Chapter Forty Eight: A Step Toward Liberation

As deadly as she was, Aya could not exactly go storming the capital with nothing but a single dagger and a single, unarmed ally. And she could certainly make no attempt to even slip through the city gates still dressed in nothing but a ripped, silk night-shift.

“We must get you covered up before we leave this wood,” Kareem most infuriatingly echoed her thoughts. “Yet I have no cloak to lend you. And I see not your plan here, since you insist on not going back to the beach and flagging down one of my father’s ships to give us aid and supplies--”

“I would just knock you out, Kareem, and steal your clothes, but the cut and coloring of that tunic is far too distinctly royal and Arakeshi to serve me anyhow.” Not to mention how disgusting it would feel to slide into his pants after feeling his full hard-on right through that material pressing against her thigh. She would need to scrub his clothing down for hours, with lye, and even then she would not feel comfortable in it. She already felt filthy, letting him put his fingers right inside her like that. It had felt so good though, and a part of her was itching for him to do it again.

Kareem could seemingly detect a flicker of that craving, even through the mask of her expression. “You should abandon that tattered scrap of a garment, since it covers hardly anything regardless,” he most wickedly prompted. “I shall find you a more suitable dress before you come before the eyes of other men.”

“You do not get to see my bare chest, Kareem,” she shot down, cheeks burning with rage. She could feel him most fixedly staring at her backside with its too-short skirt, and she swore she would follow through on her threat and cut off his hands if he touched her there again without invitation. “I will find my own clothing in that cabin just ahead.”

“So you are a thief and a murderess,” he noted, and her hands clenched.

“And you are an imperious ass, so why not go on ahead after all yourself and try to convince those good people to surrender their belongings to the unarmed foreigner?”

There was no one in that cabin that they needed to intimidate, as it turned out. The building looked to be long abandoned, and the few scraps of clothing they found were moth-eaten and decaying. “Still, a good enough disguise,” Aya muttered, sliding on a burlap dress over her slip, though there was no point even bothering to try on the sole pair of boots, since they were more than double her foot size.

She tossed a ragged cloak at Kareem, and he appeared decidedly offended by the offering. “They will know me for a man of Arakesh regardless,” he criticized, holding up his bare, brown hand. “I see not why I would don this peasant garb.”

“Refugees draw next to no attention these days. There are dozens of such raggedly dressed commoners currently camped outside the capital gates, chased off by the watch who won’t allow them inside the city to beg.”

“Then why ever would those guards let us through?”

“They won’t, but dressed like this we can wander around those walls unnoticed, then I am going to climb right over that outer wall and drop into the slums, blending in there seamlessly. Even you can blend in so long as you keep your head ducked, your hood raised, and hands in your pockets for that matter.” And if he could not make the difficult climb over the city’s outer wall alongside Aya, then she would all too happily abandon him and find some other, less arrogant allies to aid her in this mission. She already had a strong idea of who to ask.

Aya had been privy to all of Marseir’s plans of how he was going to retake the capital from Yuri’s hundreds of northmen. The plan she had heard of course had been supposed to take place in the aftermath of Yuri’s assassination. He and all his sons should have been killed days ago under circumstances made to look like natural causes, such as bee stings and food poisoning. The people of Stalis, led by Captain Banen and his guerrilla troops, would then easily retake their city from the leaderless army of northmen, because Razier’s fleet was not just a blockade of canons to threaten the Gristhms with. They were also a delivery service. They had already smuggled hundreds of pounds of gunpowder and fresh munitions to Captain Banen and his men to replace the stockpile Yuri had uncovered in the capital this past week and had confiscated.

Some tactics would be changed of course, because Yuri was still alive and so was Carnen Gristhm. Still, Aya knew that the rest of Duke Marseir’s long laid plans would still be in place. She just needed to find Captain Banen in his camouflaged position lurking somewhere outside the city gates. Even if he did not leave his hidden post awaiting the orders of his duke, he would still have weapons and equipment he could lend to Aya for her mission to rescue Charlotte.

She made the ten mile trek with a peasant-disguised Kareem through the forest and across the plains of Stalis in record time. It was still mid morning by the time they reached the walls of the capital. Aya wandered through that milling horde of displaced farmers in their ragged make-shift tents and swiped a tattered red ribbon from one of their baskets, tying it around her wrist.

“Whatever are you doing?” Kareem murmured against her ear, but Aya did not deign to answer him, walking slowly through the demoralized crowd with eyes making careful, covert study of the features of every man she passed.

It was only minutes before a pair of hands grabbed hold of her shoulders, yanking her inside one of the tents. Kareem was on the man in a flash, breaking in between Aya and her assailant and driving open hands into his chest and throat in a move that knocked out his breath. It appeared Kareem knew Seirem Maga: an Arakeshi martial art. He was deadly even without his scimitar, and he was impressively fast, Aya could give him that. “You dare lay hands on my woman?”

Aya grit her teeth. “I am not your woman,” she reminded him flatly, but that did nothing to stop him from planting himself out in front of her protectively with hands raised in threatening pose.

“At ease, man,” Captain Banen croaked, still clutching in pain at his chest. “I meant her no harm, but we required a more intimate setting before I could make my introduction. My men recognized you for one of the Arakesh.” He looked to the ribbon on Aya’s wrist. “And there you are flashing our sign. Still, I did not think our duke would send his own daughter as his messenger, Lady Charlotte.” The captain clearly recognized Aya as Carnen Gristhm’s captive fiance that he had met out on the road that rainy first evening of her abduction, and he was studying her now with decided confusion and unease. “I had heard that you were a captive in the castle this day. We were waiting word that you were free before making our move to retake the city, as I understood it.”

“I am not Charlotte,” Aya informed him bluntly. “I simply share a close resemblance to her.” Banen arched an eyebrow but did not demand any further explanation. “The true Lady Charlotte is indeed still a captive of Carnen Gristhm and his invading horde. I am making my move to go rescue her this very day, but I could use some further information first. How many troops do you have scattered throughout this camp of refugees?” she pressed. “And how were you to be notified that Charlotte is safe and it is time to make your move into the city?”

“If Charlotte Marseir were broken free of that castle, my operatives would have already informed me,” Banen supplied. “They have eyes on her night and day. She was locked up in the royal bedchambers last I heard, and I anticipate that Duke Marseir will not give the order for attack until the Arakesh fleet is within striking range of the castle walls. As for how many troops I have at my disposal...” The captain hesitated, his brow further furrowing in suspicion. “Every one of the men and women camped out here are armed patriots of this country, many of them trained soldiers. Precise details of our weapons I will not give you however, whatever your true name, because our lord, Marseir, aught to have informed you of all this.” He paused, easing a pistol out from its hidden holster inside his jacket. “Duke Marseir did not send you here, now did he?”

“Marseir’s other operatives have failed in their mission to rescue his daughter,” Aya guessed. After all, it had been a full two days since Carnen had carried her off and torched their manor. Captain Erin would most certainly have already made his move to free his lady, yet she was still a sighted captive in the castle, so Erin’s rescue had to have been a failure. He might already be dead, and so might Maria and the other few operatives he had left in his service.

Even if Erin were still posted in that castle and biding his time with some back-up plan to free Charlotte, Aya was not about to sit here on the sidelines waiting for that success. Charlotte could not go back to her father and her lonely life of isolation. Aya would take her, and they would run away together, maybe somewhere across the sea. Even if Charlotte did not wish to go along with that... Even if she did not wish to leave the castle, and to leave Carnen… Aya still most certainly needed to speak with her this day and find out the truth of her feelings.

“I am going to rescue Lady Charlotte,” she informed Captain Banen, and he eyed her up and down in clear skepticism. “All I require from you is a loan of gear and weapons.”

“Who even are you, girl?” the captain pressed her wearily, with pistol still pointed at her chest.

“I am the best assassin Duke Marseir has,” she informed him proudly. “I eliminated General Grice, the tactician of this invading army, I eliminated Faust Gristhm, and I disposed of a hundred enemy soldiers who came to attack Marseir manor. I did all of this alone, and I will rescue Charlotte alone. You just do your job and retake our city afterward, sir. Though if you do it before the Arakesh fleet lands at our coast and starts bombing our castle, you will save our citizens further loss and damage to their livelihoods and homes.”

Captain Banen’s eyes lowered in thought, then he holstered his pistol, prompting her gravely, “You swear your loyalty is to our country and the command of Marseir?”

“I am loyal to our country and to Charlotte Marseir above all else,” Aya answered him earnestly. “I am her friend and her guard, and I will do whatever it takes to keep her free and happy.”

Even if she was happy exactly where she was, in the arms of a savage completely unworthy of her adoration? It broke Aya’s heart anew to even imagine that scenario. Still, now was the time for action, and not further pointless agonizing.