by Melina Grace
An involuntary groan from Syngar ordered their stop.
“I can keep going,” he protested as Kalen signalled for them to rein the horses in to a walk.
“If I remember correctly, you refused my request for a democracy,” was her only reply.
When the horses had cooled down, they made a cold camp without leaving the trail of beaten down grass. There was no use moving away from the trail, as they would be clearly visible to anyone who ventured nearby anyway. Janen tended the horses, brushing the dry sweat from their coats and giving them a well earned small ration of grain. Kalen tended Syngar. His wound had reopened and was bleeding.
“It’s not as deep as it was. It is mending, though we are making its job difficult.”
After a cold meal, Janen climbed into his roll. The sun had beaten down on them relentlessly during the afternoon; the wind had been hot and dry, sucking the moisture from his skin and giving him a terrible thirst. They had sipped from their flasks only sparingly as there was little water to be found in the Barren Lands. He was thankful for the moonda fruit he had eaten after his smoked meat, it had helped alleviate some of his thirst, though his throat still felt grainy and his lips were cracked and swollen.
And that was only the end of an afternoon. I hope we find them soon; I do not relish the thought of spending too much time out here, thought Janen. The ground was hard and coarse tufts of grass, as tough as nails, pricked him even through the padding of his roll. The confounded wind has turned cold, thought Janen. It was hot all day, and now it’s freezing. Turning his thoughts from his discomfort, he lulled himself to sleep with memories of Caris.
After saddling the horses in the morning, Janen submitted to Kalen’s administrations. His cuts were healing well and he was amazed to discover that his burns were completely better; leaving behind only faded pink marks to show where they had been. Kalen had been applying the creams to him three times a day, but once the pain had faded, he had stopped paying attention. She no longer put the lavender coloured cream on his arms and torso, just his face.
He looked at her; he had failed to notice how well her skin was clearing up, but was grateful to see that it was remarkably unblemished. When she was finished with him, she smeared a liberal amount over her own face and packed her small assortment of supplies away.
“That stuff is amazing!”
“It’s remarkably potent,” she replied, obviously pleased with the results it was having.
“I can see why the lost one’s are unused to sleeping at night, I would forego the pleasure myself if I had to stay out here too long,” Syngar grumbled as they climbed onto their horses.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been so cold,” Janen replied.
“And already it’s as hot as a bakers oven,” said Syngar. “I hate the Barren Lands.”
Janen nodded his agreement, regretting leaving the relative shelter of the long grass to perch on Princes’ back where the, already hot,, wind blew stronger.
They pushed the horses as hard as they dared in the heat, stopping only once midmorning to allow them to drink brown water from a small shallow pool. Syngar tasted it himself, screwed up his face and said,
“Not desperate enough yet.”
The grass had begun to thin out. There were more clumps of pale orange grass now and less of the blue. It had given way to a hard packed rocky ground, not dissimilar to the land where Janen had grown up. The similarity unnerved him. The country looked the same but was somehow wrong. Janen’s land had never been remarkably hospitable, but to those who knew its ways it had given freely. This land was not as welcoming. It feels hostile, Janen realised. Not just inhospitable, but somehow, knowingly malevolent. He kept his strange thoughts to himself.
They cantered over the dry earth, the sun directly overhead, beating down on their wind raw skin. The horses were tired, the long expanse of flat earth had finished, replaced by small ridges running across their path. Kalen gestured for them to stop. Without a word, she took the bit from her horse’s mouth and led it to a dry clump of grass. She sat down in the shade of her horse and picking up a rock began drawing in the dirt. Janen made to look at what she was drawing, thinking it must be a map or something, but Syngar pulled him away by the arm.
“Let her be,” he said, “She’ll talk when she knows what’s what.”
Janen gasped, “Is she...?”
Syngar smiled at Janen’s awe. “I’d say she’s probably interpreting something she saw, or maybe seeking more if she didn’t get enough information. Best we can do is not distract her.” Thus saying, he left his horse to work at some long dry grass, lay down in its shadow, and after commenting, “I had a lousy night,” fell promptly asleep.
Janen followed his example, but found he couldn’t sleep for wondering about Kalen.
He had grown tired of chasing his horse’s shadow long before she finally came to join him.
“I’ll wake Syngar,” said Janen starting to rise.
“Let him sleep,” she replied, waving him back down.
Janen complied, watching her intently, waiting to hear her revelation.
“They are two ridges to the west.”
“So close?”
“So close.”
“Well, why are we stopping? Let’s go!”
“They have met with reinforcements, three score at least.”
“Oh,” Janen was filled with dismay, he had been tracking around ten lost ones and had been confident that as weary as they were, and with a proper plan of attack, they would have been able to defeat them.
“How are we to defeat half as many?” he asked. “Are there those lizard things? Derks?”
“No, I think not, the grey ones servants do not mix well.”
Syngar snorted in agreement, as he came to join them.
“So we’ve finally caught them, hey?” he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
“Two ridges over,” Kalen replied, gesturing to the west.
“And they’ve got reinforcements?”
“Possibly three score.”
“Great! So what have you got for us boss?”
“A smack in the head, if you don’t cut that out! What have you got for us?” She asked with a withering stare.
“Well, we can’t fight them, so well have to trick them,” he replied thoughtfully.
“Same tactic as last time?” asked Kalen
“Mmmm, they’ve got fresh reinforcements, and one can only hope they’re not dumb enough to be so careless twice.”
“I think it’s safe to assume we are not dealing with the same grey ones.”
“I think it’s safe to assume the Dark One did not allow those grey ones to live long after their failure,” Syngar replied grimly. “But there is a good chance he used their punishment to teach the others not to repeat their mistake.”
“Which was?” Janen asked.
“Falling asleep on the job,” said Syngar.
Janen stared at him, waiting for more information. Finally, Kalen elaborated.
“Last time we stole the pendant back from them, we snuck in at night when they had all fallen asleep after running themselves into the ground.”
“Last time you stole the pendant from them? How long has this been going on?”
“Ha!” Syngar laughed. “Not that long, they stole it from The King. We chased them and stole it back again, then they ambushed us and stole it, now it’s our turn to steal it from them.”
Janen stared at him in disbelief, finally replying, “If it weren’t so serious, it would be ridiculous.”
“Indeed it is and I say we call an end to the whole thing!” declared Syngar.
Kalen shook her head at him. “So, we can’t fight their superior numbers, we can’t count on their wiser and fresher reinforcements to all fall asleep without leaving a guard, so how do we regain the pendant?”
“We steal it,” said Syngar.
“Syngar, please do try to be helpful,” replied Kalen.
“I mean i
t. Who says they need to be asleep for us to steal it?”
Kalen merely looked at him, waiting to see if he was going somewhere with his comments.
“In my home town, there was a girl from a poor family. She was very beautiful, and had a way of speaking that would captivate even a volve. What she didn’t have was enough food to eat. I used to watch her in the market,”
“Syngar! You’ve never said!” Exclaimed Kalen.
He smiled at her sadly, “It was a long time ago.” A sharp pain stabbed Janen in the chest, as he realised that Syngar was single because he had been unable to attain the love of his youth. Syngar had been poor, too poor, Janen realised, to pay a bride price. He had lost the girl he loved, just as Janen was destined to lose his.
“Anyway, I used to watch her in the market, and what I saw her doing was stealing things. The point is, no one else saw her doing it. They weren’t asleep, she wasn’t even hiding. She was a master of distraction. She would smile sweetly, talk playfully, and while they were admiring her eyes, she would be pilfering an apple from right under their noses.”
“It’s an intriguing tale Syngar, one that I am going to hear more of one day,” Kalen said with a pointed look, “but I hardly think that if I go into their camp smiling sweetly and talking playfully, it will have the outcome we’re hoping for.”
“Yes, that would probably be inadvisable,” he said dryly. “However, I thought you were intelligent enough to not take me quite so literally. The point I was trying to make was that a distraction might work.”
“If we two get them to chase us, Janen can slip into the camp behind them, retrieve the pendant and escape without them being any the wiser,” Kalen said, catching on to his idea.
“But then, they’ll be chasing you!” Janen said with a profound dislike of the plan.
“Yes, and I am not that eager to give myself up that easily,” said Syngar. “I was thinking more along the lines of a distraction that didn’t involve them actually seeing any of us.”
They started brainstorming, but it became increasingly obvious that they needed more information about their enemy’s camp.
“I’m going to check it out,” said Janen.
“I don’t like it,” said Kalen, “It will be safer come dark”.
“We need to be ready to act come dark, we need the information now. Trust me Kalen; I have hunted for years in this kind of terrain. They will not see me.”
Kalen bit her bottom lip, struggling with her desire to keep him safe and the knowledge that none of them was safe anyway. Finally, she nodded her assent and Janen started off.
“Take this Janen,” Syngar called, holding a knife out to him. Janen took it gratefully. His sword would be too reflective to take, but he could conceal the knife in his clothing. He knew that if it came to the point of needing it, he would be lost anyway, but he felt better for having it all the same.
Janen stayed behind the ridge as he ran to the north. He hoped that anyone on the lookout would be expecting them to arrive from the east. He had only gone as far as he could shoot an arrow three times before the low ridge began to level out.
Hoping he had gone far enough he crawled to the top and laid on the ground, peering toward the next ridge. Sure enough, a lost one sat atop it looking east. He considered heading farther north. He was a long way from the lone sentinel and even without the shelter of his ridge, he could probably continue moving away in relative safety. If he did that, however, his back would be to the lookout and if he were spotted, he wouldn’t know. At least if he made his way across here, he could watch the lost one as he advanced.
He pulled himself over the top and down the other side on his belly, the rocky ground grating against his flesh through the burn holes in his shirt. Once down the other side he eased himself up onto his knees. He had feared the sentinel seeing him silhouetted against the sky, but felt more comfortable with the ridge behind him. He was wearing the clothes he had always hunted in, their tan colour blending well with the surrounding landscape. He stayed low and slowly made his way to the next ridge, keeping his eyes on the lost one in the distance.
The ridges hadn’t seemed so far apart when he was riding. He estimated there were only five bowshots between these two, but they seemed to take an eternity to traverse. His knees hurt badly from the low crouch he was maintaining across the dry ground. Whenever he could find a clump of grass large enough, he sat behind it, stretching his legs in front of him and scanning the next ridge for any more of the enemy. Twice, he saw the sentinel begin to turn his head toward him, and he froze, low to the ground, trusting in the distance and his colouring to camouflage him.
As he neared the ridge, sounds of revelry reached him. Now he knew why there was only one sentinel, it sounded as if the rest of the lost ones were celebrating already. You’re a bit premature, thought Janen.
When he finally reached the shelter of the ridge, he lay down to rest. He realised he was panting and his legs had begun to cramp. The lost one couldn’t see Janen from his vantage on top of the ridge, and Janen took the opportunity to try to calm his nerves.
When his leg cramps had eased and his breathing had returned to normal, Janen began to make his way along the base of the ridge closer to the camp. He hadn’t gone far when he discovered a small crevice running through the ridge; it was wide enough for him to crawl through and deep enough to keep his head below the top. Nearing its end, he lay down and peered around the edge at the camp.
Kalen had been near enough to accurate. He thought there were a little over three score lost ones in the camp. They were indeed partying, shouting victoriously and swinging each other in circles.
He was too far away to be able to learn much more than Kalen had already told them. He scanned the camp. It surprised him that they had brought tents but pleased him as well, as it would help to conceal his advance. The tents were scattered around the perimeter of the camp and the lost ones ‘danced’ in the centre. The tents obscured Janen’s vision of what a lot of them were doing but he hoped it would work the other way as well. There didn’t seem to be any more lookouts. It didn’t appear they had learnt their lesson very well at all.
He cut straight across the small gap between the ridge and the camp, moving quickly to hide behind the northern tents. Once there, he worked his way around to a position where he could peer through the shelters, without, he hoped, being discovered. A pile of food lay in the centre of the camp, and it was this, he supposed, that had them all in such a good mood. It must’ve seemed like a lot to the starved people, but he didn’t think it would last their numbers very long without rationing. And rationing they were not, they were feasting.
A small group of about ten lost ones lay sleeping on the ground near the food. They look half-dead, thought Janen. He wondered how much of the food, that had probably been brought for them, would remain when they woke.
That is probably where the pendant is, he thought. He didn’t think it likely these people were inclined to share or hand over their treasures to others. Unless they have a hierarchy? He watched them for a while, trying to ascertain whether they deferred to anyone in particular. There was none that he could tell, just a wild frenzy punctuated with squabbles.
Deciding he had learnt all he could, Janen mapped out the tents that were closest to the sleepers, he didn’t think they would be moving anytime soon. He wished they had collapsed closer to the main body of tents, but as it was, there were only a couple anywhere near them.
Stealing his resolve, Janen left the relative safety of the tents and dashed back to the ridge. He crawled through the small crevice to the other side, only then realising with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he would have to make the return journey with his back to the sentinel.
When he finally reached Kalen and Syngar, he was exhausted. Kalen sat cross-legged in the shade of her horse, with her eyes closed, while Syngar paced back and forwards.
“It’s about time,” Syngar growled at him.
Kalen op
ened her eyes and greeted him with a contented smile. “I told him all would be well, but he was determined to worry.” She rose, making room for Janen in her horse’s shadow and went to get him some food and water. He accepted it gratefully, forcing himself to drink sparingly.
“Well, what news? Was your risk worth it?” asked Syngar.
Janen told them what he had discovered and they spent the remainder of the afternoon planning.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Caris wandered along a well-worn track enjoying the feel of solid earth under her feet. It was her fifth day among the elves, though she had been mostly unconscious for two of those, and this was her first day back on the ground. Rather than forcing Caris to walk down numerous narrow stairs, Amarin had enlisted the help of a couple of elves to rig up a rope and pulley system. The elves had fitted Caris with a harness, and strung a rope over a branch, which they then threaded through the harness and looped around one of the long poles down which she had earlier seen the children sliding.
Slipping off her branch, and beginning the slide down the long pole had been one of the most terrifying and exhilarating experiences of Caris’ life. All the fuss and trouble the elves had gone to for her was quite embarrassing, especially as she knew children ran and leapt onto the poles, sliding down them unaided and unsupervised, all the time. Nevertheless, Caris was glad of the security of the rope and harness and couldn’t imaging asking to not use it.
Her first destination on reaching the ground had been to visit Indira. She had been assured the elves were looking after her but it was good to see her with her own eyes. After giving her a thorough brush down, which was entirely unnecessary, as the elves had obviously been doing it regularly, Caris had set out with Jeniel in search of plants.
Caris’ eyes fell on a small plant with little green leaves and deep purple flowers. She wandered over to inspect it, calling out to Jeniel who walked not far away, “does this plant have any healing properties?”
“Indeed it does,” replied Jeniel as she joined her “This is hibidun; we crush the flowers and steep them in hot water. The tea is good for relieving pain. The petal remains are used to make poultices, which when cooled are used to bring down inflammation.”