Seeker of Secrets

by Deck Davis

  Feagle

  [A bird of prey usually found in the western mountain ranges]

  Family: Accipitridae

  Strengths: Talons, sharp sight, long range

  Weaknesses: Inclined to hunt weaker game that doesn’t fight back. Allergic to certain types of venom.

  Looking at their wingspan and hearing the loud flapping sound they created, almost like whooshes of air, Joshua had visions of both feagles swooping down and tearing him apart, and he saw himself slashing madly with his long halberd but hitting nothing but air.

  Seeing the feagles boosted his seeker binding from 58 to 60/100 and his creature sense increased to novice 5/10, but as much as he enjoyed the warm feeling of a skill increase, he was worried.

  If the feagles weren’t bad enough, he, Benjen, and Beula were outnumbered five to three. Joshua had his halberd, a spear-like weapon, Benjen had a weird-shaped sword that he didn’t even want to use, and Beula, the somewhat beautiful orc, had a glove with barbed wire wrapped around the fist.

  Carlisle, meanwhile, had a machete with a wooden handle. The blade was blunt and heavy, and it looked like it would hurt like hell to get hit with it. The man to his right carried a small dagger, the kind a jester might use to play that incredibly stupid game where he’d stab the blade between his outspread fingers, going faster and faster until nobody could watch. The guy on Carlisle’s right, a well-built man with a groomed beard and receding hairline, held a thin rapier sword.

  It was Carlisle that worried Joshua the most, and for two reasons. One, he obviously had some kind of persuasive class, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to convince all of these men to back him up. A persuasive class in the wrong hands was dangerous.

  Two, Carlisle’s face trembled with hatred, especially when his gaze fell on his ex-wife, Beula. When he looked at her his hand tightened around his machete until his knuckles turned white. Joshua read years of burning anger in that expression and he knew that for Carlisle, things had come to a head today, and that he wasn’t here to talk.

  It was five drunken, better-armed, and probably more fight-experienced men, against two lads from a village in the west who’d barely fought outside of the occasional bar-room brawl, and an orc woman who looked good for a scrap, but not when she was outnumbered.

  Joshua leaned toward Benjen. He spoke loud enough for Beula to hear too.

  “Take out Carlisle. He led the others up here. Once he’s down, they’ll lose heart. Maybe we can end this without having to kill anyone.”

  Benjen, who had made it clear many times that he wouldn’t take a life, nodded. Beula lightly punched her right fist into her left palm.

  Joshua felt the nerves hit him now. He’d had fist fights before, but they were always drunken disagreements outside the tavern in his village. They usually sprang from nothing, as drunken feuds usually did, and they were over before there was time for nerves.

  This was different. There was no alcohol in his belly to give him false courage. Then again, he guessed it was good not to be drunk when facing danger.

  Carlisle nodded at the man on the far end of his mob. “Let ‘em go,” he said. Then, he did the same to the man on the other side.

  The feagle handlers released their birds, and ear-piercing screeches joined with the thud of wings. Across from them, in the airspace above Beula, the thrips answered with sounds of their own; a buzz taken up by them one by one until the air thronged with a dozen versions of it.

  The buzz met with the squawks and flaps of wings as the feagles and thrips faced in midair. Joshua’s zoology stirred in him, and he watched with academic interest at the way the thrips bunched together in a circle with their stingers pointed out, meaning that the feagles risked a shot of venom if they attacked.

  Benjen stared at the aerial battle, his mouth wide open, and he gaped even wider when one eagle swooped below the thrips and attacked from underneath, while its friend soared over the top of them.

  Joshua jabbed Benjen with the pole end of his halberd.

  “Your sword.”

  Benjen drew his banana-shaped sword and, even if he wouldn’t use it to draw blood, he at least gave the appearance that he planned to. With his height and mass he cut an imposing figure, and the sun glinted on his red hair and fiery beard and it shone on his sword, and with the combined effect he looked the epitome of a warrior.

  That was all he was good for, though; giving the appearance of a fighter. Joshua knew Benjen would only use his sword if it was a matter of life and death for he and Joshua. He couldn’t go on the offensive.

  Carlisle had no such moral quandary. He took the first step toward Joshua, and then the rest of his mob followed and they walked in less a battle formation and more a slightly-drunk line.

  Joshua’s heart fizzed with adrenaline now. This was new to him; a fight when he was sober, a fight with weapons, a fight with the odds against him.

  The halberd felt all too cumbersome in his hands. The pole was too long, the blade at the end of it too heavy.

  Beula took a stride forward to meet her ex-husband. Her barbed hand was tensed into a fist, and her orc features twisted so harshly that the prettiness had temporarily left her, and Joshua saw a flicker of something bestial on her face.

  “Last chance,” said Carlisle, with spit flicking from his lips. “I want my farm back.”

  “You had that choice. You chose the gold.”

  “You took advantage of me.”

  “How?” said Beula.

  “You knew I was drunk.”

  “Did I make you show up to the townhall with a belly full of beer?”

  “Forget this. I’m done speaking to you, bitch.”

  Carlisle raised his machete and aimed the blunt weapon at Beula’s neck. An orc she may have been, but even tough orc skin couldn’t take the blow of metal.

  Joshua had been watching, though. He raised his halberd and jabbed the pole into the arc of Carlisle’s swing. The machete crunched through the wood, and the shock reverberated down the pole until it hit Joshua’s fingers and sent a spasm of pain through his hand.

  How did people even use these things if one blow made your hand burn?

  Then again, halberds weren’t designed as dueling weapons. Joshua might have used his to protect Beula’s neck, but he’d lost the blade part of his weapon now after Carlisle’s machete tore through the wood. This left him with what amounted to a sharpened stick.

  At least it was lighter, which made it easier to use.

  A man to Carlisle’s right stepped forward now. He headed toward Benjen, and Joshua’s whole body tensed. He gripped his pole and charged.

  At the last second, the man changed direction, and instead swung a club at Beula’s head.

  Joshua raised his pole. The club smacked into it, and the shock hit Joshua again, and this time it stung his knuckles and finger joints so much that he dropped the weapon.

  Beula, oblivious to the man’s attempt to cave in her skull with a club, swung her fist at Carlisle. The drunken man ducked but not enough, and the steel barbs on Beula’s knuckles tore over his scalp.

  Carlisle screamed. Blood welled where the barbs had broken skin, and it mixed with his greasy hair.

  Beula swung her fist for another blow but Carlisle dropped back, onto his arse, and the momentum carried the orc forward until she fell on top of her ex-husband.

  Above them, one feagle screeched, and it flapped lop-sided through the air, with a small hole in its left wing and a torn thrip stinger sticking out from it.

  Seeing its weakness, the thrips buzzed louder now and they fixed their bulbous eyes on the hurt feagle. In breaking their circle, they left themselves vulnerable, and the remaining feagle soared toward them from behind, its talons raised and its bared and ready to tear them apart.

  Screeches filled the air. Wings flapped furiously.

  A thrip landed on the ground with a thump. A second one fell. Then a third, this one crashing stinger-first into the shoulder of the man to Carlisle’s left. The
thrip’s pointy rump tore through his skin and wedged at least two inches inside him, and the man cried out as the stinger pumped venom into him.

  Joshua picked up his ruined halberd and started toward Carlisle and Beula, who were grappling on the ground. Carlisle grabbed Beula’s ponytail and yanked it so hard that she cried out, and a chunk of her brown hair tore away and left a bloody spot on her scalp.

  She punched him once, and then again, each blow shuddering through his jawbone and dragging steel barbs across his red cheeks, leaving a trail of blood.

  Carlisle reached to his side, and he pulled a small dagger from his pocket. Beula hadn’t seen it, and Joshua had to help her.

  “Help!” shouted a voice, but not Beula’s.

  It was Benjen. One of the mob had his arm around Benjen’s neck, holding him in a headlock, and another man was approaching him holding a long-thin, rapier-like weapon.

  It was Beula or Benjen.

  Beula had all her children. The farm. So many mouths depending on her.

  But Benjen…

  His mind made up, Joshua raced toward Benjen. On the way, he passed Carlisle, and he swung his right boot at him, kicking him in his ribs.

  Damn, that felt too good.

  Carlisle put his left hand to the ground to steady himself. Joshua hoped the pause was enough for Beaula to get the better of her husband, but he couldn’t stop to check.

  He sprinted as fast as he could, with a sense of urgency burning through him.

  This had all gone too far. It had gotten to heated too quickly. Now, the man was advancing on Benjen, and he held his rapier tensed and at waist height, eyeing Benjen’s belly.

  Joshua reached him and swung his halberd, smashing the broken end of it against the man’s face.

  The man stumbled back, still holding his rapier, and he groaned.

  Benjen elbowed the man behind him in the ribs, and he spun around quicker than a guy his size should have been able to, and he raised the hilt of his sword…

  …and he hesitated a moment too long.

  The man punched Benjen, rocking his skull back with a savage blow. Joshua heard the crunch – no, he felt it – and a wave of anger flowed through him.

  But to his left, Carlisle was back on top of Beula now, and he pinned her down with his knees on her chest, and he raised his machete.

  “No!” shouted a voice.

  It was a child’s voice, and Joshua saw one of Beula’s foster goblins running through the field. Behind him was the sepuna child, with his marble black skin and complete lack of facial features except for a little dip on the lower part of his head, that must have been a mouth.

  Carlisle plunged his machete forward.

  Joshua dived to his left and caught the weapon, and the metal seared into his palm and tore through his skin.

  Pain flooded through him. It was so tremendous that it made him dizzy, and he almost felt removed from it all, lost from the heat of the moment and carried away from it in a sea of pain where he could only hear the dim grunting of Carlisle as Beula tried to buck him off, and the cries of the feagles and buzzes of the thrips were drowned out.

  This had gone too far. He didn’t want to use it so soon, and especially not in his first guild quest, but it was time for his blessing to come into play. The Gods had given him a one-use blessing of minor luck for helping the goblin baby, and it looked like they’d need it.

  But just as he went to use it, he saw something that stopped him.

  Beaula jammed her knee into Carlisle’s side. Carlisle gasped, the air leaving his lungs completely, and he slumped onto his side.

  Carlisle didn’t look so ready to fight anymore. And with their leader wheezing for breath, maybe the other members of the mob would give up. Maybe they would…

  And then, a sound brought Joshua away from his pain. A sound that even then, in the milliseconds where it entered his ears and his brain processed it, he knew he’d remember it forever.

  He almost didn’t want to look. He couldn’t.

  But he had to.

  And he turned his head and saw Benjen stumbling back, his legs weak, blood on his lips.

  A rapier was stuck in his stomach, the pointed tip wedged deep through his coat and into the skin of his belly.

  Joshua felt nausea rip through him. He forced it away with everything he had, and he fought to get to his feet. He felt his blood trickle from his cut palm, but he bit back on the pain.

  There were two loud thumps and then a cry, and he saw that Beula was on top of Carlisle now, and she hit him again and again, each blow crunching his nose, and the barbs on her glove tearing his skin.

  Joshua ran to Benjen. The man who’d stabbed his stomach backed away now. His face was pale, his eyes almost lifeless, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d done.

  The man turned to his friend, who was standing behind Benjen. “The town guards. We have to leave before they come.”

  Benjen groaned. He stumbled forward and fell to his knees. The rapier stuck out from his stomach, and he coughed and blood flicked onto his beard.

  Joshua rushed to his friend and he gently helped him onto his back. An overwhelming panic surged through him, and he felt cold, he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

  “Benjen!”

  “Joshua…”

  His friend’s voice was weak. It was pitifully soft, with an etching of pain in his tone that made Joshua want to just collapse to the floor.

  The sword was too deep in his stomach. In the flood of thoughts that wracked his brain, Joshua knew that.

  Beula joined him. She kneeled beside Benjen.

  Joshua cast a look behind him, and he saw that Carlisle and his mob were fleeing the field now, tearing away from the farm with their surviving feagle swirling overhead, following them.

  He had half a mind to chase them. He wanted to catch them and take the machete from Carlisle and tear him apart with it.

  But he couldn’t leave his friend. And at the same time, he couldn’t even look at him, because he heard his raspy breaths now, and the stench of his blood was thick in the air.

  Summoning every last ounce of will in his body, he kneeled by Benjen and he swept his fiery hair away from his forehead. His skin was cold even though it was covered in sweat, and a sickly pattern of blood was around his mouth, but that blood paled in comparison to the gush of it flowing from his stomach.

  “Joshua…I’m sor-”

  But Benjen couldn’t finish the words. His lips stayed open, but they didn’t move. He stared up at the sky with open eyes, but there was no life in them now.

  Joshua couldn’t look, but he had to. He owed his friend this, and he wouldn’t abandon him now. He put his fingers against his neck, but he felt nothing.

  “No, Benjen!”

  A hand touched his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

  “Breathe, damn it!”

  It was no use. Deep down, in the darkest part of his soul, a part of him that he’d never dared look at before, he knew that it was useless.

  His chest wasn’t moving. Benjen, his best friend, the person he was closest to in all of Fortuna, wasn’t breathing, and his blood was seeping from his stomach and staining the field.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “I’m so sorry,” said Beula.

  Joshua held Benjen’s head in his hands. His friend’s fiery locks were streaked with blood, and he couldn’t understand why. His brain begged for answers to a hundred questions, but the questions came only half-spoken in his mind and he couldn’t even process them, let alone solve them.

  Blood in Benjen’s hair? How?

  No. The blood was his own from where he’d grabbed the machete to stop Carlisle from killing Beula and it had sliced his palm.

  It was his fault. He’d stopped to help Beula, and he’d been too late to save Benjen. Not only that; he was wearing Benjen’s breastplate. If only he hadn’t given in to his friend’ stubbornness, if only he’d forced Benjen to take it back…

  A flood of emotions hit h
im so hard that he thought he was pass out. He wanted to escape it but he couldn’t, and when he looked at the ground all he saw was his poor, dead friend.

  He loved Benjen then. He loved his friend more in that moment than he ever had. He wasn’t just a friend, he was a brother. Always.

  It was that thought, that deep wrenching of his soul, that made it worse. He couldn’t even look at Benjen’s stomach. He knew the rapier was sticking out from it, he could see it in his peripheral vision, but he thought he’d be sick if he looked at it.

  His pulse hammered in his ears, and his temples throbbed. A well of nausea built in his stomach, and he could taste it in his mouth now; bile. Sour bile in his throat and on his tongue.

  He vomited on the grass. It was watery, and he felt it splash back on him, and even worse, it splashed on Benjen’s shoulder. Seeing that, Joshua felt his vision blur, and a cold shudder passed through him and it wouldn’t leave, it just seeped deeper and deeper inside him.

  Strong hands pulled him away. Gently at first, then with a little more force, and he realized that it was Beula, and she was helping him to his feet.

  “The thrips are getting wild. The fight and the feagles have set them off. I can’t control them when they’re like this. Come on, Joshua.”

  The black marble-skinned sepuna child was crouched beside Benjen. There was no sorrow in his face because he didn’t have a face; just a smooth oval shape, with a slightly deeper curve that served as a mouth. He had no eyes, yet Joshua knew the child was looking at Benjen.

  And Benjen stared back. Or, not back, exactly, but his eyes were open, and his dead gaze was fixed at the sky. There was no blame on his face, because Benjen had never been that sort of person. There was no hate in him, there never had been.

  He was just Benjen. Cheery Benjen, who always had a smile, who might have looked mean with his thick build and his rough beard and his hands calloused from his smithy apprenticeship, but who’d never have hurt anyone, except to help Joshua.