Westhaven by Rowan Erlking (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) 📕

But ‘Key’ laughed, coughing up more blood.

His breathing went labored and his eyes stared up at the sky, even as the ambulance bells jangled in the air. The hospital crew rushed out to take the human. The soldiers helped to heave the dying man onto the stretcher. As the human struggled to breathe, his blood issuing out through the crumpled shirts that had been pressed into his skin, he reached into his side pocket. Seeing the motion, the soldiers grabbed for it, pulling what he had taken out from his fingers.

“Poison?” someone asked.

The soldiers nodded.

“He’s dying. Maybe you had better take what information you can from his head now,” one of the paramedics suggested.

“You are to save him!” Gailert snapped. “Any loss of energy and he will die.”

The soldiers looked at one another as the human heaved in a last breath, muttering on his lips perhaps his last wish as they hauled him towards the back of the ambulance. Only one man heard it, pulling back with a blink. The infamous Key died before they could even put him into the vehicle.

“What did he say?” Gailert grabbed the soldier. “He said something. What did he say?”

Still startled, the soldier repeated, “He said: ‘This one’s for you, my friend.’”

Gailert turned his eyes and stared into the vehicle, watching them set the man in who was now as dead as the policemen he slaughtered on the street. There would be no getting any information from him. All their searching was for naught.

And what had that man meant by ‘This one is for you, my friend’? Did he mean for that man, Kleston? It was clear now that Key was not that man’s son. Key was not a Herra man at all, but a friend to that Herra man. They were of the same ilk. But his dying words laid a sick mystery that boded ill—and Gailert had to ask if there was another man come to continue the raider’s legacy. Had the baton been passed on already?

Clenching his teeth, Gailert walked over to the driver of the ambulance. “You. Wrap that body up for transport to Danslik. I want that other survivor to see him, the one who truly knows Key’s face. The Sky Lord has also ordered to see Key as well, so make him look neat.”

He then turned to search for the commander of the Kalsworth post. He was standing just a few yards away.

“As for the man who shot him,” Gailert cast a harsh glare to the post’s leader, “I order a court-martial. He should have aimed for the arm. The human was to live. We needed the information in his head.”

Infuriated at his poor luck, Gailert tromped back to the inn in a foul mood.

*

“Dead?” Key stared at Tiler. He had sat him down that morning after breakfast where he and Sadena had started to plan out the rest of details to their basic operations while still having Madame Olisa’s home look like a respectable aristocratic establishment.

“Soin telegraphed this morning. It was the first word we got after we set up the wire yesterday.” Tiler looked sorry. “He said they took Telerd’s body up to Danslik for the Sky Lord to look at.”

Key felt sick. “Is there anyway we can get—?”

“Not without being suspicious,” Tiler cut him off. But then he gave him a softer look. “I can contact that Loid Darmoth from the Wede alliance. He might be able to arrange something after a while. Give your friend a proper burial.”

Key nodded, then shook his head, tearing off his hat. “But why did he do it? Why Telerd?”

“He had to give a distraction while the other lake men got away,” Tiler said. “Your general led a group to Kalsworth to search first for Key. He had assumed that Key was perhaps hiding among other lake men to keep from standing out. Telerd did a brave thing.”

“But he’s dead,” Key muttered, now wringing his hat in his hands.

“As is Kleston, your father, your grandfather and everyone else. I know.” Tiler looked him hard in the eyes. “K—Kemdin, look. You have to keep going. We can’t give this up. You’ll pay that general back for all the pain he has caused soon enough.”

Shaking his head slowly Key muttered under his breath. “I don’t want any more people to die in my place.”

“People are going to die anyway,” Tiler said, trying to keep Key from flying off the handle. Key looked like he was on the verge of a real breakdown, worse than when he had thought Lanona had rejected him. “At least we ought to fight against them with the best that we know how.”

“With the best that we know how….” Key murmured to himself.

Then he looked up, nodding. There was suddenly a very different look in Key’s eyes that somehow made Tiler a little more scared, though he didn’t know why. The fire was back, but his focus was somehow distant as if Key had swiftly gotten an idea—another crazy idea. Just as immediately, Key marched right up to his room as if pack for a hasty departure. Tiler followed him. Yet he found that Key had merely lain down on his bed with that thinking expression on his face. He stared up at the ceiling.

Waiting for a while, watching Key for several minutes, Tiler eventually left the room. He walked back up to the tower where the others were working. He did not return until around the lunch hour, knocking on the door first before entering. It was dark when he came in, calling out Key’s given name. “Kemdin?”

Tiler pulled open the blinds.

Neither Key nor his bags were there. His sword was gone and so was any sign that Key had ever existed.

“Oh, crap.” Tiler rushed out of the room, “Sadena! Lady Sadena!”

*

“What do you mean that’s not him?” Gailert snapped, fighting the urge to kick this soldier as well as the corpse at his feet.

“It’s not him,” the soldier repeated. He then waved over at the body. “This man’s hair is actually redder than Key’s. The breadth of his shoulders is bonier also. Key had more meat on him, like he used his arms a lot. And this man’s face is a great deal more…I don’t know, squared. Key was more, uh, I don’t know how to put it really. His face had more balance to it, and a few freckles as if he had been a great deal in the sun. And I remember, Key’s eyebrows had some shoe blacking on them as if he were a little vain about them, brushed and even. This man doesn’t have any of that at all, not even rubbed off.”

“So, you remembered more about him,” the Sky Lord said with bite, peering down on both body and witness. “This information would have been more useful before my armies left in search rather than after the fact.”

Cringing, the soldier bowed low and backed up.

“So then who is this man? And why did he pretend to be Key?” the Sky Lord asked, turning to face Gailert who was asking that question to himself in silence.

Summing up his suspicions aloud, Gailert exhaled with a sigh. “To distract us. He knew Key. Which means he would have also been useful alive. And worse, I never did find out which soldier shot him, which leads me to believe that it was another of those spies, silencing him.”

“A distraction? From what?” The Sky Lord had grown peevish, glaring at Gailert as if to say that the trouble was really all the general’s fault.

“We went back to the farm where we were inspecting the lake workers.” Gailert shook his head. “They were all gone when we arrived. Not one was left, and no trail was found. My men are still searching the area for them.”

“Return there,” the Sky Lord ordered with a flick of his wrist. “Find that man, and kill all humans that stand in your way.”

“Yes, my lord.” And Gailert bowed, backing off. That was his plan anyway. He didn’t need to be told.

As he and the eye witness to Key departed the hall, the attendants approached the Sky Lord with scraping and bowing. “What should we do with the body, your grace?” 

The Sky Lord cast the dead human a dirty look. “We don’t need a nest for demons rotting about here. Burn it.”

*

It had been a long walk through the hills, but he knew the way. Key only hoped that one of them was there. Otherwise he would have no point to start his search from. The shrubbery had grown over the old Herra camp with a disturbing vigor like it was reclaiming all the ground it could to prove that mankind was a transient thing. All of that was covered in snow. But Key passed through it, back into the trees to where he remembered was the small cave, hoping to see sign of use.

“Come no closer, stranger,” a voice said from out of the trees.

Key halted, his hand on his sword. He pulled the hood to his winter coat from his face, taking off his hat. “I’m not a stranger. And if you are who I hope you are, you’ll let me in to talk.”

“Well, I’ll be,” the voice murmured.

Key heard something crunch behind him in the icy snow. He drew his sword, his blade clanging right against a Kitai sword. Facing him, he saw that lean-faced Cordril named Lesar Macmon grinning with as a cat playing a game with his favorite mouse.

“If it isn’t our little smith,” Lesar said, looking Key up and down, though they were nearly eye-to-eye now. “Not so little though. Somehow I’m not surprised you are still alive. But I must wonder what you are doing here.”

“Looking for you,” Key said, not lowering his sword one bit.

“And so direct, too.” But Lesar had a scar across his face that had not been there the last time Key had seen him. And the Cordril’s old enthusiastic bounce was gone. Battle had apparently changed him. He leaned closer with a taunt. “What do you want us for? To set another city on fire?”

Key pulled back, withdrawing his sword. “That wasn’t my fault. And the traitorous magician that did that has been properly punished.”

Lesar struck out to fight him anyway. Key met his blade, deflecting and dodging.

“Oh, really? Did you slap his wrists hard enough?” Lesar called back, swiping to slash Key across the chest. “I daresay, the man must be smarting for his ill-deeds against people you consider demons.”

Key blocked and struck in to knock away the Cordril’s weapon. “No. We killed him. But it wasn’t for what he did to you.”

Stunned, though still retaining his sword, Lesar almost hesitated before striking at Key again. “Oh? Did he betray you for some petty cash? Or did he start setting other people on fire, infecting them with demon corpses?”

Blocking, striking, then blocking again as his battle dance grew more severe, Key shouted at Lesar. “It doesn’t matter what he did. The fact is he’s gone. And I am here to negotiate.”

“Negotiate?” Lesar cackled. “That’s a laugh!”

As Key defended from Lesar’s attacks, he noticed six other Cordrils emerged from where he remembered the cave to be. He recognized Yadis’s muscular face and that of shorter Donal, but the other four he did not know. When Lesar swiped for a kill, Key dodged, spinning around and attacking, this time making a good, yet shallow cut on his attacker’s arm through his coat. He then jumped back on guard as Lesar stared at the wound.

“Actually, they think I’m crazy for even trying to talk to you,” Key said, panting hard with his breath puffing in clouds around him. He waited for another round as soon as Lesar was ready.

“You’ve gotten good,” Lesar said, wiping off the blood with a sidways look to Key.

Key smiled back. “I’ve grown up.”

Lesar moved to attack again. “And what have you to offer us that