Chapter 5: Torrin August 29, 878

“Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but this fork is the farthest I go,” Kipling said as he steered the ferry toward the docks. Trees surrounded the river, the truest sign that they had reached Linia. It wasn’t exactly the dense northern forests of Linia, but it was full enough to provide plenty of cover should they need it. More cover than the grassy plains of Sendium at least. “There’s an inn just up here where you’ll find a hot meal and a warm place to rest your heads.” Mira paid the ferryman and climbed onto the docks, not waiting to see if the others followed.

“Thank you, Kipling. It was a lovely ride,” Imi told the ferryman before running after Mira.

“Yes, thank you,” Cedric repeated.

The docks bobbed as Torrin walked along them, following the various signs that directed travelers towards the inn. When the building came into view, a gust of wind picked up the chilly air from the river and drove it across the docks to ruffle through Torrin’s hair. Now that the sun had set and they had traveled north for two days straight, the air was growing cooler. Linia and Sendium were neighbors, but Linia had always felt colder to Torrin, even in the summer months. At least they would have a warm place to sleep tonight.

A pleasant warmth washed over him when he opened the door, but it was chased away when Mira threw something at his head. Barely snatching the key in time, Torrin glared at her. The iron key was small and speckled with rust, but it was solid enough that it would have bruised if he hadn’t caught it. Apparently now that she was forced to let him live, she had decided to make his life miserable until she could end it. Or until she could try.

“Room twenty-three. We’ll see you in the morning,” Mira tucked her own key into her pocket and turned on her heel, walking towards the dining room. Imi looked like she might disagree for a moment, but with a shrug she ended up following Mira. Torrin couldn’t blame her. Arguing with Mira would probably get her nowhere.

“Come on, then. Dinner’s on me,” Cedric offered, knowing full well that the only money they had was a shared fund provided by Princess Adelyn.

“How very generous,” Torrin grinned and followed Cedric to the corner of the dining room, as far from Mira as was physically possible.

The food came quickly, which was surprising given the number of patrons at the inn. Perhaps they were used to such busyness though. Rivers were the fastest way to travel in the eastern kingdoms, and this particular inn was placed at a fork, gathering business from three directions instead of just two.

“Do you think that this will really work? That the king will stop Silas?” Cedric asked, mopping up the last bits of his stew with a piece of crusty bread.

“It has to. If he doesn’t, his own men will pay the price. I have no doubt that the Linian Castle will be Silas’s first target. After all, half of the king’s servants are Jinura, and killing the Linian Court would not only free them all, but it would create chaos in all of Linia,” Torrin answered, lowering his voice so the patrons at neighboring tables weren’t tempted to eavesdrop.

“Do you think he’ll pardon us?” Cedric tugged his sleeve farther over the chain tattoo on his wrist. Prison had been especially difficult for Cedric. At heart, he was a healer, and prison is no place for a healer.

Torrin considered lying for a moment, but Cedric could handle the truth. “I don’t know.”

After a long, heavy sigh, Cedric dropped his spoon into his empty bowl. “Something about sitting in a boat all day has made me exhausted,” he announced, scooting his chair away from the table. “I’m ready to turn in.”

“I won’t argue there,” Torrin replied, stacking his bowl with Cedric’s. They picked up their packs and found their way to room twenty-three.

“I’m surprised the room is nice. I thought Mira would have found the worst one for us,” Cedric observed as he set his pack down at the foot of one of the beds. The room was decent. The beds were neatly made with clean blankets and there was even a set of ornamental curtains framing the window.

“I’m sure she tried, but what inn-keeper in their right mind would tell someone which room was their worst?”

“Valid point,” Cedric admitted, collapsing onto the bed.

“No more talking about Mira,” Torrin said as he kicked his shoes off and climbed into his own bed. “I don’t want to have nightmares tonight.” When Torrin put his head on the pillow, he realized Cedric was right. They hardly walked at all that day, but somehow he was still completely drained.

Thunder shaking the room startled Torrin awake. When the pounding resumed, he realized it wasn’t thunder at all, but a person at the door. Dragging his feet, Torrin got out of bed, lit the candle on the nightstand with his fingertips, and unlocked the door. The moment the bolt was out of the way, Mira stormed into the room with Imi close behind.

“Linian soldiers are searching the inn,” Imi announced while Mira blew out the candle and used the nightstand as a stepping stool to get a better angle on the window. Wind burst through the room when she unlocked the clasp and pushed the window open.

“You told them where to find us, didn’t you,” Torrin accused, directing his words at Mira. She paused in her efforts to get the curtains out of the way. Slowly, she turned around on the nightstand. In one swift movement, she leapt back onto the floor and whipped out a knife, holding it against Torrin’s ribcage. At the same time, Torrin reached out a hand and placed it around her throat. It was no blade, but his hands could give her a third-degree burn so quickly she’d asphyxiate in minutes.

“Listen closely, Torrin, because I’ll only say this once,” Mira whispered, “I don’t play games. When I kill you, you’ll know my intentions, and it won’t be at the hand of some Linian soldier.” Mira sheathed her knife and Torrin put his hands back down at his side, but Imi and Cedric still looked ready to intervene at any moment. “Anyone could have told the Linians about you. The ferryman, the innkeeper, the waitress at your table. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we get out of here. Now.”

Without waiting for Cedric and Torrin to get their shoes on, Mira climbed out the window, Imi right on her heels. In no time, they were all hurrying along the docks that ran the perimeter of the inn. Mira was clearly headed for the woods.

“Wait,” Torrin whispered loudly enough to be heard.

“What now?” Mira snapped, but she stopped.

“The forest is the first place they’ll expect us to go. And they probably have horses, which means they’d catch us by tomorrow afternoon. Hiding on one of the river boats is a better bet. We can pick one that looks like it will continue north up the Eldon River and we can stowaway on it.”

Mira thought about it for a moment. “It would cut several days off the trip,” she weighed. “Alright, let’s go.”

Slightly stunned that Mira had been able to listen to reason despite the source, Torrin led the way back down the docks towards the boats. He picked a reasonably-sized barge with a large tarp-covered container on the stern. Mira beat Torrin to the tarp and flipped it up.

“It looks like threshed wheat. Probably from Goura. There is a mill up in Fullmin, which is right by the castle.” Without further dispute, she climbed in with a grace Torrin hadn’t expected from the one-armed girl. When everyone else took an extra moment of deliberation, she poked her head back out, drawing attention to her chopped, messy hair, now littered with bits of threshed wheat. “Are you coming or not?”

Cedric helped Imi up and started up himself. Torrin was about to join them when he spotted a small ferry bobbing at the pier next to the one Torrin was on now. If they had a Water Jinura, it would have been the perfect vessel to commandeer. He quickly untied the ferry from the docks and gave it a good push, watching as it slowly floated towards the river’s central current. At worst, people would think the knots came undone in the night. At best, the Linian soldiers would believe Torrin and Cedric had stolen it to escape.

“Torrin!” Cedric hissed in a harsh whisper.

Keeping his steps quiet, he went back onto the Gouran barge and climbed underneath the tarp to find the other three already mostly burrowed into the threshed wheat.

“Cold?” he asked, curious as to why Cedric was currently scooping the grains of wheat onto his stomach.

“The minute anyone lifts that tarp, we are cornered,” Cedric pointed out. “We might as well make it more difficult for them to spot us.”

Torrin felt ridiculous doing it, but Cedric was right. Their best chance was to stay hidden as well as possible. He started scooping a pit into the wheat until it was big enough for his body. Soon, his pack and body were entirely covered with wheat grains. It would take a few extra seconds to pull his hood on and burrow his head into the wheat as well, but he preferred breathing so he decided to risk keeping his head uncovered until they heard someone coming.

“This isn’t so bad,” Imi whispered finally, breaking the silence. Like Mira, she had her sand scarf wrapped around her face. “It’s kind of warm.” She was trying to be optimistic, but her voice betrayed her.

“The beds were better,” Torrin reminded her.

“Shh, I think I hear someone.” Mira pulled her sand scarf so it covered her mouth and nose and wiggled her head until it was buried. The others did the same, and just when Torrin felt the last bit of wheat settle over his hood, he heard the tarp whip off the container.

“It’s just seeds,” the soldier investigating the barge called out. Torrin focused on breathing as shallowly as possible so he didn’t move any of the wheat, but it was difficult to control your breathing when the only air you had access to was under a hood. It was a good thing he wasn’t claustrophobic.

“Hold on, I think I see a ferry on the other side of the river,” another soldier shouted. Torrin had intended for the ferry to make it a little farther downstream, but it seemed to do the trick. In minutes, the soldiers were commandeering ferries and crossing the river to chase a ghost.

After another few minutes, the four travelers finally resurfaced.

“We should stay here for now. Tomorrow, we can stay hidden and let the Gourans carry us all the way to Fullmin,” Torrin suggested. Now that the danger had passed, everyone was too tired to argue or come up with another solution.

The next morning, Torrin woke up to two Water Jinura arguing.

“You drank too much last night. I told you to watch yourself. Now we’re moving slower than a turtle,” one said to the other. Water burbled somewhere below them. It was a good thing the Jinura hadn’t checked the back before leaving, or they would have seen four sleeping heads poking out of their wheat stores.

“I did not! You are pulling half this load too, might I add. Maybe you drank too much last night.” The boat wobbled in the water as one of the Jinura pushed the other. Torrin felt bad for their group adding so much extra weight to the innocent Jinura’s shipment, but they had few options. As quietly as he could, he shifted so he could see who else was awake. As soon as he was turned around, he jolted, sending a small pile of threshed wheat tumbling away. Mira was the only other one awake and she was staring at him like he was breakfast. He stared back for a minute until Mira bored of the contest and turned her head to stare up at the tarp. In the darkness last night, this bin of wheat had seemed much larger. Now, Mira was only a few feet away. Luckily, both Imi and Cedric lay between them.

Eventually, the other two woke up. Cedric just sighed, disappointed to be on the run yet again, but Imi had to take a moment before she realized where they were. As the day moved along, Torrin found himself wishing for even Kipling’s strange stories. It would have been better than this stifling silence.

“It’s so hot.” Imi practically mouthed the words with how quietly she was talking.

“Can’t you suck the heat out of the air or something?” Mira looked to Torrin, challenging him. He would have explained that pulling heat from air was very difficult, but that took too many words and they couldn’t risk being heard by the Jinura at the bow of the boat.

Instead of trying to pull the heat from the air, Torrin lifted a hand from under the wheat grains and put his fingers to the tarp above them. The tarp was trapping the hot August air inside with them, but if he removed the heat the sunshine gave the tarp, it should cool the air temperature underneath it. Soon enough, the air under the tarp cooled down, but in less than an hour, the sun had undone all of Torrin’s work.

For the rest of the morning, Torrin kept their small space from heating up like an oven. Little by little he stole the heat from the tarp, storing it inside himself instead. By the time the two Water Jinura stopped at a tavern on the water’s edge for lunch, Torrin had started to sweat from the extra heat he was holding onto. As soon as the boat was quiet, Torrin clambered out of the wheat bin, seedlings sticking to every inch of exposed skin.

“What are you doing!” Mira hissed, but a wonderful breeze blocked out her whisper. Soon, the other three were joining him on the docks. Torrin tugged off his shoes, letting a small pile of wheat grains fall into the river, and stuck his feet in the water. He transferred all the heat he had bottled up into the water until goosebumps prickled at his skin.

“If anyone needs to answer mother nature’s call, now is the time,” Torrin told the others as they climbed out, gesturing to an outhouse up the hill.

Fortunately, the two Water Jinura took plenty of time to eat their lunch before getting back to the boat. Before long, they were slowly making their way up the river again. Since they were on a schedule, the Jinura didn’t stop again until after the sun had gone down. It wasn’t a perfect system, but after one more day of stowing away, Torrin had to admit that it was the best they could do under the circumstances. At least the Linian soldiers had lost track of them by now.

“You’re late,” a gruff voice criticized from beside the barge. “You were supposed to be here this morning.”

“We came as fast as we could,” one of the Water Jinura replied helplessly.

“Boys! Start unloading the shipment,” the gruff voice ordered. Torrin exchanged a look with the others, and they each tightened their grip on their packs. The moment the workers pulled the tarp aside, all four of them leaped out of the barge’s bin, spraying the mill workers with wheat grains and landing hard on the docks. Taking advantage of everyone’s surprise, they made a run for the forest that surrounded the huge mill.

“Stowaways!” the man with the gruff voice shouted. “Catch them!” The last thing Torrin heard before they made it into the forest was the pleas of the two Water Jinura, blaming their lateness on the four extra bodies they were transporting.

It was a close call for a minute, but the mill workers didn’t seem to be very motivated to catch the stowaways. When it seemed clear, they slowed their pace to a brisk walk.

“Where is the castle from here?” Imi asked, looking to Mira for the answer.

“There is a road that meets up with the river north of here. Once we find Phenstif Road, it will take us straight to the castle.”

“It will be getting dark soon, so we should probably stop before reaching the road,” Cedric suggested, stretching out his cramped limbs.

“If there’s a road to follow, traveling it at night might be better. If we run into bandits, we can just let Mira loose on them.” Torrin had intended to insult her, but Mira just smiled like she was happy to oblige.

They were halfway to the castle when Torrin was seriously wondering if he preferred sitting quietly in a cramped bin full of threshed wheat or walking all night. At the moment, he preferred the wheat bin. At least then he could sleep.

“Can we stop for a rest?” Cedric finally asked. He didn’t complain too often, but Torrin suspected everyone else was too tired to complain.

“Alright.” Mira steered the group off the road until they were out of sight. Torrin made a half-hearted fire pit and curled up beside it with his blanket.

“Silas, the poison, the palace. Am I missing anything?” Mira counted the points on her fingers. Torrin had told Mira everything she needed to relay the message to the Linian King, including the poison specifically targeting Corridians, the likelihood of Silas using it on the Linian Court first, and Torrin and Cedric’s value as informants.

“Yes, the pardon,” Torrin reminded her, though he knew she only omitted it to annoy him.

“Of course. Silas, the poison, the palace,” she paused, “and the pardon. Alright, Imi, let’s go.”

Imi pulled her pack onto her shoulders and joined Mira on her way to the road. “We should be back this afternoon,” Imi called back to them. Torrin and Cedric watched until the girls were out of sight. It was not a great feeling to have his fate in the hands of someone who was trying to kill him, but the princess had assured him that Mira would relay the message.

“How about some breakfast?” Cedric opened his pack and pulled out what little food was left, letting the stores of threshed wheat trickle out of the pack’s crevices. A corner of a loaf of bread and a bit of dried fish meat. Unfortunately, they hadn’t bought any more food in the last few days, afraid to risk being recognized as two escaped convicts and their female accomplices.

“We’d better save the fish for lunch,” Torrin said, taking the bread and breaking it in half.

After four or so hours of lounging around the small campsite, Torrin began to worry. What would they do if Mira and Imi never returned? The princess couldn’t send reinforcements. And Torrin and Cedric couldn’t risk getting caught. They were the only ones that could stop Silas if the king refused to help. As his imagination began to run wild, a twig snapped.

“It’s about time,” Torrin muttered to himself as he stood to meet the girls. When he saw who was walking towards the camp, though, he froze. It was two Linian guards. They hadn’t seen him yet, but it was only a matter of time.

“Cedric!” Torrin whispered as he ran back to the campsite. When he arrived, Cedric was already on his knees, a sword at his back and his hands up in the air. Apparently, the two Linian soldiers hadn’t been alone. Another three were waiting at the camp.