Dain took his leave to visit the patients on the hospital’s first floor. He stopped to cast healing spells on a pair of freighters who had been injured when their oxen panicked and rolled their wagon. Afterward, he felt weak, but not excessively so. Finishing up the first floor, he returned to the front desk and took the stairs to the second. He used his strongest healing abilities on an older woman who had sliced through her foot with an axe while chopping at a trough’s thick ice so that her livestock could drink. This last spell took more out of him and he paused on one of the empty beds to think.
All three patients thanked him thoroughly, praising the Light and the Creator, but Dain wasn’t sure how much he believed in the Light anymore. There had been so much death and darkness in his service with the paladins and then in his wanderings afterward that it seemed a cruel jest to even suggest the existence of a benevolent supreme being.
He did know his healing spells still worked. They had grown better, stronger, with all the practice Verdant had given him here at the hospital. The priest had also given him several pieces of advice that had improved his abilities further. He could measure and target his healing efforts more toward an injured person’s wounds, and his stamina had improved so he could cast more often. His blessing abilities had grown more powerful too, improving his patients’ auras markedly.
Even considering all of the evidence before him, though, his faith in the Creator, in his Light, and in its goodness remained weak.
Each week Verdant and the priestesses held a service to the Creator at the tiny chapel near the center of town. Their congregation was small, less than a dozen. They hadn’t pressed him to attend so far, yet he felt a great deal of quiet resentment from Shyla for not doing so of his own accord.
The other priestess, Tessa, was Shyla’s polar opposite. Where Shyla seemed aged by her unpleasantness and judgmental nature, Tessa’s presence was youthful and energetic. She wore her long hair loose, allowing the waves of flowing auburn to cascade midway down her back. She knew how to talk with and treat people, making herself a pleasant companion to all who knew her. She was the kind of person who commanded a room immediately upon entering it.
The beautiful priestess had inspired more than a few honor duels before receiving her Light’s calling, Dain suspected, and maybe some afterward. Twice, he had escorted her on mine visits. Unlike Shyla, she never complained and had nothing but kind words for the miners. Tessa was much harder to guard than the bitter Shyla, though. He’d had to knock three miners unconscious at the first mine, and fend off two more at the second when they’d started to get too friendly with her.
Tessa would be tending the wounded later today. She would have to change their linens and then refill each of their pitchers with fresh water. Finished with his own rounds, Dain decided to save her a bit of trouble by refilling the oak water barrel in the hospital’s kitchen. After priming the pump, he carried four buckets of fresh water inside then built a small fire in the black cast-iron hearth at the center of the building. Next, he headed back down the hill.
Verdant still sat idle on the hospital’s front porch. The priest continued looking into the distance and didn’t acknowledge him in passing.
Despite being well occupied between his duties escorting the priestesses and with healings at the hospital, Dain found himself wondering about the wood elves—two in particular—whenever he had a spare second’s time to himself. It was of Sera and Jin he thought as he stepped up on the main street boardwalk and entered the Bloody Bucket Saloon.
This early in the morning, most of the Bucket’s regulars were passed out, sleeping off their hangovers in quiet corners or underneath the stairs. Prostitutes kept a half-dozen rooms on the upper floor, and based on the closed doors, all appeared to have customers lying over. Four gamblers sat at a corner table, playing five-card stud. Judging by the chips and cash, they were evenly matched. A giant, mounted elk skull looked down on their game. While not a regular here, or at any drinking place in town, Dain had visited several times on healing assignments or in his spare time and his presence didn’t cause a disturbance among the card players. He pulled up a tall chair at the bar and ordered a tea.
“Bit early for you, healer,” the bartender said and joined him.
“Needing a good breakfast, Pete, and your chow’s better than the other joints in town. I’ll take eggs and ham if you have them,” he answered.
“No ham, but the cook’s got sausage and beans on in the back. Might even be some hot cornbread. I’ll get you a plate,” Pete replied.
“Thanks, Pete. Got time for one yourself? I’m looking for some news regarding the neighbors.”
“Sure. Place is deader than a snowflake in hell today, anyway.”
Pete disappeared through a doorway behind the bar. Dain had taken a table near the saloon’s rear, well away from the gamblers, before he returned carrying two steaming plates piled high with food. He left both plates at the table and made a trip to the bar for cups and the teapot before settling down opposite Dain.
“I know how you like your tea,” Pete said, placing the steaming pot between them.
“Civilized man’s drink. Not that boot-leather flavored coffee.” Dain laughed.
Neither man spoke as they ate their respective meals. As usual, the Bucket’s food proved superior to anywhere else in town. Dain poured a second cup of tea and put his fork on his bare plate. Pete broke the silence.
“What’s on your mind, Dain?” he asked.
“Politics…elven politics, actually. What do you know about the state of affairs between the wood elves and the Golden?”
“Hmm, lots of talk about that recently,” said Pete, leaning back in his chair with his hands on his belly. “One of the scouts from that Arctanon army was in here yesterday asking the same thing. Ben or Bend, I believe the name was.”
“We’ve met. Swapped a few war stories, in fact.”
“I see. Well, like I told him, there’s not a lot of specific detail out there. With all travelers confined to the old road when they pass through, most never even see any elves, other than the guards at the upper and lower Wessen. As luck would have it, though, my supply wagon traveled through there yesterday morning. The guards usually stop the convoy and play a few hands of cards with the freighters.”
“Go on,” Dain prompted.
“Well, they tend to get a bit chatty when playing, especially when they help themselves to one of my wine casks. My freighters relayed quite a bit of what was said to me during their last stop through,” Pete said.
“And?”
“And the Golden are up in arms. Some time back, somebody killed their king’s youngest son, Haldrin. He was a warrior of some renown. The Golden, well, they don’t seem to know exactly who’s responsible. They questioned a bunch of travelers on their way to and from Galena. Put the question to them rough, very rough, if you catch my meaning. Almost a dozen men who were expected here in town are long overdue. Poor bastards…caught up in some dead royal’s affair.”
“Bad luck,” Dain said, feeling his throat constrict uncomfortably.
“Yeah, bad luck, and more bad luck to the guards on duty that day. They too were ‘questioned,’ apparently. Without any clear suspects, the Golden are in open war with the wood elves. They are capturing all they find, and are now putting them to the question as well about the prince’s murder,” Pete said.
“Any word on their relations with the orcs?” Dain asked.
“Hostile as ever. Orcs and elves never do get along none. They fought a big battle on their common border, up to the north. Damn green skins actually crossed the river and were burning elvenlands. The Golden managed to push them back, though. This new orc war leader, One Eye, led ‘em. He’s supposed to be smart,” Pete snorted. He used a rag to wipe at the tabletop.
“Has anyone passing through seen or talked to a wood elf lately?”
“No. Many of the freighters used to set up camp near the center of the elvenlands and barter with them after ni
ghtfall. The Golden don’t know, of course. It’s a good way to earn some extra profit from the trip. I myself made a nice sum on rare herbs, potions, and the like a short time back. The freighters have been stopping at the usual spot, but no wood elf has shown up in the last three trips. Not unusual, really, but still, at least one or two will usually show themselves.”
“How do the freighters get through anyway? Why don’t the orcs snatch them, like they do the gold shipments?” Dain asked.
Pete smiled a crooked smile. “Easy. We bribe them. The freighters won’t take gold, other than what they sell their goods for, after leaving here. The orcs get a tenth to let them pass without incident. The green-skinned bastards know that the miners need food and tools or the mining will stop, and then there will be no gold trains for them to plunder.”
“Smart, and organized for orcs. I’ve never known any to be so disciplined.”
“Yeah, this One Eye must be some kind of orc to set up a deal like this. They say he’s a hell of a fighter, too. Absolute stone-cold killer with any kind of weapon. He’s rumored to have eaten the beating heart of their former leader before taking control of the tribe.”
“Someone to avoid then,” Dain said with a returning smile. “How’s the leg, by the way?”
“Good, aches a bit when the weather changes, but I can still dance when the urge takes me. Excuse me, Dain, I see a couple customers coming in.”
Pete rose from the table and returned to the bar to wait on a trio of miners who’d just entered, leaving Dain to take in all that he’d just heard. The Golden were torturing everyone they could get their hands on. Would they find anyone who could point their suspicions his way? After a few moments, he put a silver under his mug and left by the back door, passing through the kitchen to thank the greasy cook on his way.
From the back of the saloon, he turned up toward the livery and fed Boon a double ration of oats. He checked the saddle and gear he had left there. Satisfied with his equipment, he headed up to his room and laid out all his weapons on the bed.
The longsword and dagger he sharpened with a stone then oiled before slinging them into their scabbards. He checked his steel tomahawk’s edge, still sharp, and hung it from its belt loop. He then strung the bow and tested its heavy pull. The string was sound, but he put a spare in his saddlebags anyway. There were two-dozen arrows stowed in his quiver and he examined them.
The black arrow remained there among the others. Seeing it reminded him of Sera and Jin again. He shook his head. It wasn’t his fault the Golden and wood elves were at war. He’d saved an innocent girl. That was all. If the elves wanted to slaughter each other over a dead prince, it wasn’t his problem. Getting enough gold together then getting out was his problem.
Stay focused on the goal, save up some gold, and get out. The sooner the better.
Since Verdant had given him tomorrow off, he planned on taking a long overnight ride out into the surrounding countryside. Boon hadn’t been ridden out in a couple days, and the horse needed some exercise, so Dain would follow the path the army took and scout around a bit. Maybe he would pan in one of the abandoned claims to see if any nuggets remained. His sudden desire to leave town for a spell had nothing to do with the wood elves. Nothing at all.
Dain was on the road with the breaking of the dawn. Thick blankets of frost clung to dormant sagebrush and the long-browned grasses alongside his route. In the morning’s brilliant sunlight, rainbows and diamonds reflected from the fragile crystals.
He made much better time than the lumbering army and found their night camp well before the sun reached its zenith. On a hunch, he and Boon moved off their trail, angling north toward the lofty mountain peaks. He dismounted when they reached the lower tree line, walking Boon among the juniper pines and bare aspen. Ankle-deep snow covered the ground here, and the crisp air was clean and clear, the smell of the pines bittersweet.
Dain looked down at his boots. Just inches from his toe was an enormous orc track. More orc tracks fanned out through the otherwise pristine snow cover and, up ahead a few paces, there looked to be an area where they had scouted the army as it camped below. Instead of returning to the main trail he skirted the tree line, following the orcs. Here and there, he found tracks of the army’s own scouts. Once, he singled out Lonsan’s horse, knowing it had recently been shod.
The scouts had done their job then. They knew they were being watched and from where. An army would be impossible to hide, and they would have expected the orcs to know its every move. But would the orcs be bold enough to attack or was the army too large, too secure?
The days were short this deep in winter, and only a few brief hours of light remained when he spotted the first vulture.
The black silhouette circled over an open meadow a few miles short of the Wessen. Dain rode toward it, keeping his eye on death’s faithful harbinger, his heart sinking away in his chest.
He stopped at the meadow’s edge and dismounted. No sounds of battle or death cries rang out from the clearing, but bodies, orc and human alike, lay scattered all around.
In his experience, overeager scouts never lasted long. Long ago he had learned the value of simple patience. He studied every shadow and every inch of ground before finally venturing out into the open.
He didn’t stay exposed for long, crouching behind the bloated corpse of a cavalry mount in order to survey the area from a new angle. Every sense felt fully alive—sounds crisper, colors sharper as he tensed and listened for any telltale signs of movement. The stench of fresh blood and death clung low in the clearing. Beneath the bloated horse lay a dead man. His leg was trapped, pinned beneath his mount, and an enemy had slit his throat from ear to ear. Another armored man had fallen nearby. An arrow penetrated though his midsection, almost up to the fletching. Dain pulled it free to inspect it.
The rusty, jagged iron point and raven’s feather fletching resembled any other orc arrow he had seen. With few exceptions, orcs didn’t bother putting much detail or decoration into their weapons. Orcish archers typically attacked only from close range and didn’t bother making their shafts particularly straight. They preferred utility to appearance.
Dain moved from behind the horse and bent down to examine one of the dead orcs. This one had taken a short throwing spear through the shoulder, and someone had buried an axe in his skull. A spiked warclub lay in the grass, beyond his outstretched hand. The orc’s face was painted red and he had capped his protruding lower tusks with a mysterious, coppery metal. Orcs liked to disfigure themselves so as to appear more vicious to their enemies. The wolf pelt hanging around his shoulders was decorated with spirit beads and the bleached-white skulls of small animals. Judging by the large copper disc on his chest, he must have been important to his tribe. A shaman or minor chief, Dain wondered.
Curiously, a narrow wound pierced his lower stomach, as if someone had checked to make sure he was truly dead. Such a wound implied that there were at least some human survivors. They would be far gone from here by now though.
Dain set about searching for his scout friends as well as for Verdant’s brother-in-law, Maib. At the far edge of the carnage, he found the first scout, Bend. He had taken an arrow in the back, but someone had broken off the shaft trying to remove it. While it was common to remove the shaft when attempting to heal a wounded man, its tip had pierced Bend’s heart, and the scout would have been dead almost before he hit the ground.
Why would anyone bother removing an arrow from a dead man?
Daylight gave way to full darkness, but Dain dared not risk a light. He could not locate the remaining scouts or Maib, and left the clearing. He rode Boon away from the battle; then made a cold camp under a large pine more than a mile from the meadow. Even that seemed too close. Aside from the obvious risk of orc survivors, there were large predators about, and so much rotting flesh was bound to draw them like a lodestone. He snacked on hardtack biscuits and some chilled roast beef from the hospital’s kitchen. Unrolling his blankets before bedding down,
he continued to mull over the situation. Something just didn’t feel right about this. He was missing something.
By dawn he had returned to the clearing, searching again for Maib and the three remaining scouts. He located Jan and Lonsan first, his heart sank as he approached their bodies. The two looked like they had fought with their backs pressed together, protecting each other from unseen attacks. Five dead orcs lay in a circle nearby, but in the end the scouts must have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
Maib he found a little later, surrounded by a ring of dead orcs piled atop one another. Clearly, the man had fought hard and died just the same. The colonel held a broken sword in one hand and an orc warclub in the other. Dain could see no obvious wounds on him.
Dain rolled the orcs apart to drag his body free. Two arrows had punctured his chainmail; like Bend, each of the shafts had been removed.
While moving one of the dead orcs, Dain noticed an arrow that was neither human nor orcish in one savage’s chest. He removed the white-fletched arrow for a better look. Judging by the level of craftsmanship, along with the fanciful scrollwork, it seemed elven.
Maybe one of the Arctanon soldiers had carried elven arrows? Odd, but not unheard of. But why would one of Arctanon’s soldiers kill one of their own?
Of the gold, he found no sign, but heavy wagon tracks cut deeply into the frozen ground and led due west, toward the elf kingdom’s border. Perhaps the army’s survivors had pushed for the safety of the enchanted lands.
He also didn’t find Dax. He hoped that, somehow, the last scout had survived and made it through.
Out of respect for Verdant, Dain wrapped Maib’s body in a bedroll he had found, then loaded him across Boon’s back and headed out of the clearing. He couldn’t spare all the dead from the carrion eaters, but for the priest, he could at least do this.
He was at the edge of the trees when Boon snorted, tugging hard against the reins.
Dain turned and spotted an orc not twenty feet away, racing full-out at him with a raised war axe. He dropped the reins and drew his longsword just in time to meet the blow.
Kingdom's Forge: Book 01 - Paladin's Redemption Page 9