Hero Cast Trilogy Omnibus

by Adam Carter

  “Yes, sir.”

  The two men took a few steps from the prisoner, neither taking their eyes off him for more than a moment at a time. “We have to do this,” Valok said. “I know you don’t trust him, which is fine because I don’t trust him either. But we don’t have much choice here.”

  “We’re going to use him, don’t fret about that. I’m more concerned with his allies. He says he and Moya broke up a while ago, I want to know why. And what about Crenshaw? If Wren’s with Crenshaw, like he says, how does Moya fit into all of this? If they’ve split up, how are they all here together?”

  “He’s either lying, or there’s unfinished business between them.”

  Canlin noticed he was playing with something, absently turning it over in his hand. “What’s that?”

  “I took it off Asperathes after we subdued him. It’s an amulet belonging to a faerie clan. I thought he was using it to focus his magic, which is why I took it off him, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “So what do you think now, then?”

  “Now? Now I have no idea. I could ask him, but I wouldn’t trust his answer.”

  “So we travel with him, watch him, and kill him the instant he steps out of line.”

  Valok said nothing. It was not the most ideal of plans, but it was all they had to use. Once they found Wren, it would be a different matter, but until then they had no choice.

  “All right,” Canlin said as they returned to Asperathes. “You want Crenshaw, we want Captain Wren, so we’re going to work together to find them. We need your tracking skills, so we won’t betray you. And you won’t betray us because we have something of yours.”

  “My word?” Asperathes asked with a glint to his eye.

  “Your faerie amulet.”

  The apepkith’s humour disappeared. “Then you do indeed have a reason for me to work with you.”

  “Good,” Canlin said. “Up.” He sliced through some of Asperathes’s bonds, although a thick band of rope still surrounded the snake man’s waist, pinning his arms to his side. “That stays,” he said. “I don’t trust you that much.”

  “Then you are not a fool, Sergeant Canlin.”

  “Just tell me truthfully: is Wren dead.”

  “I cannot speak at all for Moya’s thoughts, although that she threw your captain into a pit suggests she does not much care whether she lives or dies but has decided to leave it up to fate.”

  “And Crenshaw?”

  “Crenshaw is a soldier. And do you know the role of a soldier?”

  “To enforce the peace.”

  “Enforce the peace?” Asperathes asked with a raised brow. “An ironic expression at best, an oxymoron at worst.”

  “You’re saying,” Valok said, “that Wren is safe with Crenshaw because he sees himself a protector?”

  “Crenshaw is many things, but he is a good man. To be honest, your Captain Wren could not be in safer hands.”

  Canlin had so many other questions, but the more time they spent talking to Asperathes, the more of the day was slipping away. For one thing, they were still in the ruins of the fortress when he had wanted to already be on their way.

  “I’m keeping you assigned to the prisoner,” he told Mannin. “He escapes, you hang. Do you understand me?”

  Mannin nodded, momentarily unable to find her voice.

  With a scowl, Canlin turned from the prisoner at last, having a regiment to run. He did not like what was happening, but control of the situation had been taken out of his hands.

  After ten years of hunting, this was not how he had assumed their confrontation would go.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  They were sitting in a tavern, drinking. When Wren had followed Crenshaw she had no idea where they were headed. Crenshaw had said he was looking for Asperathes, but seemed to have forgotten about that already. He did not even mention Moya, and Wren had no idea what was going on any more. They had been sitting in the tavern for the better part of an hour, during which time she had attempted to engage him in conversation, but he was proving uncommunicative. A while ago she had slipped away under the pretence of needing the toilet. Instead she had tried to find a soldier or someone sympathetic to the law, always keeping Crenshaw in sight. She had resorted to telling the barkeep to give her a subtle nod should he see any soldiers, for she did not trust him to be on her side when such a hero of the people was sitting at one of his tables.

  During her absence, Crenshaw had made no attempt to flee her company, which confused her even more. She sat back at his table, counting the empty tankards before him. “You do like to drink, Crenshaw.”

  “Alcohol’s about the only reliable thing in this world of ours, Wren.”

  “So you drink a lot?”

  “I do when other people pick up the tab. I got mugged, remember? I don’t have any money.”

  Wren bristled at this offhanded comment, but did not explode at him. “Moya dumped you.”

  Crenshaw looked up from his tankard, a flash of anger the only emotion he showed. “It turns out I never understood her.”

  “What happened?”

  “Why would I want to tell you about my life?”

  “Because I’m probably the one person in all this land who really knows you.”

  “You don’t get to play that card,” he said, taking another swig.

  “Damn it, Crenshaw, you’ve taken ten years of my life, the least you owe me is the truth.”

  He stopped, looked at her with a frown. “You want to talk about people stealing years of your life? You want that conversation with me?”

  Wren looked at him. The hero of the land, the outlaw saviour of the downtrodden and oppressed. Crenshaw was an old drunk without weapons or armour, which she now figured he’d lost long ago. He had been great once, and that was the man Wren had wanted to catch. This pale imitation made her sick to her stomach.

  “You didn’t even get mugged,” she said, “did you?”

  “Depends what you mean by mugged. I picked a fight with a couple of guys over a girl.” He frowned. “No, I picked a fight with a girl over a couple of guys. I can’t remember, I wasn’t sober.”

  “You got thrown down a pit by an unarmed village girl? The champion of the people, the man who assaulted Baroness Thade’s castle, the man I’ve been chasing all these years.”

  “Might have been the girl, like I said I don’t remember. She had a dog with her, it could have been her dog.”

  Wren’s head sank into her hands. “What happened to you, Crenshaw? What destroyed you? I mean, passing through villages I still hear all these wonderful stories about you. People die rather than give you up. Why?”

  “That’s mainly Asp. I still travel with him, I think. He always was a showman. Whatever he says to the crowds must work; just so long as I get free drink out of it I don’t pay that much attention.”

  Wren thought back to the people she had so recently burned, of the girl she had saved from death but who had suffered lifelong scarring from the flames. This was the man they had been willing to suffer for, the man who had captured the hearts of a nation.

  “Will you help me find Moya?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “You said you didn’t want revenge, but what about justice?”

  “Never said I didn’t want revenge, just never said I did.”

  “I’m not going to listen to your rambling drunken speeches, Crenshaw. You’re already under arrest, so now I only have to find your accomplices.”

  “Will you stop with all the work? I’m tired, Serita, tired of everything. You want to take me in? Fine, go for it. I’m fed up of wandering around the land anyway.”

  “Why did you never leave the baroness’s lands, out of interest? If you’re not interested in setting free the oppressed, why stay here?”

  “This is my home. This is where Maria and I were born, where we’re both going to die. Hell, maybe she already is dead. I wouldn’t recognise her now anyway. She could be in this bar, I could talk with her for ten
minutes and never know it was her.” He looked at her then, focused on her without the beer having any hold upon him. “I don’t care any more, Serita. Maybe it’s a good thing you’ve caught up with me. Maybe it just stops me having to run any more.”

  Wren could not understand how bad she felt. She had dreamed of this moment for so long and a part of her was debating on whether to let him go. But Crenshaw did not want to be let go; yet nor did he want to die. What he wanted, she could not say, but the key was Asperathes. Separated from the apepkith, Crenshaw had fallen into despair. It would have been a mercy to shoot the man there and then.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a quiet voice. “Whatever Moya did to you, I’m sorry. But it doesn’t change the fact you’re a murderer and I’m taking you in for your crimes.”

  “In the morning,” Crenshaw said. “In the morning you can do whatever you like. Right now I’m drinking.” So saying, he again raised his tankard. “Go get word to your soldiers, if you like. I’m not going anywhere.”

  A chill ran through her body. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Your trip to relieve yourself. You were trying to find a messenger to get word to your regiment.”

  Wren had been certain Crenshaw could not see her, yet the old drunk was, it seemed, still capable of surprising her.

  “Go on,” Crenshaw said. “Seriously, I’ll still be here.”

  Wren did not doubt him. There was such despondence to his tone, to his mien, that she felt even if she got lost in the town he would seek her out by morning. Rising, she left him at the table. As she passed the bar, she paused and fished out some coins. “Make sure he doesn’t leave,” she told the barman. As an afterthought she added a few more coins. “And keep him supplied with drink.”

  Stepping out into the cool evening air, Wren leaned against the wooden bar separating the tavern from the road and watched so many people moving through the streets. Some were laughing, others arguing, most were either chatting as they walked or simply minding their own business. Each had their own lives, their own hopes and dreams and loves. Serita Wren the woman had missed out on all of that because Captain Wren the soldier had been handed an impossible assignment. She did not often feel this way, would not allow herself the opportunity to give it any thought at all, but there were times, when she was alone, when she would wonder where her life had gone. Ten years ago she had held so much promise, and now she was old and washed-up. The only difference between her and Crenshaw was that she had not taken to drink. Yet.

  “Pleasant evening.”

  Wren continued to lean on the bar and said, “All depends on one’s perspective, I guess.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Captain, I’d say my perspective was pretty clear.”

  Wren started, her body straightening, her hand going for her weapon. With a flick of her hand, Moya held Wren firm with magical paralysis. A few heads turned their way from people exiting the bar, but all they could see were two women talking so no one stopped.

  “Better,” Moya said, taking Wren’s former place leaning on the bar. “Do you mind if I call you Serita? Crenshaw seems to have taken to doing so and you didn’t rebuke him for it.”

  “Yet you still call him Crenshaw? I thought you were lovers.”

  “Once upon a time, my dear.” She waved her hand and Wren could move again. Instead of reaching for her sword, Wren opted to hear the woman out.

  “Why did you throw me down the pit?”

  “So you’d meet Crenshaw. An interesting fellow, that one.”

  “Why do you want us together?”

  “Because you make such a cute couple and, believe me, he goes for younger women. Do you know why I left him, Serita?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I was using him and he came to the end of his usefulness. I remember when I first met him. I saw him in that cell and I thought to myself, there’s a man who could set me up in life. And he did, bless him.”

  “You want something.”

  “Do I?”

  “If you left him because his usefulness ended, you’d only come back for him because you decided there was something else he could do for you.”

  “Clever little soldier, aren’t you?”

  “And it involves me.”

  “Getting cleverer.”

  Wren tried to think of what it could be, but nothing came to mind. It all depended on what Moya wanted out of life. In all their years as hunter and prey, it had been Moya whom Wren had managed to find the least about.

  “You won’t be able to guess it,” Moya said.

  “So why show yourself to me now? What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to stay with Crenshaw. The man’s losing his way, but you can push him back on track.”

  “Your father was killed by the baroness,” Wren said. “Yes, I know something of you, Karina Moya. Not a lot, but enough to know you hate the baroness.”

  “My father, yes. Think what you will, Captain Wren, but my father is alive, so far as I know anyway.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I? Look into my eyes and tell me that again.”

  Wren forced herself to obey. Moya was such a despicable, dark woman that it pained Wren to look at her so closely. As she looked deep into her eyes, however, she could see something odd. It was not truth, but deception. There was something about the woman which was wrong, or at least something which was not quite right. Wren had never before seen that in a person and had no idea what it meant.

  “What are you?” she asked.

  Moya broke the stare. “I am more powerful than you could ever imagine. Beyond that, I’m none of your business. Now go back inside. Crenshaw needs you.”

  Wren found herself walking. She had not even meant to, but her feet were moving regardless. It was not until she was back inside that Wren realised she had entirely failed to notify Moya that she was under arrest.

  “You all right?” Crenshaw asked.

  Wren started: she had not even noticed she had made it all the way back to him. “No,” she said. “I … Crenshaw, we need to get back to my regiment.”

  “You that eager to see me dead?”

  “It’s not that. I …” And she stopped. To tell this broken man that she had just been confronted by his ex-lover would push him over the edge. If he thought Moya was watching him, even now spying on his degraded life, it would destroy him. She did not know why she cared so much about that. He was her prey: once she got him back to the castle he would be executed so why should she care about his mental well-being?

  Ten years a hunter, Captain Wren decided it was time she went back to being a human being.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “I’m just worried about them, that’s all.”

  “Then it can wait until morning,” Crenshaw said.

  Wren nodded and managed a small but humourless smile. It could wait until morning, yes. Beyond that she had no idea what would happen.

  CHAPTER NINE

  They had been marching for several hours and so far Asperathes had yet to betray them. Canlin took this as pretty much the only good thing that had thus far happened, since all they had done since resuming the march was follow all the arrows. Some were formed from twigs, others were blazed upon trees and others yet made of stones. After so many hours marching Canlin felt as though they were not getting anywhere at all.

  They were crossing an open plain when Canlin fell into step alongside Asperathes and Mannin. The apepkith’s bonds were still tight and Canlin fully intended to keep them that way until this was over.

  “I should tell you about that amulet,” Asperathes said in a conversational tone. Canlin could sense he was worried, that he had been waiting several hours to have this talk and had probably even rehearsed all his lines a thousand times in his head.

  “I don’t go in for magic,” Canlin said dismissively. “Valok can do what he likes with it, for all I care.”

  “That trinket is dangerous. It belonged to a faerie named Kastra. Moya took
it from his corpse …”

  “I said I didn’t care.”

  “… and I believe it has something to do with her sudden surge of power.”

  Now that did have Canlin interested and he entirely failed to hide it. “Go on.”

  “You didn’t know Moya before the attack on the castle. She was hardly what one would call meek, but she had little in the way of power. Energy projection, lightshows, yes, but nothing in the scheme of what she had afterwards.”

  “So you think she harnessed the power of the amulet.”

  “She visited an apothecary and, to cut a grisly story short, she destroyed half a town. Incinerated it. In the ashes I found that amulet, which I’ve kept all this time. She doesn’t know I retrieved it and it wouldn’t be a good idea to reveal it to her.”

  “If you’ve had the amulet all this time, how could it be helping her?”

  “She must have already drawn the energy from the thing, so it could well be worthless now. At least it was worthless with me. But someone like Valok could attempt to draw the magic from it. He could awaken something, maybe accidentally alert Moya that it still exists. That would be very bad.”

  Canlin had begun the conversation in full control, but was now wishing he had thought to tell Valok to be more careful with the amulet. Canlin was the first to admit he knew nothing of magic and would never tell Valok what was best with regards to magical objects they found. In this instance, however, it would not hurt to have offered the sorcerer some friendly advice.

  A cry came from the head of the army and Canlin grabbed Asperathes by the arm, running with him to see what the problem was. One of the soldiers seemed to have fallen down a hole: her torso was sticking out of the ground but there was no sign of anything below the waist. She had gone pale and her face was frozen in a silent scream, although since the initial helpless wail she had emitted no sound.

  Canlin resolved to instil some discipline in the woman just as soon as they returned to the castle in triumph. It would not do for Wren to learn her soldiers had become bawling children under Canlin’s command.