The Noble Prisoner (Empire of the North Book 2)

by Brendan DuBois

  Armand knew he shouldn’t dawdle, but the pieces of metal fascinated him, so he dismounted and walked along. On one scorched piece of hull, a faded white star was visible, and in another piece, a distance away, he saw a splash of red paint that looked like a maple leaf. There was lettering legible on some bits of equipment –-- an older and archaic form of Franglish Armand couldn’t puzzle out --- and when he found some pieces of bone in a shot-up metal, he had seen enough.

  He got back on Jasper and they continued riding, until they came to the border.

  Centuries had passed, of course, but it was still a scar across the land, stretching from one horizon to the next. It was a deep earthen moat, with strands of rusted barbed wire rattling in the prairie wind, and fragments of fence posts leaning back and forth. Armand scratched the back of Jasper’s neck. “One of the legends of our empire, old boy. During the War of the World, when the empire over there collapsed. Their cities burned, their rivers and lakes turned foul, and the people were on the move north, ready to overwhelm and destroy us. So we fought back. Had to. To protect our lands, our own cities, our own people. We were outnumbered and outgunned… but somehow, we survived. Bridges were blown up, roads were destroyed, and this great moat was excavated. It took many months and years of work, but we survived. A close-run thing, but we survived.”

  Jasper shifted his hooves, and Armand swayed in the saddle. He rubbed the horse’s ears. “There used to be guard towers on the border but now there’s just forts, here and there. Ghosts and bones don’t make much of a fighting force. There’s no more empire over there, my friend. Just a bunch of city-states who war on each other, whom we trade with, off and on, and groups of tribes, barbarians and monsters.” Armand leaned over and rubbed Jasper’s neck. “Let’s go see them, shall we?”

  He rode along the moat some until he came to a place where rains had washed out the banks. Like the well-trained cavalry horse he was, Jasper got him down and across the bottom of the moat, and then scampered them over to the other side. Armand hesitated, held the reins in his hands, looked back. His empire, his home, was back there. His past.

  It was cold. Jasper shifted, like he was eager to get moving.

  “Let’s go,” Armand said, and he turned him to the south.

  They rode south for two days, before he found the old castle. On the first day, foul weather came in, high and dark clouds that were bulging with rain and high winds. He was out on open prairie land and there was not much to do except ride it out, with lightning strikes about them, the wind whipping the rain over their heads. Jasper just moved stolidly along, and he wondered if his old friend Henri was in trouble for losing this Imperial mount. Even with the burst of thunder nearby, long rumbling rolls that hammered in his chest, not once did Jasper start or break rhythm. They both got soaked and were lucky enough that towards of the end of the day, there was a knoll of rocks and exposed boulders. He made shelter there, sleeping fitfully after eating another meal, courtesy of the Imperial Army.

  The second day, riding along, was when they found the building. It was built on top of a hill, and the wise choice, he suppose, would to have ignored it, but now Armand was in the badlands, in Amerka once again, he was filled with curiosity. Most of the history books and newsjournal stories ignored the lands to the south –-- except for bits and pieces, here and there, about the ruins and the War of the World –-- and now that he was here, Armand wanted to see what he could.

  Armand approached the hill and found the remains of a road, leading up to the castle. It had been paved at one time and even with the decayed and broken surface, it was firm enough for Jasper to move on, as they pressed forward. Brush and trees grew all about the stone and wood house, which was two stories tall, and had magnificent open windows, looking out to the mountains to the west. As they got closer, he saw the windows had been broken, many decades earlier, and by a nearby pine, Armand dismounted and hobbled his Jasper, who was content to graze on the old home’s front lawn.

  He walked unsteadily to the large front entrance, his hand on his short sword. There were wide stone steps and the entryway was open, with two ornately craved wooden doors, hanging drunkenly from broken hinges. He walked in and stopped, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. Birds whirred overhead, flying out, and Armand was instantly brought back to the hot day at Potomick, visiting the ruins of their grand domed building, walking with his guide Micah Kennedy. But there was no guide today. He walked in on a tile floor, his boots echoing loudly from inside. It smelled of birds and dust and burnt things, and before him was an area with sinks and an old stove. The kitchen --– when new and operable --– would have looked just fine in his old home back in Toronto.

  Off to the right was a hallway, and another open door. Eyes adjusting more to the dim light, he went down the hallway and down a set of steps. An attached carriage house, although there were no carriages inside, just three old vehicles, resting on round metal wheels, their bodies covered with dust and rust and bird droppings. Armand wished he had a pocket electric torch, for he would have loved to have looked more closely at these old vehicles. The old ones used powerful engines that burned a distillate of oil called petrol, which were rarely used in the Empire: the fuel was simply too precious and expensive.

  Armand rubbed at the glass to look inside.

  And jumped back with a shout.

  A skull grinned up at him.

  “Damn your curious soul,” Armand said aloud, stepping back. There were small windows at the top of the carriage house, letting in some light, and he calmed down and looked again through the vehicle’s smeared window.

  There was a jumble of bones in the front seats, the skull of the driver looking up at him, and there were other bones as well, next to the driver. He shifted and looked to the rear. More bones, smaller bones, like those of children.

  Armand closed his eyes. A family, in their vehicle. All dead. How? Trapped? Killed by disease, some sort of plague? Something that could still kill him? It scared him and he started out, but saw something he hadn’t noticed before. A hose running from the rear of the vehicle, where the exhaust was drawn out, and this hose came forward into one of the rear windows, with cloth rags shoved in about the slightly opened window.

  Suicide. They had calmly got into their vehicle, switched on the petrol engine, and let the emissions choke the life out of them.

  Armand shook his head. The War of the World… that must have been some war, when death like this was preferable to anything else.

  Armand didn’t spend too much time in the castle, for over the centuries, it had been thoroughly looted. But what amazed him was how many rooms and baths it had, for only a man and wife, and two children. Most of the rooms were empty and shattered, but a mansion this large wouldn’t have looked out of place back in his Toronto neighborhood. He came back downstairs and went to the large main room, the one with the windows overlooking the mountains to the west. There were piles of rusted electronics in one corner, and Armand kicked it, disturbed some animal nests. It brought back another memory, of seeing young Churchill Grace picking and probing, teasing out precious metals from the old machines.

  Did the ones who had lived here, centuries back, ever imagined their magical machines would go dead on them, and would become nothing more than junk to be salvaged by their descendants just over the border?

  In the large room Armand stepped carefully, seeing places on the stone walls where the owners of this mansion had lovingly hanged paintings or artwork. A stone fireplace was set in the center of the room, and there were bits of bone, burnt wood, and scraps of other debris among the stones. Other travelers had come here, had made a camp, and then moved on. Nomads, perhaps, or Indians.

  He rubbed at his cold hands. Or maybe the barbaric ones, the Ayans.

  There were writings and symbols on a blank concrete wall, the lettering of a Franglish style. Armand suppose he could have spent some time deciphering them, but the place depressed him. A mansion, a safe and happy home for a rich fami
ly at the peak of their empire’s life. Now it was a tomb, a way station. He rubbed his hands again and walked outside, through the ruined main doors. The bright light felt good on his face and --–

  Something was wrong.

  Jasper was no longer grazing. He stared over at Armand, ears flicking back and forth.

  Something had spooked him.

  Armand went over, undid the tether to the pine tree, picked up his binoculars, brought them up to his eyes. There. Below on the flat plain, heading this way.

  Horsemen. About a dozen of them. Armed with spears, bows and carbines.

  Armand held his hands steady, focused in a bit better, saw the dark skin, the black long hair, the few feathers tied in among the hair…

  Indians. Sioux, Cheyenne, or Arapahoe.

  Armand swung up on Jasper, moved him about the other side of the house, and started riding.

  Then he drove his heels into him, and broke Jasper into a gallop. Maybe they’d be friendly, maybe not, but he wasn’t going to find out. It was time to keep moving, to God knows where, but far away from here.

  After another two days of riding, Armand had come up with a plan of action. Find a good-sized town or village, one that had communications with the Empire, and settle in for a bit. Find some sort of employment so he could afford to send out a telegram or even a wireless message, and send it directly to the Lord Chancellor. Even with his sentence to the labor camp, and the additional death sentence of being a camp escapee, he was now heir to his father’s branch of the de la Cloutier family and was now the Hereditary Permanent Deputy Minister of Trade. That offered him possibilities. He was sure the Lord Chancellor, being a man who worked closely with the Emperor and the nobles, would make an arrangement, a deal, for Armand knew from his father’s words that he was a man who desired order above all else.

  Then, once he was in at the Ministry of Trade, he’d start working on something else, slowly and carefully, making sure things would change for the better in his home empire. He thought about the boys from his barracks, coughing and choking and shoveling sands, day after day, some of them for the rest of their lives. He would change that, no matter if it took the rest of his own life.

  But there was another, more immediate, plan once he got back home. Find out how and why he had been turned over to the Ministry of Security, and make sure that person was sent to the oil sands.

  Those were his plans, and they were good plans, save for one thing.

  Others out there had plans as well.

  On a windy, cloudy day, Armand came to a place where there were mounds laid out in straight lines, marking a dead village, and some larger buildings that had collapsed upon themselves. Then, the land cleared away from the buildings and there were rusted bits of fencing. Once Jasper got them through the broken fencing, the land rose up at a slight angle, and then flattened out. Before them was a flat plain, filled with cracked pavement, with shrubs and trees growing through the tumbled cracks. There were shapes at rest among the vegetation.

  As they got closer, he saw hulls of metal, the rust, the white smears of bird droppings and the faded glassware. Armand pulled up Jasper and looked about, at the long rows of shapes before him. He swiveled in the saddle and looked in the distance. The old shapes nestled in neat rows looked to go on for a couple of klicks.

  He scratched between Jasper’s ears. “Aircraft,” he said. “Heavier than air machines that flew everywhere. Some used blades, like propellers on a boat. Others used a complicated air pressure engine called a jet. The Empire has some of these aircraft, but not the jet. Just the propellers. They all belong to the Emperor or the Army. But I read somewhere that the old ones had so many of these aircraft, that even the citizens could fly on them, from city to city as travelers. Amazing, eh?”

  Armand gently nudged Jasper with his boots, and they moved through the long rows. “Then there were the ones their militaries used. Some of them carried rapid firing carbines. Others had bombs. And a special few had the sun bomb. Some special, hunh?”

  They moved along and then left the ghost aircraft behind them as they rode away.

  Then it all went to the shits a matter of minutes.

  They were on another slight hill and Armand got off, stretched his legs, and then took out his field glasses, looking for a plume of smoke, a roadway, something that would mark a town or a village. He moved the glasses about, looking and looking, and there were fields of prairie grass, the distant mountains off to the west, some copses of trees, and a line of riders, coming right at him.

  Riders.

  Armand stopped moving the binoculars, looked at the approaching men.

  His hands were frozen to the field glasses.

  He was no expert on Indian tribes but he knew the four armed men coming towards him weren’t Indians. They were bald, all of them, and had thick beards. Even from where he was, Armand could make out tattoos on their skulls and hands. They had on furred vests, leather chaps, and weapons were slung over their shoulders --- bows or lever-action rifles -– and they were riding at him, hard.

  Armand got back onto Jasper, dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, and started riding hard as well.

  The land now was open prairie and grassland, with rolling slight rises of land, offering Armand no way out, no hiding place. Jasper, bless him, kept up a steady and good gallop, but from his frequent and fearful glances to the rear, Armand could see the four horsemen easily closing the distance.

  Damn. He flashed back to his polo tournaments, riding hard and determined for a chukka --- a period of sixteen minutes --- but the worse thing in losing a match would be to buy the opposing team some iced drinks. He didn’t think the Ayans were up for iced drinks.

  Up on another rise, Armand stopped as they descended a few meters, so he wasn’t silhouetted on the ridgeline, his heart thumping, poor Jasper panting as well. Look, look, and there, off to the right and below. The land descended sharply into a cut in the land, a box canyon. Go there? Or keep on riding? The canyon was obvious but damn, Armand couldn’t hold the pace any more, nor could Jasper. Out here in the open a blind man could easily trail him, and the four men back there definitely weren’t blind. Armand dug in with his heels again and made a straight line to the canyon. Hopefully there’d be hidey-holes or places to dig in, away from the four men on his tail.

  Armand and his mount descended into the canyon.

  It looked like it had made by a severe flood, years and years ago. It descended a score of meters and widened, and Armand was happy to see offshoots of smaller chasms, here and there, with brush and trees. He rode in, looking and looking, and to the left where there was another side canyon, the ground was hard exposed rock. He dismounted, grabbed the reins, and slowly led Jasper in, looking behind, making sure they weren’t leaving a clear trail for his pursuers. The side canyon narrowed quickly, and Armand was able to push through some brush, got Jasper in, and waited, panting, mouth cottony-dry, legs quivering.

  He was trapped.

  But being out on the open prairie, at some point he would be within carbine range, and those four men out there looked like they were experts at what they were doing.

  Rocks falling on rocks. Armand put his hand over Jasper’s nose, softly held his head close, waiting, legs shaking so hard he thought he would fall over.

  Voices.

  Through the branches of the brush Armand saw one, and then two, and then the other two men pass by, their heads scanning back and forth, lever-action carbines or bows in their hands, looking and looking.

  Two stopped at the entrance to his hiding place. One said something guttural to the other, and the second dismounted, dropped the reins, started walking in Armand’s direction. The first rider went deeper into the main canyon.

  As the man approached, Armand’s hands started shaking as well. He was tall, muscled, and in addition to the tattoos on his skull and hands, he had gold rings in both ears. He was wary, coming in closer and closer, and the short sword hanging off his belt felt as dangerous a
s a piece of dried cod.

  What to do?

  Nothing. Out of his hands. Unbidden, prayers start coming to his lips, as the tribesman or nomad came closer. Armand thought he could even smell him, saw the leather chaps, the blue pants, the boots and the furred vest.

  A voice.

  He turned his head.

  Someone was yelling something from deeper into the canyon, and the man yelled back, a type of Franglish patois Armand couldn’t quite make out. The man turned and trotted back to where his horse was standing, head lowered, and the shaking in Armand’s hands started to ease. The Ayan got back on the horse, and rode deeper into the canyon.

  Armand leaned against Jasper. “Maybe,” he whispered. “Just maybe”

  About a half hour later, they came back, moving slowly, relaxed and laughing. All four of them, heading out the same way they came in. None of them looked his way. None of them. Armand waited until they passed, until he couldn’t hear their harsh voices or the sounds of hoof beats. Armand leaned up against some rocks and exposed dirt, and Jasper, bless his cavalry-trained soul, just shifted some, keeping quiet.

  Armand waited and waited, until maybe an hour or so had passed, and then he got up, tossed the reins about a bit of brush. “I’ll be right back. No running away, all right?”

  He slowly walked down the narrow passageway, until he came to the main canyon. Armand peered around the rocks, looked up and down.

  Nothing.

  Nobody.

  Armand waited some more.

  Rubbed his hands. Went back to his horse.

  He pushed through the brush, grabbed the reins, rubbed at the side of his head, let him nuzzle. “Jasper, old boy, I promise you, no matter where I end up, you’re going to be with me forever. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you.”