“We will take the shifts on watch tonight, Kestrel friend,” Odare spoke up, floating over to snuggle against him.
Kestrel turned and smiled at last, as he placed his arm around the imp. “You are always here to watch over me, aren’t you?” he asked.
He sat down on the floor of the shack, and leaned against the loose wooden planks of the wall. Odare gave him a kiss on the cheek, and Kestrel started to cry, burying his head in his folded arms and against his knees in front of him, quiet sobs as he regretted the terrible pleasure of slaughter that a part of him had enjoyed during the battle in the rain.
“It’s okay, Kestrel-friend, Odare’s kiss would make me cry too,” Canyon said, and Kestrel began to laugh at the sweet humor of the imp, as Odare squawked in indignation.
“You will never know the pleasure of one of my kisses, odious one,” she said primly.
“I’m sorry, everyone,” Kestrel looked up and around the four walls of their cozy room. “When the temple fought back against me, it managed to put a part of its own energy within me, and I haven’t felt the same since. I can’t control what happens when I fight or when I’m angry,” he confessed. “I don’t want to do anything to harm any of you, please know that. I’ll do everything possible to avoid any further battles.”
“You are our leader, Kestrel,” Hiram spoke first, after a pause. “We have only gotten here because of you, and we know that your heart is good.”
“There probably aren’t too many other patrols out here,” Lake said hopefully. “The great masters swim in the river constantly through this area, so not so many men are needed on the land now that it is under their control.”
“I hope that’s good news,” Kestrel said dryly, and they whole group laughed gently.
“Everyone take a cloak to keep yourself warm tonight and dry in the rain,” he suggested, and the tension in the shack was broken.
Kestrel’s sleep was troubled that night, by dreams that recollected the bloody battle, and the next day he was silent as they left the shack under a clear sky and started walking upon the muddy road once again.
Chapter 16 – Another Ambush
The packs that Kestrel’s battle had bequeathed upon the small group were loaded with serviceable food in large quantities: hard bread, dried fruit, and salted meat.
For the next two days the group traveled peacefully in the mild winter sunshine. On the third day more rain fell, and their pace slowed down. Afterwards they were wet and cold, leading them to start their evening of rest early, as always, without a fire to warm or cheer them up.
Another patrol came down the road a day later, but the group of refugees hid in the scrub, and left no foot prints on the road to give away their presence in the forbidden region. They continued on, playing the same cat-and-mouse game during their slow journey for the next week, until the day came that the landscape changed.
On that day they found that the ground was no longer scrubby, abandoned farmland, but was blackened, with only a few weeds growing up through the ashes that topped the soil as far as the eye could see.
“What’s this?” Hierodule asked.
“This was the border of the Southern Forest,” Lake said softly. “This was the beginning of my homeland when I was a boy.”
“And the Viathins destroyed it?” Moorin asked in shock, sharing the elven horror at the loss of an entire forest.
“They burned down the entire forest. They forced their slaves to build great machines that threw fire deep into the forest, over our archers’ heads.”
“The archers were trapped,” Kestrel said bleakly, “with the fire behind them and the human soldiers in front of them, and they all were killed.”
“Yes,” Lake agreed. “How did you know?”
“They did the same thing almost three years ago, when they used Hydrotaz to attack the elves in the Eastern Forest,” Kestrel explained. “I lost a lot of friends that day.”
“And then they just kept going, kept burning further and further into the forest. No matter what we tried, no matter how many of their men we killed, there was no stopping the destruction and the slaughter,” Lake explained. “And so we had to retreat into the Western Mountains, where the gnomes took pity on us, bless them, and let our survivors live among them.
“It’ll take a lifetime to restore the forest, if it ever can be done,” he added.
“Why did they do it? Were you at war with them?” Hiram asked.
“We never really knew,” Lake answered. “They didn’t want us near the river, that was clear. We weren’t at war. There were just the usual skirmishes on both sides from time to time, until the day the Great Burning started.”
They walked on for the rest of the day without much conversation, as the spirits of Lake, Moorin, and Kestrel – all elves – were depressed by the thought of the lost forest. As evening began to fall, Lake recommended they move back away from the road, into the stumps and ashes that covered the rolling plain to the west.
“We’re near their river,” he said.
“What river?” Kestrel asked.
“There’s a river that comes out of the mountains on the east side of the river. It falls down a steep canyon, and joins the Dangueax very near to here. The monsters – the Viathins, you call them – seemed to start to show up from that river first, and then they seemed to take over Uniontown, and only afterwards did they come back to destroy the forest,” Lake explained.
And that’s when the attack began.
Hierodule was walking in the back of the group, slowing her pace as she grew increasingly exhausted. As the others spoke to one another while walking just a few steps ahead of her, a pair of Viathins ran out onto the road between her and the others. Hierodule screamed in terror at the sight of the reptilian mouths full of teeth that gaped wide open at her.
Kestrel instantly pulled his sword free in a reflexive action and jumped atop the back of the monster closest to his position, then plunged the sword straight down. The blade struck a strong, boney plate at the top of the skull of the monster as it plunged through the thin layer of flesh on the top of the Viathin’s head, and then it sliced off to the side and struck the ground, making the creature bellow in pain as it thrashed wildly, throwing Kestrel onto the ground.
He hit the ground and rolled immediately away from the wounded Viathin, then sprang to his feet and threw Lucretia at the other monster, the one that was closer to Hierodule. The monster had lunged at the pregnant former priestess, and its jaws were closing upon her leg when Kestrel’s knife sank into its heart. Its muscles slackened, and the jaws dropped closed, striking Hierodule’s leg and breaking the skin, but doing more damage by knocking her off her feet so that she landed heavily on her stomach, screaming.
“Kestrel! Help!” Moorin screamed from the front of the group, and Kestrel whipped around to see a third monster charging down the road to join the confrontation.
He pulled his bow free and fired an arrow in the direction of the approaching new threat without even aiming, then dropped the bow and picked up his sword to swing it at the monster lizard he had cut with his first engagement, as that antagonist came at him again.
His heart was pounding, and his adrenaline was flowing as his initial reaction of fear and defense was replaced by anger and calculation, and he felt the angry temple energy within him leap forward at the chance to create more destruction and death.
“No,” Kestrel said firmly, muttering to himself as he circled the wounded Viathin with the sword. “I will not become a butcher again.”
The anger and the energy tried to overwhelm him, and he pictured the results that might occur, his combat going berserk and spilling beyond this single challenge between himself and the Viathin. He had to control it, he told himself.
He reached for the other energy, the power given to him by Kai, even though he knew he had to reach through the alien energy to grasp what waited for him. He brought forth a tiny, small and controllable thread of the divine power, and even as the taint
from the temple clung to it and made it into a violent urge, he managed to control it.
The energy flowed into his sword, and the blade began to glow with flickering white and red streaks. It felt lighter in his grip, and he was surer that it would achieve whatever he willed it to and whatever his muscles directed it to attempt, just as the enchanted bow fired arrows with such unfailing competence.
Kestrel stabbed at the spot between the eyes of the Viathin, and the sword pulled him forward as it darted at a speed beyond his natural ability. The tip of the blade slipped over the top of the monster’s snout, then slid into the bony bridge as easily as a reed slipping into a puddle of water. The monster began to squeal, and then the light went out of its eyes and its body gave a convulsive shudder as it died.
Kestrel instantly pulled the blade free and twirled around to look at the third Viathin, the one that had frightened Moorin, but he saw that it lay dead, several yards away, his arrow sticking out from its flesh. He whirled back in the dim light at the end of the sunset and looked back at Hierodule, who was on the ground, sobbing, next to the dead monster there.
He held the blade high over his head and looked at the energy that was glowing in the metal blade, and then – with an effort – he cut off the power, both the good and the evil, and felt them return to their places within him.
“We need to get away from the river valley!” Lake shouted, as he stood with a sword drawn. “More of them will be coming here to help their companions!”
“Let them come,” Kestrel said grimly as he lowered his sword.
“We need to help Hierodule,” Hiram said, kneeling beside his sister. “Help her, Kestrel.”
Kestrel sheathed his sword, then stepped over beside Hierodule, who was still crying on the ground, thin rivulets of blood running down from the puncture wounds on her leg. Kestrel removed his cloak, then pulled his shirt off and began to tear it into strips, which he began to wind around her injuries.
At that moment they heard a bellow of challenge from a Viathin in the river, and a second later another screamed in return.
“Hierodule, let me carry you,” Kestrel said, already stooped over the pregnant woman to treat her wounds, so that their faces were close.
“I wouldn’t ask you to risk your life to save me, but I want my baby to have a life, Kestrel,” she tearfully answered.
Kestrel placed his arms beneath her back and her knees, then staggered upward. “Grab my weapons and things,” he directed Hiram. “Lead us off the road,” he told Lake. “Moorin, stay right behind him.”
“I will, my lord,” she said as everyone started to frantically move away from the river valley.
Lake marched off into the darkness, stepping through the ash and mud and small weeds that were working so hard to re-establish life where a forest had once flourished. There was another bellow behind them as they began to traipse through the darkness.
“We can make it to the mountains in three days perhaps, and we’ll be safe among my people and the gnomes,” Lake said.
“The monster lizards are leaving the river and coming onto the land,” Stillwater came dropping out of the darkness to warn.
“How many are there?” Kestrel asked.
“We think we saw four,” Killcen replied.
“It’s hard to tell in the darkness,” Stillwater apologized. “We are so sorry we did not notice the monsters that snuck up on you in the road. We were negligent.”
“Don’t, my friends. Don’t blame yourselves. We are in a friendless, hostile place,” Kestrel consoled the imps. “Just let us know if any of the monsters draw close to us.” He said no more as he trudged on, carrying the still teary Hierodule across the black ground.
They walked for an hour without incident, until Kestrel called for a rest stop. He gently lowered Hierodule to the ground, and stood breathing heavily as she stood on one leg, her hands holding onto his arm for balance.
“Stillwater, what do you see?” Kestrel asked.
“They have stopped following you,” the imp came soaring down to report to the group. “They started to come inland off the road, but they did not come very far.”
“Is there any place to stop or seek protection out here?” Kestrel asked Lake.
“There is nothing close,” the southern elf replied. “By tomorrow I think we can reach a large tor of rocks that will be a safe place to spend tomorrow night, but until we get there we’ll find nothing but open land.”
“Let’s spend the night here,” Kestrel said. “We need to rest, and the Viathins aren’t after us.”
“We should be safe here,” Lake agreed.
“Hiram, you take the first watch, and Lake you take the second. Canyon you take third watch, and wake me for the last one,” Kestrel directed.
“Hiram, do you have my cloak?” he asked.
The man promptly handed the large piece of fabric to Kestrel, who spread it on the ground, then helped Hierodule lower herself onto the material. “Here, remove your cloak, and I’ll spread it over both of us,” Kestrel told the wounded woman, helping her to lift the cloak over her head, then lying down next to her and spreading the cover over them as they huddled together for warmth in the cool evening.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep easily, immediately, exhausted from the battle and his turn as Hierodule’s carrier. Kestrel was still sound asleep when Canyon prodded him awake a few hours later.
“All is calm and quiet,” the imp told Kestrel, then went to join the small pile of imps that were cuddled around Hiram. Lake and Moorin were sharing a cloak as well, making Kestrel uneasy at the sight of the pair in such an intimate pose.
He turned away from them and walked in a wide circle around the campground, and was relieved to find no evidence of problems. A sliver of the moon began to rise in the east, providing a slight increase in the available light as it rose higher in the sky, reaching above the soft glow of the Milky Way. He shivered in the chill, as he looked at the sky overhead, and tried to evaluate the circumstances the group was in, that he was in.
The group was trusting Lake’s story to be true, that there was a land of elves and gnomes where they could find safety. They needed to find a place to rest and recover from their journey. And they needed to begin to plan their next steps. Instead of just fleeing to stay alive, Kestrel knew that he needed to begin to take steps to fight back. He had set Moorin free, and he had regained the water skin of Decimindion. If they could flee to the coast and find a ship, they could sail back to Seafare.
That would put them right back where they had been weeks earlier.
Yet something nagged at his soul, telling him there was a different path to think about. Lake’s report that the Viathins had first appeared by coming down the river in the mountains made him wonder if there was a portal in the mountains, a passage between worlds that allowed the Viathins to flee from the Albanun land to his own. As the Viathins finished plundering the life out of the land of the Albanuns, they had come to the land of the Inner Seas to begin to ravage and destroy and suck away the vitality the land held, in order to sustain their own lives. Then the delivery of Decimindion’s water from the Parstoles’ land to Allgain and Reason’s people had allowed them to begin to effectively battle the Viathins, and drive them away. That had ironically only hastened the arrival of Viathins in Kestrel’s own land.
And that arrival had apparently been happening some place up in the mountains east of the Dangueax River. What could he do with that knowledge, he wondered.
“There is a way,” a voice said.
Kestrel whirled, and saw a small stone pillar, no taller than his knees.
“This is not the place, and you should not know yet,” the voice spoke from the stony stump.
“Corrant? Is that you my lord?” Kestrel asked.
“Yes, Kestrel, my adopted champion. There is a way for you to win the great victory that you seek. Go to the land of my people, and ask for the Garrant Spark,” the gnomish god instructed Kestrel. “Speak to them in th
eir own language, mangled as it sounds from your lips, and they will concede that you may have the ceremony. That will set you on your path to a potential victory.”
“You believe it is possible?” Kestrel asked. He felt the angry, parasitic energy within him moving about in restless turmoil, unsettled by the conversation.
“It is possible, but now is not the time for you to know it all. Go forward, ask for the Garrant Spark. More will be revealed when the time is right,” Corrant instructed Kestrel, then the god made the stone sink back into the ground.
Kestrel felt stunned by the god’s directions. He began to walk slowly, trying to look around at his surroundings, while he contemplated the mysterious instructions from Corrant, and felt the alien within him also consider the call for some unknown action that might defeat the Viathins. The other energy was not happy, it was wary that its own entities might be harmed by some plan the god of the gnomes had, and frustrated that Corrant had withheld the information about what the plan might entail.
“Kestrel?” a voice called, and he looked up from his slowly strolling contemplation, suddenly aware that the sun was halfway above the horizon, the dark rolling landscape was visible all around, and Hiram was sitting up with a quartet of sleeping imps piled upon his still prone legs.
The man still wore the dress he had donned as a disguise days ago in Uniontown, and Kestrel wondered at the lack of comments or complaints Hiram had made about wearing the outfit. A skirt instead of pants would surely be unsettling, Kestrel imagined. With his hair growing longer over the course of their journey, Hiram was beginning to appear more feminine to Kestrel, ironically suiting the disguise better when no disguise was needed, since there was no one in the empty wilderness to hide from.
“So what is that all over your chest?” Hiram asked, slipping his legs out from beneath the imps, who began to move their own limbs as a prelude to awakening. He walked over to stroll alongside Kestrel. “It’s beautiful! I’ve never seen anything so delicate. And the colors are tremendous – it’s like a work of art.”
The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 05 - Journey to Uniontown Page 23
