CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
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King Te’Korei
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23rd of Decepter, 935 PC
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King lay propped up against bags of grain, his body rocking back and forth with the steady jostling of the covered wagon. Days of feeling as though someone had split his head open with an axe had put him in the foulest of moods. As badly as he wanted to empty his soul and enjoy every second of good health that would provide, he feared how bad things would be afterward and he’d already promised himself a comfortable deathbed. He’d watched people start their walk home in discomfort and the pain and agony was something he’d rather avoid. So, a few drops at night to help him sleep and no more.
Unfortunately, he could hear the golden gates that led to the road home creaking in the back of his mind, see the image of himself pleading for forgiveness and crying out for his mother as he was dragged through them. How could they not now that his symptoms had worsened steadily? There was now a hefty dollop of blood on his gloves after every cough and his legs felt like the muscles were rotting away slowly. To get around on his own he had to use the cane Tol had bought for him in Haldar while he and Barik gathered information about General Camdire’s whereabouts. He appreciated the gesture, but resented the aid. A walking stick came with distinction and mystique, a cane just made him feel old and pathetic.
Colin leaned down to him, having been sitting up much straighter than King. Good posture. Great, really. Like King’s used to be before the world beat him down. “Do you think we’ll have to go inside? He won’t want us inside his home will he?”
King’s response was a half-hearted shrug.
“Don’t worry coward, the Black Merchant wants Camdrie dead just as much as we do if our sources have spoken the truth.” If Barik had spoken to King when he was Colin’s age, his face would have gotten acquainted with King’s knuckles. All Colin did was hear the potential for safety.
Sadly, the longer King spent with Colin, the more he realized the lad was merely a child who found himself in an adult’s body. He couldn’t cook, he couldn’t start a fire, he couldn’t even wash his clothes in the river a few days back without guidance. The laughs that he had provided were few and far between now too, though that was King’s fault as much as Colin’s. Depression came in two forms if King wasn’t mistaken. The stoic man who couldn’t hide his sadness at night if you hid the moon and the laughing man who hid his sorrow behind the sounds of joy in hopes of reminding himself of better times. King was the former. And it showed.
“I can be tough if I have to,” Colin said, smiling as though he thought Barik was playfully ribbing him. King had half a notion to give the lad a good kick in the pants and tell him to grow up. No one would follow him around the empire on his escapades if they were going to have to clean up after him and cook all his meals. He bit his tongue though, realizing his declining health was the real cause for his sour mood, not his youthful sidekick’s inadequacies.
“I’ve seen tits that are harder than you,” Barik said.
Colin laughed before saying, “Well, I’ve seen the Black Merchant before. He came into Rubora’s shop once looking for someone he thought she was hiding. I didn’t even know it was him until after he’d left and she told me I’d been awfully brave around a man that would cut me open and feed me my innards if I crossed him.”
Savar stared in their direction from the back of the wagon. One would be hard pressed to tell if he even cared enough to hear them. That is until he spoke. “Quiet.” His brown eye was hazy, like it’d been the day he’d almost swept them away in a flood. The blue eye never changed much, if at all.
“Everything alright back there?” Tol said through the hole between the bench and the wagon. He’d taken the reins after the wagon driver’s slow pace had upset him enough to leave the man and most of his wares on the side of the road. King had felt terrible for the shop owner at the time, but now he envied him. It had become painfully clear that Tol was not the folk hero he’d appeared as when they’d met. In fact, he was something entirely opposite. And that was after only the first few layers had been peeled back. Who knew what lay deeper inside him.
When no one answered Tol he twisted further to see them better. “Brother Barik, is all alright?” The gray-haired manipulator’s tone became more forceful. And though King couldn’t see it, he was sure he had that smile on his face that carried the undertone of his interactions.
“Everything’s fine. The boy was just telling us about the Black Merchant but brother Savar is working. Needs silence.” Barik’s own tone became less and less tolerable of Tol’s dominance each day. King hoped he was long gone by the time they finally came to blows. Whether that meant traveling the road home or just some other dirt trail as far from here as possible, he didn’t care.
He’d mentioned trying to escape to Colin while they’d washed their hands and feet in a pond the night before but they’d gotten no further than agreeing on the idea before Tol had joined them uninvited.
“Brother Colin,” Tol said, making the blonde glance at King uncomfortably. “You know Wolfgang Ritter?”
“Who?”
Tol chuckled at the boy’s lack of wisdom. “The Black Merchant.”
“Oh. Right. I wouldn’t say I know him. I just saw him once when he came into Rubora’s herb shop.”
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Barik looked disgusted by the idea of an herb shop. Not much seemed to please the man but this was a severe disgust, even for him.
“Are you an apprentice, brother Colin?”
“I was.” They hadn’t addressed Colin’s return to his position in Goro since that day in Haldar. No point in doing so in King’s eyes. Fate had decided for them.
“But you’re not now…”
“Well, I guess I’m not sure if I’ll ever go back.”
“I think you have a place worth staying in right here,” Tol said. Colin glanced at King. Every survival instinct in the coward was blowing louder than the Great Horn in Iron Helm. “No bonds forged in a shop can possibly be as strong as those forged in blood.” Speaking of blood, all of it in Colin’s face was heading elsewhere. “Is he a large man? Wolfgang that is.”
It took Colin a moment to find his bearings. “Uh, no, actually. Looks like-”
“Quiet,” Savar said. He did that often, threw everyone off like a poorly timed fart.
“Don’t mind him,” Tol said. “Continue.”
“He doesn’t look like he could hurt a fly,” Colin said. “But Rubora sure was scared. Like the kids that used to stand in front of Old Man Willup’s house at sundown.” He looked at his lap. “Old Man Willup,” he whispered. “He used to be-”
“That’s enough,” Tol said. “How are you feeling brother King?”
King had to use a few drops of magic to muster up the strength to respond. The warmth they provided was pleasant but brief. “Fine.”
“Wonderful! We haven’t much farther and I’ll be needing your help.”
King exhaled through his nose disappointedly and stared out the back hole of the wagon. The top of the hill they were descending looked more like a horizon now. The tips of trees were still peaking back at him like giants standing at a high fence. A light snow was coming down so slowly he could have counted the flakes as they fell if his head wasn’t throbbing. The temperature had dropped several degrees now that they were further north. So much so, that he had to make himself a woolen mask out of his stockings to protect his sensitive skin. It itched his nose and upper lip to no end, but compared to the knifing gusts of wind that continuously blew through the wagon it was a small sacrifice.
He’d even gone as far as to ask Savar to change the course of the wind, but talking to the boy was about as productive as trying to move a mountain with your bare hands.
He erupted in a flurry of painful coughs that burned his lungs and scratched at his sore throat. Colin laid a waterskin on his lap and started to speak right as King spotted a horse and rider coming over the hill in a hurry, gaining on them fast. The rider was a thin woman, athletic and dressed in black. A red scarf covered much of her face and was tucked down her neckline. A long, black braid bounced wildly behind her. If her dark aura was any indication, she was there to kill. But who, he was unsure.
King yelled, “Lookout!” as the woman pulled a small crossbow from her back and pointed it directly into the wagon.
“What?” Tol said.
“Faster!” King let his magic flow. The bolt zipped by his head and lodged itself in the wooden bench Tol sat upon.
Colin screamed in fear.
Tol screamed in anger. “What’s the meaning of this?!”
The assailant was within twenty yards now and still charging hard. Savar climbed to a crouch, consuming the entire width of the canvas’ hole. Then, without a word, to be expected from the strange Purist, he launched himself out of the wagon, arm’s spread wide as he soared toward the rider. He slammed his hands together midair, sending a gust of wind straight at the woman. The tops of the surrounding trees bent back. The rider went with the wind, gracefully rolling backward off the horse as it lost control, standing tall on its hind legs before toppling over, whining loudly and scrambling to its feet again quickly.
The wagon stopped. Silence but for Tol’s boots hitting the ground. There was no sign of the woman anywhere. Just Savar standing in the middle of the dirt road, glancing around in different directions. King’s magic was still flowing in full force. Lucky too, because the bolt that tore through the side of the canvas cover would have gone in one ear and out the other had he not sat forward. It was equally unlucky that Colin had not moved an inch. He let out a grunt and jerked sideways when the bolt punctured his ribs. He screamed in horror as he realized what had happened.
“Help me, King! Help!” He grabbed at the bolt, staring into King’s eyes with horror so real he knew the image had burned itself in his memory immediately. Eyes wide, mouth gaping, throat flexing as he swallowed nothing in particular over and over again.
King started to move but a hand shoved him sideways. “Get out of the way!” Barik wrapped one of his slender hands around the bolt and yanked hard. It didn’t budge but he’d pulled a blood-curdling scream out of Colin. He yanked again.
“What are you doing?!” King yelled, trying to pull the man away from Colin. Barik turned and shoved him hard. Surprisingly hard for a man his size.
The next thing he knew, Barik’s arm was flinging backward behind its own strength, a bloody bolt held in hand. He tossed it aside and pressed both his hands against Colin’s wounds. The boy squirmed and squealed. “Sit still, you fool.” Colin obeyed, either from obedience or fear. Or perhaps he was dying. That seemed likely. Then, it all made sense as the terror on Colin’s face slowly melted away with each passing second.
“You’re a healer?!” King asked. No answer. “You’re a healer?!” he yelled again. Barik remained focused on his patient.
King had cursed exactly once in his life. The same day he’d cut his hand with Iggy’s knife to make a pact he broke a week later. It had felt like The Creator had heard what he’d said and didn’t approve. But now, he simply couldn’t hold back. He grabbed Barik by the shoulders and shoved him every bit as hard as he’d shoved King. He fell onto his ass, looking at King with burning eyes. “You’re a fucking healer?! You’ve seen me suffering for days and just sat on your pompous ass like the prick you are!”
“There’s no helping you,” Barik said. A bolt of a different kind but just as lethal.
“What?”
“There’s no helping you. The dark demise is incurable.” He moved back to Colin. “Now excuse me, but I’m trying to save your friend. However pathetic he might be.”
Tol appeared at the back of the wagon. If there was anything worth noting about him, it was lost on King. All King could do was drop to his rear-end. “Is brother Colin alright?” he asked.
“He will be,” Barik said. “Is the assailant gone?”
“For now,” Tol said. “Something tells me she’ll be back.” He was looking right at King as he said it.