Exiles From The Sacred Land (Book 2) (35 page)

Kimala whispered into Trendan’s ear so that the others were sure not to hear. “Nothing is ever as it seems. Morgoran trusts me as much as Naneden, and neither should trust me at all. I have my own agenda.” She put her index finger over Trendan’s mouth so he would not interrupt her. “I can’t let the events in my life tarnish the lives of my children any more than I already have.” She moved away from Trendan and secured her daggers. Trendan looked at Fayne and thought about Kimala’s words. Whatever had happened in her life before, she was obviously dedicated to her children now. Then it dawned on him. She said children. Trendan had heard of her talking about Fayne’s sister before. He checked his bow and made sure his quiver was full. His twin short swords on each hip, he was ready.

“Here, let me help you with that.” He watched as Fayne helped Tatrice fasten on her dragon-scaled breastplate. Kimala joined them and worked to fasten a bracer. Trendan saw that when all three women were standing next together, they all had similar features.

The ship jerked and thumped. Trendan felt it slow, and then the bow of the ship tilted up. “I think we are about to . . .”

All six of them tumbled to the front of the hold as the aft of the ship hit the ground. Lady Shey and Enowene had managed to slow the ship enough to make the impact more bearable. Trendan helped Bren up first as he was closest. Bren helped up Tatrice. The ship listed to the left, but the ground had been soft enough to make a furrow in which the ship rested upright.

Upon exiting the ship’s hold, Trendan could see that the dragons were already upon them. He pulled an arrow from his quiver and delivered it to the nearest dragon’s exposed eyeball. It screamed and rounded on him. He bounded out of the path of the oncoming dragon’s breath and rolled over the tilted wooden deck to relative safety.

“Kim—Fayne, get your mother to a safe place,” Morgoran yelled.
It
would
be tough to explain to Naneden if Kimala showed up with battle wounds
, Trendan thought.

Trendan nocked an arrow and looked for a clear shot. He knew a shot directly into one of the dragons would do no good; their scales were just too hard, so he waited for a moment when they opened their maws, exposing their soft tissue or when they exposed an eye. That’s when he saw him. Dorenn was casting essence from behind a mound of the dirt thrown up from the ship’s furrow. He carefully aimed the arrow at Dorenn’s head. The mortality of killing his friend welled up from somewhere inside him, and he hesitated. What had Dorenn done that was so bad? Why should he trust Morgoran more than his friend that he had known since Dorenn was a baby? Images of Della and Lourn Adair entered his mind.

He re-aimed his arrow at a green dragon trying to get at Lady Shey. He fired, and the dragon moved away from her, although his arrow did little to nothing to the drake. He moved out of his position to find Morgoran. The wielder was casting cascades of fire at Dorenn’s position. Trendan stopped and carefully lined up his shot. He loosed the arrow and grazed Morgoran’s shoulder, separating the old wielder from his side pack. Morgoran reached down to keep the pack from falling and took a direct hit of essence to his face. He fell to the deck, and Trendan sprinted for the pack as it fell behind Morgoran on the deck. Kimala was near enough that she also went for the pack. Trendan met her there at about the same time. He yanked the strap from her hand. “Nothing is as it seems, right?” He bolted from the deck to Dorenn’s position. He couldn’t see her, but he imagined that Kimala had an irrepressible grin on her face.

Trendan jumped over the mound of dirt to land beside Dorenn.

“Trendan, I almost incinerated you!”

“I almost shot you in the head. Looking for this?” He reached in the pack and produced the golden serpent.

“I don’t understand. I thought all of you were against me getting the tome.”

“I thought about it, and I realized that I trust you more than I trust anyone else. If you truly know what you are doing, then my loyalty belongs to you, my friend.”

Dorenn nodded. “Thank you, my friend. Let’s get out of here; there is no need to keep fighting.” Dorenn waved to the nearest dragon, and it landed at his side. Shadesilver flew in behind it, sending a torrent of fire down on the vicinity. Dorenn countered it with a well-aimed block of essence. “Hurry,” he said, “get on.”

Trendan secured his bow and joined Dorenn on the back of the dragon. It took flight, and they flew in the direction of Symbor.

Morgoran recovered from the daze of being struck in the face to see the green dragon flying away with Trendan and Dorenn. Moments later, the other dragons broke away and followed. The battle was over. He stood there swearing for a few long moments and then turned to the others. “I don’t want to talk about it. Just get this ship, or whatever else fool thing we can fly, and get us to my tower. We still may have a chance to get to the king of Symbor before Dorenn gets that last key.” He stopped next to Kimala. “I think it’s time for you to head back to Naneden. The more you are seen with us, the more you jeopardize your current station.”

Kimala nodded. “Give me a time to say my goodbyes to Fayne.”

“You have until we can get back on track to my tower.”

Kimala searched around the site and found Fayne sitting on a mound of dirt near the furrow of the ship. Enowene and Tatrice were with her. She joined them.

“Enowene, Morgoran feels that I should get back to Naneden before anyone else comes in contact with us and sees me with you.”

“I also think that would be a wise course of action.”

Fayne met Kimala as she turned from Enowene.

“Fayne, I must take my leave. I trust you will be safe here?”

“If you are refering to what happened, I think I can handle it. It isn’t the first time Trendan has done something like this to us.”

“I thought you would be. It’s only that I am your mother and I worry about you. You’ll see someday when you have children of your own.” She looked off at Vesperin binding one of Sanmir’s wounds. “How is the other plan going?”

“The master was right—he is very shy when it comes to women. I have to work slowly and easy so he doesn’t scare. I will have him ready when the time comes.”

“I am sure you will. You are certain the issue with Trendan is not getting in the way?”

“Whatever issue there might have been, it’s gone now and has been since he tried to posion you.”

Kimala accepted the answer, but she didn’t quite believe it, especially when she saw Fayne glance up to the sky where Trendan rode away with Dorenn. While pacing back toward the ship, she saw that Lady Shey and Gondrial had managed to lift it back into the air, the rope ladder dangling loosely over the side. Morgoran was striding up with a cloak drapped over his arm.

“Here, the boy left his cloak. Put it on and draw the hood tight. I thought you might go ahead and travel with us to my tower. I realized I can send you through the portal to Lux Enor, to Naneden.”

“That would be better than leaving me out here in the middle of nowhere.”

Morgoran turned without reaction and headed back for the ship. “I didn’t have to offer or bring her the cloak,” she heard him mumble.

The Brae Daun Duil hunted along the Jagged Mountains and onward through the grasslands. He knew how to track Dorenn by more than a scent—he knew how to track him by the magic he used and by the essence Melias had given him to help keep track of where he might be. He saw the strange shipwreck craddled in the middle of the grasslands, but he avoided it. He could not risk being detected. He traveled forward; he would reach his target soon enough.

Chapter 21: The Dead of Winter

Vesperin was thankful to be at Morgoran’s tower. He disliked traveling up in the air on an enchanted ship. The ship was not a pleasant place to be anyway. It no longer had any sails; it had a broken mast, a cracked and broken keel, and a giant hole in the starboard hull. As soon as they disembarked, Gondrial and Lady Shey left to take the ship back to Seabrey. Gondrial thought it might be funny to put the ship back on the dry docks where they found it. Morgoran protested them leaving, but Gondrial knew that he and Lady Shey would not be welcome guests in the king of Symbor’s palace. In fact, his and Lady Shey’s presence would have exactly the opposite effect of what Morgoran was trying to accomplish. After all, Lady Shey had taken a personal book from his library, and Gondrial had spent some quality time in the queen’s chamber, or so Vesperin was told.

Fayne was still following him around. He tried to get away from her for a few moments after they arrived at Morgoran’s tower, but she always managed to find him. She was nice and very attractive, but Vesperin wondered about her motives, not to mention that she was a bit too smothering for his taste, which was to be left alone most of the time. The Trendan issue was also weighing heavily on his thoughts. Morgoran seemed to be almost obsessed with stopping Dorenn from getting the keys to the Tome of Enlightenment, but he never gave a good, convincing reason as to why. Vesperin didn’t believe for a moment that Dorenn was capable of turning evil or that he would use the tome for destructive purposes on his own. He watched Tatrice as she was saying her goodbyes to Shadesilver, who was going to fly back to Draegodor to see if she could help with the damage. He wondered if Dorenn knew about Tatrice and Bren. It seemed all so silly. He vowed he would never get caught up in such a triangle.

As they entered the chambers that led down to the Migarath Portal, Vesperin was disappointed that he would not get to see Kerad, Morgoran’s council and cleric of Loracia. He should have returned from Rugania by now but was nowhere to be seen. Morgoran opened the cellar-like door that led to the Migarath Portal, and they all entered the room, descending the narrow stairs one by one.

Morgoran manipulated the circular outer ring and opened the portal. “Lux Enor, Kimala, and don’t forget to change the origin point on the outer ring. I don’t want Naneden seeing that you arrived there by way of the Tower of Morgoran.”

“That is the fifth time you reminded me, Morgoran, I won’t forget.” She turned to Fayne. “Be safe, I will return when I am able.”

“Goodbye, and look after yourself,” Fayne replied.

Kimala bowed her head to Bren and Tatrice, gave an uneasy smile to Morgoran, and then stepped through the portal. Vesperin contemplated what the uneasy smile might mean but quickly dismissed it as nothing. Maybe she didn’t want to leave her daughter and go back to that vile Naneden.

“All right, let me adjust this portal.” Morgoran manipulated the outer ring again, and the portal changed from deep blue to light blue and back to deep blue again, each time making a swooshing noise like someone stirring their arm firmly in a barrel of water.

“Enowene, I want you to look over your latest reports and get a message to me as soon as you can if any of your spies are reporting anything out of the ordinary.”

“I can assure you they will be. A lot has happened.”

“I mean incidents that you know we had nothing to do with.”

“Get along,” she said, pointing to the portal.

Morgoran opened his mouth to speak, and Enowene gave him a stern face. “I know my job; now get along,” she repeated.