The diversion was working splendidly, Lucidra thought as she watched the weapon storage go up in flames. It was a brilliant plan, if a little difficult to implement. Getting the whale oil was the easy part, smuggling in barrels of it the evening before required a lot of bribes and inside knowledge of how things were stored. The barrels had been sent in as wine reserves for the prison guards who would miss the upcoming boat race and parade during Sedaya. The annual week-long festival to honor Sed, god of the sea, was the most important event on Samarran calendar, and the Black Tower always made a point of sending gifts every year, everywhere, to keep the city happy. That this year's gifts had arrived three weeks early didn't alert anyone, but the correct marks and seals on the barrels had much to do with it. Ranveer, as a former Salar, seemed to know every detail about how the Salasar operated. Then again, he was also someone who made sure he knew every crack and leak on her ship to run it in his twenties.

The fire did start a commotion, as predicted, and the smoke they'd maximized by burning charcoal along with whale oil did make it near impossible to see who was running where, giving them a small but perfect window to slip past the courtyard into the prisoner quarter. The four men she'd sent over the wall to start the fire had returned quickly to the southern gate to take care of the guards. By the time they opened the door for the rest of the crew to slip in, most guards on patrol were already running to put out the fire. Ranveer had predicted this, had chosen this gate and this specific storage to burn for their locations, taking into account the wind direction to make sure the smoke traveled where he most needed it seen and how it would affect the behavior of the guards inside, which, in turn, dictated the safest path to the prisoner quarter they had to take.

They'd moved quickly in the dark, slitting throats and hiding bodies of any guard left patrolling in their path. The men watched Ranveer's reaction as they did. They were his men, everyone knew, or would be again once he reclaimed the throne. The former Salar, acutely aware that he was being watched, made a point to kill one himself in plain sight. The crew had stopped looking for his reactions after that, not that she thought they would find anything if they hadn't.

'A practical leader is always needed more than a merciful one,' Niroza had said. 'You can always count on people to turn a blind eye to how food arrived when they're hungry, and remember nothing when their bellies are full.'

And it was practical now, to kill these men, to burn down the weapon storage and risk a bigger fire when he hated burnings more than anything. They had to go in and out before the rest of the guards knew what was happening. With only fifty men and Niroza's two hundred they would free with him, their number was still no hope against a battalion of Samarra's experienced city guards. Should they be alerted in time, their proximity would allow them to block all exits before Niroza could take one step outside. It was a gamble on speed and ignorance from the enemy's side, and they could all die here, tonight, if someone were to see through their plans early.

Not a risk she would take without a back up plan of her own, Lucidra had decided before coming here, not with her son being among them.

***

The fire was already climbing toward the roof by the time Akshay reached the weapon storage. Thick plumes of smoke spilled into the courtyard like waves that never returned to the sea, forming a curtain of blinding clouds that offered five paces of visibility at best. From the sound of it, half a company was already in the area, running and shouting for more men to bring water to put out the fire.

The fire...

Something about the fire didn't feel right. Akshay made his way through the crowd of panicking men, got close enough to the flame to get a better sniff.

Charcoal and a hint of something else...something that smells like the harbor, like...

He hurled himself at the first guard carrying a bucket of water, knocking the man off his feet just before he could empty its content. The officer gathered himself back up in confusion. He snatched the man by collar, yanking him up for attention.

"Get back to the headquarters. Tell your supervisor––tell everyone––it's burning whale oil. Bring sand. Drench the next buildings with water. Go! Quickly!"

It might even be too late, Akshay thought as he watched the man run off to carry the message and began to reassess the situation. The fire was definitely set by someone. Someone who would benefit from destroying the weapons. But even so, you didn't need whale oil to set a storage on fire. Smuggling it in here alone would take an unnecessary amount of planning, not to mention could only be accomplished by someone who knew the structure of the Barai and understood how it operated.

Moreover, whale oil was expensive and hard to move in large amounts without alerting tax officials, and using it this way would lead them to the buyer without much investigation. You didn't do something that suicidal unless...

...unless the oil had been bought illegally from someone...

...someone who'd attacked a cargo ship full of it last week.

Fuck.

Akshay wheeled, yelling as he grabbed an officer running by, "You! Report to the Chief. Relay my message." Too late. This is too late. "I need five hundred armed men to block all exits around the prisoner quarter. This is a diversion. Someone is trying to break out Niroza Naeem!"

The officer saluted and took off. No questions asked. Samarra's city guards had been trained that way for efficiency. Akshay gathered all the men he could find from the commotion and began heading back to Niroza's cell, knowing in his gut that something still didn't feel right. This was too well planned for Lucidra Naeem's style judging from her previous attempts to break out her brother. Someone important––no, someone from the inside––was working with them this time. An operation of this size wasn't organized to break out just one man. It meant that by the time he and his men reached Niroza they could be facing two hundred prisoners running loose on top of Lucidra's crew and whoever was working with her. And to get that many people out of the Barai...

...No. It was too big a job with just one diversion. There must be another plan, a deception he still couldn't see. Five hundred men might not be enough. No, it was definitely not enough.

He turned to look for another messenger, saw two men running toward the fire with more buckets of water, and began yelling for them to stop. The officers, not hearing a word he'd said in the commotion, disappeared quickly through the smoke along with three more men running toward the fire to do the same.

It hit him all at once––the memory of having been there in the middle of it, the helplessness of someone who could only watch, and the horror of knowing what nightmare was about to happen. The explosion that followed cranked up the fire to ten times its original size, blanketing the entire courtyard with a sudden heat blast from the steam that erupted and scattered burning oil on everything and everyone within a thirty-pace radius. The initial blast that lasted a few heartbeats gave way to the chaos of screaming men running with their robes on fire and a storage that was now completely engulfed in flame. The smoke was thicker, higher, and wider now, making it difficult to see past two steps ahead or breathe without inhaling a lungful of ash. There was no saving these buildings, these burned victims would die before the night was over, the fire would spread through the entire courtyard, and they would have to let it all burn, just like that time twenty-five years ago.

Akshay pushed himself off the ground, growling at the way his old scar stung in the heat and the memories that accompanied it. When or how he had fallen, he couldn't recall. All he remembered was the sound of someone yelling at him to move, and the pain, the loss, the horror of the day his face and hair was on fire that propelled him out of the courtyard toward the prisoner quarter.

"Go to Niroza Naeem," he barked at the men at his back, a tremble of rage and control stretched close to its limit riding on every word. "Guard every door and window around his cell. No one gets in or out of the prisoner quarter alive. I want Lucidra Naeem and whoever is working with her dead or brought to me before sunrise. And someone get me another five hundred men!"

***

The explosion flashed against the dark sky like lightning that shot up from the ground, painting an area twice the height of the storage with white clouds of fire-spitting steam as the noise flooded everything within a five hundred-pace radius. Ranveer swore and picked up the pace as the men behind him stopped to look. Lucidra caught the delay, barked a set of commands, and got them moving again quickly.

Not quick enough, he thought as he calculated the remaining distance. The explosion had happened too fast for the timing he had in mind. They should have reached the prisoner's quarter by now, but there had been too many guards on patrol along the way, and the men having moved too slowly had put them behind schedule. They were good men––he wouldn't argue with that––but good men were useless if they hadn't been trained to work together under one command––his command, to be precise. If only it had been Jarem's or Imran's men behind him...

No time for pathetic, useless thought of what could have been. The delay had been calculated. The calculation had been wrong. The timing had to be fixed. Someone would now question why whale oil had been used, connect the dots, and alert the authorities. By the time he finished getting Niroza and his crew out of the cells––a half-hour job at least by his estimate––the place could be overrun and all exits blocked by city guards ten times their number.

If they were lucky.

The Barai was a short sprint from the guard's headquarters that housed over a thousand men––men who had been meticulously trained to follow strict protocols for speed and efficiency. Men who were considered the best guards in the Salasar with Samarra being the heart of all its trades. The security measures themselves had been designed by him and scrutinized by Jarem, the commanding officers handpicked by both of them for discipline and intelligence. Their survival tonight, if one were willing to face it, depended on the discovery of his own shortcomings and the miscalculations of one of the most accurate men ever lived. The fucking irony of it made him laugh. It was difficult not to laugh.

But it can't be helped, Ranveer decided as he turned a corner. Pure, impossible luck was what he needed, but luck was a privilege for people who didn't need it. You live long enough to survive all kinds of shit, you'd know better than to wait for luck.

No. Getting out meant finding a way to stall the guards to offer the men enough time to free Niroza and move everyone out before they blocked the exits. Splitting up fifty men would fail both tasks, and they had neither time nor means to create another distraction.

The way he saw it, there was only one way left to fix this. It would be a gamble with bad timing and a risk he couldn't afford to take. But since when did life ever give him an option?

'One of these days, you will die gambling with your life,' di Amarra had said.

He remembered thinking how likely it was. He also remembered shrugging at that thought. He remembered the response, too, regarding such thought.

'Better to die with a dice in your hand than in someone else's.'

***

A/N: Guys,  I need help. I'm entering Awakening into an indie award and I need your nominations and votes to get through to the final round judges. 

The info is here:  https://www.indiestorygeek.com/a/indie-ink-awards-2022 Or you can search for "indie ink awards 2022"

THE SCHEDULE

- WITHIN the month of JULY, nominate Obsidian in the categories you see fit.

- If I make top nominated books you will be able to VOTE for it in AUGUST.

- TOP TEN of each category goes to the judges to read.

I just need to get into the top ten of anything. If you love this book, please help it get discovered.

THE PROCESS

Go to https://www.indiestorygeek.com/story/1271 or Google "Obsidian Awakening Indie Story Geek"

On top of the page there will be a link to "Nominate Obsidian Awakening for Indie Ink Awards 2022" 

Follow the instructions.

Thank you so much, guys. I really appreciate any effort.

(For clickable links, check out my message board).