The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (37 page)

Bayard gulped and gave Lev a
helpless shrug.

Lev huffed in exasperation. “With
all due respect,
Captain
,” I strongly recommend that you turn us hard to
starboard and head due east.”

Sandrine nodded and gave Bayard a
tap on the arm with her cane. “Do it.”

Bayard jerked the wheel hard and
the ship lurched, causing the Slaugh and crew on deck to cry out in surprise.
One of the Gremlin crewmen fell from the crossbeam of the mainmast. He caught a
length of rigging and slid down it to safety, though not without sacrificing
the skin on the palms of his hands.

“Watch it, you oaf!” the Gremlin
shouted. He took a hammer from his tool belt and hurled it at Bayard.

Bayard ducked in the nick of time
and the hammer missed him. Lev suspected he’d gotten good at that sort of thing
through repetition.

“Sorry, Joyboy,” Bayard said.

“What’s the damn rush about all of
a sudden, anyways?” Joyboy asked.

“That,” Lev said, pointing towards
the harbor.

The hulking dark shape of the
mechaman ship loomed on the horizon, growing ever closer. Its appearance had
turned the angry shouts of those on deck to gasps of shock.

“What? What is it?” Sandrine asked.
Her long ears swiveled beneath the brim of her hat.

“Our worst nightmare,” Lev said
grimly. “Robyn’s army has mobilized. They’ve built a battleship.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sandrine
said.

“He’s telling the truth,”
Wilhelmina said.

Lev turned. He had not noticed her
standing behind him. Her daughter, Noemi, clung to her skirt. Wilhelmina
crossed her arms protectively around the girl.

“Great gramplewarts!” Sandrine
exclaimed. “Is it coming this way?”

“No,” Wilhelmina said.

Lev raised his eyebrows. From where
he was standing, the thing looked like it was coming closer.

“Apologies, Your Highness,”
Wilhelmina said, giving Lev a bow. “I took Noemi up to the crow’s nest. Her
nose tells her they’re heading east, same as us, but on a more southerly
route.”

Noemi glanced up at Lev. He knelt
down and gave the tip of her nose a gentle tweak. “Our little sharklet hasn’t
been wrong yet.”

“Er…not too be the spider in the
bubblygrub stew, but that don’t make me feel any better,” Joyboy said. “They
didn’t build something like that to go on a peace tour, if you know what I
mean.”

“Aye,” Sandrine said. “What are
they up to?”

“It’s too big,” Katriel said. She
shoved past Joyboy to take her place at Lev’s side.

“What do you mean?” Sandrine asked.

“Look at the thing!” Katriel said.
“Seraph’s Tear Harbor can handle it because it was made with enough room for
the big Slaugh ships of old to turn around in, but there’s not another port in
the world it could even get close to. It would drag bottom miles before
Ivywild.”

“You’re right,” Lev said. Then
something else dawned on him. “And they can’t spare much of a fighting force if
all the mechamen are working to keep it afloat.”

“So what’s it for?” Wilhelmina
asked.

“And where is it going?” Katriel
added.

Lev placed a hand on Sandrine’s
shoulder. She jumped at the sudden contact and turned her face towards him.

“Captain, I want to follow that
ship…with your permission, of course.”

She didn’t respond right away. Even
though her eyes were hidden behind the blindfold, he could feel her peering
into him and weighing his request against the needs of her crew. It didn’t
matter that Othella had paid them a mint in gold and jewels to take the Slaugh
to Seraph’s Tear. They were ready to cash in and go home.

Sandrine sighed and gave his hand a
motherly pat. “Boy, you would have me endanger my whole crew and set off to
who-knows-where on a wild chase? We’re running low on supplies. Morale is
nonexistent, and frankly I’m sick of being at sea with a boatload of moody
Slaugh. You’re forcing me to ask myself the question I only use when the stakes
are this high.”

Lev withdrew his hand. “What
question is that?”

Sandrine grinned. “What would Emma
Wren do?”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

I awoke to the chill of an early
spring night. I’d been having a nice dream for once and was disappointed to
wake up to moss-covered rocks with the moon casting its feeble glow through a
skylight in the cave.

It was not so much as
cave as a long, deep ravine that cut through the forest. Sometimes the walls
closed overhead to form a tunnel, while in other places the sky peeked through
the crack in the earth. By the smoothness of the rocks on the bottom Valory
speculated that the ravine was an ancient river channel.

Once, Valory thought she caught a whiff
of the scent from the bracelet. With this promising sign we traveled at a
quicker pace. By sundown, however, Valory had lost the scent and the ravine
still had not come to an end. Weary, we’d resigned ourselves to a night of
sleeping on the rocky ground.

Now Valory was snoring loudly as
she lay on her stomach a few feet away. I tuned out the noise and tried to slip
back into my dream. I didn’t recall the details, but I remembered the sensation
of sunlight and of warmth and of a faceless man rubbing my sore feet. Try as I
might I couldn’t get the dream back and the more I tried, the more aware I
became of the cold, hard rocks on my back.

With a grunt I sat up and rubbed my
eyes. I could tell that daylight was still hours away. Restless, I got up and
paced. Valory snorted and stirred but then quickly fell back into snoring.

A bat squeaked somewhere. I looked up
and caught sight of the small, brown creature. For a moment it fluttered just
overhead and I saw the moonlight shine through the thin skin of its wings.

Even rodents had wings. I had never
thought of not having them as a huge handicap, but I was starting to feel that
way. We could have flown halfway across the continent by now.

I walked a short distance from our
sleeping spot. Up ahead the ravine grew brighter. Moths and other night insects
swooped about in the hollow. The occasional bat dove in after them. I walked
among the nighttime feeding frenzy and felt terribly out of place.

The sound of Valory’s snores stopped.
I paused. Suddenly the ravine felt much too quiet. The hairs on my arms stood
up as my intuition tried to warn me of something. It could just be Valory
playing tricks. She liked to test my reflexes by hiding and then jumping out to
surprise me.

There came the sound of soft
footfalls on the gravel. I listened closely to gauge the direction.

A lean figure sprang from the
shadows on the side of the ravine. I met it head on, jamming my shoulder into
the person’s chest.

“Thought you had me that time,
didn’t you!” I said.

My assailant jumped at me again and
I realized it wasn’t Valory. This person was thinner, but not as fast. We
grappled in the shadows. I defended myself against the person’s fists while I
tried move into the lighted hollow. I kept backing up, forcing the attacker to
move closer.

Once we were out of the shadows I
finally saw other person’s face. He was Fay.

“Hold it,” I said. “I’m one of
you!”

The young man didn’t listen. He kept
hitting me with his fists and elbows. As a last resort I flung up an energy
barrier. The startled young man fell back and gasped.

I heard a muffled shout from the
direction of our sleeping spot. It sounded like Valory. I ran back through the
ravine to get to her.

Two more Fay men leaped out of
hiding and grabbed my arms. They were stronger than the first one. They wrapped
my wrists with enchanted sylph rope before I could get off a barrier.

My captors forced me to my knees. I
saw Valory lying on the ground. They’d bound not only her wrists, but her legs
and wings as well. A handkerchief was tied around her mouth. She looked at me
helplessly as yet another Fay stood over her with a bow and arrow.

One of the men grabbed my chin and
looked me in the eye. He was gaunt, but well shaven with the sort of
close-cropped haircut that soldiers wore.

“Who sent you?” he asked.

“Nobody,” I said. “We came here
ourselves.”

The man glanced around at his
companions. They all gave me varying looks of suspicion and curiosity.

“Did the duke send you?” the man
asked.

I grew angry. “I have no dealings
whatsoever with the duke.”

“What are you doing this far out in
the wilderness?” asked one of the other men.

“We’re looking for Lord Finbarr. I
have an urgent message for him from the late Commander Frayne Larue!”

Behind me I heard one of the men
gasp. The leader slackened his grip on me as his face fell.

“You mean to tell me that Commander
Larue is…?”

“Dead,” I said.

“I don’t believe it!” said the one
who’d tried to ambush me. “Nobody could kill Commander Larue!”

Valory struggled against her ropes
and tried to nod her head. The man standing over her with the bow took it as a
threat. His hand drew back on the string.

“Don’t!” I shouted. “She’s a
friend. We both are!”

“What’s your name,
friend
?”
asked my interrogator.

I debated over what to tell him for
several panic-filled seconds. If these were indeed allies, then there was no
need to hide my identity. They could just as easily be playing a trick, though.
Who was to say
they
weren’t with the duke? The only thing that made me
think otherwise was their reaction to my news about Commander Larue. I decided
that if I was going to guess wrong, I was going to do it with style.

“I am Emma Wren, Flute Keeper of
Ivywild, Guardian of Faylinn and eternally loyal to the true queen, Her Majesty
Chloe de Lolanthe. So what’s it going to be, boys? Are we all on the same page
here?”

The men stared at me in confusion.
The leader looked as though he was having a lot of difficulty digesting my
answer.

“Emma Wren is dead,” he said.
“Jules Larue saw her crash into a mountain. Either you’re an imposter, or
you’re calling him a liar.”

A swell of relief rushed over me.
Jules and his family must have made it to safety. “He isn’t a liar. He did see
me crash into a mountain, but I didn’t die. Valory over there found me and
nursed me back to health.”

They removed Valory’s gag. She
stared at them like a wide-eyed animal cornered in the back of a cage.

“Is it true?” asked the archer who
stood over her. “Did you rescue this girl?”

Valory blinked a few times then
scowled. “Of course! What would you a’ done if you saw somebody all broken up
on the side of a mountain? I suppose you’d tie em’ up and gag’ em’ seeing as
you go around doing that to folks that are just sleeping not bothering nobody
or a thing! It ain’t right! It’s just like snatching baby rabbits out of the
den while the mother is out!”

The men gaped in bemusement. I was
willing to bet that they had ever heard a Slaugh talk so much, let alone in a
country drawl. The leader scratched his head.

“I don’t know, fellows,” he said,
looking around at the other men. “A commander who’s supposed to be alive is
dead, and girl who’s supposed to be dead is alive. What do you make of it?”

“The commander can’t be dead.”

“She’s lying.”

“But she does
look
like Emma
Wren. I saw her once a few years ago. She’s got those funny ears.”

“What about the Slaugh girl?”

All eyes turned to Valory. From
their blank stares it was clear that none knew what to make of her.

“I think we only have one choice,”
said their leader. He unhanded me and grabbed a blindfold from one of his
mates. “We have to take them in.”

I jerked my head as he came towards
me with the blindfold. “Hey, what’s that for? Stop it!”

“For safety,” said the man. He
blindfolded Valory, too. She protested so much that they re-tied her gag as
well. I heard her mumbling through the cloth.

Next thing I knew they were
standing me up and forcing me to march. With the blindfold on I stumbled clumsily
over the rocky ground. Two men walked at my sides. Whenever I tripped they pulled
me up. They walked quickly. My breathing grew fast just from the effort of
matching their pace.

“Are the blindfolds really
necessary?” I asked after we’d trekked for what felt like many miles. The early
morning light crept in around the sides of my blindfold.

“Yes,” was the only reply I got.

“Mmmph hmmm mmmph phlmp!”

“Shut up!” one of the men said to
Valory.

I heard the twitching of wings
battling against the tough ropes. I felt bad for Valory. She hadn’t signed up
for this.

We took a break near the sound of
rushing water. My hopes rose. Maybe it was the river we’d seen on the map.

“Drink,” instructed one of the men
as he lifted a canteen to my lips.

I obeyed, taking a long sip of the
water. There was some debate among the men about removing Valory’s gag so that
she could have a drink, too. In the end, they decided to chance it. Valory was
so grateful that she hardly said a word. I heard her chugging heartily from the
canteen.

My hopes fell to pieces as we
marched further on. We slogged across streams and stumbled over more rocks than
I cared to count. My feet felt like they were on fire. Every step jarred my
bones from my heels to the top of my head. I would never admit it to the Valory
or the men, but all I wanted was to do was lie down and not get up for a long,
long time. 

The evening breeze blew cool on my
arms by the time we stopped to rest again. Numb from the knees down, I sat on
the ground. It was covered in springy pine needles. As the men huddled in a
quiet discussion, I noticed something different about our surroundings. Something
was missing. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I leaned back
against a tree trunk and realized what it was.