Wren and the Ravens

by Eric Buffington

  “Is there anything else you wish to send?” a voice called from within the book.

  “No no, that is all.” Driscal waved his hands and then returned to reading his other book.

  Here I am, Driscal. Wren thought. He raised his mini-crossbow and squeezed off a shot. The bolt went into the room and then stopped in midair halfway through.

  “Ah, my guest has arrived!” Driscal shouted. He tossed his book to the floor and rose to his feet.

  KA-BOOOOOM!

  Wren was thrown to the floor as the tower rocked and swayed. His ears rang and his head pounded from the force of the explosion, but the stunt was successful. Driscal had been tossed to the floor as well, rolling to slam into the far wall next to a bookshelf.

  The assassin reloaded and fired a second shot, but Driscal managed to put up a shield of blue light that deflected the bolt.

  How can he see the bolts!? Wren wondered. Everything should be invisible.

  “Come into the room,” Driscal shouted. The wizard made a grasping motion with his hand and Wren felt something wrap around him and pull him into the chamber. As he crossed the center point of the room, the invisibility potion lost its effect. Driscal floated into the air, a ball of fire forming in his left hand just as Wren managed to use the mage’s key to free himself of the spell that held him bound. The assassin leapt to the side a split-second before the fireball slammed into the floor.

  The tower swayed and groaned as stones cracked from somewhere outside the room.

  “You think you can defeat me?” Driscal bellowed.

  Wren lifted his mini-crossbow and fired, but as before, the wizard was able to deflect with a glowing shield. The assassin had been counting on that. He rushed forward and leapt at the shield, still holding the mage’s key in his left hand. The crystal began to glow, but as the shield dissolved, Driscal vanished and reappeared on the opposite side of the room near the door.

  “You’re better than the others that have come here, I’ll give you that,” Driscal said as Wren slammed into the bookcase.

  The assassin turned, his chest filled with rage that clouded his judgment.

  “Let me guess, I killed someone you care about, is that it?” Driscal asked.

  Wren started to answer, but a book slammed into him from behind. The wizard laughed and then magicked another pair of books at Wren, forcing the assassin to turn and defend himself from the heavy objects. Next the entire bookcase flew at him. He dodged, but one of the books caught his injured arm and he twirled about in pain as his wound reopened and began oozing blood.

  “Pity,” Driscal said. “You could have been a great asset in the right hands.”

  Wren forced himself to take a calming breath. He had come far too close just to lose. He had to use his mind if he was to win now. He hadn’t counted on the wizard being able to dispel the potion, but there was always a weakness to exploit. If Wren could only find that weakness here, he could still turn the battle to his advantage.

  The tower groaned and creaked as it sagged to the side. Wren leaned forward a bit and then smiled. Driscal was floating in the air, shield ready for a frontal attack, but what if Wren used the environment to his advantage?

  The assassin raised his mini-crossbow once more and fired.

  Driscal solidified his magical shield, but rather than rush forward, Wren turned and ran to the wall behind him. He leapt up and slammed his left shoulder into the wall. The tower was already leaning that way thanks to the explosion that had crippled the foundation, all it needed was a little shove. Stones cracked and exploded as the room pitched to the side.

  “No!” Driscal shouted. A beam fell from the ceiling and forced the wizard to position his shield over him. The tower hadn’t fully collapsed, but the move had given Wren an opening. He darted across the room, but Driscal reacted quicker, using his magic to throw the beam at Wren. The assassin managed to somersault under it as the tower swayed back the other way. Small bursts of lightning sizzled and popped around the walls as the tower righted itself.

  “Clever trick, but as you can see, I have a few of my own,” Driscal snickered.

  Wren rose to his feet and stared at the wizard.

  Was this how it ended? Had he come all this way to fail? He couldn’t reach the wizard by frontal assault, and he couldn’t finish bringing the tower down. What else could he do?

  “Pathetic,” Driscal snarled. “All that effort wasted. I’ll rebuild, you know, and I will continue doing the same things I have always done.”

  Wren took a step forward and was immediately struck in the chest by a jolting streak of golden lightning that shot out from Driscal’s hand. The assassin went down to his knees. Smoke wafted away from his seared chest as his nose began dripping blood. Wren could barely see. He couldn’t think of what to do next. There was no advantage left for him to use. It was over. Driscal had him beat. The mage’s key slipped from his hand and rolled away several inches.

  Wren smiled then as he thought of the teens. Whatever the fates had brought to him, he had at least managed to save them. That wouldn’t undo everything he had done wrong in his life, but it was good enough for now.

  “Why are you smiling?” Driscal asked. “You have failed. You are going to die alone and pathetic. No one will ever remember your name,” Driscal sneered.

  “I will!” Knell’s voice shouted loud and clear.

  Wren’s vision snapped back into focus. What was she doing here?!

  Unseen hands picked up a large candelabra and swung it through the air, crashing into Driscal’s back. The wizard cried out and his blue shield faltered.

  “Me too,” a much louder, lower voice called out. Wren knew it was Hunlok. A large stone that had been part of the wall flew through the air and slammed into the back of Driscal’s head. As the wizard fell to the ground, the spell holding the tower upright failed and the room began to tip once more. Wren steadied himself and loaded the crossbow once more.

  “AAAAAH!” Sarta screamed ferociously as she ran forward into the part of the room that made the potion ineffective, carrying what looked like a fire poker. Driscal saw her and vanished.

  Wren jumped up and ran for Sarta, who was now slowing to a stop and looking around, confused by the wizard’s disappearance.

  A silvery shimmer of light appeared on the north end of the room, just behind where the wizard had been sitting when Wren had originally found him.

  “Juggler!” Wren shouted as he tossed the loaded crossbow toward the doorway and leapt for Sarta.

  The shimmer of light grew and Driscal appeared through it, hands raised and lightning bolt already firing toward Sarta.

  Wren let out a feral yell and threw his sword a moment before knocking into Sarta, sending her flying out of the lightning’s way. The bolt struck Wren on the left side of his chest, but the sword flew true and straight, whirling through the air at the wizard.

  Driscal smiled and raised his hands to create his shield just in time to block the sword. “How many times will you try and fail?” Driscal shouted.

  Wren hit the ground, grunting with pain as a fiery spasm ripped through him.

  Click.

  The sound was almost imperceptible amidst the din of everything else, but it made Wren smile, for though it was a soft sound, he knew that Liden had caught and fired the crossbow. Wren reached out with his right hand and took the fire poker from Sarta, who was now scooting away with wide eyes and a scraped left cheek. Wren pushed to his feet and threw the fire poker at Driscal, releasing his grip just as the crossbow bolt slammed into Driscal’s right hip.

  The wizard cried out and bent over in pain. The blue shield faltered, and the fire poker sailed through the air to catch the wizard’s chest. It dug into him, but was not effective enough to deliver a killing blow. Wren was already sprinting forward, scooping up the mage’s key on his way.

  Driscal snarled and staggered back a few steps until he hit the back wall. As Wren closed the distance, Driscal managed to raise a hand and summon his magi
cal shield once more.

  “You can’t reach me!” Driscal shouted as the shield extended into a full cocoon around the wizard.

  “No magical barrier will stop me!” Wren snarled. The assassin leapt into the air, wielding the mage’s key like a short sword, pointing the crystal directly at Driscal’s throat. There was a brief moment of resistance as Wren collided with the magical shield, and then it shattered like glass, letting the assassin through to the wide-eyed Driscal.

  The silvery shimmer that marked the teleportation spell appeared around the wizard, but Wren drove the mage’s key in as hard and fast as he could. The pointed crystal tore through the wizard’s neck and the silvery shimmer disappeared, leaving Driscal in place to take the full brunt of Wren’s attack.

  “No escape this time,” Wren growled.

  Driscal opened his mouth as his ragged breathing turned to pained, labored wheezes, and then his knees gave out and he fell to the floor. Wren twisted the wand in the wound, and made sure the wizard was dead before standing up to reclaim his sword.

  “I thought you said you didn’t want to be like me,” Wren called out to Liden.

  Liden stepped into the middle of the room and the invisibility potion faded away. He stood there with his mouth hanging open, but no words came out.

  “If it helps, Liden, Driscal was a very wicked man, and he would have destroyed everything in Kresthin.”

  Liden looked up at Wren and narrowed his eyes on the assassin. “You…you used my name.”

  “You earned it,” Wren said.

  The tower began to tremble and shake, reminding them all how unstable it was.

  “Come on, I don’t know how much longer this place can stand upright. We’ll talk outside where we’re safe.” Wren gathered Sarta up from the floor and the six of them bolted down the stairs as fast as their legs could carry them, only just making it to the front door when the tower collapsed to the side, covering them all in a thick layer of dust and dirt.

  Chapter 21

  The following morning broke with the sunlight finding each of the group lying in the tall grasses of a small clearing deep in the forest beyond Wiltys Plateau. Wren was the first to wake. He figured it was best to replace his bandage while the others slowly woke from their exhaustion-induced slumber. By his best estimate, they had run for ten miles before finding this place to settle in for the night.

  He rummaged through his backpack, which Hunlok had thought to take with them upon leaving the cell, and came up with the new bandages. He unwound the bloodstained bandage and poked his finger into the tender areas around the wound. It was red, but nothing was puffy or oozing. Wren grabbed the sanitizing mixture from before and put more into the wound. He grunted and then reached for the new bandage.

  “Here, let me,” Knell said as she knelt in front of him.

  Wren startled. “I didn’t realize you were awake.”

  “You aren’t the only one who can be sneaky,” Knell said.

  “Yes, I figured that out yesterday,” Wren replied. The assassin looked at her and then back to the others. Hunlok was still snoring, though some of the others were starting to stir a bit. Sarta merely groaned and placed her arm over her eyes to block out the sun.

  “That was a foolish thing to do,” Wren said. “You should have escaped, why would you risk everything to come back?”

  Knell wrapped the bandage for him and tightened it. “It’s like you said before. If you throw away all of your principles, then even the victory of obtaining your goals becomes hollow and meaningless.”

  “No, you risking your lives would have been meaningless if we had lost,” Wren countered.

  “But we didn’t,” Knell fired back.

  Wren grinned and shook his head.

  “Who was the wizard?” Knell asked pointedly.

  “You always were the blunt one,” Wren said.

  “I believe in being direct,” Knell said. “There’s more to this than just the money.”

  “Very well,” Wren said with a nod. “If you must know, the wizard was named Driscal.” Wren took in a breath and let his eyes drift toward the trees and shook his head. “It’s a long story,” he said, hoping it would dissuade her interest.

  “Too bad we don’t have any time,” Knell said sarcastically. She looked at him expectantly.

  Wren nodded and sighed. “When I was seventeen, I lived in a small village. Even though it was on the northern side of the Serpent Tongue River, it was part of the southern kingdom of Kresthin at that time. I left my village and went south for a summer to save up enough money to buy a wedding present for my soon-to-be-bride.”

  “You were engaged?” Knell interrupted with a sly smile. Wren’s frowning response tempered her enthusiasm and she put a hand to her mouth, understanding that this would not be a happy story. “What happened?”

  “While I was away working in Freyr, someone attacked my village. A group of soldiers slaughtered everyone. My parents, my two sisters, my fiancé, and everyone else in the village. They burned every single building to the ground and even slaughtered the animals.”

  “Oh my, that’s…unbelievable…”

  Wren could feel the tears threatening to swell in his eyes, but he managed to hold them back long enough to finish the rest of the story. “That was when the Merrynian army seized control of everything north of the Serpent Tongue River. I couldn’t even get back to see what was left of my home. So, I marched into the nearest recruiting office in Freyr and signed up. I had skills that many others didn’t have, so after four years of service I was reassigned to a special unit. We were basically spies and assassins trained and sanctioned by the Kresthinian army. As I worked my way up in rank, spying on Merrynian soldiers and officers, I eventually learned that the wizard known as Driscal had led the attack on my home.”

  “And that’s why you have been tracking him all this time?” Knell said.

  Wren nodded. “He is a secretive fellow. He comes in, attacks a town or two, and then retreats to some country far in the north so he can rest. It took years to assemble the information about how to reach him, and longer still to acquire the items I needed to defeat him.”

  “That’s why you were so interested in the file Debir saw, wasn’t it? Because it was about towns being burned at the border villages.” Wren nodded. “So, if you’re trying to kill one of the most powerful wizards in the northern kingdom, wouldn’t Kresthin support you?”

  Wren laughed and picked up a stick and stabbed it into the dirt. “Therein lies the rub, my friend.” Wren shook his head. “About the time I was twenty-five, which was my fourth year working for the group of spies, we suffered a heavy loss during a botched assignment. One thing led to another, but ultimately I found proof that the very same commanding officer who had trained me and supervised my missions had foreknowledge about Driscal’s attack on my village, but instead of doing anything about it, he told no one and let my village be destroyed.”

  “Why would he do that?” Knell asked.

  “He said it was because the Kresthinian army was in no position to defend the village. He said they could have never sent enough men to have stopped the attack.”

  “But they should have tried!” Knell spurted out.

  Wren nodded. “Yes, they should have.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Wren puffed air and shook his head. “I didn’t do anything at first. I was in shock, I suppose. Later that same day, the commander called us to a meeting. He said he had something that would make me feel better.” Wren grunted and shook his head again. “The commander was planning an attack on a helpless village in the north. He wanted me to lead the mission, and exact vengeance for my home. All the men in our unit were preparing for the attack, even excited to do it.”

  Knell put her hand to her mouth. “But…” she let her unfinished remark die off as Wren continued.

  “No, I didn’t go through with it. I knew that this kind of violence was unacceptable. I couldn’t be a part of it. He kept saying
it would help me put the past behind me, but I knew it wouldn’t. It was then that I understood. War is an ugly thing, but there are monsters out there that are worse. So, I killed the dog right then and there, and then I killed the others in the unit so they couldn’t execute the attack and no one would know enough about me to find me. I figured since neither kingdom was loyal to its citizens, I owed loyalty to no one in return. I spent the next twenty years building a fortune and hunting down Driscal.”

  Knell put her hand on Wren’s arm. “Thank you,” she said. “For rescuing us, I mean.”

  Wren nodded and gave a slight smile. “I suppose it does leave us with another problem to solve,” Wren said.

  “What’s that?” Knell asked.

  “Well, the five of you are safer in Merryn than in the south, and I no longer have a purpose in either country.”

  “What about the men who robbed the office back in Ryr?” Knell asked.

  Wren recalled the letter he had found back in the Sturgeon’s hideout. “Do you remember the man that I had wanted to catch with the net back outside of Kyt?”

  “How could I forget hanging in a net for hours?” Knell asked.

  “Well, it turns out that Driscal had hired that man to organize the break in at the office and steal the files. I’m not sure entirely what was in the files, but Driscal thought it was incriminating in some way. However, with both Driscal and Sturgeon dead, I think the hired thugs that were after you won’t bother continuing to track you now that their employers are gone. Even if they did, I doubt they’d even consider the fact that you might have crossed the Serpent Tongue River. The odds of five teenagers surviving such a trip are infinitesimal at best. They might look for you for a while in other cities down in Kresthin, but they wouldn’t come up here.”

  “We could always head out to those islands you mentioned,” Knell said with a shake of her shoulders. “I do love the beach.”

  Wren smiled back and nodded. “Very well, I have another safe house where I left the bulk of my wealth. We’ll head there, and then we can all leave this divine-forsaken land and find some peace.”