Blessings and Trials (Exiles and Sojourners Book 1) Page 4

  “Then tend to your dear children you have left. Make sure they do their jobs, or I will kill you and devour them once they are orphans.”

  The spideress replied softly, “Yes, mighty Exile. Your wish is my command, oh great Eater of the Unwanted.” Her voice become even softer as she muttered curses in the language of the eight-legged.

  The Eater of the Unwanted turned to the doorway next to where it had sent Kuruskos and headed through. It glided slowly along in its wreath of smoke. Smooth stone on the ceiling and walls betrayed this complex as the work not of pick and axe but of a stoneshaper, a Son of Soru. Given the lack of ornament and the half-circle shapes of the tops of the doorways, the Eater guessed it was Kaladarian Legion work. Not that the Eater had a great deal of architectural knowledge, but it had been in Kaladar for a time and it knew their Legion had briefly stretched their might this far. That was back when Abzu the Wise had guided the Kaladarians in the creation of the Wildmen.

  The Eater wondered how its own Wildmen were doing down in the village at the bottom of the hill. It hadn’t hired the Wildmen itself, but had been given them as troops by the Pale Lady. She apparently had connections to a tribe or two of the beastly half-breeds. The Eater admitted to itself that the Wildmen did have the advantage of being local. No doubt, they were breaking things and killing people, hopefully even the right things and people. They had been created for this sort of work after all.

  At the first closed door, the Eater of the Unwanted pushed and found it locked. It had not been created for this sort of work originally, but the Eater found breaking things and killing people to be an enjoyable occupation. A few quick bashes and the simple lock gave way easily, as if it was there more for formality than actual security. Unfortunately, from the Eater’s perspective, the room was unoccupied. Three walls had two recessed sleeping vaults in each, typical of Legion barracks. The straw mattresses from these were leaned against the wall by the door.

  “Better make sure,” the Eater cackled with glee. It shredded all six of the straw mattresses. Some of the floating tatters caught fire drifting through the Exile’s burning center. Watching the brutalized bedding smolder and then burn was beautiful to the Eater’s eyes. If only I could draw strength from the destruction of unwanted furniture as effectively as unwanted creatures. Oh and while I’m making wishes, if I could find a widow or an orphan, or sweetest of all an expectant mother who doesn’t want to be expecting... Red orange flames licked up hungrily at its charred rib cage.

  All the Eater found in this passageway were empty sleeping quarters and storerooms, all in tidy order. It left them in smoldering disarray.

  At a tee in the passage, the Eater smeared a greasy charcoal glyph onto the stone using the tip of its burnt finger. It was a sign to Kuruskos or any of the spideresses that followed. Then, it took the left branch.

  Rounding a corner, the Eater found stairs leading upward. The Exile knew what it would find there. “Sure enough,” it hissed at the door it found knocked off its hinges. “Sloppy and half done, just like Kuruskos. Does he take no joy in his work?” the Eater asked while stabbing a mattress. With certainty that no flesh and blood treasures would be found, it could not bring itself to search where Kuruskos had been. So, it returned the way it had come. Little did the Eater know what it had thereby missed: a two-story room full of very flammable scrolls and books. The illiterate and not so gleefully destructive Kuruskos had ignored it. The Eater of the Unwanted would have relished destroying it.

  Moving with an eerie grace back past its glyph, the Eater took the other branch at the intersection. The wall of the passage was already marked with Kuruskos’s sign, a pair of wings. “Well, I already knew you’d been this way, you dolt,” the Eater growled at the mark as if it were the other Exile. “Which way did you go in the next passage? Didn’t think that was important enough information to signal to me?” The Eater promised itself again it would be more discriminating selecting future contracts.

  The frustrated Exile decided to head right, as the floor sloped ever so gently that way. Finally, after a mind-numbing number of corners, stairways, and half-heartedly searched rooms, it found its fellow Exile. The Eater almost launched into a diatribe about proper procedure during a search, but what Kuruskos was doing roused its curiosity too much.

  Kuruskos was crouched down, looking through the keyhole of a solid wooden door. Unlike all other doors they had found so far, this one had a line of light spilling out underneath it.

  The Eater whispered, “What do you see, Kuruskos?”

  Kuruskos was accustomed to courier work. Despite other exotic powers, his ability to fly and his availability had landed him this dirty piece of work in this dirty little backwater. Both Exiles wished the Pale Lady had managed to entice a third Exile to join them. They were not exactly enjoying one another’s company. Kuruskos took a longer than necessary pause before answering the Eater.

  Despite its dislike of Kuruskos, the Eater admitted to itself, We are two Exiles, and that really should be sufficient to finish this job. Even if this winged nitwit is incompetent with basic weaponry.

  Kuruskos’s leathery black wings rustled as he turned his handsome face over his shoulder. Leaning on his shofar like a cane, he stood up and rolled his shoulders back. “It is their temple or whatever they call that kind of room. I think I’ve figured out what happened to the first attack group.” He pointed at the keyhole with the tip of the horn. “See for yourself.”

  Both Exiles were hazy on the local history. They knew the Pale Lady had long hated this little outpost on the southern edge of her lands, even before the universally despised sect of “Sojourners” had tried to take up occupancy. A recent offense had roused the Pale Lady’s ire to the point where she hired some mercenaries to wipe out the Sojourners. She invited challenges from rivals and rebels alike if she looked weak. To her great horror, her mercenaries were annihilated, making her look worse than before.

  That was where Kuruskos and the Eater came in. According to the Pale Lady, skybeast riders had ambushed the mercenaries. She had wanted some way to counter the skybeasts and a more experienced military leader. The Pale Lady, while much more powerful than the web mother, was also a shardbearer. The One Who Thirsts, her patron Exile Lord, had contacted Kuruskos and the Eater. Rewards were negotiated and a contract signed.

  As the Eater of the Unwanted bent down and peered with a yellow bloodshot eye through the keyhole, Kuruskos gave it his informed opinion of what it was seeing.

  “It looks like a Faithful Slave with a flaming sword. If he was here during the first assault, he certainly could have routed a bunch of disorganized mercenaries.”

  The Eater carefully took in every detail of the being that it saw through the keyhole. The Faithful Servant’s presence dominated the room behind the door. He possessed a body that could have been a great sculptor’s finest work chiseled from white marble. His hair looked like ringlets of pale gold. Spreading from his shoulders were wide, feathery wings so white they seemed to glow. In his right hand, this being held a sword hilt that had a jagged dancing flame where the blade should have been. The fire seemed always to be burning with a new and different hue.

  “It wasn’t a rout, it was a massacre,” replied the Eater. “Though, I doubt any of the Pale Lady’s men were willing to surrender. I hear she’s not exactly forgiving to those who fail her. The Wildmen can get into a blood rage. They wouldn’t have given up either, though Sojourners are supposed to consider Chosen as abominations against their Lord. Perhaps they wiped them out for that reason. I’m sure our Wildmen are extracting a fair price for each of their dead down in the village.”

  As the Eater took one last look at their radiant-winged opponent through the keyhole, it thought regretfully, A few Wildmen here instead of in the village would greatly help. They were Imperial shock troops for Kaladar once upon a time. I wish I’d seen that autonomy clause in the contract. Who gives their mercenaries autonomy clauses? What are these lunatics in the North doing? Abzu k
new how to treat his own creations.

  Abzu the Wise and his wizard shardbearers had considered their pet experiments successful when the Wildmen were able to slay Exiles in Legion battles under strict control. However, that had been a long time ago.

  “There is something else you may not be able to see,” added Kuruskos. “I haven’t seen them since my first peep, but they are still there I believe: a Wildman and a small group of children. The Wildman is hiding in the shadows off by the altar, dressed in Sojourner’s robes. I’m certain he isn’t one of ours. He seems to be wielding a strange sword, nothing like the stone axes and clubs our Wildmen had. The children are back there with him as well.”

  Even with their success in battle, the Wildmen did not last in Kaladar. A faction opposing Abzu and favorable to Sojourners had risen to power and tried to wipe out the “abominable” Wildmen. Finding this too difficult, they relocated the Wildmen north of an arid waste called the Great Cauldron. The desert scrubland provided a buffer between Kaladar and their former soldiers’ new homelands.

  Abzu reclaimed power, but he never brought the Wildmen back. Over the next three centuries, the burly, violent refugees had formed villages and loyal clans. The Wildmen attacking the village were seeking revenge for the deaths of their clanmates in the earlier assault. The Eater admitted, That vengeance would be useful against that Faithful Slave.

  The Eater of the Unwanted raised its blackened, hairless brows as it looked through the keyhole, “Did you say there are children? Surely their parents have been slain by now, and I haven’t eaten a Son of Enoch or a Daughter of Ana since that paltry old beggar woman we found half way to this godforsaken pit in the ground.” The Eater’s flames twisted like hands nervously grasping the air. “Bah! I can barely see anything besides that overblown candle with wings in front. Are you sure there are children there?”

  “Yes, but I am not sure of their parents. That Wildman certainly seems to still want them though. Doesn’t that spoil the meal for you?” Kuruskos asked in disgust.

  He turned toward the wall, both to hide his expression and continue something he had been working on. Lifting the tip of the ram’s horn, he continued drawing on the wall in faintly glowing lines. The picture already had the basic shape of a door and he was adding details. Any task that distracted him from his distasteful companion was welcome. Especially this task, since it might allow him to survive this mission.

  “Hmm... Technically, yes. Wanted children do not feed my fires. Though what Exile doesn’t enjoy destroying any of those sniveling interlopers? Enoch and his kin should have never been here,” muttered the Eater of the Unwanted. “But, if that Wildman is the only one doing the wanting, he doesn’t have to be long for this world. Besides, the Pale Lady’s terms were no survivors or no rewards. I suppose we’ll have to kill the whole crew.”

  “I don’t know what you were promised,” coughed Kuruskos in horror. “But, nothing would be enough to get me to step into a room with that Faithful fool and his burning blade. Not to mention, Wildmen used to kill us in battle when they fought for Kaladar. Oh, Abzu would have gotten the upper hand against the other Exile Lords if he could have kept his Wildmen and Legions together.”

  After pausing for a moment, Kuruskos continued, “Listen, the agony on the edge of Heaven is too much of a price to pay for such an obviously avoidable situation. I’ve almost finished my portal to that door beside their altar.” He tapped the picture of the door on the wall. “I’ll step through and come out into whatever room or hallway is beyond it, and they will be none the wiser.”

  In Kuruskos’ opinion, his unique ability to create portals linking to doors was easily his most useful ability. He groaned to himself, But no, I had to be hired for this insanity because I can fly. Now there is a burning blade and its Faithful Servant involved. I did not sign on for this. Why couldn’t they have just hired a skybeast and rider instead? Actually, I know why. There is no place that a skybeast could take off from around here except the tower we’re attacking. That wouldn’t have worked. It’s my own fault for agreeing to this. It’s my own fault for going along with the Prince in the first place. What was I thinking?

  “Don’t be such a coward, Kuruskos,” the Eater spat out at his fellow Exile. “We can’t leave them alive. Besides, I am not damaged by fire—not even that Faithful’s sword can burn me.”

  “What good will that do me? You know I cannot fight like you can,” protested Kuruskos. He added with a hint of confusion, “Why is that Wildman helping that Faithful anyway? Isn’t a Wildman an ‘abomination’ to them? I thought those Faithful Slaves were supposed to kill all abominations on sight? And why haven’t any of the men been terrified like they should have been? You were right about that earlier. It all makes no sense.”

  “I don’t keep track of the habits of the Faithful. There are so few of them anyway. I do know the Old Sorcerer’s pet soldiers were turned loose so long ago they’ve gone completely feral.” The Eater of the Unwanted had been kicking around the northern lands more than Kuruskos had in the last few centuries. “I am sure there are some litters, or broods or whatever they’re called, somewhere between abomination and human. Perhaps this one just looks like a Wildman, but is actually more an ugly man. It doesn’t matter, because he’ll be dead in a few moments. Remember, they’ve only ever killed Exiles in the middle of battles. They outnumbered Gorram when they got him, and he was an idiot to start with. There’s only one in there. You’ll be fine, and my fires will soon be full. Trust me, I have a plan.”

  CHAPTER 3 - SURVIVORS

  23rd of Sorun, 2nd Year, 31st Aion

  “The Faithful Servants of the King of the Celestial City are ciphers. They seem to favor the heretical Sojourner sect, which makes sense because both groups deny the divinity of our Exile Lords. Yet, there are recorded instances when Faithful Servants could have intervened on the behalf of Sojourners, but did not. Perhaps the most obvious example is the supposed presence of a large group of them watching the death of the founder of the Sojourner cult. The one who is not to be named supposedly spoke about their presence while he hung on the tree, at least according to some accounts in the Sojourner ‘scriptures.’”

  -Most Reverend Princept Ärlig Ullwitt, Enemies Among Us

  Ingrid, Gwyndolyn, and Litharus ran through the stone passageways. Vänlig’s last exhortation rang in their ears. The burning sensation in her lungs helped keep Ingrid’s mind off her fears for her grandfather. Practically running into each other, they stopped in front of a plain door they knew well.

  Litharus reached up and knocked politely while gasping for breath. There was no answer from behind the door. Litharus tried pushing on it. “Dargar might be asleep, and if he is we need to wake him,” the boy tried to explain his rude behavior.

  Gwyndolyn noted wryly, “We’d hear him snoring in there if he was asleep. I don’t think he’s here.”

  Ingrid added urgently, “We should just go. Come on. My grandfather told us not to stop.”

  “Alright, let’s go,” agreed Litharus. “My mother is down in the village. She’ll know what to do. I wish my father was still here though. That would be even better.”

  So, they kept going. The tunnel to the village was through the sanctuary and past a few rooms. The hallway leading to the sanctuary was wide, with many joining passages along its length. Gwyndolyn imagined spiders leaping out of each dark doorway she passed and it terrified her into running faster. Litharus imagined the same thing, but it excited him. He did not have a flat pan like Master Ullwitt did. Instead, he had his father’s old legion-issue knife on his belt that would do in a pinch.

  Ingrid was just trying not to imagine anything as they came to the heavy sanctuary door. Every time she let her mind wander, it went back to her grandfather. Her mother and father were safely away in the free city of Fireheart with two thirds of their settlement. She need not worry about them, though some illogical part of her desperately wished they were here to hold her and tell her it would be all right. />
  Litharus moved close to the door and leaned down a little. He touched the lock plate near the door handle and closed his eyes. In his mind, he let his awareness flow out through his fingers, through the metal of the lock, and into the bolt holding closed the door. With more concentration and effort than he would have liked to admit, Litharus pulled the bolt back into the mechanism of the lock. It was as natural to him as running was for a normal twelve-year-old boy. He was not careful where he made the metal flow, and he hoped his mother would never examine the workmanship of this application of his Blessing. She was a stonewright as well, and quite adept.

  Opening the door, Litharus looked quickly into the sanctuary. Seeing no dangers, the boy stood aside and let the two girls enter first. They walked through the door and out onto a landing at the back of the long, cross-shaped room. To the right, stairs descended down to the floor of the cavernous sanctuary. Like all the others in the underground complex, the room was lit by crystals charged with fire by the flamewrights of Fireheart.

  Toward the front of the room, facing away from them, a glowing figure with feathery white wings was sitting cross-legged. All the children knew, from the way he was holding wings over his face, that this being’s eyes were closed in meditative contemplation. This was Haliel, the last of the three Faithful Servants who had been at the settlement when the first attack occurred. The other two had guarded and guided two of the previous skyships. Haliel was scheduled to leave with the last skyship at the end of the month, just like the three Blessed children.

  Litharus and Ingrid had both wanted to shout out, “Haliel, come quick!” Seeing his meditative posture, they knew it would be no good. Once a Faithful Servant was communing with the Wandering Isle, there was little anyone could do to wake them short of physically harming them.