by Guy Antibes
“Time to leave. Gorga and Masila, get these two on their horses. They can ride on their stomachs since it’s not far to the cabin.”
The two men lifted Honor up on her horse first and tied her midsection to the saddle. It took a third bandit to get Trak up on his horse. The trail was rough and Trak couldn’t help but grunt from time to time as the horse had to jump over a few low obstacles.
He looked over at Honor’s face. She looked awful, but he could see her breathing and finally heard a grunt from her.
Their heads were just a few feet from each other. “Have they hurt you?” Honor said as she opened weary, bloodshot eyes.
“Don’t worry about me,” Trak shook his head. “How are you?”
“I’ve felt worse, but I can’t remember when.”
Trak shook his head and that made it hurt even more, with his head pointed down, draped over the saddle. “I’m sorry about Malena,”
“Don’t be,” Honor said quietly, so no one would overhear. “She knows how to go into a meditative trance. They might have done something terrible to her in that condition. Did they? We are in rather desperate straits.”
Trak had to control the elation he felt. “They just cut the bonds and dragged her into the woods.”
“She won’t be happy if they scraped her face,” Honor gave him a wan smile. “But she will hurry to Bitrium and tell them what has happened. She knows the way, well enough.”
“How will anyone find us?”
“There are ways, if the searchers are close,” Honor said and looked into Trak’s confused eyes. “You’ve just scratched the surface of your training.”
~
Malena struggled into Gorinza and found Sunbeam’s establishment just as the sun went down. She collapsed into a chair.
The owner walked a bit more briskly into the room.
“Where is Honor?”
“Captured by brigands. They left me for dead.” Malena lifted the hair from her forehead, showing a bruise. “I figured that you are a link and can relay that information to Bitrium more quickly than I can make it there on foot.”
Sunbeam nodded. “I can, but you shouldn’t be seen around here. Someone must have figured out who you were and took advantage of travelers.”
Malena didn’t quite know how to take that. “Tell them now.”
Sunbeam sat down and closed her eyes. “It’s done.” She looked oddly disappointed. “Let’s go in the back and you can stay in the kitchen until help comes from Colcan. There is food back there.”
Malena nodded.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Seven
BERIN LOOKED UPSET WHEN HE ENTERED the dining room at breakfast. Asem sat with Kulara.
“We have a link in a town along the road from Espozia to Colcan. It appears that she has betrayed us. Her partner, these two aren’t married, has detected that the woman, Sunbeam, has betrayed Honor Fidelia and those she travelled with. There was a young man with them, perhaps he is the one you seek. They need rescuing, but we are reluctant to go into Santasia.”
“Then I will go,” Asem said. “No one would mistake me for a Colcanan.”
“And I will accompany you.” Valanna said. “I know both Honor and Trak.”
“There is much danger,” Berin said.
Valanna grunted in a most unladylike manner. “I’ve been in danger for quite some time.”
Asem shrugged his shoulders when Berin asked if that was right.
“We were going to Espozia, anyway,” Kulara said. Trust his wife to step up. Asem doubted that she’d let Valanna go alone with him, not because she might be jealous of a pretty girl, but people might get the wrong impression.
“Rasia will accompany you.”
“Rasia?” Asem didn’t recall meeting anyone with that name.
“She was the scout leader who brought you in. She has been to Santasia.”
Plus, the woman was a pain in his rear, Asem thought. Were all of the Colcanan women as prickly? Valanna described Honor as a severe woman with a sharp tongue. But they needed a guide and supplies to get into Santasia. Perhaps saving the boy in the south might be simpler than spiriting him away from Espozia.
The Colcanans didn’t waste any time, and Asem rode with the three women out of the back gate of Bitrium before midday. Rasia’s animosity hadn’t dimmed since the moment she had left them in Berin’s care. Rasia hadn’t waited for a reply and took off at a gallop.
Asem looked at his two charges, “I am sorry, my dears. We have a serious task and a harsh taskmistress, but she will drive us into Santasia much more quickly than if we were alone.” He kicked his horse into action and followed after. He looked back and grinned. Kulara and Valanna weren’t far behind him.
As darkness began to fall at the end of the next day, Rasia had them stop at a tiny fort not far from the top of a narrow pass. The trail she had led them on had become too dangerous to move the horses quickly.
“Eat quickly,” she said, taking a large bite out of a chicken breast and an equally large gouge out of a piece of bread. “We have lanterns. I know you are magicians, but we will use natural lights. They will be red and our enemies won’t detect them as we descend the mountains on the other side.”
One of the guards brought them a bucket of water to top off their waterskins and gazed at Rasia breaking out the lanterns on the other side of the fort’s central yard. “I’m surprised that Rasia brought you up. She’s the hardest woman I know.”
“Are there other guides that could take us to Santasia?”
“Few travel this trail. I would watch out for her because she has quite a reputation as a killer.”
Now that nugget of information alarmed Asem, but he wouldn’t let the guard know. “We ride into danger. If she has a reputation as a killer, then I’ll feel more secure.”
“Better you than me. You can leave the bucket here before you leave.” The guard saw that Rasia approached and quickly left Asem.
“What did he want?” Rasia said glaring at the back of the retreating guard.
“He warned me about you.”
Rasia snorted like a man. “What’s there to warn? Did he tell you I’m a hard case? That I like to kill?”
Now there was a woman who understood herself.
“He did. Why are you such a hard case?”
“I’ll be honest with you, since you didn’t lie about what that little man said. My husband was on a mission into Santasia and soon after he made contact with Sunbeam in Gorinza, he disappeared. Twice is no coincidence. I’ve volunteered to guide you. If she has betrayed us again, she won’t do it again.” Asem could see murder and pain in Rasia’s eyes.
Asem didn’t flinch from her gaze. “I’m not your enemy, Rasia. I won’t say I’m a friend, but we are on this little quest to Sunbeam’s place together.”
Her face softened for an eye blink or two and nodded to him. “Now, let’s get going. We need to be out of the high mountains as morning breaks.”
~
The morning couldn’t come too soon enough for Valanna. Rasia drove them mercilessly. If Valanna hadn’t been riding for days from the coast to Bitrium, she didn’t think she would have ever made it.
“Why don’t the Santasians have guards on this side of the pass?”
Rasia gave Valanna a not-very-surprisingly dirty look. “They don’t know about our little pass and we’ve bypassed their border fort. It’s on the main road. There are no Toryans living in this area, either.”
Asem looked intently at Rasia. “Shouldn’t we use the road? We’ll make better speed that way.”
“I know the trails that lead into Santasia,” she said a little defensively. Rasia’s rock-hard confidence seemed to be shaken by Asem.
“The road. We must use the road or there’s no hope we can catch whoever has abducted Trak and Honor,” Asem said.
Rasia scowled, but nodded her head. “We will after we are out of the mountains.” She glared at Asem and then at Valanna for a moment.
“A
ren’t you a little soft to be coming on this mission?” Rasia obviously sought to change the subject.
Valanna giggled. She realized that only made her look softer. She cleared her throat as she stiffened her resolve. “I have escaped from Warish and have nowhere else to go.”
“Awww, a sob story,” Rasia said. “My question still stands.” She raised her eyebrows and gave Valanna a challenging look.
“I could blow you right off of your horse, or more accurately, I could blow you and your horse about hundred paces away. Kulara is my trainer.” Valanna said.
The guide looked back at Kulara and Asem talking quietly behind them. “Hmpf,” was her only reply and she urged her horse onwards. What had brought that on, reassurance of her fighting skills? The woman confused her. Why didn’t she just answer Asem’s question?
Valanna made no attempt to catch up and followed behind. She wondered if she was, indeed, too soft for what Asem intended to do. Valanna hadn’t ever harmed a fly and Rasia surely knew she was bluffing. Valanna didn’t know if she had the willingness to use her powers against another person. Would she freeze up if she had to do something to save Honor or Trak?
That line of thought disappointed her deeply. If she were to move with confidence and purpose, she had to know and come to terms with her limits. That certainly hadn’t happened yet. She smiled as she thought of the word,yet. She would have to use this trip to find out.
~
When they reached the main road to Colcan, Rasia rode back to talk to Asem.
“You should be leading the group.”
Asem smiled, but wondered what had changed the woman’s mind. “I’d be happy to, however, I hope you don’t mind if I consult you from time to time.”
He could tell that Rasia had bit off a retort of some kind. “Please do, since you have no idea where you are going.”
“To Gorinza and I will need you to point out where Sunbeam’s restaurant is.”
Asem had to admit the woman had spunk. He liked her attitude since it actually reminded him of how Kulara could get from time to time, but he didn’t have the kind of relationship with Rasia where he could use his rarely used humor to good effect.
They passed a farmer heading south with an empty cart. “Did you sell all you have at Gorinza?” Asem said in heavily accented Santasian.
“Ah, no, that would be twenty-four miles distant. Mozira is where I sell my goods. It’s less than ten miles up the road. You aren’t from these parts?” The farmer squinted at Asem.
“No, I’m heading to Espozia. My third wife, the light-haired one became too seasick to continue from Warish, so we have come along the edge of the mountains from Nikia.”
“That’s a fair way to avoid an upset tummy,” the farmer said.
Asem grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “But it’s a good way to see all of Santasia, don’t you think?”
“Aye, if you are up to it.”
“We are. Have a good day, sir.” Asem gave the man a Warish genuflection, which would be sure to confuse him. He looked back and spoke Warishian. “Come ladies. It’s a fair distance to Gorinza.” He nodded again at the farmer and rode proudly north on the road.
“What did you say to him?” Rasia said as she rode up to his side after they were well out of earshot from the farmer.
“That we have an open road to Gorinza,” Asem said. “From now on we should speak Santasian, should we not?”
The woman turned red. “I don’t know how.” So that was why she asked him to lead.
~
In a few hours of riding, the bandits stopped at a cabin, north from where they had been captured.
The bandit named Gorga sat Honor and Trak against the wall. Trak couldn’t help but sigh. His head hurt, traveling for a day and a bit upside down. Honor looked in even worse shape, in fact Trak wondered if she was still conscious.
“Water for the woman, please,” Trak said. He wouldn’t give these criminals her first name.
The bandit leader threw a cup of water in her face and laughed along with the others. She blinked awake and then squeezed her eyes shut.
“Good job, Benno,” another bandit said.
Trak thought that he now knew three names. He would make them pay.
“We just have to keep them alive until the magicians come,” Benno said.
Honor spoke with a shaking voice. Trak didn’t know if it was from anger or fatigue. “How did you know about us?”
Benno shrugged. “The woman in Gorinza where you ate. Didn’t know she works both sides, did you?” He laughed and pointed at them. “Foolish you!” They all guffawed and turned their backs to Honor and Trak.
Honor shook her head with her eyes closed. “She’s linked to Bitrium. Who knows what kind of misinformation she and her partner have transferred?”
“We’ll get out of this and warn the…” He thought of Malena and gasped. “If anyone used Sunbeam to warn Bitrium—“
“They would be captured for sure, I know.” Trak put another two names on his list, Sunbeam and her partner, Vintner. “Vintner must know of his partner’s betrayal.”
Honor nodded and closed her eyes as she leaned her head back against the wall. “What a fine line they have had to walk all of these years! They will pay.”
Trak didn’t respond to her comment because a bandit looked their way. “All of them,” he quietly said when the man turned away. Now that he sat upright, Trak tried to figure out how he could get them free. Benno wore his sword and knife and he wanted those back.
After getting fed some bread stuffed in their mouths and water splashed in their faces, they sat, bound while the bandits played some kind of dice game on a table at the far end of the room.
“I can’t remember any poses that will channel power, sitting like we are,” Trak said.
“There aren’t any. For most of them your feet have to be on the ground,” Honor said.
Trak bent his knees. “My feet are on the ground. There must be something we can do.”
Honor shook her head. “Nothing that you should be trying. Make the wrong pose or say the wrong word when channeling power and you’re a dead man. It’s happened often enough.”
“But then how did the Colcanans develop so many uses for poses?”
“With the blood of many researchers,” Honor said. “It is all trial and error. At Bitrium, there are the writings of many magicians whose last entry was just before they died.”
“I was lucky to live when the shark attacked me in Pestledown harbor, then.”
Honor nodded. “You were fortunate, indeed.”
Trak brightened at her last statement. “Show me a pose that is close to doing something useful and I will free us. It’s worth the risk.”
“I will think on it, once my head stops pounding.” Honor closed her eyes.
The day was coming to a close anyway. Trak slid down and tried to sleep on the wooden floor.
~
“Wake up,” Honor said. She had leaned over to whisper in Trak’s ear.
Dying coals in the fireplace relieved the darkness. Trak heard snores coming from other parts of the cabin.
Trak rubbed his eyes with his hands, still bound together. “What?” He shook his head trying to get rid of drowsiness.
“I thought of something.”
“How is your head?”
She paused. “Better, but sleeping didn’t help a whole lot. Roll over on your back and put your hands midway on your chest, with your thumbs pressing in, but your fingers splayed out. Look at me.”
Trak watched her assume the pose. He did the same.
“Good. Now I don’t have the power, but you do. Concentrate on your bonds and say ‘kark’ using a lot of power. Can you do that?”
Trak assumed the position. “What if I kill myself?”
“Then you’re dead and you won’t be recaptured by the Magicians Guild.”
“Sort of an I win - I win.”
Honor made a grunting sound. “I wouldn’t quite put it th
at way.”
Trak took a deep breath. “Here goes.” He concentrated on his bonds and said the power word in a much louder voice. Darkness took him before he barely had a chance to think that he had killed himself.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mozira looked dirty and smelled worse. They passed a much cleaner compound that proclaimed it to be a branch of the Santasian Magicians Guild. Asem looked at Valanna and realized that she would soon need rest if she were to be of any use to them. It wouldn’t be at that guildhouse, so they stopped at the store that must have served the little town.
Asem walked into the place and ordered some supplies from the counter. An older woman walked in and smiled at him.
“What can I do for the likes of you?” she said in a flirting sort of way.
Asem grinned at her. “I am escorting some ladies to Espozia and we have others to meet in Gorinza. How far from here to there?”
“Twelve or more miles to go, but you won’t make it by dark.”
Asem shook his head and put on a sorrowful look. “Then we will have to camp by the side of the road. So perhaps you might have food we can take with us to prepare our dinner and breakfast.”
She put her mouth into an unattractive pout. “I know of a cabin you can stay in that is off the track, just a bit. We locals use it from time to time. Just make sure you bar the door at night because there are thieves who use it as well. You look like a man who can protect a woman.” She lifted the corner of her mouth.
“I am a former bodyguard to a Warishian lord. I know my way around weapons and around women.” He forced a smile to match hers and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Where is this cabin?”
“Not far to the northeast.” She pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and drew a crude map on one side and began to jot down the supplies that he had ordered. “The price is two kisses plus whatever your supplies cost.”
“Cheap at twice the price,” he said and kissed her four times.