Honored (Book 2 of the In Search of Honor series)

The snarl froze on her face, and her eyes widened, “You what?”

I swung my legs off the ungiving surface of the bed and sat up, “You gave me an idea on what to do just now. Call Daniel to come here as quickly as possible.”

She backed away from me, her eyes wide and unblinking. “You better not be lying!” She yelled at me as she opened the door without her gaze leaving me as if I might attack her, and then she swung herself out the door and it closed quickly behind her to leave a smooth wall.

The world felt hollow. Or maybe it was just me looking out on this stagnant room as if I was a spectator in a story. I leaned back against the smooth wall.

A world where Dan didn’t exist was a place I couldn’t last in. It wasn’t something immediate. It wasn’t the infatuation I had felt for Kevin, or the desire to be loved I had felt with Roderick. It was how I had come to rely on Dan. It was the way he listened to me, and the way he was always there to help me survive.

Without him I was like a riderless horse left in the desert outside the Wall with no place to go. But I did have a direction. He had given it to me. I had the scent of green and all I had to do was keep following it to the land beyond the desert where Dan was waiting for me.

Dan was waiting for me at the place where the desert reached the edge of the village’s territory. In the way stood the towering castle of the city’s king, rising up to block out my vision of Dan trapping me away from him.

The thud of footsteps tethered me back to the room, and I could see Daniel entering. With a sigh I forced myself to focus on my mission to destroy the obstacles in the way of seeing Dan again.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed as they spotted me and his mouth formed a hard line. “The sleeping rat awakes.”

“Rat? How am I a rat if all I do is sleep? Maybe more of a cat?” I taunted him, not sure why his callback to my earlier call to be rats bothered me so much.

He shrugged. “Well, we rats are living decently. I had the soldiers take as much food from the warehouses as we could cart out and flee to the tunnels. We surface to attack wandering guard units, and then flee back into awaiting ambushes. It’s been quite successful. More successful than any attempts to get Honored folks to join into an Undesirable squabble.” He paused, staring at me, and then waved his hand in my direction. “More successful than you laying here bemoaning woe is me.”

Maybe he was successful on a strategy created from my mad ramblings, but what strategy was one that turned the common people against you? The longer this went on, the more hate we would gather. And his strategy would be one that would never lead to a definite end. It would just slowly lead to more and more death. “Then I won’t be useless any longer. I have an idea that will be a spectacular end to this war. One big boom to end all the fighting with a minimum loss of life.”

His eyes widened slightly, and as he looked up at the wall, I could see the loom weaving in his mind. Then they narrowed his eyes and focused back down on me, “Minimum loss of life. What do you mean by this? And a big boom? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Well, we would need a small group going in with me that didn’t mind their lives being forfeit. And the King and some of his men would die, but nothing more than that. As for a big boom, I’m looking for some large Wall provided explosives to blow up the castle on the hill and end the symbol of the monarchy. Boom!” My hands went from a center point and out to the side to show what I could only imagine the boom to look like. Smoke like what came from gunshots, and the rocks tumbling down till all that was left of the castle was a pile of rubble.

He shook his head, “How could simple explosives blow up a castle? And how would it end battles? The King would just keep fighting.”

How did I know that the explosives would work? I didn’t, but they were the best idea I had. “If the King is trapped in the castle when the supports go, he would be crushed and die. It would collapse like an old building that wasn’t kept up.”

“How would you keep the king there and prevent him from running out as soon as the explosion happens?” He asked.

“That’s the point of my small squad. I and a couple of soldiers would Surrender ourselves to the king claiming that we would like to come to an agreement to end the fighting. While we sit there exchanging words with the King, maids go in, set explosives, and escape. When they start going off, we do everything in our power to stop the King from escaping. At the end of the day, you step in to take control. You clean up the mess, reorganize the military, let anyone leave that want to, and make all districts equal. At the end, once most stuff has been forcefully changed, you step down and allow the people to elect a council, one person from each district to represent them. That council makes decisions for the city. See, it’s an easy and concise plan to end the war.”

He sighed, “That does not sound easy or simple. How do you know the King would speak to you and not just send you back to prison? And all those things you have planned for me, I don’t want to have to remember or implement them. You are the face of this. You do it.”

“I can’t. I am the face of this, so I am the only one they would accept for a surrender.”

“You don’t know that! I bet that silly King would think any of us could be the person leading it.”

“You know they’ve been looking for me. They want me dead, but even if they kill me it wouldn’t end things at this point, so I think they will negotiate. They can’t win here in the tunnels.”

He sighed and turned away to look at the door, and then looked back at me, “If you die, and I am the one left in charge of this crazy city then I will burn it to the ground and let the whole place rot.”

For a moment I thought of the village, of my time in the Wall, of all the time I spent learning about revolutions against monarchs to create democracies, and then I thought of the pain this place had caused me. Of the estimate of around ten more years of life that the Wall had given me. Of my days spent toiling as a Dishonored. Of Dan. Dan who this place killed. What did I care if he didn’t follow through on my, no, the Wall’s lofty plans for change. This was all their idea. “That’s your prerogative. You can follow through with what the Wall wants, or burn it to the ground for all I care. I want to just finish my mission of taking down the monarchy, and the rest is whatever you wish to make of it. I won’t be around to complain.”

He laughed and slapped me on the shoulder, “I can agree to that then. You get your little show, and at the end of the day if you don’t survive I will finish the show with a grand finale.” He started toward the door, paused, and turned back to me. “I will bring you some writing implements for you to write everything down. Make sure to have material, personnel, and plans ready by tomorrow.”

“When is tomorrow?” I called after him, not sure of the passing of time in this place.

He looked at me for a moment with a blank look, and then his eyebrows lifted and he smiled. “Three meals brought to you. Have it ready by the time the fourth meal is brought. At that time I will expect a plan, and then we can start to gather everything that is needed either from the Wall or from our people here.”

He opened the door, started to leave, and then looked back with a frown. “Oh, and make sure to exaggerate the explosive requirements. I don’t want to have to go requesting more after you die.”

“Enough for a city?”

One corner of his lips twisted upwards, “Something like that.” and then he was gone leaving me to plan for my own ending.