Will (Book 2)

by S. F. Burgess

  Will sighed and shook his head. “My name is—”

  Without warning, the guard’s hand shot forward, grasping a thick handful of shirt and jacket in his enormous fist. He yanked Will forward by it, nearly pulling him off his feet. Several defensive moves occurred to Will, but when he factored in his smaller size and weakened body, he realised that winning a fight against the brute that held him would be unlikely. I’ll just make him angrier.

  “I. Said. Go. Away.” The guard shook Will backwards and forwards with each word, like he was a set of maracas. Giving a snort of annoyance, the guard then shoved him casually backwards, and Will went sprawling, landing heavily in the snow-dusted mud.

  “The king is busy,” the guard snarled. Slowly, Will pulled his worn-out body back up. The ache had returned to his arms and legs. Even given this guard’s Protector history, he was out of order. Stood out of reach, warily watching the guard—who continued to glare at him—Will sent an energy string out, searching for Conlan, smiling slightly when he felt himself pulled in.

  Hello, Will. How are you feeling?

  Tired, Will admitted truthfully. I’m stood outside your tent; I came to check your leg. But the large stone wall that Freddie left standing guard won’t let me in. I really don’t think he has the right temperament for the job.

  One moment. How’s Eleanor?

  She was eating my cheese the last time I saw her and very happy about it. Will smiled as Conlan’s amusement washed over him.

  We’ve had a few conversations in my head, Conlan said. But I can tell it’s exhausting for her. I’ve no idea how you can operate so normally with so little energy.

  Practice… and I don’t have a large hole in my side, a few pints less blood and only one lung working, Will said.

  The tent opened behind the guard, who turned in surprise. A very familiar-looking man with short brown hair stepped out. A memory stirred in Will’s mind—of a Protector who had stood in defence of four of his colleagues while other Protectors had threatened to stop them from joining Conlan. The man walked past the guard and stopped in front of Will, inquiring grey-blue eyes looking him up and down. Although whether this was a cursory weapons check or simple curiousity, Will did not know.

  “His Majesty will be delighted to see you now, Avatar of Water,” the man said loudly, with an open, friendly smile that put boyish dimples on a face that would have been handsome had he not looked so tired. Will nodded and followed the man past the pale, wide-eyed guard and into the tent.

  Inside, one large space was wrapped around the cart, and straw covered the ground, making it less muddy. To the right side of the cart sat a large table. From the Protectors’ mess hall in the North Tower. It filled a lot of the space, as did the vacant chairs around it; papers, maps and drinking goblets were scattered across it. But the rest of the tented expanse was empty, cold and dark.

  “This way,” the man instructed, leading Will to the cart steps, towards the warmth, light and voices that were spilling out.

  “… not followed, but there is no guarantee they were fooled.” It was unmistakably Cai’s voice.

  “Elroy is certain?” Conlan asked.

  “Yes, Sire,” Cai assured him. “Until we find out more about this Source, all our movements must be cautious.” Will’s escort moved up to the first step of the cart and stuck his head in the door.

  “The healer is here, Sire,” he announced.

  Freddie’s not taking any chances with your safety.

  No, Conlan agreed, sounding less than pleased about it. He’s not. Rik hasn’t left my side since he was given the position. I’m not even sure he’s been sleeping!

  Have you slept? Will asked, not surprised when Conlan ignored the question.

  “Thank you, Rik, let him in,” Conlan replied. Rik moved out of the way and ushered Will up the steps, remaining on guard at the bottom, his back to the cart.

  Conlan and Cai sat facing each other on either side of the cart’s central table. Food sat untouched on plates next to them, papers and maps were scattered around just as they were on the table outside, and Will could smell stewing tea from the pot sat on the hot stove. Someone has tried to provide for you. Both men looked spent, bags under their eyes and thick stubble on their haggard faces, Conlan looking very much like the picture of Alaric in the Book of the Five.

  “Hello, Will. How are you feeling?” Cai asked. “I understand from His Majesty that you have not been well.”

  Unsure how much Conlan had told his inner council or how much he wanted them to know, Will went for the simple answer. “I am feeling much better, thank you, Captain. Time for me to make myself useful again,” Will said with a smile and a nod of respectful thanks.

  “Will, I recall ordering you to change clothes,” Conlan said, looking him up and down.

  “They were clean when I put them on this morning, Sire,” Will said, irritated at being pulled up for an order he had done his best to carry out. “If my attire offends you, I can go and change before I treat your leg…”

  Cai sniggered. “Just what we need, more smartmouth Avatars.”

  Conlan scowled.

  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that… Will paused as Conlan flashed him a ‘how-stupid-do-you-think-I-am?’ look. Well, okay, I did, he agreed. But I did have clean clothes until Freddie had me kneel to him, and that beast guarding your tent entrance threw me to the ground.

  Conlan’s eyes widened, and he gently pushed Will out of his head before turning to his captain. “If you would excuse us, Cai,” Conlan said, stiffly. “I would have words with my healer.”

  “Certainly, Sire.” He stood, stretching, and strapped his sword back around his waist, giving Will a grin as he left. Closing the door to give the illusion of privacy, Will placed his medical bag on the table.

  “What happened?” Conlan asked in English. Will gave Conlan a rundown of his day as he emptied his bag of the items he would need.

  “Freddie was being juvenile; you dealt with that,” Conlan said when he had finished. “And Erit put this Murray in his place. But the guard is something else. I’ll get Freddie to deal with him.” Will saw the threat in Conlan’s eyes and almost felt sorry for the guard. “Do you want me to announce who you are or something?” Conlan continued. “Freddie basically announced himself. By roasting a whole pig, in about ten minutes, for the celebration dinner after the tower fell. It made him very popular. It was fairly obvious who Eleanor and Amelia were; word got around camp in record time, especially when they discovered that Eleanor was injured. But Freddie said it was safer if I didn’t draw attention to you while you were ill. The men have all seen the ‘wanted’ posters, but I don’t think your poster was close enough, so you might have to explain to a few people who you are.”

  “You don’t need to announce me; I’m quite capable of announcing myself. Although I’d prefer to do it without the roast pork,” Will said with a smile. “I would have explained it to your guard, if he’d given me the chance. I should have just kicked his butt.”

  Conlan burst into laughter, trying to get a hold of himself when he saw Will’s straight face.

  “You were serious?” Conlan asked, still trying to force down the sniggers.

  “No, not really,” Will admitted with a chuckle. “But now I’m kind of upset you don’t think I could.”

  “The man is freakishly large,” Conlan told him. “You and I together would have difficulties beating him in a fight.”

  Conlan was still chuckling to himself as Will moved to inspect his leg, seeing the infection and split stitches as soon as he removed the bandage. In the past, Will would have berated Conlan for not giving his leg chance to heal, but it was different now. As a king heading for war, Conlan no longer had the luxury of being able to spend time recuperating.

  “So… where are we? Where are we going?” Will asked as he bent to the task of cleaning and re-stitching the wound.

  “We’re stopped for today to scout the area,” Conlan said, leaning ba
ck into the pillows on the sofa, wincing at Will’s ministrations. “But we’re heading towards the Box Swamp.” Will stiffened, thankful that Conlan was in too much pain to notice his reaction. Swamp? Water, lots of water… Am I going to be able to deal with that? “We need time and a safe place to hide while we train up our new men and organise ourselves,” Conlan continued in a voice strained by pain, exhaustion and responsibility. “Elroy has told me that the Box Swamp is where they send the runaway Protectors—it’s a safe haven. He can show us the safe way to get our men and supplies in. He believes we’ll find more allies there.”

  “Or we might just bring the wrath of the Lords down on an unsuspecting, unprepared group of men,” Will said.

  “Do you know what a ‘box’ is, Will?” Conlan asked.

  “A container for stuff,” Will answered, confused by the inane question.

  “And what is the word for that in Dwarfish?” Conlan continued.

  “Trill,” Will answered without thinking. He looked into Conlan’s face and saw a patient, expectant look. What am I missing?

  “I’m an idiot,” Will said as it dawned on him. “No, Conlan, I don’t know what ‘box’ means in Dwarfish.”

  Conlan gave him a smile. “A ‘box’ is an evil spirit,” he told him. “It’s said that the souls of the wicked go to this swamp as punishment when they die. It is believed to be a cursed place: those who go in don’t come out. It’s nonsense, of course, but the perpetuation of the myth makes it a good hiding place. Even the Lords of Mydren would be hard pushed to get an army to invade it.”

  “And how are you going to get our men to enter?” Will asked.

  “I’m going to find out how much they trust me.”

  Will looked into Conlan’s face. “That could go very wrong.”

  “Indeed,” Conlan noted with a wry smile. “But better to take their measure before I’m stood on a battlefield with them at my back, don’t you think?”

  “The time we spend organising and training is going to give the Lords of Mydren the same time to build up their forces. Would we not be better pushing our advantage and just taking the East Tower?” Will asked.

  “We wouldn’t win,” Conlan said, with conviction. “They know our methods now; deception would not be as easy. If we’re to take on larger armies than ourselves, then my men need to have the ability and confidence to fight one against five, which takes time and practice; and there’s the huge problem of our every move being watched by the Source. However, I have a few ideas to keep the Lords doubting their intelligence gathering and chasing down mist and smoke while we do this essential training. And we may gather some intelligence on our enemy in the bargain.” Intrigued, Will gave him a questioning look, but Conlan shook his head. “I’m already telling you more than I should, Will; you’re not on the inner council.” Will flinched at words that hurt far more than being struck, and Conlan placed a hand on his shoulder. “This is privileged information,” he said. “We need to be able to ensure the safety of those who know it. Freddie already has his hands full. If I tell you everything, you become yet another person his men need to keep under constant watch.”

  It was rational, sensible and without malice, and Will smiled, nodding, swallowing with difficulty the last remnants of his distress. There could be no fault laid before anyone for these circumstances. It was not something that could be ‘fixed’; it was just something he needed to accept. He was the king’s healer. It was a good position, and he would do everything he could to ensure his performance was his best.

  “How long will it take us to get to the ‘Evil Spirit Swamps’?” Will asked, wondering how much time he had before he was going to have to deal with the water.

  Conlan sighed. “If it was just Meran and I, we’d be there in less than ten days. Planning, organising and moving this many men takes forever. It will be at least a moon passing, maybe two.”

  Will smiled at Conlan’s use of the term ‘moon passing’, the Mydren term to indicate a month. Living with his Avatars had forced a definition of time on him that had never been Mydren’s. Conlan now thought of time in terms of minutes, hours, days, weeks and months because his Avatars did. However, for the average Mydren resident, there were dawn, sunset, night, day, moon passings and seasons. No additional division of time was needed. If Conlan was referring to months as ‘moons’, it meant he was listening to his Mydrenian advisors and getting more in tune with the Mydren frame of reference. Will knew how important this was, how it would help Conlan fit in better with the men he intended to lead.

  “What cunning thought is going around your head now, Will?” Conlan asked.

  “Cunning?” Will asked.

  Conlan snorted. “I know your face like I know my own. Out with it.”

  “You used the term ‘moon passing’. I was just thinking it was a good idea for you to get back into the Mydren mindset of time, that it would help you fit in better with your men.”

  “I’d rather be using the more precise time that minutes and hours offer, but in the interests of common understanding I’m stuck with Mydren time for the moment,” Conlan said. “Maybe I should ask Eleanor to build me a clock,” he mused with a whimsical smile, relaxing further into the pillows as he pondered this.

  Silence filled the cart as Will concentrated on the careful, evenly spaced stitches he was giving and then gently applied Kona’s thick white paste across the length of the wound. It would give the thread some ability to stretch when Conlan moved, and it would fight the infection and hopefully speed up the healing process. Will raised his head, looking for the clean bandage, and caught the yawn Conlan was trying hard to hide. Once the binding was applied, Will moved his attention to his patient’s other needs.

  “When was the last time you ate or slept?”

  Conlan opened his mouth to reply, his eyes moving to the cold, untouched, congealed food that still sat on the table. He closed him mouth with a frown.

  “I had a few hours of sleep last night. Ask Amelia,” he said a little defensively. “And I’m pretty sure I had something for breakfast this morning… can’t remember what…”

  Again Will wanted to berate him, but Conlan had never handled that well, even before he was a king, and his stubborn look was already gearing up for an argument Will did not want to have. His men are what matter to him. I need to make it about them.

  “You’re a king now, Conlan, I can’t force you to do anything,” Will said with tired resignation. “Not that I had much luck before. I can only point out the obvious. Your men need you fit, healthy and alert. Missing meals and only snatching small bursts of sleep where you can is going to have an impact on your physical and mental abilities. What if a mistake you make when you’re tired, hungry and in pain gets some of your men killed?”

  Will watched the fight fade from Conlan’s eyes.

  “I need to visit Eleanor, and I promised I’d drop in on Arran; he has something he needs to tell me that apparently he can’t come here to say,” Conlan said. “I’ll eat with Arran and have a nap with Eleanor. You can watch me do both if it’ll make you happy. Come along.”

  Will walked with Conlan through the thickening snowstorm, and Rik followed close behind. While campfires still blazed around them, few were sitting before them now, the weather having driven them under whatever cover they could find. Conlan was silent on the journey. Will was not sure if it was because he was thinking or just tired, but he did not push. He had managed to get his king to agree to eat and sleep; to demand also that he hold conversation seemed unreasonable.

  They met few on the path through the camp that seemed to lead from the central tent north to the supply tents, but those who did pass them gave Conlan a wide berth, bowing their heads as he passed. Their king nodded absently in response.

  The roof of the other cart had just come into view when an attack came out of nowhere.

  Something small and fast dashed out from between two tents. Turning, it charged forwards, running at speed into Conlan and making contact w
ith a heavy thud. The attacker bounced off and dropped to the ground with a sob. Staggering back, collapsing to his side, Conlan grabbed his leg with a groan.

  Rik drew his sword, placing himself between Conlan and the fallen enemy. Cautiously, he approached it. Will knelt at his patient’s side. He lifted Conlan’s hand aside and saw the slowly spreading bloodstain.

  “What was that?” Conlan asked in shocked Dwarfish.

  “I have no idea, Sire,” Will answered, wondering if it would be possible to stitch the leg again so soon. “Rik will handle it. I need to get you carried somewhere where I can deal with this.”

  “Get me up,” Conlan ordered, his voice the hard tone of authority. Unimpressed with the reckless display of bravado, Will manhandled Conlan back to his feet. Rik had reached the lump that was the enemy and was giving it a poke with the tip of his sword. A wail of pain and fear rent the air.

  “It would appear, Sire,” Rik called back with amusement, “to be a small boy.”

  “Pardon?”

  “A small boy, Sire,” Rik repeated a little louder, unsure if Conlan’s comment had been the result of not hearing or incredulity. “He looks about four years old.”

  “I am six.” The child’s voice held tears and pain, but still managed to sound angry.

  Limping, leaning heavily on Will, Conlan moved forward. “What is your name?”

  The boy wriggled back, sniffing, wiping tears away with his sleeve, fear obvious in his face.

  “We do not mean you any harm,” Conlan said in a soft tone. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

  Displaying control beyond his years, the boy pulled himself to his feet and looked at them. He had short black hair and was dressed in clothes far too big for him, adjusted in places with rope to help it stay on his thin body. With frightened eyes he stared at Conlan’s face.

  “You are the king,” the boy said. “You are not meant to know I am here.”

  “I do not like secrets being kept from me,” Conlan said, flashing Will a pointed look before looking back at the boy. “What is your name?”