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

away unseen, maybe even run back home. However, the vehicle shook as the driver had then opened a door for the general.

“…Foolish, nearsighted idiot. I keep telling them…” The door slammed shut, making Kemdin’s ears ring. “…economy. Don’t they know what is at stake? Corporal Salis, you understand, right?”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said, closing another door.

Kemdin slapped his hands to his ears. Next would come the rumble of noise that made the automobile go. Curling into a ball, he pulled his head towards his knees, listening to the whine of engine start. Then it roared. It felt like he had been carried in the belly of a demon, and Kemdin wished that it would all end. He was tired, but could hardly sleep. He was sore but lying down only made him more so. Unable to imagine life away from the village he had grown up in, he wished not to exist at all.

*

“…I keep telling them that the automobile is key to winning against Kitai. The Kitai don’t have autos. They still only ride horses,” Gailert said.

“Yes, sir,” his driver said, turning the wheel and steering back into the road. Here on the foothills of the Wede Mountains the roads were perfect. The general had made it so when he oversaw the construction of lower mountain cities. He even had them build the road that led up to the city on the top peak that they were still building. Danslik was to be a masterpiece, but Gailert was not to oversee that. Already the Sky Lord had ordered an ambitious captain to head that operation. Perhaps even the Sky Lord had decided that General Gailert Winstrong was getting too old.

The general closed his eyes and let them rest. It was best to. After all, training a servant would be difficult, especially a willful human boy.

Their journey into the mountains and through the trees went peacefully. There was no need to worry anyway. These woods had long been cleansed of demons. The demon crows that had been created by some crafty witch had fled back to their origins, probably in the Kirting Mountains, or more likely to the Southern forests near Maldos Territory where the demons were still persistent and savage. Goles even had left the Wede Mountains, knowing that bullets could pierce their thick skin and cause their super sensitive body to suffer severe pain even if it took many to actually kill them. Besides even if a singular Gole were stupid enough to attack a Sky Child, no matter how fast it was it could not outrun an automobile even if it were ravenously hungry.

So, they entered Roan around the time as the sun was setting. The doors to the walled city opened for them and closed for them when the driver hailed the guards. And as they rolled up the hill towards the city center, Gailert yawned and stretched, glancing at his handiwork. Almost all the wooden homes had been replaced with stone. Only a few of the human medieval habitations still stood, but then the slaves had to have some place to sleep. The humans’ own former town officials were given quarters more fit for progress with real doors and windows. And so far they seemed satisfied with it.

Driving the winding road up to his home for a true rest, Gailert hoped that his cook had anticipated him with a meal. The street lamps were already lighting when they reached the higher district, and he was eager to climb out of the automobile after that long stretch of being so far from home for so long.

“We are here, sir,” the driver said. He then turned to face Gailert. “Do you have any more orders for me, General Winstrong, before I take the automobile back to the garage?”

Gailert shook his head. “No, Corporal. Head on home and take a good rest. We both deserve it.”

Smiling, the corporal nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

He unbuckled his seat belts and opened his door, making sure that the car was in park before climbing out. He then walked back to the general’s side door and opened it, bowing.

“Do you need me to handle your slave?” the driver asked.

“Oh!” Gailert slapped his forehead. “I completely forgot about him. The drive must have tired me out. Yes. Take him out and hand him to my porter.”

With a slight chiding grin, the driver nodded and did as ordered. Gailert climbed out of the vehicle carrying his own bag. He walked up the steps to his door and glanced at the brass knocker. It had been so long since he had been home that he felt somewhat inclined to knock at his own door. However, he drew out his keys and immediately unlocked it, hearing the grunting of both his driver and one ornery human child on the walk. Glancing back, he saw the child’s eyes go wide, lifting to stare up at the height of the building and then around at the street, which undoubtedly was beyond his limited imagination.

“Do you really want him indoors with you?” the driver asked. “He will dirty up the carpet.”

“Just hand him to my porter,” Gailert said again. “He’ll wash the whelp up and stick him where he’ll sleep tonight. I intend to start training him tomorrow.”

“You are not going to even rest?” his driver said, smirking and dragging the boy across the cobblestones. “I would have thought this trip had taken much out of you.”

Gailert sighed, but shook his head. “No, Corporal. Training must begin immediately.”

With a shrug, his driver dragged the child the rest of the way. Gailert opened the door and stepped into the darkened hallway. Perhaps they had not anticipated him at all. Reaching for the bell pull in the entrance hall, he pulled the cord.

A brass bell clanged in the back of the home inside the servants’ hall. Answering it, Gailert heard a tired mutter and groan. The door then creaked and footfalls struck the hardwood floor. In three seconds a tall blue-eyed Sky Child adjusting his suit coat and vest marched in, then stopped just short of the vestibule.

“General Winstrong! You’re home early!” The man then continued to cover the distance, glancing over his master to the driver who dragged in the sullen boy with the patchy white and brown hair. “And you have a…a human child with you. Does this mean you have decided to take my advice and acquired a squire?”

With a gentle snort, Gailert stepped further into the vestibule, reaching over to the light switch to turn it on. The small front room lit, illuminating the familiar walls and paintings of home. “I think calling this boy a squire would be a bit much. Consider him my footman or maybe my hand in training.”

“Hand, sir?” the porter asked as the driver shoved the boy forward for the porter to take.

Gailert gestured for him to take the child also. “I don’t quite have the proper term yet for it. I can’t call him my page or something more intelligent. And I really don’t want to call him my slave, though at this point he will be doing such work until I can civilize him.”

“Not to offend, sir, but I doubt that such a human can be civilized,” the porter said, seizing the boy by the arm as the driver had insisted, clenching a tight hold with a fierce warning glare for the child to behave. “He doesn’t look high born, even for a human.”

The driver bowed to them both then walked back out onto the street, closing the door behind him.

“He’s not,” Gailert replied as he crossed the threshold to the stairs, turning on another lamp to see where he was going. They lit up all the way to the second floor where the maid was already looking down and dressed in her nightgown and shawl. “He’s a working man’s son. A smithy’s boy. So he is not a stranger to hard work. I thought that a better choice than a child who has never worked a day in his life.”

“An aristocrat’s child would have been more dignified,” his porter said, dragging the boy to the base of the stairs but not going up.

“Yes, but he also would have sobbed more and complained a great deal when we made him work,” said Gailert. “This child will not. Already I see that he will be silent, and I prefer that.”

“Agreed, sir. Silence is preferable.” But the porter shook the boy. “But this one looks like a rapscallion. What is with his hair? One of his eyebrows is almost entirely white.”

Gailert turned with a sudden chuckle. “Ah, yes. That. Well, actually his hair has gone white from fear. Fear of me.”

The porter stared at the boy he was holding.

“Now take that boy to the cellar and lock him in for the night. Give him some bread and water so he won’t faint.” Gailert walked off before his porter could ask anything more.

Entering his room with a sigh of relief. Gailert set his suitcase on the floor. He walked to his writing table and drew out his chair and sat in it. Reaching over to the lamp, he clicked it on. As the room illuminated, he drew in another breath and exhaled with relief. At last civilization. Perhaps now he could start preparing to retire, or at least get ready for a long vacation. The training of his slave would come first, but that would only lead to future rest.

He rose from his seat and turned to his bureau. Opening it, he gathered clothes for bed. Taking his house robe from off its peg, he walked across the hall to the bath where he would really be able to begin relaxing.

*

There was a strange moan about the house when the tall blue-eye in strange clothes dragged him down into a dark damp smelling stone pit below the enormous house. The moan was unexplainable, but then it went away with the distant sound of falling water to replace it. The room Kemdin was carried into must have been a dungeon. Kemdin expected to be tossed into one like in all those stories about captives taken to the palace of the wicked magician for some experiment to create a demon. However, the floor was not wet, nor was there any straw upon it. It was swept and dry. Along the walls were shelves upon shelves of glass jars filled with what looked like fruit and pickled meats and vegetables. Dried roots and herbs hung from the ceiling and large barrels stood on the floor. Looking around, Kemdin searched for the cage or perhaps the torture devices the demon would use to pull his body apart.

Along one wall was a table and a hearth stove like in the smithy shop. A low fire burned in it with a large metal canister on top. Extending up from the canister were somewhat thick rods going in and out and the rumble of what sounded like rocks tossing around against the metal. It stood on legs that looked too heavy to lift.

The tall blue-eye that had dragged him in the deep room gave Kemdin one look, picked up a rope from a hook near a collection of what looked like farming tools, then shoved him to the floor next to the furnace. The demon spoke through his teeth. “If you wish to live, you will obey every word, boy. Now sit and don’t touch anything.”

Kemdin stared up at him. The blue-eye unwound the rope and began to tie Kemdin’s ankle chains to the furnace’s leg.

“I am the general’s porter. I am also the head of the household while the master is away. That makes me your master. Understand?”

Kemdin did not budge.

“I said, understand?” The porter raised his voice. “Understand?”

Pulling back, Kemdin just stared at him.

“Speak! You can, can’t you?” the porter snapped.

Trembling, Kemdin nodded. “I understand.”

Rising to his tall height, the porter nodded. “Good.”

He turned and walked back to the stone stairs. Kemdin felt sick inside where his