The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 84

Magda raced down dirt alleyways, jumped fences, and cut through yards, taking a diagonal course through the city rather than take the easier but longer route along the streets. In places along the way, she dashed down the narrow spaces between buildings. Once, she encountered an impassable barrier of stacked junk at the end and had to retrace her steps, going around the other side, only to be stopped by a tall fence. She managed to pull herself up and over the fence so that she didn’t have to find another route.

As she ran past houses, dogs in the yards charged toward her, barking and snapping. Fortunately, the ones she encountered were tied on ropes, or inside, and couldn’t get to her. Their barking made other dogs nearby bark, though. Soon, it seemed that half the dogs in the city were all barking. Here and there Magda saw lamplight brighten in windows as wicks were turned up.

She knew that if the soldiers heard the sounds of dogs barking coming ever closer to them, they would get suspicious.

Magda stopped just shy of an intersection and leaned back against the short stone wall for a moment, gulping air and catching her breath while still out of sight of the street. She opened the door on her lantern a crack and carefully peeked around the corner. She had been running with such abandon that she wasn’t sure of exactly where she was.

As she held the lantern out around the corner, light fell on closely spaced buildings that she recognized. Signs hanging out front advertised several small businesses: a cobbler; a seamstress; and a carpenter’s shop. Just up the street to the right, she knew that there would be a road coming down off the lower parts of the mountain that intersected the street.

That was the one road she needed. It made a loop past a few homes and a number of storehouses that held grains and dry goods. A little higher up, the side road reconnected back with the main road going up to the Keep.

Without taking time to finish catching her breath, Magda shut the door on her lantern and raced off up the street. If she got there too late, she had no chance. Without pause, when she reached it, she took the road that angled off up the hill and curved up along the skirt of the mountain. She could just see the lights of the Keep high above.

It was harder running uphill. Her legs burned from the effort. She feared that they might give out at any moment, but she knew that she dared not slow. If she didn’t get out in front of those men before they made it up to the Keep, she knew that she wouldn’t have a chance. If they got past her, she’d likely never be able to find where they took Merritt.

The Keep was immense. There were places all over the Keep where they could hide him. For all Magda knew, they might take him to an obscure room like the one where they had taken Tilly. There were thousands of rooms in the Keep. She would never be able to find him. And if they took him to the prosecutor’s offices, with his private army headquartered there, she would never get in.

In all likelihood, though, they would take him down to the dungeons where Naja had been. Magda didn’t think that she would have a chance to make it in there again. After the two dungeon guards had been killed, not only would the men down there be on alert, they would probably double or triple the guard.

The smell of pines and fir trees got stronger the higher up the road she ran. Magda could at last hear a small brook off in the darkness. She knew the brook and where it was located above the buildings. Finally out of the city, she found herself running past the dark shapes of towering trees.

Abruptly, she came to the intersection with the main road up to the Keep. Magda was terrified that they might have already passed by. She feared being too late.

As she stood in the center of the intersection gulping air and catching her breath, trying in vain to see in the darkness, she heard voices in the distance. They were deep voices interspersed with fragments of laughter. She was relieved that they were coming from down lower on the road, in the direction of the city.

Magda rushed up the road, toward the Keep, around a sharp bend to a spot were the road narrowed. She wanted a place that wasn’t open to the sides so that the men couldn’t spread out and easily get around her. The voices were getting closer.

She found a place that looked about as good a spot for her purpose as she was liable to find on short order. Besides, she didn’t have any time to spare. She set the lantern down in the center of the road, placing it so that the closed door aimed in the direction of the approaching men.

Magda didn’t want to consider the wisdom of her hasty plan too carefully because it was the only plan she had. She could think of no other idea, and besides, there simply was no time left. She had no choice but to try.

If it didn’t work, she would likely die. If she didn’t try, they were all going to die anyway.

She crouched behind the lantern, waiting. Her hammering heart was making her rock on the balls of her feet.

She briefly thought that she must be crazy to think it would work. She had no choice. Either it worked, or they were all dead anyway.

She could hear the sound of gravel crunching under the boots of the men coming her way as they rounded the bend a short distance down the hill. They weren’t talking any longer. She couldn’t see them. Only the sound of their boots told her where they were.

When she judged that the group of men was as close as she dared let them get to her, she threw open the door of the lantern. Light fell across about a dozen startled faces. They blinked in the sudden light. They weren’t the Home Guard. They wore the green tunics of Lothain’s private army, as she had expected.

Magda stood and backed a few steps behind the lantern so that she would be in darkness and the men wouldn’t be able to see her.

In the lantern light, when a couple of the big men spread out defensively, she spotted Merritt in their midst.

He had an iron collar around his neck, with a short iron bar coming out from the front of it. His hands were shackled to the end of the iron bar. His ankles were hobbled with a length of chain short enough to prevent him from running.

Blood ran down the side of his face. He looked groggy.

Magda focused her rage. It didn’t take an effort.

“You are surrounded,” she said in a loud, clear, commanding voice. “Let the prisoner go or you will all die.”

One of the men stepped forward. In the light coming from the open door of her lantern, she could see that he was not a soldier. He wore simple robes. She could see the deep scowl twisting his features. Even though it was dark, she thought that she could see the gift in his eyes.

When he lifted his hand and fire ignited in the air above his palm, Magda knew.

It was a wizard.

“Magda Searus?” he said. “Magda Searus, is that you?”