The Book of Wind: (The Quest for the Crystals #1)

by E. E. Blackwood

  “Spikeclaw!” Regina screamed. “His name is Dwain Spikeclaw! Please, please don’t hurt me! Please!!”

  “Spikeclaw.” the heretic mused on this with a furrowed brow, grey eyes deep in thought. Regina cringed away from his muzzle. The heretic’s canine musk was nauseating; a sickly odour crested off his breath when he spoke. “I don’t know him. He doesn’t lay among these corpses?”

  Regina shook her head.

  “So then you’ve followed me in vain. Where’s he stationed?”

  “Are you going to kill me because he is an Alliance soldier?” Regina asked. “I … I don’t know why they’re after you, I swear I don’t know anything about it, Dwain and I last saw each other when he left the Hollow, and I—”

  “Where?!” the heretic snarled.

  Regina recoiled against canine spittle upon her face. She closed her tearful eyes and whimpered. “…Warminister … His letters are sent from W – Warminister.”

  “The capitol,” murmured the heretic.

  He tossed Regina into a cloud of dirt upon the valley floor and walked away from her, back towards the temple stairs as he examined Nimbus closely in both paws. “After I’m done here, you’re going to take me to see Spikeclaw.”

  Regina cringed in pain. Her paws stung fierce when she tried to push herself to a stand. Her paw pads were peeled and bloodied. Her shins and cheek burned with pins and needles. She dragged herself closer to the nearest eagle pillar and used it to help pull her back up.

  Without warning the heretic swung back around to face her. He pointed Nimbus’s tip at Regina’s mid-section.

  “Give me your belt,” he said.

  “M – my…?” Regina looked down at herself. The “belt” he had referred to was but a simple band of wide-cut rose angora she’d made some time ago. It hugged around her hips with a large bow tied at the back to keep the hem of her poncho from flirting with the constant wind too much.

  “Why should I give you anything?” Regina asked, wiping tears from her eyes.

  The heretic let a filthy sneer pass. “Because from the looks of things, you’re the key to saving our world. As far as collateral goes, anyway, and I need an airship. If you wish to ensure the livelihood of your lover, I suggest you do as I say.” He snapped his paw digits at her. “Give it to me.”

  Regina swallowed hard. Begrudgingly, she undid the bow from behind, causing her poncho to plume at her hips. With a light tremble, she held out the belt to the heretic. He snatched it out of her fear-tight grasp and used the fabric to wipe off the layers of blood from Nimbus’s blade. When done, he sheathed the sword, then scrunched the soiled waist band up into a ball and stuffed it into a small hip pack inside his cloak.

  It was then when Regina noticed a gleam off of a glass vial on a chain around the heretic’s neck, just below the collar line of his chainmail. As he shifted his weight, she also noticed tufts of dark shoulder fur tickle the gnarled chinks of the heretic’s chinked mail. She glanced about at the broken crossbow bolts strewn across the ground.

  The Alliance archers had shot him.

  She had seen it with her own eyes – or so she thought – and he had drawn the crossbow bolt from his shoulder as though it were a mere splinter – or so she was sure of! She couldn’t help but wonder if the strike had even pierced him to begin with.

  They’d shot him. She was sure of it.

  “Come on,” he growled at her. “We’re wasting time.”

  32. The Temple of the Wind

  The temple towered over the expanse of the Stone Zephyr’s steep, stone stair case. The heretic’s tail wavered with wary curiosity above Regina as they climbed towards already-opened doors. She could almost taste the loose black-white hairs ready to shed from the rest. The heretic carried both the saddlebag and Dwain’s walking staff over his shoulders. The howling winds played rough with his tattered cloak. Regina couldn’t take her eyes away from the dozens of little holes and tears that pocked the weather-ruined grey fabric.

  The air was faint with the clicks of their footpads. Regina stopped to look over her shoulder. The eagle-pillars sank with each step towards the temple doors as the opposite cliff-face rose to meet her and the heretic on their climb. Searching eyes found no horn-faced saviours coming down the opposite side far across the expanse. There were only trees, and clouds, and sky.

  “Why are you stopping?”

  The heretic’s voice jolted Regina back to movement. As she ascended behind him though, she returned her gaze down into the valley. The corpses of the two Alliance soldiers fell further and further away from her gaze. The thought that Dwain may face a similar oblivion haunted her heart.

  She wished she hadn’t said a thing to the heretic.

  She wished she hadn’t even thought to follow him.

  She wished she hadn’t even left the Hollow in the first place.

  Regina knew herself a foolish skunk. Now she found herself a sacrificial grub upon the jagged tongue of a cliff-side golem – a meal for a demon’s maw.

  If this heretic didn’t come to kill her, Master Astral surely would.

  “Hold this a moment,” the heretic said when they neared the temple summit. To Regina’s surprise, Dwain’s staff found its way back into her arms. She took it without question, and watched with a furrowed brow as the fox hedged careful glides towards the Temple’s wide-open entrance.

  A fleeting thought passed: strike his backside and run a coward’s run.

  “Please, let me go,” she begged him. “I – I promise my life I won’t tell a mammal’s soul about who you are! Please, I just – there simply must be another way! I have a garden and a property to give care to! I can offer you my finest of vegetables and elixirs to aid your journey, but please set me on my way!”

  The heretic turned his head to listen, but his hood hid his eyes from her. He remained silent for a time with what she hoped was consideration.

  “I can’t do that,” he replied.

  The heretic then withdrew the band of bloodied angora, grabbed both her wrists, and bound them tight around the walking staff. He then took one end of the staff, hoisting Regina up off her footpads, and thrust it deep into the side of the cliff.

  “I won’t be long,” he said.

  The heretic started towards the temple entrance and took a moment to examine the broken chainmail where Officer Axel’s bolt had pierced him. He fingered at unharmed flesh through the hole, where tufts of jet-black fur peeked out. “Where to find a blacksmith in all of Galheist to repair with second-rate materials? Damn, I liked this mail, too.”

  The heretic grumbled and returned his attention to the greater importance at hand. He squinted into the darkness that awaited past the temple doors. The dense scent of death and sandalwood incense wafted into his hunting nostrils. He cursed under breath and hedged inside with Nimbus ready.

  The heretic’s eyes settled upon shadows that soon took shape of those who had sworn peaceful severance from the Alliance’s global influence. Scarlet-robed mammals, young and old, lay strewn lifeless across interlocked stone and among oak pews, shattered and splintered from battle. There were about a dozen of them, the heretic guessed, maybe fifteen – some of which lay piled among their Brothers and Sisters, most of whom still clutched the very blades and flails that failed to protect that which was so sacred to them.

  The heretic pulled tight the straps of Lieutenant Uriost’s saddlebag. It weighed heavily against his shoulders.

  He gazed around, stone-faced but nonplussed by the massacre that surrounded him. The temple’s interior was far smaller than expected for a building constructed directly into the side of a cliff. Still-lit sconces mounted on illuminated a hall of stone slab walls in a deep, intoxicating, orange glow. The pews themselves lined both sides of the hall, about half a dozen each, leaving a spacious aisle down the middle that gave way to steps at the far end leading up to a stone altar. The altar was draped with yellow cloth adorned with wax candles melting under their own flame. A heap of canvas had been left disc
arded in a large balled bundle off to the side of the altar top.

  “Forgive me.” The heretic carefully stepped over the corpse of a badger with crossbow bolts through her back. The sconce flames flickered uncertainty as he journeyed towards the altar. The heretic could relate to such uncertainty as his hard-set eyes scanned the shadows for potential traps and attempted assassins. There were none visible, but the smell of the dead was far too strong to sift any hint of an Alliance presence.

  There was a corridor off to the left of the hall, veiled in the darkness of unlit candles. He squinted into the abyss and saw nothing there to threaten him. He continued to step over corpses, weaved between ruby pools of what these temple-keepers would have called Life Energy, all the while with eyes set upon the altar and its ominous flicker of candlelight.

  He climbed the steps, noticed another room off to the right-hand side. The heretic guessed it to be a sacristy. Its door was ajar. Wary eyes glared into the darkness that led into the room, but no one leapt out to engage him.

  He rounded the altar and found a lifeless ape, the temple’s high priest, made evident by the golden-patterned trim sewn into his scarlet robes. His corpse was frozen in mid-reach, clutching for the cast iron leg of an empty pedestal behind the altar.

  “I’m sorry your efforts were in vain,” the heretic said, sheathing Nimbus.

  He pushed the bundle of canvas off of the altar, shrugged out of Uriost’s saddlebag, and heaved it upon the table. While shaky, hasty, paws unfastened the saddlebag’s buckle straps, the heretic was unable to keep from glancing over his shoulder at the pedestal and also around the general area for silent danger in the shadows. He tossed back the flap. A faint yellow-grey glow throbbed from within.

  He reached both paws inside the bag and touched icy warmth. Shrill electricity jolted through his fur. As he slid the contents of the saddlebag out onto the altar, the whole room illuminated with a blinding radiance.

  The object was crystalline in nature, diamond-shaped, though a hundred times larger than any gemstone the heretic had ever seen. Sharp flashes of light glinted off its very edges.

  “The Crystal of the Wind,” he whispered, breathless.

  The Crystal throbbed yellow-grey light, as though it seemed to acknowledge him – seemed to know him.

  Glints of light dipped and curved along its very edges while he manoeuvred it between his paws with marvel. It was then the heretic felt a strange divide against his digits. He turned the Crystal and found a deep but narrow cleft along its surface. It looked as though a piece had been chipped away. Not by accident. A keepsake.

  “Barbarians…” Anger bubbled between his ears.

  He turned away from the altar and took steps of purpose towards the pedestal. The Crystal shone with light that throbbed greater with each step. It seemed to pull from the heretic’s grip, almost though it were ready to leap back into the embrace of the pedestal. The heretic noticed a dull hum in his ears and wondered if it had been with him the whole while.

  He stepped around the corpse of the high priest and presented the Crystal to the pedestal. All its weight drained from the heretic’s grasp. It felt light as air. With a final throb of luminescence, the Crystal parted from the heretic’s touch. He gasped, jerked to catch the Crystal before it could fall and shatter. But to his surprise, it remained suspended above the pedestal for a moment – and then settled itself down upon its rightful resting place.

  After a moment, the Crystal darkened like an extinguished lantern. The whole of the temple returned to the darkened glow of the wall sconces.

  The heretic exhaled relief. He backed away from the pedestal to clear the now-empty saddlebag from the altar. Guilt told him it was a shame to leave the Crystal with none to protect it for the moment, but there was little he could do. He had to be on his way. York would be waiting for him in Lylia Province.

  He started back around the altar – eyes wary of the open sacristy door, found only darkness – and bounded down the steps. Daylight spilled past the Temple doors like a searching spotlight against blotted-out corpses. He drew towards the doors with great strides.

  Five ponies.

  The heretic blinked, slowed his stride.

  There were five ponies.

  Off in the meadow where the Alliance hid their riding steeds, he had counted five, despite the four Alliance soldiers who had lain in wait for him here at the Stone Zephyr.

  His nostrils flexed instinctively. The sudden scent of field hare was a dull mist above the all-encompassing stench of death.

  There was movement behind him.

  The heretic started to turn with Nimbus drawn when a sharp weight grabbed his arm and forced it behind his back; twisted his left wrist and caused the sword to clatter to the floor at his field boots.

  “Hullo again,” said the hare against his twitching ear. “So lovely of you to stop by.”

  33. The Foil of the Hunt

  “So, the Minister of Peace was right! It was you who escaped Doblah!” The hare’s words tickled the heretic’s ears with a stench only a den mother would let pass. “Never did I think such greatness could fall to such frothing cowardice.”

  A hunting blade appeared against the heretic’s throat. Its cool, serrated edge pressed firm beneath his chin. The heretic glanced around, found Nimbus laying so close by, but the hare’s clutch was too strong. He growled. “A thousand and one hells, and I kick open the gates into Rudolph Aruto’s fiery planes. Damn, what waste of shot dice.”

  “Now, now … be nice. The sandbox is open for all kits to play in, you know – But ah, look at us, heretic! A hare with a knife to a fox’s throat; almost two centuries ago, this scenario would have been easily reversed. My, how far civilization has come!”

  “Not far enough, clearly.” The heretic sent a swift kick into the hare’s shin. He broke free and stumbled away, but lost his footing over a corpse and fell face-first onto the interlocked tile floor.

  Agony flared, but only a moment until cool numbness repaired the damage. He rolled onto his back to face his ambusher, wiped his mouth of blood, growling behind a sneer.

  Sergeant Rudolph Aruto was a field hare three times the size of any other of his species enlisted in the Alliance, helmetless and cringing as he caressed his injured knee until the pain subsided. Buck-toothed lips peeled back into a sneer of arrogance as he straightened, tall and towering. All of his body weight was brawn, and what little brains he carried went to telling exacerbated tales of drunken pub brawls that only inflated an already bloated ego.

  Aruto crossed mailed arms over an Alliance chest plate that spanned his broad torso. Around his shoulders, a proud cape of deep scarlet took to the winds that blustered in through the open temple doors. He was no better than a mere stain on the floor. How exactly it had come to be that he was promoted to a Sergeant’s level – a rank of temporary leadership within the Alliance, regarding short excursions for the Ministry of Peace – baffled the heretic.

  The heretic winced as he struggled to sit up against the debris around him. “They must be confident to think sending you my way would stop an assault on the mission.”

  “They sent Uriost, too.” Sergeant Aruto shrugged, rubbed a paw against his little nose. “And she’s only a junior lieutenant – Actually – she sort of invited herself along, if I’ll be totally honest. You know how she is.”

  “Yes. She’s a tenacious one,” said the heretic. His gaze darted to Nimbus only a few feet behind Aruto. “Takes after her father.”

  “Too bad for her,” Aruto said with a sneer. It was then that sound of weak struggle turned the hare’s attention to the open temple entrance. That’s when he, too, noticed Nimbus upon the bloodied interlock floor. The heretic sucked back a deep breath as Aruto squatted down on his haunches to admire sword with reverence.

  “So this is it, is it?” Aruto said in a hushed tone. Nimbus’s scarlet-stained edge gleamed in the daylight that spilled in through the temple doors. “The Blade of the Unicorn – The Zuut’s prized knighti
ng sword. How in the blazes did you ever manage to make off with this?”

  The heretic eyed the sword hungrily, rocked on his footpads, ready to reclaim it. “Pulled some strings. Slit a few throats. You know how it goes.”

  Aruto regarded him with a sober expression. “Yes. Ghastly fellow, aren’t you? No wonder you were considered the best.”

  “Still am.” In a flash, the heretic launched square into Sergeant Aruto’s midsection before the hare had a chance to react. Aruto’s knife flew from his grip, and together he and the heretic fell into a heap among the corpses. They engaged in a fight of pure ferality – scratching and biting, kicking and snarling, as though the days of the carnivore’s hunt and the herbivore’s flight had returned.

  The heretic snatched up the fallen hunting knife and galloped headlong towards Aruto. The serrated blade glistened overhead as came down with fatal deliverance, aimed between the sergeant’s eyes. Aruto swung both arms up. A metallic hum rang throughout the temple. Nimbus had found its way into Aruto’s paws, and had caught the attack.

  The heretic pushed all his might against his adversary’s defence. He snarled deep into Aruto’s eyes. Nimbus quivered beneath its brace. “Minister Longclaw’s getting desperate, isn’t she then, if the Alliance is sending even the peons after me.”

  “My, my, give a canine a rank above all else and it goes straight to his ears!” Aruto laughed. “You’re not the only criminal in these lands. By the way, I thought it polite you should know they’ve stripped you of your rank.”

  In a flash, he brought both heels up and pummelled the heretic’s midsection several-hundred times in the span of only a few quick heartbeats. He sent the heretic stumbling away and used the leverage of the floor to bounce back up to a stand.

  “In any case, nobody was sent anywhere to find you. Nobody knows where you ended up after you escaped the continent. Our meeting today is simply a happy coincidence!”