Harbinger: Fate's Forsaken: Book One (8 page)

“And on our
fields,” Gilderick added. He fixed his dark-pitted stare on Hubert, who looked
quickly in the other direction.

“Precisely,”
Reginald agreed. He jabbed a finger at Hubert. “If I didn’t know any better,
I’d say you made a pact with the barbarian.”

“I’ve done no
such thing!” he shrieked.

Reginald smirked
through his goatee. “I’d like to see you prove it.”

Hubert licked
his dry lips as his eyes shifted around the table. “She’s — she’s dead,”
he said finally.

The other four
sat a little straighter.

“You’ve killed
her?” Sahar made no attempt to mask the skepticism in his voice.

“Yes. Well
— good as. What I’ve started, the mountains will finish,” Hubert
continued quickly before Reginald could cut in. “My scouts found her, wounded
by a blow on the head that no human could have survived. I could’ve fit my fist
in the hole it made. Anyways, she fled into the mountains. There’s nothing up
there but rocks and trees. I wager the forest took her in a couple of hours.”

His news silenced
the others. D’Mere pursed her full lips. Reginald tugged on his goatee. Sahar’s
jeweled fingers tapped furiously on the table. Gilderick stared.

A moment passed
and Hubert began to squirm. He turned to Crevan. “I hope, Your Majesty, that
this news eases your worries.”

He slid his
boots off the table and assumed a more Kingly pose. A carefully-practiced
expression of concern masked his face. “My friends, it pains me to hear you
fight each other. After all, did we not conquer the whisperers side by side?”

They nodded.

“Did we not
share in the reward and together bring this Kingdom into glory?”

They nodded
again, more cautiously.

“Then remember
that our bickering only gives the enemy a foothold.” At his command the steward
reentered the room, balancing a tray of six silver goblets on one palm. Crevan
served the Five himself, pouring them all a generous amount of his finest wine.
“Today, my friends, is a day for celebration. Earl Hubert has just informed me
of the death of my most hated enemy.” He raised his glass. “And he shall be
rewarded for it.”

Hubert shot a
smug look at the other four.

“To the Earl of
the Unforgivable Mountains!” Crevan declared. He brought his cup almost to his
lips and paused, watching as Hubert slurped down his entire goblet.

The other four
never moved. They knew better than to drink when the King didn’t.

Crevan watched
as Hubert’s eyes bugged out and he began to claw at his throat. “Though I hate
to admit it, your attack nearly did the trick. She would have died, all alone
— only there’s more than just rocks and trees where she fled.” He had to
raise his voice to be heard over the noise of Hubert’s choking. “It turns out
there’s a miserable, nothing of a village halfway up the mountains … and they
found her.”

Foam gathered at
the corner of Hubert’s lips, his watery eyes grew emptier by the second. At
Crevan’s word, two guards entered the room to take his body away.

“One moment.” He
stopped the guards and pulled a gold medallion off Hubert’s neck — a task
made more difficult by his many wobbling chins. He held the medallion before
Hubert’s fading eyes so that he could see the wolf’s head engraved on its
surface for a final time. “I relieve you of your rule.”

Then the guards
dragged his body from the room, squeezing his pudgy legs through the door and
closing it shut behind them. The fear they left behind was so potent that
Crevan thought he might have smelled it from the other side of the castle. He
could hear the question that swarmed in the heads of the other four:

Had everyone’s drink been poisoned, or only
Hubert’s?

Let them wonder.
Let them steep in their expendability.

“Well, good
riddance to the lazy cod,” Reginald finally said. He turned to Crevan. “What
the Unforgivable Mountains need is a firm hand. If Your Majesty wishes, I’d be
happy to take charge of the territory myself.”

His offer set
off another squabble amongst the Five. Why should Reginald get more territory
than anyone else? How did he expect to tame the mountains? Who got murdered and
made
him
the best man for the job?

Their cawing and
squawking drove Crevan to grind his teeth. He slammed his fist down, toppling
his goblet onto the floor. It clattered loudly as the room went quiet.

“If I wanted
another herd of fat, greedy-eyed merchants roaming my Kingdom, I would gladly
put the region in your hands,” Crevan said to Reginald. “But I have a different
vision for the mountains. A much more … aggressive, vision.”

Almost on cue,
the door to the throne room swung open. A man clad in full armor marched up to
Crevan. His coarse hair fell nearly to his shoulders and a wolfish grin peeked
out through his tangled beard. He bowed before he sat in Hubert’s empty chair.

Crevan smiled at
the stunned looks on the others’ faces. “You all remember Titus, my warlord.”

It wasn’t a
question. Titus lounged in his chair, sizing the other four up with predator’s
eyes, and they stiffened under his gaze.

“I agree with
you on one point, Reginald. The Unforgivable Mountains
do
need a firm hand. And I believe Titus will give its citizens the
discipline they lack,” Crevan said.

Titus took the
gold medallion from him and slid it over his head. He grinned at the other four
— and soaked up their scornful looks like sunshine.

Crevan stood and
the Five scrambled to their feet. “I trust you will all work a little harder to
capture the Dragongirl, now that you’ve seen the fate of failure.” He nodded to
Titus. “You’ll find her in Tinnark. Go quickly — and remind those
mountain rats of their King.”

Kael’s meeting
with the elders didn’t go well.

He’d never been
in the Hall when it wasn’t packed full of people. As he walked down the endless
line of empty tables and chairs, he kept his eyes firmly on the crisscrossing
pattern of scratches on the back of Roland’s jerkin. Though he knew the chairs
were empty, he swore he could feel the weight of eyes upon him.

Perhaps his
ancestors were there, shaking their ghostly heads as he shamed them.

When Roland
stepped aside, he saw the elders fanned out around their table. They leaned
forward, squinting hard with failing eyes and combing their hands pensively
through their beards. Brock was even making the effort to stand, though he
leaned heavily on the table for support.

Kael’s face
burned hotter with every second they made him wait. He stared pointedly at the
many paper-thin wrinkles between Brock’s eyes and tried not to betray his
emotions.

“It has long
been our belief that you were most doomed of us all. And now it seems we’ve
been proven correct,” Brock said, though he didn’t seem particularly upset
about it. In fact, he sounded rather smug.

“Tell the boy
his fate,” Roland growled.

Brock actually
smirked at him. “It is fortunate that you have so many protectors,” he said to
Kael. “A man who runs away can hardly deserve them.”

“I didn’t run.”
His fists shook as he thought about how badly he’d like to knock the sneer
right off Brock’s face. “I won’t let you call me a coward —”

“Hush, boy. Be
like the fox,” Roland muttered.

He spoke well
out of the elders’ range and when Brock asked him to repeat it, he wouldn’t.
Not that it would have mattered: few understood Roland’s words. But Kael had
heard them long enough to understand that he was telling him to be cunning. He
must know when to fight, and when to yield.

So as much as he
didn’t want to, Kael apologized and clamped his mouth firmly shut.

Brock was far
from appeased. He pursed his lips so tightly that they nearly disappeared in a
crevice of wrinkles. “For the shameful act of breaking your bow, the elders
ruled to banish you. But out of respect for your grandfather, we’ve agreed to
lessen your sentence.” His fist came down with every term, sealing them in
Tinnark’s law. “You will live out your days as a healer, bound to the hospital.
You will not be allowed to venture into the village — and this includes
the Hall. Your meals will be brought to you thrice daily. You are stripped of
your privileges as a man of Tinnark, forbidden to walk where you aren’t wanted
and forbidden to speak without permission. The elders have spoken.”

When his fist
fell that last time and the hollow thud finished bouncing through the rafters,
Kael’s first thought was that he’d have rather been banished.

“That isn’t
what’s fair, that’s torture!” Roland bellowed, shaking his fists.

Brock’s arms
trembled as he leaned to put his nose in Roland’s face. “The elders have
spoken!” The others stood in a chorus of creaking joints and took up his chant.
“The elders have spoken!”

“I’d like to see
every one of you strung up by your beards!” Roland said through their cries. “A
colony of miserable old bats, that’s what you are —”

Kael grabbed him
by the arm. “Enough, it isn’t worth it.”

“You aren’t
allowed to speak!” Brock shrilled.

“He has my
permission
!” Roland snapped back.

Kael squeezed
his arm hard, fighting his own fury long enough to quell Roland’s. It would do
them no good if the elders decided to punish them both. In the end, he seemed
to realize this. Roland went silent — but did not relinquish his glare.

When the Hall
was quiet, Kael nodded once. And then he left.

Roland went to
follow, but the elders held him back. “We are troubled over the storehouses,”
Brock said. “They aren’t anywhere near full enough to get us through the
winter. And this morning your men brought in less than half the game of the
morning before — hardly enough to fill the pots. Do you have an answer
for this?”

“I’m no Seer,
but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the best trapper in
Tinnark is no longer allowed out in the woods.”

The
uncomfortable silence that followed made Kael’s chin lift a little as he headed
for the door, but for the most part he felt like he’d been sentenced to death.

Everything was
numb: from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. He didn’t feel the air
rush past him as he strode out of the Hall, he didn’t feel the rude wood of the
heavy doors as he shoved them open. When he saw Marc standing bowlegged up the
path, some object clutched in his meaty hand, he didn’t even break his pace.

“Get out of our
village, Bow-Breaker!” he said as he threw.

The rainstorm from
the night before left the ground sopping wet. Footprints in the dirt path
filled with water, which turned to mud. And mud made for a handy weapon.

A fistful of wet
earth struck him in the head, the slapping sound it made stung his ears. The
tiny bits of rock stuck into it cut his face. Grit caked his tongue and he
staggered backwards as he tried to spit it out. That’s when another clump
struck his ear.

He heard
Laemoth’s voice, muffled through the dirt: “Get out, Bow-Breaker!”

Soon mud was
striking him on all sides. He could hear the angry cries of the villagers as
they cursed him with every throw.

“Half-breed!”

“Bow-Breaker!”

“You’re a bad
omen!”

“Get
out
!”

The mud hurt
worse than their words and, even though he could feel blood welling in the
scratches on his arms, he kept walking. He would keep his head down, but he
wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing him run — even if it meant
losing an ear or an eye.

He would never
run again.

They stopped
following him a few yards from the hospital. The noise of the mob drew Amos out
the door and when they saw him, the villagers made a hasty retreat.

“Inbred swine,”
he cursed after them. “I have half a mind to give every one of them something
to think about — what are you doing? You’ll track mud all inside my
hospital!”

“I just need a
few things, and then I promise I’ll be out of your hair forever,” Kael said as
he shoved past him. He grabbed an empty pack off the floor and began filling it
with bandages and bottles of herbs. Several patients tilted their bloodied
heads and a few more watched him curiously through swollen eyes, but he ignored
them.

Amos followed at
a hobble. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m leaving.”

Kael didn’t have
to turn around to know that Amos’s mouth was hanging wide open. “But you can’t
leave — I need you here.
She
needs you.”

He said that
last bit quietly enough that the patients couldn’t overhear. Kael looked up
from where he’d been stuffing his hunting knife away and found the closed door
of Amos’s office.

They decided to
keep the wounded girl back there for the time being. Her fever was gone, but
she was still trapped in sleep. There was no telling how many Tinnarkians would
crowd their way into the hospital, craning their necks for a better view, if
she was out on display. They’d decided it was better to keep her under lock and
key until she woke.

“What if I can’t
save her?” Amos pressed. “What if you’re the only one who can get around the
hex —?”

“Well that’s too
bad, isn’t it? I’m not going to be a prisoner for the rest of my life. Not for
anyone,” Kael said back, and he half-meant it.

But a tiny voice
in the back of his head chose that moment to speak.
If you leave
, it said,
she
could die
.
You’re always talking
about being brave, so why don’t you do the brave thing
?

He didn’t see
how such a small something had the power to hold back a flood of rage so hot
that it practically baked the mud onto his skin. And yet with one utterance,
the voice folded his anger on top of itself, wrapping it up again and again
until he could’ve fit it in his pocket. He thought about all the stories he
read in the
Atlas
, all the knights
and warriors who’d had to do something they never wanted: Sir Gorigan, Scarn,
Setheran the Wright …