A fire surged in his mind and body; the room was almost too warm, the heat compressing around him. He, too, now had a flurry of voices ringing through his head, as if somehow the problem Astrid had felt had transferred through her simple touch.
Only, Leer knew his voices told him different things than hers had. Much different things—things he wished had never entered his already clouded mind.
Breakfast at dawn consisted of stale, dark rye bread. Still, the trio welcomed the food without complaint. Leer knew the odds were against them for securing another such meal in the near future.
“Anything else I can get for you?” Leer heard Ettie ask, his head bent downward as he kept to himself. Sleep had eluded him, the countless whispers he heard the night before still echoing in the walls of his mind.
“A bit more ale to drink, yeah?” the Lieutenant asked, holding up his mug.
“Sorry,” Ettie said, “but that’s about all the ale we can give away.”
Lieutenant Doyle sighed in disgust. “Water, then.”
“Would it kill you to say please?” Ettie asked as she walked away, the grumble from the Lieutenant under his breath following in her wake.
“I’ve had about enough of our outstanding accommodations,” Lieutenant Doyle said to Leer. “Are you quite finished with your bread yet? Because I certainly would appreciate moving on.”
“Inns don’t suit a man like you, I take it?” Leer asked without looking up, leisurely tearing another chunk of bread off of the loaf.
The Lieutenant frowned. “You’re not the one that was in the room nearest to the privy.” Leer caught in his peripheral how Astrid couldn’t help but smirk. “It’s not funny,” the Lieutenant argued.
“Actually, it is,” Astrid replied. Leer’s hand collided with Astrid’s upon blindly reaching for the loaf of bread at the center of the table. His eyes met hers; they each urgently recoiled from the contact.
“Sorry. Please,” Leer mumbled, nodding toward the bread as he tucked his hand behind his mug, his long finger drawing a line down the side as he busied himself with an easygoing outward air.
He shut his eyes, a small groan resonating in his throat. He could feel the Lieutenant’s curiosity boring into him without even looking. He knew his reaction to touching Astrid was brief, but still enough to trigger questions—questions he didn’t care to answer at the moment, and possibly not ever.
“What’s got you, Boxwell?” the Lieutenant asked.
“Nothing,” Leer insisted, tossing back the last of his ale.
Through the tense silence that followed, Ettie set down a mug of water on the table in front of the Lieutenant. “It’s up to your knees in some spots out there from the drifts,” she warned, nodding toward the frosted window. “I would think you three will want to have driving celks for traveling in this weather?”
“What a wonderful question. You’d think we would,” Lieutenant Doyle agreed, taking the mug.
“They’d break their legs losing their footing on ice, even with spiked shoes,” Leer argued, resting his head on his hand. “Besides, without peddlers traveling from Cabryog to clear the way, there are probably too many downed branches along the northern road to navigate a celk through.”
“The northern road?” Ettie asked with surprise. “Why on earth would you be going up there this time of year?”
The Lieutenant stood, tossing down his rag on the table. “If you’ll kindly excuse us, we’ll be on our way.” He looked down to Astrid, who stood. Leer, however, remained seated, continually massaging his temples, trying to relieve the perpetual ache that didn’t seem to fade.
“The Fell,” Leer answered, his head lifting so he could look Ettie in the eye. Everything about him conveyed the utmost seriousness. “We’re traveling to the Fell by way of Cabryog.”
“The Fell?” Ettie croaked.
What little background noise in the inn ceased, quiet conversations halted at Leer’s firm response. Leer caught a glimpse of Jon-Jon gawking at him from behind the counter, his stomach sinking in anticipation as he felt the onslaught of ridicule coming.
“Are you three out of your minds?” Ettie asked with a surprised laugh, her hands resting on her full hips.
“We needn’t answer to the likes of you,” Lieutenant Doyle sneered,
“We’ve business there,” Leer replied, sparking an eye roll from Lieutenant Doyle.
“Business?” chuckled a man in the far corner. “So then your business is to die?” His question elicited a hearty laugh from the others around him. “Only fools would go to the Fell. Extraordinary fools go to the Fell in the middle of winter.”
“Extraordinarily daft fools at that,” Jon-Jon added, slinging a rag over his shoulder. “Not even Looney Luke would be dense enough to claim such a thing,” another chorus of laughter erupted from the other patrons.
“Wonderful,” Lieutenant Doyle muttered. “We’re a notch below a man named ‘Looney Luke.’”
Before Leer could speak again, Astrid cut in. “Let it go,” she advised him under her breath, catching his eyes. “They haven’t anything but more mockery for you. Spare yourself. Tell them what you said was in jest.”
Leer shook his head. “I won’t do that,” he whispered, hearing the snickering of the voices across from them.
“Who are they but men you’ll probably never meet again?” Astrid argued. “They needn’t hear any details from you. Telling them the truth will hurt you more than a simple misdirection will hurt them.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I do suppose you know the benefits of misdirection, don’t you?”
The choice of words wasn’t considered and his tone was far harsher than he intended, but Leer was caught on the downward spiral of the moment and he couldn’t escape it. He burst from his seat, shoving his chair away from the table and running through his thick blond hair as he scanned over the onlookers.
“So, what is your business at the Fell?” asked the man who had previously mocked Leer.
“To retrieve the Princess of Hiline,” Leer replied.
“The princess?” the man asked, stunned. The others around him tittered with shaking heads. “I should figure you’d know it was insurgents who took the princess.”
“You’re wrong,” Leer lashed, capturing everyone’s attention. “It’s not insurgents who claimed her.”
Whispers of confusion rose within the inn among the patrons. Another man said with a wrinkled brow, “Surely even if you doubt insurgent involvement, you’d agree that no town other than Cabryog is to be found that far north. Are you saying skimmermen took the princess?”
Leer straightened up a bit, eying the man. “Nay. I don’t believe a man to be responsible.”
His elusive statement caused another rise of hushed conversations among the patrons.
“What are you are saying then, Boy?” Jon-Jon asked, his deep voice silencing the room.
“Oh great,” the Lieutenant mumbled next to Leer.
“What I’m saying is,” Leer answered, ignoring him, “it is the Grimbarror we seek.”
Silence permeated the room, not a sound made as the people stared at Leer dumbfounded. Jon-Jon’s thunderous laugh rose out of the quiet, others joining him as they mocked Leer with abandon.
“The Grimbarror, you say?” one man said through his own laughing. “My, what a marvelously stupid boy you are.”
“They believe in the Vei and the beast like ol’ Looney Luke,” another cackled.
“Didn’t know people with power that doesn’t exist could summon a dead creature,” a burly man in the corner giggled.
“Oh, come off it,” Astrid snapped. “Just last eve, you believed me to be a brewstress.”
“Aye, and we still don’t know you aren’t one,” Gorton replied, a threatening tone to his voice. “Besides, a brewstress only uses maddening herbs. We don’t believe in tales told by uncivilized people.”
“I’d hardly call you lot civilized. You’re nothing but a group of buffoons.”
Despite her protest, the voices grew in volume; snickers, chuckles and guffawing pierced the air and stung Leer’s ears. The patrons seemed nearly uncontrollable in their amusement, each throwing a comment regarding Leer’s sanity out to the others with glee.
“Might any of you cease cackling like a bunch of feanet hens for long enough to point us in the direction of the Eyne Wood?” Leer finally shouted in a darkened timbre.
All activity ceased in the wake of his sudden outburst. The room became awkwardly silent, no one daring to respond to his request.
“Fine then,” Leer said. “We will do just as well without your help.”
He snatched his coat he had slung over the chair next to him, breezing around behind Astrid as he left the inn, the iron handle of the door rattling as it slammed behind him.
-12—
None of them spoke to each other after breakfast, each keeping his distance in silence over the next few hours as they continued their journey. The afternoon sun shone brightly overhead, beams of light glinting off of the snowy ground as the northern wind chapped the little bit of exposed skin on their faces. Another thick layer of snow burdened the ground from the previous storm, leaving in its wake several cracked evergreen branches along the seldom traveled village road that cut to the north. The excessive climbing up, over, and under the burdensome and hazardous debris forced them to slow their pace. The weight of his encounter with Astrid the night before laid heavily on Leer as he trekked through the Eyne Wood. Over the last day, he too, had experienced similar oddities, and the recollection of each of them continued to fill his mind since the moment she left him the night before.
Tension, he concluded to himself as he toyed with a small branch, twisting it in his mittened hand as he walked. He concluded that the tension was nothing more than stress from their demanding and quite unusual circumstances.
That was the answer. It had to be.
“Can we stop for a moment?” Leer asked, exasperated. Maybe another look at the journal would help, he considered.
Lieutenant Doyle merely responded with an exaggerated sigh, which Leer ignored as he found a thick branch to sit on. Retrieving Finnigan’s journal, he thumbed through the pages to the section that seemed to be the most cryptic:
Two divided
Maloden—suppression
Conditional transformation, subject to intent
Enter the gates, but do not fall
Eyes of stone
Gems within, power inherently possessed
Just the portions regarding, “two divided,” and the, “eyes of stone” seemed clearer.
Ishma and Emelda, and the amulet.
Aside from that epiphany, Leer was at a standstill.
“Any revelations you care to share?”
Leer looked up, finding the Lieutenant a few paces in front of him, seated on a partially snow-dusted tree trunk. “I’ve only more of what you call fairytales,” he replied to him.
The Lieutenant gnawed on a piece of jerky. “I don’t suppose I’m otherwise occupied at the moment.”
“Alright, then.” Leer pursed his lips as he flipped back a page. “I do believe I’ve two pieces explained. Remember the part about two divided?”
“Yes?”
“Well, that is likely referring to Ishma and Emelda of twenty years ago.”
Lieutenant Doyle’s brow furrowed. “Come again?”
“The two children of the Vei Master, Balane.”
“So they divided, I gather?”
“Aye. Ishma took his father’s place, and it made Emelda angry. After he was chosen on the Eve of Listra, she fled, plotting her revenge.”
“The, ‘Eve of Listra?’”
“Listra, one of the first wielders of Vei magic,” Astrid chimed in, coming to stand between them to Leer’s left. She looked between them. “The eve refers to her birth.”
“Right,” Leer looked up at Astrid. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” She gave a small shrug. “Not that it’s based in any truth. The olden myths were just stories, really.”
“So was the Vei, until nary a week past,” Leer challenged, holding her gaze.
“I’m fairly certain it still is,” she replied, unfazed. “After all, you were the lone surviving witness.”
Leer smirked. “It’s quite incredible that you should refuse belief.”
Astrid’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve no reason not to.”
“Anyway,” Lieutenant Doyle interrupted, “so what of these two, Ishma and Emelda? Do they remain divided?”
“Aye,” Leer answered. “Emelda turned her one of her nephews into the first Grimbarror, who then killed his own father.”
“Well that doesn’t make for a happy family, does it?”
“I would think not.”
“And what of the other part you figured out?”
“Aye, the, ‘eyes of stone.’” Leer posited. “I believe it refers to the Amulet of Orr.”
“The amulet?” Lieutenant Doyle asked, leaning forward a little.
“Aye. Luke said it was vastly powerful, protected by the Keepers.”
“What can it do?”
“It contains both light and dark magic. It was believed that if the amulet fell into the wrong hands, it could destroy the world.”
“Hmm.” Lieutenant Doyle leaned back. “So…If the Grimbarror exists, that means that this Emelda person is likely still alive.” He paused. “So why wouldn’t she just take possession of it herself?”
“Perhaps she can’t. Perhaps she needs the power of a Grimbarror to take the amulet,” Astrid suggested.
Lieutenant Doyle looked over to Astrid, his eyes roaming from her body up to her face. “Very clever,” he commended. “So, then we can assume she has possession of it in the Fell, yes?”
“I would think,” she replied. She looked over at Leer. “Then the Grimbarror you seek now is the same son who was turned?” Astrid asked.
“Nay,” Leer said. “It must be a different one. Tyne slayed Naetan.”
“Then why wouldn’t the Grimbarror kill Emelda to keep it, then?”
Leer sighed. “I don’t know it hasn’t. I also don’t know why if the Grimbarror possesses the amulet, what purpose it would have to take the princess.”
The Lieutenant stood, eyes tracking toward the north. “Well, I do know we need to keep moving if we wish to retrieve her.”
Leer nodded, rising to his feet as he stowed the journal in his pack.
Despite the midday sun above them, the veil of the hewens in the Eyne Wood shrouded them in dim light. An eerie collection of shadows darkened their surroundings. As they trekked north, each step was met with cooler air than the last. The wind made a shrill hiss as it wove between the trees. The oddity of it permeated Leer, an involuntary chill coasting through his body.
Over and over in his mind, he tried to make sense of the puzzle Finnigan left, regret sinking in as he wished he had asked more questions while Finnigan was still alive. His thoughts kept him quiet; for the most part, he ignored his travel companions.
“You know,” Lieutenant Doyle remarked a while later as he scrambled over a thick fallen tree limb, “I find it surprising that the way to such a wonderful destination as the Fell is so untraveled this time of year.”
Leer ignored the comment so the Lieutenant wouldn’t receive his expected response.
“Awfully quiet today, Private,” the Lieutenant continued, Astrid a few paces behind them both as they walked together single file, Leer in the lead. “I would’ve figured you to be a bit jollier and conceited considering your tafl win.”
“I prefer to keep my elation to myself at the moment,” Leer replied, lost in thought. He was too tense, too consumed to engage in a battle of wits with the Lieutenant. Still, the Lieutenant kept egging him on.
“The play you utilized—it’s an unexpected one, I’ll give you that,” the Lieutenant noted matter-of-factly. “But it’s nothing more than a diversionary tactic coupled with elementary mental manipulation.” Leer r
esisted the urge to look back at him, sensing the trap the Lieutenant set for him. “All child’s play, really. It impresses the common man, but admit it, Private—you’d be lost in a grander arena that didn’t merely contain simpletons.”
“As I recall, the king was quite confident with my abilities.”
“The king is currently a very desperate man. Surely you know your being here is nothing more than him grasping at straws.”
Leer ground his molars together, twisting the stick in his hands.
Steady and balanced.
He tried to even out his breath, but anger’s invisible grip only squeezed tighter.
Nay. The sack has it coming.
“Hmm. Interesting. Then that must mean he hasn’t much faith in your abilities either, I suppose?”
His reward was a moment of silence.
“I’m with you, Boxwell, to be sure your lunacy isn’t meant for Hiline itself rather than the non-existent mythical beast you seek,” Lieutenant Doyle said, his tone thickened with irritation.
“Then why ask questions regarding the journal?” Leer challenged, his contempt building.
“For the most part, I’m bored.” Lieutenant Doyle shrugged. “Insight, perhaps. You’ve a bit of a reputation for instability, and I’m curious where it came from,” he added as he kicked a branch away with the toe of his boot. “Which now I see undoubtedly comes from your deceased mentor’s lifestyle.”
Leer’s rage exploded; he whirled around to face Lieutenant Doyle, who stopped in front of him. “And your specialty seems to be having a keen eye for the obvious.” He snapped the stick he held and tossed the halves deep into the woods running parallel to the road they traveled. “I’m impressed by your expertise on what is already so blatantly clear. Tell me, did you receive special training for that? Or are you just naturally so average?”
The Lieutenant grabbed Leer’s arm, pulling him toward himself. “You listen to me, contract boy,” he warned, “the moment we set foot back in the Vale, you’ll wish you had stayed in these wretched woods.”
Leer tore his arm away from Lieutenant Doyle, his nostrils flaring as he stared him down. “Why wait?” he growled. “You’re the one who started it. I’m not opposed to a challenge, if that’s what you wish for.”
The Fell (The Naetan Lance Saga Book 1) Page 12