Maverick

by Curtis, Greg

  “I don’t know child.” He sighed, not wanting to admit the truth even to himself let alone these poor children. Yet they had to know, they had to be prepared if the worst happened and she passed to the other side. “I’ve done the best I can but her wounds are deep and they should have been treated many hours maybe days ago. But there’s hope.” He smiled at her in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Alyssi Brightmoon.” For some reason she smiled back at him, catching him by surprise with her unexpected trust. Her name surprised him as well as he realised he knew it, he recognised the family name, the Brightmoon line, though it took him a little while to remember where from. The Brightmoons were a well-respected trading family from the village of Tara’s Falls in the province of Calibra. They were also as he eventually recalled, some sort of elven nobility, though her ears, while still pointed as an elf’s should be, also had small triangular chunks missing from them as would a dryads. Her gold was also darker than he’d expect of an elf and possibly her skin a little tougher. He hadn’t heard that the family was of mixed blood, but it wasn’t uncommon between the elves and dryads so he understood, and her family name went well with her expensive clothes. Still he left that question for another time.

  “And your friends?”

  “This is Petras Orebender, Dorian Silverhearth, Sassa of Deepgrove, Romana Lilyanne, Vala of the Red Orchid and Charalisse Elle.” She pointed to each of her friends in turn and they took it in turns to formally nod to him while he desperately tried to remember their names. But he knew he never would. He’d never had a gift for such things, which was probably a part of the reason he felt comfortable living out in the woods alone. Out here he couldn’t embarrass himself by forgetting his social graces. Still the two boys were easy enough, Petras was the dwarf, with a name like Orebender what else could he be, and Dorian was the gnome, not that either of them would care if he mixed up their names.

  They were a well-connected group of children. He knew that when he heard the human child’s family name, Elle. The Elle’s were known far and wide as former nobility, though they had lost their home and castles a century or so before when Gunderland had installed a new ruler. The merchants’ guild had been less than happy as he recalled from his history lessons, with the liberal laws that the royals had written dealing with taxes and the rights of serfs, and had paid for Gunder’s ambitious General Hockin to organise an overthrow. Following the coup the Elle’s had left the realm, choosing exile among the elves and dryads of Calibra over remaining in a suddenly hostile land as prisoners, and for some reason they had been allowed to settle there, probably their most famous guests. It was also said that they had brought with them great wealth, gold and precious stones without number, so perhaps they’d bought their new home, at least that was the tale.

  Of course time had marched on since then as it always did, the general had fallen and with him several of the heads of the merchant’s guild, a new king had been found and installed, and the Saratona line now ruled the land with a cohort of nobles as their court. As far as he knew the Elle’s were free to return to Gunderland whenever they chose. However they never had. Whether that was due to political considerations, fear of rivals, or simply having found a good place to call home among the elves, he had no idea. Any of those things could have kept them in Calibra. Regardless he was concerned that if word got out of Charalisse’ name it might draw the enemy upon them. After all, war was about conquest and power and as far as he knew the child had a legitimate if ancient claim to the throne, a useful weapon for an enemy to hold. Best he decided that he kept that piece of information to himself.

  “Thank you Alyssi, I am pleased to meet you all. I am Marjan of the Allyssian Forest, a woodsman and trapper, and while you need it, my home is yours. You are safe here.” He nodded politely to them as well, sensing not just the need for a little courtesy, though these children were clearly used to such things, but also the need for them to trust him, at least a little, and it seemed to work as he saw a couple of tiny smiles just beginning.

  “Now if you could tell me how you came from your school in Gunder to my woods and my cottage and where those dire wolves came from, I would very much appreciate it.”

  Unexpectedly he started a stampede with his questions and all the children started telling him everything they knew at the same time, talking across one another, disagreeing with each other, even arguing about it, shouting and sometimes crying as they did so, making it difficult to understand what they were saying, but at least they were talking and he didn’t interrupt them any more than he had to.

  Unfortunately they couldn’t tell him a lot. They’d been in school in Gunder when the city had been attacked, and then after a full two days and a night of being locked in behind the thick wooden doors of the school, hearing the battle all around and not knowing what was happening, they’d all suddenly been ordered to leave. Made to pack in mere minutes and then assigned to a wagon and a teacher, before being evacuated from the city as fast as they could be.

  What they described sounded like panic, and in the face of an enemy running riot through the city, it also sounded like total defeat, and looking at their earnest and still frightened faces he had to accept it as the truth. But how could an enemy army be made of beasts as they kept insisting? There had to be soldiers in charge, wizards even as much as he hated the thought, leading them.

  The attack also made little sense to him, especially when he knew that Gunder was home to over thirty thousand people, had a well-trained town guard as well as a militia base, and also plenty of fortifications and guard posts. Besides, the city was walled, how would the beasts have made it inside? Unless the same magic, the same wizards that lead the beasts had helped them somehow. But the children couldn’t have told him that and they weren’t finished with their tale of woe. Once they’d started they couldn’t seem to hold back anything of their previous days.

  Later, after many days on the road, a road so he understood packed with other refugees, they’d heard the howls of the beasts once more, and seen the beasts attack once more. Unable to outrun them, the main road south was filled with wagons and frightened people and besides a horse and cart was never a fast method of transport, they’d fled into the forest, their teacher making them leave everything behind as they had to run. After that, another two days of fleeing through unknown forests, the wolves had caught up to them, and they’d taken shelter in a cave. The rest he knew.

  It wasn’t a happy tale, and he couldn’t be completely sure that they weren’t exaggerating or misunderstanding some of it, but he believed them. Even if the evidence he’d seen with his own eyes hadn’t supported their tale, the truth and fear in their eyes would have always convinced him. And that left him with a terrible fear in his heart.

  His family lived in Gunder. He might not have seen them in maybe twenty something years, wizards did not have kin and he had been taken from them at a young age, so long ago that he could remember little of them, but in his heart they were always somewhere there in the city. But were they now refugees? Or dead? He had no way of knowing, no way of finding out. And of his friends too, what about them? Admittedly they were mostly from the Guild, and he couldn’t imagine that the Guild was fallen, not with so many powerful wizards there. But that didn’t mean they were safe either. Were they still in the Guild itself, fighting or trapped? Had they too fled? He wished he knew, but he had no way of finding out.

  The important question was, what was he supposed to do about any of it? What could he do? Even he didn’t know. Clearly if the city was overrun with beasts and the people fled, there was little he could do. Not for the people in Gunder. Not when he was only a minor maverick wizard. What he did know was that he had children to protect, and even that might prove difficult. The last thing he could do was leave them to go to the city and try to fight this enemy. He had a responsibility to protect them first. But that didn’t mean that a part of him, a large part, didn’t want
to go there and fight, to rescue the people, to save his family.

  To cover his doubts and hide his fears from them while he decided on his course of action he told the children again that they were safe in his cottage and even on the porch, and that they should bathe and rest a little before tea. He even let them read some of the older and more heroic tomes of history he had lying on his shelves, hoping that it would keep them occupied. He found them enjoyable on a cold, lonely evening but his tastes weren’t for everyone. He only wished he had some toys for them to play with, but such things weren’t a part of his everyday life.

  Still it seemed to work and in time he watched as they started sorting themselves out into little groups, some reading, some resting, and a couple of the girls bringing cool towels for their teacher every time he asked, which saved him the effort of getting up. They were good children, well mannered, polite and considerate, and that said something about their parents and how they had been brought up. But they were also scared, they had been terrified, and every so often he would see one or more of them burst into tears, a sight he hated to see. Children should not be so mistreated.

  He thought about that for some time as he watched the children playing quietly inside his cottage. They had been through a lot, and by the sounds of things they couldn’t go back to the school or the city. Their only choice was to carry on to their families where he guessed their teacher had been taking them. With three of them elves and another a dryad, and the only human child also a guest of the elves, that could only be Calibra. A journey that sooner or later he would have to help them make, and yet ironically a place he himself couldn’t go. As a maverick wizard the elves would kill him on sight if he dared enter their realm. To add to their problems, without him, even if their mistress recovered, they wouldn’t make it, not if the forest was now filled with dire beasts, as he feared it was or soon would be. But they couldn’t stay here either.

  Later, after finally persuading them to bathe, the smell was getting a little strong inside the cottage and he had a full bathroom for a reason, and while he thought about gathering together some stuff for their journey, he began working on their evening meal, rabbit stew, vegetable broth and crusty bread with cheese. Of course he had reckoned without the girls’ natural liking for cleanliness, and when he turned around to ask them how hungry they were it was to discover that several of them were not only clean but completely naked as they’d also washed their clothes.

  For a time he was shocked, completely unsure what to do having absolutely no experience with children, and he suspected they guessed as much when they saw the way his mouth hung open. The precocious little tykes even grinned at him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, while he tried to find somewhere, anywhere else to look and then they started laughing and running around playing tag. Maybe he should have growled at them, but they had been through too much already and he simply couldn’t be harsh with them. Yet he couldn’t let them run around naked through his house either.

  How he wondered, had his life descended into such bedlam so quickly? People usually described him as quiet and even sullen, and with his height and broad shoulders, even though he wasn’t the sort to cause trouble, neither did most people want to trouble him, and that he had decided long ago was as it should be. It made for an easy life. But this handful of little children seemed to be running wild, completely unafraid of him, in his own home. How could that be? Yet in the end it didn’t matter how, it had to stop.

  “Alright children, there will be no naked people in my house. Find yourselves some clothes in my draws please.” He tried to sound gruff and authoritarian but instead his words came out as desperate and pleading, and the children instantly knew they had him under their thumbs, as they started running and jumping up and down on his couches and laughing like crazy people. But in time, after much pleading and bribery, he managed to persuade them to his view, though he had to threaten them with starvation first, naked people didn’t eat he told them, and hunger was a powerful weapon.

  Once he’d found his weapon he used it shamelessly, and insisted on them wearing as many of his clothes and towels as they could find, while he concentrated on trying not to look mortified, which was too close to the truth, and soon he had seven little tykes all wearing his vests which thankfully hung down well below their knees, and asking incessantly about dinner, while a hastily erected clothes line in his main room was covered with sopping wet laundry dripping on to his polished wooden floor and tightly knotted rugs. But at least it would help with the smell.

  Later, when dinner was served and silence reigned once more as they ate like starving animals, he let his thoughts return to the morning and what to do when it arrived. If what they had said was true, Gunder had fallen, though to who was unclear, refugees were everywhere, and his forest was filling with them and the savage beasts chasing them. He had to leave, he had to find any others fleeing through his forest, but he couldn’t leave with their teacher as she was, she wouldn’t survive the trip, and besides, he had no real idea where to take them. Calibra was a big place, assuming that was where they were heading, and he wasn’t permitted there in any case.

  He needed their teacher’s knowledge to guide him, most definitely to keep the children dressed and in order, and once she had awoken and was able to lead them again, and they were safe, he needed her to take them on to the elven lands. So much depended on her and he still didn’t know if she would survive.

  He could take on their enemies, no beast would threaten him, nor would most people, and he could cover a lot of distance very quickly if he needed to, even with the children in tow, and if a beast army came for them he would destroy them too, but he didn’t know if he would survive a plague of tiny children. He needed their teacher.

  ****************

  “Mistress Essaline?” It was late, well past the middle of the night and heading on towards morning when he finally heard the elf maiden moaning as she roused, and it was a good sound. Though he’d eventually been able to rouse her briefly during the night to make her take some broth, this was the first time she’d done it on her own and that gave him hope, even if she was discovering her pain.

  He put down the medallions he was busy enchanting on the table, and went to her where she still lay on one of his couches, and sat beside her, catching and holding one of her hands, hoping to reassure her. He couldn’t help but notice how much cooler it was than it had been just a few hours before and that pleased him. Her fever had broken.

  “Who…?” Her voice was weak and faint, and he could barely hear her, but he heard enough to know that she was recovering, and that she was waking. He could see her eyes opening wide even in the darkness, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly hoping to let her know she was all right.

  “I’m Marjan, a woodsman, and you’re safe in my home. I’ve treated your injuries, and I think you’re going to make a good recovery. The children are safe too.” And they were, but for how long he couldn’t be sure. From what they’d told him, and it was confused and fragmentary as they’d all given him different garbled versions of the same sorry tale, they were expecting more company soon, and he knew they had to be gone before then. If a werewolf and a pack of dire wolves had already tried to hunt them down and kill them, and happily failed, the lords alone knew what would come next. Maybe something that could break through his wards.

  “Where?” Suddenly her voice was stronger, she’d heard him mention the children and was instantly worried about them and he had to admire her concern for others before herself, it was a wholesome trait. She even managed to sit up, something she shouldn’t have done as it let the cover’s slip revealing her naked torso, and her breasts bounced enticingly in front of him in the moonlight. It had been hard enough concentrating on tending to her wounds before, but then he had had a lot on his mind and a half naked woman was a minor distraction no matter how beautiful. Now the distraction was no longer minor, and just when he needed his wits about him. Despite it being the last thing
he actually wanted to do, he quickly grabbed for the blankets and pulled them up and over her shoulder while she stared straight at him, apparently unconcerned by her nakedness. But then elves were strange about such things. Then again he didn’t know enough about elves to even think such a thing.

  “The boys, Petras and Dorian are sleeping in my bed in the loft bedchamber above us, you can hear Petras snoring away. The girls have taken over the sitting area, and if you look carefully you can see them buried in blankets on the other couches. Sassa though has stolen the rocking chair from my front porch and is sleeping over by the open window. They’re all safe, I promise you, and none of them were hurt at all.” They were safe too, though less than impressed with the accommodations he suspected. That however, was not something he was going to apologise for. The simple log cabin met his needs and even if they were used to finer things, they had no cause to complain.