“Sometimes I wish this thing would aim and shoot for me,” Silas whispered. “Why isn’t Inga with you?”
“We split up,” Kaden answered. “She thought you might try to follow us through to the western trail.” He scanned his surroundings. “She wasn’t too far off.”
Silas held firm to his weapon, wishing he could see his attacker. Looking through the slim openings of all the trees produced no sort of help, but that’s when he heard the sound. It was as subtle as the wind, but the wind did not blow in that particular moment which is probably why he was able to hear the noise. Behind him he could hear the tension of a bowstring being pulled back slowly. His head jerked around to look behind him, causing him to see the dark figure crouching only twenty yards away, his eyes aiming through the thin, black mask. Silas managed to yell out for Kaden to take cover as he too leapt to the side. The arrow soared near him, missing Silas by inches. How did he get behind us?
Kaden jumped in the opposite direction of Silas, creating two targets, so the assassin ran forward to the nearest tree. While the attacker had his defenses down, Kaden let an arrow fly. Silas too pulled back on his string and sent an arrow sailing into the tree. An arrow instantly appeared in Silas’ hands after he shot his first. He wasn’t sure how the assassin got behind them, but he was at least happy to have him pinned down.
Kaden and Silas both stood in position, arrows pulled back, trained on the tree the assassin used for cover. If he so much as flinched, he would be a dead man. The assassin had almost won, but he stood no chance now. They moved in slowly, creeping their way to flank the stranded warrior. When the masked man was nearly in view, a sudden white light burst from where he stood, blinding both Kaden and Silas, sending their arrows flying in random directions. Without the ability to see, Silas could hear the loud grunt of the assassin as he ran toward them. He felt the bow and arrow turn instantly into a shield, so he instinctively held it up. He knew his instincts were correct because he felt a sharp pain in his arm as the attacker crashed into his shield. Silas stumbled backward, just as he began to regain his sight. Again the masked man swung his large sword at Silas and it landed square in the middle of the shield, this time throwing Silas off his feet. The shield tumbled from Silas’ grasp, turning back into a useless staff instantaneously. He was defenseless.
The assassin was a terrifying sight. The man wasn’t very tall, but his muscles bulged through the gaps in his metal armor. The dark mask he wore only showed his bloodthirsty eyes. His movements were quick and relentless.
The man rushed forward, his sword held high, howling with determination. Silas had no time to reach for the staff and he lay frozen in place. He closed his eyes, willing the magic to flow through him, now begging it to finally work. The assassin swung his sword with all his might at Silas’ head, but a sudden burst of green light appeared around Silas’ body deflecting the blow, sending the assassin’s sword sailing to the side. The magic had worked. With the assassin disarmed, Silas now stood a chance, but something wasn’t right. The green shield was still around him, but Silas had never been able to use the magic for longer than a fleeting moment. Normally he could only make it stay around his body for a second or two, but time was beginning to pass and he didn’t even feel an effect. His confidence began to soar. He felt like a Sorcerer.
The assassin reached for his sword and turned to attack Silas again, but he stopped, when something beyond Silas caught his attention. Then without warning a flash of blue lighting crashed into the enemy, throwing him to the ground. Inga stood behind Silas, all her attention focused on the assassin.
In that same moment, Kaden came running to Silas’ side, sword in hand. Everything had happened so fast, but they finally had him.
“Good thing you aren’t any good at covering your tracks, Silas, or I might not have been here to save your hide,” Inga said coolly.
Silas then realized that the green magic shield was not that of his own doing, but hers. She glanced at Silas with a grin on her face. He looked down at the ground, embarrassed, not wanting to face her flashing green eyes. He should have learned the magic by now.
“Thanks,” Silas said awkwardly.
He walked over to his staff to pick it up, and it turned into a dagger in his hands. Kaden held his sword ready as he watched for the assassin to make a move. Inga stood ready to blast him with some sort of spell. Silas stepped forward, wanting answers.
The man held his head with one hand while his other lay on the ground empty. He had been defeated. Silas wondered if the staff wanted him to slice the man’s throat since it had turned into a simple dagger. The man on the ground didn’t seem to be a threat any longer.
“Be careful, Silas,” Kaden warned.
Silas stood over the dazed attacker.
“Who are you?” Silas demanded.
The masked man glanced up at Silas and began to laugh an eerie spiteful laugh that made Silas cringe. Who was this guy? Three people surrounded him, ready to kill, and he was laughing.
“Stop it!” Silas yelled.
The laughing became harder and shriller. Kaden and Inga exchanged glances. Silas dared to move closer, ready to shut the man up for good when from out of nowhere, he heard a deafening explosion behind them. The blast shook them as all three ducked to the ground, looking back to see a tree completely consumed by fire.
Silas looked back to the assassin, but he had vanished.
“He’s gone!” Silas shouted. He began to frantically search in every direction as he felt the dagger in his hands change into a bow once again. If the staff changed, that meant there was still a chance of danger.
“Can you see him?” Inga asked.
“There!” Silas shouted when he spotted the man in the distance.
Maybe fifty yards away, the assassin stood, staring at them, probably mocking them in his mind. Silas took no time to ponder why the assassin stopped or why he had tried to kill Silas at all. He simply pulled back the arrow in his bowstring, took aim, and fired.
His arrow quickly found its target and sliced through the assassin’s left arm and out the back. The man let out a terrible scream. In his anger and fury, he sent another commotion of random explosions throughout the woods, and the others took cover. Inga set up another shield around each of them in case one should happen to land near, but it didn’t keep Silas from feeling the heat of each blast. The smoked thrust its way into his nostrils, causing his nose and throat to burn. Each explosion pounded his ears like fireworks going off next to him. The green shield kept any of them from dying, or getting injured severely, but Silas wasn’t sure the explosions were meant for harm, but only as a diversion for the assassin’s escape. When the smoke finally cleared, there was no sign of the enemy. Inga dropped her shield from around them, and Silas cursed loudly, slapping the wooden staff against the ground.
“We almost had him!” he yelled. “How did we let him get away so easily? What was that?”
“Simple magic,” Inga said. “I should have been ready to stop it.”
Kaden stroked his beard looking off into the direction of where the assassin had run. “This isn’t good, Silas,” he said.
“Yeah, I didn’t think it was,” he answered, pulling himself off the ground.
As they walked cautiously through the woods back to Jekyll Rock, Kaden decided it would be best to tell the rest of the Dunarian Council about what had happened that evening. He felt the council might hinder what Silas had to do next, but it was important that they know about the attack.
Silas had grown tired of reporting to the council. They had insisted that they know everything about his day-to-day training and progress. He wished his grandfather was still alive and on the council.
Garland Ainsley. In his last breaths, Silas’ grandfather told him that he needed to find the Gatekeeper of Marenon for his next phase in The Reckoning. Silas knew The Reckoning was a complicated operation formed by Garland and the Dunarian Council to help find Humanity’s purpose in Marenon. Humans had been comin
g through for thousands of years, and only a handful at a time, and no person in the land knew why except for this mysterious Gatekeeper.
The next move for Silas and Kaden had nothing to do with training. Ready or not, it was time for Silas to move forward with his responsibilities. Traveling would be dangerous. The assassin had only been injured, not killed. Silas had hoped for a better shot that would have at least left the man immobilized, but he feared the injury only added fuel to the assassin’s fury.
Finding the Gatekeeper would be difficult enough. Finding the Gatekeeper with an assassin on his trail would make it impossible.
Chapter Two
Julian Hobbes stared at the golden key in his hand as it shined in the light of the setting sun, wondering what it could open. Ward Holden had told him that it was the key to proving that most of the Dunarian Council was plotting against the Humans of Marenon. He didn’t understand why they would do this, for they were Humans too. Was it power? Greed? Did they fear that the Stühocs would eventually take over all of Marenon and they wanted to be in their good graces? Julian assumed it was probably for all of these reasons.
He sat up in the chair on the balcony, which was just off of his bedchamber. The responsibilities of ruling at Farlaweer had been proving too much for the new Human king of Marenon. He had taken a different room with a very different view than that of the royal chamber. Too many bad memories flooded that place.
Some servants objected to Julian’s choice at first, but he didn’t care. He didn’t need the lavish, oversized room. He just needed a place to be by himself with time to think. His new bedchamber was spacious as well, and the balcony provided a wonderful view of the city. Guards still stood outside his doors, and the servants were sure to make the room as comfortable and royal as possible. He was the Human sovereign of Marenon. He deserved nothing less. Of course, Julian didn’t think this way. He didn’t ask to be king. His brother asked him.
The letter left to him by Morgan declared Julian to be the king in the event of Morgan’s passing. Julian deeply regretted what had transpired between the two of them. A day didn’t pass without his thoughts drifting to that terrible night. He could have let his brother live, but he chose not to. No one knew that Morgan’s death had not been an accident. Obviously it would have to stay that way. If word got out that Julian had killed the king and days later took the throne, Julian would be ousted, possibly executed by the Royal Guard. The people, however, would have praised him for it.
The responsibility of cleaning up his brother’s mess was a daunting task. On his first day as king, Julian had ordered the disbanding and destruction of the gauntlet-bridge on the river near Canor that had been responsible for killing thousands of Humans for no good reason. He also fired most of Morgan’s former staff and threw the close personal advisor, Spencer, into the dungeon. Julian had been sure that Spencer would know some sort of information about the key Julian had taken off of Ward Holden’s body, but he had not even had the chance to ask the man himself. Duties of the kingdom were cumbersome and Julian had found no time for himself or personal time with others.
He rubbed his tired face as his thoughts drifted to Nalani. These last three months had been rough for the two of them. Not only had she never answered his proposal for marriage, he had only seen her twice since he had taken on the kingship. Daily, he was bombarded with learning how to do various tasks and trying to manage the kingdom. He had tried to hire most of the advisors that had worked for his father. Some happily obliged, relieved to have a different king on the throne, while others saw him as no different from his spoiled brother, Morgan.
They would see differently, Julian thought. Someday.
This had been the first time Julian had any quiet moment to himself in months, and only because he had demanded it. His advisors were in place. His rule was set in stone. Few doubted King Julian Hobbes. Citizens knew his agenda and his stance. He was planning to make peace with the Erellens and make war with the Stühocs who were attacking Human homesteads and villages up and down Marenon. Most of the battles they had fought thus far were against smaller bands of Stühocs, and the Stühocs had not advanced much farther than the Midland Pass.
The newly famous Silas Ainsley, the so-called Deliverer of the Humans, had overshadowed Julian’s rule. Word traveled quickly after Silas slew the Stühoc, General Maroke, and he was being hailed as a hero among the Humans. As he should. Julian had been in the thick of it all. As a member of the Dunarian Council, Julian had been essential in carrying out The Reckoning, the move toward bringing down the Stühocs. Silas’ grandfather, Garland, had told Julian that The Reckoning was Silas and that the goal wasn’t necessarily to destroy the Stühocs, so much as to find out the reason for Human existence in Marenon. In Julian’s mind though, his purpose in The Reckoning was to get rid of the vile Stühocs for good. Although Humans could not reproduce in Marenon, that did not mean they were not an established part of the land. The Stühocs were trying to become the dominating force, and Julian aimed to stop them no matter the cost. The Reckoning wasn’t for the Erellens or any other people-group in Marenon. It was for Humanity.
He missed being able to talk to Nalani about these things. Her perspective and support were vital to him. He didn’t know what she was doing at that particular moment, and he didn’t know if she wanted him to know. When he told her about the letter from his brother, she didn’t say much. She supported him, of course, but Julian had the feeling that she knew what it would mean. He had asked her again to marry him, but she reluctantly told him that she could not think about that sort of thing yet. There was so much happening with the Dunarians and she was not ready to abandon her post.
“Half of them are traitors!” Julian had argued.
“There’s no way for you to know that,” she said turning away. “You’re basing that off the word of a man who was a traitor, Julian. He’s just trying to get you to turn against the rest of them.”
Julian held the key out for her to look at it. “He told me this would lead to real information. He told me it was proof of the council’s disloyalty. I believe him because he said all of this right before he tried to kill me! He didn’t expect me to live and try to confirm his claims.”
She turned on him sharply. “Until it has led to proof, then I will not pretend it’s real.” She sighed and turned away. “You seem to wish it were true.”
The words stung Julian. Kaden had said something similar to him when Julian had approached his mentor about it. Of course Julian didn’t want it to be true, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility. Nalani had begun to walk out of his room in Jekyll Rock and he had reached out and grabbed her arm firmly.
“You’re not going,” he said.
She wrenched her arm away from his, her face flushed with anger. “I am on the Dunarian Council, Julian Hobbes. I will remain on the Dunarian Council.”
“I want you to come with me to Farlaweer.”
Nalani waited a long moment, no doubt trying to think of the right words to say. “Things are different now,” she said. “I love you. I’ve always loved you, but right now we both have responsibilities we must take care of. I’ve been planning a mission to Voelif to snatch the orange medallion. You’ve got to use your new royal status to help make the Erellens ally themselves with us. Only then can we have all six medallions. Maybe in another time Julian…” She paused, and took a deep breath. “Maybe.”
She turned away, tears forming in her eyes. She hated what she had to say, but Julian knew she was right. He loved her more than anything in the world, but their paths were drifting apart and he couldn’t force her come with him.
He hated that he was so far from her. She had probably already left for Voelif. He had offered to help her with the mission in any sort of way, but they both knew that it was an offer of desperation, another attempt to stay connected somehow. He slumped lower in his chair, watching as the sun set over Farlaweer. He loved her more than she loved him, he knew, but it didn’t matter. He would get her ba
ck when The Reckoning was finished. When the Stühocs were defeated and peace was in Marenon once again, maybe, just maybe, the two could find the time to be together.
He rubbed a hand through his long, dark hair. Nalani would eventually be in danger if what Holden had told him were true. She was at least safe from the council for the time being, although being sent on a mission to Voelif would place her in a new danger, assigned to her by the council. Julian knew that if he didn’t find out the truth about the council, he would never feel comfortable with Nalani’s dedication to them. He clutched the key in his hand until his knuckles turned white. With all the responsibilities, with all the requirements that demanded every moment of his new life, Julian decided immediately that he would not focus on anything else until the mystery of the Dunarian Council was solved.
He stood from his seat, beginning to pace, deep in thought. He considered the possibility of traveling to Jekyll Rock and confronting the council on their own turf, but he knew this would be foolish. His thoughts drifted to that moment when he had crept into the castle and saw Spencer in a meeting with Ward Holden and Maroke. Holden and Maroke were dead. The only person that could possibly know anything about the key would be the man chained in the lower dungeons only a short walk from Julian. For Julian’s three months of rule, he had never gone to question the scoundrel. Julian feared how he would act toward the man that had plotted his father’s death. As far as Julian knew, Spencer was the only man left alive that had a hand in the murder. A last bit of retribution remained if Julian would choose to avenge his father. It would take only a word from Julian, and Spencer would be taken out and executed. Or if Julian preferred, he could simply pull out his dagger and kill the man himself. Either would be kept quiet, and no one would have to know. The people of Marenon would probably praise him for it anyway. Unfortunately, Julian needed the snake alive. The time for learning his kingly duties was over. The responsibilities of his day-to-day routine would have to be put on hold. This would be the day to discover the truth.
The Marenon Chronicles Collection Page 31