South to Adventure (eBook)

Chapter 1

Leaning against the granite of the rocky spire, Cormac watched the Princess care for Kelson. She sat on the ground holding his head in her lap, ignoring the blood from his wound as it soaked into the sleeve of her shirt. Slowly it joined and blotted out the spots of blood from the windpipe of the man Cormac had just killed.

Sweat stood cold on Cormac’s forehead. He swallowed. He swallowed again. Just in time he turned and stumbled several feet along the base of the spire. His whole perception centered on his knotted stomach. It seemed a great fist grasped and pushed upward. Helplessly he leaned against the rock and vomited.

Slowly the world came back into control.

Slowly he walked back.

Kelson lay on the ground covered with a blanket from his pack. The Princess now knelt beside him. She first looked up at Cormac, her eyes brooding, and then to her left. Following her glance Cormac saw a man standing with his back against the rock. Quint. The man who had directed them to the Owl’s Perch tavern. The man with the crossbow who had so unexpectedly been by Kelson’s side at the junction of the two passages inside the keep.

“I still think we should,” the man said to her, even as his eyes rested on Cormac.

“Right away?” she asked.

“In my judgment.”

“He seems to breathe so lightly.”

“That is true, your Grace, but it’s not changed for a time now. Before long it will get dark. He needs a fire and something warm to drink.” He paused respectfully. When she made no response, he continued. “We dare not build a fire here, where it can be seen for miles.”

“What do you think,” she asked, turning to Cormac.

His knotted stomach still demanded part of his attention. He had not following closely. “Where would you move him?” he asked after a moment.

“Yonder, sir,” the man replied, gesturing to the north. “That’s where I’ve kept watch on those four you dispatched so neatly,” he added, a note of approval in his voice.

“Can he be moved?” Cormac asked.

“He’s not a large man. If I don’t have to hurry, I can carry him.”

It seemed a sensible plan. Nothing better occurred to him. “You carry him,” Cormac said. “I’ll bring his pack.”

With the Princess’ help, Quint carefully lifted Kelson in his arms. They set off across the broad meadow, making their way toward a tree covered hill. Twilight had already begun to gather when they reached the far side of the meadow. The man walked steadily through the undergrowth to a bank, stepped carefully down it and entered a clearing. In a neat firepit lay the ashes of a small fire.

After the Princess spread a blanket, the man gently laid Kelson on it. Standing he put both hands on his waist and stretched backward. He gave a long sigh. Then he moved to a stack of wood. Finding several smaller pieces, he turned to the firepit. Gently he raked the ashes. A few embers still glowed. Crisscrossing them with small branches, he blew on them until the fire slowly returned to life. Then he carefully placed in the fire a knot from a stack of them under a nearby bush.

Cormac noticed the heavy, resin odor of the knots. “I thought we were in oak trees,” he said. “These smell like pine.”

“They are,” Quint replied companionably. “I had to go up the ridge line to find them. They burn long and hot but give off little smoke.”

As the fire grew, it lit up the small camp. The bank rimmed the pocket on two sides, rising to trees that remained dark against the evening sky. Somewhere Cormac heard rushing water. Picking up a small bucket, the man vanished toward the sound. Soon he returned with it filled with water.

The Princess cleansed the wound and bathed Kelson’s pale face. While she did so Quint began to fix dinner.

“How bad does it look?” Cormac asked her.

“Serious for you or me, but not for him, I think. Already he slips into the healing sleep.”

Apparently satisfied she had done all she could, she tucked the blanket around the wounded man and came to sit on the log before the fire. They all remained quiet. After a time, Quint ladled into bowls helpings of stew, thick with whole mushrooms and several roots Cormac could not identify.

As he ate, Cormac could not stop thinking about what had happened. Some things he tried not to recall. Push away. Fiercely he tried to concentrate on the conversation the Princess carried on with Quint.

In response to her questions, Quint gave his account of what had happened since they had last seen him, inside the Keep in Groundwater. Once he and Kelson had said farewell, he told her, he had returned to the Owl’s Perch to await events. As Kelson had foreseen, nothing happened for several hours. Then a squad of the castle guards had stormed into the tavern and taken him, along with Larch and Marta, to the castle at Seacrest.

“Things worked out as he thought,” Quint said, nodding at the still form under the blanket. “Because those in the Castle deal in magic, they expect to find spells everywhere. When they found none in any of us, they assumed we told the whole truth. Since we knew so little about why Kelson had left, we didn’t really have to lie. Only hide some surmises. That was easy enough.”

“And your name is Quint?” she asked, as if wanting to have everything straight and certain.

A smile transformed his grizzled face. “Actually, Quinten Quintenson Quintenson, and so on for generations more. My father and his fathers before him have carried the same name and served the same man.”

“But how can that be?” Cormac asked, momentarily forgetful.

“He’s one of those blessed with long life. One of my grandfathers many times over traveled with him to the City of Dreams. Many’s the time I’ve heard my father tell the tale of how Kelson vanished and my ancestor finally made his way back to Rivershome.

“He became a soldier and served for years on the great eastern wall. Then one day as he returned on rotation to Rivershome he heard to his surprise that Kelson had returned. His old master had been examined and then taken away to the west by Fulton the Wise. Not even waiting to tell his commander, my ancestor set out on the Greenway. As good fortune would have it, he did not meet Fulton. He had stopped at an inn to eat when Fulton passed traveling east on his way back to Rivershome.

“My ancestor hurried on, not resting until he had climbed the scarp and found Kelson there, weak but lucid. The mule’s packs held food. After they ate dinner Kelson talked a little. Then he slept. The next morning they began their trek through the Old Forest to the Realm of the Five Cities. To Yarrow they went, where Kelson took up a merchant’s life. He married the youngest daughter of a trader. My ancestor eventually married as well and in due time a son was born.

“Years later Kelson’s wife died unexpectedly in an accident. Again alone, his itch to travel became strong. Since my ancestor had by then grown too old to travel, his son went in his place. He, too, saw strange sights, going more than once into the Barrier Mountains and to the edge of the Beyond. But after decades on the road, Kelson settled once more, this time in Weston, where he followed the carpenter’s trade.

“Again he married another young woman, but he had no children of his own. My ancestor married as well, and soon after another son was born.

“The pattern continued until, finally, I was born. When I was still a child, my father died in an avalanche. Kelson has been as much a father to me as my own would have been. At last it came time again to travel. I went with him north to the mountains and beyond, even to the Icy Barrens of the north where the night cries of the melish drift on the wind.

“Slowly we worked our way south again, at last coming to Groundwater. There he took a fancy to an innkeeper’s life. It pleased him to become owner and host in the Owl’s Perch.”

“Why did he wander?” Cormac asked, his interest held by the tale.

“Sometimes we traveled with a reason in mind. Once we spent much of a summer getting to a certain ruined castle in the Barrier Mountains so he could read a scroll held safe there by a hermit. Another time it was to spend days looking at a tapestry hung in a forgotten keep. Things like that.

“When the notion took him, he traveled as if the hounds of Frevern were not far behind us. But mostly it seemed we traveled just to be on the road.”

“Did he not talk to you?” Cormac asked.

The man shook his grizzled head. “Sometimes he would. Often. But, who’s to understand, really. My long suit’s been the same as those who served him in the past. Loyalty. A willing ear to listen. That’s a good bit of it.” He grinned broadly. “I’ve probably heard more and understood less than any eight men you’d want to point to.”

Suddenly his eyes narrowed. Cocking his head, he listened intently. Cormac heard...