Chronicles Of Aronshae (3 Book Omnibus)

by J. K. Barber

  Chapter 27

  Jared screamed out as pain shot up his leg. He struggled against Branden’s massive arms, but the smith pinned his shoulders to the ground. As the pain receded, the edges of Jared’s vision darkened, and Katya placed his head in her lap. Looking up into Katya’s dark brown eyes, he weakly spit the cloth-wrapped stick from his mouth. She wore a look of worry, but Jared knew it was only partially for him. The news of their mother’s death had hit the twins as hard as any wound that he had received tonight. The dark-haired twin’s eyes were still red from her earlier tears.

  His leg now set, he feebly told Katya of a shirt in his bag that she could tear into strips to use in a splint. The lifeless corpse that had attacked him had managed to break his leg in its death throes. Even after the smith’s massive hammer had broken its spine, the thing still had enough strength in its grip to snap his leg just above the ankle. Thankfully, Branden had caved in the dead man’s skull like a rotten gourd with his next swing, smashing the animating gem imbedded in the back of its head. Sasha had informed her father later that destroying the gem was the only way they knew of to stop the creatures.

  Katya smiled faintly down at him, revealing genuine concern for him even through her own grief over her mother. Dara, the twins’ mother, had been sick for some time, so her death had not a surprise, but Katya seemed to be taking the news the hardest. Katya was, to Jared’s eye, the more emotional of the two sisters. Whether that was a matter of temperament or training, Jared did not know, not having traveled with a sorceress before.

  Jared gestured again towards his pack, but Katya shook her head. “Hush, we won’t need to splint your leg. Niko is going to heal it.” With a movement of her chin, the young sorceress indicated the tiny man that stood next to Jared’s mangled ankle.

  The woodsman marveled at the Nhyme, as his kind was called. After the fight was over, Niko had proudly announced who he was and what he was doing there. While Talas accepted the Nhyme as just another one of the Great Mother’s wonders, Branden and Mala still looked at the tiny creature with trepidation. Their initial shock soon faded to simple wariness, especially when they learned that Katya had enlisted the help of the young Nhyme to possibly cure her mother’s illness. The young sorceress had been full of hope for her mother, and the news of her death affected her greatly, probably more than the rest of her family because of that hope. To her credit, very little of her sorrow showed, as she cared for Jared and Talas. Resting peacefully, the veteran had only needed minimal care from Niko. The Nhyme had gleefully stated that he would probably not even awake with a headache, and then turned his attention to Jared.

  Under the same scrutiny, Niko smiled as he fluttered his gossamer wings, rose into the air, and then landed gingerly on Jared’s foot. Had the tracker not been looking directly at the tiny man, he would not have known he was there, so small was his weight. Niko took a deep breath, closed his eyes and placed his hands on Jared’s wounded limb. Almost immediately, growing warmth suffused the woodsman’s leg. Barely noticeable at the beginning, the heat grew from the warmth of a hand on his skin to the near scalding temperature of a freshly drawn bath, shocking at first but very soothing once the body adjusted. Jared felt as though something was moving under his skin, and he began to squirm. Katya stilled him with a hand on his chest.

  “Don’t worry,” she said in gentle voice. It was voice that Jared was sure could snare the heart of many a man, if the young sorceress chose to employ it in such a fashion. “That feeling of movement is normal, or so I’m told,” she added mischievously. Jared saw a wry smile play across Katya’s lips. Grinning despite the situation, Jared quickly looked back to the Nhyme, when he saw Branden looking intently at him. If the woodsman had thought his situation with Sasha had become more confusing with the introduction of her sister Katya to their traveling group, the addition of the twins’ father and Sasha’s Swordmistress had made it downright unfathomable. Both Branden and Mala looked upon Jared with open distrust, despite the twins’ kind words about him.

  Jared’s gaze traveled from the Nhyme healing his leg to the older woman, who studied him from her perch on a fallen tree trunk by the fire. Jared and Talas had been using the log as a bench earlier in the evening, but Mala made it look like a battlement from which she could spring at a moment’s notice. Full of suspicion and questions, she had immediately begun interrogating Jared as soon as he was carried back to camp. She had stayed behind to look after Talas, whether to care for him or to make sure he would cause no trouble Jared was not sure. Either way, she had been left behind, while the smith had charged off into the woods after his daughter’s voice and the older woman seemed none too happy about it.

  According to Branden, as he explained their presence to the twins, the smith and Mala had been traveling south. They had just left Binford’s Bluff and had seen a campfire off to the side of the road. The innkeeper at the Dancing Griffon in Binford’s Bluff had informed them of Jared and Sasha passing through. He had said that they had traveled south with a Trades Guild caravan and also that it had been some time since the two had left. Hopeful that it was the twins returning but also fearful that it might be brigands, Branden and Mala had slipped into the woods and began sneaking up on the camp to see exactly who was there.

  As they had moved through the darkness, they saw and heard a struggle in the firelight and had stopped. Upon hearing Sasha scream, they had rushed towards the campfire. Unfortunately, they had arrived just as Sasha and Jared had run into the woods. Mala had stayed behind with Talas and Niko, while Branden pursued his daughters. The smith had caught up with Sasha. She quickly informed him of what had happened, and the pair began running after Jared, who was in turn pursuing Katya and her captor. The sorceress had been chanting a spell, as she was being carried through the woods in an effort to keep her undead kidnapper from carrying her into the Void, as one of his kind had done before. Ultimately, the spell had proven to be successful, and Jared had felled the creature. No longer needing to keep incanting the spell, Katya had called out for her sister, unaware that both Sasha and Branden had been chasing after them.

  The rest of the tale Jared knew first hand. Branden had finished off the undead man, but not before the woodsman’s leg had been broken. Sasha and Branden had carried Jared back to camp and began tending to his wounds. Katya had healed his broken nose, but she felt that Niko would be better able to heal his leg. “A crooked nose was one thing,” the sorceress had said, “but a crooked leg is a more serious matter.”

  Jared had not liked the sound of those words and did not like them still, as he watched Niko’s hands move up and down his wounded leg. To his amazement, however, his leg had begun to feel much better. The pain had lessened considerably by the time Niko opened his eyes again.

  “There ya go,” Niko intoned, his small voice excited, but strained with weariness. “Good as new.”

  Jared rotated his ankle slowly at first, and then more forcibly as he felt no answering pain to the movements.

  Niko plopped down on the hunter’s shin, as though he were riding a horse, visibly tired after exerting himself. “I’m just going to sit here for a bit. You don’t mind if I ride your leg for the next couple of days, do you?” he asked Jared.

  Jared winced as the pain of his burns reasserted their presence, now that his broken leg was fixed. His head fell back into Katya’s lap, as he ground his teeth against the pain. Niko, dislodged by Jared’s movement, flopped unceremoniously to the ground.

  “Are you okay?” the sorceress asked Jared. “Your leg should be fine.” Katya looked at Niko concerned.

  “Oh, the bone’s fine,” the young Nhyme answered back, disappointment clear on his face that his ride on Jared’s leg was over. “Now you,” he pointed at Katya, “have to heal the burn.”

  “But I’ve never healed a burn before,” she protested. “What if I make a mistake? He could be maimed for life.”

  “Nah,” Niko answered back. “Flesh is easy. Bones are hard.” Niko realized his pun
and giggled to himself. “Besides, if you want to learn how to heal the harder stuff, you have to practice on the easier stuff.” Niko flapped his little wings and flitted up to land on Jared’s chest. “You don’t mind do you?” he said to the wounded woodsman. Before Jared could answer, Niko continued. “No, of course you don’t. See? He doesn’t mind at all. Get to it, Big Beast.” The diminutive Nhyme pointed emphatically at Jared’s leg.

  Katya looked down at Jared again. “Are you okay with that?” she asked. “I’ve never done a burn before. And if that makes you uncomfortable, I can…”

  Jared raised his hand to cut her off. “I don’t care who heals my leg, but if someone is going to do it, I’d appreciate it if it was done quickly. It hurts!”

  “I just don’t know…” Katya began to protest, but Jared cut her off again.

  “Look, I trust you okay?” he said. “You did a good job with my nose,” Jared raised his hand to his face and gave his nose a quick wiggle. “So you should be fine with this, right?” Jared could see the indecision in Katya’s eyes war with his words of confidence. After a brief moment, she scooted back and was lowering Jared’s head to the ground. Sasha, who had been watching with concern, slipped in next to her sister and placed the woodsman’s head in her own lap. The redhead smiled down at him, as the raven-haired of the pair moved down to his leg.

  Jared spared a glance at Branden and Mala. Neither seemed pleased at all.

  Jared rode into Binford’s Bluff, his leg sore from the wound he had suffered, but thankful that he had a leg to walk on after all that had happened. He was also thankful that his journey with the twins and their family was done. It wasn't that he did not like Sasha, Katya, Branden and Mala; they were good people and the young sorceress had done a fine job fixing his leg, despite her own misgivings. However, both the sisters’ father and Swordmistress had made it very clear, through their actions if not their words, that though they were grateful for the help that Jared had given Sasha and Katya, that he was to keep his distance from the twins. The woodsman was unaccustomed to interacting socially with humans, but Jared was able to read the body language of Branden and Mala very clearly.

  Branden, a large and imposing man, made it a point to next to the twins whenever Jared returned to camp, often placing himself, not very subtly, between Jared and whichever daughter he happened to be standing near. Jared understood, to a certain extent, Branden’s protectiveness. If he had children of his own, the tracker would probably have acted the same.

  What perplexed Jared the most though was how this behavior was so at odds with the fact that Branden had let Sasha wander the world on her own in the first place. If a father was comfortable with his daughter traveling the Tradeways with nothing but her sword to protect her, Jared thought, why would the same father eye me the way a shepherd eyes a wolf he had seen around his flock?

  As perplexing as Branden was, Mala was downright confusing. The older woman seemed to be wordlessly challenging Jared at every turn. She would stand a little closer to him than politeness allowed and made it a point to stare directly into his eyes whenever possible, a mild look of expected confrontation on her face. At one point, he was fairly certain he had heard a low growl come from within her chest. When Jared’s eyes had widened at the sound, Mala’s look had become even more challenging, almost daring him to say something.

  Jared had simply shaken his head and stepped away. Starting a fight with the Master Swordswoman was not a wise move, on either a social or survival level. Jared did not like the swordmistress for reasons beyond her behavior, but they were reasons that Jared couldn’t exactly pinpoint. He respected her, as her presence almost seemed to demand and was probably what made her an effective leader in battle, but Mala also lacked the social skills that would have made her a good general. Plus, Jared could not help but shake a nagging feeling at the back of his mind, the same feeling he sometimes felt when he was hunting and accidentally stepped into the territory of a larger stronger predator.

  Add all this to the increasing feeling of being a stranger in a family home, and Jared was glad that his time with these people from Snowhaven was almost done. Talas, to his credit, tried to make it a point to include both Jared and the twins’ family in the discussions that were had around the campfire at night, but neither side seemed all that interested in adding the other to their conversation. Both Sasha and Katya also made efforts to draw Jared closer to the campfire, but after the first few refusals from the woodsman, they let him be.

  Purposefully spending most of his days away from the rest of his traveling companions, either with excuses of scouting or hunting, Jared spent most of the next few nights sitting sullenly away from everyone else. The exception to this was Talas, who made an active effort to engage Jared in conversation. Responding to most of the veteran’s questions with a silent nod, shake of his head or a quiet grunt, Jared busied himself with cleaning the pelts of the animals they had just eaten, carving new shafts for his arrows, or smoking his pipe in silence. Oddly enough, the only people who seemed uncomfortable with the situation were the twins. Branden and Mala were content to keep things as they were, and Talas was undeterred in his efforts to play the diplomat.

  Needless to say, Jared was overjoyed to hear the greeting that came from the portly innkeeper of the Dancing Griffon’s lips, as he and his traveling companions entered the inn’s main room.

  “Jared!” Carl called out from behind the bar, as the innkeeper wiped down the bar’s surface with a wet rag. “How have you been? You are becoming a regular in this place.” Carl looked over Jared’s shoulder at Sasha, who walked in behind him. A mischievous grin played across the innkeeper’s face. “Will you and your companion be needing a room for…” Carl’s voice and smile died on his lips, as Branden followed his daughter into the Dancing Griffon. Jared did not need to turn around to know the expression the large man wore.

  “We’ll need,” Jared turned as Katya, Mala and finally Talas entered the room behind Branden, “four rooms for the night.”

  “Make that three,” Talas said, as he looked around the room. Still early in the day, there were only a couple people in the small tavern that was the bottom floor of the two story inn. “If you don’t mind sharing a room, Jared, I’m a bit short on coin, since my previous employment ended a bit earlier than expected.” The older man shot Jared a wry grin.

  Jared nodded solemnly and said “Suit yourself,” and turned back to face the innkeeper. “Three rooms then, Carl. Two should be next to one another, and it doesn’t matter where the third is.”

  “That should be easy enough. Will you be wanting baths drawn as well?” the innkeeper asked.

  Both Jared and Sasha answered “yes” at the same time. Jared glanced to see a small blush cross the features of the young redhead and immediately looked away; he glimpsed a scowl appear on Branden’s face, the blacksmith standing next to her.

  “Set everyone up with baths,” Jared said as he tossed a few silver royals onto the bar, “My treat.” He handed his backpack to Talas, addressing the older man. “I need to talk to the Sheriff. Would you please just put my stuff on my bed and go on and take the first bath? I might be a bit.” Jared walked out of the inn, hearing inquiries from Brandon and Mala about his meeting with the sheriff begin behind him as he left.

  Chapter 28

  Jared stepped out of his bath and began toweling off. The hunter was still troubled by the information he had received from the Sheriff. He and his men had gone through the ruins of the scholar’s burnt house and found no remains resembling any books or scrolls, which struck the men immediately as odd. When Jared had asked if he was sure, the Sheriff had said it was possible they had missed something but unlikely. Jared sighed and put those thoughts aside.

  Even though the weather was warmer than the last time he had spent a night at the Dancing Griffon, Jared still enjoyed the feeling of the hot water, as it washed the trail off his skin and some of the soreness from his muscles. Several weeks of traveling with only an
occasional dip in a river or small pond made Jared, and probably his companions as well, appreciative of a good hot bath.

  There was soon a light knocking at the door. “Great Mother, Talas. You would think that such a learned scholar would remember his key,” Jared said quietly to himself as he wrapped a towel around his waist. Snatching the forgotten key from the bed, Jared turned the lock and flung open the door… and looked right into the widening brown eyes of Katya.

  The sorceress stared at Jared for several moments before speaking. “I was… that is, we were wondering if… you’d be coming down for dinner,” Katya stammered out. Her eyes wandered down Jared’s nose and chin to his upper body, his black chest hair still damp from his bath. Though obviously uncomfortable, Jared noticed she did not look away or step back. He followed her eyes to the unadorned silver disk that hung from his neck. “You wear the symbol of the Great Mother,” she said, her voice confused. “I did not know you were a disciple.”

  Jared did not take his eyes from Katya. She was wearing a simple yet flattering crimson dress. Cut lower than her dark blue velvet robes, the material was also lighter and slid back as she reached out to touch the medallion, revealing more of her pale unmarred skin. Instinctively, Jared took a half step back, and Katya snatched back her hand, placing it on her chest, which was much more pleasantly displayed in her current attire than in the robe in which he had always seen her.