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

Rushing over, she took hold of his arm. “Wait. Just wait.”

“I don’t want to wait.” He pulled his hand from her grip.

“Please, just let me help you.”

Looking back, he blinked. “How?”

Shrugging, she said, “I don’t know. But how are you going to get to the peninsula without anyone seeing you?”

“I’ll swim.”

She made a face. “Grown men can’t swim that distance. Couldn’t you at least take a boat?”

He shook his head. “No. I’ll go at night. And I’ll float on my back when I get tired.”

Rolling her eyes, she sloshed after him. “What about food?”

Bowing, he found his smile. “Thank you for your lunch. But you’d better not come back here again. If the Sky Children find out that you have helped me, they might kill you. Or worse, they’ll take you away and use you. Then you’ll be trapped forever.”

“You got away,” she said, pouting now that it was clear he would not let her help him or stop going to the peninsula.

“I was lucky,” he murmured to himself. Then he blinked and felt over his feet. His right shoe was missing. “Oh no!”

He dived into the water, groping the muck with his hands. Getting up for air, he then dived back down again. When he came up for air again, the girl grabbed a hold of him.

“What are you doing?” she asked, almost shouting.

“My shoe!”

He dived down for it again.

Making a face, she waited for him to surface. When he came up, he took another breath. She grabbed him again. “Forget it. It’s just a shoe.”

“No! No! My key is in it!”

He tried to dive down again but she wouldn’t let him. “Forget the key. It’s lost.”

“No!” And he dunked under the water once more.

With exasperation, she dropped down in the muck also, taking a deep breath and groping the bank where they both had been. Going up and down like the ducks, the pair of them felt over the mud for several minutes, though the girl took a break before helping him search again. By this time she crawled to the shore where the slough was thick and muddy. There her eyes caught on something shiny. She reached out. It as a brass eyelet where the laces went through for a shoe.

“Here it is!” She dangled the shoe in front of him when he emerged.

Blinking, he then grabbed the shoe, going straight for the hole where his key was now immersed in muck.  He pulled it out with a sigh of relief, wiping the grime off of it.

“What is so special about that key anyway?” she asked, wringing out the mud in her hair and making a face at it. “Is it magic?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s an all-key. It can open almost any lock.”

Peering at it, she almost looked impressed. “Ok. Though I don’t see why I had to get all dirty for that small thing.”

He pawed around for a pocket, but then he remembered that he no longer wore a vest. His shoes were pretty useless also now.

“Here.” The girl snapped off the hemp necklace that she was wearing and handed it to him. “Hang it on this. Then you can wear it.”

Nodding, he took the necklace and slid the key on it. Then he tried to tie it around his neck. Unfortunately it was too short for him to do by himself so the girl took the ends from him and tied it for him.

“There,” she said, patting it. “Now you can go. Though I really think you ought to stay here and never go back to that peninsula. I hear the Kitai tower there is haunted.”

He rose up, kicking off his other shoe. “The Kitai tower is not haunted. It’s a ruin. My friends and I used to play there all the time.”

She just shrugged. “Whatever. Just be careful.”

He walked back towards Bekir Lake, wading along the shore of Holm Lake before looking at the far shore. Deciding to start swimming across, he nodded to the girl. She was dripping with mud and soggy now. Blinking at her, he said, “How are you going to explain…?”

Looking down at herself once, she then chuckled and waved back at him to go on. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell them I was wading and I tripped.”

“Your mom is going to be so mad,” he said.

With a shrug, she laughed. “Nah. It’s my older sister that will be mad with me. She does the laundry. But she’ll make me wash it.”

He sighed then waved. “Thank you.”

Nodding, she turned and walked back to where her ducks were wading. “You’re welcome. And if you find my brother, use your key and free him.”

Bowing, he then turned and headed east along the shore.

*

The general was not happy. Losing his boy put him in a sour mood. Also, having to ride in a military armored car gave him a headache. And back tracking through the Semple forest to Wenden Village made him downright cranky. So when they arrived at Wenden Village to discover that the soldiers they had left behind to set up a military post had all been massacred, he practically exploded.

But there were no villagers in sight to attack. The village itself was empty. And when they tried to set fire to the place, the wood would not burn at all. And though they stayed for days at Wenden trying to devise a way to tear down the buildings, they were only successful with a few of them. In the end, the military troop left the village and returned to Barnid to regroup.

The general’s servants at Barnid asked about the boy almost immediately when they searched for the general’s bags on the stoop. When they saw the driver hauling them out, they asked again.

“The boy ran off,” Gailert said with bite. “Undoubtedly to the north. But I am too tired to deal with it right now. I’m going to bed. Do not disturb me.”

He stomped up the stairs as the driver exchanged glances with the porter. As the servants gathered his things, the general continued on to his room. He threw open the door and undressed, tossing everything aside, wishing he had his woman for that night.

Going north into the Semple Mountains had proved tactically wrong, his first real loss in his career. Unsettling to begin with, it gave him a deep sense of foreboding that he could not shake. It was like that storm. Suddenly off guard and surrounded in a deluge that blurred his vision, it was hard to focus on who the real enemy was. The storm only stopped when a corporal had found that wizard and shot him. But they never got their hands on the wizard. He had escaped before they could lay their hands on him. They were also unable to collect any captives, leaving the general at a loss as to what to do next. They still didn’t know the location of the insurgents, though he suspected Wenden Village to be one of their hideouts.

Dropping to his bed, Gailert heaved in a deep breath, closing his eyes to sleep.

The military office in Barnid Town was busier than it had ever been the morning after the general’s return. General Gailert Winstrong promoted new captains and lieutenants and organized troops with specific tasks to carry out. He also organized a troop with explicit instructions to study demon hunting. After their encounter with spider parasites, he didn’t want to be off guard anymore. But his last and yet most pressing task was to have notices sent out concerning his runaway.

“I also want a drawing of his face and his hair,” the general said to the military secretary he put to this task. “With his height and age, and that identifiable scar on his chest with the marking we put on him, it should be enough.”

“What should I say the reward is?” the secretary asked, lifting his pen to the paper where he had been taking notes.

Thinking hard, Gailert wondered what kind of price would match the effort to capture that savage child alive. The boy had been such a pain to train, and the defiance in his eyes had never really gone despite the assurances of his former lieutenant to the contrary. Undoubtedly the boy would fight anyone who attempted to recapture him. But the reward for their pains had to equal the value of having the boy back, even if for a brief time of punishment before execution.

Drawing in a breath, Gailert said, “Put on, oh, about a thousand in silver. I mostly want him alive. But if the boy has become too dangerous free, I’ll be willing to pay for him dead, just less.”

“Price negotiable?” the secretary said.

That didn’t sound right. Gailert shook his head. “No. Say, wanted alive. Reward: a thousand in silver. But have on it somewhere that dead is acceptable for a half the price or something like that.”

The secretary nodded and set away his paper. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Good.” Gailert turned and went back into his office to organize the troops’ new posts in the Southwestern corner. He was going to get this land in order before the ten years were up.

Gailert worked for a few hours before someone knocked on his door.

“Enter.” He put down the last document on the desk, looking up.

A Sky Child merchant he knew well stepped in, pushing a young human boy in front of him. The boy’s head was ducked, and his eyes were on the ground. He wore leather straps on his wrists, and he walked barefoot into the office with leather straps on his ankles. A mildly strong chain held them together.

“General Winstrong. I heard you lost your boy,” the man said. “I am willing to sell you this one to you for a reasonable price. He is better trained than the boy you had picked up and much more obedient.”

“Can he read?” Gailert asked, leaning back in his chair as his eyes looked over the child.

The man’s eyes grew wide. “Of course not. To educate a footman is rather risky.”

Nodding, Gailert sighed. It was perhaps his first mistake with that smith’s son. His ideals had clouded his view of reality. Humans were naturally dangerous. It was best that the savage element did not have access to reading after all. Perhaps that was what made that boy remain so defiant.

Exhaling, the general said, “How about this. I take this boy on trial for a month. If he suits me, I will keep him and pay full price for him. If not, I will return him and pay for the use of him, at half price. Is it agreed?”

Though the merchant didn’t look exactly happy about the deal, he bowed and ducked, pushing the little boy forward. “Agreed. You won’t be disappointed.”

Gazing down at the trembling boy before him, Gailert mused over whether or not that would be true.

*

It was early morning. The water was cold. But if he kept moving, the smiths’s son was sure he could keep from feeling it. His arms ached, especially where the bullet was. The wound had crusted over and the scab was soft in the water, but he didn’t touch it. So far it was only sore. The color around the wound did not indicate any infection. But he was afraid that if he did touch it, it would go green and pussy and then he would get sick.

As he floated to the shore, the boy kept his head just above the water. His strokes under the water were as quiet as the ripples rolling towards the bank. And when he crawled up the rocks, peering at the Kitai tower and around it to the village, he stepped just as softly.

Before his eyes he saw green, heaps of it.

Algae and moss covered the burnt remains of the wood. Back ash was still underfoot despite wind and water erosion. Treading along what used to be