The Undead King: The Saga of Jai Lin: Book One (26 page)

“But they will see all of my tattoos. The formulas, the taxonomic trees… They will surely be a giveaway.”

Solloway thought about this for a moment then reached into his pack. He pulled out a mesh wool sweater and threw it to Jompers. “Just put that on. Bury your things under the boat. Don’t want anyone finding our belongings and then being on to us. Oh, and Jed, hate to break it to you, but your little owl friend has to stay.”

“Of course. A rebel camp is no place for one so dignified as Rory.” Jompers shook his arm, what had hitherto been Rory’s perch; the owl flapped away, in search of its evening meal.

Solloway was anxious, had been anticipating this night for at least the last month, but even he grinned when he saw how Mercer looked at Brook. She was digging a hole for her cloak, breathing hard as her hands made small mounds of sand around her knees. Her shoulders were gleaming in the starlight, two soft white orbs, like the moon’s reflection being split by ripples in the water. She looked up, now cloak-less, and Solloway could instantly see that he had a problem on his hands.

“You need to wrap yourself in something, Brook, or else… I’ll be honest, you’ll just attract way too much attention. Dig your cape back up and put it around your entire body, as though it were a hooded robe. There you are.”

Her black cape made a good makeshift robe, and did the job of concealing the shape of her body. Still, Solloway couldn’t help but hear Tim’s parting words echoing around in his head: who knew what a restless mercenary would do, not just with an old wagon-man, but with a young, very beautiful woman? He pushed the thought from his mind, hoping it didn’t come to that.

Satisfied and seeing that they were all ready, Solloway put his finger to his lips then pointed into the trees just past the muddy shore, in the direction of Dusty Yen’s camp. They followed each other closely, the shadows of shadows, but Solloway was setting such a breakneck pace that Jompers was panting heavily before long. Several times they had to stop so the cosmologist could catch his breath, Solloway fidgeting with his axe and scowling until Jompers would give him a nod and allow them to continue.

Leo remained close to Brook, his blue eyes focused on the path ahead, his ears pricked and alert. It was strange, but ever since the dream from the days before, when she and Mercer were in the Blight, the mind-link Brook shared with Leo had grown incredibly strong. She could understand the pup’s every thought, could interpret his every intention and desire. What had once been a swirl of formless color had now taken shape and dimension; what had once been noise now had melody, rhythm and tone. The timing for the mind-link’s development couldn’t have been better: their clandestine entry into Dusty Yen’s camp was tantamount to their success, and Leo wandering off or acting out would surely compromise that.

Suddenly, Solloway stopped, his fist held aloft. Everyone halted, but as Mercer did, his foot came down on a twig which snapped loudly in the silence. Solloway glared at him but said nothing. There were voices ahead, men’s voices, but if they had heard the twig snap, they gave no indication.

“Sorry about that,” Mercer whispered.

“It’s alright. From here on out, we’re splitting up. It’ll seem suspicious if four people who no one in camp has seen before suddenly walk in together.” The men’s voices sounded louder, closer, so Solloway spoke quicker. “Jed, you and I will go left, while Mercer, you, Brook and the dog go right. Don’t stray too far though. If we lose sight of each other, that could be trouble. We still need to be able to help each other if anything goes wrong. Follow my lead, as I’m going to be making my way for the center of camp. Let’s go.” Jompers let out an audible sigh before following as swiftly and soundlessly as he could after Solloway.

“Come on,” Brook whispered to Mercer, waving for him to follow. Mercer complied, keeping one eye on the robed Black Wing ahead of him, the other on Solloway and Jompers through the trees. It was hard to keep them in sight, the dark under the tree boughs as thick as syrup. He thought he lost them, until he saw a flash of movement, like a fish’s scales catching the moonshine, and knew it was Jompers stumbling after Solloway through the briars and brambles. Though relieved that he had a sight on the cosmologist, Mercer was worried that if he could spot the learned man so easily, one of Dusty Yen’s men would be able to as well. If they were caught this far out from the camp, they were sure to be labeled as the intruders they were and dealt with accordingly.

“Well, if Solloway thinks we’ll be able to sneak in without a problem, then I should too,” Mercer thought to himself. He took a deep breath and focused on keeping quiet, as the men’s voices were so close that he could audibly discern them.

“Dunno what we doin’ all the way out here, Clem,” one of the voices said. “‘Cept missin’ out on what’s goin’ on back at camp. Harmon sez some slavers just brought in a whole wagon full of girls from the mountains. Young ones, too. And here I is, walkin’ through the woods with your swampy ass, on the lookout for Elon’s ghost!”

The other voice coughed, then spoke, his simple voice addled by a cold. “We’re supposed to watch for anyone who looks out of the ordinary, Remy. That’s what Dusty said. ‘Keep your eyes peeled for any suspicious types, Clem.’ That’s what Dusty said to me, he did.”

“He sez that to you? Just like that?”

“Aye, he did, Remy.”

“What sort of suspicious types you think he be meanin’?”

“Dunno, but I know that some high-ups from one of the western cities are here to talk to Dusty and I think they told ol’ Dusty that there be a man coming to try and kill him. That’s what I heard, anyways.”

“Where you hear that sort of nonsense, Clem? You’d be a damn fool to walk into this here camp and try somethin’ like that. You’d be dead ‘fore you even did a jig. ‘Member what happened to that blue-skinned coot from the marshes?”

“I remember, alright,” Clem nodded before hocking up some deep phlegm. “But you know, Harmon said_”

“You always listenin’ to that damn fool! He nothin’ but a old beachy man with a head full of sea shells. Everybody knows not to trust a word that comes out of a beachy man’s mouth ‘cept you it seems.”

“But you just said that Harmon told you there was a whole wagon full of young girls who came into camp_”

“Well, that’s different Clem! For Peek’s sake, if I have to explain that then there really be no hope at all in the world for you…”

And so Clem and Remy went on, so caught up in their talking that they failed to see Solloway and Jompers passing through the trees a mere ten steps away. Mercer saw, however, his heart beating madly in his chest. These mercenaries may have been as sharp as a pair of river stones but they were heavily armed, each with a polished rifle and various blades on their person. All it would take was for one of them to notice something out the corner of his eye, a shaking tree limb, a rustling bush, and then Solloway’s entire mission would be for naught.

Solloway and Jompers passed safely by though, Remy and Clem none the wiser. Mercer relaxed a little, but knew that he, Brook and Leo had yet to do the same. He knew he could walk without a sound, had been able to do so since he was a child and his father had taught him the secrets of the forest. As a Black Wing, Brook also tread feather-light, as did Leo with his padded paws, so they were able to slink by Remy and Clem without so much as a raised eyebrow or suspicious snort.

Once they had made it a good way past the two soldiers, Mercer got to thinking about what the men had been saying.
Some high-ups from the west had told ol’ Dusty that there was a man coming to kill him
. It seemed like someone had alerted Dusty Yen to Solloway’s mission, someone who hailed from the western cities. But who would be trying to compromise Solloway’s mission? Was he not here on behalf of the western cities in the first place?

Things were making less and less sense, and Mercer felt caught in a fog of dread that would not dissipate. He was convinced that Solloway was hiding something from him, or worse, wholly lying to him about his intentions. This man had been his father’s best friend once, but men changed, grew worn out, like wagon wheels and paper lanterns. Who knew what the old sergeant’s real purpose was in coming to Dusty Yen’s camp?

Despite this, Mercer knew he had come too far to turn back. Even if he did, where was there to go back to? This camp was where he had been headed since his nineteenth birthday, when the maniacal moon had urged him to join with Dusty Yen, to swear fealty to the warlord in exchange for riches, land and power. So many things had changed in the half-moon since then, so many things exhumed from places he had thought would remain interred until the end of time. Hope, honor, possibility, it had all returned, blazing white hot like it had when he was a boy at school in Ithaca, learning the ways of a cosmologist, excited for the future and humanity’s salvation. It was a white hot torch that pushed back at the darkness of war, a fire that urged him to fight not for power but for peace.

And it was all because of her, the girl who had never left his side since their meeting, the Black Wing named Brook. She had helped him find himself again; the least he could do was help her get her brother back. He felt her anxiety, her unease. He knew all she could think about was the moment in the near future when she would be walking back over the Rip with Crow by her side, on her way back to the Broke Tooth Hills and the Black Wing camp nestled safely within them.

That was a lie, though, for nothing was safe in the Green Lands. Not anymore. Not with his father, the Undead King, and his army on the march.

Brook suddenly stopped and crouched low, motioning for Mercer to do the same. “There is a road ahead,” she whispered. Mercer looked through the brush and saw what she did, a road of cracked black stone on whose adjacent side were the crumbled remains of old houses. There were several torches lining the road, the only effect made by their crackling flames the accentuation of the darkness surrounding their small orange globes of light.

“Do you see Solloway or Jompers?” Mercer asked.

“No… wait. There! Look!” The light from one of the torches caught on some movement from behind a toppled stone wall that stood between the road and one of the houses. It was Solloway, his wasp nest of a beard catching the torchlight and glowing like an ember being stoked by a bellows.

“They crossed the road safely. That’s good. We should stay on this side and follow.” Brook agreed, and they kept on, as careful as ever to not make a sound.

It happened suddenly: the desolation and emptiness of the road abruptly ended, and the camp of Dusty Yen began. Mercer and Brook stopped for a while to take it in from the safety of the forest. It was a boisterous place, full of shouting men and clanking steel, screeching women and barking dogs. Tents were erected as far as either of them could see, filling a clearing that looked recently felled of whatever trees had stood there. Huge fires burned and the smell of meat and unwashed bodies filled the air. Leo began to growl but Brook silenced him. The air was humming with a restless energy, and Mercer knew why: the camp was full of bloodthirsty men eager for battle. It wouldn’t be long before they marched.

“I can’t see Solloway,” Mercer whispered. “Do you think he went in?”

“Let’s wait. He wouldn’t just run in there without us knowing_ ow!” Brook flinched, as though she were stung by a bee.

“What is it?”

“A light... In my eyes.” She squinted into the darkness, across the road, and saw its source. “Oh, it’s Jompers. He’s using some sort of looking glass to reflect the torchlight. Clever man.”

Mercer smiled, seeing for himself the small glass on the other side of the road, shining like a small red star in the blackness. “We’ll wait for their lead. Once they go in, we’ll wait a few moments and then follow.”

It only took a few moments before Solloway made his move. He and Jompers sauntered out of the woods as if they had just taken a brief reprieve to relieve themselves, Solloway tottering on his feet as if he were drunk. Perhaps he was, Mercer thought. Either way, it would be a good way to keep anyone in the camp of being too suspicious of the two men. Even if you’d never seen the man before, what danger could he be if he was piss drunk?

Solloway tottered right into the camp, Jompers close at his heel, and they were quickly enveloped by the chaos going on around them. Mercer and Brook anxiously listened for signs of discovery, for gunfire or steel on steel, but there was none of it. The boisterous drone of the camp continued unabated, and both swordsman and Black Wing breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“I guess it’s our turn then,” Brook whispered.

“It is. I might take a page from Solloway’s book and pretend I’ve had a little too much to drink. It will throw them off, make them take less notice of us.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ve never been drunk before, but I can try to do the same.”

Mercer thought about it for a moment. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that they can take advantage of you just because you’ve put back a few. Better if it were just me.”

Brook nodded. Even in the twilight, Mercer could see the lines of worry in her face. “Look, we’re going to get your brother back. He’s okay, I’m sure of it.”

“I’m not, Mercer. Crow doesn’t like to be told what to do. What if he spoke out and they hurt him so bad he’ll never be the same again? What if they killed him?”

“They didn’t. Don’t worry. He’s strong and we’ll get him out. Now come on, we don’t want to lose Solloway.” As if he were about to jump into the icy waters by Stag’s Leap, Mercer steeled himself for his emergence from the forest. All it would take was for one mercenary to be looking out into the woods at that moment and see him emerging for there to be some trouble. There was no more waiting though, no more time to waste. There was only the step forward, and it had to be taken now.