Westhaven - Rowan Erlking (free e novels .txt) 📗

been taken as well. My main concerns really are the bold ones that snuck into a military post in the town. Besides a pistol, they stole maps as well as some documents. It was a quick snatch-and-grab, but I think they have someone in their group who can read that they stole the items for.”

“A magician,” Gailert murmured.

The captain nodded. “My thinking too. Which means we really have to start scouring those hills for the raiders again, though I really hate doing it in the winter. Those raiders seem to rise up out of the rocks, though, don’t they?”

With a nod, Gailert took his seat, greeting the debutante that was standing with a flirtatious grin near the drinks.

*

“That scouting party was really close,” whispered Weston to one of the scouts he had been on watch with. They traded up with another pair of men then walked into the camp over the thin layer of snow and fallen leaves, taking care not to make too much noise. “They keep getting closer.”

The older man he was working under nodded, but did not say anything. Within the past year, their arsenal of weapons had increased. And because of that, more refugees had gathered into the hills to fight. The boys no longer played war. They were now shoved into the middle of it. Even now, looking down into the camp where an almost smokeless fire burned. The smith, in a heavy coat, poured out more arrowheads from the molds, and the sixteen-year-old swordsmith in a knitted muffler and sheepskin coat was finishing off yet another sword for the collection. The younger boys were huddled near the campfire assembling arrows as the older boys sharpened the quick-swords the smith had cast. There were piles of them along with projectile weapons the swordsmith was experimenting with.

“What is that?” Weston asked, pointing at the round iron ball with a hole in it when he reached the bottom of the hollow. He adjusted his white scarf so he could be heard.

Key glanced at the object then went back to work on his newest sword, sharpening the edges of it. “It’s a bomb.”

“A what?” Weston asked, making a face.

Tiler looked up from the quick-sword he was sharpening. “Something that goes boom.”

“That makes no sense,” Weston said, backing off from Key.

Tiler merely shrugged, agreeing with Weston. There were many things Key worked on that the boys did not understand. Key once had them steal a pistol on that military post raid so he could take it apart. The boys all called him a fool for doing that—but Key wasn’t interesting keeping one gun. He wanted to know how to make more. The others just thought he had ruined a good magic spell. Kleston was perhaps the only person who looked at Key and smiled. The man frequently nodded at his secret projects—something which really annoyed the boys even more.

“It doesn’t just go boom,” Key said, scraping the whetstone along the sword edge. He then checked the sharpness. “It explodes, like fireworks. You’ve seen fireworks.”

“So it goes boom and looks pretty. How useful is that?” Weston rolled his eyes.

“Never mind,” Key grumbled and went back to his work.

The boys generally ignored Key, especially when he was working. But when they were working with him, they found his obsession with Sky Child technology disturbing. A number of times they heard him mutter “Technology defeats magic” under his breath, though it was nothing more than a conundrum to them. They still couldn’t figure out what technology was.

“Hey!” A guard shouted into the camp. “Stop that demon!”

A crack and clatter from the far snow covered bushes in the direction opposite of the town crashed through the bare shrubs surrounding the hollow. All heads turned, though the men in arms, the archers and the swordsmen dressed in snow coats of white, also lifted up their weapons to intercept the abrupt appearance of what they feared was a gole. Yet staggering into the clearing came not one demon, but five. And none of them were goles.

“Blue-eyes!” cried out the watchmen as chasing after them.

Key lifted his unfinished sword. Crossing from the smithy shop in between the boys who were assembling arrows, he heaved it up between them, expecting to see Sky Children with their guns. However, what he saw were not the dark islanders with glowing blue-eyes. These were the pale tall and foreign demons he had seen once before. Their clothes were long, tanned leather, fur-trimmed coats. He lowered his sword point.

“What are you doing?” shouted Tiler, staring at him as he ran over with his quick-sword.

The archers lifted their bows, aiming straight at the demons, ready to fire. “Go back!”

“We just want to see—” One of the white demons stepped forward with his hands apart.

The archers fired.

Three of the demons lifted shiny red-and-gold shields shaped in the traditional Kitai heraldry work. The other two cut the arrows down before striking with Kitai swords.

Key took a step forward.

“Get back, kid!” the smith shouted, picking up one of his quick swords.

One of the white demons turned his head and looked straight at Key. He then lifted his hand, pointing as if genuinely pleased as well as surprised. “Hey, it’s him.”

“Well, I’ll be. He survived,” another of them said, lowering his shield.

“Key! What are they?” shouted the smith, stomping over to him.

Key continued into the space between the archers and the five pale demons. He lifted his sword point up again. “They’re Cordrils.”

*

“Cordrils?” The governor of the city looked surprised, blinking at Gailert as if he had uttered something almost unpardonable. “No. They are not stronger than the Sky Children. We are the divine race. They are in-breeders with humans.”        

Gailert sighed, still holding the glass of pure juice he had been served, gazing over the exquisitely delicious dinner they had nearly finished. “I’m not suggesting that they are stronger than us, Governor. I am merely contemplating if their gift has an advantage or disadvantage from their genetics.”

“What we know for certain from that Cordril we caught, is that they are not believers in the improvement of their race. All they are is bent on our extermination.” The mayor shook his head. “Filthy savage human blood makes them that way.”

“Well, I’d like to know where Cordril’s ship had crash-landed,” the mayor’s wife said. She lifted her glass to her lips, yet not drinking. “Wouldn’t it be fascinating to hear that side of the story?”

Gailert would not have called it fascinating, though he was curious. So far every Cordril they had encountered was entirely bent on killing Sky Children—no negotiations, no questions, nothing but their entire demise.

“I don’t care about Cordril,” declared another member of the dinner party. “He was a nuisance back then, and his descendants are a bigger nuisance now. I suggest we exterminate every one we meet.”

“Those are the orders anyway,” Captain Welsin replied. “Since they are so bent on our extermination.”

Everyone drank to the extermination of Cordrils with hearty cheers.

“They don’t kill brown-eyeds,” one of the lady party guests said after lowering her glass.

Several eyes turned toward General Winstrong.

The general lifted his glass as if to give another toast. “Then that will be their fatal mistake.”

The others in the room raised their glasses to him, smiling.

*

“What is a Cordril?” the smith shouted back.

Key looked warily on the demons who, standing side by side, all looked alike. He shook his head. “I don’t know. But the Sky Children think they are ghosts.”

One of the Cordrils laughed, lowering his sword. “We’re not ghosts.”

“Plucky, isn’t he?” another Cordril said, gesturing to Key with a mirthful look to the others.

“We’ve come to meet with your leader,” the tallest and broadest of the Cordrils added, approaching where the smith was standing. His frosty blue eyes shone like water reflecting the sun.

“We don’t deal with demons,” the smith replied, clenching his quick sword tighter in his fist, jutting his chin out to meet him.

Key took a step back as he peered up at the demon’s blue eyes, remembering the last time one of them had touched him. “They’re just as dangerous as Sky Children.”

That huge Cordril snorted, tossing back his head. “We’re more dangerous.”

“But we aren’t interested in humans,” another Cordril added, placing a hand on his comrade’s shoulder to warn him to behave himself. This one, Key noticed, had a leaner face and slightly longer hair.

Taking another step back from them, Key kept his sword up. “You said that last time.”

“And we left you alone,” that Cordril replied, meeting Key’s gaze.

Key shook his head. “No. You took something from me, just like the Sky Children.

Dramatically hanging his shoulders like an impulsive youth, that Cordril replied, “Look, we can’t help that. Everything living we touch, we absorb. The fact that we didn’t drain you when we were really hungry should be proof enough—”

“Proof?” snapped the smithy, walking to get between them and Key. “You have blue-eyes. We’ll never trust a blue-eye.”

“Look, we realize that you people have had it really rough. But all we want is to kill those so-call Sky Children. Then we’ll go back west,” that one Cordril said.

“Lies,” one of the guards snapped and drew back his bow.

“Come on, haven’t you ever heard the saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?” the Cordril asked, leaning back to show he was making no offense.

Key froze. He had heard the saying before. It was from one of General Winstrong’s readings on military strategy and human philosophy. The general used to read such books aloud in his study. And Key used to listen. Around him now, the other humans prepared to take the demons on.

“What are you proposing?” Key sharply stepped back between them, going around the smith.

“Key! Get out of the way!” The smith reached for him.

But the Cordrils smiled at the sixteen year old boy. Their nearly identical grins had a deviousness to them Key recognized. They just wanted to use him. However, Key also wanted to use them.

Giving him a bow, the head of the group of blue-eyed demons asked Key with some incredulity, “Are you the leader?”

Shaking his head and turning red, Key said, “Of course not. But they’ve never met you, and I have.”

“You really met them?” The smith shouted to him, still trying to hold him back.

Nodding, Key looked over to the longhouse, wondering if the magician was preparing something to protect their leader from these demons. They had to be watching. “Over a year ago, when I escaped General Winstrong I bumped into those three in the woods.”

The three Cordrils he mentioned gave bows, though the largest one of them looked smug as he did.

“One of them stole a memory from me,” Key continued.

“Give it back!” The smith shouted at them, rushing between them and Key again.

“That’s not what I meant,” Key said. He set his hand on the smith’s shoulder. “I still remember it all. What I mean is they passed me by and pointed me towards home. And they said the same thing then as they did now, that they’re not interested in humans. But I don’t really believe it.”

The threesome in the Cordrils broke into laughs.

“You are a pessimist,” the Cordril group leader said with a toss of his head.

Key shook his head, narrowing his eyes in a glare. “I don’t know what that means, but—”

“A pessimist is someone who only sees the bad in things,” one of the other Cordrils replied, a shorter more round-faced one. In fact, the longer Key stared at them the more he could see differences between the five demons.

Clenching his teeth, Key lifted his sword. “No. I am not a pessimist. I’m a realist. And I know that demons cannot be trusted.”

“Well, we’re not demons,” the brawny Cordril snapped, now glaring at him.

Blinking, those words sounded so familiar. For a moment Key felt like he was talking to that Sky Child lieutenant in the rail car. He could even see the lieutenant’s face and his smile as they had teased him.

“Fine. Half-demon,” Key replied. “And half alien. Now get