An Unexpected Deity (Book 7) (12 page)

“Go south,” Kestrel told Gates, staggering back up to his feet, as he ceased maintaining his shield.  As Kestrel and the humans looked south, two of the red-cloaked men there fell to the ground suddenly, struck by large rocks that hit them violently.

One of Wren’s arrows struck another of the southern guards.  “Go!  Start running south!” Kestrel shouted.  He threw Lucretia towards one of the men in the southern squad as well, then turned as he pulled his bow off his shoulder, and started firing arrows at the men who were advancing from the north, trying to hold off the pursuit.

“Kestrel, come on!” Wren shouted, as she dropped down from her tree limb and landed near him.

He turned and fired an arrow over the yellow and green men to strike down another of the other Uniontown squad members who were still on the southern front.  Then he started to run.

“Thank you,” he told Wren as the two of them gained ground on the others.  “I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through that battle,” he said.  “That monster was strong.”

“Stillwater lost track of you when he went mushroom hunting again this morning.  He finally found you just in time for us to improvise a way to rescue you.  And it looks like you needed it,” she observed, “judging from the monster, not to mention that bruise on your cheek.”

The line of escapees struck the remaining members of the red squad who were stretched across the southern road, and the sound of sword play broke loose.  Stillwater suddenly dove down out of the sky, holding a sharpened stick, and speared a Uniontown warrior in the shoulder, then flew upward, leaving his weapon embedded in the screaming man’s flesh.

Woven was firing stones with his gnomish strength and accuracy, knocking men unconscious, while Wren and Kestrel wielded their staffs alongside the humans.

“We’re through!  They’re running!” one of the humans shouted, as the Uniontown forces disengaged and ran into the forest on either side of the road.

“Go south!  We have to go south,” Kestrel said urgently to Stuart.

“My lady, I recommend we do as he suggests,” Stuart said to Lark, who held a sword, but had remained out of the conflict.

“We’ll go along with him for now,” the girl agreed.

“Form up in square, the lady in the center.  Move forward in good order,” Stuart shouted out.

“We’ll hold the next attack off,” Kestrel said, motioning towards Wren and himself, “then we’ll catch up.”

Stuart nodded, and the humans departed.

Woven came trotting forward, passing through the humans without concern, as Kestrel and Wren plucked arrows out of the fallen soldiers around them.  Stillwater came floating down as well, and the group of intrepid travelers were reunited for the first time since crossing the Dangueax River.

“My greatest apologies, friend Kestrel,” Stillwater spoke abjectly.  “I am so sorry that I did not track you this morning.  I did not realize there were such enemies awaiting us already over here,” he said.  Kestrel could see that the imp was nearly in tears, so riven with guilt was he.

“Don’t worry, Stillwater, my good friend,” Kestrel said.  He looked at the cautiously approaching Uniontown forces in red.  They were within range of his bow.

He nodded to Wren, and they both notched arrows, which they let fly at their opponents, while Woven heaved a pair of fist-sized rocks as well.

“Go get another stick to use as a spear,” Kestrel advised Stillwater. 

A volley of arrows was unleashed by the Uniontown army, and the three terrestrial travelers began to back up.  Kestrel threw Lucretia at one of the advancing men, then he and Wren and Woven began to trot away.

“Lucretia, return,” he said a few seconds later.

“What are your plans for the humans?” Wren asked in gnomish as they moved along, the Duke’s forces coming back into sight while the three of them rounded a curve in the road.

“There’s no plan.  I just discovered them fighting and losing to a bigger force, so I tried to help.   It turns out I’ve met some of them before, in Uniontown, when I rescued Moorin,” He said.  “The girl is a Duke’s daughter, and the others are her guards.”

“There you go, another pretty human for you to woo,” Wren said in elvish as they rejoined the squad under Stuart’s command.  “Though she might be a tad young for you.”

“And slightly disinclined to like me,” Kestrel laughed.  “She’s the one who slapped this on my cheek,” he pointed at the bruise Wren had noticed earlier.

“Do you think being slapped is funny?” Lark asked, hearing his laughter as she saw Kestrel’s motion to his cheek, though she didn’t understand the elvish the two cousins spoke.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” he answered, not wanting to get drawn into a fight with the girl in the midst of their flight.

“What manner of journey are you on, that you have gnomes and elves and even a sprite together?” Stuart asked.

“He’s an imp, not a sprite,” Kestrel corrected the man.  “We’re trying to correct the problem the monster mentioned back at our battle – we want to restore the water skin, the device that should have kept the Viathins from returning to our land after they were all killed last winter,” he explained.  “And tell us, why is a nobleman’s child out here in the wilderness with a light escort?”

“I’m not a child!” Lark exclaimed.

“We were part of a larger group, escorting her ladyship to her father’s mountain keep for safety, but we were ambushed and forced far west,” Stuart answered.  “We thought we would be able to work our way back east through the mountains, but we just got pushed farther and farther southwest.”

“How is the duke?” Kestrel asked cautiously.  He’d met the man only briefly while in the royal palace in Uniontown, but in the short minutes they’d been together, Kestrel had instinctively liked the man.  He had seemed fair, and seemed like a natural leader – he’d been better than Kestrel had expected to find amidst the evil in Uniontown.

“He’s fighting a losing battle,” Stuart’s voice was lower, as he tried to keep his words from Lark’s ears.

“Why?  What’s happening?” Kestrel asked.

“After the monsters all died, there was a complete lack of authority in Uniontown.  The king was taken prisoner by Duke Fields, who wanted the crown for himself.  Duke Listay tried to set the king free, and another nobleman declared himself to be the king.  Since then it’s been chaos.  The duke and his son have been trying to protect the Listay interests, and the duke decided to put his daughter someplace safe,” the armsman explained.

“Safe from a couple of young noble bucks at the court that were sniffing around her, with her encouragement,” a voice in the squad anonymously said.

Lark scowled, Stuart grinned, and Kestrel realized there was truth to the humor.

“And then things started getting darker once again, as these creatures started creeping back into the city, spreading their evil, reviving the red coats that everyone had put away or burned,” Hermes spoke up, one of the other guards Kestrel vaguely remembered.

“I have to follow this road,” Kestrel told the humans.  He felt impulsively compelled to explain to them what he had his partners were doing.  “This road leads to the lake where the Viathins enter our world.  I hope to restore the enchanted water skin there that makes the waters poisonous to them again, so that no more will come to our world.

“Then, perhaps your lives will be safer,” he said.

“How far is it to the lake?” Stuart asked.

“Perhaps a day and a half,” Kestrel judged.

“And may we travel with you?” the guardsman asked.

“No,” Lark said emphatically.  “We don’t need to travel with him.”

“Kestrel, the men in red are infiltrating the forest on the west side of the road,” Stillwater said, floating back down to join the conversation after having scouted the location of the enemy.

“Stillwater, on my last journey here we found that we could climb up to the east and cut a loop off the road’s length.  It was rugged country,” he looked around at the others, “but it’s a way to get off the road and out of sight.

“Will you go see if that’s possible again?” Kestrel asked.  “And in the meantime, I suggest we all fade into the forest on the east side of the road to get out of sight.”

“Stuart, we should reverse course and go back towards my father’s mining castle,” Lark countered.  “As the ranking noble person here, I command it to happen.  We’ll be safer without him drawing trouble to us.”

“What are they arguing about?” Woven asked Wren.  He had been unable to follow any of the conversation.

They heard noises coming up the road.  “Everyone into the forest,” Stuart commanded his squad.  “For now, my lady,” he tried to pacify Lark by saying.  “We need to stay alive long enough to figure out how to get back to your father’s holdings.  It’s not going to be easy from here.

“You’ve seen the good these warriors are capable of in battle,” he urged her to accept the alliance with Kestrel’s group.  “We just need to get a bit of breathing space, and then we’ll take you to safety.”

The men in Stuart’s squad obligingly filtered out of sight and moved back among the trees, as did Kestrel and his group.

“What was the argument about?” Woven repeated his question.

“The human woman has met Kestrel before, apparently, and she does not like him.  She wants them to go a different way,” Wren said succinctly.  “She is the daughter of an important village chief, and wants her way.”

“Cannot they see that you and I are reliable, even if Kestrel isn’t?” Woven asked.

“Give them time,” Wren counseled.

“What language do they speak?” Stuart asked Kestrel.  “It sounds different from the language that she and you were speaking earlier.”

“That is the language of the gnomes; she and I were speaking  in elvish earlier,” Kestrel answered.  The two had settled in not far off the road, watching it to see whether they would be immediately pursued.

“She knows three languages – those of gnomes, elves, and humans?  She is a scholar and a warrior?” Stuart asked, impressed.

Kestrel choked momentarily, amused at the idea of Wren being called a scholar.  “Yes, she is,” he simply agreed.  There was a flash of red on the road, and both men focused intently.

Despite the losses that the Uniontown forces had suffered, the surviving members of the two Uniontown units had apparently joined together, and over a score of men passed along the stretch of road that the forest observers could see.  Some ventured a few steps into the forest and peered inward, but they did not penetrate far towards Kestrel’s location.

There was a sudden shout from the road, and the Uniontown forces ducked as Stillwater swooped low over them and speared one of them with a stick, then flew north above the road.  The entire force in red turned and started running north in pursuit of the imp, so that the search moved away from the small band hidden in the forest.

“Bless you Stillwater!” Kestrel exclaimed softly.

“Your companion has given us some breathing room,” Stuart said.

“So does that mean we can go on our own way now?” Lark asked as she crept up behind the other two.

“Why don’t you wait until Stillwater returns and gives us a report on what he sees in the vicinity?” Kestrel suggested, as he saw the hesitation in Stuart’s eyes.  The man was a canny warrior, and Kestrel saw that he clearly felt reluctance to take his small band out to try to independently fight its way towards Listay’s palace through such hostile territory.  “There may be some information he can provide that will help you.”

Stuart looked at Kestrel gratefully.  “He’s right; let’s wait until the imp returns,” Stuart said.  “In the meantime, I’ll go check on our men,” he spoke as he stood up and walked away, leaving Lark and Kestrel alone, looking at one another.

“Your father seemed like a good man when I met him,” Kestrel told her after an awkward silence.  “I hope he does well.”

“Thank you,” Lark said shortly.  “He is good.  He just doesn’t understand that I’m growing up,” she answered.

“You still look young,” Kestrel blurted out as he studied her.  “Not as young as when I first saw you, but he’s a father, after all, and sees her younger.”

Kestrel thought of Mastrin, who had been his commander in Elmheng.  It seemed so long ago after so many adventures in the intervening months and years; but Mastrin had been father to Cheryl, and Kestrel had always been acutely aware of the commander’s eyes watching Kestrel whenever he’d been with the pretty daughter.

“You don’t look any older than me!” Lark shot back.  “Well, not much older,” she lamely amended her statement.

“He’s not as old as he is foolish,” Wren said, arriving and rescuing Kestrel from the conversation.

Stillwater came swooping down through the tree limbs and landed right next to Lark, startling the girl so that she edged sideways, until she bumped into Kestrel.  She immediately adjusted herself away from the elf, and into an uncomfortable pose midway between the two foreign travelers.

“There are many small patrols to the south,” Stillwater reported.  “There are only one or two to the north right now, and this road does switch back and reverse course once it starts to climb the mountainside,” he gave more information.

“What is the terrain like between here and reaching the road up above?” Wren asked.