Minstrel's Serenade (13 page)

Would he ever settle down? Bron glanced at Nip’s tent. Have children?

“Do you ever sleep?”

Bron turned from the fire, his gaze resting on Danika wrapped in furs to stave off the morning chill. Desire filled his chest, and he pushed his yearnings away. “I slept all night. Valorian protected us with his song.”

Danika glanced over at Valorian’s tent with doubt crinkling the skin around her eyes.

“He took to his tent not long ago.” Bron pulled a piece of meat from the fire and set the hearty ration upon a traveling plate. As much as he wanted time with Danika before they entered the caverns, he had to keep his word. “He said to wake him when you rose.”

Danika sat beside him, poking the meat with one of Bron’s cooking sticks. “Let us give the prince some time to rest, shall we? If he’s played this whole night--as you’ve said--he deserves his sleep.”

“I take orders from you first, my lady.” Bron handed her the plate. “’Tis not our usual dining fare.”

“’Tis sufficient.” Danika wrapped her elegant long fingers around the edge of the plate.

Bron’s gaze met hers. Hollowed, dark skin lined the bottom of her eyes. “Did you sleep well, Your Highness?”

Danika pulled the furs tighter as if fending off ill memories in the mist. Her gaze steeled, and he feared she’d closed her heart to him. She picked a piece of meat off the plate and studied the pink center as if her answer lay in the hare.

Bron made a plate each for Nip and Valorian before taking the last few pieces for himself. “My apologies. It’s not my place to ask.”

“No. It’s not.”

Embarrassment spread like fire in his cheeks. Bron’s gaze shot up to hers and her face softened as a small smile curved her lips.

“However, I’m grateful for your concern.” She placed the meat in her mouth, chewed and swallowed.

Bron thought she’d dropped the subject until she spoke again. “Seeing my mother again has brought back ghosts I didn’t want to face.”

His ghosts invaded his dreams each night. The dead army of Sill never let his mind rest, and in the center of the horde stood the king, the man he’d sworn to protect. Bron knew the pain of reliving the past over and over again until one questioned every decision he made on such a fateful day. “We all must face our ghosts in this life.” He gestured toward the lake with playfulness in his eyes to lighten the mood. “Perhaps some of them lay in wait for us in the mist.”

Danika made the sign of Helena’s sword in the air. “Let’s hope not. I’ve seen enough for a lifetime.”

“As have I.”

The mist rolled in, wispy tendrils playing around their feet. They sat in silence. Bron was content to share each moment with her, whether they spoke or not.

Danika turned. “Here comes a little ghost right now.”

Nip’s head peeked out from his tent. His mop of unruly hair stood up like an ill-tended thicket.

“He must have smelled the meat cooking.” Bron smiled as Nip caught his gaze. The boy scurried from his furs. Rubbing his eyes, he joined them by the fire.

Danika handed a sleepy Nip his plate. “I trust you slept well?”

Nip nodded, accepting the plate. He walked to the lake and sat on the shore, nibbling on his piece of hare.

“Doesn’t speak much in the morning,” Bron sighed. “’Tis like squeezing water from stone.”

Danika laughed, her eyes finally looking alive again. She tapped her finger on her chin. “I wonder whom that reminds me of?”

Was she teasing him? Bron opened his mouth to reply and closed it again, gritting his teeth together. He had sworn an oath to protect her, not provide pleasant company. Why would she make such an observation? Did she wish for him to say more?

Before Bron could inquire further, Valorian emerged from his tent, glaring.

“Looks as though I’ve angered him.” Bron bit off a piece of meat. Amusement and guilt mingled in his heart. He should have woken the minstrel as he’d promised. Warriors did not fare well at kingdom relations.

“I’ll make amends.” Danika set her half-eaten plate aside on the grass. She rose and met him before he reached Bron.

Bron chewed his breakfast, trying not to watch them too closely, yet still keeping an eye on Danika. What could they possibly speak of for so long?

The royals’ talk should not concern him. To occupy his time and his wandering mind, he started to pack their supplies, securing the rice to a wheeled platform the minstrels had given them. Their quest hung in the air like a foul stench, and he intended to focus on the plan and usher them through harm’s way and back again unscathed.

* * * *

“’Tis black as death,” Nip complained as Bron lit a torch, burning off tendrils of mist. They stood before a stone archway made from a crack in the mountain’s base. Symbols from a strange language were whittled along the frame. A stone carving of Helena and Horred ushering a young child into the caves was carved on the right side.

“Who’s that?” Nip pointed to the depiction of the boy his age carrying a sword longer than he was tall and a bulging sack.

“Halfast, Helena’s and Horred’s son.” Danika traced the pictures with the tip of her finger. “During the rise of the dead, they hid him in these caves to live on in their name. He started his own underground society, and they lived apart from the people of the surface, developing different physical traits to combat life in darkness.”

“Why have I never heard this tale?” Nip traced where Danika’s fingers left off.

Danika looked to Bron. This boy was his apprentice, after all. The warrior nodded and stepped in. “Some temple monks don’t tell his story because they consider any link with the cave dwellers sacrilege. Others say the traits were a curse for shunning fate.”

Nip held his sword to mimic the boy’s pose. “Why?”

Valorian spoke from behind them, surprising Bron with his openness. “They want you to think our race dominates this world. That our gods favor us over all others when, in fact, we’re from the same flesh as the albinos. Every creature has a right to coexist: people, albinos and even wyverns.”

Nip ran his fingers along his sword. Confusion saddened his eyes. “Is it right for us to kill them then?”

“The wyverns threaten the balance. They push their territory into ours when we’ve left their islands alone. Just like the dead army of Sill, they must be stopped.” Bron placed a hand on his shoulder. “We must defend what is rightfully ours.”

“Come.” Danika took Bron’s torch and led the way into the darkness. “We have no time for philosophical discussions. We must hurry.”

Bron didn’t know what was worse: leaving the boy with the carriage or taking him with them into the caverns below. Danika had insisted he stay with them, and Nip claimed his father had spoken of the tale so many times, he knew the way. At least he could watch the boy instead of wondering if he wandered into trouble.

Water dripped from a ceiling lined with furry bittle bats, their pale hides glowing faintly white in the shadows. Pink salamanders scurried underfoot, hiding in cracks between the rocks. The air stank of mold and the tang of wet earth. Bron dragged the small wagon with the rice behind him by a rope tied around his wrist. He felt like poor old Wafty, their family’s mule back at the farm. Named for his wafting stench, he always struggled with the heavier loads. Bron used to help the old mule by carrying half of the bushels. Wafty wouldn’t have liked this load one bit.

Soon the dim light from the entrance faded to a memory and the darkness enveloped them whole. Danika and Valorian carried torches, and the two blazing lights bobbed like fireflies at night.

The bobbing from Danika’s and Valorian’s torches stopped, and Bron increased his pace. When he caught up, they stood before a three-way fork in the tunnels. The right and left passages jutted down, while the middle passage remained level.

“What should we do?” Danika turned to Bron. The firelight brought out the high angles of her cheekbones, making her face strikingly beautiful.

Bron lifted a finger, testing the wind. Although he preferred the more level path, he knew fate would probably choose against him. “Nothing.”

Valorian strummed his lute. He struck three vibrant chords, allowing the echoes to dissipate into the shadows. “Every passage rings the same.”

Nip threw a stone at the ceiling and a bunch of bittle bats squeaked, dropping from the sky. Danika shrieked and shielded her head with her arm as they fell toward her. Bron thought he’d have to pick them out of her hair but the bats took flight, diving farther into the cavern.

Danika’s gaze blazed as she turned back to Nip. “Why would you ever--”

Bron brought up his hand. He pointed to the cavern on the right. “That way.”

“How do you know?” Valorian peered into the darkness.

“Because, that’s where the bittle bats went.” Nip sprung forward, strutting like the winner of a contest. “Come on.”

“Excellent work, little one.” Valorian patted the boy on the back as he followed him into the darkness.

Danika shot Bron an inscrutable look. “In Horred’s name. Bittle bats telling us the course?”

Bron smiled. “You were wise to bring him along.”

“Wise or foolish, which one, I’m not certain.” Danika shook her head.

“All wise men were once fools,” Bron muttered to himself as he picked up the rope, pulling the heap of rice forward. He hoped he’d passed the “fool” stage as a boy and that every day he grew wiser.

The passage sloped and Bron braced the wagon with all his weight, lest the wheels roll sprawling into the darkness. The ground grew uneven and their footsteps began to crunch.

“Stop.” Danika raised her hand.

Bron shifted his feet to hold the weight of the rice from spilling on top of them. His muscles strained, but he’d hauled far heavier loads.

Arm shaking, Danika lowered her torch.

Valorian grabbed her arm before the light from the flames hit the floor. “Please, Princess, trust me. You don’t want to see.”

Bron stiffened as the minstrel touched her. Valorian’s overprotectiveness showed how little the minstrel knew the princess. Danika yanked her arm back. “Nonsense. I need to know what we face.”

Valorian held his hand to his chest as if her rejection had physically stung. “We must hurry on. There’s no time for study.”

While they argued, Nip brought up a piece of the floor. Silence fell as the boy held a giant man’s femur to the firelight. “Bones.”

Danika’s eyes widened. “I thought the albinos ate rice.”

“They do.” Nip shook the bone in the air. “I saw him with my own eyes. My father did not speak of this.”

“No one is questioning your story, lad.” Valorian picked up a bone the size of a human arm and traced his finger along a gash of teeth marks stretching from top to bottom. “Perhaps your father didn’t want to frighten you.”

“I can handle it.” Nip threw his bone to the ground and it clattered against the rest.

“Shhh.” Bron whispered. “It’s not the albinos we have to worry about.” Hands still holding back the rice, he gestured with his chin to the slashes Valorian had found. “Those were made by something else.”

Sacrifice

“We cannot turn back.” Danika shone her torch over the bones. The flames cast a reddish light on the ivory, making them look as though they sat in fires of hell. Skulls of all sizes littered the floor, from rats to kobolds, to men.

All these creatures had failed.

Fear rose up inside her. Would anyone in her party see the light of day again, or would this dark hole be their grave? The darkness pressed in, suffocating her under miles of hard-packed earth. She steeled her nerves, swallowing her fears. “We’ve come too far.”

Bron nodded in agreement. “Perhaps we can sneak by undetected?”

Valorian plucked a few notes on his lute. “Or perhaps I can lull the beast to sleep?”

“That’s if this one has ears.” Danika didn’t want a repeat of the encounter in the forest. “If it can understand the music’s meaning.”

“Like I said before, music is a universal language.” Valorian plucked again, this time with a stronger force. The notes rang around them like an invisible shield. “My lute can quell any beast able to hear it.”

Danika shot a questioning look to Bron. The warrior shrugged as if she’d asked him which gown looked better for Festival Day. She glanced at Nip. The boy’s chest heaved as if he battled fear against courage. Danika was on her own and this was her decision to make. She could send them all back, saving their lives this day, but how many days would they have left before the wyverns came and breathed their world into ashes and dust? They needed that metal to launch their attack.

Danika blew on her torch, gauging the time she had left until the flames burned through the oily rags. Not long. Soon they’d travel past the point of no return, when they wouldn’t have enough light for the trip back to the surface. “It’s settled. We continue on while Valorian plays.”

They shuffled through the bone, clearing a path for Bron’s rice cart. Valorian’s soothing tones echoed down the tunnel, and Danika thanked Helena every breath they took. The melody calmed her, transporting her from the dank hole in the ground to happier times--when she danced in the orchard with her mother or shot arrows with her father in Ebonvale’s green woods.

The passageway opened to a large cavern with water dripping. A musky scent of fur and wet hide hit Danika’s nose and she held up her torch, fearing the worst. Had they stumbled right into the beast’s chamber?

Underneath their high perch, the floor moved everywhere with a steady rise and fall of hair. Danika covered her mouth with her hand to keep from screaming. She turned back just as Nip charged into her. “Shhh!”

Nip scratched his head and peered around her into the darkness as Valorian and Bron caught up. “What is it?”

“Something’s alive down there. Something big.”

“Let me see.” Nip’s hand shot up to take the torch.

Danika pulled the torch away, holding the flame out of his reach. “No. I’m not letting any of us go farther in.”

Nip slipped by her, crept to the edge and sniffed. “Smells like peeper mice. Pa said there’s a whole ton of ’um infesting the caverns. Enough to feed an army.”