The next day, they took a leisurely pace to accommodate Dorsun’s leg wound and reached the Terrel homestead, where they were greeted warm-heartedly by all there, Even Agatha seemed genuinely happy to see them. The late afternoon was spent by Salina bathing in the Bony Brook while they swapped clothes, stories, and news with one another. When the sun was starting to set, a large campfire was lit, and everyone was summoned to listen to Elister, who had information to share with the group. They had many worn logs and stumps to use as chairs, and even the children sat quietly once the meeting started. Elister had reserved two seating places on a pair of tree stumps right in front him, which most of them thought odd.
“I would like to thank everyone for humoring me and coming to our gathering this evening,” Elister began. “I have information to share, but more importantly, there is a decision that you must make as a group, though it primarily affects two of you. Targon, you and The Lady Salina, please come forward and have a seat here in front of me.”
Targon looked around from his vantage point in the rear where he almost always kept a watch over the Ulathan refugees, and said, “Perhaps my vantage point—”
Elister cut him off. “I have secured the area for an entire day’s walk in any direction. You may sit and rest for once. You’ll need to hear what I have to say because it affects you directly.”
Targon looked around at the others to see if anyone knew already what this was about, but the looks of confusion and anxiety were on everyone’s faces, especially Salina and her son Cedric. She did not like being called to sit next to Targon. Obviously not due to who he was, but what it meant in context of this new information that the druid was about to impart with them. Targon sat, saying only, “All right, then.”
Once the pair was seated, Elister began. “Over the last few months, we have tried to keep an eye on both Targon’s family and Salina’s family. As everyone knows, with the brave aid of Targon’s mother herself and the sturdy people of Rockton”—with this, Elister nodded at Mary, Shiela, and Gwen, the trio of ladies from Rockton who helped in the escape from Ulsthor—“the safety of Targon’s sister, Ann, was secured. Now, what remains is to find and free Dareen, Targon’s mother.”
“Aye,” several voices said in unison, with Horace’s voice the loudest.
“On the other hand,” Elister now said, switching topics with a more sinister tone, “during the foray into Utandra . . . Ah, I mean Korwell, there was a sighting of the lady’s husband and father to two of our esteemed guests.” With the last words, the petrified druid motioned to Cedric and to Karz, who was sitting on his bigger brother’s lap. “We know that he was wounded and captured by the Kesh garrison occupying . . . the Ulathan capital.”
“We got that already, Master Druid. Now what about the new information?” Agatha said tactlessly.
Elister didn’t seem to take offense or appear flustered. Instead, he took her advice and got right down to it and shocked everyone. “Well then, both The Lady Dareen Terrel and Captain Bran Moross are in immediate danger. There is a very good chance that they both will either be executed or die in some other fashion in the next few days. What makes this matter most urgent and tragic is that securing the release of either will not only be difficult, if nigh to impossible, but it will require every resource that we can muster together.”
A loud murmur came over the group as everyone started talking at once. Some to each other, others at Elister. One voice boomed out louder than the others, quieting them all. “What does this mean?” Horace asked.
Silence took them all, and before Elister could answer, Khan did it for him. “It means one of them will die.”
Chapter 10
Pending Developments
Bran lay on his back, looking at the pale light of the setting sun. He felt his ribs and knew that at least two of them had fractured again. The pain was excruciating, and he felt the will to go on diminish to a low point that he hadn’t felt in his entire life. He clung to the one and only thing that told him to live—his family.
The tall brigand he had been sparring with had some sort of arrangement with two other brigands, and when an opportune moment arrived, the trio assaulted him. One he was in a match with, and the other two jumped him from behind. He actually managed to disarm one of his attackers, and he hit a second so hard, it would leave the man bruised along his sword arm for at least a fortnight, but the unexpected assault, coupled with his reduced constitution, left him vulnerable. A situation that was quickly becoming untenable for him.
It was bad enough that he had lost the match, but when they kicked him after he had fallen, all he could do was curl up and try to protect his chest and stomach. That was when the ribs fractured for the second time. As he lay there drifting into unconsciousness, he was aware of some sort of commotion going on as the Kesh argued about what had just happened. Hork had not attended his thrice daily exercises and fighting matches for some time now. He felt sure he was going to face the large Northmen Kaz in the very near future, as the man seemed impatient with the slow progress being made with Bran’s recovery.
Bran coughed, absentmindedly putting his hand to his mouth. When he withdrew it, he noticed his spittle was tainted with red specks of blood. He was about to allow himself to sink into blissful darkness when the foreign words were spoken, heralding the arrival of the great Northern barbarian. That piqued his curiosity enough that he rolled over on his side in order to see what was happening.
“Krik no tu, ack fil ko bood,” he heard, and then he saw the man cross into his field of vision, entering the middle of the practice yard to face the tall brigand who stood stoically since he couldn’t understand Kaz.
“Well, answer the man,” came a voice from right behind Bran. Bran didn’t bother to try to look over his shoulder to see who it was. He already knew that high-pitched but educated voice from long ago. It was the wizard Hermes.
“Blimy if I knows what the brute is sayin’s,” the tall Kesh brigand said. Bran already knew the man’s name was Fencer.
Hermes translated for him. “He asked if you were the one responsible for the prisoner’s condition.”
“Whatz it to ’em?” Fencer asked, looking behind him for something or somebody.
“Kor ah tu no, krik ni kro,” Hermes said to the Northman.
“Krik ahouk, krik ko to,” Kaz responded.
“Oh my, that is not good,” Hermes said.
“What did da man sayz?” Fencer asked.
“Yes,” came a strong, commanding voice from behind them all. Bran knew this voice as well, the voice of Hork, and he had arrived from behind the Kesh wizard. “What is going on here? Why is the prisoner still down?”
No one spoke, and Bran noticed that Kaz had his hands clenched, with his huge two-handed sword tucked into his back sheath, the hilt sticking out behind his massive neck. The man looked ready for a fight.
Bran felt a sword touch him across his arms, which were crossed in front of his chest. With a gentle but firm motion, the sword forced him to lay on his back where he looked up, seeing Hermes’s face upside down and Hork inspecting him from the side. The movement forced Bran to cough again, and he didn’t bother to try and cover it, allowing the spittle and blood to splatter over the Kesh commander’s sword.
Slowly, Hork removed his sword and held it out at Fencer. “Speak now and tell me who did this.” The command was as much a threat as an order.
Fencer’s eyes narrowed, and then he raised his own rusty sparring sword at his two comrades who had assaulted him from behind, one of which was still nursing his bruised arm where Bran had whacked it with the flat of his own sparring blade. “Dem twos the ones that jumped ’em, they did.”
The protest was immediate and fervent. So quickly did the other two talk that the only thing understood was that they were blaming Fencer on Bran’s condition. “Shut up,” Hermes yelled, his voice so high pitched that it almost sounded like a woman.
The trio fell silent, and the other Kesh brigands who had watch
ed the match started to back away, putting as much distance on their colleagues as they could, anticipating some sort of punishment from the wizard’s staff. That was the usual way of things, that or from the sword of a commander.
“Krik ahouk,” Kaz said without moving.
“What does Kaz want?” Hork asked, having enough sense to use the man’s proper name. Kaz might not speak in their common tongue, but Hork suspected he understood more than what he was letting on to.
Hermes seemed flustered. “Well, it is not good, you see. He, ah, wants . . . well, actually, since he is a Northman, he demands that there be . . . shall we say, a form of punishment for this act of disrespect.”
“Punishment?” Hork asked, wondering if that was all the Northman demanded.
Hermes remained flustered. “You know, come to think of it, I would say that punishment is not the proper term here. It would be better to say, ah . . . something like penance.” Hork tilted his head slightly, so Hermes clarified. “Vengeance, maybe?”
“How?” Hork asked.
“The usual Northman way,” Hermes said.
Before either man could speak further, Kaz reached behind his head and pulled his massive two-handed sword out from its sheath. He pointed it first at Fencer, and then turning toward the other two brigands, he singled each one out in turn, and then said one word in a language they could all understand. “Fight.”
Hermes managed to get a half sentence out. “I do believe Kaz expects them to—”
The assault was lightning fast, brutally assaultive, and lopsided. Fencer was able to block Kaz’s blow, but so forceful was it that it drove the Kesh man’s own blade back down and into his skull. In half a second, the man was no more, dropping like a sack of potatoes.
The other two didn’t fare much better. They managed a few preemptive strikes, enough to cut some fur off the man’s cloak, and one even drew a scratch in the leather bracer Kaz wore before he was cleaved in two during a horizontal swing, and the other had a shoulder taken apart so the blade could reach his heart. The battle was over in less than ten seconds. Bran watched in horror as the Northman held nothing back, and he wondered if even he could withstand that much force in melee combat with the fierce Northman.
The other Kesh drew their regular blades, and two men at least reached for crossbows that lay nearby, but no one made a move at the visibly angry barbarian. Hork appeared to be assessing the entire scene in such a calm manner that it appeared unnatural for even the seasoned military veteran that Bran was.
Hork finally spoke to Hermes, never taking his eyes off Kaz, and not reducing his white-knuckled grip on his own sword. “Is he satisfied?”
Kaz answered instead of Hermes. “No.”
There was another long pause, when Hork asked, “Was that a ‘no’ like we speak or one of those ‘no this’ and ‘no that’ that he uses so often?”
Hermes asked, “Krik ahoun kal de to no abood kik hail?”
Kaz lowered his sword and took a full dozen seconds to walk in a very tight semicircle, looking for any other challengers to his authority. When there were none, he faced the wizard and said, “Ko no to a boud.”
After a few seconds, Hork asked, “Well?”
Hermes stroked his beard and translated. “He said ‘fix him or die.’”
“Who dies?”
Hermes stopped his stroking and looked at his Kesh commander while appearing to be a bit impatient. “He was not clear on that part.”
“How can a threat like that not be clear?” Hork asked, continuing to stand his own ground.
“Well, for starters,” Hermes began, “you do not speak the barbarian’s language. The entire Northern clans sparingly use pronouns, so unless they decline a noun properly, it can be quite difficult to tell who is doing what to whom.”
“You make no sense,” Hork said. “What is all this gibberish about nones?”
Hermes ignored the slight. Never would a wizard allow a Kesh soldier, even one of Hork’s stature, to say that the magic-user was speaking “gibberish.” Hork was lucky that there was a breakdown in discipline, or the punishment could have been severe. Instead, he answered quickly before Kaz did something else unexpected. “It is nouns, and it is a part of speech. Never mind, you lout.” It was Hermes’s time now to hurl an insult toward his commander just to save face in front of the troops. “The important thing is that either you are going to challenge the barbarian or you will let the . . . shall we say punishment, stand.”
Hork narrowed his eyes and looked for a long time at his superior. He was still a Kesh wizard and powerful even if newly appointed to the rank from apprentice. Also, while Hork felt for sure that the man was a coward, he noticed that he was a very clever one, as he had managed to frame the issue as one of Kesh commander versus barbarian and conveniently left himself out of the conflict. “Why don’t you fight him?”
This caught Hermes off guard slightly as the wizard frowned. “Have you lost your mind?” he asked Hork. “Do you realize that the Northman is an heir to one of the most powerful clans of the barbarian horde, and you want to start a diplomatic crisis with them?”
“I simply asked why you don’t fight him.”
“Because”—Hermes exaggerated the word—“I do not need to. I could defeat him, you, and every other soldier here with one wave of my wand—”
“Staff,” Hork corrected him.
Hermes waved him off. “Staff, then—”
“No krik ahou to akh in alt,” Kaz now interrupted.
Hermes turned to the barbarian and forgot to change languages. “What do you mean if I do not lose it again?”
“So the Northman does understand us,” Hork noted.
Hermes’s attention was drawn back to Hork. “He understands some things, though you still need me to translate unless you want to cause a foreign relations nightmare and explain that to the new High-Mage.”
The barbarian sheathed his sword without cleaning it and said, “Krik ahoun,” before departing.
Hork said, “He says that often.”
“Well, he curses too much,” Hermes noted. “Now I am going to be forced to use a small talaman, wasting it on the Ulathan in order to save your life.”
“I swear he was referring to you,” Hork said.
“No matter,” Hermes said. “Take the prisoner to the queen’s tower and see to it that he is tended to by the quartermaster’s servants, not your troops.”
“Do you really want the enemy so close to your quarters?” Hork asked.
Hermes smiled wickedly. “I will have the Northman’s quarters between him and I. Let the Ulathan deal with that.”
Hork nodded and then turned to face his troops, many of which were pale and ashen faced after the near encounter with the angry barbarian. “Bury the dead.”
There was a scurry of activity, and Bran finally conceded defeat, allowing himself to drift off into unconsciousness with the words of the Kesh wizard Hermes being the last thing he heard. “Interesting.”
“Did you kill him?” Jakar asked, his face turning into a rather nasty frown.
Dareen didn’t hesitate. “No.”
“She lie’z, Master,” Darker said, glaring at her with a murderous look in his eyes. She had seen this before in Grimer, so it came as no surprise.
“Silis?” Jakar asked the Balarian assassin without actually turning to face the man.
The man paused chosing his words carefully. “I see no forced entry, the door was locked and sealed from the outside, and the, ah, shall we say, extended defensive measures are still in place. It’s a mystery how this happened.”
Jakar looked at Dareen through the cell’s bars and motioned for Darker to pull a chair up for him. It was a wooden one, lighter in weight, though sturdy for use. The Kesh wizard sat and hunched over, peering at Dareen intently.
One of the common traits of the Kesh wizard class was an obscene greed for power that ruled everything they did. Second to this, and not as well-known outside of their own caste, was
the fact that as a group, they had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Knowledge led to power, so the connection made sense. However, it served as a double-edged sword where caution was warranted. The curiosity would oftentimes lead to unnecessary, or even extended, risk to them in general.
At this exact moment, Dareen didn’t know it, but power and curiosity were at odds within the young wizard’s psyche as the man tried to determine what had happened here. They had entered the room where the cell was located only to find the bloody body of Ruster, who was tasked with keeping watch on the wood-witch with Darker. The door was locked from the outside, so how Ruster managed to get into the room and get himself killed and lock the door was a mystery to them all.
“Tell me again what you remember, Darker?”
The man’s eyes widened, and he spoke in a near panic. “Nothing, Master, I swear’z it. I had kept watch until the relief time when Ruster’z took over for me. I rested me eyes a bit, and when I wokes, he was gone. When I peeks into the witch’s cell, I saw ’em dead, I did. Then I came and got you right aways.”
“Hmm,” Jakar said, bringing his free hand alongside his face now and cupping his palm to rest his chin in it. The man looked a bit uncomfortable, as he was tall and his body was somewhat contorted in order to sit pensively like this. Still, he didn’t seem to mind. “Tell me what you do know.”
Dareen wasn’t about to tell him the truth. Alister had brought the dead man’s body into the room and left, locking the door and threatening to kill her if she disclosed this information to her captors. It was in her self-interest to not reveal the deception, as the rogue wizard had already disposed of one of her guards. In fact, anything she could do to foment this distrust, this civil war, between the two factions in Kesh could only be good for her and the rest of Agon. “I was asleep, as it was night. When I awoke, your guard was there where you found him.”
It was the truth, for the most part. At least, she felt that she could have been asleep when the deed was done. At any rate, she didn’t kill the man, and that was what was most important. She had no idea if the wizard had a way to detect if she were telling the truth or lying, but she expected not, considering how paranoid their society was.
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