"So you finally admit the obvious," grinned the dark prince. "I never thought I would hear you utter those words."
"You gloat over something insignificant, Zinan," Naveena retorted. "I am not your enemy; Prince Antion is. Instead of being here to confront him, you were off in Capri using your Talent for evil deeds. Continue with such behavior, and the Arin prince will devour you."
"You said he could not wield the Talent," scowled Prince Zinan. "Were you lying then, or are you lying now? Which is it?"
"I have no need to lie to you," replied Naveena. "Prince Antion cannot wield the Talent. I am sure of that, but he is filled with the Talent, and that Talent will be used against you in the future. I do not know how, but I feel certain of it."
"More mystic ramblings?" Prince Zinan shook his head. "I am not a little boy any more, Naveena. I do not believe in such nonsense."
"Nonsense?" Naveena scowled. "You understand nothing of the Talent, Zinan. You use it to twist lesser minds, but you are ignorant of its power."
"What power?" snorted Prince Zinan. "I have mastered everything you ever taught me. If there is more to know, it is because of your failure, not mine. You make up these mystic stories to keep some semblance of your former glory, but you know nothing that would interest me."
"Don't I?" cackled Naveena as she turned and focused her attention on a flower vase on the table. "Pay attention, little boy."
Prince Zinan glowered at Naveena, but he felt her focusing the Talent. He turned to gaze across the room and saw the vase suddenly explode in a shower of a thousand pieces.
"How did you do that?" gasped the dark prince. "Why have you not taught me properly?"
"You were not ready to learn," answered Naveena. "You dismissed your tutor too early in life."
"You will teach me," demanded Prince Zinan. "I demand it."
"You will get nothing from me by demanding it," Naveena replied stubbornly. "I know that you are stronger than I am, but my goal lies with your success. I will refuse you until you understand the danger of misusing the Talent because if you don't you will never accomplish our goal."
Somehow Prince Zinan knew that Naveena was telling the truth. He would not get her to change her mind no matter how much pressure he brought to bear on her.
"I will heed your advice on all things pertaining to the Talent," promised Prince Zinan, "but in that area only. I will not have you interfering in my private life."
"Your private life is part of the problem," Naveena shook her head. "It is all or nothing. Either you follow my guidelines concerning the Talent, or I will not teach you."
"All right," the dark prince agreed after a long pause. "I will try it your way."
Chapter 38 - Badlands
Badlands
The dense forest thinned and the undergrowth became sparse as the land turned arid. Eventually the trees disappeared completely and Kenra halted the group at the rim of a desolate canyon. He looked across a broad vista of parched land with varying hues of red streaking through the light rock. From horizon to horizon, the Salacian prince could see nothing but a repetition of the strangely colored rock formations.
"This is the badlands," Horst commented softly, almost reverently. "We must cross it to reach Odessia."
"The Borundans will see us from miles away," frowned Gunnar. "Is there no other path to take?"
"No," the Odessian prince shook his head. "If we attempt to go around it, we will surely meet the Borundans seeking us."
"What about going around it to the west?" asked King Caedmon. "Is there a way?"
"It stretches for hundreds of miles," answered Horst, "and the Borundan army patrols both ends of it. They do not waste their patrols here because it is unlikely that anyone would cross the badlands to sneak into Borunda. There are few sources of water between here and Odessia, and most people would never find them. One is more likely to find the skeletons of past adventurers than something to drink."
"Do you know where the water is?" asked Sandar.
"I do not," answered Horst, "but there are other forms of nourishment in the desert that can sustain one's life."
"I don't know where to begin to cross this wasteland," sighed Kenra. "I am a man of the forest, not a desert horseman."
"I will lead," offered Horst. "Use your water sparingly."
The Odessian prince turned to his left and led the group along the rim of the canyon. After riding for a while, Horst turned onto an extremely narrow ledge that descended along the canyon wall. The group moved very slowly and the men grew very anxious as they looked at the steep drop beside them.
"Do not look down," warned the Odessian prince. "Our Odessian beauties will not lose their footing, but they will get nervous if you do, and you don't want a nervous horse right now."
Jared closed his eyes tightly and let his horse follow the others. He kept them closed until he realized that the group had reached the floor of the canyon. When he opened his eyes and looked up at the towering cliff walls, a shudder raced through his body and his mouth felt dry. He reached for his water skin.
"Not so soon," King Caedmon advised softly. "We must use it sparingly."
Jared nodded and took his hand away from the water skin, but his desire for water only grew stronger within his mind until he could think of nothing else. He closed his eyes again and let the horse follow the others.
As the sun reached its zenith, Horst drew a long scarf out of his pack. He subconsciously wrapped it around his head in the manner used by the desert tribes of Odessia. While the other princes and King Caedmon thought nothing of the headscarf because they had spent summers in Natura, Sandar grew instantly curious.
"Why does he cover his head?" he whispered to Gunnar.
"Many reasons," answered the Arin prince. "It insulates him from the sun and the wind, and keeps sand from entering his nose and mouth. It also helps reduce the glare of the sun. It is common to wear such a headscarf in Natura. You have never been to the desert, have you?"
"No," replied Sandar. "If it is all like these badlands, I could just as easily forego the pleasure."
"It is actually much different," smiled Gunnar. "There are great hills of sand stretching for miles in every direction, and one can easily get the feeling that it goes on forever. There is little to give one a sense of direction, and when the winds blow, you cannot see the person in front of you. The blowing sand can wear your skin off if you leave it exposed, so the Odessians keep well wrapped."
"Delightful," Sandar replied sarcastically. "You give me much to look forward to."
"There is also beauty in the desert," smiled the Arin prince. "There are natural springs in the desert that flower into the most beautiful and serene places in the world. Some of the areas of springs are quite large and have become the breeding grounds for the Odessian beauties. You truly will enjoy your trip back to Anatar. You will see things that most of the people in the Land of the Nine Kingdoms have never seen. Maybe my father will let you return to a horse camp one day."
"I thought the horse camps were only for royalty?" asked the Arin soldier.
"Not really," Gunnar shook his head. "It is quite expensive to attend the training camps, but they are not exclusively for royalty. Most countries send their princes at least once. It had been a tradition for hundreds of years to send the young royals for an entire summer, but over time it has been slowly abandoned. Now the foreign princes might only attend for a single month. Arin and Salacia still carry on the tradition of an entire summer. In fact, both Prince Derri and I spent many summers in Odessia."
"I don't think King Caedmon is going to send me to an expensive riding school," chuckled Sandar. "Besides, I already know how to ride a horse."
"Horse camp is more than learning to ride a horse," explained the Arin prince. "It is a sharing of cultures and traditions. It is about learning weapon skills and strategy. It is about understanding survival skills and discovering the truth about your inner self. It is so many things that it is hard to describe. As for my
father sending you, he values you a great deal, Sandar, as do I. He does not accept just anyone into his personal bodyguard. Surely you know that."
"I do know that," nodded Sandar, "and I am honored to have been chosen to serve him, but I still do not see his expending a great deal of gold on my behalf."
"I think you underestimate his regard for you," smiled Gunnar. "Mention the horse camp to him as you travel through Odessia and see if he does not offer you a chance to attend one."
Horst halted the column at the edge of another canyon, and the conversation died. Gunnar saw the Odessian prince gazing to the south behind them, and he turned to see what had caught the eye of his friend. Far to the south, upon the rim of the first cliff, was a long line of riders.
"Well over a hundred of them," commented King Caedmon.
"There are more to the southeast," announced Prince Derri. "They certainly know exactly where we are now."
"We have half a day's lead on them," declared the Odessian prince. "Let us not waste that time staring at them."
Horst turned to his left and began paralleling the rim. Once again he found a narrow path down into the next canyon. By the time they reached the bottom of the path, the sun was casting long shadows across the parched earth. Horst led the group at a quick pace until the sunset. As the sky darkened, the group approached a vertical wall in front of them. The Odessian prince turned and began searching for a way to the top of the cliff.
"You won't find anything in the dark," Kenra said. "Let's camp until morning."
"We can't," Horst replied. "The Borundans will not stop, so neither can we. If we camp here, they will be upon us before morning."
"We cannot ride forever without rest for ourselves and the animals," King Caedmon interjected. "To do so would make us weak and kill our horses, and I do not intend to cross the badlands on foot."
"What choice do we have?" asked Gunnar. "We cannot make a stand against hundreds of Borundans."
"That is precisely what we must do," replied the Arin king. "Let Horst find us a path to the top of this cliff. Once there, we will camp and refresh ourselves. We will sleep in shifts while the others guard the path to the top. A few men ought to be able to raise havoc on an army forced to climb the cliff single file."
"That is what I had in mind," grinned the Odessian prince. "We might also damage the trail enough to force them to abandon all hope of using it to follow us. That will cost them time as they try to find another."
"Agreed," nodded the king. "Let's get on with it."
Horst spent an hour finding a trail that had some markings of past use. He dismounted and cautiously led the group up the side of the cliff at an agonizingly slow pace. It took over two hours of walking up the zigzagging trail until they finally reached the top.
"We will have a bite to eat," announced King Caedmon, "and then we shall sleep. Jared and Sandar will take the first watch, as the Borundans are not likely to arrive soon. Make the best use of your sleep time as possible. We may not have such a defendable place to camp tomorrow night."
The group ate sparingly and stretched out under the stars. Sandar and Jared sat near the edge of the cliff and stared out into the darkness.
"I see no campfires from the Borundans," Jared remarked softly. "Do you think they will follow us all the way to Odessia?"
"Without a doubt," nodded Sandar. "They want us all dead."
"I don't understand the feelings of people," frowned Jared. "Those people following us, do not even know us, just like the men who hunted my father and me. How can men so easily agree to kill strangers?"
"They are soldiers," shrugged Sandar, "like myself. They become soldiers to serve their king and country. They don't always understand the reasons for their orders; they just obey."
"That doesn't make sense to me," replied Jared. "To kill someone is an unthinkable act, but to do so without reason is insanity."
"I killed several men back in that meadow," Sandar responded, "and I do not think it was an act of insanity. They wanted us dead and killing them was the only way to stop them. There is nothing insane about wanting to live. When the Borundans start climbing this trail, I will kill them again." The Arin soldier turned to look at Jared in the faint light of the waxing moon. "What I don't understand is why you do not defend yourself as I do. Are you so willing to die that you will let the Borundans come up and slice your throat?"
"I do not wish to die," Jared answered, "but I cannot kill, either. My father was the same, and he taught me to be as I am. If people are after me, I will run, and I will hide, but I will not strike out at them as they seek to strike me. Why should I become what they have become?"
"Yet you allow us to kill to save your life," Sandar pointed out. "Do you hate us for doing so?"
"I do not hate anyone," Jared replied. "I have watched all of you kill other men, but I know that you do not do so senselessly. You are protecting yourselves, and that makes a difference. Still, I would prefer that you found a different way to stay alive, but I am at a loss to suggest one."
"So we are not necessarily deranged," retorted Sandar. "We are merely defective for not finding a better way to stay alive."
"You are taking my words as some kind of disapproval of your actions," frowned Jared. "That is not how I meant them. You all are good men. I know that. I can feel it inside me. If I did not believe in Gunnar and the rest of you, I would have run away a long time ago. Nor am I trying to say that I am better than any of you, or that I know a better way to act. I only know what I was taught."
"But you were taught to use a bow and a sword," countered Sandar. "You even continued those lessons on the trip to Tarent."
"Yes," sighed Jared, "but I cannot wield them against other men. Sandar, all that I am saying is that there must be a better way to solve differences between you and your enemies. I know that killing to take someone else's gold is an evil thing to do, while killing to defend yourself is not, but I see the results as being the same. A man dies, and his body rots and decays. He is no longer able to hug his child or spread his knowledge. I think that is a terrible waste of a life."
"Sometimes," Sandar shook his head, "but sometimes the world is a better place because of a man's death."
"Is it?" posed Jared. "What if the man could be made to change? What if he could be made to see reason and end up doing great things for the world? If he dies, those great things would never come to be."
"Those are nice thoughts," replied Sandar, "but that never happens. An evil man just becomes more evil. They never change. All they end up doing is creating more deaths and more sorrow for the innocent. When you find a way to change an evil killer into a good man, you let me know. Seeing one is the only way I will ever believe in such folly."
Jared sighed, but he did not reply. He stared out into the darkness where he knew that the Borundan soldiers were creeping towards him.
* * *
Gunnar and Kenra sat on the edge of the cliff taking the final watch before the sky lightened enough to continue onward. Every once in a while, moonlight would reflect off of some metal in the canyon below. The princes had been using those flashes to keep track of the Borundans' progress.
"That one is close," Kenra remarked softly as he stared downward. "They must be right at the base of the cliff now."
A distant scream echoed off the walls of the canyon, and the Arin prince nodded.
"They are further along than you thought," he commented. "That sounded like one of the Borundans missed the trail on the way up here."
"Should I wake the others?" asked the Salacian prince.
"Not yet," answered Gunnar. "I have been thinking about how we are to leave this place. We can fire arrows down on them and they are incapable of firing back, but sooner or later, they will discover an alternate path to the top. If we make a stand here to defend this path, we will lose in the end."
"And if we abandon our position," countered Kenra, "they will be right on our tails."
"Correct," nodded the Arin pri
nce. "We need something in between the two extremes."
"So all we have to do is continue shooting arrows at them after we are long gone," Kenra offered humorously. "Not a problem, we can do that."
"I wish it were that simple," chuckled Gunnar.
"Then I shall grant your wish," the Odessian prince said as he walked up behind Gunnar and Kenra. "You two should get the rest of the group up and get ready to depart."
"What do you have planned?" Gunnar asked suspiciously as he and Kenra rose.
"One man can keep the Borundans busy for a while," answered Horst. "I will be that one man while the rest of you head northward. When I think you have enough of a head start, I will abandon my position and join you."
"That will put you only two hours ahead of the Borundans," Gunnar shook his head. "I don't like that plan."
"You think like an Arinite," grinned the Odessian prince. "I can get almost four hours head start on the Borundans, which will give the rest of you plenty of time to be far away."
"Do you want to explain that statement?" asked King Caedmon as he joined the group. "Are they here already?"
"They are climbing the path now," nodded Gunnar.
"The secret is to make them wary of climbing to the top," declared Horst. "If we all stood up here and fired arrows at them, they might be inclined to wait until the arrows stopped before coming up. That would not give us much lead-time. My method is to allow them to climb unmolested while you head north. When they are finally in sight of their goal, I will start picking them off one by one. They will retreat to the bottom and wait until the arrows stop. When they think I have left, they will try again, and I will skewer them again. I will repeat that as often as necessary until you have a sufficient lead on them to keep you safe."
"So they will move more cautiously than they could," nodded the king. "The plan has some merit."
"They will wait a short while between attempts," continued Horst. "I will time my departure so that I leave right after one of my attacks. That will give me some extra leeway."
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