War of Kings and Monsters

by Christopher Keene

  The girl jumped up freely and knocked once on the side of her head. “I’m fine, made of harder stuff than most.”

  Laine raised an eyebrow at the closed door. “What was that about?”

  The girl sighed. “Rotten brutes think I owe them money, AND I DON’T!” she roared at the closed door.

  Laine shook her head. “I’d be willing to help if you tell me exactly what happened. I can’t stand it when men abuse their power to gain a profit.”

  The girl looked at her in confusion, but then gasped when her eyes fixed on the symbol sewn into Laine’s hood. The symbol was an orb with bat wings on either side.

  “You’re a caller, aren’t you?” she asked. She quickly turned to the onlookers in the street and grabbed her by the hand. “Not out here. Too many people to see.”

  Laine frowned and stared down at where the girl grasped her. She was about to pull her hand free, then hesitated as she noticed the desperate, imploring look in her eyes. Laine let herself be led down a path and behind one of the many wooden houses on the side of the road. Behind the house was a bench under a veranda which kept away the light rain that was starting to fall.

  “Okay, I reckon you should know now,” the girl started, “I also do magic but of a different kind—old Kydian magic. It’s no secret around here that I’m one of the few town healers.”

  Laine nodded. “Must be hard in a village like this. There looks to be an illness about.”

  “That’s the thing!” she blurted, slamming her hand down on the wooden bench. “I’m exhausted! Look, I understand some people not paying for my services, I really do, but I accept whatever they can give me. You see, with my abilities—well, they make me kind of valuable here and . . .”

  Laine nodded, understanding the girl’s plight all too keenly. “It puts a lot of responsibility on your shoulders . . . and sometimes you feel like a slave to them.”

  “It does feel that way sometimes, yeah.” The girl shook her head. “But with Callahan it’s different. He owns the inn and is the richest man in the village. So, when I got called upon by him, I was promised a big reward, something I could live off for a while, you know? You see, he got infected, too. I mended him the best I could, but afterward, he gave me no recompense and pretended it never happened. Oh, I got so mad!”

  “And you decided to take matters into your own hands and took what you thought you were owed?” Laine asked.

  The girl nodded.

  Good to see she still has some fight left in her.

  “Now they want me to give it back. I only took what I was owed!” she growled, balling her hands into fists. “It’s so infuriating!”

  Laine stood up from the bench swiftly and turned to the girl. “I will help you in this matter. This man, Callahan, is abusing his power, and I will not allow it. Not in my kingdom.”

  “Your kingdom?” asked the girl, the confusion in her tone becoming awe.

  The girl’s open expression was sincere, a plea to any who might witness it. In any other situation, Laine would have thought this a scam, but her tired face showed her to be someone who was honestly trying to help people. Laine decided to take a risk and trust the girl. It was the only way she might be able to help her. Besides, her strawberry blonde hair reminded her of her mother’s.

  Laine put her hand out. “I am Princess Laine of Avatasc, court caller of King Kissick.”

  The girl’s eyes grew wide. “I-I’m Kendra,” she replied and took her hand.

  Laine pulled her up and took off.

  “So, what are we going to do?” Kendra asked as she followed on Laine’s heels.

  They began walking back in the direction of the inn.

  “Simple.” Laine smirked. “We’re going to take his money and leave. With no wealth, a man has no power.”

  “But there are guards on the borders of the village. Dozens of them!” Kendra cried. “Callahan owns them. We won’t make it out alive!”

  “Not without his coin he doesn’t,” Laine replied. “Leave it to me. I’ll handle it.”

  They moved around the house and out into the road. Waiting for a carriage to pass, Laine led the way across the track to the front door of the inn. Laine raised her hand as the blade of it started to glow the same blue with which she had attacked the dragon. She opened the door and rushed in. Kendra quickly followed behind her as Laine ran through the few ragged people in the bar toward the girl working at the counter.

  “Callahan’s office is behind that counter and up the stairs!” Kendra called.

  The girl behind the counter screamed and ducked as Laine vaulted over it. Once she landed, she kicked the door down to a room which led to a set of stairs. Kendra quickly followed her onto the stairwell and then up it.

  As they came to the room on the second floor, Laine opened the door and saw three men sitting in the room. The two she had seen already, the large ones who had thrown Kendra outside, were clearly the man’s bodyguards. The other, sitting behind a large desk, was just as obviously Callahan. He was dressed more lavishly than anyone else she had seen in the village, wearing a clean white silk shirt, its buttons stretching over his bloated, hairy body.

  “What is this?” Callahan asked in outrage. “I told you not to come back here unless you had my money. And who are you?”

  Laine advanced on him, but the two guards rose to intercept her. Using the blue blade glowing on her hand, Laine slashed at the wooden floor just in front of her, tearing away at it as chips of wood flew up in front of her. The two guards approaching her lost their balance on the planks and fell through into the room below, landing with a crash on the first floor. Laine jumped over the hole toward the desk as Callahan drew a knife, but Laine once again raised her glowing hand.

  “Now, if you don’t want your establishment more messed up than it already is, I suggest you give up your stash, old man,” Laine sneered.

  Quivering, Callahan put his knife on the table, opened the locked drawer on his desk and pulled out a large wad of notes and a brown pouch filled with gold coins: a small fortune. “T-take it, b-but you won’t make it out of this village alive. Y-you know that, Kendra!”

  In all the excitement, Kendra appeared to awaken from her trance and raised her hand to her mouth.

  Laine simply grabbed the paper and pouch of gold, turned, and jumped back over the gap in the floor she had made, pulling Kendra along with her. “Come on!”

  As they descended the stairs, Laine noticed that the bodyguards that had fallen through the floor were no longer there. She came to the door to the main hall, pushed it ajar, and peered through. The two guards were in the bar section of the inn explaining the gist of the situation to four more guards.

  “Who’s out there?” Kendra whispered in panic.

  Laine shut the door quietly as she noticed one of the guards turning toward it. “Six of them. I don’t think I can handle all of them by myself. We need to get outside.”

  “But out there is the only exit. What do we do?”

  The glow appeared once again on Laine’s hand as she calmly answered, “Make our own exit.”

  Turning to the nearest wall, she slashed twice in an upside down V. Before anyone could come through the door, she kicked down the portion of the wall she had cut out, grabbed Kendra’s arm, and ran out into the street. Quickly heading around the corner of a store next to the inn, they stopped in hiding for a rest. Kendra was panting as Laine peered around the corner, seeing two of the guards and Callahan himself come out onto the carriage track.

  “It was Kendra and another girl in a robe!” Callahan screamed as they scattered in all directions. “They took my money. Find them now! Make sure they don’t leave the village!”

  Laine leaned against the wall next to Kendra, who was crouching and trying to calm herself. From her drawn expression, the action had exhausted her.

  “Okay, we need to get out of town.” Laine glanced down at her. “I’m heading to Terratheist. If you want, you
can tag along with me. With the money we stole, living there shouldn’t be any problem.”

  Kendra stood up slowly, her breathing finally steady. “I can’t. Not with the way the village is now.”

  Laine shook her head. “You owe these people nothing.”

  “Being a princess, surely you understand that—”

  “It’s because I’m a princess that I’m saying this! Your only responsibility is to live your own life the way you choose. If you keep on going the way you have been, you’ll eventually burn out, or worse, become a slave to these people. You have to get out now while you still have a chance.”

  Despite the obvious flaws in her argument, the rush of their snatch-and-grab was undoubtedly coloring Kendra’s decision.

  The girl inclined her head and said hesitantly, “Well, I have always wanted to visit the Terratheist capital. The city is supposed to be amazing! But you see . . . my grandma still lives here. She’s looked after me since I was a baby and taught me everything I know. I can’t leave her in this village, not with those men looking for me.”

  “Hmm . . .” Laine crossed her arms and nodded, considering this. “Well, does she have someone nearby she can trust?”

  “There’s the neighbor, John. He’s a kindly blacksmith, but—”

  “All right, well, Callahan’s men are after us, not your grandmother, right?” A smile played across Laine’s face. “So, how about making her and her neighbor, this John, the richest people in the village? We can pay him to help her, you see. Surely, as a blacksmith, he would know some reliable mercenaries that he could hire for protection.”

  At first, Kendra’s brow furrowed, but as Laine’s words dawned on her, the girl smiled warmly. “Ah, yes, I see! That might work actually! Okay, this way.”

  Kendra took off, weaving between buildings and shacks. Laine trudged behind her, her nice boots getting covered in mud.

  “How do you deal with this every day?” she complained. “Surely someone in this village thought about putting a road down?”

  “Sure, but who’s going to pay for it?” Kendra called back. “With the taxes we pay to the king, you’d think he’d be the one to make the roads.”

  Laine snorted. “Good luck telling him that.”

  They arrived at a homely cottage that belonged to Kendra’s grandmother. It was pouring by the time they arrived, and once the wiry elderly woman saw them, they were ushered inside.

  “Nana, this is Laine. She helped me today,” Kendra said as the three found chairs in the sitting room. “She has an idea that will hopefully put Callahan and his goons out of business.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Laine stopped studying the old family memorabilia, paintings, and porcelain around the room and nodded. “I was thinking maybe you could convince John to round up some boys for protection after coming into some substantial wealth.”

  “Substan . . .” She smiled and waved her hand. “Why, those youngins. All they do is waste their time around the inn anyhow. You would need something awfully convincing to get them off their backsides.”

  Laine leaned forward and showed her the coins. “Will this work?”

  Kendra’s grandmother smiled and her tune quickly changed. “Oh, yes. John is a good strong lad with lots of friends that could do some good with this money.” She rocked herself onto her feet. “I’ll go see if he’s still up and about.”

  A minute later, they were talking to the large, handsome blacksmith and making a deal on getting him involved in their scheme. Before the evening came to an end, the matter was settled, having taken less than an hour to go over everything with John before hands were shook and the money was shared between them.

  They agreed to go thirds, with them taking their own share for their journey.

  “You know, despite his money, I heard rumors that Callahan was actually up to his nose in debt.” The old woman gave them a gap-toothed grin. “I don’t suppose he would have much objection to selling his inn to an old lady when the loaners come demanding their money, do you think?”

  Laine laughed. “Considering how it will be run by a healer, I imagine it will become the most popular inn in the village.”

  * * *

  The two of them stayed the night in her grandmother’s guest room, Laine accepting the shelter away from the rain. As she watched it drip down outside her window, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. Kendra was one of the only village healers. Even so, she hated to think of her as being a prisoner here because of her ability.

  No, she’s a young woman and can make up her own mind.

  She also couldn’t help but draw parallels between what was happening to Kendra with Callahan and what was happening to her mother with King Kissick and wondered if she was doing this for the catharsis she couldn’t have gotten back home.

  Either way, I’m sure this is the right thing.

  Kendra came to her as the dawn sun rose. Laine awoke slowly, it being her first night in a soft bed since she had departed Avatasc.

  “About leaving . . . I wasn’t sure about leaving Nana at first, but I’ve made up my mind.” Kendra smiled doggedly. “I mean, I might as well see the world while I’m still young and beautiful, am I right?”

  Laine agreed, although she couldn’t help but think that the last part had come directly from her grandmother’s mouth. They packed their things, said their goodbyes to Kendra’s grandma and John the blacksmith, and strode from the small cottage, walking between the houses and alleys toward the main road.

  The sun was out and warming them, but the rain from the previous night had made the sodden path difficult to traverse without getting it on the tail of their cloaks or sticking to the bottom of their shoes.

  “They’ll catch us out here!” Kendra murmured, but then noticed Laine’s smile.

  “Now that we’re out in the open, it doesn’t really matter,” Laine replied, her tone confident. “Even if they don’t know that their boss just became broke and can’t pay them, his guards still won’t try to attack us once they see what I can do.”

  “But he owns over twenty men in all: a small army!” Kendra cried.

  “Don’t worry, just trust me. As I said yesterday, I’ll handle it.”

  They walked through the village, doing a loop to try and throw off Callahan’s men, but they didn’t run into any of them. In the meantime, they used much of Callahan’s money to buy supplies from the local stores. When Laine was ready to continue her journey to Terratheist, she led them in a beeline toward the edge of town.

  As Kendra had expected, there were men waiting for them at the borders of the village, though unlike what Laine had expected, the boss himself had shown up with his bodyguards. There were a good twenty men there, just as Kendra had warned. The fat Callahan and his mercenaries sneered as they approached; Laine and Kendra appeared to be nothing but two young women. Like the knights she had left Avatasc with, they had no idea what she could do or what the cloak around her shoulders really was.

  As they halted before them, Callahan swaggered in front of his men and said, “Give me back my money and there will be no bloodshed. Just . . .” He exhaled heavily. “Just give it back.”

  “We don’t have it anymore!” Kendra called, but then murmured, “Well, not all of it anyway.”

  Callahan ground his teeth and shouted, “Then tell me where you put it, you little witch!”

  Laine put a hand out, warning Kendra to stay back. “Alright, that’s enough. You’re blocking our path and we need to get through.”

  Both the guards and Callahan looked suddenly to Laine and laughed, Callahan gesturing back at his mercenaries. “Is that so? You’re even shorter than the pest behind you. Do you really think that pathetic little hand ability of yours can make us move? If so, you’re mad.”

  “Not that technique, you’re right.” Laine pulled her cloak from her shoulders and threw it high into the air. “But with this one, it will be as easy as scraping you off the s
oles of my shoes.”

  The smiling faces suddenly darkened as the shadow of the Melkaiic bat, Terachiro, transformed and landed with a mighty thump before them. Behind her, Kendra gasped and squelched backward.

  Laine doubted many of them had seen a caller summon a Melkai before, let alone one from the second circle. One of them screamed, “It can’t be real! It’s just an illusion!” and charged in to strike it with his ax, which looked like it was intended more for chopping wood than for combat.

  Terachiro shot into the air, causing the ax-wielder to stagger. The eyes of Callahan’s men followed it up, the blustering wind blowing their hair back. With another devastating thump, it landed on top of the guard, long talons pinning him to the ground. Terrified cries from the others, including Callahan himself, were drowned out by Terachiro letting loose a high-pitched shriek. The guards ran screaming, dropping their weapons as the Melkai advanced on them, loyalties breaking as quickly as falling glass.

  Callahan whirled about helplessly as they left his side. He turned back to come face to face with the giant bat, and in horror, he fell onto his backside in the mud.

  “Terachiro!” Laine called.

  As though deciding that the fat man wasn’t even worth killing, Terachiro snarled and returned to Laine. It morphed back into her brown cloak and wrapped itself sleekly around her shoulders.

  Callahan was alone now, his eyes wide in horror and his jaw slack in shock. Laine smiled back at Kendra who was as speechless as Callahan. They walked around the once richest man in the Kydian village, now nothing but the indebted owner of a wrecked inn.

  As they passed him and moved to the borders of the forest behind the village, the fat man snapped back to life, spinning on the dirt and yelling, “You’ll pay for this! Remember the name Callahan Ludious the Sixth, for it will be the last name you’ll—”

  “I’ve already forgotten it!” Kendra yelled back, laughing freely as they left the dying village and disappeared into the forest.

  Chapter 6: Ramannon

  Michael’s brisk steps took him further up into the hills than he intended. In his anger, he had walked a good half-mile ahead of the others. It didn’t make sense that he wasn’t back with them. It was his responsibility to take care of Nathan, yet he had left him there with a stranger that he not only mistrusted but felt an irrational hatred for.