Protector Of The Grove (Book 2)

by Trevor H. Cooley

  “What did you find? Uh, hey!” Justan said as the elf began manipulating his body, turning Justan around, raising first one arm, then the other. The elf then wrapped his skinny limbs around Justan’s torso and paced one ear against his chest. Justan slowly lowered his arms and patted the elf’s back. “He’s done this once before. Odd timing, though.”

  “He’s not hugging you, Edge,” Hilt said with a chuckle. “He’s listening to you. There’s something he’s trying to figure out.”

  “I knew that. I just-,” Justan stopped patting the elf and raised his arms again. “It’s just a reflex.”

  Yntri didn’t move for a while and Justan glanced over at Jhonate while he waited. “What was he saying you had the brain of?”

  She gave him a stern look, then told him through the ring, If you must know, a muskrat. He may not be far off either.

  What do you mean? he asked, surprised at her candor. Jhonate admitting she was wrong was a rarity.

  We will discuss it when the weaponmaster is finished. She sighed. We shall have a lot to discuss.

  Justan didn’t press her further. His cheeks puffed out as he blew a breath through tightened lips. He waited a few seconds longer and when Yntri still didn’t move, he looked back over his shoulder. “No laughing, Aldie. You’re next.”

  Aldie, son of Lance’s eyes went wide, his smile slipping. “Really?”

  He had only just joined the academy at the end of the war and had been surprised to receive this assignment. Justan felt he was a good choice for the mission. Aldie had shown a good grasp of diplomacy during the war. In Jhonate’s opinion he was too green.

  “He’s just teasing you,” said Poz. The freckle-faced son of the legendary Sir Weld had graduated with the nickname Butcher Poz because of the way he wielded his bone-cutting sword.

  The council had seen Poz and Aldie as good fits for the exchange of men with the Roo-Tan. They matched Xedrion’s choice of sending a veteran warrior in Xendrol and his inexperienced younger son Pelgrath. Jhonate had recommended Poz for the post herself, feeling that he had spent enough time with her to know how to interact with her people.

  Finally Yntri let go of Justan and stood back, a somewhat sleepy expression on his face. He gestured and, his voice sounding slurred between clicks, said, “I forgot what it was like to listen to a bonding wizard. He is a strong one.”

  “What did he say?” Justan asked.

  He said you’re a strong one. Jhonate told him through the ring.

  Was there any question? he replied.

  “So can we get back on the move?” Hilt asked, looking a bit irritated. “I would like to be at Pinewood by nightfall.”

  Yntri clicked at Hilt to go ahead, then ordered Jhonate to follow him back out into the grass. “Talk and run, child.”

  The elf loped ahead of the group, motioning her to keep up. His path seemed a bit erratic, almost as if he were drunk, but he never missed a step or lost his footing. It took her a moment to catch up.

  “What did you find, Weaponmaster?” she asked.

  “He is strong, your betrothed,” said Yntri, his whistles slightly off pitch. “His bonds are strong. All of them. Including his bond with our tree. You are correct. He has not communed with her. She reaches out to him eagerly each time he touches the bow, but I think he misinterprets her.”

  “I see,” she said. “What can I do to help him?”

  “You are foolish,” he replied, coming very close to a stumble. “And your stupidity could have cost him much. Fortunately, Sir Edge is strong and has a teachable heart. We may have time to prepare him.”

  “I will be happy to do so,” Jhonate replied. “What am I allowed to tell him and what must he learn on his own?”

  “Stop it, muskrat!” He came to a stop and sat down on a clump of brown grass. Then he grasped two handfuls of partially melted snow and rubbed them onto his face. Blinking away slush and speaking a bit more clearly, he said, “You used to be such a smart girl. I rarely had to scold you and never had to beat you. Why do I feel that I should beat you now?”

  Jhonate crouched beside him. She felt as though she had been chastened enough for now, but she kept her feelings out of her voice as she said, “I am sorry, Weaponmaster.”

  “Sorry indeed. It is your betrothed you should be apologizing to. I would have him spank you with your own staff if I thought it would help. You have left him utterly unprepared. It could mean his life and, if he dies, the lives of all of his bonded.”

  Jhonate swallowed. “You fear father will kill him?”

  He frowned, rubbing his chin. “Xedrion is angry. It is strange. He will not let me listen to him. But at times he seethes with hatred so strongly I do not need to touch him to hear it. You are the one who chose to leave his side but, in Xedrion’s mind, it is Sir Edge’s fault you would not return.”

  “That makes no sense,” she said.

  “First you stayed to train him. Then you stayed to be with him,” Yntri said. “I heard Xedrion rave that this wizard of yours has you under a spell.”

  “That is not what Hilt told me,” she said.

  “Hilt is too kind. He overlooks Xedrion’s faults and thinks that Sir Edge will simply win him over.” He gave her a serious look. “I did not think it possible before, but the number of flesh changers we have seen makes me think your father may have sent them.”

  “Then perhaps I have stayed away too long to return.” Jhonate nibbled her lip as she contemplated something she would never have considered before. “Shall we flee, then?”

  “Flee?” Yntri said, his voice incredulous. “I said ‘run and talk’. Not ‘talk about running’.”

  “But-!”

  Yntri raised a finger, silencing her, his eyes staring off to the side. He stood suddenly. “Come. This sitting has addled your brains. And mine too.”

  In one smooth motion, he pulled his bow off his shoulder, drew an arrow from his quiver, and spun. He fired an arrow, striking the body of a small mouse and piercing deep into the clump of earth beyond. A halo of electricity radiated from the striking point and the ground around the arrow jittered and twitched.

  Jhonate could now see what Yntri had sensed. An area of the plains that had looked every bit like every where else now undulated and moved. It was oval-shaped, about six feet in diameter.

  Yntri unstrung his bow and pressed his ear against the twitching ground. The electric effect didn’t last long. The earth began to change, its edges rippling and forming jagged teeth while the strands of grass upon it blackened and reached for the elf. Yntri jerked back, a cluster of red dots blooming on his face where the black grass had pierced him. His bow became a spear which he stabbed into the living ground.

  When it didn’t die right away, he let out a cursing whistle. “Its center has moved! Strike it! Urchin form!”

  Jhonate was thrusting with her staff before he finished his commands. The basilisk had begun to harden its surface, but her staff formed a sharp point and plunged through its thick crust into the flesh that had been disguised as soil. The moment the wood entered the creature’s body, Jhonate commanded its tip to split. It formed a cluster of spikes, piercing through the basilisk’s amoebic flesh and seeking the cluster of nerves that were its one vulnerable point.

  Yntri stabbed into the beast again with his bow, doing the same attack. Somehow between the two of them, one of their attacks struck true. The basilisk froze and its blackened grass-like blades began turning to stone. Yntri hurriedly reached down and plucked out his arrow. Just in time, too, because the mouse he had pierced was turning to stone as well. The basilisk had been thorough in its camouflage.

  Yntri clicked and petted the arrow, his expression sympathetic. “It is not your fault. You were not ready, poor thing. It was too soon since the last time I know. And flesh changers have no blood to feed on. We’ll get you a nice rabbit next.”

  Yntri’s bow was made of living Jharro wood, but his arrows were made from dead Jharro wood that he had bound with the souls of
small creatures. Each one had its own little personality and form of attack and he had a habit of talking to them. Like many soul-bound weapons, his arrows needed blood in order to charge their energies. Evidently this was the same arrow he had struck the last basilisk with five days before.

  Yntri may have saved his little arrow, but Jhonate’s staff was stuck. These basilisks were tricky beasts. She wondered how many warriors had slain one only to lose their weapon to its form of death. Fortunately Jharro wood was not so easily seized. She willed her staff to retract its spikes and shrink enough that she could pull it free.

  Justan’s thoughts intruded through the ring. Jhonate, are you two okay? I felt your excitement but I can’t see what you’re doing through the grass.

  The weaponmaster and I fought a Basilisk. It is dead, she assured him.

  Good, he said, his thoughts relieved. Please tell me that was the last one.

  Yntri doesn’t think so, but I will ask. She then said to Yntri, “Can you tell how many more there are?”

  The elf didn’t answer right away. He had reached into his pack and removed a small jar. As he opened it, Jhonate saw the pink waxy substance inside and knew it to be Jharro sap. Only Yntri’s people had access to the ingredient, but it had powerful properties. He pulled out a small amount of the sap with his finger and smeared it over the tiny bleeding holes in his cheek.

  “Weaponmaster, are there more?” Jhonate repeated.

  “Yes,” he clicked and began to put the small jar back into his pack. “Tonight, muskrat, you will tell Sir Edge of your stupidity and teach him of the Roo-Tan. It is time he learned what he needs to know.”

  “Yes, Weaponmaster,” she said.

  “I will teach him to find the tree myself. He needs-.” Yntri froze, his gaze fixed to the west towards the mountains. “I sense three more flesh changers. They approach from the grass even now.”

  “Do we fight?” Jhonate asked, her staff at the ready. She heard a rustling sound and wondered what shapes they had taken.

  “Foolishness,” he hurriedly threw his pack over his shoulder and extracted his bow from the body of the stone basilisk. “We do not fight three of them alone. That would lure Sir Edge out here. We go.” Yntri turned and started back towards the road.

  Reluctantly, Jhonate followed, increasing her strides to match his. “Do they pursue us?” She imagined the creatures changing into great cats and chasing them down. Her hand tightened on her staff and she chanced a glance back. She thought she saw the grass move not far from where they had killed the beast.

  “Not his time,” Yntri clicked.

  “We killed their companion,” she said.

  Yntri shook his head. “Flesh changers will not attack for revenge. Their only thought is their target. They are still watching us and learning our behavior. They will not hunt the rest of us unless they must in order to reach Sir Edge. Once they know this is so, we will all be in danger.”

  “How long will that take them?” she asked, looking back again. There was no visible movement.

  “Not much longer,” he clicked, his face pinched with concern. “But I have a greater worry. With at least three more flesh changers, that makes six we know of. If there are that many, there could be even more. We could be facing a whole clutch.”

  “A clutch of basilisks?” Jhonate shivered. She had heard that term before. “Then there were eleven to start out with?”

  Yntri nodded. “Ten flesh changers led by a nightbeast.”

  Chapter Eleven

  They arrived at the walls of Pinewood just before dark. In the four months since the end of the war, the Pinewood survivors had made great strides in cleaning up the town. Most of the buildings were now liveable again and Justan could see steady streams of chimney smoke rising up over the walls.

  The population of the town was steadily increasing as some of the frontierfolk and Sampo entrepreneurs decided Pinewood was a good place to settle in. With the Battle Academy being reconstructed and with its new relationships with Wobble and the Mage School, Pinewood was set to thrive. It was perfectly situated on the main road which meant it would become a major supply stop and there was going to be a lot of need for Pinewood’s traditional lumber trade.

  Sir Hilt decided it would be better if their party camped outside the city that night. With the possible looming threat of a nightbeast and as many as seven more basilisks on the hunt for Justan, it was just too risky to take everyone in. Justan was considered a minor celebrity in Pinewood and, with so many people milling around, there would be too many opportunities for basilisks in disguise to attack.

  Hilt and Poz went into town to gather information while the rest of them set up camp just east of the city, their backs to the tall pine log walls. The location was a good one. The campsite had been used before and there was already a fire pit and several logs around the fire to sit on. It also didn’t hurt that the wind was blowing in from the east and the walls protected them from the brunt of it.

  The idealness of the location wasn’t any comfort to Justan. He set about building the fire with little enthusiasm, his mind churning over his current predicament. It wasn’t the first time he’d had an assassin sent after him. Ewzad Vriil had sent Talon after him and the raptoid Hungry after that. But that was during the war. Those days were supposed to be over.

  Ewzad Vriil and the moonrat mother were gone now, as was Kenn. Who was left that would want him dead? Moreover, who would want him dead so badly that they would send ten basilisks and one of the ten monsters of legend? Whoever sent them had either a lot of clout or a lot of money, or likely both. The only person he knew that fit that description was Xedrion bin Leeths.

  He understood why that thought would upset Jhonate. She loved and respected her father. But the more he heard about Xedrion’s temper, the more he seemed like the only viable possibility. As he worked, he tried to keep his thoughts quiet so that Jhonate wouldn’t overhear.

  Once he finished, Justan sat on the log by the fire and watched Jhonate’s brothers as they crouched by their bedrolls, talking quietly with one another. Every once in a while their eyes would fall on him and it seemed that their looks were disapproving.

  It was at this point that he really started missing his bonded. This journey was the first time since bonding with Fist that he hadn’t had at least one of them with him. Justan chuckled at himself for how dependant on them he’d become. It was just that of all the people he knew, they were the only ones he could talk to that didn’t have their own agenda.

  Aldie chose that moment to come over and sit next to him. “Uh, hey, Sir Edge.”

  “What can I do for you, Aldie?” Justan asked, trying his best to sound interested. Aldie was the least experienced of the group and it showed in the way he carried himself. He was always so hesitant. Poz did his best to include him, but it was obvious Aldie still felt out of place.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just sitting,” the man said. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, causing his curly blond locks to fall down over his eyes.

  Justan nodded. “You did well in your sparring this morning.”

  “Thanks,” Aldie said. Poz had been training with him every morning before the party headed out. “I know I have a ways to go before I’ll be ready to enter the swordsmanship guild, but Poz is a good teacher. Maybe by the time my contract in Malaroo is up I’ll be ready.”

  “I don’t know that you’ll have any alternative,” Justan said with a smile. “If the Roo-Tan train you anything like the way Jhonate trained me, you’ll have no choice but to be that good.”

  “I hope so,” Aldie reached over his shoulder and slid the long two-handed sword from the sheath on his back. He placed the weapon across his knees and ran his fingers down the blade. “I want to be worthy of this.”

  “Tall boots to fill,” Justan said shaking his head. The sword in Aldie’s lap had once belonged to his father, Sir Lance. The sword had been retrieved from the battlefield near Sampo along with Lance’s body.

/>   “It weighs on me just thinking about it.” Aldie ran his finger down the jagged crack that ran vertically through the naming rune at the base of the sword’s long blade. It was just wide enough that Justan could see the fabric of Aldie’s pants through the hole. “I doubt I’ll ever be as good as my father, but I have to try.”

  “You know it’s a miracle that the sword is still intact,” Justan said.

  Usually when a named warrior dies, his rune weapon becomes brittle and shatters. For some undetermined reason, Lance’s sword hadn’t. Structurally, the sword seemed as strong as ever. The crack in the naming rune hadn’t destroyed the other runes on the blade. Its magic was faulty, though. When Lance had wielded it, the blade would crackle with energy with each strike, allowing it to slice through most types of armor, even shattering weapons. Now the magic was erratic.

  When Aldie would strike with the sword there was a delay of a few seconds before the magic kicked in. Justan had watched him hack at the stump of a dead tree with little effect. Then, when Aldie turned away, there was a crackle of energy and the stump was cut in two.

  Aldie shook his head. “It may sound stupid, but I feel like it’s my father watching over me. Like’s he’s holding the sword together by sheer will.”

  Justan shifted to mage sight. He saw sparkling fits and spurts of gold and black elemental magic fluttering around the crack at the base of the sword. Then he shifted to spirit sight and saw nothing. The bond made by the Bowl of Souls when Lance was named was gone, erased at his death and if the spirit of Lance was there, Justan certainly didn’t see him.

  “Maybe he is,” Justan said. Who was he to dispel Aldie’s belief in something that gave him comfort? Besides, Master Coal had taught him that seeing a spirit with his spirit sight was a rare occurrence. Aldie could very well be right.

  Aldie nodded, smiling. He got out a small vial of oil and started polishing the sword. The magic in the undamaged runes kept the sword sharp, but it didn’t keep the metal from getting grimy and stained.