by David Ekrut
Dropping to his hands and knees, he crawled out of the room. He stood and felt beneath his tunic where he had been struck. His shoulder would bruise, but his skin and bone were unbroken.
He ran across the upper platform, around the stairs to the ladder that led to the roof. The latch was not locked. His father had always said he kept the roof locked to keep out intruders, but Feffer had always known it was to keep him from climbing up there.
Feffer flung open the door and climbed onto the roof, then ran to the edge. Tendrils of smoke rose from the inn but no flames as far as he could see. The door and most of the right side of the inn were missing as if some giant’s hand had knocked the building from the inside. He could see the common room clearly. Inside and out people were stretched out. Some were bent at odd angles, but some looked as if they were curled on their sides, sleeping.
At this distance he could not see if they were breathing.
“What in the abyss!” he said again.
A man walked through the smoke into the street, stepping on people. He wore black robes and a dark cloak. The rain did not land on him. It hit an invisible shield and rolled around him. In his right hand, he had a large sword that was jagged on one side. Over his left shoulder, he carried someone.
“Stop,” he heard someone say.
Feffer searched the street for the source of the voice. The Escari’s wagon had been knocked over from the force. The wagon had been led by four horses. One of them was trapped beneath the wagon. It laid very still. And the other horses were gone. If they had run off, it would take hours to round them up.
Behind the wagon was Drenen. “Please, stop!”
The man ignored Drenen and walked toward the stable to the left of the inn.
“Please!” Drenen cried. “He is my son.”
The man stopped walking and turned toward Drenen. Feffer gasped when he saw Elwin’s face. Feffer reached for his sword at his hip, but it wasn’t there. He had left his sword at the farm.
“The Seeker take me for a fool,” he cursed. Why had he left his sword?
The man eased Elwin to the ground and walked toward Drenen.
“What is your name, peasant?” the man asked.
“I am Drenen of house Escari.”
“Come here,” he said in a level voice.
Drenen took a step forward and hesitated.
“You wish to be near the boy?” the man asked. “There is only one way this can be. Come to me.”
Drenen walked to the man.
“Kneel,” he said as if commanding a dog.
“Why are you doing this? Please, give me my son.”
The man’s sword hand moved with a speed that made Feffer blink, striking Drenen in his face with the hilt. Drenen stumbled backwards, then fell to his knees.
“Please.” Drenen’s voice was strained.
The man sheathed his sword and raised his hand in a claw-like grip, poised in front of Drenen’s heart. His hand become black, outlined in a burning white glow. The front of Drenen’s good tunic began to blacken and burn beneath the glowing hand.
Drenen cried out in fear and crawled backward from the man.
Feffer wanted to scream at Drenen to run, but he couldn’t make himself move. His own instincts told him to hide or go for help.
Drenen did not back away very far before the dark man reached him. He grabbed Drenen’s foot with the glowing hand and pulled him closer. A dark fog surrounded Drenen as the glowing hand thrust into his chest.
Feffer cried out before he could stop himself. “No!”
If Drenen or his attacker noticed, neither even glanced in his direction.
Drenen’s mouth opened wide, but no sound escaped. The hand went beyond the limits possible of a mortal body as the man’s arm was swallowed by Drenen’s chest. Embers and bits of burning cloth rose from the hole in Drenen’s shirt.
That’s his festival tunic, Feffer thought. It was a stupid thought. Who cared about a tunic?
A stench wafted up to his nostrils. It was fowl like burning hair, but thick like ash and dust. Feffer covered his nose with the inside of his elbow and coughed into his sleeve. He stumbled backward and almost fell. He wanted to scream, cry out, do something. He felt helpless on the roof without his sword.
This wasn’t real. He was still asleep. Maybe he had fallen and struck his head. None of this was possible.
When the hand left Drenen’s chest, Feffer heard the faintest gasp echo in the air. It had not sounded like a man’s voice, but like the wind itself. A brilliant light came into being, forcing Feffer to look away from the square. He shielded his eyes and watched through the cracks in his fingers. A glowing image the size of a man floated above the man’s upraised hand.
Feffer dropped to his knees.
The light had the shape and appearance of Drenen. It wore his torn tunic and long breeches. Black fog lingered around the arm holding the light. For a moment, the man held the image between him and Drenen.
Drenen writhed on the ground, clutching at his chest. His mouth was open as if screaming, but no sound left his lungs. Feffer stood, both fists clenched. He judged the distance between himself and the man.
If he leapt …
The man reached into his robe and pulled out a metallic object about the size of a small foot. As he brought the image of Drenen near the box, the top opened.
Tendrils of black fog left from the opening and solidified in the form of chains, which elongated and sprouted shackles at their tips. When the shackles closed around the ankles, wrists, and neck of the image, Drenen arched his back until only his head and feet touched the ground.
The image shrank as it was pulled into the confines of the box. The light dwindled and disappeared, bathing the square in darkness once more. The lid slammed closed, making a heavy metal clink.
Drenen dropped into the dirt and laid very still. Where he had been breathing laboriously before, now his chest was unmoving.
Feffer held his breath, waiting for Drenen to move, breathe, do anything. Nothing happened. He wasn’t moving. He would never move again.
Feffer looked at Drenen’s ruined tunic and tears filled his eyes.
“He killed him?” he whispered. “The Lifebringer save me. He killed him.”
After replacing the chest in the folds of his robes, the man walked back over to Elwin and knelt beside him, leaving Drenen in the square.
“He’s a dark savant,” Feffer realized. What would a sword have been against a man like this?
Feffer became aware that he was still standing and that his fists were clenched. He suddenly felt exposed. He dropped to his belly, crawled back toward the hatch, and climbed down the ladder.
Once he was on the landing, he began to pace.
“What is going on?”
He grabbed his head. “Think, think, think, think. I have to think.”
This man could kill him without lifting a hand. How could he fight that? He couldn’t.
“But I have to save Elwin. What is this man doing with Elwin?”
Then Feffer remembered something he had heard from Lord Zaak and Sir Gibbins discussing. The dark savants were seeking out all the elementalists coming into their power. This man was going to take Elwin and force him to wield the Death Element.
“The Lifebringer save me,” Feffer said. “What am I going to do?”
Elwin awoke upon a hard surface that moved and swayed with the motion of a road. The morning was brighter than it had been the previous day, but there was still a misting rain hanging in the air. The water and the brightness blinded him.
His head ached. He had been unconscious, but he had not entered the shadow realm. Did he wake from a dream? No. He no longer dreamed. Zeth was real.
He sat up.
A cage surrounded him. It rose out of the long wooden board beneath him. There was
no door. The misshapen bars were stained yellow and white. He touched one of them. It had a wet feel, like a mushroom after a rain but harder. Then he saw that one of the bars ended in boned hand.
“What in the abyss?” Elwin backed away from the bars. “Bone! These are made from bone!”
He had touched it. His stomach became ill, and he began to heave up his guts. When his stomach was empty, he continued to heave. After his stomach calmed, he struggled to breathe for several moments.
He needed to get a hold of himself. There had to be a way out of here. He looked at his cage, scanning for any weakness. Two horses pulled the cage, driven by a single man.
He could only see his driver’s back. The man had short brown hair, soaked from the rain, and he wore a brown tunic with green stitching around the hem. The man’s attire was much like what his father had worn to the festival.
“Please,” he called to the man, “let me out of here!”
The man’s pale face turned toward him. The center of his brown eyes swirled with a black fog, but there was no mistaking the face of his father.
“Father?” Elwin said. “Father, let me out of here! What is going on?”
His father opened his mouth to speak, but words didn’t come out. Instead, his father trembled and the fog in his eyes swirled more violently.
“Father!” Elwin called.
“He was never your father,” Zeth’s voice said. The dark clad man rode alongside the wagon on a white horse.
“What did you do to him?” Elwin demanded.
“He is called a soulless one,” Zeth said. “His mind is still his own, but his body is forever a slave to this.”
Zeth pulled the dark chest from his robes. “This is called a soulkey. Whoever holds it commands the soulless one. His life is bound to this for all of time. These artifacts are rare, and the knowledge of how to craft them died with Abaddon. Holding a soul is but a fraction of its power.”
“Release him,” Elwin said. “I will go with you. Just release him.”
Zeth’s half smile belied the pity in his voice. “I am afraid it is too late. If I release the energy of his soul, his death will be absolute. Not even his soul would remain. Death now means complete destruction.”
“No,” Elwin said. “That isn’t possible.”
“You cannot fathom the powers of the Father,” Zeth said. “You have been made weak by living a peasant’s existence. Your mother is to blame. Had she not stolen you away, none of this would have come to pass. The war may not have reached these islands for many years.
“This peasant,” Zeth gestured toward his father, “would have lived out a long peasant’s life and never suffered at my hand. But we must all pay for our folly.”
“What folly?” Elwin asked. “He was a farmer. He never hurt you or anyone.”
“That is where you are wrong,” Zeth said. “He kept a child who was not his to keep. He has paid the ultimate price for his crimes.”
Elwin was at a loss for words. Zeth was a madman. There was nothing to say that would make the man see reason. Father’s only crime was to love him. Elwin was orphaned, and Drenen raised him as his own.
“Where are you taking me?”
“As I told you. I am taking you to your father across the Tranquil Sea. Where you belong.”
Elwin sat back on his feet. “I want nothing to do with him or you.”
“Ah,” Zeth said. “Another village lies ahead. I will need to make a few more skeletal warriors, there.”
“Stop the wagon,” he called. The cage slowed to a stop.
He had been about to ask Zeth what he had meant by skeletal warriors. Then, Elwin heard the shuffling of feet behind him. As he turned around, his stomach felt ill once more.
The question died on his lips.
Chapter 17
A Light in the Darkness
Feffer rode Haven back toward the town with haste.
“I can’t believe I left Elwin,” Feffer said.
He had come back to the farm last night, hoping to find Melra or his father, Wilton or anyone. For the last year of his life he had learned to take orders. There was no one to give him orders now. But he had to do something.
As the town grew closer, Feffer slowed Haven to a trot. At a distance, he couldn’t tell that anything had happened to the town. Rain sprinkled the redwood, making it a darker crimson. The buildings on the west side of the town had not been scathed.
The first building was Danna’s. Normally, the strong smells of candles and odd aromas would greet him, but her windows remained closed.
He reigned Haven to a stop and tethered her to Danna’s building. If the dark savant was still around, Feffer didn’t want to be seen riding into town. Next to Danna’s was Jansen’s brewery. On the other side of the brewery was his Da’s shop.
He crept behind the brewery, using all the stealth he had been taught. The wet grass made very little noise beneath his feet as he crept around the back of the building. When he reached the building’s edge, he ran to his Da’s shop and crept along the side toward the square. When there was no more wall left, he slowly peeked around the building.
Standing in the square, he saw Melra, Poppe, and Faron. The moment his eyes landed on them, he broke into a run.
“Mrs. Escari,” he said. “What happened to Elwin?”
All three of them jumped at the sound of his voice. Melra placed a hand over her mouth and tears filled her eyes.
“Feffer,” she cried, while pulling him into an embrace. “That man took him. And … ”
Her voice broke into a sob, and she became heavy in his arms. He held her until her sobbing subsided.
“Melra,” Poppe said at last. “We need to get inside. There is nothing we can do for Elwin out here.”
Melra pulled away from him, and they started toward the broken inn.
“Wait,” Feffer said. “Where is he?”
They stopped walking and regarded him as one. Melra’s eyes were still filled with tears. And, Faron looked at Feffer like he was the same child who used to try to make off with his swords.
It was Poppe who answered him. “The man called Zeth took him. He arrived at my inn early yesterday and took a place by the fire. He was dressed in rich black robes, like none I had ever seen. He scoffed at our wineskins and ordered a bottle of wine. I had tried to make polite banter, but the man had not been interested. After tasting the wine, it was of Napri vintage, his manner was polite but curt. I took him for a lord. He had told me that he was waiting for someone and did not wish to be bothered. He said that if he wanted something he would call for me. I thought him some sort of nobility. Not … not this.” It took great effort not to cut Poppe off before he finished the long-winded speech that really told him nothing.
“Where is Elwin?” Feffer knew his voice sounded impatient. “Which way did Zeth take him?”
“No one saw them leave,” Faron said. “I am ashamed to say that I hid with Melra, Poppe, and the children in Poppe’s wine cellar until this morning. I make a fine sword, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about using one. But there are fresh tracks heading east. By the number of tracks, it looks like he took more people than Elwin with him. What would he want with all of them?”
“Right,” Feffer said. “East it is then. Faron, you need to ride west. You know of the guard posting fifteen leagues to the west on the other side of Hillfast?”
“Yes, of course,” Faron said. “But—”
“Great,” Feffer cut in. “Make haste and tell them what happened here. Have them send word to Sir Gibbins, immediately.”
He walked toward the shop, “I need supplies.”
“Wait,” Poppe said. “Feffer, there is something you need to know. It’s your father.”
Feffer stopped walking. He hadn’t even thought to ask about his Da or Wilton. He had assumed they were alright
. But, where were they?
“My Da?” Feffer asked.
“He was standing beside the door,” Faron said, “when it happened.”
“When what happened?” Feffer asked.
“I’m so sorry, Feffer,” Poppe said. “He’s gone.”
“Gone where?” Feffer said.
Poppe placed a hand on his shoulder. “He’s dead, child.”
“Wilton?”
“No one has seen him,” Faron said. “He might have been taken with the others.”
“Who is still alive?” Feffer wanted to know.
“We can’t know for sure,” Faron said. The large man had tears in his eyes. “Everything happened so quickly. When the man pulled his jagged blade and began attacking people, most people ran.”
Feffer didn’t know what to say. He felt tears try to make their way to the surface, but he forced them away. There was no time for this.
Wiping his eyes, he walked to his Da’s shop. The door was unlocked. He entered and walked past “the front,” as his Da called it, and opened the double doors to the warehouse.
Feffer found a traveler’s knapsack and began grabbing anything that might be useful and shoved it into the bag. Rope and tackle, artificer’s tools and fishing line. He found a small tent that could tie to a saddle. Bandages and healing salts and salves could prove useful. Spy glass, tender twigs, lantern, sealed oil, dried bread and meat, wineskins for water.
He found a dark, leather saddle bag and filled it with more travel foods. In the middle of the loft was a leather tarp covering something. Feffer pulled it off.
Fireworks.
There were small, round ones, a couple of big round ones, and a large, oblong one with a wooden base. It was half the size of his leg.
He grabbed as many of them as would fit into the remainder of his pack. Then, he took a dagger and cut away enough of the tarp to wrap the fireworks and forced the bundle to fit into the bag.
His pack was heavier than it looked.
He left it where it was and walked across to the weapon rack on the far wall. He tested several swords, checking their weight and balance.
Feffer settled on a scimitar. These had come from the Alcoan nation, obviously crafted by a master. His father must have had too high of a price on it, or the blade would have sold. It was truly a beautiful blade. He left the sword Sir Gibbins had given him in its place and held the falchion in appraisal. It had an encircled raven engraved just above the hilt.