The Five Kingdoms: Book 04 - Crying Havoc

by Toby Neighbors

  “Don’t you think he’s acting strange?”

  “He’s just worried about Quinn. He probably feels guilty.”

  “He doesn’t act like someone who feels guilty.”

  “What do you mean?” Zollin asked.

  “It’s as if he’s angry.”

  “Of course he’s angry,” Zollin said, exasperated by the conversation already. “Quinn was his mentor. We’ve been like a family to him.”

  “But that’s just it, he doesn’t seem angry at what happened. It’s as if he’s angry at us for keeping him from returning.”

  “That makes sense,” Zollin said, thinking that he felt the same way about having to break off his search for Brianna.

  “No, it doesn’t. He doesn’t act like he’s anxious to save Quinn. He just wants to get back to Lodenhime.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything is wrong with him.”

  “He stopped drinking; have you noticed that?” Kelvich said.

  “No, I guess I haven’t, but I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing. Perhaps he finally just realized that drinking isn’t a good idea for him.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” Kelvich said. “Look, he’s very evasive about the details of what happened. I don’t think he ever set foot in the Grand City. When I asked him about the trident at the top of the Torr, he blew me off. There is no trident on top of the tower, I just said that to see if he was telling the truth. I think there’s more to his story than he’s telling us.”

  “So ask him, if you’re concerned about it.”

  “He won’t talk to me,” Kelvich said. “I was hoping you might try.”

  “That’s probably not a good idea,” Zollin replied. “I’m not really in the right frame of mind to be questioning anyone.”

  “So you’re not worried about this?”

  “No, I’m not. I have enough to worry about. I’m leaving everything else up to you and Hausey.”

  They sat in silence after that. Kelvich felt sorry for Zollin. He knew his world had been turned upside down when Brianna was taken. He was fascinated by the story of Brianna’s transformation and wanted more than ever to see the young girl again, but just like Zollin he was starting to lose hope. He had read the partial translations of the scrolls from the Ruins of Ornak, but unfortunately, he had learned nothing useful from them. The scrolls talked of dragons, but there was very little known about where they came from or where they went for long periods of time when no one saw them.

  And Kelvich had to admit he was jealous of Zollin’s experience with dwarves. He had never met the people under the mountains, although he had read about them in the past. Dwarves were known in other places around the world, where Kelvich had traveled in his efforts to escape the Torr. Still, he had never met a dwarf and badly wanted to see their underground caverns.

  When the sun came up they continued their journey. The days were cooler and more comfortable for everyone. Under other circumstances they might have greatly enjoyed being out on the open road together. They had only recently returned to the Weaver’s Road, which ran through the heart of Yelsia. They had ridden north of Felson and were now only a few days’ hard ride from Orrock. Commander Hausey grew more grim by the day, convinced he would return too late and find the city overrun.

  Mansel, as usual, brooded quietly, keeping his own company and riding several paces behind everyone else. It made Kelvich nervous to have Mansel behind him. He felt a rising sense of dread over the last several days. He didn’t know if the feeling had something to do with Mansel or if it was because they were riding to war. He knew at some point he would need to stay behind, as he would be no use to anyone in battle. But he hated the thought of leaving the others without first discovering the truth about Mansel.

  They stopped at midday to rest the horses near a small farmstead. Mansel went to relieve himself behind the stable, and Kelvich took the opportunity to speak with Zollin.

  “This would be a good time to talk to Mansel,” Kelvich whispered.

  “Oh, please don’t bother me with your constant worrying,” Zollin said, his aggravation obvious. “If you want to talk to him, go do it yourself.”

  “Fine, I will,” Kelvich said. He was angry, but he quickly got control of his emotions. He understood Zollin’s pain and why he had been so short with everyone of late.

  Kelvich found Mansel just behind the stable.

  “Ah, Mansel, may I have a word?” the sorcerer asked.

  “What?” Mansel said gruffly.

  “Well, it’s just that I had a few questions,” Kelvich said. “It just seems a bit odd that you left Quinn in Lodenhime.”

  “He was captured,” Mansel said without a trace of emotion.

  “Yes, I understand that, but why didn’t you try to rescue him?”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m just wondering what’s really going on. You don’t seem like yourself.”

  “Keep your nose out of my business or I’ll bloody it for you,” Mansel warned.

  “Mansel, I’m your friend. I only want to help.”

  “You can’t help, you’re just an old man who doesn’t know when to butt out.”

  “Why aren’t you drinking?” Kelvich said, pressing Mansel for answers. “Why didn’t you tell us from the outset that Quinn had been captured? I doubt he would have left you behind.”

  “I’m warning you . . .”

  “To what, stop digging for the truth? Look, I’m on your side, but you’ve got to level with us.”

  “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “I think you’re lying,” Kelvich said. “I think something happened in Lodenhime that you aren’t telling us. Is Quinn dead? Why are you so anxious to—”

  Kelvich never saw the knife that Mansel had slowly drawn. The thrust was quick, and it seemed to suck all the strength out of Kelvich. At first there was no pain, just surprise. Mansel stared deeply into Kelvich’s eyes with a look of deadly intent. He was just about to rip the knife upward when someone shouted.

  “There! Look there!”

  Mansel looked up, thinking he had been discovered. He let Kelvich fall, the small knife handle protruding from his stomach. He ducked around the stable and saw Zollin and the soldiers looking up into the sky. Mansel glanced up and saw the dragon flying overhead. It was high in the sky and moving at speed, but even from a distance it was obvious that it was the dragon.

  Zollin ran and jumped onto his horse. Before anyone could stop him he was galloping away. Mansel ran to meet the soldiers, who were hurrying to catch up. They rode away from the small farm without a word about Kelvich. In the excitement he seemed to have been forgotten.

  The elderly sorcerer lay in the grass, his stomach on fire with a searing pain that made it difficult to breathe. It took two hours for the farmer to stumble upon him.

  “What happened?” the farmer asked, but Kelvich couldn’t answer.

  The farmer removed the knife from the sorcerer’s stomach. The blade was short, only slightly longer than the farmer’s middle finger, but it had done the job. He carried Kelvich inside the farmhouse and tried to make him comfortable. The farmer’s wife fussed over him, but there was nothing to be done. Kelvich was slowly bleeding to death.

  “Parchment,” he told the farmer’s wife.

  Writing-quality parchment was rare on a rural farm, but after a frantic search she found some. She brought it back and waited.

  “Can you write?” Kelvich whispered.

  “A little,” she said.

  “Write this down,” he said, panting for breath.

  His body cavity was filling with blood, which pressed against his lungs and made it hard to breathe. His mind was growing foggy from lack of blood. He knew his time was short, and his only regret was that Zollin was exposed. He didn’t know what Mansel had done, but Kelvich was certain the young warrior had killed Zollin’s father. Kelvich had lived a long life, easily three times as long as most men, still time seemed short.

  “To Zo
llin,” he began. “Mansel killed me. Don’t trust him. I’m proud of you. Don’t let death,” he was having trouble speaking, and it was taking the farmer’s wife a long time to write the words down, “make you bitter. You will wake up the magical world. That is your destiny.”

  “Give it here,” he said weakly.

  The farmer took the paper from his wife and held it up. It took Kelvich a full minute to read the words. They were poorly written and his eyes kept losing focus. He was dying and he knew it. He was ready for it. Ready for the pain to end. The pain, growing worse every minute, was threatening to rob him of the capacity to finish his task, but the old sorcerer was determined. The farmer’s wife dipped the quill in their small supply of ink and handed it to him. His hand shook as he signed the paper.

  “You have to take it to Zollin,” he said. “He’s a wizard. Take it to Zollin.”

  “We will, you have my word on it,” said the farmer.

  Kelvich lay back then. He had done all he could hope to do. The world grew dim, and he could see the farmer and his wife fussing over him, but he no longer cared. There was a light shining on him from somewhere that he couldn’t see. His body had grown cold, but the light was warm and inviting. He wanted to go to the light, to let it shine on him, to feel its warmth always. Nothing else mattered. He let the world grow dark around him.

  He died peacefully despite the pain. His eyes were open and his body composed, but he was clearly dead. His features that had always been so animated, were now waxy. His eyes lost all their vibrancy and grew dull.

  “What shall we do with him?” the farmer’s wife asked.

  “We’ll bury him,” the farmer replied.

  “And the note?”

  “We’ll send it west with the next traveler that passes by.”

  “But you promised him you’d deliver the message,” she insisted.

  “And I’ll send it along, but I can’t leave the farm. There’s work to be done.”

  They folded the note and sealed it with candle wax. The farmer’s wife wrote Zollin’s name on the paper and set it on the windowsill by the door. The farmer dug a grave and then returned to his fields. The farmer’s wife fixed supper and shortly before they ate, together they laid Kelvich in the ground and buried him.

  Chapter 26

  Zollin slapped his horse with the reins to coax as much speed as he could out of her. It was dangerous, he knew, but in that moment all he was thinking about was Brianna. He strained to see the dragon but there was no sign of Brianna.

  “Wait!” he screamed, but the dragon was too high to hear his voice.

  Then his horse stumbled and Zollin was thrown though the air. He reacted magically on instinct, sending up a shield to protect his body and levitating himself higher into the air. The fall only lasted one terrifying moment. He came floating down on his feet and turned to see Lilly, Brianna’s beloved horse. She was lying on the ground, neighing in agony. The horse’s right foreleg was broken and lay at an odd angle. Zollin felt a sense of hopelessness. The poor beast was dying because Zollin had rushed after the dragon and wasn’t paying attention to where they were going. He’d ridden far from the Weaver’s Road, and neither it nor the farm they’d just recently stopped at were in sight.

  Zollin knew that a horse with a broken leg would never be able to hold a rider again. It would be unable to pull a wagon or a plow. It would spend weeks in pain and then become a cripple. The humane thing would be to put the horse down, but Zollin refused to even think of that. He had won Lilly from a traveling illusionist, and the aging mare had carried Brianna when they fled Tranaugh Shire. In his mind, as long as he had Lilly, there was still hope that he might find Brianna. He knelt by the horse’s head.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said in a soothing voice.

  He immediately pushed feelings of peace and rest toward the horse with his mind. At the same time he let his magic flow into the animal’s leg. He felt the bone, broken and splintered. It was beyond hope of being set by traditional methods, but in moments Zollin was hard at work repairing the damage. There was muscle damage and torn tendons and ligaments, which all took time to heal. He was almost finished when he heard the other horses cantering toward him. He finished his work without looking up, his magic churning inside him. He felt a deep sense of hopelessness and white-hot anger that was boiling just beneath the surface. His magic felt like a caged beast just waiting to be released. It took all of his control and concentration to hold himself together.

  “If your horse’s leg is broken,” said one of the knights who had come with Commander Hausey, “you should put it out of its misery.”

  “Zollin, are you okay?” Hausey asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said, standing up.

  He had finished healing the animal and she, too, scrambled to her feet. Zollin rubbed Lilly’s nose and looked up at the knight on his horse.

  “The horse is fine, too, thanks,” he said in an icy tone.

  “It seems the dragon is headed in the same direction we are,” said Hausey. “That is good news, at least.”

  “Good news?” Zollin said. “Did you see Brianna with the dragon?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t. The beast was so high in the air, it was hard to make out much detail,” Hausey said.

  Zollin knew the hardened soldier was trying to be positive for his sake, but the effort fell short.

  “No, she isn’t with the dragon, which probably means she’s dead,” said Zollin, his eyes stinging with tears. “My only course of action left is to avenge her death.”

  “Well, let’s push on,” said Hausey. “The dragon might be headed for Orrock.”

  Zollin doubted it, but he kept his thoughts to himself. The last thing he wanted was to go to the King and be pressured into fighting a battle he had no desire to be involved with. But he was determined to follow the dragon: it was the only link he had left to Brianna.

  “Is your horse suitable to ride?” asked one of the other knights.

  “Yes,” Zollin said, as he swung up into the saddle. The trauma Lilly had suffered with her leg had left her skittish, but the leg was completely healed. She circled nervously as Zollin settled into the saddle, and he took control of the horse’s reins.

  “Right then, I guess we’re ready,” Hausey said.

  Zollin should have noticed that neither Mansel or Kelvich was with the soldiers, but his fear for Brianna blinded him. He rode along behind the soldiers and was reminded of leaving Tranaugh Shire. That had been a cold day, and he’d just watched his best friend die. The pain of that memory loomed up again, and he couldn’t stop the tears that streaked silently down his cheeks. Now Brianna was gone, and he knew he had to face that fact. There was nothing else he could do. He would probably never know what happened to her, but he would spend the rest of his life finding out.

  Mansel joined the group silently, riding up behind Zollin and falling in without a word. He’d expected Zollin to ask about Kelvich, and he had a lie ready, but Zollin didn’t even look up. They rode late into the night, and Mansel was given first watch. Zollin didn’t speak or eat; he just saw to his horse and then rolled himself in a blanket. The other knights were busy fixing something to eat when Hausey approached Mansel.

  “Have you seen Kelvich?” the commander asked him. “We rode away from the farm so quickly, I’m afraid he got separated from us.”

  “No, he stayed behind,” Mansel said. “That’s why I was late catching up. I tried to change his mind but he said he never had plans to go to Orrock with us. He’s not a warrior.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Hausey said, “although his healing skills would surely have been an asset.”

  “Zollin can heal anyone,” Mansel said. “I wouldn’t worry about the old man. He’ll be fine.”

  Hausey didn’t question Mansel further. The night passed without incident, and Zollin was the first one ready to ride at dawn the next day. The others were tired from their hard journey, but Zollin felt as hollow as a r
eed. His body ached from lack of rest and sleeping on the ground night after night. Exhaustion had become a familiar state, but he was also crushed emotionally. He didn’t speak and rarely made eye contact; he just rode along with the others, occasionally nibbling some stale bread or sipping water from his canteen.

  Mansel stayed beside him, as quiet as a shadow. The big warrior was frustrated by the delay; all he could think about was getting Zollin back to Lodenhime. He hoped that this sad turn of events would make his task easier. Once they dealt with this invasion, he would take Zollin south, and Gwendolyn would give him his reward. The thought of being with the witch made his skin tingle and his head light. It was a pleasant fantasy, and even though he had no proof that Gwendolyn would reward him by becoming his lover, in his foggy mind that was the only way he imagined she could respond.

  Zollin was the most powerful person Mansel had ever seen, and he could not imagine a greater gift being given to his Queen. He felt sorry that he had thrown Quinn overboard to drown in the Great Sea. He felt guilty for having stabbed Kelvich, too, but he considered both these to be necessary steps to get what he wanted. It was more than just base desire: Mansel felt he deserved Gwendolyn, and the more he thought about her, the more he felt like she was his destiny. He still saw the lonely woman by the sea when he tried to imagine what Gwendolyn looked like. His heart ached when he saw the woman even though he could not remember who she was or why he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

  They rode hard all day, not even stopping to rest the horses, and it was almost midnight when they finally saw Orrock in the distance. There was very little to be seen; the city seemed like a dark shadow.

  “Where is the invading army?” Zollin asked. It was the first time he had spoken since healing his horse.

  “I don’t know,” Hausey said. “King Felix must have found a way to delay it.”

  They were pushing their horses along the Weaver’s Road when a savage cry rang out, and four men rushed forward. They had pikes with hooks that they used to pull the knights from their horses. Zollin sat on his horse, watching Hausey and his knights struggling. He heard the crunch of metal and bone as the knights fell off their horses. Mansel drew his sword beside Zollin, but neither attacked. They sat watching, and then the arrows came. Two thick bolts, racing toward them, one aimed at Zollin, the other at Mansel. Zollin raised his hand and both projectiles bounced back after hitting his invisible shield.