“Welcome to camp,” Scout said. “You all look like you could use some rest.”
Plake dropped unceremoniously to the ground. “Maybe that’s because we haven’t eaten in a full day’s time. I’m surprise Arthur made it…he could barely keep his eyes open.”
Arthur didn’t reply. It wasn’t the first time Plake had made uncomplimentary remarks about the youth, and Klye figured the rancher was picking on the boy simply because he was the youngest member of the band.
Klye hadn’t the energy to reprimand Plake for his teasing—or, for that matter, any of his recent breaches of good sense. Besides, he thought, Arthur followed Horcalus like a shadow. If he was so enamored with the knight, let Horcalus protect him.
Horcalus, on the other hand, had spent the night walking beside Ragellan. Obviously, the younger knight was elated to have Ragellan back, as was Klye himself. Neither Horcalus nor Ragellan had said one word of complaint whenever Klye had given the order to resume the hike, and he wagered that the two of them would have walked all the way to Fort Faith without rest if he had told them to.
Like the knights, the two pirates kept mostly to themselves, positioning themselves back near Othello, who functioned as the band’s rearguard. Clearly, the pirates were in excellent physical condition. Despite the fact that Pistol and Crooker had spent much of their lives at sea, they had no trouble keeping up during the nightlong hike, though Klye had heard them grumbling under their breath.
As everyone began to settle down, finding places to sit in the dewy grass, Klye walked over to Ragellan, his unofficial second-in-command. “Scout assures me we won’t be found here, but we should post a lookout anyway, just to be safe.”
“Agreed,” Ragellan said. “We may be far from the road, but it would be folly to believe that the mayor hasn’t out men to search for us. In my opinion, two guards walking the perimeter of the meadow in hour-long shifts would suffice.”
Klye was content to let Ragellan handle the matter. Choosing the number of guards and deciding who would work best with whom was second nature to the former Superian commander, but when Ragellan volunteered to take the first watch, Klye had to disagree. Ragellan was far more tired than he let on. Probably, he hadn’t slept well during his stay in Port Town’s prison.
“I’ll take first watch, along with Horcalus,” Klye suggested, figuring that the younger knight was the least likely to fall asleep while on watch, even after walking all night. The others would be more dependable after some rest.
Othello had purchased only six bedrolls in Port Town, anticipating only one new addition to the group—their guide to Fort Faith. The bedrolls were thin and somewhat ragged—it was all Klye’s money could afford—but they were better than nothing, for the ground was hard, wet, and cold. With two people on watch, that still left one person without a bedroll.
“I will go without,” Ragellan volunteered, even as Plake raided one of the supply bags to liberate the last one.
But apparently Othello preferred the earth for his bed and a tree root for his pillow, for the archer refused the bedroll offered to him. After everyone settled down, placing their bedrolls and then themselves down near the middle of the clearing, an eerie silence fell over the camp. After but a few minutes, the sounds of heavy breathing—and snoring from Crooker—blended in with the noises of the forest.
In no time at all, Klye and Horcalus were the only ones awake.
Seeing the others asleep added ten pounds to Klye’s eyelids. The Renegade Leader forced his gaze away from the sleepers and out toward the surrounding woods. He was not accustomed to acting as a sentry. During his days as a thief, he had not had anyone to watch his back and hadn’t watched anyone else’s.
Yet there was something altogether familiar in standing watch, and he recalled the vivid dream he had had while in an inexplicable coma. In that dream, he had traveled with three other adventurers, had been part of a team whether he liked it or not. So real had it felt, more like a memory than the musings of the unconscious mind, that Klye had to remind himself that it had not actually happened.
Glancing over at his fellow watchman, Klye saw Horcalus had his back to him. The knight was pacing back and forth along one edge of the meadow, keeping his eye on the surrounding forest. Though he was surely as tired as the rest, Dominic Horcalus did not drag his feet, and his posture was as straight as the spires of Aladon’s Cathedral.
A life-long thief, Klye had always regarded the Knights of Superius—or any faction of knights, for that matter—as the enemy. Now, however, he was glad to have Ragellan and Horcalus in his band. They were formidable warriors and men of honor, no matter what the King of Superius claimed.
As Horcalus made an abrupt about-face, his gray eyes met with Klye’s. Klye offered the man a smile, but the knight turned away quickly, blatantly ignoring the Renegade Leader’s gesture of goodwill.
Horcalus had never been friendly toward him, and Klye thought himself a fool for expecting things to have changed in the past few days. Probably, Horcalus held Klye personally responsible for Ragellan’s most recent incarceration.
He probably blames me for everything, Klye thought. Even after seeking the Knighthood’s corruption firsthand, he still opposes the rebellion. Ragellan seeks the truth, but Horcalus cannot even face the possibility that the Renegades are in the right.
Looking back in the direction of the woods, Klye wondered if Horcalus would ever realize Superius had turned its back on its people, and not the other way around.
* * *
Commander Ralz remained motionless long after the wizardess’s spell had taken her far from Fort Splendor. He looked absolutely miserable, though the Stranger couldn’t have cared less.
The Stranger—he had fallen in love with the ironic alias—had chosen Gerard Ralz as Chester Ragellan’s replacement for two reasons only. First, Ralz would do as he was told, and second, the new commander was too intimidated by him to question orders.
“I require lodgings for the night,” he told the commander. “No one is to know I am here. I will be gone before the dawn.”
Ralz, still staring at the space where Dark Lily had stood before vanishing, seemed to snap out of his trance at the Stranger’s words. “Do you have need of a coach or a horse, at least? I still do not understand how you got here without a mount…”
The Stranger placed the spell book back into its box and closed the lid with an audible clap. He hated touching the tome, could feel the taint of its magic boring into his fingers like parasitic worms in search of a bloodstream. Still standing, he confronted the commander.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand. For security reasons, some things must remain a secret. Much like our business with the assassin.”
The Stranger studied Ralz carefully as he spoke. Chester Ragellan had been too virtuous for his own good. Gerard Ralz, on the other hand, was a renowned toady. He wasn’t likely to err, as Ragellan had, by ignoring the compromises in knightly protocol that were necessary in dealing with the Renegades.
Ralz’s curiosity, however, could pose a problem. Fortunately, the Stranger wielded a weapon that could overcome such a flaw: fear.
“Not everyone would understand what we are doing here, Commander,” the Stranger began. “We wage a war upon the Renegades and the rogue knights whom they have seduced, but our battles are not fought in the field. Think of the innocent people we save by striking in secret. Think of the cities that would be burned to the ground should a civil war break out in earnest. Our tactics may be subtle, but they are no less honorable. Your reticence makes me nervous, Commander. If you cannot play your part with faith in the greater good…”
Ralz’s face had turned an ashen shade as the Stranger increased his tempo and volume.
“Forgive me,” he finally managed to say, and after taking a deep breath, he added, “You can count on me. I am doing my best to acclimate myself to the situation. You need not worry about my loyalty.”
“I hope you are right,” the Str
anger replied. “Just as Ragellan was replaced by Ralz, so might Ralz be replaced by another.”
The Stranger, carrying the small wooden chest in his arms, left the chamber and Ralz’s company. His words hung in the air like the blade of a guillotine. He hardly cared if the commander discovered that Ragellan and Horcalus were innocent. He didn’t worry because he had seen the terror in the commander’s wide eyes.
And he knew Gerard Ralz valued his life above abstract concepts like right and wrong.
Passage II
Arthur cringed as a twig snapped beneath his foot. For the next few steps, he looked down at his feet, mindful of where he placed them, but his gaze was inevitably drawn back up to two people on the trail ahead of him. The boy and girl walked leisurely, unaware they were being followed.
When the boy, older than both Arthur and the girl by a few years, took the girl’s hand in his own, Arthur felt his face grow warm. He could almost hear the boy say, “The trail gets tricky up ahead. You’d better take my hand.”
Arthur entertained the idea of running up to them, exclaiming that Llede Hendorm was a liar and that there was nothing wrong with the trail. But Arthur knew he would never do something so bold. Llede had bullied him for years, ever since he and his drunkard of a father had moved to Hylan.
Arthur had never been able to stand up to the bigger boy, so he continued to follow as quietly as he could.
Soon the two teenagers reached a stream that completely blocked their path. Someone had cut down a birch near the bank, but the makeshift bridge was half-submerged in the water, and the portion that remained above the waterline was rotted. Llede and the girl, Taralynn Seeder, exchanged words, though Arthur couldn’t hear them above the music of the brook.
Taralynn put her hands on her hips and spoke so loudly that Arthur could hear her voice, if not her words. Then Llede grabbed the girl by her shoulder and pulled her closer to him.
He’s trying to kiss her! Arthur realized, a sick feeling in his stomach.
Apparently, Taralynn didn’t appreciate Llede’s advances, for she tried to pull away. But Llede was a strong boy, and he didn’t release her until she delivered a smart smack with the back of her hand across his face.
Arthur felt a surge of pride for Taralynn, who had been his dearest friend for as long as he could remember. Unlike her sisters, Taralynn had a taste for the outdoors, and while she had sported a scrappy frame ever since she and Arthur were mere children, lately, she had begun to plump up in all the right places and had grown taller than Arthur.
Taralynn’s victory was short-lived. Rather than backing off, Llede accepted the slap and replied with one of his own, an open-handed blow that sent the girl to the ground.
The next thing he knew, Arthur was running straight at Llede Hendorm, who had his back to him. Screaming a senseless yell, he charged forward, throwing all his weight into an uncoordinated attack that transformed him into a human battering ram.
Llede never knew what hit him. Both boys rolled down into the stream, a mass of flailing arms and legs. All too suddenly, Llede ceased struggling. The stream was only a few feet deep, and they were still near the bank. Even after Arthur released the boy, Llede did not surface. Crimson tendrils snaked through the lazy current of clear water.
Arthur couldn’t move. Taralynn was saying something, but Arthur could only stare at Llede Hendorm’s unmoving form. Taralynn rushed down to where the boys had landed, mindless of the frigid water. She hoisted Llede up above the surface of the stream. A deep cut on the boy’s forehead sent rivulets of blood gushing down his face.
He was dead.
“What have you done, Arthur?”
Taralynn’s words were like a bucket of cold water splashed on his face. Arthur sputtered nonsensical syllables in reply to the girl’s question. He turned and ran. He ran until his sides felt like they were going to split and spill his guts onto the trail, until his breath was so hot he thought he would breathe smoke. He ran until he thought his legs would snap underneath him, and then he ran some more.
Even as he sprinted away from Taralynn, the stream, and Llede’s corpse, he felt someone grab his shoulder.
“Arthur, Arthur!” called a familiar-sounding voice.
He spun around and saw the face of Llede Hendorm, drained of all color and leering at him wickedly. Arthur screamed and tried to bolt away, but suddenly, the air was as thick as maple syrup. He couldn’t move fast enough, and all the while Llede was chanting his name, glaring from behind a mask of blood. A skeletal hand reached toward Arthur’s face, but he couldn’t even cry out.
“Arthur, wake up!”
He jolted upright, breathing hard and finding a hand clamped over his mouth. Arthur looked around, confused and frightened, but ultimately relieved when he recognized Horcalus.
“You are safe. It was only a nightmare,” the knight said.
Arthur’s breathing slowly returned to a normal rate, though the terror of the dream was not quick to leave him. He could still see Llede’s lifeless corpse, bobbing grotesquely in the cold stream. He wanted to purge the memory from his mind, pluck it out like a stubborn turnip fixed fast in the earth. Mostly, he just wanted to cry.
“Are you all right?” Horcalus remained crouched over him, regarding him with a concerned expression. “Sometimes, it helps to talk about it.”
Arthur wanted nothing more than to let it all out, to tell someone about the horrible thing he had done, to confess his sin in hopes of finally breaking free of the guilt. But how could he tell Horcalus, a former Knight of Superius, his horrible secret?
“It’s all right,” he told Horcalus, not looking him in the eyes. “It was just a bad dream.”
Horcalus took a deep breath before saying, “Then you had better get back to sleep. We’ll be up and moving again before long.”
The knight patted him on the shoulder, which made Arthur wince. He felt terrible for lying to Horcalus, but better to disappoint him with dishonesty than admit to being a murderer. Closing his eyes tightly in an attempt to dam his tears, Arthur asked any god listening for dreamless sleep.
* * *
She could do nothing more tonight. The incantation of invisibility that had allowed her to slip past Fort Splendor’s guards had cost her much of her strength. And after that, she had cast two transportation spells—first, a quick jump to her old mentor’s tower, where she researched a spell to take her to an enchanted place in the unfamiliar province, and second, the magical leap across the Strait of Liliae to Capricon.
Upon arriving outside the city of Port Town, Dark Lily entered the first inn she came upon, a place that was near enough to the ocean to bear the reek of fish yet far enough away to avoid even a remotely picturesque view of the sea. By the look of it, several buildings across the street had burned down recently, their charred frames adding their unique odor to the briny atmosphere.
Exhausted as she was, Dark Lily didn’t care. The bed—a hard mattress and all—looked downright divine.
After placing a weak ward of protection over the small room, so she would be instantly informed if some intruder decided to pay her an unexpected visit, the wizardess removed her robes and lay down on the bed. But though her body was tired, her mind was still astir.
Dark Lily had seriously considered killing Commander Ralz and the Stranger. Yet something in the young man’s eyes had told her that she would be wiser to accept the job and track down the two rogue knights.
As with the spell book itself, Dark Lily had sensed a great power residing within the Stranger. Still, if the mysterious young man double-crossed her after she claimed the rogue knights’ heads, she would not hesitate to unleash all of her battle magic at the bastard.
The thought of merely holding a spell book written by the legendary Braiseph Harrow made her head spin. Not only was the archmage renowned for his war wizardry, but also for his interest in portals, a mostly unexplored area of the arcane arts. If Dark Lily could master the manipulation of space and distances, she would certainly
become the greatest assassin of her age.
With Braiseph Harrow’s spells in her possession, no one could hide from her.
She fell asleep with images of herself opening and closing portals with ease, materializing behind her victims and striking before they knew she was there. It was a lot like becoming invisible, but not nearly as taxing, she imagined. Then, after the kill, it would take little more than a thought to return her to her employer and collect her reward.
And to think, all she had to do was find and kill two knights…
She awoke early the next day, eager to complete her assignment. Her first spell of the day was an incantation that altered her appearance. Unlike some wizards, Dark Lily did not tamper with her looks overmuch. She knew for a fact that her mentor, the wizard who had taken her on as an apprentice many years ago, used his magic to maintain a handsome and youthful air.
While the wizardess could make herself appear as beautiful as she cared to, Dark Lily didn’t want the attention that came with looking like a goddess. The spell affected her garb mostly, changing her shadowy gown into the clothing a laundress or seamstress was wont to wear. It took hardly any extra effort to erase a wrinkle or two in the process.
Once she reached the nearest marketplace, she discovered gaining information about the local Renegades was not to be at all challenging. Everyone was talking about how the mayor’s daughter and her Renegades had fought a battle against the city guards in the Square as well as a jailbreak for which the Renegades were also being blamed.
There was something about pirates too, but she was more interested in the rumors about a rogue knight who had recently escaped the mayor’s clutches. But no one seemed to know where the rogue knights or Leslie Beryl, the city’s Renegade Leader, were hiding.
Rebels and Fools (The Renegade Chronicles Book 1) Page 17