by B. T. Narro
Basen and Beatrix were practically untouched. It took Desil a moment before he saw the scuffs on the back of their armor. No holes, no scratches. Just scuffs, as if they’d scraped their backs against some rock.
“We’re fine,” Kirnich answered for everyone. “What now?”
“We hope the Wind Knights find us before the Marros do,” Basen said as he looked inside his bag.
Leida squeezed Desil’s hand. “Thank you,” she said again, then approached her father. “That wasn’t like the other times.”
“What do you mean?” His attention remained on the cracked bottles he was pulling out to investigate.
“When the portal collapsed the other times, you spoke to us, not to someone else. What happened this time?”
He held on to one bottle with a crack that went all the way through, tilting it to see if the melted akorell would run out. It looked just like when Desil had observed his cracked bottle, the akorell clotting like drying blood. Basen put them back in his sack and stared at nothing in particular as if in thought.
They were back at the Kreppen encampment, Desil saw, near the Dajrik Mountains. There were no hills, no trees, and the huts that remained in this old home of the now nonexistent Kreppen army were little more than rags on poles of wood. The only defense was a charred wall of stone nearby. The Marros were probably looking for them, and this place wasn’t far enough away from the creatures for Desil to feel safe.
Basen had one akorell stone left that was still glowing. He took it out from his bag, removed the cloth, and slid his hand through the wristband. He spoke to Leida while everyone gathered around to listen.
“I tried to picture this place as I prepared to open a portal, but my mind was taken elsewhere. I saw a vast ocean of bastial energy.” He squinted. “I couldn’t tell where I was. No, I did know where I was. From your description, Leida, I knew it was the place you and Desil have gone many times now. I meant to say I couldn’t determine my exact location in that plane. I’ve never been there before. I heard the voice you’ve described. I felt it the way a deaf man feels thunder. I wasn’t sure if he brought me there or if he was only preventing me from leaving, but I couldn’t escape until I convinced him the akorell would be lost to the Marros if he didn’t let me go.”
Desil asked, “Do you feel you can return now that you’ve been there?”
Basen shut his eyes. “I’m not sure. I feel no connection to that place like I do to the portal spots around the world. I can’t take time to test it right now. Whoever he is, he’s coming for the akorell. And he’s close.”
Kirnich held a spyglass up to his eye as he looked west. “I see a small army, headmaster. No banner.” He sounded pleased.
Basen jumped up. Kirnich handed him the spyglass.
The low sun at their backs gave Desil and the others the shadows of giants. The sun must’ve just peeked over the horizon, warmth spreading over his skin. The light struck Leida’s dark red hair, reminding Desil of freshly fallen leaves. He felt good about this approaching army at sunrise.
Emerging out of the nearby forest, they were small indeed, no more than twenty.
“I think that’s them,” Basen said. “But we wait here, where I can make a portal, until we’re certain.”
Desil took a turn with the spyglass. None of them wore armor. Their clothes of gray and black indicated no side in this war. He couldn’t make out any of their faces, but he had hope.
“Let me,” Adriya said as she held out her hand. He passed over the spyglass.
She gasped immediately. “Those are my parents at the front.”
“Are you sure?” Basen asked.
She was already picking up her clanking bag and running toward the dilapidated western wall of the Kreppen encampment. “Yes, I’m certain!”
“Adriya, they need to come here anyway to use a portal! Adriya, stay here where we are together. The Marros could swoop down and pick you off. Adriya!”
She looked back but didn’t stop running. “I’ve made up my mind!”
“Headmaster?” Kirnich asked.
“We’d better stay close to her. Grab your bag and let’s go.”
It would’ve been difficult to match the pace of Adriya’s long legs, especially with Desil lugging such a heavy bag. Thankfully, Basen settled on a jog, letting her run ahead. They held the bottom of their bags with a hand behind their backs, to keep the glass from clanking together, but it didn’t do much good.
Desil felt relieved when they neared the Wind Knights and he made out the stern face of Cleve with his wife right beside him. After everything Desil and the others had been through, the akorell would be safe. Cleve didn’t smile as he opened his arms to embrace Adriya, his expression remaining worried. But Reela smiled enough for the two of them as she took her turn hugging their daughter.
Adriya was opening her bag to show them the akorell trapped in bottles when the rest of the party arrived.
“Come on,” Basen said without preamble. “I’d rather get back to the portal spot sooner than later.”
They all started heading back toward the Kreppen encampment. Besides Reela and Cleve, Desil only recognized the round face and short hair of Neeko, the pyforial mage he’d met briefly in the forest outside Tenred. The other twenty or so people were mostly around the age of Adriya’s parents, half men and half women. Most of them appeared slightly younger than Cleve and Reela, but there were a few men and one woman with full gray hair and deeper lines across their foreheads. They appeared no older than seventy but certainly past their fifties. This couldn’t have been every Wind Knight. Even after Reela had told Desil that they didn’t have the power to stop the war, he’d assumed there were at least a few hundred. Nevertheless, he was ecstatic to see them.
“Where’s everyone else?” Basen asked Cleve.
“Busy,” he answered in his deep voice. He was just larger than Kirnich. Although older, he looked no less formidable, as he seemed to have the muscles of a younger man. “The war still must be fought for now.”
“I take it my brother didn’t agree to Hawthen’s offer of peace in return for half the Academy?” Beatrix asked.
“Princess.” Cleve gave her a respectful nod. “I’m glad to see you alive and unscathed. Allephon has not left the castle since he brought you back there, but he told Reela before he left the wall that you would live and that the war is to continue.”
“She wasn’t unscathed,” Basen corrected Cleve. “And they would’ve killed her if Desil hadn’t been there to break her out.”
Cleve didn’t appear as shocked as he was displeased. “What happened?”
“Kirnich, if you wouldn’t mind?” Basen asked.
Kirnich retold the story, briefly this time, leaving out many of the theatrics from the last recounting at the headmaster’s home. He explained how Jimmin tricked Allephon and tortured Beatrix, with a plan to kill her. Kirnich finished after everyone had ducked to get through the holes in the wooden wall around the Kreppen encampment.
“I knew Jimmin when he was younger,” said an older man with a patch of gray hair in the shape of a triangle hanging from his chin. “Never trusted him.”
“In Tenred?” Cleve asked.
The older man nodded. “He and his brother came to train with me for a year. Their parents had died mysteriously at the same time, leaving both brothers with a lot of money at such a young age. Neither of them took to the sword well and ended their training abruptly. I heard later that they’d begun private lessons with someone else, never learned who because I never cared. When I found out Jimmin was selected to be one of Fernan’s advisers, I didn’t think much of it. Not everyone living in Kyrro but born in Tenred has an agenda, yet apparently he must.”
Leida whispered to Desil, “That’s Abith Max, Adriya’s battle-mage instructor. He taught my father as well.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of him from my mother.”
Basen asked Abith, “Do you know where Jimmin’s brother is now?”
“Dead years
ago, I heard. Executed in Tenred.”
Cleve hummed. “So both are destined to suffer the same fate. How many support him, Beatrix?”
“The entire army, unfortunately. I don’t know if it’s through psyche or lies alone, but he’s convinced them that I’m the threat to the kingdom. That I…killed my father.” She sounded disgusted.
“A trial will clear everything up,” Reela said.
“Except Jimmin can lie to psychics.”
“Not to me.” Reela spoke confidently.
None of the other Wind Knights appeared surprised by this. Desil had a question, but he feared asking it might bring about problems. If no one could lie to Reela without her knowing, not even Jimmin, then why didn’t she say something about Allephon’s lies during the meeting between him and Hawthen?
He waited until they arrived at the charred wall, where Reela, Cleve, and Adriya spoke to each other on the outskirts of the group, all smiles, even Cleve. Feeling as if he was encroaching, Desil put on his most apologetic face.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“It’s fine,” Adriya said to his surprise.
He gave her a nod of gratitude. “Reela, I need to ask you something, and I mean no disrespect. If you knew Allephon was lying, why didn’t you say anything back at the Tenred wall?”
She appeared worried as she put up her hands. “First of all, I had no idea Beatrix would show up and endanger herself, otherwise I would’ve done things differently.”
“But you did know he was lying?” Desil recalled how Reela had shrugged during the meeting as if there was nothing she could do.
“I did, but I had no grounds to accuse him.” She paused, scrunching her face as if having trouble figuring out how to explain. “Normally psychics can feel spikes of emotion from someone’s natural bastial energy when they are lying, but there was no emotion at all from him. That was proof enough for me that he’d taken something. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say anything without the other psychics there coming to the same conclusion, and I couldn’t be sure if any of them had until I had the chance to speak with them. I figured I would first find out what he could’ve taken before we investigated further. Like I said, I didn’t know Beatrix would be there.” Reela looked at someone behind Desil.
The princess must’ve heard her name, or Reela had called to her with psyche, for she came over in that moment.
“I need to apologize,” Reela told her. “I could’ve said something at the wall about your brother’s lies, but I decided I would wait until I was certain as to what he’d taken. However, without anyone speaking up, you must’ve felt the need to put your life in danger. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t blame anyone but him and Jimmin Rofters. You’re forgiven.”
“Thank you,” Reela said. “We will figure out how to resolve this without putting you in any more danger. That’s a promise.”
Desil heard many voices behind him where the rest of the group had gathered. When he’d left, they were starting to look in each of the large bags, and now they sounded worried about something.
“Is there a problem with the akorell?” Adriya asked Beatrix.
“It was fine a moment ago, solidifying quickly.”
They returned to the group. Basen made a face of concentration as he had his hand on his head, his wand in his slack left hand. Many circled around him, speaking in hushed tones as if trying to solve a dilemma. Leida stood closest to her father, crouched with her hand over her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Adriya asked her instructor.
Desil didn’t hear the answer as something happened to him akin to what apparently had befallen Basen and Leida. Desil’s mind suddenly felt bloated as if something was stuck within it. He felt the need to be free, but he couldn’t think of a single thought more complex than that.
He recognized the terrifying presence of the powerful man from the other plane, only now he was in complete control. Desil found himself hovering over the ocean of energy, unable to move. The man was closer than ever before. He didn’t speak to Desil as he perused his mind freely.
It felt as if an aggressive dog was sniffing Desil all over, deciding whether to open its jaws and bite. But after a moment, he let Desil go.
When Desil returned to the physical plane, Leida had her hand on his shoulder. “It’s him,” she said. “Help me fight his hold on my father.”
But as Leida reached out to touch her father, he opened his eyes and seemed himself again except for a disappointed look.
“He’s blocking parts of my mind.”
“Who?” Cleve asked.
“I’m not certain, but I have a feeling we’re going to find out soon.”
“What do you mean?”
Desil answered, “He’s close.”
Basen asked, “You felt him too?”
“We both did,” Leida said. “But he only wants you.”
“He wants the akorell,” Basen specified. “He knows we have it.”
“I don’t know what any of you are talking about,” Cleve said. “But it sounds like we should leave.”
“He’s keeping me from making a portal,” Basen said.
“What do you mean keeping you?”
“I can’t get my mind to the right place. It’s not going to work from here unless Desil and Leida can find some way to stop him.”
“There’s an army coming from the west,” Kirnich announced as he looked through his spyglass.
Desil could see them without his spyglass, emerging from the same forest as the Wind Knights had. This group numbered in the hundreds.
“A banner?” Basen asked.
“Kyrro. It might be the men Allephon sent for the akorell in the Dajrik Mountains.”
“How does he know about it?” Cleve asked.
Beatrix sounded embarrassed. “I had to tell Jimmin to forestall his killing me.”
“That’s fine, glad you saved yourself however you could,” Cleve said somewhat apologetically. “Basen, is the man blocking your portal among them?”
“I don’t know. Leida? Desil?”
Desil tried to reach out with his mind, but the only place he could go was into the other plane where the man awaited. He dared not let himself be trapped, as he might need to fight in a moment.
“I can’t tell,” he admitted.
“Neither can I,” Leida said.
“Everyone needs to relax,” Reela announced, as she must’ve felt their aggression stronger than Desil could see it on their faces. “Allephon wouldn’t order an attack on his best fighters.”
“He might for akorell,” Abith Max countered. “If he believes it will end the war in a victory.”
“I assure you he will not if all of you stay back and let me speak,” Reela said.
“You can’t go alone,” Adriya grumbled.
“She won’t.” Cleve put his blade back in his sheath. Desil thought he had caught a glimpse of a reddish color to the steel before it was hidden away. Bastial steel? It was the same material made by the explosions, which the Marros had licked feverishly as if feasting upon it.
“I’m going with the two of you,” Beatrix insisted. “I must speak with my brother.”
“You need to stay back,” Cleve ordered. “You are the most wanted person in Kyrro right now. When news of your escape reached us, it came with orders to kill you upon sight.”
“It must’ve been Jimmin—”
“It was your brother’s signature on the message,” Cleve interrupted. “If you’re seen with us, alive, we could be treated as enemies. Stay out of sight.”
“Cleve,” Reela began, “we’re already going to be seen as enemies so long as anyone with Basen’s group is with us.”
“Then all of them will stay out of sight.”
“I believe it will be obvious to Allephon’s troops that we came here to meet Basen for the akorell,” Reela argued. “But even if not, the truth will come out eventually. It always does. Let Beatrix and I go by ourselves. They can’t possibly see the pre
sence of two women as an act of aggression. They won’t charge, no matter what is said.”
“You’re two psychics,” Cleve disagreed. “You are just as threatening as the most powerful of men.”
“But we aren’t seen that way by all men. Trust me here, please.”
Desil agreed with Cleve. Reela and Beatrix together would intimidate him as much as, if not more than, any man if he found them standing on the opposite side of the battlefield. But he trusted Reela. Cleve seemed to as well, letting out his breath. Or perhaps he was just giving up.
“Fine, so long as you’re careful. Don’t provoke them in any way.”
Desil stayed beside Leida as her father described what he saw through the spyglass. “None wear heavy armor, only leather. They weren’t expecting battle. That means they might have few or no archers.”
“And mages?” Leida asked.
“I would assume there are at least a couple of them to light the Dajrik Mountains during their exploration.”
Beatrix and Reela walked toward the oncoming army, stopping once they were past the wooden wall. They chose to stand in front of where the wall still seemed sturdy, none of the wooden beams broken behind them. It made them almost impossible to see, as the wall was about as high as Desil could reach with a small jump. Everyone moved up to stay at least close enough to get to the two psychics before the army did if Allephon initiated the unexpected and attacked.
Beatrix and Reela walked up a small hill ahead of them, putting themselves in view. Reela took two more steps after Beatrix stopped and put out her hand to halt the army as they came over the hill.
Even without the spyglass, Desil recognized a few of them. None he was happy to see. Allephon got down from horseback at the front. Desil recognized Jimmin as the gray-haired man remaining on his horse at Allephon’s side. Micklin was on Allephon’s other side, with a trimmed beard and no signs of a limp from the dagger Desil had stabbed into his boot.
He assumed Erwal to be somewhere near Micklin, both men probably holding grudges now; Erwal for Leida and Micklin for Desil. The army stopped short of Reela but well within the range where mages could get a good shot on her downhill. Psyche had a maximum range depending on the strength of the psychic, but every spell weakened over distance. Desil doubted even she could tell from there if they were lying.