Legend of Ecta Mastrino Box Set

by B J Hanlon

  Edin swallowed. A hundred gold was more than many of these men would make in a decade.

  Then he found an iron key ring with multiple keys. He grabbed it and looked back at the ring and the purse. The firelight twisted in the ruby, Edin shook his head. “I’m not a thief.”

  These weren’t cutthroats or mercenaries, they attacked him because of a lie. If the Por Fen would’ve told the village the truth, they probably wouldn’t have been stupid enough to attack.

  Edin was about to go to the horse when he saw something familiar. The etched blade lying in the grass near the constable’s hand. Edin bent down and saw it was Grent’s.

  He took it and pulled the scabbard off the constable’s waist. A moment later he whistled and Hail trotted toward him from the darkness. Edin had no idea where the animal had been and was surprised it didn’t run from the sounds of battle.

  The son, he remembered. He needed to catch him. Edin kicked the horse and spurred it south at a gallop. He met the small road and continued. The clouds became patchy offering little light from the luminous moon. Edin was certain he’d lost Bliz. The animal was still injured and couldn’t run at that speed.

  Finally, he saw the kid, he was jogging, or more like it stumbling. Edin rode harder, wondering what he’d do. The men tried killing him, that was self-defense. He could explain it away to himself.

  The kid turned, saw Edin and started running faster. He slipped and skittered on the road. A moment later Edin was on him. He leapt from the horse and landed above the sprawled-out boy. He could hear sobs and a quaking voice.

  “Where is the jail?” Edin said. He hadn’t drawn his weapon, he didn’t need to.

  “Town hall…” his voice cracked. “West of… the pub…”

  “Show me and you can live.” He wasn’t good at lying and was unsure how intimidating he actually sounded.

  “My father…”

  “Dead, as you’ll be if you don’t help.”

  “Murderer!” He screamed.

  Edin drew his blade. But then just kicked him. The boy crumbled into a ball and cried.

  “Quiet,” Edin said. “Or the rest of your family dies too.” His voice was harsh, almost sounding like someone else’s. Like the justicar. Edin didn’t like that. He didn’t want to kill the kid, he was maybe sixteen… the only man left in his family. “Where is it?”

  His only response was a whimper. Edin sighed. He couldn’t just kill him, nor could he leave him to get help… get the Por Fen.

  Edin wished he had rope, something to tie the kid up with, something to gag him. The kid tried to scramble to his feet and Edin tripped him. He fell, but his hands weren’t quick enough, the kid’s head bounded off the dirt road like a deer. The kid went still.

  Edin dropped down next to him, felt a pulse and sighed. He lived but wouldn’t be going anywhere soon. Though if he woke, he could raise the alarm… Edin had to leave… and fast.

  “Blotard…” he spat. Edin mounted again and headed toward Mathurn. At the main crossroads, he saw the tavern. A light peaked out through the window but it was quiet. Other cottages were dark and he wondered how many of them would be waiting for their men to return. Did either of the sons have sweethearts or betrothed? How many were married? How many orphans did he leave?

  He kept looking for the jail trying not to think about it. Would it be at the castle? If there was one or a constable’s office.

  He saw signs for many tradesmen, butcher, blacksmith, baker... all of them were dark and quiet.

  Then a single light shone from a window. In huge scrawling letters he read Village Hall. Attached to the eastern part like a tumor was an ugly fieldstone building with the words Constable painted in white letters.

  With no obvious observers, he walked up to the front door and tried the handle, it opened with a squeal. A fire was fading in the hearth and a deep odor of tobacco filled the room.

  It was more of a living room than a constable’s office. Even Berka’s father had books and wanted posters hanging. This was homey.

  Wooden chairs were haphazardly pushed out from around a circular wood table. On it was a dish with gray and black ash, playing cards and mugs. Eight mugs. One still partially full, the others empty. Hair on his neck stood up. Seven men, not eight came after him.

  Edin drew his sword. The eighth mug said there was another man, another conspirator.

  Each step seemed to make the wooden floorboards creak louder than when he first entered. Across the room was a pair of closed doors.

  He crossed the room and pushed the left door open and peered in. A window to the east let in small rays of a partially obscured moon.

  Papers cluttered a desk, weapons hung on the walls, a flail, a mace, and a long pole with a foot-long blade attached, as well as different shaped and sized swords.

  He ruffled through the papers and found a pair of notes scribbled with his name and the same bounty.

  The constable must’ve wrangled up the biggest and most ambitious in the town and turned normal men turned bounty hunters. They had thought their prey was a weak boy and it cost them more than they’d imagined.

  That meant more eyes would be looking for him, they probably had these in Carrow and every other city and town in Dunbilston.

  How would they make it to the Isle? Despite being closer, it seemed more impossible. The Por Fen could travel freely throughout the old kingdom and now they knew where he’d been and where he was going. How was one mage that important that they’d send an army of Justicars and Rangers to find him?

  Edin crumpled the note with the wanted poster he’d stuffed in his cloak earlier. He felt tired… not physically, but mentally and he found himself fighting back tears. He’d never broken the law. A few months previous, he’d want to be one of those men trying to catch the abomination. “What a turn of fate…” he whispered.

  Edin went back into the main room and threw the papers into the dying flames and then added another couple of logs to stoke it. The edges of the papers turned black and fell off as flames consumed it.

  He had to forget about it, about his past. Edin went through the other door and into a dingy kitchen. There was no jail.

  Edin took a step and the floor thumped hollow beneath his boots. There was a cellar.

  Cooking pots sat on a counter with a cutting board and a block of cheese next to them. Green herbs hung like curtains in front of an open glass window that looked out toward a back garden.

  Edin cut the cheese, ate a hunk and went to the rear door. He opened it into the night air. In the dim moonlight, he saw a set of cellar doors abutting the rear of the building.

  He found a large padlock attached to a metal chain looped through the handles. He pulled out the keys he’d taken from the constable’s corpse and tried them until he found the correct one. The lock clicked open and he lifted the door.

  Edin paused for a moment looking down into a pitch-black cellar. The thought about grabbing an oil lamp entered his mind but knew he could easily light the place up himself.

  Descending into the cellar, he had to duck to keep his head from hitting the ceiling. At the bottom, he reached dirt. The room felt musty and damp and smelled of urine and poo.

  “Dephina? Master? Grent?” Edin whispered. He heard shuffling toward the back of the room, and the clinking of metal. “Hello?”

  “Edin?” A tired and weak voice whispered.

  “Yes,” Edin said, “close your eyes.” He held out his hand and created his light, a mage light. He needed to start naming his talents.

  “What the heck?” A voice he didn’t recognize cried out.

  Edin glanced toward the stone wall to his left and saw a man probably in his third decade, with a thick blond mustache, no hair on his head and blue eyes. He was sitting in a barred prison with large manacles around his wrists and ankles. Looking toward the rear Edin saw Grent and Master Horston at the far wall.

  They were shackled to the stone wall while standing up. Horston’s arms and legs were retched ba
ck and his torso leaned forward like he was going to belly flop into a pool of water. Grent was upright, but his face was gaunt and pale in the ethereal light. He made no move.

  Edin nearly ran to them.

  “Get Horston first, I don’t know if he lives,” Grent croaked.

  Edin fumbled with the keys. He unlocked the feet first, then the hands. Master Horston fell into his arms as he lowered him down to the ground.

  “Master Horston?” Edin said as he put his fingers to his neck. The pulse was barely noticeable.

  Edin unlocked Grent and helped him to the ground.

  “You’re a magus?” The unknown man said. Edin didn’t look. “What happened to the constable?” Edin didn’t answer.

  Both Grent and Master Horston’s lips were dry, Edin reached for his waterskin and uncapped the top.

  Grent took a drink without hesitation. “I think this is yours,” Edin said offering the sword to him.

  A few moments later, he began to pour drops carefully down Horston’s throat. Edin leaned his ear closer to the man’s mouth and could hear the breath, short and shallow.

  “Let me go? Please?” The man said, he seemed to have more energy than the other two. More than even Grent.

  “How’d you get caught? And where’s Dephina?” Edin asked.

  “Magus? Are you going to let me free?” His voice was shaky.

  Grent shrugged and took another drink, then Edin poured more down the old man’s throat. Slowly, his gray eyes opened.

  “They found us at the inn… She escaped, I thought she’d come for me… for us. But she didn’t,” Grent whispered as he sipped the waterskin.

  “Boy?” Master Horston grumbled, his face attempting to smile, “so good of you to finally join us.”

  “Of course.”

  “Took you long enough.”

  “It was only four days since Frestils…” Edin said, his eyes moving to Grent who shook his head. “I’m not lying.”

  “That may be, but you’re wrong,” the man said, “they’ve been down here for nearly a week.”

  “That’s not possible.” Edin said shaking his head. “You? Who are you?”

  “Assistant Constable Bolvin. I was against arresting them… and you. We’re a small village and I don’t want the trouble especially the kind brought by the Por Fen...” he spat in the dirt.

  “Why are you here?”

  “They went after you right? I drew on the constable, he was drunk… they all were.”

  “You were the eighth man then?” The man coughed and Edin could see dried patches of blood and a black eye on his face.

  “I hate Por Fen. They are evil scum… they killed my little brother on suspicion of magery. No one in my family has ever been a mage, but yet they kill him. He was twelve. They called him an abomination, my parents condemned him. Please magus, I can help you. I know things… how to get through the mountains to Carrow.”

  “We’re not headed…”

  “They got the pass sealed, said that all magus that know of it, head to some island… they leave through Carrow or Alestow...”

  Edin looked to Grent who stared at the assistant constable. “What do you think?”

  “This man may be able to help. But if he betrays us… he dies.”

  Edin unlocked his cage. The man pulled himself out of it.

  “Where are their things?” Edin asked.

  “Horses are in the stables across the road, their packs were put in the shed behind the building.” Bolvin said, “what happened to the Constable and the others?”

  Edin glanced toward Grent and Horston, they needed to get out of there soon. “I’ll be right back.”

  He rushed across the moonlit street and found the stables, there were seven horses in all, none he recognized. He had only seen the other three momentarily, however.

  Edin saddled a couple of the bigger ones and led them back behind the constable’s home. The storage shed was a large outbuilding, he checked the doors, unlocked. Only a fool would steal from the constable. He thought while grinning.

  Inside of the shed, he saw an assortment of almost everything. Books strewn across shelves, axes, and other farm equipment hanging on pegs, saddles, packs thrown to the ground next to wooden carvings, dishes and shattered glass shards.

  There was so much here he didn’t know what to do. After a few minutes of searching he found the two men’s packs.

  Edin went back toward the cellar and saw the three men emerging. Grent half carrying Horston. The other man was moving fine.

  “You know another way to Carrow?” Grent asked.

  “I do, what happened to the constable?”

  “They’re dead.”

  “All of them?” Bolvin said with a quizzical look on his face.

  Edin nodded.

  A weary smile crossed Bolvin’s mouth. “I ain’t native to this place and they always let me know that… bloody hicks. The woodsmen were ruthless with their joking, if it was joking. Constable wasn’t much help.” He paused for a second. “The Por Fen are watching the entrance to Demon’s Pass, but there’s a way past them. A smugglers trail few know about.”

  “You do.”

  “The constable does… did, the califoo used to ambush and execute them and take their wares for himself… he didn’t deserve the job.”

  “Califoo?” Edin asked.

  “A term from my home... it means fool.”

  “No trial?” Master Horston whispered somehow getting the strength to talk as Grent helped him to one of the horses.

  Bolvin shook his head. “Easier to rob. Some people I’m sure were honest merchants. To him, it made no difference.”

  Edin remembered the golden ring with the ruby. Now he wished he would’ve taken it.

  “Let’s get going,” Edin said, “I’m not sure when they’ll be found.”

  “Probably soon,” Bolvin said. “We need to move quickly.” He disappeared back toward the stables.

  Edin looked at Grent. “Do you trust him?”

  “No.” Grent said. “But, he may be our only chance.”

  Bolvin came back a few moments later, appearing like a wraith from the shadows. His horse was bigger than theirs and blacker.

  Edin took a second look at the man on his great stead and noticed Bolvin didn’t look like the people around here, they had skin tanned from the sun and years on farms and in fields. This guy was white and had a light mustache and the top his head was bald.

  “Where are you from?” Edin asked.

  “North of Carrow, a small village nestled between the sea and the Crady Mountains.”

  They mounted and began pushing east through the village, Bolvin in the lead. A cottage set back from the road had a door open and a man standing in its shadow smoking a pipe.

  “There’s something following us,” Grent said.

  Edin looked back and saw the gray fur of Bliz standing and stretching, his mouth opened and he howled.

  “A wolf, draw your blades,” Grent whispered.

  “No,” Edin shouted too loud for the morning. The man smoking the pipe looked up at them. “Bliz.” He hissed trying to keep his voice down. “Come.”

  “Bliz?” Grent said.

  “He’s a friend.” The wolf hobbled next to Edin and glanced up. Edin pulled some ham from the pack and tossed it down.

  “You are friends with a dire wolf?” Bolvin said, his voice cracking slightly, “what type of mage can control beasts?”

  Master Horston put his frail hand to his chin, “I’ve never heard of one.”

  “I don’t control him,” Edin said. “I helped heal his broken leg. It took a day.” As he said that he wondered, how long did it take really?

  “You know healing spells?” Bolvin said. “I thought those were outlawed…”

  Edin shook his head. “Why would someone outlaw healing?”

  Grent guffawed. “Kid you are dense.” He kicked his horse forward as they passed the last cottage of the village and moved into the dark landscape.
/>
  Grent said they stayed at the inn for two days when they were ambushed. They were in the cellar for seven? Edin told them about his own trip… and the clearing.

  “You say it was a white tree in an open glade,” Bolvin said.

  “Yes, it was eerie.”

  “The Ghost Hollow, I’ve heard of it,” Bolvin said, an obvious shudder running down his back. “It’s supposed to be legend. Men go there for glimpses of their future… though many never return.”

  “I did,” Edin said.

  Bolvin shrugged, “like I said, a legend.”

  17

  Alone

  “Why do you say Demon’s Pass, the maps say it’s Jont’s Pass,” Master Horston said. He was looking a little better now.

  “They do,” Bolvin said, “but Jont was a mage. Some people call them demons, others say abominations.” He glanced at Edin. “Sorry.”

  Edin shrugged. There was nothing he could do about it. The word was as commonplace as exclaiming ‘ow’ when touching a burning ember.

  It was the word for his kind and he had to get used to it… at least for now. Even Berka, his closest friend had referred to him that way.

  Edin saved his life, saved Fali, but still they hated him and the church proclaimed him a monster to be slaughtered.

  Edin looked away at the forest to the south of the road and itched his chin. It encroached within fifty yards of the road though it looked to have been beaten back recently with saws and sickles.

  He rubbed his sweaty hands against his cloak and took a drink. Ahead, just rising into view with the sun, Edin saw the Crady Mountain range. The orange peaks and bluish valleys looked both harsh and stunning. There were sudden drops and treacherous slopes that looked like knives rising through the earth.

  From what he could see, there was no trees or even scrub brush. But he was far away. They reached a small mound and he looked back to the road. Grent was still twisting his head like a wheelwright balancing his creation. A few hundred yards ahead, the road twisted around an outcropping of boulders and disappeared below the horizon.

  “Woah,” Grent said pulling on his horse’s reins, “that looks like a good spot for an ambush.”