It was hard for Talon to follow Phen and his captors through the thick overgrowth, but the hawkling managed it. Hyden watched on in helpless fury as Flick’s party made their way toward a part of the island that was nowhere near where the Seawander was anchored. He let Oarly lead them. They were headed back to the Seawande r so that they could sail around the island and pick up Phen. Hyden didn’t want to lose sight of the boy for a single second. He was concentrated on Talon’s vision. It was up to the dwarf to get them through the jungle. Deck Master Biggs followed them. Oarly had removed the crossbow bolt from the man’s back, but the traveling was taking its toll on the seaman, as was the humidity. The Deck Master’s breath was coming in great heavy gasps.
To Hyden’s great horror, just as the sun was beginning to set, Flick and his troop of grumbling freaks came out of the hills onto a gravelly shoreline. Their ship was anchored a short way from the island and a long gang plank led from it directly into the shallows. A dozen zard-men, all armored in studded leather vests emblazoned with Queen Shaella’s lightning star, scurried about. Hyden’s heart sank. He, Oarly, and Biggs still had a long hike between them and the Seawander, and that was only if the Deck Master could keep up.
A commotion at the zard ship drew Talon’s full attention, and Hyden watched. A streaking bolt of jagged yellow light leapt from Flick’s hand toward one of the breed giants. Was Phen trying to escape? Hyden wondered. He couldn’t tell what happened next due to the flash burn the wizard’s spell caused in the hawkling’s eyes.
Shouting and hissing from the ship could be heard, and then a painful shriek of boyish terror that could have only come from Phen.
Talon made out the stumbling shape of the breed giant that had been holding Phen. The man-beast staggered into the cover of the jungled hillside. The other breed giant was lying sprawled across the rocky beach. Hyden was confused. He couldn’t see Phen anywhere, but the bloody twisted form of a lizard-man lay not too far from the smoldering breed giant’s body. Were they attacked?
Talon’s flash blindness was clearing, but the boy was still nowhere to be seen. Not on shore, not on the deck of the zard ship that was starting to ease away from the island now; not anywhere.
In the dying light of dusk, Hyden could see Flick standing on the deck, fastening the dragon collar around his neck with smug satisfaction. The wide eyed-expression that came over the wizard’s face told Hyden that the link between man and wyrm had been established, and he warned Talon to be wary of air-born threats.
The Silver Skull had been quickly taken below deck. Talon followed the ship for a short way as it headed out to the deep sea, but since Phen didn’t appear to be aboard the craft, the hawkling circled back and began searching the shoreline and the edges of the foliage. Hyden’s heart was clenched with fear. To his utter dismay, not a single sign of Phen could be found. To make things worse, when the moon was high in the sky, a storm came blowing in, and a heavy tropical rain began to fall.
Hyden had Talon fly from the shoreline around the island in the rain to find the Seawander. Once it was located, he explained to Oarly how to direct Captain Trant to the site of Phen’s disappearance. He wanted Oarly and Biggs to go on to the ship while he went back the other way and searched for the boy.
“What was it the boy said about finding what had been invisible to us in his books?” Oarly asked while Hyden was lightening his packs. Hyden took his elven longbow and a small pack of supplies, but that was all.
“I’m not sure what he was talking about,” Hyden said absently. His thoughts were fixed on finding Phen. If the boy was alive, Hyden was determined to locate him. If he was dead, then Hyden would lay eyes on the corpse before he gave up.
“If he lives…” Oarly started, but stopped himself before he could finish the sentence. After a tug at his beard he spoke again. “Phen is a smart lad. He will find shelter and ride this storm out. You should rest, Sir Hyden Hawk. You’ve been through an ordeal. Your clearest wit would serve you better than this haste. You’ll not find anything but trouble traipsing across this strange island in the dark.”
“Aye,” Hyden agreed. “ ’Tis true I could use some sleep, but even if I lay down and closed my eyes, no sleep would come.” Hyden wiped the rain, or maybe a tear of worry, from his eyes. “I’ll not let him sit out there shivering in the cold, alone, and possibly injured, Oarly,” Hyden said as he started into the dark wet tangle. After a few paces he had disappeared completely. Oarly heard Hyden’s voice calling back to him, “Just get to the ship and have Trant set sail as quickly as you can. Talon will let you know if I find any trouble.”
“I will!” Oarly called back, but he was certain that the sound of the storm had swallowed his voice before it reached Hyden’s ears.
Hyden set a crisp pace for himself and charged on through the night. Talon had to land frequently, so that he could shiver the accumulated wetness his feathers absorbed as he flew around the area where Phen was last seen. Hyden cursed the rain. Any tracks the youngster might have left would be washed away. He turned the scene over and over again in his head. Why had Flick struck down the breed giant with his lightning spell? Had the breed tried to protect Phen? A horrid thought crossed his mind then. What if the breed giant had tried to hurt Phen? To keep his word, the wizard Flick might have killed his own man. Mikahl had told him that the breed giants were notorious eaters of man flesh. Nothing made any sense-the dead zard-man, the other giant staggering into the foliage.
He eventually decided not to dwell on anything as he jogged on toward the rocky shore. Twice he went off course because he let his thoughts wander to the darker possibilities. If it hadn’t been for Talon’s persistence, he’d have been wasting his time, but just before dawn the hawkling’s keen direction led him right to the bolt-riddled body of the breed giant that had staggered away from the shore.
Eight crossbow bolts, the same as the one the zard had sunk into Master Biggs’s shoulder, jutted up out of the huge corpse’s back. This breed giant hadn’t been the one handling Phen, but Hyden searched all around him anyway, for any indication that the boy had been there. After finding nothing, he rolled the breed over for a closer look. The sound of the quarrels breaking as the giant’s great weight snapped them off startled Hyden. A great three-clawed gash ran across the breed’s lower abdomen, probably from the claw of the dead zard that lay beyond the edge of the jungle.
“Phen,” Hyden called out as loud as he could. “Where are you Phen? It’s me, Hyden.”
There was no response, save for the roar of the storm-born waves as they crashed into the rocky shore not far away.
The scene at the shoreline was the same as he had seen it before. A mangled zard that had seemingly been torn in two lay on the rocks just above the tide line, and the breed giant with the great black char mark on his chest was rolling to and fro in the shallows. It was hard to see in the rainy gloom, but Hyden used Talon’s eyes and continued anyway.
“Phen!” he yelled what could’ve been a thousand times over. “Come out, Phen! It’s all right.” Hyden didn’t even notice the sunrise, or the way the storm rolled past the island leaving the shoreline a vivid world of lush green foliage, dark rocky crags, and bright blue sea. Hyden’s eyes kept finding the crimson stain of the lizard’s lifeless body, and the puckered black char that covered the breed giant’s chest.
“Phen!” he screamed and screamed some more until he finally collapsed on the rocks. His voice had turned to a torn and raspy wheeze. Even Talon’s piercing shriek had lost its resonance. The two of them were completely spent, overcome with the realization that Phen was nowhere to be found.
“Lord Bzorch,” Cozchin said with a smile that revealed his long wicked-looking lower teeth.
The Lord of Locar was sitting on his wooden throne doing absolutely nothing, but breathing heavy. All of the duties of running the city had fallen on Cozchin as of late. He didn’t mind it too much because he got plenty of boons out of the deal: an occasional woman to rape and eat, and plenty of extra coin. It wasn’t that hard to scare the human inhabitants of the city into compliance anyway. And it was entertaining.
“What is it?” Bzorch snarled, revealing teeth easily twice as deadly as Cozchin’s. The breed giant Lord had been thinking a lot lately. His spy, Graven had been reporting things that caused him to think in a more diplomatic manner than what he was used to. Despite all of his instinctual primitive urges, he wanted badly to be a good leader for his people. He was the Lord of Locar, and he was starting to take the title seriously.
“Graven has returned from Wildermont again,” said Cozchin with a look of distaste on his apish face. “He has news and says that it is important.”
“See him in,” Bzorch ordered. “Then, my dutiful cousin, I want you to find out if the dragon gun he brought back last time has been successfully replicated.”
“Yes, Lord,” Cozchin almost spat the response.
Graven had stolen his place as Lord Bzorch’s favorite. Cozchin didn’t like it at all. All Bzorch ever worried about now was what was happening in Wildermont, and how to mimic the pitiful humans’ mechanical forms of defense. Cozchin didn’t understand what use there was for a giant spear-launching weapon. The idea that once a working replica was perfected, Bzorch wanted one installed on every single watchtower around the city was preposterous. And now a wall. Why was Bzorch having a wall built around Locar?
Cozchin let Graven into the lobby then went off to check on the dragon gun with the hot fire of jealousy burning in his primitive mind. Half of the Reyhall Forest would be gone before Bzorch was done, figured the disgruntled half-breed as he went. Not that Cozchin cared about the trees. He was starting to think that Bzorch had gone mad with paranoia. Trenches, towers, dragon guns, and defensive walls- it was as if Lord Bzorch was expecting an attack soon.
“Lord,” Graven growled with a bow after he heard the door close behind him. Bzorch waved the supplication off. “What news?”
“It’s as you feared, Lord Bzorch,” the big man-beast snarled. “Many hundreds of men, dozens and dozens of them, are coming into Wildermont from the mountains. They are building defenses to the south.”
Bzorch understood that Graven could hardly understand the concept of numbers. Bzorch could read, and count, and reason as good as any man. A few hundred men, he figured, was likely a more accurate count. This only strengthened the idea that was forming in his mind.
“They’re not fortifying along the river?” Bzorch asked. This still surprised him. He was sure the other humans were going to come for Queen Shaella soon. He had figured out that the Shaella that had stolen Westland wasn’t as strong as she first appeared. He’d also figured out that she lost control of the great red wyrm somehow. The dragon had not been seen or heard of for many long months. Until he had become the Lord of Locar, Bzorch’s access to books and maps had been limited to what the breed raiders had taken from the humans in the months before King Balton had imprisoned them on the Island of Coldfrost. Now, though, he had access to recent maps that showed the kingdoms to the east, and the many islands that littered the southern coast. Bzorch’s one simple idea of finding Ironspike’s owner and giving him to his queen had evolved into a plan that was almost the complete opposite of his original intent. Already Graven had identified the banners of Highwander, Valleya, and Wildermont amidst the growing number of men gathering across the river. Bzorch had seen for himself from atop one of his watchtowers, through his sailor’s looking glass, the green and gold lion of Westland flying atop a stronghold’s tower over there.
He wasn’t sure what to do, but he wanted to hold Locar for him and his people. Of that he was certain. But he was growing less and less attached to the idea of fighting for Queen Shaella with each passing day. It was with this in mind that he started building the timber wall around his city. He was also having a great trench dug just inside the barrier. He wanted to be able to fill the trench with diverted water from the river if an attack came. The whole defensive plan was already underway. Now he was contemplating parleying with the humans across the river. Their might was beginning to show itself, and he was quite sure that thousands upon thousands more men from the east would eventually be brought to bear against Shaella. He would rather bargain for Locar and an allegiance, maybe even aid an attack on Westland, but only if Locar remained under breed giant control. Such was the reasoning that had him brooding on his throne.
“I want you to find a man,” Bzorch said after long deliberation. “A native Westlander, whose loyalty to us can be trusted.” He paused again, searching for someone to use as an example. “Farlanod, the logger we’ve made rich, or one of his braver men, someone like that. I will prepare a written message for whoever you choose. You’ll escort this person across the river into Castlemont. I want the message to reach the High King, or the at least the Red Wolf, if he is truly alive.”
“What will the message say?” Graven asked.
“I think the contents of the message…” Bzorch started with an angry look down at his spy’s questioning. “This will determine the future of our people. I’m not sure yet of the wording. You need not concern yourself, Graven. Your safe return will be guaranteed. One thing that I’ve learned about humans who call themselves noble is that they are mostly honorable. Killing a messenger, and his escort, goes against everything they believe.”
Graven didn’t believe it, but after the look he was given, he didn’t dare argue.
For a full day after they found Hyden sitting in a daze along the rocky shore of the island, the crew of the Seawande r scoured the area, looking for a sign of Phen. It was as if he had vanished. The only conclusion was that he could have drowned, unless he was still on the zard ship headed for Westland. Captain Trant ordered the men aboard and set sail for Salazar’s great port of Sala. There he would commandeer a ship to come retrieve the vast fortune they’d found on the island, and begin using the procedes to finance King Jarrek and the High King.
There was no doubt that Hyden was now planning to go off into Westland to find Phen and get back the artifact he needed. He now was of the belief that Phen had been taken onto the zard ship. From Sala he could find passage on a cargo vessel to Westland easily enough. As much as any of them hated to admit it, that was all they could do. Despite the great discovery of Cobalt’s hoard and all the freedom its value might purchase, a dark cloud of defeat hung over the Seawander as it worked its way out to sea.
Only Oarly seemed interested in what Phen said when Flick was taking him away. Instead of locking himself in his cabin, or the latrine, the dwarf locked himself in the Captain’s cabin. With careful attention to subtle detail, he began going over the work Phen had done translating Loak’s journal. Oarly was certain that there was something there Phen wanted them to see, something that had been ‘invisible to them.’