Westhaven, Rowan Erlking [large ebook reader .txt] 📗

their mothers and young children. They came nearer to watch. Word had already spread that the new smith’s boy was an escaped slave from Sky Children, one of high value if they sold him back. But other than that, his reticent manner had kept him out of their concerns. Until now.

“Get him good!” One of the girls their age shouted to Tiler.

He winked back.

Key climbed onto his feet, setting his jaw. Gripped his stick with two hands and waited for the attack.

“That’s no way to hold a sword!” Rainold shouted at him, laughing.

The girls giggled, cheering Tiler on as he charged at Key. This time, Key deflected it and fought back, though he tripped as he dodged. The smith smirked as he watched. But he cheered neither side, glancing toward the mothers who peered at Key’s face and manner as if to assess whether they wanted their children playing with him.

“Some swordsmith!” Tiler taunted. “A real swordsmith also learns to swordfight.”

“Give me a break!” Key shouted back. “I was eight when I was taken. It wasn’t like I had time to learn anything.”

Tiler only laughed at him.

“Now who’s peeing in his pants?” Rainold called, cackling off at the side with the other boys.

Key lifted his chin, took his left hand off of the stick then stepped back with his right arm straight. It was the one stance he remembered clearly from when he was a little boy. But he had been no expert at fighting, even among his friends during play. He had preferred the labor of making weapons rather than using them. However, here, Key abruptly looked more intimidating that Tiler grew angry and charged at him with full force, letting him have it.

Key blocked. Tiler thrusted, and Key blocked it again. For a few minutes they actually sparred. Key’s style now looked more like art than a child’s imitation of a swordsman he had seen once. A dance. But then he tripped, and Tilter jabbed him in the shoulder.

“You’re dead,” Tiler said.

Key lifted his stick and jabbed Tiler in the stomach. “No. You’re dead.”

“I’m not dead,” Tiler shouted, jerking back. “I already killed you!”

Getting off the ground, Key shook his head. “You got me in the shoulder. That’s only a wound. And because you wounded the wrong arm I could still get you in the stomach. That would kill you.”

“No! You were already dead!” Tiler shouted at him.

Several of the girls booed at Key.

Their mothers drew them back and chastised them, telling them the argument was none of their business.

The smith called to them. “Key’s right. In real battle, what matters is where you hit, not just if you got a hit.”

The crowd of onlookers murmured low as more gathered, including the men that had walked in the camp with Kleston. Key had not seen him at all.

“Fine!” Tiler stomped back. “Do over.”

Key rolled his eyes and slumped his shoulders. “This is stupid. In a real battle I’d be walking away, and you’d be left as demon food.”

“I said, do over!” Tiler shouted at him.

Rolling his eyes again, Key readied himself. “Fine.”

Tiler came at him again. This time their sparring did not last as long. Key, though he had the grace of a good swordsman, did not have the skill from practice. Tiler whacked his stick into Key’s side announcing his triumph right after.

“Ha! I killed you! Now you’re dead!”

Rolling his eyes, Key then nodded, rubbing where he had been struck with the stick.

“Alright, now come back and finish your work,” the smith called to him.

Nodding again, Key walked back towards the smith station.

But this time the boys were stared at Key with a different look in their eyes. Perhaps it was because they noticed his limp, or maybe it was how Key had set the stick against the fallen tree as if had been a real sword. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that they saw his leg irons for the first time. They were usually so well hidden under his pant legs. Only Tiler continued to gloat—up until Polen jabbed him in the ribs and hushed him up.

“Key,” Kleston called to him.

Key turned. Seeing him, he immediately went red and ducked his head. “You saw that?”

Kleston smiled, nodding. “Yeah. And you didn’t do too bad for a kid who hasn’t sword fought in years.”

Tiler made a face then walked off with his friends, still savoring his triumph.

“I need you to come with me for a minute,” Kleston said. He nodded to the smith. “I’ll return him as soon as I am done.”

Key glanced to the camp leaders who were with Kleston. He recognized the two men from the incident before from a week previous. One of them fixed a bitter stare on Key. Key nodded, then climbed up the hill to them.

They walked up the rest of the hill to the first longhouse where Key had imagined were secretly hidden magicians and witches with brews already being made to conjure some sort of demon to take on the Sky Children. Instead, as he went in though the door, he saw that most of the place was living quarters barely lit with oil lamps. A table occupied the far end. It was covered with scrolls and papers that looked magic in origin or at least in purpose. One of the men had to be a magician.

“Go on in, Key.” Kleston nudged him inside.

Key entered the longhouse and walked the length of the room with the men. He felt smaller and smaller with each step—as most of the men from the camp were in the longhouse, all of their eyes peering down on him.

“Take off the bandana,” a strict-looking man said, gesturing to Key.

Peeking one look at Kleston who nodded for him to do it, Key tugged off the cloth. He clenched it in his hands.

All the men in the room drew in breath. Murmurs rippled through them.

“You’re the escaped slave of that General Gole, aren’t you?” that man said.

Key lowered his head in a nod.

“Kleston, you should have told us.” The man’s voice rose, sounding angry. “Having him here compromises our situation.”

“I don’t see how,” Kleston replied as if unconcerned. “There are no Sky Children soldiers here to claim him as—”

“You have set a temptation in our midst,” the stern man said, whom Key now understood was the leader of the camp. “The reward money alone is tempting enough for me to bring him in myself.”

“He is more valuable inside the camp than sold—” Kleston retorted. 

“He has been a disruption in the camp, Kleston. A disruption!”

The man pounded on the table.

Key jumped.

Kleston remained calm. His eyes were more like a young defiant soul than a leader. And the more Key watched him, the more he realized that Kleston was not the leader as he had supposed, but a much respected man. The real leader was the one shouting.

“Now you have to take care of this!” the leader said. “I don’t care where you take him, but he cannot stay here.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” Kleston replied.

“I don’t care if he can work metal,” the leader snapped. “His temper is on the fly, and he picks fights with the boys.”

“They pick fights with me!” Key shouted back, unable to restrain it. All that angry energy was bursting out of him. Had he been with General Winstrong, he would have ducked his head and waited for a beating.

The leader turned, staring hard at him. “You are the newcomer. You have no say.”

Though Key knew he ought to be cowed by this man, this man’s glare was nothing compared to General Winstrong’s. Hefting up his chin, Key squared his shoulders. “I don’t care. I’ve had enough of being bullied and pushed around. If you want me to leave, fine. I’ll go find General Winstrong and kill him myself. I have my dagger.”

Kleston stepped in between them. He prevented Key from arguing further, with a look. “The boy’s temper is short only because he has been under the heel of General Gole for so long—he is now feeling his freedom to speak his mind. His anger is justified.”

“Justified or not, he must curb it,” the leader said. “We cannot afford any more losses. And if General Gole is looking for him, dead or alive, then I go for dead. We collect the silver and get on with out lives.”

“Dead or alive?” Key murmured from behind Kleston’s back. “Impossible. He’d want me alive so he can kill me himself.”

Kleston turned to stare at him. “What was that?”

Lowering his head, Key muttered, “He only wants me back so he can punish me for defying him.”

Kleston looked stricken. And worse, the other men nodded as if it were the best choice.

“The reward is six thousand in silver, dead or alive,” one of the men in the group said, holding up the poster.

Key’s eyes lifted to it. It was a torso drawing similar to him only in that hair was patchy with his one half-white eyebrow and there was a burn scar on his chest. His eyes skimmed the words underneath the drawing. He stepped forward. “It does not say that. It says, six thousand in silver rewarded for the return of child fugitive, preferably alive.”

“No, it doesn’t!” the man holding the poster shouted, raising his fist to hit the boy.

“Yes, it does,” a mild voice from the back of the crowd replied.

Several heads turned.

The leader slowly nodded, lifting his chin. “It really says that?”

Key peered into the darkness. It was hard to see who had spoken. From the shadows, a man with salt and pepper hair perhaps in his fifties, walked into the light and took the paper from the other man’s hand. This man wore unusual burgundy robes. On it, stitched in gold was the fancy vertical writing of the ancient texts. Key could make out some of the words, solemn phrases of ancient magic. Reading them gave him chills.

“It says exactly that.” The man peered down at Key. “He can read.”

The men in the room drew in their breaths—including Kleston. He blinked at Key and then looked to his leader as if to say I told you so.

“How did you learn to read?” the mild-voiced older man in burgundy asked.

Key recoiled from him. “You’re a magician, aren’t you?”

The man smiled and nodded. “I am. And I am one of the few in this room who can read. But I heard you were a smith’s son. Smiths generally don’t read, unless he was a Kitai smith. But you don’t look Kitai.”

Blinking at him, Key started to protest. “I’m not. I’m from—”

Kleston stepped forward. “Obviously this boy has many talents. Like I was saying, it would be foolish to sell him dead to the blue-eyes.”

“I agree,” the camp’s smith walked into the room. He held out Key’s newest dagger, tossing it onto the table. “This one is unfinished, but it is his best yet.”

The leader took it up. He peered at it. Automatically he whipped his eyes onto Key. The man reached to his side for his sword and drew it out. He turned it in his hands. In silence, he compared the two. Then he lifted his eyes to Kleston who nodded.

Everyone else remained puzzled. Yet the magician quickly jerked his eyes to Key. Immediate understanding flooded through him.

“Everyone out,” the leader sharply ordered. “I need to speak to this boy alone. Kleston, Perrin and Vang—you three can stay.”

The general crowd moaned, but they did turn and go. The men waited for the room to clear. Once all but the three men were gone, the leader turned and hissed to Kleston, “Why didn’t you tell me who he was the instant you brought him here?”

Key looked up, confused.

Kleston shrugged. “I figured the less people knew the safer he was. If any of those captains got wind that the general’s boy was the son of you-know-who he’d be slaughtered. Especially if they knew he was taught enough to continue his family’s legacy.”

“How much has he been taught?” The leader turned to