Warlords Rising (14 page)

How to convince Tail that the fuzzies were not toys? That
was the question.

Trev’nor’s ‘take a day to explore’ turned into three days.
He hadn’t intended to take that long, but it was a large place, and he found
himself stopping in certain parts of the ruins and telling the other two the
full story to the place. The stone had recordings of every major building and
he recounted them as they walked about. They had an energetic audience, as the
fuzzies followed them around, actively looking for scratches and pets. Nolan
could barely shift two feet in any direction without bumping into a dozen of them.
Trev’nor was used to his friend being an animal magnet and didn’t find it
strange. He still found it funny, though, even after so many years.

They were all a little reluctant to leave, but they’d
promised to be back in a week or so, and they’d already spent more time in
Rheben than they’d really needed to. So the morning of the following day, they
packed up and headed back to Rurick.

Since he’d already come this direction once, Trev’nor more
or less knew where to go, or thought he did. When he came close to the right
area, he slowed abruptly, senses straining. “Wait.”

Nolan and Becca looked at him strangely.

“Something’s not right.” Trev’nor felt like they were a few
marks north of the city and rose abruptly to the surface.

“What’s not right—?” Nolan turned to face the city as he
asked and the sentence died unspoken.

Before they had left, Trev’nor had made sure to put all of
the buildings to rights as much as possible and to repair the wall around the
place to give them more security, until the city could form up a new guard to
protect it. The wall was now in shambles, crumbling in various places and there
were clear signs of a battle being carried out.

“They’re gone,” Nolan breathed, voice shaking. “The whole
town is gone.”

“WHAT?!” Becca demanded incredulously. “But I’m seeing
movement! Surely someone’s in there.”

“Not our people,” Nolan denied instantly, eyes still glued
to the town. “Different people.”

Trev’nor felt like someone had reached into his chest and
tugged his heart out of place, hollow and cold, breathless with denial. “They
can’t just be
gone.”

A slightly hysterical note rang in Becca’s voice. “Where are
they? It’s a whole
town;
where could they disappear to in six days?!”

Nolan grabbed her by the arm, his grip tight and reassuring.
“Steady. Steady. We’ll find them. First question really is, what happened? And
who are these soldiers that we’re seeing in the town?”

Eyes narrowed against the brightness of the suns, Trev’nor
peered intently ahead. “Nol, didn’t you say before that the warlords in
Khobunter are in constant conflict with each other? Always fighting over land
or water rights, is what you said.”

Head flopping back, Nolan groaned in realization. “It’s the
neighboring warlord’s men. He took advantage of the confusion and lack of
soldiers and conquered this place, didn’t he?”

It wasn’t really a question but Trev’nor answered it anyway,
“That would be my bet. It’d be the perfect opportunity to strike. I mean,
that’s Strategy 101.”

Becca looked at the town she thought she’d saved with hollow
eyes. “We set them up for this.”

“Yes.” There were unshed tears in Trev’nor’s eyes. “Yes, we
did. Some heroes we are. Why did I think just building a bigger, stronger wall
around the town would be enough to keep them safe?”

Shaking his head, Nolan said softly, “None of us thought
this through well. We were too impulsive. Too mad to think straight. But we
have to think now. We have to. Our mistakes already cost lives. We can’t afford
to make another one like this.” Grabbing them by the arms, he towed them back
the direction they’d come. “We need to find a safe place to make camp. We have
to talk this through and decide what to do.”

Trev’nor stumbled along behind him, not thinking of anything
at all. Or at least, trying very hard not to think of anything. He didn’t want
to imagine what must have happened after they left.

Nolan jostled him. “Trev, focus. We need a safe place to
stop. Somewhere shady, somewhere with water if that’s possible.”

Rarely had Trev’nor had to use the training that Shad put him
through. He used it now to force himself to be rational, to function, even as
his heart screamed. He took in a deep breath, let it out in a steady stream,
then took in another, bearing his mind and magic on the problem at hand. “No
water within fifteen miles that I can feel. Ahead and a little to the left
there’s a craggy sort of ravine with a lot of overhangs. Lots of shade.”

“That’ll do. Guide us.”

Putting one foot in front of the other, Trev’nor took his
friends to a place of relative safety. The overhangs weren’t large, barely
enough for three people to lie down underneath, but it would suffice for a
camp. Not trusting anything, he put a ward up immediately so that he could at
least breathe without worrying someone would ambush them from behind.

Becca dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. Tears
streamed down her face, mixing in with the fine dust on her skin, so that it
looked like dirty trails on her cheeks. Nolan went to her and gave her a hard
hug, and Trev’nor saw for the first time that tears were in his eyes too. Every
one of them had grown attached to the people in that town. They were friends.
After what they’d been through together, that was understandable. And now those
friends were missing, possibly hurt or dead, and Trev’nor had no idea where
they had gone.

He felt like killing something.

“Our mistake was thinking that we really are heroes.”
Nolan’s voice sounded jarringly loud in the silence. “Our mistake was thinking
this really was a grand quest where we could swoop in, save the day, and leave
with the sunset. But this country has never been peaceful. There are not any
centralized laws here, no one to make sure that things are just and right.
Might of arms is what rules Khobunter.”

Trev’nor felt Nolan’s words like barbs aimed at his heart.
He gasped from the pain of it. “Nolan, we can’t just
leave
. We can’t
ignore it because things went wrong!”

Nolan turned his head and looked at him. In that moment,
Trev’nor knew he was not looking at his childhood friend. He was looking at the
Prince of Chahir. Those clear blue eyes nailed him in place, seeing right
through the very heart of him.

“You have one of two options. We either stop right where we
are and call home, call for the reinforcements we should have called for when
we realized that we were in over our heads, and let an army do the job. We go
home.”

Becca shook her head, still unable to speak a word past her
tears, but adamant in her refusal.

Glancing down at her, Nolan continued, “Or, you two realize
that you’re in this for the long haul. I can’t stay in Khobunter forever, I
have my own country to rule. So it would have to be you, the two of you, who do
this. You take this country on as your own. You conquer it, you rule it, and
you stay here for the rest of your lives. Nothing short of that dedication will
safeguard it as you wish.”

Stay here…forever? Could he even do that?

“It has to be one or the other,” Nolan said adamantly.
“There is no middle ground on this, no compromise. Trev, you said on the way up
here that things would likely get to the point where it would be beyond hard
and we won’t know what to do. Well, guess what, we’ve landed. We’re now at that
point. You and Becca have to decide just how important it is to you that you
rescue all the magicians in this country yourselves.”

“I…” he started, only to falter.

“Don’t you dare answer right now.” Nolan jabbed a finger at
him. “I won’t take any answer you give me. It’ll be from impulse. You sleep on
it, Becca you too, and then give me an answer in the morning.”

Trev’nor was actually grateful for the reprieve because his
mind and heart were in such a muddle that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.
His heart said one thing, his mind another, and they weren’t agreeing on much
of anything. So he gave a ginger nod, arranged his pack, and laid down with his
head pillowed on top of it. It was still plenty light out, it wasn’t like he
was that tired either, but the gravity of the decision weighed on him. He
needed to lie down and just ponder it for a while.

Shad’s training had finally fully kicked in. His mind
whirled with questions, most without immediate answers. Say he did stay and
called this place home. How did he defend each city from being re-conquered?
How could he manage that when he had no resources of his own? Did he have to
stay long enough to train the magicians of that town how to fight before he
could move on to the next place? In that case, conquering Khobunter could well
take a decade. It took at least two years to train a magician up to a good
fighting level. And he had no resources to train them with. Cripes, that was
another problem. He didn’t have the faintest idea on how to train a witch or
wizard to begin with.

But did he really have to leave each city to fend for itself
while he moved on to the next? That seemed like a poor strategic choice. They
could put up wards, certainly, but that was a restrictive way to go about it.
It was half-prison to the inhabitants, as they wouldn’t be able to do any
trading or true communication with the outside world. That was a temporary fix,
nothing more. They needed a real solution.

Trev’nor, being initially raised Tonkowacon, was not one to
be really attached to places. He’d been constantly on the move since he was
two. The only place he’d really stayed for any length of time was Strae
Academy. Was his attachment to these people really so strong that he could
consider this place home for the rest of his life? In this moment, it felt like
it, but would that feeling fade?

The questions whirled around in his mind even as night fell,
becoming snarled and then untangling themselves again as he boiled it down to
the more essential questions. Could he just go home and ignore the people here?
No. Could he call for reinforcements, hand this problem over to someone else,
and hope they did a better job than he did? No. Could he live with the fact
that he had seen and experienced incredible evil firsthand and didn’t try to
stop it? Absolutely not.

Somewhere in the predawn, he realized that while he had been
arguing with himself, his subconscious had already reached a decision. He was
staying. He was going to fight this whole country until he was finally able to
rescue every last magician imprisoned here.

Trev’nor had always been aware that a Gardener had spoken to
Garth about him and Nolan. It had been no secret. The adults had talked about
it openly for years in front of him. Why had it been so important for the two
of them to meet and become friends? Twelve years later, Trev’nor still had no
idea. But he hoped that if this problem wasn’t the one that the Gardeners
wanted him to fix, that it was somewhere in this country. Because no matter
what came, he would not leave Khobunter.

Dawn teased the horizon, washing the desert in tones of cool
blues and whites. Trev’nor hadn’t slept a wink. He rolled over to find Becca
wide awake as well, curled up and looking at the rising suns with one of the
calmest expressions he’d ever seen from her. He knew by looking at her that she
had reached a decision too. Nolan was the only one that had tried to sleep, but
he kept tossing and turning fitfully.

“Nolan.” Trev’nor waited until Nolan rolled to a sitting
position and was looking at him. As Trev’nor said the words, the weight of the
responsibility he was taking on settled over him like a heavy mantle. “I’m
staying.”

Nolan searched his eyes, looking for resolve, and found it.
His smile came slowly over his face, speaking of pride. “I thought you would.
Becca?”

“You can’t pry me out of this country,” she responded
without turning her head. “I’m staying. I will not let this nightmare
continue.”

Trev’nor understood her sentiments perfectly but he still
had to wonder, “Will they let you stay? Considering who you are?”

Now she looked at him, eyes fierce. “I will fry anyone that
tries to stop me.”

He had seen her chuck lightning bolts at things. She was
scarily accurate. He wouldn’t cross her. So he made a peaceful motion with his
hands. “Noted. Alright, Nolan, you have our answer. Now what?”

“Now we go back, study the situation, and come up with a
strategy of how we’re going to do this.”

Becca’s forehead crinkled into a frown. “What about the
townspeople?”

“I was thinking about that last night. Odds are they’re sold
as slaves and carted off to the next warlord. Which one is a bit of a question—there’s
three within distance of Rurick. I think that if we systematically go from one
place to another, we’ll run into them.”

Trev’nor couldn’t fault the logic. A warlord in Khobunter
was not one to waste resources or the chance to make money, and selling that
many slaves would make him a lot of money. Odds were good that he hadn’t gone
in and massacred the whole town. The thought eased his mind and he could
breathe a little easier. “Right. Breakfast first, and then let’s go figure out
how to conquer Khobunter.”