Part II
The War Resumes
Chapter 1
Kaleb
Meridian
While most of Kaleb’s pain from the fall into
the oubliette faded as he fell asleep, the pain in his right arm only
intensified, pulling him back to the dark world that he’d spend the rest of his
life in. The hole really was dark, but it wasn’t pitch black as he’d originally
thought. In the dungeon above there were torches, though none were at the
oubliette’s maw. The faint glow bounced off the opening above him, just enough
so Kaleb could tell the floor from the wall, and a rock from the floor.
And he could also tell that something short
and smelly was standing right next to him. As whatever it was realized Kaleb
could see it, it ran at him and grabbed at his clothes. Kaleb attempted to
throw it back with his right arm, and ended up dizzy as stars exploded across
his vision. The creature squalled and tried to run off, but Kaleb managed to
grasp it before it could escape.
“AH! MERCY! MERCY!!” Whatever he held shook
in fear
“What the—?”
“Please,
Blunk not steal! Blunk trade! Rat for bread! Good deal, yes?”
Kaleb
tossed Blunk away from him. “Ugh, you’re that smuggler!”
“Businessman!”
Blunk corrected. Blunk was a Passling, short, green, toad-like creatures who
managed to find the tiniest holes in the Veil that shielded Kandrokar from the
rest of the universe. While only the Guardians could pass through the Veil at
will, Passlings could smell the tiny holes that appeared every once in a while
that they’d squeeze through. The rebels could really use that skill, if the
Passlings managed to bring anything back other than the trash and junk they
tried to trade or sell. Blunk must’ve gotten on the wrong side of Phobos
himself to end up in the oubliette.
Kaleb glared at the little ball of black that
moved around easily over the broken ground. He knew where…Blunk, was, mostly
from the smell. How something could stink so much and still be alive was beyond
him.
“I
don’t have any bread,” Kaleb told him.
“Lies!
I smell. Yummy, yummy bread! But traded for rat; good deal!”
Blunk
began eating the bread he’d found in Kaleb’s jacket. Kaleb shook his head.
“Go
ahead,” Kaleb said. “I’ve worked too hard for freedom to perish in a hole with
a talking pickle!”
“Pickle,
heh heh—HEY!”
“I’m
getting out of here,” Kaleb said to himself, ignoring Blunk’s muttering.
“Too
high, never make it.”
Kaleb
scoffed and began climbing. “Have you ever even tri—”
His
right foot slipped and he tumbled down to the floor, right on top of a
skeleton. Horrified and embarrassed, Kaleb scrambled back, trying not to groan
at his arm’s pain.
“Thirty-seven-hundred
times,” Blunk replied, then spat something out. “Ow! Nasty, hard bread!”
Kaleb
froze, staring in the dim light at what Blunk had spat onto the ground. It was
a key. Kaleb had been chained to the walls of the oubliette before being
dropped down. The man Kaleb had landed on still wore his chains, but perhaps
with free hands…
He tried over and over, each fall making the
ache in his arm worse and worse. The fifth or so time, Kaleb landed on it. An
electric shock of pain raced through him, pulling him down into the black abyss
of unconsciousness.
He could hear the screaming, smell the smoke.
“Run, Kaleb!” His father roared at him while
his older brother Karn used his scythe to block a Quelthar guardsman. “Run to
the forest, quick now!”
Kaleb ran. At nine, he could barely shoot a
bow, least of all fight the fifty or so guards raiding his family’s small farm.
They’d barely survived on their own food, selling just enough to buy what they
couldn’t grow or hunt. Why the guards were there, Kaleb didn’t know. So he ran
deep into the woods, crouching among an old tree’s roots until the noises in
the distance stopped. But he was too frightened, too afraid of the silence to
venture back out into the night, so he spent the night in that hole with the
spiders and worms until dawn’s light awakened him.
He crept out of his hiding spot that always
served him when he played hide-and-seek with his older brother during a lazy
spring day. Half crawling across the cool ground, Kaleb hesitated when he
reached open ground. Steeling himself to run again, Kaleb sprinting into the
fields across from his house. At first he wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but
as he drew closer, he saw, and he froze.
His house was gone. Gone. Only blackened boards stood, leaning against the remnants of
his life. And there, on the tree beside their home, hanging beside the very
swing his father had crafted for him and his brother and his baby sister, were
the bodies of his mother and brother.
Kaleb fell to the ground and screamed.
He was ten now, and months in the woods had
hardened him. Now he’d reached a village he didn’t know, one very different
from the mostly human one his father had often visited. This village was
smaller, with walls about it guarded by eagle-eyed Quelthar, Guldons, Humans,
and even a Lurden. The only way Kaleb had managed to get in was by sliding
inside a covered wagon full of potatoes and other, thin, lank vegetables.
The village may have been small, but it was
packed with all the races of Kandrokar, some from far across the seas away from
Meridian. Kaleb saw a few he didn’t recognize at all. But he did his best not
to stare, and focused on chewing the yellow celery and tiny purple carrots he’d
taken. He’d lived off roots, berries and mushrooms in the forest, as well as a
few animals he’d managed to trap. What he really missed, though, was a full
meal; soup with gloriously soft bread and a cup of milk with a fresh pie for
dessert. He could see his mother smiling at him as he attempted to eat as much
as his father and brother…
Stop
it! He snapped as himself, refusing to
acknowledge the tears in his eyes. Enough.
They’re gone, thanks to the King’s guardsmen…
Then Kaleb looked up and saw an old Quelthar
woman slowly walking the market on her cane, a basket on her arm with fresh
bread in it. His father and mother had taught him to never steal, that it was
wrong, but his father was gone and his mother was dead. So he shoved their
voices from his mind, started to run and grabbed the bread as he raced by. He
ignored his guilt, his fear, and the woman’s cries as he sped through the busy
market and headed down first one alley, then another. Eventually he came to an
older, abandoned building. The door was locked, but it was nothing for him to
climb up the wall and through a window with broken shutters. It was only a
small gap, but Kaleb had become so skinny that it was easy.
The outside may have appeared to be a closed,
broken-down building, but the inside was stacked with crates and barrels. Kaleb
wandered a bit, looking for a good spot to sit down and enjoy his bread…
He turned a corner and froze, completely
shocked. There, against the wall were dozens of spears, staves, halberds and
pikes. Weapons were illegal, everyone knew that. No serf or commoner could bear
them without express permission from the king. Sure, guardsmen could bear a bow
or sword, but there were only about a dozen or so per village. But this, this
was an armory. This was dangerous.
I’ve
got to
get out of here!
Kaleb spun to head for his window—
And
smacked into a tall, male Quelthar’s chest.
He
tried to run away, but the man held him fast. Kaleb tried to fight him but a
sharp shake put an end to that.
“Well,
looks like I found Miss Dorla’s thief, eh, boy?”
Kaleb
didn’t fight when they took the bread he hadn’t tasted away, along with his
vegetables.
“And
Farmer Larlin too?”
He
only hung his head as the man’s grip tightened enough to bruise, and didn’t
struggle as the man dragged him out to a larger room where the old woman, Miss Dorla,
was speaking with several other Quelthar and a few Guldons.
“Is
this the boy, Dorla?” The man forced Kaleb to look up at her as she took her
bread back.
“Yes,
he is,” the woman snapped. She wagged a finger in his face. “You ought to be
ashamed of yourself, young man. How dare you steal from me, or anyone else in
this village! What would your mother say?”
Kaleb
refused to think of the answer to that. If he did, then he’d cry. They were
going to beat him anyway, at least the hunters who’d caught him before had
beaten him, so he refused to cry at all. Only made the beating worse. His
father had taught him to take his punishments like a man—he’d also taught him
to never steal, but that was a mute point when you were starving—and that’s
what he was going to do.
When
Kaleb didn’t appear apologetic, the Quelthar shook him again. “Where’s your
mother anyway, boy?”
“Dead.”
He didn’t mean to say it, but he did. He stared at the lady’s shoes, refusing
to show them the tears that had sprung into his eyes as the image of her body
popped into his head again.
“What
of your father, then, or siblings?” The woman’s voice had lost its sharpness,
but somehow it only made things worse.
“Gone
and dead.”
There
was an uncomfortable silence that Kaleb couldn’t bear. But he didn’t know what
to say, so he didn’t say anything.
The
man walked him over to stool and Kaleb’s heart began to drum. Whenever his
father had led him to a stool it meant he was going to be on his father’s lap
while being whipped. But this time the man pushed him onto it instead of taking
it. Kaleb couldn’t help staring as the man knelt before him.
“Son, what’s your name?”
“Kaleb, son of Lei.” He was stunned. He
wasn’t getting a beating. But they always beat him when they caught him, with
either a strap or switch, every time.
“Lei of Gordahn?” The man asked, looking
surprised.
“I think so…yes, that’s the town we sold our
stuff at.”
Everyone in the room moved, and began
muttering.
“Lei’s dead, though,” Miss Dorla said, her
tone sharp again.
Kaleb looked at the ground, and this time a
tear escaped. A warm hand rubbed his head.
“You’re his second boy, aren’t you?”
He could only nod. The tears wouldn’t stop.
After months and months of cold and hunger and fear, this was too much. He’d
rather they whipped him and sent him off. The memories of his father and his
love broke down all the walls he’d made in the woods, killing his first
rabbits, gathering food to cook, being sick when it didn’t go right. He’d
starved and stolen, broken promises to his father and mother and brother over
and over again when he’d been so hungry and reached that first village. He’d
begged, and instead of receiving any kindness, everything he’d owned, even his
boots, had been taken from him. Everything he’d taught became hollow, their
voices and memories no longer a comfort, only a constant haunting that brought
that last night and morning to his mind over and over.
And now, when he thought he’d be hungry and
beaten and broken again, this man placed his hand on Kaleb’s head like his
father had done every single day. It was too much.
When Kaleb began to sob, Dorla pulled him
into her arms and held him as he cried. She told the Quelthar, Aldurin, that he
was not to harm the boy, and instead gave him the bread he’d taken, and few
other things besides. After he ate a few bites, Aldurin put his hand on his
head again and said softly, “I knew your father, Kaleb. And I’m not letting his
son starve or steal again. Tonight, you’re staying with me.”
That man was Aldurin, Aldarn’s father, the
current leader of the rebellion.
