Search for Audric

by Richard S. Tuttle

  "What did you make of Prince Zinan as we left the palace?" asked Prince Antion. "He stared right into my eyes as if trying to see inside the helm."

  "He stared at me too," interjected one of the Arin soldiers.

  "And me," added another.

  All of the Arin soldiers reported the same thing, but none of the soldiers from the other countries had felt the gaze of the Borundan prince.

  "He was memorizing faces," frowned King Rihad. "His curiosity is not yet satisfied."

  "Which means that we will see him again before we reach Anatar," added King Hector. "If that were not the case, memorizing faces in this party would be of no use."

  "Let's get back on the road," King Caedmon said impatiently. "I do not wish to spend one more minute than necessary in this country."

  The group mounted and rode northward along the Tarent-Koar Road. King Caedmon demanded a swift pace, and they rode until the sun dipped below the horizon.

  "How far to the next inn?" asked King Hector as he turned to watch the brilliant sunset.

  "Over two hours ride," answered King Rihad.

  "We will not ride the horses that far today," decided King Caedmon as he waved one of his men forward. "I want a campsite about an hour's ride north of here," he instructed the soldier. "I want a defensible position with fresh water. See what you can find and scout out the area before we arrive. I do not want any surprises tonight."

  The soldier nodded and raced forward. Within minutes he was gone from sight.

  "Only one man?" questioned King Rihad.

  "The Borundans are not after just anyone," replied King Caedmon. "Sandar is a good man, and he can take care of himself. He will be fine."

  "There are still bandits to worry about," frowned King Hector.

  "I know," King Caedmon nodded thoughtfully, "as does Sandar. He will be fine."

  The group fell silent again and rode into the ever-deepening darkness. When the hour had passed, they came upon Sandar standing alongside the road. The Arin soldier pointed towards the sea, and the group turned down a narrow path to a clearing not far off the road. The clearing was actually the top of a promontory, which left an approach from only one side. King Caedmon nodded in approval as he dismounted and led his horse to a small stream that ran alongside the trail. A simple meal was prepared and sentries were posted as everyone bedded down for the night.

  Hours later Prince Antion awoke to the distant sound of horses. He found King Rihad and Prince Umal already awake and well positioned for a clear view of the road. Antion rose and moved silently to his friend's side. Everyone waited silently with their hands close to the hilts of their swords. A few moments later a large group of riders thundered northward on the road. No one spoke until the sounds of the horses had faded into the distance.

  "Could you see who they were?" asked King Rihad.

  "Too dark," answered Prince Umal, "but they were not trained in Odessia. They must be in a hurry to be racing along the road this late at night."

  The group went back to sleep and left the night to the sentries. Just before the sun broke the horizon, King Caedmon woke everyone up. The camp was abandoned after a hasty meal, and the party continued northward. The following night was also spent at a campsite instead of an inn, and on the third night they reached the Borundan city of Koar. At Koar they stabled the horses and slept in the comfort of an inn. After a hearty morning meal, everyone gathered at the stables to continue their journeys.

  "A four day journey in three days," smiled King Rihad as the Odessians prepared to depart. "Let the horses get some rest on the journey to Anatar."

  "Once we cross the border into Capri," nodded King Caedmon. "Thank you, old friend. May we ride together in the future."

  "I look forward to that, King of Arin," smiled the Odessian king. "You and yours are always welcome in the land of the horses, and that includes your Salacian friends."

  King Rihad turned and winked at King Hector and stretched his arms out to embrace him. The Odessians mounted up and headed out of the city's northern gate. The Arinites and Salacians rode out the western gate onto the Koar-Anatar Road. Another hard day of riding moved the group across the Borunda-Capri border.

  Capri was a minor kingdom in the Land of the Nine Kingdoms. It had no real army to speak of, and many thought its king was deranged, but Arin had found Capri to be a friendly neighbor. Capri had no major cities, but it was wedged between the Borundan city of Koar and the Arin capital of Anatar, and it thrived on trading with both. Most of the populace was involved in trading in one fashion or another and most of the traveling merchants in the world were based in Capri. The one problem that Capri did have was that it was a haven for bandits. The bandits, however, were usually nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Small groups of ruffians would frequently harass single riders, and once in a while a small group might actually pillage a traveling merchant, armed escorts were always left alone. There was little profit in attacking soldiers.

  Once across the border of Capri, King Caedmon slowed the pace and sent a rider ahead to find a suitable campsite. The usual spot for resting for the night was an inn just on the Borundan side of the border, but the Arin king refused to stop there. He was anxious to put Borunda behind him. A suitable campsite was found on the banks of a babbling brook, and the Arinites and Salacians ate a light meal before retiring for the night.

  .

  It was well after the middle of the night when one of the sentries heard a noise from the road. He immediately alerted the other sentry and together they listened intently. The moon was full and shone brightly on the clearing. When the sentry heard the sounds of men moving into the forest, he tossed a pebble onto the chest of King Caedmon. The king woke immediately and reached for his sword. With gentle touches of the sword, Caedmon woke up everyone within reach. Those awakened woke the others. Within minutes, everyone was awake and armed. The escorts remained crouched, swords or bows in hand and ears alert, as they all listened to the sounds around them. They knew that a large force was slowly surrounding them.

  The attack was clumsy when it came. One of the attackers tripped and splashed into the brook; another tripped and cried out as he fell into brambles. The Arin and Salacian archers rose and fired off a volley in all directions. Cries of surprise filled the air, quickly followed by screams of anguish.

  Seconds later the attackers charged the clearing with shouts of murder. On all sides they were met by a wall of steel as the Arin and Salacian swordsmen formed a ring around the clearing. The attackers tried to overwhelm the campsite with their superior numbers, but they had lost the element of surprise, and they were at a tactical disadvantage. The Arin and Salacian swordsmen never left the clearing. They allowed the attackers to retreat if they desired, but they never got lured into the chase. Meanwhile the archers were picking off anything that moved outside the clearing. The battle lasted only a few minutes, but before it ended, Prince Antion fell to the ground with his hands to his head.

  "Hold your positions," ordered King Caedmon as he rushed to his son's side. "Do not give chase. Let them go."

  The Arin king knelt next to Antion and gently moved his son's hands to look at the wound to his head.

  "I am fine, Father," gasped Antion. "It was the headache again. He is out there."

  "Who is out there?" asked King Caedmon.

  "Prince Zinan," answered the prince. "He was not one of the attackers, but I saw him farther back in the woods."

  "Did he see you?" asked the Arin king.

  "Yes," nodded Antion. "I am sure of it."

  "That is an act of war," scowled King Hector. "How dare they?"

  "Is it?" frowned King Caedmon as he helped Antion to his feet. "On what basis would we declare war? Go out and search the bodies of the dead attackers. I guarantee that you will not find one piece of evidence to show that they were Borundans. In fact, they may very well have not been Borundans at all. Prince Zinan could have bought the services of some of the local bandits."

  "The
y sure did not fight like trained soldiers," Antion remarked. "Their attack was clumsy."

  "There is still the fact that the attack was led by Prince Zinan," insisted King Hector.

  "A minor prince of Borunda," shrugged King Caedmon. "He is neither king, nor general, nor king's advisor. He is not a member of their army. They can claim that he went mad like Lavitor did."

  "How can you stand up for the Borundans?" complained Prince Derri. "It is obvious that this was their attack on us. Why are you making excuses for them?"

  "You and I, and all of us here, know the truth of what happened tonight," Prince Derri," King Caedmon said calmly, "but I cannot break a peace that has reigned in the Land of the Nine Kingdoms for many generations on the scant evidence that we have."

  "He is right," interjected King Hector. "Arin would be asking each of the nine kingdoms to choose sides in a war that would tear our world apart. King Caedmon cannot do that just because we know what happened here. He must have proof to take to the other kingdoms, and we don't have it."

  Chapter 7

  Understanding the Talent

  King Caedmon doubled the sentries for the campsite, and the others tried to get some sleep. There was no return of the attackers, and when dawn arrived an assessment was made of the battlefield.

  "We killed thirty-five of the attackers," reported Sandar. "They certainly were not trained soldiers. Quite a few of them were malnourished, and their weapons were rusty."

  "They were pawns," King Hector shook his head. "Their lives were thrown away for the sole purpose of identifying Prince Antion."

  "And they succeeded," nodded King Caedmon. "Let's get on the road to Anatar. I want to put this place behind us."

  The group cleaned up the campsite and left the bodies to rot. They mounted up and rode westward along the Koar-Anatar Road, which paralleled the coast of Capri.

  "What does all this mean, Father," asked Prince Antion. "Why are they so interested in me? I have done nothing to offend the Borundans."

  "I do not know the answer, Son," the king shook his head, "but I will search for answers when we reach home."

  "Do you think they will attack again?" asked King Hector.

  "No," the Arin king replied. "They have what they were after. I think we are safe for the rest of the journey, but it is the future that concerns me more. If they were willing to attack us merely to learn Antion's identity, they will surely go to greater extremes to make use of that information, but they are not prepared to do so right now."

  "How can you be sure?" asked the Salacian king.

  "They do not have the men available," answered King Caedmon. "If they did, they would have used them last night instead of the rabble they sent against us. We will be safe from them as long as we don't dally, and I do not intend to waste time and wait for them."

  Once again King Caedmon pushed hard to cut a day off the journey home. There were no further attacks, and the rest of the trip was uneventful. Upon arriving in Anatar the Salacians spent the first night with the royal family of Arin. The following morning, King Hector and the Salacians departed for the journey to their home city of Kyland. Once the Salacians were out of the city and onto the Anatar-Kyland Road, King Caedmon summoned his advisors and the Lady Nola, a well-respected wisper. He explained what had transpired in Borunda and on the road home.

  The first of the advisors to speak was General Fergus. He was an older man with white hair, but his body still held the firmness of youth. He had been a general in the Arin army long before Caedmon became king, and King Caedmon valued his advice greatly.

  "There are several things about your trip that greatly disturb me," stated the general. "The first is the defensive measure displayed at the palace in Tarent. Seeing as the Borundans already held the assassin in custody, the troops were truly not in place for defense. They had no fear of an attack, so that leads me to believe that they were there for show."

  "I believe that to be the case," nodded the king.

  "So why show them?" the general asked rhetorically. "I can think of only two possible reasons. They were either a warning to the arriving dignitaries that future visits to Tarent could not be taken for granted, or they were in place to gauge the reactions of the arriving dignitaries. The first reason shows a complete lack of strategy, for if one was going to potentially restrict access, why advertise it? Why give your supposed enemies advance notice when you could easily use the forces to slay them?"

  "Which indicates that they were trying to gauge our reactions," nodded King Caedmon.

  "Exactly," nodded the general, "and that is not a bad ploy. You told me how you and King Hector reacted. Tell me what precautions the other foreigners took."

  "None," answered the Arin king. "Only Salacia and Arin reacted as if anything was out of the ordinary. Many of the others spoke of the Borundan soldiers, but they did nothing about them."

  "That tells the Borundans who their potential enemies are," concluded the general. "If the Borundans are planning any aggressive moves, they now know that only the Arinites and Salacians will be wary enough not to be caught by surprise."

  The king's advisor, Evan, rose to speak. He was a heavyset man with a neatly trimmed black beard, and he spent as much time in the library as he did in his office. He had an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and he loved to share it with others.

  "If General Fergus is correct in his analysis," Evan began, "there is trouble brewing in Borunda. If one adds the testing of foreign dignitaries to the knowledge that the crown has recently been transferred, it indicates to me that someone has ambitions that are not contained within their borders. Certainly King Eugeon would never have permitted such a thing, but the new ruler now has the authority to do things differently. The real question in my mind is who controls the throne in Borunda. Is it Prince Garrick or the regent Naveena?"

  "A valid question," nodded the king. "We know that one of them is using Prince Zinan for their dirty work, but we are not sure which one."

  "It could be both of them," interjected another advisor. "They could be working in concert."

  "We can deal with that question later," suggested the king. "What of the attack on us, General?"

  "A dastardly deed," General Fergus scowled, "and the work of an amateur. Prince Zinan should never have let himself be seen, and he should have taken the time to get some decent fighters. The fact that it was not perpetrated by Borundan soldiers dressed as bandits tells me that whoever is stirring the pot in Tarent has not yet taken complete control of the army. I see this as a plus in our favor."

  "Why? asked the king.

  "Obviously," replied the general, "we need to begin preparing for an invasion. If Borunda has not yet prepared their army, that puts us on a fair footing with them."

  "I am not anxious to increase the tension in the Land of the Nine Kingdoms," sighed the king. "If we immediately begin to boost our army, we could actually be providing the provocation the Borundans are looking for."

  "I agree," nodded Evan. "The whole purpose of the defensive posture of Tarent might have been precisely to get others to build their armies. That in turn could justify the Borundans need to increase their own. Borunda is a more populous country than Arin, and they will have less difficulty increasing the size of their army. Our goal should be to stop them from increasing their army, not increasing ours."

  "I have a plan that will solve that problem," grinned the general. "It is one of those things that an old mind dwells upon in idle moments. I have worked on this one for years."

  "Pray tell," grinned King Caedmon. "I am always wondering what goes on in that old white head of yours."

  "We currently use a competitive system for entry into our army," General Fergus began, obviously enjoying the chance to explain his plan. "We hold contests to choose the best candidates to fill vacancies and then we train them for a period of months. Once they finish training, we outfit them with nice, new shiny weapons and armor, and they serve their country for a minimum of four years. In fact,
most of those who are selected never leave the army until they are too old to hold a sword or a bow. Some of them, like me, stay even longer."

  Laughter roared around the table, and the general smiled in appreciation. He was truly enjoying himself.

  "What would we do if our entire army up and quit on the same day?" the general asked rhetorically. "We would immediately strip them of their weapons and replace them with new volunteers. What I am suggesting is that we change that policy. Currently if a soldier has served his four years and decides to leave, he has the right to retain his weapons and armor as long as he does not display the insignia of the Arin army."

  "You would let them all keep their weapons?" questioned Evan. "I do not think we should be encouraging soldiers to abandon the army before their commitment is over. In fact we arrest such people now. I do not understand where you are going with this."

  "My proposal," the general continued, "is to train our entire populace and arm them, but we will do so in such a way as to never increase the size of our army. Every six months we will dismiss the entire army, officers excepted of course. They will keep their weapons and armor and be ready to rejoin when the king calls for their service."

  "Brilliant," the king nodded in appreciation, "but can we be sure that they will respond when they are called to?"

  "The contracts will be rewritten," explained the general. "I am sure the good king's advisor can help me with that. Each soldier will still be required to serve four years minimum, but it will not be consecutive months."

  "And the longer we can delay the buildup of the Borundans," smiled the king, "the larger our army will be. I like the idea, and I am ready to authorize it."

  "The weapons alone will require a great deal of money," warned Evan. "Perhaps we should make sure of Borunda's intentions first."