Dark Fate: The Gathering (The Dark Fate Chronicles Book 1)

by Matt Howerter

  The burly dwarf squinted at his greying elder with suspicion. Sargon raised his brows and whatever objections the younger dwarf might have had, he swallowed. He grumbled under his breath instead and nodded at the others who were looking at him questioningly. All the dwarves retreated into the brush, leaving Sargon and Kinsey alone at the campfire.

  “Ya knew ya were half-dwarven, didn’t ya?” Sargon asked.

  “Yes.”

  The old dwarf puffed on his pipe. “How come ya never came ta Mozil, lookin’ fer yer blood family?”

  Kinsey thought on Sargon’s words. He hadn’t realized anyone on his dwarven side still lived. Truth be told, he hadn’t thought on it at all for years. Thoughts of traveling to the dwarven kingdom had tempted him many times in the past, but he had never found or made the time for the trek. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

  Sargon nodded. “Well, seems yer family’s come lookin’ fer you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The old dwarf leaned forward. “What I mean is, I been sent by yer family ta see ya home.”

  “That’s crazy,” Kinsey said. “What family? I wasn’t aware of any living dwarven relatives.” He was having trouble believing the old dwarf. If he had dwarven relatives still alive, they obviously didn’t mind his absence. Then, of course, there was the question of time. “And why come for me now?”

  Sargon sighed. “I’d suspected yer ignorance ta be the case.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Yer family be of powerful influence in the dwarven community. They hadn’t known ya’d survived until recently. I can’t explain all that’s happened, it’s not ma place. But I’ll tell ya what I can and show ya the way home.”

  Kinsey frowned. “Sargon, I understand you have a mission here. I do,” Kinsey began. “But as much as I appreciate what you’ve gone through to get here, I can’t go with you to Mozil. Not now, anyway.”

  It was Sargon’s turn to frown. He tapped the end of his pipe on his lip. “We come a mighty distance, an’ lost two along the way. I’ll not be goin’ back without ya.”

  Kinsey didn’t like where this was headed. “That sounds like a threat.”

  “Don’t be gettin’ me wrong, lad. I understand priorities—you be mine, after all. I imagine ya’ve got yerself a few things ta take care of before ya come with us. I just won’t be leavin’ yer side, is all.”

  Kinsey stammered, “I... That’s not possible.”

  The old dwarf smiled widely. “Anythin’s possible, lad. Now, where we be headin’?”

  Sargon had seen the water city several times in the past. The last occasion had been over one hundred and twenty years ago. The place hadn’t changed much in the intervening time. The trees had grown a bit, but other than that, it was the same.

  He chuckled to himself, as he always did, upon seeing the “remarkable” blend of architecture. The elves had a whimsical approach to engineering. They refused to believe things needed a foundation of stone. But their skill with wood and crafting with the Shamonrae had helped to compensate for the humans’ lack of understanding of how to build anything. It was more amazing to Sargon that the Citadel still clung to the cliffside than any marvel of the city itself. He shook his head. “Are ya sure it be necessary ta do this, lad?”

  The young half-dwarf glanced back. “Yes,” Kinsey said, then continued in a grumble Sargon knew he was not supposed to hear, “for the hundredth time.”

  Gideon had given over a set of spare clothing from his pack so the young man wasn’t limited to only Sargon’s cloak wrapped around his waist. The tunic and pants were far too short for the half-dwarf, but there was just enough fabric, when stretched to its limits, to encompass his body. Sargon had to admit the boy was well muscled for being part human. If the short pants and shirt had been on a full human, Sargon figured it would look ridiculous. On Kinsey, the display of so much muscle and flesh seemed almost dangerous, somehow. He knew his opinion was shared by at least one member of their party. He caught Jocelyn’s gaze lingering on the boy more than once.

  The old dwarf sighed. “Let’s be on with it, then.” He waved his hand at the bridge that would take them across the falls to Waterfall Citadel. Sargon looked back at the other dwarves. All of them, save Gideon, had an expression of stoic indifference. The general, however, maintained his façade of annoyance, which had been present ever since they had come across the young half-dwarf. Gideon knew their objective had been achieved in part with the discovery of Kinsey in the jungle, but not why the boy was significant.

  Sargon couldn’t blame him. He still wasn’t sure what to think about this Kinsey himself. Each night, after their party had gone to sleep, he had pulled out the lodestone to test it against the half-dwarf’s position. Each test was the same. The stone indicated unerringly that the red-bearded man was the one he sought. The verification of the stone and the strong family resemblance left little doubt in Sargon’s mind he had found King Thorn’s grandson. He just wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  Kinsey had proven to be stubborn, resilient, and fairly irritating during the past few days of travel. Each of these traits was familiar enough to earn him a place in dwarven society, but none of them were of enough note to make the young man worthy of the possible upheaval that would result from bringing him back to Mozil. It might be that this jaunt into Waterfall Citadel would supply the evidence Sargon needed to make a judgment on whether he could announce that the “heir had been found.” As resistant as Sargon was to enter the water city, he needed the extra time.

  Traders and merchants bringing large amounts of goods into Waterfall Citadel could take days to be searched before being allowed entrance to the city. Wanderers and travelers carrying their loads could gain access almost immediately. Sargon was relieved they wouldn’t have to stand outside the city for days. The past weeks of travel had been daunting, and he wasn’t sure how much more patience Gideon contained. When Tarel and Quinn had fallen in the Wildman ambush, Gideon had recalled the talk they had had under the stars at the beginning. “It always comes to blood,” Gideon had said angrily as they piled the stones of the cairns together. Sargon’s continued refusal to divulge the purpose of their quest had angered the general, perhaps to the point that their friendship would be forever compromised.

  Ya don’t know just how right ya are, my friend, Sargon thought sadly as he watched the general tramp behind Kinsey as they crossed the bridge. Sargon could see the tension mounting in his friend’s shoulders with every step they took. Just this morning, Gideon had tried to talk Sargon from going with Kinsey to the Citadel, but Sargon had refused. He needed to see this through, and it was worth the cost of all of their lives to do so.

  They strode up to the gates, moving past the long lines of wagons and carts waiting to enter the city. Kinsey, in contrast to Gideon, had a wide and easy smile as he approached one of the guards and said, “Blaine, by Eos, it’s good to see you!” He patted the man on the shoulder. “I need to speak with Dallin, and I’ll need an escort to the palace as quick as possible.”

  The guard’s eyes had widened with shock when Kinsey began speaking, and now he stood staring in disbelief.

  “As quickly as possible usually means ‘now,’ Blaine,” Kinsey said with a chuckle.

  “You... I... Just a moment,” sputtered Blaine. The man spun about and ran to what looked like a guardhouse.

  Kinsey frowned and shook his head with a hmph.

  “Bright lad ya got there,” Gideon said, scowling after the vanished soldier.

  Kinsey gave him a placid look.

  Sargon had begun to wonder if there was a problem, until the man, Blaine, came out of the guardhouse and signaled for them to come past the gates. Sargon and his fellows followed Kinsey and Blaine into a walled courtyard from which several thoroughfares led away into the city. Sargon could see the milling public beyond those arches, although the cobbles before them had no random traffic. A man in a uniform swung an iron gate closed in one of the arches. Kinsey was asking questions of B
laine in an irritated voice. “Where in the name of Mot’s fiery beard did you get to? I was beginning to grow roots out there.” The great tree, Terrandal, could easily be seen from the wide court near the guardhouse. The shadows of its wide-reaching branches brushed the stones under Sargon’s boots as they walked.

  An older human stepped out past Blaine to address Kinsey. The soldier’s voice was on the border of hostile. “I’m surprised you came back.”

  Kinsey flinched at the man’s tone. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  An uneasy tingle prickled the back of Sargon’s neck and he glanced around slowly. Soldiers with halberds lined the wall behind them. As Kinsey spoke angrily with the guard, they began to close ranks and move to surround the party of dwarves.

  “You’re to be taken to the dungeons.” The older man gestured with his hand and the hovering guards rushed forward, encircling the dwarves with halberd points.

  Kinsey looked around in shock. “Dallin, this is insane.”

  Sargon placed a hand on Gideon’s arm. The general’s eyes blazed with anger, and Sargon could see the imminent violence in every twitch of his friend’s beard. Sargon shook his head when Gideon’s bronze eyes snapped to him. “No violence,” Sargon whispered.

  Gideon’s face twisted into a grimace. “Aye? An’ maybe we should just fall on our swords and save ’em the trouble.”

  “Damn ya, Gideon, this be ma charge from our king. Do as I say,” Sargon growled.

  Gideon folded his thick arms and did his best to imitate a stone column. Sargon could hear the distinct sound of molars grinding, but he could spare nothing else for his friend.

  Sargon turned from the general and stepped forward to address Dallin. “We be delegates from Mozil, boy. We’d hoped for a bit more courtesy from the likes o’ Waterfall Citadel.”

  Dallin’s dark eyes cut from Kinsey to regard the old dwarf. “That may be so, but we have received no word of your coming.” The soldier pointed at Kinsey. “Him, however, we’ve been looking for. You travel with an alleged kidnapper, so you’ll all be held in the dungeons until we sort this out.”

  “What?!” Kinsey shouted. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Don’t make this harder than it already is, Kinsey.” Dallin stepped closer to Sargon’s new ward and lowered his voice. “We’ll sort it out. Just stay calm, for Eos’ sake.”

  Kinsey looked as if he were about to say something, but he swallowed the words with a bitter expression on his face.

  “Take them,” Dallin said, motioning at the guards again, “and send a page to the palace. Let them know we have Master Kinsey Aveon.”

  As the group was lead away from the gates. Sargon felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “So much for yer heir apparent,” Gideon whispered roughly.

  Sargon shot a surprised look at the general. He does know! Sargon nodded slowly with a disappointed sigh. It appeared he would indeed find his answers about Kinsey’s worth on this trip.

  Jasper ran through the crowded streets, darting past fruit-filled carts, women balancing wicker baskets loaded with laundry on their heads, and old beggars perched on their corners. Navigating his usual paths through the maze of alleyways had become more difficult since the celebrations surrounding Prince Alexander’s wedding to the outland princess. The city was still filled to bursting with the many people who had come for the celebration.

  Fortunately, difficult for Jasper meant almost impossible for the other boys who competed with him for running errands and messages. He breathed easily as he sped down an alley and hurdled the traces of an ox cart that blocked his path. No one knew Waterfall Citadel like he did, and that meant no one would get paid the way he did.

  I can’t believe he came back, Jasper thought as he turned a corner to find himself confronted with an impenetrable crowd of humanity and horseflesh. Smoothly, the wiry boy caught a low beam and clambered to the thatched roof of a low cottage next to the stable. Master Kinsey Aveon hadn’t been a well-known name until warrants for his and his elven father’s arrest had been issued throughout the city. How someone could be so foolish as to return to the Citadel, through the main gates no less, after such a decree, was beyond him. He would not miss a trip to the gallows when that fool was strung up.

  The royal gatherer at the palace would pay well for this information if he could get it there before anyone else, but it was the expectation of the tip from the Dark Master that drove Jasper’s feet to fly even faster. His fingers were a blur as he found purchase on the masonry of a building, and he clawed for height before setting out once more on the rooftops.

  All of the messengers in the city competed equally for the favor of the palace and the Dark Master, of course. They all hated Jasper, but that was okay with him. It was envy, he knew, and even if they hated him, they could never catch him or beat him.

  The roofs ran out and he dropped through open air, snagging clotheslines on the way down to slow his fall. When his feet met the cobbles, he took to running again with almost no hesitation.

  Jasper turned away from the beckoning light of an open street into another alley. He stumbled to a halt as the familiar chill he had been looking for wrapped around his thin shoulders.

  “Speak, boy,” whispered a raspy voice from the shadows.

  Jasper gulped, trying to swallow the sudden dryness in his throat. “Kinsey Aveon has returned.” He shivered in the cold that flowed from the blackness before him. “He’s been taken to the dungeons with a company of dwarves.”

  Jasper’s breath began to form before him in wispy clouds of mist. Silence was the only answer for a few long moments. Jasper opened his mouth to repeat his information, but the voice came again, cutting him off.

  “Do not make haste to the palace with this information.” The sound of several coins bouncing on the hard ground rang in Jasper’s ears. “There is another who must be told first.”

  White fire burned into Jasper’s mind, tattooing a name onto his quivering brain. He fell to his knees and stammered, “As-as you say.” The cold evaporated, leaving him to shiver in the rank, humid alleyway.

  KESH leaned over the worn tome and flipped through yellowed pages in a flurry. It’s got to be somewhere, he thought as the flowing text became a blur. He slammed his fist down on the heavy book. “Dammit!” He pushed the old tome off the table.

  Several people gasped as the giant book hit the hardwood floor with a resounding thud.

  The chancellor ignored them, his hands prying open the dusty jacket of the next book, The Wolf Bear of the Winewood: Environment, Prey & Purpose.

  Kesh’s stool, surrounded by piles of books, was in Waterfall Citadel’s Athenaeum, the center for learning and history that had been established three centuries ago by King Sevenren. The Athenaeum had become a sanctuary for knowledge and records, and over time the repository had become largest collection of written history in all of Orundal. It was here that Kesh had exiled himself in hopes of finding some record of the thing that had hunted him. It was inconceivable to him that something so destructive and so alien could exist without someone making a record of it.

  Kesh had lost track of the number of volumes he had read in the past few days. He had begun by having the library attendants bring him books, scrolls, and fragments of natural history. Finding nothing there, he moved to scholarly dissections of the fauna of the jungle landscape of the Winewood. More than one book ended abruptly when the authors had gone out to gather more information and never returned, leaving their collaborators to finish the work to the best of their ability. Horrors abounded, to be sure, but nothing resembled in description or representation the walking nightmare he had witnessed that night at Ordair’s Keep.

  Unfortunately, the wolf-bear was primarily a pack-based vegetarian but would hunt fresh game in the lean seasons. Kesh snorted with disgust and reached for a slim volume bearing the name Theories of Unsolved Animal Attacks.

  The author apparently believed he could solve most of the mysteries of why animals would at
tack villages by tracking the prey migrations. These pages, too, began to blur before Kesh’s eyes as he read account after account of small groups of travelers being savaged, or children’s corpses being found. Just as he was beginning to lose hope with this book as well, one series of attacks in a spring some sixty years ago made him hunch forward and retrace the words intently.

  Five hamlets far to the southwest of Waterfall Citadel had suffered violence. The first three villages had lost but a few people, and those few had been outside of the village at the time. The fourth village, though, had lost almost half of its residents to a single creature the people persisted in calling a “demon.” The fifth village, an insignificant speck named “Morhaven” of all things, had lost every solitary soul. Not even one survivor had been found.

  Kesh threw himself into the accounts. He found similar stories to what he had witnessed at the old ruin in the villagers’ descriptions of the horrible, howling wail of the creature. The protective walls of the families’ homes hadn’t mattered in either of the last villages, as entire buildings were reported to have been torn asunder. Fate, and fate alone, had spared those few who had told the tale.

  Kesh cursed when he came to the end of the account. The author began postulating ridiculously about wolf-bear packs—in spite of villager insistence that the creature was solitary. He pushed the book away in a mix of disgust and odd comfort.

  It was good to have found something that validated his experience. He had begun to believe his encounter with the monster had been some vivid and horrible hallucination. On the other hand, the pedantic ramblings of “Sir Autor Bancroft” were less than useless when it came to finding a way to kill the damn thing.

  He began digging through books, once more determined to find something he could use, when a hand touched his shoulder.

  Kesh’s high-pitched scream echoed through the Athenaeum.

  Every eye in the great room was riveted on him as he jumped off his stool to get away, sending books falling to the floor.