Awakener

by J. C. Staudt

  “It can’t be,” Darion said. “There’s something else having its way in this place. Something more sinister. The sooner we get home and find out what it is, the better our chances of making an end for it. Take out your blades. Time we started cutting.”

  Chapter 9

  As the members of the group began to come in out of the rain, the cottage descended into chaos. Sorgan entered bearing the corpse of the mixed-blooded man who’d felled Rochlathan with his scimitar. Khor retrieved the dead boy with Roke’s arrow in his chest. Sullimas was off in the corner by himself, his robes lifted so he could inspect the shallow puncture wound in his abdomen. Norne was nursing the blunt sword cut on Maaltred’s forehead with a damp kerchief when Eremund hauled in a tortured and screaming Rochlathan.

  Maaltred had never seen so much blood. Rochlathan’s face and shoulder were covered in it; the mixed-blood’s throat was open, the front of his tunic awash in crimson. The kerchief Norne was using to dab Maaltred’s wound had quickly gone from white to pink to soaking red. No one had foreseen the confrontation turning to slaughter. Maaltred hadn’t, at least. He still didn’t trust Roke and the others, despite how quickly the tracker had located the Warcaster’s tiny village.

  It had taken Roke only a few days to lead them through the wilderness to their destination. First he’d found the site of a recent campfire, which had led him to a game trail running through the underbrush. The game trail had turned into an actual trail ridden by ironshod horses and covered in muddy bootprints.

  The trail had faded several times. Each time, Roke had picked it up again with ease. Someone was living nearby, he surmised, and they’d been journeying to the coastal townships at least once a season for the past several years. It was possible to cover up the signs of one’s passing, Roke claimed, if one was careful. Yet the forest always had a tale to tell, and it kept a poor secret if you knew where to look.

  Now the Warcaster’s wife was crawling across the floor toward her dead son, moaning and sobbing and mumbling unintelligibly. The two little girls were crying too, seated on the floor while the unhurt rushed around them to tend the wounded. Maaltred found the scene rather disturbing, and cursed the wretched king once again for sending him here. The sooner this was all over, the better.

  Norne looked to Sullimas. “Shall I perform a curing spell on the tracker?”

  “You know the cost,” said Sullimas. “The decision is his to make.”

  Norne pressed Maaltred’s hand to the kerchief on his forehead. “Keep pressure on it. I’ll return in a moment.”

  Maaltred felt queasy. He watched as Norne went to sit on the stained straw mattress where Roke lay writhing and screaming. The vicar spoke with him briefly before invoking the wild-song, calling upon the forces of nature to restore what had been taken.

  Norne touched Roke’s face. The tracker cringed away and cried out in pain, so Norne enlisted Sorgan and Clepha to hold him down. When Norne traced a finger along the gash in Roke’s cheek, the wound closed in a thin scar, as if hemmed by a seamstress.

  Norne traced along Roke’s shoulder next, binding the sword wound from back to front. Roke’s breathing slowed, calmed. Maaltred had heard about the cost of restoring health to one’s body, yet he’d never seen it happen firsthand. Against the candlelight he could see streaks of silver coursing through Roke’s dark hair. Creases appeared around his eyes and across his forehead. Norne gave the tracker a shake as if to wake him. When he sat up, he looked older by half a decade. Yet his expression was composed and serene, as if he’d never been wounded at all.

  After checking the others for injury, Norne went to Sullimas in the corner.

  “Leave me as I am,” Sullimas demanded. “I’m old. I can no longer spare the years as I once could.”

  Norne turned. “And you, Brother Maaltred?”

  Maaltred looked at him blankly. “And I… what?”

  “Do you wish me to bind your wounds with Yannui’s blessing?”

  “What will happen to me?”

  “You will feel better.”

  “At what price?”

  “Nature grants us life. We dare not steal more than our fair share. Yet we may borrow it in advance, when needs be.”

  “How much will I lose?”

  “It’s difficult to say. Your wound is not heavy, though you’ve lost a lot of blood. I wouldn’t recommend further travel for several days in your condition.”

  “Heal him,” said Sullimas. “We’re moving on before then, gods willing. He’ll feel the better for it.”

  When Norne came close, Maaltred leaned away. “Wait. Will it hurt?”

  “Yes, for a short time. Then it won’t hurt anymore.”

  Reluctantly Maaltred withdrew the bloody kerchief.

  Norne spoke the sigils of the curing spell and ran a stinging thumb across Maaltred’s forehead. The pain seared like fire. Maaltred screamed. His sight went dark, and he lost all sense of his surroundings. He fell into a deep abyss and stayed there until Norne’s blurry voice penetrated the gloom and pulled him out. “Maaltred. Brother Maaltred.”

  Maaltred blinked and looked around. “How long was I out?”

  Norne laughed. “Only a few seconds. How do you feel?”

  Maaltred touched his forehead, felt the thin worm of a scar running across it in place of the open gash. “Better.”

  Norne smiled. “Good.”

  “We ought prepare for the Warcaster’s return,” Sullimas announced. He stood with a grunt, holding a kerchief to his stomach. “We mustn’t give him the advantage of taking us unawares.”

  “Go back out there in the rain?” said Eremund. “We’ll catch our deaths of a chill.”

  “Then perhaps you ought take shelter in one of the many structures available to you. I seem to recall, for instance, a barn, a stables, a woodshed, a root cellar, a smokehouse, a privy, and three other dwellings. If you die of a chill, I should think it your own fault.”

  “And what of sleep?” asked Sorgan.

  “We sleep when the Warcaster is dealt with. How soon do you expect him home, Mistress Ulther?”

  The woman lay beside her son, bloodshot eyes locked on Vicar Norne. “Bring him back,” she pleaded in a voice weak and forlorn. “Bring back my boy.”

  “Tell us where your husband went. How far did he go, and in which direction?”

  “You won’t find him. Not tonight. He led his hunting party into the hinterlands to take game for winter. He isn’t due to return for a week or more.”

  The old vicar’s expression hardened. It was a look Maaltred had never seen before, and it frightened him. “Back outside, all of you. Set watches for the night, and don’t leave the surrounds unattended unless I send word otherwise. It could be a trick. This Warcaster has eluded capture before. We’d best take every precaution.”

  “I’m not going back out there,” said Eremund.

  “Stay, then. The rest of you may search the village and mete out anything of value you find.”

  “Right,” Eremund grumbled, taking up his axe. “You’ve convinced me.”

  “Take care entering the other buildings. Should you find anyone, bring them to me.”

  Khor gestured toward the Warcaster’s wife. “And the woman?”

  “Tie her up. We’ll keep her and the children under thumb.”

  Mistress Ulther wailed when they bound her hands and feet, but she did not resist. She lay broken-willed on the floor, her face pressed to the boards without a care for her own dignity or comfort. Pathetic, Maaltred thought. Part of him wanted to feel sorry for the woman and her children, but he couldn’t find an ounce of sympathy to give. They were the bride and spawn of a traitor who’d fought alongside the barbarians responsible for Tanielle’s death. In Maaltred’s mind, that made them worse than any scum he might wipe from the sole of his boot.

  After Rochlathan and his companions trudged outside, griping and grumbling about the rain, Maaltred took it upon himself to raise the complaint he’d been holding in all this time.
“I told you these folk were unreliable. Didn’t I?”

  “No one could’ve predicted this,” said Sullimas. “That boy and his orcish dog should never have raised arms against us. They fell victim to their own misjudgment.”

  “He’s an odd-looking fellow, isn’t he?” said Norne, nodding at the open-throated corpse. “Orcish among other things, I’d say. His forefathers must’ve raided a village or two in their day. Spilled the spoils of war inside his mother, I’ll wager.”

  Mistress Ulther gave Norne a dark look, but said nothing.

  “I still think it was a mistake to hire Roke and his friends,” said Maaltred. “We didn’t come here to incite the spellsword’s wrath by murdering his people.”

  “We’re here to bring a traitor to justice, Brother Maaltred. The king gave us his blessing to use whatever means necessary.”

  “The king’s orders were to capture the Warcaster himself or lure him to Maergath by some other means. We didn’t need to kill anyone.”

  “Mind your bearing, Maaltred,” said Sullimas. “Roke has done his job thus far. I won’t have our accord imperiled by a petty dispute.”

  Maaltred felt his dispute anything but petty, yet he held his tongue.

  Sullimas grunted uncomfortably as he repositioned his kerchief.

  “How long can we await the Warcaster’s return?” Norne asked.

  “We wait out the night. If no one comes, we’ll choose our course in the morning.”

  They settled down for an uneasy sleep. Mistress Ulther spent the night wallowing in her grief, drifting from anger to misery to brooding silence and back again. Sullimas tossed and turned the night long while Norne did his best to make him comfortable. When first light fell over the elder vicar’s face, he was drawn and pale, a shadow of the man he’d been the day before. The sun rose, and still the Warcaster had not returned.

  Maaltred felt weak from the blood he’d lost, but he was recovering. He wondered how old he would look when next he gazed into a mirror or glimpsed his reflection in a quiet stream. I can no longer spare the years as I once could, Sullimas had said. Maaltred was curious how old the vicar was, truly. How many times nature’s power had restored him from grievous wounds or rescued him from the brink of death. Sullimas did not strike Maaltred as a man ready to die. Perhaps he was not yet willing to accept the severity of his wound.

  The corpses of the boy and the mixed-blood were giving off their first blooms of death. As the sun rose and heated the cottage, the smell became the shared predicament of everyone in the room. Roke and his mercenaries hadn’t reported back since they’d gone out to keep watch. Either they were all dead, or the night had passed uneventfully.

  Khor opened the door and stuck his head in without knocking, perhaps thinking the same fate may have befallen the priests. “All’s clear outside. Rain’s letting up, and no sign of the Warcaster. Or anyone else, for that matter. Mayhap the lady was telling the truth.”

  Norne cast Mistress Ulther a long, studying look. “I will ask you one final time, Madam Ulther. When does your husband plan to return?”

  “Ulther is not my name,” the woman said flatly.

  “You are married to the traitor Darion Ulther, are you not?”

  She nodded. “I kept my father’s name when we married, that my husband might be reminded always of his promise to him. That was part of the arrangement.”

  “What arrangement was that?”

  “Darion was to offer aid to the Greenkeep in quelling the ogre infestation which has plagued the Breezewood since the Galyrian Wars.”

  “Your father is employed at the Greenkeep?” Khor asked.

  “One might say so. He is its lord.”

  “You are a daughter of Lord Mirrowell.”

  “You know him, then.”

  “I know of him. I hail from the southern Breakspires. Not for some years now, of course, but it’s where I was raised.”

  She studied the dwarf. “Yes, I see it now. I should’ve recognized you, son of Underhold. You wear your braids like a true southron dwarf. My father has abided your people for many a year. Though you inhabit his lands and do not pay him homage, you’ve held the Neathen Arch against migrating greenskin tribes for years.”

  “We hold the Arch in protection of our home, not to appease the lord of men who lays it claim simply because it falls within the boundaries of his province.”

  “He considers it a service rendered,” said the woman. “Though as an exile from your own people, I don’t see why you should take offense.”

  “An exile? What makes you think—”

  “You and your companions could only have come from the west. There isn’t a settlement for weeks in any other direction. Tell me… how many dwarf-kind live with you in your village by the sea? Fond of sailing, are you? Spend your sunny days swimming at the beaches? Seems to me if I were a dwarf looking to avoid other dwarves, a seaside town is where I’d take up residence.”

  “What if I prefer sea and sunlight to cold and darkness? It would make me different from most of my brethren, but does it make me an outcast?” He paused. “No. Yet somehow you’ve the right of it, for that’s what I am.”

  “While I would not celebrate your banishment, I admit it heartens me. It means there is one among you who can understand the injustice being carried out here. My children have done nothing to earn this treatment. Whatever your intent with my husband and me, spare them from it.”

  Khor raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t entangle me in your plight, mistress. Our province of birth may be the same, but our guises for being found halfway across the world are different, I assure you.”

  She cast him a level gaze. “How did you come to be part of this group?”

  “I joined for the gold.”

  “And you care not that the actions of your friends have resulted in the wrongful death of an innocent boy and a kindhearted man?”

  “Enough of this,” Sullimas broke in. “Madam Mirrowell, your traitor’s tongue betrays you. Was it your husband who taught you to deceive with such elegance?”

  “Was it your king who blinded you to reason?” she spat.

  Sullimas labored to his feet, batting away Norne’s hands when he tried to help. “Had you any sense of reason, you’d answer my question truthfully for your family’s sake.”

  “I haven’t the faintest notion of when my husband will return,” she shouted. “He may be back tomorrow, or he may be another fortnight in coming. The hunt takes as long as it takes.”

  “Best pray it’s the former. We can scarce afford to spend another fortnight in these wretched wilds.”

  “Then don’t. Return to where you came from, and leave us to mourn those we’ve lost.”

  The old vicar’s eyes flashed with anger. “Mark these words, madam, and mark them well. Whenever your husband should return, be sure he receives these two tokens of the king’s justice.” Sullimas indicated the dead boy and the mixed-blood man beside him. “Tell him if he ever wishes to see his daughters again, Olyvard King will accept his confession and his unconditional surrender at the gates of Maergath in no greater than two months’ time. Beyond that, I cannot vouch for their safety.”

  Mistress Mirrowell’s face grew gaunt. She struggled against her bonds. “No. You can’t. You mustn’t take my babies.”

  Sullimas hobbled for the door. “Leave her tied. Bring the girls.”

  Mistress Mirrowell began to shriek. Her two small daughters clung to her dress, but her bonds prevented her from holding on, and Khorigalmünod pried them away screaming. They reached for her while the dwarf lumbered through the doorway, one under each arm. Mistress Mirrowell cursed him, cursed Sullimas, cursed them all.

  Maaltred followed Norne and the others outside, casting one final look at the hysterical woman and the two dead bodies before shutting the cottage door behind him. When they’d all packed their things and were gathered by the fire pit to leave, Maaltred noticed the heaviness of Rochlathan’s patchwork satchel, and that of his friends�
�� packs as well. They’d filched a great deal from these outcasts who possessed little to begin with. Serves them right, Maaltred told himself, though part of him didn’t believe it. And now these two young girls, red-faced and wailing, were being torn from their mother like livestock to be parceled out and sold at market.

  “I trust you found no one else in the other dwellings,” said Sullimas.

  “None,” Roke confirmed.

  “Then we head back.”

  “Toward the coast?” Maaltred asked. “I thought we were to press on through the wilds toward Orothwain.”

  “Plans have changed,” said Sullimas. “I’m in no condition for such a journey. We shall return to Cliffside Harbor and take ship for Dathrond, back the way we came. The king will be well pleased with us should we return the sphere and the hostages to Maergath ahead of schedule.”

  Maaltred was not so sure about that. He was sure about one thing, though—taking another sea voyage was the last thing he wanted. As the forest closed in around them, he was already dreading the thought of another perilous ocean crossing, this time with two young children in tow.

  The rains moved off, though dark brooding clouds stayed behind to hover low overhead. Norne fashioned leashes from two lengths of thick rope and fastened them around the girls’ waists, then tied them off to his belt. Maaltred took the lead with Rochlathan by his side, just as they’d done on the way there. Roke kept track of their bearing while Maaltred held the ironglass sphere in one hand and a parchment page in the other, chanting the sigils of a glading spell he’d copied onto a dry sheet with Norne’s help. The dense vegetation parted to let them through, leaves and branches bowing low or spreading aloft to admit splashes of gloomy gray light through the forest canopy.

  Maaltred felt ill at ease about leaving the hamlet without the Warcaster in custody. Should the traitor return in time to make pursuit, he and his outlaw band might catch them up before they could reach the coast. The idea of being followed made the forest’s thick greenery all the spookier, and Maaltred spent tiresome days and sleepless nights in fear of the ghost he was certain was on their heels. If the stories he’d heard about Darion Ulther were true, he shivered to imagine how the man might react to the murder of a son and the theft of two daughters.