by T Nisbet
Chp. 44
“Where is that infernal elf, Gunn?” Coach McNally growled standing near the overturned wagon, his arms folded before him. “Don’t lie to me, I know you are in on it! Been following his trail, found his tracks mixed with yours, so don’t try and deny it!”
I looked around, but could only see Coach. I leveled my sword at his chest.
“What do you mean ‘they are safe for now’?” I shot back taking a step forward.
Coach flinched slightly. I’d never seen him do that before.
“Lord Memron’s guards hauled them out of here. They were alive, at least that brat Carla and the pushy Corporal were. The dwarf might have been wounded, or worse, but who cares. The guards had him tied over the back of one of the horses when they passed by where I was hiding. He wasn’t moving.”
I felt a rage come over me as I listened. This whole quest had gone south because of Coach. I wanted to walk over and cut him down, but a part of me refused to go along with that train of thought. I was generally thankful for my Christian morals, but sometimes they sure got in the way.
“What did you do with Brianna, traitor?” I asked, moving towards him once more, Gwensorloth pointing at his chest.
His dirty leather-like face twisted up in confusion and surprise.
“What did I do with her?” he spat stepping back. I could hear his teeth grinding in anger though I was still ten feet away. “You’re a lousy liar. You are the traitor here, Gunn, not me! You and the others took Lady Brianna. I saw that blasted elf’s tracks near hers on the plain. Followed them to Brighton after I got around the fire.”
I stopped moving forward and lowered Gwensorloth slightly. He was telling the truth. At least it seemed he was telling the truth. Now it was my turn to be confused.
“I haven’t seen her since she disappeared on the plain… at the same time as you disappeared, coincidentally,” I said wondering what was going on.
“He had her, Maggot, and you were with him when he left Brighton!” Coach argued his ruddy face getting redder by the second.
“Yeah, Guldan was with us, but Brianna wasn’t. We thought you had her!” I said shrugging, trying to fit the pieces into the puzzle.
Coach kicked the ground impotently. “Damn!” he cursed. “He must have hidden her in Brighton.”
“You sure he had her?” I asked, walking forward once more. “When we met him in Brighton she wasn’t with him.”
“Where is the devil-spawned elf now?” Coach growled.
Even though it appeared Coach McNally wasn’t responsible for Brianna’s disappearance, I wasn’t convinced at all he could be trusted. Instinctually, I knew something was going on that I didn’t understand. I decided to tell a partially truth and see if that didn’t bring something out of Coach.
“He’s dead,” I mumbled, sheathing Gwensorloth. “Toby and Ivy are trapped in Grimhome. I barely escaped with my life. The quest failed, Coach.”
I watched his reaction carefully as he digested what I’d said. A tiny smile played at the edge of his crooked mouth for a moment then was gone. He nodded.
“And the stone? Did you at least capture the Demon?” he asked.
His body language suggested my answer was important. Something was going on…
“No… we walked into a trap before we even made an attempt to imprison the Demon. Lord Guldan was killed by a hellhound. Ivy...” I said lowering my eyes. “Ivy still has the ruby. She and Toby were trapped by a cave-in inside the dungeon in Grimhome. I couldn’t get them out, there were hellhounds everywhere, so I came back here looking for help.”
He seemed to be thinking about what I said, then shrugged.
“Status quo eh?” he said running a hand through his sparse gray hair. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it for now. We need to get Brianna out of Brighton and deliver her to Lord Memron.”
“Excuse me? What about Carla, Gill and Bronn?” I asked. “If Memron took them captive, then he’s the bad guy. Why would we give him Brianna as well?”
“He’ll be so happy to get her that he’ll release your precious friends, even though they did help kidnap his daughter and killed some of his men. The dwarf will have to answer for that probably. Blood elves hate dwarves with a passion.”
How did he know that we had taken Memron’s daughter prisoner? He could only have learned of that from Memron.
“So you are saying we just leave Toby and Ivy trapped in Grimhome?” I asked, trying to hide my anger, feigning helplessness.
“Pull your head out Gunn. It’s not as if the two of us could storm Grimhome and free them. Maybe Lord Memron can ask King Zildian to release them into his custody when we deliver Brainna.”
Did McNally really think I was that stupid? Was he just saying anything to get me to help him search for Brianna to complete his mission, or was it part of his mission to free the Demon as well?
“Think he’ll let them go? I just want to get my friends back and leave this stupid world,” I said, doing my best to be seem tired of the whole mess, which wasn’t really that hard to do.
“Hell if I know Gunn!” he growled. “If King Zildain already has the Cardinal Ruby, he doesn’t have much of a reason to hold them does he?”
“I guess not,” I answered neutrally, hoping my rage didn’t show. He knew too much about the whole thing. “Maybe we should go by Memron’s castle first and see if he’ll release Carla and Gill to help us look for Brianna in Brighton.”
“Use your brain, Gunn. If we show up without Brianna he’s not likely to help us at all,” Coach McNally growled. “The fastest way to get them back is to deliver Brianna to him like we promised. Get your horse saddled and let’s go!”
As I released the sweat-drenched cinch from under the horse I’d ridden from Grimhome, some of the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. As those pieces slid together they triggered more questions.
Coach McNally wasn’t only concerned about only delivering Brianna to Memron, I was sure now that he was suppose to deliver me as well. At the camp before the falls, he’d nearly blown his top when I’d told him I was already trained. He had insisted I receive training at Memron’s estate. Why would Brianna’s father want me to go to the blood elves for training? They wanted the Demon released. Was Mr. Kline on their side?
I realized at that moment I couldn’t bring him the stone, at least not until I knew more. He claimed that the stone protected him from the Vampire Council, and that by giving it to me, they would no longer be afraid of the stone’s power being used against them. Was that a lie? Was Brianna’s father really of the covenant?
Then there was Guldan. He was bound to the covenant, of that I was sure. Sunlight hadn’t affected him at all. He had done everything in his power to help the quest succeed. He was one of the ten, and after the dungeons of Grimhome, I trusted him, but why would Guldan kidnap Brianna?
As I put the saddle over my horse’s back, I ran through my mind a list of who all the players were in this. There was Brianna’s father, the Vampire Council, the Blood Elves, and Guldan. Was it possible that there were more than just two sides to this?
People who had power generally didn’t want to give up that power. They wanted more. What if the Vampire Council didn’t want to give up their control and become servants to the Demon? That would put them against the Blood Elves who wanted the Demon released. I felt disgusted thinking of the possibility, but it made them possible allies.
It looked as though Brianna’s father was in league with the Blood Elves, at least partially, unless Coach was playing his own game. But why would Mr. Kline be connected with them? They were not followers of the covenant, and he supposedly was. If there was a split between the Vampire Council and the Blood Elves, then maybe Brianna’s father had chosen to ally with the Blood Elves for protection against the Council. But if he was against being controlled by the Vampire Council, why would he want to be controlled by the Demon?
I put the bit into my chestnut gelding’s mouth and pulled the reins
over his head, then I put another set of reins on Carla’s horse so I could lead it. As I did, I was reminded of my last attempt at leading a horse. I flexed my shoulder, it was fine, no pain at all. Even though the pain was gone, the lesson remained. I looped the reins of Carla’s horse over the saddle horn on my horse, then swung myself up into the saddle. Coach sat on a plainsmen’s horse frowning at me.
I thought about leaving him there and trying to get my friends out of Memron’s castle on my own, but that made as much sense as going back to Grimhome for Ivy, Toby and Guldan. Again I was being given a choice that forced me to abandon my friends for the greater good. The sense of hopelessness pressing down on me grew heavier.
I had to get to the Elven Wood and back to my world in three days. If McNally had been in contact with Memron, and the dark elf lord had okayed Coach’s plan to go to Brighton, then we probably wouldn’t be stopped along the way. That would help a bit. I decided to go along with Coach to Brighton. From there, I’d set off on my own.
“You won’t need that damn horse, Gunn.” Coach grouched as we rode down into the huge meadow we had passed the day before.
The sunlight whispered down through the remaining rain clouds, glinting off the water of the creek that ran the length of meadow. The air was crisp and clear and smelled of clover and honeysuckle. I took a deep breath letting the beauty of the scene relax my frayed nerves.
“I couldn’t let anybody else have Carla’s horse, Coach. She loves it.” I answered lazily, hoping to put off any questions about why I might need two horses. “Besides, Brianna might need it, if we can find her, that is. Maybe she’ll leave before we get there.”
Coach growled, but let it drop, kicking his small horse into a canter.
I was relieved that I had been able to manipulate Coach into riding faster. Even though it had only been a few hours at most, walking our mounts out of the mountains had been so frustratingly slow. The whole way I had resisted the urge to feel the lump in the pocket of my black leather pants. It felt like I was carrying a time bomb. I had done my best not to let Coach McNally see how anxious was at our slow pace, it had been as difficult as waiting to open presents on Christmas morning.
As we entered the familiar burnt-out forest before the Blood Elves encampment my heart rate soared. I pulled the black hood lower over my head and prepared to flee if need be. I couldn’t let the stone fall into their hands.
When we rode out of the burnt forest and into clearing, I was surprised to find the massive encampment against the hills mostly gone. The nearly endless rows of tents were nowhere to be seen. Only a handful of large and small tents remained.
I felt relief, but it was quickly replaced with fear that we might run into an army marching north on the road before us. I was thankful that Coach wasn’t interested in talking, I doubted that I could have pretended not to be worried. As we rode past the tents and approached the spot where I had executed the blood elf, I glanced to my right at Coach’s mount. The plainsmen’s horse had a choppy gait, and Coach McNally was bouncing all over the saddle. I felt myself grinning as I contemplated how sore he was going to be when we stopped. Partially turned into a vampire or not, Coach was an old man, and that pounding had to hurt. The trick was going to be keeping him going at this pace.
The day progressed as we rode down through groves of aspen-like trees. Several riders passed by us heading south towards Grimhome, but none of them stopped or paid us any mind at all. To my surprise, Coach maintained the pace, slowing only to share some food and water as the sun reached its zenith above us. The black leather tunic and pants trapped heat causing me to sweat profusely. Coach gave me one of his canteens. I tried to conserve as much as I could, but I need to hydrate if I wanted to be able to stay in the saddle.
We stopped briefly near a stream that passed close by the road as we descended towards the plains. Crystal clear water fell over small bronze veined boulders and stones that had been smoothed by millennia of being tumbled. The sides of the stream were festooned with various, brightly colored mosses and water plants. I bent down and filled up my canteen, scaring a group of fish that looked a lot like rainbow trout. I imagined my father fly-fishing this stream in his fishing regalia. As I drank from the stream I daydreamed about bringing him and mom to a peaceful version of this world. There was such incredible beauty here. I pictured my family riding around, seeing as much of it as we could. It was a nice fantasy.
I was pulled out of my revelry by the sound of Coach peeing in the water ten feet upstream from where I was drinking, cackling all the while. I stood up immediately and flipped him off. “That was for Toby,” I said to myself and walked a little distance away before relieving my own bladder away from the stream. Even if we were still in Blood Elf lands, there were some things you didn’t do. I wasn’t blind to the irony.