Greystone Valley Read online

  With a jangle of metal, Dax thrust the key into the lock on the door and twisted. The door flew open, and Dax leapt out of the cell just in time to face the guard again. Shouting an alarm, the guard reached for the sword at his belt, but not quickly enough. Wielding his fists like a pair of dangerous clubs, Dax bludgeoned the guard across the head.

  Then he kicked the beast-man’s knees, knocking the two short pig legs out from under it. As the guard fell, Dax seized the pig-man’s sword belt, drawing the blade in one deft movement. Then he brought the blade down, hitting the guard with the flat of the sword. The pig-man slumped in the corner, unconscious. He did not get up.

  From inside the cell, Sarah and Kay watched in amazement.

  “That was incredible!” Sarah shouted.

  “Not really,” Dax said. He put his hand on the small of his back and sighed loudly. “I think I threw my back out.”

  Eight

  Shouts of alarm and the sound of clanking armor drifted down the dungeon corridors. Dax frowned and began moving toward the inevitable battle. “It’s not like the old days, you know,” he said to the others. “I used to be able to take on an entire army all by myself. But now I get muscle spasms, and my hips are all full of arthritis. Old age, you know. Just another piece of misery waiting for all of us. Not that you two youngsters care. I might as well be talking to a wall.”

  “Who is this guy?” Kay whispered to Sarah as they followed Dax down the hallway.

  “I don’t know anything about him,” she replied with a shrug. “All I learned is that he’s very depressing and that he might or might not eat bugs.”

  Meanwhile, Dax continued his moaning and groaning. “Ugh… here they come,” he said as the shadows of at least a dozen humans and beast-men marched down the corridor. “All that noise, noise, noise! The sound of their armor is going to give me headaches for weeks. Not that it really matters, I suppose. I’m so rusty with a sword I’ll probably cut my own head off in combat. I’m sorry your escape won’t be very long-lived.”

  Despite his incessant grumbling, Dax moved forward undaunted by the guards in front of him. They came upon him in a wave, seeking to overwhelm him with their superior numbers. But even when they outnumbered him ten to one, not a single blade touched his skin.

  He moved the sword in deft arcs in front of him, knocking aside any other weapon that came near him. When one of the guards let down his defenses, Dax rewarded him by slapping the flat of his blade against the side of the attacker’s head. In short order, three human opponents had fallen, knocked out by Dax’s expert moves. Even then, the old warrior didn’t stop his griping. “What a hassle all of this is going to be in the morning. I’ll probably go deaf from all the noise, and this sword hilt is giving me blisters. I swear, some days I feel like I should have just stayed in bed.”

  A beast-man with bull’s horns charged Dax, ignoring the sharp blade in the warrior’s hand. Dax sidestepped expertly, parrying another trio of attacks from the other guards as he did so. With a whirling motion, he smacked the charging creature in the back with the flat of his blade, sending the beast-man off balance. The creature fell headlong at Sarah’s feet. When he got up, he didn’t seem interested in taking on Dax anymore. With angry eyes, his attention turned to Sarah.

  “Uh-oh,” breathed Sarah just before the creature lowered its head into a charge. She dodged just enough to avoid the monster’s horns, but the beast-man’s shoulder still rammed into her chest, sending her sprawling to the ground. She gasped in pain as the wind was knocked out of her body. The creature grinned and drew a large ax. Sarah held her breath, unsure that she could dodge the next blow.

  Luckily, the creature didn’t follow through with his strike. Something hit him in the back of the head, and he turned around. Sarah heard a skittering of rocks as more small things flew past the creature and into the darkness of the dungeon. Squirming to reposition herself, she saw Kay holding a handful of small rocks he had gathered from the unkempt floor. He threw them one by one, as quickly as he could, at the advancing monster. “I might not have spells,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I’m useless.”

  “Stupid boy,” rumbled the beast-man. “Do you really think your pebbles can hurt me? I barely even feel them through my hide.”

  “I figured that,” admitted Kay. “But I also counted on someone with a bull’s head not being terribly clever.”As if on cue, he dropped the rocks and charged the beast-man. He hit the creature in the stomach as hard as he could. Even that blow didn’t manage to hurt his enemy, but it did catch him by surprise. The bull-man staggered backward. Sarah took the opportunity to bend down and charge her attacker’s knees. Although the pair didn’t manage to hurt the beast-man, they did knock it to the ground, giving them a couple of seconds to run. Kay grabbed Sarah by the wrist and pulled her back toward their cell, away from the battle.

  The beast-man picked himself up a moment later. With a roar of anger, he charged headlong after the fleeing pair. The sound of galloping hooves echoed down the hallway. To Sarah, it seemed no matter how fast she ran, the creature was only a few steps away. But by the time they reached their cell, she had an idea.

  “This way,” she said, grabbing Kay by his baggy robes and pulling him into the cell. Kay shouted in protest, but Sarah had already put him off balance. The pair tumbled into the jail, hitting hard against the stone floor.

  “What are we doing back here?” Kay cried. “We’re trying to escape, remember?”

  “Just trust me,” she responded, her eyes flashing in excitement. “I know what I’m doing.”

  Horns lowered and eyes red with rage, the guard slowed down just enough so he could turn the corner into the cell, but he continued his charge. The last thing he expected to see was Kay and Sarah crouched on the ground right next to the door. The creature roared in surprise as Sarah threw herself against his legs again. This time, one of the guard’s hooves cut into her side. She heard a rip in her pajamas and shouted as she felt a sudden surge of pain. But she succeeded in tripping the beast-man. With a shout of surprise, he sprawled on the floor of the cell.

  Sarah and Kay leapt to their feet at the same time and ran out of the jail cell. The one advantage they had was that they were faster and more nimble than the lumbering bull-creature. Before the guard could get to his feet, Sarah slammed the cell door shut and turned the key that Dax had left in the lock. Then she threw the key down the long dark corridor, leaving her attacker locked safely away.

  “Good job,” said Kay. He smiled and gave her a low bow—so low that he almost tripped over his baggy clothes.

  “Thanks. I think I’m getting the hang of this adventure thing.”

  “Are you two OK? No, of course you’re not.” Dax approached from farther down the hall. “I guess the question I should really be asking is, how badly are you hurt?”

  “We’re OK,” said Sarah, moving to meet the warrior. “I just got a bit of a cut here on my side.” She looked at the tear in her pajamas. She already had a purple bruise where the hoof had hit her, and she was bleeding a bit where the skin had broken.

  “Oh, no!” Dax only glanced at the wound. As soon as he did, his face turned pale, and he looked like he might faint dead away. “Please, please step back into the darkness. We’ll bandage you up as soon as we’re able, but for right now… oh, my. I never should have gotten out of bed today.”

  “Are you OK?”

  “Not really. It’s… well, it’s that you’re bleeding. I never could stomach the sight of blood, you see.”

  “But… you’re a warrior.”

  “Not exactly.” Dax gestured toward the bodies of the guards he had defeated. All of them were battered and bruised, but none of them had anything worse than a nasty bump on the head from the flat of Dax’s sword. The warrior’s blade didn’t have a drop of blood on it. “You see, that’s the same problem that got me thrown down here in the first place. I was hired as a mercenary for Baelan’s armies, but I couldn’t quite get used to the life of a s
oldier. Not to mention the fact that it’s absolutely dreadful sleeping in the same quarters as some of these smelly horse-men. So when I tried to desert, I got caught and thrown down here. Then, I think they just sort of forgot about me.”

  “Well, they’re going to remember you when they wake up,” Kay said. He picked up his pace as he moved toward the stairway. “And we had better get out of here before they do. They’re probably not the only guards in this dungeon.”

  “I suppose so,” Dax said. “Although I can’t imagine I’ll enjoy it very much. After spending so much time down here in the dark, the light from outside will probably blind me.”

  The dungeon was located beneath a tall tower that jutted out of the wilderness. Both Sarah and Kay had been blindfolded after their capture and couldn’t figure out where they were. Dax, on the other hand, said that he remembered the area and could help them retrace their steps back to the hidden spellbook. Or, at least, he thought he could.

  “I’ll probably forget something along the way and get us all hopelessly lost,” he said. “Memory tends to be the first thing to go when you hit old age, you know. If we end up lost in the wild and starving to death, you have permission to kill me and eat me if you need to. Not that it will do much good, though. These bones probably don’t have any real meat on them at all. All you’ll get is gristle.”

  “What’s wrong with this guy?” whispered Kay to Sarah as they followed along. “He’s giving me a headache.”

  “I don’t know,” replied Sarah. “But he’s definitely got a morbid imagination. Between him talking about eating bugs and now eating him, I don’t know if I’ll ever have an appetite again.”

  In reality, Dax turned out to be an excellent tracker. Once the three travelers were clear of the tower, they made good speed across the wooded terrain of the valley. In a matter of hours, Sarah began recognizing the area a little bit.

  Despite Dax’s talk about eating bugs and people in order to survive, Sarah quickly found herself working up an appetite. She hadn’t eaten all day, and one thing she had learned so far about having an adventure was that it was a draining experience. Fortunately, she didn’t have to resort to eating Dax. The warrior found a patch of berries along the way and let the younger two sit and eat while he left to scare up some food.

  He came back with a pair of small rabbits, which made a tasty meal even though they weren’t terribly filling. He also brought some herbs with him for Sarah’s wound. Dax was too squeamish to look directly at the cut, even after the blood had dried. Instead, he looked away as he told Kay how to apply the herbs and bandages.

  “You seem pretty capable,” said Sarah when they had started traveling again. “But why are you so gloomy?”

  “What’s there not to be gloomy about?” sighed Dax. “Sometimes I think it all starts with those mountains.” He pointed toward the horizon, where massive gray mountain peaks formed a rocky circle around the valley. “Everybody who finds their way into this valley winds up trapped here. Those big gray depressing things keep us all locked up, and it only gets worse from there.”

  “That’s not the way it is at all,” said Kay indignantly. The young wizard apparently did not like people complaining about his home. “The mountains aren’t there as a prison. They’re there to protect this place from the outside world.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Sarah.

  “The wizard who created this place—the same wizard who created Castle Greystone—made it as a sanctuary. He saw the world changing. Things were getting darker, and people were becoming more cynical. So he made this valley and gathered up all the stuff from humanity’s dreams. Dragons, fairies, wizards—they’re all here, in some form or another. If it wasn’t for this valley, there would be no place for wonder anymore.”

  “How could one person do that?” asked Sarah. “It seems pretty impossible.”

  “Of course it’s impossible. That’s why it’s called magic! If people knew how it was done, it wouldn’t be magical, and Baelan wouldn’t be hunting me to try to find the secrets hidden away in my book.”

  “He’s better off not looking,” said Dax. “In my experience, meddling with that sort of thing only leads to trouble. Of course, so does everything else.”

  They found the hillside before nightfall. Kay shouted with joy as he ran toward the boulder that he had hidden his spellbook under. “Finally! I’ve been wandering around feeling naked without my magic. We’ll get my spellbook and rest up for the night, and then I’ll figure out a clever way to get my hat and staff back and pay Baelan back for all this trouble. Sounds like a good plan, huh?”

  Kay flipped over the large stone that he had hidden the book under and began digging like a happy dog. Sarah stepped out of the way to avoid getting dirt thrown in her face, while Dax just stood in the path and sighed as his clothes became covered with it.

  “It’s down here somewhere,” said Kay, still digging. “This is the right place.” He spent a few more minutes at his task before the happiness left his face and he became frantic. The dirt came out of the hole faster now. When Kay had dug deeper than he had before, he stood up, a look of panic drawn clearly across his face, which had gone pale.

  The spellbook was nowhere to be found.

  Nine

  “It’s… it’s… argh!” sputtered Kay. He kicked at the ground in frustration, and then he started turning over every rock in the immediate area. His movements became frantic and then reckless as he searched for the missing book. Naturally, it was nowhere to be found.

  “That’s not possible,” he said, finally managing to form a complete sentence. “No one else knew… Sarah… you’re the only other person who knew where I buried the book. You must have moved it, right? You probably knew the army was coming for it and hid it somewhere else, just to make sure there would be no chance of anyone else stumbling across it, right?”

  The boy’s face looked desperate almost to the point of madness. Despite that, Sarah couldn’t bring herself to lie. “They brought me straight to the dungeon. I didn’t get a chance to come back here. I’ve got no idea where the book is.”

  Kay rolled his eyes and moaned so loudly that he even startled Dax. The bookless boy threw himself on the ground and sat with his head in his hands. “The one thing my father asked me never to do was to let the spellbook fall into the wrong hands. There are secrets too powerful—if someone learns enough magic from it, they could rule Greystone Valley. In Baelan’s hands, he’ll probably do more than that. He’ll end up destroying this whole place, all so he can find some other world to conquer.”

  “There’s no guarantee that will happen,” said Sarah, trying to bolster the young wizard’s confidence. His sadness was spreading, and Dax had already joined him by slumping onto the ground. “Baelan’s a warlord, not a wizard. If even you couldn’t decipher the spells in the book, what makes you think he can?”

  “Because he’s not an idiot like I am.” Kay punched the ground and then winced because it hurt his hand. “Anyone can figure out those stupid writings. You could just by looking at them, and you’re not even from around here. The only person who’s ever had trouble with that book is me. Baelan will probably figure things out just as quickly as you did. Then he’ll open up Castle Greystone, and there’s nothing I can do about it. If I was smart, I never would have buried the book in the first place. I would have brought my staff to begin with and not have needed to run after it. Now I’ve got no staff, no hat, and no spellbook. What kind of wizard is that?”

  Sarah tried to respond, but another thought came across her mind. Without the spellbook, she probably didn’t have much of a chance of getting back home. She, too, sat on the ground and bowed her head. She thought about her mom and her friends. Greystone Valley wasn’t boring, but it wasn’t home, either.

  Much to Sarah’s surprise, Dax was the one who finally spoke up with words of encouragement. “I hate to say this, since it will probably just give you both false hope, but I don’t think Baelan has the book.�
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  Sarah looked up at the old man, who was lying on his back watching the darkening sky. She asked, “What do you mean? Who else would have it?”

  “Yeah,” Kay added, “he was the only one looking for it, and the only people who saw where it was hidden was us. Who else could possibly have it?”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong. The people who might have it are just as obnoxious and worrisome as Baelan.”

  “But no one else was looking for it,” Kay said. “At least, no one else that I know about.”

  “Just because you aren’t looking for something doesn’t mean you won’t find it.”

  “But who accidentally flips over a rock and digs underground?” Sarah asked. As strange as the folk of the valley had been up until this point, they all seemed to operate with at least some logic—well, most of them did, at least.

  “Someone whose job it is to find lost things and make them disappear. If you ask me, they’re all obnoxious little buggers, though.”

  “Who?” Sarah asked.

  Dax pointed one thin finger toward the sky. “They are.”

  The sun had set by then. Only a little light was left in the sky, leaving the world in the bluish-black realm of twilight. But something else was there, too. As Sarah followed Dax’s finger, she saw the flickering of silver sparks in the sky. They seemed like small lightning bolts at first. When Sarah focused her eyes on them, though, she saw that they were just large fireflies, drifting through the night sky and sending off signal lights from their bulbs. “What would fireflies want with a spellbook? I don’t think they can even read the cover, let alone turn any of the pages.”

  By now, Kay had joined Dax in watching the blinking glow of the insects. The sadness had faded from his face a little bit, and he watched the display with growing curiosity. “They’re not fireflies,” he whispered. “Look closer.”