Book of Kinsey: Dark Fate (The Dark Fate Chronicles 2) (4 page)

Sargon enjoyed his meal between the drags on his pipe. Usually he would wait to smoke until after dinner, but there were things he needed to say, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t miss his evening pipe.

Once the others finished their meals and began pulling out their pipes, Sargon put his away and cleared his throat. “I got somethin’ ta say ta all of ya.” He rested his arms on his knees and looked around at the faces of his friends. Each face glowed with a yellowish-orange tint from the fire’s light, and each of their eyes met his expectantly.

“I’m sure ya been talkin’ amongst yerselves about what we been doin’ out here”—he gestured to Kinsey’s sleeping form—“and ya got speculations about the lad over there.”

Many heads around the fire nodded. Gideon remained still and stared at the flames, slowly scratching his beard in thought. Jocelyn’s eyes tried to look at everyone at once, evaluating.

“Let me say that I been honored ta have all of ya join me without question. Yer the most trustworthy group I know. It’s time fer ya to understand why we made this trek and what it be meanin’ ta us as a people. I’ve asked a lot from ya, and I’m about ta ask fer more.”

Gideon’s gaze lifted from the fire to Sargon.

The old priest straightened and pointed at Kinsey. “That boy be the king’s grandson, as sure as ma beard be gray and long. He’s gonna need our help, as will the king.”

Horus’s craggy face twisted in a wry way, and he chuckled before saying, “So, it’s true then. King Thorn’s got hisself an heir?”

Sargon reflected on the vision that had stood above Kinsey in the jail cell. “I be havin’ no doubts about the lad’s origin.” The surety of his statement drew the eyes of everyone around the fire.

Gideon blinked and tilted his golden-haired head. “Ya saw somethin’ else down in that dungeon, didn’t ya.” The general leaned forward into the light of the campfire, and his scars seemed to deepen in the orange light. “I hadn’t thought about it before, but ya knew how ta stop the boy from changin’.” The stocky dwarf got to his feet. “Damnation, we all did!”

All eyes shifted to Gideon.

The young general lifted his hands into the air and laughed. “I never heard that prayer before in ma life, but I sung the words as if I knew ‘em from birth!” All the heads around the campfire nodded their agreement. Sargon had not had to ask or guide them in song; they just joined him, tugged by an instinct beyond their ability to understand.

Jocelyn’s was the only face that did not turn to its neighbor or nod along in retrospective wonder. She sat calmly, looking at Sargon with hope in her eyes.

He smiled at her as if she were his own grandchild. In truth, she was the closest thing he had to one. The decision to tell the others about what he had seen down in that dungeon was one he had not made until now. He patted the lovely girl lightly on the hand and stood.

The others fell into silence as he did so.

“I seen his true nature standin’ over ’im with ma own eyes.” Sargon said. His skin tingled at the sound of his own words. “I seen the natures of all of ya, as well.” He swept his pipe stem at the faces in emphasis. “The song be a gift from Dagda himself. He saved us all and showed me what must be done.”

He paused to make sure all eyes were on him, even Neal’s, before he continued. “Some o’ ya know what could happen when we return ta Mozil. And fer those that don’t, I’m tellin’ ya right now. We could start a war. A civil war. Dwarf against dwarf like what happened at Stone Mountain.”

The silence held as his companions looked on with grim expressions. Even Neal seemed to grasp the full implications and sat with his steaming bowl of freshly poured stew untouched.

“I’ve trusted all of ya with ma life. What I need ta know now is, can I trust ya with this secret?” Sargon finished.

Gideon looked on, grim thunder playing below his scarred features. The others sat stunned by the revelation and implication. Jocelyn alone looked thoughtful. She had slipped a smooth, black oval of granite from her pocket and was running a thumb across its polished surface as her eyes focused somewhere in the distance. Sargon recognized the bit of stone as a totem that many of his people used as a focus when they prayed to Dagda, seeking his guidance on matters both large and small. Dagda was a god of permanence, strength, and bedrock. Granite made an excellent choice for an icon to represent him.

Seeming to come to a decision suddenly, she stood, slipped the stone back into her pocket, and then knelt before Sargon, taking one of his hands in both of her own. She looked up into his eyes with the firelight painting deep amber into her golden locks and said, “Ya be havin’ ma oath. I’ll not be sayin’ a word about the king’s heir until ya deem it the right time.”

One by one, each of Sargon’s companions joined her, kneeling before him and giving their oaths. As hope swelled anew in his chest, Sargon looked at the sleeping, shadowed form of Kinsey and smiled.

K
INSEY
blinked when the sun broke through the clouds to shine on his face. When he tried to raise an arm to shield his eyes from the bright rays, he found that both his arms were pinned to his sides. Sweat broke from his forehead as his heart began to race. He didn’t know where he was, who was holding him, or how he had gotten here, wherever here was, but he was damned if he was going to be held prisoner without a fight.

Still squinting against the light, Kinsey flexed his stiff muscles until his arms burst from the bindings, and he rolled to one side to escape the makeshift stretcher. Whatever had befallen him had robbed him of his coordination. The brief respite his outstretched hands afforded ended in a mouthful of loamy soil.

Kinsey spat, clearing his mouth as he scrambled to his feet and set off in a lumbering run, willing his wobbly legs to stay under him. He plunged through the grasslands that stretched for miles in every direction.

A confused babble erupted from behind him as a single voice that was vaguely familiar rose above the rest in a languid yet commanding pitch. “Know where yer runnin’ ta, do ya?”

Kinsey knew that voice. Even as his reluctant joints and muscles began to find the flow and rhythm of use, he came to a juddering halt. When he turned to regard the speaker, he found an old dwarf sitting astride a tan-and-white pony that had already dropped its head to graze on the grasses that were close by on either side of the path. The dwarf’s gray beard shone silver in the bright sunlight, and his dark eyes were crinkled in good-natured humor.

Sargon, Kinsey’s memory supplied as the dwarf tucked an amber-and-black pipe back into one corner of his mouth in an affectation that Kinsey already associated with this odd little man. The pleasant expression on Sargon’s face grew to an outright smile as Kinsey began making his way back to the caravan.

Eight other dwarves were arrayed along the path, stretching to either side of the old dwarf. They had all been situated on ponies similar to the one Sargon rode. Tan-and-white heads were bent to the tall grass on all sides as the horses took advantage of Kinsey’s disruption. The riders all watched him closely, patiently waiting. The expressions on their faces were subtly different than he remembered from the last time he had laid eyes on them.

The last memory he had of them—the last memory he had at all—was in the dungeons of Waterfall Citadel, where he had been imprisoned on some ridiculous charge involving his supposed complicity in the kidnapping of Princess Sacha Moridin. There was precious little hope for the dwarven entourage, foreigners, and companions of a man that was supposedly responsible for creating a set of tensions that could have led two nations to the brink of war instead of bountiful alliance. No, the hope he saw on the bearded faces was new.

Dak, his loyal horse, stood amongst the ponies, dwarfing them all. The rust-colored head tracked Kinsey as he moved back, and the horse whickered and blew softly as he approached.

“Eos be merciful,” Kinsey breathed, ignoring the dwarves for the moment and instead swiveling to one side to stroke the big horse’s mane. “I thought you lost for certain, boy.”

Dak rumbled and thumped Kinsey in the chest with his broad nose, searching for a treat.

“Even after the elf introduced us properly,” Sargon spoke up from the rear. “That beast o’ yers has been reluctant ta let anyone handle ’im.”

A small hard apple came sailing toward Kinsey, and he snatched it from the air.

Sargon began to clamber from his saddle and continued, “Resortin’ ta bribery was perhaps not the way a true herdsman might be handlin’ it, but we had ta do what we could.”

One of Dak’s brown eyes remained fixed on the apple in Kinsey’s hand.

Kinsey laughed softly. “Traitor,” he said to the horse, offering him the fruit.

“Hardly,” Sargon said as he stepped up to Kinsey’s side and placed one hand on Dak’s big, rust-colored flank. The skin twitched, but Dak did not pull away from the priest’s touch. “I’d have thought this mule o’ yers be part dog, he be so reluctant ta leave yer side.” Sargon chuckled. “Ya be lucky he didn’t attempt ta snuggle up with ya. Might have ruined the whole trip in one act o’ misguided affection.”

Kinsey smiled as Dak crunched contentedly on the sweet treat. Turning to the priest, he asked, “Where are we?”

The old dwarf took the pipe out of his mouth. “We still be in Basinia. Just north o’ the Lowlands.”

Kinsey frowned. “North of the
Lowlands
?” he asked. “How long have I been out?”

Sargon smacked his lips around his pipe stem. “A bit more than two full days now.”

Thunderstruck, Kinsey gasped. “Two days? And how did we come to be here?” The last thing he could remember was being in the dungeon, and then, pain.
These lapses better not be the new normal,
he thought sourly as he considered the last blackout he had had.

Kinsey had woken from another blackout less than ten days earlier. That lapse had seen him lost in the jungle, missing his friends and having no recollection of what had happened or how he had come to be on that sunny riverbank.
At least I have clothes this time,
he thought, wiping his hands on his breeches and remembering his jog through the woods without a stitch.

Another thought popped into Kinsey’s mind, something Sargon had just said about Dak. Bowling over whatever the old priest was about to say, Kinsey asked, “Did you say ‘elf’ just a moment ago?”

Instead of answering directly, the old dwarf poked a finger into his vest pocket and fished out something he obscured in his gnarled fist. Sargon cleared his throat and held out the closed hand. “Yer... father, Erik. He asked me ta give ya this.”

Erik’s name stirred a surge of hope and anxiety. He had not seen his stepfather since before the blackout at Ordair’s keep. He hurriedly took the offered item.

“He be in Waterfall Citadel and be in good health the last we seen ’im,” Sargon continued.

A simple band of gold that bore a dignified patina of scuffs and wear that did not obscure its warm glow was nestled in his palm. His mother’s ring.

He stared down at the golden circle, unable to speak.

Sargon’s voice was soft and full of respect as he leaned close to say, “He told me ta tell ya he’d be followin’ soon.”

Erik had given the ring to Kinsey one other time in the past. He and his adoptive father had been assigned to missions in separate regions of Basinia. It had been likely that a considerable amount of time would pass before they would see each other again. Erik had given Kinsey the ring as a reminder that he would always be near, no matter how far away.

Kinsey shook his head and cleared his throat. “Why did he stay?”

Sargon studied Kinsey before he responded, “Not sure exactly. Somethin’ ta do with
elven
family.”

Kinsey lifted his brow. “Elven family? Erik has no elven family.”

“It’s what I heard, lad,” Sargon replied, putting the pipe back in his mouth.

Erik had never spoken much of his elven heritage. Kinsey had no idea who of Erik’s family might still be alive, but the timing of their arrival was suspicious. The appearance of blood relatives would explain the ring—Erik was going to be preoccupied, for some time it would seem.