This trip benefitted them very little, though Nate was sure it provided Alban with a sense of adventure that was long overdue. He was sure as well that Alban was able to justify it by the simple fact that it would be dangerous for them to go back home, considering they had helped two wanted criminals escape the clutches of the Rangers.
Rachel wasn’t afraid to let Nate know that they were being kind to him. The two of them had gotten along for the most part on this trip, but she was sure to remind him they were doing him a favor. And indeed they were. All Nate wanted was to find his brother, Joe, and get back home.
Marum was a different story—one Nate wasn’t too sure about. She feigned innocence, yet she had been on death row when Nate helped her escape. Nate hadn’t questioned her openly, but he did find it suspicious that she neglected to tell any of them how or why she had been caught in the first place. More than a few times, Nate wondered if helping Marum was noble at all. He understood their history—Alban had raised Marum, and she had been like a sister to Rachel. Perhaps such a relationship made them blind to her faults. But Nate never asked, mostly because he wasn’t one to talk. He often overlooked other people’s faults because his were so numerous. Nate was drowning in faults.
His body was tired, but his eyes were awake, his mind alert. They had camped so much, avoided towns so often. Being here felt like an unnecessary risk.
For the first time in almost an hour, Nate spotted a figure walking in the snowy street below. By the build and stature, he could tell it was a man, but it was difficult to see more than that. Nate stood from his chair and bent forward, almost pressing his face against the glass. He wasn’t sure if the man could see him.
The man looked left and right, standing now next to their cart. Nate’s teeth pressed firmly together. He was ready to jump out of the window and chase after the man if he tried anything foolish. There was nothing of value in the cart, but that wasn’t the point.
But the man didn’t go digging through their stuff. Instead, he tiptoed slowly to the edge of the building and looked upward. Nate almost ducked away, but it was too late. The man had already seen him. But that seemed to have been the point. For a long moment, Nate stared down at him and finally realized that the figure was the wood elf he’d seen in the tavern earlier.
He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but seeing the elf nearly made his blood boil. What did he want? Did he wish to kill Marum in her sleep? Did he plan to show her who was boss? Nate would shoot the wood elf between the eyes before that happened.
The wood elf below waved at Nate quickly, then looked over his shoulder toward the saloon as if to see if he was still alone in the street. Nate considered ignoring him, but decided against it. He looked back at Alban who was playing trumpeter in his symphony of dreams. He then pulled on the bottom of the window and slid it upward. A cold rush of wind blew into the room, blasting Nate’s chest. But the cold didn’t wake Alban which was all Nate cared about.
He stuck his head out the window and looked down. “What do you want?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” the wood elf said.
“I had a feeling you felt that way.”
“It’s not me,” the elf said. “It’s a group of men at the saloon. They’re plotting your murder as we speak. Won’t be long until they’re over here.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed. “How do they know we’re here?”
“Well,” the wood elf said, looking down, “one of the plotters is the hotel clerk. Put two and two together and realized you’d snuck in a gray elf.”
“How do I know you ain’t just saying all this to bring us out in the open?” Nate asked.
The wood elf shrugged. “I suppose then either way someone is plotting your death and you ought to be aware.”
Nate thought about the elf’s words and nodded. “What do you suggest?”
“I can get your horse ready, so long as you and your group can get down here in a couple of minutes.”
“Why do you want to help us?”
“You said you were on Sentinel business,” the elf said. “I know that can’t be true, but right now is not the time to talk about it.”
Nate nodded again, pulled himself into the room, and shut the window. The next few minutes was a furious scramble. Alban was more than perturbed about being pulled from his bed, but only offered one or two grumbles. Nate then did the ungentlemanly thing and barged into Marum and Rachel’s room to deliver the news.
More so:
Get up! Gotta go! Get your clothes on! Come on! Come on!
Then he was out of the room. All told they were in the street in four minutes, armed and ready for the road, though not without groggy eyes and tired snarls.
Marum seemed alert enough. When she saw the wood elf on his horse next to their cart, she immediately pulled her hunting knife from her belt and got into a fighting stance. The wood elf had his own knife at his belt, and a sword strapped to his back for that matter, but he defused the situation by pulling a pistol from his belt and resting it gently in his lap, daring her to come at him.
“We can fight over our differences if you like,” he said, “but you might rather get in the cart so we can be on our way. I don’t often get the desire to help out a gray elf. Don’t make me regret it.”
Alban turned to Marum and shook his head. Nate could see the struggle in her eyes. He understood what she felt. He might not have grasped the complete history of their race rivalry, but he figured it wasn’t much different than coming across a rival gang member going after the same treasure.
“I can lead you to the Sentinels,” the wood elf said.
“I already know how to get there,” Alban said as the group started toward the cart.
“Yes, you know the main way, but I can get you there faster and by a more secret route.”
The wood elf started off down the street, and just as Alban slapped the reins, a mob of men came rushing out of the saloon about a hundred yards away. Alban let out a curse and slapped the reins harder. The cart gave a sudden lurch and Nate nearly fell off his seat.
Shots rang out through the air, smoke following deadly bullets.
“Get down!” Nate shouted at Rachel and Marum, both of whom were in the back of the cart.
The wood elf and wagon of outsiders pulled away from the crowd, but that didn’t stop a few from getting onto their horses and charging after them. Nate pulled his rifle from the sheath on his back, stood from his seat, and aimed.
Two shots, two men down. A few more men followed, but Nate took down a third, the man falling to the snow, lifeless. The others stopped their pursuit, instead choosing muffled insults as a weapon rather than their guns.
Alban’s horse didn’t let up until they were safe and a good distance out of the town.
Nate couldn’t count how many times Alban shook his head and muttered, “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…” Eventually, one of them said that it didn’t matter, that they were still alive.
It wasn’t Nate who said it.
Dumb decisions were what got outlaws killed. If it hadn’t been for the wood elf, Nate was sure that night’s outcome would have been different.
Joe
Summer, 903 A.O.M.
Joe had been in Galamore for over five years when he found himself sipping whiskey at a saloon in the city of Somerled. The town was nice enough—peaceful. Businesses thrived for the most part and the populous seemed generally happy. Most of the streets were paved, but the one running alongside the saloon was dry dirt. Joe liked dirt streets. It reminded him a little of being back in Texas at one of the small saloons that no civilized man knew anything about. There he had lost some poker games, started a couple of romances, and cared little about the rest of the world. But as much as the memories made him smile, he didn’t care much about thinking on the past. And he certainly didn’t like thinking about the future. He found that it distracted him from his day-to-day tasks. But when he and Clive discovered that The Book of Time might be in this little city, he was
reminded of the future that had been proclaimed. He had decided several years before that he wasn’t going to think about the coming of his brother, Nate, nor about The Ancient Books, but neither he nor Clive could ignore news of the book when it came.
He threw back a shot and winced as he motioned for another one. The bartender happily complied. Joe let the tiny glass rest in his fingertips for a long moment as he turned his head to scan the room behind him. He didn’t seem out of place, though he probably looked too ominous for his own good. The Renegades had taken to wearing a lot of black and there was little variation in Joe’s clothing. From his boots all the way up to his wide brimmed hat, his clothing was dark. It wasn’t a uniform so much as a style.
Somerled was one of those cities where outlaws might be able to pass through, but couldn’t make a lot of trouble. There was a large presence of lawmen, but that didn’t mean they would recognize Joe. In fact, Joe was pretty sure that the wanted posters of the Warlord at the local sheriff’s office still had the likeness of Fredrick Merk on it, even five years after his death.
Joe smiled at the thought. The Renegades had grown, but quietly. They were 1,500 fighters strong, but the president didn’t know it. Most of them were scoundrels, thieves, and maybe a few murderers, but that didn’t matter to Joe. All that mattered to him was that each member was committed to the cause and wasn’t out for himself.
Sometimes Joe wondered why he was committed to the cause. He didn’t have enough of a reason to be a Renegade—not that anyone else knew that fact. Clive kept Joe’s story a secret, and if a Renegade asked where Joe had come from, the story was simple: he was an outlaw all the way from Lochlan who had lived a life alone, living off the land and out of the president’s reach.
There were four commanders: the Warlord, which was Clive, then Joe, Dooley, and a man named Kinston. Dooley was kept on because he and Joe had been able to make amends. He was fat and lazy, but he had a decent tactical mind. Kinston was brought in after Joe decided to stay with the Renegades. He was an older man with white hair and a deeply wrinkled face. His skin was dark and he rarely talked, but when he did, he offered a good bit of wisdom which was appreciated by the others. Clive later told Joe that he had wanted Kinston on as a commander the whole time, but Fredrick Merk wouldn’t allow it. He feared having a group of commanders too eager to pursue the cause.
The cause.
The idea of growing a force large enough to take on President Jacob DalGaard was an impossible one. That day, when Joe had saved Clive’s life for the second time, he had been asked to stay indefinitely. He told Joe that if he’d help him make the Renegades a strong force, then he would help Joe find The Book of Time and get on with his life.
Clive had always been shy about his reasons for hating Jacob DalGaard. One day, Joe asked Clive what the president had done to him. After a few minutes of prying, Clive finally answered.
“Everyone has a reason for joining the Renegades,” Clive had said. “My reason was that he hung my brother, Jamie. Hung him for murder. But he didn’t do it. Everyone knew he didn’t do it. But the president wanted someone to pay for it.”
“Who was murdered?” Joe asked.
“A Ranger,” Clive said. “The president had no idea who murdered him, but Jamie had been the one to report the crime. Says he saw it happen right in front of him. The Ranger and the murderer got in a tussle and the murderer pulled out a pistol and shot the Ranger between the eyes. Just so happens, Jamie had the same type of gun. When they questioned him, they found out he was missing a bullet. Jamie told me he’d shot off a round at a can when he was drunk to try and show some folks how accurate he was. But there was too much evidence against him. Drunk…missing a bullet…dead Ranger…dead Jamie. That sort of injustice runs rampant throughout the government.”
His words were full of emotion, Joe remembered. Tears had come to Clive’s eyes and he was clearly angry for his brother. But secretly, Joe couldn’t help but wonder if the murderer truly had been Jamie, and Clive just refused to admit it. Joe, of course, would never suggest such a thing.
When Clive asked Joe to be his right hand man, Joe reluctantly agreed, seeing as he was already an outlaw and didn’t know anything about Galamore. But he agreed only if he was allowed to have a say in how things ran. Joe wasn’t afraid to be an outlaw, but he didn’t like the idea of murdering innocent people. The Renegades didn’t need to be feared by the common man. In order to grow, they needed to be for the common man.
It was agreed that the Renegades would be known for their cause, which was to help the citizens of Galamore overcome oppression and the lawlessness of their government. In the first months, Joe and Clive were forced to order and carry out raids, but they were only ever against army supplies. Banks that were robbed were owned and operated by the government. Stagecoaches and people that were robbed carried money only meant for the president and his operations. Never did they steal from private companies or individuals. And in the event that a Renegade murdered someone, he was rejected unless there was a good enough reason for it.
Within the first year, the Renegade economy grew significantly. Each man was given proper weapons (usually consisting of a rifle and a pistol), and a specific job to do. Some were farmers, smiths, or shopkeepers. But all this would have been impossible without a central location. So, they took Vandikhan for themselves, and they were able to do it without any bloodshed. With 700 armed men against a lazy sheriff, two deputies, and a bunch of outlaws who weren’t already a part of a gang, they surrendered without incident.
Technically speaking, since Vandikhan fell into the realm of President DalGaard’s jurisdiction, it was an act of war. But the government had lost control of Vandikhan long before the Renegades got there, and the Sunset Woods was too expansive for the Crimson Army to patrol. Clive had feared things would escalate, however. Sure, Vandikhan would be easy to defend, but not against thousands upon thousands of Crimson Army soldiers. Yet those soldiers never came. Maybe Vandikhan was too deep within the forest for the president to find it useful. Perhaps DalGaard didn’t want it anyway. It did very little by way of the nation’s economy. It was already full of outlaws. There was no point in the president holding on to it.
With the growth of the Renegade economy came the growth of Renegade numbers. Men, women, and even children had become part of the group. But all of them had to follow a certain code of ethics or laws within the organization. Thievery among them would not be tolerated. Murder would not be tolerated. The only punishment was banishment. This kept most of them in line because most of them had nowhere else to go.
The Renegades had become a small society rather than a nomadic tribe of penniless ransackers, but they had not lost sight of their mission, which was not only to get rid of the president, but to establish a new kind of government altogether—one where the people decided the laws instead of one man.
That was something else Joe had learned quickly. The term president didn’t have the same meaning as where Joe was from. Jacob DalGaard had been president over Galamore for the last thirty years. Before that, his father was president. Before that, his father was president. It seemed an awful lot like a monarchy, but no one seemed brave enough to challenge DalGaard. People still voted. There was a congress. There was a court system. But the DalGaard family managed to stay in power. If the people wanted to vote him out, it never happened. Either the votes were rigged, or the people truly loved the DalGaards. And Clive was pretty sure no one loved the DalGaards. Not anymore.
Joe had found something he was good at, and he wondered what Nate would think about all of it. He was sure his older brother would have never imagined him being in such a high position of an entire network of outlaws. But Joe thought they were more than simple outlaws. In Galamore, there were many people groups: elves, gray elves, dwarves, gnomes, men, ravagers—but they were all under one man’s law. How could one man decide what was good for elves deep within their forests to the east in Elf Country? How could one man decide what was best f
or dwarves tunneled so far beneath the mountains to the south in Dwarf Country? Their ways of life were completely different from man’s. These concepts had grown in Joe’s mind over the course of five years—some of them through conversations, others through experiences. Regardless, he was thoroughly convinced that things needed to change in Galamore. But numbers weren’t enough to legitimize the Renegades yet. They needed leverage.
When a man named Fergus came to Vandikhan two weeks ago to report that he knew of someone who owned The Book of Time, Joe’s future was brought to the forefront of his mind, and a chance for leverage was within their grasp.
“I thought you said it was six years into the future,” Joe had told Clive as they were preparing to leave for Somerled.
Clive just shook his head and smiled. “That’s what you told me. I don’t have a clue.”
Now Joe was faced with the possibility that his future self was going to lie to Clive about the timeline for some reason. These were the kind of thoughts Joe hated. He didn’t like wondering why he would be traipsing through The Book of Time anyway. He didn’t like wondering if his brother would soon enter Galamore or if he was already here and Joe was just confused about the whole issue. That’s why he tried to stay in the present as much as he could. He didn’t like these thoughts that made his head hurt.
So, why was he going after The Book of Time? He was here in the saloon drinking his whiskey with a plan in his mind. But why? Clive had told him all about The Ancient Books and their power over the world. He had said it was a good chance to drive fear into the president. If the Renegades possessed one of the books of power it would raise a few eyebrows.
“What if we collected all three of them?” Joe had asked, mostly as a joke.
But Clive didn’t laugh. He just answered with a grim tone. “Then we win.”
“All hell would break loose,” Kinston had said, breaking into the conversation. “By the time we got even one of the books, every people group in Galamore would come at us like flies on a carcass.”
The Outlaw's Quest (Keeper of the Books, Book 2) Page 2