Spirit Song Read online

  Spirit Song

  M.C. Dwyer

  Copyright ©2019 M.C. Dwyer

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by M.C. Dwyer; Cover Image by Syda Productions/Shutterstock.com

  For my mom.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  “Hush now,” a voice admonished, barely audible from a few feet away.

  “It’s a noble!” another voice crowed softly and was quickly silenced by an elbow in the side.

  From where the boy crouched, screened from the road by bushes, no one was visible. But he’d take the bandit’s word on it. The bandit had been thieving a season or more; the boy had only joined this group a month previous. New as he was to the business, though, he found something off-kilter as the man—the noble—rode into sight on a beautiful, blood bay stallion. The boy couldn’t quite put a finger on what was troubling him, but a minute or two later when the noble passed him and turned a glance his way, he couldn’t stop the indrawn breath of shock.

  His hand, resting on a branch, closed, snapping the twig with a loud crack. The noble put his heels to his horse’s flanks and was down the road in a flash.

  The chief bandit dropped from his tree, raising a cloud of dust from the road and swearing to make a sailor blush.

  “All right, which filthy mother’s son ruined our take?” he demanded as half a dozen men emerged from the shadows onto the road.

  A round of grumbling and nudging ensued as each man denied it and blamed the others.

  “Where’s the boy?” one of them grunted, and the boy flinched where he hid in the bushes. Another twig snapped under his fingers, and the chief pulled him from his hiding spot with a roar. Holding him aloft by the collar, he gave the boy a mighty shake.

  “This is how you repay me?” he yelled, spittle spraying the boy and dripping into the man’s matted beard.

  The boy watched, frozen in fear, as the bandit’s chest suddenly sprouted a red-stained metal point. Time slowed to a crawl as he looked down and tried to make sense of what he saw. With a sickening squelch, the sword was withdrawn, and the boy found himself falling under the weight of the dead bandit. He had time to register the sounds of battle as he went down, but then his head struck a rock on the road and he knew no more.

  He awoke sometime later to a headache, a dry mouth, and aching shoulders. The headache he could explain, but the others took a moment to process. He was gagged, he finally realized, and his wrists bound behind him. A twitch of his legs told him his ankles were bound, too. He pried open his eyes, fighting the headache, and was met with a distorted scene that shook and jumped like a candle in the wind. He shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried again.

  This time, the scene resolved itself into a fire surrounded by several figures. Though their attire was wealthy, they moved with the surety and grace of trained fighters. All of them that he could see wore swords, and they tended to the duties of camp with an air of easy competence that suggested they’d travelled together for some time.

  More importantly, for the boy, at least, none of them was currently paying him any attention. Working slowly, he eased his bound ankles up to where his fingers could reach the knots and began picking at them with his fingernails. A few minutes’ work had the knot untied, and he pulled the rope free with a slight grunt that was stifled by the gag.

  Glancing warily around, the boy waited until everyone’s attention was elsewhere and used the moment to slide his wrists down and around his hips. With some wiggling, he managed to get first one and then both legs through the loop of his wrists, and then it was a simple matter to remove the gag and use his teeth to untie his hands.

  With a silent huff of satisfaction, he shook off the ropes and crouched, his hands resting on the ground. From this vantage point, he could see four people on the other side of the fire. They seemed to be engrossed in various tasks, so he rose to his feet and crept backward into the shadows.

  Only to be brought to a halt by a collision with a pair of legs.

  “Have some food before you go, boy,” the man said, holding out a bowl of something that was steaming and smelled heavenly.

  The boy had ended up in an ungraceful jumble of feet and fear, but as the man offered nothing more sinister than a spoon, he untangled himself and sat up, reaching for the food.

  “Thought that one was going to get away from you, Aidan,” one of the voices said.

  The man grinned. “Apparently I need to work on my knots. Is there more of that stew? I think our guest is going to need it.”

  The boy had drained the bowl and was tipping up it to scrape the last drops of broth down his throat. Aidan held out a hand for the bowl, and the boy relinquished it, careful not to touch him in the process. As Aidan approached the fire and its stewpot, the boy looked him up and down, wondering what it was that had triggered his earlier reaction. Aidan was dressed in the rich jacket, trousers, and high boots of a noble, though he, too, wore his sword with an ease that suggested he was more of a soldier. His face was normal enough: wide brows and a square chin with just a hint of a dimple. He wore no beard, though the firelight suggested a faint stubble that matched his brown hair. It wasn’t until he turned back to the boy that the firelight caught in his eyes and briefly glowed green. The boy stiffened in shock. Aidan was spirit-touched, just like—at this, the walls in his mind dropped into place, leaving him staring up at Aidan in mute fear.

  Aidan’s brows drew together in concern. “What’s the matter, boy?” He reached out a hand to feel the boy’s forehead, but the boy twitched away convulsively. Brow furrowed in consternation, Aidan said, “I won’t hurt you, child. Do you have a name?”

  The boy watched him for a moment, but when he offered him no further touch, sat back up and whispered, “Nepenthe.”

  “Nepenthe?” Aidan repeated. “Well, I’m Aidan. The four you see over there are Charl, Mae, Rhian, and Drinian. Lira is around here somewhere, but she’s on watch duty so you won’t meet her for a bit.”

  As Aidan said each of the names, the corresponding figure raised a hand in greeting. Nepenthe was interested to see that Mae was, in fact, female, though she was dressed no differently than the others. It was she who took the bowl from Aidan and refilled it, passing it back with a friendly smile. Nepenthe took it, ducking his head in thanks.

  After the food was finished and the dishes scrubbed, the group settled down around the fire with mugs of heavily spiced tea. Nepenthe joined them reluctantly, sitting back just out of line with the others, clearly marking himself as separate.

  Aidan smiled reassuringly at him. “You’re probably wondering who we are. We are Ailerons from the court of King Edmun of Alain.”

  Nepenthe looked from one to the other with interest.
He’d heard of Ailerons; they were supposed to be elite warriors, distinct from the local army in both training and heritage and loyal first and foremost to the crown. “I thought you had uniforms,” he whispered, causing Aidan to lean forward. He leaned away in response.

  “We normally do,” Aidan said with a grin. “But we’re on border patrol at the moment. There were rumors of bandit activity in this area, and we figured if we rode through with our silver swords shining in the sunlight they’d never show.” He paused and sipped at his tea, then continued. “One lone noble, on the other hand...” He spread his hands and shrugged.

  Nepenthe nodded understanding. “Bait,” he whispered.

  One of the others, Rhian, leaned forward and spoke across the fire. “Speak up, boy,” he said. “We can hardly hear you.”

  Cringing backward, Nepenthe put his hands to his face and shook his head. “Can’t.”

  Aidan reached out a hand and then thought better of it. “Are you hurt?”

  Nepenthe worked his throat for a moment, then said with a visible effort, “It ’urts to talk.” His voice was like the scraping of boulders, and he winced at the pain.

  “No worries,” Mae said. “We’ll just have to listen more carefully.” She smiled encouragingly. “What’s your story?”

  “Don’t know,” Nepenthe said, whispering once more. “Can’t remember.” He poked internally at the walls in his mind, and was rewarded with a flash of pain and fear. He flinched.

  “Were you injured, then?” This was from Drinian, seated to Nepenthe’s other side. “I have some healing skills. Can I look?”

  Nepenthe pulled back, combing his dark curls down and over his face with his fingers as though he would hide behind them.

  Drinian put up his hand placatingly and did not speak again.

  “How much can you remember?” Aidan said, taking up the questioning once more.

  Hands still tangled in his curls, Nepenthe shrugged. “Four years?” He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, which served to accentuate his half-starved appearance.

  “Are you from Alain?” Mae asked, staring intently at Nepenthe, her hands wrapped around her mug.

  With another twitch, Nepenthe pulled even farther away from the circle around the fire. “No,” he whispered, almost too softly to be heard. “I remember coming over the mountains. And I remember the ocean.” Even in a whisper, the intense longing in that final word could be heard by all those gathered around the fire.

  “Talus, maybe,” Charl said, finally speaking up. “Though it could be Iona. Or...I suppose, Breccia.”

  The other Ailerons visibly flinched at the mention of Breccia, and Nepenthe was no exception.

  Aidan waved this away with a casualness that was belied by the troubled look in his eyes. “What have you been up to these past few years then, that you can remember?”

  Nepenthe relaxed infinitesimally. “There was a caravan. And a farm family. I worked for them for a couple seasons, but then there was a year of storms that wiped out the crops and they couldn’t feed me any longer so I moved on.”

  “That would have been two summers ago,” Charl interrupted. “I’ve got family in the south. They had several nasty hailstorms, and I heard that it was worse even further west.”

  With a noncommittal shrug, Nepenthe continued, “After that, I wandered until I met those bandits. They thought I might be useful and let me tag along.” Exhausted from more talking than he’d done in years, he rested his chin on his knees and sat staring into the fire.

  There was a minute or two of silence that was finally broken by Aidan.

  “Well, boy, you can come back to Lainen with us if you’d like. I can’t promise you a glamorous job, but we can find some sort of work for you to do.”

  “Don’t waste your breath, Aidan,” Drinian interposed quietly. “He’s already asleep.”

  Aidan’s mouth quirked up in a smile. He silently moved the boy’s untouched cup of tea and then found a blanket that he dropped around the boy’s narrow shoulders. The others moved away, one to relieve Lira on watch and the others to sleep. The camp fell silent, and Nepenthe dreamed.

  It was a hallway. It was always a hallway, though Nepenthe didn’t know why. He wandered down its dream-lengthened expanse, trailing his fingers against the stones and noting the almost imperceptible joins between them. After a while, the unchanging vista spurred him to run, and he began to wonder if he was running away from, or toward something. He stumbled, twisting his ankle and barking his knuckles on the stone floor, but there was no pain in the dream so he simply got up and continued to run.

  Eventually, finally, there was a light up ahead that suggested a window, and—was that a figure standing in the light? Nepenthe put on another burst of speed only to stumble to a halt when the figure came into focus.

  The tall, stately figure wore rich robes of fur-trimmed velvet, and a golden coronet circled his brow. His grey-streaked hair was combed back from his face. As Nepenthe watched, he turned from the window, his empty eye sockets turning their blackened gaze on Nepenthe. He reached out a hand from which strips of flesh hung from the bones. His mouth gaped, as though he would speak, and Nepenthe fell back with a scream. And awoke.

  Nepenthe fell over with a gasp, fighting clear of the blanket and then quickly running his fingers across his eyes. He sighed in relief when they met nothing but the stickiness of sleep. Drawing a couple deep breaths, he pulled the blanket closer and turned over to try to lose himself once more in sleep.

  From the other side of the fire, Aidan watched in silent concern.

  Chapter 2

  The Ailerons posing as mere noblemen did not have a spare horse, so the next morning Nepenthe faced the awkward problem of having to ride behind one of the soldiers. Aidan’s bay stallion was the biggest, but the women were lighter. By the same token their horses were smaller, so Nepenthe stood indecisively in the midst of the commotion until the decision was taken from him.

  “Ride with me, boy,” Aidan said, leaning down and grasping Nepenthe’s arm. In one easy motion he swung Nepenthe's slight frame up and behind him in the saddle.

  Nepenthe gasped at the suddenness of it but settled in on the pack and found an unobtrusive handhold on Aidan’s swordbelt. He gripped it carefully, touching Aidan as little as possible.

  “Ready?” Aidan said over his shoulder with a smile. At Nepenthe’s nod, he chirruped to the horse and they set off.

  Nepenthe relaxed slightly once they were on the road. Aidan kept up a steady stream of conversation that required little input from him, and when it did, he was close enough to Aidan’s ear for Aidan to hear the whispered response.

  Thus it was that Nepenthe discovered the name of the forest they traveled through, and that the Forest of Sterre was the last boundary between Alain and the Farlan Plains. The plains were their next destination. The six Ailerons were performing some sort of road survey for the king, something they undertook each spring. In this manner they were able to deal with bandit problems and check on the conditions of the roads and villages of the kingdom.

  The Farlan Plains were not technically part of Alain. They were home to the Farlan, a nomadic tribal group that roamed the vast grasslands between Alain and the Talusian Mountains. They gathered the herbs that grew wild there and traded them with Alain for other goods they could not manufacture.

  Nepenthe poked at his memories, wondering if he’d passed through the Farlan Plains at any point on his journey, but there was nothing in his recent memories to suggest it, and running into the walls in his mind caused him to shiver in fear despite the warmth of the spring sun.

  They traveled for several days in this fashion. Nepenthe sensed the watchful gaze of the Ailerons, but could not fault them for their caution. He had been with the bandits, after all. For his part, he started to become more comfortable around them, and if he did not stop flinching at their sudden moves, he at least lost some of the fearful hunch to his thin shoulders.

  Ev
entually, the forest thinned and then vanished all together to reveal a vast horizon and tall grasses that moved in the wind like the waves of the sea. Nepenthe felt something ease in his chest even as an intense wave of homesickness swept over him. He couldn’t stop a deep sigh that seemed to originate from the very tips of his toes.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Aidan smiled slightly. “Ever seen anything like it?”

  Nepenthe simply ducked his head in answer.

  The road they followed dwindled into a mere path and then vanished altogether. The Ailerons stopped there and set up camp, even though it was the middle of the day. At Nepenthe’s inquiring look, Aidan grinned.

  “The Farlan are nomadic. We’d never find them if we just set off across the plains. My friend Jahan will come meet us soon and guide us to their camp.”

  Nepenthe’s lips formed a silent “Oh” in response, then he wandered off to try to make himself useful.

  Unfortunately, the Ailerons were such a well-oiled machine that no one needed his assistance, and he was kindly shooed away every time he offered to help. He wandered a short distance into the grass and stumbled across a creek that cut into the sandy soil of the plains.

  For a moment, he considered returning to camp to let the others know, but after a moment’s thought he realized they must be aware of its existence, having camped here before. With a shrug, he turned back to the water and sat down on the bank to remove his shoes. Rolling up his trouser legs, he stepped into the water and wiggled his toes into the sandy bed with something approaching a smile flitting across his lips. The current sucked away the sand beneath his toes, and he sank slowly in the mud. Eventually, he pulled his feet loose with a squelch and started wading upstream, noting with interest the various animal tracks imprinted on the shore.

  That one, definitely a bird. Probably something taller: a heron or a crane. That one, possibly a fox. Another set looked like tiny handprints: raccoon for sure. A few minutes’ walk showed him deer tracks and what was either a small wolf or a large coyote; he couldn’t be certain which.