Heroes of the Crystal Star (Valcoria Book 1)
Page 12
Sitrell glanced about as he jogged across a lightly trafficked street, restraining his every step in an effort to appear casual and remain unobtrusive. Upon reaching the other side of the way, he drew his hood down tighter to better hide his face. His beardless chin and well-groomed hair would certainly betray his caste incongruity, and he couldn’t risk being discovered by the Royal Guard before reaching his destination or it wouldn’t work. He needed the anonymity and its freedom, he needed to hurry, he needed to find… There! Sitrell caught sight of a dilapidated three-story building only recognizable as a tavern by its swinging wooden sign painted with the image of a sudsy, overflowing stein. The Workman’s Friend it was called, one of Salatia Taeo’s seediest drinking halls and a front for the Hakazien criminal syndicate.
Sitrell had learned about the tavern’s true nature from an intelligence report his father had carelessly left open on the desk in his study. At the time, the information had just been interesting gossip, now it was his chance to prove Taeborn’s Second Wonder true, to prove that Kyen wasn’t really gone. He desperately needed that proof, so much so that he would risk his life to get it. After all, if it wasn’t true and he died, then what did it matter anyway? He had to know. He couldn’t go on unless he did.
Sitrell fixed his stare on the Workman’s Friend, pulled his cloak tight around him, and strode toward the building. Two grizzled toughs flanking the entrance eyed him suspiciously as he approached the heavy wooden door, but he ignored their warning stares, maintaining a dignified silence as he passed between them and entered the building. The tavern was just as Sitrell had imagined it would be: a dark, smoke filled room, crowded with mostly men, though he could see a few women weaving through the tables serving drinks, and others keeping company with the wealthier looking patrons. There was drinking, gambling, raucous laughter, and sensual music―everything Sitrell had been taught was sinful and destructive.
He suppressed a cough triggered by the overabundance of pipe smoke as he descended three steps and made his way toward the bar. A red-haired woman, old enough to be his mother and wearing a scandalously low cut dress, sidled up to him and suggestively asked if he were looking for some company, but he ignored her. His eyes were trained on the barkeep, a black-bearded, portly man with long, curly hair. Kaldel Saldeska, the report had named him, a lesser Hakazien guild lord.
Sitrell reached the bar and took a deep breath to steel his nerves and quiet his furiously beating heart. He could not show fear if his plan was going to work, if they were going to take him seriously enough to try and kill him. He drew down his hood and stared at Saldeska waiting for the man to notice him.
“Barkeep,” Sitrell demanded when the man’s gaze flicked to him.
Saldeska eyed Sitrell as he boorishly continued to chat with two large men sitting at the opposite end of the bar.
“Barkeep!” Sitrell repeated.
Saldeska shared an amused glance with his two associates before turning away from them and approaching Sitrell. “You lost, boy?”
“Lost?” Sitrell scoffed.
Saldeska frowned. “A lordling like you has no business in this part of town, so I say you must be lost.”
Sitrell mustered all the courage he could summon and made his tone sound as insolent as he knew how. “I know exactly where I am.”
“Do you?” Saldeska snorted as he cast a glance over his shoulder to his two friends. “And where’s that?”
Sitrell stepped back, flared his cloak, and grabbed his sword. The sound of it being drawn from its sheath was echoed a dozen times over as several of the bar patrons leapt to their feet and produced their weapons. Then the room fell silent, all turning to stare at the young man brazenly pointing his sword at their host.
Pleased with the reaction of the room, Sitrell called out, “I am in a Hakazien thieves’ lair, and I’ve come to arrest its chief. That particularly despicable piece of dog’s filth would be you, Kaldel.”
The barkeep barked a laugh. “Are you serious?”
Sitrell narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on his sword. “Quite serious. Kaldel Saldeska, you are under arrest for crimes perpetrated against the people of Amigus. I can take you to the Royal Guard or just your head. The choice is yours.”
Saldeska stared at Sitrell in disbelief for several seconds before waving a hand and chuckling. “Kill him.”
Sitrell smiled as Saldeska’s two Hakazien enforcers rounded the bar toward him. The larger of the two men was bald with a thick brown beard. He grinned menacingly as he brandished a heavy wooden cudgel. The second was a shorter, leaner man, conspicuously missing a chunk of his left ear. He flourished a long serrated knife in his right hand as he stepped to the side of his companion, moving toward a position at Sitrell’s right. The patrons of the Workman’s Friend began to hoot, shout, and exchange coin, no doubt betting to see how long he would last against Saldeska’s thugs.
I’m going to have to get the others involved if I am truly to put my life at risk. The danger had to be real, his situation had to be desperate, like Taeborn’s had been.
The thug with the cudgel lunged at him while at the same time his companion rushed in on Sitrell’s right flank. Sitrell launched himself backward while swinging his sword in a wide arc. The move was not one of the forms his father had taught him, in fact it was clumsy and amateur, but Enot Trauel had warned him never to become too rigid in adhering to sword forms and improvising was as much an art as anything practiced. Those words proved wise as Sitrell’s sudden move both effectively distanced himself from the swing of the bearded man’s cudgel and slashed the arm of the man closing on his right flank.
The patrons roared with delight as the thug with the knife cried out in pain, blood streaming down his right shoulder. Sitrell regained his balance and used the moment of surprise to charge the man with the cudgel, who had glanced in shock at his wounded friend. He raised his cudgel and made to lunge, but it was too late. Sitrell rammed his sword through the man’s chest before he had a chance to bring his weapon down on his head. Sitrell jerked his sword free from the bearded man’s chest and whirled to find the thug with the knife swinging for him. He brought his sword up just in time to parry the blow, forced the man’s knife backward, and then struck him in the face with the pommel. The man staggered back, unable to recover before Sitrell eviscerated him with a deft flick. Again, the crowd roared and several men reluctantly exchanged coin. Smiling, Sitrell turned back to face Saldeska who now wore a panicked look on his face and was frantically backing away from his side of the bar.
“Five silver eagles to the man who kills the boy!” he shouted.
Perfect! Sitrell exulted. He whirled away from Saldeska to find fifteen men closing on him, their various weapons drawn, while the few women in the tavern performed a practiced retreat to the far corners of the room. Is this a common occurrence? How do these people live like this?
Sitrell’s moral musings were cut short as three of the advancing toughs, anxious to earn their coin and loath to share it, rushed forward and struck at him. They were the largest of the group, men who clearly relied on their inherent size and strength more than any developed skill. Consequently, they fell easily to his blade, Sitrell taking them in a series of short, quick strokes. This caused the next wave of attackers to hesitate as they stared at the three large men dying at Sitrell’s feet. The pause lasted long enough that Sitrell began to worry that no one else would dare attack him. However, his fears proved unfounded as one of the men in the crowd screamed in rage, apparently one of the fallen men was a friend, and charged him, the rest of the mob following suit.
What happened next seemed only a disjointed blur to Sitrell. He could remember enjoying a few moments of martial dominance, his training taking over and making him feel as though he were an invincible force of destruction as he cut down foe after foe, but the rest of the battle was fragmented. He did remember its end, however. A dozen bright bursts of light exploded before him, accompanied by a sudden cracking noise and a shar
p pain in the back of his head. His vision darkened as he fell to the floor, and the last thing he remembered hearing before the sounds of the room faded was the tavern door being thrown open and several new voices shouting commands. What were they shouting and why did one of them sound familiar? It didn’t matter, Sitrell concluded after realizing that he was slipping into unconsciousness. It’s over. I’ve failed. Kyen had not returned from the grave to save him. Taeborn’s Second Wonder was a lie. It was all a lie! He was going to die, fade into nothingness and be gone forever, like his little brother.
As though no time at all had passed, Sitrell found himself being attended to by a man in a white coat with blue trim. He wore a silver sash across his chest clasped at the shoulder with an eagle-shaped pin. A member of the Royal Guard?
“He’s awake!” the young man called to someone Sitrell couldn’t see. “He took a good blow to the back of his head, but his skull isn’t cracked. I think he’ll be fine.”
“Any sign of Saldeska?” a familiar voice asked as the man it belonged to approached.
“No, General Trauel,” the young man replied. “One of the men we apprehended claims he saw Saldeska slip out through the back.”
General Trauel? Sitrell looked up to see his father studying at him, mouth turned down and brow creased.
“Sitrell?” he asked. “Do you know me, son?”
Sitrell nodded, wishing he hadn’t as the motion made him aware of a terrible throbbing in the back of his head, “Father.”
Enot Trauel looked visibly relieved as he nodded to the guardsman kneeling next to Sitrell. “Go see to the prisoners, Lajiren. I’ll tend to my son.”
“Yes, sir.” The young man hurried away.
Sitrell gingerly rose to sit, each movement amplifying his overwhelming headache, “How did you know where to find me?”
“One of Captain Lajiren’s agents works here posing as a bouncer.”
Sitrell remembered the two grizzled toughs that had eyed him suspiciously when he entered. Which one had it been?
“He recognized you when you came in and ran to tell the detachment of the Royal Guard assigned to spy on this place. By the grace of the Creator, I just so happened to be meeting with Captain Lajiren at their post down the street and we ran here as fast as we could. That’s when we found this whole place in uproar and you at the center of it. Vaekra take me!” Enot Trauel swore, surprising Sitrell who had never heard his father so much as utter an accidental oath. “Had we been any later, you would be dead on the floor along with these wretched thugs and I would be bereft of both of my sons! What were you doing there?”
“I… I…” Sitrell stammered.
“Aside from nearly getting your head cracked open, you also managed to render all of Lajiren’s work useless. He was going to take Saldeska at the end of next week. Do you realize what kind of advantage for him and his men it would have been to have leverage on a Hakazien guild lord, even a lesser one? And now he’s gone!” Enot Trauel shouted. “This is a disaster, one that very well could ruin your hopes for acceptance into the officer’s academy next year. Do you realize that you may have destroyed your chances for a military career? Is that why you did this?”
Enot Trauel’s angry stare was so intense that Sitrell swore he could feel heat radiating from his father’s eyes. “And what of the witnesses’ claims that you started the fight and killed half a dozen men with your own sword? Killed, Sitrell. You shed blood!”
“They were trying to kill me.” Sitrell moaned.
“Because you provoked them.” Enot Trauel bowed his head and deliberately inhaled before continuing in a softer tone, “Why did you come here, son?” He shook his head. “I know you, and I know that it wasn’t for drink or for women or for gambling, so why?”
Sitrell bowed his head, tears of humiliation as well as physical pain pooling in his eyes and overflowing to spill down his cheeks. “Taeborn’s Second Wonder,” he whispered.
“What?”
“In the Salia Kitha,” Sitrell’s voice cracked as he forced back the tears, “Halvetta sixth section, twenty-ninth canto: And when Taeborn was come into the east country he was set upon by a band of thieves, and was beaten until he was nigh unto death, yea even in the very shadow of death.”
“And as the chief of the band of robbers rose his hand to slay him,” Enot Trauel interrupted, taking over the recitation, “Taeborn saw the heavens open, and his brother, who had been dead ten years past, appeared before Taeborn and smote the chief of the robbers that he died. And though the others of the band of robbers saw not the vision, fear rose in their hearts and they scattered to and fro and left Taeborn alive. And so was the second wonder done unto Taeborn, the Arch Sage of Vaelon.” Enot Trauel nodded, a look of quiet understanding softening his face.
“You thought that by allowing yourself to be set upon by a band of thieves, you could invoke a miracle and see Kyen again?”
Sitrell nodded, causing his tears to fall from his face. “He didn’t come to save me.”
Enot Trauel sighed. “It doesn’t work that way, son. You cannot force the Creator to give you what you want.”
“Then, how can I know?” Sitrell sobbed. “How can I know he’s not gone?”
“Faith.” Enot Trauel answered. “We have to trust in the Creator first before he will give us the answers that we seek. It’s how He proves us. It’s how we prove Him.”
Sitrell scrubbed his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “What if that’s just Istran dogma? A legend invented to dull the pain?”
Enot Trauel shook his head. “That’s something you’ll have to work out for yourself. I can’t prove anything to you.”
“But you believe.”
Enot Trauel nodded “I do.”
“How is it you can still be so faithful after what happened to Kyen?” Sitrell sobbed again. “If Trysta Jiann were real, if the Creator really cared, how could He let him die when you are so faithful?”
Enot Trauel shook his head, a look of pain passing over his face. “I can’t answer that because I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that tonight the Creator worked a miracle in order to save your life.”
Sitrell scoffed.
“You don’t see it, do you, son?” Enot Trauel turned to stare at one of the dead thugs still lying in his gore only a few feet away. “How often do you think I visit the detachment of the Royal Guard posted in this part of the city?”
Sitrell shrugged.
“Once a month, when I can manage it. It just so happens that tonight I was planning on cancelling my meeting with Captain Lajiren in favor of another more pressing engagement. But something inside of me insisted that I go to see Lajiren, so I decided to make a brief stop at his watch post before my other appointment. In order to do so, I had to leave an hour early and happened to arrive at the very moment that Lajiren’s agent ran into the office with news that he had seen you entering this place.” Enot Trauel shook his head and turned to stare back at his son.
“We got here just in time to save your life.”
Sitrell said nothing.
“You wanted a miracle tonight, Sitrell? Well, you got one. And perhaps,” Enot Trauel hesitated, emotion tingeing his voice, “Perhaps it was the spirit of your little brother who guided me to keep my appointment with Lajiren. After all, the priests do teach that our departed loved ones serve the Creator as guardians of their living kin.”
Sitrell nodded as he again dried his eyes as he whispered, “maybe.”
Enot Trauel stood and extended a hand to Sitrell. “Come now. We best be going. I’ve got to invent a suitable story to tell your mother in order to explain away your injury.” Enot Trauel helped Sitrell to his feet and stared into his son’s face. “She mustn’t know of this. The pain of Kyen’s death is still too fresh, and this would only dredge it up again. Understand?”
Sitrell nodded, and then his father embraced him.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had lost you too, son,” Enot Trauel whispered.
Sitrell gritted his teeth as his movement invoked a sharp bite from the right side of his abdomen. I was shot. It all slammed back into his mind: Leadren, the Aukasian soldiers, the black knight, the alien weaponry. Sitrell surveyed all that lay within his field of vision. I’ve been here before. This is the hospital in Hirath. He saw Yuiv fast asleep in a bed next to his, arm curled around a bulging, bloodstained satchel. Yuiv must’ve brought me here after I fell unconscious. How had the boy known where to take him? And why hadn’t he just left him to die on the plains outside Lisidra when staying with him surely meant facing arrest and judgment?
“Commander Trauel,” a voice called out.
Sitrell gingerly turned toward his other side and found a bespectacled doctor parting a white cloth partition and smiling, “You’re awake at last.” The doctor turned to whisper to someone lingering on the other side of the curtain, a nurse, Sitrell guessed, who he heard murmur an obedient assent before padding away.
“Doctor?” croaked Sitrell, surprised at how dry his throat felt.
The doctor smiled and entered the cloth cubicle. “Valarious, I’m the chief surgeon here and the one who removed a large lead ball from your stomach.”
“Then I owe you my thanks.”