by B. T. Narro
“Thank you, headmaster.”
They kept their distance from the Krepp as he took them through the encampment. Trees diminished to flatland, grass changing to dirt fields, and all forms of buildings shrank to huts. The only consistency was that Krepps were everywhere, always staring at the humans without a hint of warmth.
When the land changed back to a healthy green sheet of grass, trees sprouting out, the Kreppen homes and public buildings showed more intricacy, some even two stories tall. Their escort looked back for only the second time since their short journey.
“Nebre.” The escort pointed to a two-story building with white walls of unchipped paint. Then he walked through their group, shouldering Desil aside before storming off.
Desil rubbed his shoulder, but he couldn’t complain. Everything had gone exceptionally well considering they’d entered the Kreppen encampment without permission. This was not the same house Desil had visited the last time he was here. Nebre must’ve been staying with his son last time to help take care of the Kreppen babies that he’d forced Desil to hold for a moment. There was no sound of crying as Basen walked up and knocked on the door.
A Kreppen female opened the door. Her head reeled as she snorted. She shut the door. “Nebre, felks! Sheck aen kar?” Nebre, Humans! Where is your sword?
Desil heard a chuckle from farther within the house. “Ren aken izcat jek.” It was Nebre. They aren’t here to fight. The door came open to reveal him. “Basen, I’m not surprised it’s you.” He turned his attention to Desil. “Remind me of your name, please.”
“Desil.” The female he assumed to be Nebre’s seshar watched apprehensively a step behind.
She asked Nebre what the humans wanted.
Desil didn’t understand any of Nebre’s reply, but it calmed her enough to put down the sword she’d been hiding behind her back. She placed it on the ground and looked at it no more, staring instead at Desil, but he noticed her dexterous toes curling around the handle.
“Have you had trouble with humans recently?” Desil asked Nebre.
“No, but my seshar believes we will. We’ve heard the sounds of battle coming from the west. Some think the war will reach us. I try to tell them that it will not.”
“It won’t,” Basen agreed. “So all Krepps know that war has begun?”
“We assume it to be true. You told me it might the last time we spoke. Then we’ve heard the shouting and crashing.” A shadow fell over his lizard face. “Are you here to give us unfortunate news?”
“No. We only need your help getting out of here. I had to make a portal into your encampment because it’s the quickest way to Tenred. We didn’t have time to walk there.”
“You made a portal here, without permission?”
“Dreena?” asked Nebre’s seshar. What?
Desil didn’t understand Nebre’s reply as he spoke quickly over his shoulder. He turned back and hunched to meet Basen’s height. “Krepps will kill you for entering without permission. How did you reach my home?” He looked over each person in the party. “And without injury?”
“We made them believe we proved ourselves at the border and then lost track of our escort,” Basen said. “Another Krepp led us to your door, unwillingly. Desil knows enough Kreppen to have gotten us out of this situation. We were safe.”
“You were lucky,” Nebre corrected. “I will take you out of here now. Come with me.” He said something too softly to his mate for Desil to pick up. She spat on the ground in reply, making Desil realize that there was no floor within at least the front room of their home.
“You will be safe with me,” Nebre said as he closed the door behind him. “But you must promise never to make a portal here again unless my father gives you permission, which he will not without a gift to our tribe. It must be as valuable as a hundred swords. Each time you make a portal, there must be a new gift, and you must—”
“I have nothing I can offer him,” Basen interrupted. “So I won’t make another portal into the encampment.”
“Good, because you are unlikely to get out if you do.”
“I understand, Nebre. You’ve made it clear.”
“My worry is not only about you. If the headmaster of Kyrro Academy was killed on our land, especially during war—”
“I’m not the headmaster anymore,” he interrupted again.
Nebre stopped to stare with his large mouth hanging open.
“But…” Leida’s voice died on her lips.
“Our situation is complicated,” Basen continued to Nebre, “but you don’t need to worry about retaliation to the Krepps if anything happens to me.”
“Tell me the situation with humans. I want to know all.”
“I will tell you, but we must keep walking.”
*****
Desil was starving by the time Nebre finished leading them out of the encampment and left them. Desil’s party stopped at a river on their way west to replenish their water after drinking their fill. Beatrix coaxed a few fish swimming by to jump out of the water, where Kirnich snatched them up by the tail one at a time and swung to slam their heads against a rock, killing each in one try.
Everyone ate their portion raw, eager to get moving again. No one had uttered a word all the way to the river, and it seemed as if their trek would continue in silence.
An hour passed before Kirnich spoke up. “You are the headmaster,” he told Basen. “You will be until you decide that you don’t want to do it anymore or you can’t, and I will make sure everyone knows this when we are done.”
“Aye,” Beatrix agreed.
“While your vow is appreciated, I refuse to care about my position until the war is over and Allephon is put in prison.”
They walked on, Basen at the front with his daughter and Adriya beside him. Desil stayed at the back, getting a clear view of Kirnich raising an eyebrow at Beatrix.
“Did he lie?” Kirnich asked in a hopeful whisper. “Does he still care?”
She nodded.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It took a day to walk through the rest of the western forest. Corin Forest, it was called. Throughout no point in history had a ruler of Kyrro vied for these woods, but that might change during this war. Desil heard rumblings of many voices beyond the last trees. He took out his spyglass for a look as Basen did the same.
“Our army is in front of the wall,” Basen said. “I see no signs of immediate combat.”
Desil was too overwhelmed by the sight of thousands in leather armor dyed blue to figure out the scene. He’d witnessed a gathering of people before, perhaps a hundred filling a street in the capital near the markets, but never had he observed something of this magnitude. A cloud of Marros would cower away from this horde if they had a semblance of discretion.
But standing before them, with impenetrable force, was a wall of stone taller than any dajrik. It created a barricade in front of where the terrain began to incline. Behind the wall, the enormous hill Tenred was built upon rose into sight. Desil spotted dwarfed houses of Tenred’s citizens, built in neat columns with roads between them.
The exterior walls met mountains that grew taller and wider along the hill, barricading the territory all the way to its upper edge, where the castle appeared as a fortress with the same height as Kyrro’s yet three times the width. Layers of walls and towers encircled one another, shielding a magnificent keep. Desil knew the sea to be behind Tenred castle, but after a long drop. It had been said that no one could climb up the precipice to get to Tenred castle from behind. Desil could’ve claimed that accomplishment if things had been different, but he knew it was wiser to remain as far away as he could. He didn’t see how Kyrro’s army was supposed to get past that exterior wall, but even if they did, the castle seemed impossible to conquer. Only an army of giants would have a chance of breaking through.
“What is your army trying to do here?” Desil asked the headmaster.
“It looks like whoever took over command decided to attempt a play at Tenred with
a siege. They’ve blocked access to water, I’m sure, and are working on destroying their means for food. It’s a terrible way to go about fighting a war, but it might be the only way to prevent allied casualties. We need to end this war as soon as we can, which means we need to get back to the Dajrik Mountains before the Marros take the akorell metal, not that I know how they would without tools.”
Leida took the spyglass from her father as soon as he let it down. Adriya asked her, “See anyone we know?”
“I can’t make them out from here.”
“I can’t, either,” Basen agreed, “which is why we need to get closer so I can find Steffen Duroby. Desil, I’m going to need your help. It’s not safe for the rest of us to be seen, but you can find out—”
Something heavy came down onto Desil, sending him sprawling facedown onto the grass and knocking the air out of his lungs. It felt like a mattress, not a man. He tried to throw it off, but it was alive as it pushed back. Pyforial energy! Micklin had come for revenge, a surprise attack. He was a coward.
Desil couldn’t escape from beneath it, could barely breathe. He was aware of a swarming army closing around his comrades, but he could do nothing to help them. Softening the ground beneath him would only cause him to sink into the dirt and suffocate faster.
Suddenly the energy jumped off his back. He started to rise but nearly impaled himself onto three swords pointed at his neck.
“Don’t move,” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Neeko, is that your voice I hear?” asked Basen. Desil located Leida’s father with his hands roped behind his back, three men pressing him against the ground.
“Headmaster?”
“Yes! And that’s the king’s daughter and my own daughter the rest of you are manhandling.”
The men and women burst into a panic, helping up everyone, including Desil, and untying the limbs they’d restricted. They uttered a dozen apologies to the headmaster and the princess but not to anyone else.
“I’m sorry, Basen, we assumed you were spies,” said the man Desil assumed to be Neeko.
“Is anyone hurt?” Basen asked his group.
Adriya rubbed her shoulder with a scowl while Kirnich untied the last of the rope around his legs and tossed it at one of the men backing away from him.
“We’re fine,” Beatrix said.
“Then you’re forgiven, Neeko,” said Basen. He grinned as he put his hand on the blond man’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you.”
Neeko smiled in return. “And you as well. We’ve been worried.”
Neeko’s name sounded familiar to Desil. He made the connection then—this was Micklin’s instructor of pyforial energy. Before Desil could figure out what that might mean, he was distracted by Neeko’s troops staring at Basen, Leida, and Adriya in a way that reminded him of how the Krepps had looked at them as trespassers.
Basen had been about to send Desil off before the attack. The headmaster must’ve assumed there could be this hostility toward him, his daughter and Adriya, but why?
There was one man in particular staring at Adriya, but it didn’t seem to be with the same aggression as his peers. His bright eyes were clever. His mouth was set in a proud grin. His cleanly shaven cheeks and combed short hair stood out among the other men, who’d gone days without touching a razor.
“Can we speak, Adriya?” he asked her quietly while taking a cautious step toward her. “I feared the worst had happened to you.”
“Later.”
Basen glanced around. “Are we safe to talk here?”
“Safe from whom?” asked Neeko.
Basen frowned. “You have to make me specify?”
“Not anymore now that you’ve made it clear. What are you doing here if you don’t want to be seen by anyone in your army?”
“It’s not my army right now, or they wouldn’t be sieging Tenred.”
“That’s not how it started.” There was a hint of irritation in Neeko’s voice, finally helping Desil understand that these men and women of the Academy were angry at Basen for leaving them during this time of war. Most of the people here were Desil’s age, possibly friends of Adriya and Leida who’d been fighting during their absence.
Desil could see a look on Leida’s face as if she was eager to explain, her gaze mostly set on a single woman still holding onto her wand. Probably a friend.
No one paid much attention to Desil. Of the looks he did receive, most were of obvious confusion.
“How did it start?” Basen asked Neeko.
“With several announcements at Redfield by the king. He transferred the role of headmaster to Cleve, but Cleve has made it clear he’s taken it solely out of responsibility. It will go back to you as soon as you return, but I see that you have no intention of doing that anytime soon. You weren’t even planning to show your face?”
Cleve Polken is headmaster now—Adriya’s father. She didn’t appear shocked by this news as she folded her arms defensively.
“Don’t you believe I’m still trying to stop this war?” Basen asked.
“Yes, I believe you’re trying, headmaster. We all do, but we’ve already lost hundreds. You must know the Fjallejon Mountains would be desired by both Kyrro and Tenred, so two battles have been waged over control.”
Desil had climbed up to the southernmost peak of the Fjallejon Mountains upon his return from Kanoan. The top had been bare as far as he could see, but it had been at night, after all, and the two Marros he’d spotted soon after had distracted him. An army could’ve been there in the distance; the mountains were miles long.
“Yes, I assumed so,” Basen said. If the headmaster felt any guilt for his actions, he didn’t let it show as he looked Neeko in the eyes. “And I know the Fjallejons must not be happy about us usurping the mountain. I’m working toward bringing peace to the land not just for them, but for the humans as well.”
“But the worst of it is already over,” Neeko said. “We moved our army here recently. It wasn’t easy. We were met with arrows and fireballs but have since scared off their ranged attackers with retaliations. Kyrro has the superior skill even if our numbers are the same. We’ll win the war eventually.”
“But King Hawthen has the advantage of Tenred’s defensive walls and mountains,” Basen argued. “We know little about him. If he’s clever, he will find a way to bring water to his people while making us believe that he’s unable to. If you try to get over the walls or the mountains to sabotage his supplies, it will be a swift loss. You don’t want to siege. Trust me. The only way it will work is by spreading disease—an option Fernan once discussed with me. He wanted to fling dead bodies and manure over the walls until Tenred gave up. It is an immoral way to fight this already immoral war, which would result in the death of more poor folk than troops, because it’s they who won’t have access to the limited supply of clean water and medicine. I hope Cleve is not considering that tactic.”
“I don’t know if he has,” Neeko responded. “But it’s not the current plan, and the king is not present to argue it. A messenger gave us word that his son, Allephon, is on his way instead. None of us know his purpose in coming.”
Beatrix put herself in front of Basen, her nose nearly touching Neeko’s chin. “What else did the messenger say?”
“That’s all.” A wrinkle formed down his forehead as he moved a step back. “Why?”
“You must have psychics present when he speaks,” she said. “Close enough to detect his lies.”
“I’m not sure of Cleve’s plans for the king’s son, but no one would stop you, Princess, from standing beside your brother if you would like to be the one to do it.”
“They would stop me—you don’t understand. Why can’t you go now to tell Cleve that Allephon plans to lie? Psychics must be present.”
“We can’t leave this forest until others come to relieve us. Tenred troops and scouts are hidden everywhere, waiting for their chance to attack or flee. They were separated from the rest of their army when we forced a retreat. They’
re desperate and dangerous. We have to find them all. We’re taking a risk standing here speaking in the open.”
“I understand. Tell me when Allephon is supposed to arrive, and we will figure out what to do.”
“Sometime today, could be soon.”
“Beatrix,” Basen said, gently pulling her away by her shoulder, “we will figure out a plan, but there’s something else we need to know first.” He glanced at Neeko. “The Wind Knights—am I to presume they fight against Tenred with us now that Cleve leads Kyrro’s army?”
“Nothing has been confirmed from…them, but I’m sure many of them are here within our ranks, keeping their allegiance to the Wind Knights hidden until they figure something out.” His voice was hinting.
“All the Wind Knights must start questioning why each side is fighting this war. And everyone must start questioning their king’s motives if they haven’t already. Both kings.” Basen’s voice grew louder as he addressed everyone watching. “This war is without need. We are to fight to protect what’s behind us, not to destroy what’s in front, and yet here our army is outside Tenred’s walls. We have to find out if King Hawthen really means to march on Kyrro or if we are following a leader who merely wants to take Tenred’s land for himself, who wants to take it from those who work and live here, those who always have. Allephon must be questioned with psyche, as well as Hawthen.”
“None of us wish to destroy Tenred, Basen,” Neeko assured. “Cleve has been working with our chemists to loosen parts of the wall with acid mixtures.”
“That could take months.”
Distant horns turned everyone west. “It seems that your brother has arrived, Princess,” Neeko said.
Basen hadn’t told Neeko about Micklin. They hadn’t even mentioned that Fernan had been murdered. There was nothing Neeko could do about that here—that information was for the Wind Knights, and it had to reach them now. But Desil couldn’t leave without at least alerting Neeko about his former student.
“Micklin is trying to kill Beatrix. He’s working for Allephon, who—” Desil stopped himself to check on Beatrix. She nodded; it was easier for him to say than for her. “Who killed Fernan. The king is dead. We found him in his bed, where he’d been kept for days after passing, hidden away. Murdering him must be part of Allephon’s plot to take the crown, probably Tenred as well.”