The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH SUMMER

Rieth’s trips to Aetheria to work on Serapha’s rooms, and to other worlds for commission work arranged by his vendor agent had put Rieth almost a month behind on his work at home. He had rushed to catch up on all the local commissions, and still prepare for the Crafters and Vendors Fair during the Summer Festival being planned to celebrate the artists and wood exports of the Southern Star Archipelago. He worked long hours but still went every Ninth Day and Restday to see Fleur and Yuli in Soldiers Cove. Fleur was busy teaching six days of each tenday, so Desandra was running the Cat’s Soup Cafe with Stacy helping on the days Fleur taught. He had finally finished his last local commission before the Festival, and was looking forward to making the installation.

As Rieth stood in Fleur’s kitchen, he looked at the window at where Fleur sat in her garden. She had told Rieth she was going to weed the rows and gather herbs for her drying rack after she sent the children home for their off days, but instead she just sat there surrounded by her plants. He was so worried but there was nothing he could do. Serapha and Jenna had figured out how to wean Fleur off the medicines. They had no choice but to do it piecemeal; one medication at a time so Fleur wouldn’t go into violent withdrawal symptoms. He had started replacing her pills with the ones Serapha made, it was going to take months. It was as big a risk to her life as the Memory Cascade Syndrome the healers feared so much, but they had no choice if Serapha was going to harvest Fleur’s grief.

He carefully lifted another cabinet door out of the shipping crate he had packed them in. Looking at it, he really hoped Fleur liked them, she looked so tired when he arrived as the children left. Rieth struggled with his sense of helplessness, especially these last two weeks. As the summer had progressed, Fleur seemed to be getting worse and not better, and he feared she would die before he could finish switching out her pills with the ones Serapha was making. He focused on finishing her kitchen, maybe she would rest since Yuli was gone for a few days. He hoped her new doors would bring her a little happiness and that she would stop trying to push him away.

Sitting in her garden, Fleur reached up and rubbed her scarred temples again. Her head and eyes hurt, and she wasn’t sleeping well. She was having strange dreams, almost like memories, but the memories weren’t hers. They didn’t fit anything she knew about her life. She needed to go to Brightwater and see the healers, but Milo and Cassie were spending much of their time on Arborea at the Healer’s Farm she and Yuli had visited with Shadz. She didn’t feel up to the trip, and she didn’t have the time to go all the way to Arborea so she decided she would have to wait until school was out.

She had almost three dozen children of all ages to teach during the short summer school season. Only the families of nine of the Arbor Isle children could afford the ridiculously high fees for the boarding school in Brightwater. The mayor had failed to find a teacher for the Lumberton School when Fleur had refused to teach there if they were going to charge like Brightwater did, so the school and dormitories sat empty.

The miners of Westfalls and lumbermen of Lumberton had built a small hall for her to use as a single room school. The veteran families of Soldiers Cove kept the children six nights a tenday and escorted them to and from their homes. Fleur herself had six children staying with her, counting Yuli and Nick. She had paid Rieth to build bunkbeds for her guestroom, workroom, and Yuli’s room. She was secretly glad Yuli had gone to spend a few days with Nick and Dosander at the mines in Westfalls. Nevin would keep her son safe, and Yuli had Fish and Fang with him. Fleur decided she might take a few days to just sleep.

This summer had been the hardest since she came here; she just felt like she had no strength. The Summer Festival was only a month away and none of the children would attend classes for those days so she just needed to make it through two more tenday and she would have a break. Yuli was excited to have visitors from so many other worlds but Fleur worried. Shadz had assured her that the Huntsman wouldn’t come because he hated public festivals. She held to the hope he was right, and that she and Yuli would remain safe and hidden.

The headache Fleur had was almost migraine level, as she forced herself to follow her routine. The sun was close to setting so she put a few pain drops in her eyes before she stood. Trudging up the outside stairs of the lighthouse, she began her work as the evening wind roared in off the ocean. She polished the glass while the scan of the overnight weather finished. Then she checked the power storage level, and longevity of the light. Technically, the lighthouse could be set to run without a person for a month or more on autocontrol, but she never trusted automated tech. She was about to start the rotation of the light when someone grabbed her from behind. She stood very still, through her pain she could feel there were three of them and something else, something cold and tainted that terrified her and made her desperate to get away from them.

“You’re coming with us, Lighthouse Keeper,” The tall man sneered as he dragged her through the outer door on to the balcony over the sea and around to the stairs. “Where is your brat?”

She trembled from the feeling of evil he carried. “You tried to take my son. You were going to kill him.” She struggled to free her arm from his grasp.

“Maybe, but since the boss didn’t pay us to get him back, you’re going to pay us to let you live,” he snarled as he pulled her against his front.

Fleur struck upward at his face as hard as she could and felt the crack of his teeth against each other. He staggered backwards against one of the wood-rotted railings and tumbled over the edge as it gave way. She turned to flee his screams, as he fell toward the ground. After a few steps, she was tackled to the floor by one of the others; her head slammed into the stone floor and everything went black.

Inside Fleur’s house, Rieth was just finishing the last door installation. He looked up at the lighthouse, wondering why she hadn’t started the sweep of the light, the sun was setting. Then he saw someone tumble down with one of the wooden railings and ran outside, cursing himself for not replacing them soon. A tall dirty man lay at the base of the lighthouse, one of the men who had tried to kill him. The tallest brigand who wanted to kill his son. There was shouting above and Rieth used his magic to vanish into the shadows as another man looked over the edge. A third man was holding Fleur, who was limp in his arms. They went back inside the top of the lighthouse together.

Quickly, Rieth retrieved his bow and scaled the outside of the lighthouse, fearful that using the stairs would warn the criminals of his presence. Silently, the huntsman entered the window on the landing a level below the light. Looking up through the floor with his magic, he would make out Fleur laying directly in front of the light as the two searched the drawers and cabinets arguing about what was valuable and the need to leave before ‘he’ killed them too. Rieth didn’t have time to wonder who they were talking about because on the door downstairs opened with a creak.

“Fleur, are you in here?” Banth called up.

The only way Rieth had to warn Banth was to put an arrow in the floor next to his false leg. The veteran jerked back from the doorway as a throwing blade struck the frame where Banth was standing only a second earlier. Rieth sprung over the rail of the landing, and used his momentum to bounce from the wall above the stairs toward the railing on the level with the light. As he put an arrow in one of the men as he landed. Rotating, he kicked the man hard enough to tumble him down the stairs to the landing below.

The one with an eye patch threw two blades at Rieth who knocked one away with his bow. He caught the second one and returned the throwing blade with double the force it was thrown at him with. It went completely through the brigand’s remaining eye and the man fell backwards over the wrought iron railing. The man who tried to kill him a few short months ago fell all the way to the base of the stairs with his own blade in his skull. He would not revive.

Rieth whistled in code to Banth that the second man was wounded on the level below the light and he was with Fleur. Reith heard an alert whistle blown outside.

“I’m coming, Rieth,“ Banth yelled up to him.

Reith knelt over Fleur, she had a huge lump forming on her head. Her heartbeat was fluttering erratically like a wounded bird. He placed his hand over her heart and called his heart-heal magic, willing his life-glow to strengthen hers. As every time before when he had used his heart heal magic on her, there was a flash of oracle light.

He was cradling her unconscious form in his arms in the Room of Light. It was back where it should be in the Celestial Veil, the walls and floor were no longer crumbling. He was horrified to look at her face and see tears of blood leaking from her eyes, a bottle of her eyedrops rested in her hand, they felt tainted. Her skin was pale and her scars had faded from the horror they were, but he could tell she was still slowly dying. On her forehead was a glowing glyph, it flickered showing the magic was unstable.

“Yurieth.”

“Mother?” He looked up at Yllumina’s concerned golden eyes. “What do I do? How do I save her?”

“Just love her back to herself. Serapha’s magic isn’t the only thing she needs. This is not the way our little flower was meant to live.” Yllumina lifted the bottle from Fleur’s hand and shattered it against the wall, the drops were black. “Be careful, my son, there is a shadow who seeks to harm her and you.”

“Rieth?“Banth called from the level below.

Rieth was back in the lighthouse, standing with Fleur in his arms. He walked over to the top of the stairs. His voice croaked as he strained to be heard over the wind. “Banth. Fleur is hurt. I need to take her inside.”

“Go, lad, I’ll start the light and deal with this one,” Banth growled and pointed his sword at the brigand who had lay in a groaning heap. One leg was twisted oddly and the opposite shoulder had one of Rieth’s arrows all the way through it.

As Rieth carried her down the stairs, his healing magic told him that Fleur was being poisoned with something much stronger that the mild toxins in her medicines. He didn’t even spare a glance for the dead brigand, he needed to heal Fleur.

Laying her on her bed, he felt something hard in her pocket and pulled out a bottle of her eyedrops. He knew the drops were made of Water of Light but in his vision the drops were black. He opened the bottle and almost gagged at the scent of the potent toxin. The tiniest bit on his tongue confirmed it. In Fleur’s bathroom, he spat in the sink repeatedly. Then he went through her cabinet and found a box with more of the precious bottles. They had not been tampered with, so he took a new bottle of the Water of Light Healing drops, pouring it on a cloth to wash to heal the injury on her temple. The swelling was shrinking when Stacy rushed in. She nodded when she saw what he was doing. He pointed at the bottle he had emptied.

“I need more,” Rieth whispered and while she was getting it, he withdrew his magic from Fleur, then he moved to let Stacy tend Fleur’s wounds.

Beyond the window, he could see Bolton leading a distraught Desandra back to the town as Finn and Arthos carried the wounded brigand. Two other veterans dragged the dead ones after them.

Rieth whispered, “They could have killed her. I thought she was the one who went over the railing at first.”

“I’m just glad you were here. Banth wants to talk to you when Finn and Bolton get back. They are locking the survivor in one of Bolton’s extra storerooms.” Stacy washed Fleur’s hand, her mouth smirked. “She has blood on her hand, but it isn’t hers, there is no wound, just bruising like she punched someone. She never gives up, never surrenders.” Stacy murmured the last part under her breath.

Banth called Rieth to come down.

Rieth spoke first, he was careful not to reveal how much Serapha and Oren had restored his voice. “Those were the ones who attacked me.”

The old veteran nodded. “Desandra identified the one you knocked to the ground as the one who tried to assault her. Corbin isn’t going to be able to explain his way out of this one. We caught them and he didn’t.” Banth growled. “But we got lucky again. Thank you for saving her, Rieth.”

“There is something else.” He rasped out. Holding out the tainted bottle of drops, Rieth tapped his nose. Banth smelled it and looked confused, then Rieth whispered, “Taste it.”

The old guardsman looked at him oddly, put a small drop on his fingertip and tasted it cautiously. Banth rushed into the kitchen and spat, rinsed his mouth out with water as he snarled a stream of profanities.

Finn and Bolton came into the kitchen and stared at them. “Arthos is staying with Desa, she’s very upset. What is going on?” Finn asked. Rieth handed them the bottle, Finn smelled it and shook his head, but Bolton gagged.

“By the Light! It’s tainted with cavespider egg extract. Seal it, Finn,” Bolton ranted as he went out onto the porch, gagged and gulped great gasps of fresh air. “Why would someone put that in her eyedrops?”

“I don’t know.” Whispering, Rieth followed him and inhaled slowly trying to clear the smell from his nose as well.

Finn followed and demanded, “How come I can’t smell it? Why can’t Fleur?”

“Very few can,” Bolton explained, “But it tastes terrible. Rieth, did you know what it was?” They all looked at him expectantly.

Rieth lied in his raspy whisper, “No, but it smells like poison. It wasn’t in the other bottles. Is there an antidote?”

“Water of Light, which is in her eyedrops,” Bolton answered. “And there’s an anti-venom injection.”

“Stacy says she had some in her emergency healer’s box,” Finn said. When Rieth looked at him oddly, Finn added, “Stacy is less than a quarter human, as my sealed one we can mind speak but she can’t hear others. I’ll be right back.”

Rieth stared after him in surprise as Finn jogged back toward his home.

Bolton scowled, and asked again, “Why would someone want to poison Fleur?”

“I’ll tell you, and Banth together.” Rieth waved him back into the house, then revealed in a deep, gravelly voice, “They might want to poison her to stop her school. The Mayor’s Council is angry she refused to teach in Lumberton, that they aren’t making money like the Council in Brightwater. They want to charge for school, and she teaches for free. The citizens want to know why the Arbor Isle Council wants fees from student families when the Kingdom pays for everything.” He coughed and accepted the tea Banth offered, talking too much still hurt sometimes.

The old veteran growled, “First you, and Desa’s family, then Yuli, and now Fleur was targeted... I have just about had it with those brigands and that town.”

Finn returned and went upstairs, then he came back down. Finn looked at Rieth curiously, “You’ve got some power in those arms, Rieth, must be all the woodworking and heavy lifting. Where did you learn to throw a blade like that?”

Rieth answered in a gravelly whisper, “My mentor. But I am better with an axe. Is Fleur going to be okay?” He changed the subject.

Nodding, Finn stated then asked, “Yes, thanks to you. What were you doing here anyway? It isn’t Nineth Day or the Restday.”

Pointing at the kitchen, Reith rasped out, “I finished Fleur’s doors and installed them today.” The bottle of tainted drops sat on the counter. Rieth glared at the bottle for a moment, then added, “I wanted her to see the view.”

There were gasps and whistles of appreciation. The bleached blonde wood doors were almost white, there were birds and flowers carved in the scene of a meadow. They were each a work of art and the set made a landscape across the northern wall of Fleur’s kitchen. The cabinet doors on the south wall were the town of Soldiers Cove with boats in the harbor. Together the carved doors revealed what was beyond them as accurately as looking out the window.

Bolton patted Rieth’s shoulder, “She will love them.”

“You are a gifted artisan, woodsmith. I thought the doors of the cafe were amazing but these... ” Finn ran his fingers over the images in awe, then sighed as if in defeat. “How many gems is it going to cost me to get something like this for Stacy’s kitchen?”

Banth chuckled, “I don’t think this kind of work is for sale.”

Rieth smiled slightly and shrugged before whispering, “There is no price that can buy the labor of love.”