by Guy Antibes
Trevor asked about wrappings, and the sword seller told them he wouldn’t be able to get to Trevor’s sword for a few more weeks.
“I can wrap them on my own,” Trevor said, and he purchased the materials and bought a few strings for his bow.
As Win and Trevor walked back to the inn to eat lunch, Win asked, “Do you know how to wrap the hilt of your sword?”
Trevor stopped and turned red before laughing. “Of course I don’t. I’ve always had people do that for me.”
“Boxster can help you there.” Win said.
At lunch, Trevor told the group about their adventure in the marketplace.
“I’ve restored enough swords on my own to be able to teach you how to do it.”
Trevor pursed his lips. “You won’t wrap them for me?”
“Directions only. You have to be able to do things on the road if you are to be a proper soldier of fortune,” Boxster said.
Trevor wanted to attend the last concert performed by the Brachian musicians, but Boxster had Trevor practice how to renovate the grip of a hilt. Trevor sighed when he thought he’d never get a chance to know Mara.
“The girl?” Boxster asked.
“How did you know?”
Boxster gave Trevor half a smile. “I’ve been through near misses myself. It takes a few days to get a woman out of your head. Sometimes more.”
“We never even started. Three short meetings, and that was that.”
“Even I thought she was a very nice-looking woman,” Boxster said.
“Even you, eh?” Trevor said as he was finishing tying off the wrapping of the untanned side of the thin leather on his hilt. “I wish the swordmaker had a solution to my scabbard. He said he’d make a custom one, but like other places in this town, it would take weeks to get done and we don’t have weeks.”
Trevor was satisfied by his work, which elicited compliments from them all. He decided to test it out in the stable yard. The wrappings held, and Trevor pronounced his work competent. As he looked up at the dark gray skies, he felt a large raindrop plop on his nose.
“Rain,” Trevor said to Win, who acted as his sparring partner, “and lots of it.”
They ran into the inn before a bolt of lightning heralded a deluge.
“I wonder if Mara and her troupe are getting caught in the downpour?” Trevor said.
Win laughed. “Why do you care? You’ll never see her again.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Trevor said. “We may cross paths. We can be doing our soldiering in the same town that she is performing.”
“Give it up,” Win said.
Trevor sighed. “I will.”
“There you two are,” Brother Yvan said as he rushed to see them. “There are soldiers of the lord who has Bumblebee Ford in his domain in the town. They are asking about us with the names we put on Lilith’s pass. That pass won’t work here. We have to leave.”
“In this rain?” Win asked as another peal of thunder shook the inn.
“Your comfort or your life,” Yvan said.
“Life, but barely,” Win said. “I’ll get packed.”
Trevor ran to his room and gathered his things. He grabbed one of his traveling coats and went to Boxster’s room. The ex-sergeant was almost finished.
“What is it?”
“I bought these in the marketplace. One is for you.”
Boxster took the tan coat. “I’m touched,” he said sarcastically.”
“So less rain will touch you,” Trevor said. “I have to finish.”
“Downstairs as quickly as you can. I’d rather leave a little less conspicuously, but we don’t have the luxury to lollygag,” Boxster said as he tied up his last bag and put on the coat. “This fits me better than it would fit you. Thank you, my friend. Now let’s get you ready to go.”
In a few minutes, all four wore Viksaran traveling coats and mounted their horses in the pouring rain.
“I wonder if there are Viksaran traveling hats,” Trevor said. The cloth hat that he had taken from his destroyed rooms in Tarviston Castle was a limp rag on his head. He flipped the hood up and winced as the water on the cape fell on his head.
Brother Yvan laughed. “You’ll have to find that out in Viksar. There are only a few small villages from here to the border. Until then, you can keep that wet hood flipped up.”
The four of them rode out of the stable yard. They headed east away from Bumblebee Ford and in the opposite direction of the Viksaran border, in plain sight of those taking cover on the awnings and porches of the various businesses. Boxster took them out of town and then to the first crossroads. They stopped under a tree that dripped huge raindrops while he consulted a new map.
“North, and then we will intersect with a road that will take us west through farm country and then south again in about ten miles to the next village.”
They galloped north, sloshing in the mud until the going became too treacherous for running the horses so fast. The rain let up but didn’t go away as they walked on the road. Trevor could tell they wouldn’t make it to the village before twilight, so they would have to ride in the dark. This wasn’t his concept of idyllic travel: a mild, sunny day and looking forward to a hot meal and a clean, firm bed.
They continued until the rain finally stopped.
“We can rest the horses here,” Boxster said.
“I can make it a little farther,” Brother Yvan said.
“It is here or a little farther, but not both,” Trevor said. “I’m ready to stop.”
“Me too,” Win said.
Brother Yvan pulled out two loaves of bread that he had managed to grab on their way out of the inn. He split them both in two. “Eat all of it, for we might not get another chance to eat until breakfast.
Trevor had rested enough and stood to loosen his stiffening muscles. Riding in the mud wasn’t the most relaxing way to travel. He noticed something behind them in the distance.
“Riders are moving faster than we did,” Trevor said.
“We have to assume they are soldiers,” Boxster said. “How many?”
Trevor shook his head. “I can’t tell from here.” He shrugged.
“We don’t want to be caught. We go nonstop from here to the border,” Boxster said. He mounted, and the others followed. Boxster turned in his saddle to look behind them. “I don’t know how you could see them. They are all a blur.”
“To an old man’s eyes,” Win said with a grin.
“This old man is going to ride the pants off you,” Boxster said as he took off at a gallop.
The road was firming up, and that meant they could ride faster, but so could their pursuers. Trevor leaned back and took a sip of watered wine from his waterskin, but the wine tasted more like the vinegary stuff from the mountain monastery.
The pursuit continued. “We must rest our horses, or they will collapse under us,” Boxster said. “There is a pond through those trees. Don’t let your horses drink too much. If those who follow catch up with us, we will fight.”
Brother Yvan was the first to emerge out of the little meadow and onto the road. Trevor couldn’t see any evidence of their pursuers. On they rode until night fell, early and dark.
They had to slow up to a walk, but they kept going. In a few hours, Trevor guessed, a faint light reflected in the clouds. The village must lie ahead, he thought.
Chapter Thirty-Four
~
I t didn’t take them too long before they trotted along the cobbles of a tidy village. They passed the village inn. Trevor could see Win’s face look longingly through the window, but where they could have stopped under normal conditions, they had to keep going.
When they reached the end of the straight main street of the village, they heard the faint clattering of horse hooves on the pavement as the soldiers entered the village from the other side.
“We must flee!” Brother Yvan said.
They spurred their horses onward into the dark. Trevor was ready to fight. The footing improved as they went, and finally,
it looked like they would be overtaken by the soldiers before they could make it to the border.
“There is a light up ahead. Perhaps that is where we can make our stand,” Boxster said.
He led them to a barn lit with torches on the inside and the outside. The place was full of people, and Trevor knew why. Mara’s voice drifted bright and beautiful on the late-night air.
“We will have to go in,” Boxster said.
Trevor could hear the worry in his friend’s voice, but they found hitching posts for their horses and slipped inside, hugging the back of the barn just as the soldiers were riding into the open area between the barn and the road. There were plenty of men wearing coats just like theirs in the audience.
They shuffled in and took seats on benches halfway to the front. Trevor guessed there might be two or three hundred people gathered in the barn to listen to the traveling performers from Brachia. Just as they took their seats, soldiers stopped the singing with their intrusion.
“What is it you want of us?” a man said, hopping up on the makeshift stage.
“We are looking for four men who are fugitives.”
“Fugitives? What did they do?” one of the men in the audience said.
“They fought against the queen and her daughter, the newly installed regent.”
“So did a lot of other people,” another man said. “Princess Lilith doesn’t even have any Presidonian blood flowing through her veins.”
The soldier, an officer, turned red. “That is treason!”
“Look who the traitor is,” a woman said, pointing at the soldiers. The attendees began to stand up. Eleven soldiers faced more than two hundred angry villagers.
“Are the fugitives here?”
Some of those around Boxster, Trevor, Win, and Brother Yvan crowded around them. “No!” a balding old man without teeth said, standing next to the sitting cleric.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” the officer said. “Search the room.”
The soldiers drew their weapons and began to walk forward, row by row. “Four men in mud-soaked clothes,” the officer said.
Trevor took off his traveling cloak, and so did the others. With their protection from the weather off, they looked much like the villagers.
He looked at the stage to see the three Brachians staring at the group. Tork looked angry, probably realizing that Boxster was still alive. Trevor could only hope the Brachian wouldn’t point out Boxster. Mara and her group had to know that the four men sought by the soldiers were them.
The soldiers had just about reached them when Tork yelled from the stage. “The four men sitting there. They are the ones.”
Mara’s eyes grew wide as her leader called out. Trevor could tell she was surprised by what Tork had done.
“Get away from us,” Trevor said to the villagers as he pulled out his sword. The other three followed. Brother Yvan guarded their backs as the soldiers tried to thread their way through the crowds.
The barn turned into a brawl as villagers fought the soldiers along with Trevor’s group. The officer had made it to them, and only three other soldiers were left standing. The fighting was furious. Boxster lunged at the officer and ran him through to end the fight. Everything was still until Boxster gasped. Trevor turned to see Hanna and Tork holding knives they had just pushed into Boxster’s back. They let go, and Boxster fell forward, the blades still in him.
Win struck down Hanna, and Trevor did the same to Tork, but what was more critical was Brother Yvan leaning over Boxster. He looked sorrowfully at Trevor and shook his head.
“He’s dead,” Yvan said, removing the knives and closing Boxster’s sightless eyes.
Trevor fell to his knees, next to his mentor and friend. “See if Hanna and Tork are dead, truly dead,” he said to Win.
Win was kneeling, but a villager stopped him.
“We don’t do things like that in this village. I’ll check.” The villager put his hand in front of the Brachians and folded their arms across their bodies. “They have expired. I am sure that is Dryden’s will.”
“It is,” Brother Yvan said.
Four soldiers were injured, but still alive. They were bound, gagged, and blindfolded, sitting on the ground of the barn with their backs against the wall.
“You had better leave,” the man who had stopped the performance said. “Our lord is a vindictive man, and he will scour the land looking for you.”
Trevor nodded. He noticed Mara looking shocked in the crowd. “Did you know they were going to do this?”
She shook her head. “Tork was furious when he just learned the Presidonian assassin failed, but he had orders to travel and pick up information for Duke Worto—”
“I know who he is. My offer still stands if you want to come with us. I promise you can leave our group at any time. I can’t guarantee when we will get to Brachia, but I am certain that country will be on our path.”
“I need protection, and right now, I can’t reject your offer.”
“Be ready to go as soon as possible. We will have to make arrangements for Rory Pierce,” Trevor said.
“You knew!” Mara said.
“I did,” Trevor said. “We had a lot in common.” Trevor sighed. The last thing he wanted to see was Boxster’s still body laid out in front of him.
“Are we going to give them the name of Rory Pierce?” Brother Yvan asked.
“Boxster’s real name,” Trevor said. He turned to the villager. “I’d like any marker you make to have the name Rory Pierce on it. I don’t know if the birthday he gave me was correct, but he died this day.”
Another shuddering sigh stopped tears from forming in Trevor’s eyes. He wouldn’t cry, it wasn’t his style, and Boxster wouldn’t have either. He wrote down Boxster’s actual name and the questionable birthdate on a piece of paper someone had thrust in his hands.
“We will take care of him,” a villager said. Others around him nodded.
“As for them…”
“I can give you their names,” Mara said.
“Whatever,” a villager said. “We’d have hanged them anyway, if they had survived.”
“They deserved it,” Mara said.
Her comment surprised Trevor. “But you traveled with them?” Trevor said.
“I’ll tell you under what circumstances another time perhaps, but I am well rid of them,” Mara said.
She left Trevor and picked up her things on the stage.
It was still early morning when the four of them set out. Trevor wanted to stay for Boxster’s burial. He corrected himself, for Rory Pierce’s burial, but somehow thinking of him as Boxster—just Boxster—, seemed more fitting.
They passed the second village and appreciated the farmer’s breakfast the inn served.
“The Viksaran border is a couple of hours away,” the serving maid said.
“Will we need papers?”
The woman laughed. “Not for going in, but you will need them to return. The Viksarans are funny about that. I’m surprised you’d ask that, wearing Viksaran coats, and all.”
“We bought them along the way from the south,” Win said, smiling at the young woman.
“Good luck.”
“You performed in Viksar?” Brother Yvan asked Mara.
“Only once. Tork wanted to let people know that we had been through the country, but we didn’t even go through a formal border post in or out of the country. We performed in a little village and then exited the country entering West Moreton at the south end of Viksar and went north through West Moreton to get to Presidon. The server is right. Viksar is a strange place, but Tork never told me how strange. The little village didn’t seem much different than any village in a country that permits magic.”
“We are going to find out,” Trevor said. “At least you won’t need to use a phony name.”
Mara looked a little nervous. “I won’t, will I? I feel freer than I have felt for years.”
“You are too young to have been confined for years, my dear,
” Brother Yvan said.
Mara gave Yvan a sad smile. “There you are wrong. I was put in a magic school when I was fourteen after the duke found out I was proficient in magic.”
“You really are an accomplished magician, then?” Trevor asked.
“Very,” Mara said. “My playing and singing were a hobby. I can do much more.”
~
The border was much like what Trevor had experienced between Presidon and West Moreton. Brother Yvan and Win led their horses along with their packhorse across the border a hundred paces from one guard post to the other as uncle and nephew. Both of them used different names, this time, in case their pseudonyms had made it all the way to the border.
Trevor and Mara claimed they were betrothed. She gave her name as Mara Orne. She looked at Trevor as he pursed his lips.
Emotions rose to the surface as Trevor was asked his name. He took a deep breath. “Trevor Arcwin,” he said.
The guards laughed. “I’ll put some other name down. The prince died on the road to Dorwick, I hear. It wouldn’t do to use his name, even in jest.”
“I might have heard that too,” Trevor said. “Put down anything. I’d like to protect Mara’s honor.”
The guard laughed again. “As if that is her real name too. Since it is known that we will be annexed to Ginster, I’m sure everyone escaping by crossing the border is using a phony name until they get to Viksar.” The other guard laughed as if that was a joke. “Go on ahead, the both of you. Have a nice life.”
They tugged on their horses’ reins.
“You shouldn’t have used that name, Lieutenant Arcwin,” Mara said, “and you will have to use a different name when we go into Viksar.
Trevor’s hand scratched his chest and felt the amulet that he had taken from Prince Rory Pierce’s body. The thought of wearing that amulet on his upcoming travels brought a pang of deep sadness, more profound than when he saw his father’s gibbet and his siblings’ bodies. He had lost a great friend and a mentor. He wished he had grown up with a father or a big brother like Boxster. His advice and loyalty couldn’t be matched. He sighed for about the hundredth time since Boxster’s death.
They reached the Viksaran guard post, and Mara gave them the same name. The guard wrote her name on a card, and then he looked at Trevor.