Horizon (In the Absence of Kings Book 3)

by Lee LaCroix

  “And I can fight too. I survived yesterday, didn’t I?” Ayden spoke up.

  Kayten peered at him through slits in her eyes and raised the tea cup to her mouth again, not breaking her glare. It was not that she didn’t trust him, but he seemed too young and too reckless. Finding Garreth and Novas in Andalvia would a degree of stealth she was unsure the boy possessed. She pursed her lips as she set the cup back down and continued to ponder but eventually relented. She remembered begging Garreth and Novas to take her from her home at the Southbriar Crossroads, and she would not deny Ayden the same privilege that had been bestowed upon her.

  “I suppose he could have some use,” Kayten muttered.

  Ilsa rose from her chair, made her way around to Kayten’s backside, and laid her long fingers upon the smith’s shoulders, trying to loosen the girl’s visible tenseness.

  “Do not fret, Kayten. It will not do us any good. We leave soon. That is all we can do to better these things,” Ilsa explained, working her fingers into Kayten’s collar and back.

  Kayten shrugged off Ilsa’s grip and stood up.

  “Well, I’m ready to go now. Are you?” Kayten asked.

  Ilsa nodded, and Ayden made his way out of the chair and into the back room. Soon, he returned with an armful full of equipment and placed it upon the table.

  “Raldeen got the locals to put these together this morning as a sign of good luck and as of thanks. They should definitely keep us till Erawal if not longer,” Ayden explained.

  The tanned leather objects were tube-like satchels that hung from the top of the shoulder, down the back to the hip, and a strap wrapped around the front. Kayten opened the satchel and looked within. She found a similarly shaped canteen, a large net of dates and prunes, a cloth shawl, a package of flint, and a trio of candles. Ayden pulled his robe, its billowing white fabric emblazoned with a swirling red design, off the chair and threw it over his head. As he donned the satchel to his form, the robe seemed to bunch around his shoulders and tightened the cloth to his upper body while the lower section remained wavering. A similar effect occurred when Kayten tightened the pack over her dark robe, and Ilsa equipped hers and flexed about, making sure her movement was not impeded.

  They stepped outside, and Kayten looked down the narrow street towards the docks where the rest of her allies served under a different duty. It seemed to her like the number of problems kept increasing the more time she spent in Kal’resh. First, they came to find the assassin. Second, they had to safeguard the victims of the Order. And now third, they had to set out to rescue Garreth and Novas. She only hoped that she could solve two problems at once; finding the assassin not far from where they were to free those captured men.

  Ayden took off from the building, leading them out the front end of town and towards the animal hitch. Kayten could not help but see the scene before where she stood frozen and powerless when Garreth and her love were hauled away by Malic. Ayden made his way over to a camel that was lapping at the trough, patted its head, and then took hold of its reins. The large, hairy animal was completely foreign to Malquia, and Kayten thought it looked quite bizarre with its awkward back of two large humps. Ayden placed his foot in the bridle, leapt onto the high place between the two humps, and pulled the head of the camel aside, turning it around. The two women jumped back as the camel lumbered around, revealing another two camels waiting beside it.

  “Grandfather has arranged that we have suitable travel for our journey. They are not the fastest, but they will get us the farthest, and Andalvia is quite a ways,” Ayden explained from the top of his mount, motioning towards the two camels.

  Ilsa and Kayten made their own onto the camels. While Ilsa leapt upon it, Kayten had a slight more trouble with the burden of her armour, but soon they were set and clopping away from the sea and into the vastness of the desert.

  Although accustomed to the desert heat from spending his life in Nacosst, Ayden did not like travelling under the beating sun, especially at its peak at noon day. He led them west off the direct course through the stretching fields of sandy dunes into an area of more rocky terrain where they would approach Erawal from the north. The rise and fall of the sands soon gave way to a declination into a rocky valley. Their path of slippery gravel was wedged between tiered cliffs of multi-coloured rocks and sediment that were cut by the wind and resembled a flight of steps. Shaped like statues of figures human and otherwise, the hoodoos were like carved rock pillars that rose into the sky. The mesas around them appeared to be dilapidated bridges for once high journeys.

  As the three made their way through the rocky canyon, a noise arose that was not unlike the sweeping of unsettled stone. As the ridge opened up before them, a group of ibex, unruly goats of the desert, roosted from above. While one pair seemed complacent, the other was engaged in relentless combat. The two smashed their gnarled, half-moon horns against each other, and the blunt, smacking noise they made reminded Kayten of the arms training in the courtyard. In a deep and sandy valley, a dried riverbed stretched out before them. The main channel disappeared behind a far off dune, and the river’s tributaries shrank and split like the roots of a tree.

  They eventually found themselves into a section of stretching shade where the thin cacti and brittle bush pushed out from between the scores of boulders both gigantic and infinitesimal. Kayten swung her pack around to get at her canteen and supped at it, wetting her lips and throat. It seemed the valley continued on quite some ways, for it formed a great divide in the land. The gravel at her feet made her wonder if a stream once ran through there like the Fenross did in Malquia. The same division of multiple levels of coloured rock assured her of that similarity.

  “We will be stopping in to see my cousin Ravol in Erawal. Whether he has news or not, it would be better to be safe than sorry,” Ayden explained, “We should be there before long,”

  “Alright. Okay.” Kayten and Ilsa remarked as they daydreamed, trying not to notice the heat.

  They eventually made their way out of the shallow canyon, finding another gravel ramp that stretched up its side, and balanced themselves as their camels scrambled up the shaky slope. At the peak of the next dune, they could see the palm forest of Erawal in the distance a few minutes away. Kayten and Ilsa could also see the plume of smoke rising from the Bloodsands, which seemed unhampered regardless of Garreth’s most disturbing of mishaps. A chill ran up Kayten and Ilsa’s spines as an unusual silence led them to survey the town’s watering hole as completely vacant with not a single bather or drawer of water. The camels began to lap at the water in the trough as the three tied their mounts to the hitch and walked towards the city gates. The two Vandarian guards crossed their spears in front of them as they moved to pass.

  “Stop. What is your business in Erawal?” one spoke in Vandarian, looking over the three.

  “I have come to visit my family. These are my two wives. Stunning, are they not?” Ayden replied in the same tongue, guiding a hand towards the two women.

  The guard grunted as he looked over Kayten and Ilsa, who bowed both of their heads beneath their hoods and feigned respect for the guard’s authority.

  “Erawal is under occupation while we investigate the recent attacks at the mine. Don’t be a disturbance, or else,” the guard threatened as he lifted his spear, allowing them to pass.

  Ayden nodded, and the ladies proceeded with their heads down through the city gates. As not to arouse suspicion, they did not look back at the gates as they continued into Erawal, which reminded Kayten of Nacosst under siege because the wind’s singular voice blew through the empty streets. With peering eyes, a man and his son watched the three pass as they stood outside their home; the travelers were the first crowd they had seen other than the marching Vandari since earlier this morning. Ayden led them through the winding streets. Some were wide avenues with room for carriages and wagons, and others were narrow sidestreets and passageways. Regardless, every way was barren of life like a ghost town. They eventually came to a square buildi
ng with two floors, and Ayden knocked upon its solid wooden door. The door opened a crack, just enough for a peering eye to stare out, and then opened wide.

  “Quickly, hurry inside,” a man demanded with an urgent wave of his hand.

  Ravol was nearly a decade older than Ayden, and had thick, black eyebrows and a beard. He was dressed in a gray robe with a white sash that wrapped around his neck and covered his bald head. The three made their way past the man into a living room where another older man and his wife sat around a clay fireplace. Ilsa watched as the man at the door looked each way down the street before closing the door and turning back to them.

  “Opa, Oma, how are you?” Ayden asked as he bent over to hug them both.

  “Fine, fine, my love. Ravol is taking good care of us. Don’t mind Opa though. He had a fever, so we fed him some milkvetch. He seems to be doing better despite his lucidness,” the matron explained to him and the wrinkles on her face deepened as she pulled back a smile.

  She reached for her husband, who seemed to be entranced with the flames.

  “Hello Opa!” Ayden called out as he placed a hand on the older man’s shoulder.

  Ayden stared for a while as the elder continued to stare at the flames. Just as Ayden was about to turn to Ravol, his Opa looked over at him with a faint smile and distant eyes. That was enough for Ayden. As Ayden finally turned his cousin, the man spoke.

  “Ayden, come with me,” he asked as he led them into the next room and ushered Ayden and his company into the seats around a table.

  “Ravol. This is Kayten and Ilsa. They have come across the sea from a place called Malquia. With their fellow comrades they helped force the Vandari out of Nacosst, and they won a great victory against hundreds of their soldiers yesterday!” Ayden stated.

  “So, this is the one they are looking for then,” Ravol explained as Kayten withdrew her hood.

  “There is a great reward for the red-haired one, and a great punishment for harbouring her. I don’t know if I can have you here, Ayden,” Ravol uttered as he shook his head.

  “But you must help us, somehow. We can push the Order out here too,” Ayden piped up.

  “Things are not all that bad. As long as we pay our taxes, be careful what we speak, and do not bother them, the Vandari are fairly placid,” Ravol explained and then shrugged his shoulders.

  “I cannot believe this. Do you not see how you have fallen? They have no right to be here! They are bullies and thieves! The Kal’reth have been strengthened by the sun and the sands for generations, and we are to just submit to these northern men with their blades and their numbers? Nacosst has stood against them and survived. You must help Erawal as well,” Ayden stated, his voice soon rising to yelling as he stared at Ravol directly in the eyes.

  There was a tense silence at the table as a red-faced Ayden continued to stare at his cousin, who continued to look about the room and roll his thumbs.

  “Do you not know of the forests?” Kayten spoke up.

  The eyes at the table rested upon her and her quieted voice.

  “Novas and I have been to the northern edge of the forest here, and we have seen the devastation that the Order has wrought upon the land, not to mention its people. Their thirst for bloodfire ore is destroying that forest, staining the water, and corrupting the plants. If I heard correctly, the crimson taint will soon spread across the entire forest and into the water just outside of town. What is at stake will not be just taxes or words but the sole reason for this entire town’s survival… its existence,” Kayten explained.

  “Is that worth fighting for?” she asked Ravol.

  Ravol looked at her but did not speak. Quick and loud, there was a rapping at the door, and the four of them looked towards it. Before Ravol had left his seat, there was a cracking sound twice, and then the door folded in two and fell to the floor.

  “Get into the cellar. Hide,” Ayden asked Ilsa and Kayten as he waved them to the stairs.

  Three Vandari stood in the doorway before making way into the living room where the elders sat. One of the soldiers shouted in his native tongue and gestured around the room. Although Ravol rushed out of the back room to meet them, by the time he made it to the door, it was too late.

  “I don’t know what you fools want, but no one destroys my home!” the eldest man screeched as he stood up out of his chair, medication still clouding his judgment, and raised his cane to ceiling.

  The Vandari stopped and stared at the man for a brief moment before one of them unleashed a vicious elbow into the old man, launching him into his chair and dropping him downwards where his head met the stone floor with a smack. Suspicious and assured that the red-haired traveler awaited them inside, the soldiers would take no chances. Ravol, yelling in the old tongue, ran to stop them and tried to intervene, but he was soon pinned up against the wall, and a sword was placed into his gut as the matron knelt into the crimson blossom that was forming around the grandfather’s head.

  “Wait! Wait! We will not resist. You can search! No one is here!” Ayden yelled.

  Ayden watched in horror as two of the Vandari started their way through the house, looking through every room and hallway, while the other stood waiting at the door. Soon, the matron’s high-pitched wailing wafted out of the front door into the streets. For first time that day, the citizens of Erawal came out to see the commotion. Ayden watched and feared for his life as the two Vandari went into the cellar. The boy listened to the soldiers rummage around as the noise of scraping wood and stone rose. He sunk into the back corner as the two guards marched up the stairs and made their way to the front door again. The three conversed and muscled their way through the gathered crowd.

  Kneeling in the common room, Ayden let his tears fall onto Ravol’s face, which had now grown slack and relaxed but also cool and pale. Those concerned residents pushed into the doorway to oversee the loud wailing that funneled from within and bore witness to the two lifeless bodies on the floor. As the two clutched at their deceased loved ones, the crowd began to converse and murmur.

  “They are dead. What did they do? Were they criminals?” voices spoke forth in whispers.

  “They were innocent! They had done nothing wrong! How can you side with those murderers? One day this could be you!” Ayden yelled, shaking with anger.

  The crowd flinched at his words but continued to talk, staring back and forth at each other, the bodies, and the blood pooling on the floor. The spectators trickled off as the sun set, leaving Ayden and his mourning relative to bury them in the dark of night.

  The light blue shine of the moon was all they needed to guide them out to the graves on the far side of town. Ilsa and Kayten helped Ayden dig the pits; a duty much more tiresome in the shifting sands because the deceased had to be buried deeper to prevent their bodies from becoming unearthed by the wind. The matron sulked aloud as her husband, and then Ravol, smacked the deep flat of their graves after being tossed inside, but soon Ayden was there to comfort her. They made a small peak of rocks from the ones they could find around the city walls, and soon the grave markers stood just visible on the hill. Ravol’s mother was completely silent as she walked back into the city with Ayden. She did not speak a word but stared up at the ceiling when Ayden put her to bed.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” Ilsa offered, taking Ayden’s hands, “I had no idea this would happen,”

  “But this has always been happening. You hear about it, but you never expect it to be you,” Ayden lamented, looking over to his deponent relative at the fire’s edge.

  “This isn’t your fault. This is why what you do is right. You can’t give up now,” Kayten stated.

  Ayden nodded, showed them to the guest room, and then bid them fair rest before retiring to Ravol’s room. Surrounded by Ravol’s possessions and resting in his bed, Ayden felt a great unease in staying there. He could not overcome the guilt he felt, for he had doomed his cousin and Ravol’s father to that fate. The anger that rose within him did him little good for his chances of sleep
. Shortly, he turned to blaming the Order for this misfortune. They had invaded the home and did not even stop to communicate with them before ending the two victims. It was brutal and callous, he seethed. He would have his revenge, he swore. Ayden knew would have to wait till morning, so he finally relented to the numb of sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning, Ilsa arose first and made her way into the common room. She could not help but recall the conflict that had occurred and the blood that had been spilled. Although it had been cleaned up the night before, the crime would continue to stain her memory of that place. She rolled up the covering on the window a sliver and sat beside the wall, looking out onto the street of rising sun. It seemed to her that another day of hiding awaited the citizens of Erawal. Ilsa straightened herself against the wall whenever the Vandarian patrols walked by in regular frequency, slowing to glare at the scene of last night’s break-in. Every once and a while, people of the city would walk to the porch and leave an offering beside the doorstep.

  “Morning,” Kayten offered to the two as Ayden appeared in the front room as well.

  “Hello,” Ayden replied as he trudged into the kitchen where Kayten followed him.

  “We should probably make her a nice breakfast before we go,” Kayten suggested as she began to open the various cupboards.

  “Alright, I’ll see what she wants,” Ayden replied and he walked out of the kitchen.

  “Oh, good morning. You’re already awake,” Ayden spoke after he entered his Oma’s room and saw her looking up to the ceiling.

  Ayden stood watching her. When she didn’t break her glare at the ceiling, he moved to her side and nudged her.

  “Oma. Oma. Hello?” Ayden said as he shook her.

  At last, he stopped when she failed to respond. It only took a light hand hovering over face to resolve she was not breathing. As Ayden shut her eyes, tears formed in his, and he brushed them away and shook himself, trying to regain his composure. He lifted the blanket over her face.