Kingdomturn

by Matthew Williams

  Run! Wyand’s mind pleaded, as thoughts of his own safety were overshadowed by the idea of protecting the Thoughtcaster and the Stormheart. Then, over Gasric’s shoulder, one of the Smokedwellers descended silently into the valley and sprinted towards the old man with a dark knife held high. Fight, Wyand decided, focusing instead on thoughts of what was certain to happen to his small group if he abandoned them now.

  Pushing Gasric aside, Wyand swung his oar in a wide arc and felt it collide harshly with the Smokedweller’s right arm just before the black knife could swing down into Gasric’s back. The Smokedweller recoiled but somehow kept his hold on the strange blade, his eyes wide with both surprise and hatred when he turned his attention to Wyand. The knife flashed in the man’s hand, but Wyand had the advantage of distance with the oar and easily redirected the Smokedweller’s attacks. Furious, but seemingly impressed as well, the Smokedweller regrouped once more and laughed darkly.

  At the sound of that laugh, Wyand’s focus was instantly shattered. Seeing an opportunity, the Smokedweller kicked the side of Wyand’s left leg with enough force to send him tumbling to the ground. Before Wyand could try to stand, the man was already on top of him, lifting the knife for a final attack. Wyand didn’t fight back, and even though everything he’d learned from training as a Bloodbrother went against it, he let go of his weapon. With his hands free, Wyand removed his Watch Helmet and stared up at a confused pair of eyes that he recognized. It didn’t feel possible, but he knew they belonged to Keltin.

  Shaking, Keltin backed away and lowered his knife. “Wyand?” he said in quiet disbelief. For that instant, there was no one else in the valley—just the two friends from Aldhagen who had spent more than seven turnings together. Keltin’s shoulders sank and his head tipped to the side. “Wyand?” he repeated.

  Wyand’s throat became tight from the sudden onslaught of emotion. “It’s me, Keltin,” he said, half a laugh and half a sob. Wyand rolled to his front and pushed himself up to a standing position. Not certain what to do next, he and Keltin simply stared at one another in wordless fascination. But the moment was fleeting—an illusion of a simple time long past that they both knew could never truly be real again. Keltin’s eyes became cold once more, and he lifted the knife as he turned towards Aemetta. Wyand realized in a panic that Gasric was about to attack her again, but Keltin struck first with remarkable speed.

  “No!” Wyand shouted, but it was already too late. The knife slid effortlessly between the overlapping sections of Sreathan plate and punched deep into the side of the Watch Leader’s chest. Keltin placed his boot on the old man’s hip, then viciously ripped the knife free with a staggering kick and a sharp pull. Gasric stumbled for a few steps before collapsing into the gravel, a flow of dark blood coursing down his side.

  Wyand’s body and mind were both frozen from uncertainty, shock, and terror. He watched numbly as Keltin approached Aemetta; they appeared equally surprised to see each other, but neither bothered to even glance at the fallen Bloodbrother. As Wyand struggled to comprehend the swirling chaos around him on all sides, a sudden movement from the northern end of the valley caught his attention. Two dark bars, each the length of an arm, flew towards Aemetta and Keltin with a low buzzing sound. Where those bars struck, grey cords appeared that wrapped tightly around Keltin’s leg and Aemetta’s arm. In the next instant, they both went limp and fell to the ground.

  The low buzz returned, and Wyand had just enough time to see the next bar before it slammed against his left arm. He watched helplessly as the cord wrapped around his wrist, then winced in pain as sharp barbs on both ends of the cord stabbed into his palm. A sensation of tingling warmth sped up his left arm, then spread quickly to the rest of his body. Wyand wanted to scream, to run, but his muscles were out of his control. He, too, slumped to the ground and came to rest a few strides from Keltin and Aemetta.

  In his paralyzed state, Wyand could still see and hear all that was happening in the valley even if he could do nothing now to change the course of events. Stonebrother Carnan stood over Laersi, his green sash stabbed into the ground by his dagger and his oar spinning furiously to fend off two Smokedwellers armed with isen. Farther north, one of the scrid lay dead while another bristled with arrows and shrieked wildly as it tried to find its attackers. Three Smokedwellers armed with bows remained in the relative safety of the high forest on the western ridge, and they continued to shower the Cynmeren forces with arrows. Wyand wondered with morbid interest how much longer it would be before one of those arrows found him, but then he noticed Gasric.

  The Watch Leader wasn’t dead—not yet, at least—and he had somehow crawled back to the nearby transport cage that his dead scrid had dropped. From that cage, he removed a large sack and a dark sphere that Wyand had seen once before. Without the ability to look away, Wyand was forced to watch as a shimmering black orb sailed towards the forest and collided with a spineleaf on the ridge near the Smokedwellers. A light brighter than the midday sun burst from the orb, and an echoing clap of thunder accompanied it with enough force to bounce Wyand’s useless body against the gravel beneath him.

  In the shimmering haze that followed, Wyand saw what remained of one of the Smokedwellers fall into the valley as nothing more than a burning pile of bones and flesh. The spineleaf had splintered in half and uprooted from the force of the explosion; it, too, toppled into the valley amid a cloud of cinders and ash. Suddenly, Wyand felt himself being lifted and a new level of panic set in as he stared helplessly at the cold sky above. He couldn’t move, hear, or speak, and could barely see, so any thought of resistance was completely pointless. Whoever held him, they were running towards the eastern edge of the valley and away from the battle as fast as they could.

  Another explosion shook the ground just as Wyand saw the familiar slats of a transport cage appear above him. Wyand caught a brief glimpse of one of his rescuers, but it only added to his bewilderment. He was an older man who wore the tan robes of one of the Guided, but a strip of cloth was bound tightly over his eyes. It was evident that the man could still see somehow, though, as he expertly guided a scrid to lift Wyand’s transport cage. Once again, Wyand found himself staring at the hard cage slats as they rushed towards him, but this time there was no chance of softening the impact as the cage flipped into place. Exclamations of pain raced through his mind, but no outward sounds of his discomfort could be heard.

  As soon as the cage was in place, the scrid sped north as fast as it could travel. Wyand was jostled painfully from side to side as the creature scrambled over boulders and brush, but at least this offered him fleeting views of what was happening in the valley. Thump. His body slammed against the slats again. Beneath a scrid with another strange rider, a cage flipped into place that contained two Smokedwellers—Wyand prayed they were Keltin and Aemetta. Thump. Stonebrother Carnan fell beside Laersi with one of the paralyzing grey cords wrapped tightly around his leg. Thump. Gasric tossed another thunder stone towards the ridge. The explosion followed as expected, but soon it faded into the distance with the other sounds of the fight.

  Unable to put an end to the battering he was receiving, Wyand instead chose to embrace the rhythmic collisions with the floor of the cage. His thoughts grew distant just as they did when he allowed himself to become lost in any repetitive task, and soon the pain faded from his awareness entirely. Only the rhythm remained, accompanied by a vague sensation of growing colder with each passing second. The ground turned white, but Wyand’s dazed mind hardly registered this fact as it waited for the next bounce. One worrying thought lingered, though, and it pulsed with the cage’s movements: Who are these people and where are they taking us?

  40

  For two days, Wyand remained a captive of his own paralyzed body. Each time sensation started to return to one of his limbs or his eyes were able to twitch even a fraction to the left or right, the scrid holding his cage would come to a stop. Then, invariably, another barb held by an unseen hand would pierce his skin and return his body to
a state of infuriating stillness. No one ever spoke, and the only sound was the constant howl of the wind as its icy claws scraped across snow and stone alike.

  At first, Wyand was too exhausted to think of anything other than sleep, but by dawn of the second day spent motionless, his thoughts grew louder than the ceaseless wind. He worried about Keltin and Aemetta, he wondered if Laersi, Carnan, or Gasric had survived, he hoped Ryna was safe, he feared who the mysterious captors were and where they might be taking him. A hundred thousand different thoughts and memories coursed through his mind as the hours passed, most only adding to his wordless frustration.

  Still, there were small moments of comfort—though Wyand was embarrassed to admit it, even to himself—any time his thoughts strayed back to Eyrie and the sensation of her lips against his own. There was a surge of renewed energy whenever that memory came to mind; it felt like she was in the transport cage with him, encouraging him to stay patient and alert. These people would eventually make a mistake, and he had to be ready to act when that time arrived.

  Just as the shadows beneath the cage signaled the arrival of midday, an opportunity at last presented itself. A tingling sensation crept outward from Wyand’s core, and he carefully began testing each muscle for a response. He very slowly curled his stiff fingers, then smiled to himself for an instant before suddenly realizing an effect of the paralysis that had gone unnoticed until now. A gust of wind swept through the slats of the transport cage and slammed against his Sreathan plate; with the poison in effect, his body hadn’t been able to feel how incredibly cold it was in this harsh, frozen land. Now, every part of him felt as though it was turning to ice and he struggled to keep from shivering noticeably.

  Blessedly, the wind subsided, but as it did, the shadows beneath the cage vanished into an eerie twilight. Wyand cautiously turned his head from side to side and stared in awe at a wall of smooth ice that continued upward to a point beyond what he could see from beneath the scrid. By the absence of the sun and the crackling echoes, however, Wyand assumed the ice formed a complete tunnel that was more than wide enough and tall enough for four scrid to pass through side by side. Facets of blue and green seemed to shine with an inner light just behind the dense layer of ice, and Wyand became lost in the mesmerizing colors as they rushed past.

  Sometime later, the scrid reduced speed suddenly and Wyand was forced to resume the pose he had maintained unwillingly for the past two days. To his dismay, the scrid stopped a moment later and the transport cage began to flip out from beneath its belly. If I grab the slats now, they’ll know the poison has worn off, he realized glumly, so instead he prepared himself for the inevitable moment when the ceiling above him would rapidly and painfully transition into the floor beneath his back. With a thud and much internal grumbling, Wyand found himself staring up at the roof of the icy cave as he waited for one of his captors to pull him out of the cage. I’ll pretend I’m still unable to move, then surprise whoever tries to lift me….

  There was a quiet chuckle. “You may all step out now,” a man’s voice said. “We are aware of your ability to do so.” Uneasy silence followed, broken only by a swirling draught of wind and the steady sound of dripping water from somewhere nearby. At last, Wyand heard some of the other captives begin shuffling out of the transport cages, so he reluctantly decided to join them. His muscles complained after the days of disuse, but once he was on his feet, he quickly forgot about his pain.

  Standing in front of him were four people—three men and one woman—all clad in the tan robes of the Guided, and all wearing narrow strips of cloth over their eyes. Stonebrother Carnan stood to Wyand’s left, then from one of the other cages, Aemetta emerged and Keltin followed, much to Wyand’s relief. His happiness vanished, however, when one of the strange Guided stepped forward and the occupant of the remaining cage was lifted out.

  “Laersi!” Carnan’s deep voice boomed as he rushed over to the man who held her. The Stormsister didn’t respond, though, and her arms hung limp by her sides. “Why does she still suffer your poison when the rest of us can move?”

  “This is not our doing,” the Guided replied with a note of sadness in his voice. He turned Laersi in his arms to show the arrow that protruded from her back.

  “No!” Aemetta cried as she stepped forward and reached out to take hold of Laersi’s hand.

  “Do not touch her,” Carnan growled, swatting Aemetta’s hand away. “She is like this because of you.”

  “I know,” Aemetta said hollowly. “I didn’t ask her to take my place, though.” Carnan shook his head in disgust and turned to Laersi again.

  “We must get her back to Cynmere,” Carnan declared, his voice cracking as he spoke.

  “In time,” the Guided replied with a nod, then he backed away and began walking towards the lower end of the tunnel of ice.

  “Where are you taking her? Stop!” the Stonebrother shouted, his voice echoing on the ice as he reached for the waist dagger that he suddenly realized wasn’t there.

  “There is no aggression here, no weapons, no violence,” one of the Guided women explained. “You must be patient, Carnan. She lives, and she will be well again. We will bring you to her when she is awake.” The Stonebrother slowed at the sound of his name, then stopped completely when he heard the woman confirm that Laersi wasn’t dead. Carnan nodded uncertainly but still watched until Laersi vanished into the light of whatever waited beyond the end of the tunnel.

  The remaining three Guided stood in silence, seeming to wait for something. Wyand glanced at Carnan, then to Aemetta and Keltin. Aemetta appeared calm, with an intrigued tilt to her brows, but Keltin’s eyes darted frantically from one part of the cave to the next. When he noticed Wyand looking at him, it was more than he could endure. Keltin bolted towards the uphill end of the ice tunnel, scrambling across the smooth stones in a desperate race to freedom.

  “Keltin!” the three Guided called in unison, their voices merging and echoing on the smooth walls. Keltin stumbled and looked back at them fearfully. “You will find no answers that way, only death,” one of the two men continued as he walked calmly towards Keltin. “You know the truth, Keltin, and you have been running from it long enough. Come, see for yourself who your enemy is.” The Guided extended a hand to help Keltin to his feet, but Keltin did not take it immediately.

  “No,” Keltin replied softly, shutting his eyes tight as he struggled to escape whatever thoughts assailed him. “No!” he shouted, his earlier panic giving way to confusion and denial. Then he ran his fingers through his hair and a look of bitter remorse washed across his face. Cold tears clung to his cheeks when he looked at Wyand again. “No…” he sobbed in disbelief, then his eyes turned back to the man in front of him. “What…are you?”

  “We are Guided. We are Cynmeren. Most importantly, though, we are human just like you, Keltin,” the Guided explained. Hearing the truth only added to Keltin’s grief, but he slowly raised his shaking hand and allowed the Guided to lift him up. As they walked back to join Wyand and the others, Keltin’s expression was one of total absence—whatever he had seen or done horrified him.

  With a burst of uncharacteristic emotion, Aemetta wrapped her arms around Keltin tightly in an effort to jar him from his stupor. “It gets better,” she reassured him, with Wyand nodding in agreement. Carnan growled in his throat but refrained from contradicting her. Keltin’s only response was to continue staring blankly into the distance. Wyand wished he could do something to ease his friend’s suffering, then he suddenly realized a way that he could help.

  The moment Wyand reached for the Thoughtcaster, though, the female Guided took his hand and lowered it gently back to his side. “He needs rest before his mind will be ready to accept the truth you offer,” she said softly. Wyand nodded, stunned that even someone as perceptive as one of the Guided could know so much about a group of people she had never met. Still, Wyand knew she was right.

  Without warning or further conversation of any kind, the three Guided turned away i
n unison and headed for the lower end of the ice tunnel. The four scrid hurried after them, but Wyand and the others were uncertain whether they should follow or not. In the end, Carnan made the decision with a frustrated snort as he marched down the tunnel. “Guided,” he muttered under his breath just loud enough for the others to hear.

  As fascinating as the ice cave was, Wyand was not prepared for what lay beyond it. He squinted in the painful brightness of the afternoon sun overhead, then slowly began to distinguish details of the land around him. Snow coated the tall peaks to the east and west and spilled into the valley in which he now stood. The layer of white was broken by a steaming trickle of water that flowed down from the western mountains. Wherever its winding path touched, unexpected clusters of dense, green foliage spread from the edge of the water to the edge of the snow. Small huts of mud and thatch lined several sections of the narrow river, but more than any other aspect of this strange place, Wyand noticed the people.

  Men and women, some old, some young, were scattered across the valley, and all wore the robes of the Guided as well as cloth over their eyes. Some of them appeared to be taking part in real work—one small group tended to a cookfire while another filled buckets from the stream—but the majority of these Guided appeared to be wandering at random from one area to another. Occasionally they would stop, and even though their eyes were covered, Wyand still had the sensation they were staring at something he couldn’t see.

  The four scrid rushed to the bank to drink from the river as Wyand and the others marveled at their unusual surroundings. All of the harshness of the high, frozen mountains was still present in this place, yet there was an inexplicable warmth in the air to counter it. As Wyand followed the Guided towards the river, he glanced back at the tunnel and was shocked to find a wall of snow and ice suspended between the two nearest mountains; it looked as though a river twenty strides deep had frozen solid just before it could crash down into the valley.