Warmoon [ONC 2020]•[Shortlisted]•[Honorable Mention List, Stunning Worlds]

13. Leverage

A foreign landscape lay at the bottom of the valley. What had only yesterday been a rolling patchwork of fields stitched together with bramble-choked fencerows was now nothing but barren, blackened earth as far as the eye could see. Even White Ridge had changed, the once-pale limestone rising in an unfamiliar, pitch-dark, naked line against the sky. Trees, marsh grass, scrub willow, all that had been alive was gone, consumed by the Rot, and a strange, smoky haze hung over everything.

Rhoa stood on the portcullis wall, Isander's long glass in her hand, her throat aching. Her parents were out there somewhere, lost in that.

Her gaze flicked down to Ardusk, drawn by movement in the square, and she brought the long glass to her eye again.

In the few hours since morning, the Rot had slunk right up to the outskirts of the village before the villagers managed to put up a firemoat. The Divine Order's Storehouse must have been one of the first to go. It stood like a blackened skeleton, the roof collapsed, clay wattled walls crumbling. All the food was gone. Rhoa sneered. So much for Rokstag's prayers.

The villagers were burning anything they could get their hands on, now. Furniture, thatching, clothing, it was all being sacrificed in an effort to keep the Rot at bay.

It was a losing battle. They would run out of things to burn sooner or later.

That wasn't what had attracted her attention, though. She trained the glass farther down, finding the man in the purple robe. He was standing on the gallows platform in the middle of town. Several other men and a few women were gathering around him, each of them carrying something. A scythe. A rake. Hoes and staves and hunting bows.

The man in purple was pointing up the hill. The others raised their arms, their expressions angry, their mouths opening and closing, saying words she didn't have to hear to understand.

Rhoa let out a breath through her teeth. She slammed the long glass closed.

Without a backwards glance, she turned and started off along the rampart, heading for the entrance to the south tower.

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Sarrie looked up when Rhoa came into the sickroom. Her younger brother, Eiran, and their baby sister were playing with their toy animals in front of the hearth. They should have been in Tettony and Isander's quarters, far away from Phane and Gran.  

Rhoa slowed. There was something wrong. She could see it in Sarrie's face. "What is it?"

"Aunt Orla said I had to tell you she was using the privy."

"Is she using the privy?" Rhoa asked quietly.

Sarrie shook her head and looked down.

Calm as ice, Rhoa asked, "Do you know where she went?"

"Down to the stables."

Rhoa bit her tongue to keep her foul thoughts from spilling out of her mouth, wheeled back around, and went thundering down the stairs to the kitchen.

A moment later she was standing in the stables, her teeth ground tight together. All of the stalls were empty. Orla had taken their last horse. She hadn't bothered to close the sally port, either – Rhoa wasn't sure if she even knew how – and the mouth of the tunnel gaped wide open.

Her teeth ground tight, Rhoa pressed the trigger stone, watching yet again as the secret panel swung shut. Then she locked it, sliding the dead bolts home. With any luck, no one would ask Orla how she got out of the fortress, but Rhoa couldn't take any chances. The Strongcastles all had keys. Anyone else would think they had reached a dead end in the caves and turn around.  

She wasn't disappointed, really. Nor was she surprised. Orla had family in the village, a mother, brother, and sister, aunts and uncles and cousins. Rhoa couldn't blame her for going.

No. Rhoa was numb. Cold.

The people of Ardusk hadn't come up the hill yet, but if any of them did, and decided to go find a ladder long enough to bridge the dry moat, this was going to go sour very quickly.

The Warmoon was beginning to tinge the clouds a dull, angry orange along the horizon, almost like a red second sun. It hadn't even made it to its zenith yet, and that awful surge of power had already grown stronger and deeper than yesterday, the invisible flow of it buffeting her like a strong breeze whenever she crossed the bailey. It wasn't a gentle wash, anymore. It clawed at the tower, lashing against it. The salt clay held it out for now, but it was climbing higher and higher, seeking a way in.

Rhoa wasn't sure if she was right, or crazy, but even if she was imagining that hum beneath her feet, mere hours remained before the full Warmoon began rising. The chances were dwindling that her mother and father had survived, much less that they would come back in time for a First Keeper to ascend the tower to administer the poison. If they didn't, she would have to deliver the final dose herself. Meanwhile, she was going to have to mud as much of the tower as she could, while also somehow fending off an angry, frightened mob and a possible Vanguard attack by herself.

Her headache was beginning to saw at her nerves, making every thought laborious, and she brought her hands up, pressing her fingers into her temples.

She couldn't be everywhere at once. She needed help.

Maybe she really was going insane. The idea taking shape certainly seemed to point in that direction. She began pacing the length of the empty stables, trying to talk herself out of it at first. None of the alternatives were strong enough, though. She didn't dare leave to get help from outside, and there just happened to be another battle-trained adult currently inside the fortress. 

She would have to hope he was really telling the truth about being the only Vanguard.

And she would need leverage. Lots of very heavy leverage.

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