Nicholas Raven and the Wizards' Web - Volume 1 (58 page)

“Stay up there, Will! I’ll follow if I can!” Brendan shouted.

“Enough!” Arileez sputtered, his patience already spent. “Give it to me now.”

“Give you
what
?” Brendan said, fending him off with the metal poker though forced to take another step back.

“Give me the medallion!” he demanded as he grabbed one of the wooden chairs and hurled it at his foe. Brendan jumped out of the way before it exploded into a cascade of splinters against the stone fireplace, the metal poker falling out of his hand.

“
Brendan
!”

“We don’t have it!” Brendan shouted, having nearly forgotten about the object as he scrambled to his feet, reaching for the lost weapon. But when he saw Arileez rush toward him, he grabbed a wooden leg from the broken chair and swung it wildly at the wizard, grazing Arileez’s arm before he spun out of the way.

“Enough!” he shouted, rushing at the prince as he attempted to retrieve the metal poker.

But as Brendan grabbed the object and started to raise it, Arileez extended his right arm and made a long sweeping movement through the air. Brendan lurched backward and watched the wizard’s hand move past his chest in seeming slow motion, his eyes wide with disbelief as the tips of the wizard’s fingers liquefied and transformed into a sharp talon of a bird of prey, the pointed, curved weapon quickly enveloping the entire hand. When Arileez brought his arm back to attempt a second swing, Brendan raised the metal poker to keep his attacker at bay, unable to avert his eyes from the fantastical reconfiguration he had witnessed. But in that moment of distraction, Arileez grabbed the fire poker with his left hand and tried to wrench it from Brendan’s grip. When Brendan instinctively turned to pull back, Arileez swiped the talon through the air again, striking him squarely in his abdomen, the razor-sharp tip piercing through the prince’s garments and skin like the icy blade of a merciless sword.

Brendan stood frozen in place as if a jolt of lightning had struck him. Slowly his right fingers uncurled and the piece of metal fell to the floor. In that same moment, he bowed his head and saw the wizard’s talon imbedded in his body, for an instant unable to speak or feel or react, but only watch in muted wonder. Arileez removed the talon with a sudden pull and Brendan collapsed to the floor, his knees buckling under the cold, heavy weight of his body. He lay on his back, hearing William’s terrified screams in the background as his fading eyesight observed the wizard’s talon transform again into a normal hand, only now the five fingers were stained with his own blood. As he helplessly watched Arileez wipe the blood on the folds of his cloak with cruel satisfaction, the sounds around him swiftly diminished until he could hear only the faint beating of his heart. He blinked a few times as the light grew dim and gray and murky, his mind awash in a flood of vivid memories until the young prince of Montavia closed his eyes and then heard and saw no more.

“
Brendan
?”

Arileez looked up when he heard the frightened call, seeing William hanging onto the upper rungs of the ladder, overwhelmed with shock and disbelief. He stared at his brother’s body, unable to absorb the reality that had just bombarded him. When his gaze locked onto the wizard’s vacant eyes, he felt as if a sharp slap to the face had flung him back to reality.

“I will ask you the same question,” Arileez said, his voice tinged with a seething undercurrent ready to explode if the boy did not provide the answer he sought. “Where is the medallion you removed from the Blue Citadel?”

“We don’t have it!” William said, his eyes burning with tears. “We never did.”

Arileez took a step closer as William simultaneously raised himself up another rung. “I don’t believe you. I was told–”

“I don’t care what you were told. We don’t have it!”

“Who does?”

“Why should I tell you?” William snapped. “Who are you and why do you want it?”

“That’s not your concern. Tell me what I wish to know or I’ll kill you, too.”

“Others took the medallion,” William replied as he gingerly climbed one more rung of the ladder, his head just below the opening. “That’s the truth. I have no idea where they took it. No one else was permitted to know.”

“Who has it?” he sputtered.

“Two others,” he said, for a moment unable to recall Nicholas and Leo’s names, hesitating to mention them for fear they might be tracked. His mind felt on fire as the unyielding pressure from the wizard’s gaze held him with an invisible hold. But using every last bit of strength, he resisted his will. “Their names are unimportant. And beyond that, I swear I know nothing more!”

Arileez seethed at the boy’s defiance, but ratcheted down his grating tone to place the prince at ease and perhaps gain more information. “I was informed that two individuals are seeking out the wizard Frist to have the key to the Spirit Box remade, but you claim not to be one of them,” he replied. “Perhaps I believe you, but I still need to know the location of the wizard whom they seek.”

William swallowed, unsure how long he could stall, certain that Arileez would spring at him once he was convinced that this line of questioning was futile. “We weren’t told that information. Their mission was kept secret. My brother and I were just roaming the countryside for our enjoyment. I give you my word.”

Arileez stroked his chin as he considered his options, believing the boy was telling the truth. Somewhere along the way, the messenger crow had relayed faulty information. “You are sure this is all you know?”

“I swear!” William said.

Arileez shook his head as he looked at the floor, seeming to have made up his mind about what to do. But before the wizard could react, William raced up the final rungs of the ladder and disappeared through the opening into the upper room, fearing he would soon be dead like his brother. The low-ceiling room was dark expect for the outline of pale daylight seeping through cracks around the thick shuttered windows on either end. William rushed to one window and pulled open the shutters, allowing a flood of daylight and cool air into the stuffy room, but the opening was too small to get through. He looked around for anything to use as a weapon or hurl down at the wizard through the floor, but there was nothing except several thin mattress rolls and blankets.

He teetered on the verge of panic as he ran across the floor to the opposite window. As he tore past the opening in the floor, a hand reached up and grabbed him by the ankle. William tumbled face first to the floor and spun around on his back, yanking his foot free from the wizard’s grip as he bashed the heel of his other boot into the bony fingers holding him prisoner.

“Let go!” he shouted as the ghostly figure of Arileez ascended slowly through the hole in the floor, a pale gleam of mindless death in his eyes. But as the wizard tried to raise himself higher on the top rungs of the ladder, he inadvertently loosened his grip, allowing William to pull his leg free and scramble to the other end of the room.

William ripped open the shutters, relieved to find a larger window. He glanced over his shoulder. Arileez had pulled himself up into the room and was ready to spring. William looked out the window and saw the piles of discarded pine branches below, knowing they should cushion his fall when he jumped. He heard footsteps. Arileez was heading his way. No time to think. He had to leave now!

“Stay!” the wizard commanded, lunging at William who was teetering on the narrow sill.

Just as he was about to leap down, Arileez pushed William in the back, causing him to lose his balance and tumble out the window in an uncontrolled fall. The wizard heard the boy cry out as his body disappeared, then all went silent. Arileez stuck his head through the opening and peered at the ground, seeing the prince sprawled out upon a pile of pine branches, eyes closed and face to the sky, his body unmoving. Arileez sighed with irritation, wondering if the trip was worth his effort.

Over the next few minutes, the wizard searched the two bodies and every corner of the cabin, but found no sign of the medallion that Gavin had insisted would be traveling south to Grantwick with these two men. But since he had found nothing here or at their campsite which he had searched hours ago, he accepted the fact that he had been gravely misled and followed the wrong people. After one final sweep of the cabin, Arileez stormed outside, leaving Brendan’s body alone on the cold floor in the somber silence.

As he briskly trudged across the leafy clearing, the wizard extended his arms. His body suddenly liquefied while reducing its size at the same time. In the next instant, Arileez swiftly transformed into a large, red-tailed hawk. With a few powerful flaps of its wings, the bird shot airborne and was soon flying freely over the vast emerald expanse of the Ebrean Forest. He glided northeast on the shifting currents, disappointed that this mission had failed, yet anxious to get back to the village of Kanesbury and report his findings to Caldurian.

CHAPTER 34

The Clearing

The aroma of simmering soup enticed William to open his eyes. For a moment he thought Martha had left a tray of lunch in his room at Red Lodge. Had he overslept? Had he been sick? The ceiling looked unfamiliar and a cool, damp cloth had been placed behind his head. An uncomfortable throbbing in his neck nudged him fully awake, and soon the imagined images of Martha and Red Lodge were replaced with the horror that had been unleashed.

He whispered his brother’s name as he struggled to sit up, his heart pounding, his head swimming. “Brendan!” he called again before going silent, noting three men sitting at the table and staring at him as if he were an exhibit at a village fair. “Who are you?”

A fourth man stooping over the fireplace while stirring a kettle of soup over the crackling flames echoed his question. “Who are
you
?”

The stranger’s unshaven face beneath a head of dark brown hair appeared honest enough to William, though he was hesitant to say anything until he learned more. The man joined the others at the table, at which point William realized that he had been lying on the floor on a straw mattress brought down from the loft. He glanced at the area near the fireplace. His brother’s body was missing.

“Where’s Brendan?” he asked. “Where’s my brother?”

The men looked apprehensively at each other before the first one answered. “My name is Ramsey. These are friends of mine. My I have your name?”

William glanced about, wondering who these people were. But as they had apparently tended to his injuries, he decided he could at least trust them with his name. “I’m William.” He picked up the cool cloth and held it to the back of his head.

“You had a bump, but no cut,” one of the others said. “You knocked yourself out on a chunk of wood wedged under those pine boughs out back.”

“I think I’ll survive.” William again looked at the area where Brendan had fallen. “Please, where is my brother? He collapsed over there after he was…” He took a few uneasy breaths, swallowing hard, wondering if what had occurred a while ago had actually happened. “Where is he?”

Ramsey fixed his uneasy gaze to the floor before looking up at William. “What happened here? We found you unconscious outdoors about two hours ago and your brother inside on the floor. Who did this to you?”

The young prince shook his head. “I don’t know. He appeared out of nowhere. He was standing outside the door. When Brendan opened it to get water, he attacked us.” William, his spirit distraught, his eyes burning and wet, pleaded again for a simple answer to his question. “Where is my brother?”

William knelt on one knee, alone beneath a pine thicket on the edge of the clearing. His arm rested on a low pile of split logs that had been neatly stacked in a rectangular pile over Brendan’s body. This would serve as a temporary grave until he could accompany his brother home to Montavia where he would be properly buried with the honor he so deserved.

Earlier, Ramsey had confirmed what he already knew in his heart–that his brother had perished from the terrible wound inflicted upon him. Ramsey had shown William his brother’s body which had been removed from the cabin and brought outdoors after wrapping it in a blanket. William felt cold and disoriented when he removed the covering from Brendan’s face, his brother’s eyes forever closed, his countenance peaceful and fair. At his request, Ramsey’s men dug a shallow grave and placed the wrapped body within, covering it with pine branches before building a cairn of wood over the deceased.

Now, William knelt there in the late morning silence, alone with his brother, alone with his leaden thoughts, wondering how he would ever break this wretched news to his mother and grandfather as a stream of hot tears flowed down his face.

Later, while downing a bowl of hot soup and bread, William cautiously answered some of the questions the men posed to him as they sat around the table. He told them he was a citizen of Montavia who had been visiting the capital of Arrondale with his brother when they decided to journey south for some adventure.

“You travel much for one so young,” Ramsey said as he dipped a chunk of bread in his soup, sensing that William wasn’t telling him everything yet willing to give the boy leeway considering the trauma he had suffered. “Why are you roaming in these parts, and how did you get lost in the Ebrean?”

William studied the faces of the quartet over the rising steam from his bowl, wanting to trust them to a point but knowing he had taken an oath in the Citadel not to reveal information about the medallion. Though he had spoken of the same to his attacker, he discounted that breach considering the circumstances. But these men who had fed him and tended to his injuries deserved some answers, so he decided to be honest yet vague until he found out more.

“Could you first tell me if I’m far from Drumaya’s border? My brother and I only took refuge here to wait until the sun rose higher before we tried to find our way back.”

“You are deep in the forest, but not far from the kingdom,” Ramsey said. “From where in Drumaya did you enter the woods?”

“We were in Grantwick and then hiked to the Ebrean, camping along the tree line. The gates to the King’s Quarters had already been closed for the night.” He helped himself to more bread, ripping another piece off a large, round loaf and soaking it with broth. Only now he realized how truly hungry he was.

“Why were you planning to visit the inner city?” another man asked as he leaned back in his chair, picking at his teeth with a sliver of pinewood.

William paused as he raised a bit of bread to his mouth. “We were, uh–sightseeing.” He greedily devoured the piece of food and ate another spoonful of soup, momentarily avoiding eye contact.

“There weren’t enough interesting sights in Arrondale’s capital that you had to travel all the way down here?” Ramsey asked, eliciting a few chuckles from the others. “Or have you had your fill of Morrenwood already?”

“Not exactly,” William replied, knowing that they would press him until he supplied a reasonably logical answer. After helping himself to a few more spoonfuls of soup, he looked up warily, debating how much information he should offer. “Well, my brother and I were hoping for an audience with– I mean, hoping to meet with–” He froze, realizing he might have already slipped up. He ate another mouthful of bread as Ramsey looked on curiously. “We were to meet with someone. A friend.”

Ramsey smiled. “Does this friend have a name?”

Moments of strained silence followed as the flames snapped in the fireplace. A cool breath of morning air poured in through the open window. William finished the last of his soup, pushed the bowl aside and glanced at Ramsey. “Forgive me if I’m not completely open with you. I appreciate what you’ve done for me, but... Perhaps if you told me more about yourself, I might be able to say more.”

Ramsey grinned, noting that the others were likewise amused. “I think what you’re really saying is that if we told you more about ourselves, you might be able to decide if you trusted us or not. Yet here you are in our cabin, eating our food, and with your injuries tended to.” William’s face turned a light shade of red. “Don’t worry. I take no offense at your caution, especially after what you’ve endured. But since you are an intruder here–though by necessity–you shouldn’t be surprised that we don’t open up to you simply because you ask. You have to earn our trust, not the other way around.”

William locked gazes with his questioner, feeling as if he had unintentionally insulted the man. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

Ramsey dipped the last of his bread into his soup bowl and finished eating. “As I said, I take no offense. Besides, I am the least of your worries. Even if I wanted to answer all your questions, there is someone else who you must report to first before we can allow you to return to Grantwick. You may be silent to us, but he will certainly want to know everything that happened here regardless of your doubts and insecurity.” Ramsey walked over to the hearth and threw another log on the fire, stoking the flames with the metal poker.

“
He
?”

“My leader,” Ramsey said, glancing at William over his shoulder. “We all report to someone, don’t we?”

“I suppose. Could you tell me his name? And is he around here?” he asked, briefly looking about the room.

Ramsey stroked his chin. “Right to the point. I admire that trait in both friend and foe. But I won’t reveal his name to you. That is his privilege. But we’ll leave shortly and seek him out. It’ll be quite a hike deeper into the trees before we reach his residence. You may want some more bread and soup first.”

“All right then. Thank you,” William said, realizing he would get no more answers at this time while feeling both eager and fearful about what might lie ahead. He briefly debated whether he should make a run for it the first chance that presented itself, risking hunger and being permanently lost. Or would staying close to Ramsey and his men be the wiser alternative? Even though he didn’t completely trust them, he realized that he didn’t yet fear them and took that as a good sign.

“Be prepared to leave in another hour and expect some brisk hiking. We should arrive by twilight.”

“All right.” With the interrogation of sorts over, William suddenly felt tired and overwhelmed by the day’s events. Though he absorbed with interest all that Ramsey had told him, his thoughts and emotions turned to his brother lying beneath the somber clouds outdoors. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sit with Brendan again for a while. I feel that…”

“Of course,” Ramsey said, his voice radiating concern. “We’ll stay in here to discuss our journey. Or would you like one of us to accompany you?”

“No thanks. I’d prefer the solitude, if you please,” he replied, though in the back of his mind he wondered if Ramsey suspected that he might try to flee. As he stepped outside the cabin in the deepening quiet, William wondered where they would be going and who exactly would be greeting them when they arrived.

They talked little during the first two hours of the hike. Though the trees were thick and shadowy, the gray blanket of clouds had begun to thin, allowing rays of sunshine to stab through the treetops as the early afternoon progressed. The scent of sweet pine mixed with the sharp pungency of decaying leaves being crushed underfoot. William, dressed in his overcoat to ward off a damp chill, breathed in the revitalizing aromas. Ramsey and his men wore hooded jackets of lighter material beneath thick cloth ponchos in shades of russet, umber and fern. The travelers halted occasionally to drink from passing streams and refill their water skins, and later stopped near a large outcropping of rock to eat a brief lunch of dried venison, corn biscuits and apples. The meal tasted like a feast to William after such a strenuous pace. Though he and Brendan had traveled many miles south, they had leisurely ridden on horseback. Only during their escape from Montavia had he moved with such speed and determination.

He recalled the flight to Morrenwood with his brother, and though their mission to seek help from King Justin was both grave and urgent, he had enjoyed their time traveling together, sharing stories and ideas while passing through the mountain valleys and across the roads and fields of Arrondale. Now, he was on a completely different journey with four strangers, yet William felt incredibly alone. Part of him wished that Brendan had survived the attack in the cabin instead of himself, knowing that his brother was far better suited for the burden of leadership should that eventuality ever arise. He vowed to do his best nonetheless, knowing he owed that to Brendan who gave up his life to save him.

Another hour had passed when they began to climb up a gradual rise in the forest floor. Here the trees grew thinner and the light brightly shone. William took pleasure in the rich blue sky as the clouds broke and drifted east. He savored the warm touch of sunlight upon his face as it made its westward trek toward the Northern Mountains.

“We are near one of the outposts,” Ramsey said, stopping to allow everyone to catch his breath. “It is little more than an hour’s hike from there to our destination. Now rest for a moment.”

“Gladly,” William said, sitting upon a rock to stretch his aching legs. He drank greedily from a water skin Ramsey had provided as the others quietly discussed the way forward. He realized how foolhardy it would be now to make a run for it, guessing that he would surely remain lost and probably die of cold and starvation. But just as he grew comfortable, briefly closing his eyes and thinking that this respite might last awhile, Ramsey called for everybody to continue. William sighed and reluctantly got to his feet, wondering if the journey would ever end.

They continued on swiftly like a blur of shadows. But less than twenty minutes later as they hiked along a gurgling stream, a half dozen men suddenly stepped out from behind several trees just ahead, all armed with swords or bows at the ready. William stopped with an audible gasp and looked to Ramsey for guidance, expecting the worst. But when he saw a faint smile spread across his face and noticed the armed men lowering their weapons, his rapidly beating heart began to settle as he realized that the men must be from the nearby outpost.