The Eighth Warden Book 3Chapter 16
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Corec stared, frowning, at the four tower shields—the three they’d hauled up from the armory the day before, and the heavy one he’d found with the enchanted weapons.
“What’s wrong?” Katrin asked, joining him.
“I can’t figure out what to do with them,” he admitted.
She snickered. “Then why did you bring them out?”
“I was hoping something would occur to me,” Corec said. Boktar had refused to carry one, preferring to stick with his heater shield so he could remain more mobile. Nedley didn’t have the experience or the upper body strength to use one effectively.
Setting all four together in a row could have made a decent shield wall for Katrin and Shavala, protecting them from arrows while they participated in the battle from a distance, except for the fact that there were over a hundred thick-walled stone buildings available, many of which were still intact. Some even had openings for windows, which could serve as the crenels in a parapet, offering the women a chance to see their targets while staying mostly out of sight. The buildings would provide much better protection than a shield wall could, especially if there was a wizard looking for obvious targets.
“What about giving them to the wagon drivers?” Katrin said.
“If the fight reaches them, the shields won’t help. They’ll have better luck if they can prove they’re locals, and not part of our group.”
Corec intended to position the five farmboys from Livadi well away from the battle. He’d given them each a staff-spear in case they had to defend themselves, but it was his job to keep them safe. Perhaps he should have sent them home after all, but he couldn’t have let them go off alone into the barrens without protection, and he couldn’t spare enough people to watch over them.
Katrin seemed to sense his concern. “Maybe we’re worried about nothing and there even won’t be a fight,” she said.
A voice came from behind them. “There will be.”
Corec turned to find Razai brushing dust off her clothing. “They’re coming here?” he asked.
She nodded. “You moved the camp farther back.”
“I wanted to make sure they couldn’t see us if they looked this way,” he said. “No mage lights outside the buildings, either. What did you find?”
“They’ll be here this afternoon.”
“That’s what Sarette thought the last time she went up the mountain to check on them. Do they know we’re here?”
“Yes; they’ve got a Seeker with them, tracking us down. It’s the same group that attacked us outside Tir Shar. They’ve got the knives with the snakes on the hilt.”
Corec exhaled. “Well, that’s what we’ve been preparing for. Farmers and villagers again? The ones with the knives, I mean?”
“Looks like it, but they had bows last time. I’m sure they will this time, too.”
“You didn’t see any?”
Razai rolled her eyes. “Why would they be carrying bows in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, while sitting around their own camp?”
Corec waved that off. “Did you figure out why they’re after us? Did Rusol send them?”
“They didn’t mention him. They just said they planned to kill us, and they’re looking for something here.”
“Something from the ruins?”
“They didn’t seem to know.”
“What about their numbers?”
“Over a hundred, like Leena said. An even mix of the armed guards and the men with the knives. I only saw one wizard, but there were two priests.”
“Priests? Priests of Pallisur?” What would priests be doing there? Had Rusol sent them? Corec wasn’t sure whether the Church in Cordaea was independent, or if it was bound to follow orders from Cardinal Aldrich.
“I didn’t stop to ask,” Razai said in an annoyed tone.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and they won’t be blessed,” Corec said. Blessed priests—those who’d been granted divine magic—weren’t as common as the unblessed. His home town of Tarwen Village had never rated one; they’d just had the fraud Calwell, who’d allowed Corec’s mother to die. Even in Fort Hightower, blessed priests had been in the minority.
“If they weren’t blessed, I wouldn’t have been able to sense them.”
Corec paused. “I didn’t know you could do that,” he said.
“Good,” Razai said. “That’s why I don’t tell you things—so you won’t know them.” Corec wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke or just a simple statement of fact.
“What are we going to do?” Katrin asked. “Can we really fight them?”
Corec said, “If they’re coming after us, we have to. We can’t just hide and hope they pass by, and if there’s a Seeker following us, running will just delay things. At least this time, we’ll be able to prepare.”
“But there are over a hundred men!”
Corec was worried too, but it wouldn’t do any good to show it. “They sent thirty last time, and that was an ambush. Here, we can use the buildings as fortifications. With any luck, Ellerie and Shavala will be able to take out their archers before they find any targets. Then we just need to hit the mercenaries hard enough that they surrender.” When he said it that way, it almost sounded easy.
Razai growled deep in her throat. “You’re going to let them go again?”
“After we question them. If they’re actually mercenaries, then the others probably lied to them, like they did last time.”
“Mercenaries who are willing to murder one group of people just because another group says so? You’re too easy on them. Better to kill them than to set them loose.”
Corec frowned. If a Senshall caravan master hadn’t given him a chance as a guardsman on a caravan leaving Larso for the free lands, he might have ended up as a mercenary himself.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “We do need to try to take some as prisoners, so we can find out what’s going on. And I’d like to capture the priests and the Seeker if we can.”
Taking the wizard alive would be too dangerous. Their best chance was to kill him before he killed anyone else. Hopefully Ellerie, Sarette, or Shavala would be able to pick him out from a distance. If not, Corec would have to rush him before he could cast a spell.
“Good luck trying to take a priest prisoner,” Razai said. “I’m going to go get some sleep—I’ve been awake all night. Wake me up when it’s time to kill people.”
She strode off without another word. Corec stared after her. It felt like he should try to ask her more questions about what she’d seen, but he couldn’t think of anything else he needed to know. He was no general—he’d barely passed his classes on tactics.
Shaking his head, he turned back to Katrin. “Well, at least we know for sure,” he said.
“Tell me honestly,” she said. “Can we win? I usually like it better when you tell me everything’s going to be all right, but this time I want to know the truth.”
He sighed and took her in his arms, resting his chin on top of her head. “I don’t know. If it was soldiers fighting soldiers, the fortifications should be enough to tip the balance, but the truth is, we only have three soldiers and one archer. That’s not enough, regardless of the circumstances. We’ll have to depend on magic, and I don’t know how to measure that. How many of them do you think you can scare away?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It depends how close they have to get before they can hear me. Maybe five? Ten if we’re lucky?”
Corec had never tried to plan his strategies around the use of magic before. He’d rarely been given enough time to plan any sort of strategy at all. He sorted through the possibilities in his mind. Their best bet was to strike first, before the enemy had figured out their positions. That meant he’d have to take Razai’s word that the other group intended to attack. He couldn’t wait and try to talk it out, because doing so would give up their biggest advantage.
“This is just about the best battleground we could have hoped for,” he said. “The only thing better would be an actual fortress, but this will work fine. We can lead them to exactly where we want them. And if they’re like the last group, half of their men will be useless in a fight once we take out their archers. We may not be soldiers, but neither are they. They took us by surprise last time and we still beat them.”
Katrin stepped back and looked up at him. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said.
He stared into her eyes. Could he send her away before the battle, to keep her safe? Perhaps with Shavala to watch over her? But if the Seeker was searching for all of them, that would leave the two of them alone and unprotected. It was safer to stay together.
“You asked me for the truth,” he said, “and that’s as much of it as I’ve figured out so far.”
She nodded, then glanced at the last two items he’d brought back from the ruins. “Are you going to give those to her?”
“Yes, I should probably do that now. I don’t know if it’ll help, but it can’t hurt to ask.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“She doesn’t seem to want to talk to anyone. Maybe it would be better if I went alone.”
“Then I’ll go let Ellerie and the others know what Razai said, in case she didn’t bother to tell them.”
“Thank you,” Corec said.
He did this on purpose, Razai fumed to herself after she’d returned to the room she’d rented. He wanted the warden to bond me! She was once again back in her Aden persona, since the cityfolk didn’t know the demons were dead. Plus, that was how the innkeeper knew her. What was she going to do? She’d spied on her target’s conversations enough times to know that he and his friends were looking for a way to end the warden bond, but if she went with them, she’d be playing her father’s game. What...
“So are you going to tell me what happened yesterday?” Corec asked Bobo the day after the battle, as the two men loaded weapons from the armory into the hand-drawn carts their attackers had used for carrying supplies. It had been a busy morning. They’d moved their camp again at first light, farther away from the bodies, and then Razai had shown up a short time later saying she’d tracked eleven of the mercenaries east before scaring them off. Then, Boktar, Sarette, and Josip had left to...
Yelena dipped her pen into a bottle of ink as she took notes. “So, each spell feels different in your mind, but you don’t necessarily know what it does when you first learn it?” “Right,” Corec said. “Sometimes, I don’t even know that I’m casting it. About three weeks ago, we were ambushed by ... bandits. I felt strange during the fight, like everything was easier. At first, I thought it was just because the last time we were ambushed, they caught me without my armor, and this time, I was...
Bobo was a coward. He’d accepted that long ago. Whenever he was confronted with a choice to run or fight, he’d always chosen to run. Life as a librarian had suited him fine for a while—there was little danger to be had there—but his grandfather’s stories of great adventures had eventually proven too enticing to ignore. Bobo simply needed to find an adventure that required knowledge and intellect rather than brawn. His first adventure had proven less adventurous and rather more greedy than...
Corec stretched out in the bath, glad to finally be in a place where he could leave his heavy armor off for a few days. His mail shirt would be sufficient for walking around town. The trip from Snow Crown to Tyrsall had been long and boring, with the only high point being that the farther south they went, the less cold it got. There was a knock on the door and Katrin peeked in. “Hey, everyone’s ready.” She was already clean and dressed, with her hair done up. “Now?” he asked, looking down...
“No, not that way,” Gregor said as Sarette prepared to follow the villagers’ tracks between two tall boulders. While it had been snowing steadily for the past day, the trail the refugees had broken into the snow was deep enough that it hadn’t filled in yet. The two of them were at the head of the column, with Gregor pulling one of the sleds. Between Nedley and the scout, all of the sled haulers had been able to take breaks, which was necessary with how difficult the path had become. “Why...
Ellerie and her companions reached Snow Crown the next afternoon, still accompanied by the three stormborn soldiers. The snow had grown shallower as they traveled, and the soldiers removed their snowshoes when they stopped for the noon meal. The rest of the group decided to walk after that, giving the horses a break. An hour later, the trail was completely clear, making it apparent they’d actually been traveling on a road constructed of flat paving stones fitted tightly together. Cresting...
“Lanport isn’t as big as I thought it’d be,” Katrin said as they approached the city. “It’s supposed to be larger than High Cove,” Corec said. “I think it’s just spread out farther along the coast, so we can’t see it all from here.” The trip north from High Cove had been uneventful, other than the weather continuing to worsen. The light snow that had fallen the night before had melted, leaving the road muddy, and Katrin was looking forward to reaching the city and getting a hot bath. It...
Corec stood on the quarterdeck, staring out at the horizon. To the south, three smudges of land indicated the tail end of the Kitish island chain the ship had been following for the past few days. Once they were past the islands, it would only take another week to reach the port of Nysa if the weather grew favorable again. At the moment, though, the wind had died down to nothing, and the crew was attempting to keep the ship in place so it didn’t drift off course. Corec breathed in deeply. It...
Shavala accompanied the group that went back into the mountain, but peeled away when they reached the palace. She wanted to pay another visit to the room with the glowing mushrooms and moths, to take notes on the unusual lifeforms for her book. When she got there, though, she discovered to her dismay that the moths were lethargic, hardly showing any interest in the mage-light lantern she carried. Most didn’t even leave their perches. She set the lantern down so she could slip a finger...
Ellerie rubbed her temples, trying to hold back a headache. It was growing late, much later than she’d anticipated staying within the mountain, and they’d spent hours searching through rooms empty of anything other than rusted or rotting furniture and miscellaneous odds and ends. Even an empty room was an important find to add to their knowledge of Tir Yadar, but somehow, after the giant sphere and the blue lights illuminating the animal statues, Ellerie had been expecting something...
“Let’s just go up that next rise before we head back,” Corec said to Josip. “It’ll give us a better view.” “Do you really think anything’s going to change?” the guide asked. The scouting party had been in the barrens for two hours and had seen little other than scraggly bushes, weeds, and flat, dry land. “No, but we’re close enough that we might as well take a look.” They nudged their horses forward, Leena and Nedley following behind them. The Sanvari woman had accompanied the scouting...
Leena appeared near the mouth of the cave. Her head felt fuzzy and she had to stop and take a few deep breaths to steady herself. Her third trip of the day was always more tiring than the first two. “Ahh, good, you’re back,” Boktar said. He and Josip took the bundle of wooden boards she was holding. She could only carry a small stack at a time, so she’d been bringing some back on each trip. “That took a while.” “It was hard to find an ironmonger’s shop without being able to speak the...
Peregrine may not have been as large as the massive cargo carracks that formed the bulk of the Senshall fleet, but at over a hundred and fifty feet long, and thirty feet across at her widest point, she was still a big ship. And a busy ship. Corec had to wait his turn to ascend the ramp from the pier to the main deck, while the sailors ahead of him rolled a heavy barrel up the incline. When he made it to the deck, he greeted Boktar, who was crossing items off a checklist. “There was nothing...
Four years earlier... Winter came early to the Storm Heights, especially this high up. Sarette buckled her coat tightly, the cold winds at the summit whipping around her. When she reached the sheer cliff, she stopped and looked down at the clouds below—storm clouds, with the telltale flashes of lightning strikes. She stopped to take in the scent, then she sighed. She could feel the storm, but she couldn’t call it. Not yet. A voice came from behind her. “I hope you’re not thinking of...
Everyone gathered around the wooden table in the private dining room they’d used the day before. Corec waited while Ellerie described the proposal. He and Treya occasionally interjected comments when they thought of something important. Boktar had paced around the room while Ellerie was speaking. When she was done, he asked Corec, “What’s this Varsin fellow like? Can we trust him?” “I guess you could say I’ve been working for him for years, but only in the sense that he’s in charge of...
“This feels too tight,” Corec said, looking at himself in a mirror. He was wearing a gray shopkeeper-style suit, but he’d insisted on pants rather than breeches, and a coat without tails. He couldn’t bring himself to dress in anything fancier than that. His father might have been a baron, but Tarwen was a small barony, tucked away deep in the Black Crow Mountains. There hadn’t been many formal occasions, and Corec had left home before he’d been old enough to dress up for them. “It looks...
Birds called out a constant cacophony as Corec followed the pebble-lined trail into the village of Betan. With fewer than two hundred residents, Betan was still somehow the largest settlement along the western edge of the swamp. In contrast to the wildlife, the villagers themselves were quiet, staring in silence when Corec, Ellerie, Leena, and Josip passed by. Half of the huts were built on land, while others perched on stilts over the murky water. A series of wooden bridges connected the...
“Pay attention, you silly girl,” the cook said. Razai grimaced. She’d been listening for any sounds coming from upstairs, but the noise of the footmen clomping through the hallway outside the kitchen had drowned out anything else. “Yes, Cook,” she said, appropriately obsequious. “Sorry, Cook.” The job Renny Senshall had given her, determining whether two of her sister concubines were being abused by their patrons, had proven surprisingly difficult. The first problem had just been getting...
Corec galloped toward the line of archers, cursing himself for not having a lance. He’d finally given in and bought a crossbow, but he’d never had need for a lance in real life before, not having used the bulky weapon since training with the knights. He’d have to make do with his sword. He detached the weapon from the harness on his back and tossed the sheathe aside after drawing the blade. He cast his combat spells as he rode—shield spell, armor spell, and strength spell. Then, without...
Present day... “It looks like you were right,” Fiodor said. The burly driver brought his team of draft horses to a halt, then signaled to the other wagon behind him. “How did you know? The sky was completely clear four hours ago, and I didn’t see any signals from the towers.” Sarette shrugged. The snowfall had been growing steadily heavier for the last hour. “I just knew,” she said, not wanting to discuss it with a stranger. “Let’s get the sleds and supplies unloaded so we can get on our...
Corec’s shield spell flared out as one of the red-eyes got a horseman’s pick past his sword. Corec stepped back and angled himself to the side to present a smaller target. The pick, which looked like an elongated version of Boktar’s warhammer, was slow and unwieldy, but it was designed to fight men in heavy armor. If the red-eye got in a lucky shot, the pick could get caught in a gap between Corec’s armor, effectively immobilizing him. Worse, if the man managed to hit him hard enough, it...
Treya held the glass bottle up to her nose and sniffed, but whatever liquid it once held had long since evaporated. The gray powder left over at the bottom didn’t have a scent. She set the bottle back near the pile of broken glass and metal where she’d found it. Judging by the mess, a shelf or table had collapsed, spilling its contents to the floor. Only a few of the bottles had survived the fall. They were coated with a layer of grime, but the glass was otherwise still in good...
The morning sun hadn’t crested the horizon yet, but the sky had already lightened to gray. Shavala stood quietly, listening to the unfamiliar sounds and smelling the unfamiliar scents. The eastern half of Nysar had a climate similar to the Terril Forest, but the plants and animals were just different enough from what she knew to be disorienting. The bird calls were especially strange. The dawn chorus had begun, and even the few familiar species of birds sounded different in this place. It was...
Sarette blocked Corec’s strike, then dashed away before he could close in. They were both wielding wooden staves for their sparring session, but if they’d been using their normal weapons, her staff-spear didn’t have a crossguard, and his sword blade could have slid along the shaft and hit her hand. She wore gloves made of a light chain mesh for protection, but she wouldn’t have wanted to test them against a blade as heavy as the one Corec typically carried. “Good,” he said. “Do you want to...
Corec waited impatiently, checking the fit of the new cuirass he was wearing. It was comforting to feel the full weight of heavy armor once more, even if it wasn’t quite so heavy as before. He was wearing a mail shirt and cuirass from the armory, but he’d had to pair that with the remnants of his old armor—the helmet, gauntlets, greaves, and vambraces. It looked odd with the mix of styles and metals, but it seemed functional enough. None of the full suits of plate in the armory had fit...
Razai waited for her contact at the rear of the tavern, tapping her finger on the table as she idly considered whether the seaborn were paying her enough to make it worth sticking around. Maybe it was time to consider moving on, back to High Cove, or even up to Lanport. They were smaller cities, but there was still plenty of work to be found. Then she realized what she was doing, and forced herself to stop. She had no desire to go north in the middle of winter, but lately, if she let her...
The refugees had set themselves up in family groups in the cavernous building in which they’d taken shelter. Ellerie made her way between them, careful not to step on the few who were still sleeping. The villagers’ mood was subdued after everything they’d been through. Their headman’s death the previous afternoon had just been one more shock added onto all the others, but the plainsmen were a hard people, and they were already organizing the indoor camp for an extended stay. They were in no...
They arrived in High Cove after dark. Ellerie was riding at the front of the procession with Boktar and Venni when they reached the outskirts. There was nobody out on the streets, but lights could be seen through windows. As they rode past a cottage, an old woman opened her shutters to stare out at the noise, then closed them with a bang. “This is strange,” Venni said. “I’ve never seen it like this. Where is everyone?” “Asleep?” Boktar guessed, though his voice was uneasy. “It’s late, but...
The battle was over, but Katrin and Shavala hadn’t made an appearance yet. As soon as Corec could get away, he went looking for them, heading into the building where they’d been positioned, taking the stairs as quickly as he could in his armor. Reaching the top, he found Marco sitting alone on the floor with his head in his hands. “Where are they?” Corec barked. Had something happened? “Katrin’s helping Shavala back to the camp. She got hurt during the fighting.” “Hurt how?” “I don’t...
“No!” Ellerie snapped, after Marco had asked her the same question for the third time. “I’ll tell you where we’re going when you need to know, and not before.” “Then how do you expect me to plan for the trip?” the factor asked. He was a tall, slender man with a carefully groomed mustache and black hair that had started to gray. “I don’t. You’re here to handle the finances and to translate. We’ll listen to any advice you want to give, but Boktar and I will take care of the planning, with...
“There’s too much to explore, and now we’ve missed the whole afternoon,” Ellerie said, speaking to a small group after the sun had fallen. “Without Leena, I guess we’ll have to go back and resupply before we can do any more looking around.” Boktar said, “Even if Leena was here, we couldn’t stay much longer. She can only carry so much, and we’re already running low on oats for the horses again.” Ellerie sighed. “We need to have more time. Even another trip would only give us a few days. It’s...
“I remember there being more people here,” Sarette said as she and Katrin wandered through the market stalls. “You’ve been to Lanport before?” the other woman asked. “Once, years ago.” Her parents had taken her so she could see the ocean. “Well, it’s cold and wet today. It’s not a surprise that the market’s quiet.” Sarette hadn’t considered that. She hadn’t even noticed it was raining, and the temperature would have to drop much lower before she’d be bothered by it. Cold rain was a fact...
“Change the world how?” Rusol asked, narrowing his eyes. “You’re a son of Larso,” Leonis said. “You know the scripture. Magic is too dangerous to be allowed loose, uncontrolled. It’s only safe when it’s granted as priestly blessings.” “What does that have to do with anything?” Leonis smiled again. “What if all magic was priestly magic, given only to those the gods deem worthy?” “That’s impossible. The gods have no say over elder or arcane magic.” He just barely stopped himself from...
Constables escorted a line of gang members down the street toward the city center, past a row of jeering citizens. Razai stood amongst the crowd in her Vash-like disguise, grinning widely at any of the thugs who looked her way. She’d had nothing to do with their arrests, but if they were set free, she wanted them to come for her rather than the divers. As the last of them passed, she saw a flash of a familiar face through a window across the street. Renny Senshall—and if the girl had known...
When the guard opened the door to the cell, Ellerie realized she’d been scratching her brow again. She forced herself to stop. “We’re ready for you now,” the guard said, waving her through. He’d taken the redheaded girl away thirty minutes earlier, and Ellerie hadn’t seen her since. “Is Boktar all right?” she asked as she followed him out of the room and down a corridor, past other guards who watched her curiously. “Who?” “My friend! He was shot!” “I don’t know, miss. I heard some people...
The nearest peaks in the Coastal Range were visible even from Circle Bay, and it hadn’t taken long to reach the foothills south of the city. Corec was setting up his tent when Ellerie and Boktar returned from climbing the nearest hill for a better look. “Did you see anything?” he asked. “The road curves around to the east,” Ellerie said, “but if my maps are right, we don’t want to go that way. There’s not enough land between the sea and the mountains for what I’m trying to find. There’s...
While Corec and Bobo went into the city, Katrin spent the day practicing on her harp and getting to know Shavala. The elf girl talked about her training as a druid, her brother and his wife and their young son, and a friend named Lele who Katrin eventually figured out was a squirrel. For her part, Katrin admitted she’d been a thief, and that the penalty Shavala had overheard them talking about was a way for her to stay out of prison. Shavala knew what a thief was, but it was clear from her...
The stop at Dalewood was uneventful. Corec had asked at The Smiling Jester, but there hadn’t been any packages needing delivery. He was starting to believe that working as a courier wouldn’t pay any better than being a caravan guard, unless he could get hired on full time by one of the houses. They got back on the road the next morning. At the edge of town, the West Road split into the Trade Road, which led to Four Roads and then through the hills into Larso, and the Old Road, which led into...
“It doesn’t make any sense!” Ellerie exclaimed, shutting the ancient book and setting it to the side. “I have no idea if we’re in the right place or not. It’s just miles and miles of dead land!” “Things change over time,” Bobo said. “Not this much! There aren’t any landmarks left. I don’t even know if the river we crossed yesterday is the right one. There was no bridge, and it was miles from where it should have been.” “Rivers can change course,” Josip said. “I’ve seen it happen.” “I...
“Where’re ya headed?” the man with the missing tooth asked. He wore chainmail and carried a mace on his belt. There was a small shield strapped to his back. “And why don’t you got any shoes?” “Four Roads,” Treya replied. “I’m visiting some friends. I’ve got shoes in my pack; I’m just not wearing them.” “Four Roads?” the other man said as he looked her up and down with a wide smile. He had long blonde hair and a bushy beard, and wore a leather breastplate. There was an arming sword sheathed...
Ellerie shined her lantern over the fallen stone and dirt. “This one’s blocked too,” she said with a sigh. It was the third tunnel they’d found leading away from the southern area of the city to what they expected would be another section on the east side of the mountain, but just like the first two, it was blocked by a cave-in. Boktar rapped on the tunnel wall, then shouted and listened for the echoes. “This one’s man-made, so it sounds different, but I don’t think there’s any point in...
Shavala woke up the other women, then rolled her bedding back into a tight bundle. She’d volunteered to sleep on the floor the previous night after having gotten a look at the sorry state of the room’s straw tick mattress. Sarette and Treya had joined her, leaving the bed, such as it was, for Katrin and Ellerie. The tiny inn they’d found in the village of Elmsford only had two rooms for guests, but it was worth it to stay indoors and get out of the biting cold. In the nine days they’d been...
“It’s done,” said Cenric, a bulky, brown-haired man who’d become the spokesman for the former red-eyes. He spoke in a dull, tired tone. He and his remaining men had spent the entire morning building two massive funeral pyres, one for the red-eyes who’d died and another, larger one for the villagers. Corec looked up from where he’d been conferring with Sarette. “Then line everyone up. I want to speak to them.” Cenric trudged back to where the others were standing in a dispirited group, with...
Shavala and Katrin rode Socks and Flower to the elven quarter, since Katrin had suggested it was too far away to walk. After two hours, Katrin finally said, “We’re getting close. I think.” Shavala glanced back at the way they’d come, confused. She didn’t know her way around the city, but she had a good sense of direction, and it felt like they’d taken a roundabout route. “Couldn’t we have just come through there?” she asked, pointing. “I led us around some bad neighborhoods,” Katrin said....
“It reminds me of Circle Bay or Valara,” Leena said, gazing at the whitewashed buildings surrounding the market square. “I think settlers from Circle Bay built up Kitish after they drove the pirates out a hundred years ago,” Boktar said. Leena nodded. Kitish was one of the larger islands in this part of the Gilded Sea, and the only one with a deepwater port, making it a frequent stop for ships heading between Tyrsall and Nysa. There were other islands where ships could stop along the way,...
Katrin hummed to herself, then played the same tune on her harp before marking it down on the sheet of paper before her. While she hummed the next few notes, Shavala came into the room and greeted her. “Back to trying to write a song?” the elven woman asked. “Now that my fingers aren’t constantly frozen, I figured I should. I just can’t think of the lyrics. I’ve finally got two decent melodies, but they’re not good enough to stand by themselves. I need to put words to them, and I just can’t...
Six days after meeting Treya—and fighting the red-eyed men—the group reached Four Roads, a town of thirty-thousand people in the middle of the free lands, halfway between Tyrsall and Telfort. They’d met Jak’s caravan along the way, which was heading back east carrying wheat from the beginning of the harvest season. The caravan had been accompanied by dozens of farmers hauling their own, hoping for better prices in Dalewood or Tyrsall than they could get in Four Roads. As Corec had expected,...
After over a week of staying in inns on the way back to Tyrsall, they ran into a stretch of road where they wouldn’t reach another village in time for nightfall, so they camped out. Following the same pattern they’d used before reaching Four Roads, Shavala took the early morning watch. Sometimes Bobo or Katrin kept her company, but she liked the quiet watches, too, when there was no one awake but her. An hour after she’d relieved Corec, she decided to make another circuit around the camp,...
The blizzard arrived just before dawn, with enough force that it almost extinguished the bonfire despite the windbreak. Fergus trudged over to Sarette. “Come help me!” he shouted over the howling of the wind. “If we move the firewood and build another wall closer to the fire, it’ll keep it from going out!” “I’ll do it!” she yelled back. “You should be in your shelter!” “The work will keep me warm!” Other than Sarette, Fergus was the last person still out and about. A few of the other...
Treya heard a metallic clicking sound as she scraped the shovel through the layer of dirt and grime on the floor. “I think I found something,” she said, then looked up. “Are you all right?” Sarette was leaning against a collapsed stone structure. Her eyes were closed and she was rubbing her temples. The two of them were exploring the middle of the cavernous room while the rest of the group navigated around the edges, searching for tunnels and stairs. “I just don’t like all this rock over...
Shavala kept watch during the early morning hours on their fifth day out of the city, while the air grew an autumn chill and a thick fog rolled in. She’d bought thicker tunics while she’d been in the elven quarter, but she would need to find a replacement for her old human-style winter coat the next time she was in the city. She liked the pockets that came with human coats. Setting her bow to the side and rubbing her hands on her arms to warm up, she felt the comforting weight of her new...
The chilly autumn rain poured down as the horses trudged along the South Road, nine days north of Circle Bay. For the first seven days, the road had followed the coastline and they’d stayed in fishing villages when they could find one, but then the main road had curved west, cutting through a forest. It wasn’t the Terril Forest—they were too far east and the trees weren’t tall enough—but the area was heavily wooded. According to their maps, the reason the road had turned inland was to go...
Present day... “Thank you for allowing us to camp out here,” Corec said to the farmer as he handed over five copper coins, on top of the two silver he’d given the man the night before for additional supplies. With the pack mule to carry everything, and by supplementing their meals with what they could find or catch along the way, they’d have enough food to get to the elven border camp and then back to the West Road before needing to buy more. After saying their farewells, Corec and his...
The plan fell apart before it even got started. Early in the morning, Corec had tracked down some of the fishermen who worked the local lakes, and found one that was willing to sell him a large net. Then he’d bought a heavy crossbow, wishing he hadn’t sold the last one. While he was doing that, someone at the Three Orders chapter house helped Treya find a local farmer who knew where the drake was nesting, and could take them to it. Bren, the guide, led them north up the Farm Road for an...
“I wish you’d stop messing with that thing.” Shavala looked up from where she was sitting cross-legged with the staff laid across her lap. “It’s not saying anything now,” she told Katrin. “It’s a hunk of wood—it shouldn’t have said anything at all! It’s creepy.” Shavala stood and leaned the staff against the wall, then went to sit next to the other woman. “It was more like it was thinking than talking. It just didn’t like what I was doing.” “What if it happens again?” She didn’t have an...
The visions from the staff had repeated themselves several times before Shavala realized they were gradually being stretched out over longer periods. Now, after carrying it for hours, a scene that had once been just a brief glimpse might last for over a minute, without showing anything more than it had the first time. The things she was seeing had to be elder magic, and likely druidic, but the visions didn’t give her any indication of their purpose. The arms she occasionally saw holding the...
“Maybe you should go back and wait at the inn with Bobo,” Corec said to Katrin as the group headed to the constabulary building. “But what if I can help?” she said, hefting the flute she held in her left hand. He sighed. “The only weapon you’ve got is that dagger. I worry about you.” “I wasn’t the one that rushed straight at a group of five ogres.” “That’s different.” She raised her eyebrows. “Oh?” “I trained for that sort of thing, and you don’t wear any armor.” “The armor didn’t seem...