Spoiler Fanfiction
Notes:
• Am I stalling on getting back to Esben & Artham’s part of the story purely for the sake of suspense? Um, yes. But the next chapter will get back to them.
• Previous Chapter
Chapter 39-Failed Plans
“I take it back. This is stupid. This is really, really stupid,” Aro whispered to Jaid as the two of them watched the bloodrock mine from a sand dune.
“That’s what I told you,” Jaid whispered back, glaring at Aro.
“Then why did you let me do it?” Aro asked, turning to look at the older boy, his eyes wide.
“Because I’m not stupid enough to come up with an idea like this, but I am stupid enough to agree to it!” Jaid hissed. He paused, and his eyes wandered back to the torchlit camp. It was hard for Aro to read his expression because of the black mask. Then Jaid glanced back down at him. “And because you are supposed to be on this raid, and because I don’t like Nyoken either. Nobody does. But for the record, yes, this is stupid.”
Aro let out a suppressed huff of laughter, eliciting a small smile from Jaid.
“And I guess that’s pretty normal for me,” Aro whispered, smirking and looking up at the older boy through the ragged strands of black hair that fell over his eyes.
Jaid rolled his eyes, changing position slightly as he watched the guards at the mine wander around.
“Now be quiet unless you want to get into trouble. We’re heading in soon. You’ll have to stay quite a bit behind me. We aren’t supposed to go in pairs.”
And of course then you won’t be around if I get in trouble for this stupid idea, Aro thought wryly. Then he followed Jaid’s gaze into the camp, swallowing nervously. Jaid sighed in exasperation, resting his forehead on his hand.
“I’ll try to stay close in case you need help, okay?” he muttered. Aro glanced up at Jaid with mixed feelings of gratitude and annoyance.
“I’ll be alright,” he whispered back.
“I know you will. Just try not to do anything stupid.”
Aro raised an eyebrow. Jaid let out a nearly silent laugh.
“Well then try not to do anything else that’s stupid.”
“I’ll try,” Aro answered, getting a grip on his bow. Jaid looked across the mine camp toward a sand dune on the opposite side, where another small black figure was faintly outlined by the dusky smear of dark red that still remained of the sunset.
“Time to go, kid,” Jaid whispered. “Good luck.” Then he went over the top of the sand dune and somehow kept his feet as he slid to the bottom in a quiet hissing of sand. Aro waited a few seconds, then attempted to do the same, immediately slipping and falling down into the sand. He hissed in frustration and glanced around in embarrassment, grateful no one had seen. Then he crept noiselessly into the camp and behind the first tent, glancing around for a good perch where he could hide and shoot at the same time.
At second thought it would be really hard to hide and shoot at the same time. Hiding would mean he would have a hard time aiming, and arrows consistently flying from one specific place was not conducive to hiding. It was one or the other, and Aro was here to prove he could fight. The one building that wasn’t a tent was a large, rickety looking shack on the other side of the camp. Other than the mouth of the mine, it was the highest point in the camp.
Perfect.
What Aro didn’t realize as he swept across the camp toward the building, was that there were four guards stationed at the door to the shack, which was facing away from him.
He reached the shack leaving no more record of his passing than a few fleeting shadows and shifted sand.
He looked up toward the roof, trying to convince himself that this was a good idea. He passed his bow to his right hand and the familiar feeling of the bow moving across his hands was reassuring, as always. He grinned as he slung the bow over his back and tightened the sheath of arrows and began to climb.
It was only a short distance to the top of the single story building, but trying to be completely silent and barely being able to see made it a lot longer. Finally, his hand found a board that lined the top. He grabbed it tightly, bracing his feet against the wall as he swung his other hand up. He slowly pulled himself up and scrambled awkwardly over the side of the roof, taking a few deep breaths, wincing at the sound the boards of the roof made when he tumbled over the edge. He stood up and stepped experimentally, his eyes widening when the boards under his feet creaked and the building shifted slightly.
This is a really, really bad idea, he thought as he tried to step on the support beams of the flimsy roof and not on the thin, sun baked boards.
But only if I get in trouble, of course, he thought, grinning as he pulled the bow back over his shoulder. He tried to move as smoothly as possible as he crossed to the other side of the roof, the side that faced the camp. Any second now small skirmishes would break out across the camp as silent Warriors took out the guards.
Peeking over the edge of the roof, Aro realized that there was some kind of structure rigged to jut out over the edge of it. Maybe for a precious spot of shade, or maybe the shack was smaller than it originally was, but either way it was useful. He let himself ease out over the edge of the roof, crouching on the small outcropping. He let out a sigh of relief to see that it didn’t collapse on contact, and he crouched down, positioning his bow and shifting the quiver of arrows.
Silence wrapped around him again as he waited.
All at once he heard a small eruption of clashes come from the other side of the camp. The blood was pounding in his ears as he reached for his arrows, and he wasn’t paying attention, so he didn’t manage to hear the movements below him, the crunch of sand under someone’s foot and the hiss of a curved blade being taken from its sheath.
He leaned forward and saw a small fight behind a tent. He could reach it, if he just moved. He pulled his bow forward and set the arrow to it, drawing the string back towards his face in one quick motion. He stood up and stepped forward, twisting to aim.
Too fast!
His one careless step caused the rickety structure underneath him to crack and shake, and his heart pounded and his mouth opened in a silent cry of fear as something broke underneath him and suddenly there wasn’t anything solid under his feet and he was falling down through the air, broken planks smashing to the ground around him.
When he hit the ground the world seemed to freeze for a second as bursts of color flashed before his eyes. His back throbbed from the impact and in the one long, suffocating moment, panic mounted inside him as he struggled to breathe.
Finally everything broke back into motion and he gasped desperately for air, forcing his shocked body to pull him into a sitting position. He looked around and the panic immediately spiked to a new level.
Four guards stood around him, and he must have been laying there for barely a second, because three of them were still looking at him in surprise and the fourth was looking at the roof he had just broken through. It only took one more second for the guards to connect the sounds of skirmish from across the camp to a black clad young man holding weapons, and that one second gave Aro time to desperately scramble back, half jumping and half tripping over a pile of broken wood.
One guard ran off, shouting a warning to the other guards in the camp at the top of his lungs and drawing his huge blade.
One of the guards lunged at Aro with an indecipherable shout, sword flashing. Aro managed to jerk backwards, the blade barely missing his chest, but then somehow there was another flash and he couldn’t see where it came from because everything had turned into some sort of feverish haze of fear and it was too close range to use his bow and he realized that his quiver had been broken in between his back and the ground when he fell and arrows were falling to the sand. Aro’s long knife was in his hand before he could realize the action of drawing it from his belt.
In the split second before the flashing blade swung at him Aro realized with a beat of terror in his chest that he wouldn’t be able to deflect it in time. He staggered back, ducking and throwing up his arms to protect his face and chest, hoping against hope that he had dodged out of the way in time, but then he felt an awful burning pain slice across the palm of his outstretched left hand and down his wrist.
He fell back on the sand, immediately turning and digging his feet into the loose, gritty earth and pushing himself off to a run, hearing a sharp whistle and feeling the wind from some other weapon rustle through his shaggy hair.
He heard someone running towards the other guards, and then he heard the clashing impact of blades. He paused and turned around. Jaid was jerking his knife back with one hand and hefting his sword with the other, moving out of the way and letting one guard fall to the ground as he turned to face the other. His eyes flicked in Aro’s direction and for a second met his. Jaid’s face was a stormcloud of anger.
“Get out of here Aro!” He shouted, as another guard fell to the ground. Aro didn’t need to be told twice.
The camp was alive with sounds now, shouts and cries and the crashes and shrieks of metal against metal. Then someone blew a horn- the signal for retreat, and suddenly Aro wasn’t the only one running for the safety of the sand dunes and the Wanderer camp.
His hand was wet and a throbbing pain stabbed up to his shoulder, lacing through the muscles of his arm. He looked down to see that the cut across his hand was deep, and the wetness that had started to drip off his fingers was blood. He pressed his hand hard against his other arm, in the fog of fear and confusion hoping to stop the bleeding.
Jaid was next to him in a minute, but he barely glanced at Aro’s hand. He looked away, still angry. Aro was relieved to see that he had gotten out though. It seemed like it took hours to get back to the camp, but from the desert stars Aro could see that it had barely been one hour since he and Jaid had been on the sand dune.
Someone was saying something to somebody else- they were too far away and Aro couldn’t hear them. But then all the warriors returning from the horribly failed raid were gathering around Ryith’s tent. Aro stepped in that direction, but then turned and ran to the Weaponsmith’s tent. He wasn’t supposed to be with the Warriors. He wasn’t supposed to have gone on that raid at all.
As he crouched down behind the tent, between the rough, tightly spread canvass and a barrel of metal scraps, the awful realization dawned on him that it was his fault that the raid had gone so badly. His fault for going when he should have stayed, falling through that roof and giving the guards time to sound the alarm. He desperately tried to push the thought away because if he didn’t it would overwhelm him. He could hear talking from Ryith’s tent, but he was too far to make out the words, and besides, he was pretty sure he didn’t want to hear them. Jaid had gone into the tent too.
Slowly, he pulled his hand away from his arm, cringing when his sleeve stuck to the gash. He wiped his sleeve slowly around it, trying to clean off some of the sand and the dried blood. The bleeding had slowed, but his hand was shaking and he couldn’t make it stop. He ripped a strip of cloth from the edge of his cloak with his good hand and his teeth, then slowly and carefully started wrapping it around his hand, letting out a long, shaky breath when he realized he had been holding it.
His crudely bandaged hand held out awkwardly in front of him, he leaned forward and closed his eyes tightly. He had no idea what was going to happen when Ryith found out it had been his fault the raid had failed, but whatever it was it wasn’t going to be good.
It would be hard to find him back here, one of the only advantages for being small was being able to fit into more hiding spaces. As the adrenaline slowly drained out of him, utter exhaustion took its place and before he realized it he had fallen asleep, his head falling forward to rest against the barrel.
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