The Emissary (Dawn of Heroes Book 1)

by H. A. Harvey

  “Alright. Tombo, nielu.”

  Rowan listened as the hampan nestled down to rest, then felt his way slowly forward until he found soft fur. He worked along the long simian limb to find Tombo’s head. Then he gave his friend a pat on the head and sat down against the beast’s broad, soft shoulder. It wasn’t long before Rowan felt himself dozing, though it was hard to tell if his eyes were open or closed. Riona’s voice woke him as her hands gently shook his shoulder.

  “Rowan, wake up! You have to see this!”

  Rowan opened his eyes and was dazzled by thousands of soft, violet lights. The lights seemed to emanate from small mushrooms growing along the lower trunks of the ash trees, and ran in all directions as far as the eye could see. David lay snoring against Tombo’s large belly. As Rowan considered rousing him, Riona walked over to the closest tree.

  “These are so beautiful.” Riona murmured as she reached out toward the glowing fungus, “I could have sworn there wasn’t anything growing on these trunks.”

  “Wait, Riona, don’t touch them!” Suddenly, Riona’s words sank in and drowsiness was banished. Rowan leapt up and barely managed to snatch her hand back in time. “They weren’t . . . well they were but we couldn’t see them.”

  “What’s wrong, Ro?” Riona was understandably puzzled. “You sound almost scared.”

  Rowan roused David, “C’mon, get up. We’re going.”

  The confused duo followed Rowan for several minutes in silence.

  “Wait, Ro.” David called out suddenly, “I think those are our tracks going that way.”

  “We can’t trust the tracks.” Rowan answered. “We came in Clockward, the moss on trees should grow Spireward, so we’ll try to use that to get out.”

  “Rowan, what’s wrong?” Riona tried again to get information. “What are these mushrooms?”

  “You were right, Riona, we haven’t been alone in here.” Rowan tried to do his best to explain, but checking his progress, he seemed to almost invariably drift right or left whenever he stopped focusing on checking the moss every few steps. “They’re called Queen’s Bells. They’re like the stars, dormant during the day while the gates are open, but they shine at night on their own. I’ve never seen them before but I’ve heard enough to know we have to get out of here now, if we can.”

  “You’re starting to scare her, Ro.” David admonished him, not sounding entirely free of fear himself. “Why are we running from mushrooms?”

  “For one thing, they put off this dust that muddles your brain.” Rowan answered sharply, “For another, they’re only supposed to grow where a fairy queen keeps her court.”

  “Wait, we were out here sneaking past dragons, but running away from fairies?” Riona seemed to be suppressing a giggle. “I’ve always wanted to meet a fairy.”

  Rowan stopped and turned to Riona so suddenly that she nearly tumbled into him. “That’s because you live miles from any forest and only hear whimsical stories about them granting wishes and other nonsense. Fairies are dangerous, even when they’re trying to be nice they always get carried away and it never ends up good. They have all these rules they don’t tell anyone, but punish harshly if they’re broken. Look I’ve never met one myself, and I’ve always considered that a good thing. From what I’ve heard, all the fairies in any given wilderness answer to a queen. They’re supposed to be like a well of elemental power, and they get stronger the longer their heartlands are undisturbed. This forest is ancient beyond anything any of us have ever heard of.” Rowan turned to continue, but paused. He couldn’t for the life of him remember which way they had been going. He struggled to remember how he’d been so sure of their direction before. It had been something to do with the trees . . . but they all looked the same.

  “Ro?” David asked, eyeing the soft purple mushrooms nervously, “You’ve convinced me at least, let’s keep moving.”

  “I can’t remember the way.” Rowan admitted bitterly.

  The three friends stood looking down different paths between the trees. They all looked inviting. Each seemed like the right way to go, but then looking at the next way, it seemed more familiar than the last.

  “Rowan?” Riona called to him quietly. “Which way do you think we were going?”

  “I told you, I don’t KNOW!” Rowan felt bad for shouting at the pretty blonde girl, but he was trying to focus on something and he wasn’t comfortable with strangers who knew his name.

  “If you had to guess,” She pressed, “Which way do you feel like we should go? Just guess.”

  “This way feels right.”

  “David, do you agree?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s a good pick.” David nodded. “Wait, why are we picking?”

  “I think so too,” Riona nodded, looking at the trail Rowan had indicated, then turned on her heels and tugged the men along by their elbows. “So we’re going this way.”

  Rowan was too confused to argue. He followed along as the comely girl lead him eagerly along through the scenic woodland. This must be his lucky night, finding such a fetching lass to sneak off for a tryst in the woods. She certainly was eager, almost dragging him through the woods to some secluded spot she must know. Rowan pondered for a moment if he should be worried about a girl that had a favorite spot picked out. As he pondered, his eyes explored her alluring figure and he decided she probably wasn’t that kind of girl. It must just be a favorite quiet spot to sit and think. He hoped she didn’t try to get him to say her name, he couldn’t seem to remember it. They moved out of the strangely lit section of trees and started passing nothing but dark trunks. Still, enough light shone from behind them that he could still see well enough. Apparently, his pretty little guide wasn’t quite as skillful in the dark and she tripped on the roots under her feet. She tumbled headlong onto the ground and Rowan decided to be coy and pretend to be dragged after her. He stumbled after and landed atop her as someone went stumbling by them in the shadows.

  “Haha! Looks like I’m gonna win.” The man called behind him as he ran through the trees. “Next time pick up yer feet!”

  Rowan blinked a moment in confusion. Had they been racing? He smiled down at his blonde companion. Whoever he’d been running against missed the real prize. The poor girl looked like she had knocked her head on another root. She blinked in confusion and rubbed a reddened mark on her head, seeming to have lost track of where she was. Rowan leaned down to remind her with a vigorous kiss. Just as he was really starting to enjoy the kiss and tug at the strings of her corseted top, she pushed him up and broke the embrace.

  “Rowan, wait!” She whispered, “We’re out of the dust. We’re almost there!”

  “We don’t have to wait for your special spot.” Rowan murmured as he kissed her neck and shifted from her loosened top to unfastening his belt. “Or we can end up there too, if you like.”

  “Shake it off Rowan, come on!”

  The little minx was starting to frustrate him with her games. She wasn’t going to back out now after dragging him out into the middle of who knows where. She seemed to reconsider after a moment’s thought and leaned up to kiss him back. She smiled oddly at him as he ran his hands up under her shirt and felt the smooth curve of her supple breasts.

  “Rowan, I’m really sorry about this.” She murmured.

  “That’s alright sweetie, you came around.” Rowan smiled back. Then, the world exploded in white light as the deceitful bitch drove her knee into his groin. Rowan crumpled in agony as Riona rolled him off of her and scurried to her feet.

  “I’m so sorry Rowan . . . please tell me that worked.” Riona gasped, “I just thought, it must have been the fall that brought me around.”

  “Nnnhgh.” Was all that Rowan could manage for several moments. When he finally felt he could catch his breath, he coughed painfully before trying again. “It worked . . . but I wish you’d tried a headbutt or something.”

 
“I didn’t think of that.” Riona admitted, “But fairy dust or not, you kinda had that coming.”

  Rowan thought about laughing, but really didn’t feel like it. He nodded and held out a hand. “Help me up, please. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

  Riona helped Rowan to his feet and helped him limp along the darkened pathway. Rowan called out stray roots and branches for her, and together, they made their way out of the grove. As they approached the outer ring, they found David in the midst of the brogan, who parted around the wild man apprehensively. He was dancing about and hooting loudly, tossing the last few pieces of his clothing into the trees.

  “Alright, maybe fairy dust was a bit of an excuse.” Riona confessed, “For a second there, I could have sworn I was a deer. Let’s wake him up before he does something really regrettable.”

  Rowan did laugh this time and hobbled over to David. Riona dropped a little behind as Rowan stepped up to David, who hopped around in front of him making half-intelligible taunts with a child’s voice. Rowan grinned at David and decided to try something he’d always figured would never work. He donned an amazed expression and pointed over David’s shoulder. David turned to look without hesitating and Rowan cracked him hard across the jaw. After a moment, Rowan saw David start to look around in bewilderment. Rowan did him the courtesy of looking away as he offered David a hand up.

  “You probably want to go after your clothes.” Rowan laughed a little, looking back to share the joke with Riona, but the look on her face killed any mirth.

  “I can’t leave.”

  Riona stood absolutely rigid several strides inside the ring of the grove’s canopy. He could see that she was flexing and focusing with all her might, as though she were trying to haul some great weight behind her or trying to bend iron with her thoughts. Rowan started back towards her.

  “No!” Riona shouted desperately, “Don’t come back in! Remember those voices? They’re clearer now, more like music than words, but I get what they’re saying, at least what’s meant for me. You can’t come to court without leaving a gift.”

  “Alright, we’ll get them a gift.” Rowan agreed readily, raising his voice to shout into the trees, “We’ll get you a gift. Tell us what you want!”

  “They already picked, Ro. They’re picking me.”

  “That’s not a gift!” A small voice in the back of his head warned him against losing his temper, but Rowan didn’t care. “That’s a prisoner, a slave! We didn’t invade, we were trying to help a friend. We didn’t even know this place belonged to them, and left without touching anything as soon as we knew!”

  “They’re just laughing, Rowan. It’s no good.” Riona smiled bitterly. “I think it’s because I outsmarted them at their little game.”

  “You’re pretty good at thinking fast. Better the faster things get it seems.” Rowan smirked, “You know what a waste it was for you to be a dancer?”

  “You’ve never seen me dance.”

  “Well, I will. Use your wit now and we’ll get you out of this.”

  Rowan tried desperately to dredge up any lore he’d heard about fairy folk, but he’d always made it a point to learn only enough to avoid them. His thoughts were interrupted as a low rumble resounded from the direction of the falls. The tremble echoed across the valley several times. The brogan all glanced at each other just before they dashed off in the direction of the noise.

  “What now?” David groaned as he hopped over, pulling his second boot back on.

  “Sounded like a collapse,” Rowan waved dismissively, “Back toward the falls. We’ve got enough to worry about here.”

  “It’s Nian.” Riona breathed, “Rowan, you have to go get him. The brogan won’t attack him if he’s with you and Tombo. Otherwise, they’ll kill him.”

  “There’s no way it’d be Nian.” Rowan argued. “Even if he made it out of there on foot, he’d take the road. That was the fastest way to get to Karen.”

  “He made it out,” Riona replied with conviction, “You know that as much as I do. And while he won’t give up looking for Karen, he knows he can’t do it alone, and I know he’d come after you. You’re the one that headed for this forest, and while he doesn’t know anything about the woods, he knows you. You’re his best friend, he’d know you’d head here if you could, and he’d come for you.”

  “Go on, Ro.” David chimed in, “I’ll stay with Riona. You and that ape are faster in the dark without us.”

  Rowan suddenly wished Riona wasn’t quite so good at putting things together. Now he had to know if she was right. Rowan leapt onto Tombo’s back and signaled him to run. The trees flew by in the darkness as Rowan pressed Tombo as fast as he dared with the hampan’s still-healing wounds. It took him the better part of the night to overtake the brogan. When he at last caught sight of them, it was more because they had slowed than Tombo’s speed.

  The twenty or so brogan that had been with them outside the ash grove had been joined by many more. Rowan began to note a soft, blue light moving low through the trees in the distance. He suddenly thought that Riona had been mistaken. It wasn’t Nian that had arrived in the valley. It looked more like, improbable as it was, a star had fallen from the Vault of Heaven. Rowan started to turn Tombo to walk back to the grove, but something made him pause.

  Rowan looked back over his shoulder at the shimmering blue light, still weaving slowly through the woodland. As far as he could remember, no one seemed to know what stars really were. There were stories, of course, but each claimed they were something else; strange, beautiful men and women, gemstones of pure light, balls of magical essence, spirits of great heroes long-dead, even dragons or another unknown creature so strange and wondrous that mortal eyes would be blinded to see one up close. Rowan suddenly found he couldn’t be so close to such a wonder without taking the chance to see for himself. Besides, he reasoned, if it were indeed a gem or piece of the Vault itself, perhaps such a thing could be traded for Riona.

  The brogan were fanning out to scale different trees and Rowan thought back to the night they first entered the valley. He remembered the constellations of dim red stars floating in pairs among the trees. The brogan would watch and wait before making their move. Rowan could reach the star first if he set caution aside and rode straight up to it. No, he’d have to run. He couldn’t risk Tombo falling prey to whatever ill might come with meeting a star. Rowan climbed down off of the hampan’s back and whispered for him to wait. He gave the confused beast a reassuring pat on the neck before turning to jog after the glowing light. His leg pained him some, but he didn’t seem to have torn anything loose in the grove.

  As Rowan drew closer to the source of the light, he found that the star was moving through a deep gully or creek bed. Rowan slowed and dropped low to the ground to creep up the side of the embankment. Up close, the light had less of a shimmer to it, but more of a rippling effect, and it seemed to cast strange shadows in all directions that made it almost impossible to guess the creature’s form or even how many limbs it used to crawl along through the gully. The soft, rhythmic scraping of thick scales drifted to Rowan’s ears, carrying an almost metallic note along with it. It seemed that dragon or impossibly strange beast were going to be the answer to his curiosity. Whatever it was, Rowan doubted the star would be in an overly friendly mood after surviving its thunderous fall from the heavens. He readied his spear and braced himself as he peered cautiously over the rim of the gully’s bank.

  The sight that awaited Rowan did not blind him, but did give him such a start that he put too much weight onto his forward arm. The moist earth of the embankment gave way and he tumbled forward into the gully, landing solidly on his upper back as his spear sank deep into the earth a hair’s breadth from his neck. The party moving through the gully whirled on him in surprise, and as Rowan sat up sharply, his face met the smooth, hard curve of a steel shield that knocked him back to the ground nearly senseless.

&nb
sp; “Wait! Wait, I know him Kaesa.” A young voice echoed through the ringing in Rowan’s ears. “Ro? Rowan, are you alright?”

  Slowly, Rowan’s sight cleared and he saw Nian’s face hovering over him, flanked by the pale visage of the Dryad Autumn and the grim helm of his brutal assailant. Rowan tried again to sit up, slowly this time. He spit a mouthful of blood to one side and gingerly gripped his nose to try and staunch its bleeding.

  “I tink he broke my noze.” Rowan honked, trying to sound in better spirits than he was. Aside from the throbbing pain and ringing in his ears, the disappointment of not encountering a star after all stung, despite the good news that Nian was alive and well.

  “She. This is Kaesa Rhynnsdatter.“ Nian pulled Rowan to his feet and gave him a brief hug as he spoke, “Let me see, a cracked nose is one injury I probably handle more than this lot. Alright, hold still, this’ll hurt for just a sec. On three, one . . . there! Better? You’re lucky she couldn’t plant her feet and get more than her arm into that.”

  After the splitting pain of Nian yanking sharply, Rowan’s nose did feel a bit better. It still hurt, but not as sharply, and he could at least breathe through it a little now. He dabbed at the blood on his upper lip as he looked at the four companions. Nian had, of course, managed to somehow get out of the heart of the Baedite forces with Autumn in tow. Rowan was surprised to see Xain had somehow made it off the mountainside, though he seemed to have lost his mammoth crossbow. The slender figure in heavy armor still looked like a man, despite the long braid of fiery hair trailing down her back. Rowan looked about for anyone else. Xain was carrying a small bundle wrapped in thick fur, but too small to be a body of anything larger than a young deer.

  “Elly’s not with you?” Rowan asked, hoping she was lending cover from the shadows with her bow. He knew before his friend answered that he’d hoped too much.

  “We looked, Ro.” Nian replied softly, shaking his head. “In all the chaos, we couldn’t find her.”