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Dedication
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About the Author
Also from Ellysian Press
ELLYSIAN PRESS
Exiles of Forlorn
Sean T. Poindexter
www.ellysianpress.com
Exiles of Forlorn
© Copyright Sean T. Poindexter 2015. All rights reserved.
Print ISBN: 978-1-941637-23-4
First Edition
Editor: Jen Ryan, Imagine That Editing
Cover Art: M Joseph Murphy
Ebooks/Books are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away, as this is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
EXILES OF FORLORN
Sean T. Poindexter
Dedication
For my mother
1.
The dark slopes of the mountains of Forlorn filled the horizon, an island on the placid blue sea. Its snow-capped peaks pierced the firmament as tiny black clouds circled like crows over carrion. It had been all I could stare at since it emerged on the horizon hours ago, when the dark night sky split beneath the sun, giving view to my new home. I couldn’t stand to look, but didn’t dare look away, even as I felt a small tear well beneath my eye. Others were watching, friends, strangers, fellow shipmates, and the thought of showing weakness sickened me. I longed for a distraction . . .
“It looks like a zit,” said Blackfoot, followed by a snort and a crusty snicker.
That would do.
Reiwyn giggled, a delightful sound like the songbirds that used to sing in the towers of Standwell Keep, my childhood home. Reiwyn stood with her hands on her hips, long fingers covered with rings of bone and pewter. Her raven hair was bound in a tail and tumbled over her dark, tattooed shoulders like a wind-starved banner. She wore a blouse of loose cotton that hung in a wide V, exposing her shoulders. Leather thongs decorated with bits of bone and short feathers splayed across her heart, the lighter bits dancing in the soft ocean breeze. She had a way of wearing clothing that promised glimpses of flesh not casually seen, but carried her body in such a way that those promises were never fulfilled.
I would never get tired of looking at her.
Blackfoot was a different matter. While not overly hideous, he was difficult to mistake for anything but a street urchin. His clothes were ratty and plain, his grayish-brown hair short and wild, and his eyes narrow and sinister. He had arms and legs like sticks, and seemed to have missed more meals than he’d eaten. The smallest of us, he stood barely one and a quarter stride, five inches shorter than even Reiwyn, who wasn’t tall by any tale or measure, a half-foot less than me. He was the youngest, too, only thirteen, three years younger than the rest of us. The name was born from the soles of his feet, black as midnight from the sooty, dirty streets of Garraport upon which the little urchin had grown. He walked barefoot always, claiming that shoes mark a man’s steps like thunder, and thunder was no friend of a burglar.
Then there was Uller. Tall and pasty skinned with fair blond hair and slender arms that had never lifted anything heavier than a book. He still wore the robes of the Magespire academy, albeit thoroughly soiled by sweat, sea salt, and vomit.
“Oh, thank the Daevas, land,” Uller gasped. He raised his eyes from the sea, grasping the rail with sweaty hands as he brought his head up from where he’d knelt. His short hair stuck to his scalp with sweat and sea-spray. He’d spent most of the day with his head over the edge of the deck, gurging into the sea until he had nothing left but spit and stinging bile. He’d been seasick the entire voyage, but it only got worse as we drew closer to land. No sooner had he wiped a line of spittle from his lips with the back of his arm then another came over him. With a groan of frustration, he pressed his chest to the rail and commenced with another bout of heaving.
“Antioc is sure taking a while with the old graybeard,” remarked Reiwyn, referring to the only member of our merry crew not accounted for on the deck. I felt a burn of jealousy in my chest at her mention of my closest friend. Had she lamented my absence while I was with the graybeard just a few hours ago? Somehow, I doubted it.
My attention returned to the sea and the island rising there from. Thin, wispy clouds cut the sun and threw shadows across it. I saw no trees, no sign of green land or white sandy beaches, only the gentle, curving dome formed by a ring of dead volcanoes that shaped the center. They seemed lifeless, though I knew better. Blackfoot was right; it did rather resemble a zit. A big, black zit with a sharp, snow-white tip.
Uller gurged over the side again, this time more violent than before.
“I’ll be glad of land if only to be done with your weak stomach,” said Reiwyn. Blackfoot and I chuckled.
“It’s not fair for the daughter of a river pirate to mock Uller for his poor sea legs,” I said, only half chiding. Truth be known, she’d spent more time on the deck of a boat than on land.
“It’s my first time on a boat,” Uller said, his voice weak, mostly taken by the rustle of the sea and muffled by the rail at his chest. “Much less one bound for sea.”
“There are no boats in Magespire?” asked Reiwyn, incredulous.
“There are no cursed seas in Magespire,” Uller snapped, looking back on her with his dark brown eyes.
“Indeed,” I said, patting Uller’s back, “Not all men are fit to be pirates, Reiwyn.”
Only Blackfoot laughed at that, but Blackfoot laughed at everything. Uller turned his head to the sea and waited for the relief that never came, his slender, almost cat-like face slick with sweat.
“He is taking a while with Roren,” I said, glancing back to the deck. “I suppose he had more to give some of us than others.” I’d seen him first, followed by Blackfoot, Uller, then Reiwyn. Blackfoot’s meeting had been the shortest, after which the little thief had been deathly silent—albeit, only for a few minutes. Antioc had gone in last.
More curiously, when Reiwyn emerged from her meeting, her gait was off, as though she’d slipped and twisted a hip. That brought some jokes from Blackfoot, and a few jealous looks from Uller and me; at least until need took him to the edge of the deck. That just left me and the ridiculous notion, however faint, that in a moment of pity she’d gifted a dying man with something I feared I’d never taste. Compounding it was Reiwyn’s refusal to say what they had discussed, or to explain why her usual graceful walk seemed strained. “It’s none of your affair,” she had said, her voice husky and dark, when I’d asked her about it. She added with a look what words had omitted: do not ask again.
I recognized the sound of heavy feet thumping against the old boards. I turned
with the others in time to see Antioc approaching. I was struck almost immediately with the glint in Reiwyn’s eyes at the end of her gaze, and the familiar burn returned.
“All finished?” asked Blackfoot. We advanced on him, even Uller, though he stayed as near to the rail as he could in the likely event that he be taken by sickness. Antioc had to duck under a low-hanging boom to reach us.
“Yes,” he said, not really looking at any of us. I followed his stare until I realized he was looking at Forlorn. He’d been under deck when it had come into view, but it was already old news to us.
“It took you a while,” observed Reiwyn, her voice intentionally loud as though making a point—to me. It was made. “I should like to bid him farewell. He isn’t expected to live through sunset.”
“Then you’re too late,” the warrior replied, giving her a mournful look. “He expired before my eyes. That’s why I was gone so long: I was drafted to help carry his body to the stern.” Antioc gestured to the end of the barge. We looked, but it was difficult to see past the crowd gathered there. I hadn’t noticed before, but they seemed to be looking over the rail at something in the water.
Roren had been a friend to each of us, and it was with reverence that we made our way to the rear deck to see him off. Even Uller, not known for being sentimental in the short time I’d known him, managed to dominate his nausea long enough to observe the graybeard’s send-off.
The other passengers moved aside as we advanced in a silent procession. Whether it was out of respect for our well-seen friendship with the old fellow or because the hulking Antioc made up our vanguard, I couldn’t say. I was too distracted to notice, most notably by Reiwyn, who seemed to be taking this the hardest. I put my hand on her shoulder. It was bare and warm and her skin was soft. She didn’t acknowledge the gesture. I brushed away the frustration and turned my attention to the grim business ahead.
We leaned against the worm-eaten wood rail at the edge of the deck, giving Uller his choice of perch lest he spew bile on one of us. He didn’t seem to need to, however, though his greenish pallor and clammy brow lingered. Behind the ship, floating in the choppy white-foam tipped waves, drifted a simple log raft, upon which lay a bundle of yellowing white sheets wrapped tight around the outline of a human body.
“How is he going to become ashes?” asked Blackfoot, worried.
Antioc tapped the thief’s shoulder and then directed his eyes to the top of the center mast. All but Reiwyn looked up at the sailor in the crow’s nest holding a long wooden bow and an arrow with sopping yellow cloth twined about the end. At a nod from an unseen captain, the sailor drew a sparker from his vest and clicked it against the oiled-cloth until it took flame. A second later, he tensed the bow and let fly the flaming arrow. All eyes but Reiwyn’s followed it to the raft, where upon striking it set the oil-soaked sheets ablaze.
“Go to the ashes, old friend,” I said, stepping closer to Reiwyn. I hoped for a reaction but got none. Uller reached across and tried to take her hand, but he found her fingers unyielding from the old wooden rail. That was satisfying, at least. I wasn’t the only one being rebuked.
“He was a noble old man,” said Antioc. As if to rub her lack of interest in our faces, Reiwyn reached over and took Antioc’s arm. Though he did not respond, I felt seething inside like a steaming kettle close to bursting. A sideways glance at Uller showed a similar look on his sweaty, sickly face.
“I can’t see,” whined Blackfoot, bouncing on the deck. Reiwyn’s arm had crossed his face. She dropped her hand to the rail and Blackfoot stopped jumping, much to the relief of Uller who seemed ready to gurge again. “Thank you.” He eyed the blaze with wide eyes. We all did, until the fire consumed the raft and the bundle rolled into the sea with a hiss of smoke. Roren was gone.
Once the crowd had thinned around us, I looked at Antioc, still watching the spot where Roren’s remains had fallen beneath the sea, marked by pieces of the raft floating in a circle. Reiwyn was similarly enrapt. I abandoned any notion of matching her sentiment, but noticed I still held her shoulder, and that she had yet to respond to it.
“What did he give you?” I asked Antioc in a whisper. I felt Reiwyn twitch.
“Must you?” she asked, meekly. Her voice was usually so strong.
“He chose this day to tell us,” I said, nodding unseen to the sea where he sank. “He knew he would die today. He wanted us to know. He wanted us to fulfill his legacy. I think he’d want us to talk about it, rather than mourn over him.”
That appeared to satisfy her; she nodded.
Antioc took his time in replying. “He told me how to kill them.”
I furrowed my brow at him. “Kill them?” Antioc nodded once. “What them?”
“The inhabitants of the ruins,” he replied, as casually as he would discuss a neighbor or a copse of trees. He gave me a not oft-seen grin. “You didn’t think all that treasure would just be sitting there without guardians, did you?”
I shook my head. “So you know how to kill them?” I asked, still whispering. “The defenders, or whatever they are . . . ?”
“Most of them,” he replied with a shrug, turning his eyes to the sea. “He died during the telling.”
“Most of them? You mean there’s more than one?”
“More than one kind,” he clarified. “I don’t have an exact number, but he said he’d learned of many and would share that knowledge with me so that I might keep us safe.” He took a long breath, filling his lungs with the clear, salty sea air. “I got most of it, I think.”
“You think?” I craned my eyebrows. “What kinds of thing are we talking about here? Walking dead? Wraiths? Giants?”
“Among others.” He seemed so nonchalant about it. “Killing things isn’t that big a mystery. Everything dies if you hit it hard and enough.”
“What did he tell you?” Uller asked after a few moments of silence.
“He told me where it was,” I explained with a whisper, glancing around to make sure we were far enough from the other exiles to be unheard. “He drew me a map . . .”
“He gave you a map?” asked Uller, almost too loud. His head was a mere two inches above mine, and his whispers were affronted by the stench of his repeated gurging.
“No, I said he drew me a map. Then he made me draw it.”
“So you have a map?” hissed Uller. His eyes were veined with red so bright they seemed likely to pop from his skull.
I shook my head. “He burned it. Then he made me draw it again, only from memory. He made me do it fast. I almost spilled the ink twice while dipping the quill.”
“Why?” Antioc was soft spoken, even for so big a man, so he barely had need to whisper. “Why make you draw the map, rather than give you his?” Uller nodded at the question and gave me a curious look.
I always had to raise my head when talking close to Antioc. He stood a half-stride taller than me, and had broad shoulders joining muscular arms to a thick, powerful chest. Few could doubt that he was a warrior, though he might have passed for a farmer, but for the short-cropped brown hair and thick, bumpy scars on his chest and arms. The scars of a fighter; at sixteen Antioc had more scars than men three times his age.
“I didn’t say he gave me a map.” My irritation was unbound. My companions could be dim, even Uller, despite being more educated than all of us put together. “I said he showed me where it was. He told me when we reach Forlorn, I’m to find quill and paper and draw this map. Draw it frequently, and burn the old one. Let no one see it, not even my friends. Do this, as he has done, and soon I’ll see the map in my minds-eye when we make the journey.”
“That makes sense,” Uller nodded, a moment before his cheeks puffed and his skin bleached. He ran across the deck and hurled his head over the rail, unleashing another smelly stream into the sea. Blackfoot and I laughed at him, and even quiet Antioc enjoyed a brief chuckle.
Our eyes returned to the sea, and somber moods prevailed over our brief frivolity.
“He knew this was
coming,” said Antioc, nodding. “He knew he would never reach Forlorn. He said so mere days after falling ill.”
“I’m still surprised to see him go,” I replied, though it was only half true. Still, the optimism might warm Reiwyn to me . . . it didn’t seem to work. “I hoped he’d at least die on land. He never did like the sea.”
“Hard to imagine why,” Uller moaned. He put his hand on his belly. “I think I need to lie down.”
“Can you make it on your own?” I asked, looking at him over Reiwyn’s head. “I can have Antioc carry you, if you’re feeling feeble.”
Uller glared at me as he shambled by. “I’m fair enough. Thank you.”
Blackfoot followed him. “I figured a wizard would have a stronger stomach,” he commented as he walked in the taller boy’s shadow.
“I’m no wizard, urchin,” he replied with a low grumble. “If you’re coming with me, make yourself useful and fetch me some water. I’m close to parched with all this gurging and sweat.”
“Get your own hanged water, no-wizard! I’m going to go roll bones.” With that, Blackfoot vanished into the crowd, as was his way, hand in his pocket to pull out the spotted bones urchins and poor city folk amused themselves with. Uller went on alone and disappeared far less spectacularly through a door to the lower deck.
After a brief silence, I caught Antioc’s attention with my eyes wide. He gave me a puzzled look as I nodded to the oblivious Reiwyn. It took my stalwart friend a moment to catch on, at which point I nodded to the front of the ship. He nodded in understanding and backed from the rail.
“I must go do . . . a walk . . . now, goodbye.” And with that he marched away, leaving me alone on the deck with Reiwyn.
The sun was setting, its early evening light spilling over the sea like a waving orange road, one that led back to the Morment coast, lost to the months of sailing and fathoms of calm sea. I barely paid it any heed; my attention was elsewhere.
“Are you fair?” I asked, covering her other shoulder with my free hand. Now I held both, and with that I could fancy that she enjoyed my touch as much as I enjoyed hers; though she gave no indication that was the case.
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