The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 05 - Journey to Uniontown Read online

  He ran to a chimney and hid again, sure that the priests knew where he was, and that his hiding space was of no great value. He hoped that the men in the robes were disorganized and angry, unlikely to react to his next move rationally.

  Kestrel sprang out from behind the chimney, and reached within himself to call forward the power that waited there. He desperately needed protection from the priests and from the powers of Ashcrayss.

  To his joy, he saw a clear path towards the altar where the water skin sat, and he darted in a straight line.

  “Apostate!” one of the priests shouted as Kestrel appeared in his robes, and he saw all the men on the roof raise their hands and point at him.

  As their hands came up, a series of bright flashes erupted. Around Kestrel a white shield simultaneously burst forth from within him, providing divine protection, while rays of green light shot out from the priests’ pointing fingers and converged on Kestrel’s darting figure. He saw the altar before him, coming ever closer as his momentum carried him forward, but the vision before him became clouded with green as the hostile energy of the priests surrounded him and compressed his shield of white energy.

  Kestrel threw his knife at a random priest, hoping to disrupt the attack he was suffering. He leaped up onto the altar and kicked several of the candles aside as he wildly passed over the surface while reaching down to snatch the water skin in the center of the surface.

  And as he picked the skin up, the altar exploded beneath him. Kestrel flew into the air, and felt the faltering green rays pierce his shield of energy. He landed on the roof surface halfway between the altar and the stairway door he was seeking, and laid momentarily still on his aching back, screaming in spiritual and physical pain as the green energy stabbed at him with loathing and anger and pain.

  The Inner Seas Kingdoms Series

  1. The Healing Spring

  2. The Yellow Palace

  3. Road of Shadows

  4. A Foreign Heart

  5. Journey to Uniontown

  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

  Journey to Uniontown

  The Inner Seas Kingdoms Series

  Book 5

  Jeffrey Quyle

  Index

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 –Confronting Namber

  Chapter 2 – Victory in the Palace

  Chapter 3 –Reversal

  Chapter 4 –Adventure at Sea

  Chapter 5 –Swallowed

  Chapter 6 – Return to Seafare

  Chapter 7 –Kidnapped at Seafare

  Chapter 8 – Into the Dark Lands

  Chapter 9 –The Priestess’s Leap

  Chapter 10 –The Chase

  Chapter 11 –The Destroyer in Uniontown

  Chapter 12 –A Sacrificial Change

  Chapter 13 –Infected with Evil

  Chapter 14 – Escape from the Docks

  Chapter 15 –The Terrible Power Within

  Chapter 16 –Another Ambush

  Chapter 17 –Mourning

  Chapter 18 –Parting from Friends

  Chapter 19 –Honeymoon Interrupted

  Chapter 20 –The Dark Pool

  Chapter 21 –The Garrant Spark

  Chapter 22 – The Journey Back to Normalcy

  Chapter 23 – The Road to the Eastern Forest

  Chapter 24 – Revelation from the Goddess

  List of Characters

  Kestrel, Warden of the Marches in the Eastern Forest

  Philip, Graylee nobleman, leader of rebellion

  Picco, member of Graylee nobility, Creata’s sister

  Creata, Graylee Duke of the East Seashore

  Stillwater, Odare, Killcen, Canyon, imps assigned to Kestrel

  Dewberry, sprite, queen of the imps

  Jonson, king of the imps

  Alicia, Center Trunk surgeon

  Silvan, spy leader of the Eastern Forest elves

  Moorin, Countess of Grey Fjord of the Northern Elves

  Ruelin, Prince of Seafare

  Wren, cousin to Kestrel

  Namber, fallen prince of Graylee

  Probst, Uniontown ambassador to Seafare

  Lake, Prince of the Southern Elves

  Hansen, Western gnome groom

  Greta, Western gnome bride

  Hierodule, Lakeview priestess to Ashcrayss

  Hiram, sibling of Hierodule

  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 Gnome Deity:

  Corrant

  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 capitol city, Center Trunk. On the way, Kestrel visited a hidden spring where the water has magic healing properties, and at the spring he met and rescued, Dewberry, a member of the mythical race of sprites.

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

  Kestrel traveled back and forth, from the human to the elven cultures, trying to determine where he fit in. The decision wasn’t an easy one to make, as he began to rise in the eyes of the humans, with whom he seemed to fit in more comfortably than he did among the elves.

  But his comfort in the city of Estone was shattered when he confronted the evil of Uniontown, a distant, malevolent human kingdom attempting to infiltrate Estone with alien gods and hostile culture. Kestrel faced the ambassador from Uniontown in a fatal clash at the royal palace of Estone. He won the battle, but learned that Uniontown was a force of great evil, and that the goddesses 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 was on sank in the wintery North Sea, and Kestrel was forced to trudge across the treacherous Water Mountains, where he was befriended by a village of gnomes and lived among them through the winter.

 
When springtime came, Kestrel left the mountains and emerged in the northern reaches of Graylee, the human kingdom he originally sought to reach. Kestrel entered the lands of a noble family, and through a heroic service he provided to the younger generation, became 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.

  His friends, Dewberry and Jonson, left to go on a quest in a strange land, where they hoped to find a weapon that would defeat the monster lizards that have moved into the Swampy Morass, so that Kestrel no longer had the unlimited assistance that he had previously received from his blue friends. He thereafter went on a quest of his own, directed by the gods, to set free Hydrotaz humans held captive in Graylee, and did so, then accompanied the freed captives back to Hydrotaz.

  Kestrel finally journeyed back to the Eastern Forest, and was nearly victimized by treachery there. Kestrel took on the forces of evil in Center Trunk and won. As a reward, Kestrel was 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.

  In the third novel, “Road of Shadows,” Kestrel began a journey to return to Graylee, which was interrupted when he was seized by the human god of fire, Growelf, and transported to a distant land, then assigned to rescue Jonson and Dewberry’s lost questing party, in a strange, foreign land of different races, languages, and gods, but a place that was just as subject to attack by the monster lizards, whose name Kestrel learned was the Viathins, a parasitic race that drains and destroys lands to support themselves.

  On his journey Kestrel not only set his sprite friends free, but discovered a way to immunize the humans and elves of his land from being controlled and influenced by the Viathins. When he returned to his own land, he went back to Graylee and helped set Philip and others free from the prison of Prince Namber, then he fled with a beautiful half-human, half-elven maiden named Moorin, the girl he believed he was prophesized to help and rescue, and who entrances him with her astounding beauty.

  He discovered that Moorin was an imposter. Despite the treachery, he succeeds in working in Hydrotaz to forge an alliance of humans loyal to Yulia and elves from the Eastern Forest, and together they win a battle against Namber’s invasion from Graylee.

  In “A Foreign Heart” Kestrel discovers that he has a living relative, a warrior girl who is half-human, named Wren. She and he do not get along well, but he takes him with her as he travels to and then leads an improbable uprising in Graylee, where the forces of Namber are defeated, and Philip is made the new king of the land. Kestrel and Picco are reunited and journey together to visit Picco’s family estate, where they bury Picco’s murdered mother, and then return to Graylee city. Kestrel leaves the city, satisfied that Philip has the kingdom under control, and journeys during the summer through the Water Mountains. He has an encounter with Corrant, the god of the gnomes, then continues on to the Northern Forest, in hopes that he will find the real Moorin, the great half-elven beauty Kere has told him to rescue.

  In Kiravee, the capital of the elves of the north, Kestrel, discovers Moorin, and also discovers that the forces of the Viathins seem to behind the evil that is attempting to undermine the society of the elves. Kestrel fights and wins battles to overcome the evil, but he fails to win Moorin’s affection. He watches her sail away with her betrothed, a human prince from the kingdom of Seafare.

  Discouraged and upset, Kestrel asks the imps to take him away from the Northern Forest, but in the process of transferring Kestrel with their magical powers, their journey goes astray.

  Kestrel passes out, and awakens in the body of Moorin’s betrothed. He and she return to Seafare, where he is perceived to be the prince. His disdain for the Uniontown allies in Seafare leads to a battle in the palace, where Kestrel fights for his life and to save Moorin.

  Chapter 1 – Confronting Namber

  The Viathins of the royal palace at Seafare were dead, justly killed by Kestrel, along with Wren and the imps who had arrived to help. Kestrel was in a desperate race to try to create momentum to counteract the extraordinary coup attempt that was underway in the royal palace at Seafare.

  Kestrel was trapped inside the body of Ruelin, the rightful human ruler of the nation. He was trying to act as if he were that ruler, while he tried to understand how he could survive the treacherous atmosphere of a palace that was dominated by forces loyal to the Viathins and Uniontown.

  The mechanism that had transferred him from his own body to that of Prince Ruelin was a mysterious, unknown event. The only redeeming feature of the change had been to put him with Moorin, enabling him to protect her and stay near her, drinking in the beauty that she possessed, the flawless countenance.

  But now, the coup attempt had temporarily separated him from her, and he felt a frantic need to find and protect her. Having contacted the imps and received allies he desperately needed – including the first handful of guards who had drank the water from the skin of Decimindion, and been converted from Uniontown lackeys to self-possessed men once again – having won his own freedom momentarily, having slain several of the Viathins, Kestrel was now frantically trying to reach Moorin and restore his protection to her, as he knew her fate was potentially threatened by the evil that had been unleashed in the palace.

  Kestrel put the Seafare officer in the lead and told him to run, not walk, to the palace room where Moorin was spending the night, presently without Kestrel’s protection, while he was fighting for his freedom. Kestrel felt a strong premonition that Namber would waste no time in pursuing his obsession with the elven countess. Kestrel chafed at the seemingly slow rate of his progress towards Moorin’s chambers; if he had an elven body – and if he knew where he was going, he chided himself – he would have sprinted far faster towards his destination, aware that every second could have an impact on Moorin’s safety.

  But instead, he reminded himself, he was trapped in a most awkward situation, in a body that was not his, but that gave him the ability to pretend to command in Seafare, even now when the borrowed royal identity he possessed was fighting back against a coup. And so, for now, even though he was absolutely ignorant of all the details and arrangements and practices of the palace, the society, and the land itself, he would follow this officer as his guide to get to where he needed to be.

  There were a handful of imps traveling above the group, a reassurance to Kestrel that he had allies whose loyalty he had absolute faith in, and a prod to the nervous men of Seafare that there were eyes above them watching them, able to effectively serve as extraordinary support against any mischief, though Kestrel expected no treachery from the men who had been dosed with the water of Decimindion, the protective water that Kestrel had brought back to the Inner Seas from the far-off land of the Parastoles.

  The officer turned sharply halfway through a garden, and Kestrel stumbled as he cut to the right, realizing that he was getting winded. He inhabited the body of the human prince Ruelin of Seafare, and the body was not able to run the way an elven body could. In fact, no human body could match the capability of an elven body, even an only partially-elven body such as Kestrel’s, and Ruelin’s human body was not in the best of shape in any event. The prince lived too indolent a life, Kestrel was sure.

  “How much farther do you think we need to go?” he gasped to the officer leading him.

  “You know we’re only a few steps away, majesty, or did you think we needed to go a longer route to get around any guards?” the man asked over his shoulder.

  “No,” Kestrel responded, “you’re right; let’s go the shortest route.”

  They continued on, the pace slightly reduced as the officer sensed his ruler’s exhaustion, and within seconds they reached a set of doors where a pair of guards blocked their passage.

  “No entry to this building, by order of the Prince of Graylee,” one of the men said as the two men stood in fr
ont of the doors.

  “You’ll block entrance to your own sovereign?” Kestrel stepped forth in front of the officer and squad members who had run across the palace campus with him, breathing heavily as he stood.

  “My prince!” the other man at the door spoke in shock. “We were told,” he faltered.

  “Told what?” Kestrel asked harshly. “Told that I was dead? I’m here to tell you that I’m not, and I’ll tell you that Namber is no prince, for his own nation has turned against him, so do not give him that title. And I’ll tell you furthermore that before the night is through he’ll be dead at my hand.

  “Now clear the way or bear our attack,” Kestrel warned the guards, holding Lucretia in his hand.

  Outnumbered, and cowed by the appearance of the ruler they thought dead, the two men stepped aside, and the squad started running again, turned a corner, cut through a banquet room, then climbed a set of stairs, where Kestrel’s exhausted legs stumbled and caused him to painfully bark his shins on the marble stair treads.

  “Stop!” he panted. “I’m not in the shape of you trained warriors,” he admitted with a self-deprecating grin as he tried to rub his shins and simultaneously climb the remaining stairs. “Slow down for a moment so I catch my breath, but keep walking.”

  He limped up the stairs at the back of the pack and continued to follow as they walked along a very lengthy hall.

  “Halt!” a voice called from behind them, as they were about to turn a corner.

  “Ruelin? How are you free? How are you even alive? Are you responsible for the massacre at the rulers’ nest?” the questions were shouted in a voice of outraged astonishment. And though Kestrel knew few people in Seafare, he recognized the voice of Probst, the Uniontown ambassador who Kestrel had no doubt had been the manipulator behind Seafare’s descent into debauchery and cruelty.