"And what of us? What of Baron Mackay?" Alto asked.
"I do not approve of vigilante justice. Promise me every effort will be made to return him here for questioning and you will have the blessings of the church of Saint Leander."
"I don't need anyone's blessings," he told the
knight. "But I'll do my best to bring him back alive."
Sir Amos frowned and then nodded. "Very well."
Alto rose before he could say more and strode out the door. He walked through the palace, his long legs carrying him past startled servants and making guards tense and grab their weapons.
"Alto! Wait!" he heard Aleena calling out for him.
He kept going until he turned at a corner and saw her running down the passage after him. He stepped out of the middle of it and waited for her with a sigh. When she arrived, he saw that the job hadn't winded her at all. She opened her mouth to talk but he stopped her. "I don't know what game you're playing but you shouldn't have come. Staying in Portland was best for you. Safest."
Her eyes shimmered and she shook her head. "No!" She paused for a moment and glanced about before raising her eyes back to his. "I joined the church because I wanted to prove to you that you're wrong. I wanted to show you that I could be your companion. Your partner. Your everything."
Alto scowled. "You think that's what I want?"
"It doesn't matter," Aleena said with her jaw thrusting forward. "What I'm doing is bigger than you and me. I see that now. I learned it while studying and praying."
Alto's scornful laugh interrupted her. "So Leander speaks to you now, does he?"
Aleena's cheeks flared. "No, he doesn't. I'd never be so presumptuous. But that's not the point. The point is look at us. Look at me and Karthor. We're young and we're changing things. We're real and we believe! We can make things happen."
"What can you make happen? Another body to die on a battlefield with nobody the wiser except parents who will never know why you didn't come back home?"
She shook her head violently enough to make her growing hair slap her in the face. "No! I can show people hope. I can use my faith to give them courage and help them face the darkness. With Saint Leander's light
, we can endure anything!"
Alto shook his head. "You can't endure death."
"Maybe not, but we can face it with a light in our hearts that promises us we can overcome the cruelties of this world. I can help people, Alto. I can heal people."
Alto's eyes narrowed. "Not even Karthor could heal me."
"You have to open your heart," Aleena began.
Alto stopped her with a glare. "I've had stones cast at my ribs by ogres and I've been kicked in the side by a giant. I've fought countless goblins with spears and sword and more ogres with clubs. One thing and one thing alone keeps me going and it's not Leander's grace. It's my will. I know what I must do and nobody else can do it. I won't let anybody else do it."
"Let Karthor or one of Sir Amos's priests tend to your wounds, at least."
"Leander won't heal me anymore." He let those words sink in before saying, "Keep yourself safe, Aleena. You're a good woman with a good heart. Maybe the church is good for you, but I can't help but feel you're here because of me. I have enough blood on my hands. The blood of my enemies and of those I love. Don't let your blood join them."
He turned away but stopped when Aleena grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back around with surprising strength. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her body to his. She even reached up and pulled his head down so she could kiss him. "Whether you have Saint Leander's blessing or not, you'll always have mine. Be safe. Please."
Alto nodded and stepped back from her. He stared at her, noticing the change in her eyes for the first time. She wasn't the barmaid
who had a crush on him anymore. She was more than that now.
"Did you love her?" Aleena asked, catching him off guard.
Did he love her? Had he? Alto sighed. He didn't know anymore what he felt. All he had was exhaustion and rage; the latter was what kept him going. "She was my friend."
Aleena nodded. "All right. Remember that y
ou promised you'd do your best to bring him back alive."
Alto's thoughts went to Patrina and his family. He felt Caitlyn in his arms while she jerked and cried out with her nightmares from what Beck's men had done to her. He looked at Aleena and said, "Sometimes my best isn't good enough."
Alto turned before she could respond and walked down the corridor to the hall that would take him back out into the streets of Highpeak.
Chapter 17
The gate guards had been bolstered by the Knights of Leander. Two knight
s and two squires stood with the regular guards, questioning and searching everyone who came through the gates. Alto approached the southern gate after checking the northern one to ensure the baron and his aide had not gone through.
Alto saw Kar waving at him as he walked
towards the southern gate. He frowned but waited for the wizard to catch up to him.
"You've been holding out on me," Kar complained.
"Been kind of busy," he said.
"Yes
, you have," Kar admitted. "Be careful if you find him; his aide is a wizard. We want to help you. We cared for her, too."
"Then where are the others?" Alto asked him. "If everyone is so fired up and concerned about
it, why am I the only one looking?"
"You're not," Kar told him. "Karthor is checking on Tristam
, and I should be trying to learn more about what Master Victor was up to, or at least researching the silver dragon construct you mentioned. How did you hear about that, anyhow?"
"Thork."
Kar groaned. "We're doing all this because of something a troll shared with you?"
Alto stiffened. "Through all of this
, Thork has been an ally who has asked nothing of me and offered only help in return."
"That should worry you, not comfort you," Kar said. "What favors must you repay when the time comes? Need I remind you that Saint Jarook is not considered one of the more merciful or benevolent saints
?"
"So what would you do?" Alto snapped at him. "Sit in a cozy chair and read a book while waiting to be overrun?"
Kar scowled at him. "I've been saving fools who couldn't save themselves since before your father was old enough to pick up a shovel. Put your rage aside and remember who it is you're talking to!"
Alto glared at him and found that he had his hand on the pommel of his sword. He let it go and turned away. Alto shook his head. "I'm burning up," he admitted without looking at the mage.
"What do you mean?"
"Inside, I'm on fire. I have to keep moving. I have to do something. If I stop
, who's going to see that things get done?" Alto paused before he could admit another thing that plagued him. "What if somebody else can do it? What if Mackay is caught or Sarya is killed and I don't do it? What of the promises I made?"
"What's important isn't that you do these things
; what's important is that they're done," Kar said. "Will your family or Patrina rest easier knowing you spilled the blood of the people who killed them? I'm betting they won't. They're gone and if they know anything, they know they want you to be safe and well. Revenge is for the living, not the dead."
"You sound like my father," Alto said. He turned back to the wizard and let him see the fury in his face. "The man was a coward, did you know that? He turned and fled from trouble. He abandoned his companions for a woman
who convinced him she was more important than his honor."
Kar frowned and opened his mouth to retort but a call from up the street distracted them. Garrick and Mordrim were fast approaching. Alto frowned when they joined them. "Where's Namitus?"
"Checking the taverns," Mordrim said with a scowl to match Alto's.
"Our friend has many skills that the rest of us do not," Kar pointed out. "He has a way of learning things and asking the right questions in the right places. Don't judge on what you know
; judge him on what you don't."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Garrick asked.
"He means that Namitus has a way of making friends just about anywhere, including among beggars and thieves."
"And the sort of people you'd expect to consort with them," Kar added.
"Whores?" Garrick asked in a hopeful tone.
"I thought you didn't need to pay for a whore?" Alto remembered a boast the barbarian had made
once.
Garrick shrugged. "I don't need to, but I don't have much other use for the gold I've earned. Why not?"
Mordrim scowled anew. The dwarf turned to Alto. "What's this you asked about needing a weapon made? Seems we've got some time while we root out this dog of a baron. I might as well get started."
Alto looked at him and nodded. "You might be right. Let me check the gate here then we can discuss it."
The others followed him as he walked the rest of the way to the south gate. He went straight to one of the Knights of Leander. "Have you seen any sign of the baron?"
The knight looked him up and down with distaste. "
Should we find him, Sir Amos will be alerted immediately."
"You search all the wagons and coaches coming through?"
"Yes. Thoroughly," the knight said.
Alto nodded and was about to turn away when movement through the closed portcullis caught his eye. He stepped closer to it and saw Winter standing outside the gate
, stomping his hoof.
"Winter!" Alto breathed. He wondered if Winter knew that Patrina was gone. He frowned and turned back to the knight. "Raise the portcullis
; that unicorn belongs with Lady Patrina!"
The knight turned guard looked at him skeptically.
"Do it," Kar snapped at the man.
"He'll need to be stabled," one of the Highpeak guards said.
"Just open the damn portcullis," Alto exasperated. "I'll go out to him."
The bars were raised and Alto ducked under them before they'd gone high enough to be locked. Winter trotted up to him and whinnied a hors
ey greeting.
"Winter," Alto responded, reaching up to rub his hand on the unicorn's neck. As soon as his hand touched the white hair
, he felt a shock that traveled down his arm and left him stunned and off balance.
Winter reared up and away,
and then came down and lowered his horn towards Alto. Alto staggered a few steps to keep from falling and then focused on Winter's sharp horn that was glowing with bluish light.
"Keep that thing away from me," Alto mumbled. "What's wrong with you? And what was that, anyhow?"
Winter stepped closer to Alto and sniffed him, and then began to move his horn around his face and then up and down in front of his body. The unicorn stopped when his horn passed next to Alto's sword. He stomped the ground and whinnied.
"You
, too?" Alto said. He sighed. "It's all I've got for now. I know, everybody says it's a bad sword but if it helps me avenge Patrina, then it can't be that bad. You do know about Patrina, don't you?"
Winter reared up in the air and kicked at the sky. Alto nodded. "Don't worry
. I'll find the men responsible and make them pay."
Winter shook his head and stomped the ground again.
"Seems he doesn't like what you're saying," Kar offered as he walked up beside Alto.
"I won't let her death go unavenged," Alto promised.
Winter shook his head again and traced the interlinked circles in the snow with his hoof. "That again? Enough with the symbol!" Alto growled.
"No!" Kar stopped him. "It's the rune for sorcery
. I think our friend here knows something we don't."
Alto narrowed his eyes and looked at the unicorn. "Is he right?"
Winter nodded his head, his horn coming dangerously close to poking Alto in the eye.
"Damn that boy of mine," Kar muttered. "He's too busy being a nursemaid. What about you
? Can the unicorn use his magic to show you what he's talking about?"
Alto snorted. "I just tried to pet him and it nearly killed me."
"He doesn't look upset now," Kar said.
Alto shook his head. "No, it was like scuffing your feet on a rug and then touching someone, only it felt like a thousand people had done it all at once."
Kar grimaced. "That's interesting. Before you could ride him, now you can't bear to touch him."
Alto shrugged. "Looks that way."
"How much more proof do you need that the sword you wear is changing you?"
Alto spun on the wizard. "Enough with the sword! If you've got a better weapon
, then let's have it. Otherwise be done with talking about this one!"
Mordrim cleared his throat to interrupt the argument. "What about the one you're wanting me to make?"