The Guided Journey (Book 6) (31 page)

“I’d like to ask for a couple of trips tomorrow,” Kestrel told Stillwater, “but I don’t think I’ll trouble you any more today, so enjoy your meal and thank you for your troubles today.”

Stillwater mumbled an answer around his mouthful of food.  Kestrel smiled, and went to his own quarters, where he enjoyed the luxury of a hot bath and clean clothes.

“Kestrel!” he was startled out of his relaxing reverie in the tub when Lucretia arrived unannounced in his bath room.

“Lucretia!  What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’m bored, so I came looking for you,” she answered.  “You really are the lord of this place aren’t you?” she asked.

“When I met you last year, I was sure you were a commoner; you were so nice and polite to everyone.  Ripken’s the only other member of the nobility I know who is so good.  You said you had a title, and it didn’t matter to me if it was true or not because you were so intriguing,” she explained.  “And now here I find out you really are a lord, and these servants in the manor think the world of you.”

“And you think maybe I’m not good at being a nobleman because my people like me?” Kestrel asked with an arched eyebrow.

“No!” Lucretia protested.  “That’s not what I said.”

“Would you like to go for a walk?” Kestrel asked.  “I want to sit down with Whyte to learn what’s happening here, but a walk about the village might be a nice way to see what’s what.  Shall we?” he reached up to grab a towel.  “If you’ll give me a moment to get dressed,” he added.

She withdrew from his bath, and Kestrel quickly dressed, then joined her as he ran his fingers through his still wet hair.

“Here,” Lucretia grabbed his hands.  “Don’t you have a comb?” she asked.

“I do, in the bath, but I was in a hurry; I didn’t want to keep you waiting,” he explained.

So she took him in the bath and combed his hair, before they proceeded to leave the manor and enter the streets of the small village.

“Kestrel!” Remy and Pont came running up to him.  “We didn’t know you were back!  Do you know how much money we made selling mushrooms to the imps?” Remy asked.

“Let me introduce my friend, Lucretia, the Lady Lucretia, from the kingdom of the Northern Elves,” Kestrel told the boys.

“Is she going to be your wife?” Pont asked.

“My wife?  No!  She’s got too many men who want to marry her back in her home land,” Kestrel laughed.

“Besides, Lord Kestrel already turned down Princess Elwean,” Remy added.

“Such stories!” Lucretia laughed.  “Is that true, Remy?  Did he turn down a princess?” she asked, looking at Kestrel as she did.

He began to blush from her scrutiny.

“Even your ears are turning red!” she laughed as she brushed his hair back from the tips of his pointed ears.

“Kestrel!” a woman’s low and rich voice suddenly called him, sending shivers up his spine.

Kestrel and Lucretia turned, and saw Moorin standing just feet away, pale and fearful in appearance.

“Kestrel, beware,” the lovely elven woman cried.

“Moorin?” both Lucretia and Kestrel recognized and reacted in shock to her inexplicable appearance.

“What are you doing here?  Is something wrong?” Kestrel asked.

“I’m not Moorin; this is the way I looked the first time I exposed myself to Kestrel, at the spring many months ago,” Kere said.

“My goddess!”  Kestrel instantly knew who had approached him.

The goddess reached out and grabbed his arm in her hand.

“It’s coming!  I can feel it.  The evil energy is coming to look for you.  It feels so familiar, nephew – I can sense something of it – more and more.  It is bad, very bad, in many ways,” she told him.

“My goddess!” Lucretia exclaimed.

“Here Kestrel,” Kere’s hand glowed as it gripped his arm.  Remy shrieked in surprise, and Pont ran away, as Kestrel’s arm took on the same glow
, which began to creep up his arm.

“Now you’ll have a portion of my own abilities, the power to move about the world, just as the imps and sprites do.  Use it to run to safety Kestrel.  The evil one is growing stronger, and I fear for you.”

“He comes Kestrel!” Kere gasped.  She released her hold on the stunned elf, and grabbed Lucretia and Remy. 

“Back away from him,” Kere, pulled the other two with her.  “Kestrel, prepare yourself!”

Chapter
29 – The Mobile Battle

Kestrel felt a nervous pulsation in his body, occupying his limbs as well as his awareness, making him feel like he was losing control of himself.  Kere’s energy was inhabiting him, coursing through his nervous system, testing his flesh, adapting itself to him, in preparation for the battle that was about to come.

He felt fear, and he knew he wished Kere had not given him a warning of the impending battle.  It was easier for him to react blindly, without preparation, he told himself.  Knowing that the horrid energy was about to come to fight him, he found himself imagining innumerable scenarios and outcomes.

“Kestrel!” Lucretia screamed.

He refocused his attention away from the uncertainty within himself and looked about him, along the dusty road that ran through the village.

Kere, wearing the appearance of Moorin, held the hands of Lucretia and Remy, drawing them back towards the edge of the road.

Kestrel looked around, then felt the warning that Kere’s powers provided, and looked up.  To his surprise, he faintly saw – up in the dome of the blue sky – two faint stars shining in the middle of the day.  One was red, and one was blue; they were the new stars he had seen so often during the journey, only at night previously, when they had twinkled brightly and majestically in the heavens.

They were the threat – he could feel it.  He stood in the street, staring up, and saw that they were growing brighter as he stared at them.

They were growing brighter, now unarguably visible in the sky, shining so brightly that they were not only visible, but they drew one’s attention, the way a candle lit in a dim room drew one’s attention.

The stars were the spies of the malevolent energy, he realized.  All those nights, when he had looked up and seen the stars, the stars had really been looking down, observing him, tracking him, so that his enemy would know where he was, what he was doing, and see what he was capable of.

The stars grew brighter, so prominent that they began to take on shapes, to assume disks, and then he realized that they were not just growing brighter, they were approaching him, descending from the sky towards him.  A voice within him told him to run, to escape before they reached him, while another voice told him to attack them immediately, to fire bolts of his own energy at them before they fired at him.

Kestrel did neither.  He was torn, and he was fascinated, and he was unable to comprehend that in the middle of an ordinary day, in the middle of an ordinary place, he was suddenly being besieged by the terrible enemy that he did not comprehend.

The stars above were larger, and growing larger with increasing speed.  Kestrel suddenly realized that they were only seconds away from reaching him.  He felt fear again, fear that had momentarily receded as he had looked up in astonishment.

The red and the blue globes hurled down at him, so quickly that he heard the air whistling around them for seconds before they reached the street.  The two merged with one another in the last stage of their descent, and when they struck the ground they were a single entity of energy, a brilliant white that made Kestrel squint.

The ground shook as the light made contact.  Kestrel spread his legs apart to steady himself, and took a defensive position that was a crouching position.  He called on his energy to establish his protective shield, then watched.

The globe of energy was spinning, and as it did, it took on the familiar red color he had seen and fought before.  The spinning slowed, and the globe began to change shape, growing taller and thinner, taller than Kestrel himself.  The spinning ceased, features- a head, arms, a face – emerged, and Kestrel found himself face-to-face with the human god Krusima, glowing with a red aura that reminded Kestrel of blood.

Kestrel unleashed a bolt of his own energy, a brilliant blue spear of his energy, his best hope – he thought
– of pre-emptively striking and disabling the powerful opponent before him.  Better to strike first against the entity – one that he was convinced was not the god of the earth – and hope that his first effort would catch his opponent unprepared.

The energy struck, and a brilliant explosion of flame and sparks cascaded about in all directions.  Lucretia’s scream of fear faintly penetrated Kestrel’s awareness, but only momentarily, before he focused again on his opponent, solely and intently.

Through the falling shower of sparks, he saw Krusima step backwards and shiver, but remain upright.  The opponent straightened up.

“Presumptuous of you to strike a god first, mortal mongrel,” a voice reverberated through the air, though Kestrel did not see the mouth of Krusima open.  “Of course, you are correct in believing that a battle will take place, and that you will die.”

The god-figure fired a bolt of red energy at Kestrel, a blast that struck his dome and made it glow a sickly yellow as he felt the effects of the attack penetrate his own well-being.  Without a pause, Krusima stamped his foot on the ground, so that a ripple in the earth sped at Kestrel and struck him like a wave at the beach, making him fall to his knees, while the god fired another bolt of red energy at him.

Kestrel started to rise, but fell again as his protective dome, suffered more damage.  The blue turned yellow again, and remained yellow, while Kestrel winced again from the pain that was transmitted from the dome to him.  He needed to protect himself better, he realized, and the way to do so was to shrink his dome.  He would reduce it in size, and also stop extending it behind him, where there was no threat.  He formed the new half dome, then rose to his feet, and fired another bolt of his own power at the monster.

Except that as soon as he raised his hand to attack, the god moved, with a speed that Kestrel had not anticipated.  Kestrel’s attack sizzled through empty air where Krusima had been, and Kestrel saw a blur of color race past him, and a brutal strike knocked him to the ground and left him gasping in pain.

He turned as fast as he could, and the defensive half shield turned with him, too late to block the hit
he had suffered, but in time to block a second strike.

Kestrel felt pain, terrible pain.

He wasn’t going to defeat Krusima – or whatever he faced – in the battle at hand.  It was time to engage Kere’s gift and depart. As he thought about it, he felt the energy pulsing within him, ready to transport him.

Kestrel knew where he wanted to go.  He focused his attention on the healing spring, and suddenly felt the stomach-wrenching sensation of being transported through space, in the same way that the imps were transported, through a vacuum without air, or light, or sensation.  The transition lasted for a long moment, and then it ended.  The journey had been faster than he had ever experienced while with the imps.  And it ended differently than it had ever ended with the imps, as he hung in the air for a moment, then dropped directly into the water of the spring, feeling cooled, instantly reinvigorated by the power of the spring.

He plunged feet-first to the bottom of the pool, his feet bounced off the sand at the bottom, and he rose back to the air, feeling re-energized and ready to resume the battle.

He looked around and saw his enemy materialize next to the bush where he had seen Dewberry attacked by the wolf.  Without hesitation, he drew up
on the spring’s own deep well of energy, levitated himself so that he stood upon the water, then released a bolt of energy that struck Krusima full in the chest.

The god’s red aura faded from the effect of Kestrel’s power attack.  Kestrel fired again, but Krusima again displayed the incredible speed he had shown in Oaktown, and sprinted out of harm’s way.  Kestrel aimed and blasted again, an extended discharge of energy that followed Krusima as he hurried to safety again.  The powerful blast caught up with the god-figure and struck him, making him stumble momentarily, as Kestrel’s discharge of energies ended.

“We’ll not do this here, I think,” the adversary rumbled again.  “I’ll move on to another site, to visit your friends in Kirevee, to see what harm I can cause in your name.  Come to protect your friends there if you dare,” Krusima rumbled, and then he was gone from the spring environs.

“No!” Kestrel screamed in anger and frustration.  He’d no sooner managed to pick a battlefield in which he was at least evenly matched, when the opponent had stolen the opportunity to fight there.

But he felt refreshed by the spring’s energy.  “Thank you!” he momentarily uttered towards the water, then he directed his thoughts back to Ripken’s manor near the palace, and once again exchanged his physical existence for another disappearance into the nether dimensions between places in the world.

He re-emerged in the physical world and heard the sounds of screams as his eyes focused on the plants of Ripken’s garden.  He saw a reddish glow visible in the space just the other side of one of the garden walls.  The screams were coming from the same direction, giving Kestrel the impetus to run towards the uproar.  He sprinted, then jumped high, grabbed the top of the garden wall, and vaulted up onto its top, from which there was a view into a paved square, where he found Orren and Raines and Hampus, along with a half dozen of Ripken’s retainers, all being murdered, one by one, as Krusima fired bolts of energy at the scurrying occupants of the courtyard.

Kestrel reached for his knife, and hurled Lucretia with all his might, hoping to disrupt the murderous actions of the attacker, then hastily raised his blue dome to shield himself from attack.

Lucretia struck Krusima in the back, squarely between the huge shoulder blades; an explosion of light and sparks and noise erupted, making the monster turn in agony, and fire off a bolt of its own energy at Kestrel.  Kestrel felt the impact of the attack as it struck his shield, and he was dislodged from his perch.

Kestrel fell to the ground, hitting the hard paving stones of the square with a jolt.  “Lucretia, return!” he grunted, holding his hand in the air.  The knife dislodged from Krusima, and as it did, the monster reacted by going through a strange metamorphosis.  The god was injured by the blow the knife delivered, and its reaction was unthinkable: it suddenly cracked apart as the knife left its flesh.  Pieces of the entity sloughed away like the shattered pieces of a broken egg shell, vaporizing into nothingness as they fell.

As they fell, the remainder of the god-antagonist entity bent low in agony; it bent at the waist, then suddenly raised itself up as Kestrel’s knife reached his hand.  Kestrel stared at the revealed new face of the monster, dumbfounded – so dumbfounded that he failed to even realize that he had captured his returning knife.  What stood up was no longer the bulky, muscular human god Kestrel had fought – now he faced a slender elven entity.  It was a member of the elven pantheon that Kestrel
had grown up with, been taught to pray to and worship.

Kestrel faced the slight figure and sly face of Morph, the elven god of speed – a god much worshipped and admired by many members of the elven race, for whom speed was an integral element of living.

Morph had been alleged by Kere to be Kestrel’s own father, a revelation that had stunned Kestrel in its revelation.

As the new form of the entity of energy stood, it grinned an evil smile at Kestrel, then turned and fired off a fine beam of energy at another of the elven servants in the plaza, causing the others to scream anew.

Kestrel flung his knife again as he rose to his feet, bur Morph outran the weapon, circling around to the far side of Kestrel in the wink of an eye, then launching a flurry of bolts of energy at Kestrel.  No single beam of power Morph threw was as powerful as the energies that the Krusima-form had flung, but the rapid shower that the Morph-form unleashed was effective in creating cumulative damage as Kestrel found himself stepping backwards with each new bolt of energy that struck his weakening shield.

He flung a shaft of his own blue energy back at Morph, but the monster simply sidestepped with his brilliant speed, and dodged in closer to Kestrel to unleash more attacks from closer range.

“Enough!” Kestrel shouted.  He had felt some momentary ambivalence about attacking a figure that appeared to be his own absent father, but the pain of the repeated attacks had goaded him into the decision to alter the tactics that were working against him.

Kestrel rushed at his enemy, ignoring the damage he was suffering, as his protective shield turned from blue to yellow to orange.  He closed in on Morph and flung his arms out to try to grapple physically with the agile attacker, but the god of speed evaded him.

“Lucretia!” Kestrel screamed in frustration, summoning his knife back from where it had come to rest after failing to strike Morph.

He reached out and grabbed the knife as it returned to him.  He was going to have to try some different tactics if he expected to win a battle that was wearing him down, draining his energy as the battle stretched on and on and on, lasting longer than Kestrel  believed he was able to continue to function.

Unless he changed the way that Morph was setting the terms of engagement, he was going to become worn down and lose.  But he thought he knew a way to win.

He fired a shaft of his own power, aiming to the right of Morph with his left hand, as he threw the knife straight ahead, then started dashing to his right, anticipating that Morph would flee in that direction to avoid the two attacks.