Valor (Book 3) Read online

  Mr. Goss glanced back at his disfigured son. “Yes, Burners. The Legion.” He turned back to the boy. “And where are your parents? Are you all alone here?”

  “Papa come soon. Papa strong. He hurt you if you hurts me.”

  “We will not hurt you, I promise.” Mr. Goss withdrew a chunk of biscuit beef and held it out. “Have a bite.” The boy only stared. Mr. Goss made a biting gesture. “See? This is good. Mmm, good.”

  The boy slowly reached out, eyes shooting between the dried beef and Mr. Goss’ face. He snatched it and quickly withdrew, eating as fast as a squirrel, never taking his eyes off Mr. Goss.

  “What is your name?”

  “Ettan.”

  “Ettan. That is a nice name. My name is Albert Goss. This is my son, Leland, and that is Augum, Bridget, Leera and Mrs. Stone.”

  Ettan glanced at the frail old woman. “She old. Old maniye.”

  A chortle escaped Mrs. Stone’s lips that quickly regressed to a coughing fit.

  “Please, Mrs. Stone, have a seat,” Bridget said, taking her by the hand and leading her to a bench by the table. Mrs. Stone wheezed her way over, eyes closed.

  Ettan wiped his runny nose on the back of his sleeve. “Old maniye dying?”

  “She’ll be fine,” Augum said. “She’s just tired. What does maniye mean?”

  Ettan tapped his skin. “Sapinchay.” He pointed to Augum’s skin then to Mr. Goss’. “Maniye.”

  “Oh, you mean our skin?” Mr. Goss asked. “Maniye means darker skin?”

  Ettan nodded. “Iya.” He pointed at Mr. Goss’ face. “What that?”

  “You mean these? These are called spectacles.” Mr. Goss took them off and offered them to the boy. “They help me see better.”

  Ettan stared at the wiry frame. He reached out, snatched them, and tentatively put them on. His eyes magnified. He tore them off his face and retreated. “Andava, andava—!”

  Mr. Goss picked them up off the floor and gave them a wipe. “Sometimes I want to do the same thing, but unfortunately for me, I can barely see without them.”

  “Papa say bald die quicker under sword.”

  Mr. Goss surrendered a nervous laugh. “Yes, well, uh, I will be sure not to get into any sword fights anytime soon.” He stood up, dusting his knee. “May I ask why you are all alone, Ettan?”

  “Waiting for Papa. He gathering. He come soon.”

  “Gathering? Oh, you mean food.”

  Ettan shrugged and stuck out his hand.

  “Hungry little fellow.” Mr. Goss handed the boy more biscuit beef. “Is this your place now?”

  Ettan shook his head.

  “And you know nothing of what happened to my friends, the Waxmans?”

  “Burners take away.”

  Mr. Goss’s head dropped. “Are you sure?” he asked quietly.

  Ettan shrugged while he chewed, eyes solemnly watching Mr. Goss.

  Mr. Goss nodded slowly. “Can we stay here and wait for your papa with you?”

  Ettan shrugged again.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Goss,” Bridget said quietly.

  “Thank you, Bridget.”

  Augum gave Mr. Goss a pained look. “I’ll get the supplies.”

  Leera sat Leland down beside Bridget and Mrs. Stone. “I’ll help.”

  The pair left the earthen home, only to hear distant galloping. They quickly ducked back inside the doorway.

  “Someone’s coming!” Augum said.

  Ettan rushed to the doorway. “Papa here!”

  They watched as three horsemen jumped the fence, their armor catching the fiery hues of dusk. They had colorfully painted faces and rode gray mares.

  “Ho!” called the lead rider, drawing a curved blade. “Who with my son! Come!”

  Augum was about to step outside when Mr. Goss held him back with a hand while striding past. “We are just some weary travelers looking to quietly bed down for a few days. We mean you no harm.”

  The lead rider boomed a laugh revealing black teeth. A single golden tooth stood out like a beacon fire. He was a very muscular man with the same snowy white skin as Ettan. His milky hair was so long it touched the saddle. A series of jeweled rings pierced both his eyebrows, and blue lines streaked across his face, curling around his sharp brows and pointed nose. Strips of bloody cloth dangled from his well-worn iron plate.

  The man pointed his curved blade at Mr. Goss’s head. “He been under knife!” and laughed anew, this time joined by the other riders, both also as white as snow. One wore bloody chainmail under a great red bearskin. Rabbit and squirrel skins hung from his horse along with an assortment of pots, silver cutlery, and clothes. The other wore battered plate mail under a buffalo hide. Strapped to the back of his horse was a deer carcass.

  The lead rider raised his chin. “You have younglings.”

  Mr. Goss glanced backward nervously. “Yes, yes we do. One of them is my son.”

  Ettan shouldered past Augum. “Papa, maniye have sick old woman and boy put to Burner fire.”

  “Ettan speak good maniye tongue, yes?”

  Mr. Goss cleared his throat rather quickly. “Oh yes indeed, he is marvelous. My name is Albert Goss—”

  “Goss. Weak name.” The rider turned to his comrades. “Like swamp juice.” The other two laughed.

  The rider smacked his sword against his muscled chest. “Rogan the Conqueror.” He then pointed it at the chain-mailed man. “Hushu.” He swung his sword the other way. “Chikota.”

  The man wearing plate mail and buffalo hide scowled.

  Rogan gave a nod. “We are Henawa.”

  “Henawa—of course! I have heard tales, but I have never—oh, this is such an honor! This is my first experience with your people.” Mr. Goss turned to Augum, smiling. “The Henawa are from northern Ohm. They sometimes travel south with the snow in winter, retreating in the summer.” He glanced back to Rogan. “Well it is a pleasure to meet you, Rogan the, uh, Conqueror.”

  “You maniye. You not travel. You hide in walls, stone, earth. You burn Henawa.”

  “No, no, that is not us, I assure you. That is the Legion, and they are very bad.” Mr. Goss shook his head gravely, frowning. “Legion very bad.”

  Rogan grunted. He sheathed his blade and dismounted, stroking his horse on the neck before handing the reins to his boy. He strode past Mr. Goss into the home.

  Mrs. Stone coughed, keeping her eyes closed.

  “She dying.”

  “No, she’s only tired,” Augum said, standing between Rogan and Mrs. Stone.

  “She dying. Leave her. We go.”

  “We’re not going anywhere with you!” Leera said.

  Rogan’s eyes narrowed. “Maniye females no talk to Rogan like he small.” He raised his hand to smack her.

  “Shyneo!”

  Three palms immediately lit up, one glowing ivy, one water, one lightning.

  Rogan took a step back. “Nuliwi …”

  “That’s right,” Leera said. “So don’t try anything.”

  Rogan hooked his thumbs into his belt and cocked his head. “Nuliwi bring many furs in trade.”

  “You’re not trading us like slaves, you’re going to leave us alone, or, or—”

  Rogan gave an amused chortle. “Or what maniye nuliwi do?”

  “Or Mrs. Stone will turn you into a turnip!”

  Everyone glanced at Mrs. Stone. She groaned and rested her head onto the table.

  Rogan scoffed. “She sick. We leave her. Dying nuliwi no good.”

  “NO!” Augum took a step forward, palm outstretched. “We’re not leaving her. We’re not going with you.” He’d be damned if they were going to be taken captive again.

  Rogan the Conqueror studied their glowing palms with coal eyes. “Hmm. She sick. Shaman help.” He nodded. “Bring old woman. We make trade and heal.” He sniffed loudly and walked out the door. Mr. Goss, who had been kept from entering by Hushu’s curved blade, scampered out of his way.

  Rogan swung onto his horse. He reached down
and plucked up his son like a sack of potatoes, dumping him behind.

  “Maniye hurry or Papa mad,” Ettan said.

  Augum glanced to Mr. Goss, who seemed frozen in place, eyes as large as an owl’s.

  “Maybe the shaman can help Mrs. Stone,” Bridget said.

  “Either that or we fight,” Leera said under her breath.

  Augum took a moment to think. Nana was too sick to perform arcanery, the warriors looked quick and strong, and Centarro, the most powerful spell they had in their arsenal, might help overcome them. Or not. But what if Nana got worse? What if there was no food for leagues, and they passed up this opportunity to have her healed? Rogan gestured for them to move along to their horses. “Henawa have roof, fire, meat. Maniye come.”

  “I think it’s worth the risk,” Augum said. The others nodded.

  Mr. Goss lifted a moaning Leland up onto his shoulders. “Shh, son, it is all right.”

  “Burners,” Rogan said as Mr. Goss walked past, eyeing Leland.

  Hushu and Chikota nodded. “Burners.”

  The trio followed next, helping Mrs. Stone walk. She took tentative steps, skin hotter than fire.

  “Where do you think they’re taking us?” Augum asked quietly, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Don’t know,” Bridget replied.

  They helped Mrs. Stone onto her horse first. When they were ready, Rogan took the lead. Ettan stared at them like a snowy owl watching a field mouse.

  The column rode south into a cold moonless night, the sky sprinkled with glimmering stars and a smattering of clouds.

  The Past to Life

  The scars on Augum’s back tingled when he spied a particular pitched-roof house and barn. “I know this place …”

  Leera squeezed his waist lightly. “Aug?”

  He spotted a familiar oak and recalled a pack of kids chasing him up its trunk, stones being thrown, his body smashing to the ground. Mr. Penderson had whipped him right over there for being too tired to finish his chores. It had been pointless to explain that Garth, the oldest Penderson brat, had forced him to sleep in the barn that night. The man didn’t appreciate “trying to pass the load”, as he liked to put it.

  “This is … The Farm,” he said, a sick feeling in his stomach.

  “You mean the place you ran away from as a child?”

  He could only surrender a tense nod as they passed a well. He remembered dangling upside down from its rope, laughter echoing.

  Leera’s voice became increasingly disbelieving. “The place your mother dropped you off at to be taken care of? That’s where we are?”

  “Yes …” Everywhere he looked, memory stabbed at him like Garth’s finger when making a point. He had scratched his knees up good fixing the thatched roof of the barn; spent quiet rainy days within, Meli alongside, her ears flopping this way and that. He recalled burying himself in the prickly hay, the brats stabbing pitchforks into it in search of him; remembered feeling Meli’s tired last breaths as Mr. Penderson’s whip rained down on the old mule in the field where crabby corn had once grown.

  They heard singing as they rounded the corner of the earthen home. Hushu let loose a piercing cry, taken up by Chikota and Rogan and quickly echoed by a slew of voices. Soon they were in view of a large timber fire surrounded by about twenty figures. The barn stood behind, randomly stripped of planks like a beggar missing teeth. A dozen large horses milled within, grazing on straw.

  “Ho!” Rogan called.

  “Ho!” voices shouted back.

  A flock of snow-skinned and snow-haired children immediately ran over to inspect the new arrivals, especially Mrs. Stone. They shouted out in the Henawa tongue, pawing her saddlebags and yanking at her robe.

  “Hey, don’t touch that!” Bridget said, smacking at the hand of a young girl trying to tug the staff. One of Mrs. Stone’s brows arched slightly, but other than that, she seemed untroubled.

  Rogan, Hushu and Chikota dismounted, ignoring the children. A few fur-clad women came to help unlash the deer carcasses and the rabbit and squirrel hides. They eyed Augum and the others with distrust.

  A very fat man with a tremendous amount of piercings waddled over. A great bearskin was draped over his back, the head resting on the man’s scalp. Food clung to his long milky beard. He clutched a waterskin in one hand and the remains of a roasted bird in the other. A long hide shirt decorated with beads and bones hung down to his knees.

  “Chunchuha!” the man said, raising his waterskin and showing black teeth in what Augum thought might be a smile.

  “Chief say hello,” Rogan said, picking up his son and tossing him to the ground. The boy landed on his feet like a cat.

  The chief reached over to Augum’s robe, feeling the coarse woolen cloth between his fingers. He turned his great head to Rogan. “Maniye nuliwi.”

  Rogan gave a small nod. The pair then exchanged rapid shots in their language.

  The chief glanced over at Mrs. Stone and scowled. Rogan made dismissive gestures, pointing at the trio. The pair argued for a moment before Rogan spit on the ground and walked away, arm around a husky woman.

  “What’s going on?” Leera asked.

  “Don’t know,” Augum replied.

  The chief barked at the people around the fire. Half a dozen fur-clad young men rushed over.

  “Hey—!” Bridget yelped as one of the youths yanked her off her horse. Two others did the same to Mrs. Stone, who gave no resistance. Hands pawed at Augum and Leera, stripping them off the horse. Only Mr. Goss had the wherewithal to dismount quickly, holding a moaning Leland close.

  One of the youths snatched the rucksack from Bridget and tossed it to the children, who immediately began pawing through it.

  “That’s ours, you brats!” Leera called, but no one paid her any attention, except Ettan, who chewed on a finger, staring at her. She began struggling with her captor. “Let go! Where are you taking us?”

  “Taro, taro! Onusha!” the youth said, twisting her arm and shoving her forward. The other men prodded Augum, Bridget and Mr. Goss with sticks. “Taro!”

  Two youths dragged Mrs. Stone along. When one of them tried taking the staff from her, he jumped like a bitten dog, complaining loudly to his friends. They only laughed, saying, “Nuliwi, nuliwi!”

  Augum witnessed a dirty child wearing deerskin run away clutching their ornate blue book on Arcaneology, eyes wide in delight. The rucksack contents quickly dispersed among the crowd. Some of the adults joined in, rifling through the satchels hanging off the horses.

  “Great, there goes our stuff,” Leera muttered.

  “If I recall correctly, I think we have to gain their respect to get it back,” Mr. Goss said.

  “How do you know that, Mr. Goss?”

  “My father left me an old tome I read as a child, written by a renowned adventurer by the name of Codus Trazinius. It was called A Solian’s Recounting of Distant Lands. If we ever make it back to Sparrow’s Perch, I will be sure to—”

  One of the youths pushed Mr. Goss along. “Taro, taro! Onusha!”

  “Shyneo,” Augum said just as one of the boys stepped near, only to spring away. Augum locked eyes with the chief. “Where is the shaman? We made a deal with Rogan—”

  The chief eyed Augum’s palm before gesturing impatiently. He spoke a few terse words.

  “Chief say we talk tomorrow,” Ettan said.

  Augum extinguished his palm. His eyes narrowed at the chief. “Tomorrow then.”

  They were marched into the house. Augum was only too familiar with the crudely vaulted ceiling the Pendersons threatened to hang him from; the squeaky timber flooring that gave him away when he tried to go unnoticed; the primitive stone hearths the brats had shoved him into.

  He did not notice his fists curl. The place made him angry. Angry that he had suffered so. Angry that the brats got away with so much.

  There was a pantry kitchen, a room for the servants, and a large bedroom, each abundant with ghosts of his torments. The long trestle tabl
e and benches—which he was never allowed to sit at—remained, but most of the other furniture seemed to be missing.

  Winter was a hard time, especially for farmers. Now that war had come, famine was right behind, and it didn’t surprise him too much to see the place in disrepair like this. He wondered what had happened to the Pendersons.

  “Taro!” A youth herded them into the bedroom, shutting the door behind them. Augum heard the youths settle around the table in the kitchen, snickering.

  “Who’s there?” asked a timid female voice from the darkness.

  Leera held up her palm. “Shyneo.” It flared to life, shining watery blue light on a large bed against the near wall, under a shuttered window. The dresser, chairs and blanket box that had once been here were missing, but what caught Augum’s attention were two dirty figures huddled in the far corner, precisely in the same spot he used to sleep. The Pendersons forbade him room on the large bed, forcing him to sleep on the floor, mostly to keep an eye on him. Sometimes he was allowed to sleep in the servant room, the barn, or outside.

  “What be that devil light?” the boy asked.

  Augum knew that voice. His blood immediately began boiling.

  “We mean you no harm,” Mr. Goss said, placing Leland on the bed while Bridget and Leera helped Mrs. Stone lie down.

  “Who you be!” the boy demanded. He had ruddy cheeks, long auburn hair tied back, and a muscular physique. Muddy and torn trousers flopped over turned-down boots. A ragged fur coat hung around a splattered linen shirt. He seemed to be protecting a girl of about Augum’s age. She, too, had long auburn hair in a ponytail, face as muddy as her dress.

  “Who we be …” Augum said. He took a step forward, ready to flay the boy alive, to slam him through the wall with his bare fists.

  But he was held back by Bridget’s firm grip. “Aug?” she whispered, searching his face. “What’s the matter?”

  “We are just some weary travelers,” Mr. Goss said, unaware of Augum’s reaction.

  “And that devil light there?”

  “It’s a spell,” Leera replied. “I can do it too. Means we don’t need candles.”

  The girl whimpered. “Thems is witches! Don’t eat us, we ain’ts no good.”