“I never forgot,” King Felix noted. “I did disregard it after a period of time though. There is a difference.”
“Yes,” Lorne accepted King Felix’s words as fact. “There definitely is a difference.”
“When is this all supposed to happen?” King Felix wondered.
“I doubt if it will be any time soon,” Lorne replied. “The girl is kept close to the King to allow him to use her mind as he can or will. It will take time to get the message we are sending to him and longer for him to move on it. I am guessing a couple of years, one at the very least.”
“What do we do while we wait for your puppet bride to arrive?” King Felix asked.
“She will be no puppet,” Lorne predicted. “I have a feeling we will both know what we are facing when she arrives. I also get the impression from General Anton that she uses her mind in the same way as our Elven General does steel. We appreciate Gabriella Eagle Claw because we understand the platform she uses to fight with. What we failed to recognize was the intelligence she wields behind her actions. I would suggest we don’t underestimate this young girl in the same way.”
“A girl,” King Felix sighed. He sounded like he couldn’t quite grasp the concept of trusting a female with any degree of respect, even after the repeated lessons he had gotten from Gabriella Eagle Claw. In the back of his mind, it still came down to a matter of skill.
Lorne understood his father better than was expected. “A mind can be every bit as sharp as a sword if used in the right way. If you don’t understand that by now, I get the impression you will soon learn. I doubt if we will be given much choice in the matter.”
“So, what do we do now?” King Felix asked. It was one of the few times he reached out for advice from anyone, but he could feel his son coming into his power even more now than ever before. It was time he learned to use some of it, before he was forced to take up the reins without ever learning how.
“Now,” Lorne decided. “We go into that forest and seriously hunt for a way through to the other side. It is not going to be easy, and it won’t be done overnight, but it will get done. We may even need to do this in stages.”
“I never thought it would be easy,” King Felix reminded Lorne. He thought only a fool would consider any of this simple. It was going to take a lot of work and manpower to succeed at what they had in mind. “Have you begun to gather the supplies you need?”
“Yes, although I get the feeling Donahue will not approve,” Lorne chuckled.
“Too much?” King Felix guessed. It was this he figured Donahue would frown at more than anything else. Deep in his heart, their castle commander was a frontier man. Given the choice, he would set off on foot to venture out into the wilderness to explore. He would live off the land, taking nothing but a bow, a knife, and his sword.
“We are taking a wagon into the forest, something he will not be happy about and will refuse to see the wisdom of,” Lorne noted with a grin.
King Felix frowned and admitted, “I would tend to agree with him.”
“Then you would both be wrong,” Lorne continued. “In the beginning, I thought as you did, but one of General Anton’s engineers put up a sound argument in favor of the plan.”
“What did he come up with?” King Felix wondered. He was curious to hear what would persuade Lorne to veer from his prime beliefs, if this was indeed what had happened.
“As we travel with the beast, it tells us if the trail is wide enough and if the ground under our feet is stable. It gives us the lay of the land and tells us if we need to smooth out the pathway. We will know if it is good enough to trust as it is without expending a massive amount of manpower or energy to make the road passable. If we need a conveyance, we will have one. The dray horses can be used to help move objects that are in the way. When we return, we can bring back whatever supplies we have taken from the forest to begin the project, for there is no doubt they will want to start building the bridges here before moving them to where they will need to be set up. This will be done in pieces. The main part will be completed on site and, I got the impression that it is something they do all the time when they are on the road. It saves time.”
King Felix nodded his understanding and agreement, for now that he had heard their reasoning spoken aloud, it made sense to him. In fact, he was tempted to go along with them to learn more. As quickly as the thought occurred to him, it was discarded. It was an impossible dream. He was needed here too much. Someone had to keep the home fires burning properly, and Evart was no longer here to do it for them to take advantage of.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Lorne nearly laughed at the look of misery Donahue wore when he saw the lumbering wagon they were to take along on the expedition. His Captain of the Guards pointed at the ancient behemoth and asked, “You are not serious about taking this with us?” Only, he knew they were. The wagon wasn’t only old, it was the sturdiest mode of transportation anywhere. It would also give them a good accounting on how solid the ground they were travelling over would be.
“It was handpicked by General Anton’s senior engineer,” Lorne told the Captain. “He chose the horses to pull it with too. Don’t look so forlorn, Donahue. There is a good reason for all of this.”
“There better be,” Donahue answered. He understood the dynamics of the thought well enough, but he hated the idea of leading these fools into the woods when they insisted on going over the land with the equipment he had seen so far. He personally doubted if they would get much further than a couple of miles past the tree line before they would be forced back to where they came from. It was a waste of time and energy.
General Anton gave Donahue a pat on the back and tried to assure him they knew what they were doing, “My men are experienced with this sort of thing. They have brought us through worse terrain than this.”
Donahue stated, “If we make it through to the other side, and I am not saying we will, even without this poor excuse for a wagon, I will be astounded. There are more roadblocks along the way than the few gorges you were told about. Keep this in mind. The whole mountainside is hostile, almost like it was made to keep people out.”
The engineers from General Anton’s group smiled in unison, as their head engineer commented, “We excel on getting through hurdles like this. It is what we do.”
Donahue looked at General Anton and asked, “Are you coming with us?”
“No,” General Anton wished he could, but he knew it would be asking for the impossible for him to expect King Felix to allow him this much freedom. “I have other concerns to see to. King Felix will want a ton of explosives made, and if I am right, so will these men, so that they can tame a portion of this land for our armies to travel over.”
“If they are smart, they will forget this plan,” Donahue stated. He didn’t say the rest of what he was thinking. He believed they should forget about everything to do with the other side of this mountain ridge. He had seen the Dragons and the damage they could do when they decided to attack. He wanted nothing to do with mounting an offense against them. The first Dragon had done little but try to drive people away from the Elven General before he had gotten shot. The second Dragon, however, had gone ballistic after that.
Actually, the second Dragon had come as a surprise to Donahue. He hadn’t seen where it came from. Then again, it seemed like the sky had been filled with them for a while. He shuddered to think of what might have happened if the might of so many had been released on their armies. He doubted if anyone would have survived to tell the tale. He had seen how the monster had made the wagons holding the Dragon Killers fly into the air when struck by the white-hot flames it breathed. The arrows that were shot at it dissolved in midflight and immediately turned into ash. It was horrifyingly fascinating. Now that it was over, however, he didn’t want to admit to the nightmares haunting his dreams about them.
“Are you telling us you are afraid to take us through the forest to get to the other side?” one of the engineers asked.
Don
ahue leveled a look at the man and then grinned as he replied, “The forest doesn’t scare me, nor do the wild animals. All those things are a part of nature, and I can handle whatever it throws at me. The gorges don’t even make me cringe, I have seen chasms like those straddled by bridges that would probably make your eyes bug out. What is on the other side of these massive rock piles is what I admit to fearing, as any sane man would. We have been warned off enough times to know we are testing the will of the Fates. They are not going to let us get away with what we are doing for long. If they do, it will only be enough to teach us the cost of challenging them.”
“The Captain of the Guards is frightened of a few flying lizards,” one of the engineers sneered.
Donahue grinned, as he recognized the man and tossed the mockery right back at him, “I remember you from after the attack of the White Dragon. You walked through the gates of the castle looking like you had seen a ghost and the stains on your pants didn’t smell like rose water.”
When the engineer would have attacked Donahue over making this remark, Lorne grabbed him by the back of his collar and shook him, while he warned them all, “If any of you can’t hold your tempers, you should leave now. If you think you can dish it out and not expect to get anything back, don’t even start on this trip with me in charge. You heard me right. I am in charge here, and in case you are wondering, I have no trouble killing anyone that tries to give us a rough time. By us, I mean any of us, because we are in this together.”
When Lorne was finished warning the men about the possible consequences of their actions, he tossed the man he was holding aside like a limp ragdoll. A quick look at the others under his command assured him he had gotten his point across. The last thing he needed was to spend the entire trip playing referee, when there were more important matters to see to. No matter how he looked at the upcoming forage into the mountainous area, he had a sinking feeling they were going to be in for a rough time. It was going to take them longer to build this road than it would take to set up a sizable army, train the men to their satisfaction, then march them through the passage under the mountain that existed. The difference was, when this was over, they would have permanent and full access to the Valley beyond, as well as all of its resources.
As Donahue checked over the supply wagon, he continued to grumble to himself. It was something that made General Anton’s engineers keep an eye focused on him. It amused Lorne. He knew what they were thinking, and they were wrong. Donahue would not be set over them that was not what this trip was about. Donahue would be the man to lead the way into the wilderness because he knew the trail better than anyone else. It was the only claim to having the upper hand he would get.
Lorne’s own engineers were no more impressed by the insistence of the other to take the wagon than Donahue was. They would have rather done what he planned in the first place. A quick forage into the forest to see the lay of the land to get a better feel for the project they were being sent to prepare for made more sense to them. They didn’t need this cumbersome device to see whether the ground under their horses’ feet was level or solid, they would be able to feel this for themselves. They quickly realized Lorne had other reasons for going along with what was happening.
While General Anton’s engineers gathered in their own little circle to continue to mock the other members of the expedition privately, Lorne took his men aside to explain what he had in mind.
“I know you think this smacks of favoritism, but you would be wrong,” Lorne informed his men. “I want to know where we stand with those men and how far we can trust them or General Anton. This is the main reason I have brought you to come with us. I know where I stand with you. None of you might like me, but you aren’t going to try to double-cross me. You know better than to try.”
The men standing in the circle with Lorne nodded their agreement. They knew what would happen if they tried to cross Lorne. They had seen how he treated traitors and considered death a far kinder fate. It was something they doubted if the foreign engineers had a clue about. They knew those men hadn’t been around long enough to get to know the Royal Family well enough to respect them for the vicious streak running through them. They were certain they would learn about this quickly enough during the trip though.
Lorne’s engineers had a feeling General Anton had caught on to King Felix and Lorne’s characters quickly, which explained his compliance with their wishes. They had also seen him speaking to his men earlier and figured Lorne had filled them in on what they were getting involved with. They could only wonder how much of what they were being told was believed. If these men were smart, they probably should believe it all.
“You can count on us to let you know if they are trying to fool us or lead us astray. They seem to think they are superior to us, but I doubt if they have the same amount of expertise we do when it comes to being on the march and crossing the kind of terrain we will come across here,” Lorne’s head engineer spoke with confidence.
“I wouldn’t take that for granted,” Lorne warned. “According to General Anton, they were on the march for the last five years before coming across us. Ours was the first army they weren’t able to defeat. I am of the opinion only our great numbers coupled with the Dragon Killers, made them surrender. If it wouldn’t have been for General Anton’s experience, his officers wouldn’t have recognized the threat we posed so quickly.”
“Being surrounded by three massive armies on separate fronts will make a general think twice about attacking even smaller numbers,” The head engineer chuckled.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Lorne frowned, as he shook his head in disappointment. “We had the superior forces and were prepared to meet him on three fronts, but he had the greater weapon. If Evart hadn’t destroyed their war machine, the day could have been theirs, not ours. In the case of this particular battle, it came down to timing and experience. Evart got the timing right, General Anton had the experience needed to know when to back down before it was too late for his men. He knew without his main weapon, we could have used the Dragon Killers to rip through his fighting force.
One of the engineers asked, “Would you really have shot at General Anton’s army with those machines?” He was new to Lorne’s fighting forces and couldn’t imagine anyone releasing the kind of power those weapons were capable of wielding against people, enemies or not.
“You are new here, aren’t you?” Lorne’s head engineer asked.
“I have been here for a few weeks,” The young engineer replied.
Lorne took over. “We would have done whatever it took to win. In times of war fighting fairly can be the difference between winning and losing. We are in this to come up on top. This means, if I thought the machines might mean the difference between life and death for my men, I would have lined them up and shot all of them off at the advancing enemy.”
“Do you have any idea what that would have done to them?” The young engineer exclaimed. “I can only gasp at the horror, devastation, and loss of life something like those quarrels in flight might cause to men.”
“I will assume you weren’t here when Evart released his quarrels at the enemy war machine,” Lorne spoke in a matter of fact manner. “One quarrel struck the machine. The combustion at impact shattered it into sticks, which probably provided the armies kindling for a week. The second quarrel missed its mark and mowed a line through the enemy forces for over one hundred yards. I might have thought differently about the short battle if I wouldn’t have some idea of the devastation General Anton’s war machine would have had on our side if he had been given the chance to use it. You would have arrived to find nothing left of our armies but corpses. Amongst the bodies there would have been an assortment of stone that once held the castle together. The only living beings in the area would have been vultures.”
“Surely you don’t mean General Anton would have killed everyone, leveled the buildings and moved on,” The young engineer sounded shocked by the idea. The thought of such brutali
ty was beyond his comprehension. It was inhumane. It was uncivilized. Men didn’t act like this or perform such atrocities where he came from. He had left home with the idea his education would make life easier for the people in the world, not to use it to kill and maim.
Lorne knew what the young engineer was thinking, and he couldn’t remember ever being that young and naïve. The boy was in for a rude awakening if he planned to stay with them or any people that waged war on others. Life wasn’t easy, and people were cruel. “I suggest you forget about your childish dreams before you find out what men are really like. We are brutes capable of any amounts of barbarity. Some even enjoy it. If you are ever caught on the wrong side, you will find out how true my words are. Personally, and for your sake, I hope it never happens. In times of war, the innocent either die young or suffer horrendously. It is the way of this world.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
As Lorne and Donahue stood next to each other and watched the men finish going over their equipment for what they felt must be the eleventh time, King Felix and General Anton arrived. It was unexpected, but to Lorne, heartwarming, that his father would think to stop whatever he was doing to see him off. He doubted if he could remember the last time this had happened.
“So,” King Felix spoke, as he dismounted and strode up to Lorne and Donahue. “Do you know what to expect from this?”
“Not a clue,” Lorne admitted.
Donahue only frowned and remained silent until General Anton pressed the matter, “How about you?”
Donahue looked at the foreign General, then at the men and sighed as he responded, “A challenge I would rather forego.”
“What makes you say that, or are you still against taking the wagon?” King Felix wondered.
“I understand the concept of the crate, but I still wish we could leave it behind, at least this time,” Donahue admitted. He wasn’t about to play the part of a hypocrite. Besides, they all knew how he felt about the lumbering cart. It was a nuisance at the best of times. In the forest, it was going to catch on every tree root and get hung up on every trough and bump. There would be enough of those without adding to the changes of the terrain. The floor of the forest was very uneven, and they would be continuously pressed to haul the rig out of some rut it got stuck in. The fact that it was heavy would add to that nastiness.
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