“Ah, but you wear Alistair’s symbol on your gauntlets!” Rai went on. “The dagger matches.”
“How did you know?” was all Alster could think to say.
Rai’s smile broadened. “I’ve seen that symbol more than you have,” he said. “It is stitched onto every banner at the Blightstone Gate. Every soldier guarding the bridge wears it proudly. You can still find it carved into the ruins of eastern Vecnos, a remnant of Alistair’s conquest.”
Alster turned his gauntlets over, his eyes glued to the riderless horse on the back of his hands. They fit him so perfectly he had forgotten he was wearing them. They almost felt like an extension of his skin.
“You know,” Rai began. “The soldiers at the Blightstone Gate would let you pass, should you ever find yourself there.”
“They would never find us on the other side of the Rift,” Elsey said quietly.
Before Alster could consider a response, Rai spoke again. “I can lead you, if you’d like,” he said almost urgently. He leaned closer to Alster. “I can get you across the Rift. I know the path to Mournstead.”
“What do you want from me?” Alster asked. He wasn’t sure why Rai would offer to guide him on such a perilous journey, or what any of them stood to gain, but he couldn’t deny the temptation.
Rai turned back to the cooking meat and cut a sliver of it off with his knife. When he had eaten the morsel, he looked back at Alster, a line of grease running down the sides of his mouth. “You’re smarter than you look,” he began. “I do want something in return.”
“Alster,” Elsey began, but her voice drifted off. Her eyes said everything her words failed to convey. She was afraid.
“Anyone who has ever set foot in Mournstead knows what Alistair the Fourth looked like,” Rai continued. “You have his features; perhaps you have his strength and intellect as well. If you do, I want to be there when you realize it. Any descendant of Alistair’s is bound to do great things.”
Alster rubbed his crippled left leg and cursed his father’s relentless anger.
Rai stood and offered Alster a hand from the ground. “When Alistair killed The Shadow King’s body, he made a pact with the king’s shade. Alistair’s gauntlets and banners were carried back to the west, but the rest of his legendary armor was buried in the king’s own tomb along with Alistair’s horse. Reassembling that armor would be something glorious. I’d like to be there when you do it.” The corners of his lips turned up with the hint of a smile.
Alster almost mentioned the armor he had seen in the archive, but he stopped himself. “Do you really think we could find the rest of Alistair’s armor in the tomb?” he asked. “It wasn’t taken anywhere else?”
Rai’s eyes burned with passion. “Everyone knows it was buried in the tomb. We will be the ones to find it,” he said vigorously.
Alster looked to his friend. “Elsey?” he asked. “What do you think? Should we go?”
Elsey was plainly nervous, but she nodded.
“Alright,” Alster said with all the determination he could summon. “We will go with you to Mournstead. We will find Alistair’s armor.”
“Good,” Rai said. “Now let’s eat. We can leave in the morning.”
The sun had fallen by the time Palos saw one of Holte’s riders returning to the estate. The soldier, a young man who had helped Holte train the militia, came riding in hard through the front gate. Palos had been pacing through the courtyard most of the day, ever since he had heard one of his horses was missing.
“News?” Palos shouted to the rider as he reined in his horse.
“I found the tracks easily, sir,” the rider said.
“And?” he demanded. In his forty years of life, Palos had been described as a lot of things, though he had never once been referred to as patient. He resumed his pacing, waiting for the rider to come out with the news.
“The horse was led east toward the lake beyond Velnwood,” the man reported. “There isn’t much out in that direction, and the lake is not hard to find.”
Palos mulled over the report. “You know the horse was led and did not escape of its own accord?” he asked. He remembered seeing the broken latch on the horse’s stall. Any human would have simply undone the latch himself, not gone through the time and effort of making it look as though the horse had broken free.
“Yes, my lord,” the rider confirmed. “There were human tracks near one of the streams which showed hoofprints. Do you want me to return and pursue the tracks farther? I can take supplies and track them down,” he said.
Again, Palos stopped to collect his thoughts. “Whoever this kidnapper is, he must be professional,” Palos concluded. “But he is careless as well. I expect a ransom will be forthcoming.”
“Your orders?” the man asked.
“Find Captain Holte,” Palos commanded. “Double the security. Figure out how this kidnapper entered the estate, and make sure it cannot happen again,” he said.
“Shall I continue the pursuit?” the man questioned, his voice growing concerned with Palos’ nonchalance.
Palos waved him off. “Establish a perimeter. I need to know our walls are secure before I commit resources to a hunt,” he replied.
The rider looked astonished. “Your son, sir?” he asked again, trying to get Palos to send him out once more.
Palos stifled a laugh. “It's only Alster,” he responded before walking back toward the house. “Go to Velnwood in the morning and see what you can learn. If no one there has seen or heard anything, we can assume this kidnapper is likely from Karrheim, some political rival or someone I might have crossed,” he said casually like he might have been describing the weather.
Alster and Elsey stood near their horse some twenty paces from Rai’s cabin. “Do you trust him?” Elsey asked.
The world was pitch-black, and only the gentle sound of the wind rustling the surface of the lake found its way to their conversation. “I believe almost everything he told us, but I know he is planning something,” Alster answered quietly.
Elsey nodded. “We must be careful,” she said. “If your gauntlets are valuable, he may try to steal them.”
Alster still had not taken the armor from his hands and wrists. He felt almost scared to remove them, though he knew the edges were starting to cut into his skin at several places. “Do you think what he said about the rest of the armor is true?” he wondered.
“I don’t know,” Elsey replied. “I think it might be worth trying. Besides, your father would never chase us beyond the Rift.”
Alster’s mind wandered as he thought of what the Rift must look like. His tutor had told him stories of it several times before, but he knew nothing would compare to seeing it in person. He imagined a swirling chasm full of obsidian shadows and piercing rays of light, a world dominated by the darkest depths of magic Alster could possibly fathom. The idea of standing at the Rift’s edge and peering in terrified him, but the tantalizing prospect of crossing such a place was not something he could deny.
“I want to go there,” Alster said when he brought his focus back to his friend. “I want to find Alistair’s armor and see the tomb of The Shadow King.”
“Then we should do it,” she said after a moment. “Even Mournstead sounds like a better place to live than your father’s estate, and we’ve already run away. If we go back or they catch us, we’ll be executed.” She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and summoned what courage she had. “If Rai can lead us to the east, we should go to the east.”
Rai had offered them a warm place to sleep by his small fire inside the cabin, so they made sure their horse was properly secured and headed inside.
Under the thatched roof, the low fire produced a myriad of shadows dancing along the wooden walls. Alster didn’t pay them much heed. With his dagger tucked tightly in his belt, he felt safe, or at least safer than he had living alongside his father.
“Thank you for letting us stay,” Elsey said quietly from under a pile of blankets beneath a workbench. Rai grun
ted in response from the room’s only cot.
If this works, Alster thought to himself as he drifted to sleep. He envisioned standing before the Rift, fully dressed in Alistair’s shining armor and riding warhorse clad in regal barding befitting his namesake, with men and women alike supplicating before his glory. If this works, I could be a king…
VELNWOOD
“You should eat,” Rai said loudly, waking Alster and Elsey from their sleep. Instinctively, Alster felt for the dagger at his waist, and it was exactly where he had left it. His gauntlets were still fastened around his wrists, and they felt clammy, reminding him that he had not felt the wind on his hands in far too long.
Above the fire, a small black pot hung from a hook and emanated an aroma of meat.
“Eat as much as you can,” Rai told them both. “I won’t be taking the cooking pot with us on the road, so that’s the last stew you’re likely to get in quite some time,” he explained.
When they had both eaten, Alster and Elsey emerged from the cabin to find Rai loading their horse with supplies in large, animal hide bags. “Did you eat it all?” Rai asked, not turning to regard them while he worked.
“Almost,” Alster replied. For a second, he thought Rai had poisoned them both from the way his stomach twisted and turned, but he realized he was not used to eating game for every meal. At the estate, Alster was rarely afforded much food, but what he did consume came from pens of livestock and well-maintained gardens, not animals killed in the wild.
“We will walk to Velnwood first,” Rai explained. “We can trade the horse for gear, weapons, and proper packs to carry it all. Then we will head south.”
“What?” Alster blurted out. None of the plan made sense to him. “The Rift is east, not back toward Velnwood, and not south!” he said.
Rai turned to him with an annoyed look on his face. “Whether you like it or not, we need better equipment. We cannot cross half of Vecnos without supplies, and we cannot carry those supplies without proper packs,” he said. “This horse is strong, and I can trade it for everything we need. We may not be as fast on foot, but we will be stealthier.”
Alster shook his head. “My leg,” he said solemnly. He lifted his pant leg and showed Rai the scars which spiraled around his flesh from his knee to his ankle. “I was counting on riding that horse,” he said.
“How far can you walk?” Rai asked, bending down to inspect Alster’s crippled leg. His expression spoke volumes. Alster knew it wasn’t sympathy he saw, but perhaps understanding.
“Maybe a hundred yards before I get tired and it hurts,” Alster replied. He felt ashamed for his inability to keep up. His ribs still hurt from the beating he had endured, and hearing the plan to sell the horse felt like salt in his wounds.
Rai let out a sigh and stood. “You may be right,” he said. “I can’t carry you either.” He thought for a moment with a hand on his chin. “Perhaps I can trade this horse for a smaller, less valuable one. If I could do that, we could use the value left over to acquire packs,” he concluded.
“Thank you,” Alster said gratefully.
“It isn’t a perfect plan,” Rai said, “so don’t thank me yet. It might not work.”
“Alright,” Alster said, understanding their intent more clearly. “And what is south?” he asked, feeling slightly incompetent by his constant questioning.
Rai swung his quiver from his back to his chest and pointed to the arrows. He had maybe two dozen. “These will take down deer and perhaps convince a man to turn the other way,” he said with a smile. “But they will do nothing to a shade.” He pointed to Alster’s dagger. “I don’t want to rely on that tiny blade as our only defense against a shadowlith, should we cross one.”
Alster considered the possibility of encountering more hostile shades and couldn’t help but feel that it was luck which had saved him and Elsey in the stable, not skill or strength. He knew he couldn’t adequately defend himself, much less all three of them, dagger or not. Alster wondered if he should let Rai wield the blade, but his hands never moved to the hilt to retrieve it. The very thought of someone else holding Alistair’s weapon filled him with a sense of dread which he could not shake.
“After Velnwood, we ride for Scalder’s Inlet,” Rai boasted proudly. “If the legends are true, dipping my arrows in the spring will make them deadly to shades as well. Plus,” he went on, “as I’m sure you know, the Frosted Coast is where your namesake made his high command during the war. I’ve heard there is not much left of the city, but I have not yet seen it with my own eyes.”
Alster thought of scavenging through the ruins of Alistair’s outpost, and a smile broke out across his face. “To Velnwood,” he said happily.
“To Velnwood,” Rai replied.
They both looked expectantly at Elsey, as though her approval was the only thing missing in their grand scheme.
“Anything to get us away from the estate,” Elsey said, not sharing even half of their enthusiasm for the journey ahead.
The town of Velnwood, a quaint trading post only eight miles east of Palos’ estate, existed on a thin stretch of land between two small rivers with only a single pair of stone bridges linking it to the rest of Vecnos.
“My father knew a blacksmith who lived here,” Elsey said as they neared the eastern bridge. “He has a big beard, and he’s friendly. He would probably help us,” she explained.
“There’s only one smith in Velnwood,” Rai said. “He’s a good man, but we need traveling equipment, not horseshoes and nails.”
Alster took his walking stick from one of the packs and dismounted painfully.
“People will recognize you, or at least think you’re strange enough to remember,” Rai said, as he pointed to Alster’s gauntlets. “You need to hide those.”
Alster thought of taking the armor off, but his mind was immediately filled with worries of thieves or some trap orchestrated by Rai himself. “Maybe I should stay behind,” he suggested.
Rai laughed. “I plan on getting at least one drink while I’m there, if not seven or eight,” he boasted. “You’re coming along. I may be just a lowlife scoundrel from Mournstead, but I have enough sense not to leave a crippled runaway alone in the woods.”
Reluctantly, Alster began to undo the straps of the gauntlets. His skin thanked him as the metal receded from his flesh, but his mind was filled with doubts.
“The dagger,” Rai reminded him, pointing to the intricate red hilt.
Alster secured his gauntlets in one of the bags on the horse’s back and then slipped his dagger into the side of his right boot. “I’ll be fine,” he said defiantly, more to himself than anyone else.
Standing at the edge of Velnwood, none of the passersby gave the three unlikely companions a second glance. Alster leaned on his walking stick and listened to the sounds of the world around him. The streams on either side of the bridge filled Alster’s ears, mingling with the gentle snippets of conversations from the various farmers, tradesmen, and hunters who called the village home.
“There it is,” Rai said hopefully. He led the horse up to a nearby post in front of a seedy tavern. Above the doorway swung a painted wooden shield depicting a green snake coiled around an empty beer mug. The painting had clearly been done by an amateur, and it was likely several decades old.
Rai pushed through the rickety front door and spread his arms wide. “Welcome to the Poisoned Cup, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. If the exterior of the building looked worn and beaten, the inside was practically an active battlefield. Broken chairs were strewn across the floor, smashed pitchers littered the wooden bar, and at least a handful of rusty knives were stuck in one wall as though a random knot in the wood had been used for target practice. Only a few patrons were still in the building at such an early hour, and each of them appeared fast asleep or perhaps dead.
“Four ales!” Rai called to the barkeep, tossing the man a single piece of silver. He waved for Alster and Elsey to follow him toward a door at the back of the tavern.
“Pints or pitchers?” the barkeep asked, pocketing the silver.
Rai thought for a few seconds before responding. “Pitchers,” he finally said. “And bring them downstairs.”
“You got it,” the man replied cheerfully.
Alster had trouble keeping his balance on the stairs, but Elsey helped him stay upright. He thought it was strange that the barkeep had not questioned his presence in such an establishment. His brother was permitted to drink ale at special feasts, but Jarix had seen eighteen summers, three more than Alster.
“Do you have some sort of reputation here?” Alster asked. They reached the bottom of the staircase where Rai opened another door for them.
“You could say that,” Rai replied. When he stepped through the doorway, Alster saw what he supposed was the Poisoned Cup’s true appeal. The basement was huge, extending in all directions under the other buildings in Velnwood. Alster guessed more than twenty people were gathered around the various tables in the dark basement, each one of them caught up in some form of gambling.
Rai pulled an empty barrel up to one of the gaming tables, and the people there seemed to recognize him. Some of them shared Rai’s fiery red hair and eyes, and they spoke with his accent as well.
“You have a bet, Rai?” one of them asked. He held a pair of dice in his hands, waiting to pass them to the next player.
Rai shook his head. “Not today, brothers,” he said. “I have a stolen horse I need to fence,” he told them.
The man looked at Alster and Elsey and scoffed. “Did you steal them, too?” he asked. Alster couldn’t tell if the man was being serious or trying to make a joke, so he thought it best to stay quiet.
“Ha,” Rai snapped. He dismissed the claim with a wave of his hand. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “If you get wind of anyone looking for a runaway son of a noble, you heard a rumor about a child heading west with a group of traders,” he told them, all the levity gone from his voice. He procured several pieces of silver from a pocket and slid them across the table. Each of the men nodded in turn.
Shadowlith (Umbral Blade Book 1) Page 7