Techromancy Scrolls: Soras (8 page)

Peter followed her gaze and grudgingly agreed, “It was.” He handed Dru his arrow back and he placed it into his quiver as deftly as Peter had.

I looked at Kristof as Verna joined us. He had known Peter was up there. I narrowed my eyes at the man. “Just how many others are out there shadowing us?”

The corners of his mouth twitched up and he said, “I didn't even know Pete was up there, I just assumed he was. He's a good man.”

He narrowed his eyes and asked Dru, “What were you doing up there?”

The Gypsy grinned and said, “I am the garda personala of my Soras, where else would I be?” He shrugged like it was obvious.

Peter was looking at the short oddly curved bow in Dru's hand then down at his longbow with a furrowed brow. I understood his consternation, the Gypsies have ways with creating things that outperform any of our contemporary counterparts. At times, I think they are far beyond us in reclaiming what mankind had in the Before Times. I think the only thing we surpass them in is mechanical things, but they have no need for such technology in their traveling caravans.

Dru whistled and his stallion came trotting out from between some buildings down the way a bit and up to us. He grabbed the body without regard for compassion and hefted him over the saddle almost effortlessly.

Celeste gave him a grin and shook her head and we all started toward the Town Hall. Hans met us there, asking, “I hear there was trouble in the market?”

Verna nodded as she reached up and grabbed the scruff of the dead man's neck and dragged the body down. “We need to see what we can find out about this man. He is connected with an attack on the Gypsies.”

I know we were trying not to let anyone know what our mission was, word spreads like wildfire in villages, but I think they all trusted Hans and saw him as a comrade in arms.

They put the body inside where the light was better and they started searching him. I tried hard not to get sick, looking at the dead man. I was still not hardened to death like the others, though to my shame, I had more kills than all of them combined. Thoughts of the Monolith came up unbidden to haunt me.

I shook it off and bent to look at the man as Tennison came from the main room to get a report while Kristof searched the man's pockets and belt pouches.

Verna filled Tennison in and Celeste's eyes got narrower and narrower as Verna searched. She asked Bex, “What do you see?”

Bex looked as green as me but he replied, “His armor and blade look like Knight issue, but all the crests have been mangled.”

She nodded. “Good. And Laney?” She had already saw that this was more a training exercise now since Bex and I hadn't had the years of Squire training that others had. Brenda joined us and grasped Bex's hand as the others from our task-force started gathering around.

I looked closely and said, “His clothing and cloak have been dyed black to hide the colors of the...” I paused and placed my hand on Kristof's to stop him. He looked up with his hand in a tunic pocket of the spy.

He pulled his hand back and I reached down and turned the pocket inside out the best I could, the inside was deep forest green. On the other men at the Keep, we could see some orange through the black. I blanched as I whispered, “Solomon.”

Celeste asked, “Laney?”

I pointed out the color, “Green and orange. These men are knights of Solomon.”

Our men began murmuring. Solomon was second only to Highland Keep in the size of their forces. Where the Capitol had over a thousand and hundreds in reserve, Solomon's forces were four hundred strong. Wexbury only had one hundred and fifty Knights of the Realm and seventy in reserve.

Dru snapped out, “So the Altii realms are responsible?” There was a fire in his eyes.

Celeste laid a calming hand on his arm and said softly, “We do not know that yet. All we know is that these men are from Solomon, we do not know if this was sanctioned by Duke Liam. They went through great effort to hide where they hail from. They may be deserters or marauders with stolen gear.”

I knew she didn't believe the last part because even I could see the armor was fitted to the man. But it was enough to calm the man. Then she added with the fire of Wexbury fueling her dangerous tone, “Believe me when I say, if Solomon is truly behind this, there will be a reckoning!”

This brought up a predatory grin to Dru's face as he nodded once in agreement. This part of Alexandru scared me. The man was a deadly predator, but I preferred the happy, jovial man who was prone to spinning exaggerated yarns and flirting with any female within a hundred yards.

Then Tennison loudly spoke, “Alright people you heard the 'Princess,' we have an early start tomorrow so get some rack time.”

As everyone started dispersing, Tennison looked at the Magistrate as he grabbed the body and flung it over his shoulder like it weighed less than a sack of potatoes. “Where do you want the body, Hans?” Then he lumbered off with the limping man as Celeste dragged me into the main room and the cots.

She murmured to herself, “Solomon.” She took my cloak off of me and I took hers off of her.

Then she laid on a cot and held her blanket open for me to slide in front of her. She pulled me to her and someone turned down the last lantern. I don't know how long I just lay there, listening to her breathing, before sleep finally claimed me.

In the morning, Hans had a meal to break our fast brought in. Our horses were brought around and we said our farewells to the man. He called out, “Safe travels.”

We started riding through the awakening of the large village, passing people on their way to work or to set things up in the market.

As soon as we were out of Owensdale, we rode hard to the east on some gypsy trails Dru had pulled us onto. Navigating them like they were his own home. I smiled. Of course he knew them, they truly were his home, Laney.

The terrain started getting rougher as we left the foothills behind and we entered the majesty of the Whispering Walls mountain range. There were more and more deciduous trees the further we moved into the range, with a crown of conifers at the treeline. The intense heat of summer was tempered and it felt more like early spring to me.

I again was humbled as I looked on in awe at the soaring peaks that still held snow on their apexes in mid summer. My eyes turned to the north to see Heaven's Gate, towering over the rest of the range like some great sentinel from times gone past, covered in white. Great glaciers covering it as it rose over a mile above even the highest peaks.

I had never seen it so close before, only on the horizon. Even when we traveled the mountains on our Far Reach Expedition, we had been down in Flatlash when we entered the range. It was easy to see why our forefathers had named it Heaven's Gate. If you believed in God and Heaven, they would be the closest any mere mortal could get to Heaven.

It was late morning when Dru pulled us all up short on a ridge overlooking a green valley with various small rivers flowing through it. In the mountains, water was everywhere. Celeste and I moved forward and dismounted when he did. He pulled out a spyglass and scanned the valley.

My red headed lady knight held her hand out absently and I pulled my own spyglass out of the tool pouch slung over my shoulder. She looked too as Dru pointed down. “There by the east ridge, that is the caravan.” She nodded and then he said, “A quarter-mile perimeter. See the movement?”

She scowled and shook her head and held her hand out again, I handed her another lens that slid over the end of the spyglass, doubling its power. I grinned that I knew her so well I knew what she needed. After a moment, she said, “Ah. I see maybe a half dozen.”

She handed me the spyglass and I took a look myself, I could see the wagons but not the men they spoke of as Dru said, “Yes there are maybe three dozen in a loose ring. I don't know why they are containing the camp other than they don't want anyone getting out to warn the others or they are using them as leverage against Mother Udele. I cannot see them being able to hold her otherwise.”

I shook my head and whispered, “Don't they realize that they essentially just declared war on the People?”

Tennison snatched the spyglass from my hand with a grin and took a look himself as Celeste said, “Most just see the peaceful Mountain Gypsies they only see at Carnival and see them as no threat. That is a dangerous attitude when we are in the Lower Ten at their leave.”

I nodded in understanding as Tennison handed the spyglass back to me and I stowed it. The big knight asked my lady, “How do you want to handle this?”

She bared her teeth in a vicious sneer and said in a voice devoid of emotion, her eyes starting to spit emerald sparks, “Let's not give them time to think or martial their troops and hit them head on, hard and fast. Let's show them the fire of Wexbury!”

Everyone made guttural growls of agreement. Alexandru's fire matched our own. Then with comic timing, Tennison spoke up and said, “I have decided that we should not give them time to think or martial their troops and hit them head on, hard and fast. Let's show them the fire of Wexbury!”

Everyone chuckled at him. He looked around and asked in mock hurt, “What?” Which got more chuckles as he winked at me. We all knew Celeste was really in charge of this mission and he was hamming it up.

Celeste made some hand motions as we mounted back up, we broke into groups of four with an archer watching each of groups back. The other two archers would place themselves in the trees near the first enemies.

Celeste's group was over-strength with me, our four escort Knights, an archer, and Dru watching our backs. It would have been smarter to divide our group in half to be able to hit more targets simultaneously as the enemy holding siege to the clan were only patrolling in pairs. But Celeste would not allow me out of her sight, and the others repeated that they were sworn to be our escort.

Celeste looked at Dru before our squads moved apart in a string, though she addressed the group, “Remember, we need at least one of them alive to find out who authorized this and where they took Mother Udele.”

The Gypsy nodded once.

We started moving down the valley toward our independent targets. The plan was for each squad to move within a hundred yards of their designated enemy. When we were in place, Tennison would give some sort of signal and we would rush the enemy. Then the squads would sweep around the camp in opposite arcs and take on the other patrols.

We located ours, we were at the center of the groups, our task was to take out our target then continue through to the caravan to guard them in case the remaining enemy rushed them since we had no idea what their orders might be.

I felt my nerves fraying as adrenaline started dripping into my system in anticipation of a fight. I was terrified like I was any time a fight was imminent. I was no knight no matter what the others said, but I couldn't run, I would never run, people depended on me. I would not let innocents suffer for my own cowardice.

I took one last deep breath as swords were drawn. I drew my Anadele, she shone in the light of Father Sol, unwavering, and I drew strength from her and the equally unwavering knights around me. I returned the reassuring smile that Celeste shot me.

I wondered how Tennison was going to signal a line of squads stretched out over a mile, since we brought no signal horn. Then I felt someone using magic nearby. It was more powerful than both Celeste and my weak magics. It tasted of steel and air magics, I smiled, it tasted like Tennison's magic. The only other magic user in our group. And I saw a mini cyclone of leaves drifting up into the sky, high above the trees.

Goliath was already in motion with the other knights before I could react, and we were barreling through the forest. The second we saw the patrol hear our approach, the knights and Alexandru bellowed their battle cries. I almost felt sorry for the two men, they hadn't been prepared for seven knights of Wexbury and an enraged Gypsy archer to burst out in front of them.

The first man flew off the back of his horse when he was struck in mid right chest by an arrow with colorful feathers. There was a metallic ping sound as Dru's arrow cut through his armor like it was made of straw.

Bowyn dove off of his charger onto the other horseman, pulling him out of his saddle and they went tumbling down to the ground. They tussled a moment and gained their footing and split apart. Bowyn drew his blade so smoothly as he stood I almost wondered how it got into his hand.

The other man lifted his arms over his own shoulders to grasp the hilts of the dual sabers he had on his back and pulled them forward smoothly, spinning them in wide arcing circles in the flourish of a well-trained swordsman.

They exchanged guttural cries as the collided in a swirling tide of flashing steel and sparks. The man pressed his attack, forcing Bowyn back. I started to call power to me but Celeste laid a hand on my arm. She shook her head then crossed her arms lazily on the pommel of her saddle and turned to watch as two expert swordsmen dodged, parried and struck in a macabre dance of death.

I often forget how good of a swordsman Sir Bowyn really is. He deflected every blow from the dual blades with his own lighter blade, with deft moves and economy of motion. He hadn't pressed the attack. Then I remembered the hard lesson I had been taught almost two years hence. That it takes a third of the energy to block a strike than to swing your sword.

Bowyn was wearing the man down before he made his move. They broke apart after the Dark Knight did a probing attack then tried to get in a spinning backhanded strike.

Bowyn smiled at the man who's breathing was labored and strikes were slowing. Then he moved his blade from his left to his right hand. My jaw almost dropped, I had not noticed that he had been fighting with his off hand.

Our cocky knight saluted the man with his sword then pressed the attack for the first time. He was forcing the man back one step at a time, it was all his opponent could do to fend him off. In an intricate thrust and swirl of his blade, Bowyn wound up pulling one of the man's blades free and it landed on the ground between them.

They paused and our knight dipped his blade to the hilt of the fallen weapon and with a flick, sent it into the air and the man deftly caught it. Bowyn seemed to study the man as he stepped sideways, one leg crossing over the other. Then he went the other way and then dipped his blade down, leaving himself wide open as he asked, “Master Harrick trained you?”

The other man showed his teeth in a smug snarl then without warning thrust both blades toward Bowyn, who anticipated it, and stepped through the man's guard between blades with a single step. It looked almost as if he hugged the man as he said, “A pity to lose one with such promise.” His blade was resting on the man's back as Bowyn lowered him to the ground and when he moved back, I saw the bloody dagger in Bowyn's left hand.

He turned to look up at Celeste and said, “These men were trained as knights, by some of the same traveling masters as most of us.”

This chilled me. It was looking more and more like one of the realms was truly responsible for the attack on the Lupei. The implications and ramifications of that were frightening. Peaceful as they may be, we saw what just Alexandru could do. I didn't want to imagine what an army seventy thousand strong could do. Even all the realms forces combined would be overwhelmed, and nobody knew the true capabilities of their magic.

No matter how you looked at it, unless these men were working on their own, then it was an act of war. And this war could prove more deadly than even the Great Mage War, so it needed to be avoided at all costs.

The other man moaned, and that caused us all to divert our attention from Bowyn. Dru slid off his saddle and walked up to the man and yanked his arrow out of his back viciously. It caused the man to cry out in pain. Our gypsy friend kicked the man over and knelt on his chest with a blade to his throat and hissed out, “Where have you taken Mother Udele?”

The man just spit at him and said with a Solomon accent, through teeth clenched in pain, “I won't tell you shit, Gypsy trash.”

And I turned my head to wretch as the insane man grabbed Dru's wrist, pushed up against the knife at his own throat and slid his head aside before Alexandru could pull back. My friend stumbled back and up away from the man, looking down on him, then his own knife in stunned disbelief. The black-clad knight had killed himself rather than speak.

I heard myself whispering, “He... he just killed himself.”

Celeste said in a hoarse voice, “We have to get to the caravan, now.”

Bowyn and Dru nodded and mounted up and we were once again thundering through the forest to the camp of our allies. After a couple hundred yards we slowed to a halt and I made a distressed sound and had to look away. There was a man, covered with blood, strung up between some trees, arms and legs splayed.

Alexandru hissed out, “Marku!”

Tennison and Dru both dismounted quickly and cut the man down. I turned back when I heard a gurgling gasp. The man was still alive! I slid off my horse quickly and ran to them with my waterskin. I winced at the sight of the man as Dru grabbed the waterskin and held it to the man's lips. He sipped and coughed.

What kind of animals could do this to another man? Most of his fingers were bent back unnaturally, and his fingernails were gone. There were various cuts and burns all across the man's skin. He had been tortured.

He opened his one eye, the other was a dark, bloody hole. In a weak voice, he asked, “Alexandru?”

The big Gypsy said in their tongue, “I'm here Marku.”

The man tried to focus then said, “They... tried to get me to tell them...”

Dru pushed the bloody hair out of the man's eye. “Tell them what?”

The man took a deep wheezing breath, “How... how many of us tried to get out... and...” He choked on the words and Dru gave him more water. Then he continued, “...and where we were heading.”

Then his face twisted up in defiant hate as he hissed, “I told the Altii dogs nothing!”

Then he seemed to go bonelessly limp as she said in a faraway voice, “They finally tired of me after days of torture and hung me there as a warning to others.”

He took two more breaths, then his eye flew wide, “The Soras?”

Dru was stroking the man's hair as he cradled him like a broken doll. “I have found them. They are here.”

I leaned in so the man could see me and I gave him a gentle smile as I laid my hand on his cheek. I whispered in English, “We are here, Marku.”

The man smiled at me and replied in English, “Good... good... that is good...” He slid back into unconsciousness.