An Unexpected Deity (Book 7) (14 page)

Chapter 10

The members of the squad collected their belongings, then began to angle down the slope of the mountainside to return to the road.

“I forgot to tell you that I saw the lake!” Stillwater said as he flew low, under the tree limbs and alongside his companions.  “We should be there in less than an hour.”

“Go ahead and scout out the situation on the road and around the lake,” Kestrel said, as Wren relayed Stillwater’s report to Woven.

The imp sped away as the others remained bound to the surface of the mountain, and climbed determinedly forward.  They reached the edge of the road minutes later, and looked carefully in both directions, then started walking up the slope, towards their destination.

“Here comes the imp,” Woven said five minutes later, shading his eyes to look up in the sky.

They all waited for Stillwater’s report on the situation at the lake, but instead of descending to reach them, he flew high overhead, and disappeared behind them.

“That can’t be a good sign,” Wren said ominously, voicing the concern they all felt.  They unconsciously increased the pace of their walk up the road, looking constantly over their shoulder for some sign behind them – either the approach of Stillwater or the approach of something else.

“Here he comes,” Wren said softly, looking back to see Stillwater flying low and fast in his approach.

“There is trouble ahead and trouble behind,” Stillwater told them as he arrived among them.  “There are two of the monsters ahead at the lake; one is walking like a person, and one is in the water like the monster lizards we fought at first in the Swampy Morass,” the imp said.

“Just the two?” Kestrel asked.

“Yes, ahead.  But behind there are a score of humans, wearing the red uniforms coming up the road, probably only half an hour behind us,” Stillwater added.

“And they have captives.  They caught the other humans, the ones you were fighting with yesterday,” he said.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Kestrel moaned as he felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.  He respected Stuart and the others.  They had been good fighters, and the duke’s daughter had not been kind to him, but had been a spirited girl.

“If we hurry,” he said thoughtfully, trying to create a plan, “if we can get the water skin reset in place and the water flowing again to destroy the Viathins and their influence, that might set the Uniontown soldiers free from the Viathins, so that they’d set Duke Listay’s men free.”

“We will need to hurry then,” Stillwater said.  “The lake is long and looks difficult to climb around.”

Kestrel thought the observation was odd, but decided not to waste time asking more.  The group turned instead and started jogging along the road for several minutes, until they reached the last sharp turn, and then the road opened up on the scene that Kestrel had been traveling to see for so many miles.  The waterfall and the lake and the cave-fed spring of water were all visible, just as they had looked when Kestrel had last seen them.

But the roadway that hugged the lake’s shoreline, the route that Kestrel had expected to race along to reach the spring, the road was gone, covered by a large landslide that had fallen down from the mountain arm above and dropped huge heaps of stone and debris that reached into the water of the lake, leaving no access to the far end.

“There was a road over there!” Kestrel whispered, as he and his friends crouched in the trees on the edge of the road.  “I need to get down to that end of the lake,” he explained, looking at the terrain around the lake, and seeing no easy path.

“There are the monsters,” Stillwater pointed out, calling the others’ attention to where a two-legged Viathin was crouched down conversing with one that was in the water.

“I’m going to run over the water to towards the spring at the other end,” Kestrel told the others.  “When the walking Viathin watches me, you can shoot it with an arrow, or a rock,” he told the other two.

“What about the one in the water?” Woven asked.

“When I make Decimindion’s water return to the lake, the monster will be killed,” Kestrel answered.  “I just have to run past it.”

“We have to go quickly,” Stillwater warned.  “The Uniontown forces are close.”

“Wait until I hit the water running, then shoot the monster,” Kestrel said.  He flashed a quick grin at the others, then suddenly stepped out into the open, jogging sedately towards the end of the lake.  He crossed half the distance of the open plaza space before the Viathins noticed, and upon noticing him, the monster in the water gave a tremendous bellow, a resounding roar of anger that reverberated off the mountainsides and echoed away into the distance.

The monster that was on the land rose to its feet and started to run towards Kestrel, while the Viathin in the lake began to swim along the shoreline in his direction.  As Kestrel approached the shoreline he suddenly broke into a full sprint, racing across the last yards of the stony surface to pick up speed.   His acceleration caught both the monsters by surprise, and they both belatedly began to try to narrow the gap that Kestrel was seeking to widen.

Kestrel approached the edge of the water, the beautiful blue water that was now a grayish-blue as it reflected the cloudy sky above.  As his feet left the ground he heard the faint twang of Wren’s bowstring.  His feet touched the water and he began to speed across the surface of the lake, while the monster on the land suddenly gasped behind Kestrel, and then the Viathin in the water gave another bellow of anger.

The lake was a long body of water, one that stretched hundreds of yards in length, and Kestrel knew that he could not outsprint the Viathin the entire distance he needed to cover.  The bank on his right was the rough and uninviting remains of the road that had followed the shore; it offered few places he could quickly climb away from the water to gain safety from the monster that was in pursuit of him.

The left shore had a few small sandy coves he could run towards, and he began to veer in that direction.  As he did, he heard a distant bellow, a roar from a Viathin other than the one that was chasing him, and he cut abruptly towards the shore line, as he waved his arm to signal for Stillwater to approach him.  The new Viathin had appeared sooner than Kestrel had expected.

“Stillwater!  Tell them to start climbing to the far end of the lake; tell them to follow me to the cave.  And tell them to hurry!” Kestrel instructed the imp as his feet touched the ground, then carried him up the steep banks out of the reach of the Viathin that was only a few yards behind him.  He was starting to gasp for breath, but he needed to reach his goal, and the sound of an answering Viathin drove him to fear that he had less time than he had expected.   He scrambled along the shoreline, the Viathin shadowing him in the water, staying even with him as his progress was slowed by the uneven terrain he climbed over.

Kestrel reached another spot where a small sandy beach offered re-entry to the water’s surface.  He stopped and took a deep breath, ready to resume his water-top sprint.  He looked up, and saw that Wren and Woven were climbing along the shoreline; they were not easy to spot as they moved in and out among the stones and tree trunks along the shady western side of the lake.  He thought that sheltering them in the distant cave, along with his own people, was their best chance for survival until the enchanted water did its work.

He took a leap, and pulled his feet up as he passed over the waterborne monster, which lunged upward in a futile attempt to snag him in midair.  The monster fell back into the water with a loud splash, and Kestrel started sprinting again,

He heard a shout, and saw that Uniontown soldiers, wearing the red tunics he so despised, were coming into view, bringing with them a half dozen captives in the green and yellow uniforms of Duke Listay.  Kestrel continued on in his journey, then heard the splashing of the Viathin in the water, again starting to close the lead Kestrel held, so he again headed for the closest shoreline he thought he could climb up, and jumped up onto the stones there, again just a few feet ahead of the Viathin’s arrival.

He staggered backwards and leaned against a stone as he panted.   Stillwater came swooping down towards him, as the monster in the water snapped futilely at him, unable to rise up to where he stood, momentarily secure, though still a hundred feet away from the cave and the flowing spring.  He stared intently at the top of the cave and saw to his relief that the water skin still sat there, its spout pointed upright so that its contents did not release into the lake.

“Kestrel-water walker, there are more soldiers coming up the road behind these, and a great monster comes with them!” the imp reported.

Kestrel pulled his knife free and threw it at the Viathin that was trying once again to heave up out of the water at him; the blade slid into the reptile’s chest, and the creature bellowed and thrashed wildly as it fell back into the lake, turning the water cloudy with the dark stain of its blood.

“Go get a stick and see if you can distract those guards around the captives,” Kestrel told the imp, who immediately departed, while Kestrel began to climb towards his goal.

“Lucretia, return,” he called as he climbed and panted.

“Wren and Woven,” he called in the language of the gnomes, “when Stillwater distracts the guards, see if you can kill enough of them to help the captives escape,” Kestrel directed.  “There are more Uniontown forces coming,” he added.

Wren gave a silent nod.  She and Woven were not far away from him now, only a few dozen yards of stony mountainside separated them.  The distance from them to the emerging forces was long, but within Wren’s range, Kestrel was confident.

Kestrel’s knife reached his hand, and suddenly Stillwater screamed as he flew down at the unprepared back side of the Uniontown guards.  He stuck his crude spear in one of the guards, then flew straight up and back in the direction he had come from, drawing the attention of all the guards in red.  Wren shot an arrow, as Woven heaved one of the plentiful stones nearby, then they each released a second weapon, while Kestrel threw his knife at one of the captors as well.

There were numerous shouts of pain, and the captives seemed to instinctively understand what was happening.  Stuart threw his shoulder at one of the guards, knocking the man down, and two of his supporters followed suit.  Stillwater returned to combat with his second spear and harmed another guard, so that the green and yellow suddenly outnumbered the red forces that closely guarded them.

“Come this way!” Kestrel shouted.  “There are more guards coming up the road!  Come to us!” he called.

Lark bent and took a sword from a dead guard, then began attacking one of the living guards.

“Lucretia, return!” Kestrel called.  He realized abruptly that he hadn’t moved, that he still needed to get to the water skin, and he began climbing once again.  He stopped to catch the returning knife, saw that the captives were beginning to break free, and he threw the knife again, at one Uniontown soldier who stood in the way of the successful escape.

Kestrel began climbing again, looking over at the battle from time to time.  Wren’s arrows and Woven’s stone were holding the soldiers back, as the yellow and green captives broke free and began to scramble up onto the jagged rocks that Wren and Woven had climbed over.  The Uniontown soldiers began to retreat out of range of their attackers, then – once they were safe – they pulled their own bows free and began to shoot arrows at Listay’s people, who were slowly climbing and picking a way across the rock slide.

One man went down with an arrow in his back, and more of the shafts began to fly perilously close to the escapees.  Kestrel was nearly to the water skin, just a few feet away, but he felt compelled to pause his efforts momentarily to attempt to help Stuart and the others.  With a sharp intake of breath, he focused his energy, then projected it towards the escaping men and their young ward.  Kestrel created a blue disk of energy, a protective shield to block arrows headed towards the yellow and green clad squad – it was a strain to project the energy at such a distance away from his own position, but he managed to put it in place and hold it there, moving it forward as the climbers hurried towards Woven and Wren.

He watched as Wren moved closer to the approaching party, and starting firing her arrows to drive the Uniontown forces further back.  Woven joined her, and began to loft a heavy barrage of the readily available stones he could reach, breaking the attackers so that Listay’s small surviving squad was safe from attack.  Kestrel watched as the escapees reached Wren and Woven, and embraced emotionally.

They were safe from attack, and he gladly ceased his efforts to shield them, cutting off the blue energy that protected them.  They were scrambling closer to him and to the cave, and it was heartening to see the survivors keeping up with Wren and Woven as they all climbed towards him and the sanctuary the cave could give them all.  Once the battle at the lake was over, they could go their separate ways.

Stuart was in the lead, and Lark was close behind him, followed by a pair of men Kestrel did not know, and them Hermes and Gates.  Kestrel didn’t know where Stuart’s forces would go beyond the lake, but at least the group had managed to stay alive.

Kestrel came out of his reverie as he realized he still needed to finish his task with the water skin.  He crawled up over the last pile of stony rubble, and reached up to grab hold of the water skin, which lay in a shallow cavity in the stone, its spout pointed up towards the sky, with no flow of water issuing forth.  He felt a sense of peace descend upon him as he held the skin and tipped it up, so that water started to flow from its spout once again, pouring down upon his shirt and his arms and his hands, running down his pants, cold and energetic and purifying.