Read The Book of Deacon Online

Authors: Joseph Lallo

Tags: #fantasy, #magic, #warrior, #epic, #epic fantasy series, #dragon, #the book of deacon

The Book of Deacon (8 page)

BOOK: The Book of Deacon
9.3Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

"How is it coming?" Leo asked.

"Pardon? Oh, the burn. Very well. Thanks for
the advice. It itches a bit, but not nearly as it had yesterday,"
she said. In fact, it had recovered so much, she had forgotten to
bandage it that morning.

"Let's have a look," he said, stopping to
gently take her hand into his gloved hands. He looked it over
thoughtfully. Over the night the redness had all but disappeared,
leaving a thin, raised area where the red had been.

"There will be a scar. Two of them. Here and
here. If you want to keep them small, leave the bandage off and
don't scratch at it," Leo advised.

"You are starting to sound like my uncle,"
she said as he released her hand.

"The man must have given some fine advice,"
he said.

The pair continued on.

"So, how long can I expect your company?"
Myranda asked hopefully.

"Until I find a decent hunting ground to live
off of for a few days. A pine forest will do," he said.

"I hope we do not find one. I would hate to
have to say goodbye," she said.

"We all say goodbye in time. I always say it
is a
good
bye
when we choose it and a
bad
one when we are forced. As such, I much prefer
good
byes,"
he said. "And besides, I am long overdue for a time in the
wilderness."

"Don't you ever get lonely?" Myranda
asked.

"Now and again. Woodland creatures are a fine
lot, but engaging conversation is not among their talents," he
said.

"So you can speak with animals?" asked
Myranda, intrigued.

"I am speaking with you, aren't I?" he
pointed out.

"I mean besides humans. Can you speak with
creatures who cannot speak . . . No, that just sounds silly. How
can I say this? You speak the language of your human half
exceptionally well. Do you have to same talent with other foxes and
the like?" she finally asked.

"Yes, I suppose. I can smell the scents and
hear the sounds that you cannot, and I can understand them. If
pressed I can make myself understood to them, but the need has yet
to arise," Leo explained.

"That is amazing. I would love to be able to
do that," Myranda said.

"You aren't missing much. Most animals are
concerned with little more than where predators are, where prey is,
and how to get from one to the other," he said.

"Are there any messages I am missing right
now?" she asked.

"I am not sure. Stand still," he said.

The two halted. After a quick glance to
assure they were still alone, he pulled back the hood entirely. His
ears twitched slightly, and he drew a long, slow breath into his
nose.

"Not terribly much. A pair of rabbits passed
through here. They have nested a fair way off of the road in that
direction. They are both scared half to death that we might find
them," he said.

"Astounding . . ." said Myranda.

"If you say so," Leo said, replacing his hood
and continuing on.

"Oh, come now. You don't think it is amazing
that you can simply perk up your ears and take a whiff and learn
all of that?" she asked.

"No more amazing than the fact that you can
understand the impenetrable accent that these townsfolk mumble day
in and day out," he said. "That was another reason I lent a hand.
For once I heard someone speaking properly."

"Well, my mother was a teacher. I had little
choice. How is it that you came to speak so well?" she asked.

"To speak a human tongue without the benefit
of actually having a human tongue is a supremely difficult task,"
he said. "I simply decided that I may as well put all of that
effort into speaking
correctly.
That goes for all of the languages I
speak."

"Oh, you speak other languages?" she asked,
nearly slipping on an icy track beneath the snow. The pair of gray
lines left by a trade wagon was the only things as far as the eye
could see that interrupted the canvas of white.

Leo's answer came in the languages he
described. First was the slow, flowery dialect of the southern
empire, Tressor. These words Myranda understood.

"The glorious tongue of my homeland," he said
in Tresson.

What followed was an odd grouping of
syllables spoken in a very clear and precise manner. Myranda racked
her mind, but she could not place the sounds.

"I recognized Tresson, but what about the
second?" she asked.

"Just a silly little language I learned from
the fellow who taught me to handle a sword properly," he explained.
"Your guess is as good as mine as to where that verbiage
originates."

"Well, you spoke Tresson wonderfully. Tell
me, do you remember much of Tressor?" she asked.

"A bit," Leo answered. He sniffed the air and
turned to the eastern horizon briefly before turning his shrouded
gaze back to her.

"Well?" she said expectantly.

"Oh . . . descriptions. Warmer. Much warmer.
It only snows in the winter, and rarely even then. There tends to
be a lot more green and a lot less white. The trees shed their
leaves in the colder months. There are pests of all sorts buzzing
about your head. I've got many an irritated memory of flies,
mosquitoes, and the like flitting in and out of my ears. Mostly
in.

"What else? The towns are more spread out.
The space between is littered with farms. Very large farms . . .
with many, many workers," he reminisced, his last words carrying a
tone that betrayed a distant repressed emotion.

"It all sounds so lovely. Like a paradise,"
she said.

"I, for one, am glad to be rid of it," he
said. "I have a natural coat that I cannot remove, and the summer
can be downright unbearable. About the only thing I do miss is the
hunting. My, but those forests were stocked. I could go for weeks
without repeating a meal."

He breathed a sigh of remembrance, but
pressed onward. Myranda scanned the stark white countryside and
tried to imagine it as he had described. Gentle rolling hills, a
brilliant green instead of white. Warm breezes blowing, perhaps a
fluttering of butterflies among a patch of wild flowers. She
realized that no sight like that had ever truly blessed her eyes.
Indeed, the closest she had come was the dream a few nights ago,
before the darkness had come. Leo might as well have been
describing a dream, though, because it was a place she would never
be. It might exist somewhere, but crossing the battlefront to see
it was as likely as reaching the stars with a step stool.

"It reminds me of what I imagine when I think
about the Chosen," she said.

"The Chosen?" he replied

"The Chosen Five. Surely you heard that old
tale when you were a child," she said.

"As I said, most of the tales I was told
focused on convincing me just how awful my brethren were," he
said.

"Oh, well, you missed something. There is a
long story that my parents used to tell. It tells of a time in the
future when the war is at its absolute peak, and the world itself
is on the brink of destruction. On that day, the gods will look
down on the world and proclaim that an end to the fighting must
come. And thus there will arise five warriors with the strength to
strike down the strongest foe, and the wisdom to set things right
again. The tale differs greatly from person to person in terms of
just what these warriors will look like. As for me, I picture five
noble knights in shining silver armor, astride white horses, riding
across a green meadow," she said, thinking back to the bedtime
stories of her youth.

"Sounds nice. I would have liked to hear that
one," he said.

Pleasant conversation filled an hour or so
more of walking before one of Myranda's frequent glances to the
east brought her the sight she'd been dreading all day. Melorn
Woods, a small forest well known for its hunting. It would
certainly suit the purposes Leo had in mind, which meant that her
company would soon be leaving her. Carefully, Myranda shifted to
the right side of the road, away from the forest. If she could keep
his eyes on her, he might not notice the woods for a few minutes
more. Leo only smiled when she did so.

"Clever," he said. "I suppose I should be
flattered."

"What?" Myranda said, mock innocence on her
face.

"You don't want me to see the forest over
yonder," Leo replied, pointing squarely at the woods without
looking.

"I did not . . . How did you . . ." Myranda
stuttered confused by the immediate collapse of her plan.

In answer, Leo pulled his hood back and
shifted his finger to the tip of his sensitive nose, tapping it
twice before tugging forward the hood to conceal it.

"Oh, yes . . . I had forgotten," Myranda
said.

"This is where we part, then. I truly enjoyed
your company. If ever you find yourself at an arena, do look into
the fighters' listing. I fight under the name ‘The Beast,'" he
said.

"I never thought I would have anything to do
with one of those places, but now I just may," she assured him.

Leo held out his hand for a farewell shake,
but Myranda pushed it aside and embraced him warmly. He reluctantly
returned the gesture.

"Before I go, I have been meaning to ask. How
much money was stolen from you?" Leo said.

"I would say there were at least twenty
copper coins in the bag. I had plans for that money." She sighed,
shaking her head.

"Well, it just so happens I have got a bit
more money than I can carry, so if you will just do me the favor of
taking it off my hands. . ." said the friendly creature, digging
into the heavy bag in his cloak.

Even before he had finished making his
transparent excuse, Myranda was shaking her head.

"I couldn't take your money. You have already
done so much for me. It just wouldn't be right," she said.

"Well, if you say so," he said, placing a
hand on her shoulder. "Until we meet again."

With that he turned to the woods, quickening
into a sprint that no man could match. Myranda watched as her
unexpected friend disappeared over the hill and into the forest.
Almost immediately, the loneliness closed in around her. She sighed
heavily and pulled her hood up into place, the long goodbye leaving
her ears badly stinging from the cold.

The sigh turned to a startled gasp as she
felt a trio of ice-cold objects creep down her back. After
frantically tracking them down with her hands, she retrieved the
culprits. Three large silver coins, worth fifty coppers each. Leo
must have slipped them into her hood just before he left.

 

Myranda placed the sneaky gift into the one
pocket that had not been worn through by overuse. With no company
to occupy her mind, Myranda focused on the unfamiliar jingling of
money in her pocket to distract her from the long road ahead. Not
unlike the rest of this war-torn land, the coins had a rather
troubled past.

There had been a time, long before her own,
when the three kingdoms that had become the Northern Alliance were
still separate. Each had coins of their own. There were different
sizes, designs, and names. Then came the war. The reason for the
conflict between the vast southern kingdom of Tressor and the small
mining kingdom Vulcrest was lost to the ages, but hostilities soon
became such that Vulcrest could not hope to face the mighty foe
alone. The sister kingdoms of Kenvard and Ulvard were called upon
for aid. Before long, any distinction between the three kingdoms
was lost--as with nearly all aspects of life, the money was
stripped of its individuality for the sake of unity.

Gone were the colorful, cultural names like
Dellics, Glints, and Ouns. Instead there were the four types that
remained today: copper pieces, half silvers, silver pieces, and
gold pieces. The likeness of kings and queens of the past were
hammered away, leaving the coins as plain and faceless as the
people who spent them.

The aimless wandering of her mind had done
its job at least as well as the wandering of her feet. Before she
knew it, she was approaching a shoddy wooden wall around an equally
shoddy little town. Both were likely a remnant of the bygone age
when the three kingdoms were separate. In those days, forts such as
these dotted the landscape along the borders. Now most were left to
rot, and some were made into trading posts. Such was the case
here.

A weathered and faded sign proclaimed the
frosty place to be Fort Wick. A few steps more took her past the
decrepit gate that had once held doors heavy enough to turn away a
battering ram. Now one was wholly missing, burnt during a
particularly harsh winter, no doubt. The other had dropped from its
massive hinge and buried its corner in the earth, never to close
again. The buildings, what few there were to speak of, were in
slightly better condition.

At the town's center was a large building
surrounded by a handful of smaller ones. Here and there, the
ancient gray wood of the walls gave way to the brown and yellow of
new wood where the old had been replaced. Where once had been the
cots of dedicated soldiers now stood shelves of poorly-made tools.
A former armory held the flimsy wares of a leather smith. Most
importantly, in what had been a stable in the years past could be
found a market marked by a carving of crossed swords. Perhaps
inside she could relieve herself of the burdensome sword and gain
the means to reduce her burden further.

Myranda hurried to the door and pulled it
open. Inside, a simple, smoky oil lamp cast its sallow light on
case after case of weapons of various types. An elderly man sat
behind the counter, lazily shaving pieces off of a wooden stake.
Judging from the mound of shavings on his shirt and the plank of a
counter, it had been his sole activity for some time. The sight of
a customer stirred him from his seat. The fellow had a head of wiry
gray hair that had grown wildly out of control. He was
exceptionally thin, but moved with considerable speed at the
prospect of a sale. He glanced past her to the closing door, but
when it shut without another customer, his eager look to a step
toward confusion.

BOOK: The Book of Deacon
9.3Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

All This Life by Joshua Mohr
Being Frank by Nigey Lennon
Somewhere I'll Find You by Lisa Kleypas
Havoc by Jeff Sampson
Five by Ursula P Archer
Sons and Daughters by Mary Jane Staples
Bringing Home the Bear by Vanessa Devereaux