The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (36 page)

The other Kingsguardian shook his head as if
to clear his mind and suddenly the world shifted. The trees beyond
started to move in slow motion and Halimaldie and his companions
were speeding along again, almost as fast as his heart was
going.

“Aren't we going back for him?” Halimaldie
asked in a panic.

“Can't do that,” Kelin said. “He knew what
he was doing.”

“Shit,” Halimaldie said, something dawning
on him.

“Losses happen,” Trance said. “We know the
price of our duty.”

“No, not that,” Halimaldie replied. “My hand
led me right to those Foglins. That means . . .” The hair on the
back of his neck stood up. “There's a nest under the district
hospital. Everyone in Haroma is in serious trouble.”

They rode like the wind.

“W
e have to stop,” Trance panted.

Halimaldie was barely hanging onto his
horse, bouncing around on its back, riding with the same level of
prowess a corpse might display. “Yes,” he managed to grunt out.

“We ride until we get there!” Kelin said.
But he didn't sound much better off, and soon they slowed and
stopped for the night despite his words.

The three sat on the hard ground around a
small fire.

“I'm impressed with you, Kelin,” said
Trance.

Kelin looked up at him, his white-blond hair
almost transparent in the firelight. “Why?”

“You didn't stay with him.”

“I will wear that scar for the rest of my
life, Trance. I know that already. But, part of me feels that he
isn't dead down there.”

Trance smiled sadly. “Hope can be one of the
most painful emotions, Kelin. I'd urge you to let it go sooner
rather than later. Mourn when we return, when you have time.”

Kelin sat silently for a moment then threw
his head back and yelled into the night with a voice almost
inhumanly loud, the veins and cords on his neck standing out. “You
have taken my brother from me! I swear on the tombs of all who have
come before me that I, Kelin Lightbearer, born first and older by
seventy-three heartbeats, will not rest on these putrid laurels!
You may think you know great deeds, world! But know this! You have
seen but the hilt of the sword of Kelin Lightbearer! If I do
nothing else in this life I will see Telin – brother and friend –
avenged!”

Halimaldie let the words hang in the air.
Apparently Trance felt the same way, for he also said nothing
more.

Just before his eyes shut for the night,
Halimaldie heard Kelin whisper: “He was my little brother, God. And
I did love him.”

Halimaldie had a hard time falling asleep.
He was sad for Kelin and terrified for Tellurian and Yarrow.

K
rothair had never been susceptible to cold, and he was
suddenly glad of that. Up here in the heights of the world the air
was thin and the temperature was low. Krothair climbed, his sword
at his hip and the map tucked safely into his shirt.

He was hungry much of the time because it
was a lot harder than he would have thought to catch food up here.
He had survived on his own before, of course, but more often in
places where game was plentiful. Sometimes he'd even had a bow and
arrow.

His stomach was rumbling by the time night
rolled around. Krothair was sharpening his sword by the light of
the small fire he had managed to build, wondering idly if he would
ever be able to reach his destination or if he would just wander
alone and forgotten, his skeleton lost to eternity in the
mountains.

A noise in the trees made him think perhaps
there was prey there, and his stomach urged him to try to take it.
So Krothair stood up and inched through the dark with his sword in
front of him, listening for the sound again. He held his glowing
forearm out in front of him for light, feeling a little
ridiculous.

There it was, a low sort of breathing sound
that stood out in the otherwise silent night. It sounded like big
game, possibly a deer. Krothair tightened his grip and prepared to
pounce.

Suddenly the bushes to his left rustled and
Krothair's brain instantly settled on the image of a Foglin. The
creature would jump out and tear his arms off. Krothair's insides
turned to liquid as he brought his sword up, instinctively swinging
at the place he knew the creature would emerge.

What came trampling through instead was a
horse, but Krothair didn't have time to turn his blow. His sword
connected with something sharp that protruded from the horse's
forehead, and then the metal bit through whatever it was. Krothair
barely had time to dive out of the way as the horse thundered past
him. He watched it tear off into the night, leaving a trail of
blood behind it.

For the first time he felt
terribly alone in the frigid, dark night.
What have I done? Wounded some poor animal in my foolish
terror?

He looked down at the ground and there in
the snow he saw something smeared with blood. Krothair bent down to
inspect it more closely.

It was a horn about as long
as Krothair's arm, but anatomically that made no sense.
I cut it off the horse's forehead,
he thought.
Since when
has there ever been a creature like that?
It looked like the long end of a lance, but it had a twisting
pattern to it that shone beautifully in the light. Krothair picked
it up, feeling the weight of it in his hand.

“What are you?” Krothair asked.

Krothair held it like a weapon, feeling the
balance of it. He held it by the thicker end, like a spear with no
handle, then he flipped it around and held it by the pointed end
like a long, thin club.

Eventually he wandered back to his fire, his
hunger replaced with curiosity. He slid the horn into his backpack,
letting the pointed end stick out the top lest it stab through the
leather at the bottom.

T
he plateau stretched out before Krothair as he huffed in the
thin morning air.

“Should train up here,” he said out loud.
“Get used to this lack of air and you could fight for hours and
hours down south.” The northern folk were supposed to be tough as
nails, perhaps for just this reason.

Krothair's breath came quickly through his
ragged lips as he traveled. He was still following the trail of the
horse's blood when he finally found the animal. His plan had been
to eat it, for he knew it couldn't have lived after bleeding that
much, but now his plans changed. The animal was dead, certainly,
but there were a lot of different hoof prints in the snow around it
as if some large and varied pack of animals had communed around
it.

And there, on the horse's shoulder, was a
human hand print scribed in blood.

Krothair knew then for the first time that
he wasn't alone up here. The thought was as terrifying as it was
reassuring. He wasn't the only desperate fool wandering hopelessly
in the mountains.

He stood there and looked about, his breath
fanning out in front of him.

In the distance was the forest that was
marked on Ti'Shed's map.

It looked ominous and dark, but Krothair had
been trained to fight by one of the best teachers in Hardeen
Kingdom, and possibly in the entire world. He had Servitor magic
flowing within him; he could feel it now. He knew, deep in his
heart that if he applied himself – after this was all over – that
he could become a member of the Kingsguard.

He could become part of that elite group
that gave everything to protect the Kingdom.

And so the boy walked onward into the
forest. Things were looking quite bright for him as he came upon a
small group of people standing in front of a massive stone
building.

Krothair Mallurin would embrace his destiny
with open arms.

W
ren sat by the river, carefully watching her reflection in
the water. It danced as snowflakes fell softly into it. Crasher sat
next to her, sheltering her against the wind with his huge body.
She could smell his oily fur and a musk that was uniquely his
own.

The girl ran her hands
slowly over her stomach, still unable to believe that she carried
life within it. But it felt like sickening life.
My father.
Her tears
fell into the water then, mixing with the snowflakes, rippling
everything and making it impossible for her to distinguish her own
face, her brown eyes, her hair which hung over her shoulder in a
braid that Heather had made for her, tied with a bit of cord made
from a vine.

Heather's training distracted Wren from
thinking about the sick thing that grew within her, but there were
always moments like this – here by the rushing water – that drew
her thoughts back to it.

Would it be easy to drown
in that water? Is it deep enough? Certainly it's cold enough to
freeze to death in . . .

“Mistress,” Crasher said behind her in his
deep, slow way. “You have become distracted. Heather wanted us to
be working on Shielding.”

“I know,” said the girl. She didn't want to
sound sulky, but couldn't help it. The woman had been working her
incredibly hard, teaching her what she knew of being a Protector as
they traveled north into the mountains. It was a terrain that was
altogether new to Wren.

Things got colder the
further up they went and it became harder and harder to breathe as
the elevation changed. Heather had been prepared for this, though,
packing all sorts of warm things made from pelts, which Wren became
confused about.
How can a Protector –
someone who is sworn to protect nature - use the skins of animals
for their own purposes?

Wren stood up and wiped her eyes. “I can
feel the power within me now,” she told the bear. “But I still
don't really understand how it works. If I do something that
benefits nature I gain power. That's probably what happened the
first time. With the ape.”

“This is all very interesting, mistress,”
Crasher said, “but if you aren't going to try and Shield me, I'd
rather resume my fishing.”

“Hang on,” Wren said. She reached deep
within as Heather had taught her, grasping inside herself for her
Well of power. It was a little like trying to find a new part of
her body. Her symbol seemed to be an indicator for her power. The
more she held, the more brightly it glowed.

She felt the power
contained within her Well, like a single drop in a large
bucket.
How much power can I
hold?

She reached her hands towards Crasher,
trying to force the power out of her body. But nothing happened.
She reached again, willing a Shield to form around the bear, trying
to make it take the same shape she had seen Heather doing: a pale
blue shimmering sphere.

Nothing happened.

“Oh, this is stupid!” Wren yelled.

“Mistress?” Tessa said groggily. The little
mouse popped her head out of Wren's pocket. “Is everything
alright?”

“I don't want to be a marked woman, or
whatever Heather keeps calling me, Tessa. I don't want any of this
to be happening at all.”

The sword that Jon Hatfeld had dropped still
hung from Wren's waist in the termite-made sheath. There she sat
next to a bear, had a mouse in her pocket, and was in the
mountains. The situation suddenly overwhelmed her.

“I'm only fifteen,” she sobbed. “I shouldn't
have to do any of this.”

“You don't want to go back to the cellar, do
you mistress?” Tessa asked, her tiny whiskers shimmering.

“No, I don't want to go back to the
cellar!”

“Because you didn't seem very happy down
there.”

“I don't know what I want, Tessa! But I know
what I don't want. I don't want my father to touch me like he did,
Tessa! I don't want to be cold all the time! I don't want to go to
the stupid Temple of Sin'ra!”

“Things are what they are,” Crasher said.
“Do you think I wanted to be a bear? Do you think Tessa wanted to
be a mouseling? Relax, child. You are safe here. There are many in
the world who are not as lucky as you.”

“If this is luck, I want no
part of it,” Wren said. “Some girls my age have other
girls
for
friends.”

Neither animal seemed to know how to respond
to this, and both fell silent.

“How is everything going?” Heather asked.
She had approached silently, her boots making no noise in the light
covering of snow. With her were at least nine deer, a white goat,
and a small flock of persistent birds.

Wren sighed at the entourage and looked
away.

“I see,” Heather said, nodding her head
slightly. “It is time to move on from here if you think you're
ready.”

“Well, I don't want to stay here,” Wren
said.

Heather nodded. “As you wish.”

It annoyed Wren how Heather
treated her.
Like a queen or
something.
Always the woman was asking her
permission and ordering her around at the same time. She had some
kind of knack for it.

God,
Wren thought,
if You're up there . .
. and if my mother truly believed in You . . . I trust that You
know what you're doing.

She was girded inside again. She didn't like
the way her emotions vacillated back and forth from trust and
optimism to fear and hopelessness.

But something inside of her had swung back
to hope and so Wren, with her mouse and bear, continued their
journey. They walked up, ever up, hiking the mountains to
Sin'ra.