What he saw, he hadn’t quite expected. He had expected there to be hundreds of men and women watching him from afar as Slaughter Okoro pronounced death upon him. He had expected there to be shouts and laughter—for there to be a spectacle. But this was quite the opposite. There were six men. First was Slaughter Okoro wearing his jewelry and expensive clothing. Four more men stood with him, all of them staring down at Joe who was on his knees. Beyond the group was a man standing in the middle of a grassy field.
This was Joe’s first time to get a good look at the territory around him. The mountains rose high, many of them snowcapped at thousands of feet into the air. They seemed to be in a valley, green with lush wildflowers and thick grass.
Not the worst place to die, Joe thought to himself.
For a moment, he thought the man standing in the middle of the field was just another one of Slaughter’s lackeys, but the man was in tatters. He was bruised and bleeding in places. He looked as bad as Joe felt. He seemed young and afraid. He couldn’t have been as old as Joe was—maybe seventeen or eighteen. The five Okoro gang members had their backs to him and stared down at Joe.
“His name is Edric,” Slaughter said. “He came here just as you did—a stupid fool who killed some of my men. He is going to die today.”
Joe felt a tear slip past his cheek, though he didn’t know where the water might have come from. He was so parched that he had to be near death. He also wasn’t sure why the tear came. He knew nothing of Edric. The boy might have deserved what he was about to get. But even minimal knowledge of the Okoro gang was enough to know that wasn’t true. He was just another product of their lust for death.
“Stand up,” Slaughter said.
Joe’s eyes didn’t leave Edric. He heard Slaughter’s order, but he wasn’t sure his legs would allow it.
“I said stand up.”
Edric looked so weak. So tired. But he was standing. He must have had more strength than Joe could muster. Did Slaughter want Joe to stand out in the middle of the field with him? His eyes didn’t float up to Slaughter’s, and he legs didn’t respond to the command. It seemed as if Joe was ignoring him, but he wasn’t. He just didn’t have the strength.
“I can’t.” The words passed by Joe’s lips as a breath. It sounded raspy—weak. He wanted to fall to the ground. To give up and die.
Even as one of Slaughter’s men pulled him up by the shirt to his feet, his eyes didn’t leave Edric. Fire burned through his joints and it came as a surprise that he didn’t fall over instantly.
“Man’s body can overcome great pain,” Slaughter said. “But it can only take so much.”
Joe didn’t care about what Slaughter had to say. He just wanted to die and be done with it.
Another tear rolled down his face, this time on the other side. Edric looked numb—an expression on his face that only the extinction of hope could bring. Empty. Soulless.
Someone shoved a metal and wooden object into Joe’s arms. It was the first time he’d looked away from Edric since he’d gotten to the field. The object was a rifle. An old one that hadn’t been used in a long time. The stock was cracked and the sight was bent, but no doubt it fired.
“One shot,” Slaughter said. “I’d wager that Edric over there is a solid 200 yards away. You have one chance to send a bullet through his heart. You drop him, then I’ll let you live. You miss, then both of you will die.”
“What’d he do?” Joe wheezed. He looked away from Slaughter and looked back toward Edric. But this time he wasn’t looking at Edric. Instead, what he saw was a flicker of hope. Actually it was the sunlight that flickered from a piece of glass on the ridge to the north of them, but it was hope. His eyes narrowed slightly—just enough to try and get a better look at what the source of the flicker was, but not so much that the others were suspicious of him. If anything, they might think he was wincing in pain.
“He murdered a few of my men,” Slaughter said.
“Your men didn’t deserve it?”
“All my men deserve it,” Slaughter said. “Doesn’t mean I don’t seek retribution.”
The light kept flickering and flickering. Joe watched it so intently that one of Slaughter’s men took a step forward, staring into Joe’s eyes. He then followed the line of sight to where he was looking and the light stopped its flickering instantly. The man then turned back to Joe and snarled, taking a few steps back. Then the light started again. Joe squinted his eyes again and that’s when he saw it.
His heart pounded heavier and he almost lost his breath. There truly was hope. Up on a ridge he could see the man holding a tiny mirror that reflected the sun’s rays.
Clive.
Joe looked to the ground, his two tears replaced by beads of sweat.
“What’s wrong with you?” Slaughter said.
“I don’t want to die,” Joe said. “I want to live.”
“Be a man. We all have to die sometime.”
Joe’s mind was running faster than a stallion in a lightening storm. What would Clive want Joe to do, take the shot? Yes! Take the shot, but not at Edric.
“You must not have heard how good of a shot I am,” Joe said, bringing his chin up. He pulled the gun close to him and did his best to take a proper stance. He brought the butt of the rifle to his shoulder and held the barrel in his other hand.
“I haven’t heard anything about you,” Slaughter said, “but if you can make that shot with this gun then I’ll make you leader over the entire Okoro organization. Your chances of survival are slim.”
With that, one of Slaughter’s men took a step forward and pulled a pistol from his holster, pointing it at Joe’s head, the hammer pulled back.
“Take the shot,” Slaughter said to Joe.
Joe swallowed. Even though the sight was bent, he aimed the rifle at Edric and closed an eye. This gun wouldn’t be accurate even within twenty yards, but he could hit somebody.
“Shoot!” Slaughter yelled, then chuckled with a laugh.
“All right then,” Joe whispered.
It was the fastest he’d moved all day, and the man next to him sure wasn’t expecting it. Joe dropped to his knees and the impact against the ground sent a surge of pain through his body. The man next to him let off a shot but missed his head by inches. The sound in his ears was deafening and he could feel the air whisk his hair up as the bullet passed. He then swung his rifle around, stuck the barrel against the man’s chest and squeezed the trigger. Blood shot out the man’s back as the bullet left a gaping hole where his heart should have been. He fell to the ground lifeless as guns fired off all around him. Joe expected some of the bullets to hit him, but nothing came. He threw down the rifle and somehow mustered the strength to start sprinting to the middle of the field where Edric had been standing, but now Edric was running too.
“Come on!” Edric yelled, waving his hands for Joe to follow.
Joe tried to keep the man in his sight but it wasn’t easy. His vision blurred and his heart pounded in his chest so hard he thought it might burst. Looking past Edric, he could see Clive from the ridge letting off more shots past the two of them. Joe dared a look behind him, but it was hard to see. He thought there were men running onto the field—more than who had been there for his execution. He could hear their weapons firing behind him. One or two zipped near his head.
He wasn’t far from the ridge when he felt his legs give out and he fell face first into the grass.
He was done for. Even if he had the strength to get up and run again, which he didn’t, he was a dead man. Somehow he felt a certain relief in knowing that. The pain he had endured for the past week had been too much for one man. There had been some hope inside his head about surviving the whole ordeal, but all he cared about now was sleep. Rest. Relief from the pain.
He clenched a wad of grass with his fingers and enjoyed the feeling of life in his hand. As he lay there, he felt as though he were transferring his spirit to the ground beneath him, giving his blessing for the dirt to make him one with it.
He inhaled one last breath and released the clump of grass. In the same way, he stopped holding on to life. As he accepted his fate, he felt shadows above him. He could hear noises all around, but they meant nothing to him any longer. He didn’t know if the shadows were Slaughter’s men or if they were Edric and Clive. To him it didn’t make any difference. He closed his eyes and waited for death.
Nate
Winter, 903 A.O.M.
At some point during their journey, Nate asked Alban and Rachel if they planned to try and meet with Droman considering how unstable he was, but neither of them had an answer. Nate could see the conflict within them, and he supposed he understood it, being an adopted family and all, but he didn’t think it was a good enough reason to meet with him. He voiced this opinion and it made Marum flare up. She swore up and down that Droman would be civil with them, all the while not saying what he might try to do to Nate.
They didn’t talk about Droman for the next few days. Really, they didn’t talk about much of anything. The fact that Marum had been sneaking around for her brother was disconcerting to all of them and it felt like their trust had been broken. It was interesting to Nate that they would still be traveling with Marum at this point. If this had been a job Nate had been hired to do, he would have either shot her or left her hogtied in the middle of the plains for the coyotes to get her by now. But Alban and Rachel would never go along with that. They were too close to the gray elf, which was dangerous. Though the two of them didn’t want to see the book fall into the hands of Droman, it seemed they wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.
Really, given the whole outlook of the situation, Nate wasn’t in a good position at all. Now he thought that going after Kellen alone might be more beneficial to him and less dangerous. It was hard for Nate to look at this as just any other job, however. Though he was an outlaw through and through, he’d come from a family with no ties to outlaws. Once, he’d been a man who desired a peaceful life—to settle down and have children. Maybe a farm. That had all been the plan with Abigail. But that dream died when she did. But it also meant that he understood where Alban and Rachel were in all this. They weren’t in this for money or reward. In a way, this was a mission for them—one they took on in order to better the world. Of course, Rachel had taken on the more reluctant role, but even she had come around some.
Alban was a passionate man with a heart of gold. He believed in the books. For some reason, he believed in Nate and was fascinated by his story. But everyone involved in this knew what the first book was all about. The first book, The Book of Life, was a test for Nate. It was no secret, and had been stated many times before, that no one had ever gone into The Ancient Books and come back. So, if Nate went in and came back, then he truly was the Keeper of the books. However, if he went in and died or just never came back, then they would all go back to their lives as normal, always wondering if there ever really would be a Keeper.
Nate wished he had the ability Gwen possessed—to go into a person’s mind. He’d like to know Marum’s intentions. He’d like to know what Rachel felt about all this. Was Alban losing his faith?
He knew he could have just asked Rachel and Alban, but he didn’t want to stir anything up. He figured it was best to keep things simple until they needed to talk, which would have to be soon at any rate. Each of them knew a conversation about Droman was going to come up again. Nate wasn’t going to simply walk up to the gray elf and trust him not to cut his throat. Nate had never done anything to hurt Droman or even threaten him, but Nate was an opponent now. They both wanted the same item. And if Droman was as vicious as others claimed him to be, Nate wasn’t about to step foot in his camp. But he was afraid Alban and Rachel would try.
Nate wasn’t sure he could protect them. He figured all he could do was express his concern and if they disregarded him, then their blood would be on the gray elf’s hands, not Nate’s.
The nights were long for Nathaniel Cole. Each one found him sitting up in his bedroll, staring up at the stars or into the endless shadows of the plains beyond. Each night he would crawl up next to Rachel and set his blanket over her and she would give him a thankful nod followed by chattering teeth. At some point, Nate would fall asleep, but for only a couple of hours, then they were off again.
One night, Nate tried to pull up dead flattened grass from beneath the snow and set it on fire for the camp, but it was a failure. He could never get enough of a spark to keep it going. He supposed it was for the best, considering it would probably burn for a minute or two before giving up to the cold wind.
On the fourth day of travel, the snow on the ground lessened and was replaced by dead grass and weeds scattered in every direction. In the distance to the west they could see large jagged mountains that Alban quickly told him led into Dwarf Country. Though the mountains could be seen from this distance, Alban claimed that it would take another week to reach the first one.
It was late into the afternoon when Marum declared that Strakfield wasn’t far. The meeting point for Droman and Kellen was supposed to be somewhere north of the settlement and Marum knew exactly where.
This was when Nate pulled up on his reins and stopped the party from moving ahead. He leaned forward and rested his arms on the saddle in front of him, his breath blowing out of his nose in white vapor. The others stopped their horses and turned to look at him.
“I guess this is where we part ways then,” Nate said. “I ain’t going to meet with Droman for obvious reasons. I’d advise the rest of you to avoid him as well.”
Alban and Rachel looked at each other briefly, then back at Nate. “I think we can reason with Droman,” Rachel said. “He grew up with us. I think we can explain the situation.”
“I think you’re playing a dangerous game, and it ain’t worth your lives,” Nate said. “We’ve still got a couple of days before Kellen should get here on the train. I’m going to head into Strakfield for the night and get some decent food and sleep. Then, in the morning, I’m heading north near the tracks to wait for the train.”
“You’ll need money,” Alban said, reaching into his coat and producing a silver coin. He flipped it in Nate’s direction and Nate caught it in his palm. “That ought to get you what you need.”
“You’re just going to hop on the train as it’s moving?” Rachel asked.
Nate nodded as he slipped the coin into his coat pocket. “Something like that.” He took a deep breath and looked toward the mountains to the west, wishing all the more he was out there in a cabin somewhere with nothing to worry about. “What do you plan to do even if you can persuade Droman to let you have the book? You’ve still got Kellen to deal with.”
“I just…” Alban shook his head. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I just think Droman will listen to us. We are his family.”
“You were his family,” Nate said. “Take it from me, a man can change a lot in a short time. How many years has it been since you seen him?”
Alban’s jaw tensed. “If Droman doesn’t listen to us, then we will meet you at the tracks.”
Nate shook his head. “You can’t let him track you either. If he suspects we’re going to the train, he’ll try to stop you and me. And he’ll kill me. Might kill you for all we know.”
Alban shook his head. “I don’t see that happening.” He swallowed and sat as straight as a post, an indignant pose that showed he wasn’t happy about where this conversation had led. “I’m his father. A son doesn’t just kill his father.”
Nate watched the man, a feeling of sadness overcoming him. “I wouldn’t be so certain about that,” Nate said. “It’s happened before, you know.”
“Not Droman,” Marum said. “He is many things, but he wouldn’t hurt Alban or Rachel.”
Nate kicked his horse lightly and tipped his hat to the group as he trotted by them. “I sure hope you’re right.”
It felt strange riding alone after so many weeks of traveling with a group, but Nate had to admit that it was refreshing. He looked for
ward to a hot bath and a soft bed to sleep in. He decided he wasn’t going to feel bad for the others considering he tried to get them to come with him. Besides, it wasn’t like he could just ride on into Droman’s camp and they knew that.
There was still that feeling gnawing away at him that they were walking into a trap. Nate knew how much a person could change. He knew how much power and greed could corrupt people. He knew it was enough to make them blind—to make people think that what they wanted was more important than the lives of their families. Nate had seen it happen. It was tragic. He felt he’d tried to relay this to Alban and Rachel as best as he could, but they were blinded by their love. They saw Droman as the boy who lived with them for all those years, not as the man who had started a rebellion against the established government of Galamore, whose platform was that men had been in power for too long.
To be fair, Nate didn’t know the gray elf, but he had a good nose for this sort of thing, and the whole situation stunk.
He didn’t have the best plan when it came to going north and meeting the train head on. A train robbery wasn’t out of his skill range, but that kind of job required a team. Nate was no fool either. He knew he was up against something he didn’t understand. Kellen wasn’t just some man who carried a book with him. He was a man who could beat him with magic. Nate didn’t even know what kind of magic Kellen was capable of, but did it matter? All Nate had were a few bullets. Now, he wasn’t a man to dismiss the power of a few well-placed bullets, but what if Kellen could stop them? What if he was so fast that he couldn’t be hit? Nate understood that he was getting way in over his head, and worst of all he was getting desperate. And a desperate thief was the worst kind. A desperate thief made dumb mistakes that would get him killed.
At least Nate recognized this. Knowing he was desperate at least gave him the foresight to stay calm and think things through before he rushed in blindly.
The Outlaw's Quest (Keeper of the Books, Book 2) Page 14