by Jordan Baker
CHAPTER SEVEN
Brian clapped a hand over his brother’s mouth. Diller cried out as he awoke, frightened. He calmed when he saw his older brother with a finger to his lips signalling him to be quiet, not that Diller would say anything. He had not spoken in days. Brian took his hand away and held it up. They could hear the sound of horses approaching slowly. There was a soft click and the squeak of the great hinge on the barn door as it was carefully swung open.
From the boys’ hiding place in the hayloft, Brian could make out the shapes of horses being led into the barn. In the dim light, he could not see whether they wore uniforms or not. He hoped they did not. Diller squirmed, trying to turn over to get a better look. He pushed with his foot against a large bundle of hay and it shifted from the pressure with an audible rustle. Diller returned his brother’s stern look with one of apology and more than a little fear.
“What was that?” asked a voice below.
“What was what?” another voice questioned.
“I thought I heard something.” the first voice replied.
“Like what?” yet a third voice spoke.
“I don’t know,” said the first voice. “Something moved.”
“You must be joking,” the second voice laughed quietly. “It was probably a rat, or a cat, or maybe one of the horses. This place is deserted. The farmer cleared out over a week ago. Luckily, he left some horse feed and a good roof to keep it dry.”
Boots crunched across dried bits of hay on the hard floor of the barn below as another man approached.
“Unlucky for him, his house got burned with him in it,” said the new arrival. “We’ll rest up here until nightfall. This area’s clear so let’s see if we can get a small fire going and cook up some of this meat before it spoils. I hate to light a fire in a barn but if we’re careful about it we should be okay.”
The men below cheered quietly and set about digging a small pit and moving things around at the other end of the barn, away from the hayloft. Good, Brian thought, that would keep them away from where he and his brother lay hidden. He was worried that they planned to stay the whole day. The chance that one of them, cooped up in the barn, would venture up to the loft was pretty high. He and Diller would have to sneak out once the men had fallen asleep. Brian carefully rose and peered out the open portal in the far wall. The moon still hung in the sky. The night was still young. There was time for them to find a way out.
Brian did not know any longer how long he and his brother had been on the run. After he had left Aaron and his uncle on the road from Ashford, he had circled back to his family’s farm where he had waited for several days. When they did not arrive, Brian travelled the game trails back to Ashford where he hoped he might catch a glimpse of them.
Leaving his horse a way off from the town, Brian stole into Ashford only to find it overrun with Manfred’s men. They patrolled the streets and the surrounding roads. Luckily, Brian had spent some time at exploring Ashford the year before when he and his father had brought in the harvest. He was able to get close enough to slip in through the window of his aunt Mariel’s house without being seen. He had waited silently for her to return, ready any moment to bolt out the back window where he had entered.
Mariel had returned, but not alone. Two soldiers had accompanied her while she gathered her inventory of material and sewing needles. Manfred was apparently commandeering her skills for his own purposes. She would be leaving for the baron's castle that day. Hidden back in her room, Brian had signalled his presence to his aunt who had begged the soldiers a moment’s indulgence while she changed into more appropriate clothes for a journey. They indulged her request for some privacy and set about raiding the kitchen pantry while she changed.
With the door closed, Mariel told Brian that one of the townspeople had told the baron's men about Tarnath when Manfred had offered a reward for information on the identity of those who had killed his soldiers. They had questioned everyone in town about it and someone had mentioned that Tarnath had been friends with Brian's father. With the town on curfew and no one allowed to leave, Jacob and his wife had been staying with Mariel at her house.
When Brian’s eye was drawn to a large stain on one side of the bed, Mariel began to cry, though quietly lest the soldiers heard. Manfred’s men had tortured Jacob for three days, in Mariel’s own house, and for three days he had bled until he had died. Jacob never said a word to the soldiers and they had finally given up and killed him. For now, she and her sister, Brian’s mother, were being held as prisoners and were being taken to Manfred’s lands to work as seamstresses. Brian’s brother Jake had tried to fight the soldiers when they had taken his father, and had been killed on the spot. Marial had managed to hide Brian’s youngest brother, Diller, just before the family was rounded up.
Mariel instructed her nephew to lift the trapdoor beneath her bed once she had gone with the soldiers. A short ladder would lead to a small cellar where she stored some supplies and where she had hidden Diller before the soldiers had come. The space was not big enough to hide anyone larger than a child and Diller had been there for days already. Mariel had been mortified not only at what Manfred’s men had done to Brian’s father, but that his young brother Diller had been hiding underneath the floor the whole time and had never said a word. There was no way for her to check on him and she worried that he no longer lived. She had hoped to check on him that day and sneak him out, but Manfred had assigned the two guards to accompany her wherever she went. That task she passed on to Brian, who would better be able to help young Diller if he lived. Understanding his responsibility, Brian embraced his aunt, bid her goodbye, and hid himself until she had departed with the soldiers.
As soon as they were gone, he opened the trap door and discovered his brother, petrified from the days of darkness and ill from sharing the small space with his own toilet. Luckily, Diller was a healthy child and he had recovered physically within a few days. However, apart from the fearful mumblings when he dreamt, Diller had not spoken a word since Brian had found him.
They had escaped the town and, staying off the roads, had made their way through the woods in the direction that Brian had hoped was the Dark Forest, the place where Lord Kaleb and his men were rumoured to be hiding. Hungry and tired, they had come across a lone farm that had recently been abandoned and had taken shelter in the barn where they were now trapped, by the men below.
The fire they had lit was remarkably small and gave off almost no smoke, but Brian could smell the meat cooking as it sizzled quietly against hot metal. Diller’s stomach rumbled loudly, the loudest waking noise he had made in days. Brian knew his brother was hungry. He himself was starving and he wondered whether there might be an opportunity to steal some food from the men when they made their escape from the barn. Brian caught himself, realizing that his hunger was starting to make him irrational. The risk of being caught was too great. He would have to concentrate on finding a way out and worry about eating later.
As if in response to his problem of escape, he heard a squeak as one of the men put his boot on the dry wooden rung of the ladder to the hayloft. He froze and felt Diller go tense beside him. Brian closed his eyes, praying to whatever gods might listen that they would make the soldier stay on the ground. Brian’s prayers went unanswered. There was a rattle and the creaking of the wooden ladder shifting sounded as the man climbed the rungs to the hayloft.
Quietly, Brian pushed loose hay overtop of his brother, hoping that the man would not see anything but hay in the faint moonlight that flowed in from the open portal on the barn wall. As he gathered hay over himself, he saw an orange glow as the man neared the top of the ladder. Brian cursed the fool who would bring any kind of flame near a hayloft, the ultimate tinderbox. Covered from plain view with his sword in his hand resting in the hay beside him, Brian could see that the man carried what looked to be a small oil lantern in his hand. He breathed easier that the man did not carry a torch. One spark from could set the whole place afire, but even the f
lame of an oil lamp, especially if it were to fall and break, would create an instant inferno. This gave Brian an idea.
“What are you doing up there Fergus?” called the voice that Brian had decided was the leader of these men. The man with the lantern, Fergus, leaned out over the edge and called down.
“Just making sure the place is secure,” he said. The men below were ignoring the man by now and he set about peering around the hayloft. Carefully, he walked toward where Brian lay hidden, gingerly testing each board to be sure that it would hold his weight which Brian could see was quite a lot, if the size of the man said anything about him. Brian kept wishing that the man would turn around and descend back to the ground floor but he did not. The man was nearly standing on him when he felt something sharp at his groin.
“Stand very still.” Brian said in a low voice. “We’d both burn if you dropped that.” The man Fergus was startled but he did not budge. He could clearly see Brian’s sword levelled at his groin and was enough of a man to value his manhood.
“What do you want?” Fergus asked. Brian slowly rose, keeping his sword at the man’s tender parts.
“Who are you?” Brian asked. “Manfred’s men? Kaleb’s? Or just plain outlaws?”
A voice called from below.
“Will you get down from there Fergus? The hayloft is no place for a lantern.”
The man named Fergus took a deep breath as Brian shook his head.
“I’m coming,” he called then held up his lantern to get a better look at Brian. “Hey, I've seen you before. There is a reward out on your head, you know that.” His voice rose, becoming more audible.
“No,” hissed Brian, increasing the pressure of his blade enough to quiet the man. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, you’re like a hero sort of, in Ashford. You’re Brian right?” asked Fergus.
Brian was confused. It made sense that the man might recognize him if there was a drawing out with the reward, but the man didn’t seem frightened of him at all. In fact, Fergus seemed more than a little slow.
The big man spoke now with a thick voice as he called down to the men below. “Hey Kaleb, I was right about there being something here. But it’s a bit bigger than a rat or a cat!” Frantic that the man had given him away, Brian nudged his blade threateningly, hoping to get the man to be quiet, but then he panicked when the big man, Fergus, tossed his oil lamp in the air above his head. In one swift motion, Brian felt his sword being lifted from his hand and felt himself being dropped to the floor of the hayloft. As he fell, he saw Fergus smoothly catch oil lamp without so much as causing it to spill a drop of oil. He fell with a thud atop Diller who groaned from the impact.
“What’s going on up there, Fergus?” the voice called again, more serious now.
Fergus laughed.
“Just doin' some mousin'. And it looks like I found me some mice!” he called and gestured with Brian’s sword for him and his brother to move to the ladder. “You might as well come on down an’ eat somethin'. If you was any thinner, I might not have recognized ya.”
Brian’s fear at his own sword in the big man’s hand and his surprise at the offer of food completely disoriented him. Brian found himself moving quickly toward the ladder, motioning his brother to follow. He had not realized just how hungry he was until the idea of eating had become a potential reality and the intoxicating smell of the meat cooking below was making him lose his thoughts. When he reached the ladder, Brian stopped.
“Did you say Kaleb?” he asked the man. Fergus nodded.
“That I did.” He smiled.
“Lord Kaleb?” Brian had to be sure. Fergus chuckled.
“Hey Kaleb, you still a lord?” Fergus called to the man below. He was answered by a laugh.
“Not if the royally heinous Cerric has anything to do with it,” Kaleb called back.
Satisfied, and no longer caring, since he and his brother had no way to escape, Brian nodded and began his climb down the ladder. Diller followed him down where they both found themselves surrounded by drawn swords. After some shuffling and groaning, Fergus stepped off the ladder and smiled at the men and the two boys standing at the ends of their swords.
“We got ourselves a real live hero, Kaleb. This lad’s name is Brian, Brian of Ashford. Look at him Kaleb.” Fergus said. One of the men squinted at Brian in the dim light as Fergus held up the lantern.
“They did a good job of your picture lad. Is your name really Brian?” the man who was obviously Lord Kaleb asked. Brian had seen him before several years before and recognized the now outlawed nobleman. There was no mistaking Kaleb’s dark long hair and thick moustache.
“I am Brian, son of Jacob and nephew of William who is one of your men.” Brian stood at attention as best as he could. Kaleb nodded and smiled.
“William of Ashford...” Kaleb said, pondering. He scratched his head then nodded. “I remember him. I haven’t seen him for a couple of years though. He transferred to the king’s garrison way up north in the Kandaran mountains, last I heard.” He saw the look of disappointment appear on Brian’s face. “So, you’re Brian of Ashford. We heard about what happened there. Did you know that you’re a wanted man? They say you killed a bunch of Manfred’s soldiers and that you’re a fearsome outlaw in these parts. Is that true?”
Kaleb leveled a questioning look at him that was skeptical more than anything. Brian certainly did not feel very fearsome. All he really felt was hungry and as if on cue, a growl resounded from his empty stomach.
“I was in a fight with Manfred’s men so I guess that makes me an outlaw, but I’m no hero,” Brian told him.
Kaleb’s face took on a serious look and Brian worried that he might have said something wrong.
“We know about what they did to your family,” Kaleb told him. “If you’re an enemy of Manfred and the kind of justice dealt by Cerric at Maramyr, then, as I’m concerned, that makes you a friend of mine.” Kaleb extended his hand and Brian took it and breathed a sigh of relief.
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lord Kaleb,” Brian said. Kaleb shook his head with a chuckle.
“No more lord, just Kaleb. Now, who’s this you’ve got with you?” he asked, dropping down to Diller’s height. Kaleb’s men put their swords back in their sheaths.
“Diller, my brother,” Brian told him. “He’s very hungry. Would you have any food to spare for him?”
Kaleb stared at the young boy and smiled. Diller nervously stepped behind his brother.
“Certainly, for both of you. We’ve got too much venison and it's going to spoil if we don’t eat it. There’s more than enough for us all. Will you join us Brian of Ashford and young Diller?” Kaleb offered.
Brian nodded and followed the men back to the fire, with his brother in tow. Fergus handed Brian back his sword, which he gratefully accepted, feeling more secure to have its cold steel back at his waist. He reminded himself to ask the big man how he had been able to take the sword from him so easily. He would ask him, after they had eaten.
*****
At the palace, the mage priest Dakar did his best to make conversation with the group of black robes who were growing impatient with waiting. How like the regent-king Cerric to take his time before meeting with a delegation of the Priesthood. Dakar pictured Cerric sipping wine and slowly reading a passage from some book of poetry, smiling to himself with the knowledge that nine powerful mages stood waiting patiently for him to grace them with his presence. Dakar was about to excuse himself in order to find Cerric when the great doors to the adjoining hall opened. Guards exited and took up positions outside the doors, and Dakar led the procession of black robes into the hall.
At the far end, Cerric stood with his hands on a large table. Goblets of wine had been placed at the seatings of the table opposite Cerric and servants waited in the shadows, ready to provide their guests with their choice of refreshment. Dakar wondered what Cerric was up to.
“Welcome honored guests. I thought you might perhaps enjoy some r
efreshment while we discuss whatever it is you wish to discuss. I have instructed my many servants to provide whatever refreshments you require. Please, be seated.” Cerric smiled and sat himself comfortably in the large chair that marked his place as the ruler of the room. One of the black robes stepped forward from the group and walked to the seat directly opposite Cerric. Dakar rounded the table and took his usual seat at Cerric’s right. The others took their places along the table.
“Regent-king Cerric. We thank you for this private audience and further for your more than generous attention to our needs,” said the black robe as he seated himself. “I am Shadar of Xalla-Prime, special advisor to her Imperial highness Queen and Empress Calexis. These brothers and sisters with me represent various regions throughout both the Xallan Empire and the great Kingdom of Maramyr. We thank you for your hospitality.”
Cerric smiled warmly at the man, though inwardly he knew that the combined magics of these eight mages and his own advisor, Dakar, whose loyalties were first to the Priesthood, were more than enough to both depose and dispose of him should they so desire. Between them, they could probably level the entire palace, although Cerric was fairly certain that this was not their purpose. He maintained his composure, playing his own gambit.
“And what, may I ask brings such a delegation to the capital of Maramyr?” Cerric asked. “What assistance may I be to such a collection of powerful mages?”
Shadar smiled at him.
“We seek a partnership,” he told Cerric. “The heads of our order have sent us to negotiate with the wise and noble monarchs of various lands that we might further the beauty and truth of our faith in the One Book and the light it brings to the souls of many.”