The Duelist 3, page 18
“Sure thing,” I said as Shay and I jogged down the entrance steps after the ram-lord. “Let me just collect my crew, and we can meet you there.”
“Don’t be silly, Asher,” he chuckled and raised his hand as if he was hailing a taxi. A carriage immediately drove up, and two servants hopped down to open the doors. “I’ve arranged for all of us to travel in style.”
When Mec meant style, he meant a full palace escort that left our humble caravan wedged in between Mec’s family’s carriage ahead and a plethora of guards at the front and the rear.
Another bonus to the royal treatment was Mec had loaded us up with a host of amazing food that could feed an army. There were warm sweet rolls that were in the shape of clouds, a bright green soup that tasted of citrus wheatgrass and was surprisingly refreshing, trays of fruits dipped in some type of sticky sugary stuff, strips of meat and dried fish, cheese, and a number of other delicious items I ran out of room in my stomach before I could try.
It was a little awkward to balance everything inside our carriage without a proper table or surface, but between all of us working together, we managed to get everyone fed Meals on Wheels style as we trundled along.
Well, almost everyone.
“Rylan, why don’t you try some of this fragrant broth?” Shay cajoled, but the pale stable-boy simply closed his eyes and rolled over to bury his face back in Zoie’s dress.
Zoie frowned and trailed her fingers through his sandy hair as he continued to rest with his head in her lap, and she finally looked up at me with a worried frown.
When I had gotten back to the rest of the crew, Zoie filled me in on his status. Just like Shay said, he’d somehow come down with a sickness in the middle of the night that caused him to shake with fatigue as well as made him feel nauseated.
Speaking of which, going off Rylan’s sudden flush that reddened the tips of his ears, I gathered he might be losing the battle with his touchy stomach.
Sure enough, not even three seconds later, the stable-boy sat bolt upright with a panicked look on his sweaty face aimed right at me.
“Bodin! Stop the carriage!” I banged a few times on the roof, and the carriage slowed just in time for me to get the poor kid out of the cab before he hurled up what little he had left in his stomach.
He made it a total of three strides before bracing himself against a tree and letting it rip.
“There you go,” I encouraged and patted his back even though I was a bit mad at him when I realized what exactly was bothering me about him being sick.
“Is everything alright, Alex?” Mec asked as he poked his head out of his carriage window.
“Fine, Gavlain,” I said with a wave of my hand. “Just give us a few moments.”
The ram-lord nodded his understanding and slipped back inside.
When Rylan had seemingly puked his last, I had him sit down on a fallen log and take slow sips of water from a wineskin.
“Thanks,” he said with one hand over his stomach while he handed the water jug back to me.
“Now, do you want to tell me what this is all about?” I asked and folded my arms in front of my chest.
“What do you mean?” he asked as he blinked up at me innocently, but I wasn’t buying it.
“Rylan, I thought we talked about using your ability too much,” I said and knew I was on the right track when his shoulders hunched up toward his ears. “That’s why we have a code word! And I don’t remember using it, so if that’s the case, you were just deliberately disobeying me.”
“No, Dad, I-I’m sorry--” he stammered as great big tears filled his eyes.
“Having a powerful ability is not something to play around with,” I chastised with my most Disappointed Dad Glare. “I’ve pushed myself to the state you’re in and farther, and let me tell you, it’s not fun!”
“Yes, I know, A-Alex, but--” he started again and angrily wiped away his fallen tears.
“No, you don’t know,” I snapped, and he winced as if I’d slapped him. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?”
If my first words slapped him, then these words kicked his dog because his face immediately crumpled, and he clutched himself around the middle.
At the sight of him, I instantly regretted my words, and I realized dragging his painful past out just to make my point was overkill, especially now that I could see my point was pretty much made the second I raised my voice.
“Y-Y-You’re right, A-Alex,” he said as he tried to hold back his tears, and his face was becoming paler by the minute. “You should be rid of me.”
“No,” I said and closed my eyes when I realized we were back to ‘Alex’ again instead of Dad. Well, maybe I needed to act more like a Dad and less like judge and jury if I wanted the title so badly, starting now.
Unfortunately, Rylan’s self-flagellation was already picking up steam, and because he was feeling shitty on top of everything, he apparently couldn’t cope with it anymore, and so he bolted.
Right into the forest.
“Rylan!” I hollered and sprinted after him.
Of course, he managed to slip through one of the thickest brambles known to man, and I actually had to pull my sword in order to hack through the obstacles in my way.
“Rylan!” I yelled again and cursed when I almost tripped over a thick gnarled tree root. “Shit. Broccoli! Broccoliiiiii. Broccoli, broccoli, broccoli. Fuck--!”
The toe of my boot caught on another fucking tree root, which caused me to stumble to another stop.
The thick trees were claustrophobic and dark, and I felt briefly turned around in the thicket of thorns and branches.
If it weren’t for the sound of retching nearby, I wasn’t sure if I would have been able to catch up with him at all.
As it was, the poor stable-boy was forced to come to a stop so he could get sick again in the bushes.
“Rylan…” I sighed and walked over to where he was still crouched on all fours as silent tears dripped off his dirt-streaked face.
I approached him cautiously at first in case he got it in him to run off again, but as I got closer, I could see he wasn’t really in the state to be running in the first place.
His stubbornness caused me to roll my eyes fondly at the ragamuffin, and with gentle hands, I lifted him to his feet so he was no longer kneeling in his own sick.
“Hey, champ,” I said when I had relocated us to a set of boulders next to a small creek. “You alright?”
“I’m f-fine,” he said. “It’s just that when you were shouting ‘broccoli,’ it reminded me of green sprouts, and then I couldn’t help but--”
“Yikes,” I said as he dry-heaved miserably again, so I tore off a strip of my tunic and soaked it in the cold water at our feet. “I won’t mention broccoli anymore.”
“Please don’t,” he said with a greenish tinge to his cheeks, and I couldn’t help but chuckle a little as I wrung out the cloth, folded it, and then placed it on the back of his neck.
We sat there in tense silence for a few moments until I sighed and placed a finger on his knobby knee so he would look at me.
“Look, I need to apologize to you,” I said and held my hand up before he could interject. “Let me finish. I reacted the way I did because, to be honest, it worries me that you can become so affected by your ability just as much as I can when I don’t even know what all that entails. That’s why I drew the boundary for you to only Dream Walk if you hear--”
“Oh, please don’t say it,” he whimpered and covered his eyes with one hand.
“--the code word,” I finished mercifully. “Until I know more about what you can do, we need to play it safe.”
“I understand that Alex, I really do,” he said earnestly, but my heart still cramped at his use of my first name again. “But I wasn’t deliberately trying to disobey you. Last night was my first night coming to a Tithing Ceremony. After I laid down for bed, I tried to get my mind to quiet down, but it was like everything was up too loud to ignore.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked patiently while I turned the rag over to the cool side.
“I don’t know, it was like all of the Duelists were having such intense nightmares one after another, it became impossible to keep all of it out,” he finished his explanation with a small pout. “I couldn’t help it, and all night I kept falling into the Dark Realm.”
I frowned even deeper at this.
Rylan was in the Dark Realm?
“You couldn’t help but get sucked in?” I clarified as my alarm grew again. “You weren’t hurt there, were you?”
“No, other than the fact I felt like I could sleep for a thousand seasons when I woke up at dawn.” The stable-boy shrugged, and I watched in curious fascination as Rylan’s hand rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for not knowing how to control your ability,” I sighed again and ruffled his hair. “The responsibility lies with me to help you. I just don’t know where to start quite yet. Maybe meditation? But really, I’m the one who needs to apologize for being too harsh and for being too hasty.”
“You didn’t even let me talk,” he muttered, and I threw my arm around his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “I will work on that in the future. Hey, maybe we can come up with another code word you could say if you ever feel like I’m running over you.”
“Just don’t say the ‘b’ word again,” he said and flushed a new shade of green.
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I promised. “But can I ask you to do me two things in the future?”
“Sure?” He gazed at me with a puzzled expression.
“First,” I said as I held up one finger. “No more running off.”
“Okay,” he agreed easily, but I gripped his chin so he could see how serious my face was.
“I mean it, Ry. I almost thought I lost you in here.” I poked him in the shoulder.
“I promise,” Rylan said with a dutiful expression and then frowned. “What’s the other thing you wanted me to do?”
“Oh, right,” I said and helped the poor woozy kid to his feet so we could start making our way back. “As long as you’re comfortable with it, I would really like to be called ‘dad’ again.”
Instead of answering, Rylan just launched himself into my arms and squeezed me tight.
I laughed again and patted him on the back, content to let him take as much time as he needed.
“Come on,” I said a little while later and steered us back the way we came. “We should be heading back. I bet they’re all worried about us.”
“Well, of course everyone’s worried,” a third and very unfamiliar voice butted in, and my gaze snapped around in search of the interloper.
Then, from the trees above our little clearing, a hooded figure dropped down in front of us.
Chapter 13
“Stay where you are and don’t move.” I leveled my blade at the person in the brown hooded cloak while I moved Rylan behind me.
The person flared their arms out on either side as they kept their head down toward the ground.
“I mean you no harm,” came a voice that reminded me of the breeze through the willow branches. “I only meant to gather these.”
One of the person’s hands opened, and in their palm were a couple of weird acorn-looking things.
I frowned and used the tip of my sword to remove the figure’s hood.
A pair of smallish horns greeted me first as they poked through a shaggy blonde mop of hair that only came down past the stranger’s fawn-like ears.
Finally, the person-- a young woman-- raised her head and fixed me with a gaze so silvery-gray, I couldn’t help but think of rain.
Her face was a pale oval with a smattering of charming freckles, and she had a unique tan square marking right over the bridge of her nose. These characteristics combined with her silvery horns, which curved back ever so slightly, all made her look like some sort of oryx.
“See?” the oryx-woman said and took a step forward to show me the acorns, and I lowered my sword slightly.
“Isn’t there a better place to go foraging for… um, whatever those things are?” I asked, and I figured she was harmless, especially since it didn’t seem like she was armed.
I still kept my blade out, though, because if Zoie had taught me anything, it was that looks could be deceiving, and to rule out the possibility this girl was dangerous would be plain stupid.
Even if she was kinda cute.
“There are several places to forage for the goba nuts,” she said and broke the cap off the yellowish acorn so she could hold the round part up between her thumb and finger. “But these are the ones I was meant to pick.”
“Oh… um… ” I faltered, not really sure what to say to that weirdness. “That seems a bit inconvenient.”
“For me, perhaps,” she said as she looked up at the blue sky. “But not for him.”
She then pointed her finger at Rylan, and I could see more tan markings on the back of her hand.
My sword came up again in warning, and I moved Rylan and I back a step.
“What do--?” I started, but she interrupted me by holding up a palm.
Maybe it was the light, but her eyes shimmered an opaque silver for just a flash, and when they turned back to their normal rain-like color, she smiled as if she recognized me.
“Oh,” she breathed and then walked closer even though my sword was raised.
“Hey--” I said, but before I could act, she moved the blade aside and cupped my face with her hand not holding the acorns.
A feeling of incredible warmth and safety flooded through me, and I lowered my sword back to my side. It felt like this mysterious woman gazed into my soul, and for some reason, I knew deep down she wasn’t dangerous.
“You are Alex Brightwood,” she stated and then stepped back.
“I am, yes.” I sheathed my sword but still crossed my arms over my chest.
“You do not need to fear me, but I know why you are wary,” she said and twirled a finger around one of her ash-blonde curls. “You care for your son. And for those you are traveling with.”
“D-Dad,” Rylan interrupted, and that was the only warning I had before he gagged again and ran over to go dry heave in the shrubs.
“Oh, bud,” I said with a concerned frown, and I went over to kneel on the ground with him until his unproductive vomiting stopped.
“His spirit is depleted,” the oryx-woman said and crouched down in front of him.
“You know what this is?” I asked, and I rubbed Rylan’s back as my worry grew. He was even more washed out than before, and he leaned heavily against me as if he would fall asleep any second. “Will he be okay?’
“He is young and full of vigor yet,” the oryx-girl said and winked at me as she held up one of those weird yellow acorn things. “Have him suck on this. It will help soothe his stomach and let him rest.”
Rylan glanced at me as if it was okay, and I hesitated for a moment before I took the acorn myself and popped it in my own mouth just in case.
If the oryx-woman was offended, she didn’t show it. She simply smiled that dreamy way of hers and rested her chin on the knee she had folded up toward her chest.
After a few minutes of sucking on the mostly flavorless nut with no adverse effects, I spat it out and nodded at Rylan. He then took the second acorn the woman offered and put it in his own mouth.
Almost instantly, the color started returning to his cheeks, and he looked at me with an amazed expression.
“Hey, I feel a little better already,” he stated and smiled at the woman.
“The magic of the goba nut,” she said, and she smiled back as she touched him on the forehead with one pale-white finger and ran it down the bridge of his nose.
“Mmm,” Rylan mumbled as his eyes drooped immediately, and then he quite literally crashed.
“Woah,” I said as he collapsed into me with a snore, and I caught him before he could face-plant into the dirt.
“Rylan is resilient, and his heart is stout.” The oryx-woman gently tugged open his mouth and let the acorn drop to the dirt. “I know why you love him.”
“I’m sorry, but who exactly are you?” I asked.
“Alex!” a voice through the trees called out, and I turned to the sight of my warrior cat-wife blazing a trail into the clearing with her katana-like weapon that I knew meant Serious Business.
“Zoie! It’s alright, we’re okay!” I held up a hand to stop her from slashing first and asking questions later.
“Who is this?” she barked as she stalked closer, and her eyes flew open wide at the sight of Rylan leaning heavily against my shoulder. “Rylan?”
“He’s okay,” I hurried to assure her just to get that look of sick fear off her face.
“You are a Varthan warrior,” the oryx-woman said, and she stood from her crouch with fluid grace.
“Yes,” Zoie said with her sword still drawn but no longer poised to kill. “Who are you?”
I tried to shake Rylan awake as I kept an eye on the women’s interaction, and when his eyes snapped open, I gestured for him to be quiet.
There was something serenely odd about the mysterious interloper, and I couldn’t help but want to see Zoie’s reaction to her.
“Can you stand up?” I murmured to Rylan as I watched the oryx-woman push right past Zoie’s defenses and cup her cheek just like she did to me.
“Mmhm.” The kid gave a weary nod, and I helped him stand.
“Zoie of Vartha, I know you,” the woman said in her breezy voice.
“I…” Zoie blinked, and her sword finally went lax in her grip. She had the same stunned look on her face I probably had when the woman did the same thing to me.
“There they are!” a voice called out, and the thundering of canterfly hooves could be felt through the ground.
“What’s that?” Rylan asked as he leaned so heavily into me I was basically holding him up.
“It sounds like Lord Mec probably sent a search party for us,” I said as the sound of crashing and hacking noises assaulted the brambles that surrounded the dim clearing, and I decided I might as well let the royal guards bulldoze a path for us. “We’re over here, and we’re fine!”
