Victim of Fate

by Jason Halstead

  Alto stared at the amazing creature below him. The unicorn was breathing hard, but he didn’t seem labored or exhausted. The unicorn had done the same thing when they’d escaped the forest; either he was truly a magical creature of legend or he had endurance unlike anything Alto had ever heard of. Considering the glowing horn trick Winter had pulled on him last night, Alto knew magic was the secret.

  Resigned to a long and cold ride, Alto nearly lost his balance and pitched off the side of the unicorn when Winter slowed abruptly and turned.

  "Ha! You won’t get me twice with that trick!" Alto cried.

  Winter let out a shrill whinny and reared up, proving that he had a few tricks left.

  "I’m going to break that horn off and stab you with it," Alto muttered from where he lay on the ground.

  Winter stomped the ground and flung his head to the side.

  Alto followed the unicorn’s gaze and saw the remains of a campfire. He lurched to his feet and, wincing from the soreness in his joints, stumbled over to the circle of ashes. He fell to his knees beside it and put his hand over the black and gray coals, searching for heat. He nodded when it warmed his skin and fought off the chill.

  "Still warm, they can’t be long gone," Alto said. He rose up, his aches forgotten, and searched the ground. "There!" He rushed over and pointed down at the unpleasant proof that horses had stayed the night. He circled around, picking out the occasional footprint in the frost-covered grasses and then larger patterns where people had slept.

  Alto moved over on a whim and looked at the crushed grass. He knelt next to one and studied it carefully, reaching down to touch it. Winter joined him and lowered his head to sniff at it. The unicorn snorted and looked up at him. Alto reached out and pushed aside some grass to pick up something he’d glimpsed. He held up the dried blue flower and showed it to Winter. "She was here; this was woven into her hair."

  Winter huffed and stomped his foot, and then he backed away and stomped again impatiently.

  "Just a minute, we don’t know where they’ve gone!" Alto snapped. He rose up and looked around, and then started walking back and forth to the north. He picked up occasional marks in the ground where dirt had been kicked up by shod hooves. He followed the trail and picked his head up. The ground grew hilly ahead of them and behind the hills rose the towering gray and white peaks of the Northern Divide. "They’re heading into the mountains."

  Winter moved beside him. Alto glanced at him and sighed. "You’re fast, but I’d guess they have a few hours lead on us. They’ll make the mountains by noon, maybe sooner."

  Winter snorted and pawed the ground.

  "All right, let’s go," Alto said. "Just didn’t think after going to all that effort to save me you wanted to get me killed."

  Alto’s equine companion flicked his ears back and snorted again. Alto climbed onto the irritated unicorn and had to strain to hold on while Winter burst forward into a full gallop. They ran so fast Alto had to breathe out of the corner of his mouth.

  Alto called out directions when he glimpsed signs of the trail of the men who had taken Patrina. They streaked over and around the hills until they grew too steep for Winter to easily navigate. Forced into trails and ravines, their rate slowed. The terrain grew rockier, denying Alto the chance to spot signs of the kidnappers’ passage.

  "Whoa!" Alto cried out when he spotted a green strip of cloth pinched between a crack in the jagged edge of a rock.

  Winter stopped and let Alto climb off, and then he sidestepped and sent Alto stumbling.

  "What was that for?" Alto protested. "Okay, you’re not a horse, I’m sorry. It was just instinct," Alto said while he pushed away from the rock he’d fallen against. The unicorn glared at him.

  He shrugged and turned away so he could grab the scrap of fabric. "This was Trina’s." He peered into the narrow crevice in the side of the hill. "It’s narrow, but you can fit. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get too rocky or steep for you."

  Winter turned to stare at the fissure and snorted his displeasure. He showed his teeth and whinnied loudly. Alto nodded. "She came this way. That was from her dress; I think she left it on purpose to help us find her."

  Alto headed into the crevice, turning sideways to keep from brushing his broad shoulders against the rocks on either side. Lichen that hadn’t died from the frost grew in cracks of the rocks where the sun couldn’t reach. It smelled musty and earthy in spite of the cold that turned his breath into foggy puffs.

  He searched the walls and rocks of the ravine while he moved through it. Winter snorted and scraped his hoofs on the rocks behind him, moving slowly and checking his footing before trusting it. Some of the rocks shifted beneath him, threatening an injury to the unicorn’s legs.

  Alto stopped after nearly a dozen feet in. Up ahead, he saw the ravine grew tighter and turned to the left. He turned back to see Winter staring up, over his left shoulder. "She must have—what’s wrong? What are you looking at?"

  Alto turned to look above him, where Winter’s gaze was focused. There was nothing there but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something seemed out of place. He sniffed, catching the smell of burning wood along with the musty smell of earth. He wondered aloud, "Is that a campfire?"

  "Alto?"

  Alto spun, surprised by the voice coming from behind them. Winter snorted but the crevice in the rocks wasn’t wide enough for him to easily turn around. A man wearing a brown tunic under a vest decorated with pockets stepped out from behind a rock. Alto scowled and asked, "How do you know my name? Who’re you?"

  The man grinned. Alto heard a scuffle behind him, but before he could turn, the man with the vest raised his hand to reveal he held a stick. He uttered a word and twitched the stick. Alto saw a distortion in the air between them, almost like the way air looked funny on hot days as it rose off of hard-packed ground.

  Winter slumped forward, staggering until he collapsed. Alto started forward, anxious to help his four-legged friend. A thud behind him reminded him of the scuffle he’d heard. He began to turn but before he could manage it, a darkness slammed into him and dropped him into a bottomless abyss.

  Chapter 14

  Alto gasped and sputtered his way to consciousness. He shook his head and tried to move. The ropes binding his hands and his feet stopped him. The captive warrior turned his head, blinking to get the water that had been splashed in his face out of his eyes. When he could see clearly, he saw that the sun was rising and that he was lying near a campfire. Patrina sat nearby, bound and gagged. Winter was nowhere to be seen.

  "Who are you?" Alto’s question came out as a scratchy whisper.

  The man next to Alto wore dark leathers and was the tallest man Alto had ever seen. Behind him and tending to a couple of their horses stood the other man Alto had seen earlier in the ravine. He was a wizard, or at least he’d used magic.

  "Rynn," the tall man next to him said.

  "How’d somebody as tall as you get the drop on me?"

  Rynn nodded his head towards the wizard. "That’s Krey, my brother. Obviously, he’s a wizard."

  Alto grunted. "Awful lot of trouble you went through."

  "Nobody else could handle it."

  "Handle what?" Alto asked.

  "Catching you," Rynn chuckled. "Don’t see why. You wasn’t special."

  "Untie me and give me back my sword then."

  "Rynn! Enough!" Krey snapped. He straightened from tightening a saddle and turned to face Alto. "Someone is very interested in having a conversation with you. I suggest you come along without complaint."

  "Seeing that I’ve got a headache from where I was clubbed in the head and that I’m tied up, I’m thinking this isn’t in my best interests," Alto responded. He turned to Patrina and saw her staring at him with eyes that were wide with expression. He wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell him, but he knew she was trying.

  "This girl? You saved her once and I’ve learned you have some feelings for her?"

  "She’s a friend," Alto said
, trying to dismiss Patrina’s importance in their minds. "Speaking of friends, where’s the unicorn?"

  Krey smirked. "Unicorns are incredible beings. Any other time, I’d have spent the time and effort to capture it. As I said, somebody very important is paying us a very large amount of money to bring you to them."

  "So you killed him?" Alto forced himself to ask.

  "Even stunned and confused, killing a unicorn is no simple task. My brother and I didn’t have the resources at hand to be sure of it so we left him wandering and confused."

  Alto frowned even as he felt his chest loosen to allow him to breathe. If Winter was alive, he might bring Teorfyr to their aid. It boosted his confidence enough to say, "Two horses and two of you. We’re tied up; doesn’t seem like you’ve got a plan. If you’re after me, are you going to leave her behind, at least, so you can make better progress?"

  "Your friend is gagged for a reason. Do I need to have the same done to you?"

  "My friend? Oh, the princess?" Alto feigned confusion to try to spare her what looked like an unpleasant experience. "I helped save her for the reward and because it helped my kingdom."

  "Then you won’t mind if we kill her?" Krey said. "Rynn, would you help?"

  "Happy to," Rynn said and took three long-legged strides to Patrina’s side. He reached down and grabbed her by the braids in her hair and then yanked on them hard enough to pull her over and force her onto her belly. "Seems a waste to just kill her though."

  "We don’t want her telling anyone where we were or what we’re doing," Krey reminded him. "And you don’t want to leave anything a wizard could use to find you or hurt you with."

  Rynn frowned. "Wizards can do that?"

  Krey chuckled. "A powerful mage can do just about anything."

  "Can you do that?"

  Krey glanced at Alto and then looked back to his brother. "I can do a lot of things," was his ambiguous answer.

  "All right, I’ll just kill her then. Clean or messy?"

  "I’ll go quietly," Alto interrupted.

  "What?" Krey turned to him.

  "Let her go and I won’t cause any problems," Alto said.

  Krey chuckled. "You will behave, but we’ll keep her to be sure."

  "Look, I just don’t want any innocent blood being spilled; it’s not like I’m courting her or anything."

  Krey chuckled again. "Not yet, perhaps." He turned to his brother. "Help the princess up, Rynn, and untie the ropes on his legs so he can keep up."

  "Keep up?" Alto asked.

  "Aye, my brother will make sure she stays on his horse while you walk with us. You could run, but I’ve got my spells, Rynn has his steel, and if those should possibly fail, we’ve still got her."

  Alto nodded. He risked a glance at Patrina and saw her staring at him with eyes that begged him to do something. He still couldn’t hazard a guess as to what it was her gaze was screaming at him. When he finally managed to yank his gaze away from her, he saw the smirk on Krey’s face that communicated far more efficiently that Patrina had been able to. Krey knew what the princess meant to Alto. Perhaps even better than Alto.

  "I trust you won’t be upset that we don’t entirely trust you," Krey said while pulling another rope out of one of the saddlebags. He tossed it to Rynn. "Tie him to my horse."

  "Hope you can keep up," Rynn said with a grin. "Obviously, falling behind isn’t an option."

  "Are you going to keep saying that?" Alto asked while the tall man looped the new rope around the rope already binding his wrists.

  "Saying what?"

  "Obviously," Alto said. Then he added, "Obviously."

  Krey chuckled in the background, causing Rynn to scowl and yank as he tightened the ropes around Alto’s wrists. "You’ve got better things to worry about," he snarled before adding, "obviously!"

  The brothers dispensed with further conversation while they broke down the camp and made ready to move. Long before Alto’s headache was gone, they moved out, pulling the warrior behind them fast enough he found it easier to jog than to walk. After the first two passes they made their way through, he’d stopped being thankful that they’d left him in his chain mail.

  They crossed the mountains the rest of the day, stopping only long enough for Rynn to scout ahead or for brief breaks where Alto was given a few drinks from a skin of water. That night after the sun had fallen behind the mountains, they stopped and set up camp. Alto collapsed before he had a chance to drink or eat.

  The next day was the same, save that the Northern Divide was on their left and began to fall behind them. Alto had a hard time telling where they were, aside from the mountains on his left. Krey and Rynn kept to the valleys between the foothills of the mountains. He glimpsed the sea to the right a few times, but it was leagues distant. As the day grew long, the glimpses he managed between gasps for breath became pointless when snow started to fall.

  With the snow came darkness and a bitter wind that forced them into setting up camp early. Alto managed to stay awake longer but soon the wind chilled his armor and worked through his damp clothing. He was left shivering even after he huddled near the fire once it was started.

  "We need to push hard tomorrow," Krey told Rynn while they ate the cold rations. "This storm stopped us early and it might snow in the passes."

  Alto strained to listen while staring into the fire. He glanced up when the wizard fell silent and saw Krey walking towards him. The mage dropped a skin of water next to him and then added a sausage from a pouch. "Eat. We’ve another hard day tomorrow before we make it to the mines."

  Alto jerked at the mention of the mines. He twisted to look up at the man and asked, "What mines?"

  "None of your concern," Krey responded smartly. "You’ll see all you need to see soon enough."

  "I’m not meant to survive this, am I?"

  "Can’t handle a little run?" Rynn teased from where he watched Patrina. She’d already eaten and was freshly gagged. Alto hadn’t heard more than a few sounds from her; they’d taken care to keep her silent.

  "He means after," Krey explained to his brother. He turned back to Alto and shrugged. "We’re paid to bring you, not to know what happens after that. Does it change things, though? Will you start fighting us now if you suspect this isn’t in your best interests? Even knowing this young lady will face a very unpleasant fate?"

  Alto looked over at Patrina and saw her staring back at him. He’d caught her gaze many times over the past few days but he’d always looked away. Exhaustion had been part of the reason, but so had confusion. Now he was being asked again. The look in Patrina’s eyes was clear to him, all of a sudden. She was worried and sad and furious and she did it all at once, in a manner that only someone as mercurial as Patrina could manage.

  "I’ll do what I must," Alto said, "if you’ll let her go when we get there."

  A tear fell from Patrina’s eyes and rolled down her cheek.

  "I don’t normally do this, but there’s no money in keeping her," Krey said after a moment of thought. He nodded. "Once we’re at the mines, we’ll cut her loose. You have my word on it."

  "Is your word any good?"

  Rynn started towards Alto but Krey held up his hand to stop him. He chuckled. "That’s a fair question. You’re blunt and simple, boy. I like that. You’ll have to wait and see if my word’s any good."

  "It better be," Alto stated. "Or I’ll kill you both."

  Krey stared at him for a long moment before he chuckled. "How I miss the fire of youth. Now eat and rest; you’ve another long day ahead of you tomorrow."

  Alto considered the wizard’s words before he nodded and picked up the cold sausage. The wizard was right; he did need to eat. He needed to keep his strength for what lay ahead, whether that meant another day of jogging or finding a means of securing escape for himself and Trina.

  Chapter 15

  Alto was lost. The snow fell through the night and most of the next day. It wasn’t until he was ready to collapse in one of the waist-high drifts that the
storm ended and the setting sun broke through the clouds.

  "I can’t feel my toes," Rynn muttered.

  Alto lacked the strength to lift his head up. He fantasized about taking his own boots off and jamming his frozen feet into the man’s face. The thought of his toes being brittle from the cold and snapping off made him giggle. It came out as a strangled chortle too soft for the others to hear.

  "We’re close," Krey said. "Another half an hour and we’ll be at the east entrance. Alto, I’m impressed. I’ve doubted the tales told of you and your friends but now I think they’re true."

  Alto looked up this time. He nodded, not bothering to hide how his teeth chattered and his arms and shoulders where shaking from the cold. Krey and Rynn had heavy cloaks to wear. They’d even wrapped a blanket around Patrina from where she sat behind Rynn on his horse.

  Alto was distracted by someone stepping out from behind a snow-covered pine tree. He turned his head, forgetting the cold for a moment as he saw others emerging from where they’d been hunkered down behind trees and rocks. They were surrounded by the fur-wearing snow people. "Ho there, you’re entering the land of the Snowbear Clan!"

  Krey swiveled on his horse to face the speaker. The savage-looking warrior wore a bear pelt with the head of the bear resting on his chest. "Your people have an agreement with us," Krey snapped.

  "You’re with the fools in the mountains?" the barbarian growled.

  "You’ve been paid to let us through without hassle," the wizard said. "That’s all that matters."

  "I’ve seen no gold."

  Krey frowned. "This is extortion!"

  The barbarian rested his hand on the hilt of his sword at his side. He turned and stared off into the east where the storm had blown. "All that snow makes it hard to get through the passes. A man could wander off and be lost in the wilds. Could be lost till the snow melts. Maybe forever."

  Krey swore and reached down to a pouch on his belt. He yanked on it twice to break the thong and then threw it at the savage. "Now let us pass," he snapped.