped in the dark forest.

Ike held a map from his pack upside down.

“Hmm,” he said. “I think we might be—“

Clove rearranged the map in his hands and said, “We must be in the Knotted Glade, right here.”

“At least that’s a long way from Augustate,” Ronan sighed.

Maritza stared into the fire.

“Not long enough,” she said.

For a moment, there was a silence amongst the four.

The horses laid down beside the fire, whinnying with full stomachs.

“So,” Clove said, tossing some dry branches into the fire. “What do we do now?”

“We’ve only just barely escaped with our lives,” Ronan said. “But we need to find somebody who will listen to the Black Blade Army threat and take it seriously.”

Maritza poked a stick to the fire. “There’s another Nightblade temple near the Cerulean Oceanside.”

Clove darted her head. “The Temple of the Seahorse? They’re still around?”

“I’m not sure,” Maritza said. “I’m not sure of what to believe about anything at the moment.”

Ronan sat beside her, then placed his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder.

Despite everything, the sight made Ike and Clove grin.

“Then we head for this other temple,” Ronan said. “Those people back there risked everything for us to escape. They gave their lives, their safety, their security all to give us a shot at defeating this threat.”

Ike and Clove perked up. Ronan had a way of inspiring them.

Still, Maritza looked only to the fire.

Finally, she muttered, “Let’s give the horses another half hour of rest. We’ll ride through the night and hopefully lose any search parties after us.”

Ronan stood up, and flames crackled in front of him. “No. We WILL lose the search parties. And we WILL find this temple, and we WILL defeat the Hellsworn.”

Maritza glanced at him, the spark in his eyes, then gave him a soft smile.

“Yes,” she assured quietly. “Yes, we will.”