Raven Rise

by D. J. MacHale

  Tak.

  He had helped Pendragon and Siry use the incredible digging device from Zadaa to find a new vein of the explosive compound beneath the surface of Denduron. It was the only way to battle Saint Dane’s army of dados—the only way to save Ibara. The gamble had worked. Ibara was saved. But what of Denduron? Tak was as tempting as it was powerful. When the Milago miners originally discovered it, they had planned to use it against the Bedoowan to win their freedom. But that wouldn’t have been the end of it. Rellin, the leader of the miners, spoke of tak as being the tool that would create a powerful empire. The Milago had lived for generations as slaves. They were angry, and justifiably so. Their anger was not going to dissipate once they had defeated the Bedoowan. They planned to march on the rest of Denduron, conquering tribes and putting them under the rule of the Milago. But they never got the chance, for the Travelers realized that the discovery of tak was the turning point for Denduron. Saint Dane wanted the Milago to use tak. The Travelers didn’t.

  The Travelers won. Pendragon exploded the tak mine in such spectacular fashion that it not only destroyed the Bedoowan castle, it shattered the Milago village as well. With both their worlds in shambles, the Milago and the Bedoowan were forced to end their rivalry and rebuild, together. Most important, the eruption buried the vein of tak so deep that it ended any temptation to create an army that could use its destructive power. The explosive tak was unreachable by any tools or methods known to Denduron.

  Until Pendragon and Siry showed up with a dygo from Zadaa.

  Was it possible that the unearthing of the tak had created another turning point for Denduron? Had all that was accomplished, all that was risked to end the bitter dispute between the two tribes been for naught? Did Saint Dane get a second chance? From where Alder stood, it looked sickeningly possible.

  He crept cautiously closer to the parade ground, keeping to the safe shadows of the trees. As he grew closer, he saw two people arrive on horseback to address the knights. One he recognized instantly as Rellin, the chief miner of the Milago who had led the revolution against the Bedoowan. For his strong leadership, Rellin was elected to lead the Milago during the rebuilding process. Alder’s heart sank when he saw that Rellin wore the armor of a Bedoowan knight. Worse. His armor was decorated with bright yellow stripes on each arm. Under his left arm he held a leather helmet that had a bright yellow plume of feathers attached to the back. Rellin looked as rugged as Alder remembered, but now his hair was combed back and neat. His horse was beautiful, with its own leather armor gleaming in the sun. Rellin looked every bit like a proud general who wore armor for show, rather than for protection.

  On the horse next to him was a woman Alder didn’t recognize. He moved a few yards closer to get a better look and stopped short, unbelieving. The woman wore a flowing white dress, with a ring of yellow flowers in her hair. The flowers surrounded a simple silver crown. It was Kagan, queen of the Bedoowan. What surprised Alder was how she looked. The Kagan that Alder knew was, by all accounts, grotesque. Everything about her was huge. Her eyes, her nose, her hands and feet—all freakishly immense. Not anymore. This queen had lost a lot of weight. By Alder’s estimation, Kagan had lost an entire Kagan. She wasn’t pretty by any means, but she was no longer beastly. Just the fact that her clothes were no longer covered by greasy food stains helped her to look more human. It also helped that she wasn’t constantly stuffing her face with various meat products. She sat on her horse with a serene expression as she watched Rellin address the troops.

  Alder got his feet moving again and saw one more surprise: Rellin held his helmet under his arm for a reason. On his head was a small crown. What? Had he married Kagan? Was he now the king of the Bedoowan as well as the leader of the Milago? There was nothing good about what Alder was seeing. He was still too far away to hear what Rellin was saying to the knights, but every so often a raucous cheer erupted from the troops. Whatever Rellin was saying, he was firing them up.

  “Alder!” came a surprised shout.

  Alder bent his knees, ready to be attacked. He turned to see a Bedoowan knight jogging toward him along the treeline. Alder wished he had thought about the possibility of there being guards in the woods. He would have been more careful. Now it was too late. He crouched, ready to fight, until he saw that the knight wasn’t in attack mode. If anything, he looked happy to see Alder. The guy had a big smile on his face. Alder relaxed. Slightly.

  “Where have you been?” the knight called to him excitedly.

  Alder recognized the man. It was Graviot, one of the knights from Alder’s troop. Graviot was a friend, though he knew nothing of Alder’s calling as a Traveler. Graviot reminded Alder of himself…or at least of the knight Alder used to be. Graviot was younger by a few years. He was also big and clumsy and absolutely honest to a fault, just as Alder had been so long ago. It pained Alder to think that he himself was no longer as honest and naive. He had seen too much of Halla to be able to hold on to the person he once was. He had a moment of sadness for the loss of his own simple life, but shook it off quickly. Alder knew he had to be careful with the knight, friend or not. Too much had happened since he’d been gone to assume anything.

  “I traveled with Pendragon and the boy Siry,” Alder answered. “Remember? We unearthed the tak to help a tribe far from here.”

  “Of course I remember,” Graviot answered. “We did not think you would be gone for so long. Many things have happened. We will soon be at war.”

  “Why is that?” Alder asked. “What has happened? Have we been attacked?”

  “In a way, yes,” Graviot answered.

  “The Lowsee attacked us?” Alder asked, surprised.

  Graviot’s eyes narrowed. “How would you know of the Lowsee problem if you have been away?”

  Alder couldn’t admit that he’d seen images of the Lowsee preparing for battle as he flumed through time and space. He had to come up with a plausible response to keep Graviot on his side.

  “I never trusted the Lowsee,” Alder answered quickly. “It was only a guess.” It was also a total lie, but Alder was getting used to being less than honest.

  “You were wise not to trust them,” Graviot continued. He bought it.

  “Yet I did not expect them to attack us,” Alder added. “They are a peaceful tribe.”

  “They did not attack us with weapons,” Graviot continued. “But they are trying to crush us just the same.”

  “How?”

  “By withholding their triptyte” was Graviot’s answer.

  Alder knew about triptyte. It was a mineral the Bedoowan had used to create light within their castle. Before the castle was destroyed there was an elaborate system of tubes that snaked across every ceiling. When darkness fell, triptyte glowed brightly. It was a clean source of light that was much safer than fire. It was also a cause for shame, because the Bedoowan had not shared the technology with the Milago. They kept the Milago in the dark. Literally. When the Bedoowan castle crumbled and the Milago village was rebuilt, that changed. Triptyte lights were erected throughout the village. It was an incredible step forward, allowing the Milago village to continue operating into the night without the fear of an accident caused by fire. Many said that triptyte was what helped create a modern Milago.

  Alder also knew that the triptyte came from mines on land that was controlled by the Lowsee.

  “Why would they withhold the triptyte from us?” Alder asked.

  “Because we are no longer mining glaze,” was his answer. “The triptyte was paid for by glaze. Once the Milago stopped mining, we could no longer trade with the Lowsee and—”

  “And now we are going to war to take what we need,” Alder said gravely, finishing Graviot’s thought.

  “It is a wonderful opportunity!” Graviot said enthusiastically.

  “How can war be wonderful?” Alder asked, incredulous.

  “Once we defeat the Lowsee, we will not stop there. Glaze has been discovered in the lands beyond the Lowsee. Once we control those la
nds, the glaze will be ours.”

  Alder shot a harsh glance at Graviot. “You are saying that we plan on mining glaze again? How can that be? It is deadly to mine that mineral. Have you forgotten?”

  “Of course not,” Graviot scoffed. “But we will not be mining it. That will be the task of the Lowsee…once they have been conquered.”

  “And whose plan was this?”

  “King Rellin’s of course!” Graviot answered, as if it were a ridiculous question to ask.

  Alder winced. It was coming full circle. Rellin once began a revolution to fight the barbaric practice of forcing his people to dig and die in the toxic glaze mines. Now that he had achieved power, he was willing to go to war to force another group of unfortunates to do the exact same thing.

  Alder looked at Graviot and said sadly, “So dying for glaze is acceptable, as long as it is somebody else who is dying?”

  Graviot shrugged. “The strong survive, Alder.”

  Alder wanted to scream. All they had been fighting for on Denduron, all they had achieved was about to be wiped out.

  “Why do you look pained?” Graviot asked. “You should be proud! None of this would have been possible if not for you and Pendragon.”

  Alder gave Graviot a steely glare.

  “Do not be modest,” Graviot chided. “You and Pendragon brought that wondrous machine to unearth the tak. If not for the tak, none of this would be happening. Besides, it may save your life.”

  “Save my life?” Alder asked, stunned.

  “We are about to go to war,” Graviot announced. “You have been branded a deserter. I fear you will be tried for treason, old friend. It is very possible that you will be executed. Or perhaps sent to the new glaze mines. You should hope that Rellin has mercy, because without you, we never would have recovered the tak.”

  Alder struck without thinking. He uncorked a punch that Graviot never saw coming. The unsuspecting knight probably didn’t even know he had been hit. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. Alder felt a twinge of regret. Not that he had decked Graviot, but that the attack had come from an outburst of emotion. It wasn’t professional. Alder was a professional. He wouldn’t let emotions rule his actions again. There was too much at stake. He had work to do.

  He dragged the unconscious knight back into the trees, away from curious eyes. There he stripped the knight of his new, modern armor. He took off his own armor and lashed on Graviot’s. It was good that they were the same size. Now Alder could walk among the Bedoowan without attracting unwanted stares. Remaining hidden was suddenly more important than he had realized. He had been gone a long time…too long. Enough time to be charged with desertion and treason. He couldn’t be arrested. That would be disaster, because he had a mission and he could not fail.

  The Traveler knight stopped for a moment and took a breath. He was tired. He had just fought a war against an army of dados. There was nothing he wanted more than to sit down, sleep, and heal. Alder was strong. He knew he could keep going physically. It was his mental state he was more concerned with. Would he be able to bring himself to do what needed to be done to save his territory? The tak mine had to be destroyed. If he was successful, the Milago village might be destroyed along with it. Could he bring himself to do that?

  He didn’t have a choice. The future of Denduron was at stake. The future of Halla was at stake. He had to go into battle once again. He picked up the long wooden stave that was the weapon of choice for Bedoowan knights, spun it once, and held it close to his side. He was on familiar turf. He left the trees and headed for the village, prepared to destroy all that was left of his former life.

  He wished Pendragon were with him.

  DENDURON

  (CONTINUED)

  The first part of Alder’s plan was simple. He had to make his way into the new tak mine. He had no doubt there would be guards. Guards didn’t worry him. He had the element of surprise on his side. They wouldn’t expect an attack to come from a Bedoowan knight.

  The second part of his plan wasn’t as simple. He had to destroy the mine. Igniting the tak wouldn’t be the problem. Being somewhere else when it erupted would. He didn’t have much time. That fact was made all too clear when he moved past the rows of knights who were listening to King Rellin’s speech. Now that he was closer, he heard some of what Rellin was saying. Rellin was pontificating, using words like “glorious victory,” “spreading the empire,” and “triumph of the superior tribe.”

  Empire? When did the little world of the Milago and the Bedoowan become an empire? It chilled Alder to hear how the power of tak had completely corrupted Rellin. He was once a good man. He had fought for his people and against injustice. Now he was about to fight for power and glory.

  Alder shuddered when he realized that Saint Dane’s prophecy was about to come true: The first domino of Halla to fall would be Denduron, just as he had predicted several years before. It may not have played out exactly as Saint Dane wanted, but what did that matter? Or maybe this was exactly what Saint Dane wanted. Maybe this was how he’d planned for his grand scheme to unfold all along, and the Travelers were only going along for the ride. There was no way to know. There was only the mission. Alder had to stop the war. To do that, he needed to destroy the tak.

  As he hurried past the assembled knights, he could feel tension radiating from the masses. They had their game faces on. They were ready for battle. He knew the feeling. It was bloodlust. This wasn’t an exercise. They were about to march on the Lowsee. From what Alder remembered, he guessed it would take the rest of the day and into the night to move the army of knights up and over the mountain and into attack position. Just moving the cannons would take most of the night. His guess was that they would take up positions under cover of night and attack at first light. Alder knew he didn’t have much time. If he was going to stop this war, he would have to destroy the tak before the army left. He not only had to seal the mines, he had to find a way to destroy whatever they had already dug out of the ground.

  Alder’s journey brought him through the Milago village, past farmland and toward the field where the Bedoowan knights were training with tak. He wanted to see how they were using the explosive. What he saw didn’t calm his fears.

  He peered over a tall berm of dirt built up to contain flying shrapnel. It was definitely needed, because there was a lot of shrapnel flying around. Alder saw several cannons to his right. Each were manned by three Bedoowan knights. They seemed to be practicing. One knight packed a small amount of the red-clay tak and gently lowered it into the muzzle of the six-foot-long black cannon barrel. The second knight loaded a round cannonball on top of that. The third knight aimed the cannon. Their target was a wall of hay bales set up nearly fifty yards in front of them. At least, it used to be a wall of hay bales. It was now a mass of burning debris, surrounded by huge crater holes from the cannonballs. The tak was very effective.

  Once all was ready, the third knight scratched a small metal device that Alder realized was making a spark. The knight held it next to a thin rope that dangled from the rear end of the cannon. A fuse. After two flicks, the rope was set on fire. While the three knights stood back and covered their ears, the fuse burned quickly until it reached the back end of the cannon. An instant later…boom! A cloud of smoke blew out of the barrel, and two seconds later the cannonball hit the pile of burning hay dead on. When the projectile landed, it exploded as well, sending up another cloud of smoke. This second explosion rocked the ground, nearly knocking Alder down. The sound was deafening. Alder figured the cannonball must have had more tak inside it. No chunk of metal alone would have exploded like that.

  The tak cannons were deadly…and deadly accurate. Alder knew that the Lowsee wouldn’t stand a chance, and neither would Denduron. He had seen all he needed to see. He skirted the training ground, headed for the remote area where he and Siry and Pendragon had used the dygo to find the new vein of tak. They had deliberately dug far from the Milago village for safety. Alder was happy about that. P
erhaps, he thought, when the mine exploded, it wouldn’t damage the village. Much. It all depended on which way the underground vein of tak ran. He hurried through the woods, trying not to think too far beyond the next step. One thing at a time. Just keep going. Don’t get caught. Don’t stop. When he reached the end of the woods near the clearing with the tak mine…

  He stopped. He didn’t expect to see what was there before him. When he left Denduron only a few days before, the mine was nothing more than a hole in the ground. Now there was a building. A huge building. It was made entirely of wood, with a flat roof. The structure stood higher than any other building in the Milago village and took up many times as much ground. It looked like a giant storage building. Alder feared what might be stored inside.

  There were two large doors in front. They were closed and guarded by two Bedoowan knights. If Alder was getting into that building, it would have to be past those knights. The show was about to begin. Everyone would soon know that Alder was back. He straightened up, held the wooden stave at his side, and walked boldly toward the building. As he drew closer, the guards stiffened.

  “What is your business?” one of them growled.

  Alder didn’t break stride. “I have news from King Rellin,” he said with authority. “We must all assemble on the field for his final instructions.”

  The knights gave each other a quick, confused glance.

  “Those are not our orders,” the first knight responded. “We are not to leave our posts.”

  Alder didn’t recognize either of the knights. He was relieved about that. He didn’t like hurting his friends.

  “Your orders have been changed,” Alder said as he drew closer to the guards. “You are to move immediately to—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He quickly brought his stave up and jammed it into the gut of the first knight. The second knight was so surprised he hesitated before reacting. It cost him. Alder flicked his stave, catching him under the chin. The knight’s head flew back and his feet flipped up into the air. The knight landed square on his back with a sickening thud. Before he hit, Alder had already flashed his stave back toward the first knight, catching him on the side of his head. The knight crashed against the building. At the same time, Alder spun backward with his body and the stave, catching the second knight square on the jaw. Within four seconds both knights lay unconscious at Alder’s feet.