Raven Rise (30 page)

The suns were setting. It was cold. The village was surprisingly quiet. Most of the people I saw walking between the huts were women. My guess was that most of the men had been pressed into war duty and were now marching up and over the mountain, toward their date with the Lowsee. Lights glowed in several of the huts. Nobody paid any attention to a raggy, staggering stranger who could barely put one foot in front of the other. I followed the winding dirt path toward the bluffs, passing several of the stone huts. My feet hurt. It was probably frostbite from my trek down the snowy mountain. I thought back to how my feet had gone so numb I couldn't feel them. I kind of wished they'd go numb again. Each step was torture. If not for the dado weapon to lean on, I wouldn't have made it very far.

Finally, after walking a few hundred yards that felt like a few hundred miles, I saw a larger stone hut that sat several yards away from the closest structure. A Bedoowan knight stood guard at the door. It had to be the stockade. I limped slowly up to the knight, trying to look every bit as weak as I felt, so that he wouldn't think I was a threat. The guard had a cross-stave that he held out when I got within five yards of him. I stopped and held my hands out.

“I want to see the prisoner named Alder,” I announced.

“No one is allowed to enter,” the knight replied coldly.

“I'm his friend,” I said. “If he's going to die tomorrow, he should be allowed to say good-bye.”

The knight blinked. He wasn't a jerk. “I am sorry that it has come to this.”

“Tell me about it,” I replied.

“I cannot let you in, but you may speak with him through his window.”

The guard retracted his stave and motioned for me to go around to the far side of the hut. Swell. More walking. I wasn't complaining though. I rounded the hut to see a row of six windows that ran the length of the building. Each had strong vertical bars. I guessed that meant there were six cells. I walked along the row of windows, peering in each to look for Alder. The cells were empty, except for the last. I looked inside to see a man sitting on the floor with his head on his knees. He wore the same kind of leather I wore, which was strange because, when we were on Denduron, Alder always dressed as a knight. Not anymore. Seeing my large friend sitting there, looking so small, made my heart ache. Of all the Travelers, Alder was the most open, honest, and positive. He had saved my life more than once, never with any fear for himself. He was truly a noble warrior. It hurt to see him look so beaten.

“Hello, Alder,” I whispered.

The knight looked up, confused. His hair was ratty. His eyes unfocused. He was thinner than when I had seen him last.

“Who's there?” he asked, dazed.

“I'm sorry, Alder. This is my fault,” I said softly.

“Pendragon!”

Alder shot up as if the ground were hot. He ran to the window and reached through the bars, grabbing the back of my neck in a warm hug with one of his big paws. The transformation had been instant and complete. Gone was the beaten boy. Alder was every bit the outgoing, positive knight he'd always been. When he grabbed me, it felt as if an electric charge flashed through my body. I don't know how else to put it. It was more than just a surge of relief. It was an actual, physical sensation. My head suddenly felt a bit more clear. My nausea was forgotten.

Alder beamed. “I knew I would see you again.”

“But not like this,” I replied.

A dark look came over him. “I have failed you.”

I grabbed Alder's hand and squeezed it. “Don't go there. If anybody failed, it was me. Now you're the one who's going to pay the price.”

“So much has happened,” he said, shaking his head. “So much has changed.”

“You don't know the half of it,” I replied. “I have a lot to tell you.”

“Speak quickly,” he said with a sorry chuckle. “I will not be around much longer to hear it.”

Alder kept his hand on my good shoulder while we spoke. I felt his strength flowing into me. I don't mean it was an emotional thing. I swear, I felt I was gaining strength from his touch. My head was clearing. My mind started clicking again. After crawling through the depths for so long, I actually felt as if possibilities might exist. I can't say for sure what guided me to do what I did next. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was desperation. All I can say is that it felt right. I grasped Alder's hand, pulled it off my shoulder and placed it square on my chest, over the wound that had been torn open by the quig. Alder gave me a quizzical look.

“We're Travelers,” I said, staring him in the eye. “I don't know where we came from or why we're here, but we are like no others.”

Alder nodded. He knew.

“We are bound by our destiny. We must not accept defeat.”

“We will not accept defeat,” he said, his conviction growing.

“As long as we're breathing, there's hope.”

“There is always hope,” he added with growing confidence.

In that moment I actually believed it. We stood there, two Travelers. The future was in our hands. The past was in our hands. My life was in Alder's, his in mine.

“I'm hurt,” I said, not shifting my gaze from his. “Heal me.”

Alder didn't question. He didn't flinch. He didn't look away. I felt his hand press against my chest. It was warm. No, hot. I thought back to the moment at the gate on Zadaa when Loor was in my arms, dead. Saint Dane had driven a sword through her heart. She was gone…but I saved her. I healed her. We were Travelers. We were illusions. We had the power. We would not be denied.

My body started to tingle, as if blood were being pumped through my veins by a force beyond my own. Alder's eyes grew sharp. He felt it too. The spark was back. I felt my strength return. Not only physically, but mentally. I felt like myself. I was Bobby Pendragon. I was the lead Traveler.

I stood up straight on feet that no longer ached. I released Alder's hand. He pulled it back through the bars. We stood staring at each other, both breathing hard. I didn't have to tear off my bandages to know what had happened. I knew the wounds would be gone. Saint Dane was right. We weren't normal. We were illusions. What that meant, I still didn't know. All I could say for sure was that we weren't like other humans, and right then, it was a good thing.

Alder smiled. “We are not done yet, are we?”

“Not even close,” I replied.

(CONTINUED)

T
he Milago village had changed since my first visit to Denduron. What had once been a small village of farmers had been destroyed by an underground explosion (thanks to me), rebuilt using Bedoowan technology, and was now being developed as a jumping-off point for a conquering army—complete with training grounds, hospitals, armories, and barracks for newly inducted knights. Even with all the advances, it was still primitive by Second Earth standards. The huts were made of stone or wood. The streets were dirt. Horses pulled wooden wagons. The only signs of modern technology were the street lights, which were powered by something called “triptyte,” a mineral that glowed in the dark. Triptyte wasn't electricity, but it was valuable enough to start a war over. A war that would put Denduron on Saint Dane's path to destruction. Could Alder and I stop it? I had no idea, but we had to try. Together. That's why the first thing I needed to do was get my friend out of prison.

The Bedoowan armory was exactly where Alder said it would be. I recognized the area as the old Milago training ground. This is where I first saw the Milago miners having target practice with tak. It was a skill that was quickly developed into a method for waging war. Finding the armory wasn't exactly tricky. It was the largest building in the village. Alder told me that there were two armed guards. I saw only one. I was in luck. Still, it was broad daylight. If I made trouble, there was a good chance I'd be seen. Whatever I did had to be fast.

I looped around to the side of the barnlike building, clutching the dado weapon. I wanted to get as close as possible before announcing my presence to the guard. Surprise was a good thing. Loor and Alder taught me never to make the first move. That didn't apply when it came to surprise. The trick with surprise was to make sure the fight was over before it began. The first strike had to be the last.

The Bedoowan guard didn't know what hit him. For the record, it was me. I crept to the corner of the building, waited until his attention was away from me, leaped at the unsuspecting guy, and knocked him cold with two swipes of the dado weapon. Before he had the chance to hit the ground, I grabbed him and dragged him inside the building, closing the door behind us. It was fast. It was efficient. It was violent. It was the new me. So far so good. Really good. I felt great. Physically, I mean. Alder had healed me. The mystery of what it meant to be a Traveler would continue, but that didn't mean we couldn't take advantage of the powers we possessed. I felt strong and hopeful. I might even say invincible. Why not? It was proved that we could cheat injury and even death. I wish I could say that we were able to cheat pain, but that wasn't part of the program. Oh well. It's hard to put this into words, but the feeling of knowing we had that kind of power shot me full of such confidence, I actually thought we might have a chance of stopping the war on Denduron. Why not?

That feeling of confidence lasted for about as long as it took me to look into the armory building. Alder had described it as the storehouse for the Bedoowan arsenal. He told me about the rows of cannons and the stacks of bows and arrows that sat waiting for war. He said there was enough firepower contained in that building to overrun the simple Lowsee, destroy their tribe, and move on to any other enemy the army decided to victimize next. I didn't doubt him. Trouble was, what I saw inside the armory was in some ways more frightening than knowing such an elaborate arsenal existed.

What I saw was nothing. The armory was empty. Cleared out. Not a single arrow or cannonball was left. Alder had described a huge stockpile of weapons. There was nothing like that in sight. It suddenly made sense why there was only one guard stationed out front. There was nothing left to guard. The weapons were gone and I knew where they went. They were headed over the mountain with the Bedoowan knights, who were on their way to destroy the Lowsee. My heart sank. Our plan was to destroy the arsenal, but there was no arsenal left to destroy. We were too late.

We would have to find another way to stop the war. But first, Alder had to be rescued. I moved quickly, following his description of the armory. Finding the tak mine wasn't hard. Near the mouth of the tunnel was a small pile of tak bricks.

I took two, along with a length of fuse and one of the friction starters Alder described to me. I had a fleeting thought that I should run down into the mine and just ignite the tak again. But that was too risky. Alder had failed at that once. There were probably miners and guards down there. I didn't need to be caught and dumped into the jail cell next to my Bedoowan friend. No, I had to stick to the plan and spring Alder.

I took one of the bricks and gingerly broke off a piece of the soft mineral. If you remember, it was gritty and pliable, like clay. It was also volatile. I had to be fast, but careful. I ran to one of the inside walls of the armory and gently pressed a line of tak along the base of the wooden wall. The process scared the heck out of me. If I handled the tak too roughly, it would hit back with a big boom. I kept breaking off pieces and smearing the soft mineral along the base of the wall, making a long, rust-colored line.

I heard a sound from down in the mine.
Clang!
Somebody had dropped a tool. It was innocent enough, but I feared that somebody might be coming up. I had to work faster. After smearing most of the tak brick on the wall, I was ready. I took a small piece of fuse no more than two inches long and jammed it into the space between the wooden boards, making sure the end touched the smear of tak. I sparked the starter and lit the fuse. Backing away, I hoped I had smeared the right amount on the wall. I didn't want an explosion, I wanted a fire. A diversion. I had made a thin line of tak about twenty feet long on the wooden wall. If it didn't blow up, it would burn. At least, I hoped it would.

I backed away to the door of the armory and waited. It wouldn't be long. The fuse would only take a few seconds to reach the tak. I actually put my fingers in my ears, in case I hadn't spread it thin enough. Two seconds later I heard a sharp fizzle. The fuse hit the tak and instantly shot along the line, faster than I had imagined. The flare was brighter than I had imagined too. I had to squint or I would have been blinded. I waited for an explosion. It didn't come. Perfect. The wall of the armory was burning. The tak was so powerful it had already eaten through the wood. Flames began to lick up the side of the huge wooden structure. We were in business. The armory would soon be blazing.

I couldn't leave the unconscious guard in there to die, so I quickly dragged him outside and dumped him a safe distance from what was about to be a burning building. If all went well, help would soon arrive to put the flames out and he'd be in no danger. If things went badly, well, I didn't want to think about that. So I didn't. I ran back inside, grabbed the dado weapon and the second tak brick, then ran out for good.

I sprinted across the training ground, jumped over the berm of dirt, and turned back to watch. Smoke was already filling the air. The tak was doing its job. If this fire wasn't put out quickly, the whole place would go up. It was exactly what I wanted. I got up and moved quickly back toward the village. I had gotten about halfway back to the stockade when I heard the urgent clanging of a bell. It had to be a fire alarm. Whoever was ringing it wasn't announcing lunch. The ringing was furious. Instantly people emerged from their houses and looked around nervously. A patrol of Bedoowan knights ran past me, headed for the armory. They knew where the problem was. What they didn't know was that I was about to cause another problem somewhere else.

I made it back to the stockade easily. The whole way, I passed Bedoowan knights sprinting the other way, toward the burning armory. My hope was that Alder would be left unguarded.

He wasn't. One guard remained at his post. That was okay. I could handle one guard. The poor guy was about to get a very big surprise. I ran quickly to the back of the stockade, where I gently broke a Silly Putty egg-size chunk off the tak brick and molded it along the upper edge of Alder's barred window opening.

“Do not use too much,” Alder cautioned as he peered at me from inside. “I have no protection in here.”

I didn't know how strong the bars were. If I didn't use enough tak, all we'd do was alert the guard. If I used too much, there wouldn't be enough left of Alder to break out of anywhere. It wasn't an exact science. I decided to use only one piece of tak. I pressed the explosive along the entire top edge of the window and jammed a fuse into the soft material.

“Under the bed,” I commanded.

Alder didn't need to be convinced. Before I could ignite the fuse, he was hidden safely under his cot. At least, I hoped it was safely. I sparked the starter. Ten seconds to detonation. This time it wasn't about the fire. It was about the boom. When that tak went off, there was no telling which way the bars would fly, so I ducked around the corner. I put my back to the wall and waited. And waited. It felt like forever. I was second-guessing myself, thinking I should have used less tak when
boom!
The tak erupted, much more strongly than I expected. I quickly glanced back around the corner to see the square frame of bars flying away from the building, with smoke trailing behind as if it were jet propelled. I sprinted to the window, choking on the smoke.

“Hey!” I called. “You okay?”

Alder's head popped up from below the charred, gaping hole that was once a window frame. He was smiling. “I guess there is no longer need for secrecy,” he announced with a grin.

Before he could climb out, I was tackled from the side. I never saw it coming. It was a total blindside hit. It took me a second to realize that the guard had heard the explosion too, no big surprise. It wasn't subtle. He had run around to investigate and jumped me without so much as a “Halt!” or a “What's going on here?” The guard hit me. I hit the ground. He sat on top of me, pinning my arms with his knees, and wound up to punch me in the head. There was nothing I could do but wince. The punch never came. I looked up cautiously to see Alder looming over the guard. He had caught the guy's hand at the top of its arc.

“Please do not hit my friend,” he said calmly.

The Bedoowan guard didn't have time to react. Alder clocked him with his other hand. Simple as that. The guard tumbled off me. He wasn't knocked unconscious, but he was reeling.

“Now what?” Alder asked as calmly as if we were planning a picnic. The answer came in the form of a shout from the direction of the sea. We turned to see a dozen Bedoowan knights with cross-staves, sprinting directly toward us from the ruins of the castle.

“We get gone,” I said, and ran toward the village.

We both knew the best place to escape to would be the village. With any luck we could get lost within the labyrinth of huts. We needed time to think and to plan.

“The armory is on fire,” I said as we ran.

“Perhaps it will destroy the weapons as well.”

“The building was empty, Alder. The weapons are in play. The war is about to begin.”

Alder's only response was a quick, dark look.

We hit the village and sprinted along the narrow streets, winding our way on a route we thought would be impossible to follow. There weren't many people around. They were either out in the fields to work the farms or marching over the mountain to work the war. Alder pointed for me to run down a narrow alleyway of huts. We moved quickly until we came to a central, open courtyard.

“Stop here,” he ordered.

We both leaned against one of the wooden buildings to catch our breath.

“The tak mine,” I said, gulping air. “Maybe we can still take it out.”

Alder shook his head. “It would not matter,” he said gravely. “The Bedoowan already have all they need. Once they see the power it gives them, they will never be denied again. If we buried the mine, they would only dig it out again. We cannot turn the clock back.”

I hated to admit it, but he was right. The damage was done.

“It is too late for Denduron,” Alder added. “We cannot stop an army.”

Alder dropped his head in defeat. This was the new turning point for Denduron. The first domino was about to fall, and there was nothing we could do about it.

“I'm sorry” was all I could say. It was a painfully inadequate apology. After having saved it once, Alder's home territory was now lost.

He frowned. “We cannot let the events that happened here stop us.”

“Agreed,” I said quickly. “I'm not giving up. Not again.”

“Perhaps the Convergence has not yet touched other territories,” Alder offered. “There may still be hope.”

I nodded. “We've got to get to the flume.”

Zing!
An arrow nearly hit me in the face. It stuck in the wall of the hut where we had been resting, not a foot from my head. Alder shoved me out of the way. I hit the ground, rolled, and came up running. We sprinted for a large wooden structure on the far side of the clearing.

Zing! Zing!
Arrows flew around us. I swear I could feel the ripple of air as they sped past. None found their mark, but I didn't think we could dodge them for long. Alder leaped through a large wooden door, into a dark room that my nose told me was a stable. He knew exactly what he was doing. Horses were lined up along the far wall, all with simple saddles and halters.