by AC Cobble
Rew glared at the man. “We saw where you arrived outside of Eastwatch. There were narjags waiting for you, and all along your path, they’ve been with you.”
Alsayer nodded, his lips twisting. “Following me, cousin, following me. Every time I stepped through a portal, it was not long, and they were on my heels. This is rather embarrassing, but I believe someone has affixed a beacon to me. It’s a magical… a call, you could say. It’s attracting the Dark Kind to me like a flower attracts a bee. If you followed my path, then surely you saw the bodies.”
Rew frowned, then sheathed his hunting knife without responding.
“Unfortunately while the beacon explains the Dark Kind swarming after me, it doesn’t explain why they’re there in the first place,” said Alsayer. “You keep the forest clear, don’t you, cousin? Why are so many of these foul creatures nearby? My patron has suspected some danger from these quarters, and that’s why I’m here, to warn the baron and to provide what assistance I can, a helping hand and a sharp pair of eyes.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jon.
Anne, from the far side of the room, guessed, “One of the princes is rousing the Dark Kind for the Investiture. Where are they gathering? The barrowlands?”
“Who are you?” asked Alsayer, looking at Anne as if he was seeing her for the first time.
“Don’t answer that,” said Rew. He then asked Alsayer, “You came to tell Baron Fedgley the Dark Kind are massing, but someone has attempted to lock down the area, to prevent you or other casters from portaling in and interfering. Someone tied a beacon to you to make your job more difficult. Do I have the right of your story?”
Alsayer nodded. “You have the right of it.”
“Who is conspiring against the baron?” asked Rew.
The spellcaster nodded at Raif and Cinda. “I believe they can tell you that, cousin.”
“Worgon,” growled Rew, stalking around the spellcaster, finding a tankard beside the beer barrel and dipping it in. He tilted it up and took a deep swallow. Shuddering, he said, “This is awful.”
“It is,” agreed Alsayer, “but given the circumstances, I thought it best to have a few.”
Rew strode across the room and flopped into one of the miner’s sturdier-looking chairs.
“What is going on?” demanded Cinda. “Dark Kind massing, a plot against my father and Duke Eeron… Do you think these narjags are meant to keep my father from getting involved to assist the duke? Who is behind all of this? Surely Worgon himself does not have the strength to raise an army of Dark Kind. The Worgons are a family of enchanters.”
Alsayer smirked. “Fedgley’s kept you as innocent as rumored, hasn’t he? It was suspected, of course, when you never left Eeron’s duchy, but no one was certain. I cannot believe it. You really know nothing of this, lass?”
Cinda glared at the spellcaster.
“She doesn’t know,” confirmed Rew.
“Then, I suppose it’s time you tell her,” remarked Alsayer. He looked to Raif. “And the lad, of course. He’ll inherit these lands one day, if they’re still in Fedgley hands.”
Setting his tankard down on a table beside his chair, Rew scrubbed at his face, feeling two weeks of road dirt and the blood of the narjags coating him like a second skin. He looked up and told Alsayer, “You tell them.”
Grinning, the spellcaster turned to Raif and Cinda. “Every twenty to thirty years, the kingdom of Vaeldon requires a new king. Each cycle, the current king’s children are assessed, and the strongest is chosen to take the throne.”
“Assessed?” asked Cinda, looking at Rew and Anne. “Is this what you told us in the wilderness? Assessment seems a rather mild explanation, doesn’t it?”
“They compete against each other,” Alsayer laughed. “To the winner go the spoils, as they say. To the loser… well, that’s the last of the loser.”
“So we’ve heard,” growled Raif, looking at the spellcaster suspiciously. “The princes try to kill each other.”
Alsayer winked at Rew. “So you have told them a little. Yes, the princes try to kill each other. Whichever of the three is left standing inherits the throne. It’s all rather terrible, but I do not believe that is what our ranger wants me to tell you about.”
“What?” asked Cinda.
“It’s more than just the princes,” answered Alsayer. “It’s more than just their magic and their assassins. They raise armies. They enlist allies.”
Raif and Cinda frowned back at him.
“For Worgon to plot against Duke Eeron, he must have one of the princes as his patron,” explained Alsayer. “Otherwise, it’d be beyond foolish for him to defy his liege. Worgon and those like him around the realm are responding to the first stirrings of the Investiture. They feel it’s time to begin, so they’re enacting plans they’ve spent years or even decades putting into place.”
“Does the king know of this?” demanded Cinda. “Treachery and betrayal—“
“The king demands it,” clarified Alsayer, interrupting her. “King Morden the Eighth’s hand is not a benevolent one looking to shelter the innocents. Just like his father before him, just like all of the Mordens since Vaisius Morden the First, the king is the one pushing the princes toward each other. He’ll let them struggle and then place the crown on the one who is left standing.”
“Worgon’s allied with a prince,” said Raif, disbelief dripping from his voice like water from a melting icicle.
“Worgon and…” said Rew, glaring at Alsayer.
“What?” asked Cinda, her eyes darting between the two men.
Rew raised an eyebrow at the spellcaster.
“Why are you looking at me?” asked Alsayer, his eyes fluttering, the picture of innocence.
“Which one are you working for?” demanded Rew. “Which prince is Baron Fedgley working for?”
Cinda gasped, but the spellcaster smirked at Rew. “Come on, now. You know that is something I cannot tell you, no matter what sort of threats you make with that big knife of yours.”
Rew grunted. He hadn’t expected the man to admit his allegiance, and he wouldn’t have trusted the answer had Alsayer given one, but it was worth asking.
“Are you saying…?” stammered Cinda. “What are you saying about our father’s involvement in all of this?”
“Nothing, nothing at all,” claimed Alsayer, “but I do have a favor to ask of you.”
Rew groaned.
The spellcaster chuckled, seeing the ranger’s reaction. He turned to Cinda and Raif. “I must travel with haste to warn my ally, your father. Unfortunately, I am prevented from casting beneath this ward. I’ve little ability to defend myself without my magic, and your father needs to hear what I have to say. You, ah, you saw what my cousin did to me. He’s fortunate we’re under the ward because I could do nothing to stop his rough behavior. I couldn’t have flung that lightning I was holding much farther than my nose. With the narjags on my heels, well, I’m at a rather large disadvantage with no sword, no armor, no one to protect me. I cannot make it through the barrowlands alone. May I travel in your party, under your protection, for the good of Falvar and your people?”
Both of the younglings turned to Rew. He laid his head back on the chair, staring at the ceiling far above. He refused to comment.
“Good,” said Alsayer, his voice bubbling with enthusiasm. “What say we spend the night here and then leave at dawn? And cheer up, cousin. It’s been too long. This will give us an opportunity to catch up.”
Rew, still staring at the ceiling, groaned again.
Chapter Fourteen
In the corner of the room, Alsayer hunched next to Cinda, scratching on a piece of scrap paper the miners had given him. From what Rew had overheard, the spellcaster was teaching Cinda the theory behind the sonic lash spell he’d used against the narjags. A practical bit of magic, Rew supposed, though he thought it ridiculous to attempt to teach a girl with her skill an attack. She would be better served with something she could easily practice or a
defensive measure.
Rew grunted and looked away. There was no sense inserting himself between the noblewoman and the spellcaster. Alsayer would teach what he wanted. Cinda would listen if she was interested, and Rew would avoid getting involved.
A miner, a brooding, silent type that Rew could appreciate, raised a bushy eyebrow and gestured to Rew’s empty ale mug. The ranger nodded, and the miner picked up the tankard and went to dunk it into the open beer barrel. Foul stuff, but it was the only drink being served.
Beside him, Raif frowned at his own tankard, still half full.
“Not much of a drinker?” Rew asked the boy.
Grimacing, Raif whispered back, “Not of this.”
Rew winked and nodded his thanks as the miner returned with a full mug. The man stood there a moment, hesitating, then walked off to a far corner of the room. The miners, dark with dirt and dust from beneath the earth, acted like they were walking on burning coals around the party. They weren’t used to nobles in their midst, and a spellcaster was even worse. They’d been generous, though, and Rew hoped that when they left, Raif and Cinda would give the men proper thanks. He sipped the warm beer and wondered if he needed to tell the younglings that. Surely, they’d have been taught etiquette? They hadn’t been taught about the Investiture and other life and death matters, but their tutors must have taught them something.
Rew sighed and leaned back, cradling the mug on his lap. Around them, orange light danced across the pale stone walls of the tower. Half a dozen miners were playing some game that involved dozens of chips of stone and a lot of bellows and curses followed by embarrassed looks at the women in the party. Another of the miners, evidently trying to impress Anne, played a merry little tune on a battered fiddle. He wasn’t doing such a bad job, for a man with fingers used to crushing and hauling rock every day.
Jon was sitting near the fire, attempting to teach Zaine how to mend a torn pair of trousers, but it was evident the thief was paying him no mind. Instead, she was listening to the fiddle player, tapping her foot to the man’s simple jig. She had been partaking freely of the open ale barrel.
Rew studied her glassy eyes and broad grin, wondering if he should stop her from drinking so much, but she was a woman near grown, and it wasn’t like there was much trouble she could find herself in stuck in a mining encampment on the outskirts of the kingdom. He turned back to Raif and saw the boy was staring up at the ceiling, his eyes following the heavy, age-darkened wooden beams that towered three stories above them.
“It’s nearly as high as in my father’s throne room,” remarked the boy, evidently feeling Rew’s gaze on him. “There are four more stories in the tower above this room, and there’s huge space beneath our feet. It’s all storage down there, not practical living quarters, but it’s space. On the four floors above us, they house a dozen miners, but they could fit five times that many comfortably. When this was a fortress, that storage below could have held enough food to feed this tower for, I don’t know, six months maybe. These walls, they’re nearly as thick as Falvar’s. If those Dark Kind hadn’t begun building a ramp up the side, they never would have gotten to the miners. This place is built to stand.”
Rew nodded.
“Why?” asked the boy.
Rew grinned at him. “As the future ruler of this land, I figured you would already know that.”
Raif frowned. “I’ve been taught combat since I was old enough to lift a sword. I’ve been taught my letters and how to write them beautifully. I’ve been taught figures, and I could give a clerk in a counting house a run for it. I know a bit of engineering. I know a little of agriculture. I know how our taxation scheme affects the commoners living on our land, but I don’t know our history. Not of my family, not of the barony.”
“Curious,” replied Rew.
“It is,” admitted Raif. “My father has made sure that Cinda and I know how to run the barony, but he’s made equal efforts to disguise how our family came to rule it. I thought it was to cover some shame in our family’s past and never gave it much thought beyond that. I imagined some ancestor of ours performed a treachery to earn these lands. Now… now I am unsure. What you and the spellcaster have said about the Investiture has gotten me thinking. Do you know the history of my family?”
Rew shook his head. “I don’t know much. Not enough to answer your questions, anyway. From what I recall, your family has ruled these lands for… Well, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any other ruler.”
Raif nodded. “The story is that an ancient Fedgley won these lands through incredible valor in battle. No one has been able to tell me who he was, who he fought, or when that happened. I am certain my father knows more, but he can be a difficult man. As I said, he’s told us little about our past.”
Rew sipped his ale, coughing at the sour taste. He drew a deep breath then sipped some more. “While I know little of your family’s history, I do know the history of this land. Perhaps they are intertwined.”
Raif raised an eyebrow.
Gesturing with his tankard to encompass the room, Rew explained, “You were right, this tower is far larger and far more secure than these miners ever would have needed. It dates back some three hundred years to before the kingdom of Vaeldon.”
Raif, forgetting himself, drank from his own ale mug.
“Three hundred years ago, this land was controlled by a different people,” said Rew. “They were much like us but not entirely. Your family has stumbled across their shades, you know, in the barrows?”
Raif nodded, letting Rew speak.
The ranger continued, “The people were different enough that we must have considered them mortal enemies. From what I understand, it was a time of constant war, and I suspect it was our people who were the aggressors. You’ve been to the top of the fort, or the others like it? There’s a signal fire there, and when lit, it can be seen from the next fort out in the barrows, and that way, they could share information by blocking and revealing those fires. They used these forts to learn when the other race was nearby, and then, they’d send out forces after them.”
“We built these forts to stage our own attacks, then, rather than to defend ourselves?”
Rew nodded. “The histories are unclear, but that’s the way I always believed it was.”
“And Falvar itself?”
Rew shrugged. “It’s an old town, but is it three hundred years old, far older? I cannot say.”
“There’s a greatsword that hangs above my father’s throne,” said Raif. “It’s said to be the same blade that my ancestor used when they earned us the barony and later to slay a drake. It’s a symbol of our past strength, but my father treats it like a trophy. It’s a powerful, enchanted weapon, but like the rest of our story, the history and properties of the weapon are lost to time.”
“Enchanted, really?” asked Rew, surprised. “You don’t know the nature of the enchantment?”
Raif shook his head. “My father has placed his faith in the strength of our family’s magic rather than our strength of arms. In my lifetime, I’ve never seen him or anyone else take down that blade. It’s still sharp, though. You can see the gleam along the edge of the steel. When I was younger, I would ask my father if I could hold it, but he always told me it was too dangerous for a child. Now that I’m no longer a child, I know better than to ask. He relies on magic, our noble blood, and he believes trust in arms is a weakness.”
“But you’ve no magic,” mentioned Rew.
Raif looked away.
“I’m sorry,” murmured Rew. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s all right,” said the boy. “It’s true. My father commands high magic, and he believes it’s how our family will rise above our current station. Maybe he’s right, but we earned our land with muscle and steel. It’s who we once were. It’s who we could be again. Someday, I hope to take down that sword, to prove to my father that the strength of the Fedgleys need not be reliant only on our spellcasting.”
Rew lifted h
is tankard of ale and clinked it against the boy’s. “To a strong arm and sharp steel.”
Raif returned the toast, and they both drank the sour ale.
“Your cousin is a rather accomplished sorcerer,” said Cinda, taking the seat her brother had vacated minutes before.
Rew nodded.
“You two know each other well?” questioned the noblewoman.
Rew shook his head. “Before today, I hadn’t seen him in years. It’s been over a decade, I suppose.”
“You must have known each other well,” said Cinda, frowning. “He knows a lot about you.”
“It’s Alsayer’s job to know as much as he can about everyone he can,” responded Rew. “He’s a… a trader of information, you could say. If he comes across something interesting, he’ll remember it until he finds a use for it.”
“And why does he find you so interesting, Senior Ranger?” wondered Cinda.
“I have no interest in revisiting my past, lass, and I doubt the spellcaster does either,” said Rew. “It’s been a long time since Alsayer and I knew each other, and even then, we were not close. I’ve moved on, and I no longer want any part of that life. I’ve moved on and forgotten.”
Cinda pursed her lips as if she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t ask further questions about his past. Instead, she said, “I don’t think anyone thanked you for what you did earlier today. Rushing into that pack of narjags, drawing them off… I thought you were going to be killed.”
He laughed. “I nearly was.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Without you, we wouldn’t have made it into this tower. More than once now, you’ve saved us, and we haven’t shown our appreciation. I mean to change that. You have my thanks, Senior Ranger, and when we reach Falvar, you’ll have the baron’s favor. Whatever you ask, we’ll grant you.”
Rew shook his head. “I have everything I want, lass.”
“No one has everything that they want,” claimed Cinda.
“I did before you arrived,” said Rew with a wink.
