Trail of the Gods: The Morcyth Saga Book Four (13 page)

“But they’re not fighters,” protests James.
“Against a real adversary, they’d be slaughtered.”

“True,” agrees Roland. “But by them being
around, there will be fewer attempts like the one that succeeded in
getting to you. Their mere presence will keep most of them from
even happening. If something major should happen, then they will be
able to give you and us warning to come to their aid.”

“The whole point is not to be caught
unawares again,” interjects Jiron.

“Did you tell them of the danger?” James
asks.

“Yes, and their families,” Roland replies.
“We’re also paying them each two coppers a day for their services.
Around here, that’s a lot of money.”

“How are we to pay for all that?” he
asks.

“That’s something I need to discuss with you
later,” Roland replies.

“Oh, one other thing I should mention,”
Jiron adds.

“What?” asks James.

He glances to Roland who grins at him and
then returns his attention to James. “They stumbled across your
glowing crystals out in the forest,” he explains.

“And?” prompts James.

“And, they mentioned it to their families,”
replies Jiron. He gives James an amused smile as he continues, “It
seems your reputation is growing even faster because of it.”

“What are they saying about them?” he asks
with trepidation.

“That you’ve captured evil spirits and
imprisoned them,” he explains.

James’ jaw drops open and he exclaims,
“That’s absurd!” he says.

“I know, but rumor has a life of its own,”
he counters. “Especially when you’re not here to squash it.”

Sighing, James says, “I suppose so.”

Illan begins laughing.

“What’s so funny?” he asks him, annoyed.

“It’s just the way with all things that
can’t be explained,” he says. “Everything must be explained, one
way or another. If the truth is unavailable, then good old
imagination will have to do.”

“Do you plan to explain it to them?” Jiron
asks.

“No,” he says. “I don’t dare. Can’t have
anyone knowing what I’m doing.”

Ezra pops in and announces dinner will be
ready in several minutes.

Getting up, James says, “I’m going to go out
and check on the crystals, then I’ll be back in for dinner.”

“Yes, sir,” she says before returning into
the kitchen.

Jiron gets up and says, “I’ll come with
you.”

They leave through the front door and walk
around the side of the house. “One lad is stationed out at the road
to announce anyone coming,” he explains. “He blows the horn and
several riders who are waiting here spring into action and ride out
to meet whoever is coming. Two notes indicate the sentry doesn’t
feel it’s a threat, one note and everyone comes running. So far, we
have had only one instance when a single note had been blown. Orry
said that he blew two notes, but no one believes him. Yern made him
practice blowing two notes for a whole hour.”

“So Yern is in charge of our irregulars?”
James asks.

“He’s taken charge, yes,” he replies. “I
didn’t want the job and he seems a natural at leading and
organizing them. But now that Illan’s here, he’ll probably take
over.”

“How many do we have?” he asks.

“Eight,” he answers. “They rotate in their
jobs. One stays out at the lane, another three patrol the woods
surrounding us. Each of those in the woods has a horn as well. Four
stay by the house with horses ready to go to someone’s aid at a
moment’s notice.”

“Seems you have it well under control,” he
says.

“After the last two fights we’ve had here,
it became evident we needed help,” he says.

Passing by the workshop, they enter the
woods and James heads toward where he left the crystals. He first
goes to the area with the two that had been simply sitting and were
no longer leeching from their surroundings.

He finds them still resting on the ground
though they look as if they may not be in the exact same location
as he left them. “I think the kids have been touching them,” he
tells Jiron. Glancing at him, he says, “You probably better tell
them it may not be safe to do so.”

“Alright,” replies Jiron, “I’ll do
that.”

He bends over and picks up the crystals,
both still have a red glow within them. Both glows look to be the
same intensity. One had a deeper glow than the other the last time
he checked them.
Perhaps the stored power dwindles to a certain
point, and then stops.
Interesting.

“What?” asks Jiron when he sees the
perplexed look.

“Just that I thought one would have a darker
glow than the other,” he explains. He puts them into his pocket and
then makes his way to the area where he put the four crystals that
were going to continuously maintain a full capacity by leeching
micro amounts from their surroundings.

He almost doesn’t realize he’s reached them
until Jiron points one out to him. Smiling in satisfaction, he goes
over to it and sees a soft red glow forming within its center. A
careful examination of the surrounding vegetation shows only the
slightest signs of withering. He’s actually not entirely sure if
it’s a natural occurrence, or was caused by the crystal’s
leeching.

Checking all four of them shows the same
result. Each has absorbed magic from their surroundings in such
small, micro amounts that they haven’t significantly affected any
living thing near them. Nowhere near capacity yet because of the
slow process, James is confident that given enough time, they will
be able to reach and sustain full power.

Standing up from where he had been examining
the last of the crystals, he gives Jiron a wide grin. “Things going
okay then?” Jiron asks him.

“Couldn’t be better,” he says. “Let’s go
have dinner.”

On the way back, James asks, “If all the
kids are working during the day, what do you do at night?”

“They take two hour shifts,” he explains.
“One night on , one night off. Two are patrolling at any given time
during the night. Plus, Yern and I have been taking turns keeping
an eye on them, at least until they’ve proven themselves.”

“I see,” James says.

They round the workshop just as Ezra opens
the back door, “I was just about to holler for you two. Time to
eat.”

“Thank you,” James tells her.

She opens the door wide for him as he
enters. Going over to the washbasin, he cleans himself up and then
takes his seat at the head of the table.

Dinner is good, as always. The kids are not
eating. They inform him that Ezra sends meals out to them and they
eat outside. “Too many in here if I allow them to eat with us,” she
explains.

With all the additional mouths to feed, he’s
glad he made provisions for a large kitchen area in the new estate
house he’s having built. She may have to prepare meals for an army
before too much longer. Luckily she has Tersa to help her. He may
have to get even more help if the number of people here continues
to rise.

After dinner, they adjourn to the front room
for ale and evening conversations. Jiron and Yern remain outside
with their new charges, keeping an eye on them.

James finds it hard to keep from yawning
after awhile and excuses himself, saying he needs to get some
sleep. Once in bed, he has a hard time falling asleep even though
he’s very tired. His mind continues thinking about Lord Colerain,
wondering if he’ll stop his relentless attempts to capture him. And
just what is it that he’s supposed to have stolen? Will he ever
know? Eventually though, exhaustion wins out and he slips away to
sleep.

“
Steady now.”

A voice from outside his window wakes him
up. “Hold it steady,” the voice says again. Getting out of bed, he
goes over to the window and sees Illan there with the eight
recruits. Each of the recruits is holding a sword in their right
hand at exactly a forty five degree angle. To his surprise, one of
them is a girl. As he watches for a moment, one of them lets their
sword droop a fraction. Illan notices and gets right in their
face.

“You will hold it steady until I tell you to
stop!” he yells at the lad. The recruit grits his teeth as he
strains to raise the sword to bring it back into line with the
others. James can see the strain and struggle in all their faces as
they attempt to keep it up and in the correct position. “You are
going to learn to use your sword, and by god you’ll learn to use it
well. The first thing you must learn is endurance.” Another allows
their sword to droop a fraction and he’s right on top of him until
it rises back in line with the others.

The girl manages to maintain the correct
angle of her sword throughout the drill. The determination clear
upon her face.

“In combat,” Illan continues, “the first one
to lose strength, the first one who can no longer swing their
sword, is the first one to die!”

“Lower them,” he commands.

James watches as they bring their swords
down, relief evident upon their faces. Then Illan says, “Switch
hands!”

“What?” one of the boys asks. “I don’t use
my left hand?”

Illan comes over to him and says, “What if
your right arm is wounded? Are you going to tell the man trying to
kill you to stop attacking because you don’t fight with your left
hand?” Staring straight at the boy, he yells, “Left hand, now!”

Gulping, the lad passes his sword to his
left hand and joins his fellows in holding it up at a forty five
degree angle.

Moving away from his window, James gets
dressed and then goes out to the kitchen for breakfast. He finds
Tersa and Jiron there finishing up their meal. “I see Illan has
them working hard this morning,” he says.

Smiling, Jiron replies, “They’ve been at it
for over an hour now.”

“May have to construct a barracks of some
kind if they’re going to be here permanently,” says James as he
sits down at the table.

Tersa gets up and brings him over a plate
with eggs and tubers.

Seeing the eggs, he asks, “So Ezra has the
new chickens laying already?”

“Most of them never even stopped as she was
afraid of,” Tersa replies, sitting back down next to her
brother

“Good,” James says as he takes a large bite
of eggs.

“While the recruits are training, the rest
of us are on patrol duty,” Jiron informs him. “Illan says they must
have at least three hours of practice a day, maybe more when all of
us are here. They didn’t really expect all this training when we
first asked around for help, but it makes sense.”

Nodding, James adds, “After what we’ve been
through the last week, any and all training can only help.” He eats
a couple more bites in silence before continuing, “I saw a girl out
there with the others.”

“Oh, that’s Errin,” he says. “She’s the
daughter of some farmer on the far side of town. When her father
heard we were asking for help, he brought her over to us. Said she
was a hellcat and would fit right in.”

“He did, did he?” James asks.

“Yeah, he did,” answers Jiron with a grin.
“In fact, he seemed right glad to be rid of her. But she’s caused
no problems and she can shoot a bow better than any of the others.
You probably didn’t see her yesterday because we have her mainly
patrolling the woods.”

“Does she want to be here?” he asks,
concerned about forcing someone to do something against their will.
Especially something that could endanger their lives.

“She’s taken to it with great
determination,” Jiron tells him. “Yern says that she was wasted
back on the farm and that’s where she would have most likely spent
her days seeing as how the Cardri army doesn’t allow women
recruits.”

They spend the remainder of breakfast
catching up on small details that have cropped up since James was
gone, thankfully nothing of any real importance. Just before he’s
done eating, Roland comes in from the front room.

“Oh, there you are,” he says to James. “I
need to talk to you.”

Getting up, James says to Jiron and Tersa,
“If you’ll excuse me.”

“Of course,” Jiron says.

He follows Roland as he exits the kitchen
and moves toward James’ room. Once inside, he closes the door and
comes over to the chest and lifts the lid. What had once been a
chest filled to the brim, now contains only a few coins.

“What happened?” asked James, shocked.

“What happened?” echoes Roland. “We’ve got
construction going on and that seems to be a constant drain on our
coins. New recruits for security, not to mention arming them and
feeding them, plus just the maintenance of this place, it all
costs. We’re fast running out of money.”

“I’ll go down to Alexander’s and get some
more,” he tells him.

“Do that,” he says. “Also, you need to tell
him that you’ll allow me to withdraw funds while you’re gone so I
can keep this place going. I tried to while they were hunting for
you, but since you hadn’t made that stipulation, he wouldn’t
release any to me.”

“Sorry, I hadn’t thought of that,”
apologizes James. “I’ll take care of that today.”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Roland says
with a worried look.

“Oh?” asks James.

“The money you have with Alexander will last
awhile, but at the rate we’re spending, it probably won’t last more
than a few months, maybe less. We have to find a source of income,
one that’s consistent and which we can count on.”

“Do you have any suggestions?” he asks.

Shaking his head, Roland says, “No. The only
one I can even think of is for you to make similar objects like
your shaving knife that Delia could sell for us.”

“I really don’t want to do that,” he
says.

“I know, we’ve discussed it before,” Roland
replies. “But try to come up with something, and don’t take too
long about it.”