Betrayal in the Highlands (39 page)

It still doesn’t make any sense. Why would they kill her? They need her to get to you.

Unable to look at Molly’s bluish-grey face any longer, Edmund peered back the way they’d come.

She was headed northeast, not westward to Rood. Why?

His gaze drifted to the gruesome gash sliced across her stomach, white entrails covered with centipedes and ants.

Kravel must have meant to make her suffer. He didn’t kill her outright.

And even in her condition, she kept heading away from Rood
.
Why?

Maybe she was lost.

But she must have known she was headed toward the mountains. She could have climbed any of these hills and seen that.

Then she must have been following Kravel.

Following
…

Becky continued to root through the surrounding ferns and undergrowth, sniffing everything she could reach. Edmund felt Molly’s blood on the ground. It was dry.

Maybe two days old?

Swatting at the flies buzzing by his face, he got up, his legs tingling from lack of circulation.

“Two days. Maybe three.”

The destrier thrashed its tail, shifted its bulk, and nickered.

Edmund wiped away his tears and examined the trail heading northeast.

Kravel went that way. Him and maybe a couple of others, judging by the tracks.

They haven’t camped much.

And they won’t slow until they reach the mountains.

Catching up to them is going to be difficult, even with the horse. Especially in this terrain.

He frowned at Molly’s body.

What’re they doing? Why kill Molly? They were supposed to bring her back. That’s what their orders were; they were supposed to capture her and bring her back.

But they didn’t.

He rubbed his legs and sighed.

“So what now?” he said to himself.

Edmund leaned over and brushed the scurrying bugs from Molly’s unseeing eyes. “I’m sorry, Mol. I should have gotten you out of Rood as soon as we got there.” His chest heaved, but no more tears came. He had none left.

You tried to get her out. She wouldn’t come.

Then he remembered her begging.
Ed! Please. For God’s sake
…
please. Take us with you!
He could still hear the panic in her voice.
If Kravel finds us
…
if he learns where we are
…
he’ll
…

He’ll what? Kill her? Why didn’t they take her prisoner?

They did. Otherwise she’d be lying dead next to Norb.

Maybe they took her prisoner and she escaped.

Dragging his sleeve under his nose, Edmund again studied the direction they’d come.

Then why would she have been following them? Why?

It doesn’t matter.

He picked up his short sword lying in the weeds next to Molly’s body. “I’m going to make them pay for this. Somehow, I’m going to—”

“Well, well …” The voice had come from the trees to Edmund’s right.

Edmund spun.

Up a steep incline and leaning against a massive oak tree, Lester the Jester wiggled his pudgy fingers at him.

“Get away from me!” Edmund shouted. “Leave me the hell alone!”

Lester rolled his eyes. “You’re always so moody. Honestly, you need to work on that.” The dwarf started down the slope, boots sliding on the loose dirt. He covered his nose. “What stinks? By the gods, that’s horrible! What is it?”

Edith and Horic stepped out from behind the tree.

Glancing at Molly’s body, Edith shook her head in what might have been mock pity. “Another death. Shame.”

Edmund’s grip tightened around his sword hilt.

“You know, Edmund”—Horic used his cane to hobble gingerly to level ground—“you can stop all of this, all of these needless killings. You can make Kar-Nazar pay for what he’s done. You could eradicate the goblins once and for all.”

Brushing tears from his eye, Edmund pointed his sword at Horic. “Just leave me alone! Go! Go or I’ll, I’ll kill you. I’ll kill all of you!”

They smiled somewhat sympathetically at him.

“You?” Lester chuckled. “All by yourself? Against us?”

“You won’t kill us,” Edith said, trying to sound pleasant. “It’s not in your destiny. Trust me.”

Edmund stepped closer. He pointed his short sword at Horic, then at Edith, and then at Lester. “I’m not alone.”

Behind them, a deep growl rumbled out of the shadows. Yellow eyes glinted in the failing light. Becky crept from the undergrowth, appearing larger and more ferocious than before.

Smiles dropping, Horic, Edith, and Lester turned with a start. Even Edmund was unnerved; for a moment he thought he beheld some monster from the old northern mythologies.

Becky advanced. Edith and Lester backed away.

“Call off your werehound,” Horic said. “Call her off! We just want to talk.”

Werehound?

“Last time you wanted to talk, you tried to kill me,” Edmund said.

“A regrettable misunderstanding. Now call her off! If you don’t hear something to your advantage, we’ll go.”

“I want you to go now!”

Face twitching, Horic lifted a finger from his cane.

Edmund quickly stepped toward them. “Try to cast a spell and you’ll die! You might get me or Becky, but you can’t kill both of us at once!”

Horic paused. Edmund was now within thrusting range, and Becky could easily snap somebody’s neck in her powerful jaws.

He rested his old fingers back on the top of the cane.

“Give me five minutes,” Horic said. “Five minutes. That’s all I ask. Our lives depend upon it.
Your
life depends upon it!”

Becky drove through the bushes like an angry mother bear protecting her cub. Down the path, the destrier snorted and dug its hooves into the ferns.

“Becky,” Edmund said, “if they make a move, kill them. Start with the dwarf.”

“Me!” Lester cried. “Why me? I’m just standing here!”

“Because I don’t like you. I don’t like any of you, but you least of all. If you move, you die, do you understand? Rip their throats out, Becky, if they move.”

Becky drew closer and bared her teeth in a snarling half-smile.

“Horic.” Edith tilted her chin toward Edmund’s sword. “Look.”

Horic’s eyes went wide. “Where did you—?” And then he understood. “You made that, didn’t you?”

The black blade gleamed.

“It’s notched,” Edith said to Horic, puzzled. “I didn’t think that was possible—”

“I’ll give you one minute before I kill you.” Edmund placed the tip of his short sword against Horic’s chest. “If your fingers so much as twitch or begin to glow, I’ll cut your heart out. And believe me, this can slice through you like you were nothing.”

Lester flattened himself against the trunk of a tree, eyes squeezed shut, as Becky sniffed his face. Although it couldn’t have been possible, Becky stood nearly as tall as the quivering dwarf. In the dimness of the forest, power seemed to radiate from her grey fur.

Horic glowered at Edmund. “Very well.”

“Keep your hands where I can see them, Edith!” Edmund hollered. “I might not kill you, but Becky will.”

Sneering, Edith slowly withdrew her hand from the inside of her cloak.

“Hurry up and get this over with,” Edmund told Horic, trying to watch him and Edith at the same time. “I want you out of my life.”

You should just kill them. You’ll never have another chance like this.

I’m not going to kill in cold blood.

“We’re at war, Edmund,” Horic began. “It’s been going on a very long time, since before humans ever stepped foot on this continent, in fact.”

Edmund grunted a laugh. “War? What war?”

“Between the ordinary people and us magic users,” Edith said bitterly.

“There’s no—”

“You know the histories,” Horic said. “You know about the witch hunts and the crusades to exterminate our kind. You cannot deny that we fight for our very survival, not after what happened to your mother and father.”

My mother and father?

“He doesn’t know,” Edith said, reading his expression.

“What are you talking about?” Edmund pointed his sword at Edith and then again at Horic. “You don’t know a damned thing about my parents.”

“We know that your parents were killed because they were like you,” Horic said calmly. “Because they were like us.”

“Stop it!” Rage began to build. “My parents were nothing like you! My father stepped on a poisoned bear trap. My mother killed herself because she couldn’t save him!”

“Edmund—” Edith started.

“I don’t want to hear any of your lies!” Edmund’s breaths came hard and fast.

“You cannot deny that we’ve been hunted for centuries,” Horic said. “We’ve been burned at the stake, drowned—beheaded! You cannot deny any of these things ordinary humans have done to us!”

They waited for Edmund to respond, but he was far too furious to utter a word.

“We are at war,” Horic continued. “You could help us survive. That’s all we want—to survive.”

Much of what Horic said resonated in Edmund’s heart. All his life, he feared what would happen if ordinary people found out about his abilities, and after having been hunted by the goblins for so long, he could all too easily appreciate Horic’s desperation to live. But Edmund didn’t want to be like Horic. He wanted to live—but he didn’t want to kill.

“I’m not giving you the formula,” Edmund said.

Horic tensed. A cruelty flickered across his ancient face.

“I understand that you are planning to rebuild your home,” he said with a forced calmness. “That you are going to attempt to make this region your own kingdom.”

Still pinned against a tree, Lester chortled. “The king will never allow it.”

Becky snarled.

“Sorry!” The dwarf squeezed his eyes shut even tighter.

“Maybe …” The edges of Horic’s lips turned upward slightly. “Maybe we could arrange it, Edmund, for Lionel to give you these lands willingly. You could be the Lord of the Highlands, King even! You could—”

“I don’t want to be a king. I just want to be left alone.” Edmund shoved the tip of his sword against Horic’s chest again. He wanted to kill him but couldn’t unless they did something first. “Leave me alone!” he shouted. “Just leave me alone!”

Contempt filled Horic’s eyes as he studied Edmund’s blade.

“What do you think will happen,” he said slowly, “if everybody knew you were a magic user?”

Edmund’s blood ran cold.

Horic’s smile broadened.

“Exactly. They’d kill you. All of those men building your town would turn on you in an instant. Then it wouldn’t just be the Hiisi you’d have to worry about. You’d have no place to hide. They’d hunt you down, torture you to reveal everything you know, and then burn you alive.”

“They’re the ones who want to kill us,” Edith said. “We just want to be left alone—just like you, Edmund. But they won’t! They hunt us! They torture us until we turn in our friends and families. You can help stop—”

“Your minute is up,” Edmund shouted. “Now leave!”

Horic and Edmund glared at each other. The air grew very still.

“Go!” Edmund said. “Or you’ll die here.”

Horic gave Edmund’s black blade one final glance as he withdrew a pace. He rubbed where it had poked him in the chest. “Don’t make any more weapons like that one or it’ll be your own undoing.”

Turning, he motioned for Edith to follow him up the rocky slope, but she lingered behind.

“Tell me, Edmund,” she said coldly. “How did your mother hang herself if there wasn’t anything for her to step on?”

Edmund blinked. “What?”

“Or don’t you remember?” She smirked. “When you found her, there wasn’t a chair or a stool from which she could jump. And how’d she tie the rope to the branch?”

“Shut up,” he said.

Edith started climbing up the slope behind Horic. “And your father,” she added over her shoulder. “Odd that a trailsman of such great renown would step on a bear trap. Or perhaps he wasn’t as brilliant as all the tales have led us to believe.”

Tales? About my father?

“Come on, Lester,” Horic shouted. “Time to leave Edmund to his doom.”

Lester whimpered, still pinned against the tree by Becky. “I … I can’t!”

Don’t think about anything they just told you. They’re planting thoughts in your head. You know what happened to your mother and father. You know—you were there!

“Call off your werehound, Edmund,” Horic said.

Edmund patted his thigh. Now looking every bit like a large, gangly puppy, Becky bounded over to him, pink tongue hanging out of her mouth. She sat next to him.

Lester straightened his clothing. “Stupid dog,” he grumbled. “Next time we meet, I’ll—”

Becky leapt to her feet and spun toward the dwarf.

“All right! All right! I’m going!” Lester scurried up the slope after the two librarians.

Don’t think about anything they just said. Ignore it.

He gazed down at Molly’s insect-infested body.

You have other things to worry about.

“Edmund,” Horic called from somewhere in the growing darkness. “When all of your friends turn into enemies, seek us out. We’ll help you—if you help us.”

“Sh-shut up and go!” Edmund shouted.

“Sh-shut up and go!” the dwarf mimicked. “Stuttering idiot.”

“Becky,” Edmund said. “Attack.”

Barking and snarling, Becky bolted through the undergrowth and up the hill, but the three magic users were no longer there.

Epilogue

It was difficult to dig in the forest without a shovel; Edmund kept hitting rocks and roots every few inches. After a couple of hours, however, he’d managed to raise a small earthen mound over Molly’s pungent remains. Not enough to keep animals from digging her up, but Edmund didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think about anything.

When he’d finished, he stood by the shallow grave, trying not to cry anymore. Moonlight shone between tree branches. He looked up the northeastern trail. Kravel was going to escape. He knew that. It was a long way to the mountains, but goblins were quick and they rarely tired. Moreover, the terrain would continue to hinder his horse’s progress. Taking the massive destrier was a mistake, he now realized. A smaller, more nimble horse would have suited him better.