Whill of Agora: Book 02 - A Quest of Kings (17 page)

“We knocked out the code; we have the jewels. Shall we pass or shall we kick your…door down? We have business with your man.”

The hooded figure suddenly exploded into action, grabbing Rhunis’s throat, sweeping a leg, and slamming him into the wall while at the same time producing a dagger that stopped roughly behind the veteran knight’s earlobe.

“It is not wise to threaten the guard of my master. One may find himself very dead at the end of such an exchange.”

Rhunis smiled at the hooded figure and looked down at the man’s neck. Rhunis’s own dagger was pressed
hard against the cloaked neck. A small disturbance rippled around the point of his blade, the power of a Dark Elf’s energy armor. Rhunis smiled wider. “One might, if he was not wise enough to use his cowardly armor against a foe more skilled than he. Yes, one might end up very dead at the end of such an exchange.”

The hooded Dark Elf pressed harder with his dagger, breaking skin. His nostrils flared at the insult. Rhunis let his smile go cold. “Face it, Elfie, if you challenged me without all the fancy flare, fire casting, and trickery, man to man, you would lose, and I am old.”

The Dark Elf sneered. “Stupid human, I have powers you cannot understand. Old you say? I am nearly five hundred in years. I bedded your grandmother’s grandmother.” He laughed. “Do not talk to me of power and age.”

He moved to the far wall and opened yet another door. “Go!”

Abram and Rhunis went. Upon passing the Dark Elf, Rhunis stopped. “I didn’t get your name.”

The scowling Elf narrowed his eyes. “Dyr I am called.”

Rhunis tried to hold it in but failed, and he smirked at the Dark Elf. “Next time you should say that there will be Dyr consequences.”

Dyr cocked his head to the side, not understanding. “Now you know the name of your killer, human!”

Rhunis chuckled again, which he knew infuriated the Elf. “If you kill me, at least you will be remembered
for something.” He turned and followed Abram down a winding staircase.

As the door above closed, Abram turned but kept walking. “Why?” He chuckled. “Why would you tempt death so?”

Rhunis thought for a moment. “Does it matter? I have tempted death all my life. I guess death doesn’t like me.”

Abram shook his head. “One day you will tempt death, and he will answer, my friend.”

Rhunis hummed his agreement. “Won’t we all.”

They came upon the end of the stair, and before them stood another door. Abram sighed and kicked the code into this one. A small peephole opened, and an eye looked them over. From behind the door came the order. “Put your weapons on the table behind you.”

“No,” answered Abram.

The guard hesitated. “You are required to leave your weapons behind, or you may not enter.”

“No,” repeated Abram lazily. “We are here for business; we are not assassins. We pose no threat to Dark Elves as powerful as yourself, and we will remain armed if it pleases your master. We have great wealth and a need for services, which we have been told your master can provide. Our only terms are that we remain armed. I would not hand over the blade of my grandfather for any price.”

There was silence, and for long minutes there came no reply, and then they heard, “Enter as you will.”

Abram and Rhunis entered the room; their eyes took in the layout out of habit. One sweeping glance told Abram that there were seven guards. There were two at the door, one in each corner of the square room, and one behind the figure seated at a large wooden table. A door stood a few feet behind the seated figure. That another guard or guards waited behind that door, Abram did not doubt.

The familiar sound of a strong hand gripping a sword hilt was Rhunis’s way of telling Abram that a weapon was trained on them. Abram saw it then, a hole cut into the mouth of a cannon within a painting of a pirate ship.

Abram walked the length of the large room in seven strides and addressed the seated figure. “We have come here to do business with businessmen, not paranoid amateurs. Kindly have your man behind the painting take the crosshairs of his crossbow off of us.”

“No.” The figure answered just as Abram had. “You have insisted on remaining armed, as have I.”

Abram nodded. “I would hate to inconvenience you with my spilt blood should the weapon misfire.”

The figure’s hood fell back, revealing the tattooed and pierced face of a Dark Elf. “I assure you, if it misfires, I shall not let it touch you.”

The Dark Elf smirked. “I promise.”

As his last word was issued, there was a click and the whine of an arrow whizzing across the room. As fast as
a striking snake, Abram’s dagger was before his face. The arrow would have been deflected had it not been stopped a hair’s width from the blade by a swirling phantom hand.

From the seated Dark Elf’s neck, the swirling tattoo had leapt out and taken the form of a fist. The hand turned to mist, and the arrow fell. The room stopped breathing, and everyone waited. No hands went to weapons, but everyone’s thoughts did. Abram was the first to move. He sheathed his dagger and squared on the Dark Elf. “Business then?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Oakenheart

T
arren had watched in awe as Lunara planted an oak seed by moonlight. She had added water and sang to the heavens until sunrise. He had dozed for a moment when the first rays of the sun shone forth over the horizon, and the first beam fell upon the spot in which Lunara had planted her nocturnal seed.

Tarren staggered back as the seed within the earth sprouted forth and grew into an oak tree of full maturity before his eyes. Tarren had backed nearly twenty feet, but Lunara had stayed. As the sun rose and the tree grew, she straddled a branch that grew below her. She rode the branch almost fifteen feet, and when it had stopped, it looked as though she sat upon a horse, so thick was the branch and so large the tree. Lunara had stroked the tree and whispered to it. The tree groaned, and its leaves sang like the waves of the great oceans. Lunara kissed the tree and jumped from her branch.
No sooner had she landed than the branch broke loose, clean from the tree, and landed at her feet.

With Tarren’s help, Lunara had carried the large branch to the base of the tree. The day was spent talking with the tree, or so Lunara had said. To Tarren, this magical business seemed very strange. Not to say that he did not believe in magic, he, like any other eleven-year-old boy, did believe. But where he had imagined quickly casted spells and rituals, he found elaborate ones.

Night came and once again, the moon found its place in the heavens. Lunara presented Tarren with a Dwarven hatchet.

“Cut from the branch a piece as long as yourself.”

Tarren took the small hatchet. He looked from the hatchet to the thick branch and guessed it would take him the better part of the night to complete the task. Lunara waited, and he did not complain. Instead, he began the tedious task of chopping at the wood with the small hatchet.

The wood was thick and strong, and Tarren quickly realized that it would take him longer than he had first anticipated, by far. He realized also that the hatchet was dull. He stopped and looked to Lunara once more, sweat having already begun to bead his forehead. She waited with a raised eyebrow. He did not complain.

Tarren steadily chopped at the branch long into the night, pausing only shortly to stretch his tired muscles
and take a swig from his water flask. Lunara sat and talked with the tree as Tarren labored through the night and into the morning. It was not until the sun took to the midday sky that Tarren finally cut the branch in half. He collapsed where he stood and panted for long minutes. He drank from his flask eagerly and gingerly poured water over his blistered hands in turn. A hiss escaped him as the water stung his bloodied hands.

Tarren joined Lunara near the small fire and presented his hands. She looked at him with pity. “I am sorry, Tarren. But the oak says that if you are to receive his blessing in this, you must not be given help.”

Tarren gave the tree a look. Without breaking eye contact with the tree, he tore two pieces of cloth from his shirt and wrapped his hands. He drank and ate of his rations and soon fell asleep under the bows of the great oak.

Tarren woke during the night to find Lunara dancing around the cut tree branch, singing beautifully to the moon. He cringed as he flexed his blistered hands and got to his feet once more. He was sore everywhere, and blood had soaked through his bandages. He paid it no mind and took up the dull hatchet once again and began working on the end of the branch.

Hour after excruciating hour, Tarren hacked at the tree branch. Lunara watched in silence, but giggled now and again as she spoke with the tree. Tarren did not ask what was said; he did not care. He would show
the tree that he was not weak, and he would finish the task.

Long into the morning he worked, and the closer he got to cutting through the branch, the more excited and energized he became. Seeing the end near with only an inch left, he hacked and chopped with all his might until, finally, his hatchet cut through the last of the branch and struck earth beneath. Tarren dropped the hatchet and shouted to the heavens in triumph. He then passed out and slept with a smile.

He awoke to a world once again bathed in moonlight. To his dismay, he found that his once-blistered hands were now raw and throbbing. He accepted a drink from Lunara and looked to the branch he had shaped. Lunara smiled widely as she watched him. “You have done well, young human. The oak is pleased with your inner fire.”

Tarren looked to the tree and nodded, not knowing how to respond to a compliment from a tree. He laughed to himself. “If Pa could see me now.”

Lunara then walked from the fire, and from her pack, she took a thick, sharp blade.

“Oh, but you get to use a sharp blade,” Tarren accused with an incredulous laugh.

Lunara smiled and nodded. “Indeed, I made the tree to grow, did I not? That was my test.”

She said no more and went to work carving out large chunks of the thick branch. Tarren changed his bandages
and ate, and, seeing that she would be a long time as well, he slept. The afternoon came, and Tarren awoke to find Lunara still at work on the branch. But she had made good progress. The once-thick branch was now as thin as his wrists.

Tarren went to her and offered her a drink. She took it gratefully and drank her fill. The rest she dumped over her head and sighed with pleasure. She wiped her brow and went back to work, whittling the wood.

Tarren guessed that she would be done well after nightfall and decided to make a feast of their rations. First, he changed his bandages with much discomfort. The raw blisters had dried and begun to scab. Tarren cursed himself that he had used the wrong kind of cloth and had not applied any salve. But he had been stubborn and not used his head. He hissed and kicked a rock as he peeled one badly stuck bandage from his palm. From his pack he retrieved his healing kit and found the balm.

After bandaging himself with fresh cloth, he built up the fire to get some decent coals ready. Had they not been thousands of feet up upon the side of a mostly barren mountain, Tarren would have hunted something better than salted meat. But he made do with what they had, and by the time nightfall came and Lunara finally stood from her work, Tarren had prepared a small celebration feast of roasted boar and potatoes with carrots.

Tarren quickly forgot the food as Lunara turned from the branch and the boy saw the finished work. What had once been a huge oak branch had been turned into a beautifully carved and rune-covered staff. Four feet long and perfectly straight, the sides of it were as smooth as an egg, where the raised runes did not cover it.

Mesmerized, Tarren walked, with a hand outstretched, to the amazing creation before him. Lunara stopped him with a kind hand to his arm. “Let it sit. You had a wonderful idea with the food. Let us eat, and heal, and we will continue.”

Tarren did not argue, and with Lunara, he sat and ate. He tasted not his food and stared at the magnificent staff and imagined himself wielding it. Lunara finished her third helping of food and took a long pull from her water flask. Tarren burped and patted his belly, which elicited an exhausted laugh from Lunara. Together, they shared a long, silly laugh that could only occur with exhaustion, and Tarren realized that Lunara had not used any of powers on herself during the work.

Lunara took Tarren’s hands in hers and finally healed the blisters. He sighed as the throbbing pain subsided and his palms were made smooth again.

“Your sacrifice has been made. I am sorry I could not heal you sooner.

“That’s alright,” said Tarren as he eyed the staff eagerly. “Now what?”

Lunara smiled at his eagerness. “Now I have much more work to do. But first I rest. We shall continue tomorrow.”

Tarren gave a frustrated sigh and quickly caught himself from complaining. Lunara settled into her bedroll near the fire and sighed, content. She turned upon her side and rested her hand upon her jaw, regarding Tarren.

“What is it like, growing up as a human boy? You are the only one I have ever met. Are all boys like you?”

Tarren blushed as he threw two more pieces of wood on the fire and settled into his own bedroll. He mimicked Lunara’s pose and scrunched up his nose. “Being a boy is…I don’t know…like being a boy, I guess. It is all I have ever been; it is all I know.”

Lunara shook her head. “You don’t know if it is all that you have been. But what I meant was what is your life like?”

Tarren thought for a moment. “Well, my father had an inn, family run since the days of my great-grandfather. I worked there and did quite well for myself tending guests’ horses and bags and such. My sister worked the tavern, my nana the rooms. I was schooled in the basics at the Estar School of Learning for four years.”

“What did you learn?” Lunara interrupted.

“Well, we were taught to read, write, and to do numbers, the history of the lands, and basics in the language of the Dwarves. It is quite fun speech, really, very to the point.”

Lunara turned upon her back and gazed at the stars between partings in the clouds. “I find the language rough and hard to make sounds. It is like spitting all the time.”