The Malicarn
THE SIXTEENTH SPRING IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN HANNAH I
The wall collapsed during the night. Maybe the mortar wasn’t setting, maybe Buck had placed the stones wrong. Maybe it was sabotage, though Buck couldn’t figure why anyone would want to knock down a retaining wall on the far side of a horse pasture.
Buck told Otto right away, but Otto had to finish milking the cows before he could walk over and inspect the situation. By then another row of stone had fallen off the wall and the entire structure looked like little more than a pile of rocks.
“You gotta deal with this, Buck,” Otto said. “I don’t have time for it right now.”
“I’m supposed to be getting on watch duty.”
“Someone else can do that. Kreek promised me help, this wall is the help I need.”
Otto was curt, but Buck knew it wasn’t directed at him.
He was curt with everyone. The presence of extra hands on his farm hadn’t compelled him even a little bit to moderate his temper.
If anything, it made it worse. He was always complaining, shouting about the extra mouths to feed, the damage they were doing to his vegetables by overeating, his cows by overmilking, and his horses by overriding.
It was true that the Guild was taking up a lot of space and resources on Otto’s farm, but Kreek was insistent that it was the safest spot in the Malicarn.
“Otto is an isolated loner,” he had explained. “Nobody much likes him, which means nobody is going to be checking on him. I’ll make sure he’s compensated for whatever losses he accrues due to our presence. In the meantime, if he has work for you to do, do it.”
That would now include rebuilding a wall.
It took most of the morning for Buck to clear the fallen stone, clean off the day-old drying mortar, and sort everything to figure what else he might be missing.
Buck wanted to return to the granary, but he still needed to mix the mortar and set the first few layers.
There wasn’t enough quicklime for even one full row of stone, which Buck unfortunately didn’t realize until he had already relaid half of it.
The mortar would have to set as it was, and if tomorrow he came back with more lime and things didn’t line up correctly that was just the way it was going to be.
He wasn’t a bad mason—he just wasn’t very good.
After he ate supper with the other guildsmen, Buck took his break and walked down the hill to the granary, an old building Otto had also been meaning to repair but never got around to. Wallace was standing guard outside today, and nodded as Buck approached.
“Thought you were coming earlier?” Wallace asked.
“I was working on that wall for Otto.”
“He’s a lazy old bastard, that’s for sure. Kreek ought to find another place, one with fewer chores.”
“I am sure he has his reasons,” Buck said. “Kreek here?”
“Nah. Haven’t seen him in two days. You relieving me?”
“I don’t know. I think I was supposed to be inside.”
Wallace shifted his feet and leaned against the stone wall. “I can’t stand for much longer, I’m getting sore. Find out if someone’s coming out, all right?”
Buck walked inside, and up a set of wooden stairs to a landing at the top of the tower. Two more guildmembers were in here, sporting short swords. Sitting against the far wall, blanket over his lap, head slumped on his shoulder as he napped, was the dragon rider.
When Buck first found him, bleeding and screaming on the field of the Morlon Kastaun, he knew that the man was in danger, but only when he and Wallace carried the dragon rider to Kreek, kicking and yelling the whole way, did the full extent of the danger become known.
“I always feared this day would come,” Kreek said, “when the peace forged with the Necromancer would be forfeit. I suspect Gregorian has betrayed the realm, perhaps planning on seizing power for himself, and now our enemies will soon invade. This dragon is but a harbinger of their power.”
These were dark prophecies, but they did not scare Buck. They thrilled him. War was coming! Perhaps he would live to see wizards in battle after all.
Kreek soon spirited the dragon rider to Otto’s farm, hiding him in the granary and placing the guildmembers as his wardens and protectors.
Most men would sit on watch for a day or two then cycle back to their homes, but Buck and the younger guildmembers remained on the farm.
It was exciting, being so close to magic.
“What is it we will do to him?” they asked Kreek.
“We must keep him hidden for now. I will work my influence in the realm, find what information I can, and see how we can use this to our advantage.”
Otto himself was not part of the Guild, but he found Kreek’s appeal very satisfying.
“Never did like that old wizard, always hanging over us common folk, making us feel low. Who is he? Not a lord, no, not even a real warrior. He’s the one bringing in goblins to take over our farms.” Buck noticed Otto was prone to long diatribes against the queen, the court, the Council of Heroes, basically anybody with any sort of authority.
He hated them even more than the guildmembers stomping around his farm.
But whatever Kreek’s plan was, it was taking time.
The prisoner had been nearly three months in the granary, growing thinner and weaker despite how well they tried to feed him.
Kreek wouldn’t permit the man to be taken outside, not even after dark, and grew angered and paranoid whenever anyone suggested it.
He had to stay in the granary, and the Guild alternated watching him between chores on the farm.
“I think it’s your turn in the cow pasture,” Buck said to the man seated at the top of the stairs. “I was supposed to be on guard duty this morning.”
“Yeah, well, you’re late. I ain’t going to work for that jerk now. He’ll just yell at me more.”
“You gotta go.”
“Nah, I’m headed over to the barn. I’m taking a nap.”
The other guard was ready to leave too. “It’s too hot up here. I can’t breathe.”
“Could you relieve Wallace, then?” Buck asked. “He’s been standing out there all morning.”
“Yeah, fine, I could use the fresh air.”
They left. Buck remained alone with the dragon rider, who was still asleep. Buck sat in one of the half-rotted chairs beside the granary window and picked up the little sword the Guild kept there for the guards.
“Buck?” The dragon rider had woken, and was pointing at Buck.
“Yes, Buck, that’s right. It’s me again.
” At first the dragon rider could not speak much, save for “Hello” or “Yes” or the occasional “Help, please!” But he did seem to know that he was in the Malicarn.
“Malicarn! This is Malicarn!” he shouted, not without excitement, when they first carried him to the granary.
Slowly, he was getting better at longer conversations.
Last time Buck was on watch, the rider had mentioned the late King Prion, and Buck told him the story of Prion’s reign—or what he could remember, anyway.
The rider had listened attentively, but without, as far as Buck could discern, much reason.
“Prion!” he shouted again, smiling and nodding at Buck. “He was king. But not now.”
“Yes, your speech has improved tremendously. Prion was king. But he is dead. Now Queen Hannah, his daughter, is ruler. Do you remember? We spoke about it. Dead. That means, uh, not living. No more.”
“Prion, dead. Yes, yes.” He sat up and pointed at Buck. “Do you have water?” he asked. “Thirsty?”
The rider was chained by his legs to the wall, but the chains were not very tight and he had plenty of slack.
The Guild needed to keep him here but they had no desire to hurt him.
Here was a potential ally, after all. Buck took his skin of water from the rope around his neck and handed it to the rider, who drank from it.
He spilled as much as he swallowed. He handed Buck back his skin, then stood up and looked out the small granary window.
The view was blocked by a nearby tree, but if there was wind you could sometimes see a hill beyond.
“All Malicarn?” the man asked, pointing.
“Yes, Malicarn. This is the realm of the old Carnas, ancient forest folk. You know, Malicarn actually means ‘Land of the Carnas,’ though the Carnas themselves are long since—”
“Malicarn, I saw it. A long time ago, at home.”
“Oh, with a seeing stone? You have that magic?”
“Ha, yes. Seeing box. You do not have a word for it.” He pointed out the window. “See? I see nothing.”
They had chained him near the first window precisely because there was no view, and thus no way for any spies to see into the granary and discover the Guild’s prisoner.
The window by Buck had a wider view of Otto’s farm, especially the wheat field.
Kreek was very firm on the fact that the rider must never look out that window, or exit the granary, but Buck glanced outside and couldn’t see a single person—not even a guildmember—on the entire hillside.
The rider was their ally, or was going to be. Wasn’t it cruel for him to remain tied up for three months with only the view of a tree to sustain him?
“All right, hold up,” Buck said. The key to the manacles hung at the top of the stairs. Buck pulled them down, unlocked the restraints from the man’s ankles, and then slid them off.
The rider hobbled over to the window and looked at the field. “Malicarn!”
“Yes, that is the Malicarn!” Buck replied. “A once-great country, that will be great again if—”
Buck had not come up with the rest of his sentence yet.
Like most things he said, he was making it up as he went along, finding each appropriate word based on what came before.
So it wasn’t so much that he was interrupted when the rider shoved him down the stairs, rather that he was denied the opportunity to continue.