by Guy Antibes
“What are you specifically going to do?”
After shrugging, Darrol said, “I think something is up, but I don’t know what it is. I’ll fetch you when I can. What’s the progress with Val?”
Pol took a deep breath. “There isn’t any. I think we are going to have to take him all the way to Deftnis. Searl might have a better method for removing the compulsion. The stronger the magician the harder it is to pull the compulsion out.”
“Like a magical tooth?” Darrol said.
That made Pol laugh despite the sense of failure. “Exactly like that. I’m going to see the Queen. I’m still trying to figure out what our next steps are.”
“I’m your man and will do as you say.”
Pol put his hand on Darrol’s shoulder. “Thanks.” He walked around the large tent and called to Queen Isa.
“Come in,” he heard her say.
Pol slid the tent flap aside and stepped in. It looked like the Queen had it better than anyone in the camp. “How are we going to transport this?” There were expensive rugs on the floor and non-folding furniture.
“My nursemaid tried to teach me at an early age not to become attached to worldly goods. I admit I didn’t listen to her. But now I see the wisdom of her words.”
“You weren’t royalty then?” Pol asked.
Isa laughed. “No, but I was a Count’s spoiled daughter.” Her voice lowered. “Rest assured, when you are ready to go, I won’t make any demands, and I’ll sleep on the ground with the rest of you.” She rubbed her hands together. “When do we leave?”
Pol shook his head. “I still think we should travel with the army until we reach the North Salvan border. It will make it easier to travel through the countryside.”
Isa sighed. “I suppose that’s a good plan, unless circumstances change.”
“They often change,” Pol said. He looked at the Queen. “I’ll come up with alternatives. We have a problem. I came upon two friends who were captured and put under compulsion. One of them didn’t respond well to the healing and will be traveling in a wagon.” Pol looked around. “Where are your ladies-in-waiting?”
“Sleeping. I suppose it’s their naptime. I don’t spend much time sleeping, and sitting in this tent is getting boring. When I am bored, I get anxious.”
Pol nodded. “I understand. I’ll talk to Captain Horker. He might have changed his mind about coming with us.”
“A change in circumstances can do that to a person.”
“In fact, I have to see him,” Pol said. “I trust your needs are met?”
“As long as I don’t have to go to General Onkar’s estate. That would be like prison. I mean that.”
Pol bowed to her. “I’m sure you do. If you will excuse me, My Queen.”
“Certainly,” she said. “My Prince,” she said with a whisper and a smile, then she shooed him out.
Walking back to the Captain’s tent, Pol wondered how sincere the Queen was. He didn’t understand why she would be driven to go to Borstall Castle unless that was where she would feel the safest from her husband. That still didn’t make sense, given the army was headed that way.
Did she think the issue with who ran the army would be taken care of before the King Astor’s army arrived? Pol couldn’t come up with a consistent pattern that wasn’t built primarily upon sheer speculation. Not much logic held up.
Shro joined him at his side. “Your friend isn’t doing any better,” she said.
“I think I made matters worse.” Pol couldn’t help shaking his head. “It’s not too hard to get ahead of myself. I’ve done it before.”
“What else could you do?”
Pol thought for a moment before he said, “I really don’t know. I’m seeing the Captain.”
“I know. He wants to talk to the both of us.”
A drop fell on Pol’s face. He looked up at the gray autumn sky. Another drop fell.
“Let’s hurry,” he said.
They hustled through the camp, and by the time they reached Captain Horker’s tent, the ground was turning to mud.
“Shoes off,” Horker said, when Pol called to him from outside the tent.
Pol grunted as he slipped off his boots and put them by the door flap, underneath Horker’s awning.
Both of them entered the tent. The Captain had a tiny desk set up in the middle with two uncomfortable-looking folding stools.
“Sit,” he said, without looking up from his desk. He worked on two stacks of papers. The left pile was smaller than the stack on the right.
“I’m nearly done.” He continued to sign papers until he had finished.
“There. Those are the last of the supply requisitions. King Astor’s quartermasters are making us jump through hoops. They are like leeches.”
“If they are that way, won’t the quartermasters tell the King that his wife is staying with us?”
“He knows. Onkar sent me a note. Actually that’s why I called you here. We have to leave soon. The General wants us to join the army and will order the guards under Colonel Harian to escort the Queen to his estate, even if she protests.”
“I just came from her. She has no intention of being incarcerated in a prison, even if it is a nice one.”
Horker nodded. “Precisely. So,” he threaded his fingers together and leaned on his desk. “When do we leave? It has to be soon.”
Pol sat back. Either Queen Isa was prescient, or one of her ladies had given her some advance warning. “I need to think for a few moments. We will need a wagon to transport the Queen.” He actually thought about Val.
Shro lifted her finger in the air. “Perhaps one of her ladies can impersonate her. Wear her clothes and use that veil again.”
Pol and Horker both nodded. Horker seemed serious, and Pol couldn’t detect any deception on the part of Horker.
“We have a complication,” Pol said. “Two of my companions were absorbed by the army. I removed the compulsion spell on one of them, but the other is a powerful magician, and I’m afraid I exceeded my capabilities. He’s unconscious.”
Horker nodded. “Hence the wagon being for Queen Isa and your friend?”
Pol bit his lip. “Darrol will be another competent sword should we need one. We will need to leave in the night after removing the Queen. I can do that. We can go tonight.”
“I’ll scavenge supplies,” Shro said, “and ‘requisition’ some horses.”
“We will need six: two for the wagon, three for us, and one for Darrol, my friend, or Kelso. The other will drive the wagon. Do you have a map to guide us to the border with North Salvan?” Pol asked.
“Of course,” Horker said. He unrolled a message case and showed the map.
Pol looked it over. “Is there a way we can get across the river to our north? The army will have to march west to the bridge here, won’t they? Onkar is probably mustering his troops close to this town.” Pol pointed to a drawing of larger buildings not far from a bridge.
“There is a ferry going back towards Covial that you can reach from a turnoff not far from here,” Horker said. “I took it once when I visited another monk’s family one Harvest.”
“Do we have any money?”
“I have enough,” Horker said, pointing to his cot. Pol guessed it was under the thin mattress.
“Good. We leave not long after dinner. The watch is on either side of the road. Where is the ferry?”
Horker pointed to a triangle on the map.
“So we head back to Covial for a mile or so, and then take the road north?” Pol said.
“It’s a plan,” Horker said. His eyes lit up, probably thinking about the adventure. Pol just thought about getting caught again.
“Can I check your mind? I just want to be certain everything is of your own free will.”
Horker leaned back, making the chair creak. “Check away.”
~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
~
Pol COULDN’T BELIEVE HOW EXCITED Queen Isa and Horker were. The m
attress from the Captain’s tent acted as a cushion inside the covered wagon. Shro did a good job of collecting supplies, blankets, and pillows. Pol took down their small tent and stowed it in the wagon. Horker gave a monk’s tabard to Kelso.
It was time to head towards Covial. Darrol drove, while the others wore their monk’s uniforms. Horker had his hood up. The Queen sat in the covered cart with Val. A guard stepped out of the darkness.
“Where are you headed?”
Pol dismounted. “One of the guards took ill. He won’t wake up. We’re taking him to a healer’s in Covial.”
The man threw back a flap and poked his head into the back of the covered cart. “That’s him?”
“Yeah,” Darrol said.
Pol lost his breath. He looked inside, alarmed about the discovery of Queen Isa, but he noticed the guard squeezing Val’s boot. “He’s out cold,” the guard said.
“Of course, he is,” Pol said. Boxes were piled on a lump of blankets. The Queen had hidden herself, quickly and silently. He smiled as the guard withdrew and nodded.
“Go on with you, then.”
Darrol snapped the reins. Kelso, Horker, and Shro rode on ahead.
“Have a good evening.”
The guard grumbled. “It will be if the rain ends.”
Pol mounted and followed the wagon for a while in the dripping darkness.
“Here’s the road,” Kelso called back.
Pol continued on and stopped at the marker, looking at the muddy crossroads.
“Go on. I’ll spend a little time erasing our passage,” he said to Horker. Kelso nodded.
He tied his horse about one hundred yards up the muddy track and walked back through the weeds and dead growth that lined both sides. After spelling a magician’s light, he examined the mud. Only a few wagons had traveled the road since the afternoon rain started, so he used his magic to erase the pattern that their wagon had made. He walked backwards along the road to the ferry, carefully preserving the horse’s tracks but eliminating the wheel ruts.
He mounted his horse and looked back, exhausted from using so much magic for such a mundane task. Pol could assume invisibility more easily than he could move mud.
He heard horses sloshing through the muck on the Northwest Road and extinguished his magician’s light. A few squads of soldiers rode at speed from the direction of Covial. Did he see the glint of a crown on one of the riders? Perhaps King Astor had finally learned where his wife had gone.
Pol didn’t waste any time heading towards the ferry. He hoped that the conveyance was at the other side of the river before the King interrogated the guard that knew they headed towards Covial.
“We can’t delay. I think pursuit will be heading our way before long,” Pol said.
Horker nodded. “Quickly, then. We’ll have to be on the ferry, even if we have to commandeer the thing.”
~
Pol and Shro continued to obliterate the passage of the wagon by duplicating patterns in the mud as they continued to Loron’s Landing and the ferry.
The mud gave way to rough cobbles when they reached a sleeping town save for sounds of raucous laughter from a tavern. They slowly rode past and proceeded to the ferry. Two ferry boats floated at the dock. The Queen exited the wagon and held the horses with Shro as the others loaded the wagon.
“They’re coming!” Isa said.
Pol looked up the single lane that defined Loron’s Landing and hurried to take the horses from the Queen. Shro led hers onto the ferry.
“You go,” Pol said. “Get the Queen to Borstall.” He pressed his lips together, looking at Val’s body in the back of the wagon. “Darrol, when everyone is on their way, take Val to Deftnis.” He took his bag of Tesnan books on coercion and mind-control. “Make sure these accompany him. Searl, hopefully, can cure him.”
Kelso returned after securing the wagon. “I’ll get the other ferry floating downstream. Shro and you will have to delay the king’s men. I noticed a skiff pulled up on the shore under the dock. Use it, if you can.”
The responsibility of protecting Val and the Queen had taken on a grave aspect. How could Pol fend off the riders?
Shro stood next to him in the faint light from the tavern, bow in hand, with three quivers of arrows planted in the ground at her feet.
Pol drew his sword and long knife. He already had a number of knives on his body. “You don’t have to stay, Shro.”
“We’ve become a bit of a team.” She smiled at him. Pol could see the grimness behind it. “I won’t die as a man.”
Pol looked towards the road as the riders approached. He glanced back to now see the feminine features she had shown him at the monastery. It seemed so long ago.
She already had an arrow in her bow.
“Are you shielded?” he asked, as he set his own in place. He suspected a magician or two might have ridden with the King.
Shro nodded her head. Pol looked back, and already the ferry was only a vague black shape moving across the river, following the cable line that kept it from drifting downstream towards Covial, like the released ferry was currently doing.
“Get back,” one of the riders said. “I am on the King’s business.”
“Show me proof,” Shro said.
Pol felt the pressure of mind-control. “You won’t change our thinking. We will let you through to the dock once our friends have made it to the other side.”
Five of the six riders dismounted while the sixth, the magician of the bunch, stayed on his horse. They drew their swords.
“Two young Tesnan monks?” He looked closer at Shro. “Are you a girl?”
“No, I’m a wasp. Want to feel my sting?” She raised the bow and pointed the arrow at the man’s chest.
The man raised his hands. “No need to get nervous.” Pol thought the man was doing a good job of showing anxiety.
The other men began to spread out and slowly advance. Pol plunged his sword into the soft, sanding mud and pulled out three of his throwing knives. “No further,” he said.
A soldier sneered and ignored him.
“I am warning you,” Pol said.
“You don’t scare me.” The soldier began to lift his sword.
Pol threw a knife that plunged into the man’s thigh. The soldier clutched his leg and went down.
“Who is next? Do you want a knife or an arrow? Or should we choose?” Shro said with taunting in her voice. She pulled on the bow and pointed it at the magician.
The man wasn’t a monk, since he had long hair. Pol thought he must be attached to Covial Castle and Manda, or even the King’s personal creature who had put the compulsion spells on the assassins. Another soldier ran towards Shro. She shot and her arrow barely sunk into the chain mail showing through the new rip in his shirt. Pol threw his second knife into the man’s neck.
The magician charged at the same time. Pol tweaked a block of air. The monk’s horse hit it, throwing the man over its head. He slid to the ground and yelled out in pain when the horse stepped on his leg.
Shro pointed out more horses coming their way. “Can you expand that block of air? We can’t hold them all off.”
Pol nodded. “Now!” He staggered towards the dock, as the men slammed into the barrier.
Shro grabbed her quivers and ran, jumping into the water, which was waist high, and untied the boat. She slipped it out from underneath the dock. Pol didn’t trust throwing himself into the boat, so he tossed his weapons in and jumped into the water.
They kicked their way out from the dock. Pol tried to move the boat and themselves with his magic, but he was nearly spent. He struggled into the skiff and stood up to grab the cable.
“Can you cut the cable just after my hands?”
Arrows began to pelt them. Some stuck in mid-air.
“No. I have to maintain the shield.”
Pol took a deep breath and tweaked the ends to separate. The lack of tension was more than Pol could compensate for, and he fell into the river and swallowed water. He bobbed
up gasping, but in his distress, he concentrated on holding the ferry rope under an arm and grabbed the boat with his other hand.
Arrows began to fall around them, but Pol could see them deflect from Shro’s shield. The boat continued to drift downstream until the rope had paid all the way out. They were at least one hundred yards from the shore, and the buildings of Loron’s Landing slowly faded into dark shadows.
Shro helped him into the boat. Pol lay down exhausted, in the bottom of the boat, and then realized the craft was taking on water.
“Can you get the rope secured?” he said. “I need to fix the hole.”
Shro tied the rope to a cleat in the front. Pol put his hands under the growing puddle of water and found the leak. He closed his eyes and began to grow the wood together. He had used up so much of his power that he could barely move.
“Teleport the water out of the bottom. I’m spent,” he said.
Pol closed his eyes and let Shro work on the water level. He could feel it go down as his physical strength returned enough to begin pulling on the rope, hand over hand, moving the boat closer to a framework he now saw sticking out of the water.
Light flashed from the shore and more arrows came their way. Pol tried to create a shield, but his magic was just about gone. He felt an arrow slice through his trousers, pinning his leg to the boat.
“Shield!” he said.
He looked towards Shro and saw her slumped over the edge of the boat, an arrow in her shoulder. He quickly pulled her back and laid her on the bottom, relieved to hear a moan. Pol kept reeling in the rope.
After what seemed like hours, he reached the framework and maneuvered the boat so the wooden platform gave them protection. He looped the rope and tied it off. He needed to rest for a bit, but Shro needed his attention.
With a little buildup of magical strength, he teleported the arrow out of her shoulder and repaired the arteries. The wound would seep, but Pol no longer worried about her situation deteriorating. He stood up and grabbed the next section of rope above his head and severed it with his power. Pol didn’t think he would be able to do it again.
The pain in his leg began to increase. As he began to pull, the pain became excruciating. Pol didn’t have an alternative, so he grit his teeth and continued to pull. He finally made it and tied off the boat. He couldn’t go any farther. The pain in his leg overcame all other thought.