John Bowman's Cave

by Erron Adams

  Then one rose like a departing spirit, till it stood with arm extended, beckoning them to join her. As they ran, crouched so low they almost loped on all four limbs, her screeching Owl call tore the night air.

  “Let's go,” she said as they came up to her. The Rory unslung their bows and quickly notched shafts to the string.

  But Bowman stood, motionless as the prone figure he could not turn from. Its face had contorted with shock, its glassy eyes seemed to be still trying to comprehend their fate. Below the neck a dark pool grew from a slash that murmured open at each senseless beat of the slowing heart.

  “Are you alright?” It was Yalnita.

  He looked at her, fear, anger and confusion twisting his face.

  “Yes. Are you?” He snapped.

  She looked down at her handiwork and frowned. “No,” she said quietly and turned away.

  ***

  Chapter 11

  Release

  Corporal Olrin loped into the encampment and made straight for Denaren. He came up close behind Denaren, looked furtively about, then spoke.

  “Captain!”

  Denaren turned from the fruitless interrogation of Caylen, glad of a break. They'd strapped her upright against a sapling and begun the questioning. Her only response had been to taunt them with smiles and an old partisan song:

  Where would you like us to bury you,

  Resplendent Knight of Nabir?

  There are so many choices in our choice land,

  Each time earth is turned the grave is made new here.

  So where will we watch you close haughty eyes

  And see from dark earth your spirit rise

  If you stay here?

  Yes, well, defiance was common at the start. They had little time to waste on preliminaries, however; shortly the real interrogation would begin. Then she would talk, they always did. That phase, with its brutishness, cruelty, screams and blood, it would loosen her tongue. Along with her teeth and bones. He really didn’t want to think about it but couldn’t force his mind on to other things.

  Always blood. Pain worked well enough, most of the time. But the smell and sight and taste of their finite life-force ebbing away seemed to work on the victim's subconscious and was an indispensable ally to the inquisitor. This, along with the dispensable nature of the prisoner, ensured a lot of blood.

  Or maybe it was just that inquisitors liked letting blood. Certainly, they seemed to. And if the usual tormentors brought along for that purpose couldn't make her talk, Keemon would. Just the thought of that sadist going to work on a defenceless victim twisted Denaren's gut. But it would be done if the girl proved obstinate. A mad Queen and her Oracle’s twisted vision would see to it.

  “Yes, Olrin, what is it?”

  “Captain - I have been listening to the night, I sense danger.”

  Denaren looked at the man. Ordinarily, such a statement might have occasioned mirth, but Olrin had been born and raised in these lands. He’d entered the service of the Tohubuho when not much beyond boyhood, and from there, thanks to luck and natural cunning, ascended to the service of the elite, Kasina Guards. If he sensed something wrong here, it was not a warning to be taken lightly. Hairs rose along Denaren's neck.

  “Go on.”

  “I have heard the call of a Grey Owl four times. That is not unusual. But it came from four directions, in quick time.” He paused a moment. “From the directions of our four sentries.”

  Denaren led Olrin away from where Keemon stood by Caylen, leering at her while he made a show of sharpening a thin metal spike.

  “Are you sure, could it not be four Owls?” he whispered.

  “No, they are fiercely territorial. One, or a pair, would command all the land within earshot.”

  “And it is not our sentries signalling?”

  Olrin shook his head, breathing heavily.

  Of course not, Denaren thought. Standing orders to a Guard on point duty were to remain silent at all times, only raising the alarm if the camp was in imminent danger of attack, in which case they were to give warning using the small bugle that was standard issue. Denaren cursed himself for having clutched at this straw, realizing how little time they had.

  Their sentries were dead, very likely, and the assailants had communicated the fact to one another. Too smooth work, for Tohubuho, to kill four Kasina Guards without plainly signalling their presence. That left only one possibility, the only other group who would be so keenly interested in them to risk an attack.

  Rory.

  As he thought, he maneuvered Olrin to where the horses were tethered. He reached out and nonchalantly slapped the neck of the nearest beast, while his eyes quickly panned the night around them. If there were Rory out there, he had seconds left to act. He turned Olrin back in the direction of Keemon and the girl. “Get her and Keemon. Bring them back here.”

  Olrin looked at the five other Kasina squatting by the campfire. He nodded in their direction.

  “What about them?”

  Denaren’s mouth set hard. Loyalty to comrades was the second-ranking commandment in the unwritten credo of the Kasina Guard. But the first was obedience, and his orders – directly from the Queen - were unequivocal: wrest the mysterious rebel who'd plagued Kasina rule in the outer districts from the untrustworthy hands of the Tohubuho. Unconnu's prophecy of the Outlander whose coming might destroy the Kasina monarchy left no doubt in the mind of Queen Emrel. Whoever this stranger was, they must be apprehended, interrogated and finally, if they proved of no use to the Empire, disposed of.

  Even so, when he spoke, he was unable to entirely mask his discomfort. Not being privy to the consultations Denaren had had with Queen and Oracle, the importance of their captive would elude Olrin. As far as he could see, this would be a simple case of betrayal and desertion.

  “Someone has to fight a holding action, Corporal. To provide our escape.”

  Olrin’s face could not disguise his shock. “Yes Captain,” he said, and went to fetch Keemon and the girl.

  Keemon had gagged Caylen and was now putting the honed spike to work.

  “Does that hurt, my dear?” He plunged it into the plate of her shoulder muscle, just a scant fingernail's depth, but the sharpness spurred her. She tried to spit at him through the gag, and when that didn't work she thrashed against her bonds and growled.

  He chuckled. “Ah sweet thing, don't injure yourself, that's my job. And I assure you, I'm very good at it. Now, what about here?” This time he prodded her breast. She flinched and a dark circle grew in her red shirt.

  He laughed. “Ah, much better, I think I've found your soft spot.” He lightly brushed the reddened tip across her upper lip and down one cheek. “But of course, if you really want to destroy a woman, you cut up her face, don't you? Even a Rory tramp would have trouble attracting men after that.”

  Olrin interrupted the Outlander’s pleasure. “Keemon!” He drew Keemon aside and spoke in a voice that slunk below the conversation of those around the fire. Then, as Keemon went back to Caylen and cut her from the tree, Olrin walked over to the five who were about to be sacrificed and spoke. “On your feet, there's trouble. Douse that flame!”

  They leapt up, one of them throwing water on the fire. When Olrin drew his sword, they followed suit.

  “It's Tohubuho. You four,” - he ticked them off with his index finger – “relieve the sentries. Benir, stay here.” He turned and strode in the direction of the horses.

  ***

  As Keemon shoved Caylen in the direction of horses at the Southern end of the camp, Yalnita scampered up the embankment to the others.

  “They're leaving. Just the leader, it seems, and that Keemon. They're taking Caylen. Oyen, Lowery, come with me. John Bowman, stay here. The bracken should cover you well if you stay low. Don't show yourself unless you know it's us, they're sending relief for the sentries.”

  Bowman looked in the direction of the man she had killed. They'd wisely put the distance of a hundred feet or so between the corpse an
d their little group. It was true: in this undergrowth, if he stayed low, he could escape detection.

  “And you can draw your sword now, Outlander!” Lowery whispered as he passed, smiling.

  Bowman's eyes alternated between their departing backs, as foliage swallowed them leaf by branch, and the path the relieving sentry would take. As the last of the Rory disappeared his head sunk almost to ground level and he searched through undergrowth for the legs of the Kasina.

  His enemy. Men who would kill him, without question, just for being there. He was musing on this, and on the rumblings in his stomach and bowels, when the two-note blare of a bugle sounded, so strident on the still night air he jumped almost to his feet, then crouched in a pocket of sweat, the sword in his right hand shaking so hard he pinioned it between his knees.

  The sound had been like the bellow of a panicked cow, but deliberate in its cadence, and it came from the direction of the dead sentry, to whom relief had arrived too late.

  Bowman knew the sound had stopped every heart in earshot, as it had his. His grip refreshed on the short sword and he tried to stop trembling but couldn’t. He wondered if every sword hand in the night that would die in the ensuing battle, and every sword hand that would not, but couldn't know that, gripped its own weapon so much tighter that it seemed to shake with its own life, and power of death.

  ***

  By the time the bugle sounded, Yalnita had moved to within a few feet of Denaren. She froze, her arrow in mid-journey from quiver to bow. Her eyes left their immediate target in a full circle scan of the night.

  A second's silence followed the alarm, then shouts, grunts, the clanging of metal, feathery whoosh of flying shafts, the ping of a crossbow bolt unloading, and another bugle call, cut off in mid-note. Muffled sounds ensued as the sword-play died away, ending in a single scream. Something thudded onto the forest floor. Then silence.

  Yalnita looked back to Denaren. The Guard had mounted his horse and turned to take the reins of the animal they'd put Caylen on with her hands still bound behind her back.

  Keemon had also mounted by now, a loaded crossbow held in the crook of one arm. His nose was high as he sifted the night air for sound or scent or movement. Olrin had turned from the task of getting Caylen into the saddle to cut a horse out for himself.

  As the three figures on horseback trotted around, waiting for Olrin to mount, Oyen, Yalnita and Lowery spread in a line, weaving about for a clear shot.

  Precious seconds melted. Yalnita's arms ached holding the bow drawn, trying to time the shot between flashes of horse, tree and Caylen. Then Olrin was mounted; in a moment it would be too late. She leapt from cover onto the path and loosed her shaft at Denaren.

  The tall man's eyes flared in horror at the sight of her. His small war shield was bound over the arm that held the reins, on the other side of this attack. With no hope of blocking the blow he twisted his frame and yanked his horses' head up and away in a desperate corkscrewing maneuver.

  It almost worked. The great creature of brawn and sinew beneath him leapt and spun, whinnying terror as it went. The shield turned with them, and in another instant would have glanced the flying shaft away harmlessly.

  But that instant did not belong to Denaren, who, screaming with pain and rage, let the reins fall from his now useless left hand and in the same motion picked them up in his right.

  Yalnita didn't pause in her running shot. Tucking the bow behind her, she crashed into undergrowth on the far side of the path. Half expecting a crossbow bolt to follow she rolled and came back up, scrambling behind a tree from which to take her next shot. Her right hand flashed across her body like a striking snake to pluck another shaft from her quiver.

  But no bolt followed her. The Kasina were in disarray. Denaren, once he'd regained control of his startled horse, jerked his head at Olrin and shouted, “Bring the girl.” Then he wheeled savagely and fled South along the path to the fort, the Rory fletching waving like a battle pennant from his upper arm.

  Twenty paces down the path he met Lowery. The Rory had leapt through the undergrowth like a great stag, thrashing aside entanglements as he desperately made ground on the fleeing figure of Denaren. With no time to aim, he’d dropped his bow and bounded over a fallen tree to land in the centre of the path. Drawing his short sword from its scabbard on his back he turned to face the thundering minotaur.

  Denaren let the reins fall and, in one flashing arc, drew his heavy field sword. He swung it overhead with his right hand and brought it into a slashing line at the Rory.

  The clash of the two blades shook both swordsmen, but the larger sword bested Lowery's, thumping shattered metal against the Rory's head. As the big man reeled, the massive flank of the departing horse, expertly maneuvered by its rider, connected and sent him sprawling.

  Keemon meanwhile pranced his horse in a jerking circle, fending Rory salvos with his overworked shield while he waited for a settled moment in which to aim his own weapon. When it became clear such an opportunity wouldn’t come, he whirled on Olrin and Caylen, caught between the melee in front of them and an unknown fate back in the camp. Caylen had slumped forward in the saddle, blood streaking from her upper body down the horse’s flanks. “Kill her! Kill the bitch!” Keemon shouted at Olrin.

  Olrin looked at him. “But... Denaren..”

  “She's useless. Knows nothing. I questioned her, kill her, do it now!” the mounted Outlander yelled. Then he fled between the Rory pincer, firing his crossbow wildly at Oyen while he hung beside the neck of his mount to avoid Yalnita's aim. Coming to the rising figure of Lowery, he made to free his sword, but there wasn't enough time and the Kasina charger cleared the Rory in a gliding arc.

  Alone and trapped, Olrin muttered his own Kasina curse at Keemon's receding back. When Yalnita appeared between two trees, feinting to draw his fire, he obligingly loosed the short bolt at her. It flew too slow, burying to the fletching in the sapling she’d dived behind. With another, more audible curse, Olrin flung the weapon from him and drew his sword, advancing on the prone figure of Caylen as he did. Coming to the strangely quietened horse and its unconscious load, he hoisted the long blade high. But he hesitated, focussing on a spot for the blow to fall. It was long enough for an arrow to be aimed, long enough to die.

  Oyen's shaft hit him in the side of the chest, plundering lungs of their air and blood before it stuck between two ribs in a thwarted exit. As Olrin reared and swung the horse around, tasting his own insides while pain screamed in his brain, Yalnita's shaft took him front on, just above the heart. Sensing the loss of control and panicked by the blood spurting onto its neck, his charger catapulted into Caylen's, throwing her to the ground. Her horse, freed of its burden and similarly terror-struck, bounded into the bushes and freedom.

  In a last act of dignity, the Kasina wrestled back control of his mount. For a long moment the combatants froze, Oyen and Yalnita with reloaded bows half drawn and half aimed, the glassy-eyed guard on his trembling horse. Then Olrin sucked down pain and fear with the breath he'd need to achieve his last living act: the Rory must not have horses.

  The animals were tethered between two trees, a single rope running through their halters. Olrin wheeled at the nearest end of the rope, screaming as he crunched his sword through the loose knot and burying it in the dense bark below. The commotion and loosening of bonds was all the encouragement the horses needed to bolt. As they did, Olrin kicked his own mount out from under him and fell heavily. He half rose to observe the animals’ departure.

  But it was over for Olrin now, and when the inevitable shafts from Oyen and Yalnita thudded into him they bit numb flesh; what was left of a life of servitude slumped face down in the final submission all are born to.

  When the chaos of fleeing horses had cleared, Oyen made for Caylen. But he didn't get there.

  The Kasina Guard near Bowman had heard the battles going on, followed by the rapid exit of horses to the South. It was confirmation enough that the disaster he'd encountered in the form of
the dead sentry was being repeated elsewhere around the camp. He panicked. “Benir! Olrin! Commander?!” He blasted another warning on his bugle. Trees and night swallowed the sound and gave back silence.

  The reality was all too clear: there was nothing left to guard. His companions and Commander were either dead or gone, as were the horses. He was alone, on foot, and now that he'd betrayed his own position, the same fate as befell the others crept towards him. With crossbow in one hand and sword in the other he struck South, the line he took running parallel to the Burnt Pines path, the direction he’d heard chargers crashing away in.

  Yalnita cursed and shot a glance at Oyen. “Stop him, he's heading straight for the Outlander!” Then she was off, leaping and scrambling uphill through the tangled undergrowth. Oyen followed suit, leaving Lowery to stumble over to Caylen, one hand to his head to staunch the bleeding.

  The Kasina heard them coming, even glimpsed them in the moonlight as they periodically mounted fallen logs and plunged out of sight on the other side, laboriously gaining on him in their uphill struggle. But there were others closing in now, from the West and North. The whole forest was shaking menace from its canopy. He redoubled his speed as his eyes sought the silhouette of horse.

  Seconds later his leg thudded into Bowman's chest and he fell heavily into bracken.

  Bowman rose gasping, dropping the short sword. The Kasina had already regained his feet and levelled his crossbow at Bowman's face. But there was something different about this man. One arm in a cast, and strange hair - so short. And allowing his windedness to put him at risk, not an experienced combatant, despite the discarded sword - even peasants carried such puny weapons. What was he doing here?

  “Who are you?”

  “Who wants to know?” Bowman managed to wheeze, straightening slowly.

  “I am Lentar. Now, before I kill you, who are you?”