Raven Rise (7 page)

Alder struck without thinking. He uncorked a punch that Graviot never saw coming. The unsuspecting knight probably didn't even know he had been hit. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. Alder felt a twinge of regret. Not that he had decked Graviot, but that the attack had come from an outburst of emotion. It wasn't professional. Alder was a professional. He wouldn't let emotions rule his actions again. There was too much at stake. He had work to do.

He dragged the unconscious knight back into the trees, away from curious eyes. There he stripped the knight of his new, modern armor. He took off his own armor and lashed on Graviot's. It was good that they were the same size. Now Alder could walk among the Bedoowan without attracting unwanted stares. Remaining hidden was suddenly more important than he had realized. He had been gone a long time…too long. Enough time to be charged with desertion and treason. He couldn't be arrested. That would be disaster, because he had a mission and he could not fail.

The Traveler knight stopped for a moment and took a breath. He was tired. He had just fought a war against an army of dados. There was nothing he wanted more than to sit down, sleep, and heal. Alder was strong. He knew he could keep going physically. It was his mental state he was more concerned with. Would he be able to bring himself to do what needed to be done to save his territory? The tak mine had to be destroyed. If he was successful, the Milago village might be destroyed along with it. Could he bring himself to do that?

He didn't have a choice. The future of Denduron was at stake. The future of Halla was at stake. He had to go into battle once again. He picked up the long wooden stave that was the weapon of choice for Bedoowan knights, spun it once, and held it close to his side. He was on familiar turf. He left the trees and headed for the village, prepared to destroy all that was left of his former life.

He wished Pendragon were with him.

(CONTINUED)

The first part of Alder's plan was simple.
He had to make his way into the new tak mine. He had no doubt there would be guards. Guards didn't worry him. He had the element of surprise on his side. They wouldn't expect an attack to come from a Bedoowan knight.

The second part of his plan wasn't as simple. He had to destroy the mine. Igniting the tak wouldn't be the problem. Being somewhere else when it erupted would. He didn't have much time. That fact was made all too clear when he moved past the rows of knights who were listening to King Rellin's speech. Now that he was closer, he heard some of what Rellin was saying. Rellin was pontificating, using words like “glorious victory,” “spreading the empire,” and “triumph of the superior tribe.”

Empire? When did the little world of the Milago and the Bedoowan become an empire? It chilled Alder to hear how the power of tak had completely corrupted Rellin. He was once a good man. He had fought for his people and against injustice. Now he was about to fight for power and glory.

Alder shuddered when he realized that Saint Dane's prophecy was about to come true: The first domino of Halla to fall would be Denduron, just as he had predicted several years before. It may not have played out exactly as Saint Dane wanted, but what did that matter? Or maybe this
was
exactly what Saint Dane wanted. Maybe this was how he'd planned for his grand scheme to unfold all along, and the Travelers were only going along for the ride. There was no way to know. There was only the mission. Alder had to stop the war. To do that, he needed to destroy the tak.

As he hurried past the assembled knights, he could feel tension radiating from the masses. They had their game faces on. They were ready for battle. He knew the feeling. It was bloodlust. This wasn't an exercise. They were about to march on the Lowsee. From what Alder remembered, he guessed it would take the rest of the day and into the night to move the army of knights up and over the mountain and into attack position. Just moving the cannons would take most of the night. His guess was that they would take up positions under cover of night and attack at first light. Alder knew he didn't have much time. If he was going to stop this war, he would have to destroy the tak before the army left. He not only had to seal the mines, he had to find a way to destroy whatever they had already dug out of the ground.

Alder's journey brought him through the Milago village, past farmland and toward the field where the Bedoowan knights were training with tak. He wanted to see how they were using the explosive. What he saw didn't calm his fears.

He peered over a tall berm of dirt built up to contain flying shrapnel. It was definitely needed, because there was a lot of shrapnel flying around. Alder saw several cannons to his right. Each were manned by three Bedoowan knights. They seemed to be practicing. One knight packed a small amount of the red-clay tak and gently lowered it into the muzzle of the six-foot-long black cannon barrel. The second knight loaded a round cannonball on top of that. The third knight aimed the cannon. Their target was a wall of hay bales set up nearly fifty yards in front of them. At least, it used to be a wall of hay bales. It was now a mass of burning debris, surrounded by huge crater holes from the cannonballs. The tak was very effective.

Once all was ready, the third knight scratched a small metal device that Alder realized was making a spark. The knight held it next to a thin rope that dangled from the rear end of the cannon. A fuse. After two flicks, the rope was set on fire. While the three knights stood back and covered their ears, the fuse burned quickly until it reached the back end of the cannon. An instant later…
boom!
A cloud of smoke blew out of the barrel, and two seconds later the cannonball hit the pile of burning hay dead on. When the projectile landed, it exploded as well, sending up another cloud of smoke. This second explosion rocked the ground, nearly knocking Alder down. The sound was deafening. Alder figured the cannonball must have had more tak inside it. No chunk of metal alone would have exploded like that.

The tak cannons were deadly…and deadly accurate. Alder knew that the Lowsee wouldn't stand a chance, and neither would Denduron. He had seen all he needed to see. He skirted the training ground, headed for the remote area where he and Siry and Pendragon had used the dygo to find the new vein of tak. They had deliberately dug far from the Milago village for safety. Alder was happy about that. Perhaps, he thought, when the mine exploded, it wouldn't damage the village. Much. It all depended on which way the underground vein of tak ran. He hurried through the woods, trying not to think too far beyond the next step.
One thing at a time. Just keep going. Don't get caught. Don't stop.
When he reached the end of the woods near the clearing with the tak mine…

He stopped. He didn't expect to see what was there before him. When he left Denduron only a few days before, the mine was nothing more than a hole in the ground. Now there was a building. A huge building. It was made entirely of wood, with a flat roof. The structure stood higher than any other building in the Milago village and took up many times as much ground. It looked like a giant storage building. Alder feared what might be stored inside.

There were two large doors in front. They were closed and guarded by two Bedoowan knights. If Alder was getting into that building, it would have to be past those knights. The show was about to begin. Everyone would soon know that Alder was back. He straightened up, held the wooden stave at his side, and walked boldly toward the building. As he drew closer, the guards stiffened.

“What is your business?” one of them growled.

Alder didn't break stride. “I have news from King Rellin,” he said with authority. “We must all assemble on the field for his final instructions.”

The knights gave each other a quick, confused glance.

“Those are not our orders,” the first knight responded. “We are not to leave our posts.”

Alder didn't recognize either of the knights. He was relieved about that. He didn't like hurting his friends.

“Your orders have been changed,” Alder said as he drew closer to the guards. “You are to move immediately to—” He didn't finish the sentence. He quickly brought his stave up and jammed it into the gut of the first knight. The second knight was so surprised he hesitated before reacting. It cost him. Alder flicked his stave, catching him under the chin. The knight's head flew back and his feet flipped up into the air. The knight landed square on his back with a sickening thud. Before he hit, Alder had already flashed his stave back toward the first knight, catching him on the side of his head. The knight crashed against the building. At the same time, Alder spun backward with his body and the stave, catching the second knight square on the jaw. Within four seconds both knights lay unconscious at Alder's feet.

Alder stood over them as casually as if he had just swatted two flies. After defeating an entire army of dados, getting past two Bedoowan knights was somewhat less of a challenge. Alder stepped over his fallen comrades and pushed open the large wooden door that led into the building. The sudden darkness inside made it difficult to see. He stood with his back to the door, on full alert. Though he couldn't make out detail at first, it was clear to him that the entire building was one room. There were windows near the ceiling that glowed with the light from the suns of Denduron. Alder waited impatiently for his eyes to adjust. After a few seconds he began to make out shapes.

His heart sank. The room was an arsenal. Most of the floor was taken up with rows of brand-new, gleaming cannons. To the rear was a cache of what looked like thousands of tak-filled cannonballs. The giant room was ringed with balconies that were laden with tak arrows, bows and crossbows. Another balcony was filled with what looked like small bricks of tak. They weren't fancy, but if one of those tak bombs exploded, it could destroy a house. Or eight. Alder's fears had become reality. The people of Denduron had been busy. They were ready for war. The tak mine had provided tons of explosives. With weaponry like this, Alder had no doubt that the Bedoowan army could overrun the Lowsee, and any other tribe they set their sights on. The conquest of Denduron was about to begin, along with the fall of Halla.

Alder walked forward in a daze, staring at the tools of death and destruction that loomed over him. He almost didn't see that he was about to step into a hole. He pulled up short at its edge and peered down into the darkness.

“The mine,” he whispered to himself.

It was the same hole that he and Pendragon had dug with the dygo. Only now there were ore-car tracks leading down into it. The shaft was steep, but not straight down. It was walkable. This was a working mine. From the looks of the arsenal, it was a productive one. Alder knew what he had to do. That realization led him to a sobering truth. He didn't have time to figure out a way to explode the tak from afar.

This was a suicide mission.

It wasn't a truth he welcomed, but he felt that if Pendragon was willing to give up his own life on Ibara to destroy the dado army, then perhaps he should be willing to do the same to save his own territory. His only consolation was that Pendragon felt certain a Traveler's existence wouldn't end with death. Was that possible? Were the Travelers actually illusions, as Saint Dane told Pendragon? As Alder stood in that vast arsenal, there was only one thing he could be certain of: He was going to find out the truth about the Travelers.

He dropped his stave, ran to the side wall of the structure, and grabbed two of the tak bricks. He ran back to the mine shaft and was about to descend when his eye caught something else. Hanging along the opposite wall from the tak bricks were coils of rope. Fuses. There were hundreds of them, all wound neatly, ready for use. Alder's heart leaped. He had an idea. After gently placing one of the small tak bombs on the floor, he ran and grabbed one of the coils of rope. Looking around quickly, he spotted one of the small metal devices he'd seen the knights using to ignite the rope. It looked like a narrow loop made of two thick wires. On one end was a flat piece of metal, against which the other end of the loop rested. Alder grabbed it and squeezed. As one end of the loop scratched against the metal plate, sparks flew.

He knew how to ignite the fuses.

He jammed the device into his pocket, ran back to the mine opening, where he picked up the second tak brick, and descended into the mine. He didn't have to go far. Triptyte illuminated the length of the tunnel, lighting up a frightening and awesome sight. Thousands of reddish-brown tak bricks were stacked along both walls of the tunnel. Thousands. The amount of explosive that had been pulled out of the mine was mind numbing. Alder carefully put down the two small tak bricks he had carried in. He wouldn't be needing them. All he needed was the fuse. He even let himself believe that he had a chance to not only destroy the mine, but stay alive. As much as he didn't fear death, he didn't exactly welcome it either. Besides, Pendragon had to know what had happened on Denduron. So did the other Travelers. Saint Dane wasn't close to done. If they were to know what was happening on Denduron, Alder had to survive.

He quickly set to work, kneeling down and unreeling the coil. The rope was dry, which was why it burned so easily. It also made it easy to snap off a length. Alder measured out four six-foot lengths. He had no idea how long it would take for six feet of fuse to burn. He wanted enough time to get out and away from the mine, but didn't want the fuses to burn for so long that somebody might find them and put them out.

Even with the fuses, Alder wasn't entirely convinced that this tactic would ensure his safety. Sure, he felt confident that he could get out of the mine and the armory building before the boom, but how far would he have to run in order not to be killed when the vast stores of tak exploded? Which direction should he go? He could easily be running to a spot that was directly over a thick, underground vein of tak.

He decided not to worry about it. What else could he do? He took three of the lengths of rope and buried one end of each in the soft tak stacked along the walls. He put two across from each other in the tunnel, and the third a few yards deeper into the dark. The last he saved for the mine car that was sitting on the track in front of him. The car was loaded with newly mined tak, ready to be molded into bricks. He jammed one end of the fuse into the clay. He was ready. He took one quick look around and actually chuckled.

“This will be dramatic,” he said to himself.

Without hesitating for another second, he took the metal loop, held it against the other end of the rope leading to the tak in the mine car, and squeezed. Sparks sprayed, igniting the fuse. The clock was ticking. He gave the mine car a shove, sending it rolling deeper into the shaft. Turning quickly, he ran back to the other three fuses, igniting each. Soon, all four ropes were burning. It was time to be somewhere else.

Alder sprinted back toward the mouth of the mine tunnel while calculating his best route of escape. Where would it be safe? He had no idea. All he could do was get as far away from the mine as possible and hope the vein of tak didn't spread too far. He feared that miners might still be down in the tunnel. He feared that the explosion would do serious damage to the Milago village. He feared for the potential loss of life. But his fear for what Denduron had become, and its future, was greater. He knew he had done the right thing. The only thing. His next challenge was to survive long enough to warn the other Travelers that Saint Dane was back in the hunt. He was nearly at the end of the tunnel…