Westhaven by Rowan Erlking (ebook audio reader .txt) 📖

him then grabbed his pants, pulling them on. “Yes, I am.”

Approaching him, Tiler shook his head and sniffed. “No, you’re not.”

But Key tied his pants closed, tucking in his shirt as he walked away from Tiler.

“I know who you are,” Tiler said.

Halting for a moment, Key looked up at him. “Of course you do. I’m General Gole’s missing slave.”

Tiler shook his head, following him. He hopped over a fallen branch then caught up with Key, hissing into his ear as he grabbed him. “You showed me that other scar. I know who you really are, and why they are keeping you in the camp.”

Their eyes met. The sorrow in Key’s eyes no longer made him look like a whiny, sour-faced boy to Tiler. In that one second, they shared an understanding, though Key turned his gaze away almost immediately out of habit.

“I heard the story years ago about the death of Bekir swordsmith,” Tiler said.

Key jerked from his grip, clenching his teeth. “So what?”

Glaring at the ground, Tiler clenched his teeth. “You could be nicer, you know. I’m just saying I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened. For what happened to your dad. I now know you are not a coward.”

“I am a coward.” Key turned to look at him again. “I watched my father die when it should have been me. And I have been serving the demon who killed him ever since. I’m biggest coward on the earth.”

Tiler stared.

Key stomped away.

Whispering, Tiler shook his head again. “You are not a coward. I saw your burned hands. You tried to save him.”

*

“So, General, my successor tells me you chastened him concerning how our nation works, and whom you answer to,” The Sky Lord said with a dark look as both Gailert and the heir apparent were standing in front of him. An audience of several other governing heads surrounded them. Minister Mollen was grinning with savory pleasure at the prospect of seeing the famous general publicly castigated.

“That is correct,” Gailert said, not flinching at all. There was no point in cowering either.

The heir’s chin lifted in a smug grin.

“Good for you,” the Sky Lord said, nodding firmly.

Everyone in the room struggled to hold in their surprise. Only Gailert remained calm.

“He needs to be reminded who is in charge and how things do work.” The Sky Lord gave his heir his own chastening look. “Since I am not dead yet, and he has a long way to go before he can fill my shoes.”

The ministers straightened up. All of them reassessed once more where the brown-eyed general stood. And so far it looked as if General Winstrong was unable to ever fall out the Sky Lord’s favor.

“However, his request that you depart to Herra sounds like a good one, so I give my permission for you to come out of retirement to go to Herra to aid Captain Welsin in ridding that area once and for all of insurgents.” Leaning his arms on the rests, the Sky Lord looked Gailert straight in the eye. “We will discuss other plans after you have succeeded.”

Gailert bowed, clicking his heels. “Yes, Lord.”

“Take an airplane from here and go directly to Herra,” the Sky Lord said. “If you wish to take your woman and your footman with you, you may. Though I don’t think you would want them so near to a battle zone.”

Bowing again, Gailert said, “I will take my footman. And if you would be so kind as to let my woman remain here until I return, I would be forever in your debt.”

Nodding, the Sky Lord smiled. “Of course. So you intend to report directly to me after you have cleared them out?”

Gailert smiled. “Yes, Lord.”

“Good.”

General Gailert Winstrong departed after a night’s rest. His boy carried his bags to the airplane but stopped in horror when his eyes fixed on the flying machine. It took little while to explain to the child that they were to fly to Herra, but the child kept on shaking as if he were afraid they would fall out of the sky. In fact, they had to tie him up and set him in with the luggage to keep him from clinging to the porter’s leg or running away to the laundry where apparently the servants had pampered him. When the general and all the other passengers were aboard, they went up.

It was also the general’s first plane flight. And secretly, like the boy, he could not conceive of how they didn’t just fall out of the sky. For once Gailert wished he had the memory of the blue-eyes to comfort him that all would be well. He kept on a good face, slept most of the way. But when they landed, he was happy to get his feet firmly on the ground.

His boy was in tears, clinging to his leg when they let him out of the baggage compartment.

“Let go. We are on the ground,” Gailert snapped. He looked up just as the captain of the Herra post came to greet them. “Hello, Captain Erron. I see you got my telegram.”

“Of which I was very pleased to receive,” the captain declared, grinning from ear to ear. “So you are staying here until the insurgents are routed out?”

General Winstrong nodded. “That I am. Now brief me on the raiders’ activity from the burning of the city to today.”

Shaking his head, the captain said, “I’m afraid it is a long list. It would be better if we did this inside our office. We’ve been shooting spies and thieves for the past few days, but our men have gotten nothing from any captives. Not a location of their camp or who leads them. In fact, the only thing we do know is that they have a magician and a witch with them as well as their own smith making weapons by the dozens.”

“How is it that you have extracted nothing from your captives?” Gailert asked with actual surprise. They started to march to the car, the general’s boy dragging the bags far behind them with a whine.

Cringing, the captain said, “We only caught two, and those two are not from the main camp. They have several camps, but we do know there is a central one somewhere in the hills. The thing is, those two spies were kept ignorant on purpose as if those humans knew we would take the information from them.”

“They’ve gotten smarter,” the general murmured. He shook his head to clear it. “Alright then. I want to see the burned city first. You can brief me on the details as we drive over. Then, I want to see any artifacts, weapons, whatever, that they have left behind.”

“Any?” the captain said.

Nodding Gailert cocked his head. “Is there something you found unusual?”

The captain gave a brisk nod. “Oh, yes. At the burn site, something incredibly unusual.”

They rode to an inn first. Then they traveled up the road to the burned out city through the spring thaw. When Gailert came out of the vehicle, he just stared up at the charred stone walls, horrified. Slowly, he walked toward it. His feet sank into the mud with each step as the captain continued to brief him on their discovery of the massacre.

“See that?” The captain pointed to the top of the city where it was still unfinished but now black with ash. There was a layer of melting snow that capped it. “The fire shot up through that like a fountain. If it weren’t for the heavy snowfall the day after, all of these bodies would have been completely consumed. Unfortunately, we had to set a few bodies back on fire, as they were still alive and all demon.”

“All demon?” Gailert drew in a breath, staring.

With a nod, the captain pointed to one body. He led the general towards it. “Yes. A Walking Corpse, and this one seems to be the source of the problem. But look at it.”

And he did, walking over the soggy ash and charred rock where undoubtedly countless Sky Children had died. What he saw was a cooked up skeleton with fangs. The bones themselves were entirely cleaned off and also turning to ash. But the skeleton wore armor. Much of the paint had melted off, though most of it was intact. He looked up at the captain. “A Kitai warrior?”

“That’s what we thought at first also, but look closer. He’s not just carrying Kitai weapons.” The captain gestured with his finger, not touching it. “Recognize anything?”

Gailert peered over the body, drawing his sword to turn over the armor. There was a nearly consumed belt loop that obviously had bullets in it. A pistol stolen from a Sky Child soldier was with it. There was also a wrist chain that had markings Gailert knew really well, but they were not Sky Child in origin.

“A Cordril?”

The captain nodded. “Look around its neck. This gets more interesting.”

Doing exactly that, Gailert peered down at the skeletal remains. He found a chain of gold. On one end was a bell, and looped tight around the neck bones of the skeleton, crushing it, was the other end where another bell hung.

“Do you know what that is? Because we don’t.” The captain then walked around, peering over the burned landscape. “We can’t lift it or anything. It makes it impossible to move the skeleton without breaking it up entirely.”

“A magic item,” Gailert murmured. “Magician work.”

He stood up.

“I’ve seen them before, but we were unable to move them also or figure out their use,” Gailert said glancing back at the body. “I suppose the use is to strangle.”

“Where?” the captain peered at the chain. “Where did you see one of these before?”

Lifting his head, Gailert said gravely, “In a magician’s home.”

 

*

“Hey!” Tiler called over to where Key was hammering metal for a short sword.

Key didn’t even look up. His work kept him from thinking about skirmishes or how Kleston hardly visited anymore because he was too busy coordinating the smaller camps together for raids on the soldiers that searched the hills for their camps. The clang, clang, clang of the hot iron, watching the sparks as his hammer struck the steel as he folded the metal over was all he wanted to think about. And so far this sword still had a long way to go.

“Hey! Key!” Tiler called again, walking over with a fighting stick on his shoulder.

Still ignoring the boy that loved to beat him at swordplay, Key focused on how his shoulders ached, wishing that the witch was around with one of his soothing balms. Unfortunately the witch carried them with him in his kit to treat the wounded in their battlegrounds.

“I said hey!” Tiler set a hand on Key’s shoulder.

Key jumped, dropping his hammer.

“Don’t do that!” Key grabbed his chest, trying to catch his breath.

Shrugging, Tiler picked up the hammer from the damp ground and set it on the anvil. “Come on over and practice with us.”

Rolling his eyes and slumping his shoulders, Key snatched up the hammer and started to bang on the metal again. “What for? So you can beat me and declare what a wonderful swordsman you are? I’m tired of it. I already know I’m bad at it.”

“You’re not bad at it, you thick-head.” Tiler jabbed in him the back. “You’re actually really good.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Key said as he went back to banging on the metal. “It’s not funny.”

“I’m not lying,” Tiler said. “You’re just out of practice.”

Key made a face at him, lowering his sword and hammer. “Are you offering to teach me?”

Tiler smiled then shrugged. “What if I am?”

Shaking his head, Key started to hammer again. “You’re not offering because you pity me, are you?”

“Pity you?” Tiler laughed then leaned in closer. “I’d hate to be the one to tell you, but people don’t pity you. They’re jealous.”

Key stopped hammering.

“That’s right,” Tiler said. “Jealous.”

“Of what?” Key turned around, nearly dropping the hammer again.

“Do you have to ask?” Tiler took hold of his hammer and set it on the