Wanderling (Spirit Seeker Book 1) (4 page)

A
dull thud startled Adala out of her sleep. She sat up straight on her straw
mattress. The crashing of wood downstairs brought her to her feet. Footsteps
scuffled on the dirt floor of their cottage below. More than one set of footsteps.

Adala
knelt at her trunk and fumbled to find her knife. She trembled, unsheathing the
wide blade and bracing herself against the trunk. A golden light appeared
abruptly from the ladder’s hole. Adala’s throat constricted with panic as an
ominous shadow swayed on the roof of the loft. She crawled to Shem’s mattress
and laid a hand on his shoulder, covering his mouth. His dark silhouette
stirred and sat up. She pointed to the light and made a gesture to shoo him off
the mattress. “In the corner,” she whispered as quietly as she could manage,
“behind Mother’s trunk.”

Shem
slid off the bed and Adala turned back to the ladder, struggling to steady her
breath. The shadow on the ceiling grew larger, and she could hear someone
climbing the rungs. In a panicked motion, she lay back on the mattress and
tucked her unsheathed knife beneath her pillow, still clutching the handle.

Through
squinted eyes she saw a husky figure emerge, a rope in hand and a short sword
at his hip. Two more men followed him, the last bringing up a lantern.

Light
filled the loft and Adala’s mother stirred across the room.

Don’t
wake up, Mother, not yet!
Adala pleaded silently, as she desperately tried
to formulate a plan.

The
men moved forward as a group, one with a lantern, one grasping a rope, and the
other holding his sword.

The
lantern light paused over Adala’s bed and she closed her eyes, trying to
breathe regular sleeping breaths as the men surveyed her mattress.

“Just
a woman,” came a whisper, barely louder than a breath. “Where’s the kid?”

Shem!
She thought.
What could they want with him?

The
light moved away and Adala opened her eyes. The men were past her, looking over
her mother’s mattress. Their backs were turned.

With
a cringe at the slightest shift in the straw, Adala stood up on their side of
her bed. She was in her undershirt, bare feet gripping the floorboards. Fear
for her brother’s safety welled in her chest, forming a pit of rage that rose
to her throat. Abruptly, she sprang into action. With three determined strides she
was behind the closest intruder, the one holding a sword. She pushed her
shoulder and the rest of her weight into a stab directed below his rib cage,
but she was not quick enough. The man turned around, leaning sideways and
calling out, “Whoa there!” Her thrust caught only air. His arm swung, and he
struck the side of her head with the flat side of his blade.

Adala
staggered backwards and heard her mother’s frightened scream pierce the
darkness. Chaos broke out in the loft. Eleanor seized hold of their chamber pot
a few feet away and crashed it into the side of the man with the rope. The man
with the sword called to his companions, “The girl’s up,” and lunged for a stab
at Adala’s chest, but she dodged to the left. She heard the sound of the
chamber pot crashing to the floor and Shem’s scream, but was too busy ducking
another swing to even look past her hulking opponent. The darkness made it
difficult to see anything. Light bounced around the walls; the lantern was
bobbing, and the form of the man with the sword swung once more, this time at
her legs.

Adala
leapt backwards, then dodged forward and thrust her knife at him. Her opponent,
caught off guard by the swiftness of her retaliation, had no time to block. Her
knife dug in easier than she expected, burying into the side of his stomach and
angled upwards to do the most damage, as her father had taught her.

“I
don’t know who you are, but you better get the hell out of here,” she said.
Behind her opponent, Adala caught sight of her mother reeling backwards and one
of the intruders dragging her brother from behind the trunk.

“Shem!”
Adala screamed, but the man she had just stabbed caught her in the side of the
head with a brute-forced punch. Acute pricks of light danced in her vision as
she staggered backwards, still grasping her knife.

“Adala,
help!” came Shem’s frantic voice.

“Let
him go,” Adala pleaded. She tried to step forward.

The
man before her clutched his side with one hand while he swung wide and fast for
her head. Adala dropped low and sucked in a quick breath. He fought like a
wounded animal. He pulled back for an overhead strike, and she rolled to the
side and lunged for his stomach, ready to plunge in the knife for a second
time. He moved to the side in a flash and changed the course of his sword. It
slid against the outside of her upper right arm and a sharp pain shot through
her. The next thing she saw was the bottom of his boot as he kicked full-force
into her face.

Pain.

First
in her nose and then her side as he kicked her again. She writhed on the
ground, knife forgotten. She curled up to protect her vital organs. No other
blow came.

“Get
the boy to the horses,” she heard the injured man say. “I’ve got to get
bandaged up before we ride out.”

When
she opened her eyes she saw the ceiling above her and the lump of her mother’s
mattress to the right. Eleanor’s arm hung over the edge, blood dripping from
the fingertips. Adala stared as her mother turned her head weakly and looked
Adala in the eye. “You can’t let them take him,” she whispered shakily. “Protect
him, Adala,” she said in a trembling voice, “it’s what you were raised to do.”

The
man with the lantern was already climbing down the ladder, and the room grew
darker. The injured man went next, leaving the last man, who pulled a
struggling Shem from the corner, ready to lower him to the others.

Adala
fumbled about the rough floorboards for her knife, earning more than one
splinter in her frantic search. Her fingers felt the cool, wet blade in the
darkness, and she grasped the handle with determination. As a final attempt,
she ran behind the last intruder and used her left hand to yank back his chin
from behind. She swung her knife around to slit his throat, but he anticipated
her move. He reached with his left hand to grab her wrist. Instead, neither one
reached their target. He aimed for her wrist and caught the knife in his hand;
she aimed for his throat and sliced open his palm instead.

“Stupid
wench!” The man groaned, and thrust his right elbow into her jaw. She lost grip
of her knife and staggered backwards, hands over her throbbing face.

Shem
screamed, “No, no, no!” and the intruder kneed him forward so that he fell
through to the first floor, crying and screaming.

The
man approached Adala, and she crawled backwards on the floorboards until she
was against the low ceiling of the slanted loft. “Please don’t,” she whispered,
“he’s just a boy! Take me instead—I can sail and fish. I’ll do whatever you
need.”

“We
don’t want you,” he said. He grabbed her foot and dragged her out of the
corner, then lifted her up by the hair with his good hand. She painfully tried
to wriggle free, choking back the terror. He came close to her ear and said,
“We don’t want you getting in our way, either, wench.” His foul breath reeked
worse than his words. Her scalp burned as he yanked her hair, and she felt him
gather momentum as he swung her head toward the floorboards. That was all she
knew before splitting pain and then darkness consumed her.

***

How
much time had passed before Adala woke she did not know. The throbbing of her
head was excruciating, and the loft was still pitch dark. The house was silent.

She
sat up straight, the memory of her brother’s screams echoing in her mind. Her
movement was punished with a sharp pain in her head. She cursed, feeling the
side of her head where sticky blood caked her hair against the scalp. She felt
dried and fresh trickles of blood leading up her arm to the swordsman’s gash,
and the flesh of her arm throbbed to the touch. Even her nose was bleeding, the
pain from his boot going deep into her sinuses.

“Mom?”
Adala whispered. She fumbled on the floor for a lamp and struck flint to light
it.

With
shaking hands she held up the lamp to her mother’s still form, sprawled across
the mattress and pale with death. A weak sob shook Adala’s body and she swayed
on her knees.

“No,”
she cried, sucking in a quick breath and shoving the lamp aside to clutch her
mother’s thin wrist, frantically searching for a pulse. She felt nothing.

“No,
no, no, no,” Adala shrieked, leaning over to pull her mother’s limp form into
an embrace. Eleanor’s head and arms hung lifeless against her daughter. Adala
felt stifled  by the stench of old blood, which covered her mother’s gown
where she had been stabbed in her abdomen.

Terror
seized Adala’s gut, and she dropped her mother’s body, scrambling backwards
 as she struggled to regain her breath in wheezing gasps. She choked on a
sob, taking shallow breaths and feeling her vision waver as dizziness took
hold.

The
grain of the wood floor blurred as her tears began spilling uncontrollably.
They  splattered onto the floor as Adala struggled to breathe. Her mind
raced in panic, and she choked at the realization that she was now alone in the
cottage, her father at sea, brother kidnapped, and her mother dead.

Raban’s
parting words came to her. “Remember to look after Shem and your mother while I
am away, Adala. They need you more than you know.”

I’ve
failed,
she thought, huddled on the floorboards in the corner of the loft.

“No,”
she said to herself frantically. “Shem’s still out there.” Her body shook with
sobs as she crawled to pull her sailing breeches from the trunk and pull them
up to her waist, wincing at the effort it took to pull them with the cut on her
right arm still bleeding. Hastily, she tore a section of her bed sheets and
wrapped up her gash.

“I’ve
got to get him,” she said to herself. Through her dizziness and the blur of
tears, she took a sack and shoved a few items into it along with her knife,
still sticky with blood. She gagged at the sight, remembering how the blade
sunk into the intruder’s stomach with such ease.

His
blood won’t be the last on my blade,
she thought,
I have to get Shem.

She
dropped her satchel through the ladder hole and climbed down hastily, missing
the last rung of the ladder and stumbling to the ground floor. In haste, she
took whatever foods were handy—dried meat, a couple of potatoes, bread. She
grabbed a wineskin and filled it to the brim with water. She shoved a few fresh
carrots in her mouth as she headed out the door, mobility coming slowly but
steadily back to her aching limbs.

She
kissed her fingertips and touched the statue of Corpia, the god of nautical
warfare, that hung over the door of the cottage for protection. She had little
faith in the gods, if she believed they existed at all, but fearful times
brought her back in their allegiance, and this was her time of greatest need.

In
the cottage-lined street she headed east without hesitation. The injured man
had let slip in the attic that they were “riding out.” The thought of traveling
anywhere by land was foreign to her, but if that was their method of travel,
there was only one option, and Adala didn’t like the prospects. She turned
around and looked past the ghostly form of Gerstadt Castle to the valley.
Beyond it stood the mountain pass that was only taken by the outcasts of her
town, the branded criminals banished to the wilds.

She
took one last look at her family home, bringing on another onslaught of
panicked breaths that made her vision swim with pricks of light. She turned away
in a fit of sobs and began her trek up the eastern valley through a blur of hot
tears. With the image of her mother lying on the mattress and Shem’s pale face
in her mind, she pushed onward without a moment’s hesitation. If she woke
Master John and had him call up the brigade, it would be hours before they
embarked on the chase. But with her knife at her side and no one to dissuade
her, Adala knew she would bring her brother home or die trying. Death would be
preferable to greeting her father after his voyage with the news of his wife’s
death and son’s kidnapping. No, that would be the most shameful end to the
affair. Adala swore to herself over and over as she walked that she would have
a family when this was all over. If she didn’t retrieve Shem, she was alone. A
helpless girl awaiting the return of her father who would be devastated with
loss and angry with her failure. No, she had to press on, no matter how much it
hurt.

Tobin
shuffled rocks at the peak of a hill, looking up to survey the western horizon.
The sun was growing higher, and he felt it beating down on his shoulders. But a
pleasant breeze rose from the valley, and as long as he shielded his brown eyes
from the dust, he could enjoy the spring air. In summer, he and his comrades
would have to cover their skin to protect from the scorching sun whenever they
scouted during the day.

“Tobin!”
Trigg shouted from the next peak. His voice came like an echo to Tobin’s ears,
faint and weak. Trigg, Tobin’s youngest companion on his day shift at only
fourteen years, waved his arms from the adjacent hilltop where he stood lookout
with Boggs, his half-brother.

“Do
you see something?” Tobin called back, and turned one ear towards Trigg for a
response.

Boggs
laughed and shook his head in the distance, then cupped his hands to his mouth
to shout, “We’re just hungry.”

Trigg
rubbed his stomach, then mimed the act of shooting an arrow.

Tobin
chuckled at the boy’s exaggerated gestures. “Look out for game then, and stop
scaring them off with all the shouting!” he hollered back.

Tobin
took his longbow from his back and strung it, counting his arrows. He would
need to make more when he returned to the village. Until then, he had work to
do.

He
turned in a circle, scanning the landscape for any movement that might indicate
potential food. He was glad to be part of the lookout teams for exactly this
purpose. Instead of starving away on a meager field hand’s rations in the
outcast village, he often brought home game in the evenings for him to share with
his sister, Sarah. Sometimes, he even got the occasional spoils when they took
in a new prisoner. Tobin always thought it poetic justice when a new banished
criminal of Gerstadt wandered into the valley, because their first greeting
consisted of Tobin and his companions removing them of any supplies that they
brought. Most of them were outcast from the city because of thievery, and
thievery is what greeted them as initiation into the outcast, or “Wanderling”
community.

Though
there was a certain order amidst the Wanderlings. Tobin was all too aware of
the strict code of conduct that rationed the food and water and determined who
performed what tasks. He had been unfortunate enough in his childhood to be on
the less desirable end of the work assignments in the village.

But
now, as Tobin hiked down from his hill and began climbing the next with leather
boots on his feet and a bow in his hands, he knew that his situation was
improving. He waved up to Hal, on the peak to his left, and signaled a rotation
of posts.

“Why
are you hunting?” Hal called over to him in a bellowing voice.

Tobin
barked back, “Quiet!”

“The
boys will be here soon,” Hal said back, loud as ever. “They’ll share some of
their supplies with us. I want some real bread for a change, and maybe they’ll
lend me a sword from this shipment. I think it’s my lucky day.”

“In
your dreams,” Tobin muttered to himself, ignoring Hal as he reached another
good vantage point to look out for game.

After
only a few moments of silence, he spotted movement around the bend of the
valley. He nocked an arrow and stood  alert, watching as the dark patch of
fur came out from behind some scraggly shrubs. Squinting, Tobin saw a horse and
rider emerge at the edge of the valley, followed by two more horses, one with two
riders.

He
raised his arms to signal his companions. “Jarod’s back!” he shouted. Tobin was
always curious to see the supplies that Jarod brought back from Gerstadt, the
city by the sea. He had always heard of it since childhood—an idyllic place
where food and water were plentiful, and the sea washed against the mountains.
He always thought he would go there, but he knew that was a trip reserved for
only Burano’s most trusted captains.

Cheers
erupted from his companions, and they all began scurrying from their posts,
eager to meet the travel party. Tobin hiked carefully into the valley, avoiding
a sticker bush here and a cactus there, all the while eyeing the approaching
riders with suspicion. Something didn’t seem right. One of the riders was
doubled over, almost lying down in the saddle. And the other carried a
passenger in front of him—what appeared to be a young boy.

“There’s
no extra horses or supplies,” a disappointed Trigg said, coming up next to
Tobin.

“What’s
this?” Hal called out to the travel party as they rode up. “No weapons, no pots
and pans, or food?”

“Mind
your tongue,” Jarod growled, trotting past Hal to address the whole lookout
crew. “Havard’s got a nasty gash, and it’s starting to fester. Do any of you
have bandages or some ale?”

Tobin
turned to Boggs, “You grab your flask. I have some bandages and herbs with our
supplies, will you run for them? Just bring my whole pack.”

“What
happened?” Boggs inquired.

“Now!”
Tobin ordered, striding past Jarod’s horse to where Havard hunched over the
mane of his mare. “Let me help you down,” he said, sliding an arm under
Havard’s and helping him off the saddle.

“We
had a nasty run-in with a damned girl with a knife,” Havard said, groaning with
pain as he landed on the ground. His skin was hot and damp to the touch.

Hal
scoffed. “A girl? That’s the reason why you left the shipment in Gerstadt? You
guys are really slipping up.”

“Sit
down and rest here while I look at your wound,” Tobin said to Havard, helping
him to a boulder nearby. He began unwrapping soiled cloths from the soldier’s
abdomen, cringing at the smell of decaying flesh.

“We
ran out of fresh cloth two days ago,” Tosser explained, joining them. “I tried
to keep cleaning it with water, but we barely had enough for us and our
horses.”

“Hey,
who is this kid?” Trigg asked.

Tobin
took his waterskin and rinsed out Havard’s oozing wound, a pit growing in his
stomach to see inflamed skin. Vaguely, he heard Jarod explain, “When we were in
the city, our orders changed. We took the boy instead of the shipment.”

“How
long has the flesh been changing color?” Tobin asked, trying to stay focused on
his patient.

“A
couple of days,” Havard informed weakly, his face pale.

Boggs
jogged up to Tobin, panting, “Here’s your bag, and my ale. It’s the last of it,
you know.”

“I
know,” Tobin said, pouring the warm liquid over the wound before letting Havard
chug the rest of it. He rooted through his bag while the boys all bombarded
Havard, Tosser, and Jarod with questions.

“Who
is the boy?”

“What
does Burano want with him?”

“How
did you get into a fight?”

“Were
you discovered by Gerstadt soldiers or something?”

“Enough!”
Jarod bellowed, voice deafening. “We were commanded very specifically to take
this boy back to camp in a short order. We ran into trouble along the way. End
of story. Back to your posts, you pesky strays. Now!”

At
the harsh sound of their superior’s commands, Trigg, Boggs, and Hal dispersed,
looking back curiously at the scene.

Tobin
stayed put, pulling
soiame
root from his bag and chewing it to lather it
into a paste.

“What
are you doing?” Tosser said, kneeling next to them.

Tobin
spit the lathered salve into his palm, the potent taste making his mouth sting.
“It’s to help clean the wound. I don’t know if it’s too late though. I’ve never
seen anything this bad before.” He reached forward to rub the salve over the
infected area.

“Stop
there, you desert rat,” Jarod jeered, yanking away Tobin’s wrist. “What’s the
name of the herb you’re using?”

Tobin
clenched his jaw slightly, sighing because he knew Jarod wouldn’t like the
answer. “It’s called
soiame
,” he explained. “My mother used it to—”

“That’s
all I need to hear,” Jarod said, scraping the salve out of Tobin’s hand and
pushing him back so that he rolled onto his haunches.

Tobin
gritted his teeth and stood to meet Jarod’s stare, measuring his words
carefully so as not to show his anger. “It could help draw the infection out if
it’s not too late. It’s helped me prevent infection in my own wounds in the
past. I know that it’s—”

“Your
desert cousins may rub dirt and spit together to heal their wounds, but I think
we can do better,” Jarod said, his voice threateningly quiet. “Now wrap him up,
and we’ll take him to a healer in the village. One who isn’t part of a
primitive race and who knows the difference between medicine and witchcraft.”

Tobin
took measured breaths to keep calm, enraged that Jarod would keep him from
tending their comrade’s wound.

“It’s
okay,” Havard said, smiling weakly. “Just wrap me up again, and when I get back
to the village my wife will fix me up real good. Her mother was a healer back
in the city, you know.”

Tobin
nodded, begrudgingly wrapping up Havard’s abdomen without applying the herbs.
He felt Jarod’s cold eyes on his every move, and out of the corner of his eye
noticed the blonde-haired little boy, observing quietly from behind Tosser
without a move.

“You
poured some ale on it,” Tosser said reassuringly. “That’s as good as any could
do. I don’t know that I’d want any desert herbs in me if I were in his
position, anyhow. Those people are backwards.”

Tobin
winced at his words. He knew that Tosser was attempting to make him feel better
after Jarod’s outburst, but further insulting his mother’s culture was not a
comforting gesture. “Just get him to a healer right away,” he said, stepping
back as Jarod and Tosser helped their wounded companion to his horse.

“I
don’t understand. You were only trying to help him,” said a small voice to
Tobin’s right. He turned to see the young boy, standing bewildered in a dusty
nightshirt and watching Tobin with somber gray eyes. His hands were bound
together tightly by the look of him.

Tobin
studied this strange child for the first time. Scrawny limbs, messy hair, but
healthy looking. “What’s your story?” he asked the child. “Did your father get
banished, and now he’s sent for you?” He had heard of stories like that, and
had even met entire families before who had moved into the mountains because
the father was branded. It seemed like such a sacrifice to Tobin. He would
never give up his freedom for someone else’s crimes. Never.

The
boy shook his head and bit his lip, shoulders shaking with contained sobs.

“What’s
wrong?” Tobin said, suddenly forgetting all of his troubles with Jarod.

“Kid,
come back over here,” Jarod called. “We need to get back to the village.”

Tobin
kneeled in front of the boy and rested his hands on his shoulders to look him
squarely in the eyes. “Who sent for you?”

The
boy shook his head, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I don’t know him. They
call him Burano. They said he’s been looking for me.”

Tobin
balked at his words, mind reeling with questions.
What does the commander of
the Wanderlings want with a little boy from the city? Does this child still
have a family waiting for him in Gerstadt?
Or, worse,
Does he have any
family left after what looks like a nasty fight?
Tobin looked from the boy
to Havard, doubled over in the saddle, and to a suspicious bandage on Jarod’s
left hand.
This child was taken by force from his family, and the struggle
didn’t go well for anyone.

“Get
out of my way,” Jarod growled, riding his horse past Tobin and reaching down to
scoop the little boy off the ground and swing him into the saddle in front of
him.

Tobin
stood in a stunned silence, watching as the three horses trotted away. He paced
back and forth, confused and outraged at the same time. He harbored
disagreements with Commander Burano’s rule over the Wanderlings, but the man
usually governed with some sense of justice, even if it was a twisted sense of
justice.

Interaction
with people of Gerstadt was strictly prohibited, by penalty of death, except
for Jarod’s supply runs every month or so. The survival of the village depended
on secrecy. If their numbers were known in the city, they would be destroyed.
Why, then, would Burano or his top officers see it worth a risk to kidnap a
child from Gerstadt?

“Did
you find anything out?” called an eager voice. Trigg was scrambling down the
nearest hill, anxious no doubt for more details about the unusual Gerstadt
excursion.

“Get
back to your post,” Tobin barked, turning away and rubbing his temples to
think.

“Who
was the kid?” called Hal from the next hill over.

“Shut
up!” Tobin cried, using arm signals to command complete silence. He needed to
think, and he didn’t want to share his disturbing revelation with his comrades.

The
group returned to duty, Tobin praying silently that Jarod’s travel party
wouldn’t be followed by a cavalry of fifty Gerstadt Soldiers, charging down the
valley to avenge the kidnapping. He watched the valley with renewed vigilance,
scanning the horizon continually for movement.

After
only a few minutes at his watch on a hilltop, Tobin realized that he had left
his bag and bow in the valley. He sighed, hiking down the hill to retrieve his
belongings. As he approached the bottom of the hill, he heard a panicked,
“C-Caw!” from Trigg at the adjoining hilltop.

Tobin
used an arm to shield his eyes from the sun and saw Trigg frantically waving
towards him and cawing like a dying bird. The boy waved and excitedly pointed
to the edge of the valley path, where Jarod and his men had rounded the corner
less than an hour before.

As
Tobin followed Trigg’s gaze, he saw a lone figure hiking towards him. Panicked,
he ducked behind a patch of shrubs, peering over a cactus blossom and thorn
bush to see the traveler approaching. With hurried gestures and a few bird
calls, he alerted the other lookouts. Trigg scampered partially down the hill
in front of Tobin, while Boggs and Hal took the rear, behind Tobin. They
couldn’t move too much, for the figure was close by that time. Tobin squinted
through the brush and saw that it must be a boy, maybe no older than Trigg. The
traveler had long, brown hair, held together loosely at the neck. He had on an
oversized tunic and breeches, plus a satchel and waterskin by the looks of it. Not
much, so this must be a recent outcast, still stunned from banishment.