The Gray paladin was, by now, an expert at not quite meeting people’s gazes so they wouldn’t suffer those visions, but more and more he found himself wanting to hold Wein down and force him to stare into Birch’s eyes until the Violet paladin could stand it no longer. Then maybe Wein would cease his constant attentions.
But Birch kept a tight rein on these urges. There was nothing of God or the Prismatic Virtues in them, merely the disgruntled frustration of a mortal man. Birch’s temper was not normally so furious – at least it had not been prior to his journey through Hell.
James surprised Birch, though, and said, “I’m not talking about this little pissing contest the two of you have going. Not directly anyway. Whatever that is, up ‘til now I haven’t cared enough to step in. You’re both grown men and can handle yourselves, for the most part, but it’s turning into something more, and now is where it has to stop.”
“How do you mean, something more?” Birch asked. To his knowledge, it was still nothing more than a bizarre staring contest.
“I mean Wein is withdrawing from the others and talks more to himself than he does to us. I overheard him last night, and he’s got some pretty interesting suspicions about you, my friend.” James looked seriously at Birch, almost meeting his eyes. “They’re the sort of thing that no man should ever suspect about another, much less a paladin about one of his brothers. That’s what brought this to the fore of needing to be addressed.”
“What suspicions?” Birch asked darkly. He thought he knew where this was going, and if he was right, James was right to bring this to his attention.
“I heard him muttering that you were impure, and your cloak was a mark of shame. You’re really a demon come among us, and you’re using your will to subvert the rest of us to your evil causes. Things of that nature.”
James shook his head.
“I’ll be honest, Birch. I’m really worried about his sanity. Something’s happened to him to push him this far, and I’m worried that another push might just send him over the edge.”
Birch nodded grimly.
“What do you suggest?”
“I just don’t know,” James said sighing. “I didn’t have a chance to run it by Vander before I sent him ahead into town with Garet and Dennet to check on our transportation. Dennet said the captain was reliable and would be here, but I just want to be sure.”
Birch nodded. Dennet Stonefist was the other dwarf they’d picked up in Berilana and was a longtime friend to the Prismatic Order. While they made sure of their passage and refreshed their supplies, the remainder of the party would meet up with them when they made their way to the harbor.
Vander and James were close friends, dating back to their training together, and James was the acknowledged leader of their group. Even had the Prismatic Council not placed him in charge, James was the type that naturally rose to the top and assumed command, not because of an iron grip or domineering personality, but because he worked so well with others. People listened to him because he returned the favor and was fair in every decision he made. If there was a disagreement, James was there to smooth things out so that both sides were at least satisfied, if not happy, and the situation resolved. These traits suited him perfectly as a Yellow paladin, and he was acknowledged as one of the more successful mediators alive.
Still, like any good leader, James needed advisors and friends he could trust. Vander was first and foremost in his regard, but he was quickly coming to rely on Birch as a source of information and companionship. The Gray paladin was unique in more than just his situation, and he had an outlook on life that was far different from anyone else James had ever met. He didn’t know how much of this was due to his Hellish experiences ─ literally Hellish ─ but regardless, he knew Birch was a rock to be relied on no matter how strong a tempest might blow around them.
But as James well knew, it was more often the storm that raged within that was to be feared than that which thundered without, and that was why he was now trying to keep a lid on things between Wein and Birch. A rivalry in the group was the last thing he needed, given the insanely perilous nature of their jintaal.
“Well, we’ll talk it over with Vander when we board the ship,” Birch said after a moment’s thought. “I’ll back off from Wein whenever I can, but I can’t say anything for his part in this. Maybe it’ll be enough.”
“Good enough,” James said, then whistled for the others to follow him down the road and into town.
James would never know, until it was too late, how close his thoughts about the storm were to the truth. Not only the storm brewing between the two men, but also the tempest that broiled within one of them.
- 3 -
Danner and the others followed the stream for a day and a half before they reached a small trail carved through the dense forest like a tunnel through stone. It was obvious that wagons and other vehicles used the trail regularly, but Danner was betting that they would see no one. The paladins would surely arrange for no outside interference in their training session. The six trainees followed the track, climbing steadily until Garnet was able to get a good look at their surroundings. He confirmed that they were heading the right direction, and after only a moment’s discussion they decided to stay on the track as long as it took them the direction they wanted to go.
Danner was recovered from his ordeal at the stream, but so far he’d spoken little about it. He told the others what little he could about the incident, that he’d somehow known it was more than just a hunting cat and how he’d threatened it with destruction. They had known immediately that he had been bluffing, and all of them but Flasch had strong words for him that all said the same thing: “What if your bluff had been called?”
Six against one or not, the odds were that the demon could have slain them all and used their bones to pick its teeth. Danner sensed something else had been at work, something that had given the demon pause. From what Garnet had learned from his father, only a true paladin, a soldier of faith, could actually destroy a demon, unless it was a particularly weak one.
But Danner had felt the strength and evilness of this one, and knew it was no mere lesser demon left over in the world. That he did not tell the others. Danner was almost sure the demon had been one of The Three, but again he wasn’t sure how he knew that. Maybe it was just because he’d already encountered one of them before, but even that didn’t feel right. It just seemed to be instinctive, like his ill feeling when the demon had first appeared by the water. He didn’t understand how, but he was determined to find out.
Despite his plagued thoughts, Danner was upbeat during their journey and so didn’t slow them down by moping around. It was late in the fourth day when they found the paladin camp nestled snugly in the saddle of two steep hills. Lookouts on the closer of the two hills spotted the six of them coming in before they’d set eyes on the camp, and a welcoming party was waiting for them.
“Congratulations, trainees,” a red-headed Green paladin said. “You’re not the first group back, but the others were all dropped off before you. You made it back in less time overall, so for now you can congratulate yourselves.”
Danner and the others broke into foolish grins that they quickly wiped away when they saw Morningham striding briskly toward them.
“The six of you in? And no one tagging along behind?” he demanded harshly.
“No one the lookouts have reported, sir,” the Green answered for them, saluting. “So far, this group has the best time.”
Morningham grunted, his eyes scanning their faces.
“de’Valderat, huh? And you others, thick as flies on a denarae’s ass, you all are,” he said. Danner felt Trebor stiffen slightly at his side.
“We’ll have to see how well you lot do without each other to lean on,” Morningham was saying. “Wouldn’t that be a shock, to discover one of you is just leeching off the others for protection to make it through.”
Morningham glanced briefly at Danner, just quickly enough to border on insult, b
ut nothing overt. Now it was Trebor’s turn to send a mental message to Danner to calm him down as he bridled at the other’s implied insult.
“What’s he got against me anyway?” Danner asked. “No, that wasn’t a request to go snooping, but I’d sure like to know what bug crawled up his ass and got stuck there.”
Trebor snorted at his side.
“Something funny, Dok?” Morningham demanded.
“No, sir,” Trebor replied crisply. To cover himself, Trebor faked suppressing a sneeze, then returned to a rock-like position of attention.
“Get yourself to a Green to check for sickness,” Morningham barked. “I’ll not have you infecting this camp with some bug you caught in the woods.”
“I’ll take care of it, sir,” the Green paladin said. Morningham nodded and spun on his heel. As the Red paladin stalked away, Danner started to laugh but quickly turned it into a coughing fit.
“My, my, it seems the lot of you might need some looking after,” the Green said, his eyes twinkling. He might not know what was behind their mirth, but he recognized their actions for what they were and would say nothing. For appearances, he guided them to a tent marked with the Tricrus in green stitching.
When they had rested and were pronounced “cured,” the paladin escorted them to where they would camp and turned away. Before he left, he patted Danner on the shoulder and murmured in his ear, “Good job, de’Valderat. Your uncle would be proud.”
Danner was too stunned to reply. Then the paladin was gone, lost amid the chaos of three groups of incoming trainees.
Chapter 24
Lust cannot replace love… but at least you’ll have some fun while you wait for the real thing to come around.
- Nuse Rojena,
“From the Streets” (981 AM)
- 1 -
Their training in the mountains lasted the rest of the week, and by the end, Danner was more than ready to get back to a lower altitude. He hadn’t noticed it on the way up, but the air was much cooler where they were camped. That factor, combined with a rainstorm that blew in from nowhere and threatened to drown them, made for a fairly miserable week, at least as far as their environment went. The last of the trainees were dragged in on Penday, two days after Danner’s group, and no one was surprised to see Jorgins among them.
Danner never again saw the Green paladin who’d helped them that first day in camp, and he was too tired to do more than ask the vaguest of questions from other paladins in an attempt to find the Green. The trainees were worked from before dawn until well after the sun had gone down, then they were allowed a brief period of sleep, broken up by a rotating watch schedule of course, before they were roused from bed to start the whole process anew.
They learned how to set and recover traps, track wild life, build fires, craft rudimentary weapons and tools, trap moisture to drink, identify edible and hazardous flora, and a host of other skills their instructors drilled into their skulls at breakneck speed. They were quizzed every few hours on all manner of skills, not just on what they had before them, which forced them to manage and internalize the vast array of information being forced down their throats.
The fifth ─ and what turned out to be the last ─ night after Danner and his friends arrived there was another land-navigation exercise, which took place without even the light of the moons to help them. Sin was nearly half-visible and San was full, but what should have been ample illumination was obscured by the thick storm clouds overhead.
Garnet and Michael stood guard outside their tent shortly before they left to give Trebor enough time to reapply the oil to his skin. He was in no danger of losing the artificial pigmentation, but he preferred not to take chances by stretching it past San’s full phase. There was not, as Marc had finally inquired, some mystical deadline based on the moon’s influence, it was just a handy way for Trebor to remember how often he had to reapply the oil to prevent it from wearing off at an inopportune time due to carelessness. Shortly after he finished, their instructors ordered them to assemble their gear for the exercise.
Danner and the others managed to assemble in the woods, thanks to Trebor’s ability to locate people he was in contact with, and they once again scored at the top of their class. It was quickly becoming apparent that the six of them were well-matched and almost unbeatable together, something the other trainees took heart from even as they grumbled about it. Seeing them excel drove some of the others to greater heights, and Michael was sure to let the other trainees know that extra help and assistance was always available. They stinted no one who came to them honestly for help, and Trebor was able to pick out the ones who were more malicious than they were solicitous.
One such group was led by Ashfen, who made a great show of bowing before their superior ability even as he probed them for secrets and hints of how they were doing it. He was sure there must be some trick they had, some hidden knowledge they kept to themselves that allowed them to be always one step ahead of their peers. He was technically correct, because of Trebor, but since Danner and the others had sworn off using him to gain an unfair advantage, they instead relied on their own foresight to see them through the week in the mountains.
Not a night went by when they didn’t prepare their gear in the event of a rude awakening like they’d had at the start of their little camping trip. They stayed close together whenever possible and even traded watch duties with other trainees so at least two of them stayed up with each other. Camaraderie and quick thinking were the order of the day, and a few others even managed to pick this up from them.
Ashfen, of course, found no hidden secrets and left frustrated, still convinced they were hiding something from him. Trebor picked up the beginnings of a retaliatory prank in Ashfen’s mind and quickly informed the group. When Ashfen and a handful of others came that night to soil the outsides of their two tents, Trebor sent a quick mental warning and Danner suddenly felt the urge to go get a mug of water.
Danner emerged, apparently sleepy-eyed and completely oblivious to the darting glances of the half-dozen trainees he had to wade through to reach the water barrel. He slowly sipped his water while making polite conversation with Ashfen and a pimple-faced youth named Jungo Oiliart.
“Boy, that trip today was something, wasn’t it?” he asked, pretending not to notice their frustration. “There were times I damn near burst, I was so exhausted. Then we came to that waterfall and took a swim in the cool, flowing spring water, and… wow, that was refreshing.”
Eventually he waved good night to them and returned to his tent, but not before Marc had emerged from the other tent for his own mug of water. He, too, idled the time away chatting with the would-be pranksters who, having loaded themselves earlier with water, were now feeling the overwhelming urge to relieve themselves. Marc didn’t help them by discussing the rain.
“It’s almost weird, the way the clouds just sit up there and dump this on us, isn’t it?” he mused. “I wonder how long they sit up there collecting water before they just have to… well, go. Then they just can’t hold it anymore and drop it all down on us. Damn.” He then expounded on the theories of evaporation and condensation and their roles in the water cycle.
Before Marc was finished, Garnet had joined him, complaining that he was too keyed up to sleep and would just pass the time chatting with his fellows. By that time, Ashfen and the others were trying to hide their shaking legs and frustrated glances. The thought of the massive Garnet staying up all night and ─ apparently unknowingly ─ guarding their intended targets was too much for them, and the pranksters begged off after only a few more minutes.
When they were scurrying off to the communal toilets – holes the trainees had had to dig into the ground their first two days while waiting for everyone to arrive – Danner and the others met with Garnet outside and collapsed in gales of quiet laughter.
The next night was their land navigation training, and then they were loaded back onto the same carts as that first day nearly a week ago. It was time to go hom
e. This time, though, there were no hoods, and the trainees watched in awe as dakkans swooped down to grasp the metal rings Danner had noticed on the wagons. Carefully avoiding each other’s wings, the dakkans lifted the carts with a lurch and hauled them over the trees and back down the mountain.
After a breathtaking airborne ride down the mountain, they were unloading in the courtyard. The tired trainees shuffled off toward their bunks, but were stopped by the booming voice of Morningham.
“And where do you think the likes of you are going?” he said loudly. “Form up and prepare to receive orders.”
Danner groaned along with the others, but then relaxed at a quick mental reassurance from Trebor.
“Relax, it’s nothing bad,” Trebor kythed. “I can’t pick it up without digging, but I can tell that much.”
“Good, because anything more would immediately qualify as cruel and unusual,” Danner replied. Of course, that description seemed to fit Morningham like a glove, so there were no promises there.
“Congratulations, trainees,” a Yellow paladin said after Morningham yielded the floor to him. “You’ve passed through the first phase of your training with only a few bumps and bruises. We’ve now got a better idea of what you’re all made of, and we can start tailoring your training. Beginning next week, half your day will be spent on your regular, communal training schedule, and the other half will see you placed in various groups as we mold the training to your individual needs. We shape your strengths while we work to eliminate or compensate for your weaknesses, all the while honing the edge of what will one day become another sword in the hand of God.”
The trainees listened in silence, trying to understand through their exhaustion. The Yellow paladin’s next words broke through immediately.
“Today is Octday. Until Onday, three days from now, that is, you are released from your training with explicit orders to relax and enjoy yourselves. Curfew has been lifted for the whole Sabbatha, and you may leave the city or stay as you will, but if you leave, be sure to be back before training resumes, two hours after dawn Onday. Anyone missing will face a severe reprimand, and possible expulsion from training.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 29