Page 243 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Sunder

“Jett,” I warned quietly in the early morning hours.

I’d woken the boys a few minutes ago and rushed them to get dressed.

I’d taken food from the barracks, which they were stuffing into their little mouths at a rapid tempo.

“Remember to breathe in between bites, kid.” I was rewarded with a toothy grin and a view of half-chewed food still in his mouth.

Thankfully, there were no choking incidents.

I wanted to be out of here with both of them before Uron showed up.

Though the young male had expressed a desire to rescue Aggy, I wasn’t about to reveal the extent of my plans.

Not that my plans were all that extensive, unlike how I’d normally approach a mission like this, I was winging it far more than I liked.

Aggy’s presence, for one, had definitely thrown a wrench into things, but I was grateful for that now.

“Let’s go,” I said, lifting Amar in my arms and turning for the door.

Jett was hot on my heels, his wings shivering noisily at his back.

He was so close to twitching into his battle-form that he was breathing hard to contain himself.

I opened the door to find Uron on the other side, standing there in a uniform that looked slept in, his eyes a little bloodshot.

At first, I thought that meant the kid had dropped off the wagon and used Roka last night, but his clothes didn’t smell of the foul brew.

“Uron!” Jett exclaimed, peeking around my hip from beneath my wing and waving with one hand, a smile on his face.

It was easy for the kids to forget how disinterested and disengaged Uron had been only a week ago.

Now, he was one of their play buddies, someone they’d relied on for safety when Aggy and I hadn’t been there.

Uron narrowed his eyes at me, the wheels turning in his head.

“Today’s the day, then?” he said, instantly leaping to the right conclusion.

I shrugged, but Amar exclaimed, in that quiet voice of his, “Sunder is saving Aggy.” The Rummicaron nodded at the kid as if wholeheartedly agreeing, a grin twitching into place around his mouth.

Since he now knew that I didn’t judge him for his differences, it seemed the male felt freer to express what he was thinking.

“So he is,” he said to Amar, reaching out a hand to ruffle Amar’s wild tufts of blue hair.

“I will help,” he added, and he sounded very determined, almost defiant.

I thought he might fear that I wouldn’t let him help—might think I didn’t want him to because I didn’t trust him enough—but I guess I had to give him some kind of task.

In a way, I supposed I had to trust him.

He already knew we weren’t treating the kids as we were supposed to.

He’d heard Jett call me “dad” a few times, knew about our family tie, and knew about my relationship with Aggy.

He had more than enough information to go to Carator or Or’tal and rat us out, maybe he already had, I didn’t know.

Maybe this was how Carator’s guard had concluded Aggy was an impostor: he knew too much.

But he seemed willing to help, so I had to work with that.

“Yes, you are. You need to make it look like we’re all still here if anyone comes to check on us.

You need to act normal,” I said. I gestured at the courtyard, and we started walking that way, Jett bouncing ahead of us as he rushed onto the cracked pavement, his wings out and ready for a takeoff he had never practiced.

I saw his face fall; he’d clearly hoped for a more glamorous part to play, but I wasn’t going to trust him with the location of the kids—not when I couldn’t be sure if he’d ratted on us or not, even if my instincts were telling me he hadn’t.

He nodded as we crossed to the center of the courtyard.

“I can do that.” His head tilted left and right as he tried to assess how to make it look like we were still here, his eyes settling on the broken dummies pushed up against one wall.

“Thanks, Uron. I won’t forget your help—or your will to change,” I said, tucking Amar more tightly against my side.

I walked to one of the courtyard walls; I intended to go over it, aided by my wings.

In broad daylight, I couldn’t actually fly anywhere with the boys, we’d be spotted from the ground immediately.

A little aerial lift over that wall would work, though.

Truthfully, it wouldn’t matter much at this point if Uron couldn’t keep up a pretense, or if he ran to Or’tal to tattle.

By the time they started to search for us, I’d have the boys safely out of the way.

It would just make breaking Aggy out a little more difficult, but I was up to the task; failure was not an option.

“Okay, Jett, we’re just leaping over that wall.

A good solid push with your wings should help boost you over.

” My son eyed the tall wall with eager excitement, backing up for a running start.

He paused to give Uron a wave, and the young guard gave Jett an encouraging smile—at least, as far as a mouth full of that many teeth could look encouraging.

Jett ran at the wall, leaped up, and beat his wings.

I timed my push just right, catching his behind in one palm and throwing him; that was enough to get him on top of the wall, where he held on with a proud look on his face, beating his wings just enough to get his feet onto the top.

In seconds, I was over that wall with a well-timed stroke of my wings, my feet hitting the dusty ground beyond it.

The space was clear, a dusty stretch of land surrounded by a few deserted outer buildings, some of them partially collapsed.

Jett bravely leaped down from that wall, wings stretched out to break his fall.

Then the three of us were off, darting for cover behind buildings and stacks of crates.

One time, we crawled beneath a parked vehicle.

I’d hide them and then turn back for Aggy.

*

Agatha

I was pacing across my cell, my feet burning, my calves aching, and my skin so numb from the cold that I couldn’t tell if it was warming up in here or not.

I thought it might be morning, but I couldn’t tell for sure; there was no light to go by.

Unlike in the rest of the palace, no wall sconces flared to life to signal the end of the night cycle.

Had Sunder woken up the boys and shared a bit of breakfast with them?

Had he spoken with his brothers on the Vagabond?

I hoped Sunder was sitting tight with the kids, waiting for his backup to arrive.

I wasn’t entirely sure how many people were on the Vagabond.

After seeing all those armed guards inside the grand hall, I was worried this plan was too simple to work.

Did it rely too much on brute strength? What if his brothers were outnumbered?

Nobody brought me any food, just like nobody had brought me dinner, and my stomach rumbled angrily.

Yes, I wasn’t mistaking it, it was warming up.

That meant daytime. I climbed onto the slab of concrete that was meant to pass as a cot in here.

There was a set of bars high up in my cell, on the outer wall.

I had felt a cold draft coming in through it all night, but as I grabbed the bars and peered outside, I still saw nothing.

It wasn’t a window then—just some kind of vent—not that it had helped to keep the damp out of this darn place.

My hand slid across something slimy, and I winced back, feeling disgusted.

In the pale gloom, I could vaguely tell that it had to be some kind of alien moss, green and viscous.

I wiped my fingers on my skirt, and they tingled, feeling even more numb than the cold warranted.

Huh, interesting. I wondered if that was a human-only response or something more. Maybe that stuff was poisonous.

Vaguely, something tickled at the back of my brain, and for the next hour—since I had nothing else to do anyway—I racked my brain, trying to figure out what it was.

It came to me when I rubbed my still-numb fingers over my wrist, where I normally wore my com device.

The moss, a native species to Arakon, was some kind of analgesic.

I had read about it on my datapad that same evening I’d learned about the Jukjuk.

Not, if I recalled correctly, the kind that could knock a person out. You’d have to use massive amounts for that, but it was a numbing agent that could help with topical pain. Great, so I remembered, but what use did I have for this information?

The cynical thought had just crossed my mind when I heard the door to the cellblock creak open.

A beam of light fell onto the stone floor, and a shadow was silhouetted, just like last night.

This shadow was huge, with a jagged head and wings flaring out like a giant bat.

My breath stuttered in surprise, and I rushed to the bars of my cell, peering through them to see who was approaching.

I could barely believe it. Was it really him?

How had he gotten in here, and so quickly?

Did that mean his brothers had already arrived?

Were the boys safe? Did he have them with him?

So many questions were rushing through my head, but all that vanished when he stopped in front of my cell.

He looked so good. I was so happy to see him.

It was as if I could already feel his warmth radiating toward me through the bars.

“Aggy,” he said, his voice like a balm to my soul.

I was so happy to see him. “Stand back, my Fire. I will break open your cell,” he added, and I reluctantly backed away from his warmth.

A soft glow emanated from the com on his wrist, enough for me to see his face.

He looked tired to me, but also like the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

After that energy-sapping cold all night, I just wanted to curl up in his arms and cry.