War's Ending

by A J Park

  Kalleck shook his head and swallowed. “I couldn’t beat them. There were too many. We fought them, but I was losing men, and there were more sea-folk everywhere I looked. I used the girl. I threatened to kill her if they didn’t pull back.”

  “We’re taking their women captive now?”

  “I didn’t intend to use her as a hostage. We had to bring her with us. She was already hurt, and she would have died if we left her behind. I only did it because we were outnumbered, and I was losing men. It was the best option I had at the time.”

  “And they broke off their attack when you threatened her?”

  “Yes,” Kalleck said. He shook his head remembering the day of the battle. “She must have been afraid. She begged me to let her go, to send her back to her people, but I couldn’t do it. I told her that she could help us—that she could save the lives of many of our people.”

  “Why should she care about that with your blade on her neck?”

  “But she did,” Kalleck said. “She stopped struggling, stopped asking me to take her back. She said if she could save them, she would. It was the same in the battle. She didn’t know I saw her. She stopped one of the sea-folk soldiers when he was about to kill a girl from the village. Why would she do that?”

  Hannal looked surprised. “She tried to stop the soldiers? And she just let you take her? And they know you took her—won’t they come after her?”

  Kalleck sighed heavily. “They will. I know they will. But I couldn’t wait out there with her. She needed help. I couldn’t take care of a wound like that. If she dies, they’ll only have more reason to try to kill us. When she’s strong enough, I will take her back.” Kalleck put the last few bites of food in his mouth.

  “You were right that learning their speech would be an advantage,” Hannal said. “Maybe more of us should have done as you did when Naran escaped from the sea-folk. You should use it now to send a message back to the sea-folk. Tell them we will return the girl. It might give us more time.”

  “I can send one of the prisoners back with the message,” Kalleck agreed.

  It felt wonderful not to be hungry anymore. But now that he’d eaten, the strain of the last few days was more obvious and exhaustion was setting in.

  Hannal could see it. He stood up. “Get some rest now. I will take care of the preparations.”

  “Thanks,” Kalleck said. He could always trust Hannal. “You should go back to Kallia. It’s late now.”

  “I will as soon as I’m finished,” Hannal said on his way out the door.

  Kalleck was so tired that he barely remembered going to his bed, and he only pulled off one of his boots before he fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 4

  Lady Shalyrie Almorin

  Shalyrie woke very slowly. She lay on her face and felt a weight, as if something heavy was pushing down on her back. It was hard to breathe. She gasped, trying to get more air. Hands helped her, lifted her, so she could breathe more easily. They helped her turn over and slipped pillows behind her so there was less pressure on the wound. She was desperately thirsty, but the cup the hands offered her contained a bitter liquid instead of water. She didn’t want to drink it, but a soft voice encouraged her and, little by little, she drank. When she was done, the hands gave her a cup of cool water and helped her drink it too. She fell into a deep sleep.

  When Shalyrie woke again, her head felt clearer than it had for a long time. Her discomfort was much less. For a while, she rested there, savoring the absence of pain. If she held perfectly still, it barely hurt at all. Moving was another matter.

  She was warm at long last, and her head felt much cooler. Maybe she wasn’t going to die after all. Someone had been there with her—someone with a soft voice and gentle hands. Who? She stared at the ceiling above her. It was completely unfamiliar—supported by thick, carved wooden beams. She couldn’t see much from her position. For a long time, she just lay there, looking up.

  Finally, she pushed herself into a sitting position with her good arm. Pain flared from the wound when she moved, but once she was up, the pain was manageable as long as she didn’t move her arm.

  She looked around. The room was large. It had a big stone fireplace at the far end with two soft chairs drawn up to it. There was a small table and some chairs near the bed she occupied. A set of doors opened onto a balcony. From her bed, all she could see of the balcony was its railing, some rooftops and the blue sky beyond. The last thing she remembered was being in the hills and rocks with the horsemen. And Galenor had told her they were savages who lived in caves. That didn’t seem to fit at all with her current surroundings.

  Where was she? Nothing in this room was familiar. She touched her shoulder and felt a thick bandage. Someone had cared for the wound, but there was no one there now. Slowly, she put her feet on the floor. It was smooth, but felt very cold against her bare feet. Someone had removed her shoes. She was still dressed in the same torn and bloodstained gown, and she felt filthy and disheveled.

  Very slowly, with her good hand on the bed for support, she stood. Her left leg was sore when she put weight on it. She took one step, then another.

  On the third step, she swayed, suddenly lightheaded. Her knees buckled and she sank to the floor. The pain from the jolt drove everything else out of her mind. She lay on the floor, breathing hard, her teeth clenched.

  Getting up had been a bad idea. What was she thinking? Back into bed. Back.

  Except that she couldn’t get up a second time when she tried. She tried several times to push herself up with her good arm, but she couldn’t. The effort exhausted her and she lay motionless with her cheek against the cold stone floor. Why was it so cold here? Her bare feet were already freezing, and the cold from the stone floor was quickly seeping through the fabric of her dress. She began to shiver.

  She had been on the floor for a while when a pair of black boots walked by her head. A black-masked face bent over her. Of course, she would still be with the horsemen. Was it the man who had brought her here? He had told her his name… Kalleck. Was it Kalleck?

  “What happened?” his voice asked from behind the mask.

  It was Kalleck—she recognized his voice—and she relaxed a little. He was still a stranger, and she wasn’t sure what he would do, but he had helped her.

  How humiliating… She didn’t want to tell him. She considered feigning unconsciousness so she wouldn’t have to explain. Finally, she said, “I tried to walk, and I fell. I can’t get up.”

  “Do you want me to help you?”

  What other option did she have? She would freeze down here on the floor. “Yes, please.”

  He put his arms around her, picked her up, and carried her back to the bed.

  “Are you cold?”

  She nodded, still shivering, and he pulled the blankets up around her. “Thank you,” she said gratefully. That was so much better.

  “Healer Kern said you should drink this as soon as you woke up this morning,” Kalleck said. He propped another pillow behind her so that she would be able to drink and gave her a cup of amber liquid.

  She took a sip. It was the same bitter flavor she remembered from last night. “It tastes terrible,” she protested.

  “I know,” he said, and there was a hint of humor in his voice. “But it is very good for fever. Do you know how much better you are already? For days, you didn’t know where you were. Drink it.”

  She obeyed. It was worse to sip it slowly, so she gulped it down as quickly as possible. When she had downed it all, he gave her water.

  “Do you want food?”

  Her stomach growled as if it was responding to the question. “Yes, please.”

  “Don’t try to get up yet,” he said, bringing a tray and putting it on her lap. There was bread and eggs and some strange fruit with a golden peel and pale flesh inside that she’d never seen before. When she nibbled a slice of it,
she found that it was crisp and sweet. She tore off a piece of bread and tasted it. It was like the bread he had given her back in the cave, except this was even better. And it felt so good to eat. Kalleck brought one of the chairs and sat down, watching her from behind his mask. No part of his face was visible, except for his eyes. She could see nothing of his expression. This was the first time she’d really gotten a good look at him.

  He didn’t have his armor on today, but he was still dressed all in black, except for the brightly colored band around his arm above the elbow. It was a narrow strip of woven cloth. Each horseman she had seen was wearing one, but she thought the colors had been different. His was mostly red, with some blue stripes and a little green. The pattern must mean something. And they must wear black for a reason. Every horseman she’d seen so far had been wearing black. Kalleck’s head and neck were covered by some kind of close-fitting hood. Was it uncomfortable to go around with your face covered? But then, he must be used to it by now. She didn’t dare ask him that. So she picked a more urgent question. “Where is my brother?”

  “He is here in the city.”

  “Is he safe?”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed in relief. “My friend was with me on the bridge, and she went into the river. Do you know if your people followed them?”

  “None of my people followed those who escaped into the river,” he said. “If this friend fled with them, she would have returned to the sea-folk city.”

  “I hope she’s all right,” Shalyrie murmured. Be safe, Lorelei. There was no way at present to find out what happened to her. So much had happened since that day on the bridge. Her thoughts went to the attack on the horsemen. She looked at Kalleck. “And your people from the village, are they all right?”

  “They are here now too.”

  “What about Galenor? Has he brought his soldiers into your lands again?”

  “Not yet. We are keeping a close watch. There was another soldier taken captive from the bridge, besides your brother. I sent him back to Galenor as a messenger. We offered to release you and your brother in thirty days.”

  “Thirty days?” she asked. That sounded like an unbearably long time to be here among strangers who refused to show their faces. She couldn’t even see anyone. Why would Kalleck force her to stay here so long? “You won’t let us go sooner?” she asked carefully.

  Kalleck’s masked face was unreadable. “In order to return you to him, we must make the journey. We could leave now, but I think you would find it painful to travel, injured as you are.”

  It was true. She remembered how badly the motion of the horse had hurt. Trying to travel now would not go well for her. Maybe Kalleck wasn’t trying to keep her confined. Was he trying to spare her pain? But what would happen while she was waiting here to recover? “Will Galenor try to hurt more people if I’m not back right away?”

  “You know him better than I do,” Kalleck said. “What do you think he’ll do?

  Shalyrie already felt that she didn’t know him as well as she had first imagined. “I wouldn’t have thought he would attack that village. There can’t have been a good reason. Those were their homes, it’s not like they left their lands to raid us, except for the riders on the bridge. They came out of nowhere and I thought they were going to kill us all. I was terrified, and they killed several of our people.”

  She saw a flash of anger in Kalleck’s eyes when she mentioned the bridge. “Didn’t he warn you the bridge was dangerous? We’ve attacked it before.”

  “You… you have?” she felt like the bottom had fallen out of her stomach. She took a few slow breaths, trying to gather her composure. She looked at Kalleck. “Do you mean that he knew it was dangerous, and no one told us?”

  “He knew,” Kalleck said curtly. He pointed to her shoulder. “That arrow was meant for him.”

  Her head spun. No one had told them that they were going to a dangerous place. She wouldn’t have gone and neither would Olthorin. She had wondered why there were so many soldiers there with them. No one had given them any warning that their trip was more than a comfortable sightseeing expedition. Olthorin hadn’t known any more than she had. He hadn’t been prepared for trouble. He hadn’t even been armed.

  What did it all mean? Everything seemed to spin in circles in her head, and she was still so tired.

  Kalleck gave her a cup of water. She drank it gratefully.

  “Sleep,” he said. “I will inform you when he answers our message. For now, you are safe. Get some rest. The healer will come again to check on your wound. He does not speak your language, but he has already done much to help you, even though he can’t speak to you.”

  Shalyrie nodded. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  When he was gone and she was alone, Shalyrie’s thoughts swirled around in her mind, mixed and tangled, until she fell asleep again.

  She woke to hear someone knocking, and a man came through the door. He was masked, like they all were, but she could tell from the way he walked and from his slightly bent back that he was old, and his liver-spotted hands confirmed her guess.

  He sat in the chair beside her bed and looked at her intently. He touched his chest and said, “Kern.” It was an introduction. He was telling her his name. He repeated, “Kern.”

  “Kern,” she said. She pointed to herself and said, “Shalyrie.”

  His eyes looked confused.

  She repeated it slower. “Sha—lie—ree.”

  “Shalyrie,” he repeated.

  She smiled at him. “Yes, you’ve got it.” She could see from his eyes that he smiled back. He looked deeply into her eyes and put his hand on her forehead. At least Kalleck had explained that he was a healer, so she understood what he was doing. Kern pointed to her shoulder.

  Of course, he would want to look at that. He motioned that she should turn over, and she did. She felt him peel back the layers of bandages. His fingers were gentle and, though she had been expecting pain, she felt only a few twinges. He took some things out of his bag and mixed them, and she felt him apply them to the wound and then rewrap it. When he was done, he motioned that she should roll back over.

  On her back now, she watched him examine the front of her shoulder and repeat the same process. Then he pointed to her leg. For a moment she was confused, but then she remembered the injury to her calf. She stuck it out from under the covers and the old man pulled the bandages aside to see how she was healing, and then let them slip back into place. Shalyrie thought that his eyes looked pleased, and she hoped that was a good sign. He patted her hand kindly and went out. She wasn’t going to be able to ask him any questions.

  She dozed throughout the day. As it was getting dark, Kalleck came back. He built a fire in the fireplace and lit a lamp. He had brought another tray of food with him and placed it on her lap. With her good hand, she ate eagerly. He sat there, silently looking at her and, eventually, she stopped eating and looked back.

  “What is it?”

  “Galenor has sent us a message,” he said, pulling out a rolled parchment.

  “What does it say?” she asked with a sinking feeling. It was unlikely to be good news.

  “I can speak your language,” Kalleck said, “But I have not yet learned to read it.”

  “Do you want me to read it?”

  Silently, he nodded and handed her the parchment. The seal was Galenor’s—she recognized it. She took a deep breath and broke it.

  “To the Leader of the Horsemen,” she read aloud. “You have seven days to return Lady Shalyrie and Lord Olthorin Almorin to me, alive and unharmed. If you refuse, I will come and find them. Any who try to stop me will be killed as enemies of the King of Almoria.”

  She stopped reading and bowed her head. Seven days. “We will go then?”

  He looked at her. “Will you be able to ride?”

  “I have to be. I will not have him des
troy innocent people in my name. They have to stop what they’re doing. I will tell them and so will Olthorin.”

  “Will they listen to you? Do you have more authority?”

  “Yes. If my cousin, the king’s son, isn’t able to rule, then Olthorin will be king someday.”

  “So Galenor has to obey him?”

  “Yes.”

  Kalleck stood abruptly. “We ride in four days, back to the village of Thell. Rest while you can, Lady Shalyrie Almorin,” he said, taking the parchment from her hand.

  CHAPTER 5

  Kalleck, Son of Gallidack, First Guardian of the Yalkur

  Kalleck left Shalyrie’s room and went to the place they were holding the girl’s brother. The guards unlocked the door and Kalleck entered the room. The young man had his hands bound behind him. He had pale hair, the same strange golden color as the girl’s. What kind of man was he? Kalleck had no idea.

  The girl had forced him to adjust his opinions of the sea-folk. He had thought they were greedy, arrogant and cruel. In the past, they had seemed utterly without compassion as they seized his lands and slaughtered his people. The girl had surprised him. He had seen her save the life of a child and show real concern for his people, who were still strangers to her. She was a rare person. What would her brother be like? Kalleck knew, at least, that he cared deeply for his sister. That had been obvious from the beginning.

  Kalleck stood staring at the young man. “You’re her brother,” Kalleck said, cutting the ties that bound him.

  Olthorin said, rubbing his wrists, “Yes! Please! Where is she? Is she alive? Is she safe?”

  “She is safe,” Kalleck said. “She is much better than she was. She is out of danger and recovering.”

  “Thank you!” Olthorin exclaimed. “You’re the only one who can understand me. No one could tell me anything. I’ve been going crazy with worry.”