by Brandon Barr
After today’s events, her heart felt like it had that day when she healed the fisher. Sick with anger. Hungry to rid herself of a dark brooding desire for blood that churned in her soul.
For some unexplainable reason, she sensed the man sitting before her could help her achieve this goal.
“Why do you want to help us?” she asked the dark-haired outsider.
Daeken’s jaw tightened. “That is a long story, but to put it in a few words, I offer to help out of my own need. I lost the very thing that has come under attack in your land. Farms, friends, family. I’d wager that my community was very much like yours, and it was taken in a similar fashion by a mage and his forces.
The man paused, his face loosening only slightly before continuing, “I’ve wandered for months searching for pockets of civilization, and here I have finally found it. Your farmland feels very much like the land I left behind before it was destroyed.” Daeken’s eyes took on a grim light. “I come here seeking redemption, a second chance for me to do what I could not do for my own family and friends.”
Redemption?
Payetta breathed in the word like a familiar, pleasant scent and nodded. She recognized the motive that had brought Daeken to the Meadowlands, for it was the twin sister of her own driving motivation, vengeance. Both desperately longed for a second chance.
She looked at Daeken with fresh eyes, the reason behind his arriving here in the Meadowlands resonated in her bones. To defend what he had failed to protect in the past. He didn’t appear to be a man who bowed to fear but came to seek out his demons and grab them by the horns.
“If only there were more men here like you among the Meadowland farmers. We wouldn’t be in the situation we are in now.”
“Will your community not come together and fight?”
Payetta shook her head. “Not enough of them. There are ten of us in North Meadow who have banded together to protect the Meadowlands—that is the name we call the northern and southern portions of this valley. We from North Meadow call ourselves the Heroes Brigade. In the south, there is the Meadow Guard led by an idiot who’s likely now dead or trapped inside the walls of Hargstead. Besides our brigade of ten—” she stopped herself. “Nine now after today—there are no other resistors that I know of.”
Daeken’s brows drooped, shadowing his eyes. “You don’t believe the farmers will be eager to join the fight even now, after this attack?”
“They’ve refused in the past. I don’t expect their feeble knees to strengthen now. They’re likely already packing to run.” She glanced at Justen who stirred beside her. “It’s just the nine of us. And you. A man brave enough to join us.”
She glanced at the boy, who had She Grunts in his lap. Gently the small child stroked the fur of the animal’s back. The skunk was chirping like a bird and nuzzling the side of her snout up against Shepherd’s chin.
“You must gather the farmers,” said Daeken. “You and your Heroes Brigade are not enough to defeat a seasoned mage and such a large number of fighters. If you want the Meadowlands to survive, you need help.”
Payetta frowned. “I’ve wasted enough words on the farmers. They’re cowards without enough tail to tuck between their legs, if you know what I mean.”
Daeken almost cracked a smile, but then his face turned serious. “No man wants to lose what’s dear to him. I don’t believe you have a land full of cowards, only a land of humans with a genuine fear for life and loved ones. It is natural to want to flee and keep that which is precious to you safe. You must convince them that running away is not the path to safety.”
“I’m the last person you want talking to them,” growled Payetta. “I speak my mind and they’re not ones for straight talk.”
With a groan, Justen sat up beside her and gingerly probed his wound with his fingers. “Trust her when she says she shouldn’t talk to them,” put in Justen. “The Heroes Brigade has practically banned her from it.”
“We need them,” said Daeken firmly. “Surely some of you in the Heroes Brigade can speak to their fears. Turn their terror into hope.”
Justen nodded. “We have to try. There are too many raiders, plus the mage himself…he is too powerful for us to face alone.”
Payetta ground her teeth at Justen’s words. “That’s not true!” she cried. “I can kill him. We almost did.”
“Payetta,” called Justen softly, “We lost Kirk today. And he almost killed you. We need more men.”
She shook her head, the memory of the fight fresh in her mind. “I won’t make the same mistakes again. Next time I face him, I WILL kill him!”
Daeken squinted at her. “You are too valuable to die so foolishly. Your magic is a gift and your potential unexplored, I ask you not to waste your life.”
At Daeken’s words, Payetta’s face burned as if hot coals and numbing ice had been thrown on her skin. She didn’t know whether to lash out in anger, or receive the subtle praise hidden in his loaded words.
“I owe Titannus for more than just the friend he took today. He murdered my parents and Justen’s as well, before butchering my entire community.”
Daeken’s cool, steady eyes pierced her as they took in her words. “I understand your pain,” replied Daeken evenly. “I am not suggesting you deny your revenge, only to withhold it until you know you can get it.”
Justen squeezed Payetta’s hand and she shook her head. Her husband, she knew, was devouring Daeken’s words, for he had spoken similar things in the past. Asking her to guard her magic, fretting over her safety and pushing against her when she wanted to leap into action before he felt it was safe.
“I swear, Daeken, I don’t need another damned over-rational man in my life.” She glanced at Justen. “One is enough.”
Justen smiled at her, then his attention turned to Daeken. “If you’re willing to help us, I welcome you to come to the meeting we have planned at dawn tomorrow. We need to form a strategy, and I believe rallying the farmers is the only way we can win.”
Daeken bowed his head. “I will give my sword and my very life to protect your Meadowlands. In the words of my ancestor, Terry Henry Walton, we risk our lives so others may live in peace. I will risk the same for you and your community as my great-great-grandfather did for others, and I will do so as if you were my family and my friends.”
“I’ll take your sword. You keep your life,” Payetta said with a smile.
***
Daeken sat on a rock across from Shepherd. The boy was gazing up at the tops of the trees his eyes slightly furrowed but there was no indication of what the boy might be thinking.
A heaviness weighed on Daeken’s heart, for as much as he desired to keep the boy, he couldn’t…not at present at least. Right now, he needed to fight. If this valley he’d found could be spared the destruction that had ravished his own community, and if he survived to see it, then he might revisit this longing to raise the child.
“What do you see, Shepherd?” asked Daeken, gazing up to where the boy’s eyes were drawn.
When there came no response, Daeken reached down and picked up a rock from the ground. “Do you ever throw rocks, Shepherd? I want you to throw this rock? Show me how far you can toss it.”
Shepherd looked down at the rock. It was a relief to Daeken to again see that the boy could hear him and listen.
Daeken stretched his hand out and offered the rock to him. Shepherd scooped it up and inspected it.
“All right, toss it now.”
The boy pulled his arm back and flung it rather pathetically.
“Well, that’s a start at least,” said Daeken. “How did that feel?”
Shepherd looked at the ground, then bent and picked up another rock. He cupped it in one hand and probed it with a finger.
Daeken realized that whenever he asked the boy a question, he was all but ignored. But when he asked him to do something, the boy so far had responded to the command.
“All right, Shepherd, throw that rock farther than the last one.”
Shepherd didn’t have the look of a child who had a slow mind—quite the opposite in fact. The slow minded acted more childish, where as Shepherd seemed to wear an expression of almost infinite years. As if he had lived too long and experienced all possible emotions and was now somehow beyond such human things.
The boy reached back and threw the rock. It went a little farther than the first one.
Daeken smiled. “I’d ask you how that felt, but you don’t seem to want to answer me.”
Shepherd picked up another rock and began inspecting it.
Daeken sighed and gazed out through the trees in the direction of the farmland. Whether the boy was troubled in the mind, or unique in some yet undiscovered way, he knew he must find him a safe place to stay while he fought with the people of the valley.
War was no place for a child. If by good fortune he was to live to see the Meadowlands freed and find himself on his own farm, then he could think such thoughts of tilling the land again and raising a child. Even a different boy, like Shepherd.
The hope of such a future was powerful. More so than any other hope he could have imagined.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You could have gotten yourself killed, Justen!” fumed Payetta as she rubbed her hands over the wound that was now only a red fisted mark on his shoulder. The sunlight was waning through the cracks in the hideout, and she knew Daeken and the boy would be returning soon. “You should have stayed where we left you,” she continued. “I can take care of myself. I had Titannus, you have to trust me.”
Justen frowned up at her from where he lay. The shoulder wound was sealing up and the relief of pain was written on his face and heard in the steadiness of his voice. “That’s not what it looked like to me,” he replied. “What would you have done? He was about to cut your legs off and you looked weaker than I’ve ever seen you before.”
“I was fooling him,” she lied, unwilling to show weakness, lest she feed his overprotective fears. The last thing she needed was Justen reining her in when Titannus was in her grasp. “I was waiting for the last moment to spin away and then I had the roots of the field to bind his legs down.”
“All right, and then what?” pressed Justen. “I doubt the wheat roots would hold him long.”
“All I’m saying is he didn’t have me like everyone thinks. I can kill him, Justen, I swear it.”
She breathed out an angry lungful of air and stared out across the room. A long silence filled the time and her hot emotions cooled. The feel of Justen’s skin against her fingers soothed her. She smiled as her mood changed.
“You know what I want to do…I want to take a badger or a wolverine, something small but mean, and sneak up to him while he’s sleeping, crawl under his blankets and then rip his face off or chew out one of his eyes. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of. And if he thinks he’s got me scared, he better think again.”
Justen shook his head as he looked up at her with a slight grin. “You’re gross and I love you. You know who else I love?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“The new guy,” continued Justen. “He’s not afraid to say what’s on his mind and I happen to like what he’s got going on up there.”
“Besides him pretty much calling me a fool, I like him too. We need someone else with balls on our team.”
“And someone else with brains like me,” replied Justen with a wink.
Payetta’s lips twisted playfully. “You’ve got balls too, dear. Dare I ask who else you were implying having balls?”
“Probably best not to ask,” replied Justen looking up and away. “If they find out, they may remove mine.”
She bent over and whispered, “You’re mine tonight, hotass.” She slid her lips across his cheek, then brushed them across his mouth. Dipping down, she kissed him hard and slid beside him under the blanket. Her hand roved down to seize the thing her body desired when Daeken cleared his throat at the entrance.
“Shepherd’s ready for bed,” declared Daeken in a quiet voice.
Payetta turned. The darkness of twilight hid most of the man’s features. “You and the boy can sleep on the bear furs, if that’s all right?”
“Of course.”
Payetta waited patiently as the boy and Daeken settled down in the darkness of the hideout. Almost immediately Daeken began to snore after his head touched the bearskin. She rolled onto Justen, but he lay there limply.
“You better wake your beefy buttocks up,” she hissed quietly in his ear. “You think I healed you this much just so you can fight tomorrow?”
“I didn’t fall asleep” he mumbled. “I was just…closing my eyes…resting up, you know.”
She shook her head. “Good to hear,” she whispered back. “I was this close to removing your balls status.”
Justen started to say something further when she pressed a finger to his lips and laughed softly. After today, the laughter felt good, healing. She removed her finger and brushed her lips very softly against his.
She knew exactly how to shut him up.
***
“How many men and women are left?” growled Mayor Brundig.
Percy stared at the frazzled mayor hunkered over his dining room table. As dire as the situation was, he wasn’t keeping his head. If anyone was going to get them out of this mess, Percy knew it would have to be up to him. “We’ve thirty-two men and forty women. That’s not counting the children under twelve.”
“Why would you count children under twelve?!” cried Brundig. “I’d rather not count anyone under fifteen. They’re too young for this. Bodies strewn in the streets. The mage killing every man and woman he sees peering over the wall. We were completely unprepared for this, just like Payetta and Justen warned.”
Percy’s jaw clenched at the names. “They couldn’t do squat against this many men, Mayor. Clearly many of these raiders are Zarith’s men. Nothing we could have done would have helped against an army of this size.”
“Maybe we could have attacked Titannus’s fort last year!” roared Brundig, his eyes bloodshot. “Admit it, Percy, you and I had our heads in the sand on this one.”
Percy snorted and shook his head. “I’ll admit only that no one could have predicted this kind of attack.”
Percy bit his tongue. The mayor was losing it. All he’d done since the gates were closed yesterday was wallow in his ridiculous regrets. Percy would have none of it. He was determined to find a way to save his pride and withstand the siege. The only way he knew how was to find a way to kill the mage. If Titannus’s mayhem could be stopped, the bowman on the walls would have long enough to do some damage to the remaining forces.
As it was now, Titannus had sent half his army away south, and more into the woods. Percy had watched from the shadows of the bell tower, careful to remain out of sight. If he could find a way to strike while Titannus’s forces were so scattered, then an attack could be made on the remaining men. But first things first. The mage had to be killed.
“We’re doomed unless the Heroes Brigade can pull something off!” growled Mayor Brundig.
“I wouldn’t plan on seeing them again. For one, you banished them and disbanded the Brigade. And two, they wouldn’t stand a chance against this size army. You have to remember, all that crap they said about killing spies is likely embellishment or a complete lie. They’ve headed for the hills by now.”
Mayor Brundig set his face hard at the opposite wall, as if in a stare down. Percy noticed a picture of the mayor’s father was receiving the brunt of Brundig’s withering glare.
“For our sakes,” replied the mayor, “I hope you’re wrong about them.”
Percy sighed. “It’s a bitch being right all the time.”
<
br /> ***
Titannus strode restlessly outside Hargstead’s walls in the cool night air, the lights of a dozen torches dancing menacingly upon the thick brick and mortar barricade. The events of the day had left him in an unpleasant mood.
The gate into the little walled village had proven more difficult to knock down than he first anticipated. Now it appeared a lengthy siege was required. Hargstead was the pinch point between the North and South Meadows, lying at the northernmost point of South Meadow. It was, truly, the Meadowlanders only stronghold. This delay in overtaking could embolden the farmers. Make them feel as if they had a chance against him and his men.
This had forced him to send one-hundred men south to finish off the entire length of South Meadow. It was a risk of course, for it would take several days to capture the long length of the valley that comprised the lower half of South Meadow, but it was a chance he had to take. He had sent his remaining Elderhost with them to be his eyes, but had kept High Elderhost Jethri with him. These men acted as portals for his eyes, and at times, bodies for his inhabitation. He had trained with his two Elderhosts for years, gliding into their minds, and possessing their bodies so as to speak and act through them as if their flesh were his own. But his High Elderhost Jethri was special. Through him he had attained a higher amount of control—and could use the direct use of magic cast vicariously through the man without over tiring himself.
In truth, he could enter and possess any man if he locked eyes with them, but it was a very limited and risky act, for it took every ounce of energy he had to control them, where the minds of his trained Elderhosts required far less strain. But despite its limitations, he’d used it to great effect already on those Meadowlanders who had dared peek from their village walls.
Any he made eye contact with quickly learned their mistake.
There was one man he had spotted in his last four trips around the village but hadn’t been able to enter. This man stood in the shadowed window of Hargstead’s bell tower, his eyes covered in darkness. Titannus was sorely tempted to levitate up to the window and take control of the man, but it was a desperate move, and he was not yet at the point of such risk. Though the man’s eyes were hidden in the dark, the shadowed outline of a bow rested before him. Titannus would have to seize him fast, all the while thrusting his levitating body through the small window of the bell tower.