The Marenon Chronicles Collection

by Jason D. Morrow

  Coffman would be a good catch too. The Nestorians would be proud to have him, possibly giving Alric and Nalani better access to information. They weren’t sure yet about how to get information about the orange medallion, but they knew it was there.

  Before putting on his mask, Alric looked through the scope one last time. “Should be pretty routine,” he said. “Their slave population isn’t too big, so its not like we’ll lose Coffman in the crowd or anything.” He looked at the big man for a moment, smirking. “Not that we’d ever lose you in a crowd anyway, right?”

  Nalani grinned briefly, but then her eyebrows furrowed. “How many slaves do they have?”

  “When we last came in, it was only a few hundred,” Coffman answered. “I don’t think going in and getting out will be too hard.”

  “Getting the medallion is the hard part,” she said.

  The other two agreed in silence.

  They put on their masks. It felt heavy and foreign on Nalani’s head, but she was surprised that it actually cooled her as it blocked her face from the sun’s exposure. She then pulled out some leather straps, instructing Coffman to tie one around his neck as she tied another end around his wrists. It was a common hold that wouldn’t normally keep a man his size in check, but it would have to do. She felt for the dagger underneath her Nestorian robe and made sure it was hidden from view. She wasn’t going in without any protection. After that, she unstrapped her wristband and placed it in her bag. Her only means of communicating with the outside world couldn’t be used within the city; at least not out in the open.

  The plan for Coffman to go in with the slaves had actually been his idea. He had made the point that key information was often passed among the oppressed because they would often overhear guards talk about such things. It was a long shot, but if Nalani and Alric were captured, he would still be there, possibly able to help them out. But they couldn’t get caught. Even if they were, and Coffman was able to free them, there would be no chance of getting the medallion after that, and that’s all that mattered. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she failed. Having all of the medallions was key in defeating the Stühocs. She knew of the weapon under Jekyll Rock and what it could do. With all of the medallions present, one could create terrible storms and natural disasters and completely decimate an enemy. No wonder the Stühocs had wanted it so badly. Four of those medallions sat underneath Jekyll Rock and only one person had access. Kaden Osric. With Julian’s distrust of the council, it had taken a lot of convincing on Kaden’s part to make Julian leave the medallions below Jekyll Rock. He wouldn’t have done it if someone else had asked him, but he respected his former mentor.

  She missed Julian. She missed him a lot. While she blamed his duties in Farlaweer for the tension in their relationship, it wasn’t only his ascent to the throne that was pulling Julian from her. It was The Reckoning. She thought back to the day that he first asked her to marry him. She was hesitant because they were both on the council and she had worked so hard to get there. She didn’t want to compromise that. He almost had her convinced that it wouldn’t matter, but that’s when everything started falling apart. She had even promised him an answer when he came back with the purple medallion of Farlaweer. But when he came back, he was different. He was distant and distracted.

  Obviously Julian had been through a lot with the death of his brother, and then his flight to Mudavé where he discovered the council was possibly working with the Stühocs. Then he found out he was supposed to be king. It had been a crazy week for all of them, but especially Julian. He had attempted to keep the relationship alive, but she couldn’t live that way. She needed a break. She needed The Reckoning to be finished. When there was peace in Marenon and her duties fell back to voting on whether the Dunarians should have a walkway through the middle of the city, she would be comfortable focusing on love. For now, there was real work to be done.

  She yanked on the leather strap a little too hard, causing Coffman to grumble in protest, but she didn’t care. She was in character now. She was Nestorian and she hated this Human scumbag. He would make a great addition to the slaves. Alric followed behind with a short spear pointed at Coffman’s back, a typical sight seen by Nestorians every now and again.

  When the Nestorian guards saw them from a distance, horns began to blow, calling a greeting party to meet them before Nalani and the others could reach the gates. Alric would do the talking. None of the three were exactly sure how the Nestorians felt about women working as soldiers. In fact, for all they knew, there were neither women nor men in their ranks. When they spoke, they sounded like men, but not much was known about what the Nestorians actually looked like under their masks. The disguises that Nalani and Alric now wore had been in the possession of the recently deceased Garland Ainsley. They had already used them in one operation, so they found nothing wrong with making use of them again.

  Nalani wore her clothing loose and had her long, red hair tucked away to disguise her gender. As they approached, one Nestorian came up wordlessly and immediately began checking Coffman.

  Nervous bumps crept over Nalani’s skin despite the sweltering heat. Coffman was in more danger than any of them, putting his life on the line just to help her get some medallion. The full weight of his risk had not hit her until that very moment. The city guards circled the group and looked Coffman up and down.

  “He’ll make a good addition to the others,” one of them said, his voice low and gruff. “Where’d you find him?”

  “South dunes,” Alric answered. “He seemed to be hunting something, but he won’t talk. He’s been silent the whole time.”

  The Nestorian laughed. “We like them that way.” He paused for a moment and looked at each in the group. “Take him to the slave quarters for orientation. This one will be a lifter. We’re in need of as many of those as we can get.”

  “Yes,” Alric said. “We were happy when we caught him.”

  The Nestorian looked at him quizzically, his eyes the only feature distinguishable showing his slight confusion. Nalani froze, looking at Alric. From the look the Nestorian was giving him, this was not the way they talked to each other. Alric said nothing more and simply began walking into the city. Nalani followed, pulling Coffman slowly behind her. She dared one look back, and the Nestorian was still watching them intently, no doubt trying to decide what was off about them. They kept walking until they felt they were a safe distance away. They now faced another problem. Where were the slave quarters? They couldn’t simply ask for directions. That would give them away. Voelif was huge and crawling with masked people. They seemed to live as normal people did, but their masks made them appear robotic. Most looked exactly the same as the next. Looking around, Nalani did finally notice women among them. Their masks were much narrower and came to a sharper point. This meant she was posing as a male Nestorian, and a much smaller one at that. Suddenly, pulling Coffman behind her felt supremely out of place. But if anyone found them suspicious, it was too late to do anything about it. They just needed to find the slave quarters.

  “You two gotta get rid of me fast,” Coffman said under his breath.

  “I know,” Alric answered. “I don’t know where to go.”

  Nalani looked in every direction, hoping to get a glimpse of something that remotely looked like slave quarters. They were obviously not going to do themselves any favors by roaming the streets of Voelif looking lost. This was the best way to get caught. She stopped in the middle of the street and halfway turned to Coffman.

  “Are you ready to be in pain?” she asked him.

  “What do you mean?” he asked with his eyes narrowing slightly.

  “Hit me, shove me to the ground… Try to escape.”

  “What?” Coffman and Alric said to her at the same time.

  “You’ll be mauled, but we have to find the slave quarters.”

  “I don’t know,” he said looking around.

  She knew they didn’t have time for Coffman’s indecision. It was time to make
the big man angry. She reared back and punched him in the gut and his breath escaped him quickly. The blow stunned him, and his face turned bright red in anger instantly, and he now knew what he needed to do. He grabbed the strap around his throat and tugged hard, bringing Nalani to the ground. He brought a fist down, but she dodged in the last second, and from the ground, she kicked him in the chin, dazing him again. In an instant, Nestorians were on top of him. Nalani watched as four Nestorian guards ran to her aid. They began hitting him with their clubs and he was bloodied and unconscious within moments.

  Nalani felt horrible for what had just happened to poor Coffman, but it had been necessary. Alric just stood their staring at the mass of man on the ground.

  “Where were you taking him?” one of the guards asked.

  Nalani couldn’t answer because she would be given away, but Alric didn’t even look like he had heard. The guards were looking at her for answer!

  “Where were you taking him?” the guard asked one more time.

  Say something Alric!

  “Excuse me?” The guard whistled this time, still looking at Nalani who was giving herself away more and more by the second.

  Alric shook his head abruptly. “The slave quarters!” he nearly shouted.

  The guard paused for a moment and nodded. He looked back at Nalani with concern in his eyes. “You ok? He must have hit you pretty hard.”

  Coffman never hit her. In fact she was sure that his punch missed her on purpose. There had been anger in his face, but it was not directed toward her. He knew his duty and he had played it out well.

  “I think he’s fine,” Alric said, talking about Nalani. “Just dazed. Let’s get this guy to the slave quarters.”

  The guard waited. “I think you should come with us,” he said. “Let me get you to the infirmary. He’s not even talking!” He said, looking to Alric. “The man must have hit you hard.”

  No!

  “No,” Alric said. “I’ll take him. Can you four carry the big guy to the slave quarters?”

  The guard nodded. “Yeah. Make sure your friend gets to the infirmary quick.”

  “Right,” Alric said. “I’ll do that right now.”

  With a heave, the four guards lifted Coffman’s unconscious body off the ground and began carrying him toward the slave quarters.

  When they were a safe distance away, Nalani and Alric followed them.

  “Sorry about that,” Alric said.

  “What happened?”

  “I’ve never seen Coffman out like that,” he answered. “It was weird, like he was dead or something. I never imagined anything that could kill that guy.”

  “Well, he had to die to get here,” Nalani said.

  Alric let out a snort. “If only you knew how he actually got here,” he said.

  Nalani didn’t ask what happened to him. She didn’t want to know. Knowing how people got to Marenon was never a topic she was comfortable with discussing. She hated the thought of death. She never wanted to think that she could die again. It was a foolish thought, because it was inevitable for all of them, but that didn’t mean she had to dwell on it.

  The pair walked at a safe distance from the guards and Coffman, but kept them in their sights. They needed to know where he would be when it was time to leave. They might even have to come looking for him in case he had some sort of information they needed. They still had a lot of work to do.

  The city street climbed slowly uphill and Nalani could tell that the guards were struggling to keep Coffman’s body off the ground. The man weighed a ton. When Nalani and Alric came to the top of the hill they stopped instantly, dumbfounded at what they saw before them.

  Alric had been wrong about the number of slaves the Nestorians had. He had said there were probably a few hundred or so. Before them, at the bottom of the hill, was a massive pyramid-like building that was nearly finished being built. Surrounding the base, and climbing all of the building on scaffoldings, were not hundreds, but thousands upon thousands of Human slaves laboring away.

  With the mask on her face, no one could see how far Nalani’s jaw had dropped. Not even Coffman would stand out in a crowd of people this large.

  Chapter Seven

  Silas was happy to finally see Skarret in the air again. When the bird had been shot down near Mudavé, he didn’t think the animal would make it, but here Silas was, flying high above Canor with his four companions. Kaden flew on his own sarian, Cole, while Lorcan and Inga flew on ‘borrowed’ sarians. They used Autumn, who belonged to Myron Lloyd, and Storm, who was Quincy Todd’s mount. Kaden had assured the group that the owners would never notice. The two councilmen never left the castle and it would be good for the enormous birds to get out and stretch their wings.

  This was Silas’ first time near Canor since he had gone through the gauntlet. That had been a horrible day with so many deaths. The city below them was still busy as he had seen it then, but when they flew over the river they could see only the charred remains of the gauntlet. As soon as Julian had become king, he ordered the gauntlet destroyed.

  As they flew past, Kaden led them up the side of Blue Gate Mountain. Silas’ memory was flooded with thoughts of hopelessness and death. He had never felt so vulnerable to the elements like he had on that day. He shuddered at the memory, knowing that he had led more than a hundred people to the gauntlet and only five had come out alive.

  As they flew, their course changed. Instead of following the path that Silas was familiar with, Kaden began to fly around the side of the mountain, staying below the snowcapped edge where the air was still warm and teeming with summer life.

  They flew silently until Kaden pointed to a clearing among the trees and instructed them to land. Silas hadn’t noticed how beautiful the mountain was before. He had been too worried about surviving to actually appreciate the serene nature and magnificent view. When they landed, the others gathered their packs from their sarian saddles. Skarret would never take a saddle, but it didn’t matter. Silas didn’t need anything but his staff. He had managed to fasten a comfortable strap to his back so that he would never have to carry it in flight, but he felt much more at ease holding the weapon as he walked. The attack yesterday left him feeling vulnerable. He had come to rely on the weapon and its many uses. Lorcan and Kaden kept their swords near and ready at any moment and Inga, of course, carried no weapon.

  “From here we walk,” Kaden said. “Where I met with the Gatekeeper before isn’t too far from here.”

  “What about the sarians?” Lorcan asked.

  “They’ll be here when we need them,” he answered.

  They walked through the trees and eventually found a path leading upward. The woods felt eerie, not allowing the sunlight to shine through as it did on the other side. Nervousness crept through Silas’ body as he thought about finally meeting the Gatekeeper. His grandfather had told him that it was the next thing he needed to do, and that the Gatekeeper would be waiting for him. It didn’t ease Silas’ troubled feelings though. He had no idea what kind of person the Gatekeeper was. No one had ever told him. Was he good? Evil? Perhaps he was neither. Maybe he only acted on what benefitted him the most. Silas shook the thoughts from his head. There was no point in wondering. He had a job to do. After meeting the Gatekeeper, he would find out what his destiny was in Marenon. He was at least glad to know that he was heading in the right direction as the Meshulan. He knew there was a lot expected of him as the Deliverer, but he didn’t even know what or whom he needed to deliver. He hoped that this was information that he would learn whenever they finally met with the Gatekeeper.

  Word had spread of Silas’ coming to Marenon. People, especially in Jekyll Rock, wanted to meet him. His existence had all but been dismissed as legend after so many years, but with his return and the killing of Maroke, hope in the Meshulan had become more real. He didn’t even know the significance of defeating Maroke until a week or so after he had done it. The Stühoc general had been feared among the people of Marenon for a very long tim
e. He had killed so many of them with his own hands. He had even taken part in killing a Human king. The name of Maroke had been synonymous with Stühoc, but now he was dead, thanks to Silas. When Silas had learned of how important Maroke was to the Stühocs he thought he had fulfilled his role as the Deliverer. He thought the people no longer had to fear. This simply wasn’t true. Maroke’s death had fueled the flames of the Stühoc’s fury. Kaden had told him that their biggest enemy was Anithistor, the Stühoc king. As long as he lived, there would be no peace. But Kaden wasn’t going to presume that this was Silas’ mission from the Gatekeeper.

  “I wish I could tell you what is expected of you,” Kaden had said one night. They had been training, and they had traveled too far from Jekyll Rock to reach the city before nightfall so they had decided to make camp. Silas was whittling at a small stick, throwing the bits into the fire to watch them burn. It gave him something to do with his hands, and anytime a conversation about his own purpose would come up, he needed something to do, something to fidget with. He didn’t know why, perhaps it was nerves, or anxiety. To be so important and to have a mission where he would have to deliver a whole race of people, and not know how or why was an exhausting idea.

  “How can there be such an ambiguous prophecy?” Silas asked. “How can anyone believe it? How can I even believe it?”

  “Most stopped believing it after a while,” Kaden answered. “Those of us that had witnessed your birth and knew about you directly had no doubt. Seeing the first Human born in Marenon was proof enough for me.”

  Silas continued to whittle away until there was nothing left of the stick but smoldering coal and ashes. “So, you knew my mother? My father?”

  Kaden nodded. “Yes, I did. They were good people.”

  “My grandfather said my father died in battle?”

  Kaden nodded, staring into the fire. “Your mother was pregnant when the Stühocs attacked Elysium. Your father led the charge to try and stop them, but he was killed. There were several big explosions in that battle from what I hear. It’s believed that William Ainsley was in one of them.”