The Wayfarer King (2 page)

Brodas gave an uncharacteristic hoot and clapped Red on the back. “Well done, Red! Tell me you have a gargoyle with you.”

“Yeh. I convinced the merchant to part with one.” He pulled out a small wooden gargoyle figurine, roughly five inches tall and three inches wide, and handed it to Brodas.

“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Brodas asked, turning the figurine over in his hands. Though it was a lovely golden brown with smooth, black onyxes set into its eye sockets, the carving was hideous to behold. Its mouth was open, revealing jagged teeth and a long tongue.

“No, m’lord. I left him alive like you told me to.” Red inspected the wooden gargoyle attached to the library door that had locked Brodas out. “Who put this here?”

“Gavin Kinshield or one of his damnable cohorts.”

“We could try to unlock it with my gargoyle.”

“Try it if you want to,” Brodas said, “but Kinshield’s death is too much to hope for at this point. Except for Cirang, he has managed to wrest the Viragon Sisterhood’s loyalty from me.” He held up his three-fingered hand, reminded again of the irony of it. He’d severed the same fingers from Risan Stronghammer’s hand in an attempt to learn the identity of the rune solver.

“Ho! What happened?” Red asked.

“Too much to explain now. Warrick is...” A lump rose in his throat and he swallowed it down. This was no time to get weepy. “Warrick is dead.”

Red’s brows rose, but he said nothing, for which Brodas was grateful. Red did not, exactly, have an agile tongue.

“The chest of gems that you took from the gemsmith — I need to get it open, Red. At once.”

Red measured Cirang with a glance and held his hand out for the ax. “Give it here.” She handed it to him. Red’s large muscles bunched as he swung the ax against the plaster-covered brick wall. Brodas and Cirang stood back, plugging their ears, and watched while Red continued hacking. In time, he broke a hole in the wall large enough to step through.

Red went in first and offered a hand to help Brodas stumble over the debris. Cirang followed. Inside the once-immaculate library, they covered their noses and mouths against the clay dust that floated in the air. Brodas’s wooden chest sat on the desk, right where he’d left it, and to his utter surprise, no gargoyle sat upon its lid.

“Looks like my trip to Tern was wasted,” Red grumbled.

“Not wasted,” Brodas assured him. “The gargoyle will undoubtedly be useful later.” Without another moment’s delay, he raised the lid. Inside were perhaps fifty or sixty gems of various colors, each about the size of his thumbnail. With his heart racing, he picked one up and measured it against his magic power. While it didn’t have the infinite depth of the gems in Kinshield’s sword, it was more than adequate for most any job. He guessed that he would be able to use it a dozen times or more before it began to crack from the stress. He scooped up a handful and repeated the process, measuring each gemstone. Yes. They were exactly what he needed.

“Excellent. Now, help me gather my books.” He closed the lid then set his gargoyle on it, watching as it melded with the lid, locking it shut until the next time he removed the carving.

Red looked at the two walls of shelves, filled with books. “All of them?”

“No, we don’t have time for them all.” Brodas went to the bookcase, pulled his journals from their shelves and handed them to Red. Most of them were there; one was missing. Then he noticed that the spines of his books were misaligned. Someone had been in here, going through his things. Kinshield and his friends must have taken the journal, but why just that one? The information in it was only valuable to Brodas. Of all the books in the library, they should have taken Crigoth Sevae’s journal. In it, Sevae described how, as Royal Mage and Drugger, he’d betrayed the king and summoned the champion Ritol to help him usurp the throne. The idiots probably had no idea that Brodas even possessed it. He pulled the delicate old tome off the shelf and cradled it in his arms. “Cirang, Red, I’m missing a journal with a black cover like these. Help me look for it.”

Cirang scanned the shelves while Red began opening and closing drawers of the desk, sifting through the papers. Brodas continued to scan the shelves, hoping that whoever had been looking through his library had simply moved it.

Behind him, the rustling stopped. “M’lord, is this it?” Red held up the black, leather-bound tome.

“Indeed it is.” Briefly he wondered what had possessed someone to put it in a drawer, but that thought fled his mind as he flipped through the pages and found what he was looking for: the addresses of Gavin Kinshield’s relatives. As fortune shone, there was a cousin in Calsojourn. He snapped the book shut with a satisfying
thwap!
He’d made a promise to Kinshield, and he was a man of his word.

Chapter 3

Aldras Gar...

Its whispers invaded Gavin’s consciousness, jerking him out of a violent dream. He leapt out of bed, reaching for the sword, before he realized the three gems in the hilt were dark. It was just another dream. No danger. Not at the moment, anyway. With his heart still thumping, he sat heavily on the edge of the bed. Damned sword.

The sun was rising, and they had a four-day ride ahead. He might as well eat and get on the road. He dressed, grabbed Aldras Gar, and went downstairs.

Edan Dawnpiper was sitting in the dining hall, hunched over a table within a sea of tables, quill in hand, writing furiously. Slim and wiry with light-brown hair and mustache, Edan had always been the one to capture the ladies’ attention, but he’d yet to take a wife. Gavin admired his charm and wit and knew he’d never find a truer friend. There could be no other choice for the position of King’s Adviser.

“What’re you doing?” Gavin asked as he walked in.

Edan started. The pen in his hand stumbled over the page. “Damn, Gavin. You nearly scared the ghost out of me.” He picked up the page. A sliver of light shone through the tear his wayward pen had made. “Writing letters to the lordovers. I’m almost finished.”

Gavin pushed chairs out of his path as he made his way to Edan’s table. “You’ve been up all night?”

“You don’t employ a scribe to copy them for me.” Edan examined his quill and sighed.

The chair’s legs scraped noisily across the slate floor as Gavin pulled it out and sat. “I don’t employ anyone,” he said with a sarcastic grin. “Not even you.” He set his sword down, reached for the carafe of water and guzzled its contents.

“Exactly. You haven’t any money.”

Gavin wiped his mouth on his sleeve and picked up one of the letters Edan had written. “You ain’t asking the lordovers for money are you?” Despite the precise and uniform handwriting, its letters were too fancy for Gavin to make out. He read barely well enough when the letters were printed block style, on signs and the like, but not this.

“Just my father. Explaining why I’ve been gone so long might temper his fury and spare me the stocks and perhaps a whipping.” Edan wiped the ink off his quill and set it aside. “To the rest, I’m announcing that Thendylath has a new king. We can start planning your coronation.”

“No.” Gavin gestured sharply. “No. I told you to wait.” He put the letter back on the pile.

“Gavin.” Edan sounded exasperated. “What good is having an adviser if you won’t take my advice?”

Gavin groaned and fell back in his chair. Not this argument again.

“Why do you think doing this alone is better than getting the help of everyone in Thendylath?”

“Look, if the people knew what really happened to King Arek, they’d panic. The lordovers don’t need that on top o’everything else. When I vanquish the demon and seal the rift between the realms, when Thendylath is safe, then I’ll have proven I’m worthy o’the crown. Then the people will have a king they can trust.”

Edan slapped the table. “You’ve proven yourself worthy by solving the runes and claiming the King’s Blood-stone. We need soldiers, armor and weapons. We need money. How can we hunt down Ravenkind without the lordovers’ help? How can we battle Ritol without an army?”

“We don’t need an army. Soldiers didn’t do King Arek any good.” All Gavin needed was Daia and the Rune of Summoning. And maybe a few ideas on what the hell to do.

“Speaking of armor, where’s yours?” Edan asked.

“In my room.”

“Lot of good it does there.”

Gavin scrunched the scarred side of his face. “I didn’t think I’d have to defend myself against my best pal.”

Edan laughed. “Yet you brought your sword.”

Gavin gazed at Aldras Gar, leaning against the table beside him. “It won’t let me go anywhere without it.” He picked up his sword and rubbed it with a napkin, polishing its snakeskin-like blade to a radiant finish, then shined the three gems embedded in the eyes of the two molded, intertwined snakes that formed the hilt and pommel. As much as he respected the weapon, he also feared it. It resonated with his very soul, and he couldn’t stand to be too distant from it. The thing begged to be wielded. It wasn’t just a pretty blade to hang above a mantel. “By the way, I’m leaving for Ambryce this morning.”

“Get the cuirass repaired before you go, will you?” Edan looked at the sheet of paper in his hand. “Would you at least let me tell my father?”

Gavin groaned. “Are we still talking about this? I remember saying no.”

“There’s no denying we need money. Between us, we’ve only got enough to pay for another eight days here before the innkeeper kicks us out and opens the inn back up to the public.”

“If we run out o’money, we can camp in the burnt part of the Garnet district. There are still a few houses standing.”

“And who among us has the skill to cook for fifteen people three times a day? A better solution is to ask my father for a loan.”

Gavin rubbed his temples. Anxiety started to tense his muscles once more. He knew Edan was right about the straits of his purse. The notion of letting the word out about his claim to the throne made him itch. “Awright. Just the Lordover Lalorian. No one else. He’s been like a father. I’d want to tell him first anyway.” It was a reasonable compromise and might keep Edan quiet about the matter for a week or two.

“Good. I’m glad you agree.” Edan lifted the stack of letters and pulled out the bottom one. “But you should also consider telling the Lordover Tern. After all, he’s—”

“No.”

“—known to have some secrets and historical artifacts handed down from King Arek and Ronor Kinshield.”

“Secrets? What secrets?” He couldn’t imagine any secrets the lordover might have that Gavin didn’t already know or at least be able to remember with Daia’s help.

“That you’d have to ask him. Maybe Daia knows. My point is that he might have knowledge or items that could help us, but he’s not a man to give something for nothing. If he knew who the king was...” Edan made a seesawing hand motion. “...he might be more amenable.”

From what Daia had told him, her father wasn’t the most cooperative or easygoing fellow. The Lordover Tern probably wouldn’t take kindly to the king appointing his estranged daughter as King’s Champion. The last thing Gavin wanted was to get into a pissing contest with the Lordover Tern. “Maybe,” he told Edan. “Let me think on it some more.”

“Think hard.” Edan leaned back in his chair. “And remember, the sooner we get the word out, the sooner we can bring Ravenkind to justice.”

“I know, I know.” He rolled his head to the side first one way then the other to loosen his neck.

“Listen, Gav, there’s something I need to tell you. This is going to be tough to hear, but you have to know. In Ravenkind’s library, we found a journal that described...” He paused for a deep breath. “...described what he did to your family.”

Gavin’s blood ran cold. “What?”

“In disturbing detail. That’s not all, though. It also listed the names and addresses of your family members across the country.”

Gavin shot to his feet. “What?”

“Aunts, uncles, cousins... brother,” Edan said. “Two pages of Kinshields, many with city names, some with street names.”

That meant Rogan was in trouble. Liera, the boys — all in danger. Heat spread up his neck. He pounded the table with a fist. Water from Edan’s glass sloshed onto the wood surface. “Damn that bloody bastard to hell and back,” Gavin shouted. Edan pushed his papers away from the puddle.

“I’ve written a letter to the Viragon Sisterhood to request guards for your brother,” Edan said as he mopped up the spill. “If you can list your other relatives, I’ll have more Sisters dispatched.”

Gavin fell back into his seat and rubbed his brow, thinking back to his childhood in Lalorian. He named a couple of uncles and handful of cousins. “I ha’n’t seen most o’them since I was a boy, and there’s more I don’t remember. Rogan prob’ly knows more than I do.” There was only one thing to do. “I’ll take a couple o’guards with me to Saliria to keep him and his family safe.”

Daia approached and leaned on the back of a chair. “How about Hennah and Nasharla? They’re good fighters and know Ravenkind on sight.”

Gavin nodded, and she left to make the arrangements.

Edan folded the wet napkin and set it aside. “Chances are good Ravenkind’s already fled Sohan, and only the crows know where he’s gone.”