Reciprocity : Volume 1 of The Fledgegate Cycle Read online

  Rues threw her head back and screamed, an undulating primal scream that changed to a keening as Glem and Alyra approached.

  Directly in front of the forge door, a single large stone post with a hitch ring stood in front of the scorched uprights. A considerable hammer with its haft pointed to the sky stood in the center of the hitching stone.

  Alyra wrapped her arms around her friend as she began to sob, "I'm so sorry, Rue."

  "They can’t... they can't be gone," Rues cried as she gripped tightly to Alyra and buried her face into Alyra's shoulder.

  Glem searched the forge for any sign of hope, despairing about what he would find. He walked deeper into where the master smith’s great anvil still stood, so large that it took a team of oxen and a specially built cart even to move it. The smaller anvil lay tipped over and covered in gore. The forge’s thick stone walls were scorched and cracked from the heat of the coal pile that once fed the fires, and the coal burned where it had been stored in barrels along the wall.

  Glem noticed a glint of something partially buried on the forge floor, and he reached down and picked up a thong with a large medallion on it.

  It was covered in bloody earth from near the toppled anvil until he brushed it off.

  The sign of the Southern Kingdom stared back at him. Glem walked back out to the girls and looked to Alyra; when she glanced up, he shook his head.

  "I am going to kill them all!" Rues said into Alyra's shoulder.

  "I am going to kill them all!' Rues screamed again as she pushed away from Alyra and jumped to her feet. She ran to the giant hitching post and grabbed his great hammer from the top, then thrust it up and shook it at the sky. "I AM GOING TO KILL THEM ALL," Rues screamed a last time before she collapsed to the ground, sobbing endlessly.

  "Girl, those that came for them look to have been introduced to the business end of your father's hammer. Unless I'm misreading the signs," Glem said gruffly as he pulled both girls up easily to their feet. "We need to gather supplies if there are any left, and I think that's what they came for. There doesn't appear to be anyone still left in town.

  “They may be hiding in the woods as we did, or they are dead or taken as slaves. We can't stay here, though. Let's get what supplies we can find, and we'll go to Eshly to find help. Can the two of you see what buildings look to be the most intact while I see if there is anything left of our place? Don't go into any of the buildings. Just look. The buildings could be unstable or have deserters from the army hidden in them. Go quickly and meet back here in ten minutes. We will go through the buildings together for safety," Glem said.

  Glem walked swiftly to the house where he and Alyra had lived the last many years.

  It was a ruin.

  The door into the house hung off its fixings, partially fallen against the rubble from the roof. Only the skeletal fingers from the most significant supporting beams of the roof were still in place. He shouldered in the door through the fallen debris, gazing around.

  The heavy dinner table still sat in a position of prominence, with several of the smaller beams from the roof having fallen across it and charred the surface.

  He heaved a deep sigh and pushed the beams away from the table. Glem grabbed the end of it and swung it sideways to clear the boards underneath. He knelt and carefully worked the tip of his belt knife between the boards of the floor, slowly working the knife back and forth as he pulled up three thick boards to reveal a hollow space underneath.

  He gave another big sigh and reached into the exposed cavity to pull out three bundles, each carefully wrapped in heavy oiled canvas. The first one was a smaller bag that jingled with coins. He opened it to peer inside and remove a great signet ring, and after a long look, slipped it into his pocket. The next bundle was heavy, about three feet long and six inches thick.

  Glem set it aside as he moved to the last oil-wrapped package and sat it with the other two.

  He untied the thongs that secured the bundle with trepidation and pulled back the heavy oilcloth to expose a pommel. Even the dim light that filtered into the house showed an emblem matched to the one on the ring he had slipped into his pocket.

  He quickly wrapped it back up and gathered all three bundles.

  Glem grabbed the thongs that tied them and slung the bundles over his shoulder to leave.

  He cast a last look behind him and noticed a small stuffed doll tucked under the remains of a bed. Somehow, Alyra's childhood doll had survived the destruction and Glem shook his head in wonder, then grabbed the doll and stuffed it into a pocket of his cloak.

  When he returned to the standing stones in front of Rues's family forge, the girls were there, already dragging a small cart.

  "I told you not to go into the buildings. They might not be safe," Glem said.

  "Leave off, Grandpa. We were careful. There’s no one left here," snipped Alyra.

  Glem investigated the cart. The girls had found some potatoes, a handful of last year's apples, a hunk of hard cheese, and a small cooking pot. Not great but considering the state of the village… "Good provisions. You didn't happen to find any beer they might have missed, did you?" Glem asked somewhat hopefully as he tossed his bundles into the cart.

  Nothing came back, so it seemed to be a no.

  "What did you find, Grandpa?" Alyra asked.

  "Nothing, girl, just some old tools I thought I was through with," Glem replied as he leaned heavily on the cart and coughed violently for a moment.

  Both girls, suddenly concerned, rushed to him.

  "Are you Ok, Glem?" asked Rues.

  "Fine, girl, I'm just not as young as I was," Glem wheezed to her. "Let's get moving. We are going to want to get a ways down before it gets dark." He grasped the cart’s handles and stood up, then took the weight lightly and began to walk out of town. Rues, still cradling her father's great hammer, looked at Alyra and back at the graves of her family. Tears streaming down her face, she ran to follow Glem, with Alyra close behind her.

  Chapter 4

  Glem drug the cart as the girls walked beside him, both trying to process the horror they felt at the destruction of their lives. They traveled through the tall grass of the field that had kept them safe the night before and into the forest as the town slowly receded behind them.

  The smell of their past lives faded under the hard rain as it fell on the walk to the woods, ending as they entered. Alyra noticed the deep shade under the thick canopy that blotted out any warmth the newly emerging sun might have provided.

  Her worry about Glem increased with every cough, each louder and more jarring than the last. He hunched over and hacked and spat until his chest heaved and he almost vomited.

  Glem had begun to tax what little strength he had left. As they climbed out of the protected hollow that the village had rested in, it was clear he got weaker and weaker.

  The high sun had burned away the cloud cover entirely and now beat harshly down on them as they emerged from the forest. Glem’s eyes, unable to adjust quickly enough to the bright sun, caused Glem to stumble over a small root on the trail.

  His strength was utterly exhausted now, and he fell to his knees.

  "Let's stop here. We are far enough away. Grandpa can get some rest tonight, and we can keep going in the morning," Alyra said.

  Rues glanced at her and back to the ground without responding.

  "No," Glem said. He staggered back to his feet as if he had to be strong, had to make a show of how everything was possible.

  "We need to keep moving and get farther away from the town." Before they could get moving again, however, another brutal coughing fit took him to his knees and upset the cart.

  This cough was as ruthless and unforgiving an adversary as any they might encounter.

  Rues reacted to something for the first time since they left the village.

  She handed her hammer to Alyra and grabbed the cart’s handles, and with strength driven by anger, pulled it upright. Rues reached out with one hand to Alyra and took back her hammer,
only to place it in easy reach near the front of the cart.

  "Can you get Glem up?" she asked Alyra.

  At Alyra’s nod, Rues grabbed both handles of the cart and began to drag it to the side of the trail, back into the edge of the forest as if she were holding onto the splayed legs of a dead man and trying to conceal her crime. Alyra grabbed Glem by the arm and pulled him to his feet. She noticed as she draped his arm across her shoulders that his shirt still smelled of stale beer. Alyra half supported him as they followed Rues off to the side of the trail.

  Glem now saw fit to complain about the support even as Alyra kept him from falling again. Their short walk from the path to the cart was all he could manage, his reserves spent.

  "We camp here tonight," Rues said, her voice filled with grief, but her tone left no room for argument. Rues propped the small cart’s handles on a fallen tree next to Glem as Alyra lowered him to the ground and leaned him up against the log. Alyra wrapped his cloak around him with the hope that the log and the cart together would provide some small shelter from the wind.

  Glem, almost before he was settled in his cloak, fell rapidly asleep and had begun to snore. His harsh coughing, however, wasn’t done yet.

  It continued well into his sleep and worried Alyra.

  "We have to keep him warm. Do you think it is even safe to start a fire?" Alyra asked Rues.

  "Keep it small. I can't lose anymore," Rues replied softly. “And besides, we don’t need him breathing in the smoke either.”

  "What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?" Alyra sobbed quietly as the shadows deepened.

  Glem woke for a moment and heard Alyra as she cried. He shifted, drawing her attention to him. Half asleep, he dug into his cloak and came out with her doll.

  "Be, ok, girl. Just need to rest a bit." He coughed and grimaced as he fell back asleep.

  "Stay with him. I am going to gather kindling for a fire," Rues said as she walked deeper into the wood.

  "You can't leave us here!" cried Alyra.

  "Cut up some of the cheese. We will start a fire and eat when I get back," Rues said as she ignored her friend’s complaint.

  ✽✽✽

  Coughing and wheezing woke Alyra with a start, to the sound of Glem struggling to breathe in the wet morning air. The fire had burned down to cinders during the night, ignored and untended like a crying baby whose mother didn’t come. It no longer provided enough heat to ease Glem’s ailing lungs, and his chest heaved painfully and raucously.

  Alyra checked the meager handful of twigs that remained to be burned and noticed that the dawn, with its pinks and violets, had begun over the woods to the east end of the field.

  She turned over to wake Rues, and jumping to her feet when she suddenly realized that Rues was not in the camp. She began to search for her friend, rushing around the tiny camp several times before she saw her in the distance as she skirted the edge of the field.

  Three large waterskins were slung over her shoulder, looking heavy and cumbersome. Rues must have walked to the stream at the far side of the meadow, she realized.

  The willows there stood all in a row, a giveaway of its location.

  "How is he doing?" Rues asked Alyra as she got closer. "Do you think we can move him today?"

  "I don't know. Grandpa is still coughing a lot, and I think he is running a fever now too." Alyra replied.

  "Let's try and load him into the cart. I saw a better place for a camp on the other side of the clearing near the stream," Rues said. "Once we get there, we can get a fire going. I stripped some bark from the new growth on the willows. We can use it to make tea to try and bring down his fever. Plus, it will warm his chest and steam his throat."

  Glem mumbled away incoherently the whole time as the three of them worked to get him off the ground and into the cart.

  Rues and Alyra grabbed the handles on the wagon and struggled to turn it to the edge of the forest. They worked their way painfully around the clearing, sticking to the outside edge. What had been just a short walk for Rues now took hours as they drug Glem in the cart.

  The site Rues had found on the other edge of the clearing was set back from the stream only a short distance. A group of giant stones, which stuck up from the floor on the edge of the forest, provided a break in the middle that would block the wind on three sides.

  The woods behind them and the stream in front made it clear that this site got used regularly. The soot up the narrow area of the boulders where they met told them the story of previous campers, while a circle of rocks in the corner under the soot was clearly there to contain a fire.

  Next to it, a small cache of wood was tucked under the lip of an overhanging stone, and the ground between the rocks had been meticulously cleared of small rocks sometime in the past to make the space more comfortable.

  Chapter 5

  Grumpy from the water that had relentlessly dripped on his face all night but too lazy to move, Mort awoke to the smell of campfire smoke not far away.

  Emerging into the forest from his cave, he leaned against the stone face just outside the opening to drop his britches and relieve himself. His filth would be left where it fell.

  Mort was not a big man, although his stench would convince you otherwise.

  Covered in boils from his lack of hygiene, and with only a handful of rotten teeth in his head, his smell terrorized the local wildlife.

  Mort picked up his battered sword that he had taken off a man he killed many years ago. The sword’s edge had stayed unsharpened since then, its blade badly rusted, and the leather left to rot on its hilt. He turned down the river to check the traps and campsites he had painstakingly built along the stream and the forest’s myriad paths. These were inviting camps often used by the traders traveling between the small villages scattered around Eshly.

  The campsites appeared tidy and well used but each of these improved sites offered a false sense of safety and security to lure the weary into stopping for the night and becoming Mort’s prey; food, money, women, and children, all of Mort's favorite things.

  Unwary travelers never suspected that a monster could lurk nearby but Mort’s hunger had never been sated with food alone.

  His hunger, his appetite, was for violence and destruction as much as for food.

  The first trap he checked and found empty. There was no evidence of its use for a long time. Mort was not discouraged; the smell of a smoldering fire hung in the air.

  One of his traps had been sprung.

  As he neared the second trap, he could see the light from a small fire through the trees. He crept closer and settled to the ground to watch and study his prey; he didn’t want to spook the animals and risk them getting away. Mort listened carefully, able to hear the nervous chatter from two young girls and the cough of someone who was dying. He heard weakness. Prey.

  A near toothless grin cracked across his face. He would be entertained and fed tonight.

  His stealth honed from years of thievery and murder, he crept closer to the unsuspecting campers. The flickering firelight provided him with a look at his quarry for the first time as he approached the trap. A sick old man and two girls, just as he’d thought. Excitement, with a touch of disappointment, crossed his face. The girls were older than he would have preferred. And the travelers appeared to have little of value with them.

  Mort shrugged the disappointment off.

  They would still be entertaining.

  ✽✽✽

  The well-used fire pit reflected the warmth from the rocks and slowly swept the chill from the girls. The sun set behind the rocks and cast the whole campsite into heavy shade, which caused a struggle between the crisp bite in the air and the fire's warmth. Glem lay close to the fire as he tried to fight the chill, but he struggled against the fever that was slowly burning him up inside. Rues brewed a fresh pot of willow bark tea to help bring down his temperature.

  "Alyra, come help me. We have to get him to drink as much of the tea as we can," Rues said, worried that
it might be too late and terrified that he might be dying.

  Alyra propped Glem up and gently tilted his head back with her hands; Rues began to slowly pour the now cool tea into Glem’s mouth. She closed his lips and stroked his throat to get him to swallow every little bit, as if encouraging a failing kitten. Each mouthful was a slow, painful process.

  The tea ran down his chin each time he coughed and sprayed over all three of them.

  "What's wrong with the old man?" a raspy voice asked from the other side of the fire.

  The shock caused the girls to jump and drop Glem.

  Disheveled and filthy, the woodland stranger stood and leered at them hungrily from the other side of the fire. His lank, greasy hair fell, obscuring his eyes as he stared at them.

  The long blade that hung loosely in his fetid hand was rusted and nicked. The noxious man raised the blade's tip to point at the girls, who huddled back from him against the rocks in fear.

  He walked to the cart and dug around until he came up with a hunk of the hard cheese. Holding it to his nose, he smelled it. "Ahhh. This will be the first I have eaten in days," he said.

  “After, perhaps I'll have a different tasty morsel." He took a bite and chewed slowly.

  He drooled around the cheese that he struggled to eat. Missing so many teeth evidently made the hard cheese a challenge for him, so he had to suck it more than chew, and now and then a giant glob sprang from his mouth to pepper the earth.

  He watched them as he brushed the hair from his eyes with the back of his hand.

  Lust was hot in his eyes. "Who's it going to be?" he asked. “Who’s volunteering?”