Child of Fate Read online

  Alto backed up a step so he wouldn’t need to keep twisting his head back and forth between them. “Are you betrothed? I’ve heard royalty does that sometimes.”

  Drefan coughed again.

  “The ship I was on was waylaid by the Kelgryn. Her father took me in as a servant,” Namitus said.

  “You’re a slave?”

  “Not really,” he admitted. “I mean, it’s never felt like that. They treat me like one of their own.”

  “Namitus charmed my father,” Trina added.

  Alto grunted softly. “I want to know more, but now’s not the time. Let’s see about this cave-in. We’ve got to get Drefan to Karthor; he’s our priest and I bet he can help him.”

  “I’m right here,” Drefan muttered.

  Alto ignored him and turned back to the rocks blocking the tunnel. He climbed up slowly, feeling as much as seeing the blockage. He tested each rock and when he found one that was loose, he tried to move it out of the way. Soon he had to pass them back where Namitus, Drefan, and Trina took turns trying to haul the rocks far enough down the passage to make it possible for them to continue.

  “Wait!” Alto said several minutes later. They stopped, all of them gasping for breath from the hard work. The noise the farm boy had heard drifted to the others. A clanging noise drifted through the rocks, although at uneven intervals. Alto put his head to the rocks and listened, only to pull it away a moment later after another clang sounded. “I think somebody’s digging on the other side!”

  “That’s probably not a good thing,” Drefan mused.

  “He’s right,” Trina said. “They must be looking for us.”

  Alto reached down to his hip to where his knife was sheathed. He drew it and held it out to Trina hilt-first. “Do you know how to use this?”

  Trina took it and held it up close to her face so she could see it clearly. “Kelgryn women aren’t like your Kingdom women. We know how to hunt and how to fight.”

  Alto smirked. “If you’d met my sisters, you’d know you don’t know much about Kingdom women!”

  “Fall back. If they want to dig us out, let them,” Alto urged.

  “Good idea,” Drefan muttered. The rogue turned and led the way back down the passage but he tripped and fell after only a few feet.

  “Drefan!” Alto pushed past Trina and Namitus to reach his companion.

  Drefan groaned and tried to push himself up. “Just tripped,” he wheezed, gasping between words.

  “You’re hurt worse than you let on,” Alto accused. He reached down to help pick him up and felt Drefan shudder when his hand pressed against his ribs. Alto loosened his grip and tried again, pulling Drefan by the shoulders.

  “Knocked my ribs in,” Drefan admitted. “Just need to rest a minute. Hard to catch my breath. Hurts to breathe deep.”

  Alto helped him back to where the tunnel widened into the natural cavern. The light was better and, aside from the puddles near the chimney, the floor was dry. Drefan sat on the floor and leaned against the wall over the cave, cradling his tender ribs with his arms.

  “Give me your sword.”

  Alto turned to see Trina standing over Drefan.

  “You’re a bit young for that,” Drefan tried to joke.

  “You’re worthless in a fight and I’m not. Give me your sword or I’ll kick you in the ribs!”

  “Trina!” Namitus hissed from where he was crouched, looking down the passage.

  “Drefan, she’s right. You can’t fight. I’ll guard the passage but it might be good to have someone else with a blade ready,” Alto said.

  Drefan grimaced but drew his sword. It took him three tries to pull it fully free, and then he handed it to Alto. “You keep quiet about this or I’ll tell her about the serving girl,” he hissed.

  Alto’s eyes widened but he turned away before Trina could see him. He thrust the sword toward Namitus. “Here, take it.”

  Namitus looked past him at Patrina. He waved to her. “She’s better with it. Like she said, she was practically born with a sword in one hand and an axe in the other.”

  Alto turned to see Trina’s smug expression. “Told you,” she said in a too-sweet voice.

  “Wasn’t sure you could swing it over your head is all,” Alto snapped back at her.

  Her mouth dropped to an O and her eyes widened to match it. Alto chuckled and turned away, heading back to stand beside Namitus.

  “You just wait,” Trina muttered. “I’ll show you.”

  The sound of rock grating and crunching came from the hallway, pulling all of their attention. More rocks shifted, grinding against one another and then shifting and falling. Yellow light beamed down the hallway, drawing a hissed oath from Drefan as the sudden brightness blinded them. They recoiled to hide themselves and, when their eyes adjusted, they realized it was only the light of a torch or a lantern shining through the hole.

  The hole widened rapidly as the workers on the other side labored to clear it. More light flooded through and then it was blocked up again as small bodies began to crawl through. A guttural language Alto had only heard once before reached his ears.

  “Goblins!” he hissed. He raised his sword and jumped in front of Namitus, taking up the passage.

  He saw several of the short creatures rushing down the passage. The first paused at the sight of him, only to be bowled over by the two behind him. Alto waited while they sorted themselves out, knowing if he had any sense he should wade in and strike at them. Everything he’d heard and knew about goblins urged him forward but it didn’t seem fair to cut down a defenseless enemy.

  They rose up and charged at him, thrusting spears and brandishing their short-bladed swords. They were small enough to rush down the passage two at a time, their numbers making him hesitate until it was nearly too late.

  Trina saved him, jamming her shoulder and hip into his side and knocking him out of the way so she could parry the spear and spin away from the sword that thrust at them. The spin saved her but allowed the third goblin to slip around the other two and come up on her flank. More were rushing down the tunnel toward them.

  “Stop defending!” Alto chastised himself. He smashed his sword down and hammered the blade out of the third goblin’s hand before he could jam it into Trina’s back. He grabbed her arm with his other hand and yanked her back out of the way, sending her spinning and falling onto the cavern floor safely behind him.

  The goblins were surprised at their constantly changing targets. Alto kept his momentum going and kicked the spear-wielding goblin under the chin, snapping its gaping mouth shut and shattering its teeth with the blow. He swung across with his sword as soon as he had both feet on the ground and hewed into the raised arm and side of the other goblin. He staggered away, pulling free of Alto’s broadsword and collapsing against the wall.

  Alto looked up in time to see the others nearly upon him. They snarled and gibbered at him. Alto snarled back, caught up in his success. He leapt at them and cut across with his heavy sword, killing the first and making the rest scramble to avoid his sweeping blade.

  Alto pulled his sword back before the goblins could recover and come at him. He swung it easily, keeping them on edge, and then feinted forward toward the one on the right. It cowered, holding up his meager blade in hopes it would protect him. The other leapt at Alto, expecting an opening.

  Alto put his limited training to use with the feint. Rather than smashing down on the goblin in front of him, he whipped his sword back and cleaved the arm and head off the second goblin. He turned back to the first one and saw him throw down his sword and press his head to the ground with his hands over his head.

  Alto was stunned by the surrender. He stared at the goblin, his momentum halted. The fire drained from him and he realized what he’d just done. He’d killed not one goblin, but several. He turned to look down the tunnel, realizing that four more goblins stood in the corridor and stared at him. They looked at one another and then back at him.

  “Where’s the girl? That’
s not them!”

  Alto jerked his head up. The voice came from behind the goblins, from a human-sized figure silhouetted by the torchlight. Another voice answered him. “Don’t matter. They went that way and the map says there’s no way out! We don’t get her back, we can’t run far enough to escape the boss.”

  He’d heard enough to confirm Trina and Namitus’s story. Alto snarled and took a step forward, brandishing his sword. It was his life or theirs. The goblins and their masters could surrender but he could not. The goblins stepped back and looked at one another again.

  “Surrender!” Alto challenged both the goblins and the men behind them. He didn’t know if the goblins could understand him but he had to give them a chance. “We’ll help you escape. You won’t have to see your boss again.”

  “Kill him!”

  Alto jumped forward, kicking one goblin between the legs and smashing his hilt into the face of another. He lashed out while the others were stunned, killing one and then driving his blade through the parry of the last one in an overhand strike that left his sword stuck in the goblin’s skull. Alto had to plant his foot in the corpse’s chest to yank his blade free.

  The two men had climbed through the cave-in and were rushing toward him, both with swords in hand. Alto held his ground, doubt gnawing at him. Facing goblins was one thing. They were little better than the wolf he’d wrestled. Humans were no different than him. Even if they held different reasons and beliefs, they could be as skilled and as dangerous.

  Alto remembered Kar’s words pointing out that he hadn’t beaten Tristam. He’d made the seasoned warrior yield, but their weapons hadn’t been real. These men had steel that gleamed in the light that danced behind them and cast long shadows. Their bodies were covered in metal-studded leather, and over that they wore tabards with the Kingdom’s seal on it.

  Alto gasped. He stumbled backwards, buying himself time while he tried to make sense of it. Kingdom guards working with goblins? Commanding them, even? And referring to their boss whom they couldn’t escape?

  “Traitors!” Alto growled and came to a stop in the tunnel.

  The men slowed. The one closest to Alto laughed. “Traitors? Oh, the uniforms. You thought we were your king’s men? Ha! Fool. Why, you’re nothing but a boy. A child with a sword, playing soldier.”

  “Careful, he’s big,” the other man warned.

  “Probably still wets the bed,” the first one said. “Imagine his mother crying when she can’t tuck him in tonight!”

  Alto charged forward, smashing his broadsword into the hastily raised defense of the man taunting him. He heard him grunt from the impact and felt the pretend soldier’s blade drop. He bore down on him, forcing the sword down farther until it rested on the man’s chest.

  “You are strong,” the man wheezed as he struggled against Alto. “But are you—”

  Alto slammed the fist not holding his sword into the man’s face, knocking him back. Alto’s adversary kept his feet and raised his sword back up to show a semblance of defense. He turned and spat out blood, and then had his sword smashed free from his hand by Alto’s battering blade.

  The man’s partner saved him, slipping past his partner and lunging at Alto. Remembering Trina’s move earlier, the farm boy spun in hopes of driving the man back. Rather than forcing a retreat, Alto’s blade glanced off the chain coif the man wore, knocking him to the ground. His head crashed into one of the rocks that had been pulled free of the cave-in. His body came to rest without any further movement.

  The other attacker had grabbed his sword and was straightening to face Alto. He lunged forward, hacking at Alto so crudely even the sixteen-year-old could knock the strike aside. The sword struck the rock wall, bouncing back of its own volition and hitting Alto on the hip as he stepped into his next attack. Alto’s sword was blunted by the metal studs in the man’s armor but the force of the strike knocked his foe to one knee and left his sword arm hanging limp at his side.

  “Surrender!” Alto said, leveling the wide point of his blade at the man’s chest.

  “This is a quicker death,” the goblin handler wheezed, drawing his dagger in his left hand and lunging toward Alto. The weight of his body and the speed of his leap forced Alto’s sword to plunge into his chest. His dagger fell from his hands and he slumped forward, gravity pulling him back off the boy’s sword.

  Alto stared down at him, shocked by the man’s behavior. He heard noise behind him and turned to look back instinctively. Trina pulled her sword free from the body of the goblin that had surrendered and walked toward him. She looked around him and passed him, and then stopped and stared up at him.

  Trina reached up with her free hand and laid it on his shoulder. She pulled him so he bent over, bringing his face closer to hers. She twisted her head and kissed him on the cheek, and then whispered in his ear, “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

  Alto straightened, a fire burning in his cheeks. He was so baffled by the kiss, it took him a moment to process what she’d said. She slipped past him, pausing only to check on both men to ensure they were dead before heading toward the cave-in. Alto stared after her, his lips parted in an unasked question.

  “My friend, you’ve won something no man or boy from her village could ever get.”

  Alto stiffened, hearing Namitus speaking so close to him. He turned and saw the boy staring after her. “What’s that?”

  “Her favor.”

  “Her favor? She just touched, I mean…,” Alto hesitated, confused. Had she kissed him? Maybe she’d leaned to close as she tried to speak to him. The feel of her lips still felt warm against his cheek. It certainly felt like she’d kissed him!

  “Yes, her first kiss. Her favor. You’ve won it and earned the envy and wrath of a lot of Kelgryn.”

  “What of you?” Alto asked, forcing some sense into his head. He recognized the faraway tone in Namitus’s voice.

  “I’m the son her father never had. I’m her play toy. She uses me to spar with, verbally and, when her father and others aren’t around, with weapons. I teach her the magic of poetry and song and through her, I learn its deeper mysteries.”

  “But how do you feel about her?”

  Namitus smiled. “I love her. I’d lay down my life for her if she but asked me to.”

  Alto nodded. “I’m sorry. I had no intentions with her. I have none, I mean.”

  Namitus chuckled. “Her heart’s not for me. I like you, Alto. You’re a mountain of a man, or you will be soon enough. But you’re not like those thugs. You’re smart and you’re kind. If we make it out of here, I see great things coming your way in time. You’re young—we all are—but Patrina could do far worse than to end up with someone like you.”

  “Bah, bunch of whelps that don’t know nothing about the fine arts of love,” Drefan wheezed as he walked up to them. He looked around at the bodies. “Well done with the gobs, though. And a pair of men pretending to be Kingdom soldiers!”

  Alto looked at the chaos around him. He’d caused all of it. By himself, except for the goblin Trina had executed. He took in a deep breath, noticing the stink of death for the first time. He sheathed his sword, forgetting to clean the gore from it, and nodded.

  “Your hip all right?” Drefan asked him.

  “What?” Alto turned and looked at his leg. His leather gaped open from a slash in it caused by the man’s blade. Blood had dripped down his leg but the wound was shallow. He winced as he became aware of it, and then he nodded. “Aye, I’ll be fine.”

  “Good, then fetch me one of their blades since your lady friend has mine.”

  Alto blushed again but failed to act in time. Namitus had already grabbed both swords and was handing one to Drefan. “We’d better hurry,” Namitus said. “She’s not known for being patient.”

  Up ahead, Trina was sitting in the cave-in, staring at them. “Hurry up!” she called to them.

  Drefan and Alto looked at Namitus. The boy with wisdom beyond his years gave them a knowing grin. Alto chuckled while
Drefan winced. They turned and walked toward her, intent on finding their way out of the mines.

  Chapter 8

  “Where do we go?” Alto asked. They’d stopped past the cave–in to plot their next move and enjoy the lantern that was hanging from a spike driven into a support beam. The tunnel stretched ahead of them, curving slightly.

  “Only one way to go.” Trina pointed down the passage. “That’s the way we came, though.”

  “And you ran from these people,” Alto pointed out.

  “We didn’t see any goblins, just the Kingdom soldiers.”

  “They aren’t Kingdom men!”

  “I know that,” Trina snapped. “But we thought they were then.”

  “I heard the two men talking before…”

  “Before what?” Namitus asked him.

  Alto glanced behind them at the shapes in the darkness. The two larger shapes were the men he’d killed. He took a breath and blew it out. Yes, he’d killed two men but they were going to kill him. He wasn’t sure how he should feel about it. He fell back on the pragmatism he’d learned on his father’s farm and decided he would deal with it later, when he had time. “Before they attacked me,” he finished.

  “And what did they say?” Trina asked after waiting a long moment for Alto to continue.

  Alto snapped his head around to look at her, jerking himself out of the fog his mind had started to enter. “What? Oh! Uh, they said they had to get you two back or they couldn’t run far enough to get away from their boss.”

  “Hard to get good loyalty in a bandit these days,” Drefan muttered.

  “But they were willing to kill you. I heard them say that,” Trina said.

  “Why are we special?” Namitus wondered.

  “She’s the princess,” Drefan stated the obvious.

  Patrina turned on him, a hand on one hip and her finger pointed at him threateningly. “I’m not a princess! We have a king, too. My father’s only the jarl. And besides, how would they know that? We weren’t traveling with a lot of guards or any tabards announcing who I was.”