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

at last gotten packed and onto the road, Key was wearing Bekir style boots with his leg irons wrapped in cloth underneath them so they would not chafe, and a beaded sash with the same print around his waist. Compared to the others with him, he looked more like a traveling performer than a Herra raider, which was fine since the others had also exchanged their clothes for local colors and patterns, appearing more like migrant workers in search of new jobs. It was good too, since they were stopped several times along the way eastward out of Kalsworth by Sky Child soldiers whom, to get out of being searched, they pretended to ask for work.

“Key,” Berd asked after at last leaving the town skirts and were on the main highway, keeping to the side in case a Sky Child automobile rumbled through, “What is with all those presents they gave you anyway? Were you some sort of celebrity in your village?”

Key only shrugged.

Seeing it, Loid chuckled, clutching the strap to his lyre bag. “He never told you?”

“About being the son of—” Tiler started but Loid laughed more so he stopped.

“No. Well, not exactly that.” Loid said, his sense of humor rising as he had finally gotten used to Tiler’s protective yet cynical regard for Key. “His dad was an important man, don’t get me wrong. It was just that when Kemdin was born the entire village celebrated, because, you know, his dad the last of a long line of skilled swordsmiths. It was something our village was proud of. Our smith made the best swords out of all the Eastern Provenance. Kitai warriors envied those swords. But his dad was childless for years and everyone thought that if he couldn’t have a son, that would be the end of the legacy and the end of our village. Then Kemdin was born.”

The boys from the hills glanced at Key who did not even blink at the story. It was an old one, one that his mother often told him when he felt overwhelmed or when the big kids in the village had picked on him.

“Everyone celebrated it because it meant that our village would last out another generation,” Loid said. Then he lowered his head. “But we hadn’t predicted that General Gole would come and kill the smith and take Kemdin away. That night they burned the village.”

The trudging sound of their feet and the echoing birdcalls overhead replaced their talk after that. There was no way to answer the years of sorrow that weighted on both of the Bekir men.

“Mom said they all thought I was a good omen,” Key murmured at last, sighing.

Loid reached over and patted him on the back. “Don’t blame yourself. I still think you are.”

“I know you are,” Tiler said, giving Key a firm nod.

Rolling his eyes at Tiler’s competitiveness, Loid added, “It doesn’t matter anyway. Summi Village is gone, and we all have to move on.”

Key heard Loid exhale as if tired. He looked to Tiler to ask him not talk about it anymore, but the faces of Tiler, Berd and Weston looked back at him with hope anyway as if to say not to lose heart. Things weren’t over yet.

*

“My lord,” Gailert said, standing in the small reception room where the Sky Lord took audience with a few people daily, Gailert’s boy standing timidly at his side. “I must beg to return to Herra Town. The trouble is not over. I feel it acutely.”

“But you solved our raider problem,” the eldery Sky Lord said with a nod, also glancing to his heir who looked mildly bored at listening to business. The youth slumped in his seat, leaning on his elbow. “What else is there that troubles you?”

“I do not feel the problem is solved. Those raiders are tenacious, like a cancer. They have merely moved into more secure hiding places.” Gailert then nudged the boy forward.

The child cast him a pleading look, his lip quivering. However, he did as bade, carrying a box in his hands, and set it down in front of the Sky Lord with fear, as humans were not worthy to approach him. The boy then hurried back to his master.

“This,” Gailert said, waving towards the box, “is a sign of that.”

The servants to the Sky Lord bent down to pick the box up. But the moment they set hands on it, they could not lift it off the floor as if it had been bolted down. Others joined them, trying to pry it off. None of them could be even budge it, not with scooting, shoving, or prying. The boy stepped back further, his eyes going wide watching the Sky Children servants struggle with the small box.

“What is this, General Winstrong?” The Sky Lord stood up from his seat. “What is this box? Some magic item?”

“It is not the box,” Gailtert said with a sigh. “It is what is within the box.”

One of the servants promptly lifted the lid, peering inside. He then reached in. “It is a gold chain.”

But setting his fingers on it, he could no better lift it out than he could lift the box, though he tried with every inch of effort he had. Sweat even started to bead on his forehead.

“No Sky Child will be able to lift that chain. No one with demon blood can,” Gailert said. “Only humans can lift it.”

The room filled with gasps that echoed against the walls. The Sky Lord and his heir both stiffened.

“It is a weapon we discovered around the neck of Cordril corpse that was also infected by a curse within the city those humans had burned. And worse,” he looked them hard in the eye, “We discovered it again around the neck of man who tried to kill me with it. It crushed the fingers of a soldier who thankfully threw himself in the way of the cursed item. Then the man stabbed me with this.”

General Winstrong held out the dagger. Giving the room a clear view of the blade, Gailert nodded. “Take a good look at it. I have seen workmanship like this only once before, but I had killed the maker years ago. So the question really is, can we honestly believe that our enemies are gone?”

“So what do you suggest?” the Sky Lord asked, his eyes flickering from the chain to the dagger.

Gesturing for his boy to take the box, Gailert handed the dagger to one of the servants to show it to the Sky Lord up close. “I suggest we do not end our searches. Those raiders are still out there. I suggest we expand our searches into the Duglis Mountains and through the Northwest Corner. I also recommend we take inventory of all weaponry and mark any discrepancy. Where weapons will end up missing, near there will be the insurgents.”

The Sky Lord took the dagger in hand and turned it, peering at the workmanship. He frowned then looked up. “I see. If they have craftsmen like this, then we do have cause to worry.”

Gailert gave a firm nod. “That we do.”

Chapter Nineteen: Peacetime Waiting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite all the warnings of doomsday from General Gailert Winstrong, the year after the clearing of the Herra Hills had passed in relative peace. The occasional Cordril had popped up, but the soldiers of the army were able to get rid of them every time. Only a few Cordrils had gotten away with murder and lived to kill again, though more were coming into the country from the west. Their faces were now as famously plastered as the posters for the once infamous Key. Even the lone gunman had stopped his raids, gone missing from the Southwest Corner though the soldiers still kept an eye out for him. Everyone seemed content with the peaceful passing of the New Year except for the aging General Winstrong who had returned to Roan despite his desire to settle in Mistrim to continue his search for the hidden raiders.

The next year was much of the same.

It was in the middle of the third year that word of raiders cropping up again came to the ears of the aging general, but by that time he was too old to come out of retirement. The Sky Lord had sent a young captain to take care of the disturbance up near Sundri where an outbreak of fighting had nearly killed off the soldiers at the post there. The walled city went under siege. The residents not willing to fight had gone into hiding inside the forested cape. When the uprising had been quelled, the dead on both sides was uncommonly unequal—more Sky Children dead than humans. He read all about it in the daily newspaper.

“I can’t believe this!” Gailert shook the paper though he had been trying to rest in his study armchair. But feeling his age was like a chain holding him down from fixing things.

Saimon set his hot tea on the table next to him with a tray of scones. “More bad news, sir?”

Gailtert’s boy crouched on the ground next to him, keeping his eyes down. One of his eyes had been blackened, and he hardly talked anymore. At times Gailert believed he was sullen and spiteful, a pitiful change from the eager boy he had once been. It was obviously human nature to become a petty savage thing. He should have expected it.

“Of course.” Gailert stabbed the paper with his finger. “Look at this. An entire brigade was wiped out. An entire brigade! And now they can’t find the warriors that did this! Somehow those savages just walked out of the town as if they had burrowed through the ground like rabbits!”

“Perhaps they had a wizard with them,” Saimon said, giving a sigh.

Gailert slammed the paper down against the table. “Not acceptable! In my day it didn’t matter if there were wizards about! We took care of them!”

“Well, the humans have gotten sneakier these days,” said Saimon, collecting the paper up and adding a tray of butter for the scones. He set jam next to it.

“Sneakier?” Gailert asked, blinking at him.

Nodding, Saimon said, “Didn’t you hear? They found a spy in a factory stealing parts to an automobile. The man escaped, but they think he and some of his comrades are planning on stealing an auto.”

“Preposterous!” Gailert gave a snort. “Humans driving? Don’t they know if they try it we would shoot them on sight?”

Chuckling, Saimon nodded, carrying the newspaper with the empty tray out of the room.

But the concept of humans encroaching into factories and stealing technology had not been inconceivable. He had feared it for some time, remembering the staring eyes of his former slave that were too intelligent for a human. Looking at his current footman who slouched on the ground, Gailert wondered how devious these humans really were. They were certainly up to something. That long two-year silence was a sure sign that no good was coming.

*

The heads of the organized human rebellion had seized that idiot that had tried to steal car parts and thoroughly punished him. The man’s impatience at the progress they were making had nearly blown two years of study and hard work. As punishment, they made him stay in camp to make gunpowder. They