Looking up into Othello’s eyes, she again found herself wondering about his motivation. What he said made sense, and anyway, Opal wasn’t likely to back down without a fight. But how could the man be so coldly logical when Opal’s life was at stake? Had she read too much into his behavior earlier?
Lilac knew one thing for certain—she wasn’t going to unravel the knot that was Othello Balsa anytime soon. Tearing her gaze away from the forester, she looked back at the clearing, where Opal had already covered a little more than half of the distance to the outer ring of tents.
“Where does she think she’s going?” Lilac asked.
She watched in helpless silence as Opal continued forward in a straight line. She found the woman’s destination a second later. There was a tent unlike the others. Not only was it larger than those around it, but also it was positioned a bit farther away from the rest. It seemed a likely place to begin the search for Colt, and yet there was no guarantee that was where he was being held.
“How can she be so sure?” Lilac asked.
While she didn’t expect a reply from Othello, she glanced back at him to see if maybe she could read his intentions.
To her complete astonishment, the forester was gone.
* * *
Ruben awoke with a start. He was aware of a dark shape hovering over him and a stinging sensation that caused his cheek to pulsate in time with his racing heartbeat. It took him a couple of seconds to put two and two together and realize that person crouched beside him must have slapped him in the face.
He also remembered Toemis and the knife.
Caught somewhere between a lying and sitting position, Ruben tried to drag himself away from danger, only to find his back up against a wall. At his sudden movement, the other person scrambled to his feet and hastily stepped back.
The two of them just stared at each other then. As his eyes adjusted to darkness, Ruben recognized the other man. It wasn’t Toemis—as he had initially feared—but Arthur, the young Renegade who had helped him back to the infirmary days ago.
He couldn’t guess why the boy was out of bed at such an hour. But Ruben wasn’t one to question good fortune on the rare occasions he found it.
His sigh of relief changed into a groan when he tried to stand. Without his fear to distract him, he was suddenly aware of the throbbing ache that originated from some point on his forehead. He gingerly explored the area until his fingers came upon a bulbous lump.
Conceding that matters certainly could have ended up worse—for instance, Toemis could have struck him with his the sharp end of his knife—Ruben thanked whatever god or goddess had guarded his life. Perhaps that same deity had sent Arthur to him.
“Could you help me up, friend?” he asked.
Arthur didn’t budge. At first, Ruben was confused by the boy’s apparent reluctance, but then he remembered his accursed disguise. Apparently, Arthur had exhausted all of his courage in the act of waking a sleeping wizard. Now the young Renegade looked as though he were on the verge of running away.
“Don’t go!” Ruben blurted.
The sudden command caused the boy to flinch.
“I mean, please don’t go,” Ruben said, keeping his tone as amiable as he could manage. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The boy’s expression revealed a plethora of skepticism.
Feeling more and more ridiculous by the moment, Ruben sighed and then uttered the confession he had been wrestling with for the past week and a half. “The truth is I couldn’t harm you even if I wanted to…which I don’t. I can’t hurt anyone, at least not with magic. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not a wizard.”
Arthur regarded him suspiciously. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know any magic,” Ruben explained. “It’s just a ruse. A farce. A disguise.”
Ruben tried to look as unthreatening as possible as the boy looked him up and down. Now hardly seemed like the time to go into why he had found it necessary to don the persona of a spell-caster. If Arthur didn’t know he was chatting with a former highwayman, now was not the time for enlightenment.
“I don’t believe you,” Arthur said.
Ruben looked up at the ceiling and laughed in exasperation. “Do you think I would have allowed a man who’s old enough to be my grandfather to get the better of me if I knew even a single spell?”
“Huh?”
“You don’t think I did this myself, do you?” Ruben demanded, pointing at the lump on his forehead. “It was Toemis! I happened upon him and his granddaughter while I was strolling along…I couldn’t sleep, you see…and, well, to make a long story short, I saw him open a secret passageway in the wall. And when he saw that I saw him, he came at me with a knife.”
As Arthur considered his story, Ruben took the opportunity to rise to his feet. His head still hurt, but at least the dizziness had receded. Arthur watched him but made no move to help.
Ruben had to admit his tale sounded unlikely at best. He was ready to surrender to the fact that the Renegade wasn’t going to believe anything he said, when he thought of another way.
“I can show you I’m telling the truth,” Ruben announced.
Groping at the wall behind the dilapidated tapestry, he searched for the trigger Toemis had used to open up the wall. After a few seconds, his fingers met an indentation. Within that grove was a metal handle of sorts. Ruben tugged at the lever, trying to move it in several different directions before yanking the thing upward.
The mechanism fell into place with a loud click, and the wall gave way. With moderate effort, he was able to push the stone portal wide open. He regarded his companion with a victorious smile.
But Arthur wasn’t even looking at him. Instead, he was staring at the revealed passageway, mouth agape. For a moment, neither of them said anything.
It occurred to Ruben he had no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious. How much of a lead might Toemis have? What was the old man up to anyway? Were he and his granddaughter in danger?
There was no way of knowing the answers to those questions, but he knew someone had to find out. And he was the only person who could catch Toemis now. There simply wasn’t though time to alert the Knights and provide them with a satisfying explanation.
As though to emphasize the need for haste, the wall began to slowly inch shut behind him.
Whatever the old man was planning, he had to be stopped.
“You’re a Renegade, right?” he asked.
The question must have taken Arthur by surprise because he paused before replying, “Well…yes…I guess so…”
That was good enough for Ruben. While Arthur was young, he was far more experienced than Ruben when it came to adventuring if even half of the stories he had heard about Klye’s band were true.
“I need your help, Arthur. I don’t know what Toemis is up to, but I’m damn sure it’s not good. Come on, we might be able to catch him.”
Ruben took the first step into the narrowing doorway. A glance back revealed Arthur standing exactly where he had been.
“Look,” Ruben said, “if you’re worried about the Knights… Toemis is a shifty character at best. The Knights will probably reward you if you help me bring him back. You might even get a pardon.”
Arthur didn’t move.
The wall was already halfway closed, and it showed no sign of stopping. “Think of the little girl!” Ruben shouted. “Gods only know what she’s been caught up in!”
Ruben took another step into the darkness so as not to avoid the slowly sliding wall. He could no longer see Arthur’s expression, but could tell the Renegade hadn’t budged.
His frustration getting the better of him, Ruben said, “Why am I wasting my breath? You’re a Renegade, a villain yourself. Honor among thieves and all that.”
Wrapping his anger around himself like a cloak—and pointedly ignoring the fact that he was a thief—Ruben turned his back to Arthur and started walking. He maintained a hurried pace despite the fact the passageway was pitc
h-black, hoping his indignation would outpace his fear.
Silently, he cursed Toemis and Arthur and, after a while, himself.
A moment later, a resounding thud echoed down the secret corridor, indicating that the wall had settled back into place. The unsettling sound made Ruben pause. The way back was now sealed shut. Standing alone in the darkness, he considered abandoning the foolish undertaking.
If he shouted loud enough, maybe Arthur would reopen the passageway. It would be a cowardly thing to do, but then again, Ruben was as much a hero as he was a wizard.
So what are you then? he demanded of himself.
And then Ruben knew this was something he absolutely had to do. He couldn’t take back all of the rotten things he had done in the past. He couldn’t undo the past few years living as a thief. But if he ever wanted to put the past behind him, he had to start behaving like the honorable man he wanted to be.
Feeling considerably less afraid, Ruben pressed onward. No matter where the tunnel might take him, at least he knew that, for once, he was doing the right thing.
* * *
Her heart thundering in her breast, Opal fixed her gaze straight ahead.
Not trusting herself to look away from her destination, she maintained a quick but controlled pace. She could almost feel the sharp, predatory eyes of the goblins boring into her. The temptation to break into an open run was nearly overwhelming.
With each step, she expected to hear the cry of alarm. She imagined the entire goblin army spilling out from between the pitched tents, surging forward to engulf her like a hungry, black tidal wave. For that matter, even a small delegation of goblins would make short work of her.
She didn’t have to look back to know her companions weren’t following her. She was alone, and her quiver was empty. While she did have Chrysaal-rûn, Opal knew next to nothing about how to wield a sword. By some miracle—or maybe dumb luck—she had managed to fend off the goblin sentries with the enchanted blade.
She had surprised herself at how natural and instinctive her movements had felt. It was like she had been swinging a sword all of her life.
Of course, her skills hadn’t surfaced in time to deflect the spearhead that grazed her belly. She was aware of the wound, though she might have expected it to hurt more than it did, considering the size of the red stain that had blossomed on the front of her shirt.
She wanted to brand Lilac a coward for hanging back, but as much as she disliked the Renegade, Opal knew that simply wasn’t true. Ever since the ambush that had separated them from Colt, Lilac and Othello both had faced the goblins with courage—even though they could have abandoned her at any time.
Opal couldn’t blame the Renegades for not following her plan. She didn’t quite understand it herself.
The only things she was certain about just then was where to find Colt and that she must rescue him. She didn’t know how she knew he was in that tent. She might have chalked it up to intuition, but she had never bought into that.
Yet it was more than hope, and something greater than faith propelled her forward with a power beyond what her injured body possessed alone. Tightly clutching the crystal sword’s hilt, Opal set aside logic and succumbed to the mysterious force.
She made it all the way to Colt’s tent without being spotted. She would have paid a goodly sum to see the look on Lilac’s face, but as it was, she didn’t even allow herself a private smile. It was far too premature to celebrate.
Even though she knew that Colt was inside the tent, she still had to eliminate whatever was keeping him there. And then there was the matter of getting away without getting killed in the process.
She glanced longingly at her crossbow, which hung from her belt. What she would have given for one bolt more! Biting her lip, Opal gripped Chrysaal-rûn with both hands and eased open the tent’s flaps with the tip of the transparent blade. Here goes nothing, she thought, stepping into the flimsy shelter.
She spotted Colt immediately. Despite the single, inadequate candle, which cast more shadows than light, she could clearly see he was in rough shape. His near-nakedness and the fact he was lying prone provided her with an unobstructed view of his many injuries, including a festering wound on one shoulder, dark cuts crisscrossing his legs and abdomen, and a black eye. He looked thinner, too.
But Colt wasn’t alone.
A goblin spun around and regarded her with a look of shock. The creature was one of the larger specimens she had seen. In its clawed hands, it carried a morbidly decorated staff.
For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other. Move! her mind screamed, and her body answered the call, letting out a yell and lunging for the monster. She thrust Chrysaal-rûn at the creature’s black heart and watched in awe as the tip of the blade homed in on the precise location she had been aiming for.
Gods above, she thought, I should have been a Knight!
She wasn’t at all concerned when the goblin brought his staff up to block. She had seen the crystal sword cleave through solid steel. What chance did a wooden stick have?
The two weapons met with a loud smack, but the skull-tipped staff did not break. Opal looked confusedly from the crystal sword to her opponent’s face, which was twisted in a savage smile. She pushed with all of her might, hoping pure desperation would fuel the sword’s magic—for surely it had failed to kick in—but the staff held strong.
Slowly, the goblin began driving Chrysaal-rûn back toward her.
Opal pulled back and swung again. Her second stroke was as graceful and polished as the first, seeking the goblin’s unguarded flank with supreme accuracy. But the monster deftly parried the stroke with its own weapon, sending her sword out wide. Chrysaal-rûn sliced cleanly through the top of the tent, but no harm had come to the skull-staff.
Before she was even aware of what she was doing, she came in low, aiming for her enemy’s knees. The goblin was ready for her. This time, after knocking the blade aside, the goblin came through with a kick to her bloodstained midsection.
She staggering back, grimacing against the pain boiling up from her earlier injury. It was enough to send her down to one knee, but she didn’t dare close her eyes, lest the dizzying pain rob her of her senses. Pushing the agony down to somewhere deep inside of her, Opal pulled herself back up to a standing position and squared off in a defensive stance she must have unwittingly learned from Colt.
But the goblin didn’t advance. The fiend remained standing where it had been, though now it leveled the skull-end of its staff at her. When she saw the monster’s lips moving, she realized the true danger.
As she swung the crystal sword in a wide arc, hoping to knock the staff out of the creature’s hand, Opal saw the skull’s eye sockets glow a deep red. There was no flash of light or explosion, but she didn’t need either of those things to know the goblin’s spell was finished.
Chrysaal-rûn hit an invisible wall. She reacted by pulling back. Or at least that is what she tried to do. The crystal sword was stuck fast, as though the air had solidified around the blade, trapping Chrysaal-rûn like a fish in a frozen pond. She decided to release the bewitched weapon and attack the goblin with her bare hands.
That was when she realized she couldn’t move at all—that it was her body, not the crystal sword, that was stuck.
* * *
Staring up at the hellish scenes, which his imagination continuously displayed on the tent’s canvas roof, Baxter was only vaguely aware of the goblin general’s comings and goings.
Lately, when the general spoke, he spoke to someone else, and the words were nothing but gibberish. He hardly noticed when the current conversation abruptly ended. His mind had already drifted far away from the here and now.
But the familiar noises that followed—the scuffling of feet, ricocheting weaponry, heavy breathing mixed with fervent grunts—reached a part of him that the madness had yet to consume. He recognized the sound of battle for what it was and, and along with that realization, came to understand that someone had f
inally come to challenge his captor.
He tried not to get his hopes up. If his expectations were dashed, he might lose his mind for good. Instead, he focused all of his senses on the battle, listening for clues as to which of the combatants was gaining the upper hand and using what limited view he had of the fight to guess his rescuer’s identity. Despite his efforts to remain detached, he couldn’t suppress his hope and joy when he caught sight of a magnificent blade tearing through the tent-top.
The skirmish was brief—woefully brief.
When he heard the general mutter the familiar words to a spell, he knew all was lost. The would-be hero was doomed to be paralyzed, just as he and the other prisoner had been. Baxter’s only chance of escaping the goblin camp had come and gone in the blink of an eye.
Despair blanketed his mind like a black cloud, and Baxter decided not fight back against the madness. He felt something change inside of him then. So sudden and so strange was the feeling that he feared—and hoped—it was death coming to claim him at last, but as nothing around him seemed to change, he was left to conclude it was just another hallucination.
In frustration, he let out a deep sigh…
…a sigh that held the answer to the mystery, the renewal of hope, and the key to his freedom.
Passage IX
Ruben had taken no more than a few steps before stopping again. This time, his hesitation was not due to fear, but rather the response to the single, disembodied word that resonated through the passageway from somewhere behind him.
“Hello?”
He recognized the voice as Arthur’s. The young Renegade had changed his mind and squeezed through the narrowing threshold at the last minute. Ruben didn’t know why he had decided to join him after all, but he didn’t dwell on it. He was thrilled to have the company.
“I’m over here, Arthur!”
It didn’t take the boy long to catch up, and when Ruben could make out his silhouette in the darkness, he added, “Glad you could make it.”
Williams, D M - Renegade Chronicles [Collection 1-3] Page 79