Wanderling (Spirit Seeker Book 1) (22 page)

“What language is that?” Burano
asked Tobin, only a couple of paces in front of Adala.

“I’ve never heard it before.”

The beast bent down and began
speaking to Shem, its voice exhibiting the sigh of a fire and the sound of rain
splatters against the earth. Adala watched with frozen terror as it leaned its
head forward and flicked its tongue out. Flames licked around the tongue as it
darted out in a flash and brushed Shem’s forelock. The winged creature stared
at her brother evenly and spoke to him in its bizarre tongue. Shem replied, his
voice soft but clear. Their conversation went on for what felt like an
eternity, sounding simultaneously like a windstorm, a gushing river, and a
blazing fire as opposed to definitive words.

In an abrupt move, the beast
stopped speaking and stood on its hind legs. It reached its head towards the
sky, wings spread out over the crowd, and let out a roar so deep and consuming
that the earth shook, rattling rocks loose from the cliff behind them. While
others ducked out of the way to avoid falling boulders, Adala was held fast,
forced to watch in wonder and terror as the great white beast leaped into the
air and beat its wings, rising in the dark sky with a
whoosh
that blew
Adala’s hair out behind her in a hot breeze.

No sooner had the dragon left the
ground than the fire burst to life again, this time in a purple and silver
light. Two more beasts emerged, catapulting into the sky and circling closely
above the crowd. A green one came next, then red, then deep blue. They flew in
a tight circle together and then rose straight into the sky. Their high-pitched
whistles and low growls filled the night air. When they came down, it was with
a great blast of wind, and each of them careened back into the earth through
the fire, the same way they had come. The last to go was the pure white one,
diving into the fire after a twisting descent. Its body of flames disappeared
as it flopped into the fire full-speed, and so did the fire itself. The force
of the final creature’s disappearance into flames was powerful enough that the
crowd around the fire could barely remain standing.

Darkness fell instantly over the
crowd, and Adala saw nothing. The roaring of the beasts and the crackling of
fire was gone. The shadow that consumed the camp was unnatural, blotting out
the moon and the stars. The lack of light left colored blotches in Adala’s
vision, but as she blinked them away, she realized that what met her was a more
complete darkness than she had ever seen.

The stunned silence of the crowd
lasted only a brief second before chaos ensued.

Shouts and screams erupted all
around Tobin in one crashing moment as he froze in the surreal darkness.

“What the hell was that?” said one
voice.

“Where is my sword?” said another.

“Somebody get a bandage!”

“Did they take the boy with them?”

Voices around him drowned out any
other phrases, and Tobin felt himself jostled by several different people
feeling their way past as the crowd boomed with the sounds of chaos. An elbow
banged into his face.

“Shem!” he shouted, staggering
forward towards the last place he had seen Shem. “Shem, are you here? We’ve got
to get out of here!” Someone banged into his shoulder, and he sidestepped onto
someone else’s foot in the jostle.

From nowhere, a hand gripped
Tobin’s arm tightly, “You are going nowhere,” said Burano’s voice, low and
threatening at his ear.

Tobin cursed Ollie silently for
what must have been the fiftieth time that night. The old man was supposed to
have caused a diversion much earlier and allowed Tobin time to escape
before
the desert ritual began. However, he supposed that the brutal darkness over the
camp would provide a more than adequate diversion to cover his escape.

Tobin threw his head backwards,
knocking it painfully against Burano’s, then wrenched his arm away and threw a
wide punch into the darkness. It struck Burano in the neck, and Tobin heard the
man gasp for air. Before Burano could reach for him again, Tobin staggered
backwards. Backwards into the hulking form of a soldier.

“Who the hell?” said Jarod’s voice
in the dark, and Tobin quickly retreated, backing up quickly and tripping over
a rock.

Burano’s voice rasped out, “Jarod,
get him. Tobin’s after the boy.”

Tobin scrambled backwards in the
dirt, but heard Jarod’s heavy, uneven footsteps, then felt a swift kick to his
ribs.

Fiery pain.

Tobin doubled over, but struggled
to remember Jarod’s advice about not nursing his wounds. He clutched his side,
but managed to swivel around, swinging both of his legs out in an arc in front
of him. They struck his intended target, sweeping Jarod’s legs out from under
him in the darkness.

Unseen, fumbling hands found his
leg, then Tobin felt an iron grip around his neck suddenly.

“I told Burano he shouldn’t trust
a rat,” spit Jarod, his reeking breath spoiling what little air Tobin could
gasp.

Before he lost too much air, Tobin
flung his leg around, rolling back and catching his boot firmly into what must
have been the side of Jarod’s head.

The grip on his neck fell away,
and Tobin rolled sideways swiftly, choking in air. He heard footsteps all
around, and a passerby tripped over him, leaving a painful bruise on his side.

Jarod’s fumbling hands found
Tobin’s boot, but Tobin kicked out again. From the feel of it, he got a shoulder.
Before Jarod had ended his enraged cry, he kicked again, this time higher. He
felt his captain’s nose snap beneath his boot.

Curses followed Tobin as he
scurried backwards, leaping to his feet and sprinting the other direction. He
turned sharply left, then right, moving as quickly as possible to lose Jarod in
the crowd. His trainer’s shouts were drowned by the cries of soldiers, men,
women, and children, all trying to find their way to one another in the
darkness. Tobin wound his way through the crowd aimlessly and anonymously,
tripping over a rock in his haste and running into two people. In the chaos and
darkness, all he could think of was finding Shem.

Come on,
he thought,
The
kid is probably the only one not lost in this mess.

“Tobin! Adala!”

Tobin heard the familiar small
voice and sighed with relief, turning towards the sound of Shem calling his
name. A sea of frantic movement around him, people shouting and shoving, made
his movement slow, but he heard Shem’s voice calling one more time and went
towards it, tripping over every rock and elbowing practically everyone in his
path.

“Tobin, I’m here,” said Shem’s
voice, very close now. Tobin felt a small hand grasp his. “We have to get
Adala. Ollie is waiting for us with the horses.

“How do you know about our plan?”
asked Tobin, bewildered.

“I knew you would help us all
along,” said Shem. “Come this way, Adala is here.”

“Shem!” called Adala’s frantic
voice in the crowd. Tobin rushed after Shem, who guided him off to the left. He
had lost all sense of direction by this point, but Shem guided him quickly
forward until he could hear Adala’s ragged breaths as she stumbled into a bush.

Tobin reached out and felt her
arm.

A punch took him in the side of
the head. “Get away from me!” she shouted, and Tobin heard a scuffle as if she
fell backwards.

“Ouch, gods,” Tobin cursed.

“Get lost,” she shouted.

“Adala, it’s us!” said Shem’s
voice. “We need to leave now. Tobin is helping us.”

“Tobin isn’t on our side,” her
voice seethed.

Tobin reached in the darkness again
and clasped her lean shoulder. “Come with me,” he called into her ear. “Ollie
has horses ready for us at the southern end of camp.”

“How can I trust you?” she
demanded, but Tobin heard the hesitation in her voice and knew she would come
along.

“Your brother does,” Tobin said
simply.

“This way to Ollie,” cried Shem,
tugging Tobin’s hand.  In turn, Tobin took Adala’s hand. At first he
thought her palm was moist with sweat, but the stickiness revealed the
substance as blood.

“Are you injured?” he asked quickly.

“No. It’s not my blood. Let’s get
out of here.”

Tobin was not surprised that Shem
guided them perfectly through the crowd without bumping into a single person,
though Tobin and Adala tripped on more than a couple of rocks. They trekked one
after another for only a few moments before the sounds of chaos were behind
them and not around them. They walked a little more until Shem stopped
abruptly.

“Ollie,” Shem greeted.

“That you, kid?” said Ollie’s
slurred voice. “It’s about time. I thought for sure those dragons had gotten
the better of you, the way they bolted toward the ground,” he said. “It was all
I could do to keep two of the horses here,” he said. “The yellow one ran off.
At least I think it was the yellow one. All I have is the chestnut mare and the
donkey.”

Tobin groaned inwardly. He wanted
to find another horse, but there was no time. They were likely scattered, and
he had no time to saddle one.

“Let’s go,” Tobin said. He walked
towards the anxious snorts and stomps of hooves and felt the sweat-soaked neck
of Leyenne. Her muscles twitched beneath his touch, and she sidestepped to and
fro, spooked by the events of the desert ritual.

“All we need is two mounts
anyway,” said Adala’s voice behind him. “Shem, the donkey is more your size.”

“I’m coming too,” Tobin said,
wondering how she thought both of them could ride a horse together without
wearing it out, or without killing each other. He wasn’t sure which would
happen first.

“How is that?” Adala asked. “And,
more to the point, why is that?”

Tobin sighed. He didn’t have time
to dispute anything. “You cannot hope to survive without me. You take the
donkey, and I will ride with Shem.”

“No, I will ride with Shem,” Adala
corrected. “I don’t trust you not to abandon me and take Shem back to Burano.”

Tobin felt out and found her
shoulders, steering her firmly towards the nervous braying of Dusty. “We don’t
have time to argue. You ride Dusty. I’m the better rider and I can ride fast
while having Shem as a passenger.”

Ollie’s voice sounded out quietly.
“Best listen to him, lass. He’s taken a grave risk to arrange this.”

“Curse you both,” she said, but
Tobin heard her fumbling to find the donkey’s saddle, clumsy in the darkness.

Tobin lifted Shem into Leyenne’s
saddle and climbed up himself. The mare quivered and danced, ready to flee.

“Safe travels,” said Ollie’s
voice, and Tobin heard his steps fall back.

“I am in your debt, Ollie,” Tobin
said, wishing he could have persuaded the old man to come with them in their
escape.

“I know it, kid,” said Ollie, chuckling.
“Just give my regards to my wife, if you see her in the big town.”

“I will,” said Tobin, holding the
reins in front of Shem, who sat in front of him in the saddle. “Tell us which
direction, Shem,” he said.

“Straight ahead, then a little to
the right,” the boy instructed, not a hint of nerves in his voice. Tobin wished
he could be so confident in their escape plan.

Tobin loosened the reins and gave
a slight nudge with his heels, and with that they were off. Leyenne sprung into
action, first at a nervous trot, then a full-speed gallop. Tobin had to rein
her in so that Adala could keep up on Dusty.

The eerie darkness faded as the
sounds of the camp drifted away. Leyenne pounded away at the desert ground, the
moon lighting her path now that they had escaped the dark spell. Tobin peered
over his shoulder to see Adala, bouncing in Dusty’s saddle behind them. The
night was clear, the air cool and fresh. Nothing stood in front of them but the
wide expanse of the desert plains.

Free at last.

“None of the search parties have
returned. The girl and her brother won’t be found in the middle of the night,
sir,” said Jarod angrily, the muscles in his jaw clenching. “Especially if they
have Tobin. No one has seen them since everything went dark, and he knows the
terrain better than us.”

Burano felt his hands clench into
fists and he kicked over his stool, reeling with anger. “The bastard went soft
on me,” he growled between his teeth. He knew Tobin was fond of Shem, but
didn’t think he would risk everything for the little boy and his bullheaded
sister. Even Burano regretted keeping the boy away from his home, but he had
enough foresight to see the potential triumph that awaited the Wanderlings and
the desert people alike if Shem could unite them. What type of madness had
possessed Tobin to throw away all that they had worked towards? Did he care
nothing for mending old wounds and helping his native people conquer the
paradise of their myths?

“He planned this right under my
nose,” Burano said to himself.

“I never trusted him,” growled
Jarod. “But you did keep him close. And Adala was surrounded by guards the
entire day. I don’t know how they were able to get the horses ready in the
dark. His horse and the donkey that Adala rode, they’re both still missing,
along with their tack and supplies. We’ve retrieved all the other horses.”

“They must have had an
accomplice,” Burano said suddenly.

Jarod’s eye twitched. “That
must’ve been Ollie. He is pretty friendly with Tobin and Adala. Must’ve helped
them out.”

“Is Ollie still here? Find him,”
growled Burano in a low voice.

“With pleasure,” responded Jarod,
backing out of the tent. Burano appreciated Jarod’s loyalty, even if he often
was brutal. Jarod was the one officer he felt he could rely on to do whatever
was necessary in their mission. Burano nodded to him in thanks.

“You have the clan chief and an
interpreter waiting for you out here,” Jarod added through the opening of the
tent. “Do you want me to let them in?”

“Fine,” said Burano, setting his
stool back up again and pacing the floor, trying to figure how he was going to
gain the loyalty of the clans now, with Shem gone and the entire gathering in
chaos.
I was right at the cusp of earning their loyalty,
Burano thought
to himself bitterly.
Now I have one more chance to get their attention, but
I’ve lost Shem.

Shairo entered the room with a
priestess from the fire ceremony, her curly hair in a knot on her head with
cactus needles poking out of it in every direction. She also wore beads and
charms around her neck, wrists and ankles that clinked together as she walked
in.

“I talk for Shairo,” she said with
a thick accent as the clan chief began speaking.

Burano remained still and tried to
appear composed and in control of the situation, which couldn’t be further from
the truth. Shairo spoke slowly and diplomatically, much more held together than
how Burano felt, and the priestess continued interpreting his words in broken
Bolgish.

“Boy is no place. Clans say
different things happened…. Chiefs think the boy stealen away by the gods in
the darkness… everyone no agree what to do. Chief one say spirits steal boy to
tell us to walk to the sea, chief two say spirits took boy to tell us not to
walk to the sea, chief three say the boy left for the sea and waits for us. All
chiefs say different, and fight with words together.”

Burano listened carefully, trying
not to fidget with impatience. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I understand that what
happened was confusing.” The spirit feast had startled him more than anyone, in
fact. Burano had always suspected nothing at all would happen at the spirit
feast, that the whole thing was rubbish anyway, and he would have to persuade
the desert dwellers of a favorable result. However, the results of the ritual
were more splendid than he could ever have imagined. More splendid and more
terrifying. The way the boy spoke to the fire creatures, and how it captivated
everyone. He could have had the desert people in the palm of his hand just that
easily if Tobin hadn’t taken Shem and his sister away in the surreal spell of
darkness that followed the ceremony. As it was, with Shem gone, he would have
to work harder than ever to align the desert people with his plan of action. It
would be especially difficult given the quality of their new interpreter, whose
skills in the Bolgish language left something to be desired.

“Tell Shairo that I know what
happened after the spirit feast,” he said to the interpreter, speaking slowly
so she could gather his meaning. “Join me outside. I will explain everything to
you and your desert brothers and sisters.”

Burano emerged from the tent with
Shairo and the priestess following close behind him. They entered a frenzy of
motion as the soldiers who remained at camp saddled their horses and gathered
supplies here and there.  By the light of torches and campfires, Burano
could see the desert people gathered in groups here and there, arguing heatedly
in their foreign tongue.

Standing atop a boulder and
cupping his hands to his mouth, Burano hollered to the crowd, “Gather ‘round,
men!” After a few good shouts, Burano’s soldiers crowded hesitantly around his
boulder, uncertain and skittish after the spook of the spirit feast. Most of
them had strung bows and drawn weapons, and eyed the swarms of desert warriors
with fearful glances.

Following by example, the desert
clans grew curious about the gathering and joined the crowd, surrounding Burano
in every direction.

To see these warriors crowded in
before him, Burano felt a sense of urgency to command their attention. He had
never seen so many clan members assembled in one place, and he felt the
overwhelming hunger to be at the helm, commanding this army of desert savages
to win back the city that had spurned him in his youth.
The city that should
have been mine in the first place,
he thought as he prepared for this key
moment in his campaign.

“Friends!” he called out, and the
priestess cried out her translation loud and clear from the ground next to him.
The crowd grew quiet. Burano continued, “The boy who was shown to be your foretold
spirit guide has been taken from us tonight. I beg your forgiveness, because
this was my doing.”

A murmur ran through the crowd,
and Burano raised his hand to silence them.

“I was far too trusting, and for
that I was betrayed. A man in my group was an enemy of the desert people, and I
did not have the wisdom to see it. I did not know he plotted against us until
tonight. He did not want the desert tribes to reach the seaside. He and the
girl in our camp wanted to sell the boy to the white men by the sea and make
themselves rich.”

A large desert chief with broad
arms and a bare chest that boasted several scars stepped forward and replied
angrily: “Gods will judge this man and woman. We will find and kill them.”

Shouts erupted among the desert
dwellers, growing into a dull roar.

Another chief came forward, an
almost elderly man leaning on his spear for support. “Do not be so quick to
kill based on the words of a white man,” he said, and the crowd began to hush
at his words. “This white man has taken water from many tribes in the east. He
has no honor, and I will not listen to his stories.”

Burano licked his lips, preparing
a response in his mind, but Shairo began speaking first, and Burano waited
anxiously for the translation. Shairo had spent ten days dealing with the
Wanderlings. If ever he had a character reference, it was him, and all of
Burano’s hopes hung on his words.

The priestess interpreted Shairo’s
words as he finished speaking. “Burano broke laws and stole water. But he bring
us great gift. Why would he take the boy away this night?”

One of the others replied. “Why
listen to him if he lost the boy?”

“How do we know a man took him and
not the gods?”

“What if the boy is dead and the
gods kill him during spirit feast?”

“We should not go to the sea without
the spirit pathfinder.”

More and more desert people began
speaking at once so much so that the priestess could not translate.

The voices bore down on Burano,
and he cried out inwardly for help. He searched the crowd, grasping for an
idea. When he spotted Ollie, standing next to Tosser close by, an idea occurred
to Burano. He seized the opportunity, perhaps his last chance to command the
crowd’s attention.

“Friends!” Burano called quickly.
“Listen here! I can prove that the boy was taken away. If you doubt my words,
cast your eyes on the perpetrator himself.” He pointed at Ollie, the old man
wrinkled and scowling up at him from beneath bushy white eyebrows.

It was Burano’s men who erupted
with disbelief and outrage this time, and several of them jostled Ollie around,
shoving him to the center of the crowd and at the base of the boulder where
Burano stood. Their shouts and jeers calmed down at Burano’s raised hand.

“Ollie,” he said, peering down at
the old drunk with his heart pounding in his ears. “Do you deny involvement in
the kidnapping of the child?”

Ollie peered up at him with
narrowed eyes, then took a swig from his flask. “Kidnapping is an interesting
term for it,” he said quietly. “That’s a stretch of the truth if I ever heard
one, and I’ve told my share of tall tales.”

Burano grew impatient. He feared
he was losing the faith of the desert people more with every passing moment.
“Tell us now, before your brothers and our hosts from the desert: did you
conspire to take the boy away during the ceremony? If you confess it now, you
stand a chance to live.”

Ollie lowered his voice and spoke
quickly enough that the interpreter could not catch his meaning. “Curse you for
putting me in this position, Burano. You took me in when I was alone and half
insane in the hills. You built a home for all of us, and for that I will always
be in your debt. But stealing away the boy and putting him on the slaughtering
block? That’s low. You didn’t used to be that sort.”

Burano cleared his throat. He
could see the cold defiance in Ollie’s pale eyes. The sort that doesn’t go away
with a few lashes. He had never seen that look on Ollie before, and regretted
what it meant for the old man’s punishment. Ollie had always been harmless.
Reckless, sure, but a true spreader of morale among the men and a loyal soldier
all around. He couldn’t allow Ollie’s insubordinate attitude to spread.
“Confess, Ollie. Tell us yes or no,” Burano growled.

Ollie spit on the ground with a
splat. “Hell, yes I am guilty!” he called to the crowd, reaching out his arms
out as he addressed everyone. The crowd grew silent, listening to his words and
the translation from the priestess. “I am guilty of giving them food and
supplies and sending them off after the ceremony. But let me tell you: when I
speak to the Creator in my next life, that will not be on my list of
confessions, I assure you. Let it be known that on this day, Oliver the coward,
the drunk, took a true stand for what is right.”

As the priestess’ translation made
it through the crowd of desert people, shouting began.

“They shout for his death,” the
woman explained to Burano.

Burano nodded, bracing himself for
what was to come.

Ollie continued his tale, saying,
“Am I guilty of kidnapping? Yes! We’re all bloody guilty of kidnapping!” He
gestured towards his Wanderling comrades.

“Jarod!” Burano called, looking to
the crowd. His right hand man was only a few paces into the crowd, and they
locked eyes. Burano knew Jarod could tell what he was thinking at that moment.
We
must silence him before he reveals everything to the desert clans.

Jarod shoved his way through the
crowd as Ollie shouted frantically to his comrades. “Any one of us that helped
guard that girl or her brother was helping Burano keep them prisoner. No amount
of loyalty should compel you to hold someone against their will, especially an
innocent child. That boy was stolen away from his mother’s arms in the middle
of the night!”

“He talk fast,” the priestess said
up to Burano. “What does he say?”

Burano replied quickly, saying,
“He says he isn’t sorry for stealing the boy away.”

Jarod was almost to the center of
the crowd now, his sword drawn as he pushed his way past the last few men
standing between him and Ollie.

“Don’t wage war against Gerstadt,”
Ollie said, glancing quickly at Jarod’s advance. “We’ve all been cast away for
a reason. The people of the city shouldn’t pay for our—”

Ollie’s words cut off with a gasp,
and Burano looked down, puzzled at his pause. Jarod, just now reaching the edge
of the crowd with his hand on the hilt of his sword, stopped short in his trek
towards Ollie.

Ollie sank to his knees at the
base of the boulder, an arrow protruding from the left side of his chest.

Burano stared, numb for a second
as he realized that the feathered shaft was not from any of his men. He tensed
himself for an attack, looking out to see the bare-chested chief who had
pledged to kill the perpetrators who stole Shem at the start of Burano’s
speech. He held his bow, the string still quivering from the shot.

As Ollie fell limp to the ground,
the bare-chested chief with his hair in a braid lowered his longbow and raced
forward to climb onto the boulder next to Burano. He had high cheekbones and a
vicious look in his eye. He shouted to the crowd, raising his fist to the night
sky and shrieking the savage words of his native language. Burano did not like
sharing the high ground with this reckless chief, partially out of fear for
what he may do next and partially because he was annoyed that the chief had
just undermined his authority by taking Ollie’s punishment into his own hands.
But he waited tensely for the translation before deciding how to react.