The Heart of the Falcon: The Guardian Maidens Book 3

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  I said, “Do you have a book that a boy with a good imagination would like? Either adventure stories, or a more basic version of these, about woodcraft and hunting and animals and how to make a shelter and how to start a fire?”

  He smiled and said, “I do indeed. For the boy Jack, I assume? In that case, I have something else as well. Here, this is the book for boys. Usually for a boy entering his teen years but see if it is what you want. And this one, it’s bigger, and heavy, but it is filled with stories and drawings of princesses and magic heroes and unicorns and things that some girls dream of as they start their journey to be women. It has large print and is easy to read. Is that something?”

  I said, “That is very much the kind of thing that I would want. That sounds perfect. I’ll pay you for both of them.”

  The man got a strange look on his face and said, “Sir, um, can you come with me for a moment, into the back room, I have something else. You may not be interested, but perhaps I should show you.”

  I followed him to a back room while the girls stayed and looked through the books that we had been shown. In the back, he went to a cabinet and opened a drawer and took out two small books, each just half an inch thick, and about the size of my hand.

  He said, “Sir, you have several women, and by your example, other men here may have fuller houses in the future as well. Your father-in-law Gerald has taken another already. It’s wonderful. I don’t know your circumstances, but I think that your mating was recent. These are books that have been copied many times. I have two copies of each now, but if they interest you, I can sell you one copy and make others from my second.”

  I said, “What are they?”

  He handed one of them to me and said, “Um, it is for a man and a woman to learn to please each other. Um, about very intimate anatomy and techniques and advice and recipes for special dishes and drinks, and things related to mating. We have a woman, Lucille, Lady Harmony’s dear aunt, who teaches the other women, but this is one is for a man, and the other is for a woman, and I have been married for many years, and my wife has been happy with what both she and I have learned from them.”

  I said quickly, “I’ll take them! Let me pay you double whatever you want to ask for the pair.”

  He laughed and said, “And why would you pay double?”

  I smiled and said, “Because I have so many women in my house and I need them four times as much as any other man you know.”

  He said, “Um, I have heard various rumors, and they say that you have a large house being renovated, and things seem to happen every day, and now The Shaheen is walking about with you, if nothing else, so I do wonder about who is with you as your mates.”

  I said, “There are the four with me in your shop, and yes, The Falcon is one of them. At home are the widow-wives, Alice and Brenda, but you must have known about them because you mentioned Jack and his sister. There is also the incomparable Lucille, who has joined with me as well now. You might have heard that she was with her sister at Gerald’s farm, but that wasn’t for mating, and she has chosen to accept me, and I am thrilled by it. There is one more, and I swear that I hope that will be the end of it. This last one is not really here yet, but will come to me soon, from my home village.”

  The man smiled and said, “Eight? I should give you this book for free. There may have never been a young man who needed it more.”

  I laughed and said, “You are right about that. But then again, there may have never been a man who could afford it more easily than I can either. I have been very fortunate since coming to your village.”

  He said, “Do you want me to wrap these in plain paper? For privacy?”

  I said, “That won’t be necessary. I’ll take them. But please promise me that you will charge me full price for everything.”

  He agreed, and we went back to the front of the shop. I asked the man to package up the books and have them delivered later in the day, but I kept his intimate instructions with me. Shaheen kept the Monster Manual with her.

  On our way out of the shop, I took the little book of instructions for women and handed it to Shaheen and said, “This is an advanced manual related to a single monster that you will want to know about. Apply your beginner’s mind and study it until you are an expert. Forget what you think you know and learn as a beginner.”

  Shaheen looked puzzled and open the book and flipped a few pages and said, “Oh, I will. Yes, my Lord, I will learn it all as quickly as I can and practice hard to master the information. I could stay home today to study if you want me to. I mean it, I will do what you say, as your novice.”

  I said, “First I need you to use what expertise you do have to kill the things that hurt my princess. I have vowed that it won’t live another day. Tonight, you go to bed knowing that it will never harm you again.”

  She said, “I hope I go to bed knowing what is in this manual and get a chance to discuss it with you.”

  I said, “About that, I don’t really know what is in there, and I don’t know if the information is reliable. If anything seems out of place or questionable in any way, discuss it with Stacy and have her correct it. I don’t want any lies to creep into our beliefs in this area. Do you understand? I want us to know only the truth, not strange tales that would lead us in strange directions. In fact, we will ask Stacy to edit it before any of us read it.”

  Shaheen said, “You are the most loving protector, even in this. I love you more every minute.”

  The exchange with the bookseller convinced me that, contrary to what I had said earlier, we would in fact need to give April a new name. We would need to tell people that the 15-year-old April went to study as an apprentice somewhere far away and was living with relatives, and that this new 27-year-old had come from a related clan to be with me. I couldn’t see a way to get away with the transition without claiming that April and this new woman were entirely different people. I would have to give it some thought.

  It was about two hours before noon. I wanted to get to the caves no later than noon, if possible. There wasn’t much left to do. We needed to get our oil-filled jars, and we would buy more lamps and a supply of torches, and we would stop at home and pack everything, along with some food, and get our weapons.

  When we got back to the house, the girls went to get everything ready, but I took Shaheen into the courtyard with the book. Not the little book, the Monster Manual.

  I said, “Shaheen, can we open the book and read about this mold?”

  She carefully broke the seal and started unwrapping the book as she said, “This is the beginning, isn’t it? I can’t go back now. This is opening a door. If I stay at the house and you and I sleep together every night, I can still go back to my old life if I want to. I could put on my cloak and disappear and go be the Falcon somewhere else. But now that the book is open, I feel like there’s no going back. Of course, I don’t want to go back, but each part of me that was sealed terrifies me to open it again. Opening this seal opens a new chapter of my life.”

  I said, “Not an old one?”

  She said, “No. The old one is finished. This opens a new one. One that hasn’t been written yet. Well, here we go. Molds and floor crawlers are in this section. They are low level creatures because they have no intelligence, even though they are very deadly. I would say that the one that we found was one of these, but I didn’t get a good look.”

  I looked at the page and read the description carefully. The thing was classified as Underground: Plant Colony: Acidic Attack: Medium Speed. The size could range from a few inches cross to over 40 feet. Shaheen had said that each of our jars would cover about a ten-foot area.

  I said, “Shaheen, if this thing is 40 feet across, we will need roughly 16 of our jars to get the whole thing.”

  She said, “If it is that big, yes. But they grow slowly. We damaged the one we encountered, at least. And, as each part of it burns, it dries out the adjacent area and that begins to burn as well.”

  I said then, “So, instead
of trying to cover every part of it with oil, hit the edges and let the fire spread inward. Hit the near edge so that it doesn’t move toward us, hit the far edge so that it has nowhere to go, and wait for it to burn out. You said that once lit, it will try to seek water.”

  She said, “Yes, if it can. It is a colony, so every part of it is independent, but it is entangled and attached, and has no brain. It senses and feeds on any living matter, growing as it does. But it takes food to sustain it. In lean times, it will grow smaller. When food is abundant, it grows larger. At other times, it sustains itself. The larger it is, the slower it grows, unless it finds a lot of food.”

  I said, “It says here that it is almost certainly alone.”

  She said, “Yes. If there were two of them, they would combine. Or, more likely, the two colonies would try to consume each other. Ronin, I think that they tend to separate themselves according to how much area they have. If we kill the one, we won’t find another very nearby. Underground, they need a very large feeding area, because there is very little plant life and the animal life moves out of their way. You can get an idea of how populated a place is by the size of the mold that you find there.”

  I said, “The room that we discovered it in was about 20 feet across.”

  She said, “And the mold was at least twelve. It would have needed a much larger area to roam in. But they do have their advantages.”

  I raised an eyebrow and she said, “Molds like this, and the jelly creatures, purify a place. Where they go, the floors are polished clean over time. You couldn’t hope for a more thorough housekeeper.”

  Thirty minutes later, we were walking across the meadows, headed for the cave.

  Chapter 17 - Second Expedition

  We were carrying quite a bit more equipment than we had on our first expedition to the cave. Jars of oil, torches, medicines and bandages, a large supply of lamps, and extra food. My plan was to find a place to create a storehouse and leave our provisions there, and not carry them back and forth with us. The next time we came, I would ask Gerald to loan me a cart and we would bring even more of what we expected to need. I could bring chests to put everything in and even lock them if we expected to need to. We probably wouldn’t need to lock anything. None of the villagers would come to the cave or disturb anything. It was pretty much known that this was my property, and it would be treated like a house that belonged to me. No one from the village would go into my house without an invitation for a number of reasons. The purpose of a chest would be mostly to keep out smaller insects, snakes, and rodents.

  We went straight to the cavern entrance. It wasn’t really accurate to call it a cavern though. It looked like a cave from the outside, but there was a stone stairway leading down to an underground building. How big it was, we didn’t know. I had us all put down our packs as I took time to check everyone’s equipment and weapons. I asked Shaheen to double check and let me know if she found anything that I had missed.

  I said, “OK. Our goals are these. First, to kill the creature that attacked us yesterday. I’m so glad that Shaheen recovered so quickly. I told you what we know about it already. I want to approach this like we did with the large rat chamber. We need light to see by, so we place a lamp at the bottom of the stairs, and then move in very carefully and place more lamps farther in until the first room is lit. If possible, we will put them near the walls. The staircase needs to be lit as well. I don’t want to have to run through the pitch black on the way out. If there are places for torches along the way, we will light them, or place our own. If not, we will place a lamp at intervals.”

  Dawn said, “There are torches already there at 20 foot spacing. I could see them yesterday.”

  We all had good eyesight, but Dawn especially. She had been in the rear, looking for different things than those of us who had been in the front.

  I said, “And Dawn, you have the best aim. I want you near the front where you can throw the jars.”

  She said, “Ronin, I have best aim perhaps, but not the best throw. I don’t know that I’m the best one for the job.”

  I said, “OK. Harmony, you are a good throw with knives. Is this something that you can do? And Shaheen? The jars are small and not very heavy.”

  Harmony said, “Yeah, no problem. Falcon?”

  Shaheen said, “I can do it, if we need the both of us.”

  I said, “Shaheen, take a bag of the jars. As many as won’t be too heavy. Work as a team. You take the jar and light the wick and hand it to Harmony. Harmony, you deliver it to the spot it needs to go. Remember, we need it to hit the floor and break. It’s not the same as hitting something standing up.”

  Harmony said, “Got it.”

  Shaheen said, “We should have a special belt that carries the jars. That way we have a torch in one hand, pull a jar from the belt, light it, and then throw. I’ll make belts when we have a chance. I wasn’t the one in the party who handled flammables in my past life, but I have seen how it is done. We will be more prepared next time.”

  I said, “Good. Good plan. Our next goal is to place and secure our provisions so that we don’t have to carry them with us. We will set up a base camp in the first room, unless we find that we shouldn’t. For now, we will just arrange things in a corner. Later, we will bring a chest to keep them in.”

  Shaheen said, “If we’re lucky, we might find chests already there. If we do, don’t touch them. They may be trapped. They have to be opened with a plan. Someone, probably Harmony, our Shadow, needs to study the book on locks and traps. A Shadow isn’t a thief, but perhaps it’s close enough.”

  I said, “I wonder about April? We have to change her name, by the way. She has already asked me to, but I hadn’t decided until this morning.”

  Val asked, “What happened this morning?”

  I said, “Oh, it was at the bookseller’s. He and the rest of the village know April as a teenage girl. We are going to have to send April away, and a woman will come to replace her. Anyway, she wants to be with us as an Adventurer, and perhaps she should deal with locks and traps. Unless one of you is very interested. After the way is lit, and the first room is safe, and our provisions are stored, I want to move forward and expand our safe area. When we have a bit of space secured, we will find doors that can be locked from our side and secure them to keep visitors out.”

  Shaheen said, “The locks will be on the other side of the doors from where we want them for the most part. They will be designed to keep things from above going lower, until we reach a certain point and then they will be designed to keep things from below from coming upward.”

  I said, “And we probably won’t make it to that point today.”

  Shaheen said, “Not for a long time, I would imagine.”

  I said, “Then we’ll take some of the torches and make wedges that will be pushed under the door to keep it closed from our side. It won’t be as good as a bar across the door, but it will be something. We can’t make a better plan until we know more, but I think that this is a good start. We go in, we light torches as we go, we clear the first room, we close any doors, we stow our supplies, and we make a new plan that lets us secure our way farther in. One more thing. I don’t know what we will face. I’m hoping not to face anything today. But for now, all creatures fall into just two categories: those that need light, and those that don’t. Kobolds, all Goblinoids, rodents to some extent, etc., are in the first category. Spiders, snakes, molds, and Un-dead are in the second.”

  Val said, “Un-dead?”

  I said, “They aren’t truly un-dead, they are living, but in certain respects, they act like they have already been killed. So, killing them a second time is difficult. Or they just act senseless. I don’t know much about them, and I hope we don’t find any very soon.”

  Shaheen said, “They smell very bad. We call them ‘walking dead’ because they smell, and sometimes look like a dead and decomposing body. And they tend to move slowly. You smell them long before you see them. But nothing underground sme
lls very sweet.”

  I said, “Are we ready? I will go in front with Dawn. We will carry torches. Follow us and be ready to move as one. Have I missed anything?”

  The women agreed that we seemed to have as a good a plan as we could right now, and we started down into the cave mouth.

  I said, “One more thing. Shaheen, how long do you think that a jar of the oil will burn?”

  She said, “It varies, but I would expect about ten minutes if it as no other fuel.”

  I said, “And a torch?”

  She said, “Treated the way that ours are, perhaps five or six hours.”

  About ten feet down into the darkness, Dawn pointed out a torch in a holder against one side of the stairs.

  Shaheen examined it and said, “This has about an hour left on it.”

  We replaced the used torch with one of our new ones, lit it, and I took the used one with me. My thinking was that we would carry the ones that would burn out the quickest, and then discard them as they were used up. At each turn or landing, and at every 25 feet down, we found another torch and did the same thing, putting in a fresh torch and taking a used one with us. Looking back the way that we had come, the passage was fairly well lit all the way along.

  When we came near the bottom of the stairs, I stopped us and threw a torch into the room. We didn’t hear any movement, and we crept a bit lower, being very careful as we approached the floor. Instead of setting lamps, I simply threw the used torches into the room at various locations until the room was entirely lit. The room seemed clear.

  I looked about and said, “Shaheen, either the mold isn’t dead, or there was at least one more.”

  She stepped beside me and I pointed to the floor.

  She said, “Yes, you’re right. There is no sign of burning. Something has cleaned the floor here. Otherwise there would be evidence of what had happened. If some part of it survived, it might have fed on the burned portions and now we see no traces of either.”

  I said, “OK, we don’t know how big it is. It might be small, but still very dangerous. Or, there might be a second one. Spread out and stay in pairs. Harmony come with me. Val, Dawn, and Falcon search the room, but be careful. And it can come under a door as easily as across the floor. If you find a door, place a torch in front of it. Harmony and I will go to the far end of the room.”