Their meal finished, and their plates added to a growing pile of unwashed crockery, Alexia was soon leading Gaelan back to the house’s first floor, and directing him very pointedly into the bedchamber next to her own. Gaelan was quick to notice that the noblewoman seemed intent on keeping him close, although whether this was because she wanted the company, or because she wanted to keep an eye on him, he neither knew nor cared.

After pausing briefly to retrieve his bags, Gaelan realised that the room had been kept in a moderately better condition than much of the house, however, that in no way meant that it was spotless. The carpeted floor was threadbare – stained and worn and the finely detailed wallpaper was peeling away from the walls, but the bed, a large, elegant four-poster in a similar style to one within Alexia’s room, appeared to be in good repair.

“Aaron used this room when he stayed here,” Alexia explained, still standing in the doorway, although Gaelan wasn’t convinced that that was her sole motive for putting him in there. Without commenting, he slung his bags idly onto the bed.

“So what is it we are going to do?” Alexia asked, still watching Gaelan as leant his sword against the wall, and easily within reach of the bed. She couldn’t help but feel at least somewhat unnerved as she came to realise that, for the extent of the brief hours she had known him, he had never let the weapon out of his sight.

“Find out where and to who Aaron was gonna take you, and take you there to them,” Gaelan replied simply.

“I meant about Albere. Can I reclaim my lands – is it possible, I mean?”

“That’s up to you. I really don’t care.”

“What? How can you say that?” Alexia demanded, infuriated by Gaelan’s dismissal of what she considered to be her family duty.

“Well, it looks like whoever Aaron was workin’ with does care, so you can worry ‘bout it with them,” Gaelan replied icily, glancing at her briefly, before turning away, apparently seeing to something within his bags.

“But you fought against the Governor, you fought beside my father!”

Gaelan stopped, and let out a derisive laugh.

“Beside your father?” He asked, turning back to Alexia. “Bullshit,” he spat. “Yeah, I fought. So did a lot of others. Most of them died fightin’. Your father wasn’t one of ‘em, though. We fought. He locked himself away in the citadel and pretended he was winnin’. Wasn’t ‘til the battlefield reached his front door that he faced the real world.”

“So you believe he should have just given up, surrendered, and relinquished these lands? Our lands? You would have handed your home over to an invading aggressor without any fight?”

“Not like there was much of Albere left to hand over by the time the surrender was declared.” Gaelan’s retort was spoken quietly, but with frightening clarity and conviction.

As Alexia glared furiously at him, struggling to form a response, Gaelan simply turned away, regret for his lost friends turning to anger directed at the girl before him. He knew there was no fair reason for him to take it out on her, yet at the same time, his desire to impress upon her exactly what her father’s decisions had cost him was quickly taking precedence. He knew that he was looking for the opportunity to hate her for her father’s mistakes, but before he could make any attempt to calm himself, he found himself distracted. Glancing through the window he was offered a view of just the house’s forested grounds, but he couldn’t shake the suspicion that there was something else out there.

“How…” Alexia began, fury still apparent in her tone, but Gaelan quickly raised a hand, indicating for her to be silent, as he struggled to focus on the sound that had caught his attention.

“What?” She demanded, angered and frustrated by Gaelan’s dismissal of her.

“Quiet,” he replied shortly. Alexia did as he instructed, and returned to simply glaring at him, silently seething. Even as she began to mentally question Gaelan’s distraction, she noticed a faint rumbling herself, a continuous sound, muffled and coming from some distance away.

“What is that?” Alexia asked, correctly interpreting the sound to be the source of Gaelan’s focus. He didn’t reply for a moment, and the volume gradually increased.

“Shit,” Gaelan muttered suddenly. “Change of plan. We’re leaving. Now.”

“What? But… Why? What is it?” Alexia asked, confused by Gaelan’s sudden change in demeanour. His dismissive, quarrelsome attitude had been quickly replaced by one of serious, intense determination, and Alexia suddenly found herself forced to re-think her analysis of Gaelan’s military discipline, or lack thereof.

“Trouble like you don’t know. An’ I’m guessin’ they’ve found what they were after,” he said, looking meaningfully at Alexia, while quickly resettling his bags across his back, and strapping his sword to his waist once more. As he moved, Alexia noticed a change in the sound; it was gradually becoming clearer, and taking on a definite mechanical character.

“Who are they?” she asked, anxiously, as Gaelan quickly checked his weapons.

“Five of the most dangerous men I’ve ever met.”

“Well, then what do we do? Do you have a plan?”

“We run.”

“Run? We can’t just run away,” Alexia said, her voice rising. “Besides, running isn’t a plan. Running is what you do if you haven’t got a plan, or if your plan goes wrong!”

“Yeah, well, whichever way you look at it, it’s what we’re gonna end up doin’,” he said, moving toward the door.

“But, wait! My things!” Alexia’s demand made Gaelan pause, and he glanced toward her room.

“Two minutes,” he replied at last.

Alexia moved into action instantly, grabbing a bag and beginning to thrust possessions into it, more concerned with retrieving everything she could than gentle handling.

“C’mon!” Gaelan ordered, as the mechanical growling grew ever louder.

“Hold on, please,” Alexia begged, rummaging urgently through her drawers. It struck her quickly that arguing wasn’t an option – there was something in Gaelan’s tone that impressed upon her just how much danger he believed them to be in.

A moment later, the sound ceased entirely.

“Too late...” Gaelan murmured, visibly tensing.

“What does that mean?” Alexia asked, her fear apparent in her voice as she paused, looking up from her position crouched on the floor.

“It means we’re in real deep shit,” Gaelan replied. “We have to go.”

“Wait, wait!” Alexia cried, struggling to force more of her possessions into the bulging sack.

“No time,” Gaelan muttered, grabbing Alexia’s bag from her hands and slinging it across his back, before stooping and taking hold of the girl herself, throwing her over his shoulder.

Despite her very vocal complaints about Gaelan’s rough treatment, he ignored her, supporting her with one hand, and seizing his crossbow with the other. Without a pause he marched out of the room, his expression grim, as Alexia continued her tirade of abuse from her position alongside Gaelan’s bags.

It wasn’t until they reached the ground floor that Alexia fell silent. However, even as Gaelan began to believe he would get a respite from her protests, her voice was replaced by her fists pummelling his back.

“What?” he demanded at last, setting her down in frustration.

“My bow,” she replied, equally annoyed. Gaelan paused to consider her request.

“You any good with it?”

“I hit you at thirty yards in woodland.”

Alexia took Gaelan’s lack of response as permission enough, and darted across the corridor into her living area. It was only a few seconds before she re-emerged, bow in hand, with a quiver of arrows strapped to her back. The weapon was an elegant compound bow, a finely crafted cam-powered design, allowing for a great deal of power in a compact form. Gaelan paused, looking over her critically, before freeing his cloak and tossing it to her.

“Put it on.”

“Why?” Alexia asked in response, grimacing as she turned the rough, patched cloak in her hands. Despite the fact the coarse fabric appeared clean, a pervading scent of machine grease and stale sweat made her immediately regret leaving her own, a far more elegant article, in her room. However, turning back to collect it was clearly not an option.

“You stand out. I’m intendin’ to keep both of us alive, so put it on, and keep your head down.” Gaelan’s orders were short and precise, leaving absolutely no room for misunderstanding, and even less for defiance. Alexia did as he instructed, grudgingly admitting to herself that, when it came to it, he displayed the same attitude and discipline she had noted in Aaron in the years past. For a moment, that observation only strengthened her feeling of loss, and her yearning for it to be Aaron guiding her to safety, yet a sudden sharp tug on her wrist brought the reality of their situation firmly back into focus, bringing Gaelan with it.

“Stay close,” he added breaking into a cautious jog, his crossbow gripped before him as he took the lead through the corridors, Alexia close behind.

The first signs of any unfriendly presence came as the pair approached the great double-doors of the house’s main entrance. Gaelan slowed, his footfalls deafening on the stone flooring. He paused, attempting to find his bearings in the unfamiliar building, but it was a creak from the rusted hinges of the house’s front doors that alerted him to any form of danger; the first signal that someone was attempting to force open the entrance. Gaelan froze, silently cursing.

A hurried glance told him all he needed to know. Reacting instantly, he dived into position alongside the doors, his back pressed against the wood and his crossbow ready. Alexia was just a moment behind him, flattening herself against the wall, but where Gaelan’s actions were carried out with perfect calm, giving the impression of instinct and training, she wore a look of barely suppressed panic in her eyes.

A moment later, the doors began to open, creaking ponderously, a narrow crack appearing between them. Gaelan was silent, tense and steady. Beside him, Alexia was strongly considering turning to flee. However, neither of them had long to wait. The first sign of any intruder was a telescopic metal baton appearing in the entrance, shortly followed by a black-clad arm.

Gaelan’s response was short and brutal. He seized hold of the weapon, throwing his weight against the door. It slammed heavily on the arm, and the limb was hastily withdrawn, a pained shriek sounding on the other side of the wood.

Throwing the doors closed, Gaelan thrust the metal baton through the handles, barring the entrance, before grabbing Alexia’s arm, and breaking into a sprint along the hallway. Even as they began running, the sound of automatic gunfire echoed throughout the house, as the men opened fire. Alexia let out a short scream as bullets punched through the doors, splinters of wood filling the air behind them, stitching the walls and rebounding off the stone flooring.

“Where are we going?” Alexia asked the moment she was calm enough to form a coherent sentence. The fact they had been under fire a second earlier hadn’t left her mind, and in a moment of distraction, she caught herself silently praising Gaelan’s initiative. That was immediately replaced with frustration once again as she realised the man was leading them on a race through the house with no sense of direction whatsoever.

“Ruined kitchen,” he replied shortly, as the sound of gunfire was replaced by echoing booms as the men attempted to break through the doors. Alexia wasted no time in taking the lead, making deft turns through the maze of corridors within the house, without ever asking why, simply glad to be offered some opportunity to regain any sense of control over the situation.

Gaelan was careful to mask his relief as Alexia proved her knowledge of the house’s layout, quickly directing them down the familiar narrow stone staircase that had first led Gaelan into the main house, and jogging through the kitchen wing, their footfalls muffled by the floor’s covering of fallen leaves. It was Alexia who led the way into the main kitchen through which Gaelan had gained entrance, Gaelan a moment behind her.

As Alexia slowed to a halt, finally beginning to wonder exactly what it was that Gaelan hoped to find within the collapsed wing, Veridus took note of the disturbance, and gradually unfolded from his position on the floor, getting to his feet.

Alexia took one look at the huge, armoured, horse-like form, let out a brief scream, and turned to flee. It was only the intervention of Gaelan’s arm as he caught her around the waist that prevented her from bolting from the room.

While Veridus watched her curiously, still chewing on what appeared to have once been some oversized insect, Alexia simply stared at him. It was a few moments before she finally determined that the equus didn’t appear to be inclined to immediately attack either of them, and eventually succeeded in tearing her eyes away from him, focussing on Gaelan once again.

“What is that?” she asked bluntly.

“He is our best chance of gettin’ outta here alive,” Gaelan replied, approaching the equus, and running a hand along his armoured nose.

“It... He’s friendly...?” Aleixa asked, dubiously. Despite the saddle obvious across the creature’s back, she couldn’t help but feel it would take a lot more than just Gaelan’s word to get her into it.

“That depends,” Gaelan said, glancing swiftly around the room. His eyes settled on the bags of flour stacked against the wall. Seconds later, an idea began to form in his mind. “Grab that oil lamp, and get it lit,” he ordered Alexia, pointing at a rusted lamp lying on its side on the floor.

“What? Why?” Alexia questioned, breaking her gaze away from Veridus once again. “What are you doing?” she added as Gaelan hefted a sack of flour.

“Leavin’ a little surprise for our friends.”

“I know everyone appreciates fine cooking, but I think we’re a bit beyond offering them cake and an appology,” Alexia stated, panic edging its way into her voice.

“This works, the only thing cookin’ will be them,” Gaelan replied. “Get it lit,” he ordered sharply, and Alexia quickly began fiddling with the ancient lamp, regardless of her doubts and confusion.

“Uh, have you got any matches, or...”

A moment later she caught the box that Gaelan tossed across the room, and started fumbling with the matches it contained.

“Hurry up.”

“I’m working on it,” Alexia replied curtly, as she finally succeeded in striking a match against the rough wall, pressing the flame to the lamp’s wick. It was a few seconds before the wick caught light, the old oil spluttering, producing thick black smoke.

“Get ready to run,” Gaelan instructed, guiding the girl firmly over to Veridus. Before she could muster a reaction, Gaelan had already taken her by the waist and lifted her to the saddle, despite her protests. Alexia suddenly found herself watching him with a nervous expression from a seat that was no small distance above the level that the top of her head normally occupied. She fought to keep the fear from her expression, but found herself unable to shake the image of the fearsome creature atop which she was sitting from her mind. The fact its head suddenly swung to look at her didn’t help matters, and neither did the fact she was certain she noticed an expression of amusement in its frighteningly intelligent black eyes.

Leaving Veridus to look after Alexia, Gaelan seized the steadily burning oil lamp, setting it carefully atop the almost-closed door, allowing it to lean against the wall. A moment later, he lifted a sack of flour, and hurled it against the wall. It burst spectacularly, filling the air with a wall of fine dust, and Gaelan vanished into a white haze.

“A smoke-screen. That was underwhelming,” Alexia commented, as Gaelan emerged from the cloud, covered from head to foot in flour that almost obscured the grease, grime and blood coating his clothing. Without responding, he swung himself into the saddle behind her, simultaneously directing Veridus and attempting to brush flour dust from his face.

“Just wait,” Gaelan replied at last, as Veridus navigated the fallen masonry of the collapsed wall, and they emerged into the forest that had become the main feature of the house’s grounds.

Even as Veridus began picking up speed, weaving between the trees and trailing a fine haze of white dust, Gaelan threw his eyes skyward, staring through the forest canopy at the storm clouds that loomed above them. His expression turned grim as he took in the ominous skyline, and the obvious threat it displayed.