Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (83 page)

I have both,
he thought.

“My blood,” he whispered. “His hair.”

The mattress creaked.

Odin closed his eyes.

When Virgin offered no word, Odin cracked his eyes open to mere slits.

Every flaked reminded him of happier times.

You would have been thrilled,
he thought, smiling even despite what he felt.

“You would have felt like it was the happiest moment in your life.”

A tear slipped from his eye.

He could not control the ones that followed.

“What happened last night?”
Virgin asked.

“Nothing,
” Odin replied, shying away to look at the outside world.

“Tell me.”

Tell you what?
Odin thought.
That I’m not even sure what I’m doing is right?

Rather than saying anything, he turned his head to regard his companion a
nd tried not to allow any shroud of emotion to show across his face. It was almost impossible, because in looking at Virgin—in seeing his full lips, his pure green eyes, his stubble-lined jaw and strong chin and even stronger nose—everything he could say would only cheat himself out of a chance to reveal just how afraid he was.

Sighing, Odin bowed his head.

His hands tightened to fists.

His knuckles popped.

His head—which, up until that moment, had been all but calm—began to brew a storm within his skull.

“You know you can tell me anything,” Virgin said, crossing the distance between them and tilting his head to look at Odin
’s down-turned face. “You know that, right?”

“I know.”

“Then why aren’t you telling me what’s wrong?”

Because there
’s no point.

If he were to tell Virgin that he truly was afraid of, then that would only lead them down a path of intimacy that was not needed—no
t only because it wasn’t necessary, but because if Virgin read any part of the book, he could become tainted with the evil it supposedly harbored.

Wit
h a simple shake of his head, Odin turned his eyes back on the window and set his attention on the distance—where, he knew, Dwaydor lay no more than a few leagues away

We could leave tomorrow,
he thought, crossing his arms over his chest and taking slow, deliberate breaths.  

If they left at dawn the next day, they could easily be within the Dwaydor Lowlands come the next four or five days, if not three if they traveled swiftly and had nothing to hinder the
m. That was reason enough to tell Virgin that everything would be all right—that things, as horrible as they seemed, would settle down and go back to normal—but in spite of that, Odin found himself unable to do so for fear his companion would simply upon him with eyes unsure and somber.
Yes,
they would say, as his hands reached out to caress his shoulders, his sides, his hips.
Things will be just fine.

How desperately he wanted to fall into Virgin
’s arms—to hear, without a shroud of doubt, the words he so wished the Halfling to say; to touch his face and trace beneath his fingers the contours of his cheeks and fine lips; to know that things, as convoluted as they seemed, would sort themselves out come time they went to bed. If he were given even the slightest inclination that his companion’s feelings were more than just simple attraction—a touch, a kiss, a word, an action—then maybe everything would be fine.

Maybe, just maybe, he could continue on without venturing toward this morally-suicidal mission he so
walked blindly to with open arms.

No.

He’d come too far—had done things even the most insane of men would have never dreamed of doing—to stop and turn his back on the ordeal. To quit now would have been to waste nearly a year of his life in exile and torment and forever abandon the feelings that had plagued him over the course of the past several months.

To quit now, after all this time, would mean not only to turn aside what the Elves and the Neven D
’Carda had taught him, but to deduce he and Virgin’s entire relationship down to nothing more than a simple agreement.

His mind a wreck of emotion, his heart pounding in his chest, Odin fell to his knees, reached up to claw at his face, then began to cry.

Directly behind him, Virgin crouched down and wrapped his arms around his shoulders.

“It
’s all right,” the older Halfling whispered.

“No it isn
’t,” Odin said, unwilling to rip his companion’s arms from his shoulders even despite the panic that ran through his chest. “No it isn’t, Virgin. This whole thing... it’s... it’s
crazy.”

“No one ever said men weren
’t crazy,” Virgin replied.

Odin bowed his head.

Tears snaked from his eyes, down his face and onto Virgin’s hands.

Virgin tightened his arms around Odin
’s shoulders.

Odin opened his eyes.

When he looked down at the floor—when he saw clearly the specks where the moisture had stained the wood—it took little more than one simple thought to discern the entire ordeal.

He couldn
’t turn back now.

The book, so close and yet so far away, held all the knowledge he needed to bring his father back to life.

I will bring you back,
he thought, muscles tensing beneath Virgin’s hold.
And I
will
make the one who killed you suffer.

Herald would die.

He would make sure of that.

Much of the following morning was spent in preparation for their journey to Dwaydor and beyond. First gathering the supplies from the inn, including a patchwork tent and the semblance of what could have once been fairly-decent bedrolls; assembling into their saddlebags the food, new cooking utensils and the tools needed for traveling the road and sustaining their horses; packing the rest of their belongings into fresh packs and sacks—each part of the process was like sewing together a grand tapestry meant to be hung in a kind’s grand ballroom: displayed, but never regarded as to discern every individual thread. Odin took special care in wrapping the most treasured piece of belongings in a few pairs of shirts before mounting his horse and preparing for what would be a full day’s worth of travel.

While
confident that they would not be stopped, he wanted to take no chances, especially given the nature of the object they’d smuggled across the border.

In this day and age, with more than a scant amount of people possessing a
n understanding of magic, any rightfully-educated individual was bound to at least have some knowledge of the book.

Everything
’s going to be fine,
Odin thought, attempting to ease his panicked conscience with short and deep breaths.
You’re just making yourself paranoid.

He knew they wouldn
’t be stopped—had, in his very core, a gut feeling he could not shake despite the logistics of the scenario. There’d been no gateway entry into Ke’Tarka even from the south side, and given the state of the country and the way they were plagued with war, one would think that if security were that big of a concern the south gate would have been closed, especially due to the fact that Bohren had recently been wrecked by siege and that Dwaydor had succumbed to the same fate shortly after.

Why didn
’t they hit Ke’Tarka then?
he thought, grimacing, shifting in his seat and concentrating on the northern gate.
What reason would they have to siege Dwaydor and not here?

It was, of course, a matter of distance, which could be calculated by no more than a few days
’ worth of travel. Maybe the outpost had been secured long before the enemy had come, thus making it an unnecessary target, or maybe the people remaining here were simply stragglers of war that needn’t the attention of some higher force. Quite possibly, Ke’Tarka hadn’t even been on the enemy’s map because it was so far out of the way, a simple outpost without any bearing over Ornala or its providences.

Whatever th
e reason, whatever the cause, Odin couldn’t dwell on it, as it had little impact on their journey.

“Still,” he mumbled. “You would think that if something were to assault villages going up the road—“

“Pardon?” Virgin asked.

“I
’m trying to figure out why the army from Denyon hit Dwaydor and not here.”

“Maybe it
’s because this seems too small and out of the way,” Virgin suggested. “You know, because it—“

“Has no real bearing on the kingdom,
” Odin said. “Yeah. I know. I already thought of that.”

“You shouldn
’t let it bother you too much, Odin, though I can understand why you’re worried. It’s a bit disheartening to say the least.”

The least?
Odin laughed.

For one place to be attacked by Ogres, Orcs, Necromancers and Goblins and not another? That showed signs of careful planning, of a tactician choosing which places
would entice as much fear into a country as possible. Why, what better way could one attempt and do that than by capturing one of the very places that had been here even before the kingdom had begun—a location that, by all respects, had once been a stadium in which men fought not for money, but honor, dignity and possible freedom after being forced to compete for their lives?

Not wanting to think about the situation any further
, Odin closed his eyes, then opened them to find that the northern gate stood no more than a few hundred feet away.

Above, poised on the east
and western towers like hawks nesting on the highest poles, a series of guards looked down with bows drawn and arrows set to string.

“We
’re… all right to pass,” Odin said, unsure what to do or say. “Right?”

“We should be,” Virgin replied. He raised his hand. “Hail, archers! Are we safe to cross?”

“You’re safe to cross!” one of the guards called back. “Be careful on your way to Dwaydor and your travels from there. There’ve been a series of werewolf attacks on travelers heading along the Liar’s Forest.”

Werewolf attacks?
Odin thought.
Could Nova and Carmen have—

Before he could finish, Virgin cleared the threshold between the two towers, and began to lead the way toward their next destination.

With nothing left more to do or say, Odin followed—silently, lips pursed and head downturned.

The Liar’s Forest could have been seen as something of an eyesore along a path that was otherwise quite welcoming. Mostly dead, with gnarled branches that extended toward the sky like some old hag grasping for the moon, the place was mostly home to monsters and murderers—bloody, notorious bandits that preyed off the weaker travelers that made their way along the Ke’Tarka-Dwaydor Run and werewolves that seemed to bear little intelligence despite their rumored sentience. Upon looking at the wood, one could have expected to lose themselves within the dead trees, within the shorn bark and the mostly-yellow grass. In the winter, however, the structures resembled something like gilded chandeliers twinkling fresh with beads of dew, streaming fine crystalized beads of light into the distance and forever instilling awe upon any who looked on them.

“You know,” Virgin said, leaning so close that Odin thought the Halfling would fall off his horse. “If you didn
’t know its history, you would think it was just a poor, dead wood.”

“You know about the Liar
’s Forest?” Odin asked. “How?”

“Oh, you know—reading, writing, some art.”

“Art?”

“The Elves have a bit of a fascination with human culture and practices. Of course, given our separation from them, we can only assume certain things, but from what we know about the Liar
’s Forest…” Virgin paused. A smile cursed his lips and brightened his persona. “It’s quite the place.”

“What do you mean be that?”

“Tell me, Odin—do you know whether or not the rumors that a group of bandits known as the Blood Hawks live there are true or not?”

“I don
’t know about any specific bands, no, but I’d imagine there’s more than just a few enclaves living in there. Why? And who are the Blood Hawks?”

“The Blood Hawks are infamous for shearing the scalps off their victims and feeding them to the birds that rest in the highest trees,” the Halfling said, raising his palm and spreading it across the line of trees. “They say that even wh
en there are no hawks, there is always some kind of bird there waiting to eat the flesh of the dead the bandits offer to them.”

“I
’ve never been particularly interested what outlanders do,” Odin sighed, adjusting his posture to release the tension in his lower back. “Now had I the inclination, I would ask Ournul to lead an investigation into the murders of our kingdom’s people in and around the area, but I would never willingly go in and investigate it for myself.”