“It is a sad thing that men ever believed that,” Alban had said. “It is a sad thing that gray elves felt the same about us.”
But about fifteen years ago, the ravagers had made a big push through the land and threatened the existence of every people group. It was the first time in a long history that such an alliance had been formed.
“And probably the last for a long while,” Alban had said.
After the ravager surge was resolved, man and gray elf went back to hating each other, and the gray elves were sent back to their section of the country because man thought it was best.
“Man and gray elf were incompatible,” Alban had told him. “That was the belief. But I like to think our family was proof that wasn’t true.”
Nate resisted pointing out, however, that Droman led an army that wouldn’t think twice about wiping out all the northern settlements. Nate wondered what could have gone wrong to make Droman feel the way he did. The gray elf had been raised by Alban and his wife, Iris. He had grown up with Marum and Rachel as his sisters. Nate never asked, but he was curious where the violent influence came from. It was an answer Alban probably had stored away somewhere, probably something he didn’t wish to talk about, especially in front of Marum.
One part of the puzzle had been revealed, however. Marum had been working with her brother. She had been trying to obtain The Book of Time when she’d been caught. Nate imagined she was loyal to both camps. She followed her brother who wanted men to lose all their power. She followed her adopted father who proved to her that not all men hated gray elves—that there was a chance for peace between the two groups.
They made camp about an hour before dark and spent the remaining daylight digging trenches in the hardened snow. This had been a trick Alban had showed them, as it kept the chilly winds from hitting them directly. Every night it felt like Nate was digging his own grave—as if the ground would swallow him up and little wildflowers would grow over the top of him in the spring. But the trenches worked, and he found that he slept warmly enough. Some nights were worse than others.
With the last trench dug and the sun falling below the horizon, the four of them sat together on the ground, their horses creating almost useless walls around them. The moonlight cast shadows on their faces and it was difficult to see.
“I sure miss the cart,” Alban said. “Carried firewood. More food.” He shook his head. “Pots and cookware. How far off would it have been to go back for it?” he asked Marum.
“An extra day,” she answered. “Besides it’s too slow. If we want to get there before the train arrives we need to be swift.”
“That’s something I don’t understand,” Nate said. “If the train is coming back this way, couldn’t we just cut south and meet the train on the way?”
Marum shook her head. “There are no tracks southward. Gnome Country is to the east of Dragon Scale Mountain, and Strakfield is to the southwest of Dragon Scale Mountain. The train tracks coming from Tel Haven make a sort of horseshoe around the mountain so as to avoid the ravager border to the southeast.”
Alban cleared his throat. “Essentially, if Kellen makes it onto the train, he will travel north around the mountain and then south through Dwarf Country. Strakfield is the closest station to Gray Elf Country.”
“So, there aren’t any tracks in Gray Elf Country?” Nate asked.
“Are you kidding?” Marum said. “That’s one of many reasons my brother is infuriated with President DalGaard. No railroads have been built in or near Gray Elf Country because men don’t want the grey elves to start traveling all over Galamore. They don’t want our kind to have influence over the culture of the people.”
“I see,” Nate said
“I don’t think you do,” Marum came back. “For all the faults my brother has, I cannot deny he is right on a good many topics.”
“Is that why you wanted to steal The Book of Time for him?” Nate asked. He knew he was traversing into sensitive territory here. He could tell because he sensed Alban shifting uncomfortably.
But to Nate’s surprise, Rachel joined his side. “That’s something I would like to know too, Marum. You never told us about that.”
“I didn’t think it was necessary to tell you,” the gray elf said.
“Pretty big detail to keep to yourself,” Nate said with a shrug. “Considering you’re trying to get the relic keys, I’m assuming it’s so your brother can write the ending to The Book of Galamore.”
“Isn’t that the goal of every person who seeks The Ancient Books?” Marum said. “Isn’t that your goal?”
“I just want to get back home.”
“Yes, well the gray elves just want an equal part in this world.”
Nate shook his head. “You think if Droman got a chance to write the ending to this story that he’d just leave it at that? To make everyone equal?”
“What about you?” Marum challenged. “What will you write?”
“I don’t care! If I have to write and they all lived happily ever after then so be it! Whatever it takes so I can get back home, get my money, and retire to Montana. That’s all I care about.”
“Hearing you speak now,” Marum said, “makes me question this whole journey.” She looked from side to side. “It makes me question all of you. Can’t you see that Nathaniel’s quest for the books is no better than Droman’s? It’s no better than any man’s. What a disaster it would be if you wrote and they lived happily ever after.”
“I don’t get why that would be a disaster,” Nate said, shaking his head. “Everyone would be happy. That would be the end. That’s the magic of it.”
“That’s not all there is to it, Nate,” Alban said, his stare fixed on the ground in front of him. He rubbed at his white beard and sighed deeply. “To write something so vague would be a disaster, Marum is right.”
“Why?”
“Because happiness for this person is that person’s misery. Happiness for this group is the decimation of that group. It is confusion. It is chaos. The world could be thrown into oblivion.”
“What does that even mean?” Nate said, shaking his head.
“That’s just it. We can’t know. The ending has to be perfectly vague. It has to be perfectly specific. It can’t be too much of either.” Alban removed his hat and rubbed his fingers through his gray hair. “I knew when we started this journey that it would be a long time before you ever got to all three books. I knew there was time for you to learn the sort of ending you will need to write, but it might be best for you to start thinking about it now. You have to do not only what is best for yourself, but what is best for all of Galamore. So many think that writing the end of The Book of Galamore is the end of time itself—the end of our world. But I don’t see it that way. I feel it will be the end of an age as we are ushered into a new one. When you finish reading a story, the characters don’t just die, do they? No. They live on. Though the author of the story doesn’t tell the reader everything that happens to the characters, it is assumed they continue on as they naturally would. But our lives, they are not just a story where you can tack on a happy ending. You have to fashion one ending that will be suitable for all of us.” Alban turned his head to Marum. “That is why handing any of The Ancient Books to Droman is dangerous. If he were the Keeper of the books, he would write an ending in favor of the gray elves only. The rest of Galamore would be made to suffer, despite his good intentions for his people.”
Marum looked away, thoroughly chastised. Nate wasn’t sure if she accepted the criticism or if within her elf mind she fought the idea. Maybe she felt wronged like Droman had. Maybe she was angry for her people, as she should be. But there was a better way to go about these things. There was a better way to fight. If Droman was as dangerous as so many people thought, he needed to be stopped.
There was a silence in the air that only the wind broke. Everyone seemed down and not sure how to feel. Eventually, they pulled out dried meat, bread, and cheese and ate in silence. Nate finally asked if t
here would be a way to get north of Kellen and Droman’s rendezvous point before he was set to arrive, and Marum shook her head. That was all the answer he would get tonight, he knew. But it was enough.
Nate’s outlaw mind was scheming already. If he could help it, he wasn’t going to let Droman be in the picture at all. If Gwen failed to capture Kellen, he wanted to meet the train before it reached the meeting point. He wanted to execute an old fashioned train robbery.
He’d always wanted to do a job like that.
The group scattered and made themselves as comfortable as one could be inside a snow trench in the middle of the night. They rested on their bedrolls and packed blankets on top of them that had been stored in each saddle. It wasn’t quite enough, but it would have to do.
A couple of hours later, Nate was still awake. Wide awake. He didn’t know what it was. He should have been exhausted. He should have been nearly dead as much as he’d been awake the past few nights. Still, he sat up, ignoring the chill in the air.
A few feet to his left, he could hear teeth chattering. Rachel was awake, too. He crawled slowly toward her on his hands and knees, dragging his thick blanket with him.
She looked up at him, the reflection of the bright moon bouncing off her eyes.
“One ain’t quite enough, is it?”
She responded with a quick shake of the head and about ten knocks of her teeth.
Nate pulled the blanket in front of him and threw it on top of Rachel. He then tucked it around her shoulders and the bottom of her feet.
“That oughta help a little.”
Still, Rachel shivered, but her eyes seemed thankful.
Nate sat back in his bedroll, his legs crossed under him as he stared off into the blank horizon. Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. Rachel’s chattering stopped and was replaced with deep breaths.
Joe
Summer, 903 A.O.M.
Joe felt that being tied up to a tree as someone’s prisoner was an event that shouldn’t really happen more than once in a lifetime, yet this was becoming a common occurrence. The wild animals of the night never came to bite at him or rip out his intestines as he was sure Slaughter Okoro hoped for, and that meant it was up to the rest of the Okoro gang to make sure Joe suffered.
He wondered where Clive was now. Was he traversing the wilderness feeling guilty that his friend stuck up for him? Was he waiting outside the Okoro gang’s camp, looking for the opportunity to spring Joe from his trap? Joe knew the second one couldn’t be true. There was no breaking Joe out of this one. He was surrounded by at least a hundred other men whose bloodlust went unquenched no matter how many people were killed.
Stories had popped up about the Okoro gang during Joe’s first year in Galamore—stories that had circulated and had been embellished for years, Joe knew, but they were there nonetheless. One of them, he thought about in particular, was that the Okoro gang had become literally bloodthirsty, and were inclined to drink the blood of their victims—dead or alive. The only problem with that, Joe thought, was that the men he saw before him didn’t look the type to drink blood or eat people. Of course, he’d never met a man or woman who would do such a thing, so he wasn’t exactly an expert on picking them out of a crowd, but he figured such a person would have a certain look about them. These men didn’t have that look. They had a different look—one that was just about as bad, just about as evil. These men wore smiles on their faces that seemed too gleeful, coming, no doubt, from the idea of killing Joe in a public spectacle. It wasn’t enough for them to go into cities to kill and maim, but to have a prisoner that they had time to make suffer would be a delight. Joe just hoped they waited to drink his blood until after he was dead. But if his intuition was correct, Joe wouldn’t have to worry about anyone drinking his blood. At least, not until he got to The Book of Time. This was according to Clive who had seen a future version of Joe. But even a promise of life didn’t guarantee him painlessness. For all he knew he might be a prisoner meant to be tortured for a long time. Perhaps since Slaughter Okoro had obtained The Way, he would be encouraged to go after The Book of Time. And maybe since Joe was his prisoner he would somehow gain access to The Book of Time once Slaughter Okoro got it.
He shook his head at the thought. He couldn’t take being around these people for so long. He’d do something to either make them kill him, or he would kill himself in desperation. He wasn’t going to be a prisoner for long.
He thought the spectacle would be first thing in the morning, but to his surprise, when they untied him from the tree, they gave him a horse and told him he was riding with them for a while. They broke down camp and set out through the woods until they came into the open plains west of Tel Haven Forest, and north of the Sunset Woods. He guessed they were somewhere south of Somerled because they never did cross the North River into the Sunset Woods nor into the Grassy Plains beyond. The Okoro gang was undoubtedly headed back toward their camp in the mountains of The Great Ridge along the northern border of Galamore.
Days went by. No one spoke to him, and when he did try to ask a question—sometimes for water, other times to ask to relieve himself—he was met with that same look of bloodlust that he couldn’t quite define. If any words were spoken to him they were harsh and full of insults. Sometimes when the men would stop for a meal or to rest, they would decline Joe a horse and instead put a rope around his neck and force him to keep up by foot. His aching limbs and a few falls resulted in deep rope burns around his neck that started to bleed a few days in. He was given little food throughout the journey and just enough water so he wouldn’t die. The summer heat was blistering. While the other men wore hats and long sleeves to shade themselves from the sun, Joe got no such protection. His clothes were in tatters. Bruises and cuts covered his body. It was the fifth day of traveling when Joe realized that the beginning of his torturous end had already begun. This was all part of the execution. They were keeping him alive long enough to get him to their camp so everyone could sit down and enjoy watching him come to an ultimate demise. Joe knew this had to be the case because even as the mountains of The Great Ridge came into view, they never put a bag over his head or a blindfold over his eyes. They didn’t care to keep their location a secret from Joe. They didn’t care because he was a dead man already. Not that Joe had the presence of mind to know where he was anyway.
Periodically throughout his days of agonizing travel, he’d look to the horizon and hope, sometimes even pray, that Clive was out there with an army of Renegades waiting to dispatch the gang. But no matter how many times he looked, his friend was never there. Of course, the prospect was absurd. For Clive to go back to Vandikhan, gather all the soldiers, and rush to where he was now would mean he’d be several week’s ride out. It would be impossible. That wasn’t to mention that Joe was only second in command of the Renegades, and his life was hardly worth the lives of ten men, and a conflict between the two groups would kill far more than that. Though Joe had helped bring the Renegades to where they were now, he was hardly worth the effort. By this point, they could function perfectly well without him. He knew it and Clive knew it.
It was the last day of traveling when Joe’s tongue was so dried up he thought if he’d just bite down it would crumble like a cracker. His lips peeled like a lizard’s skin and his skin was as red as the dawn. The rope burns around his neck and his wrists were swelling with pus drooling out slowly. Every step he took felt like his body might fall apart into a pile of broken pieces.
It was late evening when they finally made it to the encampment, but Joe’s eyes were swollen and he was so delirious that he could barely take in what he saw. He knew there were some buildings, some fires, and a lot more people. There was laughter. Singing. Celebration. But before he was even commanded to get off his horse, Joe closed his eyes and slipped out of consciousness.
No one ever tied Joe up. In fact, the ropes he’d had around his wrists and neck were gone. He wasn’t on a bed and he wasn’t in a tent or building. Rather he was right where he’d appa
rently fallen. His eyes were less swollen now and he was able to at least look in a couple of directions. The camp was silent and there didn’t seem to be a guard around him. Had they left him here because they thought he was dead? He could just get up and leave. This was his chance.
He moved his arms to push himself up off the ground, however when his palms touched the dirt, he was unable to lift himself. A sharp pain traveled down his neck and shot through his entire body. He clenched his teeth hard and tried not to scream, though a soft groan escaped him. He quickly understood why they had left him there in the dirt. They weren’t afraid of Joe getting away because they knew the hell he had been through. They knew he would have to possess some supernatural power to even stumble away from the camp. It was just another cruel way to taunt him—to let him know that they still had him no matter what. The worst form of torture was to dangle the prospect of freedom in front of a man only to snatch it away. He tried to push against the ground one more time, and this time his chest even came off the ground an inch or two, but his muscles burned furiously, and even his toes felt like they were going to crack.
He was trapped—stuck in the cage of his own body. Over the past week, the Okoro gang had been building a prison around Joe by exhausting him so badly that they could have left him a mile outside of the camp and they’d have no worry of losing him. He kept his face against the dirt and closed his eyes.
Maybe by morning…hopefully by morning, Joe thought, they’ll kill me.
He didn’t feel much better when the sun came up, but when the men pulled him to his feet, he had no choice but to move. Why didn’t they just put a bullet in his brain? Why couldn’t they go ahead and feed him to the wild dogs? He was pretty sure he wouldn’t even feel it. His feet dragged the ground as two men carried him, to where, Joe didn’t see until he opened his eyes again.
The Outlaw's Quest (Keeper of the Books, Book 2) Page 13