The Brat's Final Gambit

Davin stood for a moment feeling his head swirl as he tried to figure out how to get out of this without having to get into a confrontation with Bode. He couldn’t think. Niam looked like cornered feral cat, and he knew if he didn’t do something about his friend, there was going to be a confrontation. He couldn’t help shake the feeling that the tree hanging above him was on the verge of collapsing.

“I don’t like it,” he said with a sigh of resignation. “But we have to go talk to them.”

“With something like that, Bode could hurt a lot of people without even thinking about what he had or what he was doing.”

“I think it’s more the other way around,” Davin countered.

“You think the boxes will hurt them, don’t you?” Maerillus asked.

Niam’s eyes got large as the thought sunk in. Suddenly the tone in his voice went from alarmed to light and breezy. “Oh. You were right to begin with. Let’s get back home and leave them to it, then. It’s dinnertime. I’m all for mutton myself. You?” As he said this, he looked wistfully back toward the end of the camp where the road home began. Then his voice turned hard and cold. “Who cares if he gets hurt? He deserves it, Davin!”

The venom in his friend’s voice took Davin aback.

From the camp, gales of laughter turned to petulant hectoring. Bode was unhappy about something, and one of his followers was getting the worst end of it. Davin looked in that direction. Niam did too, and there was a light in his eyes that Davin did not like. He saw the waterwheel turning inside his friend’s head and feared what it might dredge up.

Bracing himself, Davin turned to face Niam and said sternly, “Now that we know that those things in the camp are corrupted, we are responsible for Bode and those fools. They’ve got no idea what’s waiting for them. And for that matter, neither do we.”

Niam looked away angrily and kicked a dried ball of horse manure. That glint in his eyes still didn’t fade. “Let’s go and take care of this, then,” he said.

He said it almost too eagerly.

Davin’s next words stopped him.

“I think you should go back around to the road we came in on and wait for us there.”

“What?” Niam and Maerillus asked at the same time.

“I know that look in his eyes,” Davin hastily explained to Maerillus.

“But if something goes down, we’ll need him with us,” Maerillus insisted. Davin could see the tension gnawing at him. Whenever Maerillus grew nervous or agitated his face became flat and expressionless. Right now he looked as emotive as a stone statue.

Before Niam could get a word in, Davin raised a hand to silence everyone and kept talking. “If I have to, I will talk to Bode. But if Niam is there, they’ll go at one another like two rabid dogs. Besides, we may need to listen to them first. Maybe we’ll learn more about what happened here.”

Niam looked furious. “I don’t like this, Davin,” he said indignantly. “I deserve to go.”

“You deserve to be left alone by people like him. That’s what you deserve. This isn’t a day for revenge,” he told him bluntly. “And I can see in your eyes that’s what you want.”

Perhaps it was the hard edge in his voice, but Niam backed down after a few more protests. That was good. As Niam mellowed by small degrees, Davin set him off in the direction of the woods and the road that waited to take them home. As they watched him go, Maerillus turned to Davin and said, “That was too easy.”

“At least he’s going,” Davin told him. He felt as if a hundred different currents were tugging at him from a hundred different directions: Niam. Bode. The Boxes. The feeling that something was about to go wrong. Jort’s death. The mysterious Voice. And that didn’t name them all.

“Yeah. But I’ve seen Niam like that, too. And I’d almost rather have him nearby so we can keep an eye on him,” Maerillus said in his wiser-if-more-cautious voice.

“Maybe,” Davin said. “But what’s done is done.

“Maybe,” Maerillus echoed him.

And somewhere above him, he felt the trunk of the great tree leaning over him begin to loosen at the roots. Any moment now, it was going to fall.

Niam walked until he was far enough away from Davin and Maerillus that they couldn’t see him. Then he turned and made his way quickly into the Vandin camp. Winding his way through the tents without walking across one of those boxes wasn’t as tricky as he thought it was going to be. The fact that he could feel one as drew close to it helped. As soon as he felt like his skull was beginning to fill with rocks, he stopped and moved slowly in a different direction until the feeling receded. Then all he had to do was skirt around the affected area.

Niam sulked as he walked. When Davin used his bossy voice, Niam knew that there was no reasoning with him. He didn’t feel like reasoning, anyway. All he knew was that Bode couldn’t be allowed to get away with what he was doing. And Niam wasn’t about to sit still and swallow the idea of warning Bode away as if the stupid idiot would listen to anything Davin had to say. Bode was little higher up the animal chain than a hungry cat in a henhouse. All he understood was violence and force. The best anyone could do was slow the pack of fools down long enough for Lord Joachim’s men to catch up with them.

That lot had come in on a westbound trail, which meant it had taken them twice as long, even with horses, to get from Pirim Village to the camp because that trail took them all the way around Siler’s Lake. Eventually, it branched. One road led to the lake valleys, the other toward the coast and larger towns and villages where the land flattened out.

If Niam could slow them down, they could make it back to Pirim Village, tell Joachim, and his men could detain Bode and his friends before they ever made it back. Bode would never have ventured along the path Niam and his friends had taken because he wasn’t allowed onto the Sartor property. And Niam knew he could slip around to the far side of the camp and do what he needed to do without Davin or Maerillus being any the wiser!

Maerillus and Davin kept the outermost ring of tents between themselves and anyone who might possibly be standing on the other side. Maerillus knew his gift had not failed him so far, but he had only had it for a short time, and was uncomfortable relying on something that he knew next to nothing about. Behind him Davin crouched low to the ground, concealed in the knee-high expanse of yellow-tasseled grass that carpeted this part of the valley.

Nearby, Bode’s voice was unmistakable. “Break them all!” His words were rough and had a petulant ring to them. “I don’t care how big this filthy place is!”

“We can’t go through all of this,” one of them complained. “Best if we find what we can and get out of here. Somebody might come back anytime.”

This was followed by the sound of something crashing to the ground and breaking. “I said break them!” Bode bellowed.

Maerillus could tell he was frustrated. The simmering anger behind his voice simmered even more hotly than usual.

“You don’t even know what you’re looking for,” someone spat back indignantly. “Salb is right. We grab anything valuable and get out of here.”

Maerillus knew no one would challenge Bode except Salb. Of the two thugs, he was sure Salb was far more dangerous, and he remembered quite well how Salb had nearly killed Niam several days ago.

To Maerillus’s surprise, another voice told Bode he was sick of following his orders. The owner of the voice sounded drunk. “There’s jewelry and liquor here! You’re not trying to find anything for me—just yourself!”

The boldness of the accusation was new.

Somehow, Bode managed to pull his temper under control. Yet when he spoke, his voice held a note of uncertainty. “Before he got arrested, Dad said his employer told him no one would be coming back. If someone ran this many people off, that means there’s something worth a lot more gold than these little trinkets you’re stuffing in your pockets. I won’t share any of it with you if you don’t shut your lips and look,” he threatened. “Bring me anything that looks . . . different,” he told them.

“I say if we find anything that looks different or valuable, we’ll all have a talk about who gets it and what we do with it.”

Salb’s voice held menace.

Emboldened, Card spoke up. “Yeah. You’re not the only one who came this far. It’s only right. You don’t get to decide on something big.”

Bode battered back in a blustery rush. “You’re not the ones who found out about this, and don’t you dare forget it!” His voice cracked and spluttered.

“We’ll see,” Salb said. “We’re a long way from home.”

His words hung in the air. Even Maerillus was unsettled by the unmistakable threat embedded in Salb’s words.

“Get back to looking!” Bode roared. But Maerillus was beginning to wonder who now headed this pack of dogs. He was relieved that they were currently ransacking the ring of tents next to the one he hid behind. It gave him a chance to motion Davin to his spot unseen.

Davin saw him waving and was at his side in moments.

“What’s going on?” he whispered, peering between tents to be sure he hadn’t attracted any attention. Maerillus could see that he nervously fingered his hatchet.

“They’re in the other circle over there. Bode’s having them smash everything they can.”

“So Niam heard right. They are looking for something,” he mused.

“Yeah. But I’m not sure Bode’s calling the shots anymore.”

“Oh?”

“One word. Salb”

Davin winced. “That’s not good. Bode might try to strangle Niam, but Salb will murder him. He’s going to do it to someone eventually.”

“I know,” Maerillus agreed.

“Can you get me closer? We need to see what they’re up to.”

Maerillus nodded and crept forward across the central area where a cooking pot still hung above a bed of ashes. Before sliding into a tent, he made sure no one could see him and motioned to Davin to follow him. He then pulled out a knife and made a slit in the back of the tent large enough for them to a have an easy escape route.

Davin took Maerillus’s lead and made a small hole to peer through as the boys outside went about their rampage. Though Maerillus was sure he was completely concealed, he felt uneasy as four nasty and brutish boys went about tearing through the belongings of a terrified people who had been forced to flee for their lives in the dark of night.

Davin watched and waited, uneasy because he knew something dark was coming. Now he felt as if a slap from on unseen hand were on its way. That tree will fall soon, he knew, and Great Lord I hope I’m up to handling it when it does. The Voice had guided them through several dark moments, but now it seemed to have left them to this all alone. Where was it? He wanted its help. What if he led his friends into something that got one of them hurt or worse?

Ever since Davin’s experience in Kalavere, he felt as if he had slipped on a new skin. That was the only way he could describe it. He had always felt a responsibility to help others in need. But now he felt it more strongly than ever. Even fools like Bode. If something happened to any of them now, and he could have prevented it, that made it partly his fault. And he didn’t want Bode or Salb on his conscience.

Davin peered through the slit in the tent. Now he had to figure out how to handle this, and spotting the boxes first would be a big help. Peering through a slit of his own, Maerillus shrugged his shoulders.

Davin’s heart sank.

The boxes were out of view. That meant they were going to have to change tents, and every move they made would raise their chances of being caught. To pull this off, Davin knew he was going to need the initiative when he stepped out to try reasoning with Bode.

Before he could motion to Maerillus, he heard Bode yell at Salb to stop. “What are you doing?! There’s a box there you haven’t opened!”

Davin felt a surge of alarm. He pulled the tent flap aside just enough to see outside.

“I don’t see any box,” Salb flashed.

Davin leaned out farther. If anyone looked, they would be able to see his head clearly.

“The little one right there in front of you, you thick-headed ox-lump!” Bode’s face began to turn scarlet. “I should have done this myself!”

Salb looked around on the ground, then gave a slight shrug and said, “Get it yourself.”

Davin saw the box easily. It lay in the grass by Salb’s feet, as if a vicious, black predator had made a nest and crouched to bite at the nearest set of ankles that strayed by.

Bode stood there, poleaxed for a moment. He wasn’t used to this sort of backtalk. For once, Davin saw something like helpless confusion cross Bode’s face. He glared at Salb for a moment and then stormed over to the thing as if the exchange never happened.

Davin held his breath; there was no time to stop him. As Bode drew close to the thing, the expression on his face began to change. Storm clouds massing across his brow shifted, and he seemed confused, as if he had eaten something that unexpectedly disagreed with him. He slowed, and his gait became uncertain. Bode appeared to be experiencing two contradictory impulses for the first time in his life. He slowed even more. Clearly, he wanted to get to the box, but now he looked uncertain.

Then he stopped.

Bode stared at the box, almost the same way Niam had. But then a flush of white flashed across his face, and Bode collapsed to the ground, landing on his butt with a loud “Ummph!”

Jalt and Card brayed laughter like two donkeys.

Bode looked back at them in disbelief.

Then Salb walked over and stopped between Bode and the box and tossed a bottle of wine down to him. He wore a cruel and drunken leer. “Looks like you need this more than I do.” He laughed even harder. At that, both Card and Jalt seemed about to lapse into a fit of apoplexy.

Bode worked his mouth, stunned. “Don’t you feel that!?” he belted out.

“Oh yeah, I’m feeling it good,” Salb slurred slightly.

“He’s seeing things,” Card called out. “Maybe we shouldn’t have given him our wine!”

Bode backed away fearfully. He looked at the box, and then at the three of them. His face was slack and openly shocked at the turn of events. “Stop it!” he screamed at them. They only laughed harder.

“They don’t see the box,” Davin whispered wonderingly.

Maerillus let out a sound of disgust. “We’ve got another problem.”

“What?’ Davin asked, not sure whether he wanted to know the answer.

“Niam,” he said flatly.

Davin cursed softly. “Where?”

“You can’t see him from there. I can only just see what he’s doing,” Maerillus said in frustration.

Davin groaned. “What’s he doing?”

“He appears to be relieving the horses of their saddles and bridles.” After a brief instant, he added, “And now he’s relieving them of the burden of carrying Bode and his friends back home. He just smacked one on the ass. Either the horses said something to offend him, or he’s chasing them off.”

Davin cursed again, and then moved Maerillus over so he could see. Indeed, across the camp, Niam was waving the horses away as they galloped out of sight. And that’s when one of the thugs spotted him.

“Hey! It’s the Maldies brat!”

Bode spun and saw Niam. Now was his chance to his chance to get back control of the situation. “Get him!” he bellowed.

The three thugs roared in unison.

Niam looked up, his eyes wide with surprise.

That’s when all hell broke loose. Suddenly a loud WHUMP! sounded, and several tents lifted high into the air. The ground belched a gout of flame that rose twenty feet and rained down, setting a circle if grass and broken tents alight.

Everyone stopped and gawked.

A flash of light caught Davin’s eye, and his attention whipped over to where a box lay. Across its surface red runic writing appeared to glow with a baleful light that grew and grew in intensity.

Davin screamed a warning just as it burst into a large ball of flame, throwing tents along with their contents flying in fiery shards in every direction. This was followed by another. Then another. The concussion of the blasts rippled the tent fabric, and Maerillus shouted to Davin, “There are more of them hidden among these tents! Run!”

Just as he and Maerillus fled through the opening, he felt a large force lift him up and fling him helplessly through the air. Finally, the tree hanging above him had crashed down. When he hit the ground, he spiraled across the earth and sat up, gasping for air.

As Maerillus picked himself up, someone’s knee plowed into him, ringing his head like a bell. Card went spiraling to the ground. He shot up abruptly and turned, his eyes wide with animal panic, to for the object that tripped him up. When his eyes fell on Maerillus, he snarled, “You!”

Maerillus didn’t wait for him to act. He swung his fist and drove it into the other boy’s face. Card’s eyes rolled back and he went over hard, but thankfully wasn’t knocked out. Maerillus shook him by the collar and growled, “Get out of here, Card. You and your idiot friends. Now!”

Card screamed in terror and darted away like a crazed rabbit.

About fifteen feet away, Davin got shakily to his feet. Each time a box detonated, Bode’s gang changed direction as they attempted to flee, nearly trampling one another in their madcap frenzy. If it hadn’t been so terrifying, Maerillus would have laughed hysterically.

Davin limped over to Maerillus’s side. Both crouched as debris and flames fell like dragons’ tears around them. Explosions were now going off all throughout the camp. The two of them jerked as a massive explosion to the east jarred their teeth and left their ears ringing. Maerillus watched, dumbstruck and terrified.

Walls of smoke drifted past them, closing off parts of the world, and reopening, revealing a large vista of flaming tents and abandoned carts snarled together. Through a bank of flames, a soot covered, thin shape wound its way toward them. It was Niam. Long rivulets of sweat running down his face from his brow had washed some of his skin clean, leaving a striped, fence-like pattern across his cheeks.

“What a show!” he yelled above the din. His face radiated excitement from every pore.

“Don’t worry about us!” Maerillus rounded on him. “We’re okay!”

Niam looked taken aback. “I could tell that,” he said defensively. “I really could!”

“Let’s get out of here!” Davin said shouted.

Fires were spreading in every direction, and it was hard not to get caught up in the tangled ruins twisting and roping everywhere. As they neared the boundary of the destruction, Maerillus just made out the shape of a motionless form lying pinned beneath a shattered mass of wood. An explosion must have flung it on top of whoever it was as he tried to run out of the flaming chaos. Davin and Niam saw it too, and as they sprinted over to the figure, they saw that the mass of wood had once been a cart.

Bode lay crumpled beneath shattered remains. Davin bent to check his body.

“He’s alive,” he said between sooty coughs. “Help me lift this off of him.”

Maerillus and Niam began grabbing planks of wood and cleared them from Bode’s body. If it hadn’t been for a shallow dip in the ground, the cart’s remains would have crushed him where he lay.

“Help me lift him,” Davin said urgently. “This place is going to be a carpet of fire in a few minutes!”

Niam grabbed his foot and growled, “Forget that! I’m dragging his sorry hide!”

“We don’t have time for that,” he said vehemently.

“Fine,” Niam said and kicked Bode solidly in the side before helping maneuver his limp form over Davin’s shoulder.

The walk to the trail leading back home was a slow one. One of the saddleless horses stood nervously chomping at grass nearby. When it saw them, it blew through its nose, uncertain whether or not to run. By this point, the explosions had ceased, and now only the hot splintering crackle of burning wood sounded above what had once been a large town of tents.

Maerillus looked at the horse with relief. It was a good thing it had fled in this direction, otherwise someone might have been forced to remain with Bode while the others returned to Pirim Village for help. Niam walked up to it, took its mane, and led it back, cooing and talking soothingly to the animal. Its ears flickered and its head jerked toward any noise. But Niam had always had a way with animals, and after a few minutes it seemed calmer. Hoisting Bode atop the animal’s back took more effort than he realized. Finally, they just decided to drape him across its back. There was no way to tie him to it. They started down the trail quickly, hoping to be long gone when the owner of those boxes returned.