The Courier's Quest

by T. S. Valmond

  Rasha must have had her mouth open the whole time he was talking. When she closed her dry mouth again the missing moisture returned.

  "Well, I hope we get some answers about what Ladi found. Once we learn what she's got maybe we can more easily track her down."

  Tarrick had a small cabin in the woods on the edge of the dessert lands and the forest lands of Wola. They'd grown too accustomed to the trees in the region to leave it, even for the luxuries of what now surrounded the palace. The arid desert was flourishing due to the constant addition of water brought in by the prince and his people. Rasha admired Tarrick's choice. The quiet understated cabin with an underground passage was something she often craved. Solitude followed up by even more privacy.

  The Wola in the area noted Rasha and Jak's arrival but continued about their business. Several of them bowing in their direction. As the former prince and princess incumbent, people recognized them for their former roles as leaders in the war against the beasts.

  When they reached the cabin, one of the Wola Rasha hadn't met yet came up to greet them. He had long blond hair and a thin graceful appearance. He wore the same loose fitting kind of shirt that the other Wola used to give their wings freedom of movement while bearing his chest. On his hilt he carried a long sword that slapped against his fitted trousers when he took a step forward. His long fingers he held up in the traditional Bolaji greeting.

  "Welcome Rasha and Jak, I will inform Tarrick of your arrival if you will be so kind as to wait here."

  "Yes, of course," Rasha said as she watched the Wola leave.

  Jak shrugged his shoulders when she looked at him in question.

  They didn't have to wait long as the Wola returned shortly to escort them inside.

  As they walked down the corridor and steps, she broached the obvious question.

  "I'm sorry did something happen to Merrick?"

  "Oh, my apologies. My name is Ogene. I am carrying for Merrick's duties while he is attending to other matters in the south of the kingdom."

  Rasha nodded accepting the information while at the same time looking him over.

  "Tarrick will be here in just a moment, please be made comfortable." Ogene gestured to the chair with no arms and the two of them sat down.

  After several long moments of waiting Tarrick entered the room from a door in the back and greeted them.

  "My apologies, I was in another meeting. The council makes themselves a priority as you're well aware." He walked to them both and put his head to first Jak's forehead and then to Rasha's in greeting.

  "Of course, we hate to intrude on your already busy day, it's just that we need your help."

  "Anything."

  "It's regarding our young friend Ladi. She has virtually disappeared," Jak said.

  "The Courier's Keep has sent her to deliver a package and she refuses to deliver it," Rasha said. "Normally, that wouldn't be something we would bring to you obviously except she was last seen with one of the Wola fleeing from the Courier's Keep."

  "We were hoping you could tell us if she's been here," Jak said.

  Tarrick didn't flinch or falter when he answered.

  "Yes, she's been here. On several occasions, actually."

  When he offered nothing more Rasha and Jak simultaneously leaned forward. Then catching themselves, Rasha shook her head and spoke up.

  "When was the last time you saw her?"

  "She was here several hours ago, but she hasn't been back since."

  "Wait, do you know what she's done and why?" Jak asked.

  "Yes."

  Rasha stood up and her hand flew to her hip before she remembered that Tarrick was a friend and she didn't need her swords.

  "What has she told you?"

  "I cannot reveal any of what was spoken as it was revealed in confidence."

  "Confidence," Rasha mumbled to herself throwing her hands up and letting them fall to her thighs.

  Jak held up a hand. "What can you tell us?"

  Tarrick stood up and faced Rasha and waited for her to stop pacing before speaking.

  "Your friend is in danger. She has discovered a very sinister plot but has no idea who is pulling the strings. The beasts of the north are involved and I fear it won't end there."

  That got Rasha's attention and Jak stood up so they were shoulder to shoulder.

  "I need to find her before it's too late, help us."

  Tarrick shook his head.

  "I cannot tell you anything more, however, we will stand with her no matter what happens. She will not be left on her own. Besides Merrick is with her now."

  "Merrick?" Jak asked. "That must have been who flew her away from the Courier's Keep."

  Rasha pulled out her swords and held them ready.

  "You won't need those," Tarrick said holding up a hand.

  Jak put a light hand on her shoulder but she shrugged him off.

  "You need to tell me exactly what you know," Rasha said between her teeth.

  The door opened behind her but she didn't flinch. Whoever was behind her must have had weapons because Tarrick held up his other hand and spoke up.

  "Everything is fine, return to your post." When they didn't move he put his hands down. "Now!" Rasha heard the door close behind her and Tarrick turned his back to her and walked back toward his desk putting more distance between them.

  "You won't hurt me. I'm the only one who knows where Ladi is and if something happens to me, no one will know where she's gone. We are looking after your friend, you don't need to worry."

  "Don't tell me how to feel. Tell me where she is and I'll see for myself."

  "At this time, I cannot. Even I must honor a word spoken in confidence."

  Jak pulled on Rasha's arm until she realized he was holding her. Rasha shrugged him off and walked to the door.

  "If something happens to her, you do realize that despite everything I'll come back here for you." She turned her head but didn't look over her shoulder.

  "Yes, I'm aware," Tarrick said his features calm and neutral.

  Rasha nodded and left the way they'd come. She didn't wait long before she felt Jak behind her.

  "He's right about being a good friend," Jak said.

  "Yes, that may be true. He's being a good friend to her but if it gets her killed, then what kind of friend is he?"

  Rasha stopped and looked up at Jak and he met her eye. The wind had picked up and it blew his hair to one side of his face. The wind pulled it away from his growing beard. His hands came up and rested on her shoulders as she took deep breaths.

  "We will find her. We know which way she went."

  "What?"

  "She's with Merrick and he's gone south. So will we. I can bet you any amount of credits she's not walking so we'll fly south too. Someone will have seen her. Now stop slowing us down and let's go." He dropped his hands giving her a little shove at the same time. They were in the air minutes later.

  7

  THE SMELL OF FOOD COOKING over a fire reached into her dreams and mind pulling Ladi from sleep. As her mind regained consciousness, she felt the dull ache at the base of her neck as if she'd been hit from behind. Then it started to come back to her memory. She'd been shot with something small that stung like a pollinating Zinger. She'd seen it just before she went down. She groaned and felt someone move to her side.

  "Easy," said the familiar voice in the dark.

  When Ladi moved her head to look at him she grimaced in pain.

  "I said easy. Whatever they shot you with is going to leave a tail." Ebere looked down at her his eyes warm.

  Ladi felt herself about to heave. Thankfully, her stomach was empty. When she was able to settle back down on the ground, she looked him over. He was stirring something in the small pot he often carried. The substance was as black as the night around them.

  "How did you find me?"

  Ebere smiled and glanced at her his large ears wiggled with the movement.

  "You're not that hard to track."

  La
di, grit her teeth and then remembered that he'd kissed her once. He was probably teasing her.

  "What are you cooking up?"

  He scooped a small bit of it out of the pot and put it into a cup for her to drink. Ladi shook her head only moments ago her empty stomach had been a blessing she was hardly going to test the goddess' patience now.

  "It will settle your stomach and ease your headache, I promise." He held it out and Ladi took the steamy hot liquid in her cold hands. She let the warmth flow through her for a moment before she tested the liquid against her tongue. It carried a mild flavor of flowers and something spicy. She sipped at it for a moment and the pain at the base of her skull began to fade.

  Ebere grabbed his own cup and sat back to regard her.

  "What do you think you're doing out here by yourself?"

  "I wasn't by myself, for your information, I was with two Wola. They were captured by thieving mongrels. You still didn't answer my question."

  "Didn't I?"

  Ebere said with a laugh. There was something confident about him, she'd never seen him so playful. It was different as if their kiss suddenly changed him into the kind of guy she would have liked from the start. He was a little more cocky, a little more flirtatious, more like Jak. Then it occurred to her she was in the middle of sending a message to Tarrick when she fell to the ground.

  "My communicator?"

  Ebere lifted the remains of her communicator from the ground it dangled in three pieces.

  "I was debating about whether to see if any of it could be salvaged when you started to stir. But from what I can see there's nothing left of it. Whoever knocked you out got the best of it."

  Ladi wondered who it had been that snuck up on her. She looked around they weren't anywhere near the trail she'd been following. It was obvious from the line of golden trees where they sat.

  "Where are we?"

  "Not far from the trail you were following. I thought it best not to start a fire too close to their road in case they should double back to finish you off."

  "If they wanted to kill me I guess they would have," Ladi said. She tried to shrug off the shiver that traveled down her back at the thought of dying out there in the woods alone. Without Ebere, she might still be lying out there unconscious. She took a few more sips of the drink Ebere made for her and the last of the headache dissipated. In a vehicle, the abductors had already gotten too far ahead for them to catch up.

  "We'll wait for morning and then see if we can pick up the trail where you left off," Ebere said as if he could read her mind.

  Ladi watched Ebere tend to the fire while she settled back down her elbow propped on the make-shift pillow he'd given her. It was the blanket he used for cold nights while traveling. She recognized the material with the horizontal and vertical stripes in white and two shades of blue. After he'd stoked the fire, he looked up and met her eye. When did he become so bold to stare at her so openly? She found herself looking away as her face warmed at the intimacy of his gaze. A shiver crept down her spine and she shook it off.

  "You're still cold," Ebere said standing up and moving to her side of the fire. He must have seen her shake off the shiver and misunderstood its source. "Come here." He sat with his back against a moss covered boulder. Ebere put his arms out to reach for her, pulling her in so that she could rest her head on him. Then he moved the blanket to cover them both. Ladi felt so comfortable in his arms she wondered why she hadn't done it before.

  In fact, she glanced up to say something funny about it but when she saw the intense look in his eyes. Her joke faded from her mind and she found herself staring at his mouth. She didn't have to wait long before he shifted an inch to accommodate putting his face as close to hers as possible.

  It was a question and demand as his parted lips waited a centimeter from hers. Ladi answered by breathing him in and pressing her mouth to his, claiming and being claimed by him. It was the second time, he'd kissed her, but he'd been holding back some heat before. This time he unleashed it and the groan that escaped her lips was uncontrollable and it lit something in him. His kiss deepened and his entire body was clutching her as if holding her kept him from falling off of a cliff's edge.

  They parted only to breathe. Ladi didn't know how long she and Ebere were locked in that kiss. Was it only minutes her belly filled with the flames of passion or was it hours? The one thing that was clear to both of them was neither was letting go and Ladi shifted only enough to lay her head on his chest. Ebere didn't say a word about why he held back his feelings. Ladi didn't talk about his changes. Instead, they clung to one another until sleep took them both.

  They held each other so tight that when Ladi woke, she was surprised that she was curled up on the ground again with his blanket underneath her head. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the sun rising in the south. Ebere wasn't there, she didn't know how she knew but she knew it. She rose slowly from the ground and looked around using her heightened vision and hearing to locate him. That's when she heard someone talking in the distance.

  Ladi tracked the sound coming from within the trees just ahead of their location. She crept through the tall wood until she found its origin. Ebere was crouched low to the ground. But he'd stopped talking. He stood up and turned to face her.

  "I'm glad to see you're awake, we can get moving. We'll eat on the way," he said as he moved to her side.

  "Were you talking to someone? I thought I heard voices."

  "No, I was mumbling to myself. It's a bad habit from when I used to travel alone." Ebere took her hand as casually as if they'd always walked together that way. "We should hurry, your friends could be in danger."

  Ladi nodded unable to get over the warmth of his grip on her cold hand. He led her back through the woods to where they spent the night together. Her heart leapt into her throat as she realized this journey might be a few more days and they would be cuddled up together again and again. Did he crave the nights now as much as she did? She watched his face as he let go of her hand to put out the residual embers from the fire and gather his things.

  When he was ready, he slipped the pack on his back and took her hand again and led the way back to the trail. The marks left by the large vehicle towing the cage were distinctive and easy to follow. Despite being tethered to each other by linked hands they moved with relative speed over the pebbles and rocks down the center of the path.

  "How many were with them when they took your friends?" Ebere asked.

  "Two men," she said, then she remembered she'd been taken from behind, "No, three. The third knocked me out with that sleep dart. You've seen them before." It wasn't a question, Ebere knew exactly what to give her to ease the dull headache she had upon waking up.

  "Yes, I have. Not those exactly, but something like it. The substance when in contact with the skin can put you to sleep in an instant."

  "Yeah, I noticed,” Ladi grumbled the words. She was still upset about not hearing who ever it was that crept up on her and hit her with the dart in the first place. She had both excellent hearing and vision for a Tero-Joro mix there was nothing better. How is it she didn't have a clue about the third person until it was too late?

  Ladi remembered that she'd been surprised before back when she'd been attempting to free the beasts in the enslavement camp over a year ago. That had been different. The sound quality had been skewed by the echo among the cages. Her vision had been limited as well with the unnatural darkness caused by the large enclosure. She'd also been fighting off one bull-man at the time. So when another arrived and clubbed her from behind it made sense. This was different. She wondered why she hadn't at least heard them coming. While she was lost in her own thoughts about what happened, Ebere was racing along the trail. When he came to an abrupt stop, she almost collided into him. If their hands hadn't been joined, she might have run right in to his back. He provided enough warning of what was coming with the shift in his body and hand.

  "What is it?"

  "The trail it's gone."

 
"What do you mean it's gone?"

  "I mean gone," Ebere pulled her forward.

  Ladi saw for herself the tracks of the vehicle disappeared right in front of them and instead of one path there were three different paths to choose. None of them bore any resemblance to the trail they followed up to now.

  "That's impossible," Ladi said as she looked behind her at the trail they followed and now there was nothing. Worse there were multiple smaller paths but no indication as to which they followed.

  "We've lost them."

  "No," Ladi said as she pulled her hand away and climbed the nearest tree. They searched for some evidence of the vehicle. Even a slight bending of the trees. She was determined to find it. She reached the tree top and pushed aside the bright yellow leaves in order to see around them. With one hand over her eyes to block out the sun she scanned the area. Then she climbed back down to the ground. Ebere was waiting for her to say something but instead her shoulders fell and her eyes dropped to the ground in defeat.

  "They're gone."

  8

  "IT'S LIKE SHE'S DISAPPEARED," JAK said.

  "I don't get it. We should be on top of them by now. Someone should have noticed two flying men and a green girl traveling together." To the dragon she said, “come on Zele, let’s keep looking.”

  "Zele?"

  "Yeah, I kind of like it." She turned her head so he could see her smile.

  Zele snorted and started to pull back.

  "I do too, it fits," Jak said giving her a pat on the shoulder.