The Warded Box

by Guy Antibes

  “Didn’t you?” Jack asked.

  She glared at him. “I did, but I had my reasons.”

  “And she doesn’t? Eldora had to know her heart, yet she still kissed her, didn’t she?”

  “But—”

  “But, we need her to carry out our Gameton mission, Ralinn. She gave us valuable information and didn’t refuse us.”

  “But her conditions…”

  “Her conditions were compromises. She wanted a carriage so we will give her a horse and a packhorse. If things are going to be rough tomorrow, at least we know about it. Would you be able to walk out of your house and ride away at a moment’s notice? Is that what Lark and you did when you traveled to Underville?”

  “No. It took us a week,” she said quietly.

  “Then we wait until the day after tomorrow, at dawn,” Jack said.

  Ralinn smiled. “At dawn.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  ~

  J ack sat up in his room before dinner, going over his weapons, both magical and mundane. He tried to figure out what he was missing until it hit him. He could imbue anything with a spell. He looked over his armor and the other possessions and fingered the leather pouch Amee had given him; the only thing inside was the ring that matched the shape of the studs on his bracers. Jack never did like wearing rings, but that would be perfect for imbuing. It was small and could be worn discreetly.

  He held it in his hand and wondered if he could imbue the ring and give it to Ralinn. It would be the same routine. This time Jack touched the blue box, hoping Eldora wouldn’t bother him again, and built up the magic and his will and pushed the anti-coercion spell into the ring, thinking of Ralinn while he did it. He blinked his eyes a few times and had to lean forward to keep from falling, but he stayed conscious.

  Jack felt that was the right thing to do, and now he could protect Ralinn from the Black Fingers. He hoped that having an object of power would protect her if the Black Fingers were at large, which he feared might happen the next day.

  He got up, feeling a little dizzy and walked down the stairs. Tanner and Helen sat talking at a table for six and looked up when he joined them.

  “How was your afternoon?” Helen asked.

  “Tanner didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “We have a new addition to our group. Her name is Corina Bell. She is a former Eldoran priestess and currently is a member of the Eastern Ridge insurgency. She will be leaving them for a bit to join us on our travels to Gameton. She needed a day to get her affairs in order, so we will leave the day after tomorrow at dawn.”

  “Dawn, eh? Any significance to leaving so early?” Helen said.

  “She was a bit demanding, so I was demanding back,” Jack said.

  Tanner smiled. “I think that is as good a reason as any,” he said. “I like getting an early start anyway. She also told Jack that the big fight starts tomorrow. So if they go on from dawn to dusk—”

  “Everyone will be too worn out to stop us the next day.”

  Tanner nodded. “Exactly. What does she look like?”

  “Very pretty in a mature kind of way. I would guess she is a little younger than Fasher.”

  “But older than the both of us?” Helen asked.

  Jack nodded. He doubted Corina would infringe on anyone’s current relationship. A flash of Ralinn leaning into his body came to mind. “We will need two more horses.”

  “Already arranged,” Tanner said. “We just need to wait for Ralinn and Lark to come down so we can go over tomorrow.”

  “Do you intend on fighting?” Jack asked.

  “We should concentrate on defending. I had a talk with the—” He looked at the stairs to see Ralinn and her mentor.

  Ralinn sat next to Jack, and Lark sat at the head of the table opposite Tanner. Helen shifted chairs to sit at his left.

  Tanner pursed his lips and cleared his throat. “We need to discuss today’s events and tomorrow’s strategy.”

  “I had a word with the innkeeper,” Lark said.

  “I thought you weren’t going to do any talking,” Tanner said.

  “I took the risk,” Lark said. “If anyone challenges me, I’ll say I grew up on the border. Will that satisfy you?”

  Tanner grimaced but nodded. “What did the innkeeper tell you?”

  “If we are willing to share protecting the stable and the horses, he is confident the inn will weather any conflict. The walls are stone, the windows have iron grills, and the roof is all slate. There is nothing that will burn. Much of the Yellowbird commercial areas are made that way,” Lark said. “This isn’t the first fight within the city’s walls.”

  “Why don’t we leave now?” Helen asked.

  Ralinn gasped. “We can’t do that. Corina Bell must come with us. She must.”

  “I agree,” Jack said. “I can’t ignore a goddess.”

  “She isn’t my goddess,” Helen said. “But I am here to protect you, so if you don't come, I will stay.”

  “I agree with Helen,” Lark said.

  Tanner looked at the female mercenary and narrowed his eyes. “I hate being held up by an insurgent, but if she doesn’t show up day after tomorrow, we find a way to leave Yellowbird. Agreed?”

  Jack nodded. “She will be here,” he said with more hope than conviction.

  Their dinner wasn’t the best, but the innkeeper apologized. He had his cooks out scouring for more food. He claimed he had enough at the inn for two weeks if they were careful, and he was going to start being careful now.

  Jack was heading back up to his room when he heard a commotion outside his window. The clanging of arms together with shouts of battle told him that the streets of Yellowbird were no longer safe. He checked his newest object of power, the protection ring, and put it in the pocket of his tunic, and then checked the thongs that cradled Eldora’s box and the Serpent’s Orb around his neck. He wouldn’t let anything lose its power.

  He decided to armor up and head downstairs. It looked like the others shared his thoughts. The only one who wasn’t in the common room was Lark. Jack didn’t think Lark was a coward, but he wasn’t aggressively brave like Tanner. He suspected Ralinn to be more courageous than her mentor.

  He sat next to her at a table. The influx of visitors that the stableman predicted wouldn’t happen, at least not tonight with the inn locked up.

  “When did you have time to put the colored trim on your bracers?” Ralinn asked.

  “Eldora did it for me. One is a spell for water and the other a spell for ice. I haven’t tried them.”

  “They will have a purpose then,” Ralinn said. “Maybe when you enter the Eldoran temple in Gameton?”

  Jack shrugged. “I guess so. I can hardly try them out in Yellowbird. You are comfortable with the vest?”

  She nodded. “At least I have more protection against wizard bolts.”

  “I have an additional item for your protection,” Jack said. He gave her the ring.

  “The Morakans gave that to you. I would have to wear it on my thumb.”

  Jack closed her fingers around the silver circle. “If you have to, put in on a chain around your neck. I have imbued it with a protection spell, and if I did it correctly, it is keyed to you.”

  “But—”

  “I want you protected in case the Black Fingers get close to you.”

  “You shouldn’t have done this. It is a gift.”

  “Right, my gift to you.”

  She undid a chain around her neck and slipped one end through the ring. “I’ll wear it this way. Will that be okay?”

  “Whatever works. Don’t take it off unless you are totally safe.” Jack saw Tanner coming. “Our secret, okay?”

  Ralinn nodded.

  Tanner sat down next to them, fidgeting with his hands. “I hate listening to the sounds of battle when I’m cooped up like this. How are you two doing?”

  Jack looked across the common room to see Lark talking to Helen. Tanner had obviously walked away from th
e pair.

  “I’m hoping Corina comes pounding on the door sooner than later,” Jack said. “If we walked out there, how would we know whom to fight?”

  “Black Finger Society members,” Ralinn said. “Those for sure. I am a Loyalist. I would look for people wearing pointed caps.

  “Not at night,” Tanner said. “So we sit here in protect mode. It is unlikely that Loyalists or the Yellowbird guard would be attacking an inn.”

  “That gives us some direction anyway,” Jack said.

  Other patrons drifted down, and soon the common room was more than half full. The local patrons didn’t bother knocking on the closed doors, so the innkeeper started serving ale. Some patrons drank too much and others not at all. Jack and his group nursed tankards of light ale.

  The tension was high. Common rooms were generally places to relax, but not tonight in Yellowbird. Everyone flinched when they heard glass breaking upstairs. Jack was the first to his feet and ran up the stairs, looking in the rooms that were unlocked, but the window at the far end of the hallway was broken out. He saw a rock amidst the broken glass of a single pane.

  Jack heard an occasional thunk against the walls. He peered out into the street. Twilight had not yet given way to evening. People were running this way and that. Rocks were being thrown, but the sound of sword on sword had moved off.

  “A rock was thrown,” Jack said. “The actual fighting has moved off.”

  “I hate riots,” Tanner said. “Those can get ugly when the citizenry gets roused. Sometimes it can get so bad that people destroy things just to destroy them.”

  “Only one broken pane, so far,” Jack said.

  The fighting ebbed and flowed throughout the night. It appeared the innkeeper was right about his inn being fortified against whatever was going on outside, so the common room eventually emptied, and a few of the inn’s employees stayed to watch the bottom floor.

  Jack returned to his room. He took off his helmet and cuirass but kept his weapons on as well as his boots. He stared up at the dark ceiling and must not have moved during the night, since he woke staring at the same ceiling.

  ~

  Tanner, Jack, and Ralinn walked the streets close to the inn before breakfast. There were few signs of the fighting from the night before, but they did see a burnt-out cart, splotches of blood, and more broken windows. Jack wanted to see how Corina Bell had fared. Horseapple Street didn’t look much different.

  He knocked on Corina’s door, but no one answered. Jack didn’t know if that was good or bad. He looked through the tiny panes of the front window, but couldn’t see evidence of any violence inside, while Tanner tested the latch. It was locked, so they wandered around the streets. All they saw were residents scurrying around, carrying out their business before the hostilities began in the daylight. Before they reached the inn, they looked down a street to see it filled with men in brown uniforms marching their way. It was time to seek refuge at the inn.

  Two hours later, the innkeeper let an anxious citizen in the inn. He had a message for Jack.

  “For me?” Jack asked as the man handed the message to him. Jack noticed him running away after he left the inn.

  “What is that?” Tanner said.

  Jack unfolded the parchment and looked at the words.

  “Corina is being held by the Eastern Ridge insurgency at Number 32 Overvine Street. She asks for help.”

  He looked on the back, but those were the only words.

  “It could be a trap,” Tanner said.

  “But what if it isn’t?” Ralinn wrung her hands. “We have to save her, trap or not.”

  “Perhaps they didn’t like her leaving Yellowbird when she told them,” Helen said.

  Jack sat down and tossed the note on the table. Lark picked it up. “Why would they want to capture you, Jack? Who knows you are even here?”

  “We should go now before the fighting heats up,” Tanner said. He looked at Lark and Ralinn. “I think you are safer here than you’ll be with us. We don’t know what we will run into.”

  Lark nodded. Ralinn acted as if she had something to say, but she sighed and nodded too.

  “Go and get her. Tell her whatever she leaves behind, we will replace,” Ralinn said.

  “Let’s hope it isn’t much,” Tanner said, checking his armor.

  After getting directions from the innkeeper, they kept to the shady side of the streets they traversed, but their luck in not contacting anyone stopped close to their destination. A squad of Panderites looked at them as Tanner, Jack, and Helen turned a corner. Overvine Street was a few blocks away.

  “What are you doing here?” one of the soldiers said, not wearing any armor.

  “Rescuing a woman who is going to join our party to Gameton. I thought you were going to keep evacuees from entering Panderite territory,” Tanner said.

  The officer, one who they must have met, shrugged. “Things change. Turn around and go back the way you came.”

  Jack pulled out his wand. A wizard wearing a longer uniform tunic than the others and a metal cap whispered something in the officer’s ear.

  “Wizards aren’t allowed in the city any more unless they are Panderite wizards.”

  “Does that apply to the whole city or to this street,” Tanner said, sliding the sword from its scabbard.

  “We outnumber you,” the officer said.

  “Think again.” Helen pulled her sword out. “Let us pass, or you’ll pay a dear toll for trying to stop us.”

  The soldiers looked at each other. There were eight in total, now that Jack had a chance to count.

  “Unless you have an object of power, you won’t win,” the wizard said.

  “I have a fistful of them,” Jack raised his sword and shot a wizard bolt across the gap between them, letting the bolt from his sword splash against the cobbles at the wizard’s feet. He jumped back and slipped behind the soldier.

  “Do you want to see more?” Jack pointed out the water bracer at the men and used “water” as the trigger word. A stream of water, more powerful than what came out of a pump, shot out bathing the officer and those close to him. “Are you satisfied?” Jack said, hoping against hope they were.

  “Charge!” the drenched officer said.

  Most of the men moved forward. Jack hit the men in their knees with a succession of weaker bolts from his wand, making five of the Panderites fall to the cobbles.

  “Three against three?” Tanner said.

  The wizard was among those still standing and fell to his knees. “I’m not that powerful,” he said, raising his hands.

  “The boy could have just as easily killed your men. You know that, don’t you?” Tanner said. “Step to the other side of the street while we pass. We mean you no harm.”

  “Harm,” the officer snorted, but he moved despite his words.

  They moved past the soldiers and proceeded to the house. Helen disappeared just before they got there and returned.

  “One guard in the back. He sleeps.”

  “Not forever, I hope,” Jack said.

  “Until his eyes open again,” Helen said, smiling.

  “Then a frontal attack,” Tanner said. He looked at Jack. “Be ready to burn down the door.”

  Tanner knocked. A man opened the door with a sword in his hand. “Yes?”

  “I have come to talk to Corina Bell.”

  “She isn’t available,” the man said and was about to shut the door.

  Jack jammed his wand between the door and the frame. “Make her available,” he said mimicking Tanner’s toughness. He had to keep from laughing, he sounded so ridiculous to his own ears.

  The man left. Jack had a hard time getting his wand out of the doorframe, but with Tanner’s help, he succeeded.

  Corina was nearly dragged to the door. Her face was bruised.

  “We will be taking her with us,” Tanner said.

  “Who said?” one of the two men said. He produced a knife and put it at her throat.

  “I thought y
ou were all members of the Eastern Ridge faction?” Jack asked. “Is this any way to treat one of your fellow members?”

  “We don’t let anyone quit,” one of the men said.

  Jack looked at Corina. “Are you still coming with us, or shall we leave you behind?”

  “I do as Eldora directs,” she said.

  The man grunted, but Jack used his wand to end the threat.

  “Damned wizard,” the other man said, but Helen took care of him.

  Corina collapsed into Tanner’s arms. Jack quickly put the men inside and shut the door. He could hear feet coming to the front. He pointed his blue-banded bracer at the door and said, “Ice,” and coated the frame with a flood of water that instantly froze before he painted the entire door.

  “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  ~

  “W here did you get your new toys?” Tanner said as he helped Corina flee from her former faction members.

  A gift from my friend the goddess,” Jack said.

  He took the other side of Corina, and they quickly moved out of sight of the house. Tanner guided them to an alley.

  “Are we leaving earlier than planned?” Tanner asked.

  Corina nodded and wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth. “I see you got the message. I had at least one friend left. I guess growing up with them wasn’t enough,” she said. “They wanted me to die with them today.”

  “Why would they want to die in Yellowbird? Their deaths would be meaningless,” Helen said.

  Corina shook her head. “I can’t tell you, since I don’t know myself. I thought they were going to try to take over a corner of Yellowbird, but,” she sighed, “I was wrong.”

  “Do you know a better way to the inn? We were accosted by Panderites on the way.”

  She nodded her head. “This way. I think I can walk well enough.”

  Corina staggered a bit, but with Helen’s help, she led them close to the inn without confronting anyone other than fellow citizens that tried to ignore them. “Something is burning,” Tanner said.

  They arrived at the inn, to see flames shooting out of one of the rooms upstairs. Men milled around the place.