by JF Smith
To his dismay, when he arrived back at the alehouse where the cart had been, it was gone. He stopped and studied the street to see if he could discern which path through the city it would likely take. From where he stood, though, there were several potential paths, and there was no way to know which it had taken.
He picked a direction and started off at a jog once again to try to hunt down the kidnappers. He wound around, through the likely streets and points in between them, and spied many carts travelling, but none of them were the wagon full of apples for which he was looking. Frustrated and disappointed, he eventually had to stop running and began walking, trying less likely paths, but he still could not find the cart. He knew that what had happened with the guards had to have spooked the kidnappers, and now they were taking extra care to disappear into the city in a place where they would not likely be sought.
Gully sat down, discouraged and exhausted, on the curb of a side of a street to try to think where would be the best place to lead a cart where it would not be expected. He could think of no good solution, though; too much time had passed and the cart could be almost anywhere.
As he sat, it hit him, though. He would have to give up on the idea of exposing the corrupt swordsmen inside the city where there would be witnesses, but that did not mean he had to give up on rescuing the unfortunate man who was their victim.
~~~~~
Gully slumped down against the massive pine, his breath heaving in and out and the sweat beading and dripping from his face. The back of his mind prickled at him with the worry that he was still too late, that the wagon of apples and the sad, kidnapped soul were already deeper in the forest. The fact that it was a half-mule pulling the cart was what kept him from pursuing farther into the wood, though. Half-mules were slower, but could pull or carry burdens for longer distances. That meant he almost certainly had to have beaten them to the woods. He closed his eyes and hoped that this was the case.
He lay back against the tree, settled into a spot where he could watch through some leaves at the road as it approached the woods, and waited to see who came. He began to think through his options for when these men did come. It was one thing to steal from two drunken soldiers passed out in the middle of the night. It was rather another to attack two trained swordsmen directly, ones that were already spooked by the incident in the city.
No good ideas came to him immediately, and after waiting a half-hour, he began to wonder if he had missed the cart and kidnappers after all. He closed his eyes again for a few minutes, resting, until a noise a ways away popped them open.
In the distance, a cart slowly approached with two men driving it.
Gully hid himself a little better among the bushes until he saw that it was the cart and the men for whom he was looking. Rather than attempt any kind of rescue on the edge of the woods, he decided to lead ahead of them deeper into the forest. He paced ahead, out of their sight, while his mind spun for some way of disabling the swordsmen without taking a knife in the side for his efforts. If there had only been one of them, he would have used his throwing knife, but that would only disable one of them and alert the other at the same time.
He paused to make sure the cart was not too far behind, and then came upon a spot in the road with which he was familiar. It was one where it narrowed some, and there it was he spotted what he hoped would be his best chance to disable both guards.
Gully sprinted off the side of the road to prepare himself for the trap. He hid as best he could and trusted that his dark brown surcoat and hood would camouflage him the rest of the way. He would need to remain perfectly still until the last possible moment, blending in with his surroundings.
As he waited and the cart drew nigh to his hiding spot, he held very still, and he reminded himself how he swore to free whoever was under the apples before the man’s tongue had been cut out. It was the only way he would have the courage to challenge two swordsmen this way.
His chest pounded, and he had to force himself not to spring his trap too early or it would not work. He felt sure the soldiers could hear his heavy, anxious breathing, and he tried to calm himself. The cart drew equal to his position, and the two kidnappers seated on it continued their casual conversation, unaware of the threat next to them.
Right when they passed just beyond Gully’s position, he let go of the sapling branch that had grown out over the roadway and that he had pulled back. The young branch recoiled to return to its normal position, and in doing so hit both guards in the faces, hard.
The guard nearest Gully took the worst of the branch and fell off the cart and was even run over by one of the wheels before the half-mule stopped. The other guard screamed at being slapped hard in the face with leaves and twigs, but held his seat on the wagon.
Gully almost panicked when he realized only one of the guards was disabled by the branch, and temporarily at that. He glanced down at the roots of a fallen tree next to him. He picked up a sizeable clod of damp, soft earth and looked at it, and then hoped his aim was true. He stepped out and whistled, getting the guard still in his seat, whose face was now red and cut from the branch, to turn towards him. Gully threw hard the clod of dirt directly into his face. The dirt was far too soft to knock the guard out, but it did smash into his face, getting dirt all into the kidnapper’s eyes and blinding him and causing him to scream even louder. The guard yelled in agony and clawed at his eyes, trying to get the burning dirt out of them.
Gully paused but a second to check that his throw had been true and had had its intended effect. He drew his throwing knife from his boot in case he needed it, but picked up a hard rock from the edge of the roadway to be his primary weapon. A groan turned his attention to the back of the wagon where the first guard was trying to stand up. He ran to him, and as the man lifted to his hands and knees and began to reach to his belt for a hidden knife, Gully struck him on the back of his head with the rock, knocking him out completely.
Gully jumped up onto the bench of the wagon and stuck the tip of his throwing knife into the neck of the blinded swordsman. He ordered, “Move your hands! Sit on them, now! If you move even a mite, I’ll filet you and leave you as a convenient meal for the bears and wolves!”
The guard cried, muddy tears streaming down his face, “I’m blinded! You blinded me! Blessed stars, it burns so badly!”
“Sit on them!” shouted Gully angrily, and pressed the knife into the man’s throat until it drew a spot of blood. The swordsman threw his hands down and sat on them and kept blinking his red and swollen eyes, trying to get the dirt and sand out of them.
The guard started to ask why he must sit on his hands, but before he had gotten the question out, Gully struck him in the back of the head, knocking him out, too. The kidnapper fell off the bench, landing hard on his shoulder in a heap on the far side of the apple cart.
Gully stood and glanced behind him to check on the first kidnapper, but he was still unconscious. He shouted at the piled up apples in the cart, “All is well! Just allow me a moment!”
Gully jumped down and dragged the two kidnappers off the road and over to separate trees. He found a few lengths of rope in their bag, not enough to effectively tie both of them, but enough to buy time to get away from them. He kept the two soldiers separate so that they could not assist each other, and he tied their hands as tightly as he could behind the trees.
He mopped the sweat from his own dirty face and furiously began to throw apples from the cart until he could see the person buried beneath. He pulled the man out of the apples and up onto his knees. Gully jumped out of the wagon and then lifted the man out using his shoulder. He set him down on his feet so that he could lean against the cart. He ignored the terrified look in the man’s face and cut the ropes from his hands and feet and finally removed the gag of canvas that had been roughly forced into his mouth and tied in place.
The freed victim shrank away from Gully and begged as he spat and coughed from the dry canvas, “What... what are you doing to me? What is happening no
w? Please, I beg, do not hurt me!”
Gully said as he threw the canvas off to the side, “I have no intention of hurting you! I know what these men were going to do to you, and will not stand by while they work their evil trade!”
Getting a better look at the man he had freed, Gully guessed him to have the same build as he and to be about the same age, although the victim was a little more regularly fed than he himself was. The man had a dirty black ganache of cheap fabric pulled around him, but beneath that were a very fine pair of linen trousers and expensive boots.
He looked at the man curiously for a moment, and the kidnap victim watched nervously to see if Gully intended to do him harm or not. When Gully did not, he pulled at the ganache to take it off. Finally free of the flimsy coat, Gully took a puzzled step back at the sight of the very rich and finely crafted doublet that had been hidden underneath and the beautifully cut and detailed tunic beneath that.
Gully reached over, causing the man to flinch and draw back. Gully smiled this time, and reached over again to brush the dirt and dust from the shoulders and chest of the man. He said, “Why, now they’re stealing away very wealthy men, indeed!” His face flashed angrily and he said, “These evil people are utterly indiscriminate with whom... with whom...”
His voice trailed off and then he stopped in mid-sentence. He looked closer at the crest embroidered in gold thread on the chest of his companion’s doublet, and then up to the victim’s face again. In his mind, a memory stirred, and he thought back to the previous year when he had gone to listen at the festival welcoming the Sanctun of Vasahle. In the Bonedown Square, several members of the royal court gave speeches commemorating the disappearance of the trickster moon beneath the horizon for the next six months, leaving Vasahle’s twice-daily path across the sky unocculted. The person standing before him now looked like... in fact, exactly like...
“You... uh...” whispered Gully in horror, “oh, by the staring stars in the sky above, this cannot be!”
Chapter 17 — A Humble Hospitality
What Gully saw in front of him could not possibly be, but neither could he further risk the transgression if it was. He immediately dropped to one knee and looked squarely at the ground beneath the person in front of him. He mumbled to the man nervously, “Unless you have stolen the clothes you wear, then you are Prince Thaybrill! Forgive my disrespect, Your Highness!”
Gully did not dare look up and his mind began to spin and wheel, furiously working at what events might have transpired to create this situation. Gully had a good memory for faces, and the man before him had to be the crown prince, the future king of all the Iisendom.
But he had assumed that most, if not all, of the nobility were somehow a part of this plot to kidnap and sell the citizens of Iisen, and the Merchers too, into slavery. If veBasstrolle was a key part of it, and the Domo Regent was as well, then the crown prince must needs be a part of it, too. In fact, he was to marry the Maqaran princess to align the two kingdoms, which had to mean he was a part of the conspiracy.
But here was the crown prince in front of him, stolen away like a common peasant. How could it be that the future king himself would now be a victim of the cabal behind the abductions?
As he kept one knee down and stared at the ground, the other possibility struck into his chest, causing a shrieking panic in him. These people, these criminals, knew someone had freed two victims; they knew someone had discovered their crimes. Was it possible that they had set a trap to draw him out? To get him to attempt to free another victim so that they could catch him?
The possibility had merit and Gully knew it. But this is the crown prince, thought Gully. Surely they would never use Prince Thaybrill as a lure, would they? They would use another swordsman complicit in this trade as a bait, wouldn’t they?
His thoughts spun wildly, trying to understand and make sense of the situation, and he was on the verge of simply running off into the woods he called home. If the prince was somehow a true victim, then he was now freed and could return home. If this was somehow a trap being sprung, they would have to come after Gully into the marshes, and he would survive while they perished.
An unexpected noise drew Gully’s attention and his eyes. He had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he had not realized that the man, the prince, had slid down and now sat on the ground in front of Gully, his arms wrapped around his knees while he sobbed miserably.
Gully stared for a moment. If this was a trap, it was a strange sort of one.
He ventured, “You... you are Prince Thaybrill, are you not?”
The man in front of him sniffled, picked up one of the apples and threw it angrily into the woods in frustration. “I... I am. Or was. I no longer know since I have been betrayed by everyone I have trusted all of my life. Betrayed and assaulted and hauled off in a cart to my death.”
Gully bristled internally a little. It would not have been the prince’s death, and at least he could acknowledge that he had been saved from such a fate. He held his tongue and said timidly, “Highness, you were not being taken to your death. Do you not know the fate that was awaiting you?”
“I was not to be taken into the woods and killed? But the Domo Regent said something about King Azi that made no sense to me.”
“Nay, Highness, I do not think you would have been killed. But we do not have time now for explanations. These soldiers will not be held indefinitely by the knots I was able to tie. We must get away!” said Gully.
The prince looked at his boots and howled in miserable defeat, “And go where? There is nowhere I am safe now. My Domo Regent and Lord Marshal have led a coup to rid themselves of me and take the throne for their own ends. You have only delayed my fate and I am still lost. The Iisendom is lost!”
Gully again felt irked that the prince seemed to place no value on his rescue. It affirmed for Gully how nobility and royalty felt no appreciation for what people did for them. Nonetheless, he did not let these feelings take hold of his tongue.
He realized he had no idea what to say, though. If what the prince said was true, then things had moved beyond selling peasants into slavery, and Gully was now in far over his head. How could he fight back against men with so much power and cunning that they could do this to the future king and steal an entire kingdom away?
Gully resolved himself. The prince, a man his own age, felt lost and needed to know that not everyone was against him. There were still people to be trusted.
“That’s not true, Your Highness,” said Gully. “I am here, and I will not do wrong by you. You are still the rightful heir and we have interrupted their plans. But we need to get away to safer ground and think through our options.”
“Go where, though?”
“The woods! The bogs! None will dare follow us there.”
The prince stopped looking miserable long enough to look horrified instead. “The bogs?! I will die quicker there than at the hands of my kidnappers! You assure our death by suggesting such a plan!”
“Nay,” said Gully, swelling some with pride, “There is no one that knows these woods the way that I do. I know them the way I know the backs of my own eyelids, Sire!”
The prince looked skeptical. “But are we to just hide in the damp woods?”
Gully stood and offered his hand to help the prince up. The prince took the offered assistance and stood with Gully.
Gully said, with an urgent glance over at the swordsmen, “I grew up here. My cabin is not too far and no one will be able to find us there. But we must leave now.”
The prince looked helpless for a moment, then he seemed to make up his mind. He said, “I will go with you if you will lead. And please call me Thaybrill. Under the circumstances, the rigid formalities seem rather pointless.”
Gully smiled and nodded.
“May I ask your name, sir?” asked the prince politely.
Gully did not even hesitate this time. “Bayle... my name is Bayle Delescer,” he replied with a slight bow of his head.
G
ully held up his hand to Prince Thaybrill to get him to wait for a moment. He said, “Before we go, one last thing...”
He walked over to the guards and searched them. Normally he would have taken whatever coinpurses they had in their pockets, but he would not do that in front of the prince. Instead, he found a knife that one of them still had hidden in his belt. He took it and put it in his own belt.
Gully finished disarming the kidnappers and the prince shook his head as he watched. He said, “If I had only realized these gardeners were in on this plot against me!”
“Your Highness... I mean, Thaybrill,” said Gully as he unhitched the half-mule from the cart, “these men are only dressed as gardeners, but that is not whom they are in truth.” He handed the knife he had taken to the prince to look at.
Thaybrill examined the knife and exclaimed, “This is the dagger of a swordsman in the Guard! Members of my own Guard! If the whole Kingdom Guard is against me then this is far more hopeless than I thought!” He looked so beaten that Gully worried he was going to slump to the ground and begin sobbing again.
Gully said, “Yes, these men are trained swordsmen, but I doubt the entire Kingdom Guard is against you. In fact, I know that some are still fully loyal to you and will fight for you with all might and main. So do not despair, Prince Thaybrill!”
Gully led the half-mule around and directed it back towards the city. He smacked it on the rear and the mule started his patient walk back towards his home.
“What makes you so sure of that?” asked Thaybrill.
“I will explain, but we must leave, and leave now. Follow me, please, keeping precisely in the path that I use. And if I tell you not to step somewhere, you must obey, Your Highness, as if your life depends on it. The bogs are often hard to discern from safe ground if you are not used to them, and they well-deserve their deadly reputation.”