The command tent wasn’t hard to identify; it was larger than any of the camp’s other impermanent structures. Pitched not far from the crumbling remnants of Ibitsal’s walls, it was given a wide berth by all except those who had business within. Aiden estimated the army had a long-term purpose in the area. It had taken a great deal of manpower to clear away so many trees from the immediate environs, pushing back the forest and the cover it offered. They had been here for at least a season and showed no indication of imminent departure. Why they were here, in the middle of a forsaken wilderness encircling a dead and reportedly haunted city, was a question he couldn’t answer.
Comecomecome, sang the portal.
Alicia did her best to ignore it as she observed the camp and the ruins from the vantage point of a barren hilltop. Like the others, she was on her belly. Lying as they were, it was unlikely they would be spotted but they were close enough to the outer patrols that there was an element of danger. The bright white sky behind them provided the perfect backdrop against which a silhouette could be seen. They had to remain still and low; any hope of advancing to the portal during the day was gone, but they had known that the night before. Aiden and his two juniors from Sussaman had spent the better part of the morning scouting. They had found weaknesses in the ring where there were fewer men but no true breaks. No matter what route they chose to approach the city, it would necessitate stealth - avoiding patrols, keeping away from camp fires, and negotiating the crumbled wreckage of Ibitsal’s walls in pitch darkness. The prospects were not appealing but their necessity was undeniable. The alternatives, turning back or surrendering to the army and hoping the leader would allow them to pass, weren’t viable.
Ibitsal’s remains didn’t impress Alicia. Even when it had stood, the first of the great settlements north of The Broken Crags hadn’t awed visitors. As with all the northern habitations, it had been built for function with little concern for aesthetics. Its purpose all those years ago had been to provide shelter for its inhabitants from the heavy snows and wild animals of the North. Trade had been a secondary concern and tourism not one at all. Those who came to the northern cities did so for a reason, not because they were drawn by the word pictures painted by balladeers. From a distance, Vantok was beautiful. Even had it been intact and in good repair, Ibitsal would never have warranted such a description. Syre, the nearest city still standing, had gorgeous women but ugly buildings. Ibitsal’s construction hadn’t been significantly different.
With no inhabitants to chink walls and mend roofs, Ibitsal had collapsed into a pile of broken stones, sawdust, and crumbled clay. There was, however, a single building that appeared to have survived the centuries of neglect. The sturdy tower stood straight and tall, rising like an accusing finger pointed at the heavens. Its spire had long since toppled but the remainder was unbroken. Alicia didn’t need to be told it was their destination. The call that lured her like the seductive whisper of a siren originated from within those walls.
By mid-afternoon, they had retreated back to their own simple campsite, which was located a sufficient distance from the ruins that an accidental discovery by the army was unlikely. From their morning observations, it didn’t seem the patrols ranged beyond the clearing so, unless they became careless, they should be safe here in the short-term.
“Does it make sense to go to the ruins? Couldn’t we accomplish our goal from here, observing Ibitsal from this vantage?” asked Aiden. As usual, his query was directed to Kara. And, as usual, she deferred to Alicia.
“We haven’t come all this way to be thwarted. The ruins cover a large enough area that once we get to them, we should be able to stay out of sight.” Alicia knew Sorial would find a way past the army. She wondered whether its goal was to keep people out of the city or to prevent someone, or something, from leaving it.
“We can’t bring the horses,” said Aiden. “That complicates matters. Without the provisions they carry, we’re left with what we can bear. Water isn’t a problem. There’s ice and snow aplenty to melt. But unless we’re going to rob the soldiers, don’t expect solid food, unless you plan to eat mice and rats.” That observation provoked a visible shudder from Alicia. “And there’s the question of what you want to do with the animals. Tied up, they’ll be okay for a short while, but they have little enough to eat and, after a time, they’ll starve. Let them roam free and they might survive long enough to be captured by someone, but we’ll never see them again.”
“Aiden, how much can we carry?” asked Kara.
“If we pack only provisions and other necessities and keep the sacks light, maybe enough for four or five days. A week to ten days if we ration. That assumes we’re able to retrieve the rest of the food from a hiding place when we leave. It’s four days by foot to the next settlement and ten days to Syre.”
A week. That’s how long they had to wait for Sorial. It seemed such a small window but, even with the horses, their provisions were finite. They had never expected to be at Ibitsal for much longer than that. As the putative leader of an expedition like this, Alicia felt inadequate. But the decisions were ultimately hers. They would move forward or turn back at her word. She gave the orders, knowing they would be followed regardless of any private reservations the others might have. “Let’s get ready. We’ll get as close to their camp as is safe during daylight, then cross after midnight, when most of them are asleep. Before we leave, we’ll bury what we can’t bring with us and untether the horses.”
* * *
Had it been a cloudless night, they would have been able to gauge the passage of midnight but, without the stars, the best they could do was to estimate the time by the activity level of the camp. Once the post-supper rowdiness had diminished and the men took to their bedrolls for however much sleep their commander allowed, Alicia’s group departed their hiding place in a copse. The darkness embraced them like an unwanted lover, close and oppressive. The army’s intermittently spaced fires were beacons lighting the way, but they had no means to identify snares or traps that might have been set around the camp’s perimeter. They advanced at a pace so slow that Alicia wondered if they would cover enough ground before dawn, even as late as it came during this season in this part of the world. Her calves ached from the effort of taking such small, tightly controlled steps.
They were emerging from the northeast into an area where the distance between the edge of the forest and the walls’ remains was at its narrowest. There were fewer men here than at other locations around the city, but “fewer” did not equate to “none.” At least four campfires with ten to twenty men each would have to be avoided. An easy enough trick if they had been able to see properly, but in the flickering dimness of the night... At least the impediment was mutual.
They crept forward, alert for signs of danger. Movement became easier as they drew closer to the outermost fires; the illumination allowed them to press on with more assurance. From here, Ibitsal’s ruins were invisible, but they had memorized the city’s location in relation to the most distant fire. They knew the location of their goal. Now it was a matter of reaching it without alerting anyone to their presence. The Stygian darkness of the forest was no longer their companion; it had been replaced by something of a more imperfect kind, filled with grotesquely capering shadows spawned by the flames.
Comecomecome.
The call of the portal was no more urgent but its proximity made the prompting more difficult to resist. It was comforting and soothing but it interfered with Alicia’s concentration at a time when she could ill afford a lapse. On more than one occasion, it nearly caused her to misstep.
They angled their path to move between a pair of fires at a distance of about seventy feet on either side. The forest gradually receded behind them, the prospects of cover and safety dwindling with it: twenty feet, thirty feet, forty feet... Alicia could see men lying on their backs in the open, some under threadbare blankets and some with no covering, all far enough from the blazes to avoid falling victim to flying embers yet close
enough to gain some benefit from the warmth. In the flickering of the flames, she counted sixteen men to the left and twelve to the right, all apparently deep in slumber. The camp was quiet - almost too quiet. The bawdy, half-drunken singing had stopped more than an hour ago as men began to retire for the night but there were none of the telltale signs she expected to hear even in the dead of night where so many were gathered: no clanking of armor, no grinding of blades being sharpened, no whistling or humming. Straining her eyes in the near darkness, she saw no evidence of lanterns, torches, or other moving sources of illumination, either near or in the distance. Shouldn’t there be patrols, men walking the perimeter? She wanted to ask Aiden this question, but even a whisper would be as loud as a shout when it came to giving them away.
Her misgivings were well-founded. As they came abreast of the outer fires, the camp sprang to life. It happened so fast, Alicia was momentarily confused by the flurry of activity. All the supposedly “sleeping” men around the closest fires were on their feet with weapons drawn as others in the distance also rose. It was as if the entire camp had been awaiting some prearranged signal.
Namany and Debulon froze, dropped into fighting crouches, and drew knives that seemed painfully inadequate when compared to the blades brandished by the soldiers. The idea of fighting was ludicrous. They were outnumbered by one thousand to six and only four of them could claim any degree of competence with a weapon.
“Drop yer weapons and we’ll take ya unharmed. We got no need to cut down ones such as yerselves.” The voice was gruff and heavily accented. Alicia didn’t know who spoke. The night seemed alive with men, all menacing, all converging on her group. Imitating Kara, she dropped her hands palms forward by her sides and did her best to look non-threatening - not a difficult thing to accomplish in the circumstances. She was reasonably certain she looked like a little girl.
“Do as he says, boys,” said Aiden, throwing down his cudgel. At his command, Namany and Debulon released their daggers. Rexall had already tossed down two short blades and was standing with his hands above his head in the universal gesture of surrender.
“Check ’em out!” demanded the voice, apparently that of a leader. A man moved out of the shadows to pat down Alicia roughly, divesting her of her heavy fur cloak to ensure she wasn’t hiding anything under it, then his hands lingered longer than was necessary on her breasts and between her legs. He smelled of sour sweat and stale ale and she nearly gagged at the stench as he got close to her. When he was done “searching” her, her arms were jerked roughly behind her back and a cord was tied around her wrists. A foul-smelling hood was pulled over her head and cinched at her neck, although not so tightly that she couldn’t breathe.
“Take ’em to see His Lairdship. He’s bin waitin’ fer ’em.”
* * *
Alicia’s arms were cramping. She was allowed to sit but the uncomfortable position of her bound wrists was causing pain. She was breathing through her mouth to avoid inhaling the odor of the sack placed over her head. It smelled of something rotten - either onions or potatoes. She assumed it had been used to transport spoiled provisions.
She didn’t know where she was and talking wasn’t permitted. The one time she had tried to say something, she had been cuffed so hard on the side of the head that she had nearly passed out. It was warm, almost uncomfortably so, meaning she was close to a fire. Voices spoke in hushed tones nearby. She supposed if she concentrated, she might be able to make out the words, although there was no guarantee she would understand the language. But the call of the portal made concentration difficult.
After her capture, she had been half-pushed, half-dragged across a wide swath of the camp, zigzagging through areas that were muddy and patches of ice that hadn’t been chewed up by the relentless march of boots. She didn’t know what had happened to the others; they might be next to her or nowhere close. They could be living or dead. It was too much to hope they had been released. She suspected she was in the command tent. The air was stale and close and she was sitting on furs not hard ground.
She felt a sense of quiet, controlled despair. They had walked into a trap - that much was obvious. Someone must have seen them at an earlier time, perhaps while they had been spying on the camp from the hilltop. Damn! She knew they had been too exposed there but she had assumed the others, with their greater experience, understood what they were doing. She recalled a saying of her father’s: “Trusting others is a good thing as long as you choose the right ones to trust.” All the decisions, all the sacrifices had led to this point: captive to an unknown warlord on the doorstep of reaching the portal. She suspected there was little time left before she was executed; she was cognizant of the bounty on her, although she doubted a man with this size of an army would have much use for 100 gold. A sizeable sum for a bandit or mercenary but not as impressive to one who could command a thousand men. Still, it seemed unlikely she would survive this and, if she did, she might wish she hadn’t. She remembered stories about the uses to which captive women were sometimes placed in camps such as this one. The pawing of the man who had captured her would be genteel by comparison. Could she, a virgin, convincingly act the whore to save her life?
She sensed a change in the mood around her. The hushed, idle conversation stopped altogether. There was the sound of clothing and armor shuffling as men adjusted their positions.
“Why are they still bound?” The voice was gruff but cultured. “This won’t do. What are we, barbarians?”
Instantly, the bonds tying Alicia’s wrists were cut. She folded her arms across her chest and rubbed them. The hood was pulled from her head, allowing her to take a deep breath and see her surroundings. As she surmised, she was in the command tent; it looked bigger from the outside than the inside, however. Everything was fur-lined: the walls, the ceiling, and the floors. The fire pit near the center was filled with red-hot embers and heated stones brought in from outside. A hole in the tent directly above the pit allowed for ventilation. There were few furnishings: only a crude table, three chairs, and a large, iron-bound trunk. Maps were spread out on the table but, from her vantage point near the entrance flap, Alicia couldn’t read them. Seven men faced her, all standing. She noted that Kara and Aiden were here, kneeling to her right and left, respectively. There was no sign of Rexall or the other two from Sussaman.
It wasn’t hard to identify the leader. He was the oldest man in the tent and had the bearing of someone accustomed to being obeyed. He stood nearly six feet tall with broad shoulders and thick legs. He wore boiled leather armor. As was common with old men, his stomach showed a paunch. His face might have been handsome in youth but scars and the ravages of age had given it a cruel cast that was accentuated by sagging jowls. His head was shaved but he sported a short, iron-gray beard and equally well-trimmed mustache. His eyes caught Alicia’s attention most forcefully. There was something eerily familiar about them, almost as if she had gazed into their russet depths before...
Kara’s sharp intake of breath caused Alicia to look in her direction. Her normally impassive face wore an expression of recognition and disbelief. “Maraman,” she whispered.
He laughed. “So good to see you, my dear. I confess, after the last time we spent together, I never thought we’d meet again. But, even with the gods having departed, the fates retain a sense of humor.”
Maraman - Sorial’s father. That explained the eyes. Now that she knew, Alicia could recognize other familiarities, although Sorial’s long-ago broken nose and Maraman’s numerous scars gave their features different contours. Still, Alicia could see that Sorial took after his father more obviously than his mother.
Maraman turned to her and executed a slight bow. “My Lady Alicia, how ironic that we should meet under these circumstances; I’ve been seeking your pretty head for the better part of a season now. It’s fortuitous for us both that you have come to me with that head still attached to your shoulders, although you must be blessed with good luck indeed to have escaped so many bounty hunters.
Still, I have more options with you alive than dead.”
He next regarded Aiden curiously. “I know the face but not the name. It tickles the memory. One of Ferguson’s lapdogs, I think. Always running around doing his bidding. There were three others with you. I don’t know any of them. Who are they?”
Alicia remained silent, unwilling to provide even the most meager information to a man who was obviously not friendly. But Kara answered instead. “The red-haired boy is Sorial’s best friend. The other two are good lads from Sussaman, sent to keep me safe on the road and help me find Ibitsal.”
“It would have been better for them had they departed once you found it instead of skulking around in the woods with you. Really, Kara, you should have chosen guides with more experience at avoiding detection. We spotted you before dusk a day ago. As for Sorial’s friend - he might have some value. I’m glad I didn’t summarily execute him.”
“Why are you here?” Kara asked the question foremost in Alicia’s mind, although she suspected she knew the answer.
“It’s long past time I began bonding with our son. You’ve been selfish, my dear. You had him for 17 years. Now it’s my turn. I’ve never had a chance to be a real father to any of our children and now all except one are dead.”
“You need an army to achieve this ‘bonding’?”
Maraman smiled. The expression held no malice and, if not for the scars, it might have made him look grandfatherly. “Not everyone who owes their allegiance to me is here. There’s another portal to watch, after all. My top lieutenant took some of my men down there and set up a fiefdom.”
“You offered a lot of gold for my head,” interjected Alicia. Surprisingly, she felt no fear looking this man in the eyes. Perhaps it had something to do with the numbing effect of the incessant comecomecome.
“It’s a queenly sum for a woman who’s more important than any queen. The Bride of the Wizard. My apologies, however. Now that you’re here, I’ll cancel the bounty. How much better to offer my son a living wife than the promise of revenge for a dead one!”
The Curse in the Gift (The Last Whisper of the Gods Book 2) Page 18