The Reluctant Warrior

by Pete B Jenkins

  “I’ll manage it,” Jonathon said confidently. “But how are you going to get back out again?”

  “I’m hoping the uniforms will get us through Montrose’s men. It’s you mistaking us for two of his men and shooting us that worries me.”

  “And that’s highly possible given we’ll be firing on anything in uniform.”

  “What we need is some kind of signal,” Jed said. “The trouble is a signal might alert the enemy to the fact we’re imposters.”

  “You’re going in with a rifle,’ Jonathon said, “so if you come back out without it and with your hands above your head then we’ll know it’s you and Rex. Only, walk out and don’t run, as a running man is more likely to be shot.”

  “I guess it could work,’ Jed said thoughtfully. “I suppose we really don’t have any other choice.”

  When they did reach Montrose’s camp it was exactly as Jed had expected, most of the men had retired to their tents to sleep. Montrose hadn’t been naïve enough not to post sentries all around the camp however.

  “Give me five minutes to get into position on the far side of the camp before you start shooting,” Jed told Jonathon, before disappearing into the thick undergrowth.

  Jed crouched behind the shrubbery until he heard the firing start, then slinging his rifle across his shoulder made his move. “Patrol coming in,” he called out.

  “Halt where you are.”

  “Just a patrol coming in,” Jed repeated.

  “What patrol?” The voice sounded skeptical.

  Jed took a deep breath. This was the moment that would either get him into the camp or get him killed. “Montrose sent us out to make sure none of the Skraelings could cross the river and go for help.”

  “Where is the rest of your patrol then?”

  “The Noragin ambushed us. That Major Rand fellow was leading them and I’m the only one that got away.”

  As the sound of gunfire from the far side of the camp grew in intensity the guard began to flick his head nervously back in that direction. “That’s them now,” Jed said quickly, hoping to cash in on the young fellows concern. “I need to report to Montrose on their numbers and the weapons they’re carrying.”

  “Were you close enough to see them?” the sentry asked incredulously.

  “As close as I am to you now and there were at least three thousand of them.” He could see the effect the lie was having on the fellow. The mention of such a strong enemy attacking the camp painted pure panic across his features.

  “Come through then,” the sentry said eagerly, as if Jed’s information would be the salvation of them all.

  Jed hurried past; searching frantically for Montrose’s tent which he was sure would be the largest in the camp, an ego like his w ould demand no less. Picking his way through the men rapidly draining from the tents he spotted a big tent pitched proudly in the centre of the camp and headed directly for it.

  Montrose flung the tent flap aside and emerged wearing only his faded khaki trousers. “Secure the perimeters,” he bellowed. “This frontal attack may just be a ruse.”

  Jed pulled his cap down over his eyes and kept on walking, all the while praying that Montrose wouldn’t recognize him. If he could just skirt around to the back of the tent he could use his knife to cut through the canvas. He was sure Rex would be in there.

  “You there,” it was Montrose again, “come here.”

  Jed kept his head down and carried on walking. “Not me, please God don’t let him be talking to me,” he muttered softly to himself.

  “You there,” Montrose’s tone was getting harsher, “I said come here.”

  Jed was under no illusion now; Montrose was addressing himself directly to him, and so he was going to have to front up. “Yes Sir?” he said, stopping just in front of the colonel but still with his head down and cap over his eyes.

  “Why didn’t you answer when I called you?”

  “Didn’t realize it was me you were speaking to, Sir.”

  Montrose looked him up and down. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you soldier,” he demanded.

  Jed slowly and reluctantly brought his eyes up to meet the colonel’s and saw the instant recognition in his eyes. Not hesitating for a second he unshouldered his rifle and sent it crashing into the big man’s face. Reeling backwards Montrose crashed through the tent flap to lie unconscious on the ground. Leaping over the sleeping form Jed wasted no time in getting to where Rex was tied to a post to slice through his bonds.

  “What took you so long?” Rex grumbled.

  “Yeah right,” Jed retorted. “Here, put this on.” He threw the uniform onto Rex’s lap. “And be quick about it, we don’t have much time.”

  “Finish him off,” Rex urged, jerking his head in the direction of Montrose at the same time he was stuffing a leg into the trousers.

  Jed pulled the bolt back on the rifle a split second before a private careered through the tent flap, swinging the rifle up and pulling the trigger he blew him back through. Picking up Jed’s knife Rex sliced an opening through the rear of the tent as Jed fired at another unwelcome visitor.

  “Come on, Jed,” Rex insisted, “let’s get out of here while we still can.”

  Jed followed Rex’s lead tossing the rifle as he ran.

  “What did you do that for?” Rex demanded angrily.

  “I’ll explain later,” Jed said. “When we get to the edge of the camp we’re going to have to stop running. Jonathon and I agreed he’d shoot at anyone who’s moving faster than a walk.”

  “We have to get there first,” Rex said, ducking behind a tent to avoid detection from the group of men jogging past.

  “I should have finished that animal off.” Jed looked back at Montrose’s tent unable to disguise his disappointment.

  Rex’s eyes took on a startled look. “You can’t go back now it’s too dangerous. We were lucky to get out of that tent alive as it was.”

  “You go on ahead,” Jed urged. “I’m going back to deal to him.”

  “Jed,” Rex whispered frantically, “you can’t be serious.”

  “I have to at least try.”

  “This is no time to play the hero. You’d never get near the tent. You were seen going in, that’s why those two privates came hurtling in.”

  Jed’s tired brain processed Rex’s advice. “You’re right,” he said. “Come on,” he sprang to his feet, “let’s walk out of here like we own the place.”

  With heads up and walking with a contrived air they sauntered across the camp, hearts pounding savagely in their chests.

  The sound of gunfire was coming from all sides of the camp now; Jonathon had obviously sent men around to keep the thinner defenses on this side wrapped up. Hopefully they would be too busy dealing with the Noragin threat to pay Rex and him much attention.

  “What’s going on out there?” Jed asked, as he and Rex cautiously approached a group of men with rifles trained on the undergrowth not more than fifty yards away.

  “Some hostile fire,” a young sergeant answered. “But nothing like the all out over the way you’ve just come from.”

  “It’s pretty hot back there all right,” Jed said. “Montrose suspects it might be a ruse for the main attack to come from here.”

  The youngster looked worried. “I hope he’s wrong.”

  “He’s sent my buddy and me over to scout it out and see if his theory is right.”

  He looked at Jed as if he was mad. “Good luck, pal,” he said sincerely.

  Jed and Rex walked on without looking back. “That was too easy,” Rex said nervously.

  “I’ll take it over hard any day,” Jed answered. “Now let’s see if we can link up with Jonathon.

  As soon as they reached the Noragin lines they took their uniforms off. “It’s good to be rid of that thing,” Rex admitted, “almost had me feeling like I was one of Montrose’s men.”

  Jed gave the order to pull back. The Skraeling village had been evacuated during the skirmish and so there was no
thing left to gain by sticking around any longer. He was confident that they wouldn’t be followed; as Montrose wouldn’t be certain how many men Jed had with him so wouldn’t risk breaking the safety of camp to find out. He would wait it out until morning.

  Jed had to chuckle to himself. The crack he had given Montrose’s head would be hurting like nothing he’d ever felt before right about now, and that would make the big fellow madder than a bear with a sore head. Then he would be a whole lot madder when he found the Skraeling village deserted. Jed would have to work overtime from now on if he was to anticipate Montrose’s moves. One mistake and it would be all over. The colonel was so clever and so powerful that if Jed slipped up just once it would mean either death or slavery for every hollow earther who wasn’t a Yakros.

  As he passed out of the forest and onto the dimly lit prairie Jed couldn’t help thinking as he dragged his body along one weary step after another how different things would have been right now if he had only taken the few seconds it would have required to pump a bullet through the head of the most obsessed tyrant this inner world had ever seen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “How’s the shoulder?”

  Rex looked up from the joint of meat he was roasting over the fire. “I don’t know what those leaves are that Frida and Amora are putting on it but they seem to be working wonders.”

  Jed watched his friends face as he turned the joint over, “oh for an electric oven, huh?”

  Rex smiled. “Takes a bit longer to get a meal around here, but there isn’t too much I miss about home.” He cut a slice of meat from the sizzling leg and handed it to Jed on the point of his knife. “I’m not very good at saying thank you,” he said, “but thank you for coming and getting me. I honestly thought I was about to die.”

  “Did he knock you about much?”

  “Yeah, it was nothing I couldn’t handle though.” Rex stopped what he was doing and stared into the corner of the room. “He wanted to know about these super modern weapons that were being sent to deal with him.”

  “Sorry, that was my doing.”

  “Good job you did tell him that, I’m sure it was the only reason he kept me alive. If he hadn’t been so obsessed about finding out about them he would have killed me back at the village.”

  “How does a man get to be like that? He must have been half decent to start with. He wouldn’t have made it to colonel otherwise.”

  “A man gets a sniff of power and all traces of decency go flying out the window,” Rex said wisely.

  “These people have given me a lot of power,” Jed said quietly.

  “Yes, they…” Rex stopped slicing the meat and looked at Jed. “You’re not suggesting you’re becoming like Montrose are you.”

  Jed was staring with such melancholy into the flames that he barely heard what Rex had said.

  “You’re fighting tyranny,” Rex continued, “not creating it. There’s a very big difference.”

  Jed slowly turned his attention from the fire to Rex. “This is not who I am, you know that. I have killed men and planned their deaths.”

  “You had no choice, it was them or us.”

  “I feel like I’ve got blood on my hands.”

  “Now you listen to me,” Rex said sternly. “These people owe their lives to you. To them you are heaven sent. If you hadn’t done anything it’d be their blood you’d have on your hands.”

  “I guess.”

  “No guess about it,” Rex said adamantly, “you’re a genuine hero. I’ve been staggered by the success you’ve had. I only regret I’ve been no use to you.”

  “You’re going to get plenty of opportunity to be of use in the coming weeks.” Jed suddenly remembered he had the piece of meat in his hand and so biting a piece off slowly began to chew it. “Montrose is going to be hunting for us day and night now. Sooner or later he’s going to find us.”

  Rex nodded grimly. “Do we have a plan?”

  “No, I’m pretty well out of ideas. Montrose well and truly has us boxed into a corner I’m afraid.”

  Jed knew it would be sooner rather than later that Montrose would discover their whereabouts. People would be coming and going from the caves at regular intervals searching for food, and with Montrose’s men out hunting for them they were bound to cross paths.

  There must be something he could do. Some way he could avert the coming bloodshed. But whatever it was he couldn’t think of it and it was driving him crazy. What bugged him the most was this place was a paradise unequalled by anything he had ever experienced, and yet Montrose had brought terror and insanity to it. There were actually plants here that healed faster than any drugs back home, the speed with which Rex’s shoulder was healing proved that. And the food grew here in such abundance that a man didn’t need to till the soil to earn his living. Not here, in the Garden of Eden.

  It made Jed sick to his stomach. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to destroy the perfection that had existed here. Rex had been right when he said that power corrupts, and Montrose was definitely corrupt, he was very corrupt and did not belong here, and if Jed could have his way then he wouldn’t for much longer.

  Jed had been avoiding Amora as much as possible since he had been back, seeing to the defenses of the caves giving him the perfect excuse to keep her at arm’s length. He was checking out the defensive difficulties of a trail that led to the caves with Rex when Amora and Frida happened along, carrying baskets of vegetables they had harvested in the forest.

  Rex’s eyes lit up at the sight of them. “Look, Jed,” he said, loud enough for the two of them to hear him, “two of the prettiest angels a man could ever wish to come across.”

  The two women giggled, and putting down her basket Frida went immediately to Rex and kissed him. Jed looked on in silence as the kiss went on for an embarrassingly long time, all the while aware that Amora was watching him.

  Rex eventually bent down and picking up Frida’s basket turned to Jed. “I think I’ll walk Frida back to the caves.”

  “They are in love,” Amora said wistfully, as Jed watched the pair, arms around each other and laughing together as they disappeared amongst the trees.

  “So it would seem,” Jed said, almost to himself.

  She put down her basket and attempted the same maneuver her friend had, her soft lips closing on his, desperate for a favorable response. He allowed her girlish desire without putting too much effort into it. He couldn’t afford to abandon himself to her, it was far too risky.

  “I am beginning to think you don’t desire me,” she said, after breaking the almost platonic kiss off.

  “A man must guard himself against falling too far under a beautiful woman’s spell,” he said, hoping he sounded light-hearted so she wouldn’t guess he actually meant it.

  “I wish I could believe that was all it was.”

  “We must take things slowly, Amora.”

  “Why? Is that the way relationships are where you come from?”

  She had him there. He had to admit that back home most relationships ended up in the bedroom by the third date, and even though he had always been slower than most men in that respect he still would have made love to Amora by now if she had been a New York girl. “Relationships are different where I come from,” he confessed. “I don’t want ours to be like the ones back home.”

  “Rex and Jonathon don’t seem to mind,” she commented sadly. “They haven’t held back, and they have made Frida and Anna very happy.”

  This was turning awkward very fast. “I am not like Rex and Jonathon,” he said carefully. “Because I am different I need to take things more slowly.”

  “Yes, you are different, and that is why I have been patient.” Her face took on a pained expression. “But now people are starting to talk.”

  Jed sighed. “What’s the gossip mill churning out now?”

  She looked at him blankly, and he realized he had just used a phrase completely foreign to her. “What are they saying?” he asked, more plainly
this time.

  “They are saying you have rejected me because you have decided I am not worthy of such a mighty warrior as yourself.”

  A giant wave of guilt washed over him. In a society such as the Noragin had if a woman displeased her man it was assumed the fault lay with her. How much worse must it be for Amora when her man was feted as a hero who could do no wrong? Slipping the ring from his finger he pressed it into the palm of her hand. “In my land we have a custom,” he said softly. “If a man favors a women above any other and wishes to make her his, he gives her his ring to wear on a chain around her neck.”

  She turned the brass band over in her palm and studied the stag engraved on its surface.

  “If anyone says anything to you again show them that ring, and tell them that Jed Rand gave it to you so everyone will know you are his woman and no one else may have you.”

  For the first time a smile broke out on her face. “And will you kiss me when others are around now?”

  “Yes, I will kiss you,” he promised. “Now go on, you’d better get back with those vegetables.”

  She picked up her basket and with a lively spring in her step hurried to catch up with Rex and Frida.

  Well, he had done it now, given her what amounted to an engagement ring. But what else could he have done? He couldn’t let her go through the pain of everyone thinking she was a jilted woman. Instead, they would now be gossiping hard out in the opposite direction, which would make Amora happy, and her happiness was important to him.

  He considered the complexities of life in this primitive society as he strolled back towards the caves. As crazy as it seemed life had been so much simpler back in New York. Sure, Cassie had made life difficult for him in ways that only she could, but he was just a regular Joe to everyone else in that sprawling metropolis. No expectations weighing him down, no lives depending on the decisions he made. As sacrilegious as it might sound, he was now living in a kind of hell in paradise.

  Jed guessed that by know Montrose would have figured out there was no attack force coming for him from the States. Hopefully he would slow down the frantic pace of his search now he knew time was on his side, and time was exactly what Jed needed just now. As much time as he could possibly get if he was to come up with a way of winning this war. At the moment he just did not have the resources to defeat Montrose, nothing short of outside help was going to achieve that, and with no way of getting back across the ice he couldn’t see any help coming from that quarter. Yes, his bag of tricks was fully used up. He knew it and he suspected Montrose did too. What he wouldn’t give for a couple of rocket launchers right about now. That would be guaranteed to put the fear of God into Montrose.