Path of Shadows

by Ben Wolf

  But Kent also had no desire to face Garrick, either. He was so explosive and quick and savage in the way he fought.

  The one and only time they’d clashed, back in the woods in Govalia, the skirmish could’ve gone either way—had either of them really intended to fight. So avoiding conflict with Garrick was also paramount.

  Above all else, Kent had committed to putting an end to Lord Valdis’s treacherous schemes and plans. With the exponential power Lord Valdis stood to gain from completing his ritual, Kent couldn’t stand by and just let it happen.

  Bringing Fane his reckoning could wait. Bringing Kymil to justice for Aveyna’s murder could wait.

  First, Kent had to save the continent.

  If he survived long enough to do it.

  Several days later, Garrick crested the southern side of the cratered mountain and saw Mehta’s village in the valley below. He’d traveled through the village on his way back from Etrijan after Noraff and Phesnos had betrayed him. There, he’d seen a solitary white face amid a sea of brown faces.

  She was just a young, blonde girl, but it was clear she didn’t belong in that village with those people. And then, after Garrick had recruited Mehta and the others to help recover the map, Mehta had mentioned the village and the girl in a rare moment of transparency.

  At the time, Garrick had realized he knew the village, but he hadn’t said anything to Mehta. Now, in hindsight, he expected that discovery would allow them to approach the village in secret. If Mehta and Aeron didn’t know they were coming, it would make everything so much easier.

  If they were down there.

  “That’s it?” Falna asked from behind him.

  In any other situation, Garrick never would’ve turned his back on Falna and Lord Valdis’s soldiers, but he was the only one who knew where Aeron and Mehta were hiding. Now that they’d reached the village, Garrick’s level of caution would increase.

  “That’s it,” Garrick turned back to face her.

  “We’ll go in at nightfall,” she said.

  “Mehta can see in the dark,” Garrick countered.

  “Who is Mehta, and why should I care?” Falna asked.

  “He’s one of our two targets, and he’s a former Xyonate.”

  Falna tilted her head. “A what?”

  Kent stood next to her, shaking his head silently at her ignorance.

  Garrick stared at her. “Do you even know who we’re tracking?”

  Falna’s eyebrows arched down, and she glowered at Garrick. “My sole purpose for being here is to bring that girl back to Lord Valdis. Nothing else is my concern.”

  “Just when I think you couldn’t be any dumber,” Garrick sighed, “you go and sink to a new level of stupid.”

  Falna snarled, and her hand went to the hilt of her sword. Tongues of fire ignited from the top of its sheath.

  Just as fast, Garrick grabbed hold of the battle-axe and the flail at his sides, but before Garrick could draw them, Kent stepped between them with his hands up.

  “Calm yourselves, both of you,” he said. “Our quarry is mere miles away, and you would do each other harm? Now is not the time for disunity.”

  “She tried to kill you, and you’re defending her?” Garrick snapped.

  “I am trying to ensure that we make it to that village and back to Xenthan in one piece.” Kent met Garrick’s hardened eyes with a steely stare of his own.

  Garrick studied Kent. Was he just being diplomatic, or had he actually decided to help Garrick complete this job?

  Whatever the case, Falna released her grip on her sword. Upon seeing that, Garrick reluctantly let go of his weapons as well.

  “Entering the village at night is no better than entering during the day,” Kent explained. “Mehta can see in the dark and is a trained assassin, used to lurking in shadows. If anything, we will be at even more of a disadvantage. At least in daylight we stand a chance of seeing him coming.”

  Falna shrugged. “So we’ll go in during the day.”

  “It is not that simple,” Kent said. “Aeron and Mehta are both capable fighters. On his own, Mehta is more capable, but Aeron is a wyvern knight. If his wyvern is nearby, and if it spots us, it will alert Aeron to our presence through their bond.”

  “So we’ll be careful,” Falna said.

  “I have an alternate proposal.”

  Garrick rolled his eyes. Of course, Kent has an alternate proposal.

  Falna stood there, waiting for Kent to continue.

  “Let me go in alone.”

  Garrick scoffed. He couldn’t believe his ears. “No.”

  Falna shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Garrick.”

  “Hear me out.” Kent held up one of his hands. “At the sight of Garrick, Mehta and Aeron will immediately raise their guards. They will lead with attacks.

  “And if Kallie sees Falna, we cannot be sure how she will respond. If she alerts Aeron, or if Aeron sees you, then the game is up. And the sight of Lord Valdis’s soldiers in black will not help anything, either.

  “In short, I am the only one who stands any chance of making inroads with them. I am the only one here who has neither opposed them nor tried to cause them harm,” Kent continued. “Furthermore, Aeron and I have been friends for quite some time, now. There is a level of trust between us that I can leverage to our advantage.”

  Garrick squinted at him. Kent was trying for something, but what was it? “To what end? How does it benefit us to send you ahead?”

  “Think of me as a distraction. Or as an insurgent, depending on how the reunion plays out,” Kent replied. “If they welcome me, I become an insurgent. If they regard me as a threat, then I am a distraction.”

  “How is that better than simply storming in and taking the girl?” Falna said. “It worked last time.”

  Kent’s jaw tensed, but he said, “For one, it may serve to reduce innocent casualties. Surely you do not intend to bring harm to the villagers.”

  “As long as they stay out of my way,” Falna said. “I won’t be stopped.”

  Garrick had actually expected her reaction to be harsher. She hadn’t given so much as a second thought to the patrons and Crimson Flame members who’d failed to escape her flaming wrath back in the pub in Etrijan, so why concern herself with these villagers now?

  “We also want to minimize the risk of Kallie being harmed or killed,” Kent said. “Sowing confusion in advance will help reduce that risk.”

  “More so than taking them by surprise?” Garrick remained dubious.

  Falna scoffed at him. “Look at you. You’ve never taken anyone, anywhere, by surprise, Garrick.”

  “Took you by surprise when I doused you with that solution back at the pub,” Garrick countered.

  Falna’s mouth hung open, then it clamped shut. “That doesn’t count.”

  “Back to the issue at hand,” Kent said. “Are we in agreement about sending me ahead?”

  Garrick shook his head. “Not remotely.”

  “I fail to see how charging in blindly is a better alternative,” Kent said.

  “We have the numbers and two mages on our side,” Falna said. “And, for now, we have the opportunity to catch them off-guard. Why risk giving that away?”

  Kent frowned. “I truly believe this is the option with the highest chance of success, especially compared to—”

  “It’s not gonna happen, handsome,” Falna said. “For all I know, you just want to head down there to warn them in advance of our arrival.”

  Stone-faced, Kent said, “I assure you, that is not at all what I have in mind.”

  Falna approached him and touched the side of his face with her hand. Kent didn’t move.

  “Even if I believed you, I’d still say no. Don’t take it personally, alright?” She lowered her hand and turned to Garrick. “By the time we reach the valley, it’ll be nightfall. We’ll camp just beyond the ridge for the night, and we’ll make our way down tomorrow morning.

  “If yo
ur friend’s as dangerous as you claim, then I want to face him during the day. But make no mistake—my only goal is to find that girl and bring her back.” Falna’s eyes narrowed at Garrick. “Do not get in my way, or I’ll burn right through you.”

  If Falna had meant to intimidate Garrick, she was ill-equipped for it. Yes, she was a powerful fire mage, but she stood nearly two feet shorter than him and had the commanding presence of a squirrel.

  Even so, he’d already started to formulate a strategy to combat her if anything went wrong. As far as he knew, nothing would stop her from attacking him once she’d recovered Kallie. So he’d planned to kill her first.

  He wasn’t sure what might happen if he brought Kallie back without Falna and the rest of Lord Valdis’s soldiers. From Garrick’s perspective, it was equally likely that Lord Valdis would brush off the loss as it was that he’d punish Garrick for it—if Garrick delivered Kallie.

  Whatever the case, Garrick knew one thing for certain: if he sat back and let others make decisions for him, it would only end in tragedy and defeat.

  He refused to let that happen.

  Chapter Five

  Mehta hadn’t slept well since he’d returned home. It wasn’t that the cushions and pillows in his family’s house were uncomfortable—he just couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes for long enough to get any real rest.

  Not with Lord Valdis still out there, undoubtedly sending men to search Kallie out. Mehta didn’t regret inviting Aeron and his sister to stay, but as long as they lingered in the village, they were a liability to Mehta, Ferne, and his family.

  Despite a few brief downturns, on the whole, Kallie had greatly recovered from whatever was afflicting her. When they’d fled Xenthan, she’d been feverish, confused, and disoriented.

  Now, by some miracle, her temperature had leveled out, her behavior had mostly normalized, and she could carry on a normal conversation. Mehta, however, hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to talk to her himself. Kallie was pretty, and talking wasn’t one of his strengths to begin with.

  Even so, Mehta often sat with her at night. He couldn’t sleep anyway due to his concerns over the possibility that Lord Valdis was still coming after them, so he figured he might as well keep watch over Kallie in the process.

  Likewise, it afforded Aeron the chance to get some real rest, and that rest had done him good—or perhaps it was his relief in knowing Kallie was relatively safe. Not including Aeron’s magic mushroom consumption, Mehta had never seen him more relaxed.

  But the opposite was true of Mehta. With every small creak of the house, with every rustle of the wind outside, with every voice from passersby that reached his ears, his attention shifted, and his caution renewed.

  As a Xyonate, he’d trained to be aware and alert, but after crossing Lord Valdis, he’d descended into outright paranoia.

  Shadows among the trees became Lord Valdis’s soldiers, come to reclaim Kallie out of spite and slay Mehta’s family in retribution for his role in rescuing her. The hissing of the wind through the conifers masked the soldiers’ commands and conversations.

  The stares of the villagers conveyed their own dark intentions and duplicity—each of them was an agent of Lord Valdis, an informant determined to earn his or her pay in exchange for selling out Mehta and the two new white faces in the village.

  Whether or not any of it happened to be true didn’t matter. It all continued to bother Mehta nonetheless.

  And now he lay in his family’s house, staring up at the ceiling as the first rays of sunlight crept over the cratered mountain and pierced through the cracks between the slats of wood in the walls.

  Mehta regretted not talking with Kallie to pass some of the time the night before, but dawn meant he was too late now. The only thing worse than trying to talk to her alone was trying to talk to her with everyone else awake and listening.

  He’d gotten maybe an hour of sleep that night. Altogether, maybe ten or eleven hours total over the several days they’d been back.

  Mehta couldn’t continue this way—that much was certain. He needed to help Aeron and Kallie figure out what to do next, and then he needed to plan his next course of action as well.

  Except he didn’t have any idea what should happen next—none whatsoever. He couldn’t go back and try to sift Lord Valdis again. He’d had his chance, and he’d failed.

  But neither did he like the idea of waiting around the village for the next time Lord Valdis’s men showed up, whether Aeron and Kallie were there or not.

  Yet he couldn’t just leave without Ferne and Palomi, either. Perhaps once Grandfather passed away, he could take them both somewhere else. Maybe someplace warmer, like Caclos—somewhere Lord Valdis’s men couldn’t reach them.

  The top of the morning sun crested the cratered mountain, and the clatter and chatter of early-rising villagers sounded from outside. Mehta resigned himself to his fate. He’d never fall back asleep now.

  But as he sat up, he realized the sounds outside his home had stopped. Mehta froze in place and listened. The sudden absence of sound proved even more troubling than everything else that had assaulted his senses since they’d returned.

  Mehta slowly rose to his feet. He peered through a crack in the wall, where the pitch that sealed the slats together had worn away.

  The slow scraping of steel pulled Aeron out of his slumber, and he blinked the sleep away from his eyes. As his vision clarified, Aeron noticed Mehta standing across the room, staring at the wall as if he could see through it.

  For all Aeron knew, maybe Mehta could see through it.

  The scraping steel had been Mehta drawing his curved knives from their sheaths on his belt, and he now held one in each hand. Something had spooked him.

  Careful not to wake Kallie, who still slept on her cushion next to his, Aeron stood.

  Mehta’s head immediately swiveled back for a look over his shoulder. Upon seeing Aeron, he faced forward again.

  “What is it?” Aeron whispered, just loud enough for Mehta to hear him.

  He got no response.

  Aeron crept over, stepping around Ferne and Palomi so as not to wake them, either, and came over to Mehta’s side. He repeated, “What is it?”

  “They’ve found us.”

  Aeron’s heart stuttered. He hissed, “What?”

  Why would they even bother? Aeron had destroyed the dragon egg—accidentally, but it was destroyed nonetheless. Why would they still want Kallie?

  Mehta stepped aside and motioned toward a crack between the pine slats that made up the wall. Aeron stepped forward, closed one eye, and stared through it.

  Aeron saw nothing out of the ordinary. He could see clear down to the center of the village, barely illuminated by the early morning light. Confusion settled in his mind, but compared to fear at the prospect of losing Kallie again, he welcomed it.

  “I don’t see anything,” he said.

  “What do you hear?” Mehta asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Exactly.”

  Aeron started to respond, but when he listened again, he realized that he could, in fact, hear very little aside from the whisper of wind rustling through the trees around them.

  With the sun ever rising, he would’ve expected the villagers to be making at least some noise. It was unusual, to be sure, but did it really mean they’d been found?

  Mehta said, “I’ll take care of it.”

  As Mehta started to move, Aeron clamped his hand on Mehta’s wrist. “Wait.”

  Mehta looked down at Aeron’s hand, then he met Aeron’s gaze. Determination and ferocity emanated from Mehta’s eyes. Aeron let go immediately so he didn’t end up being on the receiving end of Mehta’s fury.

  “We don’t know for sure that they’re here. There’s no reason for them to have come. The dragon egg is gone.”

  Mehta stared at him. “They’re here. I can feel it.”

  “That’s not enough for me to go on.”

  “You don’t need to do anything. I�
�ll handle it.”

  “Not a chance.” Aeron shook his head. “If we really are in trouble, I’m coming with you.”

  “What about Kallie?” Mehta asked.

  “She’ll be safe in here. If they don’t know where she is, they can’t get to her.”

  “They’ll find her eventually,” Mehta said. “You two should fly off instead. Call Wafer. I’ll buy you some time.”

  “No. If they’re here—if Kent is here—I need to talk to him. I need to know where he stands.” Aeron picked up his breastplate and started to put it on. “If he’s my enemy, then I’d rather learn that now instead of finding out later on.”

  “The wiser decision is to flee,” Mehta said.

  Aeron shook his head and tightened the buckles on his breastplate. “I won’t leave you behind. You saved us. If they’re here for Kallie, I won’t leave you here to face them alone, and possibly Kent and Garrick as well. After what you did for us, I need to stand by you. If you’re right about this, we’ll make our stand here, together.”

  Mehta didn’t reply right away. He just looked through the crack in the wall, still holding his knives.

  As Aeron finished donning the rest of his armor, Mehta spoke again.

  “I’ll hide,” he said. “Head for the village square. If they attack, I’ll intervene.”

  “So I’m the bait?” Aeron eyed him.

  “I won’t let them harm you,” Mehta replied. There wasn’t an ounce of uncertainty in his voice.

  Aeron didn’t like the idea much, but perhaps it would draw their pursuers out—if they were even there in the first place. And Aeron couldn’t doubt Mehta’s sincerity or his ability in such a situation. Mehta could hide pretty much anywhere, so if things got bad, Aeron knew Mehta would have his back.

  “Alright.” Aeron took up his spear, which had been leaning against one of the walls. “I trust you.”

  “We’ll go around the back and approach from the sides. You can’t walk out of this house in full view of the entire village.”