Five Kingdoms: Books 01, 02 & 03

by Toby Neighbors

  “He defeated you, too,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she was.

  “Ah, well, that may be true, but there were extenuating circumstances. The dragon was not expected, and I’ve no doubt that it will be a wrinkle we’ll have to deal with in the future, but that can’t be helped. For now, we need your young friend to join us at Orrock. I wish you would believe me when I tell you I don’t wish Zollin any harm.”

  “No, just those around him, like me.”

  “I haven’t harmed you,” he said as if her words had hurt his feelings.

  “You threatened to break my neck if he didn’t do what you wanted,” she said.

  “Empty words,” he said playfully. “I couldn’t hurt you, now really. What kind of man do you take me for?”

  “I don’t take you for a man at all,” she said. “More like an empty shell filled with evil.”

  She had meant the words to sting him, but he only laughed and urged the horse to pick up its pace.

  * * *

  The soldiers carried Zollin, still unconscious, to the riverbank and dropped him in the mud. They chained his hands and feet together, then drove a long, wooden stake into the ground and chained him to that. They did the same with Quinn, Mansel, and Kelvich, all along the riverbank. The water had risen and was continuing to rise as more snow melted. It was only a few feet below the bank now, in a few more weeks it would over flow its boundaries and spread across the plain. Brighton’s Gate had been built on a small rise that would probably keep the ruined buildings dry while the floods brought fresh soil and minerals to the plain and allowed the farmers to raise their crops.

  Of course the town was now a smoking ruin. More of the buildings had caught fire, Quinn was sure of that from the amount of black smoke continuing to rise into the sky. They were an hour’s ride from the village, but the devastation was marked clearly by the oily smoke.

  Kelvich was motionless in the mud where the soldiers had dropped him. It was cold enough that being wet and muddy made them miserable. Quinn could only guess what the cold was doing to the old sorcerer’s injuries. He hadn’t heard exactly what had happened to Kelvich, but from the way Zollin was treating him, it couldn’t have been good. And the knock on the back of his head hadn’t helped.

  Quinn felt his anger rising up like bile in his throat, but he swallowed it back down. There was nothing they could do now, not until Zollin woke up...if he woke up at all. A blow to the head could kill a man or make him senseless the rest of his life. Quinn had seen it, and although he hadn’t seen how Zollin had been hit, he had seen the club. It was a big, knobby piece of hardwood that could kill a man easily enough.

  “Quinn,” Mansel said. “What do we do now?” He was holding up his wrists, which were chained together, as if he expected Quinn to snap his fingers and make the chains fall into a heap at his feet.

  “We wait,” said Quinn. “And hope Zollin wakes up.”

  “Zollin,” Mansel said, calling to the young wizard. “Zollin, wake up.”

  But Zollin didn’t move. His face was out of the mud, but there were very few signs that he was alive. He was breathing, Quinn was sure of that. He had stared at his son’s chest, making sure he wasn’t just imagining the slight movement he saw there.

  “That won’t help,” said Quinn. “They bashed him with a club. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Mansel and Quinn stood as long as they could. Mansel had been awake all night and finally succumbed to his aching muscles and the fatigue that was creeping through his mind like a low cloud. Quinn was tired, too, especially as the adrenaline from the battle began to fade. He sat down reluctantly on the ground as the wet mud soaked into his clothes. He still had his chainmail on under his over shirt, and the metal seemed to absorb the cold and chilled his bones. The sun was bright, but added very little warmth to the day. Quinn watched it inch across the sky, dividing his attention between the activity around the camp and checking on Zollin.

  The soldiers had broken their camp and set up on the small hill where the wizards had stayed the night before. They piled the excess supplies from their fallen comrades into a large heap near the hill, and they set up shelters for the surviving soldiers all around the hill. They also placed a picket line across the valley. The horses were kept in a stand of trees that were close to the hills. Quinn imagined that some of the cavalry soldiers had been sent to round up any that had survived the battle, but there were only a few dozen. The Skellmarians attacked horses as viciously as they did men. Their own horses, including their mare, Lilly, which Zollin had won from a traveling magician in Tranaugh Shire, had been added to the army’s herd.

  Food had been prepared, but none had been given to Quinn or Mansel. Kelvich was in and out of consciousness, and his breathing had grown even more labored. Zollin still had not moved. Worry nagged at Quinn like termites gnawing their way through wood. He felt a hollowness inside of him that was filling up quickly with fear. He couldn’t imagine losing his son, and he was desperate to see Zollin respond. The fact that he was chained so far away from his son was painfully difficult. He wanted to comfort him and perhaps find a way to warm him up, but there was no chance of that. He had spent a large portion of his strength trying to pry up the stake that held him in place, but it had been hammered into the ground with big, wooden mallets, and it refused to budge no matter how hard he tried.

  Finally, just as the sun was setting, Zollin started to stir. Quinn felt a wave of relief, but he knew that his son could still have been permanently injured. Quinn sat waiting, watching his son, until Zollin rolled over and looked at him.

  “Are you okay?” Quinn called out.

  “My head hurts,” Zollin said. “What happened?”

  “Someone clubbed you when you went in the tent to get Kelvich.”

  “Oh,” Zollin said. In truth, he was still trying to put everything together. His mind was a patchwork of unrelated memories that he couldn’t quite get into order yet. There was Brianna, as beautiful as ever in an olive colored dress that seemed both warm and utilitarian. There were images of frightening looking Skellmarians, shaggy in their thick animal skins and waving their curved swords. Then another image, this one of Branock and his compatriot from the Torr, Whytlethane. They were on horses on the main street of Brighton’s Gate. There was an image of a Skellmarian warrior, bursting into flame, high above the others. Then the dragon, with red scales, huge, leathery wings, and a snake-like head. Then an image of Branock again, this time holding Brianna, and everything fell into place.

  Zollin sat upright so fast he got dizzy and had to close his eyes. Without even consciously thinking about it, he probed the knot on the back of his head, checking the skin and then deeper, just as he had done with Kelvich. The blow had caused some swelling and pushed the bones in his neck out of alignment. He corrected them quickly with a gentle push of magic. His stomach was empty, and he was ravenously hungry. He felt tired, but the realization that Brianna was gone, probably taken by Branock, fired adrenaline into his veins and got him moving. He saw that his companions were trussed just as he was, and he nodded to his father.

  “Let’s wait until dark,” Quinn said.

  “But what about Brianna?” Zollin said.

  “I’ve been thinking about that, and I don’t think we should go after her.”

  Zollin was about to shout how crazy that was, but Quinn raised his hand. It was a gesture that he had used Zollin’s whole life to say, wait a second, I’m not finished. Zollin shut his mouth and waited.

  “Look, we’ve been running and playing things off the cuff since this started,” Quinn said. “Two things seem obvious to me. First, Branock has Brianna, but he’s using her as bait, which means she’s safe. I know,” he said, holding up his hand again. “I don’t like it anymore than you do, but let’s be smart about this. Getting her back is my highest priority, but we don’t have to play by their rules. The other thing I’m fairly certain of is that he’s taking her back to Orrock.”

&nbs
p; Zollin looked perplexed.

  “Think about it for a minute, why are these soldiers here? There was no reason to send out an entire legion to quell the Skellmarians. The mountain clans haven’t come together in such numbers in over a century. No, those soldiers were here for you. And you heard yourself what that fool Billips said. Prince Simmerion ordered them to do whatever Branock told them. Either he’s bewitched the Prince or he’s struck a deal.”

  “But he’s a wizard of the Torr, not of Yelsia or Orrock,” said Zollin.

  “No, in the past each kingdom had powerful wizards, but since the Torr came to power, no single kingdom has had any wizards. But what if Branock has changed that? What if he made a deal to be the wizard of Orrock?”

  “Can he do that?”

  “I’m sure the other wizards at the Torr wouldn’t approve. But there is more to this than meets the eye.”

  “Yes, but what does that have to do with Brianna?”

  “Well, first of all, he’s got almost a whole day’s lead on us, and we’ve got an injured man. We can’t leave Kelvich behind, there’s nowhere for him to go, no one to take care of him. From the way things looked earlier, I’m guessing that most of Brighton’s Gate is gone, burned to the ground. He’s still got his little cabin, but without the support from the town, and with no one to take care of him, his chances are slim.”

  Zollin looked over at his mentor. Kelvich was wheezing in rough, wet sounding gasps that sounded serious. Zollin reached out with his magic, the fluid buildup was getting worse around his heart, and his lungs had refilled with the thick mucus that Zollin had been trying to get out earlier in the day.

  “No, he needs a lot of work or he’s going to die,” Zollin agreed. “We can’t leave him behind.”

  “Okay, so let’s do this on our terms. Let’s go to Orrock City by a different route.”

  “But the mountain pass hasn’t opened up.”

  “You said you could tunnel through, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Zollin admitted.

  “Okay, so we go south, though Telford’s Pass and back through Peddinggar Forrest. We may not be able to catch this wizard completely by surprise, but we can keep him guessing. Everything we can do on our terms will give us a better chance at getting Brianna back without losing you or anyone else.”

  “Alright, we wait until dark. I’m starving, have you got any food?”

  “No, they didn’t feed us.”

  Zollin was disappointed to hear that, his ravenous appetite was almost as strong, at that point, as his desire for revenge on the soldiers who kept him from going after Brianna. That thought made him feel ill. Just the thought of going in a different direction was almost more than he could bear. He felt as if he were abandoning her. And what if Quinn was wrong? It would take twice as long to get to the Torr overland as it would traveling by sea. If Branock caught a ship going south, it might take months before Zollin could find Brianna and rescue her. He felt hopeless. Despair rose in his heart as the sun set and cast the long, dark shadows of twilight onto the valley plain.

  “I think it’s time,” said Quinn, waking up Mansel.

  “Good,” said Zollin, as the magic flared up inside of him. “Try not to move, I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  Chapter 17

  Zollin started with his father’s shackles. They were made out of steel already, so all he had to do was transform them. Quinn felt heat on his wrists and around his ankles. He looked down and saw that the metal was quivering. It was an unnatural sight, and it made him nervous, but then the metal seemed to liquefy and flow away from him. The metal all came together and reshaped into several objects. First there was a short, two edged sword, just like his old one. Then three of the short, thin throwing knives Quinn was adept with. Finally, there were three round bands. Quinn was puzzled at first, but then the wooden stake he’d been chained to flowed up out of the ground in a brown, molten blob, then it settled around the metal bands and resumed its solid form.

  “That is strange,” said Quinn, a little unsettled.

  “Just think of it as carpentry,” Zollin joked.

  It wasn’t quite dark yet, but they were in deep shadow and the soldiers were mostly around bright fires, so Quinn judged it was safe enough to give the weapons a try. Zollin was already working on Mansel’s bonds, so Quinn picked up the shield. It was lighter than he expected, but felt solid enough. The short sword was perfectly balanced. He lifted the throwing knives and was surprised at how perfect they felt. He slipped them into his belt and walked over to where Mansel was inspecting his own set of weapons. Zollin had fashioned the older boy a shield like Quinn’s, but his sword was longer, with a two handed grip. Not quite a broadsword, it was amazingly light, but had just enough heft to make it deadly from the saddle as well as on the ground. The other weapon for Mansel was a thick knife as long as his forearm. It was obviously made for utility as well as defense. The young warrior nodded in appreciation to Zollin.

  “Will these weapons hold up?” Quinn asked, although he felt confident they would. He’d handled enough weapons to know the feel of finely made steel.

  “They should be as strong as anything they come against,” Zollin replied.

  He had simply unlocked his own chains and those of Kelvich. He had hurried over to the older man, kneeling down in the mud to look at his friend.

  “He’s burning up with fever,” Zollin said. “We need to get him back to his cabin.”

  “We’ll need our horses,” Quinn said.

  “I wouldn’t mind a little payback, too,” Mansel added.

  “These soldiers aren’t our enemies,” Quinn said. “They fight for Yelsia.”

  “But they just about killed Zollin and helped the wizard make off with Brianna.”

  “Still, they were just following orders. If we kill them, we truly will be outlaws. Not to mention that we’ll be making the Skellmarian’s job that much easier.”

  “You think they’ll be back?” Mansel asked.

  “Yes, they weren’t defeated by the army or even by us, really. You maimed their chieftain, but I saw them cutting the drawbridge support lines. They’re coming back. This army is the only thing between them and the rest of Yelsia.”

  “Okay, so how do we get our horses back and escape without killing anyone?”

  “Getting away shouldn’t be too difficult, we just need to get past a few sentries,” Zollin said. “I can deal with them, then Mansel and I can double back and get the horses. We’ll come in from the woods. There may be more guards, but we’ll have cover.”

  “I wish I had my bow,” Mansel said.

  “Give me a minute,” Zollin said.

  Suddenly the wooden stake that had anchored him to the ground was floating up and shaping itself into a sturdy looking longbow. It took several minutes of intense concentration to transmute the wood into string. He conjured up Kelvich’s stake and changed it into a dozen arrows, with wood shavings substituted for fletching feathers. He shaped some of the discarded chain into triangular arrowheads and bonded the wood and metal together.

  “Man, you are handy to have around,” Mansel said, admiring the bow and arrows.

  “Thanks, we better move,” said Zollin. “I’ve got to eat, or I won’t be able to keep this up.”

  Quinn led the way. Kelvich was awake and on his feet, although he was so groggy he wasn’t much help. Zollin and Mansel had to practically carry him between them. They encountered one sentry, who Zollin was able to distract by creating sounds across the river. The guard was so intent on what he thought was happening on the far side of the river that Quinn was able to lead them safely around the man and into the growing darkness of the valley beyond. They were now between Brighton’s Gate and the army, far enough out that no one could see them. They carried Kelvich all the way to the edge of the woods. Then they sat him down. He was coughing and hacking on the mucus in his lungs, but lacked the strength to actually move any of the thick liquid buildup out of his chest.

  �
�He needs help,” said Quinn.

  “I can help him, but I’ve got to have food.”

  “I’m hungry, too,” said Mansel.

  “Okay, look, you all wait here. I may not be able to get the horses, but I can get some food,” Quinn said.

  “How?” Zollin asked.

  “I’ll just blend in. I know how to do that, especially in the army. I doubt anyone will even question me.”

  “Okay, but be careful. I...” Zollin couldn’t finish the sentence. He felt tears welling up unexpectedly in his eyes. After losing Brianna and seeing Kelvich so sick, he didn’t think he could take it if something happened to his father.

  “I’ll be fine, I promise,” he said, then he disappeared into the night.

  Zollin began the tedious work of clearing out Kelvich’s lungs, although he was growing more and more worried about the fluid building up around the sorcerer’s heart. Mansel stood guard, just in case.

  Quinn made his way quickly along the tree line. He began swaggering a little as he approached the lights from the camp. He knew he would be challenged by the sentries, and he was ready for them. The first one called out as soon as he saw Quinn.

  “Hey, what are you doing out there?” said the soldier.

  “Just looking for a place to relieve myself,” Quinn said. “I needed a little privacy, if you know what I mean.”

  “Are they cooking that squalid meat from the bay again?” the soldier asked. “I was sick all night long the last time they cooked it.”