by C. R. Daems
“What’s going on?” Emmund said.
“I won’t talk about it.” She shut her mouth into a stubborn line.
When Kaim brushed against her, she refused to respond. She’d risked the First One’s lives too many times already. She wouldn’t let them do something that would get them killed.
“The Inn isn’t far,” Emmund said as he jumped back into the driver’s seat and snapped the reins.
* * * *
The yard of The Thirsty Traveler was full of horses, carriages, and travelers shouting for service. A family with four young children had just arrived and was unloading with whining and crying and the father yelling to shut up. A young hostler ran up and Emmund handed the carriage over to him. While they waited, he went in and came back a minute later saying they had three rooms. When they got to the rooms Zeph asked if she was hungry or needed anything, and she just shook her head.
“I need to rest,” she said, so he and Emmund closed the door.
“Liada, our friend, you must tell them so they can make arrangements. We are bonded to you of our free will, but it would be wrong to refuse us. We will choose so you don’t have to,” Tali said.
Liada paced around the room. She’d never felt less in need of a nap, but she was faced with an impossible decision. Kaim’s suggestion would work but would be sure death for the one leading the Quag away. It would exhaust its energy and have none left to fight. The chance of escaping would be tiny at best.
“No,” Liada said, her voice wavering a little. “I’ll think of something that doesn’t mean one of you dies.”
“Better one than all, my friend,” Kaim said.
Liada paced back and forth some more. It couldn’t be right to send a friend to sure death. She couldn’t do it.
“Better one?” She frowned. “But…there are more than one…” She frowned and rubbed her forehead, some idea nagging at her, but she couldn’t quite see what it was. “Wait. That means something. There are more than one. Let me think.”
She paced some more. Suddenly, the idea that was nagging became clear. “I have an idea—an idea that won’t get one of you killed.”
“And you are going to tell us?” Kaim’s voice was gentle as the wind.
“Yes. The Quag have about the same energy as you, right?”
“Yes.”
“So if it chases one of you, it can keep up? And after a while you’ll both be out of energy and vulnerable. But the Quag will probably kill you at some point in the chase.”
“It might not kill me,” Kaim said.
Liada had known all along that Kaim intended to be the target, but she hadn’t wanted to think about it.
“No, the Quag would risk anything to kill you.”
“That is true. The Quag have a fierce hatred of the First Ones that causes them to over-react when they see us.”
“Could it catch a First One with twice the energy?”
“That would be highly unlikely.”
Liada smiled.
“Good—let’s go wake Emmund and Zeph.”
She knocked at Zeph’s door and before he could answer, knocked at Emmund’s.
“Liada, you’re up,” Zeph said. Emmund just stood there looking. Liada motioned to them to follow her and went back to her room.
“What’s up?” Zeph settled in a chair with a yawn.
“The First Ones are committed to freeing Brom to ensure that we can stop the priests. They’re willing to volunteer to give up their life to accomplish that goal,” Liada said and watched to see their reaction.
“That would solve a lot of potential problems,” Emmund said as he lounged against the wall, but he narrowed his eyes, giving Liada a suspicious look. “I don’t think you would ever agree.”
“I know how you feel about them. That’s why you were upset,” Zeph said, looking at the floor.
“I won’t let them throw their lives away. I came up with a better idea. We’ll pick a spot for an ambush. Kaim will get the Quag to chase him. But…another First Ones will be waiting ahead. Kaim will sprint to get ahead of the Quag and another will take over—like a relay. That one will go back, let the Quag see him and go in a different direction so the Quag doesn’t see there are two energy trails. Then he’ll head for another spot and switch again. Eventually, the Quag will exhaust itself, but the First Ones won’t. They’ll stay far enough ahead to be safe and come back once they lose it.”
Liada beamed. Again the sing-song talk between the First Ones.
“Yes, that might work. We appreciate your concern, Liada.” Tali said.
“None of you will die if we can help it.”
Emmund nodded slowly. “It’s a good plan and it saves the lives of your allies.” He looked into Liada’s eyes and the corner of his mouth twitched. “I don’t like throwing lives away, you know. Not those of my friends.”
Then he got quiet for a few minutes, looking through the wall as though he could see the road ahead of them. “The next Inn would be the best place. There’s plenty of room there for the First Ones to lead the Quag on a little chase. Besides, it’s the last stop before the city and Sechael’s sure to stop there. Your friends should fly ahead and pick out spots for your plan.”
Tali, Kaim, and Aliy agreed. They were sure the Quag would keep some energy in reserve for the kill once the First One made a mistake or was too weak to escape. It might not have the energy to flame the First One, but it had talons.
* * * *
They rode the coach a mile past the Happy Traveler Inn before stopping. They had originally planned to stay at the Inn, but Emmund said that was too risky. When Brom escaped, the innkeeper would be able to recognize them. Instead, he found a spot hidden in a copse of willows. Once the horses were unhitched and picketed, Emmund slipped back to scout the Inn while Liada and Zeph made camp. After a while, as they sat at the little fire she got out some bread and cheese from the last Inn. Emmund reappeared two hours later.
“Well, have you decided on a plan?” Liada asked. The plan for the First Ones was safer but not foolproof, and she kept going over it to think of what might go wrong. She had heard someone say “the enemy never cooperates with your plans.”
“Sechael will probably get out with Brom. The coach driver will have to see that the horses are attended. If we can get the Quag to chase your friends then, it would leave Sechael undefended. What I do then depends. If Sechael heads for the stable, I’ll take him there. If he waits for the Quag, I’ll take him on the way to the room. Brom and I will go out the back door. I’ve already seen to the lock. Zeph and you will wait for me in the coach. We’ll load Brom and leave. You’ll be surprised how much speed I can get out of this old thing.” He twitched a quick smile.
“What if he or the driver doesn’t wait for the Quag?” Zeph said. “It’ll take time for you to get back with Brom. It seems to me, we need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I thought of that, but it’s too risky.”
Liada stood up and paced around the fire. “No, Zeph’s right. That’s even more of a risk. They could very easily get here ahead of you and then you and Brom would walk into a trap.” She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “You’re just trying to keep us out of danger, but that could put us even more at risk.”
Emmund sighed and rubbed his neck. “Maybe. Zeph, could you disable the coach?”
Zeph laughed. “I’m a blacksmith, remember, even if a young one. Sure, I can do that. If you can get me a minute with it.”
“All right,” Emmund said. “I don’t much like it but maybe you’re safer in my sight than out of it anyway. While your friends lead the Quag on a chase, we get Brom away.”
The plan sounded reasonable to Liada, but it involved a lot of assumptions. She hated even to consider it, but it would be simpler if Emmund could kill Sechael. She knew, however, that might cause more problems than it solved. Right now Sechael was unknowingly providing them with information. Without him the priests might begin where and when she and Emmund least expected it. T
hen things might spin out of control.
By the time her friends returned, her head felt like she had a little man inside beating on her skull with a big hammer. Aliy landed on her right shoulder, Kaim on the left, and Tali on her lap. They said nothing but Liada was sure Tali was working on her headache since the little man stopped banging.
“We found good places to make the switch. I will wait at one place in case the Quag tries to catch Kaim quickly, and Aliy will wait further along,” Tali said. “Kaim will be the one to entice the Quag into action.”
Liada passed the information on to Zeph and Emmund. After that, everyone settled down to their own thoughts, staring into the little camp fire. The night got dark around them. Noises made her jump and a chill crept through her from the cold ground. Finally, Emmund grunted impatiently and wrapped his cloak around her shoulders.
He slid a knife from a sheath on his arm, inspected it, and put it back in place. “Try to rest for a while. We need to start for the Inn before dawn.”
* * * *
She woke up to Emmund tending the horses. After Zeph made sure the carriage was out of sight among the trees, the two of them tried to talk her into waiting behind. She just glared at them, and she started off with Emmund and Zeph as a sliver of light showed at the horizon. Emmund said it was better to be early than late. The First Ones brushed by her cheeks as they left. Tears formed in Liada’s eyes. She didn’t know who would return after it was all over—too many things could go wrong. She loved them all and couldn’t bear the thought of one dying—not even Emmund. She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Emmund glanced at her like he wanted to say something and Zeph handed her his handkerchief, then they trudged beside the road, occasionally catching a foot on a rock and Emmund muttering a curse under his breath.
“Don’t worry. Everything will be all right,” Zeph said after a few minutes of silent walking.
Liada laughed. The first laugh she had in two days. “You should talk. You’re always worrying about everything.”
“Nope. I’m always worrying about you—not everything.”
Light shone from the side windows of the Inn as they slipped through the morning haze to the back of the stable. Otherwise, the place was still quiet in the hush of dawn.
Hugging the wall, they edged to the front. Emmund creaked the stable door open a foot. Zeph slid through sideways. She and Emmund followed.
“Wha... Not yet.” The pleading voice came from a nook where there looked to be a pile of rags and blankets.
Emmund slid the door closed again and plunged the place back into gloom. “Nothing to do with you, lad,” he told the lad, but his knife was in his hand. Emmund already had the stable boy rolled onto his stomach and was tying his hands behind him as Liada slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a protest. “Can’t take a chance on his warning anyone,” Emmund said as he stuffed a rag in the boy’s mouth. He dragged him deeper into a stall at the back of the stable and threw hay and blankets over him.
“That... That’s cruel,” she whispered.
Emmund shrugged. “You didn’t want him dead, did you?” He tossed a coin down next to the lad. “Keep still and you’ll be all right, boy. You hear me?”
A muffled sound came, that Liada took to be agreement, and then silence, except the stamp of a horse in a far stall. The stable smelled of hay and horse manure. Liada stifled a sneeze. “What now?”
Emmund climbed onto the barrier separating two of the stalls. A tall horse with a white blaze on its forehead tossed its head in his direction. On top of the half-wall, Emmund eased to the outside wall. Above his head was a square opening framed by wisps of hay. He reached up and pulled himself into the opening. She could hear the rustle of hay. “Come on up, you two. I want you out of sight.”
Zeph helped her clamber up on the half-wall and then through the opening, much less gracefully than Emmund. She sneezed.
“The dust will settle,” Emmund said. “I’m going to wait outside in the woods. I’ll leave the door open when I leave. They’ll just think the stableboy ran off. Happens often enough in these places. Keep quiet. If you get the chance, disable the carriage. But if you don’t, you get out of here. Don’t wait around to get caught. I’ll try to put Sechael out of action, but we don’t know if the one with him will chase us or not.” He pointed at Zeph. “You get her out of here, you understand?”
“I told you she should stay back at the camp,” Zeph grumped.
Emmund snorted. “And did you think you could make her?” He jumped down. A moment later the door creaked and groaned. A horse snorted, then it was quiet.
Liada sat and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I think waiting might be worse than being in danger,” she said softly. “At least then you know what’s happening.”
“That only works if you haven’t been caught or killed or maimed.”
Noise started coming from the Inn. Someone yelled for the stableboy, then a man stamped inside yelling, “Where are you, blast your hide?” There was a thump that could have been a horse or the boy kicking and trying to get attention. Whatever it was, the man cursed and left.
Liada looked at Zeph. He just wiped the sweat off his forehead. The gloom in the stable got lighter, and Liada wondered how much time had passed. It seemed like days but it must have only been a few hours. Someone led a horse out of a stall, grumbling about having to saddle it himself. Liada’s muscles felt cramped, her stomach empty, and her bottom hurt from the hard floor beneath the layer of straw. She kept imagining Tali limp in a Quag’s talons and Emmund beaten and bleeding, even though nothing could have happened yet.
Wheels rattled in the yard along with the metallic clank of horse tack. A man shouted for the stableboy. There was more yelling and voices. There was a sound like a rush of fire—the same sound as at the market when the Quag chased Tali. Liada held both hands over her mouth to keep in a cry of fear.
“What was that?” a voice shouted.
“After something. I’ll get him inside and then I’ll worry about it.”
A man grumbled what was the use of an Inn if you had to do the work yourself. Below them was the noise of horses’ hooves and more rattling of tack and wheels. The door to a stall slammed. “They can wait. I want a drink,” a rough voice said.
Zeph grabbed her arm. Her heart was hammering so hard she wondered that the man couldn’t hear it below in the stable, but the footsteps thumped into the distance. Zeph pressed his finger to his lips and eased to the square opening to peer out. After a moment, he lowered himself and reached his hands back up to help her jump down. Nervous sweat dripped down her ribs.
He grabbed up a tool from a bench by the wall and knelt in beside the shaft of a polished oak coach, so shiny it gleamed. He grunted as he pried at the shackle. The shaft thumped to the ground, and he used a crowbar to lever off a part with a squeal of metal on wood. “There. They won’t leave in a hurry. Now let’s get out of here.”
“Wait.” Liada ran back to the pile of blankets where the stableboy was tied. “At least, pull him where they’ll find him.”
Zeph rolled his eyes, but she thought he looked relieved when he caught the sweaty, dirty boy under the arms and pulled him into the opening of a stall. Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her into the doorway. She looked in both directions. A man stood at the front of the Inn. When he turned his back, they dashed around the corner out of sight. The woods were only a few yards away. She grabbed Zeph’s hand and they ran for it.
They ran hard into the woods for a few minutes, but then slowed down. She wasn’t sure if the pounding of her heart was from running or not knowing if any of her friends were alive.
“They’ll be waiting for us when we get back to camp,” Zeph said. “You’ll see.”
She nodded. But would they? This time they skirted the road, keeping it just to their left so they didn’t get lost. A grunt and the crash of a tree limb came from in front of them. Liada started to run toward it, but Zeph grabbed her arm. He pulled her back so he
could be ahead, but she followed right at his heels. Through the trees, she saw Emmund kneeling beside a limp body.
“Is he alive?” she gasped.
“Just unconscious. They worked him over pretty badly. I carried him this far and slipped.” Emmund wiped the sweat off his face with a sleeve.
Brom’s face was mottled with purple bruises and his head lolled to the side. She touched his chest to be sure he was breathing. There was kind of a rattle in his chest that didn’t sound good.
“I’ll help carry him. That’ll speed it up,” Zeph said, stooping to slide an arm around the unconscious man. Together the three of them got Brom to their little camp.
“Where are they?” Liada said as Emmund lowered Brom to the ground. Her stomach was a knot of fear. Please let her little friends be all right.
Soft feathers brushed her neck. “We’re here, young one,” Tali said.
“They’re back?”
Kaim tickled her ear as he landed, and she felt Tali perch on her shoulder.
Zeph was kneeling by Brom, but he clambered to his feet. “What happened?” he demanded.
Kaim raised his voice to a shout for him, so they all could hear. “I flew through the middle of the stable yard as Sechael stepped out of the coach with his Quag. It exploded off his shoulder after me as fast as it could fly. It’s a good thing we’d set up two locations. I could never have made it all the way to the further one.”
The enemy never cooperates with your plans.
“I headed for Aliy. She was among some boulders. I zigzagged in and out of them. She flew ahead and got its attention.”
Aliy laughed. “I never thought being chased by a Quag could be fun. But it was. I sped up and the Quag chased me. In a few miles, it was losing ground and I slowed down so it wouldn’t give up. A few miles further, it had used all of its energy. It dropped like a stone. I met Tali and Kaim, and we returned. It was a good plan, Liada.”
As Aliy finished, Tali landed on her shoulder.
“Tali, do you have the energy to heal Brom? He’ll never be able to sit in the driver seat,” she whispered as softly as she could.