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

chef replied, “It shames me to say that he is also out. Mr. Fishman has been trading in the docks when the rain started. He is probably at his other inn for the night.”

The indignity was too much. He was sopping wet and reeking. The help was no help at all, and he had lost again the boy he had thought had been dead all those years.

Turning, Gailert did the only other thing he knew he ought to do. He stomped out of the inn and headed straight for the military post. Captain Tousen would want to know about a robbery if it happened in his city, storm or no storm. And as the winds blew, working to drive him back, Gailert plowed through it against the rain all the way to Post Road.

Lifting his eyes towards the military post, Gailert stopped. The wind chill finally struck him hard. Before him, where the military post had once stood, was now a veritable lake. Only the top of the building remained. Five soldiers gasped on the rooftop, struggling to keep from falling into the water.

*

Key clenched his hand to his chest as if he could still feel that hot iron pressing against it. With his hand over his mouth to cover his heavy breathing, he waited in panic. Loid held him back against the cool stone under the archway. He could hear the general curse then slosh the way he had come through the water. Telerd stood on the other side of him in the dark, loading his pistol for another shot. But the general had gone, and only the hush of the rain remained, sounding in his ears.

“That was a close one,” Loid whispered after a few minutes. He peeped out to make sure the brown-eyed Sky Child was gone.

“I can’t believe I missed,” Telerd muttered. He then turned to look at Key. “Kemdin, he’s not here anymore. You can calm down.”

Shaking his head, Key slid down the side of the stone. He dropped back onto the rock landing and peered around the corner up at the high road. His hands were still shaking.

“Why did you freeze back there? I thought you wanted to kill him?” Telerd snapped.

“Lanona’s right,” Key muttered. “I’m not fit to be out here. I’m the most helpless man in the crew. I am jeopardized you guys.”

Loid slapped him on the back, casting Telerd a glare. “Don’t believe that. Nobody else in our team has gone through as much as you have. It’s not like years of torture can be that easily forgotten. Now come on, we still have a ways to go.”

With a sigh and a nod, Telerd grabbed Key’s other arm, just in case his feet lost their strength again.

Key staggered, trying to regain his composure. They still had to reach their escape route.

They hurried along the canal and found the hole Lanona had made under another archway. She had put in several. The archways were the perfect hiding spots for the tunnel entrances. They were blind areas and dark, and mostly they were easy to cover. When they went in, they practically slid down the damp steps to the bottom. From there, they felt their way towards the main tunnel until they reached the tower. There, they climbed out to count their losses. Then they would make their escape.

Bredin’s men were all accounted for. They laid out their stolen maps on the floor and looked to Key for interpretation. However, Rainold and Tiler soon climbed in from the closet tunnel, so the task was passed to Rainold. He had elected to stay behind to start the reading school in Stiltson so Key could leave. With that, Key looked to the rest of his group and exhaled. An escape with only four of them felt oddly like defeat.

“Don’t worry,” Tiler said as he gathered up the pack he had left in the tower for their hasty departure, handing Key his. “The others will meet up with us when they can.”

Key tried not to look worried. But after seeing General Winstrong again, hearing the demon shout, he just couldn’t get a grip on himself.

“The Sea Fisher will make a grand distraction, and Rainold will stay indoors until his task is done. Then I’m sure he’ll be escorted safely on his way back west,” Tiler said. He patted Key on the shoulder. “Come on. We still have a way to go yet.”

“Which way are we going?” Loid asked as they approached the tunnel opening that would take them out of the city. Both he and Telerd had taken up their packs also, still watching Key as if they expected him to faint.

Tiler pointed to the north. “Towards the mountains. Lanona said we’ll come out near a river. We are follow that river north to the city there.”

Key froze. “You mean Roan?”

Blinking, Tiler shrugged. “I dunno. Bredin just said the river starts in a plain near the mountains. We are supposed to meet those men from that camp there in the village outside the city.”

“As long as we are not going into Roan, that’s fine,” Key said. He pulled on his pack.

“What’s wrong with Roan City?” Telerd asked blinking at him.

Key gave him a hard look. “That’s the city General Winstrong lives in. And I don’t want to go back there.”

Loid closed his eyes and nodded.

Tiler turned as if there was no point talking about it further.

Only Telerd stared at Key as he unconsciously clutched his chest as though it were burning. As he did, Telerd thought he had seen some more of Key’s brown hair go white.

*

“What do you mean the captain has gone to the bay? Didn’t you at least tell him about his office sinking?” Gailert had nearly gone hoarse shouting at the surviving lieutenant who was dripping wet inside the inn with rings under his eyes.

“I’m sorry, sir. But the Sea Fisher came in the moment the storm cleared, and the captain has been busy rousing the navy to drive off that pirate.” Shaking off the water, the lieutenant growled. “The fact that half the city is flooded doesn’t change the other fact that the pirate is taking advantage of the commotion to pillage. We have to defend the city first. I don’t care if you saw your former slave. This takes precedence.”

Gailert shot the young blue-eyed Sky Child a dirty look. Of course the lieutenant was right. His slave’s discovery was nothing when put in perspective. Just the unexpected appearance of that boy’s incredibly intense eyes and that patchy brown-and-white hair had jolted Gailert into the realization that his slave really had been an exceedingly intelligent one. Avoiding discovery after all those years, obviously wearing a hat to hide the one trait that made him stand out from the other humans, and here in Stiltson.

The general had not thought to look for him in the sea. But a child raised on the lakes would return to the water in one place or another. It was inevitable. Besides, there were so many different lake men that had migrated to the eastern shores. It would have been easy for him to hide among them. The boy had probably seen them when they had been in Stiltson so many years ago. At least now Gailert would be able to narrow his search. He didn’t have to go all over Westhaven to find his missing slave. And once he had him, that boy would learn very well never to cross him again.

 

Chapter Twenty-Seven: First Battles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I see you received my message.” Captain Welsin gestured Gailert towards a seat in his office. “I am sure you know what it is I have come to discuss with you.”

“It’s not that you’ve found my boy, I gather,” Gailert said with a grate of disgust in his voice. He took the seat with the understanding that he would be rising from it again. “Are you here to under orders to search me?”

The captain drew in an uneasy breath. “It is merely orders, General. You must understand, with the discovery of that…white belly, the entire brown-eyed population is under suspicion.”

Gailert rose, his eyes fixed on the captain who had served under him for a large portion of his career, who he felt ought to know him better. “I’m not ignorant, Captain. I know about the others.”

Sighing, the captain nodded. “Then you heard about the walk-out of those others? An entire factory. It gives justifiable suspicions, I’m afraid.”

Huffing, Gailert snapped. “All it did was give our Sky Lord reason to expose his prejudice and freely persecute all the brown-eyeds. I know what he thinks of us. ‘Just one step from human.’ I’ve heard that line since I was a child.”

However, he had already started to unbutton his vest, then his shirt, taking both off and setting them on the arm of the chair. He lifted his arms and turned.

“This is humiliating.” Gailert moved slowly so that Captain Welsin could look over his dark skin to make sure there were no strange white patches or unusual gradations. “I have served in the Sky Lord’s army my entire life. I have given everything to his cause, and for what? In old age to be mocked like this?”

Gesturing for him to put his shirt back on, Captain Welsin bowed apologetically. “I know that, General. If it weren’t orders I wouldn’t make you do it, but the Sky Lord insists on every brown-eye being searched. It seems that the man they found appeared as natural as anyone. The fact that those soldiers discovered him at all was a fluke. They were just teasing him when they found that he had no color at all on his stomach. It looked as if all the color in his skin had been moved to make him look darker.”

Jerking his shirt on, Gailert asked with bite, “Did they get any information from his head?”

The captain cringed, slowly shaking his head. “They tried to. But the human spy had taken some poison when he realized he could not get away. The most terrifying thing of it wasn’t even that one spy. You said you heard about the other workers at that factory. So you know what that implies.”

“Yes.” Gailert frowned. “All of them walked off, including the foreman, just casual-like, as if going on lunch break. I heard the entire place was searched and found empty. Even the files were gone, right? But I ask you, how did that many humans get away with posing as Sky Children? You’d think it’d be obvious they weren’t our people. Our military is supposed to have checked out that factory on a regular basis. The paperwork would have to be in order for them to even be allowed to work there. Who didn’t do his job?”

Cringing more, Captain Welsin leaned on his desk. He started to rub his temple. “That’s just it. At the post over that area they have records of their regular inspections. The captain over there told me that everything checked out. He had inspected the place twice himself. In fact, he called it a model company. The workers came on time. They produced exceptional weapons. Some of the best guns supplied to the army are from there. And those humans walked off with all