Child of Fate (16 page)

Alto’s eyes were drawn to Trina. She glanced
at him and looked away again, and then raised her face back up to
meet him. Alto gasped. Trina was a princess! Didn’t dragons always
favor stealing princesses and maidens in the stories?

“Trina,” he blurted out. “Maybe she was taken
as a gift for the dragon? She’s a princess!”

“I’m not a princess!” she growled.

Tristam and William looked at her, not
because of her outburst, but because of the idea Alto had stumbled
across.

Kar chuckled. “She’d taste the same as any
one of us, I fear. Perhaps a bit sweeter.” He paused as she turned
her baleful glare upon him. He offered a grin and shrug before
adding, “Or perhaps not.”

“Gerald!” Alto whispered. He stared at Kar as
his mind matched the events to justify his fears. “The scratches on
the ground and the lack of signs.”

Kar nodded. “Perhaps. We don’t know
enough.”

“This is what you were afraid of, isn’t
it?”

Kar nodded.

“You suspected a dragon?” Tristam asked.

“It’s a possibility, nothing more. A
probability now, really, but at the time it was speculation and
little more. I had nothing to support it.”

“And now you’ve got a goblin’s sketch on the
wall,” Tristam said. “I’m not convinced. Dragons don’t hide so well
and we’ve heard of no sign of one in this area for years.”

Kar smiled. “I hope you’re right.”

The leader of the Blades grunted. “Let’s keep
moving. My torch is starting to sputter. At least we’re headed up
now. The goblins are sure to have another exit from these caves and
I mean to feel fresh air on my face again.”

The cave branched out several times; each of
the side passages showed signs of being worked with crude tools.
Crude and short—proof that the goblins had done the work to widen
cracks and create small rooms. Rather than wasting time on the
cubbies, they pushed ahead until the passage opened on the right
into a large room even by human standards. It was lit by a pile of
glowing coals and burning timbers that rested in a depression in
the floor of the cave. The other item of interest about the room
was that it was already occupied by four goblins and a single man
that used a long walking stick.

William’s crossbow fired with a solid crack
of the arms extending fully. The bolt hit the man with the staff
high on his chest, spinning him around and knocking him to the
floor. Tristam ran forward, rushing toward the handful of goblins
that were gathered near the fire.

Alto hurried after Tristam, angling to his
left. He stumbled, a tingling sensation passing through him. He
felt a strange lethargy gripping his legs and fought against it.
Unable to make his legs move as fast as his upper body, he tipped
forward, off balance, and slammed into the ground. His shield
broke, the straps on his arm tearing free and sending the
reinforced wooden disc skidding into the fire pit.

“Kill the shaman!” Tristam howled.

Alto looked up and saw that Tristam was on
his knees and struggling to rise up. He put his arms down,
struggling to move his numb legs so that they would support him. He
was halfway up when he saw Trina rush past him and intercept a tall
goblin with a curved sword. Alto stared, stunned momentarily by
what he saw. The sword in the goblin’s hands looked to be worth
more than his father’s farm.

Trina reversed course and leapt back from the
first swing of the goblin’s scimitar. She kept her knees crouched
and ready, and then attacked with her own blade. The goblin blocked
her strikes, deflecting her blade just enough to send it wide. It
countered, slicing back at her but the curvature of the sword made
the strike fall short of his intended mark.

Namitus threw his sword to slow the two
goblins that were rushing to finish Tristam off. He reached the
kneeling warrior in time and snatched his blade out of his hand.
Tristam cried out at finding himself disarmed. His curse died on
his lips when he saw Namitus knock a spear aside with the sword and
then thrust his dagger into the goblin’s throat. He jerked it out
and circled around the dying goblin, keeping the other one from
being able to attack him.

When the goblin fell, Namitus flipped his
dagger so that he held it by the tip instead of the hilt. He
snapped his arm forward, throwing the dagger so that it bounced off
the axe-wielding goblin’s head. The creature cried out in pain and
stumbled to the side, right into Namitus’s sword.

“Can you stand?” Karthor asked Alto,
distracting the boy warrior from the fight that was raging before
him.

“If I could stand, I would be!” Alto
hissed.

Trina lashed out with her sword, drawing the
goblin to try to knock her blade aside. Each attack was a little
farther out, forcing him to reach and overextend. She waited until
his blade was far out to her right and kicked her left leg into his
side, sending him scrambling after his sword.

The small cavern was lit up by a burst of
brilliance. A jagged burst of white light left spots in Alto’s
vision. A clap of air brushed over him, sucking a flare of flames
away across his field of vision and ruining his vision again. When
he blinked the colors and spots away, he saw a goblin laying on the
ground and still twitching. Smoke rose from the body.

Alto turned to give Kar an open-mouthed
stare. The wizard was moving forward and working another spell,
ignoring the stunned young man. Alto scrambled to his feet, eager
to help Trina. He stopped when realized he had control of his feet
back. The goblin Kar had killed must have been the shaman that had
taken him and Tristam out of the fight.

The man William had wounded was rising back
up. He dodged the next bolt William sent his way and slammed his
iron-shod staff down against the rocks. A burst of orange light
leapt out from Kar and slammed into an invisible wall around the
opposing wizard. The energy spilled around the shield like water
over a rock but dissipated before it could strike the man.

Trina cried out, injured by the goblin’s
scimitar. Hearing her yelp pulled Alto out of his stupor. He ran
forward, brandishing his sword, and drove it down in a crude but
powerful overhand strike. The goblin raised his curved sword to
block it but Alto knew he was strong enough to drive the goblin’s
defenses out of the way. Rather than succeeding, Alto’s blade
shattered at the point of impact, the tip spinning and tearing a
hole in the goblin’s back before it fell free to the ground.

Alto stood and stared at the useless weapon
in his hands. The goblin hissed, baring its teeth. Alto realized
the creature was laughing at him. His hand fell to his waist,
finding and pulling his dagger free. The goblin’s laugh turned to a
contemptuous sneer.

Alto leapt to the side, away from the first
swipe of the dangerous weapon in the humanoid’s hands. As soon as
he moved laterally, Trina lunged forward from behind him and thrust
her sword into the goblin’s chest. Her sword pulled free from the
goblin as she fell, her robes preventing her from stretching her
legs enough to keep her balance.

The goblin staggered back. It fell to its
knees and dropped the scimitar. A moment later it fell onto its
side, dead.

Alto looked past the goblin warrior to the
dueling wizards. Kar’s spell had spread to surround the other man
in a nimbus of orange and yellow light. Only the magical defenses
kept him safe. Those failed a moment later, crumbling in as Kar’s
focus proved superior. The offensive spell swept in on the defeated
wizard and left him screaming in agony as it consumed him in a
matter of seconds.

Tristam was also on his feet by then. He
turned back to the others, appraising the situation. “You okay?” he
asked Alto.

Alto nodded. “Same as you—when the shaman
died, I could move again.”

Tristam grunted and turned to Trina.
“You?”

“Cut my leg,” she said. She wiped her blade
off and sheathed it, and then reached down to probe the hole in her
robes. She frowned, and then looked up at Alto. “Turn around.”

Alto frowned. “What? Why?”

She sighed. “Fine, stay there then!” Trina
turned around, favoring her right leg, and pulled up her robe. She
inspected the wound and dropped her robe before turning around
again. The fabric in front of her leg clung to her skin wetly. “Cut
deeper than I thought,” she admitted.

Karthor moved up to her. “I’ll bandage it,”
he offered. She frowned as she looked at him and then her eyes went
to Alto.

“I’ll turn around,” Alto offered,
understanding the privacy she’d wanted the first time now. It
seemed a foolish time for modesty until he realized he wasn’t sure
what he’d do if he had seen her legs.

Trina still looked doubtful. She pressed her
hand against her thigh, the placement showing the cut was high on
her leg.

“By the saints,” Kar scoffed. “He’s a
priest—a naked woman is the last thing he’s likely to be interested
in! I hope he does get an eyeful and proves me wrong—this is a fine
test.”

Karthor sighed. “You hold your robe where you
feel safe,” he offered.

Patrina nodded. “Go ahead.”

Alto and the others looked away while Karthor
examined her wound and bandaged it. “A clean cut,” he offered when
he’d finished. “Not what I’d expect of a goblin.”

Patrina lowered her robe and put some weight
on her leg. She winced and then nodded. “His sword wasn’t a goblin
blade. I’ve never seen its like.”

“It came from the southern lands,” Namitus
offered. “It’s a scimitar. I’ve seen them before; they’re a weapon
of skill and elegance.”

Tristam walked over and picked up the fallen
scimitar. He swung it a few times and scowled. “Alto, your blade’s
broken, do you want it?”

Alto took the sword from Tristam and did as
the elder warrior had, swinging it to feel its weight and balance.
It seemed like a fine weapon, but it was one he had no idea how to
use. He turned to Namitus and thrust it hilt-first toward the
man.

Namitus handed Tristam back his sword before
taking the scimitar. He studied it, a smile spreading across his
face. He swung it and nodded. “I’ll take it!”

“It’s yours,” Tristam said. He grinned. “A
fine blade like that counts as your share of the bounty,
though.”

Namitus shrugged. “A fitting deal.”

“Here,” Tristam said, handing Alto the sword
Namitus had thrown earlier. “It’s not a broadsword so don’t swing
it like one; you’ll break it straight away.”

Alto tried to smile through the redness on
his cheeks. He sheathed it and felt how loose it was in his
scabbard. He turned around and saw Trina testing her leg. He moved
closer to her and asked, “Are you okay?”

She jumped, surprised he was so close to her.
She winced from the pain in her leg and then smoothed her
expression. She looked at him and nodded. A redness spread across
her cheeks beyond what even the glow from the fire pit imparted.
“What’s next?”

“Alto’s to be gathering trophies,” Tristam
reminded the young man. “Then we’ll see where this passage takes
us. My money’s on us reaching the surface before nightfall.”

“Too late,” Kar muttered.

“What?”

“We’ve been hours in these caves; it’s well
past dusk.”

William yawned, drawing a glare from
Tristam.

“All right, we’ll rest here then. William,
Alto, Namitus, get those bodies out of here. Kar, what are you
doing?”

Kar looked up from where he was using a knife
to pick apart the charred robes of the enemy wizard. “It’s a wizard
thing,” he muttered. He pulled out a few pouches that had escaped
the immolation and inspected the contents. A moment later, they
disappeared into his own pockets, and then he worked a ring off the
dead wizard’s blackened finger.

“Then do your wizard thing and help get rid
of him,” Tristam said. “I don’t want to sleep next to a corpse.
Alto, William, you’ll take first watch. Namitus, you’re with me on
the second. Trina, you and Karthor take the third.”

“What about Kar?” Namitus asked.

Kar grinned. “I’m a wizard; we need time and
rest to focus our energies.” He looked around, his smile changing
to a scowl. “Not that there’ll be much rest on a cold stone
floor.”

“Hey! It’s not wet anymore!” Alto
noticed.

Kar chuckled at his excitement. “Proof the
surface is near.”

“Why stay here then?”

“Because we know what’s here and we can
defend this room—there are only two entrances. Out there we might
find a goblin village or worse,” Tristam explained.

Worse? Alto frowned. After the carving on the
wall, worse might mean a dragon. The thought of a night spent
curled up against a stone wall seemed like a fine idea to him.

After a fitful night of restless sleep, they
made ready to set out in the morning. Karthor invoked Saint
Leander’s blessing after his morning prayers on their injuries.

“This is miraculous,” Alto whispered when he
felt the pain lessen and then go away from the bruises and cuts
he’d received.

“Minor wounds such as these are simple to
heal. More serious injuries like what Drefan and Gerald had taken
far more of Leander’s attention. I have a long ways to go before
I’ll be worthy of requesting such intervention. Or at least having
my requests answered,” Karthor explained.

Alto frowned. “Like my father.”

Karthor nodded. “Yes, like your father.”
Finished with both the conversation and restoring Alto’s health,
Karthor went on to give Tristam the aid he could to ease the ache
in the warrior’s hip.

Alto moved near Patrina. “I never knew how
amazing a priest could be,” he said for her benefit. “Is your leg
better?”

Trina glanced at him. Her eyes narrowed for a
moment and then she nodded. “Yes, I’m fine now.”