“Do you mind if I take a look at your load?” the man asked as he began to walk around to the back of the wagon.
“Yes, I mind,” Alec replied in a harsh tone. He knew they would never leave the stockade if their load of gold was discovered. “What’s ours is ours,” he added as he walked around to intercept the officer, and slapped his hand down on the cover.
The officer motioned, and the three remaining guards came over to join them. Alec saw Bethany and Rahm appear through the gate, Rahm with a large load, Bethany with a lighter one. “Throw the goods up on top of the wagon and let’s get going,” he called to them.
The guards had arrived, and raised their swords as the officer began to reach for the cover again. Alec still held the long-shafted spear that had stabbed a corpse in the night, and with lightening fast movements he brought the shaft down on the officer’s wrist, hard enough to snap it, then twirled the blade end and knocked two swords out of hands of the owners, ending with the point of his spear pressed against the throat of the third.
“We’re going to leave now,” Alec said, astonished again by the invincible ability that seemed to seize him in times of battle. “You get up on the wagon seat with my sister, as a vouchsafe for our release,” he told the officer. “We’ll put you down, free, when I’m sure we’re safe.” He carefully picked up the two dropped blades. “We’ll keep these for our own use,” he told the guards as he backed away to the front of the wagon.
“Why’s he up here?” Bethany asked about the wounded officer as Alec arrived. She saw him toss the two swords up onto the floor boards of the wagon, still holding the spear in a threatening posture.
“He’s going to make sure we can leave safely,” Alec told her.
“I’d like to come with you,” Rahm said suddenly, and Alec realized the boy was already climbing onto the now crowded drivers’ bench. Alec looked at the boy, and impulsively decided he could trust him.
“It could be a long trip,” Alec warned him. I don’t know when you’ll be able to come back home.”
“I’m ready to leave,” Rahm assured him. “I want to see more of,” there was just the hint of a pause, “the world.”
Alec chucked the reins, and the wagon gave a slight jerk as the horses began to pull. The four passengers sat tensely, Alec with his head turned to watch the guards who had gathered at the gate to silently watch the departure. They had arrived from the right side of the open field, and Alec directed the horses to the leftward road. Within minutes they entered the forest, and Alec looked around in all directions, searching for any sign of the walking dead, or anideads as the soldiers had called them.
“You’re free to go home now, and we’ll be on our way,” Alec told the officer as he rose out of the way to let the man leave the bench. The officer didn’t look at Alec, but stepped down to the side board and jumped off. A few seconds later, Alec resumed his seat, taking the middle spot between the other two, and spoke to Rahm. “You can leave now too, if you want to go home.”
Rahm looked down at his feet as he spoke. “I’d like to go with you. I’ve never been away from Toulouse all my life, and you seem like good folks to travel with.”
“As long as you treat Bethany right, you can ride with us. I appreciate your willingness to jump down to help me last night. It may mean you’re stupid, but at least you’re brave stupid,” Alec told him, and grinned as Rahm looked up at him in surprise, then grinned back.
“So tell us where we’re going,” Alec prompted Rahm. “Where can we plan to spend the night?”
There was a pause as Rahm interpreted Alec’s thick accent. “Why do you speak so differently from your sister?” he asked.
“Never you mind that. Just tell us where we’re going,” Alec spoke sharply to cut off any questioning that would pierce the flimsy story he had with Bethany.
“Well,” the chastised Rahm replied, having understood Alec clearly, “tonight we’ll be in Flora, another stockade like Toulouse, and from there you can go inland towards Vincennes in a few days, or go back to the coast towards Witten.”
For the first time, Alec saw fully the dilemma he faced in making a decision. He knew nothing about either city. He had no reason to prefer any destination. He had no plans to try to return the gold to Krimshelm, now that it would mean returning through the hostile Toulouse stockade and the Haunted Forest. He felt an obligation to take care of Bethany, though he knew nothing about her, nor did he know what would be her best future course.
Rahm correctly interpreted Alec’s silence for indecision. “I’d say go to Vincennes. You can go to a dozen other cities from there if you don’t like it, though it’s said to be such a great city I’m sure everyone can find something to like there.”
“I’m so sleepy,” Bethany murmured, and she laid her head against Alec’s arm, eyes closed. Alec shared her sleepiness, feeling exhausted as well from the long sleepless night traveling through the forest. The three riders lapsed into silence for the rest of the morning.
By mid-morning they reached a ford across a small stream in a broad valley that was filled with light-skinned aspens, creating a bright, cheery forest. Alec pulled the wagon off the road and unhitched the horses. He told Bethany and Rahm to give them all feedbags while he took them down one at a time to the water’s edge for a drink.
As he returned with the last horse, Bethany and Rahm had spread out a selection of food and were sitting on the ground eating and chatting. “They say the palace grounds at Vincennes alone are larger than most cities. You can spend a whole day walking from one end of the city to the other and not reach the end,” Rahm was telling the girl. His enthusiasm shone through in his words, and Alec smiled at his youthful zeal. How old am I? Alec wondered as he sat down to nibble on the food and listen to the young couple discuss the wonders of a great city.
“Have you ever been to Vincennes?” Bethany asked him.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember a lot of things from before I sailed on the Ingrid,” he answered.
“I didn’t know you were a sailor,” Rahm commented.
“Not a good one. I don’t expect to go back to being one,” Alec told him, then stood up. “We’ve given the horses a nice break, but I don’t want to be in the woods after dark, so let’s get moving.”
They rode along, Bethany, refreshed from her nap, chatted with Rahm, speaking across Alec as she told about life in Krimshelm. Alec listened as he drove the horses, the road at this point so wide and easy there was little effort needed to drive the team, and gradually his eyes closed, his head nodded, and he fell asleep, suffering from the exhaustion of the long journey and battles of the night before. He fell into a troubled dream, full of dark forests and the fear of pursuit, a dream that became an endless battle with the walking dead he had fought last night, and then became an even more terrifying battle with a terrifying monster, one with whom he was locked in a mortal struggle, neither combatant able to gain any edge over the other. Alec felt his arms straining to push against the demon, he suddenly knew what it was, while he felt its claws inflicting agonizing pain as they pierced his back. Worse that the physical pain was the moral pain, the presence of the hatred and loathing and contempt and desire to bring harm and death to all of creation; he felt tainted, contaminated by the monstrous immorality.
He woke with a start in the middle of the unending nightmare, finding Bethany staring at him with concern, her hand on his cheek. “You screamed in your sleep. It must have been a terrible nightmare.”
“I was fighting a demon,” Alec gasped, the reality of the dream still foremost in his conscious. “It was full of hate and pain, and I could feel it twisting and wrenching my soul, and there was no escape.” He fell silent, looking at the dappled sunlight that fell amongst the white trunks of the trees in the bright forest, and gradually the horror began to slightly recede.
Bethany continued to look at him from time to time with concern, and at last she spoke to try to change the atmosphere. “Where did you get those scars?�
�� she asked, her finger tracing a line across the bridge of his nose.
“It was a fencing wound from Imelda,” he said automatically.
“Are you a good swordsman?” Rahm asked, while at the same time Bethany asked, “Who is Imelda?”
“I don’t remember who she is, but I know she was good,” Alec answered, knowing that his faulty memory was hiding a significant, treasured story. “Yes, I think I am a good swordsman,” he answered the other question, suddenly convinced of his skills.
“I never heard of a girl who was a good swordsman,” Bethany said.
“I’ve heard that up in the mountains, at Black Crag, the women and the men both join the army,” Rahm replied.
“How far is Black Crag from Vincennes?” Alec asked.
“Many days, I think, but I don’t know for sure,” Rahm replied doubtfully.
They continued on their journey, and by mid-afternoon Rahm’s turn to feel the exhaustion of the late night battle came, and he fell asleep as well, finally leaving Alec free to speak to Bethany.
“Your father made me promise to watch out for you,” he began in a quiet whisper. “And he told me not to turn you over to your mother.”
He watched her face darken at the mention of her mother, and she sat silently.
“What do you want me to do with you?” he asked after her lack of response.
“You can let me off anywhere you want. I won’t be a burden on you,” she told him.
“You’re not a burden. You’re a girl who I want to look after. But I don’t know you at all, so I don’t know what is best for you. Why don’t you want to go to your mother?” he asked.
“Because her boyfriend will try to use me,” Bethany said quickly. Her face was set with anger. “That’s why I lived with my dad, even though he was in the army.”
“Is there someone else you want to live with? An aunt or a cousin?” Alec probed.
“No, there was no one but father,” she said. “What about that place Rahm talked about, Black Crag? Could we go live there? A place that treats girls fair must be a pretty good place to live.”
“Do you want to join the army? Are you a fighter?” Alec asked.
“I’m not exactly a fighter, but my dad was in the army, and I was around it most of my life. There are good people there,” she replied, beginning to open up to Alec.
“Let’s go to Vincennes, settle down to learn a little more, I’ll give you some training with a sword, and if we think it’s right, we’ll go take a look at Black Crag,” Alec decided, satisfied with the arrangements.
She looked at him quizzically, and he realized she hadn’t understood his accent. He spoke again, slowly, and repeated his plan, then added, “And you can teach me to talk more clearly.”
Chapter 4 – A Place to Practice
That night they arrived at Flora, and took a place at the inn inside the stockade, though not reserving rooms to the disappointment of Bethany and Rahm. “I want to stay with the wagon in the stables tonight,” Alec explained. He gave Bethany some coins to go shopping for blankets and pillows, and he let the youngsters eat their dinner together first in the inn’s dining room, then went to eat his own meal alone.
There were few travelers spending the night, and their party was the only one traveling south away from Krimshelm, while three small groups were on their way north, one from the seaport of Witten, and two from the great city of Vincennes. Alec ate a bowl of stew and a half loaf of bread, relieved to have a warm meal for the first time since he had left the Ingrid.
He took the middle shift of watching for trouble around their wagon that night, though the only trouble he saw was the massive bank of clouds that moved in at the end of his watch to blot the stars from view. When Rahm awoke him the next morning, Alec sent the two youngsters to buy tarpaulins before they left the stockade gate and took the fork in the road to their right, headed towards Vincennes. It was a wet, gloomy ride in the rain for eight continuous hours.
They arrived at the edge of the city three days later just as the sun was setting in the west. Bethany insisted that they stop at a small structure built of stone, where she knelt and bowed her head for several minutes. “I wanted to give thanks at the shrine,” she explained simply as they resumed their trip.
The trio rode through the fringe of the great urban settlement for an hour until they found an inn Alec felt comfortable about staying in. “Tomorrow night,” he promised his charges, “we’ll get rooms tomorrow night, after we have a chance to look around a little,” and they spent another night sleeping atop the wagon.
In the morning Alec let Rahm and Bethany eat breakfast at the inn, before he went to a nearby bakery whose scents evocatively reminded him of some forgotten portion of his life. He bought pastries and ate them voraciously, before asking directions to the merchants’ part of town. He drove the wagon through heavy traffic until they came to stately square near a busy riverfront.
“Rahm, you stay with the wagon while Bethany and I go in the bank for a little bit,” he commanded as they pulled in front of an imposing building, and he took two heavy bags from the back of the wagon inside. He relied on Bethany’s ability to read and write to help with the paperwork, and soon had an imposing account established at the bank, then rode around the square and repeated the process at two other banks.
“Why have three banks? Why not just one?” Rahm asked.
“Different banks have branches in different cities, so we might need to use one or another to travel,” Alec explained. “And sometimes banks fail, and we don’t want to lose all our money with one bank failure.” He did not add that he wanted to avoid calling attention to the establishment of such a large account, in the event that stories of a robbery in Krimshelm were to reach the ears of authorities in Vincennes; Bethany had explained to him that her father had been driving the wagon that carried the payroll for the entire army of Krimshelm, and Alec was sure the authorities would vigorously pursue and punish the folks who had made off with the gold.
They took the wagon to a stable yard nearby, and sold it and the horses, then walked about the nearby neighborhoods until they found an area Alec judged was suitable to stay in, and found rooms to let. By evening time they were settled in a home in Vincennes, an apartment that had five rooms and a kitchen, located above a perfume shop on a secondary road.
The next morning dawned overcast and drizzling, making Alec’s search for an armory uncomfortable. He walked throughout the surrounding district of the city, asking for directions that led him to a large armory used by the local constabulary.
“May anyone practice here?” Alec asked one officer loudly, speaking over the noisy clashing of swords.
“Duke is the manager. You’ll have to ask Duke about that,” the man sitting on a bench responded while never taking his eyes off a hotly fought match in the center of the building, and he motioned towards a dimly lit doorway at the far end of the building.
Alec threaded in and out through the crowds of men, and a very few women to reach the designated door. “I’d like to start practicing here, and I want to teach my sister to use a sword,” Alec spoke to a woman whose back was turned to him. “May I speak to Duke?” he asked.
Her dark, shaggy head didn’t turn as she spoke. “We have a lot of serious fighters in here, and they don’t suffer fools lightly,” the woman said. “There are better places for strangers to join.”
“I’m a serious fighter,” Alec said, instantly challenged by the dismissive tone in the woman’s gravelly voice. “Tell Duke he’ll have people wanting to come just to see me fight.” He suddenly felt convinced that whatever forgotten past he had left behind included significant experience with weapons, and he felt a certainty that left no room for doubt, as a momentary memory of swinging a sword endlessly against a swarm of gray-skinned opponents flashed through his mind.
“Really?” the woman replied with heavy scorn as she turned to look at Alec. “To look at you isn’t that impressive, and you’ve got scars, so you must
not be that good.”
Alec pulled out a gold coin and slapped it down on the desk. “I’ll pay my first month right now, and Duke doesn’t have to accept me as a member if I lose to any opponent of his choice.”
Minutes later Alec was wearing pads and standing on a practice mat, facing a very large man.
“Duke says I can do anything I want with you, and I’ll get half a gold,” the man told Alec. “You must have been a real butthead.”
“I wasn’t at all,” Alec protested, and then suddenly his opponent stabbed straight at him. Alec swerved his hips and twisted to let the blade pass him without contact, and simultaneously brought his own wooden blade down hard on his opponent’s wrist, producing an audible crack that caused heads to turn throughout the gymnasium. The man pulled his hand back and rubbed it vigorously, looking at Alec with a squinting reconsideration.
“That was good,” he praised Alec. “I won’t try the stupid stuff from now on.” And with that he began a traditional attack, combining speed and strength to force Alec to slowly edge backwards on the mat as he defended himself and looked for weaknesses in the big man’s fighting style. Twice he saw a low parry that left the man’s shoulders exposed, and the third time the man began the move Alec struck reflexively, poking his right shoulder hard enough to check the man. He pulled his sword back and swung it downward at his opponent’s retreating blade, knocking it to the floor and stepping on it to end the match.
He looked at his opponent, who appeared to hold no hard feelings, and shook hands with him promptly. The woman from the office was standing nearby, watching intently. “That was a good warm up,” she said. “Robards,” she called loudly. Alec looked at the woman as a man on the far side of the armory began to walk over; her eyes had dark bags beneath them, and her skin pallor showed that she seldom went outdoors. But for all that and the hint of a double chin that was the first sign of a future robust figure, Alec recognized that she was an attractive woman.
Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series Page 4