“Might be trouble,” Deet says. “Only the rich or the connected like Alexa have the means for a mechanical buggy.”
Miles leans forward and his eyes narrow. “Hey, Pard, doesn’t that car look familiar?”
Pard takes step forward and his body tenses as a black motor buggy is about to pass them. “That one in the rear, it looks like the mayor’s buggy, the fancy covered one with the yellow wheels.” The first carriage zips by, then another, then the last one is about to pass, and two figures form in the window. Pard smiles. It can’t be, Selby, alive?
The car bounces and skirts by, with Selby, her face sad and worn and the side of her cheek pressed against the cloudy glass.
“She’s alive,” Pard says.
Selby catches a glimpse of Pard and the others, and her head slowly turns toward them as the car passes.
Pard lunges into the street and waves. “Selby!”
Deet rips down Pard’s arm and jerks him out of the road. “You’re making a scene—it could be a trap.”
“She’s alive, Deet.”
“Good for you, kid, now keep your head on straight. The Acue and Alexa could be using her.”
Miles pats Pard on the back. “See, I told you, you should just listen to me, I wouldn’t lead you astray. And I think that was her mother driving. I met her at a private dinner a couple years ago. I don’t think they’re in trouble—probably getting as far away from Greysin and Alexa and the others the same as we are.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Pard says.
“I’m happy for you, kid,” Deet says, “but we have to keep moving. And don’t draw anymore attention to yourself.”
“I know.” Pard watches Selby’s carriage roll out of town and out of sight.
They walk a little farther, almost at Khloe’s, and Pard slows, reaching the alley where they had their adventure the previous night. Two men wearing black suits stand at the entrance and interview townsfolk.
“What do you think?” Pard says to Miles.
Miles shrugs. “Let’s check it out.”
“Don’t say a word, either of you,” Deet says. “Keep walking.”
“We won’t.” And Miles rolls his eyes.
Pard stops next to a constable wearing a brown uniform and holding a baton. He cranes his neck around him to see down the alley.
“Keep moving,” Deet says, “let the men work.”
Pard ignores him for a second, wanting to sneak a glimpse of Tor’s handiwork in the full sunlight.
Thirty paces away, the lanky man that attacked them the night before is talking to a black-haired woman in a black duster coat. Her back toward the entrance of the alley, she suddenly turns around.
Pard’s eyes widen. Eeva. He sucks in a breath about to turn away but then notices two other men talking to the scraggly woman—two men equally unnerving. One, a grizzled man with a grey floppy, wide-brimmed hat, turns around and eyes Pard. Cray.
Pard first ducks behind the constable and then skirts by the men wearing the black suits. He lowers his head and chugs forward and catches back up to Deet. He leans into him and whispers, “Eeva and Cray—together in the alley—Cray saw me.”
Deet jerks to a stop, and he scans the street for the answer to come to him. He points at a small black motor buggy across the street, parked in front of a building labeled, Land Acquirer. Its white wheels are as white as the snow still perched on the roofs of the surrounding buildings, and the rims painted bright red. The carriage has no roof, and only a shiny black cover lies overtop of the seats. “That motor contraption over there—we’re taking it.”
Miles looks at Deet as if he’s crazy. “But I thought you said we weren’t going to steal anything.”
“Times change, and we need to move.” Deet rushes straight across the street. He stands next to the driver’s side and scans the road for anyone watching.
“What is the problem?” Tor says, eyeing Deet and not understanding the sudden panic.
“I’ll explain later—get in the back.” Deet nods at Miles. “I imagine your father has one of these things, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Can you make it work?”
Miles shrugs. “Maybe—I guess so.”
“You guess so or yes?” Deet glances back at the alley where Pard saw Eeva and Cray.
“Sure,” Miles says, “but what’s the rush?”
“Eeva and Cray are in the alley,” Pard says.
Miles’s eyes open wide and his body reacts. He pats the grill while investigating the front of the carriage. “Right, all right, think, how did this thing work—”
“Cray!” Tor says, and he opens his duster and unsheathes his battle-axe.
Deet squeezes Tor’s bicep. “Relax there, big guy, we don’t want to make a scene if we don’t have too.”
Pard nods in agreement. “They’re talking to the skinny guy that attacked Miles. He probably told them what he saw, and that you carried an axe, so best keep it hidden for now.”
Tor grunts and removes his hand from the handle though he doesn’t take his eye off the alley. “Wise words, young seeros, though some battles cannot be avoided, scene or not.”
Deet rips off the black cover protecting the fine leather seats and stuffs it in the small metal trunk perched on the back. He scurries around to the front of the carriage where Miles is crouched over and still inspecting a metal compartment with a crank. “Can you make this thing work or not, Marlow? We need to move.”
“Yes, yes, just give me a second, I’ve only done this part once.” Miles grabs the L-handle and winds the crank.
The engine revs but doesn’t start.
“I can’t get it to turn over.”
Deet nods at Tor. “Get over here, we need you.” He points at the crank. “Turn that thing as fast as you can.”
Tor grunts, grips the handle, and winds the crank with blinding speed.
The engine revs, clicks, coughs, and sputters, then ignites. The motor carriage vibrates and rattles.
Deet pats Tor on the back. “Good job, big guy, get in the left side, we’re outta here.”
Pard crawls into the miniature backseat with Tor, whose left shoulder juts out over the side of the carriage and the whole body of the buggy tilts to the left and sinks when he sits.
Deet shoves Miles into the driver seat and he skates around to the other side and hops in the passenger side. “Get us moving, Lord Marlow.”
Miles fondles the buttons and levers, taking everything in for a second.
“You, you! They’re stealing my carriage!” a ball of a man wearing fox fur says, waving and yelling in the middle of the street.
“Time to go, Miles!” Pard says, leaning into the front seat and nudging Miles on the shoulder.
The constables point at the carriage, and Cray, Hawke, and Eeva squeeze by them and eye the buggy.
Deet leans forward angling to the side and his face is exposed out from under his black hood.
Eeva’s eyes fix on Pard then transition to Deet. She scowls and flings open her duster coat and goes for her silver whip.
Tor tilts around, and Cray’s eyes meet his.
Cray gives Tor a devious grin and mouths, gotcha.
Deet pulls out his pistol and pounds his palm on the dash. “Go, Marlow, go!”
Miles punches a big black button on the dash, jabs forward a skinny iron lever jutting out from the floorboards, and slams on the floor pedal.
The car clucks and sputters and jerks and rolls.
Eeva arcs back her whip in the air, orange tip glowing and spitting electricity.
Deet aims his pistol and fires.
Bang, bang, bang—
The constables and everyone else duck for cover.
Cray and Hawke draw their weapons and fan out.
Eeva unleashes a glowing orange ball of light toward the carriage and it strikes the ground next to Deet, searing the snow and stone.
Another orange orb blasts the sidewalk next to Pard, and it webs out melt
ing chaotic thin lines in the snow and singes the brick black.
Deet continues to shoot until no more bullets fire.
Boom—
Cray’s rifle bellows as he shoots.
Pard flinches as the back wood and metal compartment of the motor carriage explodes and splinters, a hole the size of his fist is gaping through the side. He shoves Miles again. “Faster, Miles, faster!”
“I’m trying, my foot is to the floor, this is as fast as it will go!”
Deet reloads his pistol.
Boom—
Pard flinches as the back corner of the carriage explodes.
One of Eeva’s orange orbs shoots over the top of their heads and they all duck.
The carriage finally picks up speed moving as fast as a galloping horse and the buggy exits the main part of the town. It bounces and skids and rattles forward, leaving Larin Town behind, over a hill, over a small bridge which crosses a wide river, then into open snow fields of farm country skirted by the thick evergreen forests.
Pard peeks back.
Alexa, joining Eeva, she is barely visible, standing in the middle of the road and raising a pistol high in the air, but she doesn’t fire. A motor carriage stops next to her, and Alexa climbs into the passenger side door.
Pard’s buggy zips and slides around a sharp curve to the left and enters a narrow opening fenced in with pines, and the town completely disappears behind them.
“We lost them for the time being,” Pard says. “Good job, Miles.”
Miles grins, pleased with himself. “I knew I remembered how this stupid mechanical thing worked.”
“Anyway,” Deet says, and he pulls out his map and traces the surface with his finger as he periodically scans the surroundings. “This road should wind through this small section of forest then come out in another open section of farms. In a few minutes we should come to a road on the right leading north through a small town and then Ravin. If we can keep this pace, and we’re lucky, we may even make it out of this alive.”
A GUISE OF ICE
They enter open farmland, and the buggy turns onto a long straightaway toward a small town in a narrow valley.
A few minutes later, Pard looks behind and the black smoke from four motor carriages spews into the air in sporadic puffs, and behind them, several men riding horses at full speed. “They’re coming. A lot of them.”
Deet clinches his teeth and looks behind. “Of course they’re coming.” He eyes Tor. “Any ideas?”
“I say we fight to the death on open ground. Let our enemies wallow in our wake of death and destruction as we cut through them or die with honor. Fleeing is for cowards.”
Miles contorts his face into his battle mask, grips the wheel tight and bounces up in down in his seat, pulsating toward and away from the wheel, pumped up by Tor’s credo.
“Umm, right,” Deet says, glancing at Pard and then at Miles in his moment of fierce warrior delusions. “Nope, that’s not an option, big guy. It’s flee or something else. Any other ideas?”
Tor grunts in disapproval and frowns as he gets lost in the vast fields blanketed with white.
Deet sighs. “All right, then I guess I have to come up with something.”
The carriage slows as it chugs and lurches up a steep hill, not built for the weight of four passengers, or at least one Tor, who is the equivalent of two adults by himself.
“They’re gaining on us,” Pard says, continuing to stare at the caravan behind them with Cray and Hawke now leading the way riding atop two horses.
“We aren’t going to make it to the Ravin train station before they catch up to us,” Deet says. “And we don’t stand a chance against all of them head on.” Deet flips open his map and scans the terrain and the small semblance of the town approaching.
“If we fight,” Tor says, “I’m good for at least six of those little men.”
“I’m sure you are, but Lord Marlow and the kid are probably good for zero.”
“Hey!” Miles says, still slightly bouncing up and down getting himself psyched up for battle.
“Don’t take it personally and keep driving.”
“I think you may underestimate the boys,” Tor says.
“If the kid new how to use his light, maybe we would stand a chance.” Deet taps Pard on his back. “You know any good light spells?”
“What’s that?” Pard says.
“Like what Alexa did when she connected with you in the Fairstone cathedral.”
Pard scratches his head in confusion.
“That’s what I thought,” Deet says, “never mind. Go back to keeping a lookout behind us.”
Pard shakes his head and turns back toward Cray and the others.
The carriage reaches the crest of the hill and is barely moving as it rolls over the lip to transition down hill.
“They’re closing in,” Pard says, “they already closed half the distance on us since we started up this hill.”
Tor grunts and tries to turn around and see but he’s too big to move more than just to look sideways.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Miles says, “I think we may be too heavy.”
“You think?” Deet says.
Pard’s eyes narrow as he makes out a faint line of train smoke poking out if the forest off in the distance. “How far are we from Ravin now?”
Deet sighs. “Like I said, too far, maybe ten miles.”
“What about those buildings we’re coming up on?”
“Just an old mill and some grain silos, maybe a couple other buildings. But it looks abandoned or seldom used.”
“I may have an idea,” Pard says.
Deet turns around and stares at him. “Let’s hear it, kid, we don’t have much time.”
“If Alexa was threatened, do you think she would connect to me and cast a spell against you the same way she did in the cathedral?”
“That’s an affirmative. But that’s definitely not a good idea.”
“I never said it wouldn’t be dangerous.”
“All right, sorry, go on, let’s hear it.”
“I remember Professor Ames recounting the Battle of Muro the other day, and I read on this subject extensively before his lecture. There was a Lasteane general who was defeated in a larger battle a few days prior. He fled with what few survivors he had left. But he knew the terrain and his enemy well and successfully lured a much larger Erden force into a favorable position for him to counterattack under the guise of weakness. Once the small force found themselves in dense forest and in a shallow, narrowing gorge, with numerous smaller cuts in the rock creating a maze-like patchwork through the landscape, the general exposed himself in the open in the largest of these corridors, the Muro Corridor, the one the enemy force would use to traverse the forest. He waited alone for his enemy to come upon him, as if to give up, knowing that the general, his arch rival, wouldn’t kill him right away which gave the rest of his men time to prepare and maneuver in place to attack; and the enemy, already overly confident in their assured victory if they could simply catch and corner the small force, they let down their guard thinking the general was giving up to buy time for the rest of his men to flee. So for us, the plan would be for me to expose myself right away and they’ll focus on me. This will give you guys time to maneuver and come up with something where we can even the odds. Then after I draw Alexa away from her men, attack the men in the rear first and then Alexa. Once she realizes it’s a trap, and she’s in danger, she’ll connect to me and cast a spell, but the key is we need to make sure when she casts the light, it is directed as much against her own men as us, the same she did in the cathedral. She cast the light, but that didn’t mean you or Star or Eeva were safe. I saw her warn you to get out. This tells me she has little control over the magic once it’s unleashed, and that her spell could harm her own people. So we need to place her in a position to do just that, have her cast the light to our advantage without her realizing it.”
Deet rocks his head as he contemplates Pard�
��s plan. “May work. But we’d still have to somehow get between her men and then close in on her directly so she casts the spell in the direction we want. Besides dealing with a lot of very armed and very skilled men, wouldn’t that also put the person or persons who are doing the threatening in the direct path of her spell?”
“I didn’t say it would be safe or easy,” Pard says.
“I will do it,” Tor says in his slow, deep voice.
Deet squints at him. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
“You understand the risk could be death?”
“There is always a risk of death in life and in battle, it is out of our hands. But as long as the woman casts her spell through Pard, I will be in no danger from this light. Our magical bond means I cannot harm Pard, and he cannot harm me, even if he is simply being used as a vessel through which the woman casts her evil spell. It is still Pard’s essence that is generating the power, therefore, her intention will not have her intended result, in fact, it will have the opposite. Any of Pard’s light that hits me will be amplified many fold when my body absorbs the energy, and it will give me even more strength and protection as it finds its way back home, me which is Pard, and Pard which is me, esen’er.”
Deet nods. “That helps, good to know, so you’re the perfect instigator and second decoy.” He turns to Miles as the carriage pulls into the abandoned grain town. “Go all the way through to the other side and park the carriage out of sight.” He glances at Pard. “I’m guessing our general’s trap worked.”
Pard cringes. “Yes—but—”
“But?”
“The small force destroyed the larger force as intended, but the general died.”
Deet purses his lips. “I see, well, let’s hope for a better result this time.”
Miles zooms forward past the buildings and silos and then yanks the wheel hard to the right. The tires skid and slide then slow, entering snow and grass off the road. He yanks back the brake lever, and the carriage comes to rest between two towering grain silos.
Deet hops out of the buggy and jogs back to the road and surveys the avenues of approach. He turns back toward the carriage and waves for all of them to come to him as he huddles next to a grain silo.
The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2) Page 31