The Warden Threat
Donald hoped to make up some of the time they lost the day before due to the rain, and they swiftly broke camp. A gentle breeze blowing from the south carried the odors of ripe grain and damp soil. By the time the sun cleared the horizon, they were on their way, leaving their boot prints behind them on the still muddy road.
Around noon, they came upon a deluxe passenger coach painted in shiny black lacquer stopped beside the road. The well-to-do hired them for traveling farther than a day’s journey. Although not uncommon, Donald recalled seeing no others since leaving Greatbridge. It looked like it could comfortably sleep at least six people, possibly more. Two gonds, which must have been pulling the posh rig, grazed on the wild grasses beside the road under the supervision of a man Donald judged to be the driver. Another man stood by one of the coach’s open doors and a third sat on top cradling a crossbow. The latter two must be guards. Both watched Donald and his group closely as they approached, while their passengers milled about on the opposite side.
“Good afternoon.” Donald opened with a friendly smile.
“Good afternoon,” replied the guard. No return smile.
“It sure is a nice day for traveling,” the prince tried.
“Yes,” the other man agreed.
Where are you headed?”
The guard returned a wary expression before answering. “You’d have to ask the driver that.”
Donald still could not accustom himself to people reacting to him without full cooperation, not to mention a certain amount of deference, but he nodded to the guard, mumbled his thanks, and wandered over to see the man watching the gonds. He did not plan to be long and asked Muce and Kwestor to wait for him.
The coach driver turned at the sound of Donald’s rustling passage through the shin-high wild grass. The older gentleman, dressed somewhat formally in a light cape and jaunty hat with a feather in it, regarded him with a calm face. “Hello. What can I do for you? I’m afraid my coach is full, if you’re looking for a ride.”
“No. We’re headed in the other direction. I just wondered where you were bound.”
Instead of responding to the implied question, the driver said, “Where are my manners? My name is Ross.” He held out his hand. “And you would be?”
Donald took the offered hand as an act of conditioned reflex and shook it distractedly. “Donald,” he said, realizing he had somehow lost control of the conversation. “Donald Overseer.”
“Donald Overseer? As in Prince Donald of Westgrove?”
The prince nodded. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“Well, this is a surprise, I must admit, and an honor. I believe one of my passengers knows your father. Or, he claims to, anyway. I can’t tell you how many times he’s mentioned his personal audience with the king.” He smiled and rolled his eyes, which suggested to Donald he held some reservation about the veracity of his passenger’s claim.
“So, what brings you here, Your Highness?” The man seemed oddly calm for a commoner speaking to royalty, and Donald wondered about it at first. Then he dismissed it as a consequence of the man’s profession. A master of a coach obviously used by only the extremely well-to-do must be accustomed to dealing with his social betters as equals.
“Why don’t I introduce you to that fellow?” the driver continued. “Perhaps you know him, if what he says about having the ear of the king is at all true.”
Donald followed the man toward the six milling passengers. He still did not have the answer to his question.
“We were just stopping to rest the gonds, stretch our legs, and take care of some personal essentials. I like to do that every afternoon about this time. If you don’t, the animals get cranky, especially the passengers.” An impish grin belied his apparent age.
They approached a man dressed in white with a light blue cape. He stood alone, scowling at nothing in particular—or at least nothing obvious.
“Prince Donald of Westgrove, let me introduce the Reverend Tripgood. Reverend Tripgood, Prince Donald of Westgrove. I believe you are well acquainted with his father.”
The man in white turned with a glazed, faraway look in his eyes. He seemed to be having a rough trip back to the here and now. Wherever his mind had wandered, it must have been a good distance from the border of Donald’s reality.
“What’s that? Prince Donald?” Awareness hit the man like a slap from a violated maiden. An insincere smile snapped into place. “Oh yes, of course. Prince Donald. I would have recognized you anywhere from the portrait in your father’s study.” He extended his hand for the compulsory shake.
Donald did not recognize the man’s face anymore than his name, although this meant little. The king granted audiences to many visitors Donald never met. A family portrait did hang in the king’s study, so the man at least heard of it if he had not been there personally.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Donald said.
“No, that’s quite right, although I have advised your father on certain spiritual matters and on foreign policy and other things, too. I believe he regards my opinion very highly. Perhaps he’s mentioned me?”
“No, I don’t believe he has. Not that I recall, anyway.”
“Well, he probably keeps certain things close hold, you know, strictly on a need to know basis.” He winked, as if to suggest hidden secrets existed, which should not be disclosed in public.
“That is probably true,” Donald said hesitantly. “Have you met with him often?”
“Like I said, I’ve advised him on several matters. In fact, I hope to be meeting with him again as soon as we return to Greatbridge.”
Tripgood looked toward the driver, “When will that be?”
“About seventeen days, if we stay on schedule,” the man in the feathered hat responded.
Donald finally received the answer to his original question, and it gave him an idea.
“Good.” Tripgood sidled closer to the prince, leaned toward his ear, and whispered conspiratorially. “I have more to tell him about some of the plots against the kingdom being hatched by those heathen stumpies.”
“Stumpies?”
“If you’ll excuse us, Master Coachman, the prince and I need to discuss some matters vital to the kingdom’s security.” The Reverend said this much louder than necessary to reach the ears of the driver. If the other passengers overheard his boast, they were doing their best to ignore it.
“Of course. And I should tend to the gonds. Not that they’re likely to get far, but they can wander.” The driver calmly strolled away.
“The stumpies, you know, the stoutfolk they call themselves. Those gods forsaken rock crawlers in Gotrox.”
The prince took an immediate dislike to the man, but his words caught his interest. A Gotroxian plot against Westgrove? This certainly seemed consistent with what he had discovered in Barter’s Forge.
“A plot?” the prince probed.
“Actually, I said plots. Plural. More than one. Only Ariman knows exactly how many.” He turned his head upward as though reading something written in the clear, pale blue sky. “They hate us you know. All of them do. They fear us and they’re jealous of us. We are Ariman’s chosen people. It is our divine destiny to someday dominate the continent—under your family’s noble leadership, of course.”
He returned his gaze to the prince. “They know that. They’ve read the Book of Ariman and they know it is the true Word of the supreme god, but they pretend not to believe because they don’t like what it has to say. They think they can defy the will of the gods by invading the homeland of the tallfolk, and they are planning to do just that! Surely, if we don’t do something, they’ll come swarming over the border to spread their vile lies. You be sure to tell your father that next time you see him. Tell him we must act first, and we must act soon.”
He stared Donald straight in the eye, a hand on each of the prince’s shoulders. He believed what he said. Donald retained little doubt of this. He understood this did not mean the man’s opinion reflected any kind of objective reality, but he
did believe. The prince could clearly see every large pore of the clerics face and smell the onions from his last meal with every word he spoke. He steeled himself against an involuntary urge to pull away. He would endure this for his country.
To Donald’s relief, Tripgood took a step back and a deep breath. He continued in a calmer tone. “I’ve taken several trips to Kartok to spread Ariman’s Word to the heathens there. I am sad to say they are deaf to it. Ministers of the Faith all know the Truth is often not embraced at first, and we try to be patient, but on my last trip there, they proved how hostile and aggressive they are. Can you believe they threw tomatoes at me? Tomatoes they probably got from us! Those ungrateful barbarians wouldn’t even be able to eat if it wasn’t for Westgrove! But Ariman does have a few followers among the tallfolk who do business with the stumpies in Kartok. They have heard things, and they have told me, and now I’m telling you.
“Have you ever heard of the Warden of Mystic Defiance?”
Donald responded with a slow nod. He did not intend sharing what he knew with Tripgood. The man seemed too committed and too devoted to his cause to be rational or trustworthy. He very much wanted to hear what the cleric might say about the Warden, though.
“Good. Then you know it is a huge, ancient statue up in the Gotroxian Mountains. What you probably do not know is that it is also an ancient magical artifact from the time when the gods warred among themselves. As you know, I’m sure, this is when the gods Ariman and Lestog and the goddess Flora united to bring order to the world and give mankind dominance over it. Well, one of the gods made the Warden then, and it is the last of several created during that battle.
“Which of the gods made it has been lost to us, but the Gotroxians have learned of a way to bring it to life and control it. Those bloodthirsty infidels intend to do so and use it to invade Westgrove. Can you imagine the power such a warrior of the gods might have? Can you imagine the destruction it could cause? Now if that’s not enough to chill you to the bone, I don’t know what is.”
“I see,” said Donald, trying not to show any sign he either believed or disbelieved Tripgood’s story. The man made him uncomfortable, but what he said seemed frighteningly consistent with what he had already heard about the Warden.
“Do you know how or when they intend to do this?”
“No. That is exactly what I hoped my people in Kartok would be able to tell me on this trip. But, as of about three weeks ago when we left there, they did not know.”
“I see,” Donald said again. “That is indeed an interesting tale and I’m sure my father will want to investigate it. I will make a point of mentioning it to him the next time I see him. However, as for now, I need to be on my way. It was good to meet you, Reverend Tripgood.”
“It was very nice to meet you, too, Your Highness.”