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

He bent over and said to Kemdin, “There is an old saying: Never bite the hand that feeds you. This is your first lesson.”

The demon rose and walked to the door, exiting into the hallway. Kemdin dropped to the floor the moment he was gone, breaking into tears once more.

*

“So, how is your new pet?” one of the merchants down on the ground floor asked Gailert Winstrong when he stepped off the final step of the inn stairs and entered the dining hall.

Sighing with as much exhaustion as was considered dignified to have, Gailert replied while taking a seat, “He is still quite wild, but that is to be expected after only a day. But one look at the mind behind his eyes shows he can learn, and that is what matters.”

Another merchant chuckled, adjusting the chain to his watch while checking the time. It was close to dinner. They were all waiting to be served. “Do you really think you can manage a human boy without the gift?”

Gailert tilted his head and mildly regarded him.

 “I can manage anything,” Gailert replied, and took his seat at the table.

The other Sky Children laughed, nodding. They knew his reputation.

 The servants of the inn carried in the trays of steak and potato wedges with sides of thinly sliced beans and bacon in a spiced sauce alongside baked fruit dripping in candied syrup. They hauled over goblets of fresh juice and clean water, setting the cups, trays and plates on the tables next to each man and woman. The tradesmen and soldiers ate, chatting over trade and the progress of the country, though most of the merchants complained about the roads.

“…That’s what I say! Improve the roads and shipping will be ten times more efficient,” one of the merchants said, nodding to Gailert after he had recounted his feelings on the limitations of the railroad.

“But the rail lines are orderly and well regulated,” another of the merchants said, dabbing the corner of his mouth with his napkin. He was dressed quite finely, his velvet coat open to catch the cool breeze from the fan above that spun over the heads of the inn patrons. The lady at his side fanned herself with a lacy screen that had fluffy white feathers rimming the top edge. Her hair was pulled back and up off her neck and twisted into bun, held up with a brass pin that dangled crystals of blue and white.

“Only if your business is along the rails. What about the outlying areas?” That merchant gave his input. “There is an entire plain of farmland between Riken Lake and Tobi Town with rivers that need bridges and roads that need to be paved. The governor of Calcumum has the rail going through his land with stops along the line. He can be satisfied with no good roads.”

“The governor of Calcumum would rather keep the business in his fields and cut off the profits of us tradesmen above Kiratt Lake, and you know it,” a merchant wearing Indigo brocade silk cut in, dipping his flat bread into the thick sauce at his right.

The lady with him nodded, stroking along his shoulder with her svelte bare arm. She turned her slender neck and whispered as the lace to her gown fluttered in the warm breeze. “Undoubtedly.”

Gailert smiled in silence as these men debated the very issues he had confronted Governor Shillig about. He had known in the back of his mind that the governor of Calcumum was trying to gain more power and control than the Sky Lord had given him. It was possible even that Shillig was vying for the position of Sky Lord. Of course that was an impossible outcome. Everyone knew that the Sky Lord had an heir already, a handsome blue-eyed youth that was entering society within that year. Unless Governor Shillig was planning a coup, there was no way he would succeed in changing that. Gailert himself would make sure that such an outcome would never happen. 

“But what of the raiders I hear of that have attacked the rail lines? They were gone last year. How come they are back?” A tall lean linen merchant dressed in a prim suit of straw yellow with brass buttons turned to look at Gailert for the answer.

Taking it in stride, Gailert smiled and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his full stomach. “They are back only because those particular humans are like vermin. However, this evening the sergeant out in the Lake Bekir Peninsula will be collecting some of them. Getting their den will be easy from there.”

All the merchants exhaled in their chairs, relaxing their arms and backs. The ladies smiled, fanning and fluttering their eyes at their escorts. 

“How did you manage that?” one of them asked him, fluttering her eyes at Gailert as if to make her companion jealous.

With a grin that showed how pleased he really was with himself, Gailert said, “We uncovered a weapon smelting hovel they have been using. I had thought I had cleared it out last year, but like a cockroach nest it came back. Apparently I had not killed the main roach—until today.”

The merchants drew in a breath. The ladies straightened up, glancing towards the ceiling as if to see through.

One man leaned in, his lace cuff almost going into his cold vegetable salad. “Is that boy—?”

“Ah! You noticed.” Gailert grinned wider. “Yes, he is from the peninsula. I noticed him last time I was there too. This time I decided to pick him up. A strong child. He should be useful.”

“Wrangling for tadpoles, huh?” the merchant in silk brocade said, nodding. “Slaves should be trained young.”

“But what of the raiders?” the linen merchant asked the general.

Gailert nodded. “We believe some are coming tonight to collect their munitions. Arrowheads and swords. But what they are going to find is death.”

The merchants glanced to one another and nodded approvingly.

“Good.”

*

The night shadows covered everywhere as the moon was down. Only stars lit the lake, reflecting specks on the quiet water. The lake rippled with barely a sound as the men pulled their boats to shore, the rocks shifting slightly under their weight. Over a way in the crevices of the smith shop filled with thick silence waited with watchful eyes that almost seemed to glow blue, listening for their footfalls.

Treading with care not to disturb the blue-eye sergeant that usually slept with one eye open, these humans walked over the boards from the shore boats to the swinging door of the shop. Grasping the door handle, one man quietly tugged.

No one saw who jumped first. Was it the blue-eyed demons or the humans? But the crack of pistol fire split the air, waking the village. Cries of human voices called for retreat as their feet thundered back to the lake. Water splashed as pistol fire cracked again. But they could not stop for the dead. They pushed the boats back into the rippling dark, crying out to go with the water lapping over the bodies of those that floated face down as the booted feet of soldiers chased after the rest to take hold of one face or one arm of one living man to betray the rest of them.

Even as the others fled in their boats oaring their way across the lake, others swimming for the opposite shore, the demons seized their victim, ignoring the rest. They dragged him screaming to wooden homes.

The villagers scrambled out of their houses staring in horror as the demons hauled their catch to the center of the village.

“No!” The wail of women floated with the sobs of men and children.

And as the captive’s cries filled the rest of the air the Sky Children encircled him, grabbing their bit of skin as if they would pull him entirely apart. In front of the weeping crowd they saw the man try to slit his own throat. But his knife the blue-eyes took, and they tossed it away, pulling, drawing, sucking out everything within him. Before the people, their captive’s thick muscular shape shrank as a dry stalk, shriveling wrinkling, and pulling to his bones as he gasped, staring straight up at the stars above. His cry choked in his throat then he ceased to breathe. The demons dropped him. A husk. Dusty, flaking, dry, brittle husk.

All the blue-eyed demons stood erect, turned and faced the village. They spoke as if with one voice. “You cannot cross the Sky Lord. You are all seditious. Collaborators with the raiders.”

The sergeant walked down the planks and reached out, taking one of his soldier’s hands, after a few seconds he nodded. Then his eyes narrowed with a glare at the villagers.

“Set the village on fire,” the sergeant said, marching back towards his office. “Every man, woman and child aided them. We will clear out tonight.”

“Yes, sir!” his blue-eyed soldiers cried out. With a turn and click of their heels they marched straight into the smith shop and sought out the coals, which were still warm, each grabbing wood, straw, cloth, anything to make torches.

When one emerged, the smith’s mother screamed as she ran towards her neighbor the basket weaver. “Run!”

The villagers scattered. Children ran, screaming with their mothers who did not even take them into their homes, but ran straight to the lake. Fathers grabbed their hoes, their staffs, their pruning hooks, and their fishing spears—anything heavy to use to try and beat the demons off their families as they fled.

Dumping over oil lamps, the soldiers set them on fire. They also tossed in their torches among the clothes and blankets, watching them catch fire then going back for more.

The wood did not burn instantly. The damp resin in that timber had been prepared daily against fire. But as the demons dumped out the jars of liquor and grabbed the villagers’ linens, setting them ablaze, the wood began to burn and the village filled with thick black smoke that choked and blinded all that fled. As the fire blazed up higher, the Sky Children shot into the crowd, killing any man, woman and child they could see.

“Soin!” Loid cupped his hands shouting to be heard over the commotion. He was sure he had seen his friend somewhere in the street. The air constantly cracked with the noise of gunpowder. Screams answered it as if it were a language of some kind of morbid bird. “Soin!”

“I can’t see him!” Telerd hissed, crouching down under the walkway of his home and pulling Loid with him. “We have to get to the lake.”

“But I saw him! He could get killed!” Loid tried to stand to call for Soin again but he then just saw the boy, his small dark figure silhouetted by smoke and fire. Their friend walked out as if he had just woken from a sleep. Loid cupped his hands over his mouth and nose, shaking his head as he ducked and rushed across the street. “Soin!”

His friend’s head turned. He lifted his chin as if to smell the air, then he flicked up his hand. The smoke around him swirled all at once then blew a fog over the entire street. They could no longer see him.

“Oh no!” Loid tried to get up.

“No! Let’s run to the lake now! Those blue-eyes can’t see us!” Telerd grabbed Loid’s arm and pulled him under the stilts of the home. In the pitch black, they crawled to the other side where the boats were.

Soin already stood on the shore, waving over to them. “C-c-come on!”

Most of the boats were gone or sunk. The Sky Children were still firing on the fleeing villagers, but the smoke from behind them seemed to suddenly swallow them up. Loid dashed out to his friend, Telerd right on his heels. All three boys ran into the water then dived under, swimming after the boats that had survived.

The gunfire stopped only when the last of the villagers on the shore were dead. The few surviving boats floated away across Bekir Lake. And as