The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 03 - Road of Shadows Read online

  The cave opening was wide, though not tall. Kestrel had to stoop, and he went down on one knee to stop at the entrance and look out upon the dangerous new world he was about to enter.

  The cave he was in was high upon a hillside, looking down a long valley that ran for miles before it turned out of sight. The surrounding hillsides were covered in trees, while a dry stream bed ran down the center of the valley.

  The sun was visible, and it was high in the sky. Kestrel stared at the sun in astonishment. The reddish tint in the daylight he had seen did not come from a rising sun whose yellow light had been filtered by the morning atmosphere – it came from a pair of small red suns that were side-by-side in the overhead sky, casting an ominous, unsettling color scheme over all the lands he could see.

  Down at the far end of the valley he saw movement, and realized with shock that it was a group of sprites, walking in a slow shuffling manner, surrounded by larger beings who appeared to be escorting or guarding the sprites, though whether in a friendly or unfriendly manner he couldn’t tell.

  The sprites usual bluish color was more of a purple tint under the red suns, but the escorts’ color was bright red. They were disturbing to look at – they seemed to be the very real personification of the monsters that all elf children had grown up fearing. The escorts had long tails with pointed ends, and small horns jutting from their foreheads. At the front of the group walked a member of a third race, a very large being with muddy-colored skin, and few other distinguishable features that Kestrel could detect at the distance between them.

  The sprites had obviously been met or caught almost immediately after leaving the cave entrance, and Kestrel wondered if the cave was kept under observation to allow any traveler to be instantly intercepted. He cautiously tried to observe the surrounding area in the near-vicinity of the cave mouth, to see if any guards stood ready to pounce, but most of the nearby terrain was simply unviewable without leaving the cave.

  The Inner Seas Kingdoms Series

  1. The Healing Spring

  2. The Yellow Palace

  3. Road of Shadows

  4. A Foreign Heart (Forthcoming)

  The Ingenairii Series

  1. Visions of Power

  2. At the Seat of Power: Goldenfields and the Dominion

  3. The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell

  4. The Lifesaving Power: Goldenfields and Stronghold

  5. Against the Empire

  6. Preserving the Ingenairii

  7. Rescuing the Captive

  8. Ajacii and Demons

  9. The Caravan Road

  10. The Journey Home

  Also by Jeffrey Quyle

  The Green Plague

  For more information, visit the Ingenairii Series on Facebook, www.facebook.com/ingenairiiseries

  Road of Shadows

  The Inner Seas Kingdoms Series

  Book 3

  Jeffrey Quyle

  The wonderful cover artwork was created by Donna Harriman Murillo.

  Index

  Chapter 1 –Race Across the Plains Page 1

  Chapter 2 – Growelf’s Assignment Page 12

  Chapter 3 –A Gnome and A New World Page 18

  Chapter 4 –Parstole Allies Page 34

  Chapter 5 –Maneuvers in the Field Page 39

  Chapter 6 – Escape from Captivity Page 43

  Chapter 7 –Reunion and Movement Page 62

  Chapter 8 – The True Rescue Page 70

  Chapter 9 –Leaving the Arena Page 78

  Chapter 10 –From Albanu to Parstole Page 85

  Chapter 11 –An Answer to the Viathins Page 96

  Chapter 12 –Reasion’s Transformation Page 99

  Chapter 13 –Back Among Humans Page 112

  Chapter 14 – The Real Moorin Page 121

  Chapter 15 –Leaving the Palace Page 123

  Chapter 16 –Departure from Graylee Page 141

  Chapter 17 –Revelationin Hydrotaz Page 175

  Chapter 18 – Yulia’s Cure Page 182

  Chapter 19 –Return to the Forest Page 188

  Chapter 20 –Elven Assignments Page 196

  Chapter 21 –Betrayal Among the Imps Page 209

  Chapter 22 – Oaktown Reunions Page 229

  Chapter 23 – Departures Page 247

  List of Characters

  Kestrel, Warden of the Marches in the Eastern Forest

  Philip, Graylee nobleman, son of Paul

  Margo, Philip’s sister

  Picco, Margo’s friend, Creata’s sister

  Creata, heir to the Duchess of the East Seashore

  Calabee, Mordifee, Pumpkin, Thorsee, imps on Albanu rescue mission

  Poma, Uniontown ambassador to Graylee

  Dewberry, princess of the sprites

  Jonson, prince of the imps

  Ingyld, King of the imps

  Reasion, Dewberry’s sprite friend

  Lucretia, Center Trunk guard archer

  Alicia, Center Trunk surgeon

  Elwean, Elven princess of the Eastern Forest

  Princess Yulia, ruler of Hydrotaz

  Ferris, Hydrotaz squad commander

  Greysen, son of Ferris of Hydrotaz

  Gainue, Parstole guard

  Fasmet, Parstole guard

  Tableg, gnome

  Moorin, Countess of Grey Fjord of the Northern Elves

  Ruelin, Prince of Seafare

  Stillwater, imp companion to Kestrel

  The Human Deities:

  Kai – goddess of the air

  Growelf – god of fire

  Krusima – god of earth

  Shaish – goddess of water

  The Elven Deities:

  Kere – goddess of fortune

  Norvell – god of light

  Tamson – god of force

  Were – goddess of sound

  Morph – god of speed

  Powson – god of weight

  Tere – goddess of size

  The Parstole Deity:

  Decimindion – god of the cities

  The Albanun Deity:

  Rabaske

  Prologue

  In “The Healing Spring” we met Kestrel, a young elf whose heritage was one quarter human. Kestrel was a rarity among the elves in the Eastern Forest; there were few residents who had ever seen humans, let alone had any human bloodlines, and Kestrel suffered discrimination as a result of his heritage.

  Yet somehow Kestrel was chosen to be a special champion by deities from both the human and elven pantheons of gods. And as a reward for his special status, the human goddess Kai created a rainstorm at Kestrel’s request, in order to put out a great forest fire and save the elves’ forest from destruction.

  Impressed by Kestrel’s ability, his superiors in the elven guard sent him to the elven capitol, Center Trunk. On the way, Kestrel visits a hidden spring where the water has magic healing properties, and at the spring he meets and rescues, Dewberry, a member of the mythical race of sprites.

  In Center Trunk, Kestrel is assigned to learn all the skills needed to spy upon the humans who at war with the elves, and then he is tricked into accepting cosmetic surgery that makes him look like a human.

  Despite his misgivings and distrust of the elven leadership, Kestrel goes along with the plan, and goes out on his first mission. He meets a human family in the forest, and saves them by slaying the yeti that attacks them. He then escorts the survivors back to the human city of Estone, where he has to strive to maintain his false human persona. Disturbingly, he comes to find that he is comfortable as a human, and has strong feelings for Merilla, the pretty human widow he has rescued from the yeti’s attack.

  Kestr
el travels back and forth, from the human to the elven cultures, trying to determine where he fits in. The decision isn’t an easy one to make, as he begins to rise in the eyes of the humans, where he seems to fit in more comfortably than he does among the elves.

  But his comfort in the city of Estone is shattered when he confronts the evil of Uniontown, a distant, malevolent human kingdom who is attempting to infiltrate Estone with its alien gods and hostile culture. Kestrel faces the ambassador from Uniontown in a fatal clash at the royal palace of Estone. He wins the battle, but learns that Uniontown is a force of great evil, and that the goddesses will expect him to devote all his future efforts to defeating the threatening alien culture of the southern land.

  In the second book of the series, “The Yellow Mansion”, Kestrel suffers a setback when the Estonian ship he is on sinks in the wintery North Sea, and Kestrel is forced to trudge across the treacherous Water Mountains, where he is befriended by a village of gnomes and lives among them through the winter.

  When springtime comes, Kestrel leaves the mountains and emerges in the northern reaches of Graylee, the human kingdom he originally sought to reach. Kestrel enters the lands of a noble family, and through a heroic service he provides to the younger generation, becomes a companion to Philip and Margo, the heirs to the estate, as well as their visiting friends Creata and his sister Picco, whose family owns an estate in southern Graylee.

  Kestrel travels to the capital with his new friends, still posing and passing as a human, but at their residence in Graylee City he is horrified to learn that his elven friend Lucretia, presumed dead in the war, is alive and mistreated as a slave in the same house he stays in. Kestrel secretly liberates Lucretia, who is injured in body and soul, sending her home to the Eastern Forest.

  His friends Dewberry and Jonson leave to go on a quest in a strange land, where they hope to find a weapon that will defeat the monster lizards that have moved into the Swampy Morass, and Kestrel no longer has the unlimited assistance that he has previously received from his blue friends. He goes on a quest of his own, directed by the gods, to set free Hydrotaz humans held captive in Graylee, and does so, then accompanies the freed captives back to Hydrotaz, but finds that the humans there remain prejudiced against elves, even one who has done them a favor.

  Kestrel finally journeys back to the Eastern Forest, and is nearly victimized by treachery there; he finds that Silvan and Giardell are banished, and Alicia is imprisoned, while Lucretia is still emotionally paralyzed by her experience in Graylee. Kestrel takes on the forces of evil in Center Trunk and wins, setting the princess free in a pitched battle in and around the palace. As a reward, Kestrel is named the Warden of the Marshes, and given the honors, lands, and riches that go with the noble title, then directed to go back among the humans and carry on his campaign on behalf of the elves.

  Chapter 1—The Race Across the Plains

  Kestrel sat on the turf of the windy plain and cried, as the stalks of grass rustled in the breeze.

  He’d just had to kill his horse, his wonderful, faithful horse Chestnut, who had carried him across Hydrotaz, through and around the Eastern Forest, and much of the way back into Hydrotaz again. For several weeks he and the horse had been companions. Together they had practically circled around the elven kingdom in the forest, visiting the west the east and the south, as Chestnut had served Kestrel while the elf carried out a number of duties.

  When they had left Center Trunk weeks earlier, Kestrel, Chestnut, and Alicia had taken Lucretia to her home village, Kerbeen in the eastern forest, and seen that she settled in to rejoin her family in a place where she could regain her taste for life. Kestrel had hopes for a likely success, based on seeing a spark of life animate Lucretia in the aftermath of the coup attempt in Center Trunk.

  Then, after a day of meeting Lucretia’s family, visiting her village, and showing off the horse, he and Alicia had left Lucretia in the calm, quiet village, to run and ride the seemingly endless distance across the southeastern territory of the elven forest, to reach the city of Oaktown. At the end of the long journey, Alicia and Kestrel had found Giardell and Silvan tensely living together in their isolated, cozy place of exile on the outskirts of the city, and the four of them had gone to the manor of the ruling Warden in the city, a large, opulent structure that had been given to Kestrel by King Standoll, as a reward for Kestrel’s valiant leadership to prevent a coup; an opening chapter in the fight against the coup had been Kestrel’s battle against the former possessor of the Oaktown mansion, Sir Chandel, who had turned out to be a rebellious elven follower of the Uniontown gods.

  The reunion between Alicia and Silvan, her husband, taking place at the same time as her reunion with Giardell, her lover, and Silvan’s bodyguard, had been tense. Kestrel had considered trying to mediate, and then decided to simply stay out of all the dynamics of the tangled relationship the three needed to resolve as a result of the liaison in which Giardell and Alicia had betrayed Silvan.

  The four of them spent a handful of days at the mansion, as Kestrel asserted his authority over the building and its staff, and the community around it. He stayed away from the uneasy interactions of troubled threesome, and focused on carefully accepting the reins of power in his new domain. He found those figurative reins, and found them laying unused and available for him to grasp, in a fashion. Under the cruel control of Chandel, the previous Warden, all the local people had feared being punished if they showed too much initiative. The men and women who occupied leadership positions in the community consequently hesitated, and then meekly obeyed his request that they come to his mansion to meet him.

  Kestrel altered their fearful expectations. He told them he expected them to run their own community and lives. He did so not by threats and bullying as Chandel had viciously done before Kestrel; instead he offered to let the people of the community rule their own lives, provided they followed basic rules that he laid down. The people responded timidly and tentatively, but Kestrel decided to trust them to come to suitable arrangements, and then he announced that he had to move on. Together Silvan, Alicia, Kestrel and Giardell began the long journey up the road to return to Center Trunk. Kestrel left behind only two firm instructions: that all relations with the water imps of the Swampy Morass, if any, were to be peaceful, and he re-emphasized that issue before he left Oaktown; and then he gave his second set of instructions – all questions of governance that the people could not decide among themselves were to be submitted in writing to Silvan. Kestrel did not inform Silvan of that provision until well after they left the estate.

  Silvan had ridden on Chestnut on the ride back to Center Trunk, as the others ran alongside the horse at the typical fast pace the elves used. Kestrel didn’t know what amenable relations had been settled among the members of the love triangle he traveled with, but all three members seemed at peace with whatever they had decided. He chose not to ask about any of it; he had his own complex relations with Alicia and Silvan to work out, and he didn’t want the dynamics of his interactions with either of them to become a part of their other entanglement.

  Kestrel realized that his relationship with Alicia was quite likely to grow less complex and less necessary henceforth, and he felt mixed emotions over that. With the ring the goddess Kai had given him to alter his appearance, he no longer had to anticipate making regular trips to Alicia to have his ears and eyebrows surgically altered. In one sense, he would miss having that reason to visit her as a patient, a patient whom she took special interest in. But he would not miss the temptation she seemed to represent – an alluring, beautiful woman who he had come to know very well, but who was married, and who had been willing to deceive him the very first time they had met. Yet because of her surgical brilliance, Kestrel suspected that he very well might see her again for treatment, for himself after future altercations, or for his friends the sprites, who he had sent to Alicia (or brought Alicia to) more than once for medical treatment, and in such visits he would still find himself drawn to her warm fri
endship and seeming vulnerability.

  “Colonel Silvan,” he had spoken to Silvan on the third day of their trip from Oaktown to Center Trunk.

  “Yes, Lord Kestrel?” Silvan asked, delighted by the opportunity to speak Kestrel’s title aloud to Kestrel’s discomfort, unaware that Kestrel was about to have the last laugh.

  “As you know, I am going to be leaving the forest to travel among the human kingdoms for some time to come,” Kestrel stated what they both knew well already.

  “Yes?” Silvan looked at him curiously, wondering why he was stating the obvious.

  “And the people who I am now the liege over will need guidance as they adjust to their lives not spent under the heel of Sir Chandel’s tyranny,” Kestrel explained. “They will have questions from time to time about how to govern themselves, and how to resolve disputes.

  “So I’ve instructed them to write down their questions and problems, so that they can send them to you, and you can answer them in my absence,” Kestrel explained as he continued to jog along beside the horse, looking straight ahead at the road before them, so that Silvan wouldn’t see the smile that was spread across his face.

  “Kestrel!” Silvan exploded with more emotion than Kestrel had ever seen.

  “That’s Lord Kestrel,” the running guardsman primly corrected the officer.

  “Whoever you are, you’re not going to trap me into doing your dirty work drudgery!” Silvan roared.

  “Who else can my people turn to?” Kestrel asked piteously, and he swore that Chestnut nickered in laughter at his humor.

  And now, weeks later, he wept as he recollected the memory of the horse’s laughter.