“It’s just a shame it takes a bunch of outlaws to make that happen,” Clive said.
“What revolution didn’t consist of outlaws?” Joe said. “To fight the establishment is to be an outlaw.”
“I agree,” Edric said. “I think you men are on to something with the Renegades.”
“Only problem is that the Renegades haven’t always been this way. When Fredrick Merk was in charge, we weren’t much different than the Okoro gang.”
“Well, Fredrick Merk died,” Edric said. “And with you rose a new group.”
“I suppose we should’ve renamed it,” Clive said. “The fighters… The resisters…”
“We’re not changing the name,” Joe said. “People already know it.”
“But we sound so menacing,” Clive said. “I never really liked the title Warlord either.”
“Well, that was chosen for you by people who weren’t Renegades,” Joe said.
“True, true.”
Joe looked back at Edric after taking a spoonful of prairie dog stew. “So, how did you end up at the Okoro gang’s hideout then?”
Edric bit his lip. “That’s another thing,” he said. “Sometimes Slaughter would hire me to do his dirty work.” He paused, considering the looks that Clive and Joe were giving him, then continued. “There was one job in particular that didn’t sit well with me. He wanted me to kill a man that had worked with him in a business deal. But he didn’t want me to just kill him. He wanted me to send a message by killing his whole family. I’d told him my limitations before. He knew I didn’t kill women and children. But if you know anything about Slaughter, you know he don’t take no for an answer.”
“Why didn’t he just get one of his own men to do it?” Joe asked.
“Because Slaughter’s men are useless,” Edric said. “They don’t know how to crawl around a house in the dark without being heard. They don’t know how to kill a man in his sleep and leave the house without a trace.”
“Seems like you don’t either seeing as you have a bounty on your head,” Clive smiled.
Edric shook his head. “That’s on a count of me trusting a friend who blabbed about me to the sheriff. The sheriff then linked me to a bunch of mysterious murders throughout Galamore.” He waved Clive off. “Anyway, I told him no and rode away. Next thing I know, I’m playing cards in a saloon in Somerled and here come Okoro’s men through the doors. They surrounded the table and made the other men get up. When they sat, one of them told me to deal. He said if I won the card game then Slaughter would let me live. If I lost, he’d shoot me between the eyes. But I suspect now that he had orders to bring me back to the camp either way. The rest is what I already told you. They caught me cheating and dragged me out into the street. Only difference in what I told you earlier is that I shot and killed all of them in the saloon.”
Joe sat with his mouth open, watching Edric. “Then how did they catch you?”
“There were more up the road, waiting,” Edric answered. “I was reloading when they got to me and knocked me out. When I woke up, they beat me, dragged me through the roads…really made a spectacle of me. Then I woke up some morning and they told me to stand out in the middle of a field. And that’s where I met you two.”
Suddenly, the prairie dog stew didn’t settle well with Joe’s stomach. He set the bowl on the ground and stared at Clive who seemed equally contemplative.
“Well,” Clive said. “If you’re gonna run with us, we need to set a few ground rules.”
“I understand.”
“First, you’re done killing,” Clive said. “Self defense is one thing. Killing for hire is another. We ain’t gonna have it.”
“Of course.”
“Second, you probably ought not tell anybody else what you just told us. Stick with your first story. It’s more believable anyway. In Vandikhan you’d either be laughed at or challenged.”
“Sure.”
“Third, we gotta know what you believe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Earlier you mentioned revolution. Do you think there’s a reason there needs to be a revolution or do you just want to join us because you aren’t accepted by society anymore?”
“Ain’t that most of your members?” Edric asked.
“Maybe, but they know what they are supposed to stand for,” Joe said. “And each of them knows he could be called up at any moment to fight against the tyranny of President DalGaard.”
It was Edric’s turn to set his bowl on the ground. He folded his fingers together, his elbows resting on his knees. “I think there needs to be a revolution, not only against the president himself, but against the idea of having a president at all.”
“Why?”
“Because everything we do, every way we live, is determined by one man. Now you tell me how that’s fair.” Edric shook his head. “The president acts outside of the law just as much as we do. He don’t listen to congress. He don’t care about the courts. He does as he wishes.”
“It ain’t fair,” Clive said. “But we aim to make life as fair as it can be.” His eyes traveled to Joe, but Joe didn’t know what to say. He just shrugged. Clive then looked back at Edric and smiled. “It’s a bit strange that you can so coldly kill a man, but you’re the type of person we need. I think we’ll have you join us.”
Edric shook his head and laughed as he reached down for his bowl and took a large spoonful of stew and shoved it into his mouth. “I was hoping you’d say that. I’d hate to have to kill you.”
Joe and Clive looked at each other for a long second, and the three of them laughed together, though Joe was pretty sure he’d have to sleep with one eye open the rest of their trip.
Nate
Winter, 903 A.O.M
Droman apparently hadn’t been with the party who had abducted Nate from the hotel. They were, however, three of his lackeys, and they had indeed brought Nate to Droman’s camp.
None of the gray elves spoke to Nate directly, but they didn’t mind slapping him around. They laughed a couple of times as they kicked and slapped, kicked and slapped. None of it was too painful—Nate had been beaten a lot worse—but it didn’t exactly feel good. Finally, they dragged him to a tent and threw him inside.
He screamed more curses, but they fell on deaf ears. When he pulled himself to his knees, he heard someone call out his name.
“Nate!”
His head snapped to the side and saw Rachel sitting on the ground on the other side of the tent. He felt his eyes go wide when he recognized her. Her hands were tied behind her back too, but there was no gag in her mouth.
“I can’t believe they’re doing this,” she said.
Nate crawled toward her on his knees, and he tried speaking despite the gag. He was trying to tell her to help him get the gag out, but she didn’t understand at first.
“Mphphf,” was all he could get out.
She shook her head. “I can’t understand you when you’re gagged like that.”
His eyebrows fell low as he cocked his head to the side. “Mphphf!”
Rachel shook her head quickly. “Oh, sorry!” She scooted closer to him on her knees until she was directly in front of his face. “I don’t…what should…my hands, you know.”
Nate looked around for some kind of solution, breathing heavily through his nose. Finally, he stared at Rachel in the eyes for a long moment, almost as if he was trying to project his thoughts into her mind. He scooted in closer to her and leaned forward, pressing the side of his cheek against hers.
“Oh, Nate, what are you…” she said in protest, then the thought hit her. “Oh, I get it. I get it.”
She turned her face to his cheek and pressed her lips against it. She brushed them down slowly and then opened her mouth until her front teeth caught on the cloth that gagged him. She then bit the cloth and pulled down as Nate pulled up.
The gag slipped from his mouth and he let it fall to his neck. The two of them stared at each other a little longer. Feeling her lips against
his cheek like that made him feel a little flushed and he wondered if she felt the same way.
“I’m going to stay right here so they don’t hear us talking, okay?” She kept her lips close to the side of his head and directed her words toward his ear.
“Yeah,” Nate whispered. He tried to get his mind focused. “How did this happen?”
“You were right,” Rachel said. “We should have listened to you. We should have never come here. We should have just moved up north toward the tracks like you said.”
Nate shushed her. “It’s okay,” he said. “We just have to figure out what to do next.”
She rested her cheek against his now. “I don’t know what to do. When we got here, Droman was surprised to see us. Somehow it came out that we’d been with the Sentinels. I don’t know how or why. But that got him suspicious and now he knows the whole thing. That’s how he learned about you.”
“How much of this is Marum’s fault?” Nate asked. “And where’s your father?”
“He was tied up too, but he’s in one of the tents talking to Droman. He’s with Marum. You can’t blame her. She tried to stop Droman. She tried to talk sense into his head.”
“Is she tied up too?”
“No.”
This sent a flash of anger through Nate more than anything else. He’d seen this kind of thing before. You had to know who to trust, and if you weren’t sure, the default was to play it safe. He guessed he was guilty of breaking his own rule, however. He’d decided to travel with Marum despite not trusting her. And here he was, tied up with no place to go. There was no mistaking who was on whose side. One could always decide the good from the bad based on who was tied up and who wasn’t.
“It’s not her fault, Nate,” Rachel said almost as if she could read his thoughts.
“We’ll see,” he said. “Is Droman gonna kill us?”
“I don’t think he’s going to kill me or my father, but I don’t know about you. He hasn’t said anything.” She pulled away from him and brought her face within an inch of his. “Oh, Nate, he’s changed. I can’t believe you said it and it was true. He’s changed so much. There’s a darkness in his eyes that I’ve never seen before.”
Nate knew the darkness of which she spoke. It was the kind of look that came with killing. Every time a man killed, whether the victim deserved it or not, a part of the killer died along with him, and it always showed in the eyes. It was possible to come back from it, but most men didn’t.
“What if he kills you, Nate? We never meant for this to happen.”
“If he kills me then I guess I had it coming,” he said. “I just hope he at least lets me put on my clothes before he does it.”
This made Rachel laugh briefly, but her eyes filled with water and two thick streams fell down her face.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “Don’t you go crying. We still got a lot to figure out.”
Rachel swallowed and nodded. Then her wet eyes looked into Nate’s and she leaned in, pressing her lips firmly against his. She then pulled away slowly, more tears falling.
The two of them stared at each other for almost a full minute when the flap of the tent flew open and Alban was shoved in. The man stumbled and fell flat on the dirt. Nate wanted to help him, but with all his limbs tied up, he was useless. It wasn’t like he had time to anyway. As soon as the gray elf guard tossed Alban into the tent, he stomped toward Nate and grabbed him by the hair.
“No!” Rachel yelled out, but she was ignored.
The guard yanked his hair until Nate was fully out of the tent, trying to keep up with the guard with the tiny steps he had to take because of the restrictive rope at his ankles. Nate’s teeth clenched as the gray elf pulled him. He wanted to knock the man out. He wanted to shoot every gray elf in the encampment. But he was their prisoner and in their territory. It was unlikely he’d be able to escape. He figured his best chance was to try and talk his way out of it.
His mind ran wild, trying to come up with something that might help him gain leverage, but he couldn’t think of anything. Here, he had nothing to his name. No wealth. No services to offer. Nate couldn’t really think of a good reason the gray elf wouldn’t kill him, except maybe by Alban and Rachel’s request.
The guard brought him into a large tent and kicked the back of his knees so he was immediately kneeling near the entrance. The first person he saw was Marum standing off to the side. The sight of her made him snarl, but he didn’t say anything at first. He then saw the other figure in the room.
The gray elf was taller than his sister. His long black hair was pulled back to reveal a sharp, angry face, his purple eyes blazing. Two lamps in the room shined just brightly enough for Nate to see a couple of scars running down the side of his face all the way down to his neck. Droman had seen some fights, that much was true.
“So, this is the man you told me about,” Droman said, his voice low and dark.
“Yes,” Marum said.
Droman walked to within a couple of feet of Nate and stood over him. “You’re after The Ancient Books as well.”
“It’s the only way I can get home,” Nate said. He swallowed and tried to suppress the anger he felt growing within him. He had zero chances of surviving if he provoked the gray elf.
“Yes,” Droman said, “I’ve been told all about you. But you see, we are after the same thing. So, you’re my competition.”
“That’s what you think about your family?” Nate said. “Alban. Rachel. They’re just your competition.”
“They will always be my family,” Droman answered.
“Is that how the gray elves do it then? They like to tie up their family and shove them into a tent as prisoners?”
“If there is a chance we can’t trust our family, then yes,” he said. “But you are not my family.” The words were cold and they brought death with them. Nate could see it in the elf’s eyes. He wanted to kill Nate. He needed to kill Nate.
“What exactly are we doing in here?” Nate said. “If you’re going to kill me, you might as well do it now. There’s nothing more for us to talk about.”
Droman knelt to one knee and looked Nate squarely in the eyes. Nate didn’t avert his gaze and stared back with a tensed jaw. He wasn’t afraid of the gray elf.
“Do you know why I’m after The Ancient Books?” Droman asked, his eyes narrowing.
Nate shook his head. “I don’t care.”
“I’m after The Ancient Books because we gray elves have spent so much of our history fighting off those who would destroy us. How many hundreds of years have we been fighting just to stay alive?”
“I really don’t think you understand how much I don’t care,” Nate said.
Droman stood and paced in front of him, ignoring Nate’s comment. “We used to rule these lands, you know. The gray elves and wood elves were in every part of Galamore. Then the dragons came and all people groups fought against them. When we won, man claimed the victory for themselves, and we were ushered into the Age of Man. It was man who designated regions for us all. It was man who put the gray elves into the darkest corner of Galamore, ever to be forgotten. It was man who branded us as savages and encouraged the rest of the land to forget about us. It was man who built the railroads, but neglected to build them through Gray Elf Country.” Droman stopped pacing and looked at Nate in the eyes again. “By obtaining the books, I can show man that we are a force to be reckoned with. That we are no mere savages.”
“That’ll show ’em,” Nate said. “Take over the world by writing the ending. What do you plan to write? Then the gray elves ruled over them all, and they all submitted unquestioningly?”
“Who said anything about writing the ending?” Droman said. “Owning one book hardly gives us that kind of power. But it does give us some strength. Owning one of The Ancient Books makes a group important in Galamore.”
“Does it?” Nate said. “I thought most people didn’t know where the books were anyway.”
“They don’t. But when they hear
that we have one, they will take us more seriously. And when we have two, they will fear us.”
“And if you have three, they will come down on you with an overwhelming army,” Nate said. “They’ll never let you get all three.”
“And you think it wouldn’t be the same for you?” Droman said. “Do you honestly believe you wouldn’t become the most sought after human being in the history of Galamore if you had the books? Bounty hunters. Assassins. Lawmen. They’d all be after you.”
“I didn’t exactly plan to publicize my efforts,” Nate said.
“And here you are, with so many people who know what you are trying to do,” Droman came back. “Look at how many people already know of your efforts, and you’ve never even seen one of the books. I know about it. Your friends. The Sentinels. Think of how many people would learn of you if you got just one of the books—if you obtained a relic key. Without a military force backing you, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Then you obviously don’t know that much about me,” Nate said. “I’ve been an outlaw for a long time, and I’m pretty good about slipping away.”
“And yet here you are, tied up and on your knees,” Droman said.
Nate shrugged. “I’ve been in worse spots. You might as well kill me now, because if you don’t, I’m gonna get away from you.”
Droman’s eyes narrowed at this. Nate was playing his game. It was a dangerous one, but he knew the cards in his own hand.
“Of course,” Nate said, “it might not go in line with the narrative you’re trying to create. Might seem awfully savage of you to murder the man who saved your sister’s life—something you were too afraid to do.”
“I wasn’t afraid,” Droman said. “Getting to Marum would have been impossible for us. It was a trap from the start. She knew what she was doing before she ever took the job.” He looked at his sister. “Didn’t you, Marum?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her.
“Still,” Droman said, “I am grateful she is with us today. Of course, it raised a lot of questions. And now here we are. I’ve got a Sojourner kneeling before me whose only desire is to steal the book I need.”
The Outlaw's Quest (Keeper of the Books, Book 2) Page 18