Nathaniel Grey and the Obsidian Crown

by Farrell Keeling

‘Something wrong?’ the Hunter asked, watching the Regal closely as she bent down in the middle of the grove.

  ‘Oh no…’ Zaine thought he heard her mutter in despair, as she cradled something atop her lap.

  ‘Is everything alright, Vaera?’ Zaine said, ‘you’re shaking.’

  The Hunter went over to touch the Regal’s trembling shoulder, but she just as quickly slapped his hand away. His eyes moved down to the patch of lilies upon which the Regal sat, and the orchid, made all the more brilliantly violet, held in her pale clenched fist.

  ‘Vaera,’ Zaine began.

  Vaera seemed to be holding back tears, as she roughly pushed past the Hunter and stormed out with the orchid still in hand. Zaine remained briefly where he stood, then kneeled down by the lilies, his gloved hand caressing the spot where she had uprooted the lone orchid.

  ‘Something… amiss,’ he murmured to himself.

  Frowning, he shook his head solemnly and departed into the night.

  Chapter 23

  Vaera had been in a dark mood since they’d left the camp in the morning. When Samir dared ask if she was alright, he had been met with only a bleary-eyed scowl that sent him scurrying back to the safety of his books.

  Certain he would be met with something sharper than a look, Nathaniel made an attempt – rather foolishly, in hindsight – of his own, as they were saddling the horses.

  ‘What?’ Vaera had muttered bluntly, as he edged tentatively towards her back.

  ‘I… uhhh… is everything alright?’ Nathaniel inquired, instantly regretting his course of action. It was an effort not to stare at the daggers stashed in Vaera’s belt.

  He steeled himself against the lash of her tongue, only to be left utterly perplexed by the Regal’s tired sigh.

  ‘I have been… troubled… of late,’ Vaera turned to face him.

  Nathaniel frowned, waiting for the bitter mutter of ‘Kinslayer’ under the girl’s breath. It was not forthcoming.

  ‘Why are you staring at me like that?’ Vaera snapped suddenly.

  Nathaniel shook himself, and held out his hands placatingly.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just wanted to see if you were-’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ the Regal said, returning to her bags.

  Nathaniel thought to press his fellow Regal further, but fortunately found the sense enough to leave before he could make matters worse.

  At least she didn’t call me Kinslayer.

  It probably meant nothing. She was tired, and she had still been less than pleasant. But still. It was an improvement.

  With Nathaniel and Samir, and Gabe and Kaira seated on the mares, Vaera and Brey took up the back of Zaine’s tall stallion. The Hunter insisted they went at barely much more than a canter, so as not to strain the horses further.

  Having lived in Obsidia all his life, Nathaniel found it both surprising and maddening that there was so little in the way of civilisation, once they had left Dalmarra. Rolling hills, dotted with trees, dominated the landscape. Unworked green pastures would give way to the occasional field of golden wheat that tickled their boots as they rode, or fade into brushes of wildflowers.

  Brey had caught a few in her hand as they ploughed through, which she weaved into a circlet. Gabe presented Kaira one of the flowers with a flourish that left the short-haired Lycan rolling her eyes. She made as if to throw the wildflower over her shoulder but hid it away the moment Gabe’s eyes turned back to the path ahead. Even Vaera plucked up a smile, as she drifted a hand through the flowers.

  Once in a while, a horse would gallop past them, presumably taking its rider back to Dalmarra. The riders casting curious looks their way. Zaine always had his hood up, long before Nathaniel’s ears caught the steady drum of hoofbeats.

  When the light began to dwindle, the Hunter decided it was time to set up camp once more. Nathaniel reckoned they couldn’t have travelled more than ten miles that day. Though given how laboured Bela’s breath seemed, as they pulled to a stop by a river-ditch, she may as well have galloped all the way to the Black Mountains. Nathaniel patted Bela’s mane a little guiltily, as she guzzled water.

  ‘We need more horses!’ Nathaniel had whispered urgently to Zaine after he’d dismounted from the stallion. Hearing Bela’s ragged breath, he stopped himself before he could add, or I’ll be a thousand years gone before we make it to Obsidia!

  ‘You see any cities nearby, Regal?’ the Hunter waved his hand around the green expanse that stretched around them in every direction. ‘Féy would be too far a detour. We’ll have to wait for one of the villages, or a farm. There surely will be one of the two nearby.’

  The Lycans avoided Zaine’s pointed gaze, lowering their eyes to the reins in their hands. The Hunter could hardly send them away, but it would be their fault if Nathaniel didn’t make it to Obsidia in time.

  If the horses make it that far, Nathaniel thought with a rueful shake of the head. He shuddered to think what they’d do if they couldn’t find another horse to spread the burden. A slow canter to the Black Mountains would take weeks.

  However, true to Zaine’s estimation, they came across a plume of smoke in the horizon, which couldn’t have belonged to a particularly large settlement. Sure enough, the hills gave way to brown ploughed fields and a large barn lined with haystacks. A man in slacks led a couple oxen with a plough towards the far corner of his land. He pulled the beasts to a sharp halt when he heard the incoming hoofbeats and waved his arms towards them. Nathaniel wasn’t quite sure if it was an invitation to come closer or an attempt to ward them off. Zaine seemed to take it as the first. The farmer had a pitchfork ready in his hands to greet them once Nathaniel and the others had made it round to the farmhouse. The way his hands kneaded the shaft, it looked like only the smallest provocation would encourage him to wield it against them.

  ‘Ho there!’ the farmer greeted them uncertainly. He was as grey and grizzled as Skew, but his eyes held far more warmth in them. All the same, he held his pitchfork tightly in his hands as if he expected trouble. ‘What can I do ye’ for?’ His eyes seemed to rest a moment longer on Nathaniel and Vaera in particular. He kept snapping his head to the brick house with its smoking chimney, which lay a few paces to his left.

  ‘Horses, if you have them to spare,’ Zaine replied plainly. ‘We have too far to travel with only these three.’

  ‘I might,’ the man chewed his lip thoughtfully. ‘If you have the coin.’

  ‘That won’t be a problem,’ Zaine patted his stallion’s saddlebags.

  ‘And might I ask who’s buying?’

  ‘I’m not sure you would like to know,’ Zaine said doubtfully.

  The farmer angled the pitchfork against his body. ‘I don’t sell horses to just anybody that come here, what have ye’ to hide man?’

  Zaine sighed and then slowly lowered his hood.

  The farmer blinked at Zaine’s silver eyes.

  ‘A Hunter,’ he said breathlessly; the man’s knuckles were white against his pitchfork.

  ‘If you’re willing to part with them, I’d be happy to compensate you generously,’ Zaine continued on as if he didn’t notice the man quivering where he stood. He retrieved a bulging pouch from the saddlebags of his dark stallion and threw it to the farmer.

  The man just about caught the purse before it smacked against his gaping jaw. He poked it open and licked his lips at the contents.

  ‘I do have the horses to spare…’ the man mumbled to himself, ‘…and Tab do badger me about the markets…’

  He pocketed the pouch after a moment’s consideration, then threw an arm over his head for the group to follow him into the barn.

  ‘Quickly now wit’ye’, quickly now,’ he ushered them in, grumbling something about how his wife would beat him with a saucepan if she caught him with them.

  The barn had been sectioned in half, with one side filled with pens for the chickens and goats, and more haystacks, and the other half as a makeshift stable for the seven horses. One of the mares p
oked her muzzle over the gates and shook her mane, as the farmer approached with the group in tow.

  ‘Easy now, easy now,’ he said, smoothing the mare’s mane. ‘Usually I’d take a couple to Dalmarra for the markets every now n’ then, once their grown n’ all,’ he told them. ‘Sell well when the crops don’t.’

  ‘Your wife isn’t keen on guests?’ Zaine inquired.

  ‘Not on certain guests,’ the farmer said, wincing at the thought.

  ‘Yet you’d deal with a Hunter?’ Kaira arched an eyebrow inquisitively.

  ‘I’m not fool enough to think yer’ all the same,’ the farmer insisted hurriedly. ‘But yer’ being here, Hunter, it ain’t good news.’

  The man shook his head as he patted the horse’s muzzle.

  ‘Then we will be swiftly on our way,’ Zaine replied. ‘We seek a roof further on before nightfall.’

  The Lycans and Regals shared a relieved look. Even a rotten pallet in some dark cellar would be a welcome reprieve from the elements.

  The man fingered his lips, observing the darkening clouds gathering outside the barn with some unease.

  ‘There be a town – Greymound I think – but a couple miles on,’ he said, using his pitchfork to point out the hills rising beyond his crops. ‘But the folk there… aren’t the most welcoming.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Vaera asked.

  The farmer snorted.

  ‘Let me put it this way, Regal, when ye’ get there, I think ye’ should just let one of the humans do the talking,’ he nodded towards the Lycans.

  ‘They’re not– ow!’ Vaera glared at Kaira whilst rubbing the sore part of her arm where the Lycan had elbowed her.

  ‘Thank you for the warning,’ Zaine interjected.

  The man nodded, wrinkled eyes looking suspiciously between the two girls.

  ‘I’d offer ye’ a roof here, Hunter, to all of ye,’ the farmer said with a wave of his hand, sounding like he meant it. ‘But my wife… she been terribly jumpy, what wit’the Regals n’ all.’

  ‘Regals?’ Nathaniel blinked.

  ‘My people were here?’ Vaera sounded even more surprised.

  ‘A group of ‘em, they came looking fer a boy – one of their own,’ the man screwed up his face in remembrance. ‘Something ‘bout him being ‘someone of import’, they wanted to know if we’d seen him.’

  Nathaniel stifled a gasp and edged a step back, pulling the hood of his cloak tighter around his face. He felt the Lycans’ eyes on him but refused to meet them.

  ‘How very strange,’ Zaine remarked.

  ‘Oh yea,’ bad news they were, I tell ye’ now,’ the farmer shivered suddenly at the memory. ‘Chilled my old bones, Hunter.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Gabe asked, his eyes darting up from the pommel of his sword.

  ‘They just… came out of nowhere.’ The farmer drummed his fingers nervously against the shaft of his pitchfork. ‘They asked their questions, I answered, then I swear I just turned my back fer a second n’ – Poof! Thought it might’a been ghosts, had the wife not seen them either.’

  ‘These Regals… they were soldiers?’ Zaine inquired.

  ‘They weren’t armoured if that be what ye’ mean, and I don’t remember seeing any blade or bow. They were just dressed like ordinary townsfolk, ‘cept, they weren’t ordinary.’

  The farmer glanced back outside the barn, as if he expected one of the Regals to jump out the wall as they spoke.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  The farmer leant past his pitchfork, and said in a bare whisper, ‘women.’

  ‘They were women?’

  ‘Every last one of ‘em.’

  Vaera and Nathaniel shared an uncomfortable look. These Regals sounded awfully familiar…

  ‘You are absolutely sure of that?’

  ‘As sure as I see ye’ stand before me, Hunter.’

  ‘Then I suppose we’d best keep an eye out.’

  ‘And fer the boy,’ the farmer said. ‘I don’t know what they what they want wit’im, but I could see it in their eyes… ‘aint nothing good, Hunter, ‘aint nothing good.’

  The man shook his head grimly, lumbering past the group to the barn’s entrance to point out a strip of mud running adjacent to the edge of the ploughed fields. ‘Follow this here path. Should take ye’ to the hills, n’ then Greymound be no farther.’

  Perhaps it was owing to the farmer’s need to be rid of them as soon as possible, rather than his generosity that he insisted the Lycans take whichever of the horses they desired.

  ‘What’s so strange about them being women?’ Brey had huffed, as soon as the farmer was out of earshot. She seemed to take the farmer’s words as a personal affront. ‘Men always seem to find something strange in a woman who isn’t utterly feeble,’ Vaera sniffed.

  ‘What stories would they have left to tell, if a woman had the audacity to be capable of defending herself?’ Kaira added. The three girls gave Nathaniel, and the two other boys pointed looks, as if they’d made comments to the contrary.

  Samir frowned, apparently not quite sure what was going on. Gabe, on the other hand, seemed to be on the verge of a retort, before shaking his head and fiddling needlessly with the saddle of his gelding. Without voicing any accusations, the women seemed to have mastered the knack of making the others feel guilty for things they weren’t personally responsible for.

  ‘Nathaniel…’

  Zaine was leaning beside Bela’s saddlebags beckoning him to come closer.

  Nathaniel hoped nothing was wrong with his horse.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, ‘is Bela okay?’

  ‘The horse is fine, Regal, I was wondering what this…’ the Hunter pulled a metallic rod from behind his back, ‘…was doing in your possession?’

  The rod was a strange thing. Runes of various shapes and sizes had been carved into the metal like the veins of a leaf. He had thought it a knife at first glance given how it spanned the length of the Hunter’s forearm, curving to a sharp point, like a fang.

  ‘I’ve… never seen that before,’ Nathaniel said, looking perplexed.

  ‘Strange…’ the Hunter muttered.

  ‘Strange? Why?’ Nathaniel asked.

  ‘It belongs to Thorne,’ Zaine said, holding the rod away from him, as if he were considering throwing the thing away. ‘Well… it stayed with him at any rate.’

  It stayed with him?

  Zaine talked about the rod as if it were a living thing with legs.

  The Hunter’s brow knitted against his forehead. For a moment, Nathaniel thought Zaine was going accuse him of lying but he merely placed the rod back in Bela’s saddlebags, without further comment. Nathaniel stared at the saddlebags in stunned silence for a moment, before chasing Zaine to his black stallion.

  ‘What is that?’ Nathaniel demanded. The Hunter’s face was as impassive as stone, though his brow remained wrinkled still as he stepped into the stirrups.

  ‘What is it?’ Nathaniel asked.

  The Hunter did not answer. Was there a measure of concern in those silver eyes?

  ‘How did it end up in my saddlebags? Did Thorne put it there?’

  ‘Get back on your horse, Regal, we’ve a long way to go,’ Zaine said, busying himself with the reins.

  ‘Athrana’s grace, Hunter! Why won’t you tell me what it is? Are you afraid of it?’

  Nathaniel instantly regretted his last sentence. There was not a single crack in the Hunter’s granite-like face, as he stared ahead unblinkingly toward the darkening horizon.

  ‘The rod has a mind of its own,’ was all the Hunter told him. He dug in his spurs and urged the black stallion ahead at a trot.

  Nathaniel clambered onto Bela’s back and gathered the reins. It has a mind of its own. What on earth had the Hunter meant by that?

  ‘Well…’ he cleared his throat. ‘I guess we better get going.’

  One of the girls muttered something quietly behind Nathaniel, encouraging a subsequent derisive snort.

  ‘Did
they have to come?’ he hissed back to Gabe.

  The curly-haired boy shrugged as if to say, just try and stop them.

  Chapter 24

  Darkness had almost fully descended upon Nathaniel’s party by the time they had reached Greymound. A mile out from the farm, they’d had to navigate through undulating hills, before the terrain flattened out into a litter of ploughed fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. Dots of amber winked across the numerous slate and tile buildings inside the settlement, multiplying as the horses drew closer to Greymound’s log walls.

  Boots, hooves, and cart wheels had ground the earth around Greymound’s perimeter into a dusty ring. Corkscrews of dust were kicked up behind Nathaniel, as Bela followed the Hunter’s black stallion through the village’s archway.

  A handful of street peddlers pulled their wares in carts and barrows under cover, as bulging black clouds converged overhead. They all turned to face the newcomers, their expressions souring when they caught sight of Nathaniel and Vaera. The farmer had warned them that Greymound wouldn’t be particularly friendly but Nathaniel was still surprised by the open hostility.

  He drew his hood as low over his eyes as it would allow. With a backwards glance, he noticed that Vaera had done the same.

  If that wasn’t strange enough, the villagers actually gasped when Samir rode past. Indeed, those peddlers who hadn’t yet found refuge, began to speed up their efforts.

  ‘A Scorched! Here!’ Nathaniel heard one of the villagers exclaim to another.

  Nathaniel found himself gaping in open-mouthed horror at some of the other, less savoury, comments about Samir that reached his ears. Commendably though, Samir rode on, staring straight ahead, appearing not to notice the personal nature of the insults. Nathaniel couldn’t understand what was wrong with these people. Humans and Dwarves came and went each year in Obsidia, without issue. And, under Tolken’s reign, while the Scorched were less common, they were viewed more with curiosity than dislike. The people of Greymound however, looked a minor provocation away from hanging them all from the nearest tree.

  ‘People fear what they are not used to,’ Zaine said, glancing at the expression on Nathaniel’s face.