Moonstone, Magic That Binds (Book 1) (17 page)

“Senses, eh?” Lotto closed his eyes and them kept them closed as he tried to get that feel for all that went on around him. “I smell food. Bodies smell. Some smell differently than others. Their steps make different sounds as they walk. I can feel the heat of a miner when he walks close by me in the mine and the gentle movement of air that he causes along with the stench of his unwashed body.” He opened his eyes and grinned.

Gully laughed. “Admirable. You’d make a good scout, then. You just need practice. So we’ll practice in the mines as well.”

The next few days, Gully and Lotto played tag catching each other as they moved through the mines. Lotto caught on quickly and realized that he would like to be a scout, if he ever had the opportunity. His friendship with Gully grew along with his training.

The independence that Gully demonstrated reminded him of Mander in an odd sort of way. His mentor navigated through politics, war and personalities as he worked to find out what happened in Besseth and in the surrounding domains. Even Mander’s hair length declared him to march to the tune of a different drummer, just like the scouts had to use unconventional techniques to get their part of soldiering done.

Gully had worked beneath the army’s strict discipline. Scouts were supposed to use their initiative and ability to move through territory and return. The army didn’t care how they did it as long as it got done.

The weather dried out for a few days and the pair was fighting each other with sticks in both hands in the light of a new dawn when a burly messenger rode up and entered the supervisor’s shack.

“Workman and Lotto, come here,” the supervisor said as he walked out with the messenger. Lotto blanched when he recognized Kenyr. His sword trainer gave his head a little shake and Lotto took it to remain impassive.

“You two have been drafted back into the army and are to report back to Beckondale for assignment. I’ll be sorry to see you go. Both of you have more than carried your weight in the mines and your antics in the yard have kept us all amused. I don’t imagine you have very much to take with you. The messenger has orders to escort you to the training camp and pick up a couple of horses and he will accompany you back to the capital.” The supervisor grunted and left the three of them standing in the middle of the yard.

“Don’t hug me here, boy. You’re not out this hellhole until we get you both fitted with mounts and are well away from the training camp. If I didn’t have a good description of you, Lotto, they would have ignored my request. Workman, you’ve got some friends in high enough places to get your commission back.”

Gully put his hands on his hips. “I don’t mean to reject salvation, but who, may I ask, are you?”

“Kenyr of Serytar.”

Gully looked at Lotto. “
The
Kenyr?”

Lotto nodded. “He’s my trainer. I think we’d better leave while we can.”

Gully could barely keep his jaw from dropping as the three of them walked for over half a day to the training camp.

“Let me do the talking. I’ve got the proper paperwork. It looks like they didn’t exactly issue you a uniform, Lotto,” Kenyr said.

“We get cast off civilian clothing from the recruits at the training camp, when they are available. This is all I have. I signed up after Jessie, the healer woman I lived with in Heron’s Pond, died in an Oringian raid. The soldiers wouldn’t allow me to get my weapons and refused to let me send a message.”

“I hope you still want to be in the army,” Kenyr said, “because I’ve got orders for you, my boy. Mander said I couldn’t get you out of the mines unless I had army orders in my fist.”

Lotto shook his head. “I still want to fight. The army isn’t made up entirely of nasty recruiters.”

Gully laughed. “Look at what happened to me. There’s plenty of nastiness at all levels, boy. If you can put up with them, they can put up with you, if you don’t go poking around where you don’t belong, if you know what I mean.”

“I know. Perhaps I can be assigned as a scout.”

Kenyr nodded. “I’ll bet your Mander can make that happen.”

“Your Mander as in Mander Hart?” Gully said, his eyebrows rising towards his hairline.

“I worked for him,” Lotto said, shrugging his shoulders.

“He commands his own regiment of scouts. Drag me along with you. They’re the best of the best.”

Lotto frowned. He didn’t know if he could be counted even among the worst of the best. Gully had taught him that scouting and soldiering required skills that Lotto still worked to master.

“We’ll see what happens in Beckondale, eh?” Kenyr said as they entered the training compound. “I don’t want a word out of you two while I’m negotiating for mounts. Got it?”

Gully and Lotto nodded their heads and trudged behind Kenyr’s mount.

The training sergeant hadn’t changed during the time Lotto worked in the mines.

“I’ve got orders to take these two back into active service with the army.” Kenyr waved the two letters in front of the sergeant.

“I don’t care about the older man, but the boy killed a man. I can’t just let him go.” He took the letters and disappeared into the Captain’s quarters.

The Captain walked out with the letters in his hands. “I can’t let you have him… the boy.”

“You already released him to go to work in the mines. Look at the signature on the orders,” Kenyr said.

“Hart, himself, huh? Next step up would be King Goleto.” The captain glared at Lotto. “A few months in the mines seems to be too a light of a sentence.”

“Not for defending himself against an attack in the night, but he’s not your worry anymore. I’ve come to requisition a couple of mounts so we can be out of your hair.”

The captain stared at the paperwork and grunted. He turned to the sergeant. “Get two horses for these two. Not our best since we won’t be seeing them again.”

~~~

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

~

L
OTTO HAD NEVER RIDDEN IN
V
ALETAN
from the south. In fact, he had never ridden a horse before. Valetan had a different feel so close to the Happlyan border somehow. Now, he wondered how Oringia might look or the Red Kingdom. Did they have their own unique look, too? There were fewer evergreens, once they descended from the mountains. More trees showed blossoms than would north in Heron Pond at this time of year.

As the horse plodded on, following Gully, Lotto closed his eyes and practiced being at one with the environment. It worked. He could sense the horses ahead of them and as they emerged from a stretch of woods, he could feel the rows of turned earth and the few farmers that worked the land. He blinked and opened his eyes to verify what his mind had sensed.

It worked better than he thought until his legs and rear end started to ache later in the day. He wondered if the saddle didn’t fit right. He’d have to talk to Kenyr about it. As they continued on into the dusk, his legs began to shiver from the pain.

“I need to get off,” Lotto said. “My body isn’t used to this.”

“A few minutes ahead and you can soak in a hot tub,” Kenyr said.

Gully looked back and gave Lotto a rueful smile. “Don’t fret, lad. It’s been a few years since I sat on a horse and I’m probably in as bad of shape as you are.”

Kenyr led them down into a little vale and they tied up at one of two inns at a village crossroads. One had a thatched roof and the other had wooden shingles. Lotto tried to get down off of the horse and fell down to the ground. He could barely stand up before his legs cramped up.

“I’m sorry, Lotto,” Kenyr said, putting his hand to his forehead. “I didn’t even stop to think.”

Gully walked gingerly as well, but he made it into the inn before Lotto. Kenyr helped him inside and talked to the female innkeeper.

“You weren’t gone long,” she said.

“Got what I went after. This lad, here, hasn’t been riding before and I’m afraid I pushed him a bit too far for the first day.” Kenyr had his saddlebag on one arm.

“All the way from Bluerock? I’ll say,” she said. “I imagine the other one who hobbled in is with you, too? I’ll get two bath’s heating up. My man’s got some liniment that will help them both. You want my room with three beds?”

Kenyr just nodded and put some coins on the counter. “This enough?”

She nodded and quickly swept the counter with her hand and tucked the money into a pocket in her apron. “I’ll have one of the boys take care of the horses.”

“Is there a place that sells clothes in the village? Both of these men need more than the rags on their backs.”

“Nothing fancy. You’ll see a sign in the shape of a pair of trousers. Pound on the door and tell the one who opens it that Twill said it was all right to disturb him. Baths are at the far end of the hall, as is room 5.”

Lotto barely made it up the stairs by himself. He could shuffle well enough to get down the hall to their room, but he found himself sucking air as his bottom and thighs stung with every step. Gully followed close behind.

“Baths for the both of you. Use plenty of soap, you both stink,” Kenyr said. “I’m going to get you some clothes. He looked up and down at Gully and Lotto and then left them lying on their beds.

A maid poked her head in their unlatched door. “One is ready. The other in a few minutes,” the maid said.

“You go first, wake me up when you’re done.” Gully said, closing his eyes.

~

Lotto slapped on liniment before he went downstairs for breakfast, as instructed. His more sensitive parts didn’t sting as much as after his bath, but still enough to make him wince. He had more saddle time to endure, wondering if he ever would have the physical resilience to be a mounted soldier. Gully said that all scouts rode horses. Perhaps soldiering as a scout might not be worth all of the pain.

“We leave as soon as you’re ready,” Kenyr said. “And that means you, Workman.”

“I’ll be okay. Trousers without holes and proper underclothes will work well enough for today.”

Lotto could smell liniment wafting above his friend and smiled. “How much more riding to Beckondale?”

“Ten more days and I’ll be taking you both to Mander Hart, dressed just as you are. If he’s with the king, you two better be walking like soldiers rather than old men by then.”

The days stretched on and Lotto finally became more comfortable riding a horse, no longer needing any liniment. Kenyr bought another set of clothes for the both of them a few days later. The ride helped Lotto get the horror of the training camp and the tedium of the mines out of his system. He looked forward to working as a scout. Both Kenyr and Gully told him story after story of their exploits on the road, for the weapons master had served as a scout in the Serytaran army and served a similar function for his father.

During mid-day breaks, Kenyr worked with Lotto and Gully at the side of the road to get them both back into fighting shape.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t lose too much, Lotto,” Kenyr said as they fought with practice swords Kenyr bought at an inn on the third day out from the mines. “Gully? More than serviceable for a scout. I’m sure you’ve got other skills that need a bit of honing and that happens in the field, am I correct?” Kenyr slapped Gully on the back.

Gully smiled,  “Indeed. I learned more swordsmanship from Lotto and from you than I have in years.”

The camaraderie on the trip home warmed Lotto. He’d been a loner all of his short life. No, that wasn’t true. He’d had mentors, but the trip, once his backside settled down, was a journey of three men comfortable being around each other. If army life gave him the opportunity to do more of this, he had made the right choice.  Lotto wondered if such friendships were common among boys of the same age.  His memory before his transformation indicated that the old Lotto avoided noticing such things since he was always shunned in Heron’s Pond.

~

Captain Restella Beecher stood on a rise, looking over the shallow bowl of fields. Farmers would usually be plowing new rows preparing the fields for seeding, but with her forces on one side and with Baron Forthwith’s troops to her right, she knew that somewhere on the other side an enemy regiment hadn’t yet appeared. Who would have thought one of her father’s barons would become an enemy. The fields still lay fallow from winter except for clumps of green weeds beginning to emerge from the dark fertile soil.

She spotted three riders whipping their horses. The flash of arrows barely registered from this distance, but one man suddenly favored one shoulder and hunched over on his mount, urging it on. The soldier next to her waved a yellow flag as soon as Restella ordered and the men changed their direction towards her and soon the pounding of the hooves of their horses could be heard.

“Baron Ashdown commands a force half of our size, but his forces are more confident than they should be,” one of the scouts said as they saluted and moved to the rear for food and medical aid.

Silver turned his head towards the woods sheltering Forthwith’s men. Restella followed his gaze and looked back at her lieutenant.

“Could Forthwith have turned his coat?” Restella said. Anger mixed with fear. If she led her troops onto this battlefield and Lord Forthwith attacked, instead of protecting her flank, they would lose the day. She crushed her fingers into a fist. “We’ll make Forthwith pay for treachery.

“Withdrawal, Captain?”

Restella shook her head. “Not yet because I want to make absolutely sure about Lord Forthwith. We will fight only as long as we have to.” She beckoned for a lieutenant close by. “Get the camp broken down and make sure we have an open line to retreat.” Turning back to Silver, she said,  “If our friendly baron moves towards our forces, we will wheel to attack his troops, kill the baron and leave the field. Send a soldier with a message to have the baron enter the field first and instruct the messenger to return immediately. Give him written instructions so there won’t be any questioning of my orders.”

Silver looked Restella in the eyes. Could he be testing her? “Our man might not return,” he said as he pulled a tablet of paper out of his saddlebag and scribbled the instruction with a pencil. He had her sign the message and ripped the page off and gave it to a waiting soldier.