Alastor nodded. “Any idea how many?”
“The scouts weren't sure, but they figured that it could very well be his entire armada,” the soldier said.
Alastor smiled. “Excellent.”
The soldier, oblivious to what Alastor was thinking, merely blanched at the thought of fighting such an impressive army. “Your orders, My Lord?”
“Have the men standby and await further instruction. Tell the scouts to report immediately if they see any further movement from the Count's troops,” Alastor ordered.
“Yes My Lord,” the soldier said before darting out of the tent.
Alastor couldn't help but smile at the news the soldier brought. Though he'd had his doubts, and even when the Serpent had assured him that the plan would work, Alastor couldn't wait to hear those words.
It would never cease to amaze Alastor just how easily Conley played right into his hands.
Zita traveled for several days following the trail of Varg and Milea. According to her scouts, there had been an incident in the canyon involving several marauders, in which several of them were brutally killed, some of which had been found in blocks of melting ice. She had sacrificed several hours of sleep in order to keep moving to catch up with her quarry, and soon she was finally a stone's throw away from him.
Zita finally caught sight of the Wolf about a day or so after exiting the canyon, and she kept her distance in order to stay out of sight. With the direction they were taking, she deduced that they were likely going to the inn that was on the path that led to the area near the Crystal Wood and that this was likely the best place to strike. She didn't expect it to be difficult to persuade him to distance himself from his partner, of course, since the majority of the time, the men she targeted would never resist the charms of a beautiful woman.
After all, lust made men throw all logic and reason out the door.
As the day dragged on, Zita decided to get a little closer to gather information on her target. When Varg and Milea stopped for a break around midday, she tied up Nyx and sneaked closer to their location. She carried her feet slowly, deliberately, and carefully. She watched for any twigs that lay carelessly on the ground, careful not to step on anything that might alert them to her presence. After all, seasoned warriors like them wouldn't be where they are if they weren't wary of any possible danger and if they weren't highly observant of their surroundings.
Zita stepped into the soft mud on the tips of her toes and she stooped low to remain in cover of the surrounding forest as she came within feet of where Varg and Milea were sitting. She didn't dare make her move despite how close she was, for they were bound to have the chance to fight back before she could strike. Even with Zita's advanced skills, there were no way she could take on Varg alone, especially when he had an ally to help defend him.
Zita held her breath and rested behind a boulder. Varg sat directly on the other side, and Milea was sitting right beside him. They had taken position just off the side of the path and were now enjoying each of loaf of bread, apples, and were sharing a canteen of water. They were speaking, so Zita turned her ear in their direction to listen carefully.
Milea had just swallowed a gulp of water when she said, “So you said there's an inn down this path?”
“From what I remember, yes,” Varg answered. “Since we're getting low on supplies, we should probably stop for the night and stock up on food. Besides, after several days of sleeping on the cold hard ground, the thought of a warm bed and a pint of mead sounds like perfection.”
“You aren't wrong,” Milea answered.
“With any luck, we should get there by nightfall,” Varg answered.
Satisfied, Zita crept away from her hiding place and made it back to Nyx, all the while she kept her eyes on the pair so that they wouldn't leave before she could be ready to follow them. Once she made it back to her horse, she slipped into her tavern dress. If she were to make her move tonight, she would need it.
Varg and Milea packed up after enjoying their lunch break. They both agreed not to stop again until they made it to the inn, so that they could eat dinner there. As Varg explained, the inn was on top of a large hill just outside of the forest. Once they reached the edge as the sun began to set, they both spotted the hill, which was more like a small mountain.
They went up the mountain path and found a sign that read, “Snowpeak Inn, at the end of the path.” Varg heaved a sigh of relief, then marched ahead with Milea following close behind. An hour of climbing finally brought them to the end of the path, where a humble wood lodge waited for them. A sign hanging over the door read “Snowpeak Inn” and told them they'd made it.
Once they entered the inn, Varg and Milea were met with the sweetest smell. An oven nearby alerted them to the source, where a tavern woman removed a steaming hot pan of sweat bread from the oven. Varg approached the counter and asked, “How much for the bread?”
The middle-aged innkeeper finished filling a tankard of mead for another patron. “One coin for two loaves. If you're looking to stay the night, it's ten pieces for a room.”
Varg presented the innkeeper with nineteen pieces of gold: ten for a room, five for ten pieces of bread—they kept two for the night and wrapped up the rest for their journey—and four for each a drink of mead for himself and Milea.
They then received the key to their room from the innkeeper and after he fixed their drinks, they sat at the counter and enjoyed them in silence. Varg could tell something was on Milea's mind, so after he took a big gulp from his mug, he turned to her and said, “Something you want to talk about?”
Milea placed her mug on the counter. “I have a lot of issues with going back.”
Varg remembered how Milea told him about her mother abandoning her and her father, and he understood. He placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “I'll be there. If you have to face your mother, you won't do it alone.”
Milea nodded, but Varg wasn't sure she felt better. She gulped down the rest of her drink, then stood up and said, “I just need a little fresh air. I'll be back soon.”
Varg nodded, then watched her walk to the door and leave the inn. He wanted to follow her, but he knew better than anyone that sometimes one just needed time alone to collect their thoughts. His mind didn't stop thinking about her, though, but he just turned back to his drink and gulped down the rest of it.
It was then that Varg noticed a woman sat down in Milea's seat. He figured her for another patron until he saw the revealing tavern dress she wore. What's more, she stared directly at him with eyes a shadow of violet he didn't think existed.
Varg turned to the dark-haired tavern woman and said, “May I help you?”
The woman smiled and brushed a dark lock from her face, then said, “My name is Zita, and I was hoping to get the chance to speak to you alone.”
CHAPTER 10
The crumbling walls of the prison cell did nothing to deter Erril from finding a way to escape. Rather, the horrid conditions kept her going, if the fact that Edric Greenwood had taken over Whitspire and killed the king hadn't already done that.
For several days, Erril scanned the walls meticulously for a weak spot and picked at the lock of the cell door to attempt to get out. She gave on on the door after a few hours, citing it as the most complicated lock she'd ever seen. She opted instead to use the imperfections in the stone wall to climb up to the window and peek outside. She could see the courtyard from where she was, and thought that if she could just get out through the window, she might be able to sneak out of the city and warn Conley about Edric's plan to invade Ironbarrow while they were distracted by Alastor's siege. Her heart sank at the thought of Conley, ready to collapse from an intense battle to defend his city, beaming at the sight of the king's own armada coming from the north, only to have his city taken right out from under him.
The very thought made Erril's blood boil. Ever since she first met Conley, she'd looked up to him and respected him despite her distaste for authority, a result of the cruel mistre
sses who ran the orphanage. She remembered being only four years old when she was beaten for trying to take an extra piece of bread from the kitchen, since the children were barely fed as it was. You had your rations, the mistress had screeched, we need to save what food we have for the rest of the children. Erril remembered thinking that the mistress certainly hadn't missed any meals, given her immense size.
It was just one of the many reasons Erril finally fled from that horrible place as soon as she was old enough to think on her feet, which wasn't hard to learn given her conditions. Ever since, she'd lived on what she could find and never trusted anyone, until she met Varg and Milea, and then Conley and the others. In fact, she almost dared to think of Conley as her own father, but she could only hope that he in turn considered her one of his own.
Finally, Erril decided to take a break from her escape attempt. Not that she was making progress anyway, but she knew deep down that she owed it to Conley and Catrina for that matter to get out and warn them in time. She could never forgive herself if she failed them.
It was nearing dinner time anyway, and a guard always brought her some food around this time. She could hardly afford to have one seeing her attempting to find a way out of her cell and report it back to that worm, Greenwood. As if on cue, the jail door opened and a guard came in with stale break and a mug of murky water. Since Erril was the only prisoner, he went straight to her cell.
When he approached, Erril could see that he was the same guard who had led her into town several days prior. He approached an area in the cell door that had a rectangular shaped opening with a flat surface at the bottom and set the tray down on the flat part. He then pushed it forward and kept his hand on the tray until Erril removed the contents, then without another word, he turned around and left through the jail door.
Erril looked down at her meal and saw something was different. The bread, while normally delivered to her without even a plate, was wrapped in a cloth from the kitchen. She sat on the cot in the corner of the room, set her mug down beside her, and unwrapped the loaf. As she removed the cloth, a piece of paper fell out of it and fell to the floor. Curious, she set the bread aside and picked up the strange paper.
It was a piece of folded parchment, and when Erril unfolded it to read the contents—it was fortunate that Oliva had been teaching her to read—and it read:
Look under the cot.
Erril folded the note back and peered under the cot. It was too dark to see anything but dirt and wall, so after checking to make sure no one was entering the jail, she moved her meal and lifted the cot away from its place against the wall. Though the area was a bit more visible thanks to the torchlight just outside her cell door, Erril could still see nothing out of the ordinary. She was about to dismiss the note as a cruel trick, but decided to comb the area a bit more thoroughly before giving up. She ran her hands along the wall that was normally under the cot, and when she discovered nothing, she opted to check the floor instead.
That's when she felt something hard and round underneath the dirt. Erril brushed the dirt away with her hands and felt a metal ring attached to the ground. She felt it was attached by a hinge to something wood, and so she lifted the ring when she realized what it was. A trap door opened, and a ladder led from the opening all the way down to what looked like a tunnel.
Erril thanked her lucky stars that Whitspire still had soldiers who were loyal to Fellen. Before she climbed down into the abyss, she gulped down her water, ignoring the stale taste of dirt that had accumulated in the cup, and then shoved her bread into her vest pocket. Because Erril wanted to delay the guards discovering her means of escape, she then took the cot and dragged it behind her as she climbed down through the trap door, then replaced it against the wall as she closed the trap door behind her and descended into the darkness.
Though it was too dark for her to see even her own hand while it was inches from her face, Erril estimated by the number of steps she took on her way down that she was now only one floor level underground. She felt slick mud under her feet that told her she made it all the way down and felt around the wall for a door or a tunnel. She found the latter as she made her way around the wall.
While keeping her hands on the wall of the tunnel to guide her, Erril slowly made her way down the mysterious path. It went straight ahead for some time, but just in case Erril put one hand out in front of her to feel for another wall or ladder. She found another wall a ways ahead, which turned left into another tunnel. She followed the same routine until she came to the end of that tunnel, where she finally found another ladder.
Erril tested the ladder by pulling down on it. Satisfied that it would hold her weight, she began her ascent. When she counted the same number of steps that the last one had, she put a hand above her head to feel for another trap door. She found it, thankfully, and then she carefully inched open the door and peeked outside.
It was dark at first, but being in the unlit tunnel allowed her eyes to adjust quickly to see she was in an old gardening shack, and a peek out the window told her that she was in the castle courtyard. She ducked out of sight when she saw a guard coming her way, then waited for his torchlight to fade away before moving again.
Erril examined the room she was in. It was a fairly decent sized shack, with shelves full of supplies sitting against the wall by their sides so that they obscured the view for most of the room. She could see various rakes, hoes, and other gardening tools.
That was when she noticed a table nearby with another piece of folded parchment. Knowing this couldn't be a coincidence, Erril snatched up the paper, unfolded it, and read it.
Wait here for further instructions.
Erril put the paper with the other one in her pocket and did as instructed. She sat down at the table, which was out of sight from the window so that even if one of the guards walked right up to it and peered inside, they wouldn't see her. The grime covering the window would further obscure her from view.
Erril sighed as she waited for what seemed like an hour. She was sure that they hadn't discovered her missing yet, for they only went into the dungeon a couple times a day to give her food, and they'd already brought her dinner. With any luck, she wouldn't be discovered until the next morning.
Erril's thoughts were interrupted when she heard clanking on the other side of the room somewhere behind the series of shelves. She didn't have her dagger, so she ducked behind a shelf that had a light shovel and grabbed it with both hands. She heard someone grumbling under their breath, so she crept along the shelf and stuck to the shadows. She made her way around the room until she came to the spot where she heard the noise, only to find nothing there. She was about to make her way back to the table when a hand covered her mouth.
The hand belonged to someone behind her, but before Erril could thrash and try to get away, a gruff voice said, “Don't be afraid, I'm a friend.”
Erril wasn't scared, but she didn't tell him that. Instead, once she realized she'd heard the voice before, she broke out of his grasp and turned to face her mysterious visitor.
“Tollack!” Erril cried as the dwarf chief smiled at her. “What's going on? What are you doing here?”
Tollack placed a gloved finger to his lips to silence her, then answered, “I'll explain everything once we get to safety. You have to come with me, now.”
The dwarf took Erril's hand and led her to the other side of the shack, then reached for the floor. Another trap door lay under an old rug, when Tollack kicked aside, and then he opened the trap door and gestured for her to enter. Erril took a deep breath and descended once again into the darkness.
Once again encased in darkness, Erril tried to navigate through the second tunnel as she heard Tollack thump to the ground behind her. Soon a light formed behind Erril that gave a soft, green glow. Erril turned around to see Tollack removing a glowing, green crystal from his pocket, which he then held out in front of him to light the way.
When he saw Erril's astonished face, he smiled and said, “The Cryst
al Wood isn't the only place left in the world where these crystals grow. There are some that rest deep in the mountain where my people live.”
“And they all glow like that?” Erril asked.
“For a while, yes, but after several months they tend to lose their power after not being connected with the ground anymore,” Tollack explained.
The dwarf walked ahead and lit the way as Erril tailed behind him, careful to stay within range of the light.
“What exactly makes the crystals glow?” Erril suddenly asked.
Tollack shrugged, but didn't turn to face her. “No one knows, but some scholars have theorized that the crystals get their energy from the planet's core, and that they act as conduits for the life energy within.”
“Oh, I see,” Erril said. She admitted to herself that she was curious to know more, but she knew that now wasn't the time to get carried away with something unimportant. She then suppressed a giggle, knowing fully well that Oliva would have bombarded the dwarf chief with questions. She could almost picture her saying, What a fascinating find! Where do you think the life energy comes from? Why do you think it exists?” And in the meantime, Tain would simply shake his head.
It occurred to Erril then that she missed her friends more than she realized. She only hoped she could escape in time to warn them all about Greenwood.
The tunnel was much longer than the last one. Erril couldn't tell how far they had traveled or even how long it had been by the time they finally came to a ladder at the end. Tollack turned to Erril, gave her a reassuring smile, then placed the crystal in his teeth as he climbed up the ladder. Erril followed, and once Tollack reached the door at the top, he knocked three times and waited.
A few moments later, the trap door opened. Instead of being outside, Erril could see that they were in another building, and that it was lit by candle light. She followed Tollack up the ladder and he turned around to help her up once she reached the top.
The Crystal Wood (Half-Breed Book 2) Page 10