The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (8 page)

One of the other gem crates shuddered
slightly. Halimaldie heard a muffled scraping sound coming from
within it. Before he could grab his torch from the wall, before he
could even move, the side burst open. A slimy cavalcade of cracked
wood and oily-black gemstones skittered onto the floor and
something man-sized tumbled out.

At first Halimaldie took it for a slimy
black sea creature of some sort, but as it unfolded itself he knew
it was something else. Eight appendages – it was hard to tell what
were arms and what were legs – stretched out long and thin in the
small cargo hold, and then a head on a stalk of a neck folded up
silently. Eyes that were somewhere between human and animal peered
at him.

For a moment it appeared the thing was
stunned, or at least blinded, perhaps adjusting to the brightness
of the torch. It was this pause that Halimaldie would later credit
with saving his life. In this brief moment of time a few things
happened: Halimaldie reached for his twin daggers, the creature did
something akin to cracking its knuckles, and Telin Lightbearer
arrived.

Well, arrived wasn't exactly the right word.
One minute he wasn't there and the next minute he was.

The unnatural is hitting me
in waves today
, Halimaldie
thought.

Telin had a small shield
and a short sword. The smaller weapons looked odd in his hands, but
Halimaldie realized that anything larger would be useless down
here. A long sword would just as likely stick into a wooden beam
than your enemy.
These Kingsguardians know
their shit, that's for sure. Even if they do jam their noses into
everyone's affairs . . .

Telin surged forward, a gust of air whipping
up around him. He dodged one thin black appendage that streaked
through the air and blocked another with his shield. The arm went
straight through the wood and became stuck there. Telin allowed his
shield to be ripped away, maneuvering in even closer as he shed it.
His sword became light in his hands, whipping so fast that
Halimaldie couldn't even see the blade. Two long, thin arms fell to
the ground and something that looked like tar poured from the
severed ends.

The creature shrieked. It was deafening in
the small hold, but it was cut off quickly as Telin's sword –
basically just a flashing beam of light now – streaked from top to
bottom, cleaving the creature in half and then becoming imbedded in
the floor of the cargo hold.

In that time, Halimaldie had been able to
draw only one of his daggers, and he didn't even have a very sure
grip on it. “Holy hell,” he said.

“Unholy, more like,” Telin said.

“The fuck
was
that
thing?”

“Foglin.” The Kingsguardian wrenched his
sword from the floor, wiped the coffee from it, and sheathed it in
his belt. “We burn this ship. Tell your men that pirates have taken
the most important cargo from under us. You understand cover
stories, I assume.”

“F-Foglin? I'd never known . . . I'd never
seen . . .”

“Think the Vaporgaard just mess around down
south, do ya?” Telin grabbed the torch off the wall. “Get everyone
off this ship. Now. This has become a matter of kingdom security
and is well beyond a simple luxury goods delivery.”

“My gems,” Halimaldie said.

“If you would like to open these other
crates, be my guest.” Telin gestured to the three remaining
boxes.

Halimaldie shuddered. He breathed deeply as
he slipped his silver dagger back into its sheath. He looked at the
creature on the ground. “You knew the whole time,” he said.

“Knew? No. Suspected? Yes. We Kingsguard
don't mess around either, do ya see. Hard to get one of us involved
in a merchant operation - even one so big as this - less we ken
something. There've been attacks that don't make sense. Come from
nowhere. Many people slaughtered.” The Kingsguardian lit one of the
crates on fire.

“I never heard of any attacks,” Halimaldie
said.

“Not everything sees the
light of day." As Telin lit the body of the creature on fire it
crackled and withered in the heat. The smoke it gave off smelled
terrible. “Not everything
can
see the light of day, if ya catch. Leave,
Halimaldie. You are swept up in this now, like a feather in a
storm. Expose this and likely your business will go down with it.
No one likes to know that the merchants of Haroma are aiding
Foglins.”

“But I haven't been! Is that a-”

“Yes,” Telin said sharply. “It's a threat.”
The room was starting to fill with smoke. “Someone, perhaps myself,
will be to your mansion to speak with you regarding all you have
seen tonight. There are ways in which we can benefit each other,
Halimaldie.” Telin gestured to the door.

“How do I explain the burning of this
ship?”

“You will find a way. If all else fails,
deny that the ship is burning at all.” Telin smirked. “The greater
the lie, the more readily will people devour it.”

“Don't burn yourself to a crisp down here,”
Halimaldie said.

The look that Telin gave Halimaldie seemed
meant to inform him that Kingsguardians couldn't die by mere
fire.

One of the crates shuddered and Halimaldie
turned and ran for his life.

W
hen Halimaldie was younger, he had never quite envisioned he
would be in the situation he was in right now. As an overweight man
of forty-odd years, he was panting through the hold of a burning
cargo ship having just been attacked by a Foglin.
A Foglin!

“Some sort of incendiary trap,” Halimaldie
said as he came up on deck, coughing and wheezing. “The gems are
lost. We need to get off this ship immediately.”

The sell-swords ran down the gangway and –
as the great vessel burned - that was the last of the ship's
problems.

But only the beginning of Halimaldie's.

I
t
had all gone so badly last week. The more Wren thought about how
she had handled things, the worse she felt. Her plan had been
idiotic at best. If she would have just stayed home. If she
wouldn't have gone to get that stupid horse blanket. If she hadn't
come in the back door. The ifs piled on top of one another in her
head. And to top it all off she couldn't release the shame that
burned inside of her.

A few days ago she had trapped a mouse under
a wooden pail, then carefully reached under and snagged it. Holding
it in her hands, she stretched its neck until it was just about to
pop. But something stopped her. She had dropped it and let it go.
Her pain, her shame, remained lodged in her heart.

And her pain reminded her how disgusting she
felt.

Wren remembered laying on
the bed, too disturbed to move at all. She might have slept naked
that night. She couldn’t remember clearly. Maybe she'd had the
strength to pull the blanket back over herself. That was how
she
liked
to
think about it.

At least it hadn't happened since.

It was time for planting at the Hartfield
farm. Spring was the right time to be sowing seeds. Her father had
been out in the fields from the first hint of sunlight to the last
for the past week, working with horse and plow. Farmhands were
around to help, too. Mostly they made nice with Wren. They called
her 'little lady' and all sorts of other things that made her skin
crawl. Her father was always joking with the farmhands out in the
fields.

So he hasn't had time for
me.

It was a wet day out. It was always wet
around this time of year. Wren's boots squelched in the mud,
getting sucked in and almost coming off, just as they had a week
ago.

Shhhhluck.

Shhhhluck.

“Dammit,” she swore under her breath.

She had many jobs, but right now it was
bringing water for everyone out in the fields. The heavy buckets
sloshed in her strong grip, one in each hand. She had spit in the
bucket she was planning to have her father dip from.

She could see the men just off in the
distance now. Mud made things tough going for them, but planting
time was planting time and the weather didn't wait for anyone. It
wasn't raining right now, but it had been drizzling earlier.

She would deliver these buckets and then go
see what she could do about dinner. Stew wasn't hard to make: slop
a bunch of different ingredients into a pot and hope for the best.
Stew was all she could do on her own for a crew this large. Maybe
cornbread, if she really worked at it.

Other farmers had mothers, wives, and
sisters to do this kind of thing, but Wren was all alone here. Last
year some women had shown up to help with things, but not this
time. Wren wondered why, but wasn't really too concerned. She would
do what needed to be done and then get out of the way by scampering
back into the kitchen.

She reached where the men were plowing and
planting. There were ten altogether, including her father. There
had been more on other days, but her father had known they would
finish the planting today, so yesterday he had sent the other men
on to do work elsewhere.

Wren set the buckets down and the men came
over.

“Thanks, princess,” said a tall man Wren had
never seen before.

“She is, isn't she?” said her father. Wren's
eyes went dull at the compliment. “Hard worker, too.”

“Can tell,” said another man she didn't
recognize. One of his eyes was totally white.

Don't look at me with one
eye. Don't look at me at all.

In fact, there was only one
man that Wren recognized. His name was Jon Hatfeld. He was maybe
forty years old and his face was weathered. Deep cracks and
crevices ran in his skin giving him the illusion that he was always
smiling. She didn't feel any enmity towards him.
Good for Jon Hatfeld
,
she thought.
He can have the trust of Wren
Hartfield, for what it's worth.

She actually found that she had some good
memories of Jon. As far back as she could remember he had been
coming here in the spring. He had a deep voice and didn't say
annoying things. He had lost his wife, too, just like Wren's father
had. Seasonal help came and went, but Jon Hatfeld was almost always
there.

The men took turns drinking from the dipper
and soon they had sucked down all the water Wren had brought.

He drank the
spit-water!
Wren felt excited that at
least one of her plans had worked. She felt . . . she felt . .
.

A wave of nausea and dizziness swept over
her and she fell to her knees. The world spun and twisted around
her. Suddenly every smell was magnified. The stench of the earth,
the men, the air itself. She dry-heaved a few times, her sides
aching from the effort, tears forming in her eyes. Jon Hatfeld and
her father rushed over to her.

“You alright?” her father asked, hauling her
up by her armpits.

She resisted the urge to shove him away
because she didn't want to cause a scene in front of the men. “I
think so,” she managed to mutter.

“Been workin' her too hard,” Jon said. “Wren
needs a break.”

That was another thing she liked about Jon.
He used her name.

“Tell ya what. We're almost done here,” her
father said, looking around and pushing his hat back from his
forehead. There was a streak of mud where it had been sitting.
“Another hour more and we might finish this. Hat, take her back to
the farm and make sure she's alright.”

Wren started to protest, then her stomach
contorted and she vomited.

“T
here's a carnival near the outskirts of Marshanti,” Jon said.
He was slowly stirring the pot that bubbled over the fire. Tasty
smells wafted out of it. Soon the men would be in from the field
and they would be hungry. Jon had helped Wren make the bean stew,
doing all that she had asked of him.

The bout of nausea had passed once they had
gotten near the house and Wren had been able to drink some water.
Planting time was hard on her. Hard on everyone.

“A carnival?” she asked.

“Yeah. If your father and the men finish the
planting, well . . . maybe we could go. You, me, and your dad. Love
to take a little vacation 'fore I have to head back to my place in
the south.”

“Who would look after the animals?”

“We'd find someone, Wren. It's obvious you
and your father both need to get away from here. It's the look in
your eyes, you know? Farmers know.”

Wren almost confessed
everything right then and there to the man in the field-filthy
clothes, but something stopped her tongue. She had never been near
Marshanti.
I've never been near anywhere.
Especially not the largest city in Shailand! And a carnival . . .
don't they have animals that do tricks?
She'd heard stories of giant things called Graybeasts. If she
could get her hands on one of them . . .

“Think you can convince my dad?”

“Hell,” Jon said. “That'll be easy. Cole
used to love them things – carnivals, I mean - back in the day.
That was twenty years ago, maybe. Way before you were born,
Wren.”

Her father rarely spoke of his past. And the
time period around her mother's death was very off-limits. Wren
didn't remember her mother, so naturally she had been curious. She
had started asking questions when she was six years old, but her
father had dismissed them very quickly and had let her know with a
whupping that that time in his life was not to be talked about.

“If he loved it back then, I'm not so sure
he still will,” Wren said.