Page 53 of Conflicted Fate
Kiel squeezed my leg again in an attempt to reassure me.
“It’ll work,” he said. “Trust me, it’ll work. Let me do the talking, okay? Just stay silent and sullen.”
“Can do,” I said. Hopefully, I could keep it together until we were inside the city. “Though, can I just repeat, that when you said we should infiltrate the city, I assumed that meant you had a secret entrance like in Lycaon. This wasnotwhat I had in mind.”
“I’m aware,” he said with a chuckle. “Which is exactly why I didn’t tell you ahead of time.”
“Jerk,” I said lovingly, a smile pushing through my fear for a moment.
“I know.”
He squeezed me again, then removed his hand as we neared the gate. It wouldn’t do for the guards to see us as anything more than a pair of miners down on their luck, trying to offload their cart of ore to one of the city’s smelters.
“State your business,” the guard closest to Kiel barked.
Kiel brought the cart to a halt, lifting his head only a hair. “Ore to sell, sir,” he said glumly.
“Stay there,” the guard ordered, motioning for another pair of guards, each clad in the brilliant steel of the Wulfhere, to inspect the cart.
We sat there, trying to act bored, while the detachment of soldiers examined every aspect of the cart and its ore to ensure we weren’t carrying anything nefarious or smuggling anyone in.
After an intense five-minute search that had me on edge the entire time, the captain waved us through the gates. We made our way through the city, dropping the cart off at a smeltery that looked almost as downtrodden as we did. The owner thanked us profusely for choosing his services and promised it would only be a few hours before we would have our smelted metal. Minus his payment, of course.
Having left the cart behind, we moved deeper into the city, where we found a sympathetic contact of Kiel’s, who helped us clean ourselves and change out of our ragged miners’ garb. We said our thanks, then continued our journey up the tiers of Nycitum. All the while, the flag of Lycaonus fluttered in the breeze high above us, hanging off the side of the tallest tower, leaving it clear of the smelters and the streams of ash and smoke they spewed into the air.
“That’s a looooot of guards,” I murmured as we walked past the towering gates that kept the public from ascending to the highest tier, where the Grand Forge, the Alpha’s palace, and extra guard barracks were located.
“Agreed,” Kiel grunted under his breath, keeping his head down, neither of us stopping or even slowing. The less we did to bring attention to ourselves, the better. Instead, we walked with the crowds on the streets, taking in all we could as we went.
“We could probably take them by surprise,” I said. “But we wouldn’t get much farther than that. The time factor alone would mean the gates would be closed before we could get through them.”
Kiel just bobbed his head in agreement. Once we were out of sight of the guards, we shuffled off the street and leaned against an alley opening.
“We need a new plan,” I said, stating the obvious.
There was no way we could sneak through the gates. That had always been the trickiest part of the operation, but neither of us had counted on the guards beingthatplentiful. Not to mention on high alert, watching everyone carefully for the slightest indication they would try to get past.
“I know. I’m thinking.”
I watched a plume of smoke lift into the air as one forge or smelter or another started up again after a brief pause.
“Kiel,” I said, still staring at the exhaust smoke.
“I’m thinking.”
“Kiel,” I repeated a bit more stridently.
When I saw his head move in my peripherals, I pointed up at the sky.
“What? The smoke?” he asked, confused.
“Yeah,” I said, twisting to stare higher up the mountain, where thicker amounts of soot billowed into the air from the huge chimneys of the highest forges.
“What about it?”
I shrugged. “What if we go down instead of up? The Grand Forge smokestacks empty into the mountains. Would it be possible to climb down them?”
Kiel’s immediate objections died on his lips as he considered the idea.
