by Megg Jensen
“Stay.” Bastian pleaded with them. He gripped Lukas’ shoulder even tighter. The boy’s strength fed his own conviction.
Whispers spread through the crowd. Finally. They were seeing Bastian’s pleading made sense.
“But if we stay, we will continue to be exposed to the disease.” A woman stepped forward. She clutched a child in her arms. “Even a day can make the difference between life and death.” She moved in a slow circle, giving everyone a chance to see her face. “I vote we leave. Cowardice has kept us trapped here our whole lives.”
Bastian looked to Udor. He’d been oddly silent the whole time. When Bastian, Tressa, and Connor left, he’d been the most vocal. Now he didn’t utter a word.
“Udor, what do you think of all this?” Bastian asked. He knew he was taking a risk. The townspeople trusted Udor’s word, despite his selfish motives and lying heart. Few ever stood up to him.
Udor rubbed the tip of his gray beard. “I want to speak with you in private, Bastian. Will you allow us this?” he asked the crowd.
Knowing they really didn’t have a choice, the people parted, forming a path to the front door of the town hall. Bastian followed him in. Tressa had told him what took place in here right after her great grandmother died. Bastian’s fists trembled as he fought the urge to punch Udor.
Before the door could close all the way, Udor asked, “Where is Tressa?”
Bastian sighed and leaned up against the wooden wall. “I don’t know.” Lying wouldn’t do him any good. If Udor had any hand in helping him find Tressa, Bastian would give over his very life. “She entered the fog hours before I did. I didn’t find her in there.”
“And your wife?”
“Don’t you already know her fate?” Bastian had a hard time believing the news hadn’t made it to the leader of the town yet.
“I want to hear it from you.”
“She’s dead. Eaten by a beast.”
“Did you try to save her?”
Bastian sat down at the table. “As much as I could have tried. I couldn’t see her. When the beast attacked, I chose to save Farah instead.”
Udor nodded. “If it had been Tressa instead of Farah?”
Bastian wrung his hands together. “I’m glad I didn’t have to make that choice.”
“It’s as I suspected, then. You do love her.”
Bastian’s eyes narrowed. He stood up, letting the chair clatter to the floor. “That is none of your business.”
“But it is, especially if she feels the same about you.”
“I don’t speak for Tressa.” Bastian was growing more irritated by the second. Udor had no right to ask him such personal questions.
“Once you make them aware of the dangers in the fog, will you follow them in or stay here and wait for Tressa?”
“I’m heading back into the fog to find her.” Bastian hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. But he knew when he spoke the words that he couldn’t sit idly by in the village while others went out there. He had to find her and make sure she was safe.
Udor slapped Bastian on the back. “Then I will stay. So if she arrives here while you’re out there, I can keep her safe for you.”
Bastian knew the implied threat. Still, it didn’t make sense. “Aren’t you afraid of the plague?”
Udor paced the room. “I should be, shouldn’t I? You haven’t seen the dead. Did your uncle tell you how many have passed?”
Bastian shook his head. They hadn’t had time to delve into the affairs of the village. He’d fallen asleep before he could learn much from Adam.
“About a dozen. It’s not many, considering the size of our village, but it’s enough to send people into a frenzy.” Udor stopped in front of a window. With a finger, he pushed back the curtain. Bastian could see the people outside. They milled around aimlessly. Arguing. No clear leader or consensus among them. “It is always this way. There are too many of them who want out. The plague has only provided them with a good excuse to leave. It’s what they want, you know. To leave.”
“And you have never wanted to leave.” Bastian knew the truth of it. Not once did he believe it a coincidence that Udor hadn’t ever been chosen to enter the fog.
“I love this town. And you know now, just as well as I do, that there are things out there that want to kill us.”
Bastian drummed his fingers on the table. “What things are you referring to?”
Udor rushed at Bastian and grabbed his red hair, scrunching it in his fingers like a wet cloth he wanted to wring dry. He twisted his wrist to the side. Bastian’s neck yanked down, his ear nearly touching shoulder. “The dragons. They’re coming.”
“Let me go or I swear I’ll drive your head into the wall and let it hang there like one of your trophies.”
Udor released his grip. Bastian stretched his neck from one side to the other, loosening up his muscles. He wouldn’t be caught unaware again.
“What do you mean, the dragons are coming?”
“You saw the one that landed here before you left. Have you seen more?” Udor’s eyes were wide and dilated. Almost as if he had smoked the tall grass on the edge of the pasture.
Bastian thought of the claws raking across Connor’s body as it disappeared into the door. Tressa swore it was a dragon like the one that had landed injured in Hutton’s Bridge. He knew the truth, though. The woman in the tree had injured the dragon, forcing it to make an unexpected landing. Or maybe it had meant to penetrate their town in the first place.
“No,” Bastian said. It wasn’t an outright lie. It had only been Tressa’s opinion. He couldn’t verify it then and certainly not now.
Udor hurried over to the enclosed bookcase where the village kept their most prized books. Riffling through the pages with a careful, but shaky, hand, Udor found the page he was looking for. His fat forefinger rested on a picture. He tapped it twice, uncaring that the gold leaf flaked off. “Dragon.” He pointed outside where the beast had landed the day Bastian left. “Dragons. There are more.”
Bastian knew there were. At least one. He hoped that was all.
“The history books tell of dragonlords. Men who ruled the dragons and therefore ruled the kingdom.” He sat down in the nearest chair.
“Tell me more,” Bastian said.
“Before the fog fell upon us, there were five dragonlords. One hailed from the north, two from the west, one to the south, and our own dragonlord on the Blue Throne. The peace was maintained until the Black Dragon in the south attacked his own people.” The old man scratched his beard, picked out a nit, and flicked it to the floor. “The other dragonlords debated attacking. They met at the town nearest to all of their borders – Hutton’s Bridge.”
Bastian’s eyebrows rose. He thought he’d heard all of the stories. Not this one. Not even a whisper.
“At the meeting, they decided to attack the Black. Show him that he couldn’t hurt his own people without facing retribution. Hutton’s Bridge was to be their main outpost for the war.”
The old man pushed the book in front of Bastian. He didn’t know how to read, but the pictures made it all obvious to him. “Why hasn’t anyone ever talked about this?”
“Sophia was the only one who knew. We found this book hidden in her cottage after the three of you left.”
“You went through Tressa’s things?”
Udor sighed. “Bastian. No one ever comes back. The resources must be divided up amongst the rest of the villagers. It’s never been any different. Why should we have suspected you’d show up half-dead last night?”
He wanted to insist that he, Tressa, and Connor were different. That everyone should have known they’d return. He knew the truth as well as anyone else. They weren’t special. They were dead the moment they disappeared into the fog.
“If we leave and find a way to destroy the fog, it’ll re-ignite a war, placing us right at the center. Is that what you want, Bastian?”
He didn’t respond. He was too distracted by the image in the upper right corner.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Bastian puzzled over how to respond to the picture. He knew exactly what the drawing represented. The woman in the tree. What he didn’t know until that moment was that she wasn’t alone. If the drawing could be believed, there were three of them placed at the edge of the fog. Their protectors or their captors? Bastian wasn’t sure.
Even more disturbing was Sophia’s involvement. How much did she know? What hadn’t she told them?
“What else do you know?”
Udor shook his head. “The story ends there.”
Bastian ran a finger along the inner spine of the book. “It doesn’t end there. The pages are missing. Someone tore them out.”
Udor grunted. “I’m sure it was Sophia. She was one of the few who could read. Carrac, myself, and only a couple of others. She was hiding something from us.”
The door opened. Both Bastian and Udor tensed until they saw it was Carrac. The oldest person in the village since Sophia’s death, he was also on the council of elders.
“He knows,” Udor said with a wave of his hand. He filled Carrac in on what they’d been discussing.
“Sending people into the fog was her idea,” Carrac reminded Udor. “She was trying to get people out.”
Udor’s fist slammed into the table. “Then why didn’t she prepare anyone properly?”
“Excuse me,” Bastian said, his eyes locked on Udor, “weren’t you just trying to send people out there yourself?”
“As if I could stop them.” Udor snorted and wiped his arm under his wet nostrils. “You think people here do as I say? Rubbish. They do as they please. They’ve lived in fear their whole lives, prisoners to this village. Guess what? None of them wanted to leave because it was idyllic. That damn Sophia used the fog to scare people into staying.”
“It was rare someone volunteered,” Carrac agreed. “They knew it was a death sentence.”
Bastian had difficulty believing Sophia could have been so vindictive. She’d never seemed anything but adoring and honest. She loved the village and her people.
“I’ve seen one of them.” Bastian rested his finger on the woman to the southeast. In the picture she had flowing, long blond hair. Big blue eyes. Full lips. She looked nothing like the woman he’d seen. Yet he knew it was her. Who else could it be? Age and time and some form of magic had ravaged her body. Wrinkles as deep as an endless chasm. Her ample breasts wasted away until they resembled empty wineskins, drained of every last drop.
“You have?” Udor questioned him.
For the first time, they were allies. Bastian didn’t like that one bit.
“Then you know how to defeat her?”
Bastian shook his head. “I don’t. She uses magic to keep anything from making its way into the fog. She killed a bird and then tried to kill me.”
“But you survived,” Carrac said.
“I was lucky. In fact, my survival since I stepped through the fog has been nothing but sheer luck. I could have died many times over. My innards should be spread across the forest floor.”
“You made it outside the fog, didn’t you?” Udor asked. “Why haven’t you told us any of that yet?”
“When have I had time?” Bastian retorted. “I just recovered over night. I came out this morning, begging for everyone to wait until I could spread word of what’s awaiting them out there. No one wanted to listen. Don’t get on me for not telling you everything.”
Udor sank down onto the bench across the table from Bastian. Udor’s eyes were bloodshot. Weary, even. “Then tell us your story. Don’t leave anything out.”
Carrac remained standing while Bastian relayed the events of the past few days. He told them as much as he could, leaving out the private liaisons between himself and Tressa. That was none of their business, even though he was quite sure Udor would have enjoyed a detailed retelling.
“Getting past the fog is only the start of our troubles,” Carrac said. He stroked his long white beard.
“Which is why I vote we stay,” Udor said. “If people want to go out there and get themselves killed, let them. Hutton’s Bridge should stay as it is. Leave the guardians in their place. Someone put them there for a reason.
“To hide us,” Bastian said.
“To protect us,” Udor countered.
“Truth lies in perception,” Carrac reminded them. “You,” he pointed to Bastian, “want to conquer the world. To you this is a prison. You,” he pointed to Udor, “are a content, fat, old man wanting to live out his days in peace. To you this is a haven.”
Neither Bastian nor Udor replied.
“You both have salient points,” Carrac continued. “But you need to realize your perceptions are only a product of your desires and experience. Had Udor been the one to leave the fog, he might feel differently about staying.”
Udor snorted in response.
“Bastian, did you always want to leave the fog?” Carrac asked.
“Yes.” It wasn’t entirely true. Until Tressa had been forcibly pulled away from him, he’d had no interest in leaving the village. Once he realized his life wasn’t his, he wanted nothing more than to start a new life somewhere else. But it overshadowed the bulk of his adult life and those opinions were the ones that mattered most.
“Both of you need to realize Hutton’s Bridge is at a crossroads. Neither of you can stop change, but you both have the ability to influence it. This is your mantle of power. Wield it wisely.”
Bastian felt the responsibility heavy on his shoulders as if he’d put on a heavy fur in the dead of winter. “I’m not the right person to represent any course of action. I simply wanted to speak my truth and let others decide for themselves. I can’t speak with authority. That was Connor’s job.”
“Sometimes leadership is thrust on those who are not ready for it. Few choose the responsibility.” Carrac glanced at Udor. “Some steal it for no reason than to advance their own desires.”
“I love this town,” Udor insisted.
Carrac held up a hand. “I know you do. However, that hasn’t stopped you from manipulating everyone into agreeing with your thoughts.”
“Everyone but Sophia.” Bastian interrupted them. “She was the only vocal detractor of yours.”
“And look at what she’d been hiding from us.” Udor shoved the book at Bastian.
He rested a hand on the old leather, stopping it from ramming into his chest. “We don’t know why she had the book and it’s too late to ask her.”
“She died too soon.” Udor grumbled, wringing his bear-like hands together.
“Too soon? Was there a choice?” Bastian stared the man down. “Do you have a story to tell us too?”
Udor stood up and stalked over to the window. “Of course not.”
Bastian leapt from the bench, grabbing Udor’s furry collar in his hand. “Do you have a story to tell us too?” He twisted his wrist, bringing Udor closer. Their noses were only inches apart, but this time Bastian had the upper hand.
“Now, now,” Carrac said, “Udor had nothing to do with Sophia’s death. ‘Twas a plague that killed her. It’s killing people in town. That is out of Udor’s hands.”
Bastian yanked Udor even closer. Their breath mingled. Udor’s moist and rank, Bastian’s hot and angry. “If I ever find out you did something to hurt Sophia, I will kill you.”
“You’re just a boy. You couldn’t kill a fly.” Udor’s words were brave, but the wavering in his tone told Bastian they were uncertain.
Bastian let him go. Udor shrugged and stood up straight.
“The blood on my blade is not my own.” Bastian unsheathed his sword. “Did you see it when I displayed it outside? Perhaps not. Maybe you’d like to examine it now?” He held it out for Udor to see, the tip only a hair’s breadth away from the delicate skin of Udor’s neck.
“Stop threatening me, boy. I have allies here who wouldn’t hesitate to kill you.”
Bastian’s upper lip curled and he bared his teeth. “After what I’ve seen, I f
ear no man. Let them try.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Ready for your first lesson?”
Leo bowed with a flourish. He was back to the way he’d been when Tressa first met him a few days ago. Bald, goatee, totally recognizable. Yet somehow he’d completely disguised himself the other night.
If he wouldn’t have called her chouchou, she wouldn’t have thought him the same man. So tall and proud now. Unlike when his back hunched over and his eyes glinted with terrible malice from within his hood.
Tressa reached up and touched his goatee. “How did you make it disappear? I’m quite sure you can’t grow hair that fast.”
He strode around the area in back Ira kept for garbage. They’d cleared it out the day before when he promised to teach her. The only stipulation was that her schooling would be done in private. No one knew his identity. He was known far and wide as The Entertainer. Some places he was The Swordsman. Others, The Man of Stealth and Romance. Tressa had giggled at that one.
She hadn’t felt so safe around a man since Adam. It was the way she wanted to feel around her father.
For only a moment her heart twinged. She hadn’t just left Bastian behind. She’d also abandoned the man who’d abandoned her. She just hadn’t counted on missing her father so much.
“Perhaps you noticed my face was darker inside the hood?”
Tressa nodded.
“Makeup. Mostly soot. I ground it into my goatee, making it blend in with the rest of my face. Look closely.” He gestured toward his chin.
Tressa squinted, not sure what she was supposed to be seeing.
“I keep it short. So short that it’s easy to hide. If I were to grow a long one like my brother, I wouldn’t be able to transform so easily. Not only does it provide me the protection of anonymity when I’m not in costume, it also makes it quite easy for me to shave if I need to escape a town quickly.
“Why would you need to escape? You’re an entertainer.”
“And you’re a barmaid. I think there are secrets neither of us are willing to divulge.”