Protector Of The Grove (Book 2)

by Trevor H. Cooley

  “In fifteen minutes,” Reggie replied. “That’s all the time you get unless you wish to return later.”

  “That should be long enough, thank you,” Arcon replied and, with slumped shoulders, the boy led him down a hallway towards the scholar’s study.

  Tobias’ house was wealthy enough to employ several servants that kept the place tidy, but Reggie was one of only two green-sashed stewards assigned to the gnome. As the younger of the two stewards, he had to do all the menial work, such as answering doors or announcing guests. Stewards hated that part of their job, patiently answering the door for the same people that would bow to them if they passed them in the streets. But it was tradition and stewards were slaves to tradition.

  When they reached the rather unadorned door to the study, Reggie rolled his eyes and said, “Before you go in there, you should know that he’s having one of his bad days. The news of Scholar Genevieve’s death hit him hard.”

  “Understandably so,” said Arcon, fairly sure he knew exactly what Tobias’ reaction had been. “It has hurt us all.”

  “Right,” the steward said and knocked once before opening the door. “Scholar Tobias, Steward Gray is here to see you again. Something about the royalties.”

  “Who?” the gnome said, his back to them as he etched something on the back wall. When he turned and looked at them, it was obvious that Reggie’s assessment of the scholar’s bad day was correct. His eyes were red and puffy, his lips and nose smudged with ink, while his fingers were stained black.

  Tobias looked old and worn, his back bent and shoulders slumped in such a way that you forgot how tall he really was. His hair was thin and wiry and he wore a pair of spectacles in an ancient style with square lenses. His robes were worn and stained in places by ink the servants had not been able to get out. At first glance it would be easy to dismiss him, but Arcon knew better.

  The gnome’s face lit up when he saw Arcon standing there. His posture straightened a bit. “Ah, Gray, how pleasant to see you. That will be all, Reggie,” he said, his voice lively for someone that looked as haggard as he did.

  The moment the door closed behind the young steward, the gnome’s face tightened with anger. Arcon could tell that he was fully within his focus. “Can you believe it, Gray? The nerve of that monster, killing sweet Genevieve!”

  “You think Scholar Aloysius was behind that?” Arcon asked in surprise. This was not how he had planned on starting their conversation.

  “Of course! Look. Look!” the gnome said, gesturing wildly at the sketch he’d been working on. “It all fits together far too well.”

  Arcon’s eyes moved to the rear wall. It was covered by an enormous map of the capitol. Each section of Mallad and the Gnome Homeland was colored in and notated with great detail, with markers showing events and correlations. Each one of the markers had a line drawn between it and Aloysius’ residence. There were far more today than there had been when Arcon first started meeting the scholar. A big circle and skull had been drawn at the building where Genevieve had been murdered.

  The gnome’s notes were too detailed and difficult to read for Arcon to make anything else out. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Genevieve was one of us!” Tobias declared. “One of the resistance. She joined last week. The highest ranking member yet. She saw evidence of Aloysius’ plots and came to me. After years of ignoring my claims, she came! I fear she went and confronted him last night.”

  “I don’t know,” Arcon said with a doubtful tone. “Would he really go so far as to assassinate someone as high on the council as Scholar Genevieve? It seems risky.”

  “If Aloysius was afraid to go that far, we wouldn’t need a resistance,” Tobias said with a shake of his head. He traced a finger over his sketches. “The council has evidence that shows the dark wizards were behind her death, but I doubt that’s the case. They have too much to lose to assassinate someone like her. Somehow Aloysius has framed them.”

  “He’s probably right,” Mellinda agreed. “He wouldn’t bother with someone like Tobias. He’s too open. Too wildly discredited to be much of a threat. But if someone like Scholar Genevieve spoke up, the rest of the council would listen. Aloysius could be taken down. I would have killed her too.”

  “But why would he frame the dark wizards?” Arcon asked. “He has made use of them in the past and placing the blame on them could lead to their annihilation. If he wanted another scholar killed, it would be so much easier to make it look like an accident, like he has in the past.”

  “Ah yes. Like with Abernathy’s mysterious fall from the Barrier Tower,” Tobias said, yanking the end of his long nose. “The only conclusion I can come to is that Aloysius wants there to be a war.”

  “Why? I spoke with him earlier and he says he has allies on each side,” Arcon replied.

  “That may be true, but he also has enemies,” the scholar replied. “Oh! Yes, it’s clever. So clever! Perhaps he has arranged for his enemies on both sides to be destroyed during the conflict. It’s so neat and tidy!” There was a hint of admiration in his voice.

  “Ooh, I love our Aloysius.” Mellinda laughed. “He’s so clever!”

  “This ties in with the reason I came to see you,” Arcon told the gnome. “Aloysius is leaving tonight, planning on being far away when the fighting starts. He’s taking me with him.”

  “Is he now?” Tobias asked. “And where is he off to?”

  “The Razbeck border. He plans on meeting a man there with some merchandise,” Arcon replied.

  Tobias gave him a searching look. “Do you have any idea what this ‘merchandise’ might be?”

  “No, Scholar. He didn’t say,” Arcon replied. There was a lot he hadn’t told Tobias. The scholar didn’t know his real identity or the truth of his work with Aloysius. Not yet. Tobias had a tendency to blab. If he told the gnome too many details it wouldn’t take long for Aloysius to figure out that Arcon was talking to his enemies.

  “It seems we walk a fine line in everything we do,” Mellinda mumbled.

  “Hmm,” the gnome said, yanking on his nose again. “Well I just might have an idea. The resistance caught wind of something a while back. He sent his top red sash out hunting for rogue horses. We are doing our best to stop him in those efforts. I don’t know what he would want them for, but he never does anything for the good of the rest of us.”

  “Well whatever he is after, you and the rest of the resistance need to follow his example and get out of here,” Arcon said forcefully. “If he has set up this conflict as an excuse to have his enemies killed, the chances are that you are one of them.”

  “Really? Are we going to push this gambit so far?” Mellinda asked. “They are the enemy after all.”

  Like you said when you first suggested the idea, this helps us keep our options open. If they’re all dead we lose our leverage, Arcon sent.

  “Good point,” she said. “Still I wonder. Is your conscience going to get the better of you?”

  Arcon didn’t reply.

  “Perhaps you are right,” Tobias said, nodding slowly. “Perhaps we should leave. I have a hiding place prepared for just such a situation.”

  There was a sharp knock at the door and Steward Reggie poked his head in. “Time for your evening meal, Scholar Tobias.”

  “It seems I must take my leave then, Scholar,” Arcon said. He found himself eager to leave.

  “I’ll be with you in just one moment, Reggie” Tobias said. “I have a few more things to say to Gray here.”

  Once the youth had shut the door, Tobias pulled a piece of parchment out of a desk drawer and began writing quickly. Once he had finished, he folded it and placed the parchment in an envelope, which he placed in Arcon’s hands. The scholar lowered his voice. “This is a list of our assets that are out opposing Aloysius’ plans. Some are more formidable than others, but if you come across any of them in your journey, help them in whatever way you can. It’s important that monster does not succeed.”

  Arcon tucke
d the letter away and nodded. He bid farewell to the gnome and left the residence as quickly as he could before changing his appearance back to that of a green-sashed steward. When he returned to Aloysius’ estate and began to ready his things for the journey, the letter seemed heavy in his pocket. Should he do as Tobias requested or show the list to Aloysius?

  The whole duplicitous plan had started as a way for Arcon to ensure his usefulness to Aloysius. Mellinda didn’t like that the scholar had found a rogue horse on his own. After all, how important was the slim chance she and Arcon could recreate rogue horses, if the scholar already had what he wanted? If it ever seemed that his stock with Aloysius was falling, he could offer himself as a plant within the resistance. It was just the kind of bold move that had saved him from the scholar’s wrath time and again.

  But the more he learned about the breadth of Aloysius’ plans, the less Arcon liked being a part of it. What good was being out from under Mellinda’s thumb or Ewzad’s if he was going to be beholden to the despot Aloysius planned to be? Still, Mellinda had a point. Better to be one of the winners than a good intentioned loser.

  One thing was for certain. Sooner or later, Arcon was going to have to pick a side.

  Chapter Ten

  The plains in the valley between the academy and the Tinny woods were vast and open, bordered on the east and west by tall mountains. During the spring they were beautiful, green and vibrant. But Jhonate’s party was traveling in the winter. Now the plains looked a dreary mess. The tall grasses turned brown in the fall and they were beaten down by harsh periods of heavy snows and thaws until they looked like a sodden heap; wet in some patches, icy in others.

  Jhonate found Yntri Yni crouched between tufts of tall brown grass. The elf was peering at a small imprint in the snow.

  “Have you found another sign of them, weaponmaster?” she asked. Jhonate hunched down beside him and examined the track. It was a single boot print, the sole featureless and smooth. Not a good tread for winter weather.

  Yntri rubbed the stubble on the top of his head and replied in his language of clicks and whistles, “The flesh changers walk as men now. They were deer before. Then goblinkind. Now men. They think to fool us, but they do not know us.”

  Jhonate nodded. The basilisks were underestimating his skills. Yntri had dealt with their kind for thousands of years, after all.

  She replied to him in the common language. Jhonate’s people lived side by side with Yntri’s and she had learned how to understand his way of talking at a young age, but speaking his language was much harder than understanding it. The clicks and whistles were very difficult for the less-agile human tongue to duplicate. “Are these tracks from the same basilisks that have been following us? Are you sure there are not more than two?”

  It was the scenario Hilt had feared the day Justan had been attacked; their small party alone in the wilderness and being harried by the creatures. Yntri had found the first signs that they were being followed on their second day in the plains. The basilisks had kept their distance in the three days since, but Hilt was sure they were simply feeling the group out.

  “Their numbers are unclear. More than one,” Yntri clicked.

  It was assumed that Justan was still their target since he had been the one attacked the first time. Hilt was sure that the only reason they hadn’t attacked him yet was because they somehow knew that Justan had already killed two of them. They would treat him differently since he was aware that he was a target.

  The last three days had been tension-filled. Especially after dark as any creature, no matter how innocuous, could be a threat. The watch had been increased from one person at a time to a rotating shift of three at all times. It was a necessity, but Jhonate’s brothers used it as an excuse to tease ‘the great named warrior Sir Edge’ for all the protection he was getting.

  Yntri stood and ran hunched-over through the grass, taking a path parallel to the road where the rest of the group traveled. They had lagged a bit behind the others while scouting for signs of the basilisks and the elf rushed to catch up.

  The dark-skinned elf ran barefoot, seemingly immune to the effects of the cold. His feet left no visible prints in the patches of snow. How did he do it? Jhonate followed behind him, her staff held loosely in her right hand, aware that she was leaving a rather obvious trail of her own.

  Jhonate ran hard to keep up with the swift footed elf. She was hesitant to ask Yntri the question she had for him. It seemed untoward to question his instructions, but she had promised Sir Hilt. He had given her quite a tongue lashing earlier that morning when he found out she had been putting it off. “Weaponmaster, I came to speak to you of something else.”

  He glanced back and clicked, “Talk and run, child.”

  Jhonate smiled and increased her pace. Most of her people didn’t get much one-on-one time with the weaponmaster, but since Jhonate’s staff came from Yntri’s Jharro tree, the elf had taken it upon himself to train her in its use. Yntri Yni’s people did most of their conversing while on the move and ‘Talk and run, child’ was a phrase she had heard from Yntri often as a child.

  “It is about my . . . betrothed,” she said, having to leap over a large rock mid-sentence. Yntri grunted in response and she knew that she had let her training slacken. Such a slight bump should not have interrupted her speech. It showed a lack of concentration. Her face reddening, she continued. “I need a clarification on the instructions you gave me regarding his training.”

  “Back then? Sir Edge is a grown man now, is he not?” said Yntri. “The bowl has chosen him.”

  “Yes,” she said. When Yntri had first met Justan in the academy’s training grounds things had been very different. Justan had been seventeen, still with the body and attitude of a teenager. He’d been a bit gawky and had a mind full of incorrect assumptions. Jhonate had been his trainer, young and inexperienced herself as Yntri had pointed out at the time. Now Justan was a man, with the body of a warrior and an experienced mind. “However, I am speaking of his training with his Jharro bow. He still has not communed with our tree.”

  Yntri glanced over at her, his expression curious as he lithely skipped over obstacles in his way. “Our tree is far, her whispers faint, but he is a bonding wizard. Distance should have been overcome. Has he not tried?”

  “I do not believe so. Though I have not asked him,” she said.

  “Why is this?” Yntri clicked, a sternness entering his tone.

  Jhonate cocked her head and nearly stumbled over an ice-encrusted tuft of grass. “Should he not learn this on his own as you instructed? I cannot ask him if he has tried to speak with his tree without interfering with his learning.”

  Yntri slowed to a stop and turned to face her, his expression dumbfounded. “You have told him nothing about the trees?”

  “But Weaponmaster, you told me not to. You said that he must discover them himself.”

  “What I said was, ‘One cannot teach the heart of the tree’,” Yntri said, putting a fist against his heart. “But one can lead a student to it. When I saw him last, he was not ready. Can you not see that he is ready now?”

  “Yes,” she said. The relationships he had with his bonded had proved to her that he was ready to commune with the tree. “But there is also the matter of father’s rules. How much can I tell him when he is not one of us?”

  “Senselessness! Idiocy!” Yntri snapped, gesturing wildly with his skinny arms. His clicking was punctuated by harsh whistles as he said, “You say he is not one of you? Xedrion bin Leeths does not determine who the trees choose as their defenders. Sir Edge did not bond with the bow by accident. Our tree chose him.”

  Jhonate bowed her head. Yntri hadn’t scolded her this way since she was a small child. “I am sorry, Weaponmaster.”

  With a tsk, he turned and ran towards the road where the rest of their party traveled. Jhonate followed behind him feeling quite foolish. Three times in the last week she had been rebuked, first by Justan and Sir Hilt and now Yntri. Was her t
hinking so wrong? She thought back over the decisions she had made as the rest of their group came into view.

  Gwyrtha had gone to retrieve Deathclaw before the group had left Reneul, so the party was rather small; just eight people in all. Sir Hilt and Justan were walking in the front, leading their sole mount, the sturdy warhorse Stanza who carried most of their supplies. The two academy soldiers that had been sent as part of the contract were in the middle, talking to each other and laughing. Qurl and Jhexin walked in the rear, keeping a noticeable distance from the others, their conversation much more quiet.

  Yntri made a beeline for Justan and a came to a stop in front of the warrior. Jhonate winced as the elf let out a sharp whistle, placing a hand on Justan’s chest.

  “Yes, Yntri?” Justan said. “Can I help you with something?” The ancient elf frowned and chattered away, pointing at the Jharro bow that Justan wore over his shoulder. “My bow?”

  Hilt seemed amused as he translated. “He says he wants to examine it. It’s not making much sense to me, but he says something about wanting to make sure it hears the tree? He also grumbled something about Jhonate having the brain of a-.”

  Yntri gave him a glare and waved him off, clicking a few more times.

  Hilt raised his hands and took a step back. “And evidently I wasn’t supposed to translate that part as it is ‘none of my business’.”

  Justan gave the elf a hesitant smile and took the bow off of his shoulder, careful to lift its taught string over the pommels of his swords. “Okay, Yntri. Here you go.”

  The elf took it from Justan’s hands and unstrung it quickly before handing Justan the string. The rest of the group gathered around to watch the elf’s strange display, Jhonate’s brothers giving her amused grins. Jhonate sighed and moved to stand by Justan.

  Yntri examined the straightened Jharro bow, running his fingers down its gray length. Then he tilted his head and placed the tip of it against his ear while pressing the length of it against his chest. He closed his eyes for a moment, then blinked and nodded before handing it back to Justan.