Child of Fate

By Jason Halstead

Copyright 2012

Published by Novel Concept Publishing LLC at
Smashwords

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This is a work of fiction. Names, places,
characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any
actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is
entirely coincidental.

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Cover art © 2012
Willsin Rowe

Photography by
Marcus
Ranum

Edited by Valerie McCarty

Proofread by Faith Williams

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Jason Halstead’s website:
http://www.booksbyjason.com

Look for these other Blades of Leander
books:

Child of Fate

Victim of Fate

The shrill whinny of a horse caught Caitlin’s
attention. She looked up from where she and Kressa, her younger
sister, were washing clothes. Gemini, their father’s horse, walked
out of the fields toward them. He pulled an untended plow behind
him.

“Mom! Gemini’s back without Dad!” Caitlin
shouted. “Stay here,” she ordered Kressa as she stood up and
gathered her skirts to rush over to the horse. She’d closed less
than half the distance before she could make out a bundle behind
the plow. It was her father.

Caitlin screamed again, this time crying for
help from her older brother, Alto. A young man wearing only
breeches and boots emerged from the barn. He took off at a run,
discarding the pitchfork he’d been using while doing chores and
easily beating Caitlin to their father’s side.

Alto stopped Gemini with a hand to the
stallion’s reins and then went to his father. A strap had caught
Halgin’s foot, dragging the unconscious man behind the horse as he
made his way back home.

Alto looked his father over and knew that his
arm was broken. Blood flecked the older man’s lips and a bruise was
beginning to discolor the side of his face. Alto turned to his
sister as she ran up. “Fetch some water!”

Caitlin returned a few minutes later, a cup
of water in hand. Lana, their mother, rushed over with her skirts
in her hands beside her. Behind came the other five children to see
what had happened. Lana took the cup and knelt down, whispering her
husband’s name and lifting the cup to his lips. The cool water
brought some life back to him, causing Halgin to moan and flutter
his eyelids.

“Father!” Alto whispered. “What
happened?”

“Hush!” Lana chastised her son. She turned
back to Halgin and lifted his head to help him drink. “Are you all
right?”

Halgin grimaced and then coughed. He tried to
move his arm to his side but the movement caused a fresh grimace of
agony. “Raiders,” he managed to wheeze. “Goblins. Spooked Gemini
and earned me a kick from my own horse.”

Alto finished removing the tangled rein from
Halgin’s ankle. He turned until his eyes found his brother.
“Darren, take Gemini and fetch the healer!”

Darren’s eyes widened, and then he nodded and
turned, running to their barn as though his life depended on it.
The healer was in Monterose, the nearest village to them and still
at least a thirty-minute walk. On his father’s horse, he knew
Darren could make it in less than ten.

“Help your father inside; let’s get him out
of the sun,” Lana said.

Alto scooped Halgin up. Still a young man,
Alto had his father’s strong back and broad shoulders, made all the
more sturdy from working the farm. Halgin passed out again, moaning
slightly when Alto’s step was too harsh.

Alto laid his father down and stepped away.
He watched his mother fuss over him and shoo his brothers and
sisters out of the room. After the urge to do something became too
strong to resist, Alto turned to the chest his father kept in the
corner.

“What are you doing?” Lana hissed.

Alto had opened the chest and stared at the
contents. “Raiders—you heard him,” he said. “We can’t let them
destroy our crops or animals.”

“They’re goblins! They don’t want crops and
animals; they want food that’s been cooked and weapons and gold!
Stop your foolish notions. I’ll not have two men down.”

Alto’s back stiffened. “Which is it then, am
I a man or a child?”

Lana stared at him, her eyes moistening with
unshed tears. Her voice remained firm. “You’re my child, whether
you’re a man or not!”

“And I’m the man of the house while my
father’s hurt,” Alto said with finality. He grabbed up the leather
vest that had metal bits sewn into it and slid it over his head and
shoulders. Alto had to loosen the straps as far as he could to fit
it on his broad chest, but it provided modest protection.

“Alto, don’t be a fool!”

Alto ignored her. He girded his father’s
broadsword about his waist and then plucked the wooden round shield
from the chest and set it properly on his arm. “I’ll return when
I’m sure we’re safe.”

“Alto!”

Alto strode past the wide eyes of his sister
at the doorway. His siblings scattered as soon as he left his
parents’ room, though they all stared after him. “Mind Mother,”
Alto reminded them. Unspoken was his thought that he was failing to
take his own advice.

Alto hurried to the barn and threw a saddle
and bridle on his own horse, Sebas. He rode out, following the drag
marks across their yard and the fields beyond, looking for sign of
the raiders.

He found the scene of the conflict, and saw
the small tracks made by the raiders. Goblins, his father had said.
Alto knew nothing of the creatures save the stories told among
children and by adults when they sought to scare him. The tracks
made it look as if some neighbor children had surprised him. He
dashed such thoughts from his head, knowing no mere children could
possibly have felled his father, even by accident. Alto struggled
to remember what his father had taught him of hunting and tracking
and tried to follow the tracks.

He hadn’t gone far when he heard the sound of
steel on steel and an inhuman scream. Sword drawn, he guided Sebas
across a marshy field and through a copse of trees. On the far
side, he pulled Sebas to a stop and stared, amazed.

Alto had seen death. He lived on a farm:
animals were slaughtered daily for food or to prevent the spread of
illness. He’d never seen a battle before, or the gruesome remains
of one. Before him several goblins lay upon the ground, pierced by
bolt or spear or hacked by blade. A group of five remained
standing, gibbering excitedly in their crude tongue while three men
rode their horses around them like wolves circling a wounded
mountain lion. A fourth man sat upon the ground, holding his thigh
and cursing with a foulness that turned Alto’s cheeks red.

One of the riders rushed toward the goblins,
sending them scattering. They routed in full, rushing away from him
and trying to avoid the sweeping blades of the other two. One was
caught up in the legs of a horse and stomped to death, a second and
third fell to blades, and a fourth was reached in short order by
the charging horseman. The fifth goblin bore straight down on Alto,
though the goblin looked to the rear in fear of pursuit.

“You there!” the unhorsed rider called out.
“Stop him!”

Alto looked at the broadsword he held in his
hand and then at the goblin rushing toward him. The creature had a
pinched and dirty face that could have looked like an ugly child if
it weren’t for the stained and twisted teeth. His eyes fell upon
the goblin’s feet and he saw how small they were. The sight
connected with the footprints from where his father had fallen. It
became real for him then. Not a story, but he had proof of what had
occurred and he saw how he could stop it from happening again.

Alto’s nostrils flared and he felt rage
overtake him. He put his heels to his horse, which caught the scent
of death and snorted nervously. Alto kicked again, spurring the
horse onward, and raised his sword. The goblin turned his head and
saw Alto. His narrow eyes widened in fear and he tried to angle his
flight to take himself away from the newest threat.

Alto’s rage remained, but it cooled. He felt
calm instead of excited. Alto saw the goblin’s path and he steered
Sebas toward the creature. He leaned low in his saddle and swung
his father’s blade. The jarring shock of the impact surprised him
and wrenched the blade from his hand. Alto spun Sebas around,
fearful he’d failed. He stopped and stared at the carnage he’d
wrought.

The goblin lay twitching on the ground, the
broadsword stuck fast in the body where he’d hewed into the
creature. The other riders were upon him then, circling around to
appraise his handiwork.

“Ha! Well placed!” said a man wearing a chain
shirt with a bloodstained tunic over it.

Another nodded, raising his fist in salute.
He wore a chain shirt and leggings. Both men wore tunics bearing
the symbol of a sword and axe crossed in front of a blazing sun.
When he smiled, Alto noticed he was missing several of his
teeth.

The third man reached down and wrenched
Alto’s blade free, and then held it up in front of him, admiring
it. He seemed the leader of the troop, and wore the finest chain
shirt among them, its links gleaming. His white tunic was also the
cleanest and brightest. He reversed the sword and offered it Alto.
“Well done, young man,” he said. “I’m Tristam.”

Alto took it and made as if to sheathe it,
but had a hard time placing the tip in the scabbard. His hands were
shaking.

“Here, son, use this,” Tristam said and
pulled a piece of cloth from where he had it tucked under his
saddle.

“Alto,” he managed while taking the rag and
looking at it. He intuited what the man intended the rag to be used
for and ran it down the length of his blade to clean the blood and
gore off. By then his hands were reliable enough to sheathe the
sword. He offered the rag back but the man only waved.

“Keep it, you’ve the look of a man who’ll be
needing it,” he said. He turned away and rode back toward their
fallen comrade. He turned his head back and said, “Grab that
whore-son of a goblin. They don’t deserve the respect of a funeral
pyre, but we’ll burn the lot of them to keep the scavengers
away.”

The man wearing the chain shirt leaned low
over the back of his horse, keeping his balance on the mount with
the skill of an experienced horseman. He grabbed the dirty hide
tunic of the goblin and yanked him upright, spilling more gore. He
rode after his captain, tossing the baggage onto the pile of other
goblins.

The man with the gap-toothed smile grinned
again. “I’m Gerald. That’s a nice horse ya got there, boy. Think ya
might want to be selling him?”

Alto shook his head. “Sebas is not for
sale.”

The man shrugged and turned to ride back
toward the others. Alto watched him and felt a shiver pass through
him. He looked back down at the ground where the long grasses were
stained red with the goblin's blood.

“Boy!”

Alto’s head shot up and he stared up the
slight incline to the others. Tristam waved at him. “Come up
here.”

Alto glanced back at the blood again and then
rode Sebas toward them, making sure he kept on the outside of their
grouping in case they weren’t as well-meaning as they seemed. When
he reached them, he saw that the clearing dropped away on the other
side of them more steeply, and an older man with a brushed beard,
brown robes and hat that hid most of his fading blond hair was
riding up to meet them.

The wounded man saw the man in robes
approaching and called out to him, “Where’s that boy of yours, Kar!
I can’t stop the bleeding.”

“Serves you right, Drefan,” Kar snapped at
him, a grin on his face. “Told you not to play with sharp
objects!”

“Kar,” Tristam said, his tone filled with
warning. One word was enough, it seemed.