Secrets at the Keep (Kingdom of Denall Book 2) (13 page)

Driven by an unseen force, Maggie kicked Gapol forward, trying to urge more speed from the warhorse as she made her way north through Omer’s realm. She couldn’t explain why, but she knew that if she didn’t go north as quickly as possible, bad things would happen. She didn’t take time to ask why fate had chosen her to have these directions in her mind, like promptings that guided her, but she had learned through painful experience to listen when they came.

She wondered as she crashed through the woods, if these inklings in her mind were her version of having a gift. She hadn’t been born with one of the traditional marks for enhanced strength, sight, smell, hearing, intellect or magic; instead she was consigned to a fate of being the wandering crazy girl who won archery tournaments and travelled around doing random, yet unknown acts of service throughout Denall.

As she passed through an opening in the trees, she pulled Gapol to a stop and looked ahead. Before her in a small valley hidden by the dense forest was a small group of cabins all built in rows close together. Maggie jumped down to the ground and her stomach growled loudly. She grit her teeth and scowled at the sky because she didn’t know where else to put the blame. For the past several months she had felt the need to eat next to nothing and not bathe until she looked like a skeletal vagabond with matted hair. What purpose could that possibly serve? She had no idea, yet she obeyed.

Leaving her weapons with Gapol, hidden behind a thicket, Maggie made her way down into the valley toward the walled village just as the sun was setting. As she moved forward, she noticed that there was a guard stationed every hundred feet along the outside of the wall. She ducked behind a large rock, then walked quickly for a time until she dropped down to the ground and waited. She was grateful for the shadows that were setting in. It made dodging guards, and moving unnoticed even easier for her, as she felt the constant promptings pushing her forward.

After lying flat on the ground in complete silence for several minutes, she jumped to her feet and sprinted to a large tree growing near to the wall at the end of the village farthest from the main entrance. She scrambled up the tree quickly, then moved cautiously along a thick branch that extended over the top of the wall. She waited for just a moment before lowering herself to hang from the branch, then dropped quietly to the ground below. She walked to the nearest house where she pressed her back against the south facing wall.

When she had caught her breath, she started weaving her way between the tiny houses toward the center of the village. She had never seen this village before, and as she walked among the people it was clear that it was not a normal settlement. The buildings were all identical. They were all small, rectangular cabins with sod roofs built almost on top of one another, with barely enough room to walk between the houses. There was no blacksmith shop in sight, no stable, and no general store or supply stores of any kind.
How could people live like this?

As she raised an eyebrow in confusion she came upon what she took to be the main square of the town and saw one building that started to help her put together the pieces. One large warehouse stood at the outskirts of the village by the open main gate, and two guards stood by the front door of the building as people walked past in single file, carrying sacks that were filled with something that looked like grain. Their load was received, weighed, and each person was given a much smaller bag in return.

The arms of each person in line were clearly visible as they strained to bring their filled sacks to the storage building. She noticed that each man and woman had an identical mark on their right arm; a ragged “S” burned into their flesh. She was in a slave village. A village where everyone was working for just enough food to keep them alive.

She looked at them differently now, knowing that they were prisoners. They were all dressed in similar clothing, and also wore the same down trodden look on their faces. They were strong, but malnourished. Maggie looked down at her clothing and her thin body, and she understood that her food deprivation, and poor hygiene was all leading up to this moment, so she could blend in with these people. Her heart was heavy as she made her way through the main row between the houses. She knew how hard it was on her for the past several months to work hard on little or no food, these people had the look of people who had done it for years.
What was she supposed to do to help? How could she save this entire village of slaves?
Then the answer came.

From a distant hill a large patrol of mounted soldiers were approaching slowly toward the village. The leader of the horsemen blew a large trumpet and the soldiers at the warehouse shut and barred the doors, then got onto their horses. They pointed their weapons at the men and women who stood pathetically, asking for their daily rations. Maggie quickened her pace, and as she walked down the line of slaves, she took a bag from an older man. He was so used to being abused, he didn’t even resist. Maggie came to the front of the line of people waiting, and walked up to the mounted guards.

“Hold it there, slave!” one man said, pointing his spear at her.

Maggie glared up at him and threw the burlap sack over the point of his spear then twisted the sack, pulling the spear from his hand and yanking him off balance. While he recovered, she swung the spear in a circle around her head, and cracked him across the face, and spun to also knock the other soldier off his horse with his foot caught in the stirrup. She poked the horse in the flank with the sharp end of the spear and it reared up wildly kicking its hind leg just missing Maggie’s face, then it took off running, dragging the soldier behind. “They’re coming to burn the food!” Maggie shouted pointing at the patrol of soldiers who were still a fair distance away.

She pushed the large piece of wood off the door and opened the storage room. “Grab what you can and hide it in your homes!”

The slaves all ran into the storehouse and grabbed entire sacks of gain, potatoes, clothing, tools, and other supplies. They rushed to their homes, urging all the other members of the village to do the same. While everyone ran madly to empty the storage, Maggie pulled the unconscious soldier into the storage building.

When the building was empty of supplies, she pulled the doors shut and waited, silently listening to the sound of horses approaching. The sound became quiet as the soldiers came to a halt surrounding the storage building. Maggie could hear one man yelling loudly so all the people of the village could hear him. “People of Hess!” he called out. “I am here to deliver a message. If you kill Omer’s soldiers, he will exact revenge on you, and your children. Always remember that slaves can be replaced. Good luck surviving the winter without supplies.”

Then Maggie saw through the cracks between the wooden slats that made up the walls, lit torches being thrown up onto the roof of the building. One came in through a loft window and landed on some dry straw. The large building quickly filled with smoke, and she felt that now was the time to move. She pulled on the soldier and began banging against the closed doors. She tried to scream above the sounds of crackling wood and thumping horse hooves, but the smoke chocked her and she just coughed. She continued banging against the doors, and then she heard something that made her really fear that following these promptings might have led to her death. The soldiers outside started laughing. They knew there was someone inside and yet they didn’t move to help.

The fire burned hot and the smoke stifled her, but Maggie continued to punch against the door. “There’s a soldier in here,” she said as loud as she could, but it seemed to only come out as a whisper. “One of your soldiers is in here!”

She pounded against the door one final time then fell backward landing on the soldier. He grunted and shook his head from side to side, then slowly opened his eyes. Maggie shook him slightly then pointed around the building. “We’re trapped.”

He looked around again as if lost then raised an eyebrow at Maggie. “Do I know you?” It seemed that the bump on the head was effecting his memory.

“No,” she answered, “but we need to help each other. How can I tell the soldiers outside that you are in here?” He raised his hand into the air, and pulled off his glove, then fell back into unconsciousness.

Maggie’s strength was almost spent and she had no idea whether this soldier was losing his mind, or whether the glove meant something. Maybe it was something the soldiers outside would recognize. Maggie picked up the soldier’s glove and shoved it through a crack in the door, and then fell to the ground next to the man. She curled into a ball against the heat of the burning room as she began to wonder if her sacrifice was part of some larger plan. That the feelings to come to Hess, which seemed to be leading to her death, would help to save others or perhaps serve some greater good. The hot air began to burn against her skin as the fire closed in from the walls. Her lungs felt like an oven when she inhaled, and then they seemed to stop working, rejecting the heat, refusing to take any more of it in. Although her eyes were open, all she saw was darkness. The smoke, the barn wall, the world.

Through the darkness, a wave of light flooded in. The doors burst open and three soldiers came in. Two grabbed the unconscious man, and the third picked Maggie up and carried her from the burning building. Maggie’s skin was burned to a light pink, and as she ran her fingers through her hair she could feel that clumps had been singed off in the fire, but she didn’t care. She took in large breaths of fresh air, as her lungs began to work again. She looked around at the mounted soldiers and slaves as she was carried away from the burning building. At a safe distance she was set down on the ground and she looked back to see that the storage building was completely engulfed in flames. As she watched, there was a massive cracking sound and it fell down to the ground.

One of the mounted soldiers rode up to her side and jumped down from his horse. He was dressed in armor as the others, but he had on a long cape that seemed to indicate he was a leader among the soldiers. “Who are you?” he demanded of Maggie, pointing a finger into her face.

“Please go easy on her, sir,” the one who had carried her said in defense, stepping between her and her interrogator. “She saved Devs.”

“What?” the commander asked in surprise.

Maggie coughed and rubbed her head with an ash covered hand. “He needed help, so I went in to help him.” She hoped that his memory loss continued so he would corroborate her story. If he remembered that she knocked him out first, then things would get ugly really quickly.

“What about Egarat?” he asked.

“His horse bolted,” the friendly soldier answered with his head down. “His foot got caught and he was dragged. He didn’t make it.”

Maggie cringed at this pronouncement. She never liked hearing that her actions caused death, but she knew there was always a reason behind what happened. And that reason now seemed to be connected to helping the slaves from Hess. Maggie held her breath as the commander looked out over the slaves who had all gathered around the storehouse. Their faces were sad and desperate. He looked down at Maggie and over to Devs who was being nursed back to health. “Form ranks!” the commander called so everyone could hear him.

The soldiers mounted and formed into a line facing the gathered slaves. Maggie didn’t know what they were going to do.
Why had they even come?
It didn’t make any sense for them to burn the supplies of slaves.
How would they survive to do work for their master?
It was obviously some kind of ill-conceived plan, but to what end?
Were they just planning to kill them all?

The commander pointed down at Maggie and she looked up in fear. “This slave has saved you,” he shouted. “My orders were to come and level anyone who resisted. I was told there was an uprising that needed to be squelched, even if that meant killing every single one of you. However, that information may need to be verified; slaves staging an uprising don’t save the enemy soldiers.” He turned around and looked at his men. “Move out!”

The horses turned and galloped through the long field back in the direction they had come, up the hill toward Omer’s Keep. Maggie sagged down to the ground, exhausted, hurt, and famished. One of the women from the group knelt down by her side and held her close. “Thank you,” she whispered. Maggie didn’t know what these people would do to survive the winter, or whether her promptings would someday lead to helping them gain their freedom, but for now she had one prompting that she was eager to fill. She felt like she could get back to Gapol, clean up and eat a decent meal before she moved on to her next mission.

She looked up to the burning storage building and noticed that now that the soldiers had left, the people were doing what they could to put out the flames and salvage anything they could. The column of smoke rose high into the sky, and she felt that somehow that signal would eventually bring some relief to the people here.

*****

“Do you see that?” Kaz asked as he pointed past the keep to the south. The two of them had made slower progress through the forest than they might have liked. They were both badly injured, and it seemed there were a couple of other patrols that had been sent out to search for their little band. Now that night had fallen, the other troops were returning to the keep for new instructions, and neither P nor Kaz had any desire to attract their attention. They had just emerged from the tree line, and were standing at the top of a gentle slope which led down to the main entrance of the keep.