Servants and Followers

by Courtney Bowen

  THE LEGENDS OF ARRIA BOOK 2:

  SERVANTS AND FOLLOWERS

  by

  Courtney Bowen

  TORRID BOOKS

  www.torridbooks.com

  Published by

  TORRID BOOKS

  www.torridbooks.com

  An Imprint of Whiskey Creek Press LLC

  Copyright © 2018 by Courtney Bowen

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-68299-271-5

  Credits

  Cover Artist: Kelly Martin

  Editor: Dave Field

  Printed in the United States of America

  WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT

  The Smiling Stallion Inn: The Legends of Arria Book 1

  A prelude to the rest of the saga, setting the stage for events that will come later.

  ~ Kirkus Indie Reviews

  Courtney Bowen has come up with an intriguing story...the different layers of story told through different perspectives will keep readers interested...looking forward to the next volume to see where this story goes.

  ~ San Francisco Book Review

  Other Books by Author Available at Torrid Books:

  www.torridbooks.com

  The Legends of Arria Series

  Book 1: The Smiling Stallion Inn

  Dedication

  For those I don’t know and those I do

  Who would take a look inside and see

  What they might find. Many thanks.

  To Jan Janssen, who found potential in the unknown,

  To Merrylee Lanehart, who added flavor to the recipe,

  And to Kelly Martin, who made the cover shine and glow,

  Many thanks as well.

  Part One:

  Coe Anji

  Chapter 1

  What do we lose when someone leaves us?

  Do we lose a piece of ourselves, gone forever?

  Do we lose our sense of place, our focus on others?

  Or do we lose nothing but the person’s presence?

  ~ Loss, Mirandor

  In a quiet room, which once had been full of laughter, Habala sat upon the empty bed and opened up the book Legends of Arria, from which she read:

  Night and Day Origin Myth:

  Day and Night first appeared as two birds: white and black, dark and bright, though there was nothing to tell them apart. There was no light, sun, or moon, and not even darkness either, just mist.

  Day and Night couldn’t see each other or the ocean and sky that surrounded them when the land hadn’t risen yet. But they could feel, and Day and Night flew through the sky side-by-side when they sensed one another. They loved each other for that.

  They dived down into the ocean side-by-side to fish. But once, either Day or Night went down first to fish and the other continued flying, so they lost track of each other.

  Day and Night fell and rose in search of one another, went left and right, backwards and forwards, and never met. Sometimes they missed each other by a few inches or a few seconds.

  They might sense where the other had been, and went straight there without crossing paths. So Day went down to look for Night just as Night came up to look for Day.

  The distance grew between them, constantly flying without rest. Soon they were at opposite ends of the world, the farthest they could be from one another.

  Finally, they sensed and turned toward each other across the vast distance. They sped toward one another where the water met the clouds on the horizon.

  Eager to be reunited, they didn’t slow down, and collided. The impact of their mating shook the sky, and the sun and moon spiraled forth. Stars and raindrops pattered down like semen, and an egg was dropped that would become the seed of the world.

  Light came into the world from the sun, shining through the grayness of the mist dissipating for the first time. All of the colors were now visible as the sun started to set, and then the sun rose for the first time with darkness in between. The magnificence of the sunset and the sunrise were in honor of Day and Night.

  Day and Night saw each other for the first time as light came into the world, and marveled at each other and the differences between. Day was white and black with all the different shades of color in between, and Night was dark and bright with all the different shades of light in between.

  However, Day and Night had been cracked with this union. For though they were joined end to end, with the sun setting or rising in between them, they were separated by the sun’s barrier. They couldn’t coincide anymore without an eclipse, or some other strange phenomenon in the sky.

  So they parted as much as they were able, with the sun shining bright and the darkness in between. Yet they longed to join together again, as they had before the sun, without anything in between.

  So they continued, Day and Night meeting each other with each sunrise and sunset. Day mimicked Night, and Night mimicked Day as much as they were able to then, but it was never the same as it’d been before light came into the world.

  Habala sighed as she closed the Legends of Arria book that had belonged to Basha. She stored it back on the shelf. He wouldn’t want to lose it.

  She hoped that her boys might come back. She shook her head. It’d been several days since they’d left, but still she couldn’t shake off the feeling that they might come walking in, laughing at the prank they’d just pulled. How they’d just spent several days camping with Sir Nickleby watching out for them, instead of lost out there with the knight as their only guide.

  She trusted the knight just as much as her husband did. He was a good man who’d watched out for her sons while training them, but he was getting old. Would he always be able to protect them? Would he trust them too much, thinking they were able to fend for themselves without him?

  She didn’t trust him enough with her sons’ lives, especially when they were going to…she didn’t even want to think about it. The Wastelands were such a desolate, dangerous place, occupied by Doomba and all of his creatures. No human had ever returned from that place alive, as far as she knew.

  She stormed out of her sons’ bedroom, wiping away her tears as she shut the door tight, sealing in the memories and sealing off the passage of time, the desecration of such memories. She went outside to the shed she claimed as her own, where she fixed and made clocks of all types. Just like her father had done in the farmhouse they’d once lived in.

  She picked up one of her clocks and fixated not upon its features, which she’d memorized by heart, but upon her memories. She remembered those happy times learning the tricks of her father’s trade upon his lap, the goats they’d raised in the barnyard, until the darkness had descended upon them.

  They’d been forced to leave the farm behind, moving away from the forest to Coe Baba. Her troubles in life had begun then.

  Ever since she’d married Geda and they began to raise Basha and Oaka together, she’d retreated to the shed every once in a while for a few short hours to tinker and mend her clocks. A few short hours of peace and privacy to re
member her past before she was wed.

  Geda had rolled his eyes, especially at the noise of all the clocks striking at once. But he’d left her alone, knowing it gave her some comfort, and watched over their sons while she was away.

  She’d thanked him for that, but now she wished he hadn’t been so generous. Geda had taught his sons to avoid their mother’s workshop when they’d started tottering about and knocking things over.

  They’d continued to avoid the workshop even as they grew, knowing it was their mother’s refuge, and they might get into trouble if they disturbed her without good reason. Habala had been thankful, but now she wished she’d taught them, perhaps Basha or Oaka if not both, what she’d learned from her father.

  Clock-making and repair had been her mainstay, useful and practical when she could afford to spend time upon her hobby and earn a small wage from it. If only she’d extended her knowledge to her sons, been more open and generous of her time and of herself, shared what she’d so enjoyed for all these years.

  But no, she’d retreated, blocked herself off from them, and avoided them in the shelter of this shed. Away from everything but the ticking, tocking, chiming, chirping, and ringing of her clocks.

  She’d nothing else but this place now. She stared at the clock in her hands, and realized it was burning. A portion of its frame had caught fire, and was spreading, almost to the point of melting it.

  She hadn’t even noticed, so focused on her grief and guilt about her family to the point of anger at herself that her feelings had manifested in flames.

  She looked up at the far wall of her workshop, covered in clocks hanging from hooks, and realized the years of work and effort she’d put into all of this for nothing.

  She hurled the burning clock at the wall, and watched for a moment as it all caught on fire. The flames from one clock ignited the varnished wood of the others, licking up the covers and exposing metal gears and innards inside, creating a furnace that melted the clock faces.

  The glass cracked in another clock before she turned and left the smoking workshop behind her, oddly satisfied. But she’d regret it later, in the dark of the night, the loss of her refuge and mainstay.

  She’d have to start all over again, and that frightened her. Could she really rebuild her life’s work, now flaming wreckage?

  She managed to make it out into the stable yard as her husband came running towards her. “Habala! Are you hurt? What happened?” He wrapped her in a hug and escorted her away from the burning workshop.

  For a moment, being held in his arms, she thought she could do anything, rebuild, and start all over. But it was a fleeting moment of comfort and warmth in the midst of an overwhelming, raging fire that ended quickly.

  They were both too cold and hot in their situation and temperament that they couldn’t find a happy medium. Could they ever be the same as they once were?

  Several men, including Hermer, Morton, and Smidge, had followed Geda from the bar, and now they went to work extinguishing the workshop and leading out the horses from the stable. Habala watched them, stunned by what she’d done.

  Had she caused that fire? What had happened? The clock had caught on fire, and she couldn’t have done that without any flames or flint nearby, yet it’d been in her hands. Where else could the flames have come from? Not for the first time, she wondered if something was wrong with her.

  “I don’t know.” She told Geda. “I was just working. I must’ve left a candle burning, careless.”

  “You could’ve been killed.” He said. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  “I’m all right.” She pushed herself away from him. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not,” He stared at her. “Not really.”

  Did he worry that she might hurt herself? She didn’t feel like she could, though he might think otherwise.

  “Geda, I’m…” She sighed. “All right, I haven’t been fine for days. But I’m not hurt right now.”

  Geda hugged her and she cried again, just as she’d been doing off and on for the past week. But this time her cry was dry and silent, as if the fire had dried her tears, and the flames that had swallowed the clocks had swallowed her voice as well.

  * * * *

  Crouched in the corner between two intersecting gables on the Smiling Stallion inn’s roof, watching the conflagration below, Old Man shook his head and turned away, sighing to himself. Losing the ones you love always hurts, and it never completely goes away. That doesn’t change as time goes by.

  The hurt goes deeper, sometimes, sinking and lodging at the bottom of your heart and weighing you down. Or it floats away lightly, like a feather, until a half-forgotten thought or feeling brings it back to cut you again.

  It should never have come to this, he thought, the loss of a child for…‘the greater good’ was the best term he could think of, though harsh and cold. As if there was any greater good in the world than a child to their parents and relatives.

  It was no comfort for them, grieving as they were, to think of the boys as making a difference. What care had they for the world after losing what they’d valued most? Was it worth it?

  The smoke rose into the early morning sky as Old Man pondered. He thought it was necessary, especially for Basha to go out and change a few things. He thought they might be the only ones capable of making such changes.

  It was dangerous and they might not return, but it was time to depose Doomba before he could do any more damage, after thousands of years of waiting for the right opportunity. Old Man had kept watch all this time, and now he’d pounce upon it before Doomba or his minions ended his chances.

  Kala had felt the same. She’d come all the way to Coe Baba to protect her unborn son Basha, and died giving birth before her ghost came to tell Old Man that Basha was the Tigora’l, tiger of light. She knew Basha had a dangerous mission to fulfill, yet she acknowledged that it needed to be done.

  Old Man had to push things along and nudge people so that the opportunity could unfold. He was responsible for pushing Basha and by extension his brother Oaka into leaving Coe Baba, because it was the right thing to do, yet he felt guilty, seeing the harm he’d caused Habala and others.

  He felt some need to justify his actions, make up for them, and say he’d tried to make a difference. He needed to make peace and challenge and destroy Doomba. Maybe Kala felt the same way.

  Perhaps he feared he’d made a mistake and nothing would come out of it. He was afraid they’d failed, especially since they knew nothing about what they were supposed to be doing, not just searching for Tau’s Cup.

  Perhaps he should’ve warned them, but they would’ve laughed at him. They never would’ve believed him, especially when he’d hardly anything to prove his story. They wouldn’t have left, willing to prove him wrong. No, whatever else, they needed to learn the truth, see this was the right thing to do, and that what they faced was nothing compared to what might happen if they failed.

  Chapter 2

  Fato

  When the day arrives, let it be known

  Throughout the world that I faced my fate

  With dignity and stamina. Let it be known that,

  In the end, I laughed in the face of death.

  ~ King Wartart of the War Kings, Arria

  “The rats are burning,” Basha muttered, still asleep but arising from the fog.

  Morning had broken, light ascending and sweeping over Mila Forest stretched out all around them. The smoke from Coe Baba was a distant memory, though a few homesteads and encampments could be found a few miles from their trail, which wound along the western fork of the Daneuve River to Coe Anji.

  “Shut up, Basha,” Oaka, his adoptive brother, muttered a short distance away.

  This was the third night Basha had spent farther away from home than he’d ever been, even when he’d run away as a child. Basha had found the truth that he was adopted difficult to cope with at first, especially when others thought him a balnor, an illegitimate son born without much w
orth. But he’d managed to survive the forest until he was found, and then his life went on back home as if things weren’t different, though they were.

  “Oaka?” Basha opened his eyes and sat up.

  “What?”

  “The rats, I was—”

  “You always dream about the rats.”

  “I do?”

  “We’ve shared the same bedroom for years now. I think I should know what you mutter in your sleep. So what else is new?”

  Basha shook his head, trying to recall his dream. He remembered the rats chasing him through the forest, and then a woman destroyed them…he blinked as he realized the woman was a younger Nisa. Why would Nisa be in his dream about rats?

  “Up and at ’em, boys!” Sir Nickleby roared, stomping about the camp as the two boys groaned. “This is a disaster, what, who doused the fire last night?” He asked, looking down into the fire pit. “It’s still smoldering!”

  “It was Basha, sir.”

  “Tattler.” Basha muttered. He stood up and told Sir Nickleby, “I’m sorry, sir, it won’t happen again.”

  “You’ve first watch tonight, Basha.”

  “Why do we have to keep watch, sir?”

  “Because I said so, and we’re not camping out five miles away from home. We’re already a hundred miles away from Coe Baba.”

  “A hundred miles,” Basha smiled and turned to Oaka. “Can you imagine? We—”

  “A hundred miles is no laughing matter!” Sir Nickleby strode towards him. “We’re now outside of Coe Baba’s district, on the edges of Coe Anji’s district. We’re, in essence, in no man’s land. Here is where the bounders wait, where robbers can be found, where any crime can be committed, and no one can prosecute it. Here is where boundaries disintegrate between districts and authority, and we’ve got to get back to safety, or what counts as safety, in Coe Anji.” The knight turned and walked off.