Journey of the Wanderer

by Shawna Thomas

  “How are we too late?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  Sorrow weighed her chest. “This is Bredych. I know it.” Anger chased at the sorrow.

  “There may be survivors.” But even Ilythra could hear he had no hope in his voice.

  * * *

  Ilythra paused outside a building. She glanced over to where a Dawn Child warrior did the same a few wheels away. He looked back at her. His face reflected her thoughts. They’d gone through all the larger buildings and now searched the smaller homes located within the city walls. There had been no survivors.

  She squinted to accustom her eyes to the dimmer light inside the building and kicked the door open, spinning inside.

  A cot lay on its side against a wall. Broken pieces of pottery were scattered across the wooden floor. A torn curtain hung from a rope at one end of the room. She made her way inside and pushed the fabric aside with her sword. Blankets littered the floor as if they’d been thrown from the large pallet on the floor. Her gaze fixed on an overturned clay urn that had somehow remained whole. A profusion of spring blooms lie to one side of the urn. They were wilted, but not dead. Days... If they’d only been days earlier. She kneeled to pick up the flowers. The boards under the vase had been darkened by water. When she disturbed the flowers, more water spilled onto the saturated wood and dripped down the cracks between the boards.

  She froze. It could be nothing, but the Isolden castle had been built into stone. Many of the houses had cellars. She dropped the flowers into the urn and set it against one wall. The stuffed pallet was more awkward than heavy, but she slid it to the side. Her heart sank. There was no trapdoor, no latch. No hidden survivors. She turned to leave.

  A muffled sound reached her ears. She tensed. Teann rippled around her. She hadn’t imagined it. Ilythra moved back to the floor under the pallet and inspected the grain of the wood. There was no ring or strap, but one of the boards had a knot. She pushed it with her finger, and the knot easily slid down. She peered into the small ring of darkness and glanced to the door. Should she call another warrior to join her?

  It was only a hunch, and they were few enough as it was. They were close enough to hear her if she called. Would she find survivors in the dark, or Rugians waiting for a chance to attack?

  * * *

  The door slammed behind him. Ryliann halted his step. The flash of guilt further angered him and he walked down the hall to his rooms. He hadn’t slammed a door since his youth and in truth, he hadn’t meant to this time either. The deed was done. There was no going back. Anger coursed through his veins. He’d happened to be in the room discussing details about the festival when a message from the southern villages came to his father. The raids from the far south had become even more frequent with the warming weather. They were being slaughtered and begging Edriel to help defend them.

  He stopped walking as the befuddlement again seized him. His father planned to refuse them. He wouldn’t even let Ryliann take a contingent of men down there to help the villagers. He said he’d consider it after the festival. After the festival? New anger rushed through Ryliann. The wave rider villages weren’t technically part of the kingdom. They were a loosely united group of villages ruled by various liege lords. The liege lords squabbled among themselves but usually joined together quickly when threatened. Through all of known history, since the castle at Edriel had been occupied, as far as he knew, Edriel had answered the call whenever these liege lords were threatened by something they could not handle. In repayment, a tenth of their product was set aside for the king’s use. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. Ryliann continued toward his room. He shook his head. Never before had Edriel refused the villages when they needed aid. Until now.

  When he was younger, he loved hearing the tales of the fierce men from the island far to the south. He and his friends used to take turns being pirate or soldier. Once when he was a boy, the Creeians had burned a few villages instead of simply raiding. He could still picture the men leaving the castle gates on their way south. Never in his experience, or in any tale he’d heard, had they come so far north or in such large numbers.

  “And Father refused to help.” The words felt like a foreign language. He couldn’t quite understand them. He marched into his room and took care not to slam his own door. He strode to the long window, pushed aside the heavy drapes and looked past the gardens and down the layers of walls, where he could glimpse a ribbon of blue. The river. The sight of the water failed to soothe him as it usually did. What was happening to his father? Was it old age? Some kind of sickness? More and more he thought this Brishne had some kind of hold over his father. But what?

  The door opened behind him. He didn’t turn. From the gentle breathing and faint scent of lavender, he knew it was Maiya, once his nursemaid and now his friend. Soft footfalls brushed against the bare floor. He didn’t like the rushes that lay on the floors of the hall and other bedrooms and refused to have them anywhere in his chamber. He knew the servants didn’t understand and hated that they had to sweep his rooms daily, but once the sweet scent of the fresh-mown grasses disappeared, he could hear the rats or mice scurry under cover in the nights.

  Age had slowed Maiya’s step but hadn’t tempered the gleam in her eye. He knew the mirthful spark could sharpen until it cut when he misbehaved. But he was grown and no longer in need of a nursemaid’s reprimand.

  “Here to scold me for slamming the door?” He spoke without turning.

  The silence caused him to turn.

  She raised a single eyebrow, rearranging the heavily lined face. She’d shrunk even further in recent years until it seemed like a strong breeze could blow her down.

  He almost smiled. “I guess that lesson has been well learned if even I am reprimanding myself.”

  “As is any lesson.” She sat heavily on an embroidered chair near the fireplace. “If you no longer have need of me to tell it to you.”

  “I hear your voice in my head even now that I am full grown.” Ryliann leaned against the wall.

  “As I hear my mother’s, even now that I am old and withered.” She raised a hand and let it fall. A sudden burst of sadness exploded in his chest. What would he do once Maiya was gone?

  He moved the curtain to look down into the garden where a man tended vining plants near the gate.

  “He loves you, you know.”

  Sorrow weighed down his shoulders. He’d held on to that for the last several moons. He was no longer so sure. The angry words his father had spoken echoed in his head. He’d almost accused Ryliann of treason. “He is not himself.”

  Maiya leaned back on the chair, her gaze growing distant. “He has never gotten over your mother’s death.”

  Ryliann nodded, though he was sure Maiya couldn’t see him clearly. Her eyesight had also declined recently. It was times like this he remembered that Maiya had also been his father’s nursemaid.

  “I’ve never seen another man as taken with a woman as your father was with your mother.” She shook her head. Her voice took on the tone of fond remembrances. “When the time came for her to birth, it was all we could do to keep him out of the room. His cupbearer at that time was my nephew. He said the king sat, staring at the door, jumping at every noise while the lords around him celebrated the birth.

  “Your poor mother.” Then Maiya was silent for so long, Ryliann turned to see if she’d fallen asleep. “She wasn’t built for birthing. Her hips were too narrow.” She shook herself. “But that’s not talk for a young thing like yourself.”

  Ryliann smiled. He could have reminded her that he was no longer a young thing and that he’d heard the story several times, but he kept his peace.

  “When it became clear she was having trouble, we called for the king as he commanded.” She frowned. “It wasn’t the first baby she’d lost, but the only one that had made it past the quickening and
stretched her stomach.” She rounded her hands out in front of her, mimicking a pregnant belly. “There was one who birthed whole. A wee tiny thing who never took a breath of air, but your mother cried for days afterward.

  “You know the council forbade your father to marry your mother. Tabitha had no political sway over anything. She was only the daughter of a lesser noble. Too poor even to make an appearance at court. Your father saw her in a field while he was hunting one day.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “They say she was sewing seed. A nobleman’s daughter, sewing seed.”

  By now he was used to Maiya’s rambling speech. A pang of longing still lanced his breast. He wished he could have known his mother.

  “It did no good,” Maiya continued. “Once he laid eyes on your mother, none other would do for him. He spared no expense to win her hand. Had he known her better, he could have saved his coin. Money was not the way into Tabitha’s heart. And she loved your father.

  “You were born in a shower of blood just before the king arrived. We bundled you and placed you by your mother’s side. Oh, how her face lit when she saw you.” She examined him. “You have her coloring. Dark hair, pale eyes.

  “Your father held her hand while the life drained from her body. She named you after her father. I can still remember the look on his face when she died. Without a word, he picked you up, kissed your forehead and handed you to me. He told me to take care of you and find the best wet nurse because you were all he had left of her.” She faced him. “He loves you.”

  “I am no longer a babe in arms, Maiya.”

  She pushed against the arms of the chair. He moved to place his hands on her elbows and helped her rise. “So I see,” she said. “But love like that doesn’t fade into the mist.”

  The truth weighed down his chest and left a stone in his throat. He didn’t question his father’s love. He questioned his father’s sanity. Maybe he was guilty of treason after all.

  Chapter Six

  The hidden door was heavier than she anticipated. Ilythra opened it and backed up a step. Cool air chilled her skin.

  No sound issued from the darkness below.

  She swallowed. “I mean you no harm.” Her voice sounded loud in the silence. “We came to help fight against the Rugians.” She waited.

  A man’s pale face made its way into the light like a ghost. He squinted up at her. “Then you are too late.”

  Sorrow mixed with the relief of finding a survivor. “I know. I’m sorry. We came as soon as we could.”

  The man moved farther into the light. “Who is ‘we’?”

  “My name is Ilythra. King Benen sent a message to the Dawn Children.”

  “The Siobani came to help us?” His eyes widened.

  Ilythra nodded.

  The man seemed to weigh her a moment. “I have women and children down here. We didn’t have time to pack anything. We are hungry.”

  “We have food. Send your women and children up.”

  The man disappeared into the gloom. After a shuffle, a woman’s face appeared in the dark. She had a small infant strapped to her breast. The man erected a short ladder. Ilythra put a hand down and helped the woman climb up. Dirt and tears smudged the woman’s face. She immediately unwrapped the baby and laid the child on the pallet. The baby began to scream. The woman visibly shuddered. She picked up the baby and cuddled her against her neck, tears pouring down her face. “I’d been so afraid.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “We heard you. I had to get her to stop crying so I pressed her against me to muffle the sounds. She did, but she stopped moving too. I thought... We didn’t know if you were the Rugians. I had to.”

  Shock and anger rushed through Ilythra’s body. She offered the woman water from her skin and touched the baby’s small, downy head. “She sounds well, but we have healers among us. We will treat all the wounded.”

  The woman nodded her thanks and then gasped. A Dawn Child warrior rushed into the room.

  “Survivors,” Ilythra said. “Please alert Arien. There are rooms under some of the houses. Tell them to call out a warning to any survivors before they enter the houses. There are women and small children.”

  The warrior inclined his head and with another look at the woman, disappeared back out the door. Ilythra turned to find another woman and a child of about ten had emerged from the darkness.

  “How many of you are there?” Ilythra turned to the first woman.

  She shook her head, tears pooled in her eyes. “Not enough.”

  * * *

  Arien walked around the room. Occasionally, he’d touch one of the survivors. Ilythra knew he was healing them. They’d gathered the survivors in the largest structure with an intact roof. He’d cradled a baby for a moment and kissed his head before handing him back to the mother. Maybe four dozen survivors huddled along the perimeter of the room. Their faces were a study in shock, disbelief and sorrow. Other healers made their way around the room, followed by warriors carrying food and water. Several more continued to search for hidden survivors.

  A slight tension around the healer’s eyes indicated he was growing tired. Ilythra approached Arien as he spoke to a group of Isolden men. He needed to rest.

  “What if the Rugians come back?” one of the men asked.

  “I have ordered the gates sealed,” Arien assured him.

  The man’s eyes widened and panic darkened his irises. He started shaking. “That’s not how they got in.”

  Ilythra gasped, the answer coming to her as the man spoke.

  The man looked around the room as though searching for an escape. “They came through the tunnels in the mountain.”

  Arien met Ilythra’s startled gaze. They could have an army of Rugians on them at any moment.

  Arien rushed from the room while drawing his sword. Ilythra followed him into the dusky light. He yelled a command, and several Elderborn emerged from half-burned structures.

  He didn’t pause but continued running through the streets, toward the mountain tunnels. He skidded to a stop as a scream pierced the silent streets. The first Rugians emerged from buildings nestled against the mountain.

  Ilythra’s heart surged into her throat. This was why there were not more Rugians outside of Isolden. They were waiting. The gates were locked behind them. How many Rugians would come through the tunnels?

  Swords clashing echoed across cold stone. Ilythra shook herself and shrugged off her bow. She put three arrows in the Rugian battling Arien. The healer turned briefly and nodded before surging ahead to battle two more. Several Dawn Children rushed forward to join the fray. Ilythra put another arrow to the string, aiming for the Rugians as they emerged from doorways. She hadn’t loosed more than four arrows before other Dawn Children moved to join her.

  As fast as they fell, the Rugians still multiplied.

  “We need you to find a way to collapse the tunnels.”

  Ilythra turned to find Arien close by. Blood trickled from a cut above his eye and dirt smudged his face. Ilythra nodded and backpedaled. The Rugians had steadily pushed them back until more and more emerged from the doorways. The streets echoed with the thuds and cries of war. Ilythra reached for one of the wooden beams sticking from a stone structure and swung up onto the wooden roof. She gripped Ilydearta, channeled the power of Teann. A cool breeze blew through her mind. Power surged through her limbs, seeming almost to lift her off her feet, blow her hair from her face. Warmth infused her breast and tingled down her limbs to her fingertips. She grew with the power until she was larger than the Rugians, towered over the Dawn Children below her.

  Ilythra opened her eyes and stared at the mountain. She could see where the rock moved against itself. There was a small seam where water had gathered, expanded as it froze and then melted away. More each year until a small chasm had formed. It would take some force, but there was a way to top
ple most of the tunnels and make more unstable. She opened her mouth to direct Arien and stilled. Bredych was in a cavern somewhere underground. What if these were the tunnels that led to him?

  Anger sang through her blood. She would not destroy the tunnels if it meant Bredych would once again escape her. She glanced down at the fray, not seeing the dead and dying Dawn Children and Rugians. There would be a way through them, into the tunnels. They had to defeat the Rugians but leave the tunnels intact so she could find Bredych.

  Something white flittered at the edge of her vision. She blinked and searched for it. Arien spun; the white feather of his house fluttered against his dark hair as he battled two Rugians. His sword blurred between his two opponents. A third approached.

  She opened her mouth to scream a warning when Arien went down.

  Ilythra was in the air before she realized she’d jumped off the roof. She landed in a crouch and ran toward the last place she’d seen Arien. She sprinted into the fray, taking one Rugian by surprise, slitting his belly as she passed by. With a grunt, another Rugian rushed toward her. She ducked and spun, slicing the back of his thighs. Without waiting, she continued.

  Arien was on his knees, fighting a much larger Rugian. A surge of satisfaction moved through her when she saw the fallen Rugians around her friend. She screamed a challenge and dove into the fight.

  Her sword a blur, she cut through Rugians to her friend’s side. With one hand on his upper arm, she helped him to his feet and turned her back on his. Rugians circled.

  “Did you find it?” He was breathless. Tired. How could she have thought of leaving him?

  Her stomach soured. “Yes.” He didn’t say anything, but she could feel the relief coming from him.

  “Rian has the fire sticks.” His words were punctuated with blows of steel on steel or the wooden shields the Rugians favored. “Show him where to place them.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  A thud followed the sibilance of steel. Arien grunted. “If you don’t, we’ll both die here.”