Will (Book 2)

by S. F. Burgess

  “Arran, you are very ill. I need to treat you,” Will said, confused. “My medicine will help.”

  “Will is a very good healer; you can trust him,” Conlan said, patting Arran’s hand in an awkward attempt to reassure him.

  Arran shook his head, droplets of sweat falling around him. “No. I do not doubt Will’s skill, but I am going to die. Nothing you can do will make me well. Please, do not waste your precious supplies on me.”

  “You are not going to die, Arran,” Conlan said in a firm tone.

  “I am sorry, Conlan. I should not have lied to you when you asked, but I did not know how to explain.” There were tears in Arran’s voice, and he choked back a sob.

  “You do not have the ability to get more,” Conlan said, realisation dawning, his voice hollow.

  Will felt his heart lurch within him. When Arran first joined them, Conlan had asked his brother, at Will’s insistence, about his supply of the potion the Lords used to enslave their Enforcers—knowing that, if Arran were to stop taking the potion, it would mean death. Arran had explained, convincingly, that he had a substantial supply and that he would be able to source more in the large towns they passed through. This apparently had been a lie.

  “Before you all came into my life, I was planning to run away,” Arran said. “I have been experimenting with my dose, not taking it every day, but every two days, then every three days, saving up my spare doses, so that I would be able to have enough life to run so far away that I could experience the freedom to meet death on my own terms before they found me. Now my supply is gone, and the Shaking Death will kill me.”

  Conlan turned to stare at Will, pain in his eyes. Will thought about it. When Conlan had described the hold the Lords had over their Enforcers, he had referred to it as ‘addiction to a drug’. If the potion replaced something in the body that was truly needed, then missing one dose would immediately make Arran ill—and what the former Enforcer was describing sounded more like weaning himself off from a dependency. If what he was experiencing was indeed drug withdrawal symptoms, then perhaps they could get him through it.

  “Arran, tell me about what will happen,” Will said, sitting at the table. “If I understand it, maybe I can help.”

  Arran gave him a small smile. “It has already started. I took my last dose four days ago. This is the longest I have ever gone without it. Yesterday I felt so tired, and the most horrible headache started. This morning I was sick after breakfast. I feel like there is a monster clawing its way out of me. I have a fever now; soon I will start to shake and suffer the most awful muscle cramps. Then I will lose control of my energy. You should not be around for that.”

  Will frowned. “What happens then? What actually kills you?”

  Conlan gave Will a dark look, but remained silent. Arran stared for a moment, but answered the question in flat monotone.

  “I do not know. I know of no one who has ever allowed the Shaking Death to progress to the loss of control of their energy. We are usually caught and killed by the Lords once we are too weak to run anymore. Or we kill ourselves.”

  “So there are no stories or records of anyone actually dying of the Shaking Death?” Will asked.

  “When we are first given the potion, we are told that the Shaking Death is a horrible, painful way to die, rotting from the inside out. Once the shaking starts, death by sword is considered a mercy,” Arran said, his voice dropping down to a whisper, his eyes finding Conlan’s. Will could see the unspoken request in that look. Conlan stiffened, and an uncomfortable silence filled the cart.

  “I have brought water,” Kip said, breaking the moment as he staggered up the cart steps with a large metal pan. “I did not know how much you would need, so I brought the most I could carry.” With care, Kip put the large pan on the floor by the door, then turned to look at Arran. “Will said you were ill, Arran. When I was ill, my mother used to make me chicken soup; it always made me feel better. If Conlan says yes, perhaps someone can go and find me a chicken so that I can make some for you.”

  Arran gave Kip an affectionate smile, but Kip’s attention was focused on Conlan. Giving a slight cough, his voice rough when he answered, Conlan nodded.

  “Tell Elroy and Mickle to head back to a farm we passed earlier today and purchase a chicken if they can. Mickle has money. Tell them to take horses; I want them back as soon as possible.”

  Kip nodded, a big grin on his face as he ran out of the door, his eyes shining with pride at being trusted to deliver Conlan’s orders. Turning back to Arran, Conlan discovered the man’s eyes were now closed. He gently lifted Arran’s hand from his arm and laid it on his chest, giving it a slight squeeze. Then he stood and walked out of the cart, calling over his shoulder.

  “Will, a word.”

  Amelia raised an eyebrow; Will shrugged and stood. “Use the water Kip brought, moisten that material again and try and keep Arran cool,” he instructed. “Don’t light the stove in here—it’s hot enough already. I’ll get boiling water for the Ellet bark from Kip once I’ve spoken to Conlan.”

  Conlan had gone round the back of the cart and walked a little distance away, presumably so they could have some privacy. He sat on a large rock, his knees drawn into his chest, his arms resting on top. He absently rubbed the leather pouch at his neck as he stared at the view.

  The rocks they were hiding behind were just the beginning. The huge stones sat high above a valley. If they had followed the track it would have meandered down a steep, narrow path that ran between a split in the rocks. Looking over the edge, Will could see the bottom far below, the rocky walls towering above, that eventually opened up into a wide green valley and, in the far distance, a dark swath of forest running in a thick band of trees from one side of the valley to the other. In the golden afternoon light it was stunningly beautiful.

  “Am I going to have to take my sword to my brother?”

  Jerked out of his appreciation of the view by the hard bitterness in Conlan’s English, Will came and sat next to his friend.

  “Not if you’re willing to trust me,” Will said, his voice a little strained as guilt punched him—he had no right to be asking Conlan for trust.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Okay, think this through with me,” Will said. “The Enforcers are powerful. They have power the Lords wish to harness, but also power they need to control. I imagine it wouldn’t take many Enforcers to overthrow the Lords if the idea occurred to them. So the Lords create a drug, a drug only they can make, and tell their Enforcers that once they start taking it they can never stop. They make their Enforcers terrified of dying a grim death. But you don’t actually need a drug that will do that—you just need to addict them to something that causes nasty withdrawal symptoms when they stop using it. Symptoms they could survive… if they let them run their course.”

  “The Lords lied,” Conlan said.

  Will nodded. “Yes, I think they lied. I don’t believe this Shaking Death is going to kill Arran. The symptoms he’s describing, the way he was able to reduce his dose over time… it makes me think he’s just addicted. That was the term you used when you told me about it: ‘addicted’. I think consciously or unconsciously you got the correct word.”

  “But you don’t know for certain,” Conlan said, the painted-on smile on his face twisting into a monstrous imitation of itself as he frowned.

  “No, Conlan, I can’t give you any certainty here,” Will agreed. “But I’m hoping Arran is going to have the courage to find out the truth. If the drug is a lie, think of all the people we can rescue from what amounts to slavery.”

  Conlan insisted on speaking to Arran. His words hushed and his distress plain, he told the ailing Enforcer what Will had said. Reluctantly, fear in his eyes, Arran agreed to be the test subject for their theory, once Conlan made it clear that Amelia would be on hand at all times to contain Arran’s energy if he lost control. Amelia also suggested that they drain as much of Arran’s energy as possible before that happened, and
Conlan agreed.

  Not long after, Arran started shaking, much as Moylan did when he was having a fit, his head snapping from side to side, his limbs thrashing. Gritted teeth kept him silent, for a while, but before long he was screaming his agony, eyes bright and frantic with fever. Assisted by Eleanor and Amelia, who had already drained Arran’s energy as low as they dared, Will did his best to treat the symptoms, using all the herbs and potions at his disposal. Ellet bark helped to reduce the fever a little, and lepdrac took some of the sting out of Arran’s headache. Experimenting with a few other ingredients, Will managed to create a tea that reduced their patient’s jerks down to a constant, aching trembling that, thankfully, Arran seemed to be able to sleep through.

  Eleanor was in and out while Arran slept, taking advantage of his unconscious state to enter his mind with Will. Together they found Arran’s head was dominated by an intense craving, a feeling that went beyond the mere physical, a discovery which gave Will a lot more confidence in his addiction theory. Eleanor helped Will create walls around Arran’s need, blocking it off from his mind, sealing it away. They had no idea if this helped—as Arran soon slipped into a coma-like sleep from which they could not rouse him—but Will felt a lot more optimistic about Arran’s chances, if they could just manage to keep his temperature down.

  As the sun began to set, casting long shadows on the walls of the cart, Will sat, leaning against the rough wooden wall, watching Kip tenderly run a damp cloth over Arran’s face and hair under Amelia’s watchful eye. Elroy and Mickle had yet to return with a chicken, and Kip had insisted he wanted to help. The cart still held the day’s warmth and Will yawned. His energy was little more than a spark, exhaustion never very far away, but at least his headache was currently just a dull throb due to the lepdrac he had dosed himself with. Physician, heal thyself, he thought, amused by the irony.

  Outside he could hear subdued mutterings. Conlan had told everyone what was going on, praising the bravery Arran was showing. Brave indeed; Will knew how much the battle would change in their favour if they could recruit the Enforcers—or at the very least, show them that the Lords had lied to them.

  Shouts and thundering hooves interrupted Will’s daydreams of the Lords’ surrendering. Kip and Amelia looked curiously out of the door.

  “I will go and find out what is going on,” Will said, impressed when Amelia nodded her agreement along with Kip, having obviously understood the Dwarfish.

  “What is the matter?” Conlan asked, still drying off his face, having removed his makeup and swapped his Idiot’s garb for more comfortable attire.

  Normally calm and quiet, Elroy looked frantic as he almost threw himself off Pal in his hurry to dismount. “They are coming,” he gasped.

  “Who is coming?” Conlan asked.

  “Everyone!” Elroy yelled.

  “He speaks the truth,” Mickle said, pulling Brutus up next to Pal. “The farmer told us he had been into Frey this morning—that is the next town along the main road from here. Apparently an Enforcer witnessed Avatars disguised as players destroying Merckley. They are converging on us.”

  Having gotten over his panic somewhat, Elroy picked up the story. “We went to investigate. Twenty elite guard and forty Protectors led by someone called Lord Hernas were at our heels as we came back to warn you. Whilst we watched them we heard them talking; it seems that ahead of us are another three hundred men. Lord Hernas plans to find us and hold us until the reserves arrive.”

  “We have to get out of here, right now,” Mickle said.

  “Yes,” Conlan agreed. “But which way? We cannot use the main road; our enemy is in front of us and behind us.” He pointed at the sheer drop into the valley below. “I do not know if the carts could make that steep track down, and even if they did, our enemy would command the high ground and easily pick us off or chase us down.” He pointed in the opposite direction. “And in that direction the land starts to climb into the central mountains. It is unlikely we would find travelling easier going that way, and our enemy would again have a leisurely time of it running us down. There was a reason we were taking the main road. So again I ask: which way? I need ideas.”

  “We abandon the carts, split up into small groups and head in different directions,” Mickle said. There were mutters of agreement, and Will realised that with the exception of Arran, Kip and Amelia, their entire group was present.

  “If we abandon the carts, it will not just be our belongings we will be leaving behind. Arran is in no fit state to be carried out of here. The shock could well kill him,” Will told them.

  “He is already as good as dead, and an Enforcer. We owe him nothing,” Teris muttered.

  Will saw Conlan tense at the comment, but it was Moylan who answered it.

  “Shut up, you drollup!”

  “I am just saying what everyone is thinking,” Teris said sullenly.

  “No, you are saying what you are thinking, coward!” Elroy spat at him.

  Teris glared at him, but did not speak further.

  “I would recommend that we head down into the valley,” Davlin said. Every eye turned in his direction.

  “I believe I discounted that direction because of the advantages it would give our enemy,” Conlan replied.

  Davlin nodded. “It would be a risk. We would have to be quick, and once we start down that track there would be no turning back, but that direction has one big advantage for us. A river runs across the valley on the other side of those trees. There is no bridge to cross anywhere close. We get into the valley and head for the trees, which will offer us some cover. Then Will holds back the water, and we cross where the Protectors cannot follow.”

  There was silence. Is there anything Eleanor hasn’t told him?

  Conlan gave Will a questioning look. Can I do it? He would need his energy. He looked at Eleanor. She gave him a small nod of the head; she would help. It would be painful and difficult, but as there were no obvious alternatives, it would have to be done. He nodded.

  “Right, that is our plan,” Conlan announced. “Pack up and hitch the horses; we leave as soon as possible.” Men rushed to obey the order. “Freddie, Eleanor, stay here. Davlin, can you get Amelia please?” Conlan added.

  Davlin nodded and headed swiftly for the cart.

  Conlan looked around at them, his face serious. “I need your energy so I can help you defend us until we reach the trees.” Freddie nodded. Conlan closed his eyes, and Will assumed a transfer was already in progress.

  As he watched, he felt Eleanor nudge a string into him. Taking a firm hold of his control, he flinched as Earth’s heavy, suffocating power filled him. She had not sent much, but with this small burst his energy-starved body seemed to waken, questing strings spreading out, looking for water to draw from. This time he did not attempt to stop it. He found enough energy in the brackish sludge in the ditch next to the road to reach the river he was going to have to hold back. Aware that Eleanor was now sending Conlan Earth’s power, Will explored the river whilst carefully pulling energy. It was wide, deep and fast-flowing. Davlin was right: if they could get across they would not be followed. Strengthening his control as much as he could, making sure he knew every part of the new energy that swirled under his skin, Will pushed himself up under the heavy weight. This plan relied on him, and he would not let them down.

  By the time the four Avatars had given Conlan their energy, his green eyes glowing once more, everything was packed and ready to go. Swinging himself fluidly onto Meran’s back, Conlan led them down the track, Eleanor following close behind him on Horse. They dropped between two large rocky outcrops that had most likely been deposited in the last ice age. They were committed now: the only way out was down. Having left Amelia and Kip in the cart looking after Arran, Will drove down the precarious path. Freddie sat next to him, making sure the wheels did not come too close to the crumbling edges. Behind them, Davlin drove the second cart with Elroy as his lookout. The natural stone walls rose above them, blocking out the sun, mak
ing it appear to set more quickly. The track had just begun to level off at the bottom when they heard yelling from high above. Conlan twisted in his saddle and looked up.

  “They are here!” he yelled. “Look out for their archers! Move faster!”

  “Should we fire back?” Mickle yelled from the back of the last cart.

  “No—it is too far, we would never hit them. Do not waste the arrows; we just need to get out of range,” Conlan snapped back.

  Slapping the reins down hard across Moss’s and Pal’s backs, Will urged them to speed. Leaning their strength into their harnesses, straining, the horses surged forward, and Will heard a yelp of surprise from Amelia. The cart rattled, swayed and jolted noisily over the rough ground as the horses pushed themselves at Will’s urging. Despite the quality of the vehicles, the suspension was not built for off-road travelling, or speed for that matter. There was a violent jerk as the back left wheel hit something, a rock or large tuft of grass. Freddie grabbed the driver’s bench to keep himself seated.

  “Will!” Amelia hollered from inside the cart. “Slow down or we’ll be dead before they reach us!”

  An instant later a volley of arrows fell on them. Most fell short, but Will heard the thuds as several hit.

  “Amelia? Are you all okay?” Will yelled back, as he and Freddie exchanged worried glances.

  “Yes…” Amelia’s confirmation was a frightened squeak. “Will,” she continued, her voice getting stronger, “drive faster!”

  Freddie snorted and Will tried to coax more speed out of the horses. They heard the deadly swishing noise as another volley of arrows rained down on them, but all fell short of their targets, hitting the ground behind them. Nevertheless, Will still breathed a huge sigh of relief when they reached the tree line and he was able to slow the horses down, their mad dash leaving them breathing hard as they weaved in and out of the trees towards the river.

  River… He felt the flow as he had felt no other water, his consciousness already sinking as the cool liquid seemed to flood his veins, filling him with calm.