We passed a burned old stump of a tree, the top black and jagged as the mouth of a rotting corpse. Something moved inside. I turned back to see shadows pouring out of it. There were three of them and they were growing in size, their shapes familiar.
“Run!” I yelled. The shadows formed into men and began chasing us as they grew in size. They drew swords, not harmless dark shapes, but very real blades.
Chapter 21.
Wren
I screamed through a mouthful of blood. Our weapons passed right through the shadow men, making them impossible to kill. My spells had no effect either. It was as if they were impervious to any harm, halfway out of this world and only crossing into it when they attacked. We fought a losing battle as we retreated toward the Collector’s keep, doing the best we could to keep the shadow men at bay.
Casting a spell on myself, I healed my split lip and bruised jaw. I was glad it was only the hilt of the sword that had connected. That was the last of my magic stores. Every ounce had been used to heal multiple wounds that Thackery and I had taken from the shadow men. Calen did his best to take the brunt of the attacks, but even he couldn’t take much more.
We were unable to draw any more magic this close to the Collector’s keep. I could feel an oppressive power everywhere, blocking us from pulling in any more magic. Our only remaining hope was to get to the Heart of Spellshallow.
The Collector’s keep was a grand structure, made up of a dozen stone towers and high, sweeping archways. A low wall more for decoration than defense surrounded it. Who would dare to attack someone so powerful? White and black marble stone was everywhere and seemed to shimmer with power. The huge main gate stood open and as we crossed the threshold, the shadow men first paused and then vanished. They were forbidden from entering their master’s stronghold.
The two human guards inside the gate were barely awake and Calen dispatched them before they had time to raise the alarm. For all the power here, these were just ordinary men with spears.
“We made it,” I said with a gasp, leaning against a silvery archway to catch my breath.
“Barely,” Thackery winced at a deep gash on his arm. He tore some fabric from his tunic to bandage it, meaning he had used the last of his stores of magic as well.
“They were just toying with us,” Calen coughed, “driving us here instead of ending it like they could have at any time.”
“But we’re here and we’re alive,” I searched his eyes for a sign of hope. “At least there is still a chance.”
Calen met my gaze. “You’re right.” He seemed embarrassed by his skepticism. “Forgive me, I—” Calen suddenly doubled over in pain and his hand came away slick with his silvery blood.
“You’re bleeding!” I rushed over to him, but Calen waved me away.
“I’m all right.” He closed his eyes and slowly—much slower than usual—his wounds healed and he stood up straight once more.
“A trivial matter.” Calen smiled, refusing to let me see how weakened he really was.
“Must be nice,” Thackery said with a scowl.
“You have no idea,” Calen replied with a wink.
I turned to look past the gatehouse at the large granaries, expansive stables, and countless warehouse buildings. “There are so many places to search, how will we ever find where the Collector is keeping the Heart?”
Calen’s smile widened into a grin. “He probably is wearing it around his neck, or hiding it under the pillow on his throne, or something ridiculous like that. It’ll be impossible to get, unless I have my horn—and I know exactly where that is—I can sense it from here.”
He extended his finger, pointing at the smallest warehouse near the stables. “My horn is in there.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Calen nodded confidently.
“We’ll need to hurry,” Thackery said. “It won’t be long before someone discovers these guards aren’t at their post.”
Thackery and Calen dragged the bodies out of sight, hoping to buy us more time before we were discovered.
Leaving the main road, we started down a dark side alley that tracked along the low wall of the perimeter. We made our way as inconspicuously as possible through the garbage and back storage areas of several shops. There was even a smithy that must have existed simply to serve the Collector’s needs.
A patrol of well-armored guards dressed in blue and grey colors passed by and my heart began pounding nearly out of my chest.
“Quick,” Thackery hissed, “in here.”
We ducked into a small alehouse. A sign painted with blue lettering announced the name: The Blue-lipped Whore.
“Real classy place,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
“It doesn’t seem so bad,” Calen said with a grin. “Maybe we can get a drink while we wait.”
“Looks just like the place we found you in,” I said with a smirk.
Calen elbowed me. “Try and blend in until the patrol passes.”
“Should I order a blue-lipped whore?” I said with a challenge.
Despite himself, Calen laughed and raised three fingers towards the barkeep. The man behind the bar was as fat as he was bald and looked at us suspiciously until Calen raised a gold coin. That brought him waddling over to us straight away.
“Welcome my friends, welcome,” said the barkeep through a close-cut beard and droopy mustache. “Please rest your weary feet and allow me to bring you something to slake your thirst.”
Calen nodded and sat at the nearest table. “We’ll take three ales.”
Thackery and I joined him, trying not to notice the grease that stained the benches or the peculiar odor coming off of the surface of the table.
The barkeep cleared his throat. “Ah—I’m afraid we are fresh out of ale. Perhaps I could offer you some wine—it’s from an excellent vintage.”
“Out of ale?” shouted a familiar voice. “That’s re-dicur-us-us.”
Calen didn’t seem to notice that both Thackery’s and my jaws had dropped. “How can you be out of ale?” he asked.
“My apologies,” the barkeep spread his hands and then quickly clasped them together with a slight bow. “One of my guests has been drinking it for the last three days straight—on the Collector’s coin I might add—and that doesn’t run out before ale does.”
“Fine,” Calen said with a sigh, “bring us a bottle of your best wine.”
As the barkeep disappeared behind the bar, I grabbed Calen’s arm. “That’s Pieter,” I whispered. “My brother.” That was Pieter all right. He was well into his cups, but I would recognize my brother’s face anywhere. For some reason I couldn’t believe that he was actually here, simply drinking in an alehouse. Maybe he needed to be drunk to stop from feeling shame over what he had done.
Thackery had half-drawn his sword, but Calen put his hand on his arm to stop him. “Do you want to alert everyone to our presence here?”
“Pieter’s who we came here for,” Thackery replied.
“If he’s here drinking as the Collector’s guest,” Calen began, “then we are obviously too late and your brother’s already given the Heart of Spellshallow to the Collector.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I said, pulling out a small dagger and turning towards Pieter.
Snatching the dagger out of my hand, Calen grabbed my chin with his other hand, forcing me to look at him. “First we need to see if he knows where the Heart of Spellshallow is. We can always kill him later—if we have time.”
Ignoring him, I stalked over to Pieter’s table. He was wearing an expensive-looking blue robe and a new set of sparkling jewels adorned his fingers. Other than that, he looked terrible. His face seemed shrunken and haggard. Pieter’s eyes were bloodshot and he had grown a thick beard with several days growth over his normally clean-shaven face.
“This is why you did it?” I asked him coldly. “You betrayed our family so you could have unlimited drinking money?”
Recognition flashed across Pieter’s groggy face.
He tried to stand and failed spectacularly. Losing his balance, my brother fell and sprawled out on the floor.
I thought about kicking him in the gut. Thackery and Calen wisely kept their distance.
“Wren?” Pieter asked. “What are you doing here?”
“Where is the Heart?” I demanded.
He frowned as if taking a moment to understand the question.
“Locked away in one of the Collector’s towers,” Pieter replied, drawing himself up to a sitting position. After a minute he managed to stand up with a back-and-forth sway. “He said he’ll return it after he’s made me King of Spellshallow.”
“Our father is the king,” I reminded him. “The only way to change that is…” I shuddered, refusing to finish the sentence. “Is that what you want?”
“No,” Pieter said with a slur, “but I didn’t have any choice. You and father would never have given me a chance. You were holding me back!”
“You’ve spent too long listening to the likes of Lord Barkus and his sycophants,” I replied.
“Lord Barkus believes in me,” Pieter said.
“Lord Barkus is dead!” I shouted.
“What?” Pieter asked in a confused tone. “That can’t be true—the Collector would have told me.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “The Collector is playing you for a fool!”
Pieter braced himself on the table. “I’ve been called that all my life. Nothing I did was ever good enough, even my so-called friends only took advantage of my position and money. Well I’ve shown them all. Now they look like the fools.”
“You idiot!” I couldn’t hold myself back any longer and smashed my fist into his mouth—channeling some of the magic I was holding into the blow.
Pieter went down like a sack of bricks and didn’t get up.
“Nice punch,” Thackery said.
“Please leave at once!” The barkeep nearly dropped the three glasses and bottle of wine he was carrying.
Calen stepped forward. “We’ve business with this man.”
“Please,” The barkeep's eyes looked desperate. “If the Collector hears about this, he’ll burn down my alehouse with me inside.”
Soft snores rose from the floor. He was sleeping?
I readied my leg to kick Pieter, but Calen was suddenly at my side. “Don’t do something you might regret.”
The moment passed as a patrol of guards appeared on the other side of the street. They seemed on high alert and were searching each of the shops one-by-one.
“We were never here,” Calen said, placing a handful of coins on the table.
At last we had found Pieter, only to realize it was too late. Looking down at him, the anger suddenly faded and I felt only disgust. He deserved to die for what he had done—and at this rate he would surely drink himself to death—but I hoped he lived the rest of his life regretting what he had done. I nodded at Calen and the three of us went out the side door. The barkeep would certainly report seeing us, but we would be long gone by then.
We managed to reach the warehouse without anyone else seeing us. The building was sunken half a level into the ground, with wooden walls painted silver and fired clay tiles on the roof. Glass windows revealed a fortune of treasures and sparkling jewels displayed inside.
“If this is what he has in an unguarded warehouse,” Thackery mused, “what does the man have locked up in the high towers of his keep?”
“Quiet,” Calen hissed. “We don’t have much time and the door is enchanted with some sort of spell.”
He was right. The simple wooden door had a strange glow to it. I pressed against it and it felt as solid as iron.
“Wren,” Calen whispered. “Let me borrow the unicorn blood dagger from you.”
I handed it over, the unicorn blood sparkling silver inside the glass blade. Calen slid the dagger into the lock of the door. With a few murmured words, he opened the lock with a click.
“Useful thing, that,” Calen handed it back to me> As he did, I saw the tip changing back from what looked like the shape of a key.
Entering the warehouse, Calen ignored the riches surrounding him and made straight for a large display case in the center of the room.
“There it is!” Calen said excitedly. “My horn!”
At the top of the case was a long, jeweled horn. I had imagined it would be white like a tusk, but the horn was silver and gleamed with a metallic sheen. It was slightly curved and twisted around itself. The tip looked sharp enough to draw blood. The horn was certainly impressive and glowed with more power than I had ever seen.
Calen took another step forward and all of the glass windows around us shattered. My muscles froze and the room filled with blinding red light. I looked to the side to see Thackery and Calen also unable to move.
“That is far enough!” boomed an echoing voice that filled both the room and my head alike.
A prism of light appeared between Calen and his horn, bursting in a blinding shower of light to reveal a man draped in billowing robes of silk. His hair was an impossibly dark tangle that flowed like water. A short black beard hid an angled jawline and sat below a sharp mouth turned into a frown. A hawkish nose sniffed in disdain, but the thing that drew my gaze the most were the shimmering red eyes. They blazed with a fierce power that promised violence and death. This could only be Hashir the Collector.
“Oh, I’ve enjoyed your amusing attempts to break through my defenses. But did you really think I would allow you to actually take something that belongs to me?”
The dark sword in Calen’s hand wobbled as he struggled to raise it.
“Ah, I see you brought me back my sword.” The Collector raised his finger and the black blade flew from Calen’s grasp and into the Collector’s outstretched hand.
Calen continued to struggle against the Collector’s magic. “The—the h-horn… isn’t yours.”
The Collector seemed surprised that Calen was able to speak at all. “No? But I paid so dearly to acquire it. Since no one else is strong enough to take it from me, I say that makes it mine.”
“Trade it then—for the black sword.” Calen’s voice was smoother now.
The Collector laughed. “Nice try, but no. I’d need something far more valuable in exchange to consider parting with that item—and you have nothing I want.”
I strained against the spell over me, willing my lips to speak.
“Ah, I see your little mage whore wants to say something. Since you did return my sword to me, I suppose I will allow it.”
With a wave of his hand I regained the use of all of my muscles. “What about for the Heart of Spellshallow?” I asked. “Return it to my people and I’ll give you anything—my life even.”
“Wren, no!” Calen yelled.
The Collector thought for a moment, then shook his head. “An interesting bargain, but I will have to decline. I would need another runestone to complete my collection and I already have every single one belonging to this realm locked safely in my—”
An explosion rocked the largest tower of the keep. Shock registered on the Collector’s face as he looked first at the tower and then at us. “You were only a distraction! I can’t believe I let that thieving little unicorn trick me!”
“So, Christoph did want something of yours,” Calen seemed just as surprised that his brother hadn’t just abandoned us in the freezing snow.
Christoph had used us to draw the Collector’s gaze so he could steal a different runestone—leaving us here to die.
“You will suffer for your brother’s actions—all of you!” The Collector’s eyes burned so brightly they turned white as he raised his hand to cast a spell.
He had forgotten that I remained unfrozen. All my life I had been underestimated and the Collector had made the same mistake. He would regret that oversight. Reaching into my bag, I retrieved the Eternal Flame. With a yell, I smashed it at his feet. As the glass protecting it shattered into a million pieces, the Collector was engulfed in fire that turned first
red and then blue with heat—but he didn’t die. His silk robes were untouched by the flames and the charred skin of his face quickly healed itself. The fire still raged, but some unseen bubble of power kept it off of him.
Such a feat must have required much of his power, for the Collector staggered backward, still trying to escape the incredible heat. Nearby jewels and gold alike melted under the onslaught of the raging inferno. I jumped back as the entire room was nearly consumed.
“Wren!” Thackery yelled, the Collector’s magical hold on us broken. “We have to get out of here now!”
I turned to run, the fire climbing the wooden walls and spreading to the ceiling. In moments the roof would collapse and crush us. Then I saw Calen. He ran into the flames, his beautiful skin seeming to melt as he pushed past the Collector and leapt towards his horn.
“Calen!” I screamed, trying to go to him.
Thackery dragged me back. “There’s nothing you can do!” He pulled me outside the door as the entire building was engulfed with flames.
At the last moment, a prism of light exploded out and streaked towards the keep. The Collector had escaped. But where was Calen?
Christoph winked into existence beside me. “Time to go.”
I slapped him as hard as I could.
“What’s that for? Where’s Calen?” Christoph turned to see the burned wreckage. “Is he—I didn’t think—he wasn’t supposed to—”
“You killed him!” I screamed. “This is your fault!”
Christoph’s shoulders sagged as dark storm clouds began swirling around the keep. Bolts of red lightning lit up the sky.
“Oh Calen, I’m sorry.” Christoph thrust something into my hands. “This won’t make up for it, but it’s something. Now run. I’ll draw the Collector away so you two can escape.” He vanished just as quickly as he had appeared.
Looking down, I saw what my hands held. A two-sided jewel carved from the moon. It was the Heart of Spellshallow.
Thackery hauled me away in a stupor. Whatever Christoph had stolen, the Collector must have wanted it back very badly. He simply ignored us in his pursuit of the unicorn. I didn’t have time to wonder what was more valuable to him than the Heart of Spellshallow. More guards were pouring out of the keep and a large group of them were heading our way. We turned tail and fled. Stealing two of the faster-looking horses from the stable, we rode our way through a confused line of guards, making it through a smaller side gate just before it closed.
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