“I’ve heard some brag they killed one of the water lords. No one is stupid enough to claim they killed three,” the hidden man replied.
“Sshh,” Hiram hissed, as he stepped in behind a large stone, the last of the trio to enter the shadows among the clump of rocks and boulders. Kestrel turned and looked over his shoulder, seeing that a pair of monsters were already on land. “There’re two of them on land already,” Hiram announced.
“There’ll be a patrol too, if you really killed a master,” the unseen man in the rocks added. “The road won’t be safe for the next week.” There was the sound of scrambling, as the man shifted his position among the huge stones.
Kestrel and his companions stayed near the point where they had entered the tenuous shelter, and looked out at the slowly approaching Viathins. The monsters stopped at the scene where the body of the dead monster lay on the land, and the monsters waited there together as another pair of their companions emerged from the river’s water and trundled over to join them.
There was a distant sound of marching feet, and Kestrel realized that the man who inhabited the rocky tor was correct; local soldiers were already arriving to join in the search. The sound of their orderly approach was distinct from the sounds of the refugees who otherwise crowded the road.
“Let’s find a hiding place,” Kestrel said, trying to keep his voice steady to hide his growing concern. He led the other two into the haphazard maze of passages within the stones, finding no sign of the other man.
“Climb up here,” he told Hierodule and Hiram, climbing up onto an elevated slab, from which he saw a higher network of passages extending.
“Kestrel?” Hierodule looked at him, and he realized that her pregnancy prevented her from scrambling easily.
“Here,” I’ll help you,” he assured her, and climbed back down. “Hiram, you climb up and pull her up; I’ll lift her from down here,” Kestrel directed.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Hiram predicted as he jumped and pulled himself up. Hierodule moved into place, and Kestrel gingerly placed his hands on her hips, as Hiram looped his hands under her arms.
“Jump up,” Kestrel urged her, and when she gave a faint effort, he lifted with all his might, as Hiram grunted and lifted as well, and together they raised Hierodule up onto the flat surface of the slab of stone. Kestrel climbed up behind them, and they began to wander in among the new collection of stones.
“Here,” Kestrel found a small chamber that was curled behind a stone that deceptively appeared to touch another. “You two stay here,” he told them as he took off his bow and his arrows and his sword.
“Where are you going?” Hiram asked fearfully.
“I’m going to go see where they are, to see if there’s any danger. If they’re getting close, I may run out in the open to decoy them away,” he explained, as he thought of his adventures in the land of two red suns, in the land of the Albanuns. That effort to provide a decoy had eventually worked out, but not the way he had planned it to. This time would be better, he was sure, in that he would have daylight to help him see where to dodge and what to avoid, even though it would help his potential pursuers as well.
“Decoy? You’ll just be the first captive,” Hiram replied.
“Have some faith in this strange one,” Hierodule unexpectedly defended Kestrel. “He does more than one would expect from looking at him.”
Kestrel smiled at the back-handed compliment, then started to slip back around the corner of the stone to slip away. “Wait for me for two days, and if I don’t show up, start on the road to Uniontown; I’ll try to catch up with you,” he gave farewell directions.
“Are you going soft on him?” Hiram asked Hierodule as Kestrel left. His elven hearing picked up the conversation. “You didn’t used to be so trusting.”
“This one has made me see things differently,” Kestrel heard Hierodule reply, and then he moved beyond the sound of their voices and was on his way through the rocky maze. Strips and holes of light gave small gloomy spotlights of illumination in a random pattern, letting in enough sunshine to see the way, but never letting anything appear clearly visible. Kestrel reached the great drop down, the spot where Hierodule had needed help, and he slid down cautiously, then stopped to listen.
There were no sounds of scuffling within the corridors of the stony complex, and so Kestrel began to inch outwards towards the entrance the three fugitives had used to begin their retirement from view. He stopped near the entrance, where the increasing brightness seemed blindingly brilliant. Kestrel let his eyes adjust, and he let his ears filter though the noises that gently infiltrated from the outside world.
Chapter 10 – The Chase
Kestrel saw no movements, or shadows of movements, near the entrance to the safe harbor he stood within. There were sounds of travelers on the road, travelers who were being interrogated by soldiers. And the soldiers were at some distance from the entrance to the stony citadel Kestrel was in.
If he was going to make a break from the opening, and try to distract the guards away from searching the stones, he needed to have an idea of where he would flee to, where he would draw the guards and the Viathins away to. He had only a vague recollection of low bluffs and gullies not too far away on the other side of the road. If he had a clear route to the road, he felt confident he could cross over it and then head into the rougher terrain beyond, giving him an opportunity to lose his pursuers in the distance.
He carefully edged along the stone walls of the entrance, and peeked outside. He saw a Viathin fifty yards off in the distance, and a group of guards were split into two groups that kept a respectful distance on either side of the creature. The operation appeared to be headed towards Kestrel’s hiding place, and he knew that in order to draw them away from the stones he was going to have to bolt in a matter of moments. He peered to the left and the right. The right was the direction back towards the city, along which the contours of the stony jumble receded towards the road, while on the left side the stones jutted out towards the river, pressing closer to the Viathin and its attendants.
Kestrel decided to go right. He crouched low as he prepared to start to sprint, then heard a shout of recognition, and knew he had been spotted by the guards. The Viathin bellowed loudly, and one of its fellows appeared around the outcropping of stones to the left, startlingly close to Kestrel. He pulled Lucretia out in panic and flipped the knife at the nearest monster, then started running along the side of the stone pile, drawing more shouts, and then a bellow of pain from the Viathin he had killed, and simultaneous shouts of sympathetic anguish and outrage from the other Viathins in the vicinity.
One monster’s cry came from somewhere ahead, near the road, and as Kestrel turned the corner of the stones, he saw the road in front of him. There were over a score of men in uniforms there, holding up the traffic on the road as they searched the travelers.
And there was a Viathin, squatting down low on the ground, watching Kestrel as he came into sight. The monster gave a might roar of anger. Kestrel was so close and running so hard – his heart pumping far beyond normal – that he knew he was about to collide with the creature. He gave a leap, and rose high, clearing above the Viathin’s jaws as they snapped at his heels, while the men and women on the road looked on in dumbfounded surprise.
Kestrel landed on the Viathin’s back, and leaped again, hitting the ground near the road with his next step, and sprinting past the soldiers as they belatedly pulled swords from their sheaths and began running after him. There was a wide pasture of open space before him, a field that rose gently to the tree-covered bluffs on the other side.
An arrow flew by him, wide on his left, making Kestrel veer to the right; he felt an acute ache in his leg as he planted and cut, and he knew that the stitches Alicia had put into his flesh had at least partially broken. He looked back over his shoulder and saw that a dozen men were starting to chase after him. Two Viathins were in sight – the one he had stepped on and another one – making him w
onder how many of the men on assignment in the search were under the guidance of the monsters. Kestrel reached to his hip to dispatch Lucretia, then felt momentary panic when he found his sheath empty of the knife, until he remembered that he had not recalled it from the Viathin he had killed upon leaving the stones.
“Lucretia, return,” he called, and he held his fingers widespread to catch the knife as he continued his sprint. As soon as he felt the handle within his fingers he thought of the monster he had hurdled over, then flicked the blade away, trusting it to marvelously find its own path to the death of the Viathin.
He had faint hopes that he might be able to enjoy a repetition of his experience in the land of the Albanuns, when the death of the Viathins had released those immediately around them who were enslaved. With his fifth monster killed in this unexpected encounter in the river valley, he could hope that at least some of the men behind him would regain their own wills, and melt away from the numbers who were pursuing him.
There was a roar, and Kestrel knew that his wonderful knife had killed another Viathin. “Lucretia, return,” he called again. When Kai had given him his fabulous knife, long ago in Uniontown, at the outset of his first battle against Uniontown’s forces, he had not anticipated that Lucretia would prove to be such a life-saving weapon, one that he had found so valuable he had recreated it himself with the extraordinary, mysterious abilities Kai had given him in Graylee.
The knife returned to his hand, and he gripped it tightly, his palm sweaty and uncomfortable against the haft. There was one more Viathin he had seen, and he looked backwards again to confirm his view. He saw the scaly creature, and he also saw a volley of arrows unleashed by a squad of archers.
Kestrel stopped, and ran back towards his adversaries in order to dodge away from the high-flying arrows, and he threw his knife again. Beyond the monster he was approaching, Kestrel sensed there was one more Viathin in the vicinity, one more of the overlords who had come to the scene to seek revenge for his violent invasion of their domain. He hadn’t seen the monster but he knew it was out there.
He was drawing nearer the soldiers. They were dropping their bows and drawing swords while Lucretia flew towards the Viathin next to them. Kestrel saw the arrows fly far above his head, and he stopped again, then began running due south, parallel to the road, trying to draw the pursuit further away from the pile of stones before he led them up into the bluffs and gullies on the east side.
Another roar erupted behind him, and he knew Lucretia had claimed another victim. He preferred killing the Viathins when they were still in the primitive form of the lizard-like creatures. The humanoid version of the monsters – the Viathins that had grown to have arms and legs, that had even been enabled to shift shapes, as they had done when they had simulated Moorin, and the king of the imps – seemed more evil, more refined, and though they were no less evil than the monster lizards, they seemed to Kestrel to be less worthy of killing. Even though he knew better, he wanted to kill them as lizards most of all.
“Hey!” he heard a call behind him. “Mister, come back!” the man shouted, and there was an echo of other voices calling. “My lord!”
Kestrel looked back over his shoulder, and saw that the soldiers had lowered their weapons as they watched him run away. It appeared to be possible that his dream of liberated soldiers might be true. He changed course, starting to tire from his lengthy sprint and suffering from the increasing pain in his injured leg, then rounded about to head towards the squad of soldiers who stood in their place, watching him as he pulled up in front of them.
“How do you run that fast?” one man asked immediately.
“More importantly, who are you, and how can we thank you?” a junior officer asked.
Kestrel came to a stop, several feet away from the liberated soldiers.
“You know what has happened, don’t you?” he asked. “I killed the monsters that controlled your minds. You’re free to think on your own.”
“We know; we feel it,” the officer agreed. “There is still one of the masters left nearby, across the road, my lord. Will you go slay it as well?”
“All of you start heading north. Go to the city and try to stay free. Take all the other soldiers with you,” Kestrel told them.
“Will you come to Lakeview and set the whole city free?” a voice on the left asked.
“I will do what I can, when the time is right,” Kestrel hedged, not willing to reveal anything about his destination. “I’ll go down and slay the last of the monsters.”
The men turned to go. “Who are you?” one voice asked as they started to trudge away.
“I am your hope,” Kestrel said simply, then he started running, passing among the clustered travelers on the road, who shrieked at the approach of the deadly fugitive from the patrols. He came around the southern end of the stony tangle where his companions hid, and saw the last of the nearby Viathins slinking away, headed back towards the refuge of the river, across the muddy width of the river’s floodway. He released his knife at the futilely-fleeing target before he ducked into the interior of the maze of shadowy passages inside.
He heard the distant scream of the Viathin as Lucretia took its life, and he smiled with satisfaction as he recalled the knife, while he tried to remember his way among the stones that were so haphazardly scattered. After a few minutes of unsuccessfully searching for the way back to Hierodule and Hiram, he stopped in placed and yelled.
“Hierodule! I’m back! We can go now, but I can’t find you. Say something so that I know where you are,” he called, then stood still and listened.
There was a faint scuffling sound, and he started to walk towards the sound, only to wind up in a dead end.
“Hierodule? Where are you?” he shouted again.
“Kestrel?” a voice spoke somewhere nearby. He recognized Hierodule’s voice.
“It’s me; it’s safe outside for us to go on,” he shouted. “Keep talking, and I’ll come to find you.”
“How could you possibly be alive?” Hierodule asked, as Kestrel turned and started heading in the direction of her voice.
“There were masters and soldiers out there, and not just a few,” Hierodule said.
“How do we know it’s really him?” Hiram asked in a low voice.
“How do we know it’s really you?” the priestess repeated the question.
“I know you saw me get treated by an elven doctor,” Kestrel replied.
“An elf? You saw him with an elf? Was it small and blue and flying around?” Hiram asked.
“No, those are the imps,” Hierodule scornfully replied. “The doctor was a very attractive woman, who he seemed to know very well. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are little half-breeds running the streets someday.”
“Him, a man, and an elf woman, together?” Hiram asked in a tone of disbelief.
And at that point Kestrel climbed up onto the large flat slab of limestone, circled around the corner, and faced his two companions.
“She’s married,” he startled them by butting into their conversation as he came into view. “So no, no little half-breeds, for Alicia and I, although up in the North Forest and around North Harbor and over on Estone I don’t think they frown on such natural things.
“But the elves in the Eastern Forest do,” he wanted to startle the two, to drive home the point that was so poignant to him now. “If I were to go to the Eastern Forest, they’d probably beat me to a pulp and throw me in prison. They don’t have much use for humans.” And I wonder what future my child with Picco will find, he thought to himself.
“Now come on, let’s get going,” he prompted the two to get moving. “There’s still daylight and we can get away from here before they come back looking for revenge.”
He helped Hierodule cautiously navigate the obstacle course on the way out of the rock pile.
“You’re going to tell us how you did it, aren’t you?” Hierodule asked.
“While we start traveling. I’d like to get far enough
to get a room in an inn for the night,” he answered. He was concerned about the woman’s condition; she wouldn’t be a good companion to make climb trees or sleep rough on the ground.
“Have you got money for an inn?” Hiram asked. “I don’t have any.”
Kestrel answered by opening the purse on his belt, and displaying the variety of coins he possessed as a result of all his travels.
“Those are pretty, but,” Hiram poked at the coins and plucked less than half of them out, “these are the only ones that are legal tender in the empire,” he pointed to those marked with the symbols of Seafare and Graylee. “The rest of these are worthless here.” He poured the useful coins into Kestrel’s hand.
Kestrel snorted in disgust.
“There are money changers in the city,” Hierodule suggested.
“Meaning you want me to go into the city and trade these in for whatever I can get,” Hiram interjected.
“I can’t go back in the city; he certainly can’t go back in the city,” Hierodule countered. “We’ll need the money for our trip.”
“Give me your purse,” Hiram held his hand out impatiently. “I’ll be gone a while. Where will I meet you?”
“We’ll go back under the bridge,” Kestrel pointed down by the river again, back towards town. He didn’t want to remain where the focus of the next Viathin search would take place.
“And bring some food,” Hierodule added. “I’m starving.”
“I know, you’re eating for two,” Hiram said flippantly. “Can I borrow your sword?” he turned to Kestrel.
Kestrel looked at the slender man. He appeared young, almost boyish. A weapon would probably help the man in dealing with a money-changing crowd, though Kestrel questioned whether Hiram was trained to use a blade.
“Have you ever used one before?” Kestrel asked as he unbuckled the belt around his waist that held his sword and scabbard.
“No,” Hiram replied. “Would you buckle the belt on me, please?” he asked after a moment of hesitation.
The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 05 - Journey to Uniontown Page 13
