Keeper of the Realms: The Dark Army (Book 2) (22 page)

Nudging Sic Boy through the crowd, Jensen headed to a quieter side street to mull things over.

‘Wot ta do?’ murmured Jensen. ‘Wot ta do, wot ta do?’

Hundreds of different ideas and possible solutions clashed and clamoured through his thoughts, none of which seemed realistic or even viable. In the search for inspiration he studied the merchant’s stall on the other side of the street, and it was there that he saw the flash of gold and the twinkle of coins as money changed hands.

A small smile tugged at Jensen’s lips.

Jensen was the largest dealer of Moreish powder in both Bellania and Earth. He had made his fortune from trade and it had made him the foremost merchant prince in Sylvaris. It was time he remembered that.

Heeling Sic Boy round, he made his way towards the city bank. He had a transaction to make.

30

The Proclamation

Nibbler disturbed Charlie’s concentration and Crumble’s demonstration.

‘I’m not sure what you guys are doing, but I think we need to get our bearings, have something to eat and discuss how we’re going to continue. Charlie, if you’re still dead-set on facing Bane in the Western Mountains –’

‘I am.’

‘Then we need to come up with a plan.’

‘Can we not stay here until you settle upon a direct course of action?’ asked Crumble. ‘And if you are hungry there’s still one more rabbit to be cooked.’

Nibbler squirmed before answering. ‘I, uh, had some growing pangs in the middle of the night so I, er –’

‘Nibbler’s trying to tell you that he’s already yammed the rabbit,’ said Charlie.

‘Well … yes. I did.’

‘That matters not, Winged One,’ said Crumble. ‘You are most welcome to eat your fill. Perhaps I can catch some more later.’

‘To be honest, I think we need more than food,’ urged Nibbler. ‘We need supplies, particularly if we’re going to
have to walk to the Western Mountains. Roughing it beneath the stars is OK for one night, but not all the time. We’re going to need blankets and, er … you know what? I’ve never gone camping before. I’m sure we’re going to need stuff, I just don’t know what.’

‘I’ve a good idea of what we’ll need,’ said Crumble.

Nibbler looked relieved. ‘Great, so where can we get it from?’

‘We could go to my village –’

‘No,’ interrupted Charlie with a determined look on her face. ‘I don’t want to get your family involved. I’ve lost too much of my own life to risk anyone else’s.’

‘But –’

‘No,’ repeated Charlie. ‘That’s final and there’s no room for negotiation on this.’

Such was the look of determination on her face that neither Crumble nor Nibbler voiced any further protest.

‘So what do you want to do then?’ asked Crumble.

‘We need a village or a small town. Somewhere where we can get our hands on the stuff we need and a place where we can find out how close we can get to the Western Mountains with a Portal before Bane’s barrier kicks in and we have to start walking. That is unless you already know the answer to that, Crumble?’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about Keeper stuff or how Bane manages to block Portals.’ Crumble shrugged. ‘I can’t help you with that I’m afraid.’

‘No problem. Nibbler and I will find that out. Can you suggest or take us to a town? It needs to be big enough to have shops or a market, but not so big that we need to
worry about stumbling across a garrison of soldiers or any more angry Stonesingers.’

‘Hmmm … there’s Opal Hold. It’s more of a big village than a town, but we can get supplies there.’

‘How far away is it?’

Crumble pointed to the top of the canyon wall. ‘With all the canyons to cross it would take us most of the day to reach, but if we were to stand there we would be able to see it in the distance.’

‘OK, let’s do that.’

‘What, climb the canyon? Why would you want to do that?’

‘Well, if I can see it it’ll make it easier to open a Portal.’

‘I thought you said you couldn’t open one near the Western Mountains.’

‘Well, yeah, that’s true, but I opened a Portal with Darkmount right next to the Stubborn Citadel and according to what you said last night that’s closer to the Western Mountains than where we are right now. If I could open one there it’s not going to be difficult opening one here, so let’s save the walking until we really have to. But we’ll have to climb up there – I don’t want to waste any of my Will.’

Charlie and Crumble scaled the side of the canyon while Nibbler flapped to the top with several lazy beats of his wings. Following Crumble’s outstretched arm to where the crags and gullies began to blur together into a dark line Charlie could just discern a group of buildings, but distance blurred any detail.

‘That’s it,’ acknowledged Crumble.

‘Can you describe it to me?’ asked Charlie. ‘It’s not easy to make out from here.’

‘There are two roads that run from north to south and east to west and where they meet is a small square that they use for festivals and market days.’

Charlie had shut her eyes. ‘Can you describe any buildings on the outskirts? It might be best if we don’t open the Portal in front of everyone.’

Crumble scrunched his eyes shut so he could better recall his last journey to Opal Hold. ‘If memory serves me true there’s an old statue of Hook the Thunderer in a sheltered rock garden on the far side of town from us.’

‘Got it,’ said Charlie and tore the air open.

Crumble eyed the Portal with slight misgivings. Through it they could make out a small garden.

‘I’ve never been through one of these. Does it … hurt?’

‘To step through? No. Let’s go.’

Pushing through the Portal they found themselves next to a looming statue of a Stoman bishop poised in mid leap, his cloak flung out behind him. Around him was the rock garden itself. Charlie gaped in wonder as she took in the sight.

‘How?’ she began. ‘How can this be?’

The flowers and bushes were all crystalline, with petals and leaves that glittered and glistened in the early morning sunshine. Reaching over Charlie touched a petal – it was hard and cold to the touch.

‘You’ve never seen a rock garden before?’ enquired Crumble.

‘I’ve never seen anything like this before. How can you have plants like this?’

‘Ah, they’re not plants, well not in the Treman sense,
which I think is what you’re used to. These are rock flowers and can only be teased from a stone or rock by stonesinging.’

‘So they’re real, though? I mean they’ll reproduce and seed like normal plants, right?’

‘No. Well, technically yes, but it would take more time than you and I ever have to see a rock flower produce seeds.’

‘How much time?’ asked Charlie, her curiosity unfulfilled.

‘The village elders say it would take eleven lifetimes to see a rock flower reproduce.’

Charlie gazed at the small garden with a smile of delight. ‘Amazing,’ she whispered.

‘The village is this way,’ said Crumble, leading Charlie and Nibbler from the small hollow that held the rock garden.

Rounding a bend, Opal Hold was revealed. It had a quiet country village feel to it, one that Charlie, as a city girl, was not familiar with but could instantly recognize. What was unfamiliar was the type of house. Like the Treman city of Sylvaris, everything looked organic, but here the buildings had been made from stone and rock. Dark sandy-coloured structures reared upward – tall buildings that looked like they had been shaped by aeons of wind – and smaller low-slung buildings with domed roofs crouched below them. All the buildings had oval windows and strangely rounded doors, and appeared to have been formed from the ground. Which, Charlie deduced, was what had happened. These buildings had been created by stonesinging, which explained the lack of mortar or any sign of bricks or carved stone. Charlie was impressed. Her first experience of Stoman habitation – while not as overpowering as her first sight of
Deepforest – would become a memory that she would treasure.

Nibbler elbowed her in the side. ‘Hey, stop daydreaming. If you stand there all day with that funny look in your eyes people are going to mistake you for the local fool.’

Charlie grinned ruefully, but followed Crumble’s lead as he headed towards the village square. Nibbler, head held high, walked beside her.

They were in luck. It was market day and the small square hustled and bustled. Stalls with brightly coloured canopies lined each side of the square and in the middle was a raised dais overshadowed by yet another statue of a mythical Stonesinger. Stoman farmers, merchants, blacksmiths, potters, weavers, brewers and carpenters were busy selling their wares. Here and there the slight figure of a Human could be seen and occasionally the much smaller figure of a Treman, but they were a rarity.

As the trio headed towards the line of market stalls, Nibbler instantly began to draw a lot of attention. Some of the villagers and merchants, respectful of Winged Ones, touched their foreheads as he passed with a few words of greeting. Others, however, threw nasty looks and muttered under their breath.

‘I think the sooner we get what we need and the sooner we get out of here the better,’ commented Charlie.

‘Agreed,’ said Crumble. Walking past a fruit and veg stall he headed towards a likely looking place that appeared to stock the items they needed. He swiftly began to haggle with the merchant. ‘Two silver florins and an eighth,’ he called over his shoulder as he collected blankets, bed rolls and
other items. ‘Or the merchant will take seven Deepforest shillings if that’s what you’re carrying.’

Nibbler and Charlie looked at each other with guilty, startled faces. Neither one had thought about money, and neither for that matter had any.

Crumble caught their look and with a big sigh dug his fingers into his waist pouch. Eyeing his profits with a forlorn expression he handed the sum to the waiting merchant.

‘That’s another reason for you two to come back from the Western Mountains alive because if you don’t pay back that money my father is going to beat me from house to market and back again –’

‘HEAR ME, PEOPLE OF OPAL HOLD!’ boomed a voice. ‘HEAR ME NOW AS I BRING A MESSAGE FROM OUR GREAT LORD!’

Silence swiftly fell across the marketplace as villagers and merchants turned to look at the raised dais in the centre of the square. A Stoman herald in gorgeous black, red and gold robes stood in a pose of studied self-importance on the circular stage, an unfurled scroll between his hands. Behind him stood a small squad of soldiers and off to one side, nearly hidden by the shadows of a building, lurked a Stonesinger in full ornamental armour.

‘I come with a proclamation,’ continued the Stoman on the dais. Raising the scroll, he began to read aloud. ‘“I, Bane, Lord of the Western Mountains, declare Charlie Keeper to be an outcast and outlaw. I will pay whomever brings me her head and her pendant fifty baskets of emeralds, a hundred baskets of sapphires and a thousand fistfuls of gold coins. If her head is delivered still fresh and bleeding, I will
double the sum offered. If she is delivered whimpering and broken to lie at my feet, I will triple the sum –”’

A ripe melon slammed into the herald’s chest, spattering him and some of the nearby soldiers with bits of fruit. In the deathly silence that followed the herald wiped the gooey matter from his face. Picking a large piece of the offending missile from his shoulder he held it up for closer inspection. His face rapidly went from white to red and finally to a dark murderous purple.

‘WHO DID THIS?’ he roared. ‘WHO DARED TO –’

A second melon, followed in quick succession by a Very-vaverry fruit and an oversized Mooseberry, burst against the herald’s once gorgeous robes.

‘I think,’ rang a voice, ‘that the culprit you’re looking for is me.’

The herald, once he had wiped his face, the soldiers and most of the stunned villagers and merchants turned to stare at the Human girl who stood in the midst of them with her poorly kept topknot and a piece of fruit in either hand.

‘I’m Charlie Keeper and I’m a bit short on money so if you’ve got any of that reward with you we’ll be happy to take it.’

The herald could have replied with a thousand different responses, but he was so angry that he simply screamed, ‘GET HER!’ at the top of his lungs.

The soldiers pulled the swords from their scabbards and lifted the axes from their harnesses as they spread out in a loose semicircle.

The crowd looked at the angered herald and soldiers, then back at the small Human girl. A collective gasp rang across
the village square. Charlie Keeper stood wreathed in black and gold flames. With her fists raised high and a glint in her eyes, she slowly walked forward.

‘If Bane has offered all that money,’ she shouted at the herald while bowling over the first soldier in a flash of dark light, ‘then surely you’re intelligent enough to realize that I’ve got to be considered a threat.’ With an unusual expression that was half smile, half focused anger, Charlie kicked and punched the next two soldiers so hard that they were propelled backwards through a line of stalls. ‘Surely no one would be stupid enough to try to take on Bane’s most wanted with just a handful of soldiers?’

Ducking beneath the swishing arc of an axe, she tripped one opponent, flipped another and rapped her elbow against the helmet of a third while drawing closer and closer to the alarmed herald. ‘Or is it perhaps –’ she punctuated her sentence by bringing down the last two soldiers who stood in her way – ‘that your fat mouth and ability to swagger around in a pretty costume hides the fact that you’re a little bit dim-witted?’

With most of the soldiers lying scattered behind her, Charlie stood at the foot of the dais and stared disrespectfully up at the herald. Sweating profusely and looking less than regal in his fruit-splattered robes, he staggered backwards while gesturing for the Stonesinger to step forward.

Charlie grinned as, out the corner of her eye, she detected a wave of crackling flame followed by a high-pitched scream and a thud. Nibbler had taken care of the Stonesinger.

‘Looks like you’re all out of help,’ she said, and with a sardonic smile still wrapped across her face Charlie lunged
forward, driving a black-and-gold-flamed fist against the side of the dais. The stone cracked and the force of the blow caused the herald to lose his footing and fall to the ground. Charlie jumped lightly upward and, walking across the dais, stared down at the herald now suffering the indignity of lying in mud.