The Crooked Knight (The Path of Zaan Book 2)

by C. K. Rieke

“I’ve been thinking that over,” she said, with a wry smile. “You may not like my idea.”

  “What? I can’t be that bad, I mean, compared to what we have been through.”

  “Well . . .” Her smile grew. “By now, I’m sure all of Essill has gotten word of the dragons of Riverend returning to Barrier Cliff.”

  Zaan gave Tilda a curious eye. “And?”

  “It’s people’s natural instinct to want to place blame,” she said, looking at Zaan in a way that made him feel uneasy. “And is there one citizen of Barrier Cliff that has become vastly popular over the last recent months?”

  “Okay, spit it out,” he said spitefully.

  “Everyone is going to be looking for Zaan Talabard who is tall with the long black hair,” she said, trying to fight the widening grin. Zaan took a tip of his hair and held it out in front of his face.

  “Is that really necessary?” he asked.

  “Yes!” Tilda yelled out and stood up as she pulled up on the stick and line, bringing up a long golden fish with a green stripe out onto the rocky bank.

  ***

  The scent of fresh, smoky fish skin wafted in the air as Zaan watched the flesh drip with moist juices onto the coals, making the scene all that much more aromatic. He watched as Tilda licked her lips. He, and Tilda, had not had a warm meal in days, although he’d lost all his appetite, he knew his body needed nourishment.

  Zaan and Tilda sat facing the fire. They still sat at the banks of the Rangk River, which glistened in the moonlight. The winds blew and made the endless fields of grass roll like a silk sheet in the wind. This gave Zaan a nostalgic feeling of sitting at his parent’s house, watching the fields in Fur-lol. He looked at his father’s compass, and felt for his mother’s letter.

  Tilda sat, and while they both waited for their two fish to completely cook through, she braided her hair into small braids. One after another, she delicately and expertly produced them with little effort. Zaan looked up at her while she did this. He wore his dark hood over his head and it hovered above his eye line.

  He reached up and ran his fingers under the hood, and they felt his smooth, bald head. Looking over, he noticed her smiling at him. “You enjoyed shaving my head a little too much,” he said.

  “Just trying to enjoy something in all this gloom,” she said, and lay on her side. Her hair fell onto the soft grass next to the rushing river.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  WARM sunlight crept into the small encampment, where the three of them had managed to get as much sleep as they could gather. Gar was up gathering kindling and firewood, as Zelestiana checked in on Astor’s wound. With the amount of rest he was able to gather in the forest, Astor had garnered a warmer complexion in his face. He smiled up at Zelestiana while she put a fresh bandage around his midsection.

  “Thank you,” he said to her warmly.

  She smiled up at him. “You will heal just fine.” She gave the bandaging a quick tap and sat back on a log by the side of their soon-to-be fire pit. Gar stumbled over haphazardly with his arms brimming full of wood of various sizes.

  “Is it safe to build a fire?” he asked as he dropped the wood next to the dug out pit he had made an hour before.

  “Let’s keep it a small one to be safe,” Zelestiana said. “I doubt they will be looking this far out for us. If they are, it’d be hard to spot us through the thick leaves.”

  Gar sighed with relief, and set to building the kindling in the center of the pit. “It’ll be good to get warm, that’s for sure.” He looked over at Astor, who gave a slight grin. “You look better.”

  “I feel a bit better, as you said, it will be nice to be warm though.” He pulled up a light blanket over his legs and nestled back into a thick, gnarled tree trunk.

  Gar lit the flint, and the small fire crackled and hissed. A light amount of smoke arose from the pit, and he blew delicately at the base of the fire. “There we go.” He blew again, and the flames shot up into the makings of a warm fire. Gar ran over and grabbed bigger logs and rested them on the foundation of the pyramid of kindling. Zelestiana’s eyes glowed as she watched the flames.

  “What is it Zelestiana?” Astor asked, peering over at her.

  “We need to find the children,” she said, watching the flames grow larger. A concerned look fell over Gar’s face. He looked over at her. “We need to find them today.”

  Gar sat there, looking at the fire then, contemplating. “And then what?” he asked. “Where do we go?”

  Astor took a stick and poked at the fire. “We either try to take back Barrier Cliff, or . . . we find a new home.”

  Zelestiana stayed there, staring into the flames. Gar thought she looked determined, or just deep in thought. “Going back is not an option,” she said as Gar and Astor looked at her. She looked deeply into the fire. “At least not yet.”

  They sat there in silence, as it if were a moment of mourning for those who had fallen in the battle of Barrier Cliff. Gar placed two more logs on the fire. “Where will we go? I mean, after we find the children?”

  Astor and Zelestiana sat, looking into the fire, and then up into the sky. “We could hide in the forest, but that would be difficult. Weather and food are the main concerns then. The nearest town is Tarluus, but that is no place for children.” He sat and rubbed at his chin. “What about Holdenbrook?”

  “Where is Holdenbrook?” Gar asked.

  “It’s directly south of Barrier Cliff, past the Cascades that separate Barrier Cliff from the rest of the lands of Essill,” Astor said. “It’s a smaller farming town, with hospitable people, and plenty of fresh food.” Astor looked over at Zelestiana, waiting for her to chime in.

  She looked over at him. “That is our best course of action.”

  “Okay, so how do we find the children?” Gar asked.

  “We won’t, they will find us,” she responded quickly.

  “How will they . . . ?” Gar began to ask, then he looked at the fire, and the smoke rising into the sky. “I gotcha.”

  ***

  She climbed a sturdy oak tree to get a sense of the layout of the forest. Lily had often traveled this forest for fun, but this was an area she had not traversed. Looking around, she saw the sloping knolls and valleys of the forest, and through the thick foliage she noticed the lack of wildlife that would have been normal, had there not been dragons in the distance. Surely they’d run off when the dragons came.

  A faint whiff of smoke came across her nostrils, and her head whipped north. There she saw the thin strands of fire’s smoke wafting up from the tree line. She climbed down the oak quickly and nimbly. Once she reached the base of the tree, she went over to one of the elders, who sat waiting. Reaching over, she gently grabbed his shoulder, and turned him away from the children so they could not hear. “There is a small fire to the north, about a half mile away. I am going to go check it out. You stay right here? Okay?” The elder nodded in approval. He turned back to the group and whispered to one of the mothers, who whispered it on to the others. The two dozen children sat in a circle, surrounded by the adults.

  Lily ran delicately through the woods, carefully avoiding any branches that would break under the weight of her feet, and alert any unwanted attention. She jumped over fallen trees, and quickly ducked under hanging, thorny vines. She made the half mile trek in short time, and climbed another tree to gain a vantage point to check out the people who had made the fire before she entered the camp. A voice yelled in the distance.

  “It’s us. You can come down.” She quickly recognized the voice as her friend Gar’s. With an ear-to-ear smile, she climbed quickly down the tree and ran to the campfire.

  As she approached closer, Gar ran over to her and they met with a strong embrace. Tears formed in Lily’s eyes, and she began to cry. “You are okay. Thank God.”

  “It’s good to see you too,” Gar said, smiling.

  Lily looked over her shoulder at Zelestiana and Astor by the fire. “It sure is
good to see you as well.” She went over and hugged Zelestiana, who was not expecting it, but returned the embrace.

  As she ran over to Astor, he put his hands out in front him and warned her, “Not too hard now,” as he smiled up at her. They softly embraced each other.

  Then they all stayed there for a moment, all anticipating someone else to ask first. Gar was the first one to ask what they all had been thinking, “Who is with you? Who made it out?”

  “The children and elders are safe, and the mothers,” she said.

  Gar laid heavy eyes on her, “What of Stave?”

  “He is there too,” Lily replied. Gar’s shoulders relaxed, and he sighed in relief.

  “Where are they?” Zelestiana asked, and she stood up, her long, black hair blew behind her.

  Lily pointed back the direction she had come. “About a half mile back that way.”

  Astor put his hand up, asking for assistance to stand. Zelestiana locked arms with him, and helped him up. He put both palms out and looked at her. “I can walk,” he said. She assumed he was reassuring himself of that statement. “Lily, have you seen any of the others? Tilda, Zaan? Mäezer Palanzal, or Elindrill?” Lily shook her head no. “What of the Major? Or the surviving soldiers?” She lowered her head and shook it no again.

  “We will find them,” Zelestiana said. “First thing’s first— Take us to the children.”

  They walked briskly back to the huddle of children, surrounded by the adults. Some of the elders began to sob at the sight of Zelestiana. She had been their strength, and protector for many years, and the sight of her battered and worn, reminded them of their lost home, family and friends. The children stood as they approached, silently, watching their protectors walk over the hill and down towards them.

  Stave stood out from the crowd and walked slowly forward, and Gar ran down the hill and hugged him with a strong embrace. Astor limped down the hill and walked into the crowd, and a group of the mothers and elders took him and lay him down on soft sheets to check his wounds. Zelestiana stood there with Lily, eyeing over the crowd of people. “How many are there?” Zelestiana asked.

  “Fifty-seven. That’s with the twenty-six children,” Lily said, as she looked up to Zelestiana at her side, who looked as strong as an ox, and as fiery as a demon. A look of rage shot into Zelestiana’s eyes, and she gripped her sword so tightly, Lily thought she might snap the hilt from the blade.

  “They are going to pay,” Zelestiana said, clenching her teeth. “Those demons are not going to get away with this.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  HE had never felt the cool winds bite at his skull like that before. Even the feeling of the breeze blowing on his cleanly shorn face felt strange. He ran both hands over his head and back as they left the dark waters of the Rangk behind them. Tilda and he took off their boots and laid them out in the warm sun to dry. They had found a shallow section of the river to cross, but the cold water reached further above the knees than they cared for.

  As they sat after their short walk from the river, they looked out to the east at the caps of the high towers of Dillengrad. “What is the city like, Tilda? You said it would be a good place for us to hide. Why?”

  She looked down at the ground, and the soft grass. She began to tie blades of grass into knots, and let them drift down in the breeze. “As with any monumentally old city, you have the very rich, and the poor . . . and the very poor. The sad truth is, the really poor, who are hungry almost all of the time, are not only neglected by society, they are forgotten.”

  Zaan dressed his wound with a freshly dried cloth, he almost keeled over from the pain, but she caught him. “I feel like I’m fading, Tilda. The pain is getting worse.”

  “I know, hang in there, we’ll get you to someone who can help you. I do fear that even with your new look, they’ll be looking for you. King Manice Mordoth there is ruthlessly greedy and corrupt. With the price on your head already from Auracity, they’ll sure to be on watch.”

  “Isn’t that where Gogenanth had to go through when he came over from the Arr in the East?” Zaan asked.

  “I don’t think he would like me telling his life’s tale, but no, he didn’t arrive in Dillengrad. He actually traveled from the Arr to the Worforgon in the south. Rumors are he was a general in an army down there, although I believe he had a rough time of it.” Tilda looked up at the sky, and held one of her long braids in her hands. “Why don’t you ask him yourself, when all of this is over?”

  “You think he’s still alive?” Zaan asked somberly. One of those two figures hung up in Barrier Cliff could’ve been him. Where are you, Gogenanth? I could use your help right about now.

  “I truly hope he’s alive. If anyone in the world could have stood his ground against that devil and all those monsters back there, it would’ve been him. I just hope he can hold his own long enough for our strength to re-gather, and figure out an effort to help him if he needs it.”

  Zaan winced, and reached over and felt the wetness of his boots, they seemed to be dry enough for him to squeeze one on his foot. He yelled out in pain as he put both boots on. “Let’s get on with it then.”

  ***

  Dillengrad came more and more into view as their long walk progressed across the long, grassy fields that stretched from the Rangk, eastward, towards the city. It stood in the direct center between the Rangk and the Elden Sea. Both waterways could be seen on either side of its high walls and towers. Especially the main tower in the center, that tapered up towards the sky from its wide base. The walls of the city were almost a perfect square, and looked impervious to attack, it was a true castle, fifty times the size of Barrier Cliff.

  The city seemed to be an impenetrable fortress. Where Barrier Cliff had its height up on the cliffs, and the tall, slick rock, Dillengrad was built to withstand an attack from every side on the flat plains. Guards roamed the high walls by the dozens, and large catapults and towers held massive crossbows.

  Tilda and Zaan went to the edge of a large rolling knoll, and as they peered over the top, rows upon rows of formed battalions were marching in place. They moved in unison with their weapons at the sounds of a single voice’s commands. They looked like an orchestrated group of toy soldiers down on the long field, wound up and synced in their movements. Tilda looked over at Zaan, and motioned for them to make their long way around the battalion and make for an arched entrance to the front gate. They crept back behind the knoll, and followed the curve of it until it came to the road that led to the front gate.

  “Ugh, last time I had to go through guards to a city like this . . . it is not a fond memory.” Zaan said, remembering when Gogenanth and he had been chased and captured by the guards of Barrier Cliff. It seemed Tilda could tell he was anxious, even with his new appearance.

  She grabbed him by the hand, and made him face her. Her fingers grabbed the front of his collar of his shirt and buttoned the top button into place. She let her hands glide along his chest, pressing the wrinkles out of his shirt. Zaan tried to hide his pain, and felt uneasy about this contact. He was reminded of Lily, and his stomach ached at the thought of her fate. Lily, where are you now? I pray to the gods you haven’t been taken, that’d be too much for me to take. Thank the lords that Tilda is here, I’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for her.

  “Now, there you go. You look like a new man.” She looked up at his pale, white head. “So what is your name going to be?” He gave her a puzzling look. “Is there a name you ever wanted to be called?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “No. Why would anybody ever want a different name?”

  She stood back from him, crossed her arms, and raised a hand to her face, laying her thumb on her chin, and her index finger at the corner of her mouth. “How about . . . Tyler?” she asked, trying to hide a smirk.

  “Tyler? What the hell kind of name is Tyler?” He didn’t find the name as intriguing as Tilda apparently did.

  “Tyler Talabard. Sounds good doesn’t
it?” She waited for his response when she said this, and she only received a dull glare. Giving a brief flutter of laughter, she then stopped, so as not to perturb Zaan further. “What then?”

  Zaan looked up at the castle. “How about something like—” He tried to think of something he might like. He thought of his old best friend Oscar, but all that brought back were grieving thoughts for his dog who’d passed. He needed something that reminded him of something he was fond of, something that maybe even reminded him of home. Then his memory went back to that night, so long ago on the New Omne Road with the solitary rider who stuck out her hand, flashed her bright lights into Zaan’s mind, and changed his life forever. “What is the male equivalent to the name Jonji?”

  Tilda tilted her head, and gave a smile, remembering her friend. “Janos,” she said.

  Zaan laughed, coughing as he did. “Well, I guess it was just meant to be. Janos it is. That’s my father’s name.”

  “Okay, Janos.” She then began walking towards the gate of the castle. Six guards stood at attention at the opened front gate, and many others loomed on the high walls. There were ten or twelve more directly above the gate, and too many to count quickly atop the wall itself.

  They approached cautiously as two guards came out to meet them. One wore a yellow feather on top of his helmet. He walked out with his hands at his sides, the other with his sword and shield at his. “Dillengrad bids thee welcome,” the figure with the plume said firmly, and he gave the slightest bow of his head, not letting his eyes fall, but examining their weapons and belongings. “May I have your names, your origins, and your intentions with our fair city?”

  Tilda removed one of her gloves, held up her hand to chest level, and faced her palm towards the guards. “I am Tilda Hildenbred. I was born and raised in Vallenhalen, and I seek gainful opportunity in your city. I am a skilled forger and armorer.” The guard gave her a slight nod, scribbled down her information on stiff parchment and she lowered her hand. She looked over at Zaan and gave him a nod.