Unsurper Omnibus by Daniells Rowena Cory

Author:Daniells, Rowena Cory
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy

Chapter Seven

It had taken the better part of the day for Fyn to lead the boys down the slope towards the village and now he hesitated in a hollow, out of sight of the village's gate tower. Finding Merofynian invaders inside the abbey had unnerved him. Who knew where the enemy was?

He ordered the boys to wait but, with the promise of hot food only two bow shots away, the older boys muttered about the delay and the little ones cried softly.

'They're just about done, Fyn,' Feldspar protested, catching up with him. 'Can't we -'

'No, we can't!' He grimaced. 'Sorry. I don't want to lead you all into a trap.'

'Do you think the Merofynians are already there?' Joff asked.

Fyn shrugged. 'I just don't know.'

'We'll wait,' Feldspar whispered. 'Settle them down, Joff.'

He moved off and Feldspar squeezed Fyn's shoulder.

He wanted to brush off that supporting hand. Felt a fraud. No one would be following him if they knew how he'd failed the abbot.

On top of that, impatience and worry ate at Fyn. Already, he had lost a night and a day since the abbey had been taken. And he still had to cross Rolencia's ripe valley. No matter how often he told himself Piro was safe in Rolenhold, he couldn't rid himself of the worm of worry that gnawed at his belly. She was in trouble, he just knew it.

'What is it?' Feldspar asked.

Fyn glanced around the hollow while Lenny waited at his side, shivering but not complaining. This was all that remained of Halcyon's warrior monks, small boys and acolytes who were too young to go to war. A wave of loss engulfed Fyn. Tears burned his eyes as he thought of the knowledge lost with the monks' deaths. The Merofynians were probably ransacking the great library even now. On a more practical note, who would tend the hothouse seedlings? How would the farmers get two crops harvested this summer? A summer spent warring meant a winter spent starving.

Speaking of which, the boys were hungry and needed somewhere warm to sleep. It was getting dark. 'I'll approach the village, see if it's safe.'

'I'll come with you,' Feldspar decided.

Lenny shivered and his stomach rumbled loudly.

Fyn grinned. 'Wait here, Len.'

He slipped out of the hollow with Feldspar at his heels, and made for the isolated cover of stunted pines until they reached a cairn of stones about a bow-shot from the gate. This was where the traveller coming from up the path around the far side of Mount Halcyon would stop to give thanks for a safe journey before entering the village.

From behind this cairn, Fyn studied the village's single gate tower. Several youths between thirteen and seventeen were standing on the platform, hovering over a wyvern harpoon which some enterprising fisherman had mounted up there.

The business end of the harpoon was pointed at a winter-bare, gnarled tree across the field just off the path from the valley.

Feldspar shaded his eyes as he studied the village chimney pots, visible above the wall. 'No more than a dozen cottages.

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