Child of Fate

by Jason Halstead

  “Most farmers do. Leander is the patron of growth. The saint stands for much more than that, though.”

  “What else is there?”

  Ahead, they could hear Kar groan. Karthor grinned and shook his head at his father’s antics. “Leander stands for the light of truth and honesty. Revelation of secrets and deception. Strength in the face of darkness and defense of the innocent.”

  “All of that? I never knew,” Alto admitted, impressed.

  “Aye, and there’s more. My order has greater powers against those who have forsaken the daylight and turned to necromancy.”

  “Necro-what?”

  “If you’re going to educate him, at least do it right!” Kar spouted. He wheeled his horse about, making William cry out as his own steed shied away from Kar’s. “Necromancy is a foul art. It harnesses evil forces and can drain the life of a person.”

  “What does that have to do with Leander?” Alto asked.

  Kar began to mutter something but Karthor’s rising voice overrode his father. “The power of Leander is attuned to goodness and light. Necromancy is dark and evil; it cannot long survive in the light. Leander’s servants can wield the power of light to purge the evil.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Well, I have a limited ability right now,” Karthor admitted. Kar let a scornful laugh slip out. Karthor frowned and added, “I’m learning more and proving myself to the church, which in turn allows the church to teach me more.”

  Kar spat to the side. “Don’t serve the church; that’s no better than serving a tyrant. If you must chase such foolish things, serve the Divine itself.”

  Karthor sighed and made to respond but Alto beat him to it. “I don’t understand, what’s the difference?”

  “At last! There’s hope for today’s youth yet!” Kar cried out. “Men hunger for power, Alto. All men do, though we claim it’s for greater causes. The church of Leander, or any other church, is run by men, not saints or the Allfather. They seek restrictions and constraints to keep people in line. It justifies their positions and keeps them in power.”

  “What of the king?”

  “Ah ha, you see this, Tristam? You’ve finally found a boy with brains!” Kar lowered his voice and turned back to Alto and Karthor. “The king is a man, always remember that. Royalty is no exception, but royalty is burdened with responsibility. They have no divine right, no matter what they say. Well, I suppose that’s not true in the case of lands ruled by an oligarchy, but that’s a lesson for another day. Any normal king must know that his reign only lasts as long as his subjects will abide it.”

  “What of the king’s armies?”

  “They are soldiers but remember they are also men that will grow tired with an unfit king as quick as the commoners.”

  Alto thought about the wizard’s words and found them making sense. Rebellion against King Harold went against everything he knew, but he’d been raised to believe the king’s law was good and, as far as he could tell, it was.

  “Kar, leave the boy alone a bit. He’s to be thinking of his training if he wants to impress me!” Tristam said.

  Kar shoved his pipe in his mouth and chewed on it in annoyance. He offered Alto a shrug and rode forward beside William again. Karthor offered Alto a smirk after his father left them.

  “He’ll talk you into a corner if you’re not careful,” Karthor said.

  “He seems wise enough,” Alto said, picking his words carefully.

  “Wise? To some extent. There’s no denying he’s one of the smartest men I’ve ever come across.”

  “Aren’t they the same thing?”

  Karthor smiled and shook his head. “I wish it were, my friend. I wish it were.”

  Alto reflected on Karthor’s words as they lapsed into silence and rode the morning away.

  * * * *

  “Prepare yourself, Alto, today the easy work is done,” Tristam told him as they broke camp two mornings later.

  Alto fought the urge to chuckle. It had been anything but easy so far. He was saddle sore from riding and he’d done the brunt of the work setting up tents and breaking them down, not to mention the firewood he’d cut and hauled both nights. Hard work was what he’d built his life on; he knew better than to speak back, but at least on the farm it had been split evenly amongst the family.

  “Today we’ve the unenviable task of riding and waiting for the gobs to attack us,” Tristam continued. “Lace your armor well and keep your sword loose in your scabbard.”

  Tristam paused and turned to fully appraise the young man. “You’re no cook’s monkey, that’s for sure, but you’ve done us great service so far. Prove we’ve not wasted our time on you.”

  “I will,” Alto vowed.

  Tristam nodded. “Good. Now if I were you, I’d stick with your bow. You can shoot an arrow on the run?”

  Alto nodded. Food was harder to come by on the farm as the winter stores ran empty. He’d done his share of hunting squirrel, rabbit, wolf, deer, moose, and even helped his father quarter and bring back a moose once. Squirrel and rabbit were the hardest, but he’d learned how to hunt them.

  “Aye, well a goblin on the run is much the same; there’s no predicting how they’ll run. How you shoot them, though, that’s what matters. If you’ve a line of warriors set to take them, aim for the ones in the rear so the ones in the front don’t know you’re picking off their mates. If it’s just you, shoot the ones at the front first so the others trip over their dead or at least see you’re not to be trifled with. They might rout.”

  “I never knew there was strategy to killing goblins,” Alto admitted.

  “Lad, there’s a strategy to everything in life! Take that lass at the Foaming Mug. Making her wait was a good thing; it builds up her appreciation of you. She’ll think you must be important if you’ve been too busy to visit. That’s one of many tricks to winning her heart. Or at least winning her affections!” Tristam chuckled at his own ribald humor.

  Alto blushed and worked on tightening the ties on the bundles of tents before he began loading them on the horses. Tristam moved off while Alto finished his job. The farm boy suppressed a groan as he climbed onto Sebas, and then made sure his bow and his quiver of arrows were in reach and ready.

  A handful of moments later, Tristam bade them move out and onto the northern trail. They were less than half a day’s travel from the Northern Divide Mountains. Beyond the mountains there was only tundra and wild lands, but the mountains themselves were said to host everything from goblins to giants. Rumor held that in years long past, even dragons had soared from the mountains to steal the cattle and sheep of ranchers, and sometimes the ranchers themselves!

  “Remember to mark your foes well. The Kelgryn people to the east wear the same furs and look the same, too!” Gerald called out to a mixture of laughter.

  Alto’s eyes widened. He’d heard of the Kelgryn but never seen one. He turned to Karthor and whispered, “I’d heard the Kelgryn were the same as us?”

  Karthor chuckled. “They are, but Gerald’s right that they often wear hides. Along the shores of the ocean, they’re exposed to the cold water and winds. They make their living off the seas more than they do off the land. You’ll never see one as short as a gob though, unless it’s a child.”

  “Why would Gerald say such things?”

  “In jest. Most people have little exposure to the Kelgryn. They stick to themselves unless they’re raiding.”

  “Raiding?”

  “Yes, they will sail far and wide to raid coastal villages.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “It can be, but they haven’t sailed in Kingdom waters for ages.”

  “That doesn’t excuse them,” Alto said.

  Karthor shrugged. “I’m of the same mind as you, my friend, but you’ve already seen the world is a bigger place.”

  Alto stared at him with a furrowed brow. “A bigger place? Bigger than what?”

  Karthor chuckled. “I mean you’ve seen city life in Po
rtland; it’s busier and more crowded than you once thought possible. People live in ways you hadn’t imagined.”

  Alto grunted at the truth of Karthor’s statement.

  “For the Kelgryn, they have different beliefs still,” Karthor said. “To them, raiding is acceptable. It’s a way of life. They even raid their own sister cities.”

  Alto gasped. “To what point? Why not trade for it? Why kill for something they could get peacefully?”

  Karthor shrugged. “Such is their way, not ours.”

  Alto fell silent and sought to make sense of the strange concept. The Kelgryn were only a couple of days’ travel from his father’s farm but they’d seldom talked about them. His world was growing larger.

  “Pay attention back there,” Tristam called out. “We’ve come far enough into the northern reaches. If we’re to find them, they’ll be on us today.”

  Alto pursed his lips and cast his eyes about, looking for any signs of the goblins. He berated himself for not paying better attention, but that did little to pass the time or end the torture of not knowing when the raiders might appear.

  The small company rode on in silence. Their only sounds were the occasional whicker of a horse, the creak of leather, the muffled clink of metal, and the regular cadence of shod hooves striking the hard-packed ground. Mist rose from the ground and burned off in the morning sun. The grasses were short and overrun with weeds and northern wildflowers. Alto wasn’t sure where the raiders were supposed to come from; the ground was flat for miles to either side. Ahead, the ground rose to hills and mountains in the distance.

  They rode through the day, passing a single caravan bound for the south as the sun dipped in the western sky. “Late for a merchant to be headed south,” Karthor observed after they’d passed it.

  Alto turned in his saddle to look behind them. Already the last wagon was fading into the pre-dusk gloom. He turned back. “You suspect something?”

  Karthor chuckled. “The minds of merchants are dangerous things to guess,” he said. “Could be he’s eager to sell his wares or perhaps he’s heard a tip to get a better price?”

  “Or he might be hoping to escape the raiders,” William offered over his shoulder. “Raiders that lie just ahead of us, chasing them.”

  Alto jerked in his saddle. He lifted himself up, standing in his stirrups to see over his companions. The road ahead was as desolate as before. He sat down and saw William’s shoulders shaking as he laughed silently at Alto.

  “What’s ahead of us, anyhow?” Alto asked Karthor as quietly as he could. Curious as he was, he didn’t want to risk being reminded again of the need to be quiet.

  “Highpeak,” Karthor said. “It’s the northernmost city in the Kingdom. The people that live there are mostly soldiers, miners, and the merchants needed to support them. It’s a small city but they’ve got iron and silver.”

  Alto turned again to look behind him. The caravan was long gone now. He frowned and turned back to the north.

  “What is it?” Karthor asked.

  “You’re wondering why the wagons were in such a rush and the guards and merchants unwilling to talk?” Kar asked, surprising both of them. The wizard had dropped his horse back to be near them. “And you’re wondering why there’s been no attack when all we’ve heard is that the gobs have been raiding everything.”

  Alto nodded in spite of the heat in his cheeks.

  “No need to be embarrassed, my boy; you’ve a sharp mind hidden behind the bales of hay in your ears,” the wizard said. “In a moment, we’ll know.”

  “What will we know?”

  “The why of it.”

  Alto turned to Karthor, his lips parted in an unasked question.

  “Blackwing?” Karthor asked.

  Kar nodded and favored Alto with a wink.

  “What’s a Blackwing?” the farm boy asked.

  “My father’s familiar.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll see,” Karthor said.

  Tristam stopped the company and they waited while Kar refilled his pipe and lit it. He puffed smoke into the sky while the others lifted their heads and scanned the skies around them. Alto looked from one man to the next before searching the skies himself. He thought to open his mouth and ask what they were doing but Karthor’s promise that he’d see kept echoing in his mind.

  He turned back to Kar; the wizard had encouraged his questions and words up till now. He hadn’t even made fun of him or laughed at him for them. He opened his mouth to ask when he saw a black shape diving straight down from the sky toward Kar. “Look out!”

  Several oaths followed as the members of the Blades of Leander turned to see what Alto was pointing at. The black streak stopped in midair, wings unfolding and flapping to halt its descent. It was a bird, solid black and larger than any crow Alto had ever seen.

  “Ha, I told you this boy’s got potential!” Kar cried out as the raven landed on his outstretched forearm. “Gads bird, you’ve eaten a full meal too many! Now go fly north and tell me what you see.”

  “Here,” Karthor said, holding out a clenched fist to Alto.

  “What?” Alto stammered. He stared at Kar and then the raven as it spread its wings and rose back into the sky. A few more flaps and it soared off to the north, climbing into the sky as rapidly as its shadow crossed the ground beneath it.

  “Blackwing’s my familiar,” Kar explained. “The bird’s too heavy to ride on my shoulder so they’ve got a bet going. First one to see him wins.”

  “Wins what?” Alto asked.

  Karthor shook his fist and cleared his throat. Alto reached out with his open palm up and had a gold piece dropped in it. The others followed suit, most tossing them to Alto when he was ready. Alto stared at the small fortune in his palm. Three days with the Blades of Leander and already he held more wealth in his hand than he’d ever possessed.

  “I still don’t understand what a familiar is. What good will sending a pet to the north do?” Alto asked after he slipped the coins into one of his saddlebags.

  “He’s more than a pet,” Kar explained. “I share a magical bond with him. That means he understands me and I him.”

  Alto’s lips fell open. “You can talk to birds?”

  Kar sighed. “Don’t make me take all those things back about you,” he snapped. “Just Blackwing because of the spell that summoned him to me.”

  “Oh, so you sent him north to scout ahead?”

  “There you go!”

  “Why north? Why not south, to the caravan that passed us?”

  “Because we don’t care about that, do we?”

  “We don’t?”

  “Hardly,” Kar said. He waited until Alto was ready to burst with questions before he spoke again. “We want to know why they’d leave in such a rush.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll be the third to know,” Kar said. He nodded to the north where Blackwing was already flying back toward them. The bird landed on Kar’s arm several minutes later and then started to croak and caw at him.

  Alto winced at the painful sounds coming from the bird. When he finished, Kar nodded and then told him to go home. He threw his arm into the air, giving him a boost, and then turned to the others.

  “Highpeak’s been sacked,” Kar said. “There’s smoke in the sky and still some fires that burn. No signs of life, though.”

  Tristam swore and announced, “Come, we ride!”

  “Where?” Alto asked as Tristam put his boots to his horse to spur him forward. “The caravan?”

  “Enough with the fool caravan,” Kar snapped. “That’s just a clue, boy. It served its purpose. The true mystery lies ahead of us.”

  “What’s the mystery?” Alto asked as he put his heels to Sebas.

  “What happened to Highpeak and why.”

  Alto thought it over as they rode. Their horses moved at a trot, sending bolts of pain through Alto’s muscles every half second as Sebas’s hooves hit the ground. The sky darkened as the paces turned
to miles beneath them. Alto kept looking to the side and behind them. He expected an attack out of the darkness at any moment.

  The dark skies made the smoke from Highpeak impossible to see but the fires that still burned lit the town well enough to show them the way. They slowed as they rode in and began to make out the first signs of violence.

  “Light!” Tristam called out.

  Alto scrambled with one of the packs on his horse. A minute later, he pulled out a torch and balanced it across his saddle while he struck flint to steel. By the time it caught and he held it up, he saw that William and Gerald also held torches high. Karthor’s holy symbol emitted a glow that rivaled their torches.

  Blackwing had reported no life but the bird hadn’t mentioned the dead. Bodies littered the landscape, some burned and others hacked apart. Glowing eyes stared at them from the darkness. Scavengers had come for dinner when the sun set.

  Alto loosened the broadsword at his side as they approached the burnt and broken gates. At night, his bow would do little good; he could only hope he’d learned as much as he needed to with the blade.

  Chapter 4

  “How long?” Tristam asked.

  Kar walked amongst the wreckage just inside the main gate. He knelt down next to a smashed-in door that led to the guardhouse, and then rose. “Not today, last night perhaps.”

  “Then who was in those wagons?” Alto blurted without thinking.

  Kar turned to look at him, as did the others. “Who indeed,” the wizard said. He turned and glanced at them all. “Anyone? Come, there must be some ideas? Some guesses?”

  “Wizard, we don’t have time for your lessons!” Tristam snapped.

  “Do you have an idea then?” Kar turned and leveled his dark-eyed gaze on the warrior.

  “Looters,” Alto ventured.

  “Perhaps,” Kar said. He winked at Alto. “There were four wagons, three of them covered and the fourth with tarps across it. How many men could fit in wagons such as those?”