Williams, D M - Renegade Chronicles [Collection 1-3]
Page 72
The Knight crossed his arms expectantly but said nothing. It’s your show, he seemed to say. Get on with it! Else nearly smiled then. It was Dylan’s impatience that had earned him a place among the scouting parties.
Mitto’s eyes went wide when her other companion pulled back his hood.
“Loony Gomez?” he exclaimed. “In the name of all the gods, Else, what’s going on here?”
She took a deep breath. It was not an easy tale to tell. The Knights had interrogated her the day after the attack, but she had still been in shock at the time. Now her defenses were down, and the thought of reliving her flight from the burning capital caused a wave of nausea to wash over her.
“You first, Mitto. I know you are who you say you are, but we also know some of the monsters have the ability to take on the appearance of humans. How well do you know your companions?”
“They aren’t goblins. This man saved my life, and they”—he indicated the women with a wave of his hand—“are covered in goblin blood, a testament to their hatred for the bastards.”
Else smiled sheepishly at the strangers. “Forgive my suspicion, but we can’t be too careful. And please pardon my directness, but who are you?”
“My name is Opal,” the red-haired woman said.
“And I’m Lilac,” said the blonde with the sword. “He is Othello. The two of us are former Renegades who were taken captive at Fort Faith. She’s a friend of the fort’s commander, and it seems that you already know Mitto. The four of us, along with two others, were sent to deliver word of the goblins’ invasion to the capital. We had no idea…”
Lilac trailed off, and Else’s stomach fluttered again. She didn’t want to think about what had happened to Rydah and her people. She found it difficult to believe that the Knights of Fort Faith would send rebels in lieu of Knights, but Else had learned firsthand that war made for strange bedfellows.
The fact that she, Gomez, and Dylan were working together was evidence of that.
“Else,” Mitto said in a soft voice she nearly didn’t recognize, “what happened to our home?”
When Else started talking, she spoke quickly, hoping that her words would outpace her feelings. She barely took time to breathe, and when she felt her eyes begin to burn, the harbinger of tears to come, she ignored it.
As she related her flight from the doomed city, she focused all of her attention on Mitto’s filthy, wonderful face.
* * *
Had she known that it was the last time she would ever see Bryant Walden, she would have said something meaningful to him. She might have thanked the high commander for treating her so kindly or kissed him on the cheek for good luck. She had no idea whether the Knight was married or not; she couldn’t even guess what his reaction to such an impulsive move would have been.
In the days to come, Else would have plenty of time to ponder the heroic Sir Walden.
At the time, she hadn’t even said goodbye. The high commander abruptly departed to ready his men for the battle against the Renegades, leaving her in the company of Lord Minus. Else would always remember Magnes Minus as a kind-faced man. Even when the Celestial Palace began to shudder beneath the blows that resounded like thunder—even after they looked out the window and found that a fleet of strange, tower-like ships sailing into the harbor—the Lord of Capricon kept his wits about him.
Lord Minus issued instructions to guardsmen and attendants in a quick but calm voice. Even when he ordered one man to personally see to his wife’s safety, Lord Minus’s face remained unperturbed.
It occurred to Else the residents of the Celestial Palace had not been caught completely unprepared by the Renegades’ assault. A small assembly of men-at-arms led her and the Lord of Capricon down a steep, winding staircase that had been hidden behind a tapestry.
Inside the cramped passageway, the booming clamor that shook the palace and sent showers of dust raining down on them. She worried the magnificent towers would topple, crushing her beneath tons of rock.
Nevertheless, she followed the Lord Minus and his retinue down in the bowels of the palace.
Finally, the stairs came to an end. The candlelight that had illuminated their decent was insufficient for her to see what was going on up ahead. She heard stone scraping against stone, and the next thing she knew, she was being helped down into a hole.
Else gripped the cold, metal rungs tightly with her hands and gingerly worked her feet against the wall in search for the next one. When she reached the bottom, she found herself in a large, bare-walled chamber that was lit by several candelabra.
Lord Minus and his wife, the Lady Corrine, shared a brief embrace. The lord then issued more instructions to his attendants, who retreated back up the rungs. A half a dozen Knights remained behind, and after the last aide was clear of the hole, the stone slab was slid back into place.
One of the Knights stood beneath the trapdoor and made frequent glances up at the stone. While Else knew that they were taking such measures in order to keep the Renegades and their allies out, the innkeeper couldn’t help but note that they were simultaneously shutting themselves in.
After the echoes of retreating footsteps faded away, the room grew as quiet as a tomb.
* * *
“So you waited out the attack in the palace’s keep?” Mitto asked. “And to think, if it hadn’t been for Toemis Blisnes, Sir Walden wouldn’t have had any reason to introduce himself to you at Someplace Else. That’s a stroke of fortune. But I’m still not sure how Loony Gomez fits into it all.”
“Who ya callin’ loony?” Gomez demanded.
Else paid the old man no attention for she had a question of her own. “Sir Walden had said Baxter and another Knight followed you in order to keep an eye on Toemis. Did your paths cross?”
She knew the truth from his face before Mitto said a word. “Baxter and another Knight did catch up with us. While we were fighting off highwaymen, more Knights burst out of the woods. They were being chased by goblins. It was the first time I saw the monsters. We wouldn’t have escaped if it weren’t for Baxter…”
A lump formed in her throat, and again her eyes tingled with promise of tears. Stubbornly, she willed them away. “Did he…die quickly?”
Mitto shrugged helplessly. “I honestly don’t know.”
In the quiet that followed, Else remembered the many nights she and Mitto had shared with Baxter Lawler. She had always thought of him as a friend of a friend. But now she realized that beneath their playful bickering, a true friendship had formed.
The world was a far drearier place without Baxter in it.
Lilac cleared her throat and said, “Excuse me, Else, but what happened after you were sealed in the palace’s keep? Were you able to wait out the attack?”
Else took another deep breath before replying, “We would have, except the Celestial Palace fell on top of us.”
* * *
The rumbling was getting worse. When a particularly violent crash sent them all to the floor, Lord Minus ordered the hatch to be reopened so that they might survey the damage.
On the advice of one of the soldiers, they waited for several minutes longer until everything was still. In Else’s opinion, the silence was even more frightening than the crashes had been. Finally, one of the Knights climbed the rungs, but no matter how hard he—or any of the other men—pushed against the stone slab, it wouldn’t budge.
“Whatever does it mean?” Lady Corrine asked her husband.
“Something must have fallen on the opening,” Magnes Minus reasoned. Even while making that ominous declaration, the lord sounded calm. “But do not fret. This room was designed with both protection and escape in mind.”
Lord Minus walked over to a sconce that held an unlit torch and gave it an expert twist. Like in the stories Else had heard since she was small enough to sit on her father’s lap, a section of the adjacent wall slid aside to reveal another dark passage. Else’s anxiety only mounted. In the tales, secret passageways seldom led anywhere good.
But a shrill scream kept her rooted in place.
Corrine reemerged, covering her face with her hands. Lord Minus was right behind her. He wore a grim expression as he comforted his wife. To Else’s bewilderment, the three Knights returned too, and the last man was dragging something large and limp behind him.
Her knees weaken when she realized that the something was a dead body.
“Who is it?” she asked in spite of herself.
No one answered at first. Lord Minus and the Knights formed a circle around the corpse and began talking in hushed tones. Feeling suddenly alone, Else made her way over to where Corrine sat on a three-legged stool. The lady appeared to have regained some of her composure, but her complexion remained as white as fresh milk.
Else took her hand. It was the first time she really looked at Corrine Minus. Although the Lady of Capricon had seen more than fifty winters, the deep wrinkles around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes did not mar her elegance, but rather instilled her with dignity and poise.
Corrine’s dress was finely tailored, but it lacked the frills and flashy accoutrements Else would have expected of a noblewoman. But even in her everyday garb, Corrine would never have been mistaken for a commoner.
How did I end up here? Else wondered.
All at once, the crowd of Knights dissipated, and Lord Minus came forward to stand before his wife. “I cannot understand it. I recognize this man as one of the cooking staff, but how he found his way to the keep...”
“How did they die?” Corrine asked.
“They?” Else echoed incredulously.
Lord Minus produced a black-feathered arrow. “They were all laid low by arrows like these, but I cannot imagine who—”
His words were cut off by an eerie, high-pitched wail that resonated from the open passageway. The Knights formed a protective barrier between their lord and lady and the opening. The sound of scuffling footsteps drew nearer and nearer.
When the creatures poured into the room, Else could scarcely believe her eyes and feared whoever had dug the palace’s escape route had inadvertently breached Thanatos’ Crypt.
The monsters came at the Knights like slavering jackals, overwhelming the meager defenders in seconds. They crawled over the soldiers—scrambled over each other—in their eagerness to kill.
Paralyzed with fear, Else heard Magnes Minus’s voice but couldn’t understand what he was saying. Time seemed to slow impossibly, giving her plenty of time to contemplate the certainty of her death. Then something solid connected with the side of her head, and she lost consciousness.
* * *
Reliving that terrible day brought back all of the fear she had felt. Else paused for a moment before concluding, “I awoke to find myself in the woods…near enough Rydah to hear the screams of the dying. It was there that Corrine, Gomez, some of his friends, and I waited out the attack.”
Else was aware of the shift in her audience’s attention. Even Sir Dylan glanced away from window he had been staring out and looked at Gomez. Else surreptitiously dabbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands. She wished that she could shut out his voice, what she knew he would say.
“The first thing ya oughtta know is that the dead people in the passageway were all Renegades,” Gomez said. “I know this ’cause me and m’boys followed ’em. They was plannin’ to murder the lord an’ lady, but the devils…or goblins, as you’re been callin’ ’em…wanted to do it themselves. An’ they might’ve killed every last person in the keep if I hadn’t done the single most foolish thing in m’life and stuck around.”
When Gomez took a breath, Opal quickly interjected, “I don’t mean to be rude, but who are you exactly?”
Sir Dylan crossed his arms and said, “He is the mysterious and ever-elusive Guildmaster.”
Gomez let out a hardy chuckle that reminded Else of better times, but the guffaw died when he saw the blank expression on Opal’s face.
“Don’t tell me ya never heard of the Thief Guild!”
Opal shrugged. “Sorry.”
Gomez’s eyebrows nearly touched his hairline, which had been steadily receding for years. “What about you?” he demanded of the others.
Lilac shook her head and said, “Sorry…but you must forgive us. The three of us are relatively new to the island.”
But Mitto was still gaping at Gomez. “You can’t be serious!”
The merchant’s reaction seemed to placate Gomez. “The perfect disguise, no? Anyway, after the Renegades shut down the Guild, I had nothing but time on my hands, so I did what I could to keep abreast of their plans. Through a fair amount of eavesdropping and bribery, I learned that the rebels were going to invade Rydah with the help of a secret army. Of course, I never would’ve guessed they had made a pact with monsters!”
“The Renegades likely didn’t know they were dealing with goblins,” Sir Dylan added. “They can take human form, after all. And even if Rydah’s Renegade Leader wasn’t bewitched by a spell, he didn’t live long enough to regret the alliance.”
Gomez cleared his throat dramatically. “The truth is, we don’t know how the goblins got the Renegades to open the gates for them, but each and every rebel received the same reward…a swift and brutal death.
“But getting back to the story, my boys and I followed the Renegades through a maze of underground passages…some of the very tunnels the Guild was wont to use…but when we saw the goblins kill the rebels, we held back. I should’ve run. If I had, I’d likely be in Kraken now, nursing a mug of mulled wine.”
“So why didn’t you?” Opal asked.
The old man seemed taken aback by her query. He blinked, as though trying to find his bearings, and then resumed his account—and his favorite accent, Else noted.
“I dunno. Curiosity, maybe? Or maybe I’m just a suicidal ol’ fool. M’boys an’ I followed the goblins all the way to the keep, where they stormed Lord Minus and his men. I lost many friends in the fray, but we managed to save Else and Lady Corrine. But the Lord of Capricon wasn’t so lucky.”
Else closed her eyes, unable to stem the tide of tears any longer. She was grateful to have been unconscious when the kindly lord met his fate. She had learned of Magnes Minus’s death from his widowed wife.
Thinking of how Corrine must have felt upon leaving the body of her beloved husband behind made Else’s heart break. Lord Minus was dead, and there was no sign of Bryant Walden. According to Mitto, Baxter was lost too. The senseless tribulation was just too terrible to contemplate.
She must have started crying for she was suddenly aware of someone’s arms around her. Whenever these fits had overtaken her in the past, Loony Gomez and Dylan Torc had given her a respectful berth. But right then, the proximity of another body alleviated some of her pain.
Burying her face in Mitto’s chest, she whispered, “What now? What now?” again and again.
Mitto swept his fingers through her hair. “I don’t know, Else, but we’ll figure it out together.”
Passage II
Seated in the middle of the floor of his room, his legs crossed and hands resting on his knees, Stannel willed all of the tension out of his body.
Keeping his eyes closed and his breathing steady, he focused first on one area and then another. Several minutes later, his entire body was relaxed. He felt lighter than air, as though his spirit might easily drift free of its corporeal shell.
In this state, the fine line between inner reflection and prayer became irrevocably blurred. He began by thanking the Great Protector for seeing him through the many trials of the day, including one particularly exhausting conversation with Lieutenant Petton. After reviewing his actions of that day and
evaluating them objectively, he allowed his thoughts to drift toward the same preoccupations that had haunted him for the past few days.
Stannel remembered those who had perished at the old Fort Valor, friends and comrades he would not see again in this life. He asked Pintor to assuage the invisible wounds that marred him and sought comfort in the knowledge that the Gods of Good would guide their souls to Paradise.
He would see them again when his own time came to die.
Next, he asked his heavenly patron for guidance and wisdom. He let go of any reservations he still harbored about accepting the command at new Fort Valor. Stannel had learned long ago that doubts were snares in the road to reason. One cannot change the past, he thought. One can only control his present and adjust his course to the future.
Stannel started at the sound of someone rapping on his door. He just stared at the door for a few seconds. When the knocking came again, he stretched out his legs, stood, and went to it. He was loath to abandon his meditation, but he was well acquainted with the unfortunate fact that his responsibilities as commander took precedent over his personal wellbeing.
He opened the door to find Sister Aric holding a tray of food.
“Am I interrupting?” she asked in a pleasant voice.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” he replied. “Please, come in.”
Ever since she had decided to stay on at the original Fort Valor, Aric had been Stannel’s confidant, one of his dearest friends. She might have guessed that she was intruding upon his meditating because she knew all about Stannel’s spiritual exercises.
Moreover, Aric was just about the only other person who knew the full extent of his extraordinary relationship with the Great Protector.
“I brought you some supper,” she said, setting the tray on a bedside table.
Stannel saw that the meal was made up of a small portion of beef, a few raw vegetables, and a hunk of bread. The brass goblet that rested beside the plate was filled with water.