King's Warrior (The Minstrel's Song Book 1)

by Jenelle Leanne Schmidt

  He looked back and met their questioning gazes for a brief second. “When I give the word, run as fast as you can, that way,” he motioned in the direction that they had been going, “I will catch up with you at the border of the Harshlands.”

  “But…” Kamarie began.

  Brant cut her off. “Hush!” he said fiercely.

  She snapped her mouth shut, and Yole grabbed her hand tightly. She looked down at him. The boy was frightened, and his eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. Though Yole was a dragon and not really a child, this journey had been testing him sorely, and he was, after all, too young for such burdens. Kamarie recognized that he needed reassurance from someone older than himself that things were going to be all right. She squeezed his hand and he relaxed a little.

  Suddenly Brant let out a loud yell, then shouted, “Run, now!”

  Kamarie, still holding Yole’s hand, turned and raced in the direction Brant had told them to go. She did not know what threatened them, but she decided she did not want to find out. They ran without any idea of direction or purpose; they just ran, the tree branches whipping at their faces and scratching up their hands and arms. The night had suddenly turned deadly, and Kamarie and Yole sought to run from its darkness.

  Oraeyn heard Brant tell him to run, but he could not. He was rooted to the spot, staring towards the same spot that Brant was watching. He could not see or hear anything; there was no flicker of movement, no underbrush rustling, no twigs cracking to disturb the silence of the evening. The night was calm and still. He had no idea what was about to descend upon them, perhaps the dragons they had wounded back in Krayghentaliss or perhaps the dragons’ friends, seeking revenge for their injured comrades. Perhaps it would be an army of Dark Warriors, or something even more deadly. However, whatever it was, Oraeyn knew that he could not leave Brant to face it alone, and if he ran now he could never take up his knighthood in good conscience; so he stayed at Brant’s side, his whole being ready for anything. Without any warning at all, the night suddenly became much darker. Silent warriors dressed in black leather and wielding deadly blades swarmed into the clearing where Brant and Oraeyn stood. Oraeyn drew his sword, prepared to fight to the death.

  Brant noticed his movement and hissed at him in a mixture of pride and frustration, “I told you to go! What are you doing?”

  Oraeyn had no time to answer, for in a heartbeat, the warriors were upon them.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Kamarie heard the noise of the battle behind her, but she did not stop. She could not stop. Fear like she had never before felt urged her to run faster, farther. Yole was panting, struggling to keep up with her, his hand still tightly clasped in her own, but she could not slow down to set an easier pace for him. She had lost Dylanna as they raced into the forest, but she believed her aunt could keep up with them.

  Yole was tiring quickly; he could not keep up with this pace, and yet he knew he had to. He believed, instinctively, that if they stopped they would be killed. He did not know if anyone was actually chasing them yet, but he knew they soon would be, and he was frightened. With strength born of fear and desperation, the two ran through the night until finally neither could continue any further. Kamarie and Yole crept into a thick mat of underbrush and hid by concealing themselves with the deep piles of red and brown leaves that blanketed the ground each Change-Term. There were always leaves that blew into the underbrush and never got weathered down, and now Kamarie was grateful for them, as they offered a place to hide that was soft and even a little warm. Then they lay very still, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for whatever was coming. They had run late into the evening, covering many miles through unknown land. The exertion and the stress overcame them, and they slept the sleep of exhaustion.

  Kamarie awoke in a panic, not knowing where she was. She sat up quickly and then the terror of the night before came back to her in a flood. She froze, almost scared again, but the light of the morning made the darkness of the night before seem so harmless. She almost laughed when she saw how far she had burrowed down into the pile of leaves; the fear had not completely gone, and so she could not yet laugh about it. She pulled leaves out of her collar and sleeves and shook her hair out. The leaves, which had seemed so inviting and comfortable the night before, were surprisingly scratchy and itchy in the light of the morning.

  A few feet away, Yole sat up as well, rubbing his eyes. There were leaves sticking up out of his hair, and his eyes were sleepy. He stretched his arms and then looked around, confusion written across his face. She watched as he remembered their terrified flight through the forest. His eyes widened, and he looked around frantically. He caught sight of Kamarie and relaxed.

  “I thought maybe I was the only one left,” he said.

  “It’s all right, we’re safe now. Brant and Dylanna and Oraeyn will find us soon.”

  Yole sniffled a little, but he did not cry. “Do you know where we are? Where will we go now?”

  “We will never find our campsite again, but I do know the general direction to the Harshlands. That is where we will meet the others, if our paths don’t cross before we get there. We have enough food in our packs to last us for awhile. If we cannot find it, we will ask people who live along the way if they know how to get there. But we have to be careful.” Kamarie paused, thinking about the family that had given them shelter on the way to Pearl Cove. “It might be best if we don’t use our real names... if we meet anyone along the way. Perhaps we should try to disguise ourselves a bit as well.”

  Yole nodded, and Kamarie’s eyes began to twinkle as she got into the spirit of the moment. Truth be told, her fear from the night before had faded quite a bit and she was feeling that their current predicament was a sort of blessing. She had never been truly alone before, and the thought of dangerous adventuring through unknown land was genuinely exhilerating.

  “I will be Ian, what name will you take Kamarie?” he asked, his eyes beginning to brighten at the prospect of traveling through villages pretending to be someone else. “And how will we disguise ourselves?”

  “I will be Leota,” Kamarie said, grinning at the excitement of it all in spite of herself, “but we only need the false names when there are other people around.”

  Yole nodded, glad that he would not have to use a different name all the time. They ate a quick breakfast and then set to work disguising themselves, in case the enemy knew what they looked like. Their disguises would also safeguard any who came to their aid, Kamarie explained. Kamarie boiled skorch root and dark berries in water until they had a nice, brown liquid. Then they rubbed the stain onto their skin, making it appear as though they had been browned by the Dragon’s Eye through many days of hard toil and labor in wide-open fields. Then Kamarie rubbed the liquid through Yole’s hair, turning it from its normal golden-red to a dark brown.

  “What about your hair Kamarie?” Yole asked, admiring his new reflection in the still pond.

  Kamarie hesitated, “Dye won’t stick to it because it’s too dark, so I’m just going to have to bind it up tightly and hide it under my hood. I don’t want to cut it,” she sighed, “perhaps no one will ask me to remove my hood.”

  “No one will notice if you keep it under your hood. Don’t cut your hair, Kamarie.”

  Kamarie laughed. “All right, well, we’re about done here. Help me clean up this mess and then we have to move on... but we need to be careful we don’t leave a track for anyone to follow.”

  “How do we do that?”

  Kamarie smiled. “I’ll show you, it’s the first thing you learn as a squire.”

  “I thought that squires learned how to fight.”

  “We do, but you only learn to fight after you know many other things that you never think you’ll need to know. You can be my squire-in-training, if you want, I can teach you all sorts of things as we travel.”

  Yole looked up at her in disbelief. “Really? You’d teach me squire stuff?”

  “Of course,” Kamarie said,
“it’s not that hard. You’re not too old to learn either, ‘you’re never too old to learn’ as Garen would say. All right, we’re finished here.”

  The two of them headed off towards the Harshlands, the squire and the young boy, the teacher and the student, the princess and the dragon.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The Dark Warriors surrounded the two fighters. There were four of them, tall and grim, wearing dark colors that blended in with the night, camouflaging them quite effectively. Oraeyn took note of the leather armor they wore and wondered if the Dark Warriors were really good enough that they didn’t need metal armor or if they were simply overconfident. Oraeyn and Brant fought back to back as they had in the tunnels of Krayghentaliss, holding the Dark Warriors at bay, but Oraeyn knew that it was only a matter of time before they both became exhausted and began to make tiny mistakes that the warriors would use to their advantage. He soon discovered the answers to his questions: the warriors were indeed good enough to need very little protection, but their thin-seeming armor was deceiving, for it stopped several of his blows that made it through their defenses.

  The warriors were biding their time, and Oraeyn noticed that they seemed hesitant to attack in full force. He wondered why, but had no time to puzzle it out. The enemies were jumping in and slashing at him with their swords, and it was all he could do to block their blows and defend against their attacks. He could tell that Brant was being more daring than he, the man was making as many offensive strikes as he could. Oraeyn wondered how he managed to do so and he hoped Brant would not waste his strength.

  A Dark Warrior on his right thrust his sword at Oraeyn’s shoulder, which he blocked and pushed away with as much force as he could. From out of the corner of his left eye he saw the other warrior’s sword coming in a jab towards his head. He made a split-second decision and followed through with his defense too far, allowing himself to collapse on his right side, causing his left-side attacker’s sword to pass through the air harmlessly above him. As he fell he twisted around onto his back and stabbed upwards. He felt his sword enter the Dark Warrior on his right just below his armor and then warm, sticky blood spattered down onto his face. The warrior dropped his sword and fell sideways. However, the attacker on his left recovered from his miss far more quickly than Oraeyn had anticipated. Thus, Oraeyn did not see the sword coming down at him in an arcing hiss until it was too late. His own weapon was trapped beneath the body of the dead warrior, and he was still on his back and helpless. He almost closed his eyes, anticipating the pain, but he could not quite bring himself to do so. Then he saw Brant whirl and slice his sword through the attacking warrior, killing him instantly. Oraeyn breathed again, realizing that he had not been. Brant reached down and helped him up.

  “That was stupid,” Oraeyn muttered.

  “Yes, it was. Don’t ever try that move again, unless you are in one-on-one combat, boy,” Brant said angrily.

  “What happened to the other two?”

  Brant pointed to the ground behind him and replied, “The other escaped.”

  Oraeyn knelt down and pulled his sword from the dead Warrior’s body, and then he carefully wiped it clean on the grass. The sword glimmered faintly, and Brant eyed it cautiously.

  “Take care of that sword, boy.”

  Oraeyn nodded slowly. “Yes,” he replied, and then he looked at Brant, “why was it like that this time?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The fight, there was none of the excitement or the rush of adrenaline that there was when we fought the dragons, why?”

  “Because there is no pleasure in killing,” Brant seemed surprised that Oraeyn had not figured this out for himself, “we were doing a job, we were fighting for our lives. War and killing are not the glorious things that the history books record or mentor knights describe.”

  “But what about a country that is attacked? What about the situation we are in right now? You are surely not saying that Aom-igh should roll over and die!” Oraeyn exclaimed in horror.

  “No, I am definitely not saying that!” Brant thundered. “Sometimes there is no other choice than to fight. When a country is attacked, it must defend itself, to do otherwise is cowardly and devoid of honor and no country will survive if that defines her people. Courage and honor are enough. Glory and fame mean nothing.”

  Oraeyn wondered at the tone of voice and the dark words, but he said nothing, pondering Brant’s words. He decided that they made sense, and he also realized that he had learned something more about the man who had become his hero.

  Brant then spoke again in a lighter tone. “We must get some rest, but not here; we will go deeper into the forest. Early tomorrow, we will set out to find the others.”

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The trail suddenly disappeared. Dylanna ground her teeth in frustration. She was not a tracker, and it had already been hard for her to follow the obvious trail that Kamarie and Yole had left as they fled through the forest the night before. She knew that they must have spent the night in the underbrush when they were too exhausted to run anymore. She also knew that in the light of the morning Kamarie had begun thinking more clearly and had started taking more care about the trail they were leaving.

  So now Dylanna was stuck. There was no way that she would catch up with her niece before they reached the Harshlands, for she could no more follow a trail that she could not see than she could walk back to Ayollan on her hands. She would not use her magic, at least not now. She did not know if Dark Warriors could sense magic, and she did not want to find out while she was alone in the wilderness.

  When Brant had told them to run, she had hesitated for the briefest of moments, waiting to see the enemy that had followed them. Unfortunately, Kamarie and Yole had not hesitated; they had taken off running with speed born from a terror of the unknown. When Dylanna had turned to follow, they were already out of sight. She had been able to follow the sounds they made, but she had not been able to catch up with them. Finally, she had been unable to go any farther and had stopped for the night. Early the next morning, she had picked up their trail and followed it to where Kamarie and Yole had spent the night, but from there the trail disappeared.

  She weighed her options. She could see that Kamarie and Yole were still heading towards the Harshlands, and it would be pointless for her to travel back to the glade where they had been attacked. Dylanna did not doubt the outcome of the attack, but she also did not know how quickly Brant and Oraeyn would resume their search for Kamarie and Yole. Brant would know immediately that they were traveling separately from Dylanna and he would also know that Dylanna could fend for herself. Her mind made up, Dylanna started walking. Brant and Oraeyn would go for Kamarie and Yole; she would go for Leila.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  “What are the Harshlands like Kamarie?” Yole asked.

  They had been walking for a while in silence, and Kamarie was beginning to wonder if they would ever reach the end of the forest. She was also starting to think that perhaps the forest had no end.

  “Well, I’ve never been there, but I’ve read that the Harshlands are a dry, barren place,” Kamarie said, trying to remember what she had been taught. “They are very dangerous and only the bravest of men has ever dared to cross the border into them, and then only in times of greatest need. If my memory serves me correctly, the book I read indicated that very few, if any, have ever returned from the Harshlands.”

  Yole stood up straighter and squared his shoulders; then he looked at Kamarie with an expression of doubt and honesty written across his face and spoke quietly, “I don’t think that I am one of the very bravest.”

  Kamarie squeezed his shoulder lightly. “Neither am I Yole, but our need is most certainly the greatest. Besides, my Aunt Leila lives in the Harshlands, so perhaps the book was wrong.”

  He accepted that with a slight nod of his head, and they continued on for a little while, lapsing into silence once more. Eventually, they came to a small clearing that had a st
ream running off to one side, filling up a little pond of clear water.

  “Here is a good spot where we can stop to rest and eat,” Kamarie said.

  She was not tiring, but she had noticed that Yole was beginning to struggle to keep up with her long strides. He sighed in relief at her words and sank down onto the moss-covered ground. Kamarie dug down into her pack and shared out some food. They took out their canteens and filled them with the cold, clear water of the spring. Then they ate slowly, neither one of them anxious to resume their unending trek through this strange and dangerous wood. Around the clearing the trees had thinned a little, allowing them to see the sky above them. The light of the Dragon’s Eye shone down and sparkled on the surface of the rippling water of the small pool. Yole suddenly laughed and pointed over to where a whole school of fish was leaping out of the water. Their silver scales caught the rays of the Dragon’s Eye and glimmered in the light.

  Kamarie kicked off her shoes and walked over to the little pond. She dangled her feet in the water and gasped in shock at its coldness. The cold water was refreshing as she continued to hang her feet in the cool, clear water. Yole grinned and followed her example, sitting next to her on the bank of the pond and dangling his feet in the water. Together they sat there for a long while, enjoying the coolness that washed over their tired feet as they watched the glittering fish jump.

  Kamarie’s face turned solemn as she sat there. There were so many unknowns in their quest now. She did not know if their companions had made it; she did not know if they were even still alive. She did not know where the Harshlands were, nor did she know how far away they were, and she did not know for sure that they would be able to meet up with the others when they did reach their destination. The Harshlands were large and dangerous, and although Kamarie was confident that she could find them, she had no idea where inside the Harshlands her Aunt’s house might be. She feared that they were traveling too slowly, that they would stray too far in the wrong direction, or that they would miss the others when they got to the Harshlands. She wondered where Brant, Oraeyn, and Dylanna were now. She hoped that they were safe and heading towards the Harshlands as she and Yole were.