Prophecy's Daughter Page 22

  He stared up at the darkening sky, the sleet having changed to snowflakes that stuck to his eyelashes. “We better get inside the cabin.”

  Rafel had given Kim, and by way of their marriage, John, a cabin in a secluded part of the vale. John felt that he was merely the lucky recipient of the graces bestowed upon him by Kim, the cabin being the smallest of these. It had just two rooms but was very cozy, with a broad hearth and a solid stone chimney.

  John grabbed a large armload of wood. They were soon bundled together in a blanket before the roaring fire, looking out through the window at huge snowflakes. Darkness was closing in on the vale so that soon the only indication they would have of the continuing snowfall was the occasional hiss of moisture that made its way down the chimney to fall into the fire.

  Throughout the evening, the intensity of the storm climbed, accompanied by a howling wind and heavy snow.

  In the deep canyon of the vale, that fury was nothing compared to the ferocity of the winds outside the valley. But here inside their cabin, the protection offered by the thick logs was complete, as was the comfort of the couple passing the evening entwined in each other’s arms.

  As they finally drifted off to sleep, John was only dimly aware of the low moan of the wind in the rafters.

  35

  Mo’Lier

  YOR 414, Mid-Autumn

  Deep within the dungeons of Mo’Lier, the steady drip of water from the ceiling of the cell splashed into a small puddle on the floor. The lone occupant worked to keep that puddle separate from the stinking sewage on the far side of the cell. That water and a steady supply of roaches provided most of the sustenance that kept the mind housed within the protector’s body alive, a mind that belonged within the body of Jaradin Scot.

  After the mind swap that had placed him in this form, a group of four protectors had taken Jaradin prisoner and brought him back to the dungeon, where he had been held ever since.

  Every day since the transference, Jaradin found himself wishing that he had died during the round of torture the protectors had inflicted upon him before they had forced his mind from its body to swap places with that of the evil priest, who must even now be striding among the people of the vale. What kept him going was a lifetime of training as a ranger.

  This deep in the dungeon, even the screams from the upper levels barely penetrated. He was trapped in silence and shadow. He had learned the inside of the cell by smell, touch, and taste. The walls were stone, as was the floor. Jaradin thought that this dungeon was probably an ancient cave system with some modifications added by the protectors over the centuries. One of these modifications was the set of iron bars that kept him inside the cell.

  Four and a half paces wide by six paces long. He had lost track of how many times he had stepped off the dimensions of the small dark place that held him, enough times for the half a pace to be maddening. Somehow he needed the closure of touching each wall in the dark. To stop short made his skin crawl with a feeling that maybe an opening might have presented itself and he might have missed it. The nonsensical thought chided him, clinging to his mind.

  Jaradin didn’t really have any idea how high the ceiling was, but he guessed it must be around twice his height. The echoes of his footsteps or any other sounds he made seemed to confirm that estimate.

  How long had it been? Three months? Six? Time meant nothing down here, and he had long since quit trying to count the days. It was funny how, when you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, it seemed like you were seeing things all the time, little flashes of color or items moving at the edge of your vision. The same went for silence. Sometimes when he heard the distant clank of a door or a footstep, he would wonder if it was just his imagination.

  Wondering about things was something Jaradin did a lot. He wondered if he was going mad. He wondered if the protectors wanted him to go mad or if they cared whether he lived or died. Did the protector who had his body want this old one back?

  From the shape the body was in, Jaradin doubted it. So why hadn’t they just killed him? Did the other one need him to be alive? If so, they were doing a wretched job of worrying about his health. Once a week someone would wander down to his cell carrying a torch, peer in to see if he was alive or dead, toss a bucketful of slop through the bars, and then wander away. If that was needing him alive, he didn’t want to see what not caring was like. Jaradin washed down the gruel with water that dripped from the ceiling and pooled on the floor.

  It was funny how he had come to believe things that made no sense, things that had zero chance of happening. Jaradin Scot believed that his brother Derek would find him. He believed it to the depths of his soul.

  If he doubted that his brother would come for him, then there was really no reason to keep on struggling to survive. There was no sense fighting through the sickness that came on from time to time due to bad water and worse food. There was no sense dreaming about seeing the trees again or hearing the sound of a mountain stream as it bubbled over rocks on its way to a cold, clear pool.

  He felt a roach crawl rapidly over his bare foot, and quick as a cat, he scooped it up. Grabbing it by the legs, he quickly stripped off the wings and popped it in his mouth. Funny thing, that. He had grown used to the disgusting crunch with its accompanying gush of goo, but he couldn’t tolerate the feel of the wings in his teeth.

  A low chuckle built inside him until it burst out, echoing off the walls within the passages. He laughed for a long, long time.

  36

  Areana’s Vale

  YOR 414, Mid-Autumn

  Angloc, wearing the body of Jaradin Scot, sat at the back of Jared Rafel’s audience chamber, his feet propped on an adjacent bench, watching through his remaining eye the small group of men who gathered around the high lord, deep in animated discussion. Derek glanced disapprovingly in Angloc’s direction.

  He redirected his attention to Rafel’s words. From where he sat, Angloc could hear everything he needed to know about the defensive preparations. They never asked his opinion anyway. The only reason they let him into these meetings was his insistence that he stay close to Derek. They believed all that malarkey about how he had a feeling that something bad was going to happen to his brother and he needed to be there when it did. If everything went right, something bad would indeed happen to Derek Scot, and Angloc would definitely be there when it did.

  Angloc did not care that his good brother might disapprove of him resting his tired body while they droned on endlessly. He was exhausted. Derek, and all the other rangers for that matter, had outlandish expectations of how this body of Jaradin’s should have recovered and how hard he should be willing to drive it. And hadn’t he driven it beyond all reason, almost keeping up with the other rangers on numerous occasions? Didn’t they know how badly he had been hurt? Surely the real Jaradin would have done no better.

  That damned bear of Derek’s was another problem. It snarled at him whenever he passed nearby, despite Derek’s scolding. Nobody else could imagine that Angloc was not really Jaradin Scot, but that animal knew.

  Angloc’s mission trapped him here, away from his god and among people whom he despised in every way. What they needed was to feel the master’s lash and eke out the remainder of their miserable lives washing the feet of their betters. Jorthain’s forces should have been here weeks ago. Angloc could not understand what had so delayed the army of the protectors. Now the early blizzard had sealed the high country, preventing the arrival of such a large horde until spring.

  Well, if he was trapped here, then he would just have to make the best of it. Angloc’s hand absently adjusted his eye patch. He would continue to study the state of Rafel’s improving fortifications, knowing that whenever Jorthain desired to do so, the high priest could peer through the eye that had been cut from this face to see what Angloc saw.

  The high lord’s meeting came to a close, and Angloc stood as Derek approached.

  “Well, brother,” said Angloc, “have you figured out how we are go
ing to get out to do any scouting when we’re buried neck-deep in snow?”

  “Actually, I want to talk to you for a bit,” said Derek.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Walk with me. I don’t want to discuss this here.”

  Derek led the way outside. The world outside the hall was a surreal place. The snow had piled up in great mounds and drifts. The men had shoveled paths through the snow along the streets through the fort, and teams of oxen had dragged logs along the trails between villages to clear the way for people to travel about. All of this made the piles of snow beside the roads even higher, making passersby feel like they were traveling through a white maze.

  Derek headed to the stalls. Seeing that no one was about but the horses, Derek turned on his brother. “All right, Jaradin. I’ve had it with your behavior these last several weeks. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’m not going to tolerate any more disrespect to High Lord Rafel, Broderick, Gaar, or even myself.”

  Angloc held out his hands in a gesture of dismay. “Disrespect? You think I am showing disrespect?”

  “Damned right I do. I’ve taken it easy on you because you’re my brother and because of how badly you were hurt. But I’m starting to feel like you’re using that as an excuse. So I want to know what in the deep is going on in your head? By the gods, you don’t even sound like yourself.”

  Angloc stared at the ranger, adjusting his eye patch as he did so. The fool had faith in brotherly love. Fine. Angloc would use it.

  “Okay. I admit it. I have been shirking my duties and trying to get out of work. I’ve been dragging out my injuries longer than is warranted. And I don’t even have a good reason.”

  Angloc paused for effect. He could not count the number of times he had rehearsed this little speech, knowing that Derek would confront him about the “changes” in him since the injuries, knowing there was nothing he could do to try to imitate Jaradin Scot’s behavior. And what he had come up with had just the right ring of truth. Especially since Derek wanted to believe him.

  Angloc turned and smacked the log wall with the palm of his hand. Then, slowly, he lifted his gaze to face Derek.

  “You want to know why I’ve been sneaking off at odd times? Okay then. Here it is, laid out in the open for you to ridicule as you see fit. Do you remember who it was that helped me get well, who it was that healed pieces of me that nobody else could? Rafel’s half-Endarian daughter, Kimber.

  “And she stayed with me for countless hours, holding my hand, even letting me lean on her when I was first learning to walk again. Now I see the light dawning in your eyes.

  “The shameful truth is that I can’t get her out of my head. She is in my thoughts from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. She is in my dreams. I will go crazy because I can’t tell her how I feel. She is married to another man. They are living together in a cabin just up the valley.”

  Angloc clenched his fists and then relaxed them. He began pacing slowly, playing the part for all he was worth.

  “Do you want to know where I go when I have been sneaking off? I go to watch her. I hide in the woods like a lovesick boy and peer at her from a distance. That’s as close as I’ll get to holding her, but it may drive me mad.”

  Derek stared, his mouth open. When it snapped shut, a huge grin spread across his face. “So that is all that’s been wrong? My brother is lovesick?”

  Angloc let a deeply offended look settle on his face.

  Derek came forward and threw his arm around his brother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to make light of your predicament. I know it is really terrible for you. But you can’t imagine what other kinds of worries and thoughts have been coming into my mind to try to explain why my own brother is acting like a complete stranger.”

  “That’s all well and good for you to say, but it does me no good at all. And you know if you tell anyone about this that it will infuriate High Lord Rafel and Kim and embarrass me throughout the vale. John would come for me, and I would kill him, whom I want to kill anyway.”

  “I won’t tell a soul. You have my word on that.”

  “Worse yet, this damned snow has us trapped here in the valley so I can’t even get away. And I don’t want to get away. I just want to sit and hold her or watch her from a distance since I can’t do that. You’d be a lot better off if you would just kill me here and now.”

  Angloc pulled a knife from its sheath, holding it out to Derek, handle first.

  Derek shook his head. “I’ll do no such thing. You, my brother, are just going to have to live through this. I know this kind of advice never helps, but you’ll find another woman, and when you do, you’ll be glad that this love didn’t work out.”

  When Derek extended his open hand toward him, Angloc stared at it for several seconds, gradually allowing the tension in his face to soften. Although he did not smile, he finally gripped Derek’s forearm.

  “Thank you, my brother,” Angloc said. “I will do everything in my power to make sure your faith in me is rewarded.”

  Angloc kept to himself, brooding, even as he worked alongside the other rangers. Being snowed in meant that even the rangers were put to work building fortifications or refining those already in place. For the following two weeks, they worked, always making steady progress on the layers of fortifications along the canyon that provided the only entrance to the vale.

  But despite the urgency, Rafel ordered that one day a week be set aside for minimal staffing as a day of rest and recuperation. This was the type of idiocy that drove Angloc wild, although he readily applauded the decision for his own personal reasons.

  It was certainly true that the men and women of Areana’s Vale practically worshipped the ground Jared Rafel walked upon, but that only pointed out his weakness. A whip across the back was all the motivation you needed to get people to work themselves to death doing whatever you wanted. If you wanted more pressure applied, threaten their families. These were tried-and-true approaches that Rafel seemed to lack the stomach for.

  Walking along the meandering line of defensive outposts, working his way back up the canyon to the main fort, Angloc did marvel at the creativity of the man. Perhaps in past battles, that type of thinking had compensated for Rafel’s other weaknesses. Yet the high lord’s strategizing would not prevent what was to come as soon as the spring thaw made the way passable.

  Today was Rest Day, and as much as Angloc desired the taste of ale, he was driven by a desire that burned deeper than his stomach. He walked into the valley above the main fort and quickly made his way through the villages of Colindale and Fernwood, turning off the road before getting to Longsford Watch.

  The path through the deep snow along the route was a narrow one, traveled on a regular basis by only three pairs of feet: Kim’s, John’s, and his. The trail crossed a small tributary stream, and as always, Angloc turned to the east, wading through the icy water in order to hide that someone had turned off the trail between Fernwood and Kim’s cabin.

  After rounding a bend where the woods blocked a view of his position, Angloc followed yet another path through the snow, one that had been made by a single person, roughly paralleling the main trail to the cabin.

  The way twisted and turned among the trees, terminating in a heavy thicket into which Angloc had dug a tunnel through the snow. The spy scurried inside until he arrived at the spot where he could peer out at Kim’s cabin, a hundred paces down the gentle slope.

  Shivering, Angloc began a low chant that spread a warm glow through his body, drying his wet clothes and chasing away the ache that had cast its leaden weight on his limbs. Then he turned back to his peephole.

  A thin wisp of smoke curled skyward from the chimney that rose from the cabin roof. One good thing about people, which apparently also applied to half-Endarians, was that they were creatures of habit, taking solace in the ordered routines that gave their lives a measure of simplicity.

  Angloc had only required two days of watching to learn Kim’s habitual movements
on Rest Day. John’s habit was to lounge around the cabin half the morning and then go out with his bow, hunting. The only interest this held for Angloc was the dim hope that perhaps the archer would meet with some unfortunate hunting accident. He had even considered arranging one, but had decided that Derek would suspect him of foul play.

  While the story he had come up with for Derek had worked to eliminate Derek’s immediate concerns about his change in personality, it did have the downside of keeping the priest from killing John, at least for now.

  Instead, he merely sat, peering out through the hole in the bushes, waiting. Fortunately, Angloc did not have to wait very long.

  Kim emerged from the front door swathed in Endarian garments that looked too thin for the harsh winter weather, but that, reputedly, were as warm in winter as they were cool in summer. She paused to glance down the path and around the meadow. Her eyes passed over his hiding place, but even Endarian eyes could not see through the additional camouflage provided by his priestly art.

  From the first moment he had seen the Endarian, she had captured his imagination, filling his mind with fantasies that would bring him great pleasure. Unfortunately, his duty to weaken these people from within prevented him from fulfilling those desires, at least for the time being.

  In the meantime, Angloc would watch and wait.

  37

  Endless Valley

  YOR 414, Early Winter

  Alan’s ranger team had been out for eight days. Ty loosely accompanied them, although he often scouted farther out, not as a part of the ranger formation. Derek had placed Alan in charge of the three-man team, the two others being Kelly Farnsworth and Greg Smith. They had journeyed down below the snow line, spending a day longer there than planned in order to follow a small vorg patrol.

  The vorgs moved over the ridgeline in a careless fashion, lazy, sloppy, clearly unconcerned that anyone with hostile intent would see them. That combination set Alan in motion. He signaled to Greg and Kelly to follow, then began working his horse around the head of the draw so that he could circle around the vorgs.