Alto lurched to his feet, noticing for the first time the other occupant of the cave that Drefan had mentioned. He was a boy, from what Alto could see. He reminded him of his brother Darren, in size and age if nothing else.
“Don’t think you can mock me!” she raved at him. “You know who I am or you wouldn’t be so bold!”
“Humor me then,” Alto said as he reached out and put his hand on Drefan’s blade to lower it. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Trina,” she said, glancing back and forth between the two of them.
Alto turned to Drefan and received a shrug in response. “My friend here is Drefan,” Alto said. “I’m Alto. You’re Trina and you’re Namitus?”
The boy nodded and stepped forward. He glanced about, a timid look in his eye. Alto spotted the pipes tucked into the boy’s belt. “You’re the piper!” Alto exclaimed.
“What are you doing here?” Drefan asked, focusing his attention on Trina.
“Trying to escape from your people!”
Drefan let out an exasperated sigh and looked at Alto. “Women,” he muttered. “Bound and determined to make my life miserable no matter where I find them.”
Alto found himself nodding and stilled his head. “Trina, can we play a game?”
“A game? What sort of fool are you?”
Alto grimaced at her incredulous tone that came across in spite of her accent. “I want to play a game where you pretend we’re not out to get you, and we’ll pretend you’re not looking for an excuse to hit me in the head with a rock again. If we can do that, then maybe we can all figure some things out.”
She folded her arms across her chest as she considered his request. “Fine,” she snapped. “What do you want to know?”
Alto looked at her more closely now that he had the presence of mind to do so. Details were impossible in the gloom of the cave but he could easily tell she wore a robe made of wool and trimmed with animal hides. “Are you one of the Kelgryn?”
Darkness or not, Alto caught her rolling her eyes. “Is this to be a game of stupid questions, then?”
Alto was glad the darkness hid his blush. Drefan offered the next question. “Why are you in a cave?”
“Because we escaped your soldiers and ran in here,” Trina snarled.
“You ran in here? We had to climb up a mountainside and then back down through a hole!” Alto blurted out.
“They already had us in the mines,” Namitus spoke up to say. Trina turned to glare at him but he shrugged. “We saw the light in this cave so Trina took the sword she’d taken from them and pried out a support beam. It caved in behind us and kept them away.”
“But then you realized you couldn’t climb out so you started playing the pipes in hopes someone would hear you,” Drefan finished for him. “Weren’t you afraid more of the soldiers would find you?”
Namitus nodded while Trina fielded his question. “We expected they would but we had no other recourse. Starving in a cave offers no hope. Being recaptured offers the chance of escape again.”
Alto followed her line of thinking and found himself nodding at the practical wisdom of it. Her insistence on being attacked by Kingdom soldiers continued to bother him enough that he wondered aloud, “You keep saying Kingdom soldiers attacked you. Why would they do that? Aren’t the Kelgryn and the Kingdom at peace?”
“How else would they get so close to us?” Trina spat.
Alto held up his hands to calm her but she ignored him. “It’s my turn now, farm boy! Why are you here?”
“We’re hunting goblins,” Alto said. “They’re raiding the road to Highpeak. We didn’t see any, though, so we kept going and found Highpeak had been attacked.”
“And we found Kelgryn weapons,” Drefan added.
“Bah!” Trina turned and spat on the floor in disgust. Alto was shocked by her behavior. It was crude and unlike anything he’d ever seen a woman do before. “What use would we have for a place like that? Our interests lie in the sea and the coast. We only come to the mountains when we must.”
“Why would you be here then?” Alto asked.
“We were attacked and taken hostage, you fool!”
“Carried from your beds all the way here?”
Trina snapped her mouth shut and glared at him. “No,” she admitted. “We were traveling.”
“To the Northern Divide,” Namitus added. “To see the wise-woman!”
“Be silent!” Trina hissed at him.
“Wise-woman? No such thing,” Drefan muttered.
Trina sneered at him. “What would you even know of women?”
Drefan laughed. “Far more than I want to. She’s all yours, Alto.”
Alto clamped his mouth shut at Drefan’s dismissal of her. He turned back to Trina and thought he saw her cheeks were a darker shade than the rest of her face. Drefan was right; Trina was just a girl. His age or younger, perhaps. He looked at the two of them together; were they brother and sister? Her head turned enough to stare at Alto, her eyes wide.
“So you were waylaid and brought here. Did you see Highpeak at all?” Alto asked her.
“We don’t know where here is!” Trina sputtered. “They kept us bound, gagged, and with hoods over our heads until we were thrust into this mine.”
“Mine?” Alto echoed. Drefan turned from the rope and looked at him. “Something is amiss. Perhaps Kar was right.”
“Who’s Kar?”
“Our wizard.”
Trina gasped and Namitus took a half step forward. “You consort with such evil?”
“Consort is not the word for Kar,” Drefan chuckled.
Alto ignored Drefan’s inappropriate humor. “Kar’s not evil. Far from it, I’d say.”
“All wizards are evil!”
“What of your wise-woman—isn’t she just a wizard by another name?” Drefan probed.
“Be silent, Kingdom dog! You’ll not be speaking of things you don’t understand!”
Alto was tired of the bickering. Now that he’d cooled down, the cave was beginning to bother him. The darkness and the cool moisture were making his bruises and muscles ache all the worse. “We can argue over this later,” he said. “Let’s get out of here first.”
“Up the rope?” Drefan asked.
“Only way; they said the tunnel had collapsed,” Alto said. Namitus added weight to Alto’s words with a nod of his head.
“All right, but going up is harder than going down.” Drefan grabbed the rope and leapt up, reaching to grab higher with his other hand. He pulled himself up slowly until he began to work his way back into the chimney.
Alto sighed and moved to the rope behind him. He grabbed onto it and glanced around. There was no wall for him to use his legs this time. He would have to rely on his arms to pull himself up. He bit down on his frustration and grabbed the rope. Already he could feel the soreness in his palms. He reached up as Drefan had done and grabbed with the other hand, and then attempted to pull himself up hand after hand.
Alto had climbed a single span of his hands when he suddenly felt weightless. Less than a heartbeat later, his heels hit the ground and shot out from under him. He rolled, landing hard on the rock and feeling the wind knocked from him at the same time he heard something crack. He’d barely had time to register his new position when a louder crash sounded beside him, followed by moaning and swearing. The rope fell on top of them both, coiling haphazardly until the end of it arrived with a chilling finality.
“Some rescue,” Trina muttered.
* * * *
“They been up there a while,” Gerald muttered.
Tristam grunted. Alto and Drefan had disappeared over the ledge nearly half an hour ago. The infrequent musical notes had stopped, but none of them knew if that was a good or a bad omen. He turned to glance up and down the road as he had countless times before. This time, he found something to draw his attention.
“Stand ready!” he warned his company.
A cry of alarm went up from the mouth of the mine at th
e same time. Several goblins poured out of it, the first pausing to look both ways before spotting the Blades of Leander and rushing toward them. More goblins emerged, followed at the end by a man with a whip in one hand.
William fired the bolt loaded in his crossbow without hesitation. The long range and the quick reactions of the man holding the whip saved him. He dodged out of the way and shouted in a harsh and guttural language.
“He speaks their tongue!” Kar warned.
“Bet that’s not all he does with their tongues,” Gerald grumbled as he drew his sword and stood ready.
Tristam stepped beside him on the trail, moving far enough away that they wouldn’t interfere with one another. William reloaded his crossbow as the goblins ran up the hill, brandishing spears and crude swords.
Tristam and Gerald met them, smashing through their meager defenses. The goblins pushed against them, slipping between them and trying to overwhelm the two warriors. Gerald cut into two of them before a spear worked past the armor on his leg. He spun and went down, slashing and taking the ear off a third on his way.
Tristam saw Gerald fall. He laid into the goblins pressing against him, holding them back with defense instead of trying to fell one with every swing of his sword. The short creatures were crude and unskilled but that made their weapons no less dangerous, especially when they attacked in numbers. “Help Gerald!” he cried out, unable to get over to the struggling man.
William put a bolt in the back of a goblin that was about to jump on Gerald. Karthor rushed in, brandishing his mace and smashing the distracted goblins aside. William dropped his crossbow and drew his blade before wading in and hacking at the goblins that were turning on the priest.
William and Tristam kept the creatures at bay long enough for Karthor to drag Gerald back and check on the man. Blood ran from the scratches on his face and soaked his leg and opposite side. Gerald cursed and struggled against the priest, trying to gain his feet.
“Lay still, you oaf!” Karthor snapped. “You’ve been stabbed and laid open.”
“Kar! Do something!” Tristam cried out. Blood ran from the side of his thigh and his arm, but the four goblins that faced him were showing signs of using tactics. Rather than rushing blindly or running in fear, they circled him and kept him preoccupied. William, to his right, only had three of the waist-high creatures to deal with but they turned him until his back was against the wall and he had no room to maneuver.
“They’re only goblins,” Kar said, effecting a poor imitation of Tristam’s voice. He chanted a few words while tracing an arcane symbol in the air. His hand snaked out and his fingers finished the final arcane gesture. Dirt and layers of rock burst upwards in a line straight out from Kar to the three goblins pressing against William.
The goblins shrieked and yelled. One flailed his sword wildly, striking William on the side of the greave and pushing it aside so the point of its blade bit into his knee. William smashed the goblin’s sword aside and scored a deep cut along its shoulder. It fled right into Kar, earning the wizard’s boot in its side that sent it tumbling over the edge of the cliff.
The other two fled, one running into the closest goblin harassing Tristam. Tristam took advantage of their confusion, killing both and stepping into the unthreatened space to keep the other goblins at bay. William hobbled over and between the two of them, they dispatched the other three goblins.
“Where’d their handler go?” William asked as he limped back to the eastern side of the road and leaned against the wall. He looked toward the mine entrance.
“Ready your crossbow and watch the entrance,” Tristam snapped. He turned to the others. “How’s Gerald?”
Karthor wiped the sweat off his brow and glanced up. The light faded from his holy symbol slowly. “He won’t be dancing anytime soon,” the priest said. “A rusty sword under his shirt cut deep in his side. Leander’s blessing has saved his life, but the wound and the healing wore him out.”
“He’s lazy, but this is the first time he’s slept while a fight raged about him,” Kar offered.
Tristam’s only response to Kar was a twitch of his lip. He turned and stared up the side of the hill. “No word from Drefan or Alto?”
The silence of his companions gave him the answer he already knew.
“Tend to William,” Tristam ordered.
“What about you?” the priest asked.
“Scratches,” he muttered.
“Those weapons aren’t clean; you’re likely to take infection or worse,” Kar snapped at him. “William’s milking it for attention. He’s not old enough to know to save it for the attentions of a comely lass.”
Tristam shook his head. “Karthor, tend to William. We need to secure that mine and create a defensible position.”
Karthor nodded and moved to help the crossbowman. Kar glanced around and sniffed the air. Staring at the edge of the road where the goblin had slipped under the rope and fallen to his death, Kar casually asked, “So, who noticed the man behind the gobs wore a Kingdom tunic?”
Tristam jerked his head up and stared at the abandoned mine entrance. He narrowed his eyes and muttered a curse before he scooped Gerald up. He grunted as he hoisted the heavy man over his shoulder. The leader of the Blades managed to push the man across his saddle and then lashed him there. Tristam smirked as he considered smacking the haunch of Gerald’s horse to send the steed galloping back down the road. Only the thought of whether the man might meet friendly or enemy forces first stayed his hand.
Instead, Tristam pulled the shield off his horse and drew his sword, and then led the mount down the road toward the mine entrance. “We’ll deal with that later,” he said in reference to Kar’s observation. “Might be a theft or a deserter. Not worth bothering with now. We’ve work to do and people missing. Get yourselves together and meet me at the mine. And be quick about it!”
Chapter 7
“Can’t see a thing in here,” Alto muttered as he followed Namitus into the cave with his sword in hand. His bow had broken when he’d fallen on it, leaving him with little choice for weapons. Trina was behind him and Drefan followed her and had his sword drawn and ready. He’d recovered from the fall but his breathing had become labored. Trina was calmer now that they were moving but the wild look in her eyes promised she was far from pleased.
“It’s not much farther,” Namitus whispered. He cleared his throat and pushed on through the darkness.
Alto scowled. He could barely see the fingers in front of his face. The light that came in from the chimney they’d climbed down was farther and farther behind. He’d left his pack on his horse, not expecting he’d need torches or food.
Alto perked up and hissed, “What’s that noise?” He heard an odd humming noise that had just started. It rose and fell as they moved, but the volume never seemed to waver. Had it been there all along and he hadn’t noticed it?
The strange noise disappeared instantly. “Sorry,” Namitus said, “I sing when I get nervous.”
“You were singing?”
“Humming,” he admitted.
“Oh, well, yeah, probably not a good idea. Especially if there are others in these caves.”
“Yeah, sorry. It’s okay, though, we’re here.”
Alto bumped into the boy in the dark. He worked past him and stubbed his foot against a rock in the tunnel. Gritting his teeth in pain, Alto felt with his foot and identified the cave-in.
“Now what?” Trina hissed from behind them.
“Now we try to dig it out,” Alto said.
Trina barked out a short laugh. “We’re in the side of a mountain! You’ll bring the whole roof down on us! I was wrong earlier. You’re not soldiers. You’re not smart enough to be soldiers!”
“And you’re not nice enough to be a girl, but you still look like one,” Alto vented as he spun in the dark tunnel to face her. “We’re all trapped down here. Why don’t you stop being a brat and start helping?”
She stared at him, her eyes finding his in spite of th
e near total darkness. They glared at one another for a long moment before she finally relented. He saw her silhouette sag slightly before she said, “Another game?”
Alto bit his tongue to hide his sigh. “What this time?”
“Let’s pretend we just met.”
Alto nodded, the gesture lost in the darkness. “Hi, I’m Alto, of the Blades of Leander. We’re—”
Alto’s introduction was interrupted by a cough from Drefan.
“Fine, I’m a trainee with the Blades of Leander.”
“I thought you looked a little young to be a warrior,” she said. “And who are the Blades of Leander? Are you members of the church?”
Alto chuckled. “No, we’re just men helping out where we can to make some gold. I’m, uh—”
“Oh, just tell her already,” Drefan wheezed. He’d had trouble breathing since his fall earlier. Walking it off, as he’d predicted, wasn’t making it any better. “He’s trying to earn enough gold to pay for a donation to heal his father. Such selfless devotion is sure to woo the heart of a young maiden.”
Alto was glad for the darkness to hide the color of his cheeks. Trina’s lips parted but she said nothing. “What of you?” Alto blurted out.
“Trina. Well, Patrina is my given name. My father is the Jarl of Holgasford.”
Drefan burst out laughing, but it turned quickly into a wheezing cough. When he caught his breath, he managed in a ragged voice to say, “I was right when I called you my lady.”
“You’re a, uh, princess?” Alto gasped.
He saw her shake her head, the long braid of hair behind her jerking around with the movement. “No! Just the chieftain’s daughter!”
“Which is basically the same thing,” Namitus said.
“Why don’t you sound or look like her?” Alto said, turning to her companion.
“We’re not related,” he said.
“Namitus isn’t a Kelgryn,” Patrina said.
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