Aster Wood and the Blackburn Son

by J B Cantwell

  Then suddenly, without warning, an image flashed into my head. Jade’s face, eyes dark, mouth open in a snarl.

  My stride faltered. I pushed the thought of her away, shaking my head to rid it of the memory.

  And then again, a flash of malice in my mind. Almara clutching at his throat, trying to speak.

  I faltered again, almost fell.

  The images started coming in a rush, raining down inside my head like an avalanche of horror. I slowed, gripping my hands over my heart, sure that it was splitting into two at that very moment.

  Cadoc’s sadistic snarl.

  The faces of a hundred prisoners, drawn and gray.

  The Torrensai knocking me down inside the Fire Mountains as Almara ran for the ledge.

  I wanted to fall. I wanted to hit the ground, burrow into it, hide from the demons that tormented me.

  No.

  Anger flared in the back of my throat, burning as it mingled with the sobs I was choking on.

  I didn’t fall. I moved faster and faster. I held nothing back, took no care, and instead I poured my fury into the flight. The tears were no longer from the wind, but I didn’t care. I wouldn’t stop. I wouldn’t be held down by this anymore, I couldn’t be.

  NO.

  I was pure instinct. My legs moved too fast now for me to control. I was a symphony of movement, no longer able to concentrate on the details, only on the whole. I screamed out my rage as I ran. The burning spread to my chest, my arms, and I gasped for breath. But I didn’t stop.

  I ran faster.

  She’s gone.

  I pushed body harder, sobbing into the wind.

  The little girl beneath the mountain. The one who depended on me.

  I shouted incoherent, angry protests. And when there was no more breath for me to yell, I simply let my feet pound the grass beneath me.

  Gone.

  I wondered if I would ever see her again.

  Finally, after a long, long time, I hit the ground as I tripped over my own, exhausted legs. My body rolled across the grass as it slowed from great speed, dry stalks scraping at my arms and face as I tumbled, finally coming to a stop. I lay on my side, panting and gasping for air, anguish still threatening to close my throat entirely. The air barely made it through my clenched body, and I was forcibly reminded of my asthma attacks back on Earth. Mom would hold me, comfort me as we both waited for the medicine to open my airways again.

  Breathe slow. Breathe calm.

  Blades of grass scratched at my cheeks.

  Breathe slow. Breathe calm.

  Slowly, my throat opened bit by bit. I rolled onto my back.

  The sun was bright, and it stung my eyes, but my tears were drying as the air moved in and out of my lungs. Above, puffy white clouds drifted lazily across my view, and I relaxed into the earth as if it were a feather bed. The terrifying images drained away, and my body melted against the ground. My breathing slowed, and my misery trickled out of me like the sweat on my back until I felt nothing but the beating of my heart.

  And all was quiet.

  Around my body, the tall grass rippled. I was hidden deep within it and watched the blades from below as they gently swayed back and forth. I didn’t think anymore. I had run to the point of exhaustion, and now I simply lay there, unmoving, an observer.

  But I didn’t sleep. For hours I watched the sky from my little pocket, my mind all but blank. The afternoon sun gradually sunk low, then became sunset, and then disappeared into the purple of dusk. And for all that while I thought of nothing but the grass, the clouds, the wind. I wondered, if I listened hard enough, if I could hear the grass grow. Slow and certain, it pushed its way up to the sky from the depths below.

  As twilight fell, I rose. I felt as though I had been sleeping for days, and was now just emerging from some illness that had kept me down. I shivered as the heat from the sun disappeared into the night. I looked around at the landscape, choosing a direction.

  But I didn’t run. Instead I pulled the link from beneath my shirt and pointed it. Three jumps and the grassland had become dotted with heavy oak trees. In the distance I could just make out the groves clumping together, as if a stream were nearby. My tongue moved over my dry lips, and I started down the hill.

  I was walking absently, still hazy, when I heard it. Cracking. I froze, listening. For a moment, I couldn’t put my finger on the sound. It was so familiar, somehow, but what was it? From the corner of my eye a flicker of light flashed, and suddenly I understood. I fell to the ground, instantly disappearing into the deep field, grateful for the darkness.

  Two hundred feet away, behind the cover of the trees, but no, they weren’t trees, a fire crackled.

  I hugged the ground, barely daring to breathe, and peered from between the blades.

  Other sounds joined it as night fell in earnest. Grunts of men, clanking of metal, the low snort of a horse. My heart leapt. Long shadows fell from those near the flames. I craned my neck, trying to get a better look, part of me excited at the prospect of finding some companions again.

  But then I realized what I was looking at.

  Those hadn’t been trees clumped together. They had been men. Thousands of men. I hadn’t stumbled upon some lone traveler’s campfire.

  I had stumbled upon an army.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Behind the fear of my frozen body, thoughts raced. Curiosity fought with caution. Fear with loneliness.

  I could get closer.

  My heart pounded at the thought. But my fingers closed over Kiron’s rock, steadying me. I had an escape if I needed one. I moved forward, my limbs still stiff from panic. On all fours, belly to the ground like a snake, I approached the camp.

  “Where’s the meat, boy?” one man bellowed. I kept my head down, not daring to raise it above the tips of the grass.

  “There is no more,” came a small voice. A kid was there? I lifted my head slightly, trying to see him.

  “No more?” the man boomed. Then a smack rang out in the night, and the sound of a body hitting the ground. Several men, unseen to me, chortled loudly. “Well, I guess I’ll take yours then,” the man said.

  The hairs on the back of my neck rose, my skin prickling. Why was a kid here, in the middle of an army?

  “When are we gettin’ outta here?” a different voice asked. “I’m sick of sittin’ around doin’ nothin’. I wanna go rip those fools apart!”

  Laughter rang out, mixed with the grumblings of others who appeared to hold the same opinion.

  “Seriously, Dormir, how much longer?”

  “You can shut your mouths, all of ya,” came the first man’s voice, angry now. “It ain’t my place to be talkin’ about the boss’ plans.”

  “Well, somebody oughta. He made us promises, all of us.” The crowd grumbled in agreement. “I want the blood he promised!” Several men cheered, followed by a clanking sound as their armored bodies collided. I raised my head higher, too curious to stay low.

  A tall, thick man stood up from his seat and slowly began walking around the circle. Dormir. They all fell quiet, their eyes on the ground as he passed. He unsheathed his sword, tapping it against one armored boot with each step he took around the fire.

  “You’ll have your blood.” His voice was low and dangerous. “You’ll have it when he says it’s time.” He approached one man and stood face to face with him, pushing his chest against him until he was forced to take a step backward.

  “Yeah, alright, Dormir,” said the man, his voice tinged with fear now. It was the man who had first complained. “Alright, we’ll wait for the boss then.”

  Dormir stopped moving, and the two stood still, chest to chest. Dormir stared into the other man’s face, but the man’s eyes stayed fixed on the dirt. Then he spoke softly, his words just barely audible over the crackle of the fire.

  “Oh, I don’t know that we need to wait for the blood the boss promised,” Dormir said, his voice slippery and smooth. “Do you?” He turned his head towards the men surrounding
him, a wicked smile playing on his lips. Several of them looked frightened. But a handful of others could not betray their true reaction to his words; they looked, unmistakably, hungry.

  In a flash, Dormir crossed his arm over his torso and backhanded the man across the jaw. His howl of pain was quickly drowned beneath the sound of the other warriors, who now jumped onto him, screaming and punching, as he stumbled to the ground. Shouts of victory and pain pierced the quiet as the men fell into a brawling pile, and soon the entire company was a blur of punching fists.

  I must have stopped breathing, though my mouth hung wide. When I realized this, it took me several long moments to convince my throat to open. When it finally did, my first gasp of air resulted in a coughing fit I couldn’t quiet. But they didn’t hear me over the fight, their sickening laughter mixing with howls of agony, filling the night. Dormir spoke again, but my ears were ringing too loudly for me to understand him. My whole body shaking, I frantically backed away.

  My foot knocked into something hard, and the surprise of the sensation sent me reeling again. I turned, praying it had been a stone.

  But it was no stone. Standing as tall as he dared along the edge of the firelight, one side of his face purple from Dormir’s blow, stood the boy I had heard.

  I froze, not knowing what to do. Would he yell for help? Turn me in? I rolled onto my back and raised my hands in front of me silently. He just stared down, his eyes as wide as mine, his body shaking, too.

  A shout from the men broke our gaze, and the boy’s head whipped up. They were dancing now, a sort of rhythmic stomping of the hard ground around the fire. The fight was over.

  I made a split second decision and grabbed the boy’s hand, pulling him firmly to the ground beside me. I clasped my hand over his mouth, but he soon stopped struggling.

  “Don’t scream,” I breathed into his ear. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Tears rolled down his dirty cheeks.

  “You can’t scream, or they’ll come for us both,” I said. “Do you understand?”

  He nodded. Slowly I released my hand from over his mouth. He turned to look at me. He was young, much younger than I had thought. Eight, maybe nine years old at the most.

  “What is going on here?” I asked. “How did you get here? This isn’t the place for a kid.” It wasn’t a place for anyone.

  “We were taken,” he said softly, his voice choked with tears.

  “Who are they?” I motioned towards the fire. “Where are they going?”

  “They are the Coyle’s army,” he said. “They stole us in the night, killed our families. Now we serve them or die.”

  “Us?” I asked. “Who is us?”

  “The children. We are the servants of the Coyle. It is upon our backs that the war will be waged.” His voice was monotone, as if he were reciting a passage of text he had memorized.

  What?

  “War? What war?”

  He looked confused.

  “I—I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just a war. That’s what they said.”

  I looked up at the men again. The firelight played with their features, flickering across their demonic faces as they danced around it.

  “Where are you going?” I asked again, not taking my eyes off the men.

  The boy lowered his head to the grass, trembling from head to foot.

  “Hey,” I said, shoving him. “Where are you going? Where is this war supposed to be happening?”

  He raised his head slowly, as if it weighed a hundred pounds. His expression was blank, as if hope had long since left him.

  “The walled city,” he said, still staring at the dirt.

  Oh, no.

  “What?” I asked. “Why?”

  But he didn’t know. He just shook his head back and forth. He began to get back to his feet. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down into the grass.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed. “You can’t go back there. Come on, you can come with me. I’ll get you out of here.”

  “I can’t leave,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t leave Cait. He’ll kill her.” He pulled his arm backward, trying to get it away from me.

  “Who’s Cait?” I asked. “We can bring her. We have to go.”

  “No.” He wrenched his arm out of my grip.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?” I said. “These men are going to kill you!”

  “Not without my sister,” he said. “She’s only five. I have to protect her. There’s no one else.”

  Tight, burning pain permeated my chest, and I almost stopped breathing again. I understood his plight.

  “Where is she?” I choked.

  “She’s on the other side,” he said, his voice low and miserable. “She is a slave of the Coyle. We can’t get to her. I can’t get her out. The only way I can stay close to her is to stay here. With them.”

  “The Coyle? What’s that?”

  “The leader. They call him the boss, but we were told to call him the Coyle.” He lowered his head to the grass again. “I can’t get to her,” he said quietly to the dirt. “It’s impossible.”

  “It’s not impossible. You come with me and I can take you to her.”

  His head shot up.

  “You know the Coyle?” He looked both hopeful and terrified.

  “No,” I said. “But—”

  “Then you have no hope. They will kill her as soon as I’m gone. They told me so. I can’t go.”

  We stared at each other. I understood, but I so desperately wanted to help him that I refused to give up.

  “What’s your name?” I finally asked.

  “I am Rhainn,” he said.

  “Listen, Rhainn, if we just work together we can figure this out. This is no place for you, and I can take you somewhere safe.” I fumbled with the top of my shirt, blindly searching for the link. “We can jump and leave this place, and then we can find—”

  “No,” he said. “You don’t understand. They’ll know if I leave. They’ll raise the alarm and then Cait—” He choked on the words, unable to finish his thought. Then, in a flash, he rolled away from me. I tried to grab him, but he quickly jumped to his feet and took several steps away. Then, with a determination I had never before seen, he walked back towards the fire.

  “Rhainn!” I whispered after him, but he didn’t look back. Once back at the group, he stayed to the outside, just beyond the reach of angry soldiers looking for a target. As he circled around behind them, he disappeared into the crowd.

  The fool!

  I stared after him, horrified. He could easily be squashed by those men if he stepped just an inch out of line. And yet he walked among them, frightened and emboldened at the same time. For her.

  But I carried no such mandate. So, like a coward, I backed up, crawling through the grass towards the cover of the black night behind me.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  If I had felt centered before, it had only been brief. My insides twisted now, and I lay in the grass, away from the horde, less sure than ever. Courage. Cowardice. Certainty. Confusion. All fought for attention in my racing mind.

  He was just a kid, a little boy, but his bravery had far outweighed mine. He would stay to save his sister. Or at the very least, to accompany her to her death.

  Would I have done such a thing? For Jade?

  I doubled over, pain flaring with the memory of her name. But then the pain was overtaken by a much more powerful feeling.

  Shame.

  I stared down at the dirt and lay my forehead down, defeated. I was outdone, and I knew it. I had fancied myself brave, facing down Cadoc. Facing the dragons. Taking the book and surviving the fall of the mountain.

  But that wasn’t brave. Not compared to what Rhainn did now. Not compared to him living that nightmare, waiting every minute to be beaten, just to be close to her.

  I had lived my own nightmare, I argued with myself. Jade had left me for dead. She had chosen, my legs dangling over that enormous ch
asm, to walk away.

  But she didn’t choose. It wasn’t her.

  The thought made me grit my teeth. I couldn’t get the image of her out of my head, of her spirit leaving, abandoning me to this impossible task all on my own. It was her fault, her weakness, that had led her away and left me here alone.

  Wasn’t it?

  No.

  The voice, tiny and quiet, seemed to echo against the interior of my skull. It was true.

  Jade hadn’t chosen. Or Rhainn. Or Cait. Or any of them. Alliance with the Corentin was never a choice. I knew this, had known it all along. But the betrayal I had felt had made me forget it until now.

  Maybe it was too late. Jade was somewhere else now, somewhere unreachable. I would find out. I would have to track her down somehow, and as the resolve to do so seeped in, relief flooded me as the path I needed to take finally became clear.

  I would find Jade. How, I didn’t yet know.

  But Rhainn and Cait were right here. And I wouldn’t leave them.

  I started moving, this time crouching low and making sure to stay far from the light of the burning fires. I broke into a jog and skirted the perimeter of the whole group, scouting, searching. The army was divided into sections, and among each one were the servant children, just as Rhainn had said. Those big enough to carry a slab of meat or a pitcher of wine scurried around the hordes of men, trying not to get stomped beneath their armored boots. More than once I saw a child slapped, or shoved, or tossed aside like a tattered rag doll. Where the smallest of the kids were, I didn’t know.

  I held back. The pull of Stonemore, with the hope of friends and power and solace, reminded me that I could go. I could get help and bring it back here. But the look on Rhainn’s face kept my feet planted on the ground and kept the link out of my fist. I couldn’t leave. Not yet.

  I scoured the camp for the young ones. They had to be here somewhere. I wasn’t sure what to look for, and yet I found it quickly. The sound of crying, of a baby, met my ears, and I stopped to listen. It was coming from the opposite side of the valley. In the darkness, I was able to just make out the outline of a large tent that was placed apart from the rest of the encampment.