Harbinger: Fate's Forsaken: Book One (25 page)

She was quiet
for a moment. “And what animal did you pretend to be?”

“A deer.”

“Really?” She
was smiling now, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended. “I
always thought of you as more of a badger.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, you’re
stronger than you look — and famously cranky.”

He thought about
that for a moment and decided he wouldn’t mind being a badger. Those long claws
might come in handy. Then he looked down at the next wolf and his stomach
twisted a little when he saw how misshapen its body was. “Do they all look like
that?”

“After the King
gets done with them, yes,” she said scornfully. “The curse the mages put on
them forces their bodies to change shape against their will. It isn’t natural.
And after a few years of that, they get stuck somewhere in between.”

He saw the iron
collar around its neck and the black dragon stamped into it. “It’s a shackle.”

She nodded. “A
cursed one.”

Anger swelled in
his chest. He’d never met a shapechanger, but like Sir Gorigan, he’d read
enough about them to feel close to them. And in his opinion, the Kingdom owed
them a great debt.

He remembered
Iden the Hale — the only knight brave enough to face the leviathan of the
High Seas. The first time they met, the monster smashed his boat and sent him
plummeting into depths of the violent waves. He washed up on shore three days
later, barely alive. Had it not been for Quicklegs the sandpiper, he would have
died. She pulled him from the surf and brought him to her flock — where
she nursed him back to health.

Iden fell in
love with her, but Quicklegs knew his love was doomed. So as soon as he was
healed, she flew away — over the ocean and into the strange lands beyond
the sea.

Though Iden
lived, his heart was broken. He took to the waves once again and called up the
leviathan. This time, he had nothing to lose: he dove into the monster’s mouth
and down its throat. When he reached its heart, he cut it from its ties and
sent it down into the fiery depths of the leviathan’s gut — where it was
burned to nothing.

Had it not been
for Quicklegs, Iden would never have killed the leviathan. The High Seas were
safe for trade because he’d sacrificed himself so long ago.

“Do you think
there might be a way to save them?” The words came out of his mouth without a
thought.

Kyleigh
shrugged. “Perhaps … though I’ve tried before and it didn’t quite turn out the
way I’d planned.”

“Is that why
you’re in so much trouble with the crown?”

“Part of it,”
she said with a nod. She sat on her haunches and propped an elbow on her knee.
“Listen — freeing the shapechangers will be a tricky patch of work.
Marching on the Unforgivable Mountains is one thing, but Midlan is quite
another. We’ll have to pace ourselves, all right?”

He nodded,
reluctantly. In the back of his mind, he wondered how many years it would take
to avenge Tinnark
and
free the
shapechangers. At the pace things were moving now, he thought he might be Amos’s
age before he ever had a chance to live happily.

Kyleigh clapped
him on the shoulders, grinning at the heaviness behind his eyes. “Don’t worry
— it’s perfectly normal to pick up a few tasks along the way. A quest is
rarely as simple as doing the thing you set out to do.”

*******

He helped her
bury the remaining shapechangers — the halfwolves, as Kyleigh called them
— and then they left the Pass.

Thick gray
clouds curtained the sky above them and the breeze was a little cooler. The
gentle curves of the Valley were far behind: ahead were sharp rocks and thin
tufts of brown grass. The pines glared down like underpaid guards as he
followed Kyleigh along the path that wound between them.

He never thought
he’d miss the noise of the caravan: Chaney and Claude’s shouting, Aerilyn’s
endless chatter and the unpalatable notes of Jonathan’s poor fiddle. Yet the
longer they walked, the more he found he missed it.

He knew he
shouldn’t. It was their fault that Garron was dead, and he didn’t expect to
ever see the caravan again.

They ducked out
from under the cover of the trees and stepped into a wide clearing. A shallow
stream trickled through it, and all along its bank he recognized the familiar
green tunics of the forest men as they scrubbed their wounds in the water.

He saw Aerilyn
standing out in the middle of the road, away from the others. Her eyes were red
and her arms defiantly crossed. The second she saw them, she started to run.
Someone must have told her the truth. He could tell by her glare that they were
in trouble, and he braced himself.

She went for
Kyleigh first. “I know,” she said, lifting her chin to keep the tears from
spilling out. “Horatio’s told me that you’re dangerous. But I don’t care. The
King set those monsters on
all
of us
— he didn’t care who perished. But the fact of the matter is that you’re
my friend, and friends don’t let things like bounties get between them.” She
hugged Kyleigh tightly, quickly, then stepped over to Kael.

She fell
directly into the middle of his chest, and he didn’t know what to do. So he
sort of put his arms around her and tried not to rumple her dress. “I’m sorry,”
he began, but she clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Don’t be. I’ve
already had my cry, and I know Papa wouldn’t want me to cry anymore.” She
smiled weakly. “You know what he’d say, if he were here?
Time is precious, my darling — so don’t you drown it in tears.
”

Then she took
them both by the hand and led them back to the caravan, where their friends
were waiting for them.

They didn’t have
to endure the cramped forest path for long: a few hours later, the woods
disappeared and an open field yawned out to meet them. The sun was beginning
its descent, trailing golden light through a break in the clouds as it fell.
Wind made the long strands of grass dance as the caravan moved through them.

Beyond the
field, the world suddenly dropped away. Kael broke from the rest of the group
and sprinted to the very edge of a cliff, drawn in helplessly by the far-off
crash of waves. He stood with his toes hanging over the edge and gaped at the
wonder before him.

The ocean.

Not since the
sky had he seen anything so unending. Water stretched eternally, waves sparkled
in the sunlight as they chased the clouds above them. Gulls rode the cool gusts
of wind, squawking to one another, and he found that he envied them. From where
they flew, he thought the view must be spectacular.

He could’ve
stood there all day, just gaping at the way the water kissed the sky. But the
caravan was moving on. They were all ragged from the lack of sleep and the
village at the base of the cliffs tempted them with its promise of a hot meal.

The only way
down was along a road that appeared to have been cut right out of the cliff
side. The path was steep, folding over itself at the angle of a pinch. It
created a punishing, zigzag slope that had the horses neighing with fright and
digging in their hooves. At the bottom, a woefully chipped wooden sign greeted
them:
Harborville
, it read.

The blue letters
were faded and peeling. One of the chains had rusted through. Now the sign hung
on only by its remaining chain and the wind beat it mercilessly against its
post.

Along the rocks,
planks of warped, rotted wood were stacked in mounds the height of a man. They
smelled heavily of must and what he could only describe as old ocean: like the
water had dried up and all that remained of it was the stench of fish.

After they
passed the first few mounds, he began to get the feeling they were not alone:
someone watched them from the shadows. He lit a torch and stepped closer,
staying on the balls of his feet in case whatever it was decided to attack. The
light burned the shadows away and revealed their stalker. The blurred edges of
darkness became spindly arms and legs, the round smudge on top turned out to be
the startled face of a boy.

He was young,
younger than Claude, even. Yet he looked like an old man: his blue eyes had
bags under them and his clothes were tattered and filthy. Several of his shirt
buttons were missing and his stomach poked out between them, swollen and
unhappy.

When the boy saw
Kael watching him, he ducked behind the nearest rotting pile. Kael moved his
torch to follow and the light illuminated it. He took a startled step back when
he saw the many corpses curled up beneath it. Their skin was wrinkled and
hanging off their bones, their eyes rimmed red and shut against the light. He
was about to turn away when one of them raised its skeletal head and squinted
up at him.

Sweet mercy,
these people were alive.

Someone —
Jonathan, by the smell of it — grabbed him by the shoulder and led him
away. He held his torch up as they passed and found more miserable, shrunken
people curled up under the mounds of trash. The lucky ones crouched around
small fires, their gaunt faces locked on the bubbling pots between them. Others
sat with their knees tucked to their chins and watched with sunken eyes as the
caravan rolled by.

This wasn’t what
the High Seas was supposed to look like. All of the pictures in the
Atlas
showed quaint, prosperous fishing
villages and an ocean packed full of brightly-colored vessels. There were
supposed to be miles of white sand and children who walked the length of it,
their arms laden with shells. There should have been sun, not clouds. There
should have been a village — not Harborville.

If Jonathan
hadn’t shoved him along, he doubted if he could have moved his legs at all. He
knew Duke Reginald kept his people poor, but he had no idea that he starved
them. Horatio’s chickens were better fed — and they were destined for the
pot.

“Keep moving,
mate,” Jonathan said quietly, when he stopped again.

But Kael didn’t
want to keep moving: he wanted to find Duke Reginald and club him over the
head. “We have to do something,” he growled.

“We can’t, it’s
against the law.” Jonathan turned him towards a freshly painted sign sticking
out of the rocks ahead of them. He could read the letters clearly, even from a
distance.

This colonie of thieves has been found
guiltie of stealing from the Crown and is under the just punishment levied upon
them by His Excellencie, Duke Reginald. Anyone caught aiding these thieves is
also a thief, and will be punished accordinglie.

Beyond that
sign, a few large fires burned near the water. Guards stood around them,
talking and taking long gulps from their tankards. On the front of their tunics
was the symbol of the High Seas: a coiling serpent being pierced in the tail by
a harpoon.

He could smell
fish roasting over the guards’ fires, so he knew the people huddling under the
lean-tos could smell it as well. He wondered why they hadn’t tried to catch
their own food. Then he read the signs at the water’s edge and suddenly
understood:

The Seas are the propertie of His
Excellencie, Duke Reginald. Anyone caught fishing without the Duke’s permission
will be guiltie of stealing from the Crown and punished accordinglie.

The people of
Harborville were not beggars, but honest men who weren’t being allowed to work.
Just the thought of it put such a horrible taste in Kael’s mouth that he had to
spit to keep from throwing up. Why wasn’t anyone doing anything?

Aerilyn walked
with her head down, shedding silent tears that he was sure had nothing to do
with the horror before them. Horatio looked angry, but kept his balled fists
safely inside his pockets. He couldn’t tell what Kyleigh was thinking: she had
her hood drawn up again, shadowing her face. Jonathan picked nervously at his
fiddle and kept his eyes on the guards.

Maybe none of
them knew what it was like to be hungry, but Kael did.

In his eighth
winter, the storehouses were so low that all of Tinnark had to survive on
nettle and pine bark stew. He remembered tromping to the Hall with Amos,
fighting through enormous drifts of snow for his one meal of the day. By the
time they arrived, they were exhausted. And by the time they left, he was
hungry again. All winter long, he’d held his stomach and cried because it hurt.

He’d worked so
hard to become good at trapping so Tinnark would never have to starve again. He
didn’t know the people of Harborville, he didn’t know if they were really
thieves or not. But law or no law, he wasn’t going to stand for it a moment
longer. No man deserved to starve.

The boy he found
in the shadows watched from a distance, jogging along the rocks in some places
to keep up. His tiny limbs swung out beside him and his legs shook when he
landed. Kael could feel those blue eyes on him, begging him, boring into his
soul.

A few of the
guards watched them pass, but as soon as their dinner was ready, they looked
away. While they tore white flesh from the bone and licked the grease off their
fingers, it gave Kael the second he needed. He slung off his rucksack and dug
into it, grabbing his last orange.

Jonathan saw
what he was doing and blanched. “You can’t, mate. I’m serious. If the guards
see you —”

“Well here’s
what I think about the guards.” He gave Jonathan the gesture he learned from
Kyleigh. “And here’s one for the Duke.”

His mouth fell
open in shock. Then he laughed. “All right, I can’t argue with that.” He
reached into his pack and pulled out a loaf of bread. He watched the guards
until they slipped under the cover of a lean-to. “Now,” he said, and they
tossed their food to the children.