the skull?” Phen asked.
“I am a great wizard,” Hyden said sarcastically. “How else?”
“I’m starting to see what Master Amill meant when he said that you were a natural,” said Phen with a shake of his head. “Without even casting a spell you got me to scour the books for you.”
“You’re just extra curious, Phen.”
“I am, but you made Princess Rosa fall in love with the High King yesterday afternoon when you tricked the two of them. At least that’s what the gossipers about the castle are saying.”
“I just gave her a little more to think about is all. Not much more, I assure you. Besides, I had to get him back for that Yule gift he gave me.”
“He said it wasn’t him,” Phen said.
“Just… He and I are even for the moment, and that’s that. Now tell me about the skull.”
“The Silver Skull of Zorellin is the artifact’s proper name,” Phen started. “I only found one listing about it in the Great Tome of artifacts. Darin wrote that the skull could be used to speak with the dead, the undead, and some of the more intelligent demons. But,” Phen strode over to the table and pointed at the exposed page of the topmost text lying there, “In Dahg Mahn’s untitled journal, the one that speaks about the Seal and other things relating to demon kind, it said that the Silver Skull of Zorellin can be used to transport items, and people, to and from the Nethers.”
“Does it say how?”
“Wait, Hyden, I’m not done,” Phen’s voice was sharper than he intended it to be, but he didn’t stutter or stop his lecture. “In a book called Zorellin, that I got from the master’s library last night while all of you were at the feast, I found a bit… Hold on.” Phen went to his bag, rummaged through it a moment then came up beaming. In his hand was an ancient text. He held it up as if it were a great prize, which in this case, it was.
“In here,” Phen tapped the cover of the book. “It tells how the wizard Zorellin made the skull, and how he used it to enslave the demon of Krass, who he eventually used it to kill King Baffawn the Bloodthirsty for the good of all mankind.”
“Very good, Phen,” Hyden said. “Now the masters have loaned us the very book that gives away what it is we are really after.”
“No, I sort of borrowed it,” Phen smiled. “You know, just until we get back. I left the Index of Known Forest Animals in its place. They’ll never know.”
“That was my favorite,” Hyden said.
“Aye,” Phen said, emulating Hyden’s response to almost everything. “But I also have in my sack The Index of Known Marine Creatures. I figured that, since we’re going on a ship, you’d want us to have it handy.”
“See, Phen, that’s exactly why you’re going with us.” Hyden put his arm across the growing boy’s shoulders in a brotherly fashion. “Have your masters freed you of all your other duties yet?”
“I’m yours to command, Sir Hyden Hawk,” Phen stepped away and bowed with a flourish and a grin. Only the excitement he had felt when the late Master Targon and Queen Willa had plucked him from the orphanage in Xwarda City and made him an apprentice could compare to the level of exhilaration he was feeling now.
“Good,” Hyden said. “I want you to use some of that energy to go find Brady Culvert at the East Gate Barracks, and also Dugak’s nephew-I can’t ever seem to remember his name. It’s…It’s-”
“Oarly,” Phen remembered.
“Yes, Oarly. I want you to tell the two of them to meet us at the Golden Griffin tonight at dark fall.” Hyden was starting to get excited as well. “Tell them that the meeting is mandatory, but the food and drinks are on me.”
“Aye,” Phen called as he tore out of the tower room to find them.
Chapter Five
Lord Gregory sat atop his mount cursing his fortune. Before him, where he would have crossed the shallows to the western bank of the Leif Greyn River, was a stretch of raging rapids that churned and thrashed with the full force of the spring thaw behind it. He was left with two choices now. He could either backtrack up into the mountains and go west, crossing the hundreds of streams, trickles and creeks that combined to make the powerful flow before him, or he could go south into Wildermont and hope that Harrap and Condlin Skyler had been exaggerating the amount of death and destruction they had found there. Even as that thought formed in his mind he dismissed it. He knew that Harrap and Condlin had most likely told him exactly what they had seen and heard. He also knew that, if the bridge that crossed over into Westland was really destroyed, his decision here and now would determine how long it would take him to finally make it back home. If I even have a home left, he thought to himself. Had he been younger or even healthier, he would have already been working his way back up into the mountains. Maybe it was good that he was half crippled and weary of backtracking. If Westland really had been taken over, he knew he would find no welcome there, but still he had to go look for his wife. Finding her was all that he lived for.
He took a deep breath and spurred his horse southward along the eastern bank of the churning flow. He knew that there were a few smaller towns and a dozen villages south of Castlemont along the river-Low Crossing, Seareach, and others. The Leif Greyn River split at Seareach. Maybe he could find a boat there and take the Westland flow to Settsted stronghold. There he could at least learn of his friend and peer, Lord Ellrich’s fate.
Lord Ellrich’s stronghold held the main barracks for the river guard. If the zard had come up from the marsh, Settsted would have fallen first. Maybe he should try to find a boat to Southport instead. No king or queen or invader of any sort would destroy the trade center of the kingdom they were taking over. Southport was Westland’s biggest port. Shipping trade with all of the east, the Isle of Salazar and the other southern islands took place there. It was also a place where Lord Gregory could probably blend in with the populace.
A boat from Seareach to Southport then, he decided. He had enough gold in his saddlebags to buy his own ship. A chunk of raw gold ore the size of a man’s head was left in one of Mikahl’s packs, along with a fat sack of Westland coin. He’d taken the coins and with a dull axe, had broken a fist sized chunk off of the other. What he’d left behind was easily twice as much as he’d taken. Mikahl and Hyden would understand, he knew, so he didn’t feel guilty for helping himself.
A day later, he saw the tip of the Summer’s Day Spire jutting up over the ridge ahead of him. That afternoon, when he topped the ridge, he saw the whole flooded bulk of the Leif Greyn Valley. The Spire looked to be rising up out of a great lake.
“It’s cleansing itself,” he said aloud, and with some amazement. All of the dead bodies and burning wagons and deserted pavilions that he had seen as Vaegon the elf and Hyden Skyler helped him away from his routed camp were under water now. Hopefully the carnage was being washed down the river into O’Dakahn or the marshes.
It took the rest of that day, and two more, to get to the city of High Crossing. Normally it would have only taken a day, but he had been forced to skirt the flooded valley. At least the High Crossing bridge was still intact. It didn’t cross the Leif Greyn River, though. It spanned the Everflow River as it came out of the Evermore Forest to join with the Leif Greyn.
No toll-taker stepped out of the little house on the other side of the bridge when he crossed it. That alone confirmed most everything that Halden Skyler’s sons had told him. He didn’t have to look upon the nearly deserted rows of buildings that lined the streets beyond the bridge. He didn’t have to see and smell the bones and thawing remains of the corpses that had been haphazardly put into piles and burned before winter set in.
He felt eyes upon him as he rode through the empty town. Suddenly a sharp squeal filled the air and a thin filthy boy came chasing a healthy looking piglet into the road. The boy couldn’t have been ten years old, and he froze in place when he saw Lord Gregory coming. Tears of terror welled up in the boy’s eyes as he darted back into the evening shadows, his piglet forgotten. From somewhere in that direction came a woman’s hushed, but scolding voice. Lord Gregory, saddened by the sight, but uplifted to know that there were some survivors about, spurred his mount onward.
As he left the town of High Crossing behind him, the sun was starting to set. At an abandoned farm set a short distance from the road he holed up in a barn for the night. There was no telling what sort of pilferers and
