Aster Wood series Box Set

by J B Cantwell

  “Remind them of him,” I said. “Of Cadoc. And tell them about the children. About the Coyle.”

  He nodded, then turned and climbed up on top of the highest rock to face the crowd. He stood there quietly, looking out over the sea of lost faces. All were silent, but he took his time before finally speaking.

  “STONEMORE!” he yelled at the top of his voice, though he didn’t need to. “Attack is on the way! Now is the time for all of you to fight for your city! Your home!”

  The faces of the people stared blankly up at him.

  “Do you hear me?” he shouted. “The evil one is coming for your hearts and your lives. He has already taken the children of these lands, though not yet yours. The fire in the city spared you a mindless slaughter. Will you fight now?”

  They looked at each other, still confused.

  Kiron looked down at us, suddenly doubtful. I looked out over the crowd, unsure myself. Then I turned back and climbed up onto the boulder, standing beside him.

  “I’ve seen them,” I said. With any other group I might have needed to shout, but I didn’t need to now. “There’s an army on its way. Over a thousand men. And they’ve stolen the children from all of the villages between here and the Fire Mountains. They’ve got them enslaved. They beat them. And I’ve—I’ve seen what they do to each other, too.” I gulped, remembering the fight amongst the soldiers, their blood stomped into the dirt. “You don’t want to lose this fight.” I fought back the shuddering that started up my spine.

  “But there is hope,” I went on. “And I understand that hope is something you may not be used to feeling. I know what that’s like. But if you have the hope that you can win, then you can. The history of your city hasn’t been written yet. Not yet.” My fingers slid up and down the staff; I was nervous with so many people staring at me. “And there’s something else. There will be no other opportunity for us. We will either win, and you can all go back home. Or lose. There won’t be other chances. This is your last.”

  Finally, a low murmur spread through the crowd. They slowly started to come alive.

  “Why?” a man asked, stepping into view. “Why are they attacking us? We don’t have nothin’ to steal.”

  Aside from the gold beneath the city.

  “They’re not after your things,” I said, unsure of the truth of the statement. “What they want, what he wants, is control. They call him the Coyle, and he wants to empty you out and use you like puppets. Only the pain will continue for you. You won’t just go to sleep and never wake up again. You won’t die. The part of you that feels pain and misery will stay inside your body, and he will keep you forever.” I thought of Jade, the flashes of her frightened face that had shown through the hard mask of her possession. Suddenly, I realized that I was speaking the truth, that the tiny seed of hope that had been planted inside me wasn’t just wishful thinking. She was still in there. As long as she was alive, there was still hope. “Forever,” I went on, “until he’s defeated.”

  Gasps and a couple of small screams erupted from the crowd. Kiron stepped down from the rock.

  Questions and shouts of outrage battled for my attention.

  “But what can we do?” a woman standing near the front asked, her face striped from the dried tears that had run through the soot on her blackened skin.

  “Never, ever, stop,” I said quietly. Owyn’s face popped into my mind, and suddenly I didn’t feel so spiteful anymore. The staff slipped through my fingers, at once comforting and invigorating. Owyn had withstood centuries of torture at Cadoc’s hands in the dungeons beneath the city, but he never gave up the fight against him. He never stopped believing that one day he would be free again.

  Anger rose inside me as I realized just how much of Owyn’s life had been lived at the mercy of the Corentin.

  “Never stop fighting!” I yelled, the sound of my voice echoing off the edges of the valley. I raised the staff up above my head, hope pouring through me. Cheers erupted. “If you fall to him, don’t give up, because we’re coming for you!” The people roared. “Nobody will die in this fight, so let go of your fears! It’s not your deaths that he wants, it’s something way more valuable: your spirits!” They shouted. “Your dreams! But as long as your hearts beat inside your chests, there is hope for your lives. Always!” In front of my eyes, the veil of Jade’s gaze draped over me, and the staff exploded with light into the night sky.

  The crowd was jumping up and down, thrusting their fists into the air, battle cries bursting from their throats, made scratchy from hours in the smoke as their city had burned around them. Then, all at once, the group turned, streaming down the hillsides back towards the burned out remains of their home.

  They had heard me. And believed.

  Chapter 22

  A rainbow of smart suits and frilly dresses bobbed down the hills back towards the city, They looked more like an old fashioned party hurrying towards some fantastic treat than a group of warriors intent on saving their city. Somewhere, silently inside myself, I laughed.

  Kiron faced me, his face grave. Having seen it myself, I knew that the army outnumbered us at least five to one, and my humor quickly evaporated.

  “That was good,” he said. “What happened to you out there?”

  But before I could answer, the sound of battle horns blasted through the morning. Over the crest of the farthest hill, the army had arrived. The first wave of soldiers was visible, standing with the morning sun behind them, like shadows come to destroy the light. Kiron made to run, but I grabbed his arm.

  “We need the gold,” I said. “The gold from below the dungeons. Before they get here.” I inclined my head towards the faraway hilltop.

  “Why?” he asked, trying absently to break my grip. Crane stood contentedly beside his rightful master, and he seemed at ease for the first time since I had seen Larissa. He stuffed his nose inside Kiron’s palm.

  “When this is through, we need it to make a link. Back to Earth,” I said, starting to walk down the hill as I spoke. He followed.

  “That’s insane,” he said, stumbling. “You’ll get yourself killed if you try to take any link we could make. Besides, there probably ain’t even enough.”

  “We’ll figure that out later,” I said. “But for now I need to know that gold is safe.”

  I was sure that the Coyle must know about the gold beneath the city. Owyn’s short alliance with the Corentin was likely to have resulted in the discovery of this information.

  Kiron huffed as he struggled to keep up. I was moving fast, and I had to forcibly slow myself down to wait up for him.

  “Finian ain’t gonna like it,” he said, wheezing slightly. “He don’t trust no one.”

  “Finian can stand by my side for the whole battle if he wants to,” I said, actually not minding that idea in the slightest. “But I’m telling you, if we don’t protect the gold now, it won’t be long before it goes missing.”

  “Alright, alright,” he said. “Just don’t lose it.”

  I stopped and turned to him.

  “Lose it?” I asked. “You honestly think I would lose it?”

  He shrugged.

  “Dunno,” he said. “Seemed like the right kind of thing to say before handing over the biggest treasure we got to a kid.”

  I scowled at him. A kid?

  You don’t know me at all.

  He still remembered me as the bumbling boy who appeared, lost and useless, on his farm.

  Well, I wasn’t that boy anymore.

  I gritted my teeth and followed him through the gates into the city. Behind us, the giant chains wound around huge spools, slowly forcing the doors closed. There was no other way in. They had to hold.

  We both strode through the streets towards the center of the city. Neither of us needed to hide anymore here, and it felt good to not be constantly crouching down and running away from the monsters I had met on these paths. Soon we crossed the square, where people were gathering, throwing down whatever weapons they could find in what r
emained of the houses. Some had salvaged swords from the wreckage; many didn’t have anything more threatening than a kitchen knife to add to the collection. But all faces were set with a determination to defend, regardless of the lack of weaponry.

  Kiron found the small dwelling that led down to the dungeons, and we quickly went below ground down the long, spiral staircase. At the bottom, all gates swung wide now. We walked through the outer hallway, and I was surprised by the sudden silence. As we reached the end and Kiron moved to enter the old keeper’s chambers, I hesitated, the memory of the disgusting man still fresh enough to give me pause.

  Kiron was almost through the other side when he realized I was no longer beside him.

  “He’s gone,” he said, turning.

  I looked through the doorway at the tiny, dank room the man had turned into his home. The filthy bundle of rags that had made up his bed still lay on the floor in one corner, and I could still smell the stale scent of alcohol.

  “What happened to him?” I asked, finally taking a step inside.

  “Dead,” he said, continuing into the other chamber. I hastily followed.

  “How?” I asked, taking in the long rows of cells that I, myself, had opened not long ago, freeing the prisoners inside.

  “Owyn, actually,” he said.

  “You mean he—he murdered him?” We were nearing the treasure hold now, but Kiron didn’t slow.

  “Does it surprise you?” he asked.

  Actually, I couldn’t tell if I was surprised or not. I felt like I had never really figured Owyn out at all.

  We passed the treasure hold, still draped in fine metal mesh used to protect the small trinkets that had once been hidden inside. Only now, the cage which had held every treasure in Stonemore for hundreds of years stood empty.

  “Where did it all go?” I asked as we walked past.

  “To the people,” he said, drawing out a long, metal key from his pocket. “We all agreed that what Cadoc had taken from them should be returned.”

  He walked up to one of the prison cells that was laid out along the far wall and shoved the key into the lock. It was, so far, the only locked door I had seen since coming back down here. The lock turned with a loud clang, and Kiron pushed the door open. On the far wall, one large, rectangular brick stuck out just slightly more than its neighbors. I wouldn’t have noticed it at all, but Kiron put both of his hands on it, pushing on it with all his weight until it clicked into place. On the cement floor a long, thin crack appeared, and a section of the cement lifted.

  The trapdoor had been so well hidden I hadn’t even seen a groove along its edge.

  “A little help,” he said, cramming his fingers into the groove.

  I bent down and joined him, and together we lifted the plate, resting it against the iron bars once we had it open. A rope ladder led down into a narrow passage. He climbed down first, and I passed down the staff to him. When my own feet landed, he extended it to me, and the effect of both our hands on the wood at the same time made it burst with light.

  “Well, that is handy,” he said, raising one eyebrow at me. “Good to know you’ve finally caught up.” He walked away, moving through the narrow tunnel.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, following. My skin was suddenly tingling with nerves. The tiny, confined space smelled musty and damp, and the walls were so close that I was already itching to get out.

  “I figured you probably had more in ya than when we first met,” he said, walking through a doorway carved out of the stone. “It was Almara’s maps you were followin’, after all, not just some common paper.”

  He reached both arms up to a hollow space carved into the wall.

  I don’t know what I had been expecting. A fist-sized rock, like the one I had seen at Riverstone, seemed like what I would be presented with. Instead, Kiron held out a tiny glass jar. Within it floated not more than a teaspoon of golden dust.

  “That’s it?” I asked, my heart falling.

  “I told ya,” he said. “There ain’t much.” I reached out and took the jar, feeling a little like someone had punched me in the stomach.

  This was going to be impossible. Floating inside the little cup was significantly less gold than we had used to make the link to the Fire Mountains. How would this ever be enough to get me back to Earth? My heart hurt as the welcoming thought of my mother’s face was pushed aside by the reality I held. Suddenly I was unsure I would ever see her again.

  The tiny granules shifted in the jar as I tipped it from side to side, shimmering in the glow of the staff. I took off my backpack and stuffed it along with the medallion deep inside.

  “Obscure,” I said, and the pack vanished with a little pop.

  Kiron smiled.

  “Glad to see it’s still servin’.

  I didn’t have the heart to smile back, but I nodded, dropping my gaze to the floor. He put a hand on my shoulder.

  “All you gotta do to get through this,” he said, “is believe your own words. There’ll be a way.”

  I looked up at him and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. This was it.

  Ten minutes later, we emerged into the now deserted streets of Stonemore. Shouts rang out from time to time, but nobody was in sight.

  “They’ll be at the wall,” Kiron said. “Come on.”

  He took off back towards the main gate and I nervously followed, now certain that the only thing still holding me upright was my grip on the staff. The piles of weapons were gone now, distributed among the people. Would they know how to fight? They had spent all those years under Cadoc’s rule, forever beaten down by their ruthless master. I hoped that they had spent their nights hidden in the back alleys that snaked through the city learning to protect themselves.

  In a few short minutes we were there, climbing up to the top of the wall, my heart hammering despite the magic flowing between my hands and the wood.

  But when we got the the edge of the wall, and I looked out over the field below, my heart stopped beating altogether. The crowd around us stood, each face staring out over the army before us, each voice now completely silenced.

  There, sitting on a lone horse in the center of the field in front of the city, was a young boy. He shivered as his dirty hair rustled in the breeze. The horse stamped its feet nervously, but it stayed on the spot.

  A thousand feet behind them stood the army. The men looked like a mass of black insects from afar, their bodies plated in dark armor. They stood still, watching, waiting for our response.

  My breath caught in my chest as the boy raised his head and his eyes met mine, and I realized which child the Coyle had decided to send out to meet us. To meet me.

  Rhainn.

  Chapter 23

  Kiron’s shouts followed me as I flew across the wall, searching for a way down. I spotted a rope ladder on the interior edge and hoisted it up and over the outer side. Nobody tried to stop me, and Kiron wasn’t fast enough to catch me. By the time he made it to that point on the wall, I was halfway down the ladder.

  “What are you doin’, boy?” he shouted over the edge.

  I ignored him, swinging maniacally on the ropes as my feet found the last rung, still twenty feet above the ground.

  “Get back up here!” Kiron yelled, confused by my sudden flight. “You’re fallin’ right into his trap!”

  I let my feet go off the bottom of the ladder until I was dangling by the bottom rung by only my fingertips. I allowed myself one last look up at Kiron. I knew he might be right. And our time together had been so short; I still had so much to ask him. But every cell in my body was pushing me out to Rhainn, out to the lonely boy who had been chosen to lead the charge on Stonemore. Chosen for me.

  I let go.

  Unlike other times I had fallen from too high up, this time my feet met the solid ground and stuck firm. The balance of the staff steadied me, and I stood up straight as I turned to face the enemy.

  The men stood frozen on the hilltop, and Rhainn seemed unable to move any close
r. I started walking towards him, aware of the hundreds of eyes that were trained on me as I put myself willingly into the line of fire. As I walked, the dying grass beneath my feet crunched, tiny flutterings of insects shooting up from between the blades. I waved them away as they buzzed around my head, but then I noticed something odd about one of the little moths.

  It was bright white.

  Its brown brothers fluttered back down into the grass as I passed by, but this one followed me as I moved. Sudden excitement flooded through me at the thought of the White Guard. I scanned the hilltop for some sign that what I was seeing was real. Maybe Pahana was out there, right now, and this was his way of letting me know that help was near.

  The moth drifted along the breeze next to me as I walked. I held out my hand, hoping with everything I had that it would understand my purpose, not leave me alone to my fate. It fluttered instantly into my palm. It gently waved its glowing wings, a wink that pushed me forward. I tucked it carefully inside my shirt, hoping it had been unseen by the enemy.

  I focused all my attention on Rhainn, and broke into a run.

  The horse’s nostrils flared at my approach, its long whiskers twitching as though it could smell its own death in the air. I slowed when I got close, and carefully raised up a hand to its white nose, trying to calm it. But my effort to soothe him had little effect. He continued to stamp his hooves, ready to bolt.

  Rhainn looked terrified. And exhausted. His skin was dirty and cracked. His eyes were at once vacant and fearful, like he had been taken to the limit of his endurance, and then pushed beyond it.

  “What’s going on?” I asked cautiously, offering him my hand. He didn’t take it. Instead, he held out the wooden box to me.

  I removed it from his grasp, but didn’t open it. I placed it on the ground at my feet.

  “Rhainn,” I continued. “Are you alright?”

  He slumped down against the horse’s mane, hugging his arms around its neck like it was the last warmth he ever expected to feel in his short life. He stared ahead, and I couldn’t tell if he recognized me or not.