“How did you do that?” the man asked him.
“I’ve got fast reflexes and good training,” Alec told him.
“Gretchen says to bring him in,” Rembor said, returning from the office structure.
Alec turned to Shaiss and Alder. “Walk the horses in,” Alec told them. They dismounted and joined him inside the gate, then followed Rembor to the building.
A heavyset woman of middle years stood at the door step watching them approach. “I see a boy and his friends. I was told that a mighty warrior who claimed to be a friend of Natha’s was demanding to see me. How do these two stories match one another?” she said loudly as they hitched their animals to the railing by the building.
“May we step inside to discuss this matter?” Alec asked her, holding out his hand to shake hers.
She looked at his hand. “What don’t you want seen by witnesses? You’ve just mauled three men; why would I want to be in a closed room with you?”
Alec thought about how to answer, unwilling to reveal the Goldenfields presence in the city. He leaned closer to her and spoke quietly. “Natha has been my friend since I healed his daughter Annalea, and has been my business partner since we began shipping healing water from a special spring in Goldenfields earlier this year. He and I desire to help the Duke of Goldenfields. I’m here to seek information from you about a recent report of battle between Goldenfields’s forces and some from Oyster Bay. Natha, and Drawr, and Tarkas will be very pleased to hear that you have been helpful to me, and very disappointed to hear anything else,” he ended his comments in a low but forceful voice. “Now let’s go inside and talk.”
Gretchen looked at him with concern. “You could probably kill me just as easily out here as inside, and I don’t think our men want anything to do with you anyway, so let’s go in,” she said in a guarded voice. Alec waved his companions over, and they walked inside the building, and entered a crowded office room with papers scattered and piled on every surface. “Move those off those chairs and sit down,” Gretchen instructed him.
“We’ve had less shipping lately. You’d think I’d get caught up on this paperwork with less cargo and fewer trades to document, but now I have to spend more time trying to secure trade,” Gretchen explained as she settled her own body into a chair. “So you’re from Goldenfields? Tell me about the city these days,” she said.
“What would you like to know?” Alec asked.
“I’d like to know if you’re really from there, or if this some type of spying operation or test. If you’re from Goldenfields, tell me something about the city,” she explained.
“Well, I live in a shop on Bakers Street, next to Henree’s bakery, and when I want to go to the cathedral, I walk down the street, turn right on the Country Pike and then go left to the cathedral up on the bluff overlooking the southern bridge across the river. If I want to go to Natha’s home, I go out the northern end of Bakers Street, turn left on Cross Street, and go northwest for about two miles to his estate,” Alec said. “Do you know Goldenfields well enough to know those places?”
“I lived in Goldenfields many years ago, before I began trading, and I’ve lived in five cities since then, including one outside the Dominion, the last three working for Natha. I believe you know what you’re saying. What do you want from me?” Gretchen seemed to relax at last.
“We understand that some of our countrymen from Goldenfields were here on an official visit to the Prince’s court, and were attacked by forces from Oyster Bay. We’d like to learn about that incident, and find out where the survivors are being held,” Alec answered.
“That’s known all over town. Why’d you come here?” Gretchen asked before answering.
“I’d rather not be known to be in town, in case we are hunted down as well,” Alec replied.
“Fair enough. Well, the story is that the Oyster Bay folks arrived two weeks ago and found the people from Goldenfields being treated in a very friendly fashion by the Prince. They didn’t like that, and took direct action to correct the problem by assaulting the Goldenfields embassy grounds just over a week ago. There were several deaths, but in the end the Oyster Bay forces won and took their captives outside the city to a camp near the bay. They’ve got their own ship anchored there now and are threatening the Prince in a number of ways if he does not agree immediately to sign a treaty with the rulers in Oyster Bay,” Gretchen explained.
“How far is the camp? How is it defended, do you know?” Alec asked.
“They’re about a mile north of the city walls. I don’t know a thing about their defenses. I haven’t seen it myself; I’ve just heard it’s there,” Gretchen replied.
“What’s left at the Goldenfields embassy? Did anyone remain there?”
“No, it was pretty well left in a state of ruin after the battle there,” Gretchen told him.
“May we leave our horses here for a few hours and come get them later after we explore the town?” Alec asked next.
“I don’t want any trouble here,” Gretchen told him bluntly. “With the way things are in Oyster Bay, trading is down for us and up for the Locksforts. I hear that some of Natha’s cargo ships have disappeared on the rivers,” Gretchen told him.
“We won’t cause any trouble for you. Just tell the watchmen that when three men come back, let them in to get their horses,” Alec instructed her.
“We’ll go see the town now. Be sure the watchman knows to let us have our horses when we return,” he said in a voice that indicated he expected it to be so, as he stood to leave. “Thank you Gretchen. When I see Natha I’ll let him know you helped us.” Alec turned and left the room with the other two behind him, and strolled out of the dockyards without further comment.
When they had traveled out of sight of the gate, Alec turned to the other two. “Let’s walk down at sunset, then after it turns dark you two shield our appearance while we walk along the beach to enter. I want to count how many there are, where the hostages are, and determine their defenses,” he explained.
Together they walked north and left the city gate, immediately crossing a bridge over the river, and started north with the bay on their left. Before complete darkness covered the sky they spotted the location of the ship on the water, anchored about two hundred feet off shore. Alec followed the road that passed the camp, and noted the sentries watching their passage. They continued north and soon were hidden from view in the darkness. “It’s flat here and they have good visibility in all directions, so our forces aren’t going to sneak up on them unless you can make thirty horses and men invisible,” Alec commented, “and I know you can’t do that. Make us invisible now and let’s get in close enough to scout out the perimeter all around, then we’ll infiltrate and find where the captives are.”
The two light ingenairii talked to each other for a moment. “Alec, we’re going to stay about eight feet apart, and you walk between us,” Shaiss said. “You can talk to us, but of course any sound we make will be heard. You can tap us on the shoulder if you want to get our attention. We’ll have something like a bubble around us, so that we can see out but others can’t see in. We’ll be able to see each other, but Alder and I will be concentrating on where we’re going so that we don’t trip or stumble, and we’ll watch each other to make sure he doesn’t turn left when I turn right. If that happens, you’ll become visible when we get twelve feet apart, more or less.”
“Thank you, I understand. We’ll stay close together. Let’s go to the beach first, then circle the camp clockwise until we reach our starting point. We can decide where to enter the camp after we see it. We’ve got the advantage of the darkness anyway, but there’s no reason to be sloppy,” Alec agreed.
They proceeded to walk towards the beach, and then towards the camp. When they reached a point fifty feet from the first tent, they spotted a sentry standing on the beach. They walked just past him, then circled around the camp, checking the spacing and attentiveness of the sentries, as well as the layout of the camp. Near the road they s
topped once when a change in the sentries brought three Oyster Bay soldiers walking within yards of them. Thereafter they had no further incidents until they reached the beach again, and walked along the rear of the camp, past three boats pulled up onto the sand.
They stopped at their original starting place, and both the light ingenairii looked at Alec for guidance. He motioned them both in close to him and whispered, “The only tent I saw with guards was right back here near the beach. That’s probably where the hostages are. Let’s go first along the outside of the camp towards the largest tent, the green one on the right, and listen to see if we can hear anything; it’s probably the commander’s tent. Then we’ll stay between small tents and work our way to the prisoners’ tent. I’d like to get inside and talk to them.”
The ingenairii began moving in the direction Alec had indicated, and came to a stop outside of the large green tent. They stood and listened, but could not clearly hear the voices inside. With a shrug, Alec motioned for them to start moving again, and they worked their way through long minutes of carefully avoiding any other people until they got to the side of the presumed prisoners tent. Alec barely spoke as he whispered to each ingenaire in turn. “I’m going to put my head under the side of the tent and see who’s inside. If I like what I see, I’ll go all the way in. You stay out here until I come back out.”
He got down on the ground, and cautiously raised the side of the tent then stuck his head inside. There was a single candle burning inside, and a dozen pairs of eyes were focused directly on him.
Chapter 14 – Planning the Rescue
“Holy Mary!” one voice swore, and was quickly shushed by six others. Seeing no opposition, Alec wriggled under the edge of the tent and stood up inside.
Lord Kelvin was there, a face he recognized, as was Captain Whelan, a face he recognized, though not a member of the Guard he’d ever spoken with to any great extent. He saw one other Guard member he recognized, a man who he’d seen in the Guard armory daily when he had been training with Inga early in his days in Goldenfields.
“Alec, what are you doing here?” Kelvin asked in a hoarse whisper.
Alec moved over to the others and they formed a tight circle. “The Duke has sent us to rescue you,” he began simply.
“Sent who? How? From where?” Whelan asked. “We only were captured a week ago. You surely couldn’t have traveled here from Goldenfields in so little time. Who are you scouting for? Who’s the commander of your group?”
Alec looked startled, then realized how much had happened and changed since these men had left Goldenfields, before the rebels had attempted to overthrow the Duke. He felt at a loss to explain all that he felt they needed to know.
“We have a squad of about two dozen Guardsmen, a new cavalry unit, and they’ve ridden here from Goldenfields. I am here in this camp with two light ingenairii who allowed us to travel undetected,” Alec summarized. “We anticipate attacking here tomorrow to set you free, so I’ve come to determine what the situation is in this camp so we operate most effectively when we attack.”
“You don’t have enough to win such a battle,” Whelan said. “They have about forty here, and they’re all good swordsmen. Tell the commanding officer that it won’t work.”
Alec ignored his advice. “What’s the routine here? What time do they start? Is there training in the morning or are they out on exercises during the day? What role does the ship serve for them?”
Kelvin forestalled more objections from Whelan. “The ship is where their officers apparently spend the evenings,” he said. “Those here in the camp are rank and file, plus lieutenants. The leaders come over in mid-morning, probably after a nice breakfast on the ship. We’re seldom allowed out of here, so we don’t know much about their activities, but from the sounds we hear, I think most of them are in camp most of the time.”
Whelan broke in. “I admire your courage, but this is crazy. These men are going to patiently wait for the Prince to meet their demands, and then they’ll extract some ransom from Goldenfields and let us go. You can’t win, so don’t try. Tell your commander I said so.”
Alec looked at him. “I am the commander, and my decision is that we will attack tomorrow, and my expectation is that we will win.”
Whelan looked like he was ready to laugh at a ridiculous joke, but Kelvin chimed in. “I haven’t passed along everything the Duke has told me by pigeon, but I can confirm that Alec is second in commander of the Duke’s Guard.”
Whelan’s face went white. “Are you serious?” he demanded of Kelvin. The elder advisor nodded.
“Look at this kid!” Whelan sputtered. “What happened? Why not me, or Elcome? We have no need of a child as commander ready to make foolhardy decisions!”
“After we reclaimed the palace and freed the Duke from rebels last month, Colonel Ryder asked me to serve as second in command at the palace, and I agreed to do so. Now, here’s what we’re going to do,” Alec told the circle, determined to move beyond Whelan’s opposition.
“You,” Alec pointed at a young Guard member about his own size. “You are going to go outside with the light ingenairii, and they will smuggle you out of the tent and back to the cavalry camp. When you get there, you and Shaiss will outline to Lieutenant Imelda this plan of action: attack shortly after dawn from the country side, not the city side, using arrows from a distance, then a cavalry charge into the camp. Burn all the tents except this one. I want one light ingenaire to accompany one water ingenaire to the beach prior to the attack, and the water ingenaire should immobilize that ship in the bay, or hopefully run it aground, so that it cannot escape nor send aid to this camp.”
“I am going to stay here in your place tonight,” Alec told the designated man, “tell Imelda that after she starts the attack and ceases firing arrows, I will attack from the rear, and help arm the others here so that they can fight their way clear of the camp to the beach on the city side. Now come with me to the tent wall, and wait for me to repeat all that to the ingenairii outside.”
Alec crawled back under the canvas of the tent as the men inside the tent watched dumbly, and he re-explained the whole outline of the plan to Shaiss and Alder. “Now take this man back to the dockyard, get the horses, and get back to Imelda right away. I want you all to attack before those officers come from the ship, and I want to make sure that ship doesn’t get away. If the water ingenairii want to sink it, that’s fine with me. And if it’s Bethany who does it, take very good care of her,” he added.
Alec rolled under the tent one more time, and the other Guardsman rolled out into the darkness.
“When this is all over, I have some new sealed orders for you from Duke Toulon,” Alec told Kelvin.
“This is madness! You are foolhardy to be here, and this whole preposterous plan is going to get a lot of good men killed if you can even make all that happen. What are you thinking?” Whelan demanded.
“Keep it down in there!” came a shouted comment from the guard outside the front of the tent.
“Look,” Alec said, growing angry with Whelan; he felt proud of all he had accomplished and decided to that point, and he didn’t like the older officer second-guessing him. “You haven’t seen what our Guard will do with the weapons we have now. This will work. Now show me my bunk so I can sleep for a few hours.”
Another Guard member motioned to a top bunk in the middle of the room. “Captain Whelan’s been taking it hard that we were defeated by the likes of these pigs from Oyster Bay,” the Guardsman said. “He blames himself, but we were so taken by surprise we didn’t have a fair chance. They had a half dozen of their men inside the house posing as repairmen before the attack started, and they came at us from all four sides of the embassy with no advance warning. We lost a lot of good men and women, and that weighs on his mind pretty bad,” his companion explained.
Alec considered how he’d feel if he’d lost such a battle, and understood Whelan’s bitterness better. Taking his sword off, he laid it beneath the thin blanket on th
e bunk, in case a surprise inspection took place. Other members of the Guard came over to ask him what was happening in Goldenfields in the long days since they had left the city weeks ago. Alec ended up speaking long into the night about the rebellion by the Duke’s sons and the subsequent changes in the Guard. Captain Whelan remained stubbornly apart from the others.
Finally the members of the small group drifted to their individual bunks, leaving Alec alone to doze into expectant sleep in his own new bunk, anticipating action at dawn.
Chapter 15 – A Break for the Beach
Alec woke up as the eastern horizon hinted the arrival of dawn, with a faint pink ribbon starting to rise. He felt tension as soon as he realized that this day would see the start of his plans for the cavalry attack, the first attack he had ever planned on his own. He looked around, but no other prisoners had arisen, so he forced himself to remain curled up under his blanket trying to conserve his body’s warmth for a few more minutes, until the breaking morning lit up the interior of the tent so fully he anticipated little more time until the attack began.
He left his sword under his blanket and walked to the canvas wall of the tent, listening to the sounds of the soldiers turning to their duties. Soon they would be surprised and disrupted, and he realized in a chilly personal way that he would soon be killing these very men himself. Other members of the Guard started to arise in the tent, and came over to stand near Alec.
“When we hear the sounds of the attack occur, I’m going to start attacking the back of the Oyster Bay forces. Once I overcome the guards at our tent and others nearby, you all will need to acquire their swords, and move down to the beach and to the left, to stay out of the killing zone. Hopefully this will not be a long battle, and our folks will mop up quickly. They’ll be on horseback, so stay out of their way until we clear the signal with you to join together.”
The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell Page 20