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

“I don’t need a detailed description of that demon,” Gailert said. He turned and looked at the forest. “And if this forest is so dangerous, why do these people live on the edge of it?”

The captain shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. I’ve asked that question several times myself.”

That earned a chuckle. The general nodded. “I believe that this forest is not as infested as they make out. If it were, the insurgents would not have headed north on foot through it.”

Shrugging again, the captain led the general up the front steps to his post. “Humans do crazy things, especially when they have their magic wards with them.”

*

The boy sat on the steps to the inn as usual. The same cries of pain echoed on the air. He hated it.

The villagers passing by looked up then glanced at him before scurrying away. Already he was hearing the villagers whisper about General Gole and cursing his return. The only thing they seemed to be happy with was that he brought his own woman and would hopefully leave their daughters alone.

The sun lowered over the flat plain. Through the houses and the shadows they cast, the boy could see the changing colors of the late summer sky on the clouds. He imagined somewhere beyond that to be Herra, a town in the hills he had only visited once with his father years ago. The town had impressed him since they actually had cobblestone roads already, better in many ways from the Sky Child’s cold construction. His father has said that all the cities and towns in the hills of the northern land were like this, beautiful clean round stones with stone walkways with steps going up the hills and flowering plants hanging over them. Roan had been so bare. Barnid likewise.

Someone shuffled across his view, paused and stood there. The boy looked up, wondering if it was the witch from Wenden or that gunman. But the face he saw staring down at him was neither. In fact, the face he saw was sickly. The man’s eyes were bloodshot, and his skin had gone a yellowish gray. He was nearly putrefied, staring at the boy as if seriously considering him for food.

The boy pulled back, drawing his legs towards his chest. His chains clanked against the wood. The man’s eyes drawing down to the noise, he then lifted his head and shuffled on towards in the inn entrance.

He went in.

Panting hard, staring at the doors, the boy listened to what he expected to be a ruckus soon. However, not even ten minutes later the man reemerged, laughing with another man who looked like he had been drinking. They went together out into the street and walked off.

“Siler looked a little sick to me.” One of the innkeepers had walked though the door, staring after them. “Do you think I should call the doctor?”

The boy looked up to see if innkeeper was talking to him, but another man stood next to him—someone respectable in a nice cotton shirt. That man frowned, squinting after the pair. “Tomorrow. It is too late tonight.”

The driver shoved out of the inn through the locals, pushing the woman they had taken from Wenden ahead with a hold on her wrist chains. She was red faced, wet on the cheeks, and glaring with a hope that it would kill. Both men backed away, returning to the inn to keep out of the Sky Child’s way. The boy scooted back to his spot on the porch.

“I saw you, you little brat,” the driver said, giving him a kick in the rear. “And don’t think I won’t tell the general about you not sitting in your spot.”

Ducking his head, the boy waited for a blow. However, he turned and peered down the road again, thinking of that sickly man’s peculiar stare at him.

“As for you, you are lucky the general wants to sleep with you. You don’t deserve him, understand?” The driver took out the key the general had made for the boy’s old ankle irons, and he unlatched one of the woman’s wrists.

She tried to pull out from his hold, fighting to escape. But with one touch, the blue-eye weakened her. She dropped to the floor. He wrapped her arms around the post and latched the iron on her wrist again, locking it.

“There. Sit out here for the night and contemplate your purpose in life.” He turned almost immediately, tucking the key into his pocket before giving the boy another kick. He was inside in three strides.

The woman drew up her strength, pulling herself onto the stoop to lean on the post where she was now chained. Her eyes fell on the landscape, going from the buildings across the street, gazing over the sunset and turning toward the road where the general’s boy was still watching.

“What?” She panted between each word. “Are you keeping watch for your master?”

Turning his head, the boy looked at her. “No. I think…I think that man was demon.”

“All Sky Children are,” she said, straightening up to give herself some dignity.

Glancing around to make sure the soldiers on patrol weren’t close enough to hear him, he whispered back, “No. Not him. The man with the yellow face and the scary eyes. I think he’s going to eat that other man.”

“Wait a second. What man?” The innkeeper hopped from the doors where he had been standing there watching him.

The boy ducked his head, looking to see if any soldiers were watching.

Rolling her eyes, the woman drew in a breath and said, “The kid’s General Gole’s slave. He won’t talk to you.”

“But what about the man he mentioned?” The innkeeper reached out. But he did not grab the boy. He looked at his patchy hair and then at the scars on his chest. Instead, he crouched down and whispered. “I won’t tell a soul you spoke with me. But that man, Siler, is a friend of mine. You said the yellow-faced man was going to eat the other man. Why did you say that?”

Ducking lower, the boy clenched his chest then looked down the road. Taking in a breath, he peered up with pain. His whisper was incredibly slight. “He stared at me as if he were a gole before he went in. He looked hungry.”

“He looked sick,” the innkeeper said, nodding. He rose up, peering down the road. “He may be already dead.”

The boy nodded.

Stepping heavily into the road, the innkeeper gazed hard then jogged toward the Sky Child post. A terror filled the boy. His wildest fear that the man would tell the captain of that post that he spoken with him made him shake. But the captain when he ran out with five guards did not even give him a glance. They jogged directly down the road into the growing shadows. After only a few minutes they heard gunfire.

The lieutenant, then the captain of their caravan, darted out of the inn doors, lifting their pistols up in their hands. Searching around, they heard the gunshots to the left and then sped off in that direction. The boy watched other soldiers run to join them, their rifles high. Screams and shouts joined them, the word fire the most prominent among them. Though it was not until the soldiers marched back with the captain of the post, snapping at the lieutenant from the general’s caravan, that the meaning of what had happened became clear.

“…said. We have to burn the bodies and set fires to scare it off. Bullet wounds only kill the host. And now the spider is somewhere out there looking for another host.” The captain then turned toward the general’s boy and the woman. “You two will have to be taken indoors.”

The lieutenant raised his eyebrows at the boy and sighed. “I doubt that demon would inhabit that boy. His leg irons are welded shut. It would know it couldn’t survive on him.”

“I wouldn’t put it past any demon to try it,” the captain said. He then gestured to the ground below. “Besides, those two would be the easiest prey, especially by being so close to a dark hole where it can hide.”

The woman gasped, blinking. She scrambled to her feet practically hugging the post she was chained to.

“Fine,” the lieutenant said, hanging his shoulders. “We’ll take them in. But do you have a shed? The general—”

“There is a tool shed out near the Smithy,” the captain said.

With a glance at the kid, the lieutenant snorted. “No. Neither the boy nor that woman can be near tools or a Smithy. Both of them have links to insurgents.”

The woman blinked then peered at the boy who kept his head down. The driver had come out, already beckoned by the captain to take the general’s property.

“How about a cellar?” the captain offered. “We don’t keep a prison in this town to lock them in. Swift punishment seems to be more effective than letting criminal elements linger and spoil the good folk.”

“A cellar it is.” The lieutenant took hold of the boy’s arm to escort him. “Lead the way.”

 It was rather like fate that he ended up back in a cellar. But this one was hardly dug out. The floor was dirt, and there were hooks on the ceiling for curing meat. The lieutenant had the boy’s chains hooked up to one of them, setting the rest of him nearly upside down on a table with his legs up in the air. The lieutenant hung the woman by her irons on the next hook. When they shut the door both captives moaned in the dark.

“So…” The woman exhaled with a tired sigh, glancing over at the piles of brick that kept the cellar closed. “Have you ever tried to escape?”

Only the boy’s breathing answered her

“You know, no one can hear us talking down here. Especially if we whisper,” she said.

He exhaled twice, but still said nothing.

“Come on. You have been with the general, what? How many years?” She wrapped her fingers around the chains of her cuffs and pulled on the hook with her entire weight, but it would not loosen. Dangling for several minutes, she let go and exhaled. “I can’t live like this.”

His breathing sounded like he was trying to sleep.

“How can you stand it?” She shouted at him. “If it were me, I’d try everything. Even with chains on.”

“They’ll shoot you,” he said.

“So you are awake.” Then she shook her head. “I don’t care. It is better to be shot than stuck here with that demon.”

“They’ll shoot you and drag you back,” he said.

She clenched the chains again and pulled. They still didn’t budge. After a long strain, she let go. “I’ll take my chances.”

In the dark, she heard his chains rattle. She could barely see him, though there was a light coming from one side of the cellar, a crack of it. The boy grunted then sighed. She felt something touch her. She almost jumped. However, it was his hand. He tapped her again.

“Can you climb on the table?” he asked.

She blinked. “Of course! I can climb up and unhook my chains.”

But the table was further than she thought. He reached out to help her up, still hanging by his feet from the irons. It took several tries. She had to swing on the hook by her chain to get up onto the table, his hands keeping her from falling off again. As soon as she was stable, she grasped her chain and flicked it repeatedly until it came off the hook. Bound now only by her wrists, she sighed and sat on the table edge.

“Good. Now I have to figure out how to get you down.”

“Don’t bother,” the boy said. He then stuffed something into her hands.

She felt it and turned it over. “A key?”

“It’s an all-key. You can use it to open your irons. I took it a while ago. The general doesn’t know I have it,” he said.

“But your irons