“I heard they’re taking her east, out of the city. That’s all I know,” the guardsman said.
Alec picked up his mace and grabbed fresh arrows out of the quiver of one of his victims, then translocated himself to the eastside dance hall he had visited the night before; the effort to make the translocation felt sluggish, though it succeeded. On the street outside the hall he ambushed a small patrol, killing all but one, who he knocked to the ground. “Where’s the princess being taken?”
“I don’t know. We aren’t involved in things like that,” the guard protested.
“Take me to headquarters. Take me some place where I can get answers,” Alec ordered him. “Get up, and let’s go.”
He walked behind his prisoner with a dagger against the man’s back, and within ten minutes they reached a large office building that was swarming with Conglomerate soldiers and guards. “You can run away now, but give no warning, or you can die,” Alec told him as they stood in an alley, and watched his guide run away quickly.
He began to walk determinedly towards the building with his Warrior energies at full strength, swords drawn in each hand, drawing attention from the guards at the entrance to the building. “Stop right there,” a voice ordered, but Alec ignored it, and continued to walk. “Stop!” the order came again when he was ten steps from the door, and then an arrow flew down from a window above. Alec deflected the arrow with his sword, sending it into the chest of one of the guards at the door, then he rushed and stabbed the other one and was inside the building.
There were many people in the main hall, most unaware of his arrival. He swapped one sword for the mace, and began swinging it brutally, screaming loudly as he fought his way along the length of the hall and then ran up the stairs. The officers would be up here, he presumed, ignoring the shouts and screams downstairs. He looked down the hall and saw a door with a guard in front. Alec ran down the hall and placed his sword at the guard’s throat. “Open the door and let me in,” Alec ordered.
Alec entered the room, and closed the door behind him. A man in a highly decorated uniform sat at a desk studying a map. “What’s causing all that bloody noise down there?” he asked without looking up.
“I caused the bloody noise,” Alec answered.
The man looked up suddenly. “How did you get in here? Who are you?”
“I am the Crown Protector,” Alec answered, inspired suddenly to revive an old title. “I’m looking for the Princess. I want to know where she is.”
“You can’t be serious!” the officer said. “You won’t get away with this.”
“I’ve gotten this far with ease,” Alec replied. He pulled out a knife, and tossed it at the man, pinning the shoulder of his uniform to his chair.
“Tell me where she is. I know your men captured her last night in the palace. I know they beheaded her companion. I know they’re taking her east. I want you to tell me where she is right now,” Alec said, stepping closer to the officer with each statement. He swung his sword so that it ripped through the material on the chest of the officer’s uniform, then swung it again so that it shaved hair off his scalp.
“Tell me where she is,” Alec said again.
There was a banging sound behind him and the door burst open. Alec turned and threw three knives instantly, killing three men at the door.
He turned back to the officer, and placed his sword at the man’s throat.
“Tell me!” he shouted.
“She’s in a convoy on the road to Raysing,” the man said.
“If she’s not, I’ll be back,” Alec replied. He engaged his Traveler energy and disappeared from the office, leaving the officer in astonishment. He returned to the alley where he had released the first guard, and pondered his next step. He was using many types of energy, and was using them recklessly this morning. He was relentlessly pushing himself too hard, he recognized. When he caught up with Caitlen, he would need to have more energy available to rescue her and spirit her away. He needed to find horses, he concluded.
He went down the alley, looking for stables, and quickly found the military stables associated with the headquarters. Inside he overpowered a groom and tied him up, then saddled two horses, climbed on one, and gathered the lead for the other as he went out the door and into the next street back.
“Which way is the Raysing Road?” he asked three men as he trotted his horse along the street. They pointed behind him. “Go four blocks, then go left for about a mile, and you’ll come to the Raysing Road. It’s wide and busy,” they advised.
Alec turned, and as he did, he heard thunder rumble loudly. He looked up and saw ominous clouds overhead, and heavy rain already falling in the western part of the city. He rolled his eyes in disgust, and urged his horses into a trot.
He made his turn and moved along a placid residential street, with large trees growing between the paving stones and multistory houses on either side. Minutes later the street intersected a highway that Alec assumed was the Raysing Road. He crossed and joined the flow of traffic.
A farmer in an ox cart confirmed that it was the Raysing Road, and a little further along a vendor with a fruit stand confirmed that a convoy of military riders and a pair of covered wagons had passed by two hours earlier. Alec continued to ride, and five minutes later the rains hit. An hour later the rain was still falling, giving him a chill, and he switched horses as he continued a fast pace along the road. Shortly after that two squads of cavalry went racing past Alec, heading in the same direction he was.
They were reinforcements being sent to prevent Alec from taking her back, he suspected. They would need reinforcements, he told himself darkly. He picked up his pace to try to stay close to the cavalry, but in the rain there was little visibility very far ahead, and rather than make himself evident by following them, he let the cavalry fade from sight.
By late afternoon Alec was shivering from the still-falling rain, and decided to use some of his power to warm himself; it was difficult to summon his energy to do so, and he resolved to avoid using any further ingenaire abilities until he caught up with the convoy that was spiriting Caitlen away; he recognized now that he would have to wait until nightfall to rescue her. That would be easier for him in many ways, since he only had to concentrate on one target in the dark, while her protectors would be confused and forced to watch out for each other.
The sunset was dreary as the rainstorm continued to pelt the road and its travelers with large drops of water. They were far out of the city now, riding among farms and forests, and he was shivering again from the cold. As he rode along the other travelers on the highway thinned out, as they reached their destinations or sought shelter for the evening, so that he grew isolated and alone.
An hour after sunset he heard the sounds of the convoy at last. They were stopped in the road, and in the darkness Alec came upon them so quickly that he decided to pass them, riding his horses slowly so that he could observe his target. Several cavalry riders were behind the convoy, consisting primarily of two wagons, with a few more cavalrymen in the lead.
The wagoneer was arguing with a cavalry officer as Alec rode by. The wagoneer wanted to rest his horses for the night, while the cavalry leader insisted they keep going.
“We’ll put her on my horse and I’ll take her then,” Alec heard the cavalry rider say just as he rode beyond range of hearing them amid the background noise of the rain, even with his Warrior abilities now engaged at a low level.
Alec pulled ahead, then pulled his horses into a wood lot and tied them to a tree. He removed all of his weapons but one sword and one knife, and ran backwards to the spot where the convoy still stood.
This situation was providentially playing into Alec’s hands. With his drained and diminished powers this day, Alec was relieved he would only need to overcome a single opponent, instead of the many members of the squad that were surrounding the captive Caitlen.
“I was given the assignment to bring the captive to the next fortified station,” the wagoneer was sa
ying as Alec arrived back at the convoy. “You, Captain Ferguson, were only assigned to accompany me.”
“There is a monster out there, a man, who killed over a dozen men at the eastern headquarters. He single-handedly stormed through the building, and took General Jacue hostage. He called himself the ‘Crown Protector’ and he only wanted one thing,” the cavalry captain said. “He wanted to know where Princess Esmere was. They said he was as frightening as those monsters down south, maybe moreso because he looks like a man.
“He’s coming this way. That’s why you’ve got a whole extra squad with you. If I take her away now, the worst that will happen is that he’ll attack you here in the convoy, and you’ll perhaps defeat him, but certainly slow him down, so that I can carry the Princess away from him,” the cavalry officer said.
“Alright! Go! The responsibility for the girl is all yours, and the blame for her loss is all yours,” the wagoneer cried in defeat. “Go fetch the girl; bring her to the captain,” he turned and told one of his workers.
Caitlen had lain chained in the bottom of a wagon, and had heard the whole story. The evening and the day had been a brutal nightmare, but with the story of an unstoppable fighter who called himself the Crown Protector, her spirits had revived. She knew that it had to be Alec, coming again to rescue her; she recollected him using that same title once in describing one of the strange chapters of his earlier life. She wondered if she had failed to notice him talking inside her head, encouraging or informing her of his progress.
She had been extraordinarily despondent all day, grief-stricken and horrified to the point of being almost catatonic. She had seen Alec carousing during the Spring Festival, enjoying intimate friendship with an entire squad of women, while he had ignored her, on top of having spurned her so many times before. It had spurred her to want to use Cressler to make Alec jealous – familiar and comfortable Cressler a noble family scion whom she had known at court most of her life.
Then Alec had come spying on her at the palace, and afterwards, though she and Cressler had dallied, she was mostly angry at Alec, for finding her, or maybe for not taking her away. That anger had been nothing compared to the horror shortly thereafter when Conglomerate guards had burst in on Cressler and she, interrupted their cuddling, and then brutally beheaded the man, right before her eyes. She had been dragged out by the common guards while still half undressed, and carried through the streets like a trophy. She had been tossed into the back of the wagon that had immediately set off to carry her away from the possibility of rescue.
The back of the wagon had been a continuation of the nightmare. The night was chilly, and she was chained down and constantly ogled by guards, who made lewd comments and filthy predictions about her fate. All day she had been rattled and bruised in the wagon, and only now for the first time in many, many hours, did she begin to feel the spark of life ready to animate her spirit.
She was hefted casually out of the wagon, and given a blanket as a wrap as she allowed herself to be draped on the back of the cavalryman’s saddle. Then, without another word, they were off, riding away from the convoy, rain falling on them and mud splashing up around them from the hooves of the horse. Caitlen, her hands still bound together, felt around on the saddle, until she found a knife, inside a sheath that was incorporated into the saddle. She had the weapon she needed. With or without Alec, she would find a way to escape her imprisonment. Her hands fumbled with the knife as the horse rose and fell roughly, but she managed to retain her hold on it. She raised it high above her head, then plunged it downward towards the back of Captain Ferguson’s neck.
That was the moment when Alec had risen up to slice his own knife across the throat of the cavalry officer. Even as he finished delivering his attack on the man, Caitlen’s blade had fallen upon him, driven as deeply as she could manage, so that it entered his back, glanced off his shoulder blade, and carried further into his flesh. He gave a scream of pain, then passed out as they tumbled off the horse and into the swampy dark road.
Caitlen screamed. In the darkness she couldn’t tell what had happened. She felt the unexpected impact of something striking her at the moment she had struck her blow, and then she had been hurdled to the ground, and fortunately had landed on the top of the pile of bodies. She lay atop the bodies, only partially aware of what had happened, in stunned confusion for several seconds.
At length she sat up; in the rainy dark she could see very little. The horse had disappeared in the gloom, and the knife had been knocked loose, so she struggled to flip over the body she was on so that she could use its knife to set herself free. And then she discovered that there was more than one body beneath her, that one of the bodies was Alec, and that he was unconscious and unresponsive.
She moaned in a mix of dismay that covered every element of pain and fear and regret. Her hands probed until she found a knife, and she cut the ropes off her wrists, then tried to chafe Alec to consciousness as she sat in the cold rain in the middle of the road. At length she gave up her unsuccessful effort, and decided to get off the road instead. She dragged the dead officer into a copse of nearby trees, and discovered two horses standing with their heads down in the rain. She also perceived a structure of some type beyond the trees. Caitlen went back out into the road and grabbed Alec, then began to lug his body across the ground and back to the building she had seen, which turned out to be an abandoned, decaying barn. She left Alec in a dry corner of the barn, then retrieved the horses and brought them in as well.
Caitlen took Alec into the driest corner of the structure, then held his hand, and spoke to him, pleading with him to awaken. She grew agitated by his unresponsiveness, and at last tried to project her words into his mind, as they had done in the past.
Alec, can you hear me? she asked him.
Imelda? came back a disoriented reply.
No, it is me, Caitlen, she told him.
There was no further response from Alec’s mental voice for several seconds, then another voice, female, but very strong and calm, though seemingly from a great distance, spoke. Keep him warm; he needs your warmth.
How? Who are you? Caitlen asked, but there was no answer.
Caitlen considered the situation. She undressed Alec from the sopping wet clothes he wore, discovering for the first time the stab wound she had inflicted and noting how chilled his body felt, then she went to the horses and rummaged through their saddlebags, where she found a pair of dry blankets and a stale loaf of travel bread. She took the blankets back to Alec, and moved him on top of one, then lay the other over him.
What else can I do to warm you up? She asked as she held his hand again.
Put your body next to mine, skin-to-skin, he groggily responded.
With a sigh she stood up and removed her own scant clothing, then got under the blanket, pressing her body against his entire length. She could feel his flesh greedily absorbing the heat from hers. He gave a slight moan in his throat, rolled towards her, and encircled her in his arms, then went still again.
She was going to be able to return to the safety of west Vincennes, thanks to Alec and his extraordinary abilities, she thought, and she gave thanks for the rescue he had carried out. And she would undoubtedly be severely criticized by him for not having bodyguards with her when she was captured.
No bodyguards would have done any good against the overwhelming number of Conglomerate soldiers who captured her anyway, soldiers who had violated a ceasefire. And in her mind, she wouldn’t have been in the palace with Cressler if Alec would have been her companion during the Spring Festival, or even if he simply hadn’t been cavorting so publicly with his harem of women. He had rejected her, and then flung it in her face, something that was evident for the whole city to see, and it had spurred her foolish reaction.
Yet here he was, the one who had come to rescue her when no one else could have, the one who had wreaked havoc on the Conglomerate forces, the one who had accidently taken her own knife stroke. He showed such dedication to her at times,
he seemed to burn himself out at times for her, he showed tenderness and compassion to her at times, yet still he avoided professing whatever complex feelings he held. He had come back to Vincennes, and that seemed like such a hopeful sign. He had gone in search of a wife, and then returned to her.
She didn’t know what he had discovered, she realized. Other than the two times he had rescued her from the palace, she hadn’t seen him since his return. Disturbed by her own failure to learn about his quest, she stewed as she lay, until she fell into an uneasy sleep.
She awoke with a slight hint of dawn on the horizon, the skies cleared and the rain gone. Alec’s arms were around her, wrapping her intimately against him. His body felt warm against hers, which brought her relief. She wondered about the voice she had heard last night, the one that had told her to warm him; it was possible for someone other than Alec to project thoughts, but she had no idea who it was.
Alec stirred, and she gently squirmed out of his grasp, then went and put on the clothes she had. When she turned around, his eyes were open, and he was watching her. She jumped, startled to have been observed.
“You’re a regular voyeur, aren’t you?” she said with more asperity than she felt. As soon as she said it, she regretted the cutting comment.
“What happened last night? Where are we?” Alec seemed to ignore her verbal shot.
“You came to rescue me last night, right when I was trying to stab the Conglomerate officer who had me. My knife,” she hesitated, “stabbed you instead.”
“Where are we now?” Alec asked quietly.
“I brought you into this old barn past the woods,” she replied.
“You brought my horses in? Good,” Alec commented. “And you warmed me by sleeping with me? Good decision,” he told her.
“You and the other voice said to,” Caitlen explained. “Who was she? Who was the other woman’s voice that I heard in my mind?”
Alec paused. “She’s someone I met,” he said at last.
Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series Page 32