Affe's Rebellion

"I can't fight this battle," she had said. And Gabel had said, "If you must go, go, but don't jeopardize us."

A hundred things jostled in her head. Gabel's reasons, the lies he told, the laws he had broken, she was so sure, yet he never admitted anything. Food, and how to get it. Escaping wouldn't be too big a problem. It might create a good diversion for the resistance. The drakes didn't just kill people outright. If she was caught again, she would die, but probably from starvation in the pits. The drakes themselves, an intelligent people seeking out the mar weaknesses. For a moment, pride rose in her. They are wary of us, their foe.

Then it sank. And are the mar wary of their foe? The Mardux still fought his wars with the medes and wints. He still tried to claim all the land there was. He had yet to send an army to fight the growing numbers of drakes. Maybe, for the country, it was more important to kill all the drakes who gathered intelligence here. So they knew less.

She fell into a fitful sleep, and woke with the dawn, hungry and still tired.

For the next week, she sought a way out. When she was fed, she ate just a little and hoarded the rest. It was such a meager amount. She made herself useful any way she could. Having come so recently from Domus, she was questioned almost daily, and given food fairly regularly. She answered them mostly accurately, but hinted at untruths. They never deviated from a line of questioning though, no matter how much she suggested an army was on their doorstep, or there were a thousand times their number of powerful wizards.

She found, though, that she gave most of her food to the hungry women in her bunkhouse. They talked, eventually. Most had been here for a few months longer than her. A few had been here a year or more. One woman, who barely moved anymore, had subsisted on water and crumbs for almost six years. Affe shuddered, but gave out her hoard in bits and pieces for such information.

In all that time, making an escape seemed impossible. She didn't feel she had enough food, or the timing was wrong, or she was watched too much. They still paid too much attention to her, and she guessed she would be noticed missing before she got a decent head start. Growing more and more irritable, hungry and weak, she kept working as hard as her captors would let her.

Finally, she could take it no longer, and, early one night, she grabbed her meager hoard and slipped out of the bunkroom. Walking on silent feet, she went up the stairs, up the ladder, and quietly crawled across the beams to a hole in the roof, put in to allow hot air to escape. There was a mesh over it, but it was a separate piece and she pushed it out. Climbing up onto the roof, she stared around her in the near darkness. She checked over the edge, looking for where the guards were. Only at the front door. At the back wall, opposite the guarded one, she swung herself over so her feet were a story and a half above the ground, then dropped.

Rolling, she rose to a crouch and hid in the shadow of the building, making no movement. No one came by. She needed to go south and west, she was sure, and knew those ways were most heavily guarded. So she set out north and west, to circle around. Maybe she could get to the coast and head south, and get word to the Mardux. Adrenaline warded off hunger and tiredness.

The sun rose, and she kept moving, though she felt she had escaped and her body wanted rest. She kept marching, looking for something that could be food in this sparse forest. There was almost no cover, either, for her to lie down and sleep in. Food was most important, she decided. If she found something she could eat, she could then sleep and wake with more energy.

But as the sun rose higher above, and started beating down, she found a dead tree and sat underneath it, a blanket protecting her from the mud, and decided she could rest for a while.

Quickly Affe was asleep.

She dreamed of running through the swamp with no boots on, the lizard-like drakes chasing her. Gabel offered her a bowlful of soup, but whenever she put her spoon in it, the bowl emptied. The soup shied away from her. Each of the dreams was a nightmare, but she couldn't wake from any of them. Then the drakes caught her, and shoved her roughly into a sack, and carried her back to the town. They did it again, and again, and again, until finally she woke, sweating, feverish and hungry.

And staring at the tail of the drake who carried her over its shoulder, bound and helpless.

She started crying, knowing she would be left to die. Her escape attempt had failed.

They left her in a pit with someone else, and she stared through the hot haze at Ries, with flies buzzing around him. They never had fed him, or given him water, or moved him in all the time since she had gone. He didn't move when she called his name.

That is what I will look like in a few days, she thought, dry tears staining her cheeks.

Fear was strong in her, but curiosity eventually overcame it. What would Ries' skin feel like when touched? What did his eyes look like? Was his bone structure more pronounced? This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, really, and she tried to convince herself that at no point would she get sick. She looked up the ramp. The guard was paying no attention to her.

Affe crawled over to Ries' body and prodded him, disturbing some flies. She gently touched his hand where it lay, feeling the dryness of skin and bones that were clearly marked. She couldn't remember if his hands were fat before, but she felt they may be brittle now. Dropping his hand, she brushed the bugs from his face, reached up, and felt a faint brush of air as she pushed open his eyelids.

She jumped back and shouted as he rose quickly, coughing and hacking and dry heaving.

"Ries!" she cried. "You're alive!"

The coughing subsided after a while, after a few gobs of mucus were deposited some distance from them. Ries laid back down, but his eyes remained open.

"Yes," he said, quietly, after a while.

"Haven't you gotten any water or food?"

He shook his head. "Rained."

She nodded. He was alive because he had managed to drink water during the sprinkle showers from the past week. She looked at him, suddenly smiling and happy. They may be in the direst imaginable situation, but he was not dead.

Ries smiled back.

"Rest up, Ries," she told him, "for when we make our escape."

He closed his eyes, still smiling.

She sat there, next to him, for a while, hope filling her. She counted the days in her head. Two more until Gabel's revolt. Somehow, they had to stay alive that long, and somehow, she didn't expect anyone to send food or water.

Her mind beginning to churn with ideas, Affe fell asleep.

She woke to rain, and jumped up shouting for joy. She stuck her tongue out at the guard, who growled something back to her.

She took off her shirt, held it out like a cup full of small holes to catch as much of the rain as possible. Then she sipped of it like it was the most nourishing soup in the world.

Refilling her shirt, she woke Ries and watered him. The rain pounded near them, so she took the chance and leaned in near his ear.

"Gabel is planning a revolt for a day from now. We'll make our escape then. Can you hold on?"

He nodded, and in the shadow they made, he traced a glowing outline in the air. It vanished very quickly.

"Magic," she breathed. "They stopped giving you morutsen."

He nodded again, closed his eyes. Hope spiked anew, for here was another weapon at their disposal. Affe soaked up more water, drank again, and filled her shirt one more time for Ries before the rain stopped.

She woke Ries less than an hour later, holding a handful of beetles. She crunched one in her mouth, and offered him some. His face grew disgusted.

"Food," she said. "They're safe to eat. Karabidon. It's been well-researched. They fell in here during the rain."

She pressed one against his lips until he bit down on it.

"Can't be too picky," she said. "I've eaten worse, too. Can you imagine hunting through the mud for an earthworm? You have to make sure those are really clean. And if the best you can find is the leftovers of a predator's supper, then you'd better boil it for ages. That's after you boil the water for ages, though."

He looked like he was about to get sick, but somehow, he kept it down. And ate another.

"Less than a day," she said.

He nodded, and lay back. She lay down, too, saving her energy.

The revolt, Ries' magic, what else do we have to help us escape? She fell asleep pondering that question.

When she woke, she helped Ries to his feet. He may have lost weight and strength, but he had not lost his height, and she had trouble helping him stay upright. But he took a few shambling steps like they were his first, and encouragement poured out of her. Once, she looked at the guard, who watched them blankly. Maybe it was suspicious, maybe not. But it didn't seem to report them to anyone. She felt it wouldn't matter anyway. Every drake would be needed for Gabel's revolt.

Finally, Ries' walking became strong enough to satisfy both of them, and they rested again.

Night fell, clouds covering the sky. Affe could taste the coming rain, and thought a sky filled with life-giving water would never disappoint her again.

She woke Ries a few hours into the night, and they waited, silent in the darkness, shoulders brushing each others.

No explosion warned them. No ball of fire appeared in the sky to signal the revolt had begun. But they heard the clomp of drake feet running past their pit, heard the sharp command at their guard. It responded in a few words, one of them being the word Affe knew, "stay." A drake appeared at the lip, looked down at them. The guard repeated what it had said. The commanding drake made an elaborate gesture, then agreed with the guard.

"Stay," it said.

So we'll have our guard anyway, Affe thought, cursing silently. Ries' face became a mixture of determination and fear.

"Ready?" she whispered, as rain started falling.

"Let's get out of this hole," he said.

She helped him to his feet, and they shuffled to the ramp. The guard reacted instantly, checking the gate's lock and shouting at them.

"Stay! Stay!"

Is he afraid of us? Affe wondered, as Ries raised his arm and touched the bindings that served as the gate's hinges. The ropes snapped in two, and, Affe pushed the gate toward the drake, who lowered its spear and held its ground.

Ries' face contorted in pain, and he lunged at the spear. The action caught Affe by such surprise that she didn't try to stop him. The drake braced the spear to catch the giant, but Ries turned weakly to the side, hands grasping the spear and body falling over the edge of the pit. It wasn't a great fall to the bottom, but the drake refused to let go, and Ries' magic shot up the wood shaft of the spear and into the drake.

The drake convulsed, once, twice, body shaking all over. Then it collapsed, dropping the spear and Ries back into the pit.

The whole thing happened in less than a heartbeat, and Affe stood for another half-dozen heartbeats when it was done. From the drakes' town, brief flashes of brilliant light appeared, and cries and cheers were faint.

She ran back down the ramp, went over to help Ries up.

She had lifted one of his arms before she saw the spear sticking out of his side. The sightless eyes stared up at the sky, and rain fell into the gaping mouth as blood poured from the wound.

Affe still tried to lift the giant. The wound wasn't fatal. She could tell, it was below his lung. If she could just get him to the town, someone could help him. But she couldn't lift him herself. And he didn't seem to be breathing.

"Get up, you great big clod!" she shouted at him, tears starting to roll down her cheeks.

The shouts of battle were closer. She had less time than she thought.

"Get up! They're coming!" The blood trickled from his body now.

Finally, she collapsed next to him, head on his chest. He wasn't breathing. The chest did not rise and fall. Her tears mixed with the rain and mud on his shirt.

She didn't know how long she sat there, but eventually, she heard a familiar voice.

"Affe, you should let go of him."

She turned, and Gabel was there, face blackened and body burned and bloody. His teeth and eyes shone brightly, and his bare hand was clean as he offered it to her.

"I didn't think I'd see you again," he said, as she rose to her feet.

She mumbled something, not even sure herself what she wanted to say.

"The Mardux had a great victory today," Gabel went on, holding both her arms in clean, bare hands now. "This encampment of the enemy is annihilated. The prisoners are free. There will be much rejoicing when we return to Domus. I hope that you will come."

She stared at him. "The Mardux ... sent you?"

He smiled back at her, fox-face soot-covered. His eyes and teeth gleamed as he spoke evenly.

"Yes! You had almost guessed it. He knew about the camps. He knew about the prisoners. He wanted someone to get inside, to see what was going on, to learn about the drakes. The messengers from the towns had little information, they just wanted help. The drakes destroyed other towns too rapidly, without leaving much of anything left. You see? Do you know how much we know about the drakes now? Warring factions! They don't all get along! One can be used against another!"

"You killed everyone," she said slowly.

"No, most of us escaped."

"Shilling, Kopie, Knut, Alter and Ries are all dead," she said.

"Casualties of war. We had to know this information about the drakes. The kratsen, that was our captors, are a large tribe. But the carivars, the short ones you saw all the time in town? They are smaller and felt the kratsen threatened them. I talked to them, I got them to get us extra food."

"You left Ries to starve." And me.

"I couldn't play favorites. It was a balancing act. The carivars kept the kratsen from getting us morutsen tonight, so we could use our magic. After that, the town fell quickly."

She shook her head. "I want to go back to Domus."

"We'll leave in the morning."

He guided her up the ramp, and she looked back over her shoulder at Ries' body. She was too stupefied and hungry to say anything else.

In one of the drake buildings, she lay down on a mat in the corner near the door after having a bowl of soup. But she couldn't sleep.

Feet marched past her, and she saw the ones Gabel had called carivars. They were shorter than their kratsen cousins, with whip-like tails. They seemed to be entirely muscle, bulging at almost every opportunity. Maybe it was the lighting, but she thought she saw the bulges move and change. Pointed teeth shone metallically in the dim light. These terrified her more than the kratsen had. They disappeared in the back room, where Gabel and the revolt's leaders waited to conclude their agreement.

Affe wouldn't have been a veteran mapmaker if she didn't listen to her instincts, and she was out the door before the first scream came.

Poor Gabel, she thought as she raced southward. His two-edged sword sliced off his head. But at least someone can get back to the Mardux, and warn him of the drakes. At least someone will remember Mucker's Folly, and the heroes who stood for it.

Copyright 2005-2007 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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