Blood in Snow: (The Riddle in Stone Series - Book Three)

by Robert Evert

  Lord Ashford stepped forward.

  “Take the King,” he commanded to one of the guard, “and bear him southward as fast as may be, due southward, until you reach Eryn Mas.” He turned to another exhausted knight. “Gather the men-at-arms from the forest and array them along this slope. We will make our stand here.”

  “Good!” Edmund said. “We can kill them as they come out of—”

  “We no longer need your assistance, witch.” Lord Ashford scowled. “We’ll deal with you as soon as the goblins are dead.”

  The King moaned as two knights hoisted him up and began carrying him southward into the forest.

  “We have to fight together!” Abby shouted at Lord Ashford. “The more swords we have—”

  “Oh, shut up! If I wanted the thoughts of a hysterical woman, I’d ask for it.”

  “Ed …?” Pond said, black sword still drawn. “What do you want to do?”

  Edmund glared at Lord Ashford.

  “Come on, everybody,” he said to Hendrick and his men. “Let’s leave these men to their fate.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Edmund glanced back up the hill.

  Two hundred of the King’s men-at-arms and what remained of his lords and knights stood silhouetted against the starry winter sky as they prepared for goblins to issue forth from the black iron door.

  “They’re going to get themselves killed,” Edmund said.

  “Serves the idiots right,” Abby replied. “When the goblins went into the guardroom from outside, we begged Lord shit-in-his-pants to send in reinforcements. But he kept saying he had orders to stay in the woods.”

  “I don’t know …” said Hendrick, watching the King’s men ready themselves. “Goblins can only come out of there one or two at a time. There’d have to be a lot of them to force their way out into the open.”

  “Trust me,” Edmund said, “there’re a lot of goblins.”

  Shaking his head, he resumed trudging down the slope. The others followed, their snowshoes leaving deep prints even a blind goblin could track.

  “Did you …” Hendrick began, trailing after Edmund into the forest. The damp pine needles smelled wonderful, but none of them took much pleasure in it at the moment. “I mean, that is, when you were rescuing the prisoners, did you …”

  “He wasn’t in the pits,” Edmund said.

  Hendrick sighed. “So Bain’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry … but if it helps, he was well avenged. We must have killed at least six hundred goblins.”

  “Six hundred?” one guard repeated. “I didn’t think there’d be so many! I mean, I thought there was only an isolated band or something, hidden away under the mountains.”

  “There’s more than an isolated band,” Edmund said. “There’ll be thousands of goblins coming out of that door in a few minutes.”

  Pond traipsed beside Edmund. “So what’s your plan?”

  Edmund stopped again, panting breaths white in the moonlit darkness. Again he glanced up the hill, though trees obscured his view. Any minute, the iron door would shrink to its normal size, and the battle would begin.

  “Ed?” Abby prodded.

  “How much food do you all have?” he asked everybody. “Enough to get back to Rood?”

  “We would,” Hendrick said, “if we return to our base camp and take the supplies we’d brought for Lionel’s men.”

  “Is he dead?” one guard asked. “Old Yellowhair, I mean?”

  “I don’t think so,” Edmund replied. “I stopped the bleeding, and he seemed strong enough when they carried him away. Then again, there’s n-nothing, there’s nothing I can do if his wounds had been poisoned.” He resumed hiking down the steep, forested slope, snowshoes sliding with each weary step. “We’d better hope he lives, at least so he can keep his promise. We don’t know how a new king would react to our independence.”

  “Your plan?” Abby repeated urgently. “What are we going to—?”

  Screams and the clash of weapons from up the hill shattered the stillness.

  “Well,” said Edmund wistfully, “the door’s open.”

  “The King’s men should hold them off for a few hours,” Hendrick said.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Ed!” Pond and Abby said in unison.

  “Are we going back to Rood, or what?” she asked.

  “And what about those lords, knights, and men-at-arms?” Pond added. “They’ll probably come after you as soon as they’re done with the goblins.”

  Edmund gave a grim chuckle. “I don’t think we need to worry. They’ll hold out for a bit, but they won’t last through morning.”

  “So are we heading back to Rood?” Abby asked more insistently.

  Edmund sighed. There was one more thing to do before he could finally rest.

  “All of you go back to Rood—”

  “While you go after Molly’s child.” Abby folded her arms. “That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it?”

  Edmund rubbed his blood-splattered forehead. “Abby—”

  “All right, let’s go!” She tossed up her mittened hands. “Which way are we headed?”

  Hendrick and his men appeared confused.

  Edmund looked to Pond for help, but Pond only shrugged.

  “You know how this’ll end, Ed. You’ll try to convince Abby to go back to Rood, she’ll say no, and we’ll all go with you.”

  “Absolutely,” said Abby. “So let’s get moving. How’re we going to rescue her?”

  Though the battle up the hill grew louder, it sounded like the King’s men still had the upper hand.

  “What’s this all about?” Hendrick asked. “What child?”

  “Ed’s going to try to rescue Molly and Norb’s daughter,” Abby explained.

  “What makes you think she’s still alive?” asked Hendrick. “I mean, if they killed Bain, why would they—?”

  “She’s still alive,” Edmund said matter-of-factly. “She’s probably up in the tower.”

  “Tower?”

  “All right,” Abby said. “Enough talking. Let’s go. Which way?”

  “Abby …”

  “Ed, stop wasting time! Those idiots can’t hold the goblins off forever.”

  Becky glared through the gloom toward the iron door.

  “Will you two do exactly what I tell you?” Edmund asked.

  “Of course,” Pond said.

  “Maybe,” Abby said defiantly. “You told us to stay in the woods, remember? And you needed us to help you. Sometimes we know what we’re doing.”

  Edmund didn’t feel like arguing. They either needed to get as far away from the mountains as possible, or go farther into them to rescue Molly’s little girl. Whichever way, goblins could track them in the snow. Even if the King’s men held them off until morning, goblins would be swarming all over the mountains.

  “Do you have your chainmail on?” Edmund asked.

  Both Pond and Abby pulled aside layers of coats and fur-lined cloaks to reveal their black chainmail. They also carried their reforged weapons with blades that cut through nearly anything they struck.

  He looked at them standing beside one another as if some sort of invisible barrier stood between them.

  “Will you two get along?”

  Pond and Abby exchanged glances.

  “We’re family,” Pond said begrudgingly. “All of us.”

  Abby grunted something.

  Edmund sighed.

  “All right”—he turned to Hendrick and his men—“I need you to do something for me.”

  “Name it, sir. Anything.”

  “Take your men to the base camp at Tol Helen. Grab what you need and a little more, just in case. Leave the rest for whoever survives the goblins.”

  “Okay, sir.”

  “Then head back to Rood.”

  “Sir?”

  “Stick to the route we took to get here. Go due west, and then south to Rood. It’ll be quicker that way. Make sure the town prepares for an attack; the goblins ma
y not stop with killing the King’s men.”

  “Yes, sir. But what about you?”

  “We’ll catch up if we can.” Edmund inclined his head toward Pond, Abby, and Becky. “We have something to do first.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Edmund, Pond, Abby, and Becky tramped up the far incline of a densely forested valley that wove its way between two snow-covered mountains. Frigid air stung their exposed skin. Though the snowshoes and walking sticks made their hike easier, trekking up the slope was still an arduous undertaking, and Edmund was already fatigued from battle. Out of all of them, however, Becky had the hardest time; she leapt forward through the drifts, sinking up to her chest, repeating this process over and over again, like a hairy dolphin jumping white waves.

  Edmund stopped again, breathing hard.

  Unfortunately, he was sweating beneath his layers of clothing. The fur inside his mittens was damp and would soon freeze stiff if he rested for too long.

  “Almost there?” Pond asked, catching his breath.

  Edmund shook his head. “I … I don’t know.”

  “At least we’re in the right valley.” Pond pointed between the cedar trees to a clearing they’d just passed. “That’s where you healed Molly’s ankle, remember?”

  Abby struck him across the chest.

  “Don’t go bringing her up!” she hissed. “How do you think that makes him feel?”

  Frowning at the ground, Pond mumbled an apology.

  “No, it was fine,” said Edmund. “I did what I could to make her life a happy one, but it didn’t work out. I need to move on; we all need to move on.”

  “You really mean that?” Abby asked, surprised.

  Edmund wrapped an arm around Pond’s shoulders and shook him playfully as they resumed hiking up the snowy slope.

  “Yeah, I do. Maybe all of your happiness talk is starting to sink in.”

  At this, Pond’s cold face brightened somewhat.

  “Thanks,” Edmund said, arm still around his friend’s shoulders, “for everything you’ve done for me.”

  “Thanks to you, my life’s much better because you’re in it,” Pond replied.

  They continued to climb, wearily placing one snowshoe in front of the other. Occasionally sheets of heavy snow slid from the evergreens’ bent branches and fell with a muffled thump, but other than their labored breaths and the steady crunch of snow under their snowshoes, the forest was eerily quiet.

  “Oh, by the way,” Edmund said to Pond in a sad tone. “I ran into old friends in the mines.”

  “Vomit?”

  “And Turd.”

  They kept on plodding, side by side, with Becky out in front, leaping into the snow, sinking, then leaping again. Abby trudged behind them, grumbling to herself.

  “Turd tried to kill me,” Edmund said. “If I hadn’t had chainmail on, I’d be dead.”

  “Did the goblins kill him? I didn’t see him when you came out of the guardroom.”

  “I don’t know. He disappeared into the mines.” Edmund forced his cramping legs up the incline. “And something tells me I’ll see him again someday. He promised to make me pay for not getting him out earlier.” Then he added with some guilt, “I suppose I don’t blame him. I should have tried harder to save him the first time.”

  “You did what you could.”

  Pond stumbled. Edmund caught him.

  “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Just remember,” Pond said, “Turd didn’t make it easy for us to help him; he held a sword to my throat, if you recall. I don’t think he’ll ever look upon us with kindly eyes. Still, I hope he finds happiness someday.”

  The valley turned northward, ascending behind the mountain to their left.

  “How was Vomit?” Pond asked. “I’m guessing he died as well.”

  At a rocky clearing, Edmund stared at the frosty stars shivering red and green in the darkness. The night was growing old. Thankfully the moon was nearly full, setting the snow alight in a bluish glow.

  “He took a bunch of pit dwellers and tried to escape, but I found them butchered in the tunnel leading back to the guardroom. He told me he’d killed two goblins. Those were his last words.”

  “Good last words.”

  “Let’s hope our last words don’t come for a while.”

  They climbed on, falling silent. The cedar trees thinned. Soon they’d be out in the open, and anybody on the surrounding mountainsides would see them trekking through the snow.

  “Ed?” Pond asked. “You think this will ever be over? I mean, well … you have Rood now. The King gave it to you, right? But there’s still the goblins and, and …”

  “The Undead King?”

  “Yeah. But what I mean is, so you killed a thousand goblins today, but will that really make a difference? Won’t they just attack Rood again? Won’t they just destroy it like they did before?”

  Edmund considered this as he pulled a snowshoe out of the deep snow. His frozen feet were getting too heavy to lift.

  “I suppose things never really end. But if we get a couple hundred men—good men, like Hendrick has now; solid, disciplined ones who know how to fight—and if we give them weapons like these …” He tapped the sheath of his sword. “Plus chainmail forged from the formula I’d found in the diary …”

  “Then we’d have a fighting chance,” Pond agreed.

  “Maybe more than that. You should have seen those knights fighting in the mines! They cleaved through crowds of goblins like nothing. If they’d had our weapons and chainmail …” Edmund panted again. “If they’d been equipped properly, honestly … I think they could have killed every goblin they came across.”

  They huffed along, cold stiffening their faces.

  “We have to train people,” Edmund remarked, almost to himself. “Train them to fight with a bow and a blade. The way those knights fought and worked together—it was like poetry, or dancing, or something.”

  “A couple hundred knights clad in and armed with the black metal would certainly give the goblins pause.”

  They pushed their way up the still valley in silence again, until Abby spoke.

  “Pond?” she said quietly. “I’m sorry, for hitting you and all. Especially the ‘and all’ part. I’m sorry.”

  Pond smiled, but kept it from Abby. “We’re family.” He nudged Edmund’s shoulder. “All of us. And there are no hard feelings among family.”

  Edmund smiled back, then stopped abruptly.

  “What is it?” Pond and Abby asked together. Then, turning, they saw what he was peering at.

  A tall, white tower stood perched on a cliff of the northernmost mountain. Red lights shone out of several windows, especially those of the top floors.

  “Is that it?” Abby asked in awe.

  “Yup.” Edmund exhaled a long, grey cloud before him. “That’s Thorgorim, the tower of the Undead King.”

  Abby gazed at it.

  “It’s—” She reconsidered her words and tried again. “Well, it’s … pretty. I mean … did the goblins make it? I thought it would be all scary and everything, but it isn’t. It looks like, well …”

  “It looks like winter,” Pond said. “Like an icicle pointed up, rather than down.”

  “Yes, exactly.” She now stood next to Pond, their elbows almost touching. “So, are we going to just walk up to the front door and see if it’s unlocked?”

  Edmund adjusted his backpack strap. “No. We’ll go around this arm of the mountain and approach the tower from behind. There’s a hidden tunnel that will take us through the mountain and up to the tower.”

  For a while, they stared at the white tower reaching toward the twinkling stars.

  “Do you really think the baby is still alive?” Abby asked doubtfully.

  “She is.” Edmund started struggling up the incline again. “And we have to find her.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  When they finally managed to reach the far side of the valley, the sky abo
ve the eastern peaks was turning a lighter shade of cobalt and the stars were beginning to fade.

  On a snow-covered boulder shielded from the mountain winds, Edmund sat catching his breath. He took a sip from his wineskin; Vin’s cider sent a spicy warmth through his body. He wanted to drink more, but knew he’d need the rest for later. Temperatures this far north were frigid and it was a long march back to Rood—if they survived to return home.

  “Well”—Pond peered into the deep valley out of which they’d just climbed—“it’ll be easier going down than coming up, that’s for sure. Shame we don’t have any shields or those … what did you call them?”

  “Toboggans?” Edmund suggested. “Pulks?”

  “Toboggans,” Pond repeated. “Shame. We’d be able to escape pretty fast sliding down the mountain.”

  Edmund laughed. “After what happened last time, I thought I’d never get you on another sled.”

  “Hey, you can’t be a man of adventure without taking a few risks every now and again.”

  Edmund chuckled.

  “Are you sure we’re at the right spot?” Abby surveyed the barren lands between the arms of the mountains. “I mean, I don’t see anything but rocks and snow.”

  “We are.” Too tired to point, Edmund flicked his chin toward a cedar tree. “That’s where … that’s where we laid Thorax to rest.”

  Becky, nosing around under the tree, started digging into the snow. Edmund told her to stop.

  Abby pulled her fur-lined hat farther down over her chilly ears. “So, what now?”

  “First, I need to know you two will do as I ask,” Edmund said.

  “We’re not leaving,” Abby said flatly.

  “What do you need us to do?” Pond asked.

  Edmund gestured to their tracks, which wound down the slope and disappeared into the evergreen forest far below.

  “Sooner or later, goblins will investigate why somebody came up here. If the secret door is common knowledge, they’ll know why, and they’ll arrive in force. Either way, s-s-somebody will come.”