by James Wisher
Col clenched his jaw. Farmers treated their animals better than this. “You want to hurt them, now’s your chance. See that gray stone hut four down from us?”
Mariel nodded.
“Sneak over there and when I give the signal hit the guard closest to you.”
“What’s the signal?”
Col picked up a loose pebble. “I’ll peg the one nearest you in the head. That’ll get his attention so you can attack him from behind. I’ll handle the other.”
“Got it.” She slipped away, quiet as an owl on the wind.
Col kept a close watch, and a couple of minutes later glimpsed her dagger in the moonlight. He slid his sword free and took a breath to settle himself. When he’d calmed his racing heart Col’s arm shot forward followed a second later by a snarl of pain. The wolfman looked his way and Mariel leapt from the shadows.
Col didn’t wait to find out how she did. The moment she broke cover he charged the second monster. It had time enough to turn partway toward him before Col’s broadsword hacked into its neck, half severing its head. He spun and found his partner standing over a bleeding wolfman.
By now the slaves had gathered around the bars. Col held a finger up to his lips and the people obliged him by not shouting for his attention. He patted down his dead opponent, but found no key. He looked up and Mariel waved a key ring at him. Col nodded and motioned her to open the doors. He kept scanning the village for signs of movement. Everything looked quiet. How long had it been since anyone had attacked one of their villages?
He looked back in time to see her unlock the last door. Two fairly healthy looking men rushed over and relieved the dead beastmen of their weapons.
The moment they got weapons the two men and half a dozen unarmed people, both men and women, raced toward the nearest hut, went in, and a moment later snarls and squeals of pain followed. The group emerged, hands and weapons covered in blood. They didn’t say a word, but immediately advanced on the next hut. Behind him other groups were slaughtering females and young on the other side of the village.
Col said nothing. It wasn’t his place to stop them or even question their actions.
Col saw no sign of Mariel. She probably joined in as soon as she finished freeing the last of the slaves. Howls echoed deeper in the village. It sounded like one of the beastmen lived long enough to sound a warning. Col doubted it would make much difference. The blood lust was on the freed slaves now and nothing less than the death of all their tormentors would slake it.
He went to the first cave and found it empty of people, only a layer of straw and a couple of buckets remained behind. Col moved on to the second cave and found a wrinkled man with a scruffy white beard dressed in rags leaning against the wall. He had a red line on his thin chest. “Are you all right?” Col helped the old man out and eased him to the ground.
“Thank you, young man.” He took a deep, wheezing breath. “My lungs have been bothering me. Those beasts marked me for tomorrow’s dinner pot. If you hadn’t come along tonight I’d be dead.”
Col squeezed his shoulder. “I’m glad I got here in time. Can I do anything for you?”
The old man shook his head. “I just want to enjoy the fresh air.”
Col shuddered at the stink in the air. If the old man thought this was fresh air what had he gotten used to? He left the old timer resting and moved on to the next cave. He found it and the next empty. In the last he found an old woman with a strip of filthy cloth across her eyes sitting in the disgusting straw.
“Is that you, champion? Have you found the lie?”
Col’s eyes widened. She was a Truthseer. “I did, priestess. Did you guide me here?”
The old woman wheezed a harsh laugh. “The lie has grated on me since we arrived. I did not try to call you, but my distress may have touched you.”
She reached out, and he took her hands. Bony fingers groped around until she found the ring. “Like calls to like. This connects us; it connects you to all Truthseers.”
“I don’t understand. Mystic stuff is beyond me. I’m just a simple soldier. Can I take you out of here?”
“Please. I have little strength left.”
Col scooped her up. She felt frail, like a skeleton covered in a thin layer of skin. He carried her out of the cave and set her down a little ways from the old man. Col suspected the beastmen didn’t eat her because there was no meat on her bones. “Why did the monsters spare you, priestess?”
“Fear. They’re superstitious creatures and they sensed the power in me and left me to my own devices.” She coughed a great hacking wheeze of a cough. “Some days I wished they’d finished me.”
“Don’t say that, priestess. Life is far too precious to wish it away, especially now.”
She patted his knee. “You’re very kind, boy. I see why the power chose you. I can also see you know little about it. Some things you must learn on your own, but I can tell you the ring lets you do more than see illusions, it can also destroy them. You need only command it to do so. Now let me rest, it won’t be long before the others finish their work.”
Slaughter more like, but Col didn’t correct her. He moved a few steps away and spotted Mariel walking towards him. Blood covered her arms from the elbow down. She looked like something from a campfire horror story.
She dropped her dagger, slumped to the ground a few feet from him, and wrapped her arms around her knees. “It didn’t help. After the fifth one it didn’t even feel good anymore.”
“I know. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Col led her to a barrel half filled with water a short ways from the caves, probably for the guards if they got thirsty during their watch. He took the dipper out and poured water over her hands and arms. Mariel scrubbed, and he kept pouring until he ran out of water. She kept rubbing until the skin turned red under her fingers.
Col grabbed her hands. “It’s okay, the blood’s gone.”
Mariel looked down at her hands. “I can still feel it.”
“It’s okay; it’s only your imagination.”
“I killed a female and when it was dead I gutted the little one behind her. It squealed like a puppy and cried like a child.” Tears streamed down her face. Col held her while she cried. He suspected she needed the crying more than the killing.
She wiped the tears from her eyes and stepped back.
“Better?” he asked.
Mariel nodded. Some of the people were coming back in twos and threes. They looked haunted, eyes wide and staring, like they’d seen things, done things, they couldn’t get out of their heads. Well, at least they were free. Now, how was he going to get them back to Celestia in one piece?
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I’m pretty sure the darker meat is horse,” one of the former slaves said. Col stood beside him in the doorway of a big smoke shack. Hundreds of strips of meat hung on drying racks. Given the beastmen’s tastes Col wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it, but they needed as much food as they could get if they wanted to make it to Celestia.
“It is.” A woman came over and joined them. “I worked in the butcher shop here, stripping the hide from the dead horses they brought back. The darker meat is definitely horse.”
“Fine, I’ll let you two handle gathering provisions.” Col fled the smoke shack. He had nothing against horse meat; it was the paler strips of dried flesh that made him queasy. Perhaps those two had gotten used to it during their captivity.
He headed toward the center of the village to see how the group he’d left gathering water was coming along. They’d searched the village and found dozens of water skins. Col figured they’d have no trouble finding streams in the area, but if they didn’t, having water with them would be handy.
Mariel stood overseeing the work. He walked over. “How’s it going?”
“Good. Another hour I’d say.” Though she’d said nothing about last night’s slaughter no one was eager to spend another night in the dead village. “About last night…”
“Forget
it. I’m just glad you’re better this morning. If you can keep an eye on everyone I’ll scout ahead and try to find us a good path out of here.”
She nodded. “No problem. When we’re ready I’ll gather everyone on the northern edge of the village.”
“I’ll meet you there.” Col left her to finish the preparations and headed north. He hurried through the village, trying hard not to think about what he’d find if he looked in the huts. To his immense relief it didn’t take long to leave the village behind and reach the scrub growing along the hillside. He prowled along the edge and soon enough he found a path down the hill. The trail followed the base of the hill. It was a little rough, but nothing the people couldn’t manage. He followed it for half an hour, seeing nothing but evergreen trees and jagged rocks.
He turned back toward the village, convinced the trail was their best option. As he walked Col dug the orb out of his pocket. How best to tell Tahlia he’d ignored her orders, freed the slaves and was now headed toward Celestia with a hundred people in tow? The more he considered it the less he believed there was a good way to tell her. He’d just spit it out and hope she’d forgive him. It wasn’t like he could put the people back in their cages and bring the dead beastmen back to life.
* * *
Rain listened as Tahlia replayed Col’s message. The scowl on the queen’s normally smooth face spoke to her displeasure with whatever Col had to say. He began. “Majesty, I could not follow your orders not to free the slaves. I could not in good conscience leave them to rot. By the time you receive this message we’ll be on our way to Celestia. We’re traveling through the wilderness and will approach the kingdom from beastman territory. Any advice would be appreciated.”
The message ended. Tahlia looked at Rain. “He admits he ignored me.”
Rain smiled. Tahlia didn’t know Col as well as she thought. “Are you surprised?”
The queen blinked and the scowl twisted into a look of confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that no matter who gave him the order, there was no way Col would leave those people to die. It’s not an order he’s capable of following without a better reason than ‘because I said so.’”
Tahlia’s expression softened further. “You’re right, of course. I should have explained why it was important. I would have if we were face to face, but this means of communication has many limits.”
Curious now, Rain asked, “Why was it so important?”
“What Col discovered was a soul box, an artifact creatures like Zarrin use to protect themselves. If we were to destroy Zarrin now, his soul would flee to the box and after a short time to gather his strength he’d enter the nearest corpse and be reborn, none the worse for wear. It might take him a few weeks or at most months to regain his full power, but he would eventually. I feared that if Col did anything to draw attention to the area Zarrin would know we’d discovered his hiding place before we could recover the box and destroy it.”
“I understand why he upset you. What will you tell Col now?”
Tahlia smiled a warm smile. “I’ll tell him help’s waiting at the border.”
* * *
Ten days of marching from dawn to dusk found the weary former slaves poised to cross the border, at least Col assumed they were. He had no proper navigation tools, so he’d guided the group by dead reckoning. They’d had to swerve off their course half a dozen times to avoid beastman villages so he wasn’t certain he’d gotten to the right place. That Tahlia’s soldiers were nowhere to be found argued that he’d screwed up somewhere.
“Is this it or not?” Mariel joined Col at the head of the column.
“I don’t think so. Let’s go a little further and try to spot the help Her Majesty sent to meet us.”
The column trudged on through the evergreens. Too exhausted to complain, it looked like all they could do to put one foot in front of the other. Col knew how they felt. He wanted something other than dried meat and overripe berries to eat.
They hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when movement caught his eye. He raised a hand to halt the column and drew his sword. Taking his lead everyone with a weapon got it out. Those without weapons crowded together behind the rest.
They’d barely gotten set when twenty men, each carrying an ax or spiked club, emerged from the forest on all sides. One man, a big, bearded fellow with a double bitted ax in one hand and a hook in place of the other, stepped forward. “You’re all prisoners of the White Bear bandit company. Come quietly and we won’t kill you.”
Col didn’t even have time to negotiate. With a collective, inarticulate roar of rage the former slaves surged forward. The bandits flinched back at the fury on display. Col raced toward the leader. If he took the man out quick the others would break and run, assuming any of the bandits remained alive.
Col dodged an overhead chop from the ax and slashed at the leader’s side. The man’s hook batted his sword aside. They circled. Col thrust and the bandit turned the probing blow aside. Shouts and the clang of weapons sounded all around them.
“If you surrender”—Col circled right and the bandit matched him—“I might convince them to leave you and your men alive.”
“Ha! The White Bears are the strongest crew in this part of the country. One of my men is worth ten of your rabble.”
“You better hope so. That rabble slaughtered an entire wolfman village. You’ll have to kill them all since I doubt any of them would go back to being a slave.”
The bandit opened his mouth to speak and then gagged as blood leaked out. He collapsed and revealed Mariel standing behind him with her bloody dagger. “You talk too much.”
He smiled and looked around. The bandits were all down; several of his people were beating one man to death with rocks they’d picked up from beside the path. “Let’s check for wounded.”
They found plenty. The first woman Col reached had a gashed arm and a bruise above her eye. “Easy, you’ll be okay.” He bound the wound with strips of cloth torn from her already ragged skirt. He moved on to a broken leg followed by a slashed chest. The next two people were dead and the sixth had at least two broken ribs and gasped for breath. Nothing he could do for her with no healing supplies.
He was looking for the next injured person when one of the men shouted. “Someone’s coming.”
Col drew his sword and raced toward the lookout. The group couldn’t take on another fight so soon after dealing with the bandits. He reached the man at the same moment soldiers emerged from the woods. Col let out a breath. He knew those uniforms. “It’s okay, those are soldiers of Celestia. We’re safe now.”
He sheathed his sword and went to meet them. Col spotted a lieutenant’s insignia on one of them and assumed he was in charge. “Lieutenant, you’re a sight for tired eyes.”
“You must be Col.” They shook hands. “Her majesty gave us your description and said you and these people were to get the best possible treatment.”
“Do you have a lightcaster with you? A group of bandits jumped us and some of these people received serious wounds.”
“She’s coming. We also have food and water. My orders are to get you to the capital as fast as possible. If you’ll follow me I have a horse and escort waiting for you.”
“They’ll have to wait a little longer. I can’t just leave these people with strangers after all we’ve been through. Once they’re settled I’ll go. A few hours won’t make that much difference.”
“Those aren’t my orders.”
Col patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll just have to adapt. Say, you don’t have any bread, do you? I haven’t even had stale bread in weeks.”
* * *
Rain sighed as she walked through the beautiful halls on her way to her lesson. It seemed, despite her daily efforts, that she was making no progress. The hum was getting stronger, but she felt no energy in her hands like Michael said she should. Maybe she didn’t have what it took to call the sword.
As she approached the practice room she
noticed the door hung partway open and a murmur of voices was coming from inside. She inched closer. It made her feel like a spy, but curiosity got the best of her. A few steps from the door she recognized the first voice as Michael’s.
“She’s trying her best and doing everything we’ve asked of her. She’s made some progress, I admit less than we’d hoped, but still considering her complete lack of training she’s doing acceptably.”
Rain winced. Acceptably, not the highest of praise. The second voice spoke again and she recognized the king. “I’m less confident she’s got what it takes. I fear you’re wasting your time with the girl. The sword is safe enough as long as she remains unharmed.”
“That’s true, Majesty, but if she succeeds we’ll gain a potent weapon to use against the enemy. With sufficient practice, she’ll make the connection and summon the sword.”
The king snorted. “If you wish to spend your scant free time training the girl I won’t order you not to, but if something more important comes up you’re done. Understand?”
“Of course, Majesty. I am, as always, your humble servant.”
That sounded like the end of the conversation. Rain stepped away from the wall and took the final two steps toward the door. She pulled it open a moment before the king reached for the door knob. He smiled at her, a phony almost-sneer that she saw right through. She offered a polite nod. “Majesty.”
“Rain, I was hoping to run into you. Your friend, Squire Col, got back to the capital today. He’s meeting with my wife and some of the other lightcasters. I thought you might like to see him when he finishes.”
Her pulse raced and relief flooded through her. Col had returned. She knew for certain he was on her side. She let none of her excitement show, however. “I’d like that, Majesty. Would you ask him to come here when he’s finished?”
