by Brad Carsten
Liam knew the group would be small, but seeing them here together, he realized how insignificantly small they were especially if the wretched came after them.
“Right, this is it,” the Captain said. “Keep your eyes open, and don't stop. Whatever happens, getting the child out is our top priority. That is more important than anything, than anyone here. You know the plan and what we’re up against, so remain vigilant, and don't do anything stupid. I plan on this being an uneventful trip, Fate pray it’s so.” He gave a curt nod. “Let's do it.”
The Captain led them out back into the stables. He had offered Liam a kingdom horse, but Liam had grown up with Denah, and knew how she moved. She wasn't suited for speed, but as a work horse was tough and could get through any terrain and wouldn't spook at the wrong time. He was one of the first into the saddle and stepped the horse around to calm himself as much as to settle her. The horses were restless like every other animal in the village. Even the kingdom horses were pawing the ground and snorting with their breath visible in the patch of moonlight coming in through the large open doors.
“Right, it's up to you now,” the Captain said to Liam. Liam knew what he had to do while forcing down the nagging doubt in his mind. This was it.
He was the first out followed by Sir Remus, the bard, the child's mother, the Captain, and finally the six soldiers bringing up the rear.
Knight Kein had chosen the farm well. The ground was uneven, hidden from the town by a hill and a crop of trees. If they were going to get out, this would give them the best chance.
They had about two hours until dawn to get a fair distance away from the village. Once they joined up with the road, they would meet traffic heading in the opposite direction that could bring word back to the village.
The first stretch outside the town would be the most dangerous. A natural path took them through a sparse forest. The trees were old and broad, but the branches were high, and the trees were spaced too far apart, and there was very little undergrowth to hide in. The men kept silent, but anyone close by wouldn't miss the sound of horses crunching over dead leaves and fallen branches.
Liam felt the shift before he saw the bird hovering above the track. It flapped its wings frantically, without making any headway as though fighting a strong wind, but the tree tops were still, and no dust blew along the ground. The closer they drew, the more uneasy the men became.
A bow snapped, and Liam jumped. The bird hit the ground with an arrow through its middle, but still, it continued scraping in the dirt as it tried to flap its wings. Liam tried to keep his eyes off of it as he passed, and when that failed, he then tried to ignore its eyes staring up at him or its head hanging limply to the side.
Sir Remus nocked another arrow which broke the spell over Liam, and he fumbled to get his own bow off his shoulder and an arrow set. He had used a bow for most of his life, yet it took him two tries to hook the string. He had to wipe the sweat off of his palms and try again.
The others had stopped riding. Everyone was quiet, every eye searching the darkness around them.
There came a rumbling through the trees like an old wagon rumbling towards them. All arrows snapped towards it. The horses began stepping nervously. The sound grew louder, and deeper, reverberating through the trees. It hit, and one of the soldiers was snatched out his saddle and thrown into the air. He hit a trunk, twenty feet up, and blood sprayed out his mouth.
“Ride,” Captain Ardin shouted. Liam had already kicked his heels into Denah’s flanks. He headed for the denser trees on the other side of the trail, knowing that he could lose them in that.
The men fell in behind him.
There was a cry, and another horse and soldier, at the back of the line, were thrown into the air. Liam turned down into a valley and for a moment lost sight of the others. He couldn't see what was happening, but could hear the screams, and then the others topped the rise and their horses galloped over the edge. The boy's mother wasn't an experienced rider, and hit the slope at the wrong angle. Her horse lost its footing. Its rear legs slid out, and she came off the saddle. The child screamed and threw out his arm for her, but the Captain held onto him. Getting the boy out was more important right now.
The horse slid down the embankment. The woman’s foot caught in the stirrup and she was dragged down the slope before her shoe came off, depositing her face down in the dirt. She tried to get up, to run after them, but with her first step, her leg gave way, and she crumpled to the ground. She screamed for her boy, and he screamed for her.
Liam started to turn back, but the Captain snatched onto his arm. “Stay with us,” he shouted. “You are more important than her.”
Liam looked back at the woman crying for her son, dragging herself through the dirt and snow, and his mind threw up every reason to keep riding. If he turned back, he'd be heading straight into whatever was coming after them, and he'd be going against the Captain's orders putting himself and this mission at risk which would kill any chances of him ever making it into the kingdom. But he couldn't leave her. Like him, she wasn't important to the kingdom, but to that young boy, she was everything.
“You’ll hit a road about a mile away,” he shouted to the Captain, before his mind could get in the way. When you reach it, turn left, and I’ll catch up to you.”
Liam turned back in a tight arc, and he could hear the Captain cursing behind him.
The rumbling had started up again. Sand and stone shook loose, sliding down the slope into the valley. It was almost on them.
The woman turned back with open fear in her eyes.
Liam jumped off his horse and stumbled to catch his footing.
He pulled her to the ground, shielding her head and shielding his with his arms. “Hold on!” The sound hit, and Denah was thrown up, rear legs first, into the trees. He didn’t know a horse could scream.
Liam’s bow had dropped a few feet away. He scrambled for it and nocked an arrow as a shape formed over the rise. It was a man—a man in a green cloak, riding a large stallion.
Liam fired, and the ground fell away from under him, as he was lifted into the air. The arrow hit, the stallion reared, and the figure was thrown back. The grip around Liam loosened, but he hit back first into a tree and his world turned gray.
He was partially aware of hitting the ground again and a sharp pain in his side and then of someone leaning over him.
He blinked in the woman's face and tried to remember what was happening. He was in some kind of forest and—she looked familiar. Her lips were moving, but he couldn't understand what she was saying. Slowly, his mind began to realign, and he caught something about her son and that they needed to go, and then, like someone had unclogged a fountain in the town square, the memories flooded back, and Liam got shakily to his feet. Pain jolted up into his head, and through his side at the same time. “Oh, thank mercy you’re okay. When I saw what happened...” She looked like she wanted to burst into tears.
She handed him back his bow, and he drew an arrow and turned, snapping it from tree to tree. Whoever the figure was, he was no longer there, though that 'wrong' feeling still lingered like a stench around a latrine. The cursed thing wasn't far.
They couldn't stick around, but he couldn't move either. “Move, move, move,” he told himself.
The woman was trying to get up, but she was too badly injured.
“We have to find my son,” she sobbed. “We have to get to him. He's just a child. He doesn't understand any of this. He doesn't know who those men are.”
Liam did one last sweep of the trees without seeing anyone there. “We’ll find him. Listen to me, I can find him. I can take you to him, but first we need a horse. I have to track down your horse. Do you understand?”
He tried to ignore his own horse impaled on a tree branch above him. “It’s trained, so it wouldn't have gotten far, but you can't walk, so I need you to wait here for me.”
“No, please don't leave me.” She grabbed onto his arm, and he had to pry her hands away.
“I won't be long. You have my word. Here—” He helped her to a tree and gave her his hunting knife and had to close her fingers around it. Against the wretched, it wouldn’t do much good, but he didn't tell her that. “Just stay here until I get back. I won't be long.”
Thankfully, the horse wasn’t far. It had run up the other side of the embankment.
By the time he got back, the heaviness had grown so much it turned his stomach. He helped the woman into the saddle and got to see how bad her injury was. Blood ran down her ankle, dripping off of her foot onto the snow, but he couldn't do anything about that now. He had hurt the wretched, but he didn't know how much and wasn't about to stick around to find out. If it came back for him, he wouldn't get it by surprise again.
He realised his sketch of Tarla was still in the saddlebags and, for a crazy moment, started back for it before coming to his senses. He would see her, the real her, once this nightmare was over.
They rode a few miles cutting through the forest to meet up with the other soldiers. He'd have to hurry if he hoped to intersect them.
The boy's mother collapsed onto his back and had to fight back her screams as her leg jolted with each step. She’d have to fight a while longer.
When they finally broke through the forest, onto the path, a thin, undisturbed layer of snow from the previous night meant that they were still ahead of the soldiers.
The boy’s mother had fought through the pain, and as they reached the path, her strength finally gave in. Her eyes rolled back, and she slumped over. Liam dragged her out of the saddle and onto the snow, and he shook her gently until she came around. “What happened?” she croaked. Her eyes were heavy and her speech slurred.
“You're okay. You just passed out.”
He tore his handkerchief in half to tie off her leg and tried to keep her talking until he knew she'd be okay.
“I'm Liam,” he said. “Can you tell me who you are?”
She blinked up at him in confusion.
“What's your name.”
“Uh Harriette. It’s—it’s Harriette Fletcher. Where’s Dunlyn?” She tried to get up. “Where’s my son?”
“They’ll be here soon. He’s with some good men. He'll be here soon. Just try to relax.”
“Please, I can’t lose him.”
“You won't lose him. I promise. He’s with Sir Remus—a Knight of the fallen and one of the best. They're almost here. But right now, we need to take care of this leg so that we can go as soon as they arrive. Just lie back.” He pulled off his cloak and wrapped it around her to keep her warm. “Your boy's going to be here soon, okay?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Thank you. Thank you for coming back. I—I wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t.”
Liam took her hand. “I know what it's like to lose a mother. For your son's sake, I couldn't leave you behind. Do you have any idea why they’d want him? Why him?”
“I—I don't know. All they said was that he had been chosen for the kingdom and I'd get into the palace, and...” Her tears spilled onto her cheeks, and she dropped her head back into the snow. She was young, in her early twenties perhaps, but a hard life had left lines across her face and deep shadows under her eyes. “If we stayed—if we refused to go... Why did that wretched come after us? What were they doing in the village? We’re just a small family. We haven't harmed anyone. There's nothing we can give them.”
“I don’t know.” If they offered her a spot in the palace then the boy was certainly important. Very few children were ever chosen for palace duty, as far as he knew. He didn't know of any from his village or even the towns around them. Few were chosen for the palace, but even fewer would be housed in the palace itself. Perhaps he’d be a lord one day, if that's how lords were chosen, but surely people were born into that and not chosen from amongst the peasantry.
He found a branch and fastened it under her ankle to support her foot, and she winced.
“Tell me about your son,” he said, quickly, to get her mind off of the pain. He peeled back her blood-soaked skirt to see how badly her leg had been injured. It was swollen almost as badly as her ankle, and there was a nasty gash along her calf.
“He looks like a good boy.”
“Oh, he is.” She half smiled, half winced and for a moment, a flicker of life returned to her eyes. “He’s funny and brave. He's so brave. When I told him we'd be moving into the palace, he found a short stick in the firewood and got me to fasten a thorn onto the end of it. He called it his spear and he told me that he'd use it to protect me. Oh no, I think we left it at the farmhouse. We were in such a hurry and—he's going to be upset when he finds out.” Liam left her to speak, as he tied the final knots. “I've tried to brace your leg as well as I can, and you shouldn’t lose any more blood, but it's not going to be a pleasant trip until we can get you some help—and rest.” They still had a long way to go before reaching the capital. He wiped his hands off in the snow and helped her into a sitting position, and she stared up the path looking worried.
“Do you think they...” she couldn't finish. “What's taking them so long? You don't think it caught up to them, do you?”
“I don't think so. That thing—whatever came after us,”—he didn't want to even say the word in case that somehow called it to them. He was probably being paranoid but after facing it, he didn’t want to take the chance—“I think there was only one. The rest must have gone after the other group.
When at last the soldiers galloped into sight, young Dunlyn spotted his mother, and he screamed for her and squirmed in the Captain's arms until the Captain had no choice but to let him down from the saddle.
The boy launched into her arms, throwing his small arms around her neck. They both cried, and she stroked his head and kissed him over and over again.
The Captain was leading his horse by foot and halted next to Liam. “You know why we train them from young?” He was watching the mother and son laughing together. “Life hasn't built up walls around their hearts. When they're older, we spend too much time breaking that down, and even so, you can never truly wring it all out. It was a stupid thing to do, going back for his mother like that, but in doing so you may have saved more than just her life, you may have saved that boy’s faith in the kingdom. I see that now. You’ve kept that faith alive. In the end, that may be significant—more so than any of us could have imagined. So, for that, I commend you. The kingdom commends you.”
Chapter 6
Liam never found out what happened to the other soldiers, but he liked to think that they made it.
He led his group west through Mirewold and then turned south, and they reached the capital a day earlier than expected. When they arrived at the city, instead of being greeted with feasts and celebrations, like any good journey should end, they walked into a city that was burning.
***
They had seen the columns of smoke from almost a day out, and Captain Ardin had pushed the horses as hard as they would go. He couldn't remember the last time he was afraid; he had seen too much for that, but this filled him with dread. A few hours away, they ran into the first group fleeing the city. Some had managed to load up wagons, others had left with whatever they could carry. Broken things lay along the side of the road, abandoned, where they had fallen off a wagon or had been discarded.
“The rumors are mixed,” Sir Remus said. He had just spoken to a convoy of frightened people. They all had the lost look in their eyes of those who had nowhere to go.
“Some speak of armies crossing the ocean, others of terrible creatures moving through the city, killing people”—he lowered his deep voice to a rumble—“but almost every one of them agreed that King Roderic's dead.”
The words hit Ardin in the chest. His lungs constricted, and he had to wrench off his helmet to breathe properly. King Roderic, dead? Hope failing, how else should he react? “How sure are they? I mean, is the information reliable?” He had served away from the capital for most of his tenure as a protector of the realm
, but he had devoted his life to keeping the man on the throne, even if they'd never actually met.
“I could trace the rumour to half a dozen different sources, but we won't know until we get closer to the city.”
“But how? What happened?”
“Some say he was poisoned, others that he had succumbed to his wound at last, and others that the invading armies had strung him up from his own balcony. But whispers say, prince Thomwyn has seized the throne.”
“Pray it isn't so? Was it a coup?”
“Who can say. Thomwyn's always been ambitious, and now with news of the child... It would be dangerous to speculate further.”
“But to take the kingdom? He's a good general, one of the best, but he's no King.”
Sir Remus nodded his agreement. “Ambition is a wild beast. It's hard to tame. They knew an outsider would have to take the throne, even if few outside our circles did... we have the child, we're going to have to consider our next move carefully, until we know what's going on. If Thomwyn's seized the throne, we can't walk in with that child.”
“No. Absolutely not. Not until we know he'll be safe.” Ardin looked at the child, who was watching the world curiously from the front of his mother's horse, and wondered how such a small thing could ever hold a kingdom together. He would have been raised in the palace, given full privileges as a son. He would have had the best education and a host of servants and would have sat on the king's lap, learning from one of the greatest men that ever lived, who took an already great kingdom into a golden age. Ardin would one day be bowing to this child and taking orders from him. A child that would one day conquer nations and juggle diplomats, and spoilt lords, and usurpers, and failed crops and civil unrest. He would implement tax reforms and command armies with skill and grace. He would be a warrior, an adventurer and a terrific swordsman—as good as the best knight. This is what his assessment had shown, yet this was his potential, not his destiny. Left in a village to his own devices, he would be a great man, perhaps even work his way up to a landowner. He would be charismatic and always have people around him, but his name would only be known as far as a horse could travel in a day, perhaps two. With the wrong influences, he could even end up in a gutter somewhere begging for scraps or starting a revolt. The kingdom was as powerful as it was, and had grown ever stronger, ever more capable and left unchallenged for centuries for one simple reason: they could see a child's potential and then develop that allowing every child to become that which he or she was meant for.