Call to War (2 page)

 

LORD DERTHSIN

SERVE OR SUFFER

 

This was Derthsin's warning to anyone who defied him or fought back.

Firepos stopped rising, and she leaned back to rub her claw against a patch of scarring under her right wing. It was an old scar: an empty wound of gray-pink flesh and mottled black spots where a feather should have been. Firepos had had the wound since Tanner was a child — since a day long ago. The day that Tanner's father had been killed and his mother dragged away. Derthsin had been there, laughing from behind his mask. Firepos had plucked Derthsin up and thrown him into the flames of molten lava. He should have died. But he'd survived. Derthsin had had the mark of a feather burned into his palm — the feather he'd grasped to try to save himself, tearing it from Firepos's flesh and leaving a scar. Why was this old wound bothering Firepos now? Was it connected to Derthsin? Tanner stroked a hand over his Beast's feathers and tried to comfort her.

Below, Gulkien was soaring over Nera as she sprinted. The horizon was black smoke. The roads were churned up and all the livestock dead.

Then Firepos began to plummet earthward, uncontrolled, as if she'd been hit. Tanner felt pain in his fingers flowing up through his Beast's feathers. The pain snapped into Tanner's temple, like knives wedged under his skull. He heard himself cry out simultaneously with Firepos. They felt the same pain. Tanner closed his eyes and saw an empty, dead face on the inside of his eyelids: a mask of skin and flesh in four pieces that had been bound together. Mocking laughter filled his ears like thunder. The sound grew louder. He knew where it came from. Derthsin.

P
ain clouds everything. I feel it pulsing fast with my blood. Tanner slumps against my shoulders. I feel his weight, heavy and slack — a snap of blinding pain, and I scream. Tanner cries out. There is evil behind this. The weight is gone: Tanner is gone. I spin and watch him slump off and drop toward the ground. He falls like a stone — no!

I cry out. Pain flashes again, but now I twist and dive. As he tumbles, I see his face contort with agony. Each twinge of my pain makes Tanner scream. The ground is too close. He rushes toward a hillside of hard, shallow dirt. His eyes are squeezed shut. The pain beats and burns in my limbs.

Overhead, Gulkien calls out, and I glimpse Nera rushing closer below, too far away to catch Tanner. I stretch out my talons. I reach, I grasp. Tanner's clothing flaps violently in the air, his body turning in a slow circle. The ground is nearer. I watch each instant. I reach out farther until … yes! I catch him, pulling back with both wings open. The jolt stretches my spine, tests my muscles, but they hold, and we hover. Tanner is limp in my claws.

Gulkien approaches me, and Nera hurries below. I hear Gulkien's Chosen Rider, Gwen, arguing with Nera's rider.

As Gulkien draws nearer, my old wound throbs, and the sudden flare of pain knocks me off balance again. I hold Tanner, but I drop, unsteady, to the ground. Tanner shouts and grabs his head.

I cannot protect him from this. We have to find help.

No time. Now, while he is still breathing. I look up, find a straight, distant line atop a hill: a village. I open my wings, with Tanner in my claws, and rush into the air without looking back. My muscles complain, my blood strains, and as my heart beats faster, it is as if a hundred blades have lodged into my old wound. If I am to die, let it be to save him.

 

“Tanner? Tanner, can you hear me?”

The white-hot pain faded to the edge of Tanner's vision, like ink dissolving in water. He could see blurry figures, backlit in the sun. The ground was hard beneath his back, and there was a terrible ringing in his ears.

Tanner squinted and the figures came into focus: Gwen and Castor. Gwen's eyes were wide and anxious. When Tanner said “yes,” relief flashed on her face. Castor looked worried, frowning, with one hand on his sword handle.

“What happened?” Tanner said. When he tried to sit up, his vision grew spotty, and nausea swirled in his belly.

Gwen took Tanner's arm. “You fell,” she said. “Are you all right? You're white as a sheet.”

Tanner held a hand out before him and watched his fingers tremble. He snatched it back, but Gwen and Castor had already seen.

“You couldn't hold a sword if you tried,” Castor muttered darkly. “What use would you be now in a fight?”

Tanner felt a flurry of anger and tried to snatch at Castor's collar, but the other boy easily batted him away. Tanner fell back against Gwen and he heard her gasp as she felt how cold he had turned.

“Castor's right,” she said. “This is serious. You need help.”

Tanner's breathing had turned light and rapid.

“Your lips!” Castor cried. “They're almost blue.”

What is wrong with me?
Tanner glanced over at Firepos, who was inspecting the old scar beneath her wing. Her eyes rolled back in her head with pain, but when she noticed Tanner watching she folded her wing and sent a flurry of flames over her feathers. The flames puttered and went out again. Was his pain linked to his Beast's pain? Was someone hurting them both?

Nera scanned the hillside slowly, while Gulkien sniffed, his ears straight, alert for any sign of danger.

“Where are we?” Tanner said. He tried to sit up again, and this time the pain in his stomach flared into his chest and throat. He coughed hard and slumped again. Gwen squeezed his hand.

“There's a village at the top of the hill,” she said. “We have to go for help.”

The hillside was covered with yellow wildflowers and weeds that thinned at the top around a wall of mismatched gray and brown bricks. Tanner took out his Looking Crystal: There was a sign beside the village palisade with a crude drawing of a skull and an ax over the words death to the unwelcome.

“We have to get the remaining pieces of the mask before Derthsin does,” Tanner said. “He already has two, so if we don't stop him —”

“We know,” Gwen said. “But you're hurt, and the villagers may be able to help.”

“Look,” Tanner said, and he offered her the Looking Crystal. “Do you see the sign?”

Gwen read the sign, then gave the Looking Crystal to Castor. “Great,” he muttered. Firepos made a low clicking noise at the back of her throat, and Castor said, “Even
I
know what that means. Firepos is worried about you, Tanner.”

“We have to try this village anyway. There are no other towns nearby. There might be a healer here,” Gwen said. “We don't have a choice.” She took Tanner's arm. “But we don't want to provoke them. I think we should leave our weapons behind. Your swords, both of you, and my axes.” Gwen unhooked her axes from her belt and went to a nearby thornbush. Carefully, she slipped one, then the other, through the barbs. The axes were invisible in the brambles.

Castor laughed uneasily. “All right, but it's stupid to leave our weapons behind.”

“Not all of them,” Gwen said, and she opened the side of her cloak to show the outline of her rapier, hidden inside her tunic.

“Right, if you get to keep your sword, I'll keep my knife.” Castor patted the dagger in his belt. “Now let's go.”

“What are you planning to do, Castor?” Gwen said. “Fight the whole village to get what you want?” Tanner unhooked his sword as Gwen helped him stand. She caught him as he felt the ground starting to sway. Castor grabbed Tanner's right arm, pulling it around his shoulder.

“If we have to, yes,” Castor said. “At least then we could see what medicine they have.”

Tanner nodded at an outcrop of exposed rock below. “We'll hide our weapons behind those rocks.”

“Am I missing something?” Castor said. “This village has a welcome sign with a big picture of an ax and a skull on it — right above the word ‘Death'!”

“‘Death to the
unwelcome
,'” Gwen said. “There's a much better chance we'll be welcome if we don't go in looking for a fight.”

Castor helped Gwen support Tanner down the hill to the rocks.

“We can cover our weapons,” Gwen said. “No one will know.”

“It'll damage my blade,” Castor said.

Tanner laid his sword down and gestured to Castor to do the same.

Castor laughed. “No,” he said. “I'm keeping my dagger.”

“We're wasting time,” Gwen said. “Tanner needs a healer.”

“Look,” Tanner said. Coughing, he picked up a black sliver of rock. It was pointed like an arrowhead, but rounded and smooth.

“Jonas said pieces like that were Avantia's first weapons,” Gwen said. “He told me they were made by the First People, when the world was still young.”

“Made for what?” Castor said.

“Hunting,” she said. “And war.”

“We can use these,” Tanner said, and he slipped the rock shard into the side of his tunic so that it was invisible and cold against his skin.

“If we die because of this,” Castor said, “I'm going to kill both of you.”

Tanner smiled. “Thank you.”

Castor hid the rock shard in his tunic and took Tanner's arm again. “Don't thank me yet. I may change my mind.”

With Gwen on his left and Castor propping him up on the right, Tanner started back up the hill. Their Beasts were waiting. Her feathers rippling like waves of flame, Firepos tended to her scar, while Gulkien sniffed the air with his fangs bared. As huge as a mountain rock, he cast a long shadow down the hillside. Nera crouched motionless in the grass, her tail waving back and forth.

“Stay here,” Gwen told Gulkien. “If we need you, we'll call.” She narrowed her eyes and Tanner could tell she was sending her Beast a second, silent message. The wolf dipped his head in understanding.

Tanner sent a message to Firepos, though he was hardly strong enough to push it from his mind.
Wait for us.
A message vibrated back through the air toward him:
I will always be here for you.
He could see that the great flame bird was still in pain, just as he was.
Who's done this to us?
But this time, no answer came to him from his Beast.

Firepos took off. The wind created by her powerful wings slammed them all backward, flattening the grass and flowers. Gulkien's wings snapped out. He ran, kicking up a cloud of dirt, and lunged into the air after her, and they were gone in the low clouds. When Tanner looked, he saw only the golden flash of Nera's fur as she disappeared around the edge of the hill.

“We're not alone,” Tanner said. “Our Beasts will watch over us.”

“All right, then.” Castor sighed. “Let's get this over with.”

At the summit, the hill leveled out, and Castor whistled. “Well, well …”

A big black dog sat outside the village gate. The wooden doors at the archway were open. Closer now, Tanner saw smaller pictures — crude ones, of severed heads and hands — drawn around the edge of the wooden sign: death to the unwelcome.

As they approached the gate, Tanner pulled back. “Look.” A row of jawless skulls was mounted into the bricks in the archway overhead. Under the skulls was a stone marker:

 

HARTWELL

JUDGMENT AWAITS

 

Castor laughed at the skulls. “What a welcome! I wonder how many
hearts
are doing
well
in this little village?”

“We shouldn't be here,” Tanner murmured, but when he tried to pull back again, the world spun. Gwen and Castor held him up.

As they passed through the gate, they saw that a narrow dirt road led between houses with thatched roofs. The buildings were made of the same gray and brown bricks as the outer walls, and their small windows were all shuttered with wooden blinds.

“I don't like this place,” Gwen said.

“I agree,” Castor muttered. “I'm not one to get nervous” — Tanner had to resist the urge to roll his eyes — “but that sign over the gate. No village near Colton would warn off newcomers like that. What's wrong with these people?”

“We're a long way from home,” Tanner reminded his friends. His back ached from leaning low over Firepos's body as they'd swept above Avantia, gazing down on the burned-out homes and destroyed farms. They'd traveled all the way to the northern mountains and now had swooped low over the central plains to dart farther south than Tanner had ever traveled before.
There are no friends here
, he thought.

Another dog appeared again at the end of the road. Growling, it charged them.

Castor crouched low, arms out. “Nice dog …” But the dog lunged, and Castor was forced to throw himself to one side, rolling in the dirt to escape the slathering jaws of the animal.

Someone shouted, “Enough!” Doors opened, and pale men and women dressed in blue tunics came out of the nearby buildings. The men, even the younger ones, had full beards, and bronze charms were woven into the women's hair. They were all armed with axes, swords, and sharp scythes. Quickly, they surrounded the companions in a horseshoe shape. “Quite the welcoming party,” Castor muttered.

Tanner was leaning heavily on Gwen's arm. He could feel her stiffen as the villagers came closer. His vision was slipping in and out of focus, the scene before him seeming to throb with each heartbeat. He tasted blood.

“Please,” Gwen addressed the crowd. “Our friend is hurt. Do you have a healer?”

A huge, red-headed man with a braided beard stepped through the crowd. He carried an ax over his left shoulder and wore a blue cape that was brown at the edges, as if it had been dragged in the mud. There were blue tattoo lines under his eyes.

“You cannot simply enter Hartwell,” he said. “First you must pass a test.”

“Oh, really?” Castor said. “And who are
you
to challenge
me
?”

Stop it, Castor!
Tanner willed him.
For once in your life, rein in your arrogance.

“I am Worrick. These are my people. This is my village.”

Tanner called, “Please — we don't want to fight.” He blinked away the throbbing behind his eyes, but it came back. “We're not here to hurt you. We —”

“Enough,” Worrick said, raising his ax. “Our Bone Mother will read you. Hilda, come forth!”

The townspeople shifted and began to murmur. “Another one …”

“… evil here …”

“… see it in their faces …”

An old woman stepped beside Worrick. Blue designs curled and danced on her face and hands, and when she frowned, the markings on her forehead bunched into concentric rings. Her gown was frayed blue fabric with gold tassels at the sleeves. She carried a walking stick covered in more designs with a dog's skull mounted on top. Her white hair was woven with small bones, like finger joints or pieces of an animal's spinal cord. She walked toward Tanner and raised a tiny ceramic bottle.

When Tanner turned to get a better look, his vision went out of focus: The world looked like it was the bottom of a lake, cloudy and indistinct. He saw a weathered medicine bottle. Grandmother Esme had kept shelves heaped with pots, clay jars, and miniature bottles that Tanner was not allowed to touch.

As the old woman, Hilda, leaned close, Tanner saw that her hair wasn't thick with bones — it was braided into Esme's dreadlocks. Her tattoos were friendly wrinkles. Her pupils weren't cold and foreign — they were eyes he had known all his life.

“Esme,” Tanner said, reaching out for her. But his grandmother's features turned back into Hilda's, and Tanner slumped to his knees.

His eyelids were heavy. He was losing focus on everything … even his own body felt far away….

“Now!” someone was shouting. That voice was desperate and familiar.
Who?
When the voice yelled again, Tanner was backed against the wall, with the Bone Mother, Hilda, standing over him. Gwen shouted, “He needs your help! What are you waiting for?”

Behind her, the bright glint of metal made Tanner's head ache: The villagers were drawing their swords.

“Quiet,” Hilda said, and she popped open the tiny bottle. Carefully, she dipped one finger in and drew it back: The tip was wet and green.

“What —?” Gwen said.

Hilda flicked a drop onto Tanner's forehead, another drop at Gwen, and then she stood and threw one at Castor's face. He blinked and wiped his cheek.

“What is this stuff?” Castor asked, his upper lip curled in disgust.

Hilda put the bottle away and held up her skull-stick. She watched them closely, her pale eyes ranging over their faces.

“They do not burn,” Hilda said at last. “They are not witches.”

Castor burst into laugher. “Unbelievable! The world is falling apart out there, and you all worry about stupid superstitions! Is that what those skulls stuck on the gate are about?”

“Castor, you're not helping,” Gwen interrupted angrily.

Tanner's head was lurching. Sweat broke out on his forehead, under his arms, down his neck, and the fire came rushing back. He could hear Castor's angry voice and Gwen's sharp reproaches, but it sounded like he was listening to them from underwater. Worrick shoved Castor's shoulder. A fight was about to start, but Tanner couldn't move. A cry of pain died in his throat and he slumped to the ground.