by JA Andrews
Douglon rolled his eyes. “Never mind, I regret even doing it once.”
“It might be time to thank him,” Milly said softly as Douglon’s eyes began to close.
Ayda shot Milly an annoyed look. “Stop it, Milly,” she snapped. “He’s not going to die.” With that she reached forward and yanked the arrow from Douglon’s chest.
Douglon’s body lurched up off the ground, and a cry ripped out of him.
Alaric’s whole body clenched. Brandson cried out and Milly fell back. Ayda ignored them all and pushed her hand against the dwarf’s chest. She looked off into the distance for a moment, then lifted her hand. Looking distastefully at the blood on her palm, she wiped it on Douglon’s shirt, then stood and stalked away.
From the ground, Alaric heard a cough. Milly scrambled back to Douglon’s side.
Douglon coughed again, then struggled to sit up. He pushed his beard over and pulled apart the hole in his shirt from the arrow. The shirt was soaked with blood, but the skin beneath it was whole. A jagged scar sat in the center of his chest.
“What is wrong with that elf?” Douglon demanded.
“Douglon?” Milly asked, reaching timidly for his shoulder. “Are you… okay?”
Douglon took a deep breath. It sounded clear. The color had returned to his face. “I’m fine,” he said, staring after Ayda.
Alaric shook his head. The ground where Douglon had lain was saturated with blood. There was no way the dwarf should be alive. What had Ayda done?
Douglon was glaring after the elf. He began to swear colorfully, then added in a few dwarfish terms, some of which Alaric didn’t understand.
Milly still had her hand on Douglon’s shoulder. “She saved your life,” she pointed out.
“She let me lie on the ground bleeding and then tore an arrow out of my chest!” Douglon shuddered. “Do you have any idea what that felt like?”
“Well, n-no,” Milly said. “But she did save your life.”
Douglon let out a growl and continued to glare after Ayda.
The bandit Alaric had put to sleep began to stir.
Douglon turned his scowl toward the bandits’ camp. “Why are there bandits this low in the mountains? They never come this low.”
Alaric knelt down next to the bandit “What’s your name. What are you doing here?”
The man blinked up at Alaric and grabbed for his sword lying nearby. Brandson kicked it away and stood beside Alaric, glaring down at the man.
“Name’s Elrich, sir,” the bandit said, shrinking away from them. “And we’re here because we ain’t got no other choice. We had a village of sorts farther up th’ hills. But the nomads have been creepin’ closer and closer. Simmon went scoutin’, and he says there was thousands of them. They were filling all the valleys below the Pass, with more arriving every day. ‘Twasn’t a safe place for us to stay, you understand.”
“And you’re very concerned with safety,” Douglon growled.
“Oh yes. We always tries to eat healthy and keep a double watch on the camp at night,” he said earnestly to Douglon. “You never know what dangers are out there.” Elrich’s gaze flicked to the sky.
Douglon just stared at the man.
Alaric glanced up to the sky, too. “Elrich, are there dangers in the sky?”
Elrich chewed on his lip, then said quietly. “We saw a dragon.”
“When?”
Elrich looked surprised at being believed. “Couple hours ago. Well, I see’d it, but no one else did, and they din’t believe me.”
“What time?”
“A bit after lunch. I was tendin’ to the horses and glad I din’t have the job of hunting because the forest had grown quiet—unnat’rally quiet. The horses was all spooky-like, too. While I was brushing down my own dear brown mare, she got so skittish she almost kicked me! Been together three years, and almost kicked me while gettin’ her brushin’!
“That’s when I sawed a flash of somethin’ in the sky.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Somethin’ red.”
Alaric nodded. “A dragon.”
“‘Twas, indeed, sir. I ain’t never seen a dragon before, but that’s what this was. Sure as my mama loves me, ‘twas a dragon.”
“Did you see it again?”
“No, sir, just for that moment, flying deeper into the mountains. But I reckon that’s why the woods was so quiet. Ain’t no creature done want to be near a dragon.”
Alaric nodded. “Thank you, Elrich. You can sleep again,” and he raised his hand toward the man.
“And Elrich,” Brandson said, looking down at the man. “When you wake up, it’s time to stop being a bandit. The next group you try to rob might not just put you to sleep.” Elrich shifted uncomfortably. “Go do something useful with your life.”
Milly had walked up next to Brandson.
“Like what?” Elrich asked. “I dunno anything but stealing.”
Milly gave the man a disapproving look. “Then it’s long past time you learned something else.”
Douglon heaved himself to his feet and rolled his shoulders, stretching out his chest. He stepped over to the top of Elrich’s head and scowled down at him. “Did you know dwarves patrol these hills? I’m going to let them know that you attacked me. Your group here is going to wake up one night just in time to see the axes fall.”
Elrich paled and shrank away from the dwarf.
“I think that’s enough,” Alaric said. He set his hand on Elrich’s forehead. “Dormio.”
The bandit sank back asleep.
“Let’s keep moving,” Alaric said. He looked at Douglon. “Are you okay to ride?”
Douglon nodded, stretching again. “I feel fine. Better than fine, really. Whatever Ayda did, it worked,” he said, rubbing his chest.
“Does anyone know where she is?” Milly asked.
Alaric looked around but saw no sign of her.
“She’s over there.” Douglon retrieved his axe from the ground and motioned to the trees. “She’s up in that big, strong oak.”
Alaric’s eyebrow rose. “The big, strong one?”
“I don’t see her,” Milly said.
“Well, she’s there,” Douglon said. “The oak is all excited about it.”
Milly and Brandson turned to Douglon, too.
“It is?” Brandson asked.
Douglon turned slowly to look at them, the color draining from his face. “Good Grayven’s Beard! What did that elf do to me?” He looked around at the forest, his eyes growing wilder. “I can feel them!” he whispered. “I can feel the trees!”
Chapter Forty-One
“Of course you can,” Ayda’s voice rang out. “I couldn’t put as much of myself into you as was required to save your bearded neck without giving you some perks.”
“You put yourself…” Douglon looked at her, growing paler still.
“You were almost dead. There wasn’t enough blood in you to animate a rabbit. And you’re large. Well, you’re dwarf-sized. But you had managed to dump most of your own life out onto the ground. I had to replace it with something.”
Douglon was holding his chest protectively, cowering slightly as his eyes flitted around the trees.
“You’re fine now, Douglon,” Ayda said.
Douglon jumped slightly at his name, which she spoke with that strange elfish lilt she used with Alaric’s. Had she ever said Douglon’s name before?
Douglon looked at her sharply. “What?”
“You’re fine now, Douglon.” She was watching him impatiently. “So let’s go.”
When she said his name again, he relaxed a little but stood very still, watching her.
She let out a sigh. “You’re the one who knows where we are going. We’re waiting to follow you.”
Douglon rubbed his chest and, giving the trees one last suspicious look, went to his horse.
He led them up the path, hunkered down slightly in his saddle. Any time a tree was right next to the path, he skirted along the other side, but it wasn’t long b
efore the trees dropped away and what had been the trace of a trail became nothing more than a narrow dry stream bed in a barren valley. As the trees disappeared, Douglon sat straighter in his saddle.
“We’re almost there.” He pointed to the layer of red-stained rocks that ran through the valley walls a little more than halfway up. “The iron layer is almost thick enough.” He doggedly led them on while the way twisted left and wandered through another stone-dotted ravine. The layer of rust-colored rock grew a bit thicker just before the streambed turned right around an enormous boulder.
“Here we are,” Douglon said.
Alaric turned the corner and stopped short. Ahead of him, set directly against the base of a steep slope, was a stone wall. It was not large, maybe a bit taller than he was, running thirty steps in either direction.
Unlike the grey Wall of the real Stronghold, this wall was made up of the dusty sandstone from the ravine. The stones were small and pieced together well, but not perfectly, leaving the top of the wall tilted and rippled.
Douglon turned left and headed along the wall to a twisted tree trunk growing against it. The dwarf approached the tree cautiously as though it were a wild animal. Gingerly, he reached out and set his hand on the trunk. His eyes widened, and he snatched his hand back. He shot Ayda a murderous look. She smiled proudly at him. He quickly tethered his horse to a low branch, avoiding actually touching it. Then taking a deep breath, he grabbed the lowest branch and clambered up, heaving himself over the top of the wall and away from the tree.
Alaric dismounted and brushed his hand along the wall. Though more crudely made, there was no mistaking the way the stones fit together, as though they had cooperated with each other. He ran his finger along the tiny space between two stones that held no mortar. This wall was made by a Keeper.
The others followed Douglon’s lead, climbing the tree and jumping over the top of the wall. When the last of them was gone, Alaric stepped back from the wall.
“Aperi.” The familiar burst of pain in his hand was slightly stronger than the Stronghold Wall needed, taking more energy, lacking a little of its sophistication.
Off to his right, the stones shifted and the opening to a tunnel appeared. Not too far in it was choked with stone.
So much effort. So much energy had gone into making this. It wasn’t a perfect replica of the Wall, but it would have been exhausting to make. Alaric glanced around at the barren slopes around him. There was nothing to pull energy from, either. Kordan would have had to find it all inside himself. It must have taken him ages.
The small voice in him that still spoke like a Keeper gave a disapproving grunt at all this energy spent and yet the job not done completely right. The other part marveled that it had been done at all.
The voices of the others floated over the wall, and Alaric stepped away from the tunnel.
“Cluda.” He said, clenching his hand and watching the stone shift back to a solid wall.
Alaric scrambled up the tree and stood on the top of the wall. The slope behind it met the wall just a couple of feet from the top. A thin game trail meandered away from it around the base of the mountain. He hurried to catch up with Douglon who was leading the others down a wash in the slope. They crunched through the loose rock that filled the wash until they reached the gash of a rockslide in the mountain. At the base of the slide was a heap of stones and a dark hole where the ground had caved in.
Alaric joined the group peering down into the hole. Though stones littered the floor, Alaric realized it was the tunnel that had begun at the door in the wall and continued under the mountain.
Exactly like the one at the real Stronghold, the tunnel they climbed down into ran straight and dry underneath the mountain, ending at the edge of a valley. The tunnel wasn’t as large as the real Stronghold’s, but again, Kordan must have put an incredible amount of work into creating it.
Alaric followed the others slowly, running his hand along the rippled wall of the tunnel.
Something about this bothered him, but it took several minutes to figure out what. He had started to feel a sense of kindred with Kordan. A sense of someone else understanding his need to leave the Keepers. Someone else who knew he’d be cast out for the decisions he had made. Someone else who had left.
But Alaric wouldn’t have done this. He wouldn’t have tried to be a Keeper, anyway. He didn’t want to recreate a shadow of that life. He just wanted to live on his own.
He didn’t want to be sent on missions and do research. He had loved those things before Evangeline. After her, it had all felt so pointless. How could he care about the intricacies of politics in southern countries when he needed to think about her? Countries were going to war with each other. It had always been so and would always be. The futility of trying to help a world bent on destroying itself had been too much.
By the time Alaric reached the end of the tunnel, he knew Kordan hadn’t felt the same way. The beginnings of a pale tower rose a couple of stories into the air and stopped, as though it had been chopped off. Again, the main difference from the real Stronghold was the scale and the quality of the work.
But none of that mattered, because the Wellstone was here. He would have the antidote in his hands. His heart was racing and his palms began to sweat at the thought of it. He tried to hold the hope at bay, but it surged forward like a wave.
The group stopped at the mouth of the tunnel and everyone stood quietly, peering out into Kordan’s valley.
“Gustav’s dragon’s not here, is it?” Milly asked.
Alaric stepped to the very edge of the tunnel and cast out for any vitalle. “There’s no one here,” he said.
“Do you think Gustav has been here yet?” Milly asked.
“I don’t know,” Alaric answered, walking out.
Like the Stronghold, this valley was enclosed by mountains, so none of the afternoon sunlight reached the floor of the valley. Unlike the real Stronghold, Kordan’s unfinished tower did not rise high enough to reflect light into the rest of the valley, leaving it in a dim twilight.
Douglon started toward the tower, and Alaric followed right behind him. The others lingered near the tunnel. Even though the valley was empty, everyone spoke in hushed tones and kept looking toward the sky. Alaric glanced up at the clear afternoon sky, too.
Alaric followed Douglon to the empty arch at the front entrance of the tower. It was a poor reproduction of the Keepers’ Stronghold. The very air was wrong. There was no sense of solidity to the place, no sense of peace, no sense of permanence. It was a child’s attempt at a man’s creation.
Something crashed against the wall inside the tower ahead of him. Douglon started swearing.
Alaric followed the short hallway to the center of the tower which was open to the sky. The beginnings of a ramp wound up against the wall starting on his left and ending at nothing. Douglon was staring at the back of the tower.
“Yes,” the dwarf said. “Gustav has been here already.”
Ahead of them, the entire back of the tower was destroyed, stones torn down and shoved away. Deep dragon-sized claw marks stretched like scars across the floor, through the rubble, and into the grass outside.
“That was the room we found everything in,” Douglon said.
Alaric stared at the destruction, defeat flowing over him. He climbed over the fallen stones to stand in the center of the room. Following one claw mark, his gaze fell on a small trunk open in the middle of the floor, a long scuff mark in the dirt showing that it had been pulled from the rubble into the middle of the floor. Alaric stepped around it to see if any of the shelves on the far wall were intact. Behind him, Douglon grunted as he walked right into the trunk. Alaric turned to consider it. The brown trunk was unremarkable in every way.
With a little effort, Alaric forced himself to walk back to the squat, rustic trunk. He nudged the lid with his foot, flipping it shut, displaying a set of runes carved into the top. Influence runes.
“Have you ever seen this trunk before?” A
laric asked Douglon.
The dwarf squinted at the trunk. “It seems vaguely familiar.”
Alaric pointed at the runes. “These were placed here to make the trunk seem unremarkable. I bet it was right here in the room when you and Patlon were exploring.”
Douglon flipped the trunk back open, and Alaric knelt down next to it. Shoved into the back corner was a three-pronged silver stand, darkened with age.
Alaric sank down, his stomach dropping through the clawed floor. It was the stand he had seen in the Keepers’ Wellstone. The stand that had held Kordan’s own Wellstone. This trunk was where it had been stored. And now Gustav had it.
Chapter Forty-Two
A knot of desperation formed in his chest. Alaric looked around the room wildly, looking for the flash of the Wellstone. He stood up and scrambled over loose rock to reach the shelves that lined the wall.
The shelves were damaged, some hanging precariously, some lying on the floor. Scrolls and books had slid off onto the floor, but Alaric shoved them aside, searching for the glitter of the Wellstone.
It wasn’t here. He sank down onto Kordan’s bed, crunching the pebbles scattered across it. His eyes kept roaming the room, but it was hopeless.
Next to the head of Kordan’s bed, a shelf was affixed to the wall. It held a small book covered with thick dust, but Alaric could see by the edges that it had been well used. He reached out and picked it up. After wiping it with the edge of Kordan’s blanket he gently opened the cover.
A small cloud of dust puffed out. The smell of it stretched gentle fingers into his mind, drawing out memories of the Stronghold. The first books he had ever cracked open as a Keeper had the same scent. Knowledge and magic and power. And hope.
The queen’s library wasn’t the same, somehow. Her books smelled like dust and paper. It was a nice smell, but not like this. This book, he knew, had more than just words poured into it. Before he read a word, he knew he had found Kordan’s journal.
He flipped toward the back of the book and caught a fragment of another smell. One that gave him pause. Sharper fingers scraped across his mind.
