The Kinshield Legacy (13 page)

Lilalian raised an eyebrow. “She’s away on a mission, but once she returns I could arrange an introduction.”

“Thank you. Now that you are guild mistress,” Brodas said, “I hope you can help me with my own plans. As I mentioned last time you were here, I will become Thendylath’s next king, and I’d like to take the throne with you standing strong by my side. You and the Viragon Sisterhood. Will you aid me in my pursuit?”

As Brodas had instructed, the manservant entered then with three glasses of wine on a silver tray. Lilalian took one of them and raised it toward her host. “It would give me great pleasure to do so. The collective swords of the Sisterhood are at your beck and call.”

“Wonderful.” Brodas held up his own wine glass and waited while Warrick took his. “To our new alliance.”

While Brodas and Warrick sipped the toast, Lilalian tossed her entire glassful back and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You always have the best wine,” she said, holding out her glass to the manservant.

“I shall fetch the bottle,” the servant replied as he bowed out of the room.

Brodas pasted a smile onto his face. She was utterly without refinement, but that mattered little. Being head of the largest battler’s guild in the country gave her as much charm as she needed.

“Now then,” he said. “The first thing I’d ask of you and your lady battlers is to put a watch on the Rune Cave. Position a few of your battlers near the entrance at all times and keep a constant vigil.”

“You don’t want anyone to enter? How will the rune solver get the King’s Blood-stone then?”

“Oh, I don’t want you to keep him out of the cave. I simply want you to watch it from a safe - and hidden - distance. Once he solves the fourth rune, apprehend him and bring him to me. When he deciphers the final rune and reveals its secrets to me, I will go myself to the cave and claim the King’s Blood-stone.”

Lilalian nodded. “I see. But what if he won’t talk?”

“He’ll talk,” Warrick said.

Brodas smiled. “I can be very persuasive. Just find him and bring him to me, unharmed, and I’ll do the rest.”

Chapter 13

Through the trees, Gavin strained to see the pair of boys in the clearing ahead. They appeared to be engaged in a bizarre dance – first stretching, then jumping, ducking and turning. As Gavin and his mount drew closer, he saw that the boys, Jaesh and Asiawyth, were tossing a ball back and forth while trying to keep one foot anchored in place on the ground.

They were so wrapped up in their game that Gavin’s approach went unnoticed. He climbed down from the saddle and looped the reins of Golam’s bridle around a branch. Slowly, so as not to make a sound – and hoping Golam wouldn’t give him away with a snort or whinny – Gavin crept toward them. He sneaked from tree to tree until he was about twenty feet behind Asiawyth. Jaesh saw him then, and threw the ball high over Asiawyth’s head to his new target. The younger boy turned with surprise.

“Uncle Gavin! It’s Uncle Gavin!”

The boys broke into a run toward him. Gavin opened his arms to brace for the impact. When they rammed him with a rough embrace, he let out a hearty “Ooof!” to give his nephews a giggle.

While ten-year-old Asiawyth fired questions about where he’d been and what killers and monsters he’d slain and how gruesome their deaths had been, his elder brother, Jaesh, led Golam by the reins, stroking the thick neck as they walked to the house.

Rogan and Gavin, with the boys’ help, had built it three years ago when Rogan claimed and cleared this land and moved his family from Lalorian. Living in a heavily forested rural community, Rogan had ready access to all the wood he needed, and his reputation as a fletcher followed. They’d built the home of stacked logs, like one his wife had fallen in love with near Paradise City, and large enough to have separate kitchen and greatroom, a private-room for bathing, and three bedrooms. All along, Rogan and Liera had intended the third bedroom for Gavin to sleep in, hoping to persuade him to stay permanently. They didn’t understand Gavin’s life was helping others. His refusal had left them hurt and disappointed, but he visited more often now than when they’d lived in Lalorian, a city that reminded him too well of his loss.

Asiawyth burst through the door to announce Gavin’s arrival. Gavin followed and breathed in the delicious scent of roasting mutton. Rogan’s log home, with its wood-beamed sloping ceilings and stone fireplace that yawned and stretched to the roof, and the frayed blue and gold rug on the wood floor, felt like the warm arms of a mother embracing her children.

“Uncle Gavin,” a small voice cried.

On the sofa lay Rogan’s youngest son. His right leg, splinted and bandaged, rested on pillows.

Gavin went to one knee beside the couch and returned his nephew’s fierce hug. “GJ, what’d you do to yourself?”

“I fell out o’the loft. Me and Asiawyth were playing, and I lost my balance. It hurts terrible, Uncle Gavin.”

“I don’t doubt it. But you’ve always been tough. You’ll get through this. Have you seen a healer?”

GJ nodded. “She couldn’t fix the bone, though, just the in-fleck-shin.”

Gavin leaned forward and kissed the eight-year-old’s head. “Infection? You’ll be awright then. Drink plenty o’pain tea.” GJ made a sour face, and Gavin laughed. “Yeh, I know.”

Rogan’s wife, Liera, came in through the back door and set a bucket of water on the floor. A kerchief held back her curly brown hair to reveal a freckled forehead and blue eyes. “Gavin, you’re home,” she said, her arms extended. He lifted her from her feet and gave her a twirl and a kiss on the cheek. She made her usual comments about his being too lean, his clothes too threadbare, and his face unshaven. “But your timing’s perfect,” she said. “I was just about to call Rogan in for supper.” She beckoned him to follow her to the kitchen.

Gavin rubbed his palms together. “I have an instinct for arriving at meal time.” He set his sword and cuirass in a corner of the great room before joining her in the kitchen. His two older nephews trailed behind. “Where’s the old man?”

Jaesh pointed toward the back window. “Out back, working. We aren’t allowed back there.” His voice cracked on the edge of an early manhood.

Gavin squeezed the back of Jaesh’s neck. The soft fuzz on his lip grew in dark. It wasn’t so long ago Liera was puking every ten minutes, and now the babe in her womb was becoming a man. Gavin could hardly believe thirteen years had passed. “Are you shaving yet?”

Jaesh giggled. “No,” he said shyly.

“Won’t be long.” Gavin bent down and peered out the tiny back window. He did not see his brother, only a hill of dirt. Rogan’s head bobbed up from the ground and a spray of dirt shot up toward the growing mound. “What’s the hole for?” 

Liera took some tomatoes from a basket and began slicing them. “You know Rogan. Always working on this or that. Why don’t you go out and tell him supper’s ready.”

Gavin walked across the backyard toward the treeline where Rogan worked. One of the three hogs, its sparse, wiry hair crusted with mud, approached the fencing as he neared, snuffling and snorting for food. Two chickens fluttered out of his path and squawked indignantly. The hole was roughly six feet deep and about as wide. Gavin squatted at the edge and looked down at his brother, dirty, shirtless and sweaty, wrestling to dislodge a big rock from the bottom. “You need a hand with that?”

Rogan snapped his head up, his dark curly locks flinging sweat. His wide mouth, framed by a neatly trimmed beard, opened into a smile to reveal straight white teeth. “Little Brother,” he said, standing. “You’ve been gone too damned long this time. Help me out o’this hole, will you?”

Gavin gripped his hand and helped Rogan clamber out of the hole, then pulled him into a tight embrace with much back-pounding and laughter. He patted Rogan’s belly. “Getting an early start on winter?”

Rogan grabbed him and made as though to punch him, but Gavin anticipated the move and twisted out of his grasp, tapping the side of Rogan’s head as he danced out of reach. “You’re slowing down, old man.”

“Not too old to take you over my knee, boy,” Rogan said with a wry smile.

Gavin grinned at his brother’s jest, reminded of a time long ago when Rogan had tried to discipline the twelve-year-old Gavin for his mischief. With Cuttor Kinshield only three months in his grave, Gavin had frequently acted up out of frustration, guilt, and the pain of missing his papa. Rogan, five years older and newly married, had tried at first to act as a father to his young brother. They’d fought that day, not as boys in rough play, but as men. Rogan had learned he would never replace Cuttor as Gavin’s father, and Gavin learned he had to grow up a little earlier than he’d have liked.

Rogan wiped the sweat from his brow and clapped Gavin’s arm. “So how the hell’ve you been?” The brothers spent a few minutes catching up on the recent events of their lives. Rogan’s life was nine parts hard work and one part play, but he had what Gavin missed most: a close-knit family that warmed the heart even on the coldest winter nights.

“So what’s this... hole you’re digging?” Gavin asked.

“I need to move the out-building. Old one’s about full.”

“So what’re we standing around for, gabbing like old ladies?” Gavin asked, stripping off his shirt. “You got another shovel?”

Liera stuck her head out from the open back door. “Don’t you get in that hole, Gavin Kinshield,” she hollered. “It’s time for supper. Come in now and wash up.”

During supper, Gavin entertained the family with stories of his adventures. Afterward, he helped Liera wash and dry the dishes while Rogan ushered the boys to their baths. After his two older nephews had gone to bed, Gavin sat on the couch with GJ.

“Tell me a story, Uncle Gavin?” GJ asked. His little voice shook. His leg must have hurt terribly. Liera handed her son a cup of warm gray water. It looked horrible and smelled worse, but the herbs in it were well-known for their pain-relieving properties. “I don’t want to drink it, Mama. It tastes awful.”

“Do I need to get the drenching horn?” Liera asked, eyeing him sideways.

GJ downed the liquid without further complaint, handed the cup back to his mother, and laid his head on Gavin’s thigh. Liera and Rogan bid them goodnight and ambled toward their bedroom. Gavin blew out the lamp and stroked GJ’s soft hair, disturbed at how warm his forehead felt. He whispered the stories he used to tell his daughter of bards in colorful costumes and ladies in long flowing gowns; of lordovers and men-at-arms and challenges of honor. Gradually, his nephew drifted to sleep.

If his own son hadn’t died in his mother’s womb, Gavin imagined he would have been much like this young boy who reminded Gavin more of himself than of Rogan - overly active, daring and fearless.

He gently lifted GJ’s head from his leg and stood. He crept to the bedroom Jaesh had given up for him, and undressed. While he lay on the bed waiting for sleep to overtake him, the soft moans and rhythmic creaking from the next bedroom made him smile. His brother had a happy life.

The leaves whispered of promises unkept as they shivered in the trees and tumbled across the forest floor. A copper-haired girl with tiny freckles on her nose beckoned him. She was Caevyan, yet he called out “Dagaz!” as he ran after her. His legs were wooden and unbending, the ground soft like sand. “Papa!” she called, then ran away. Always elusive, staying ahead of him. She turned and waited, beckoning.

Her eyes were the color of the sky.

Gavin awoke with a gasp and sat upright in bed. The dream. He had that damned dream again, like an itch in his mind.

The first time he’d had the dream, with Mama leading him to the cave, was the night the baby chicks died. He’d awoken to the sound of Papa shouting his name in the early dawn and cursing in anger. Gavin had promised to light the heater in the coop before he went to bed, but he forgot, and the baby chicks - nearly three dozen of them - froze to death that night.

The chicks were long gone, as was his father. But the dream always reminded him of fuzzy yellow chicks, stiff with cold, dead because of Gavin’s broken promise. He couldn’t shake the notion he was forgetting something. He just didn’t know what.