Crownsmith Chronicles

"Name and rank," a gruff voice demanded from inside the carriage.

Despite being completely disoriented, Key was rapidly putting the pieces together. One moment, he was escaping Castor's office and everything it entailed, and the next moment, he was being blindfolded. It all happened so fast that he didn't know what to think. He recalled the uncomfortable feeling of being picked up, and the next thing he knew, he was in a horse-drawn cart. He was in danger.

"I said name and rank," the same voice repeated, slightly more clipped and angry. "And don't try nothing, or I'll slice you up like a fish on a cutting board. Don't make me ask again."

"My name is Key, and I'm a Sergeant," he replied, making it sound like he was keeping it together. "What do you want with me?"

"Hey boys, this guy says he's a Sergeant!" A different voice said, eliciting forced laughs from several others. No one answered the question.

"In't that right?" Another distinctly male voice asked. "He looks more like a corporal to me. Who do you work for?"

The line of questioning continued as Key lay on his side, blindfolded in the cart. He attempted to respond in a way that might encourage his captors to reveal information as well. He asked, "Do you know where the old armory was? It's just around the corner from there," and "Are you familiar with Captain Watford? Him." Through his covert reverse questioning, he learned that his captors were either former guards by how much information they knew or had at least worked with them. However, he still didn't know what they wanted from him.

Someone must have signaled the rest because, all at once, the whole environment shifted. Everyone became instantaneously quiet, and Key felt the point of cold steel on his neck.

"I'm going to level with you," Gruff voice leaned in to whisper. "We're about to leave the city. We will pass exactly one armed guard on our way out. If you make one sound, I'll slice the noise right out of your throat. Starting… now."

The cart fell quiet as the rumbling of wheels on stone gave way to the dull sound of moving across wooden beams. They were crossing the bridge out of the city. Key had no intention of trying to alert the guards. He would have to try escaping a different way when he wasn't wearing a blindfold, and everyone wasn't on high alert.

Thankfully, after they had crossed the bridge, they didn't start asking questions again. There was hardly any conversation for what seemed like an eternity before anyone spoke. Key tried asking where they were taking him, but all he got in return was silence until the cart stopped. When it did, he was pulled out and tossed onto the ground. After being instructed to remove his blindfold, he complied and found that he was lying in the dirt, surrounded by people. Five masked bandits surrounded him. Key's initial thought was that it was either a prank from Jory or the Sergeant's quarters.

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"Who is this? This isn't who I told you to get. You had one job," a disgruntled bandit complained as the others looked uneasy.

Someone tossed a shovel on the ground next to Key and ordered him to dig. His first thought was that after he finished digging, they were probably going to stab him. His next thought was that if they were going to stab him, he was going to make someone else dig his grave.

He sat up, folded his arms, and responded, "No."

"You bloody will or I'll run you through," the leader countered.

Key stood, held out his arms, and leaned his head back slightly as he accepted his fate. "Do what you will because I will not dig," he said, a tear forming in his eye.

For some reason, one of the bandits had a whip, and they took that moment to fling it out and crack it very near Key's head. The sound of it, though not physically painful, was enough to convince him to start digging. He dug as slow as they let him, but he was beginning to feel like he had to figure something out before he ran out of daylight.

Key had witnessed many sunsets in his life, but he was disappointed that the last one he would ever see was, at best, average. The monochrome orange glow in the cloudless sky failed to inspire him or evoke any poetic thoughts. He still clung to the hope that Jory or the Sergeants would do something remarkable to change his feelings about it.

If he died, his only regret was that he had never finished his prank on Jory. He had worked hard preparing for it, and it would have been his greatest achievement. Never in a million years would he have come up with such a complex and diabolical plan if he hadn't met Deliana. Meeting her had changed him on a fundamental level. She introduced him to a new way of seeing things. She taught him not only to think bigger, but to consider things from multiple points of view. He wondered if any of his tricks would help him escape. He still had the string up his sleeve.

The quality of the sunset had improved somewhat, but he still hadn't been given the chance to escape. Worse yet, he began to hear chanting. He looked up from his hole to see a procession of masked bandits, all carrying torches in a row. When his captors joined in on the chant, he realized he hadn't considered the option that he was to be some kind of sacrifice.

"Give me the shovel, lad," one of the bandits ordered, holding his hand towards Key.

When it was clear there was no other choice, Key gave the shovel up, handed it out of his waist-deep hole, and searched desperately for an escape. There was none. The bandits came and circled the hole, torches in hand until Key was completely surrounded. There were twenty of them, with more arriving each moment.

One of the bandits, wearing more lavish robes than the others, held up his hands to quiet the others. When they were silent, he began speaking.

"When the king sees the barbarians at the gate, he turns to his generals and says, "We must fight, we must defend." The generals turn to their officers and say, "We must fight, we must defend." Then, the officers turn to us. They say, "We must fight, we must defend," but who do we turn to? Who do the Sergeants turn to? We turn to no one. We take those orders and order our soldiers, "Stand behind me as I lead you to death," "Fight beside me as I lead you to victory," and "Get up there and fight, or you'll be leading latrine detail for the next year!" We are the tip of the king's arrow and the blade of his sword. And today, we welcome one more into the Fold."

Key let out a sigh of relief. He was at a hazing ritual and not in any mortal danger after all. He shook his head in disbelief as everyone removed their masks at once. He saw familiar faces smile down at him with gestures of encouragement. Sergeant Dilly was the only exception; he only glared.

"We have a lot of excitement and ceremony this evening, but first, we have to bury the corporal. Bring out the coffin!"