Daxton - Episode 38
The 5th Compass | Tales of Stonehaven [2,603 words]
Daxton is the first book in the 6-book series, The 5th Compass, which takes place in Stonehaven. Released in serial form, two episodes each week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The audio version is coming in the future for paid subscribers only. Visit the table of contents for a list of previously published and upcoming episodes.
Previous Episode « Table of Contents » Next Episode
The second trip to Reapers Walk was no worse than the first. Daxton and Barton decided it would serve them best to sprint through it. As long as they didn’t stop and kept their eyes forward, they’d be fine. During their sprint, they encountered only a few stranded souls pleading for help. All of them looked as if they were beyond help and did not deter them from their goal. They found their way easily enough to the other side of Reapers Walk as it was clearly marked by a gate hardly used.
“I wonder why none of them just walk through here and leave this place?” Barton asked as he helped Daxton pry the gate open just enough for them to squeeze through.
“Probably because it is too heavy to open?” They both breathed heavily once on the other side. The tall gate, with trees and vines running along it served as a barrier from the awful smell and they were delighted for the fresh air in their lungs.
Just about one hundred yards in front of them was a clear path leading up to a modest house. Right beside it was an even smaller barn where they would see chickens and a cow milling around.
“That must be the blacksmith’s house. I wonder if his daughter is just as crazy as he is?” No sooner did Barton ask the question did he see a woman emerge from the house carrying an empty basket in her arms. She noticed them right away and smiled as she went about her task around the back of the house. Daxton watched his friend closely and marveled at how easily swayed he was by almost anyone of the opposite sex.
“Gentlemen!” They snapped their heads towards the voice of Traix who stood in the doorway of his house wringing his bloody hands on a washcloth. “Do come in! I am glad you did not get lost having to come through Reapers Walk. Many a traveler has gotten themselves lost in there in an attempt to visit my home. Uninvited, of course.” He smiled at them and they both began to wonder if their being there was safe. He stepped aside as they approached the house to let them in.
They could smell the blood on his clothing and then the chicken being prepared in the kitchen and instantly forgot what they were so worried about earlier.
“Was that your daughter we saw?” Barton asked, obviously taken with her already. Traix never liked when his daughter was noticed by men and ignored the question.
“I have made us all some chicken stew. I hope you’ll like it. We aren’t rich of course but we are able to live off the land.” He ushered them into his kitchen which was just off to the side of their main room as they walked in. It reminded Daxton of the house he left behind and for the first time he felt homesick. They had a backdoor similar to his home and as it opened slowly, he almost wished he would see his mother walk through it. Instead, he was met by the smile of the woman from earlier, carrying the same basket, only this time filled with clothing that was hanging outside.
“Here, let me help you with that,” Barton said, rushing forwards to grab the basket from her. “My name’s Barton.”
She handed over the basket without question, her smile never left her face. “I am Adelaide.” Daxton inhaled deeply as he heard her name. Was it a coincidence that she had the same name as his mother or was he mistaken when he believed the sword left with him as a child once belonged to his mother? He reached for his side and remembered it was decided that they should leave their swords behind in case it should make the blacksmith suspicious of their intentions. He wished he could find out if she knew of the sword and perhaps get more clues from her about it but knew he couldn’t without having it with him to prove its existence. Luckily, his friend Barton was not aware of the name carved into the hilt of the sword.
“Have you heard the name Adelaide before?” Traix asked, curious to hear the answer and have Daxton give himself away as a spy for the king.
“No, it is just a pretty name.” Daxton thought he saved himself with his answer, but even Barton wondered why his friend behaved so strangely. He followed Adelaide back into the main room where she took the folded clothes from the basket and placed them inside an alcove located behind a curtain where all their clothing was kept.
The rest of the evening went on in the same fashion with small, insignificant discussions. The meal was eaten in total silence as Traix and Adelaide watched the boys devour the food placed before them.
“Where are you boys from?” Traix asked. Barton pretended not to hear the question as he kept his head down and his eyes focused on his food.
Daxton looked up and for a moment he thought about lying but the way Adelaide smiled at him he thought it was unnecessary. “We’re both from (name here), just outside of—.”
“Gaspar? I know it well. We’ve been there once, a long time ago.” Traix grew quiet with the memory of the day he found Adelaide under the docks and the journey they had together to end up where they were. She noticed her father’s despondent expression and quickly changed the subject.
“Why are you here in Sedinia? There isn’t much of anything to do around here. it is all quite boring and uneventful. I keep trying to tell papa we should move closer to the city, but he prefers the quiet, do not, papa?” He eyes his daughter suspiciously, not sure why she would tell these strangers such information.
“I have cheese out in the barn, churned fresh this morning by my daughter that I think will go well with some warm cider. Why do not you boys go and sit by the fire while we get some?” He signaled for his daughter to follow him outside as Daxton and Barton moved into the main room and took two chairs from against the wall opposite the fireplace, sat near it to warm themselves.
“They seem like two good people. I am not sure what that Wendynn was so concerned about. All you have to do now if figure out a way to bring up the compass in casual conversation. I am sure he wouldn’t mind selling it to us. And if you think it might work, I’d be willing to offer up my hand in marriage to his daughter as a trade.” Barton nudged his friend jokingly, but Daxton was not amused at the suggestion. He found it odd that both Traix and Adelaide left them alone in the house to go retrieve cheese from the barn.
As Adelaide tried to walk ahead of her father to the barn to get the cheese, he grabbed her arm to slow her down. “You know what you must do, Adelaide?”
“No, papa, they are not who you think they are. They do not even look like they’d ever be allowed in the royal army. The king would not entrust two boys to come and apprehend you.”
“That’s just it Adelaide, he knows I’d suspect two grown men as I have in the past. They never returned and now he’s sent these two to find out why. I won’t have you put in prison because of my actions. You must prepare the poison and the cider.” He leaned forwards and kissed his daughter on the forehead. “Trust me, Adelaide, I was a member of the royal army once, I know what they do to those who run away like cowards.”
Adelaide nodded her agreement with her father’s wishes. She’d been down this road with him many times in the past. In the beginning, when he killed the first man who came to town asking him questions it frightened her to see how mad he became, strangling the life out of a total stranger. At least he was dressed like a member of the royal army. Then all she had to do was help him dig the grave where they buried him, on the Reapers Walk side of the gate that separated their property.
The second time her father killed a man was when she’d had enough. This time she was old enough to realize his paranoia was only going to get worse and she had to do something about it, if only to save the soul of a man she looked upon as a father. Before the next innocent traveler came along, she decided to visit with a local shaman and ask him about poisons. At first, he was hesitant to give a young woman such information, but he soon relented, and she told her father she had devised a less gruesome way of ridding the world of men who worked for the king. She could poison them instead. Her father agreed, and Adelaide quickly went to work saving the lives of every man he feared were agents of the king.
Traix entered the house with his daughter in tow. She excused herself to the kitchen to prepare the cider while he set to work cutting chunks of cheese for them all.
In the kitchen, Adelaide prepared a mixture which she put in just one of the four cups of cider she poured. It was her father’s cup. She stirred it quickly and brought it to her lips to take a whiff of it and make sure it smelled the same as the others. One time she put too much of her mixture which made her father only drink half of it. That was the one and only time her machination was almost discovered.
She carried in a tray of four mugs filled with cider and lowered it to her father first. He took his mug straight away and gave his daughter a look, expecting one back, but receiving none and she carefully brought the tray over to the two boys. They each took theirs and she took the last mug then sat in the empty chair beside her father. The four of them took a sip of the warm cider and they all sighed at the feeling it gave them as it coursed through their body. Adelaide snuck a peek over at her father and smiled as she watched him down the last of his mug. He would do this in the hopes that it would get the guests to do the same. In this instance, it did, but it made no difference, he would be feeling the effects soon enough.
Daxton started to speak when he noticed Traix’s head falling limply to one side. He nudged Barton who looked up from his cider at what was happening as well.
“Is he alright?” Daxton asked, rising from his seat to check for himself. Adelaide put her hand up to stop him and then put a finger to her lips to silence them. She quickly put down her mug on the floor beside her chair and took the empty mug from her father’s grasp.
“He’s fine. I have given him a sedative.”
“You did what?” Barton asked, a look of surprise on his face.
“You needn’t look so stunned by my actions. I just saved both of your lives. If I were half as mad as my father, you two would both be poisoned by now and I’d be helping to dig your graves in the Reapers Walk.” She crouched in front of her father and lifted his eyelids slightly to ensure her concoction worked. Once satisfied that he was completely out cold she moved around behind the chair and put her hands under her father’s arm pits. “do not just stand there, help me put him in his bed.” She grunted as she started to lift him up off the chair. Both Daxton and Barton leapt from their seats and each grabbed a leg as they helped her carry him to his bed.
They stood and watched as she tucked her father in as if it was a normal occurrence for him to be passed out this way because she drugged him. She moved with such precision and speed they hardly realized what was happening as she took both of their hands and led them to the front door.
“Wait, we cannot leave. Why did you drug your father? Who are you people?” Daxton finally found his own voice and started asking multiple questions although none of them were what he really wanted to know. He just happened to find himself needing more answers than he initially thought he would.
Her expression became that of an exasperated woman. “There isn’t enough time. I nearly killed him once by mixing in too much of the sedative the last time, so I have given him much less and I have not had an opportunity to test its potency. This means I do not know when he’ll wake. You have to leave, now, and I must make it look like I drugged you, buried you, and all while he was fast asleep.”
“No! If you won’t tell us about your twisted relationship with your father at least tell me where you got the compass?”
She stopped trying to push them out the front door. “The compass? You mean the one hanging in my father’s workshop? Why are you interested in it?” She started to back away from them slowly, looking behind her back every few steps she took. “don’t tell me my father was right about the two of you and you are here to arrest him for having that compass?” She stopped moving backwards once she was in reaching distance of a basket containing several swords in it. She grabbed one and held it out in defense in front of her. “Leave now before I am forced to kill you.”
“You misunderstand us. We aren’t here to arrest your father. I just need to know where you got the compass?” She lunged forwards, plunging the sword at them. They stepped back to avoid the blade. She made to strike once more when she heard a moan coming from her father in bed.
“Get out of here. Now!”
They could tell her father was waking and didn’t wish to discover what would happen to them when he discovered his own daughter drugged him and not them. Daxton and Barton turned and ran, this time opting to take the long way around the Reapers Walk. The moon was up, shrouding the outdoors in complete darkness, save for its glow. They did not wish to risk getting lost inside on any night.
Adelaide ran outside a few steps behind them to watch till they were completely out of sight. She then bounded over to the barn and grabbed the shovel they kept just outside of it. She then dropped to her knees to get her clean dress all dirty, making sure to put a streak of it on her face as well.
Sufficiently out of breath she walked back to the house, shovel in hand. Her father sat up in bed when he heard her enter. “Is it done?” he asked, clutching his forehead.
“Yes, father. They’re gone forever.” She wiped her brow which was sprinkled with sweat and smiled to herself as she knew she’d gotten away with it again.