The Whispers of War [Wells End Chronicles Book 2]

by Robert Beers

  Fainnelle fainted into the Gaffer's arms. Ethan looked grim, and Adam was suddenly, disastrously sick. He couldn't prevent it from happening and it continued until there was nothing left but bile. In addition, he lost control of his shaping and the two skeletons clattered to the ground.

  The Gaffer laid Fainnelle gently to the floor, pillowing her head with a couple of bar towels. “I'll take care of that, iffn you don't mind Ethan. You tend to yer young friend.”

  Ethan nodded and wiped Adam's face with the damp towel he'd taken from the bar. “It's ok lad, nothing to be ashamed of. I almost lost it there myself. You have any idea what did that?”

  “Sorcery, it had to be Sorcery. Milward would never do anything like that. I know I couldn't.” Adam kept his eyes averted from what the gaffer was dragging across the pub floor.

  “Sorcery,” Ethan repeated the word and then he shook his head, “Well, I'm not going to dwell on something I know nothing about. Here, let me help you up.” He took hold of Adam under each arm and helped him to stand. “You alright?” His young friend still looked a bit green.

  “I'll be fine,” Adam held a hand against his stomach. A vile taste filled his mouth and the back of his throat felt like it had been scraped clean with a coarse brush.

  A soft moan drew their attention to Fainnelle. She stirred slightly and then raised a trembling hand to her forehead.

  Ethan dropped to a knee and helped her sit up. She recognized who was helping her and collapsed, sobbing into Ethan's arms. Unlike most men, when confronted with a crying woman, Ethan appeared completely comfortable with the situation. He let Fainnelle cry herself out as he sent Adam to fetch a small brandy.

  When the last drop had been drunk and the last tear dried, Fainnelle stood and brushed herself off, “I'm so sorry for that display, Ethan, Adam, you must think me as weak as water, breaking down like that.”

  “Not at all,” Ethan remonstrated.

  “Look at me,” Adam said with a self-effacing grin, “At least you didn't sick up all over your floor.”

  The Gaffer came back in wiping his hands on a rag, “Well, that's done.” No one needed to ask him what that was.

  After the floor was mopped, Adam and Ethan helped Fainnelle and the Gaffer finish putting the pub back in order. Ethan wiped his hands on his trousers after he pushed the last chair into place, “You can't stay here any more, you know that.”

  The Gaffer looked around the inside of the pub and then picked up a tankard and began polishing it. The vessel already gleamed. “Aye, I knows, I'm stayin’ anyroad.”

  “But...” Adam began, “Someone sent them and they are going to want to know why they're missing. At the very least there's going to be hard questions, probably from more of Mallien's Inquisitors.”

  “It won't be questions, Adam, it'll be worse. For all we know that bit of horror we witnessed came from Mallien's own hand. Bardoc knows the man's evil enough.” Ethan looked down at his feet and then back up at the Gaffer, “At least do me this favor, the first sign of trouble, you, Fainnelle, your daughter and any of the wenches that'll go along with you, duck into the tunnel and don't look back. Ok?”

  The Gaffer didn't answer instead he picked another already clean tankard and started polishing it. Fainnelle looked at Ethan helplessly.

  “Ok?”

  “But ... this is our home, Ethan. I've lived here all me life. The only travelin’ I done was to market. What'll we do, an’ where would we go?” The Gaffer didn't look up from the tankard as he spoke.

  Fainnelle forced a smile, “Well, I suppose you two'll be wantin’ to be goin’ yourselves, won't you? You just give me a moment an’ I'll throw together some provisions for the road. Can't have the two men who saved our skins goin’ hungry now, can I?”

  Ethan took her by the arm, “Fainnelle, I'm serious about this. If you stay here, there is every chance you won't survive. All I'm asking is that you do something to protect yourselves. Is that too much to ask?” He released her arm.

  “We're worried, Fainnelle,” Adam said, gently, “And I think I know of a place where both you and the Gaffer would be welcome.”

  A small spark of hope appeared in the woman's eyes. The Gaffer looked up from the tankard. “Where?” Fainnelle asked.

  “A little village called Access, it's on the western slopes of Cloudhook Mountain.”

  “I've been there,” Ethan murmured, “It's a nice spot, good people.”

  “That's Thaylli's home, isn't it?” Fainnelle asked.

  “Hers, and mine,” Adam's eyes held a far off look.

  The Gaffer nodded, “Right, I'll think about it, leastways.”

  Ethan clapped the Gaffer on the shoulder, “That's all I'm asking.”

  “Right,” Fainnelle said, briskly, “I'll see to those provisions.” She disappeared into the back of the pub.

  The Gaffer put down the tankard and turned to face both Adam and Ethan. A slow smile spread across his deeply lined face, “I swear, I never seen swordplay like you two put together. Mind you, it kinda looked like them Churchmen was getting the best of you for a mite.”

  “That's exactly what was going on,” Ethan remarked, “If Adam hadn't come up with that strategy of his...”

  Adam shrugged, “You would have thought of it eventually.”

  “No, lad, I wouldn't have. That's the difference between us. One thing does puzzle me, though.”

  “What's that?” A queasy sensation built up in Adam's stomach.

  Ethan rubbed the left side of his mouth with his right forefinger, “I know the name of every single blademaster going back ten generations, but I've never heard of any one of them being a Church Inquisitor. Those two had us, fast and sure. It was all I could do in most of it to just keep my guts inside where they belong. Who trained them, and how did they get so fast?”

  “That's easy,” Adam said, relieved the question wasn't another one about him, “They weren't trained, at least not in the usual sense. You saw what they tried to do to us. They were Sorcerers, weak ones, to be sure, but Sorcerers nonetheless. They were using magik to improve their fighting, and when that failed, they tried to use it directly against us.”

  Ethan nodded, “That makes sense,” and then he flashed a brilliant smile, “They didn't plan on taking on a Wizard, though, did they?”

  The Gaffer chuckled, “Aye, that's fer sure.”

  Fainnelle's entrance forestalled any further discussion on Sorcerers and Wizards. The two parcels she handed Adam and Ethan were heavy with cheese, bread, and hard sausages.

  Adam hefted his, “Fainnelle, you don't have to do this.”

  She patted his cheek, “Hush boy, it's the least a body can do.” She stepped back until she was next to the Gaffer and then smiled at them both, “Now you two had best be goin’ afore any more trouble happens.”

  Ethan slung his parcel over his shoulder, “Remember what I said,” he pointed at the Pub's back door with his chin, “If there's any sign of trouble...”

  The Gaffer nodded as he walked over to the back door, “Aye, I know, we skeedaddle into the tunnel as if the pit itself was after us.” He held the door open for them.

  “Good,” Ethan said, “Because it might very well be.” He walked through the door.

  Adam glanced behind him as he followed Ethan into the kitchen. The Gaffer and Fainnelle were sharing a look of horror as they realized what Ethan had just said.

  Against the far back wall of the kitchen hung a cupboard door, a secret latch released the catches that caused the entire cupboard to swing outward revealing the stair to the cellar. Ethan was the first to the false wine keg that covered the tunnel entrance. He turned to look at Adam as he pulled the ancient door open, “There's no going back now, you know.”

  “I know,” Adam replied, “But everything I want is ahead of me.”

  Ethan stood there for a moment, studying Adam. After a few seconds Adam began to fidget, “What?”

  Ethan smiled, “It just struck me, you could be back, whether or n
ot you want to be.”

  “You're not going to harangue me all the way to Access with that prophecy nonsense, are you?”

  Ethan laughed all the way to the first curve.

  They settled down for the night after Ethan had made thoroughly sure that no rats scurried in and around the sewers. Adam thought briefly about teasing Ethan by spotting an imaginary rat, to pay him back for his prophecy joke, but decided it would only be funny for one of them. He remembered a saying Uncle Bal used to tell him, “A joke that can't be shared is no joke at all.”

  When they woke there was no sense of morning, but they breakfasted anyway. The ancient oil lamps that had lit their way when they first ventured into the tunnel system with Captain Bilardi gave off enough light to choose what cheese and sausage combination they desired from the provisions packed by Fainnelle.

  “That thing that happened with the Inquisitors,” Ethan began around a mouthful of bread, sausage and cheese, “You ever see anything like that before?”

  “Me losing my lunch didn't give you your answer?” Adam sliced off a thin piece of white cheese from one of the wax-coated bricks.

  Ethan waited for him to continue.

  “No, I've never seen anything like that before. I've never even heard of anything like that,” Adam took a bite of the cheese and followed it with a bite of the dark, sweet bread Fainnelle had added to his parcel. “Milward taught me a lot, and in all of what he said, I've been racking my brain trying to remember, I can't think of one thing that comes close to that type of magik.”

  “It was magik, then?

  Adam reached for his flask, “Of the worst kind. Like I said yesterday, it was Sorcery.”

  “And you're a Wizard, what's the difference?” Ethan reached for his own flask.

  “I'm not really sure. Milward told me a bit about Wizards, Sorcerers and Witches, but he just brushed over the Sorcerers and Witches. I think it has something to do with the way the shapings are formed. That magik didn't feel like Wizardry and a Witch uses potions, so it had to be Sorcery. One more thing, whoever, or whatever did that was powerful enough to do it at a distance.”

  “Why didn't they do it to us then? Those Churchmen were killed to keep them from talking, why not just shred us and be done with it?” Ethan waved a chunk of bread in the air.

  “I wondered about that myself, but I didn't want to say anything in front of the Gaffer or Fainnelle. You scared them enough with your parting reference to the Pit.”

  “Good, I wanted to.” Ethan bit into a large chunk of sausage. “You were saying ... about wondering...”

  “...Why we weren't ... shredded too?” Adam finished for him. “There's a couple of reasons, one,” Adam held up a finger, “As powerful as that magik appeared to be, the Sorcerer doing the shaping most likely exhausted themselves by doing it. I've done that a couple of times. You were witness to one.”

  Ethan nodded.

  “Two,” Adam added a second finger to the first, “And I'm hoping this is the reason, Milward once said that certain types of magik need a focus, something they can be drawn to, or sent through, such as a staff, a ring, or an amulet. In the case of Sorcery, the shaper has a part of the victim with them. It can be a little as a paring from a fingernail.”

  Ethan went white, “That means none of us are safe, there's bits of me spread all over the place.”

  “Only if you've given the Sorcerer permission to use it, that type of magik requires it. I don't know what the ceremony is, Milward wouldn't tell me. The fact that you and I are still in one piece says something at least.”

  “Amen to that,” Ethan murmured.

  They packed up the remnants of their breakfast and continued on into the tunnels. After passing over the second bridge, Adam's Wizard sense suddenly flared into full alert. Pulling Ethan against the wall, he held up a finger before his lips, signaling silence. Ethan nodded his understanding.

  Adam slid quietly back along the right hand tunnel wall, listening with both his ears and his sense. Ethan followed with his sword in his hand. They stopped just before the intersection of the tunnel and a sewer. The sounds of murmured conversation and splashing came faintly out of the sewer entrance.

  Ethan whispered, his mouth nearly pressing against Adam's ear, “Sounds like a good sized party. You think Mallien's already found us?”

  Adam sent his Wizard sense into the sewer. Contrary to Ethan's estimate, his sense told him only four bodies of widely varying sizes walked the sewer, but one of them had power, a lot of it. He held up his hand with four fingers extended and waved it in front of Ethan's face. Then he jerked his thumb back in the direction they came from. The man nodded again and started sliding back along the tunnel wall away from the sewer mouth.

  The voices grew louder, one of them sounded like a child's. Ethan cocked his head and raised a questioning eyebrow at Adam. Adam shrugged. The sense of power was still there, but undefined.

  A large shape stepped out of the sewer and straightened. A giant, Adam thought.

  As the giant figure stretched its arms and rolled its shoulders, obviously enjoying the extra room, another one exited the sewer. This one was tall, but nowhere near the size of the giant and rail thin. It looked back into the sewer and beckoned. Two more figures came into the dim light, one small and one that had to be female.

  The thin one turned its head and looked down the tunnel the way Adam and Ethan had come. It said something unintelligible and then turned its head the other way. The eyes widened, showing their whites clearly in the flickering lamplight, “We got company! Get behind Flynn an’ me, Charity.”

  “Charity?” The sound of his sister's name thudded through Adam like a hammer blow. He stepped away from the tunnel wall and into the light, “Charity?”

  The female figure pushed between the thin one and the giant. She held an unstrung bow in her left hand. “Hello Adam, how have you been?”

  End, Whispers of War

  About The Author

  Robert Beers

  I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, many of the landscapes I describe in The Promised Ones can be found there. I attended Humboldt State University as an art student and for a number of years maintained an active studio in Eureka California, a small port city in the heart of the redwoods. My wife and I currently live in the Southwest where I work as a computer graphics expert. In my spare time I play guitar, paint and, of course, write.

  The Wells End Chronicles, of which The Promised Ones is only the first book, grew out of a graphic novel I was asked to create. When the outline alone reached 45 pages I knew it was time to just start typing.

  Two writers in the sci-fi/fantasy field who have earned my undying respect and admiration have given me a lot of support and a couple of quotes on what they thought of the first book.

  “A rip-roaring action adventure that never stops” L.E.M.

  “He avoids clichés, but when one has to be included he punches it in the nose.” J.LeV

  You can keep track of Robert's books at his author page:

  www.writers-exchange.com/epublishing/robert.htm

  OTHER BOOKS AVAILABLE THROUGH WRITERS EXCHANGE:

  THE WELLS END CHRONICLES

  BOOK 1: THE PROMISED ONES

  Good fantasy pulls you in and immerses the reader within its world. For those fantasy lovers who have cut their teeth on the writings of Tolkein, Brooks, Eddings, Jordon and Goodkind, The Wells End Chronicles offers an exciting ride. The first volume of this epic series, The Promised Ones introduces the reader to Milward, the last Wizard, and the scions of the house of Labad, whom it is his duty to protect.

  In the distant past the Empire was torn apart by war. Now, individual fiefdoms live together in an uneasy truce. Gilgafed, the Sorcerer, has plans for that truce, and the Promised Ones.

  If you like epic fantasy, grab a copy of the Promised Ones and dive in.

  Available in pdf, html, rtf, microsoft reader—Download and CD

  Similar books to the Wells End Chronicles woul
d include John DeChancie's Castle Perilous series, L.E. Modesitt's Recluce novels, David and Lynn Eddings Belgareth novels, and Terry Pratchet's Disc World books.

  Available from www.writers-exchange.com/epublishing/robert-book1.htm

  * * *

  Visit www.writers-exchange.com/epublishing/ for information on additional titles by this and other authors.