The Whisperer (The Way to Freedom Series Book 7)

by H. M. Clarke

  He cried out and backed away from her. Blood streamed from his nose and lip, but the man was experienced enough not to take his attention off of her.

  The sounds of shouting quickly followed by screams rose up from the camp and the ‘ting’ of clashing metal came from where she assumed Tayme and the other guard were fighting but Dearen did not let it distract her. She stood, sword slightly lowered and waited for this man to make his next move. Whoever moved first would die. And she was not going to move.

  He stood watching her, letting the blood run freely from his nose and mouth. There was a good chance that the man’s nose was broken. He did not move. Her opponent was no fool then.

  A snarl cut across the clearing and then everything went silent. Within the blink of an eye, black jaws closed around her opponent and flicked him up into the trees.

  Dearen leapt backwards to the clearing edge as a rope with a metal hook came swinging past her. The rope was quickly followed by many others as the Hatar shook away the remaining bonds.

  ‘KALENA!’

  Dearen heard the voice in her mind. It was deep, rich and strangely so very comforting. But she did not recognize it.

  “Kal, are you alright?”

  Tayme came running up to her around the form of the black Hatar who had now sat up on his haunches and was stretching his wings as far as he could in the space allowed.

  Cries and screams still came from the camp and Dearen could see flashes of red as Trar dropped down and plucked her victims from the ground.

  “I’m fine, but I think we should go and help Hauga and Trar deal with the rest of these Arranians.”

  Tayme nodded and then turned to look up at the Hatar.

  “Adhamh! You okay?” he shouted.

  The Hatar turned its ice blue eyes down on the Human and then nodded its head in the affirmative.

  “We’ve got to go and help Trar. And we have an Ice Tiger with us, so don’t eat him.”

  Dearen could have sworn she saw the Hatar raise a feathered eyebrow before nodding again to Tayme.

  ‘Kalena, are you alright? Why do you not speak to me?’

  Dearen heard the voice again and this time she replied.

  ‘I am not Kalena. My name is Dearen. I am Cearc of the Dymarki – the Ice Tigers. I do not know you.’

  Tayme must have had an idea what was happening when both Dearen and Adhamh did not move.

  “Adhamh. We’ll talk about this-,” Tayme gestured vaguely between himself, Dearen and the Hatar,”-later. We’ve got to help Trar.”

  “And Hauga,” Dearen said.

  “And Hauga.”

  Dearen, not wanting to waste any more time turned and sprinted past both Tayme and the Hatar towards the far side of the camp where all the action was still happening.

  ‘Hauga, we’re coming,’ she mentally called out as she ran.

  ‘Trar and I have cleaned up most of them.’

  Dearen heard him reply.

  ‘Except that some of them have run into the trees where I can’t get them,’ Trar added.

  As Trar finished speaking, the hubbub at the edge of the clearing abruptly vanished. The man Hauga was fighting slumped to the ground and the Dymarki and the Hatar found that there was no one left to fight.

  ‘How many escaped into the trees?’

  ‘Two,’ Trar answered as she landed carefully in the clearing, arranging her feet daintily so that she did not disturb the many bodies that littered the grass.

  ‘We need to track them down before they can bring help.’

  ‘Dearen, they are gone from here and there are no other Arranian bands in this area. Do you not think there has been enough death for one night?’ Hauga gestured to all the dead men lying in the clearing. ‘We have done what we have come for. We have freed the Hatar and we have exacted vengeance for our slain kin.’

  Dearen turned in a small circle, looking at all the bodies lying in crumpled heaps around her. The metallic smell of fresh blood hung heavy in the air mixed with the other smells that follow death. Near the mangled remains of the Arranian command tent was the broken figure of the camp commander. The Spellcrafter.

  Dearen felt rather than heard someone stop behind her and she turned to find Hauga staring down at her.

  ‘Enough for one night.’

  Hauga nodded and then his gaze snapped away from her as a low rumble came across the clearing.

  Dearen could see Tayme standing with his hand against the shoulder of the black Hatar, talking to him. The Hatar’s gaze bored into her. And then she heard him.

  ‘Kalena? Kral is saying that you don’t remember me.’

  ‘I don’t know you. I don’t recognize you,’ She quickly replied.

  ‘Dearen, we need to go back to our camp and burn our dead. We cannot leave them out for the animals.’

  “Yes Hauga,” Dearen said aloud so that all could hear. She looked across the clearing at Tayme as she finished her thought. “We need to go back to the Dymarki camp to tend to our dead. Our family and friends need help to be moved on their journey into the next life.”

  She saw Trar move up and nuzzle the neck of the black Hatar, something passed between the two which snapped Adhamh out of his malaise. He looked down at Tayme and nodded his head.

  “Let’s go. The Lieutenant’s men might be able to join up with us there.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE LAST OF THE PYRES caught alight and added its warm orange glow to the other two that were lit before it.

  Dearen and Hauga both stood on the edge of the firelight. Silent witnesses to the last journey of the dead to the Star Road now seen brightly in the night sky.

  Tayme stood with the two Hatar on the opposite side of the pyres. The Hatar had used their size and strength to tear down enough trees and branches to build the three large pyres over the carefully laid out Dymarki dead.

  Once the fires began to settle into a slow and steady burn, Dearen felt rather than heard Hauga move beside her.

  ‘Our enemies will know where we are now.’

  She nodded.

  ‘But this had to be done.’

  ‘Yes, it did.’

  Dearen looked back at the pyres and noticed the flash of reflected firelight in the eyes of the black Hatar as he stared at her.

  ‘Are we still going to head north?’

  Dearen was about to answer when she realized something that she had not noticed since the fight with the Arranians. The urging in her mind to move north was now gone.

  ‘No, the feeling in my head has gone,’ she replied and cast an appraising glance at the black Hatar.

  ‘So, the feeling wanted you to find the Hatar?’

  ‘That’s what it seems like.’

  A moment of silence followed.

  ‘Do you think that bareskin is telling the truth? That you are this ‘Kalena’ person?’

  Dearen shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. We both bare the same mark on our cheek. And the black Hatar, Adhamh? Called me Kalena when he saw me.’

  ‘They may be right. If they are, what will that mean for you?’

  Dearen glanced sharply up at Hauga, a frown ceasing across her forehead.

  ‘Nothing will change if what they say is true Hauga.’

  ‘But if you and that Hatar are linked like Kral Tayme and Trar are-‘

  ‘Then if the Hatar wants to stay with me, he will need to join the Dymarki.’

  Hauga turned back to look at the pyres.

  ‘Please, I really don’t want to think at the moment. Let us talk no more about this tonight Hauga.’

  ‘Yes, Cearc.’

  “HOW ARE YOU HOLDING up?”

  Dearen turned from her seat by the unlit campfire and saw Kral Tayme standing just behind her. Not far behind him crouched Trar and Adhamh.

  “I’m as well as could be expected,” she replied looking away from him. She was waiting for Hauga to come back in from the funeral pyres.

  Tayme invited himself to sit down on the log next to her.<
br />
  “You still don’t really remember me do you?” He said this more as a statement but Dearen answered the question.

  “No, I don’t. Just as I don’t remember the black Hatar we rescued.”

  ‘Do you really not remember me Kalena?’

  The Hatar’s voice dropped comfortably into Dearen’s mind as if it was a part of her, a part of her consciousness. But apart from that initial feeling Dearen still held no memory of the Hatar.

  ‘No I don’t. I don’t remember anything before waking in the cave a few months ago.’

  Dearen watched as the Hatar shook his head as if denying what she said. Beside him, she saw Trar’s gaze turn sharply to Tayme.

  ‘You are Kalena Tsarland, Wing Commander of Second Wing, Second Flight and my bonded partner. Living within you is the Krytal crystal that is paired with mine. You and I have been bonded for the past ten years. You must remember something?’

  Dearen could hear the desperation and hurt in the Hatar’s voice but, try as she might, she still could not remember anything about him.

  ‘Maybe you and Kral are right and I am this ‘Kalena’ you are searching for. I have the same mark on my cheek that Kral Tayme has and the others in his group say that it is the mark of a Flyer.’

  Dearen stood slowly as she spoke. She could sense her brother coming back through the trees. His mind did not feel solemn.

  “But I do not remember Kral, the Wing or you. The only thing that concerns me and Hauga at this moment is to stop the Northern Bareskins from killing our people.”

  “The Ice Tigers and the Arranians are not allies?” Tayme’s voice butted into the conversation as he too rose from his seat.

  “Would the Arranians kill their allies on contact? What would make you think that the Dymarki would ally themselves with murderers and cowards?”

  ‘It was the last intelligence report that we received from our people in the North. That the Ice Tigers and the Arranians are working together.’ Adhamh’s words cut across her outrage.

  “That is a lie!”

  Dearen’s emphatic denial was eerily echoed by Hauga’s mind shout.

  The Dymarki came storming from the trees, bounced past the two startled Hatar to land protectively in front of Dearen.

  ‘It was what we last heard. Are we to trust the word of someone allied to our enemy that our information is wrong?’

  The black Hatar’s head sunk low and the feathers along his back began to rise as he dug his claws into the ground.

  “Adhamh, stand down,” Tayme shouted as he ran forward to stand between the Hatar and the Dymarki, his arms outstretched towards each of them as if that would stop any aggression. “Dearen, tell Hauga to stand down. I don’t know what Adhamh just said, but this is not the time or the place to fight amongst ourselves.”

  Tayme was right.

  ‘Hauga relax. They mean us no harm.’

  Hauga flicked an ear back in her direction

  ‘But the offense-‘

  ‘They are only words. Words only hurt or offend you if you let them. We are not so thin skinned that you would let their verbal barbs tear into us are we?’

  Hauga’s muscles relaxed as Dearen’s voice washed over him.

  ‘As always, you are right. We are not.’

  ‘We have lost friends and family today. We need to honor them by showing these people what it is to be Dymarki.’

  Hauga nodded and his body relaxed back into its usual, easy posture and his bristling hackles settled back flush against his skin.

  Reassured that Hauga was alright, Dearen turned her attention to the still fluffed up Hatar.

  ‘If you and I are the friends you say we are, then you should know that I speak the truth. If you bait Hauga again, then this partnership is over and we will go our separate ways. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand.’

  Adhamh’s reply was quiet and Dearen felt that she should be concerned, but her emotional anger pushed that aside.

  ‘Someone approaches from the south,’ Trar’s voice broke the silence and all five turned to look to the south as faint sounds of movement echoed from some distance through the trees.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HAUGA IMMEDIATELY TURNED AND disappeared silently into the trees. Dearen and Tayme let their hands slip to the hilt of their weapons and moved closer together to help defend themselves.

  Dearen counted thirty heartbeats and then Hauga’s voice slipped into her mind.

  ‘It’s our missing bareskins.’

  Dearen slowly relaxed the breath she had been unconsciously holding.

  “Hauga says that it is the rest of our group. They have finally found us.”

  Tayme’s hand dropped away from his sword.

  “About time they got here. What have they been doing all this time?”

  “We will shortly find out.”

  Hauga walked out from the trees and the group only had a short wait until the first of the scouting party arrived.

  The tracker, Hanton, appeared first and then after a small group of men came Lieutenant Dalon Peana.

  “Hail Tayme Kalar, Trar Kalar,” the lieutenant called as he raised his hand in greeting.

  “Hail lieutenant,” Tayme replied as he stepped forward to meet him. “What kept you? Did Hanton have trouble finding you?”

  A loud snort interrupted Tayme and all eyes turned to the tracker. “I found them,” he said by way of explanation.

  “He found us, but then we were held up.” As the lieutenant spoke, the rest of the men came into the clearing and began to set up the camp for the night.

  “Held up?” Dearen asked. Her mind was only half listening to the Lieutenant as she was watching all the bareskins making this Dymarki camp into one of their own. Hauga visibly tensed and Dearen reached out and gripped the Dymarki’s forearm in warning. Now was not the time to cause trouble.

  The lieutenant glared at Dearen but still answered her. “We ran into some unexpected company.”

  “Dymarki?” she immediately asked.

  “Kalena, let me talk,” Tayme said, using his arm to hold her back behind him.

  Dearen frowned at his use of ‘Kalena’ and that he thought he could order her around. But these are his people, he should know best how to handle them.

  “No, we met up with a small band of Arranians.”

  “Another group?” Tayme asked.

  “This lot was heading in the direction that Hanton said the Arranian camp was.”

  “What happened?”

  “They were Arranian military on Suenese soil without our consent. We stepped out and met them. They attacked us and so we dealt with them. We did not have anyone who spoke Arranian with us, so we could not question anyone directly before they died. But from what we discovered one of them, they must have been part of the group you had found.”

  “How ‘many’ were many?” Tayme fired back.

  “There were ten. A small scouting party. They were heading to the pass that would take them back to Arran. And they were carrying a message packet.”

  “Can I see it?” Dearen asked, holding out her hand imperiously.

  Lieutenant Peana looked askance at her and then raised a questioning eyebrow at Tayme.

  “I didn’t think you could read Arranian.”

  Dearen ignored Tayme and kept her hand out waiting for the Arranian message to be placed in it.

  After a moment more of indecision, the Lieutenant pulled the Arranian packet from his belt pouch and handed it over to her. She examined the bundle now cradled in her fingers.

  In her hands was a hard leather pouch secured shut with a leather thong. After a moment’s hesitation, she took the end of the leather thong and tugged it open. Inside the pouch was a bundle wrapped in waxed cloth. Dearen pulled this from the pouch and handed the now empty leather pouch to Tayme.

  ‘Hauga. I want you to take a look at this.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The Dymarki moved closer and watched over Dearen’s shoul
der as she carefully unwrapped the waxed cloth. As the last corner was removed a thick wad of wax tablets were revealed.

  Dearen looked up at Hauga as she handed him one of the waxed book slates.

  ‘Can you read this? You wrote the note for me that we sent to the Arranians so I hope you can read this.’

  ‘Let’s take a look.’

  Hauga opened up the wooden slates on their brass hinge and then turned it on its side and lowered it so that both Dearen and Tayme could see. Lieutenant Peana stepped forward to look as well.

  Dearen saw that the wood on the outside was actually a frame that held a thick film of wax. Running from top to bottom across the wax was a series of lines and squiggles that made no sense to Dearen.

  Hauga raised a claw and began to follow the writing from the right slate and followed it down, then up until his finger finished on the last character of the left plate.

  ‘Hauga, what does it say?’

  ‘It seems that they do not want to meet us on Haten’s Field in honorable battle. They want to wipe us out before we can gather. The Spellcrafter was going to mind bend the Hatar to help them do it.’

  Dearen’s eyes immediately shot around to meet the gaze of the brooding black Hatar. Had he already been bent to the will of the Spellcrafter?

  ‘This is strange. This message is not being sent to an Arranian Command rank or title that we know of unless things have changed in the centuries we’ve been away.’

  ‘How so Hauga?’

  ‘This is being sent to someone titled ‘Lord of the Book.’’

  “Well? Can he read the message?” the Lieutenant cut into the silence.

  “Can he?” Tayme asked breaking Dearen’s attention from the Hatar.

  “He can,” Dearen said as she looked up at Hauga.

  ‘It also gives a warning that their actions have been noticed by people loyal to the Empress and that repercussions have begun to take place in the Capital.’

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  Hauga gave Dearen one of his shrugs.

  Dearen felt herself frowning again. If she stayed with the bareskins for too long, this frown will be etched permanently on her face.

  “The message says that the Arranians want to wipe the Dymarki out before we can meet them on Haten’s Field.” Dearen held up a hand to forestall the questions from the bareskins. “The Spellcrafter was going to use the Hatar – Adhamh, to help them do it by mind bending him to their will. It also says that their actions have been noticed by the Empress and repercussions have started. And the letter is addressed to someone called the ‘Lord of the Book.’”