The Brat's Final Gambit

Bode’s arms dangled limply and swayed with the motion of the horse carrying him. After several hours of walking, Niam and Maerillus felt safe enough to go at it again, and Davin gritted his teeth. Somewhere in the forest, a pair of eyes seemed to be boring into him, and the bickering only set him more at edge.

“I wish the two of you would just knock it off!” he shouted.

“He should have stayed put where we told him!” Maerillus shouted back, more at Niam than at Davin.

“My idea was a good one,” Niam replied hotly after explaining himself for the hundredth time to Maerillus.

“Until you got caught,” Maerillus snapped back, crossing his arms and leveling his most imperious stare at him.

“Not like it mattered anyway, what with all the boxes spitting tents, carts, fire, and Bodes everywhere!”

Maerillus raised his hands in exasperation. “THAT’S my point! The only thing that saved your butt was the fact that all hell broke loose. If it hadn’t, we’d have been forced to take on four people to bail you out. And trust me, Bode’s bad enough. Salb. . . he’d have stuck a sword in you and played jump rope with your guts for fun.”

Davin had heard enough. He walked ahead and rounded on them both. “We’ve been nearly blown to bits and burned to death,” he began with slow, emphatic words to make sure none of them missed his point. “Now I’d say that you two little girls can keep at each other, but that would be an insult to Madeline, who would know better than to fight like two roosters while the person who killed the Vandin, burned the camp, and nearly got us scattered across that field back there is walking free right now. On top of that, there is something wrong and I don’t know what it is.”

Niam and Maerillus looked away sheepishly, avoiding one another’s eyes.

“Now say you’re sorry,” Davin demanded, planting his arms on his hips.

Niam scratched his head shamefully. “I guess I’ve been really upset since before we came up here,” he muttered.

Maerillus looked down at the ground. “Me too,” he said.

“Now see, isn’t this a beautiful thing?” Davin asked at the end of his rope and then punched them both hard enough in the shoulder to leave a good bruise.

“Ouch!”

“Hey!”

“That’s so you both don’t forget!”

Niam massaged his arm gingerly. “That was unnecessary,” he complained.

“I’m feeling a bit unnecessary at the moment,” Davin said. Then he changed topics. “We need to focus and talk about what happened back there.”

“Danger. . . life or death situations, lots of hiding, a terrifying run for our lives . . .” Niam quipped. “You know, the usual.”

Maerillus’s voice became heavy. “This is bigger than anything we could have imagined,”

“I agree,” Davin said to them both. Then he told Niam he was right about the boxes. “We felt it too, but not as strongly as you.”

“Thanks,” Niam grumbled.

“It’s strange that Bode had a similar reaction to them,” Davin said.

Those words fell on Niam like sand in his face. He looked venomously up at where the bully’s body hung across the horse, but made a visible effort of reining his contempt into something more controllable. “I’d pay good money to know why,” he managed calmly after a moment. “I wonder what set them off,” Niam said. “I mean, I wonder if they were booby-trapped, or something like that.”

“Somebody could have been there to set them off,” Maerillus offered.

“Or they could have been made to go off when no one was around,” Davin said. “But all of these are good points.”

“Yeah, but one of those boxes lured me to it,” Niam told them suspiciously.

“But, you’re forgetting that we felt uneasy around them,” Davin replied. “So did Bode.”

“But why did I have a different reaction to them, and why couldn’t anyone else see them for that matter?”

“Excellent questions!” Davin said sourly. “And we don’t have one single clue.”

Niam wrinkled his nose and took a step away from the horse he led, “Does Bode ever take a bath?”

“That’s the only thing we have the answer to,” Maerillus replied. “I think he’s attracting gnats.”

Then, as Davin opened his mouth to say something else, he froze. A wave of danger suddenly swept over him. He drew his hatchet and hissed, “Get back! Get your bow ready!”

The horse Niam was leading suddenly jerked its head around as it sensed something too. Its eyes went white and its nostrils flared. Niam tried to steady it, but the animal began to jig and sluice as it struggled to get away, panicking and snorting in fear. The alarmed animal tore free of his grip and took off running down the trail. Bode’s unconscious head bounced stupidly as it ran.

Maerillus began fumbling for his arrows, reaching for the quiver he kept slung over his shoulder. Niam looked around wildly for something to hit with his staff.

Davin felt something approaching fast. A dark shape burst out of the shadows and leapt at him with a vicious growl.

Davin barely had enough time to react, but he dropped in time to avoid the worst of the impact. Razor sharp claws raked him and pain seared across his left shoulder. Air exploded out of his chest as he hit the ground and rolled.

His attacker’s momentum sent it flying several feet away where it landed with an unnatural grace and rounded on him. The thing was a monster ripped out of the stuff of nightmare.

Somewhere behind him Niam shouted out in alarm. The terror in his voice merged with Davin’s own. Maerillus fumbled with an arrow and dropped it. “What is that thing!?” he screamed.

Davin looked at the creature in front of him and wanted to run. He had never seen anything like it in his life. The thing was covered in a rough hide of diseased skin and stood at an odd angle on all fours as if it had started out as a man, but its limbs had been bent in the wrong direction so it could move on all fours like a large cat. Long claws tipped its legs, and its face was distended and misshapen, as if it were morphing into a new, feline form. Wicked incisors jutted from its mouth and tore into its own flesh, leaving the thing’s lower lips a mass of bloody tatters.

When the beast stared at Davin, it’s eyes burned with a hateful intelligence, and the thing lifted its head back and gave an earsplitting scream of rage.

Davin held his hatchet ready, and his hands shook so fiercely that his weapon felt useless.

The creature raked the ground and its haunches tensed as it shifted its weight back and prepared to leap. In a flash of color, a long shaft suddenly buried itself in the beast’s eye. The creature screamed in agony and slumped to the ground, motionless.

Davin stared for a half-second, and turned to thank Maerillus. . . but Maerillus had only just successfully fetched an arrow and gaped the creature in total surprise. Then Davin noticed a dark figure behind his friends, standing with his bow ready in his left hand as he nocked another arrow with his right.

“That,” he said with stoic calm, “was a trall.”

“Fiery hell!” Niam blurted out. “Who are you!?”

The man’s pursed lips made a thin line. “You’re welcome,” he said dryly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think your friend has fallen off of his horse somewhere behind us.”

“He’s not our friend,” Niam said in a voice heavy with fear and suspicion.

“His unlucky day then,” the stranger said, giving the boys a measured, studying look that made Davin uneasy.

The stranger looked around as if he were taking everything in at once. With his arrow ready, he walked over to the creature—the trall—with a gait killer’s fluid grace and sent another arrow into the thing’s chest. Davin flinched as the thing jerked in a deadly spasm that would have sent its claws into the stranger’s legs if he had stood just a little closer. “With trall, it’s always best to kill them twice,” he said mechanically, as if he were listing the things he would need to scrub out a privy. “They don’t die easily,” he went on, “and only a fool tires to take one down with a hatchet. Arrows are best, or something with reach—like a spear. Even then, you’ll want to come at one with help.”

“What was that thing?” Davin demanded.

The stranger ignored him. “Did you know your eyes are yellow, young man?” He asked casually, as if he were asking someone if the sky were cloudy.

Davin blinked.

“Yes,” he said tersely. “Now what was that?”

The man met his gaze, and Davin knew he was dangerous. “A trall is what is left of a man after a sorcerer has made him into something else . . . rather less than a man, shall we say?”

At the mention of a sorcerer, Davin’s gut clenched. “How do you know this?” he asked warily.

The stranger laughed, though there was little humor in it. “Well, I would have thought that was obvious. I’ve killed them before.”

“I don’t mean to seen rude, but we’ve already been nearly killed once today,” Davin said levelly. He felt relived when he noted that Maerillus stood to the side with an arrow ready. The stranger still stood like a coiled spring ready snap. Davin was willing to bet that this was his relaxed posture.

“The day’s young yet,” the man replied.

“Thank you for saving my life,” Davin told him. “If you hadn’t come along it would have killed the three of us.”

“And that would have been very unfortunate for you because trall don’t wait until their prey are dead before they start eating.”

“I’m twice as glad you came along then.”

“Why were you coming this way,” Maerillus asked. “This road leads to private property.”

“Because I was going to see a friend and your father gave me permission.”

Maerillus raised an eyebrow. “You must be the court investigator everyone’s been talking about.”

The man arched an eyebrow. “Court investigator indeed.”

Davin knew that it was past time for introductions. “I’m Davin Hapwell and this is Niam Maldies. You apparently already know who Maerillus is.”

My name is Jolan Kine,” the new man said.

“This man you were going to see . . . he wouldn’t have happened to have been Vandin, would he?”

The man nodded as he peered cautiously through the forest, eyes never resting on any one spot as they searched for danger.

“I’m afraid you’re not going to find him,” Davin said, and then told him about the burning camp. “I didn’t see anyone else there. I think all of them were scared away by something before it happened.”

“Not all of us were scared away,” a deeply accented voice resonated from behind them.

Davin spun to see a short man in leather britches, dark shirt, and soft boots made for hunting walking out from concealment behind a dense copse of tightly packed young saplings.

They both acknowledged one another.

“Rand.”

“Jolan.”

“What stinking hole did he crawl out of!?” Niam exclaimed.

As he drew closer, the man called Rand had another surprise in store for the three of them. His eyes shone with a strange glint. The Vandin’s eyes didn’t shine like theirs sometimes did, but they were unique, iridescent, not of any one particular color but opalescent, shot through with many.

“Your eyes!” Niam said, wonderingly.

“Pay attention Maldies,” Kine told him pointedly. “It would seem you’re all related.”

If the looks on Maerillus and Niam’s faces were anything to go by on his own, Davin knew the shock was obvious. Maybe he heard wrong. There could be no way they were related. The Vandin were the last people he would have been related to. Maerillus was nearly white.

“Did you say we were related?” Davin asked. Rand stood like a wild, rangy wolf, gazing at him intently.

“We can’t be related to . . . um . . .” he began awkwardly, but cut himself off as Niam and Maerillus shifted under the Vandin’s steady eye.

Maerillus cleared his throat audibly. “What I think Davin’s trying to say is that none of us have heard about anything like that in our ancestry.”

Davin cast a grateful look to Maerillus.

“What with how the Vandin consort with animals and make pacts with the Lord of the Grave,” Kine said gruffly, “I’m sure it would have been the hot topic at the dinner table.”

Davin blushed furiously, but Rand broke out in deep-throated laughter. “Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear sometimes, Hapwell.” He growled. “There’s a riderless horse down that way. We need to get him and bring him back.”

“Which boy does it belong to?”

“The one lying in the middle of the road.”

Rand gave a nod, and Kine explained that they would catch up to him before the Vandin trotted off fetch the horse. When they found Bode, he was sprawled in the middle of the road. His face was coated with dirt where it had plowed into earth as he fell. Davin winced. He knew that was going to hurt fiercely when he finally came to.

“You’re here to look into Jort’s death, aren’t you?” Maerillus asked.

Something unreadable flashed across Kine’s face. His voice was slow; he growled, “Among other things. There’s lots going on here that needs investigating.”

Davin winced as he heard him say that. He already seemed to know things about the three of them that they didn’t even know, and that made him nervous.

“And how did you know where to find us?” Davin asked Rand, who—like Kine—kept a constant eye on the surroundings.

“I felt the evil of that thing, and I followed it,” he said simply.

“I was following up on information I had discovered and was coming to meet Rand when I heard you three walking down the road. You were so loud a deaf man couldn’t have missed you. I didn’t know who you were, so I slipped aside and watched. Then the trall attacked and I kept the three of you from getting killed.”

Rand grew stiff as mention was made of the trall.

“What happened back at your camp?” Kine stopped abruptly and asked. “Was it as the boys said?”

Davin and his friends listened intently as the Vandin’s face lost all expression. “Its master came several days ago and as prepared to go to the markets. He walked among us like a ghost as we gathered to make our prayers for a successful sale this winter. The first to fall was Rubio. The sorcerer kept demanding that he give something up. Rubio told him he didn’t have it.” Rand’s face looked haggard. As he continued on, he shivered. “Jolan, it was like he pulled Rubio’s very soul out as he demanded to know where the item he sought was hidden. Rubio had a knife and slit his own throat before the sorcerer could do his worst. Then he turned his attention on the rest of us. Several clan chiefs burst into flame where they stood, and he called fire down from the sky.

“My people now say this place is cursed. They won’t come back for fear that the Lord of the Grave himself will appear.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” he told Rand.

“Now that I’ve found you, I am traveling to meet with Lord Joachim to give him my story.”

“Good,” Kine said somberly. “He’ll want to hear it.”

“What of these three?” he asked.

“Joachim’s not going to like that they almost got themselves killed,” he said gruffly, and gave them a look like a cat when it stares at a caged bird.

Davin fought a chill that threatened to raise the hair along his arms.

“Lot of curious things are happening with them in town,” he said. “The smallest one just happened to go on a walk early in the morning and found a boy who had slipped down a cliff while picking berries with his dog. Young Sartor just happened to overhear a criminal and have him arrested . . . and you . . .” he said to Davin. “I haven’t heard about anything that you’ve done lately.”

Davin felt his heart begin to beat faster in his chest. “I’m just a boring guy,” he said.

“But you’ve been to Kalavere with you father recently.”

Davin’s face burned. “We go several times a year. All of us do.”

“I’m not a fool,” Kine said. “I know what you did.”

Davin felt his indignation rise. “So what if it was me. I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Oh no. Not a thing—and a lot that was right. But you’re calling all the wrong kinds of attention down on yourselves.”

“Who else knows?” Davin demanded. “Since it seems like the secret’s out!”

“Not as many people as would like to know, and more than you’d like,” he said cryptically.

“Who knows?” He asked, and his face burned with anger. “We deserve to know. We’re in the middle of something that scares us to death. And if one of those things leaps out of the forest, I’d at least like to know that much before dying.”

Niam walked up to Davin and stood beside him with his arms crossed defiantly. “Me too,” he said.

Maerillus joined them. “I’d like to know, too.”

Kine regarded them for a moment. “You parents and Lord Joachim. Rand knows because he is—was—Rubio’s apprentice, and he was working with Jort, though the two of them kept their secrets to the grave. Now I’ve got to figure out what this sorcerer was after. Needless to say, I’ve had business attracting my attention here for some time, and Jort and Joachim told me about you three. No one else knows about you unless you’ve walked around with your eyes blazing, announcing to the whole world that you’re different.”

“Our parents know?” Maerillus said, stunned.

“It’s their story to tell, not mine,” Joachim told him. “Now let it be done until you see them. I want to be out of these woods and back on your parents’ estate, even if that means walking all night. None of us are sleeping in these woods tonight.”

As if in answer to Kine’s words, a long, piercing howl sounded far in the distance. Davin’s blood felt as if it could freeze in his veins.

“That was no wolf,” Maerillus muttered.

“Lets get a move on and pick up the pace,” he said brusquely.

Somewhere along the walk, to everyone’s misery, Bode woke up and started to complain.