Rise of the Red Harbinger (2 page)

Baltaszar ran southeast as fast as he could, toward the outer parts of the town, through the farms and into the forest. He wouldn’t be noticed if he could escape that way. But too many people filled the streets for that to work. He snuck down muddy roads and alleys, past houses and shops, many belonging to people who had turned on his father.

He came upon Fallar Bain’s house and produce shop, resplendent and pretentious at three stories high. Baltaszar vividly remembered the spectacle that had occurred at Bain’s store over six years ago, when it was a humble shop, no bigger than a shack. Bain, the little bald man who was as wide as he was tall, never possessed a smile. He’d sold fruits and vegetables that he grew in the garden behind his house. Baltaszar and Bo’az had gone there with their father shortly after sunrise to get the best selection of apples, Baltaszar’s favorite. His father and Bo’az browsed other baskets of fruits and vegetables while Baltaszar inspected the apples. Although he hadn’t tasted many varieties, his favorite were reddish-yellow apples, because of the sweet-tart taste.

Baltaszar had felt Bain staring at him from behind the counter. Watching his hands and movements, watching his face and eyes especially. Baltaszar had a vertical black scar intersecting his left eye from the time he was a small child, the result of a house fire that had also killed his mother, though he’d been too young to have any memory of it. Throughout his life, Baltaszar had grown accustomed to others’ tendencies to stare at his face. Bain was no different. However, Bain’s intense gaze caused more discomfort than others’, as there seemed to be an essence of hatred behind it. Regardless, Baltaszar had gone about his business, loading his own basket with apples. As Bain’s ogling continued, a fire sparked from one of the baskets. Before Bain or anyone else could react, the fire spread to other baskets and shortly engulfed the entire shop. Baltaszar, along with his father, brother, and Bain, managed to escape with no injuries, but Bain’s shop was completely destroyed. In the aftermath, Bain had appealed to Oran Von and accused Baltaszar’s father of burning down his shop and home. Because nobody could testify that Joakwin didn’t cause the fire, Von decried that Joakwin was responsible for rebuilding Fallar Bain’s house and shop, in whatever manner Bain wished for it to be rebuilt. That manner just happened to be an excessively large three story house, with the new, larger shop on the bottom level.

Baltaszar added Bain to his list for revenge, after Oran Von. Down the road, past Bain’s house, a crowd had gathered outside the school on the left. The brick school spanned a length of four blocks, and had all of its outside torches burning. It would be futile to stay on this road, as Baltaszar would find little to keep him from being seen.

He turned right at the road behind Bain’s house, staying close to the dark wooden fences. Mud caked his boots, breeches, and cloak, causing him to lift his knee to his chest every time he took a step. Luckily, because of the rain, it simply looked as if he was walking carefully to avoid slipping and falling, rather than sneaking by.

Keeping himself cloaked and clinging to the fences on his right, Baltaszar realized that the third house on the left side of the road belonged to Harold Joben and his wife, Carys. About two years ago, the couple had invited Joakwin and the two boys for dinner after a meeting at the Town Hall at the end of the street. They had wanted to betroth their daughter, Lea, to Bo’az, and as a result, they would always find reasons to talk to Joakwin. Baltaszar had wondered why they liked Bo’az and not him, but he figured the black scar on his face had probably turned them toward his brother. Bo’az had reciprocated the interest in Lea, two years his younger, but always grew nervous around her and never spoke.

The Jobens had served a feast including four game hens, rosemary roasted potatoes, sweet yams, onion soup, stewed beef with carrots and peppers, bread, and fruit pies. Carys was known as the best cook throughout Haedon, and she loved to live up to that reputation. She was a pleasant enough woman, always polite and smiling, and her love of talking encompassed everything from the correct way to butcher various animals to the intricacies of religion and the Orijin, their god.

How she ended up with Harold, Baltaszar could never understand. Carys had amassed hoards of money from her talent and had plenty of suitors, even as a girl. While she maintained a slender frame and soft, beautiful features, Harold was physical evidence of his wife’s cooking prowess, and his protruding gut expanded every year. Over the years, he had more and more difficulty standing while teaching at the school. He grew so fat that even his chairs were replaced every few months.

At dinner, Bo’az had constantly looked down at his plate while Carys and Lea tried relentlessly to prod him into conversation. It had annoyed Baltaszar how timid Bo’az acted. Mid-meal, Harold, bits of food stuck to the sides of his mouth and soup dripping from his chin, shot up from his chair yelling, “Smoke! Smoke! There’s smoke coming from the kitchen!”

Sure enough, when they’d looked toward the kitchen, black smoke billowed through the doorway. The men had rushed to extinguish the fire. They had raced from the kitchen to the well behind the house, carrying bucket after bucket of water. After over an hour of drenching the kitchen and stamping out flames, the men had prevailed over the fire. However, all that remained of Carys’ beloved and famous kitchen was a small piece of burnt wooden counter top and a few piles of ash. Even the walls had been partially burned down.

At the time, Harold and Carys had considered the whole event a terrible accident, but in the months that followed, Fallar Bain paid daily visits to them, repeatedly imparting his beliefs of Joakwin’s involvement with black magic. Ultimately, Bain managed to convince Harold Joben. Oran Von had been skeptical of any foul play, especially considering Joakwin had been sitting and eating with them and would have no motive. However, Bain and Harold Joben managed to rally the townspeople behind them, all supporting the decision for Joakwin to be either confined to his farm or exiled from Haedon. The town’s support came easily. Bain had simply appealed to them, explaining that Joakwin desired Carys for himself and, if he could not have her, would burn down her kitchen to deprive her of her livelihood. Once the masses demanded justice, with no opposition, Oran Von had to appeal to them or it would have cost his own head.

He had at least given Joakwin the reasonable punishment of being confined to his own farm. Von also restricted Baltaszar and Bo’az to curfews, they would only be allowed to leave the farm to run necessary errands, such as trading. The Haedonians were wary that the twins might also know the dangerous magic their father practiced, and therefore, kept Baltaszar and Bo’az under close watch whenever they were in public.

Bo’az took things with difficulty, constantly wandering off to sit under a tree for hours. He’d felt embarrassed about their situation, especially because he’d missed his chance with Lea Joben. Often, Baltaszar ended up running his father’s errands alone, because Bo’az had run off and couldn’t be found.

The street rematerialized in front of Baltaszar. He could not keep having these flashbacks if he wanted to reach the forest safely, and he didn’t have much farther to go. Baltaszar passed the Joben house, then the next house, and turned the corner again. On his right, the enormous Town Hall building towered above. As a child, it had been modestly sized, but Oran Von ordered expansions to it every year. These days, the building was as long as half the town. During town meetings, even if everyone in town showed up, they’d still only fill up about three quarters of the building. Baltaszar realized how little he would miss Haedon and Oran Von’s need for pointless structures. With his father dead, and his closest friend having left Haedon over a year ago, there remained no soul in this town who would treat him kindly.

Baltaszar passed one last row of houses and reached a clearing by the forest’s outskirts. Looking down the muddy road to his left, he could faintly discern a score of people running in his direction. Judging by the distance and severity of the rain, they wouldn’t see him from where they were. Baltaszar sighed, separated from the fence, and sprinted toward the trees and shrubs that waited ahead. The last house he ran past belonged to Dirk and Mila Samson. The occurrences on an autumn night in that house, over a year after the Jobens’ kitchen incident, affected his father more than anything Fallar Bain had done. His father had never told Baltaszar what happened. Baltaszar saw the agony and regret straining his father’s eyes and face for months after, although he never brought up the situation. Many people started calling his father a murderer after that, so it became easy to assume what happened.

From then on, his father wore a melancholy countenance every day. He’d never revealed the whole story to Baltaszar or Bo’az, but Baltaszar knew it had all revolved around the Samsons’ four-year-old daughter dying. He’d just assumed that his father had been accused of it. Once Von dubbed Joakwin a murderer at the execution, his assumptions only seemed truer.

Baltaszar shook his head. He had to focus. Aside from the falling rain, the trees had cast too many shadows for him to be seen now, and no one would dare step foot into the forest.

He ran through rows and rows of trees, past all the trail markers that he and his brother had set to find their way back and forth to the camp, deeper into the thick forest. They had agreed to camp as deeply as possible, as an attempt to keep the townspeople from investigating their campfire. Most people in Haedon were too afraid to walk more than a few feet into the forest, as they’d all believed childhood tales about monsters and demons. They called it “The Never” for more than one reason. They believed that anyone who went in never came back out. They also swore to never go in, believing the forest never ended. Baltaszar had stopped concerning himself with such nonsense when he was about five. There were more important things to spend his time worrying about than scary stories. Besides, he and Bo’az had been hiding in the forest for weeks, and they hadn’t been spooked by a single thing. Aside from the swaying of the trees overhead and the occasional animals running around, things had been very quiet.

Baltaszar turned to check how far out of sight he was. The clearing was half a mile behind him and barely visible. Satisfied, Baltaszar turned back around, stepped gingerly, and collapsed to the ground.

The events of the night had drained his body of the strength to do anything except cry. Baltaszar lay, for what seemed like hours, where he’d fallen. His face trembled while warm tears and rain gushed down his face and mixed into the mud he lay in. He felt no desire to get up and had no idea what to do with himself from this point on. Baltaszar had no real memory of his mother; his father was all he knew. And now the man was gone.

Hours later, Baltaszar realized he hadn’t even gotten to his camp yet. And that the rain had stopped. Arising, wiping the mud and tears from his eyes and face, he noticed two small red dots in the distant underbrush. He blinked to clear his vision and they were gone. Perhaps it was just the light.

A thought boomed in his skull like a kick from a horse. As far as he knew, his father’s body still lay in Haedon Square, mangled and burned. If left there, it would only be desecrated once people saw it still lying on the ground. And Von was the type of man to leave it there to be vandalized.

Looking at the sky, Baltaszar realized he still had nearly two hours before the sun would begin its ascent. Baltaszar ran back to the edge of the forest. By now, everyone in Haedon would be sleeping. With the rain having stopped and darkness still prevailing, his mission could prove easy. The biggest difficulties lay in getting his father’s body out of the wide open square, then carrying it through the mud back to the forest.

Baltaszar sprinted to the outskirts of Haedon, stopping only to relieve the ache in his lungs and sides. The houses that lined the perimeter were dark and quiet. If he walked toward the school now, Baltaszar knew he could get to the square undetected. By now, the lanterns and torches would be out and there would be fewer houses for him to pass.

It took him nearly half of an hour to cover the remaining distance to Haedon Square, a distance that he could walk in a few minutes, given normal conditions. As he walked out into the wide open square, Baltaszar’s eyes groped through the darkness to find any evidence of his father’s body. Plumes of smoke danced from each of the buildings on the south and east side of the square. The moonlight shed some light into the giant courtyard. Searching across the square, he noticed a lump lying on the ground in front of the hanging platform. It was the only mass on the ground of the courtyard. When he’d fled earlier, bodies had littered the square amidst the chaos. Only one mass remained.

However, what he saw was too large to be his father; it was almost big enough to be two people. And then he saw movement. Baltaszar froze, unsure of what he was seeing. Before worrying about the rational choice, he ran toward his father’s body. Despite the mud, he kept his footing and dashed faster and faster ahead.

Something or someone arose beside his father’s body. Another person. Baltaszar clumsily slid to a halt in the mud and found himself staring up into the eyes of a stranger. The man’s chest met the level of Baltaszar’s face; he stood taller than Titus the executioner, who until now was the largest man Baltaszar had ever seen.

I have to…No. Don’t think. Just act.
Lunging, he butted his head hard into the man’s ribs and attempted to wrap his arms around the massive tree trunk-sized body. The man pulled him off with one hand and threw him to the ground next to his father’s corpse. Baltaszar landed on his back with a thud and, for once, felt grateful that the rain had left the ground so soft.