Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (59 page)

Ubri stood and looked around the woodshed. He smiled with the satisfaction that comes with a job well done. What had been a huge mess had been transformed into the picture of neatness and organization. All of the remaining wood was now in neat stacks with wide aisles in between for efficient access and restocking when they went in the fall for the winter stores. The clutter had all been cleared out. He knew his father would be pleased with his efforts. Now all he had to do was move in the half-cord for today’s burning, and he could have some lunch. His morning labors had left him famished. Then again, he wasn’t about to start moving an entire half-cord into the kitchen without seeing if Bramwith was feeling well enough to lend a hand, so he went back inside to check on him and to see how little Jubra was faring in all of the commotion. He was a little surprised to see that she was nowhere in the kitchen, and his surprise turned into annoyance when the cook, to whom he had assigned her care, had no knowledge of her whereabouts. He went quickly to Bram’s room, mostly to engage him in the search for her. He stopped outside of his door, hearing strange sounds of sputtering coming from within. He threw it open, and there on the bed was Bramwith straddled atop Jubra. He had her pinned and was pouring a large pitcher of water over her face, causing her to thrash her head wildly about as she choked and gagged.

“Bram!” he cried. “What are you doing? Stop it! Get off her! You’re choking her!”

Incredibly, it appeared as though Bramwith hadn’t heard him, causing Ubri to lunge at him with everything he had, tackling him and driving both of them completely off the bed where they crashed into the wall beyond. Ubri struck his head violently and was momentarily stunned. Jubra scampered quickly out of the room to safety.

When he came to his senses, Bramwith was on top of him, straddling him in the same way he had been straddling Jubra moments before. He had drawn his belt knife and was waving it slowly back and forth, inches from Ubri’s face. He noticed the same detached expression that he had seen years before at the fishing hole. “Bram,” he said, “get off of me. Get off!”

“Poor little Jubra,” Bram said, lowering the knife until it lay across Ubri’s throat. “Little Jubra. Family pet. The favorite. She will always be the favorite, you know. Little Jubra now gets
all
their love,
all
their attention. Nothing left for Ubri and Bram. No, no, no. Time to end it. They can have her. Maybe they will think about that now.”

Ubri, his eyes wide with fear, noticed the cook standing behind them brandishing a large iron skillet. She was looking at him, seeming to be asking what to do. He made eye contact with her and nodded slightly. The skillet came crashing down on Bramwith’s head, and he crumpled to the floor, unconscious. Jubra stood in the doorway, witness to the whole event, sucking hard on her thumb.

“Ubri,” said Isandora, “please go check on Bramwith. Take your father with you.”

It was late in the evening now and the celebration was near its end.

Ubri nodded and fetched his father, who was talking to a pair of merchants that had journeyed all the way up from King’s Port for the festivities. Together they went to Bram’s room where he sat, bound and gagged, in a chair. Andar grimly checked the ropes to make sure they were all securely fastened, yanking the gag roughly from his mouth.

“Please, Mr. Gall, Father,” he pleaded, “Please let me go. I didn’t mean any harm. I was only fooling about. Please.
Please!”
he begged, his voice now a high-pitched whine. He struggled furiously against his fastenings.

Andar didn’t in any way engage him, turning to Ubri who stood behind him, holding a plate of food. “Feed him if he will eat,” he said. “And something to drink.”

Ubri nodded and approached his stepbrother warily as though he might, at any moment, free himself from the bindings. He held a forkful of roast up to him but Bram turned his head away.

“Never mind then,” he said. “His choice.”

He turned to the boy and seized him firmly by the chin, turning his head so that he was forced to look him in the eye. “It is over, Bramwith,” he said. “In the morning, when the constable comes, you will be taken away. You can’t live here anymore, and you will never again come back here for any reason. We opened our hearts and our home to you, yet … ” his voice trailed off.

“Please, Mr. Gall,” he whimpered. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I love you. I love this family. Please, Mr. Gall, let me out for a little while. I need to relieve myself.”

Andar towered over him. “You will stay in that chair for the night. You may soil yourself, but that will be a small price to pay for your deeds this day.” He turned again to Ubri and said, “Gag him again. I will not have him shrieking like a screech owl and disturbing our guests.”

Ubri tried to reinsert the gag. Bramwith responded by trying to bite him, prompting Andar to knock him hard up side of the head, which stunned him. He took the gag away from Ubri and shoved it back in Bram’s mouth. “You will go and stay the night with your mother and Jubra. I will stay here with him.”

Ubri looked up at his father, his eyes sick with the horror of the terrible events of the day.

Andar patted him gently on the side of the head. “Go now,” he said. “It will be all right. Tell your mother what I have said. Go on.”

Ubri looked one last time at Bramwith, then walked slowly from the room, tears streaming down his face.

Ubri awoke early in the morning, hoping to speak to Bramwith before anyone got there, but when he entered the room it was already full of police officers. Bram was in irons and sobbing.

“Father,” said Ubri, “could we please speak alone? Outside?”

“Of course, son.”

“Would you please excuse us for a moment?” he directed towards the constable.

“Of course.”

Ubri and his father exited the room, and his father closed the door softly behind them.

“Father,” said Ubri. “Does he have to leave us? Where will he go? We’re the only family he has ever really known. What will happen to him?” As he spoke, his voice tightened more and more, and he became more and more anxious, walking briskly back and forth. As a lad of sixteen he felt he was old enough to have some say in this decision and was clearly pressing his father to reconsider. He stopped pacing and stood in front of him.

Andar didn’t answer for a while. He cleared his throat. He looked Ubri in the eye.

“Son,” he said. “We have always known that he had a dark side. It came out yesterday, and he might have killed your sister, my daughter. Probably not, but his behavior was way beyond what your mother and I are willing to accept in our home. Believe me, if there was any way we thought we could have him here, and have everybody safe, we would do it. But this type of thing
will
happen again. Maybe not tomorrow, and maybe not for the entire time he is with us, but that, son, is a risk your mother and I are not willing to accept. The decision is final. This is
our
home, and everyone in it plays by our rules. When you have a home of your own, I’m sure you’ll understand, but for now you’re going to have to accept it.”

Andar once again patted him softly on the side of the head, turned, and reentered the room in which Bramwith was now a prisoner.

Ubri stood there, stunned by the finality of it all. He felt like he wasn’t in his body. He and Bramwith had grown up together. They had shared a room, and laughed, and worked, and studied, and played together for all those years … They had been best friends. They had been brothers.

Overwhelmed by his emotions, he sat down with his back to the wall and put his head between his knees. This is how he remained until the constable and his deputies led Bram by him. He never looked up, and the last remembrance he had of Bram’s passing by was the smell of the filth in his drawers.

It had been years since they first went into hiding, and Saviar Murlis, former personal advisor to Hanz Oratorius Night and now Acting Emperor of Vultura, had made good use of the time, at least as far as the revolution was concerned. There were too many clandestine trips throughout the nation of Vultura, trying to organize the Gnomes into an underground network of freedom fighters, for him to remember. There had been more narrow escapes than he could count. Hundreds had died at the hands of the Trolls. The slightest suspicion of being associated with these freedom fighters was a death sentence. Conversely, the Trolls were averse to killing too many. After all, a dead slave doesn’t produce. But they had never caught up to Saviar Murlis and his family, thanks mainly to Turman Pandieth. They had lived on the run all that time, never spending more than a few nights in the same place.

Kerlix had done her best to keep up with the children’s studies, and in all the years they had been at this, had broken down only a few times over the difficulties associated with life on the lam.

He pressed his hands to his temples, as was his way when the stress of it all gave him headaches. “Kerlix,” he called out softly. She came from the next room, pausing in the doorway. “Have we any tea?”

She took a deep breath. “We have nothing: Nothing to eat and only water to drink. That’s it. Where is Turman Pandieth? He said he would be here yesterday.” She crossed the room and began to rub his neck. Seeing the strain on his face always made her sad. He had aged right in front of her. She knew their mission mattered so much more than the personal comfort to which they had grown accustomed before this difficult life had begun, but the thought that her children might become casualties in this underground resistance effort was almost too much to bear.

“I’m sure that he’ll be here today,” sighed Saviar.

“Assuming he hasn’t been killed or captured.”

“Yes,” he said.

“What is the backup plan if he fails to show? Our children need food.
We
need food. And we need to be on the move before we are discovered here.”

Saviar continued rubbing his temples. These were solemn issues. “Well,” he said, “I would be lying to you if I told you that there was a reasonable backup plan already in place, but unfortunately there is not. That is, of course, entirely my fault. I’m afraid I have all along just assumed that Pandieth would always be there for us.”

“I see,” she said.

“Well, we need one now. If he doesn’t show today, we’re going to have to take matters into our own hands. One of us is going to have to take the risk of leaving this place and securing food. Lofty ideals will not help to ease the rumblings of the bellies of our children. The cause, the cause, there are times when I am sick to death of the cause.”

There was a soft knock on the door, the knock Turman Pandieth always used. Kerlix jumped up to answer it, almost falling on her walk across the small room as the effects of their recent bout of food deprivation caused her to swoon. She cracked the door and saw it was he. “Praise the Old One,” she thought. She opened it and said, “Thank you for coming, Turman. We were afraid something had happened to you.”

Right away she noticed he was carrying a large sack of what she presumed to be foodstuffs. As he entered, she took it from him and peered inside. It was packed with dried fruits and vegetables, several varieties of nuts, smoked meats, potatoes, and a container of tea. There was even a large ham.

“You two go ahead and talk. I’m going to see if the children are awake.”

She wobbled from the room on unsteady legs. Turman noticed her strained gait and asked, “How are you faring?”

“I can’t lie to you. We are in rough shape, Turman. What was the reason for your delay?”

Turman took a seat opposite the rough-sawn table that separated them.

“The Trolls, of course. I was completely unable to use any of the usual routes. They are choked with them from Emperor’s Glenn to King’s Port. Even at night. They know that something is up and are killing on sight any of us that they catch out after dark”

“Where have you come from?”

“A week ago, Soledad. I used the Old Road down from there for much of it. That was the easiest leg. They don’t seem to have discovered it yet.

“I won’t lie to you, Saviar, the going was slow. It’s dangerous out there.

“A week before that, Kohansk. The Inn. Andar Gall’s place. He was the one who gave me the food, praise the Old One. We talked until late about the movement. He is presently unwilling to throw in with us, but said he would help us in any way he could. He is concerned about the well-being of his family. Not too many places to hide up there.