Progeny (The Children of the White Lions) (36 page)

A smile crept over Jhaell’s face. Then he would be with Syra again.

Shoving the parchments back into his satchel, he hurried to a nearby records room, rushing through the maze of halls and ignoring the strange stares he received from officials going about their business.

Reaching the room, he threw open the door—letting it bang against the wall inside—and stepped into a small, stuffy, dark space filled with wooden shelves packed with old, yellowed parchments and capped scrolls. A lone young man in dark robes stood behind a tall counter, wearing a bored expression.

Jhaell ran to the counter and demanded, “Give me a quill and ink.” In his hurry to leave the academy, he had forgotten his own. “And I’ll need a private place to write.”

Instead of complying with the request, the man glared at him and said, “No.”

“No?” repeated Jhaell, equal parts incredulous and perturbed. “Why not?”

Lifting an eyebrow, the man said, “First, you nearly break the door. Then you
order
me to give you a—”

Jhaell’s destructive impatience flared. Every moment he wasted here was one the Progeny were slipping from his grasp.

Reaching to his belt, he pulled out his thin-bladed dagger and stabbed the man straight in the neck, releasing a crimson plume of blood that squirted onto the counter and splattered all over Jhaell’s robes. As Jhaell pulled the longknife free, the man grasped his neck and tried to scream for help, but was unable to with his windpipe nearly severed.

Jhaell prayed the man was not a Life Mage and, for a change, it seemed he had found a bit of luck. The man did nothing with the Strands, Life or any other kind. He stumbled about a few moments before slumping over on the counter, bleeding and choking. As the light drained from the young man’s eyes, Jhaell walked back to the door, closing and locking it. Returning to the counter, he peered over the ledge, and stared at the corpse.

“You should have just given me the ink and quill.”

Finding both lying next to the dead man, he reached out and grabbed the writing utensils.

He stood at the counter for a time, writing the same message on eight of the nine parchments. The ninth, the one to Alpert, he simply wrote that he was on his way. Once he was done, he rolled them up and placed them in his travelling bag.

Reaching for Void and Air, he wove them together, and ripped open a tear in the dusty records room. Stepping through, he arrived in total blackness. A warm, unpleasant, musty odor filled his nose, smelling of old boots and dead rats.

Cursing, he fumbled about the enclosed space, knocking various unseen items over, searching with his hands. After a few moments, he found the handle for which he was looking, wrapped his long fingers around it, and lifted.

Opening the door to the closet, he stepped into a cramped and dusty room. A simple straw-mat bed was pressed up against one wooden wall underneath a tiny, square window.

Jhaell had been paying rent on this room for years, ensuring it would always be empty for his use. Dozens of places like this existed for him in cities throughout the world, but he rarely used any of them in the duchies. The threat of exposing himself to the Constables was too great.

Glancing down, he realized that his robes presented a dual problem. First, they were now covered in dark bloodstains, and second, they could easily identify him as the person responsible for what happened in Yellow Mud. Ijul were rare here. Ijul wearing crimson robes even more so.

Reaching into the closet, he retrieved a set of spare traveling clothes: tan jute-cloth breeches, a brown shirt made of a light but durable material, leather boots, and a heavy, black, unadorned cloak. After changing, he buckled his belt around his waist with his dagger wiped clean in its sheath. He moved to the door, unlocked it, and stepped into a dingy, dark hallway.

Lined with a half-dozen doors like the one he had exited, the hall was empty of people, but full of the sounds of talking and singing downstairs. Hurrying to the end of the hall and down the steps, he entered a tavern room brimming with a crowd of unclean, drunk men. A few of the less inebriated patrons in the room noticed his entrance, but most ignored him.

He moved across the room, dodging the patrons in the room, and approached the innkeeper. When he reached the counter, a smell of unwashed filth wafted over Jhaell. The overweight, sweaty man glanced at Jhaell, looked away, and stared back an instant later, his eyes going round.

Giving a Jhaell a nervous smile, the man stuttered, “Wel…welcome b-back, sir.”

Jhaell placed a handful of gold arcans on the top of the bar. They were not the currency of the region, but gold was still gold. The innkeeper’s eyes implausibly opened even wider at the small fortune sitting before him.

“I no longer wish to rent your room. This is for you to go up to the room—
this very instant
—and burn everything you find there, do you understand?”

Nodding the man muttered, “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” said Jhaell. “And if any of your blasted Constables show up, you play dumb, correct?”

The man nodded his head without saying anything.

Despite the man’s odor, Jhaell leaned closer to the innkeeper and whispered, “I will come back and murder you if I find you spoke a word of this situation to anyone.”

This time the man did not move his head, but the fear in his eyes was good enough for Jhaell.

Walking away from the bar, Jhaell moved to the front of the inn, pushed open the door, and stepped out into the cool, mist-filled air doing its best to mask an otherwise warm day. Moving into the muddy street, he hurried away from The Brown Horse and Cart, heading south down the road and out of Fallsbottom. He had to find the encampment of soldiers as quickly as possible.

Master Sergeant Nathan Trell walked through the camp, carefully studying his men. A moonless twilight had plunged the valley into a gloomy darkness, the tents and soldiers lit only by the flickering of campfires. The light, while meager, was enough to reveal the obvious.

The men were nervous.

He could see it in their faces and hear it in their voices. He swore he could feel their worry as he walked past. He had followed the regent’s instructions, keeping his men without a torch until they were all here, at which point he shared their orders. They deserved to know what they were doing here. Most of these soldiers were from the original detachment that had discovered Yellow Mud with him. They had helped bury the bodies.

Captain deCobb had assigned an extra twenty men to his normal detachment, bringing those under Nathan’s command to an even one hundred soldiers. Before leaving, Nathan had asked the captain to remove Footman Haynes from his command. He did not have time to watch after the nobleman’s son playing soldier. This assignment was legitimate.

He walked among the tents, pretending to check on the security of the camp, but the truth was he was simply trying to calm his men with his presence.

His meandering took him to where the two Trackers had set up their tent, off to one side of the camp and a noticeable distance away from the nearest soldier. The pair in gray sat before a small fire, facing the Sentinels, clearly as uncomfortable with the situation as were his own men. The sergeant ambled over to the pair, intent to learn what they knew. Nathan was operating with much less information than he would have liked.

Smiling wide, Nathan said, “Good days ahead to you.”

Both of the men looked up at his greeting but remained stone-faced and silent. After giving their name earlier, the pair had spoken nary a word.

Nathan’s smile disappeared.

“Have it your way then.” Sitting down on a small rock opposite them, he said, “Hope you don’t mind if I sit down for a while.” He eyed the Trackers, entirely aware that members of his detachment were watching him.

The Trackers stared at him in silence.

Folding his hands before him, Nathan spoke in a low, even tone.

“Gentlemen, I understand this is an unusual situation for you. It is for us, as well. However, those we are seeking apparently require a hundred swords pursuing them as well as the two of you. Speaking as a man who saw what happened at Yellow Mud, I wish we had thrice as many.”

He paused as the two men exchanged a quick glance before looking back to him. They remained silent.

Whispers about Trackers filled every tavern and meeting room in the duchies. As a rule, the mage-hunters were withdrawn, quiet, and a suspicious lot. Nathan had to counteract that somehow.

Sighing, Nathan said, “This is what will happen: our odd expedition here will go smoothly. Why? Because it must. For that to happen, I need my men to be alert with eyes forward on the road, not on the two silent, mysterious Trackers in our midst. Is that clear?”

Cero eyed him for a long moment before nodding, his answer spoken in a confident, raspy voice.

“I believe we understand, Sergeant.”

“Good, then. Now, when I say, ‘go’, I would like the two of you to laugh as though I told the prize jest at the festival. Go.”

Nathan began to chuckle, waiting for the pair to join him. At first, neither man responded, then Cero started to laugh along with him, albeit half-heartedly. Eventually, Latius smiled awkwardly. It would have to do.

As their phony jesting ended, Nathan said, “Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to see if we can work on an exchange of information. I am here with precious little to go on.”

The two men again exchanged a look and then turned as one toward Nathan. A small muscle twitched in Latius’ cheek. Nathan tried to figure if it was irritation or fear. After studying them for a moment, waiting for them to say something, he decided that he would need to open with what he knew.

“I’ll go first, then,” he said magnanimously. “Let’s see…well, I can tell you why we’re still sitting here and not already down the road. Interested?”

Latius’ gaze flickered toward Cero for a moment before shifting it to the fire. Whether officially or not, it seemed Cero was in charge of the pair.

Cero said carefully, “We had pondered on what the delay was.”

“We’re waiting for someone. Does the name ‘Fenidar’ mean anything to either of you?”

Neither Tracker showed any recognition of the name whatsoever.

With a disappointed sigh, Nathan muttered, “Fine, I suppose we will learn of him together.”

“Why are we waiting for him?” asked Cero.

Nathan shrugged his shoulders. “Regent Alpert put him in charge. That’s all I know.” Eyeing the pair, he said, “Now, it’s your turn to share something. Tell me what you found along the base of the cliff.”

Cero launched into a short narrative describing how they had traced the magical activity to a location five miles south of Fallsbottom. Nathan purposely did not ask how exactly they did that because he knew there would be no answer. The sky was blue, grass was green, Trackers tracked magic.

Cero described the giant bear marks that appeared from nowhere and just as mysteriously vanished. Four people had been there, one of them a giant of a man and one of them a girl or an older child, judging by the size of the footprints. Three horses accompanied them, led from the cliff and not ridden. After only a few steps into the forest, all traces of the group vanished. The Trackers believed the mage—or mages—used a minor bit of magic to erase their physical tracks. When Nathan pressed them about why they could not track that magic, both men grew tight-lipped, merely saying that they could not.

When they finished, Nathan asked, “To be clear. We are looking for three men, a girl or child, and three horses?” Incredulous, he added, “And a very big bear?”

Mildly chagrined, Cero shrugged. “I did not say it made sense, Sergeant.”

Nathan sat back, confused. He had hoped the Trackers’ report might clear things up. Instead, he had new questions to add to his already long list.

Hearing the sound of footsteps approaching from behind, he twisted around to see Footman Bedwin striding quickly to the Tracker’s fire. Nathan motioned for the soldier to wait for him to come to him. Excusing himself, he stood and moved to meet the young footman.

When Nathan was a few feet away, the young man said, “Sergeant? Fenidar just arrived. He’s waiting for you at your tent.”

Bedwin’s nervous expression gave Nathan pause. “What is it, footman?”

The man frowned, glanced around, and said quietly, “He’s an ijul, Sergeant. A saeljul, by the looks of him.”

Every so often, a group of tijul would move through Smithshill, but saeljul were rare in the region. In fact, Nathan needed only one hand to count the number of saeljul he had seen in his life.

Withholding his surprise, he thanked Bedwin for fetching him and strode past the soldier toward where he had staked his tent. As he strode amongst the camp, he shook his head from side-to-side. Things were getting stranger by the moment.

A tall figure stood alone before Nathan’s tent, shrouded in the evening’s shadows. Like all ijul, his facial features were elongated and his arms seemed too long for his body. The flickering light of the campfires made his white hair appear to glow an unnatural yellow-orange color. Nathan knew the tricks that low levels of light played on the eyes but the effect was eerie, nonetheless.

Dressed in brown traveling clothes and black cloak with a dagger on his belt and a single, large bag over his shoulder, the saeljul looked every bit prepared for a journey through the wilderness, but Nathan easily marked him city bred. He suspected the ijul had never slept a night without the comfort of a feathered bed.

As the pair’s eyes met, a small chill ran up Nathan’s back. There was no logical reason for the sensation, yet something about this ijul gave him an uneasy feeling.

Nathan was still a few steps away from the tent when the ijul addressed him. “You are the sergeant in charge here?”

“I am,” replied Nathan, stopping before the stranger. “You are Fenidar?”

With a nod, the ijul said, “I am.” He tugged at his shirt collar, confirming Nathan’s suspicion that he was uncomfortable in his clothing. “I want the camp ready to move as soon as possible. I will not accept delay. We pursue some very dangerous people.”