The Gatekeeper Trilogy

by Scott Ferrell

  “I—”

  My retort was cut short as a Roosrath launched itself onto the rock behind her. I swept Seanna out of the way with a shove and lashed out with an escrima. The think jumped back to avoid the strike, but his momentum carried him tumbling off the rock.

  Before I had time to recover from the swing, two more jumped up to engage us. Both wielded long blades similar to the first Roosrath we encountered. They advanced on us and a third jumped up behind them.

  I stepped forward and swung. The Roosrath jumped back to dodge the blow. His fellow jumped in to take advantage. I pushed my leg back to avoid the blade but wasn’t fast enough. It sliced cleanly through my jeans. Luckily, I moved out of the way in time so only my pants suffered at the Roosrath blade.

  I took a wild swipe at it to push it back as two more jumped onto the outcropping. I retreated, grabbing Seanna and pulling her back with me, putting the cliff face at our backs. The last thing we needed was for them to circle us.

  “So, that piece of wood thing,” I said, brandishing my sticks to keep them at bay.

  “I said that is a last resort,” Seanna replied.

  “It gets more last resort than this?”

  “There has to be a way out of this,” she insisted.

  I swung at a Roosrath as it edged too close. He hopped away from the blow.

  “If you got a way out of this, now’s the time.”

  There really was no telling what her fix would do. I’d seen her do some crazy things with magic without a second thought. Whatever it was, it must be for the truly desperate.

  Three more Roosrath appeared over the lip of the outcropping. They were so fast and powerful enough to jump ten feet up with a single bound.

  I caught Seanna’s fist rising out the corner of my eye. What would it do? Did these things deserve what was about to happen to them? Did they understand the danger they had put themselves in? All they wanted was a land nobody was using anymore. They were aggressive and violent, but that was their nature. That was who they were. Sure, they’d most likely kill us if we let them. We just had to not let them.

  As I watched them move, trying to get into position to get through our defenses, something odd happened. They blurred. Like an old computer unable to handle a streaming video, they had smeared images of themselves trailing behind them as they moved. They didn’t slow, they just appeared to have slowed.

  I placed a stick on Seanna’s wrist to stop her from raising her hand. “We’re not desperate enough, yet.”

  “I don’t see how we can...” her voice trailed off. I wasn’t listening.

  I had been going about this fight all wrong. I had reverted back to acting without thinking—the flailing about and hoping everything turns out in the end. I wasn’t that person anymore. No, I wasn’t a super badass black belt ninja, but I had dedicated nearly a year of almost daily training. I knew better than to flail. What good was all that training if I didn’t use it?

  A Roosrath, thinking he saw an opening with my stick on Seanna’s wrist, came at me with blade raised. The attack didn’t seem as fast as the previous attempts. The extra time allowed me the opportunity to use my greatest advantage. Reach. I kicked out. My size twelve boot landed squarely in his chest. The little creature flipped off the outcropping and out of sight.

  Using the momentum of my kick to push me into their midst, I swung a stick. The targeted Roosrath blocked it but couldn’t move fast enough to get out of the way the second stick coming from my other hand a split second after the first. The blow landed on its mask, sending him spinning and sprawling to the rock.

  Another creature came in from behind, thinking to attack me low. I felt it more than saw it. I lifted my foot just in time to avoid the creature’s wicked blade. A moment’s hesitation would have resulted in it severing my Achilles tendon. I brought my foot down on the blade, trapping it to the rocky surface. The Roosrath let go too slowly to be able to get out of the way of my escrima. The stick cracked on the back of its skull and it flopped to the ground.

  I arced the opposite stick around to push back two Roosrath who were trying to take advantage of my momentary distraction. They jumped back, flinging their blades up to deflect a blow that wasn’t coming...yet.

  I crouched low. With the advantage of speed gone, they still had one left. Their size. Executing proper escrima strikes was difficult on opponents so short. The dummy I practiced on in Master Roberto’s studio was my height. I was used to alternating strikes at that level. Getting down near their level would allow me to do that properly but take away my reach advantage in my kicks.

  The Roosrath shifted just outside of the reach of my sticks, Seanna momentarily forgotten. They saw me as the main threat and that felt good. It was about time I did something right.

  “Well,” I said, feeling a little bit too full of myself, “who’s next?”

  “Stop!” A high-pitched voice called out.

  The eyes behind the Roosrath masks glanced behind me and widened. They took several steps back.

  I risked a glance back. Seanna stood with an arm wrapped tightly around a Roosrath, holding him off his feet. Her blade pressed against his neck.

  The Roosrath was dressed like the others with the exception of his mask. This one had red lines painted at the corners of the eioshu eyes like it had cried bloody tears.

  “Back away,” Seanna said.

  The Roosrath didn’t budge.

  She made some kind of noise in the back of her throat. It was like a growl accented with clicks and pops.

  The Roosrath, after a moment’s hesitation and glances at each other, stepped back. They kept their blades ready, though.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Found this one trying to sneak up from behind,” Seanna said. “His mask is painted differently, so I figured he was something a little more than just a fighter.”

  She made more noises, then made the same noises with more force. Again, the Roosrath glanced at each other before stooping to drop their blades to the rock. She growled and clucked at them. They kicked their weapons off the outcropping.

  “What are you doing?”

  “That’s their language.”

  “You know their language.”

  She opened the hand wrapped around the Roosrath’s chest to show a different piece of wood. This one was shaped like an oversized almond. More magic.

  Seanna said something low at the Roosrath she held. After a moment, it nodded its head. She lowered him to the ground, but didn’t let him move out of her grip, nor did she relax the dagger against his throat.

  I tried to keep an eye on them and the other Roosrath. Not an easy task when they were on either side of me.

  Seanna clicked and hummed in the Roosrath’s tiny ear. The creature’s eyes narrowed behind the slots in the mask. They darted from me to his fellows just beyond me. He finally said something in his language.

  “Relax. They’re going to let us go, Gaige,” Seanna said.

  “Just like that?”

  “Yeah.” She slowly pulled the dagger away from the Roosrath’s throat. When he didn’t make any threatening moves, she relaxed her hold on him.

  He turned and stepped back. He said something, his voice muffled behind the mask. Seanna replied and he waved at the other Roosrath who shuffled away a few steps.

  “What’s going on?”

  “A little exchange,” Seanna said still gripping her dagger.

  I straightened and moved closer to her. “What kind of exchange?”

  “They’re going to let us go.”

  “In return for what?”

  “I let him live.”

  “Oh,” I said. My brain went on a quick trip around trying to figure out if she would have killed the little creature if she had to. Just a quick lap that didn’t come to any conclusion.

  “Also with the promise to never return.”

  I risked a glance up the mountain toward the direction we had come. Elder Narit and the rest of the Jo-Shar were up t
here somewhere, but she had made it perfectly clear—twice—I wasn’t welcome among them. “No worry there.”

  One by one, the Roosrath hopped down from the outcropping until only the one with the red teardrop mask was left. He grunted and clicked sharply at Seanna.

  She waved a hand like she swatted away whatever concerns he seemed to have. “Let’s go.”

  He dropped down to the ground. I glanced up the ravine. The Roosrath moved just far enough away to limit the sense of threat but stayed close enough to make sure we left like Seanna promised.

  16

  A planet divided

  What’s wrong with this planet?” I grumbled.

  “We’ve been using more magic than it can generate, so it’s running-” Seanna started.

  “Not what I was talking about,” I interrupted

  “What do you mean?”

  I glanced over my shoulder for about the billionth time. I hadn’t seen sign of the Roosrath since we walked out of sight, but that didn’t mean much. We hadn’t noticed that first one who attacked us until it nearly turned Seanna into a shish kebab with his giant knife.

  “Those people.” I waved a hand behind us. “You’re people. Everybody. Why is it everyone hates everyone on this world?”

  “Everyone doesn’t hate everyone, Gaige. You’re being melodramatic.”

  “So, the Ashlings are really good pals with the Jo-Shar? What about the swamp people like Sholto? The humans in Delicia?” I threw up my hands. “Hell, the Ashlings don’t even get along with each other. It takes a marriage to get two clans to help each other out.”

  “It’s not as simple as you make it seem. It’s not like we all got together and decided to hate each other.”

  “Maybe not, but has any effort been made to not hate each other?”

  She cast a glowering glance at me before her face softened. That little shift in facial expression was probably as close as she could come to conceding a point. Even when she was in the wrong, she had a knack for making people feel like they were at fault.

  “I don’t expect you to understand, nashuway ,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She tugged on my sleeve to get me moving faster down the ravine.

  I watched her out of the corner of my eyes. I had tried hard to regard her with disinterest and for the most part I had been successful. There was something in that moment that tugged too hard on my interest to let it pass. Maybe it was her apparent willingness to kill that Roosrath for our freedom. Maybe it was in the way she tried really hard to not talk down to me as she had in the past. No matter the reasons, I let my attention wander to her.

  I assumed it was safe to bet she hadn’t stayed in her human form the whole year since Aoife and I had left. That meant she had to reassume the form to come fetch me. In that case, she had recreated the form nearly perfectly. Same slight body. Same thin face with sharp cheeks. Same blue eyes. Same slight arch of her brows over the same blue eyes. To what end? Why would she go through the effort to recreate the form I knew—the one I had learned to hate?

  “It hasn’t always been like this,” she said, pulling me abruptly from my thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Alisundi,” she said. “It hasn’t always been like this. At least, that’s what Mother Tree tells. The stories passed down through the generations tell of a different world many years ago.”

  “How so?”

  “As you correctly pointed out, the Ashling clans do not mix well together. Jae’s clan dwindles while my flourishes to the point where we need their land and they need us so they don’t die out completely.” She paused as we came to a steep drop off of about thirty yards or so. She quickly found a narrow animal trail that showed us the way down. She took it with much less care than I did. “Many, many generations ago, Ashlings came together out of love not necessity.

  “They mingled with other races, too. Of course, we got along with some more than others due to the nature of our beings. The swamp people like Sholto for instance. Our ways of living—our philosophies in life—were just too different. Where they thrive living alone in decay, we prefer clan life that celebrates life.” She turned to look back at me. “You know what I mean? It’s not like we hate each other for no other reason than we’re different. We’re fundamentally different.”

  I clung to the rock face, not daring to expend the concentration needed to form a reply, though I didn’t think my response would be anything other than confusion. Even if I wasn’t trying to pick my way down a ledge that was no more than two feet at its widest and covered in rocks and sparse vegetation, her last statement wouldn’t have made much sense.

  The way down was much slower going for me. Even though it wasn’t that far of a drop, there was nothing at the bottom but hard stone. I didn’t want to test my luck. Flesh against rock wasn’t a fair fight. At one point, I had to shuffle sideways with my back pushed against the rock face. Trying—and failing—to not look down, I envisioned myself losing that fight over and over again the whole way down. When we made it to the bottom of the ledge, I hopped down the last four feet just to prove I wasn’t really afraid.

  “I like to think it was the loss of magic,” Seanna said once she could turn to face me again.

  “What?”

  “The change that happened in us.” I got the feeling she paused at the bottom of the ledge to let me catch my breath but the funny thing is I wasn’t tired. “The magic seeping from Alisundi is a ready-made excuse for how we behave. Truth is, things were changing long before anyone noticed magic was becoming scarce.”

  The path down the rock face had led us into a narrow gorge with cliffs rising up both sides. They loomed over us and seemed to close in on us like a trash compactor on the Death Star. I stepped around her and for once took the lead. It wasn’t like I had to worry about where we were going. We had two choices. Up or down.

  “The Ashling elders teach it was others who drove a wedge between the races,” she continued. “I’m not sure about that now.”

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  “Why do you doubt what you were taught? What’s changed?”

  “I’d never met another race until I came to get you the first time.”

  “Wait. Your people risked such an important mission on a girl who had no experience interacting with others?”

  “I didn’t have the experience with other races, but that’s not to say I was inexperienced in dealing with others outside my clan. By that time, I had already spent a great amount of time negotiating with other Ashling clans. I—” She hesitated. “I negotiated my pending marriage to Jae with his clan.”

  “I imagine there’s a big difference in dealing with completely different races, though.”

  “Indeed. I spent a long time with elders in my clan. They taught me what they knew of the human race from what little interaction they’d had. In a way, my inexperience with your kind was a help rather than a hindrance.”

  “How so?”

  “It made it easier to view you as something different.” She paused, deciding whether to finish the thought. She did. “Something expendable.”

  “Well, that’s...good?”

  The path widened enough for her to step up to walk beside me. “Really. The elders’ only contact with humans on this world were people like Daresh. Devious, cunning, rude, arrogant, and selfish. I spent a week on Earth observing you. In that time, I learned a lot about how naive we really are.

  “I saw something in you the elders never would have guessed. The way you cared for your mom. The guilt you felt over forcing your aunt to take care of you both. The loyalty you had towards your friends. It flew in the face of everything they taught me about humans.”

  “And yet you led me directly into Daresh’s open arms?”

  “I didn’t do it lightly, Gaige. I was conflicted the whole time. I realized we had made a huge mistake in our assessment of humans. You all aren’t like Daresh, obviously, but if we didn’t do something,
our whole clan was in danger.”

  “Yes, the Mother Tree,” I said. A thought came to me, though I played it off as something that had been nagging at me. “If he was threatening Her, why not just post a thousand guards around her or something?”

  “We considered that,” she said. “Her location is a secret, though. To this day, we don’t know how Daresh learned of it, but he had. He made it very clear he did know and was willing to kill Her and our clan for what he wanted.

  “There was great debate over what to do. Everybody had a plan to deal with the threat, but there were three that rose to the top: Send a force to the Mother Tree to protect Her, attack Daresh before he had a chance to use his weapon on Her, or give him what he wanted.”

  “We can all guess which plan won,” I said with a half-hearted sneer.

  “Attacking Delicia was quickly struck down. We just don’t have the force needed to take a city like that. While Daresh knew where the Mother Tree is, we are sure others—including other Ashling clans—don’t know. Sending a force to protect Her would tip everybody on Alisundi as to Her whereabouts.”

  “So, your clan made the easy decision.”

  “It seemed easy at the time.” She shrugged. “Do you know when I knew I was making a mistake?”

  I shook my head.

  “When the Balataur took Aoife. Your single-minded drive to go after her proved the doubts that were already brewing in the back of my mind.”

  “What doubts?” I asked.

  “The doubts over whether the elders got their beliefs in human nature correct.”

  “Mmm,” I grunted. My first instinct was to point out she still walked me right into Daresh’s trap anyways, but I bit it back.

  “It got harder and harder,” she said, as if reading my thoughts. “I kept telling myself it was the only way to save my people.”

  That was something I still struggled with. I liked to tell myself that I would have sacrificed myself to save her clan. One life for thousands. That was a small price to pay, right? I don’t know if I would have or not, but what really burrowed under my skin was the knowledge that I walked blindly into the trap. Maybe if I had known Daresh’s plans, we could have formulated some way to trick him into thinking I was going to help while the Ashlings saved their Mother Tree. Blundering blindly into the trap with Seanna leading me by the nose was the one thing I would never forgive.