by AC Cobble
Grim-faced, the party sat in stunned silence.
“One thing makes sense now,” mused Rew. “Before he took your father through the portal, Alsayer asked me to look after you. He must have known others were coming for you, and he wanted me to protect you until he could come back and snatch you himself.”
“I… Oh my,” murmured Cinda.
“What does this have to do with Father?” asked Raif.
“He’s with Alsayer,” said Rew, scratching his beard. “Maybe all of this explains why the princes are using the spellcaster. Everyone knows that treacherous bastard will flip sides as easily as we’d roll over in our beds. If one of the princes hired my cousin, it’d be difficult for the king to guess which one. That makes me think we have a bit of time. If Vyar Grund is stalking through the forest looking for us, it’s because whichever prince has your father hasn’t acted yet. That is one positive, at least. They’re waiting for their moment.”
“We’ve got to find Alsayer,” declared Raif. “Time or not, Father is in grave danger.”
“Lad,” said Rew, “have you not been listening? At least two of the princes are seeking you and your sister. The king himself may be involved! Some of them mean to use you. Others merely want you dead.”
“They’re dangerous, we know, but those are the people who have Father,” growled Raif. “We cannot leave him in their hands. That’s why I left Falvar without you. I knew you wouldn’t understand, that you wouldn’t agree. I will not stop, Ranger. I am going to rescue my father.”
“I understand,” said Cinda. “I’ll go with you, Raif, and together, we’ll find Father and free him.”
The boy nodded at his sister, clenching his fists at his side and not looking at Rew.
Cinda added, “You should have waited for me. We are family, Raif. We’re better together.”
Coughing and rubbing the back of his hand across his lips, Raif admitted. “You’re right. I was burning hot, ready to fight. I wasn’t thinking. I grabbed the sword, and I left. I… You’re the strategist, Cinda, and I’m the steel.”
“We’re together now,” she said, reaching out to grasp her brother’s arm. “We will not leave each other again.”
Flushing, Raif nodded in agreement.
“If you walk into Spinesend, you’ll be captured or killed!” cried Rew. “Didn’t you hear everything I just said? This is madness.”
“He’s our father,” said Raif. “We will not leave him in the clutches of Alsayer, Prince Valchon, or anyone else. We will not turn our backs on our family, no matter what you say.”
“I’ll help you, if you’ll have me still,” interjected Zaine.
“Of course,” said Cinda, squeezing her brother’s arm to stop him from protesting. “We need you to identify the arcanist, and I’ll be glad you’re by our sides.”
Giving a wan smile, Zaine shoved her arms beneath her cloak and sat back.
Rew threw up his arms in frustration.
“I’ll accompany you as well,” offered Anne.
“Anne!” shrieked Rew.
“You honor us,” said Raif, inclining his head to the empath.
Rew stared at Anne. She looked back, unblinking. Under his breath but loud enough they could all hear him, Rew repeated, “This is madness.”
“It’s, what, four or five more days to Spinesend?” asked Anne. “That’s plenty of time for you to come up with a plan, Rew. I will not leave the children alone until it’s over.”
“Until it’s over?” he growled, staring at her aghast. “Do you even know what you’re saying, Anne? It’s not over when they get to Spinesend. It’s not even over if they did somehow recover their father from Alsayer. It’s not going to be over until the Investiture is done and a new king sits upon the throne.”
“We won’t leave them until it’s over,” insisted Anne.
“I didn’t say I was going,” snapped Rew.
“You just fought the ranger commandant, Rew,” reminded Anne. “You can’t very well go back to Eastwatch now, can you?”
“Not Eastwatch, but we can go somewhere. Almost anywhere will be safer than striding into Spinesend.”
“I’m going,” said Anne. “You can come with us or not, but at least let me see to your injuries. You’re bleeding all over your cloak.”
Shifting, feeling the sharp aches on his shoulder and chest where Grund’s falchions had cut him, Rew waved a hand dismissively.
“Rew, I insist,” said Anne. “Like it or not, I’m going to care for you.”
She stood and moved toward him. He took a step back.
Anne frowned at him, but she did not back down.
The party was silent, watching the ranger. Finally, he let out an explosive breath and said, “Fine. I’ll accompany you to Spinesend.”
“Good,” said Anne. She raised her hand toward him again.
He stepped back and shook his head. “No healing.”
“You speak of our madness but refuse healing when you’re standing there dripping blood onto the dirt?” questioned Anne. “I can heal you. It’s a small burden for me, Rew. Do not accuse us of taking risks when you refuse healing. That is real madness, Ranger.”
“Stitches when we stop tonight. I can make my own poultice. No empathy,” said Rew.
“Why not?” retorted Anne. “Why not accept my healing?”
Rew shook his head and looked west toward Mordenhold, where the swirl of the Investiture was spinning like a giant, continent-spanning whirlpool. It was pulling at him, trying to draw him in. It was like swimming against the strongest current he’d been in, his entire body—his soul—striving to avoid the pull, and he was failing. The Investiture was scouring him, dragging him down into the depths.
He looked back, meeting Anne’s eyes. Her eyes, the eyes of his oldest friend, but it was the face of the Investiture as well. The old magic was subtle; it was strong. Anne, the children, the magic, it was all part of a whole. Rew was failing, and he shuddered to think of the cost to him, to them, to all of Vaeldon. His head dropped to his chest. He was failing, unable to fight it, and he couldn’t allow her to be bound by that connection, by that failure, as well.
He told her, “I’ll go with you to Spinesend. I’ll help rescue the baron. No empathy.”
They hiked well into the evening until they made it to the highway. With the moon overhead, Rew started a fire, and the younglings slumped down exhausted and spent. Anne prepared a rough supper, and everyone ate quietly. Both Cinda and Raif fell back onto their bedrolls, not needing Anne’s help to pass quietly into the land of dreams, but Zaine scooted around the fire to sit close to Rew.
“Is traveling along the road wise?” asked the thief. “If we’re worried Vyar Grund is going to be tracking us, isn’t this exactly where he’d look first?”
Rew shrugged. “He may look for us on the road first, but he’ll have a more difficult time tracking us here. The man is the ranger commandant, remember? If we blaze a trail through the wilderness, he’ll have no problem following it. Perhaps I could move stealthily enough, but…” Rew gestured at the sleeping forms of Raif and Cinda. “On the highway, not even the ranger commandant will be able to separate our footprints from all of the others.”
Zaine nodded, shifted nervously, and then asked, “Do you think he’ll come after us again?”
Rew grunted and picked up a thin stick from their pile of firewood. “Yes, he’ll come after us again. Him and others. I think there will be no rest, lass, until the Investiture is over or until our hunters are successful.” Zaine had no response to that. Rew told her, “It’s not too late to turn from this journey. You could flee to Yarrow or even Eastwatch. I can give you a note for Blythe in the ranger station. She’ll take you on as an apprentice. You’ve the natural talent for it, lass, and you wouldn’t be the first to find refuge in the wilderness. Anne and I can shepherd the nobles. We’ll make sure they’re safe—as safe as they can be, at least.”
Zaine shook her head. “I couldn’t do that.”
“Rew, she means she couldn’t abandon Raif and Cinda,” remarked Anne from across the fire. “Zaine is part of this group now, a part of us. We all are. We’re in this until it’s over. I can feel the bond between us, Rew, and it has grown solid, even between the rest of us and you. Fight it as much as you want, but you, me, the nobles, and Zaine—we are all tied together now as a family.”
“I’m not a part of anything,” grumbled Rew, though he knew Anne was right. Defiantly, he claimed, “We’ll get to Spinesend, recover the baron, and I’ll be done with it.”
“Done? I don’t think so,” said Anne. “Like it or not, you are a part of us. You can run, and you can hide, but that will not change what is true.”
Rew stuck the end of his stick into the fire and did not respond. They sat quietly for a long time before Zaine retired to her bedroll. Rew and Anne were left on opposite sides of their little campfire.
“You can feel the bonds between us?” he asked the empath once he heard Zaine’s breathing settle and was certain she was asleep.
Anne nodded.
Rew wondered, but could not ask, if it felt the same as the pull of the Investiture. Were the ties that bound him to the group like those that bound him to the king? That old, natural magic? Were they not just the same only on a different scale? He cringed at the thought and instead asked, “Have you always felt the bond?”
“Between the siblings, of course,” she said. “Between them and I, as soon as I healed the lad back in Eastwatch. Between Zaine and the nobles, it was tentative, but it has grown strong since we left Falvar. The bond between you and I, always.”
“Between you and I,” responded Rew, looking up to meet her gaze.
“I’m going with them, Rew,” declared Anne. “Wherever this journey takes them, I am going with them. So are you.”
“Why?”
“They’ve the size and the age of adults, but in the wide world facing Vyar Grund, Alsayer—the princes, for King’s Sake—they are like children,” she said, “and children need looking after.”
“They’re not our—your, children,” he argued. “They have parents. Well, they have a father, still.”
“They were not born from my loin,” she replied, rolling her eyes at his scramble to avoid mentioning their mother or that their father was currently in captivity, “but they are mine, and I am theirs. The bond between Raif and Cinda and their father is a legacy, only an echo. They are no longer of him and his line. I am going with them, Rew, and there is nothing you will say to convince me otherwise. Whatever they face, I will face. So will you.”
“That’s unfair, Anne,” he protested.
“Life is rarely fair,” she agreed. “None of us foresaw what was coming when we left Eastwatch, but when we did, our choice was made. All that is left is paying for it.”
“Taking them to Spinesend is dangerous,” hissed Rew. “If their safety is your concern, then we shouldn’t be encouraging this. Help me take them somewhere the princes won’t look for them.”
“Their safety is my concern, but not my only concern,” responded Anne. “If we spirit them away to some far-flung edge of the kingdom, what good will that do them? Perhaps they’d live a bit longer, but they wouldn’t live the life they were meant to. Going on this journey, wherever it takes us, is what they are meant to do.”
“Don’t give me any mysticism about the Blessed Mother, Anne.”
She smirked at him. “It is all connected, Rew. The Blessed Mother, the Cursed Father, the king, me, them, you, the world all around us. You can call it low magic, or natural magic, the priests call it prayer, but it is all one. You can feel it. Don’t lie to me and say you do not. You just choose to ignore that which you do not like.”
“I’ve never felt the pull of the Blessed Mother,” he muttered.
Anne shrugged. They’d had that conversation before. Many times. Long ago.
“You’re taking advantage of me,” complained Rew.
“You don’t have anything else to do, Ranger. So you may as well come with us. I’ve told you already I’m going.”
“I won’t be responsible for their foolish plans,” retorted Rew.
“Feel responsible or not, but we are going to Spinesend, and if you think their plan is foolish, then guide them to a better one.”
Rew snapped the stick in his hands and tossed both pieces into the fire.
“I’m tired, Rew,” said Anne, “and you are as well. We can go back and forth all evening, but we both know that wherever this road takes those children, we will be beside them. Like it or not, whether you meant to make the choice when you left Eastwatch or not, you’ve a responsibility to this party now. I know you well enough to be certain you won’t turn from it. Spare me your whining, at least for tonight.”
He rubbed at his face with both hands, thinking that was a bit harsh, but all he said was, “Get some sleep, Anne. I’ll wake you when it’s your watch.”
“Have a good night, Rew.”
He grunted but did not respond.
5
Dawn broke, and Rew tossed back the flap of his bedroll. He stood and stretched. Anne was sitting cross-legged by the campfire, feeding sticks into it, building it back up from the embers it had died down to. Thick smoke from the damp firewood billowed up as it crackled and caught flame. Rew eyed her skeptically, thinking she looked rather chipper. He wondered if she’d stayed awake throughout her watch. He shook his head. There was no use chiding her about it now if she had dozed off, but it was worth remembering. On the other side of the camp, the three younglings still slumbered. They were wrapped tight in their bedrolls to block the cold air, and he couldn’t see much more than their hair spilling out like feathers from the top of a quiver. He rubbed the stubble on his own head and yawned.
Moving quietly, Anne started laying out dried meats, cheeses, and a hard heel of bread. She gestured to a pile of empty waterskins beside the kettle she’d boil their coffee in.
Rew nodded and collected their waterskins. He walked from their camp to the dirt highway that led between Falvar and Spinesend, their nearly empty waterskins bouncing at his side. He would have paid gold for some of the fluffy eggs, crisp toast, and pots of rich honey that Anne served back at the Oak & Ash Inn, but on the road, fleeing from Alsayer, Vyar Grund, and the princes, he supposed it could be worse. At least he was getting coffee.
The road was quiet so early in the morning, and he didn’t see another soul stirring when he looked each way down the highway. Even after other travelers began to move, they probably wouldn’t see anyone coming from Falvar. It was too soon after the attack by the narjags, and the citizens and merchants of that place would be afraid to venture out. From Spinesend, the flow of traffic would be steady until those travelers paused at the tiny towns and roadside waystations and heard of what happened. Then, they would either turn around or rush toward Falvar, depending on how many family members and commercial interests they had in the city.
Dew-damp grass clung to his soft boots as the ranger strode across the road and down the gentle slope to the slow-moving river. So early, it was half-hidden by thin strands of mist, swirling a pace above the surface with the same lethargy as the water… and of the ranger, for that matter, he thought with a grin.
He reached the edge of the riverbank and knelt, dipping the waterskins into the cold stream. The lazy curls of mist and the subtle ripples of the current were only motion that he could see. A few birds called from back within the forest, but they remained hidden, and otherwise, it was silent.
As he was finishing filling their waterskins, he saw a sleek-furred head poke up from the center of the river. Rew watched as tiny waves followed the otter as it swam upstream, turned, and coasted on the current back past him. The otter’s big, black eyes blinked at him as it drifted by. Rew fingered the k
nife sheathed in his boot.
Vyar Grund’s otter, left in the eastern duchy when its master fled. Its head was probably still filled with instructions to watch out for their party, to report to its master when it found them. Rew wondered if the ranger commandant would come back for the otter and what the animal could communicate if he did. But instead of drawing his knife, Rew collected the full waterskins and stood. Perhaps he would regret it, but he’d let the otter live. There would be enough death in the world soon enough, and he’d wait as long as he could before adding his share.
He returned to the camp and found the younglings awake. He mentioned, “It’s just two days back to Falvar, you know.”
“We’re going to find Father,” insisted Raif.
“Leave it, Rew,” said Anne. “We made our decision last night, and I can’t handle you bringing it up every morning from now until this is over.”
Sighing, he squatted beside the fire and set the waterskins by Anne. He rubbed his hands over the heat to chase away the chill from the river then told the group, “Four days to Spinesend if we push hard and follow the road, but when we get there, I recommend we stop and evaluate the situation from outside of the city. We should take the time to ensure we don’t stumble into something. I’m certain there are more conspirators than just the arcanist, but we don’t know how far it goes. If Duke Eeron himself is involved, then we need to worry about the guards at the gates, spies placed in crowds, and of course what we’ll face in the keep.”
The group was silent as they ate, and when they were done, the younglings performed their morning ablutions and began to pack the camp. Anne boiled water. Rew sat and thought. It was a morning for quiet contemplation as they began the next leg of their journey.