by Mike Shelton
They let the horses wander close by, drinking their fill from the stream and eating some creek-side grass, while the two of them sat on a small patch of ground around an aspen tree, one of the few mixed in with the evergreens, which grew more thickly the farther north and east they traveled. A squirrel ran out in front of them, and soon another chased behind. It was hard to imagine the turmoil facing Alaris at that moment.
“Alli,” Gorn began, “I must tell you some things. You are correct that I fight a battle. My insides are in turmoil. I had to decide where my loyalties lay in what is coming. This is a dangerous time for Alaris.”
Alli looked at him intently but didn’t offer any comments. Biting into a piece of dried pork, she decided to hear her mentor out before making any judgments. Gorn brought the waterskin to his lips and drank his fill before continuing.
“Among the wizards at the Citadel, there has been talk for years, even decades, of reinstating a king in Alaris. Many of us didn’t care one way or the other, but some—including Kanzar and, later, some of those following him—became very pointed on the manner. I’m still not entirely sure where Onius stands on the issue. There is no love lost between him and Kanzar, but…” Gorn trailed off, as if trying to find the right words.
“What?” Alli prompted.
“I’m not sure. I have always respected and trusted Onius. I hope he keeps his head on his shoulders, but I’m sure things have been hard for him also. All those who supported Kanzar knew they needed to wait until the time was right. Then the barrier started showing signs of weakness a few years ago.”
“A few years ago?” Alli was surprised by how long it had been happening.
“Yes. Kept in strict secrecy, with only a few full wizards knowing about it. There are places where the barrier disappears for moments. And the entire barrier is weaker—thinner, in a way.”
Alli lay back on the grass and stared up. Through the branches of the aspen tree she could glimpse patches of white clouds floating across the blue sky. “How does this relate to your internal battle?”
“I fear I have been dishonest and have deceived you, the Chief Judge, and others. I have been out fighting the King-men, but all along, I have suspected that Kanzar stood behind it. When you take the wizard test, Alli, you pledge a strong allegiance to the Citadel, the wizards, and even their leader, over and above all else.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Alli mumbled softly, still sore at not being able to take the test before they had left the Citadel.
Gorn ignored her comment and continued. “Now, Kanzar has sent us to where the Orb is: the power behind the barrier. I had hoped our assignment would be to make sure it stayed safe and that the barrier could become strong once again. But Kanzar intends for it to fail. That is a hard thing for me to support. So, I suppose, before we arrive, we will need to decide whose side we are on.”
“Whose side?” Alli jumped up. “Gorn, we have been the Chief Judge’s battle wizards—well, I’m not a wizard, but you know what I mean. These King-men are disrupting the proper channels of authority and killing innocent people. If Kanzar is truly behind that, then we fight against him.”
Gorn smiled and tore off a chunk of bread from a small loaf. After chewing, he motioned for Alli to sit back down. She reluctantly did so.
“Now you see my quandary. I swore in the past to uphold the wizard leadership of the Citadel. I also pledged to protect the reign of the judges and uphold the law. In the past, I did both without any personal conflict. But now they are in conflict, and Kanzar’s reach is vast.”
Alli nodded her head. “Is Kanzar setting himself up to be king?”
“Yes, and now I see how dangerous that is. He has become incredibly strong in my absence and, until recently, had total control over the Citadel.”
“What happened recently?”
“Your friend Roland happened,” Gorn said matter-of-factly, standing back up and calling the horses back to them.
Alli laughed and shook her head. “That arrogant fool. What did he do?”
Before answering, Gorn motioned for them to mount and start riding again.
“I was not there for the testing—something happened there, though. Roland might be arrogant, but I would suppose from what I have seen that he is probably the only wizard right now who can control Kanzar and thwart his dreams of becoming king.”
Alli kicked her horse gently to speed up its gallop. “That does sound bad.”
Their conversation dwindled over the next few hours as they rode hard and fast toward the river. Alli tried to think of what her place was in all of this. It frustrated her still that Roland had been tested and she hadn’t. After performing in the practice yard the other day, she knew more than ever how powerful she really was. If taking the wizard test meant swearing loyalty to Kanzar, though, she couldn’t do that. The man was more arrogant and foolish than Roland. Thinking of Roland usually turned her cheeks pink, and she rode faster so Gorn wouldn’t see her face flush.
Soon they arrived at a small village, next to the Dunn River. It was abnormally quiet, and Alli instantly put up her guard. No children ran in the streets and she saw few adults out and about. Those they did see kept their eyes lowered and continued on their way.
There was still enough daylight left to continue their travels, and, although a stay at an inn sounded nice, Alli knew they had to continue on. Riding up to the river, they found the river barge station and dismounted there. A man sat in a small hut next to the river. He was old but had the strength of one who still used his muscles every day.
“Are you the barge master?” Gorn asked.
The man would not meet their eyes, and he paused before answering in the affirmative.
“We need to cross the river,” Gorn stated.
The man nodded. “Two gold pieces, for you and your horses.”
Gorn’s eyebrows lifted. “Kind of steep, isn’t that?”
“Times are hard. Our village flooded earlier this year, and we have to work hard to build it back. Materials are not cheap this far north.”
Gorn grudgingly agreed to this price. After bartering in a nearby inn for some food, they brought their horses down to the river’s edge.
The barge master brought the horses onto the barge first and then motioned for them to board. He untied the thick ropes, holding the barge to the shore, and grabbed a long, thick carved branch in his calloused hands. Across from them, on the other side of the Dunn River, sat a similar landing.
“I am sorry,” the barge master whispered to the two.
“Sorry?” Gorn questioned.
The man glanced around nervously once again and then, instead of jumping on with them, used the thick stick to push them swiftly out into the middle of the river, without him on the barge with them. The current began to pull the barge downriver, in the opposite way from their destination.
“What?” Why?” Alli yelled at the man, who was already getting smaller and smaller on the shore.
Out of the town and behind the trees on the shore emerged a group of men. Many nocked their bows while approaching the two.
“Mercenaries!” spat Gorn. “That’s why the town was so quiet. They had already taken this village and recognized us.”
“Kanzar’s King-men,” Alli said.
Gorn agreed. “His reach is long. Somehow, he told them about us. I’m afraid Kanzar may have changed his mind about our mission.”
The men on the shore began shooting arrows before the two could react, and one hit Gorn in the thigh.
Alli raised her hands up and threw a bolt of lightning in their direction. It blasted into the ground, and half a dozen men went flying into the air. Her greatest strength was hand-to-hand combat, so she ground her teeth in frustration. They were too far away for that.
More arrows flew toward them. The horses, spooked by the arrows, moved around on the barge too quickly, and they both ended up on the same side of the barge. The weight difference was too much, and the barge started to lean to one side.
“Alli, move to the other side.” Gorn moved with her. The arrow still stuck out of his thigh, and he groaned in pain. Reaching down, he broke its shaft off at the skin so it wouldn’t get in his way.
“You need to get the tip out,” Alli screamed at him.
“Later.” Gorn brought his hands up and conjured a strengthening wind that he threw at the shore. It knocked down another dozen men.
Alli followed his attack by pushing up the dirt in front of them. But the distance soon became too great for her power to have much force. The barge still rocked back and forth and leaned closer to shore. Then Alli had a thought. She moved to the back of the barge and pushed air at the water behind them, which pushed them closer to the shoreline. The remaining men ran down the shoreline to reach them.
As the men shot off another barrage of arrows, Alli tried to stop them, but her focus needed to be on getting the barge to the shore. If they floated too far south, it would take them even longer to reach Celestar. They couldn’t afford that delay. And the only way for her to utilize her full skills and finish this off was to be on the shore fighting the men.
One of those arrows hit her horse in the side, and it reared up on its hind legs, rocking the barge again so violently that the other horse began to slip off. Gorn reached toward his falling battle horse, grabbing the reins to try to stabilize him. But his hands got stuck, and, as the horse fell into the murky water, Gorn fell with him.
“Gorn!” Alli jumped to the edge of the barge to help him.
They were now within a few feet of the bank, and the horse could stand. Gorn hung to the side of the horse and was being dragged through the water.
“Let go of the reins,” Alli yelled again, but Gorn did not answer.
Another arrow flew over her head, and she turned to see six men within fifty feet of her. She ground her teeth and went into battle mode. Gorn could take care of himself for a few more moments.
Pushing herself, Alli jumped the last ten feet from the barge to the shore. Leaping again—almost flying through the air—she landed in front of the six men. Four had arrows focused on her, while two others drew swords.
“You should have brought more men with you,” she said and then ran straight toward them. This tactic surprised them, and only two of them got off shots with their bows before Alli had reached them. With grace and ease, she spun around and dodged the arrows.
Grabbing the bows from two of the men, one with each hand, she plunged them over the heads of two other men and pulled hard, causing the string of the bows to cut into the back of their necks. They fell to the ground, moaning. The two men she had taken the bows from turned back to her with knives in their hands now.
Alli pushed out both of her palms, and air flew into the two men’s hands, throwing their knives out of their reaches. Then, before they knew what had happened, Alli ran up the side of a nearby tree, twisting back around behind them, and knocked both of them out with the blades of her knives on their necks.
A loud neigh bellowed behind her, and Alli turned to see her horse still struggling on the barge. Gorn’s horse stood on the shore now, with Gorn still hanging from the reins. He wasn’t moving.
Sensing, rather than hearing, the other two men behind her, Alli jumped into the air, her feet reaching the height of a man, and spun around, kicking one man in the head, pushing him into the other man. Both men fell to the ground, but the second one drew a small knife from a sheath at his side and threw it, end over end, at her. The close range made the knife difficult to dodge, and, even though Alli moved like a flash of light, it grazed her forearm, bringing a sting of pain.
The man sat there and glared at her in disbelief. Then he began to stand up. But Alli rushed him hard and, with a kick to his head, sent him crashing back against a hard pine tree.
With all six men down, she now turned her attention to Gorn, rushing to his side. She cut the cords holding his hands to the horse. His gray hair lay plastered to his large face, and his eyes remained closed. She turned him on his side and began to pound on his back, trying to force the murky water out of his lungs.
“Gorn. No!” she screamed. “This can’t happen. Wake up, Gorn.” Tears streamed down her face.
After her repeated pounding, Gorn finally coughed out a lungful of water and took a deep breath. Then his eyes fluttered open for a moment.
“Alli,” he whispered feebly before his eyes closed once more.
Alli sucked in some air and wiped her eyes. At least he wasn’t dead. But, looking at the arrow stub in his thigh, Alli realized that he wasn’t going to recover soon either.
As she stood up, a group of townspeople came near. They stood tentatively a few yards away from her.
“Are there any more?” she asked them, referring to the mercenaries.
“No,” one of the men said. “You two took care of them all. I can’t believe it.”
“Are you a wizard, Miss?” asked a teenage boy.
Alli forced a mirthless laugh. “No. Only an apprentice.”
The boy’s eyes opened wider surveying the damage she had wrought.
“My friend here is one, though.” Alli pointed to Gorn. “He’s hurt. Can you help me take him back to your town?”
The barge master stepped forward. “I am sorry, Miss. I really am. You see, they would keep my family unless I followed their orders.”
Alli smiled sadly. “I understand.” Her voice held compassion for the man. “You can make up for it by helping me with Gorn.”
The man seemed relieved that the wizard apprentice wasn’t going to retaliate on him. He gladly agreed to help, motioning two teenage boys forward to help him. They took Gorn back to the small village and into one of the homes and put him on a straw bed.
A woman identifying herself as the village herb woman, came to help. Seeing the arrow stub, with its tip stuck inside still, the woman grimaced. “It needs to come out now.”
“I will do it,” Alli said, a determined look on her dirty face.
The herb woman nodded and poured a numbing concoction on Gorn’s thigh, then cut a line around the stub for the arrowhead. Alli grasped the stub hard. In one swift pull, she removed the arrow.
Gorn groaned, and his eyes fluttered for a moment but stayed closed. Blood poured from the wound, mixed with water from the river. Between applying herbs and attaching bandages, they eventually got the wound to stop bleeding and then covered it.
The herb woman left, saying she would be back later that night. Alli sat next to Gorn. She smoothed the gray strands of hair off of his forehead. She didn’t know what she would do without him. He was a strict mentor, but a fair one nonetheless. Alli had left her family five years ago and had only seen them periodically since then. So Gorn had become a father to her, this past year, as they had traveled around Alaris, enforcing peace for the Chief Judge.
Alli sat on the wooden floor and leaned her head back against the bed. Another battle completed. How many would she fight in her life? How many could she fight, without it changing who she was inside?
She closed her eyes and fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Bakari stood on a jagged cliff overlooking the Dunn River. The late-summer sky held a promise of cooler weather as they traveled farther north, and the thickening evergreens of the Elvyn Forest offered much-needed shade.
A beautiful gray hawk floated in the air above him. For a minute Bakari was lost in his thoughts of how nice it would be to soar over the river and the trees. It would be so much easier and quicker than the route they were taking. His legs hurt from all the riding, and he didn’t look forward to crossing the river.
Before the barrier existed, the land on the far side of the Dunn River had belonged to the elves. For some reason, the barrier had not followed the border of the river exactly, leaving some formerly Elvyn lands as part of present-day Alaris.
Below this jagged cliff was the narrowest part of the river, but it would require them to cross between two canyon walls, about forty f
eet above the river. Bakari took his mind away from his daydream of flying and continued to calculate the best way to cross the ravine, determining wind speed, rope strength, and altitude. Then he brought up similar situations in his mind, events he had read about, and used them to calculate their best advantages.
Kharlia stood with Harley next to the horses. As Bakari looked at her, he couldn’t help smiling. Her resilience to her changing life amazed him. And the girl had an insatiable desire to learn about things and to help in any way possible.
She must have felt him looking because she turned toward him, then smiled and waved. Bakari’s heart lifted, and butterflies grew in his stomach. Her penetrating, dark brown eyes found his, and he could not suppress a silly grin.
Harley had mentioned that he usually crossed the river farther north of here, on a small barge, but he had heard of some trouble there recently with mercenaries, and so they had decided it would be safer to cross farther south. They had brought ropes and hooks with them and would use them to tie off to trees on either side of the ravine.
Bakari walked back to the others. “I figured out what trees will be the best and determined the length of the rope.”
“We will have to leave the horses here, then,” Harley said. “The end of the trail for me is only another day farther. Hopefully, the horses will still be here when I get back. I will take care of Adi for you.”
Bakari felt saddened at the news that he would need to leave his faithful horse. He reached over and gave Adi a hug and rubbed her nose for a moment. She had carried him a long way from Cassian. Digging some gold out of his pack, he held it out for Harley. “If they are not here when you return, you can buy new ones. We couldn’t have gone this far without you.”
Harley snorted, running his fingers through his long beard. “I don’t need your money, Bak. Not a lot of use for it out here. What Kharlia gave us—healing our son—is payment enough. And I’m not so sure about you needing me so much, anyways. You do seem fairly capable, from what I’ve seen.”