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

“Business as usual,” the swordsman of the group replied, rising from the log and sheathing his sword.

Rainold and Polen rushed from the crowd to Key. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Key muttered, though his eyes were on the three newcomers.

The two other smiths let go of Tiler who immediately joined his friends. Frad jerked from the hold of the one that had restrained him, quickly going to check on Key’s wounds. The group of them shot glares at the smiths who returned to their pal as if to reconvene for another plan to get rid of the competition.

“Did you enjoy the show?” the woman asked the three men.

She glanced once at the young victor who shook his head without speaking to his fellows from Herra as he tugged at the ragged state of his shirt. Key talked in a low voice to his comrades as they examined his cuts.

The warrior nodded, and so did his companions.

“Immensely. Though it really was a bad idea to have that kid fighting with the smith.” The young man dressed in a southern style outfit of twinned flax with a blue vest, stood up in his clogs. He stepped a few paces from the trio of travelers, thumbing in the direction of the Herra evacuees. His eyes watched Key mostly. His lips turned up with amusement. “He is more valuable alive than dead.”

“What did you say?” Berd was not far off. He stomped over to them.

Gazing down on the boy from Herra, the southern traveler smiled. “I said he is much more valuable alive than dead.”

Berd drew out his sword. “You are not going to take him in for the reward.”

The man broke into a laugh. “Which one?”

The first man the lady had addressed, Calen, stepped between them. He was a large man with a beard and several years behind his gray eyes. He shook his head at the impetuous youth. “Do not worry, lad. He did not mean he was intending to take him in. Your friend is worth more than a mere ten thousand in silver.”

Remaining there, though still suspicious, Berd did lower his sword.

“I’d like to meet him,” the bearded man said, gesturing to where the Herra refugees now had Key sitting down to bind up his wounds.

Bowing gently, the woman immediately led the way with a graceful turn. She walked at a leisurely pace while the three men followed, though Berd ran ahead to join his friends and warn Key of who was coming. Key looked up when he saw them. Then he jumped up, much to his friends’ surprise.

“You?” Key clenched his fists and shook his head, staring straight at the young southern man wearing the clogs and blue vest. “What do you want?”

“I see you remember me.” Southern-dressed man smiled lightly.

Shaking his head, Key stepped back. “You blasted witch, what are you going to do? Knock me out again? I have nothing to with you!”

“And I see you found your tongue,” the man also chuckled. He turned to the swordsman and added, “When I first met him, he hardly spoke.”

“When you first met him?” Frad from Herra stood up. “When was that?”

 But Key now gaped at the bearded swordsman, his eyes widening. The swordman nodded, patting his sword hilt with grin.

Key grabbed his forehead and staggered back. “I feel sick.”

“It is from losing blood,” the southern witch said and dug into a pack at his side.

Shaking his head, Key still recoiled from him. “You are not using that smelly stuff to knock me out again.”

Lifting his eyes, the witch smirked. “Oh, so you are holding that against me? Well it just so happens I did that only to get information about General Gole from you. A lot of help it did, though. My assistant wasn’t able to kill him and got stuck with your caravan all the way to Foreston. But you know that.” He then chuckled, lifting out a jar. It had a wire clasp that held the stopper on. “Though, thank you for helping her escape.”

Blinking, Key then lowered his eyes.

The men and boys from Herra stared at Key as the witch took off Key’s shirt to clean his wounds.

“My name is Edman, by the way,” the witch said. “Do remember yours now?”

Key shook his head. “Not immediately. But everyone calls me Key.”

The boys blinked at him.

“Key Smith,” the witch murmured, dabbing the scar across the Key’s chest with a yellowish liquid. Key flinched as it stung. But he bore the pain. The man pressed gauze against the cut right after and wrapped Key’s chest with a thin strip of cheesecloth. “Not a very dramatic name for warrior, but then you were much more of a thinker, aren’t you?”

Key said nothing, staring at the ground.

The witch, Edman, started on the slice in Key’s shoulder. This one was deeper. He let the wound open up again to clean it out before treating it. “Are you still the one thing the general fears most?”

Feeling mocked, Key lowered his head. “I don’t know.”

“Can you really read?” Edman asked.

“Of course he can,” Tiler said, sticking his face now in the witch’s way. “But who are you again? And why are you asking him all these questions?”

Sighing, Edman tried to nudge Tiler out of the way. “Look, kid—”

“I’m not a kid!” Tiler snapped. “And neither is he! So stop talking down to him!”

Shrugging, Edman took out a needle and some thread, starting immediately to stitch the skin on Key’s shoulder closed. The former slave cringed, but did not let out even a small squeak.

“Fine,” Edman said. “What I know about your pal here is that he is the valuable property of one General Winstrong, and who, to my recollection, is also a self-proclaimed heir to the Smith of Bekir Lake. And since the spell I had him under years ago was powerfully effective in getting the truth from a person, I want to know why him knowing how to read terrifies the general to put permanent leg irons on his ankles, yet keep him alive.”

They all seemed to look at Key for the answer.

Key averted his eyes then looked up. “Stop staring at me! I don’t know!”

The swordsman laughed. “Maybe you don’t, but what did they have you doing in Herra?”

“How did he even get to Herra in the first place without being seen?” the bearded man asked. “With that hair, he stands out.”

“He came into our village with a hat on,” Rainold said peering curiously at the three of them.

“And with Kleston,” Berd added.

Tiler shook his head. “Kleston found him. He told me about it when I asked.”

“Can I see your sword?” the bearded warrior asked Key.

Giving a shrug, Key reached over to where he had stuck it in the ground and pulled it out. Handing it over, he looked up at the man. “You’re the one who saved me in Foreston, aren’t you?”

The old warrior nodded. “Yeah, though I wish I could say I had forgotten about that battle. But who could forget your hair.”

Tugging at one of the white tufts to tease Key, the bearded warrior then turned the sword Key had handed him over in his palms. His eyes slowly dilated as he peered over the steel. He strokes the blade’s sharp double edges, examining it for chinks from the battle Key had just finished. Whistling low, he slowly shook his head.

“I haven’t seen a sword like this in a long time,” the swordsman murmured, taking it from the bearded man’s hands.

“When was the last time you saw a sword like that?” the bearded warrior asked.

“I don’t know, Callen,” the swordsman replied. “About ten years ago, maybe? I was up north bartering in Wimanus for some sturdy boots, and there was seller there that had rare items in the back of his shop. Among them I found this beautiful, but highly expensive blade that was bragged to be able to break a Kitai sword.”

“Key’s swords can do that,” Tiler offered.

The men looked at him. Then they stared at Key who was still clenching his teeth as Edman sewed him up.

Ignoring Tiler, the swordsman said, “I thought it was shameless brag, but the blade was so beautiful that I admired it for almost an hour. It didn’t purchase it in the end, though at times I wish I did. Instead I asked who the swordsmith was, and the seller said the swordmaker was from some hidden island on Bekir Lake. I thought it was just a legend because there is no island on Bekir Lake.”

“But there is a peninsula,” Frad said. He then nodded to the men. “We used to do trade with the smith of the Bekir Lake for years until General Gole found him and killed him. His swords were the best in all of the Eastern Provenance. Their family has a legacy of it.”

“And that kid does dance like a Bekir swordsman,” Callen, the bearded warrior, said.

Key lifted his head. “You’ve seen other people from Bekir Lake?”

Callen nodded with a twinkle in his eyes. “Oh yes. I know their fighting style.”

“No,” Key tried to move, but Edman pushed him down and told him to keep still as he tried to finish the stitch. “I mean recently.”

The man still nodded. “Sure have. Why? Are you looking for them?”

Suddenly shaking, he found it hard to breath. Key fought the tears that wanted to come. “So, somebody from my village could still be alive. He didn’t kill them all.”

He tried to stand up again. Edman had to rise with him, struggling not to tear open the wound again.

“My mother!” Key asked. “Have you seen my mother?”

The men stared at him.

The woman who led the Wingsley camp did also. Her attendants wondered at the boy the entire time.

Tiler set his hand on Key’s shoulder. “If she is alive. I’ll help you find her.”

But the three travelers shared a look that Key understood too well.

Callen looked him right in the eye and said, “I don’t know your mother. But what I do know is that there are those people out there that claim to have come from Bekir Lake. And these men and women are waiting for when it is time to fight back against the blue-eyes.”

“Why wait?” Key stared at him.

Cutting off the thread, Edman then pressed gauze over the wound then began to wrap it. “What else can they do? We have yet to find a powerful enough magic incantation or item that can drive them from our land. They are the only demons we have no good defense against.”

Blinking, Key muttered to himself.

“What was that?” Edman asked.

“It is not magic that we need,” Key said. He looked to those from Herra who had been watching him. “Why is it that no one listens when I keep saying we don’t need magic to stop them? We need their technology.”

“But what is technology, Key?” Polan asked. “You never explained what it was.”

Standing up, Key grabbed the wrapping from Edman to finish the bandage himself. “Technology is what they know. What they use. They aren’t beating us with magic. They are defeating us with their guns, with their automobiles, with their trains, and with their trained military. The only real advantage they have over us is that they remember stuff from some advanced civilization that has better things than we do!”

“Better stuff?” Edman murmured, trying to get a hold of the bandage anyway.

“Yeah!” Key snatched his sword from the swordsman. “The only reason I beat the smith in that fight was because I can make a better sword. He’s the better swordsman, without a doubt. I hardly cut him at all.”

Tiler shrugged then nodded, looking to his friends.

They chimed in with nods, agreeing that it really was so.

The woman who led the camp narrowed her eyes at Key. “So, are you saying that our magic is useless against them?”

Key looked up at her, clearly reading the offense she took to his comments about magic. He chose his words as carefully as possible without lying.