The Reluctant Warrior (11 page)

As Erik set out for the caves Jed took one man for every rifle he had captured, doubts eating away at him as he jogged along. What if Montrose had already killed Rex? What if he had harmed Amora? He felt cold fury want to possess him; if Montrose had touched her he would kill him.

There was another concern that was vying for his attention as he moved along at an inhuman pace. Was he about to do exactly what that wily fox wanted him to do? Montrose was after all, a master tactician, so maybe Jed was running headlong into the very ambush he was planning for Montrose. He was out of his depth against the colonel and had no illusions to the contrary on that score. So far luck had been running on his side, but after the latest events he got the distinct impression that the tide had begun to turn, and after a rocky start the professional was now coming into his own.

Jed checked out the hazy red sun, so different to the sun he was used to on the earth’s surface. Was he to die beneath that smoky sun today? Forever a legend amongst the people of this world but forgotten by those of his own. Had it really come down to this? Was the adventurer turned general about to give up his life for a people that until a few short weeks ago he didn’t even know existed? It was all he could do to stop himself laughing out loud at the irony of it.

No prizes for guessing what Cassie would have to say about it. “Why are you throwing your life away on a cause that doesn’t concern you?” or words to that effect anyway. She wouldn’t dream of putting herself out for anyone, let alone risk her life for them, or even understand Jed’s motives in this. She hadn’t understood him; he had merely been a crutch for her to lean on. Amora did understood, even though they had only met a couple of weeks ago the connection between them was too strong for him to ignore. He picked up his pace, the thought of Montrose forcing himself on her strengthening his resolve to make the ambush work.

He had lost track of the time, it could have been four hours or it may have been only three before they arrived at the location he had in mind. Checking the ground for signs of resent activity he was relieved to discover the tall prairie grass was still standing erect, there was no sign of the trampling that people on the march would make. He dared to hope that Montrose had not yet made it this far.

“What now?” Jonathon was at his side, a look of expectation on his troubled face.

Jed took stock of the situation. The terrain was perfect for an ambush. The wide prairie gradually funneled down to this narrow spot with its steep rock strewn sides. “We’ll get the men into position around the rocks,” he answered. “Montrose has to come through here to get to the rest of the prairie lower down. We can fire on him from both sides.”

“What if we hit some of our own people?”

“Look,” Jed said firmly, “some of our people are going to lose their lives. There’s nothing we can do to stop that.”

Jonathon’s breathing had been getting heavier by the minute and Jed could see the strain had got to him. Obviously the thought of losing Anna was hitting him extra hard. “I figure Montrose will have a bunch of men in front of our people and a whole lot more behind,” he explained, hoping to allay some of Jonathon’s fear, as his eyes ranged along the length of the gully. “We should be able to take that lot out without any harm coming to our people. It’s only the men he’ll have thinned out on each side of the column that’ll give us any trouble.”

“So what’ll we do about them?” Jonathon said frantically. “They can fire on us but we can’t fire on them in case we hit our own people.”

“When they see the advance party and rear guard getting hit I’m hoping they’ll scatter. That’ll give us the chance to take them out.”

Jonathon didn’t look convinced, and there was nothing Jed could say to change that. The trouble being, he wasn’t even sure it would work himself.

Just a little further Jed thought to himself as Montrose’s men herded the Noragin along the narrow track that wound its way down through the gully. His dark eyes roved desperately along the column for Amora and Rex but their whereabouts eluded him for the moment.

“Are they far enough along for us to fire on them,” Jonathon whispered, an unmistakable tone of urgency dominating his voice.

“Not yet.” Jed had his eye on a spot just before a major bend in the trail. Once the frontrunners had reached that bend he would open fire.

“I can see Anna,” Jonathon said excitedly. “And I think that’s Frida and Amora over there.”

Jed relaxed a little. Jonathon was right, Amora was there. She was tired and bedraggled but appeared to be unhurt. He peered around the rock he was hiding behind. “Can you see Rex?”

“No,” Jonathon confessed. “I’ve looked up and down the column but he isn’t there.”

Jed leaned back into the rock. This wasn’t good. He had been sure that Rex would be here, but maybe Montrose had killed him after all. It was just possible that the dictator had decided that Jed’s story of a strike force was correct so didn’t feel the need to keep Rex around to confirm it. Or maybe the reverse was true. Montrose had guessed that Jed had made the whole thing up and so Rex was surplus to requirements.

He suddenly remembered his task of the moment, and taking a peek was alarmed to see he had almost allowed the leaders to disappear around the bend. “Fire,” he yelled, leaping clear of the rock and sending off a round.

As both sides of the gully erupted simultaneously the track below became a cauldron of bucking and twisting bodies, until every man in the advance and rear parties were either dead or dying. Jed turned his attention to the guards flanking the column and saw that what he had feared most had happened. They had melted into the Noragin in an attempt to use them as human shields. Jed’s brain ticked over at a frantic pace. What could he do now? They were firing at his men from the safety of the captives, but he was unable to fire back.

“Do something,” Jonathon screamed at him.

Jed leaped to the top of the rock to do the only thing he could. “Take them,” he yelled down to the Noragin.

Although the captives were mostly women and children they swamped the outnumbered Sky-Gods instantly, and within seconds rifles had been wrested from them and used as clubs to end their lives.

As Jonathon clambered over the rock and stumbled down the slope towards Anna Jed slung his rifle across his shoulder and followed in his footsteps.

“Jed …,” Amora pushed her way through the mass of bodies and threw herself around him. “You’re safe. I was so afraid for you.”

“Never mind that,” he said briskly. “Where’s Rex?”

“They took him…Montrose took him.”

“So he’s still alive?”

“He was when they left the village.”

So Montrose had divided his force, he had sent the Noragin captives back to the fortress under guard but taken the bulk of his men elsewhere. Was he planning to attack another village? Had he got the information he needed to find the other villages and acted on it immediately?

“Was Montrose interrogating the people, Amora?”

“He was asking questions of all of us,” she told him. “But he took some of the children away to question them separately.”

It was as he had thought. Expose little children to a bit of pain and they would tell you whatever you wanted to know. Montrose was unscrupulous; he would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

After organizing the safe passage of the repatriated to the caves Erik had told him about Jed set about planning Rex’s rescue. Montrose must have set out for the nearest village which was the Skraeling settlement in the Great Forest, the very same forest where weeks ago he and his two friends had buried the four dead Noragin whose canoe they had taken out on the river. He had a healthy head start on Jed, and so there was no chance of heading him off before he reached the village. He could evacuate all the other villages before Montrose got to them though. But he would need runners, lots of runners, strong young men capable of running the great distances to warn the Noragin and Skraeling people that Montrose was coming to kill them.

That would save the people, but what about Rex? What was he going to do to save his friend? His eyes rested on one of Montrose’s dead men and an idea began to form in his tired mind. Searching amongst the slain he came across an unbloodied uniform. “About my size,” he muttered to himself, as he stripped it off the dead man and put it on his own well built frame. He stripped the man next to him and stuffed that uniform into his pack.

“What are you doing in that cursed thing?” Jonathon grumbled, when he came across him only minutes later.

“Saving Rex,” Jed said simply.

Jonathon knew enough to leave it at that. Jed had displayed an uncanny ability to know just what to do when the situation was desperate these past few weeks, and so there was no way he was going to interfere with that now.

“Get the men to collect the rifles and ammo belts from the dead,” Jed said. “We’re going to need them in the next few hours.”

“You’re planning to head for the Skraeling village I take it?”

“Seems like the logical thing to do.”

“Don’t you think the men could do with a rest? They’ve been on the go since early this morning.”

Jed shook his head. “We don’t have the luxury of being able to rest up when peoples’ lives depend on us getting there as soon as possible, especially Rex’s. I’d never forgive myself if he lost his life because I was half an hour late in getting to him.”

“Of course, I’ll organize those rifles now.”

Jed felt that the only good thing to come out of today’s events was the number of rifles he had secured. There was now enough to equip a small army, an army that was still not in the league of Montrose’s however. Montrose had more rifles then Jed could ever hope to accumulate. He also had machine guns, and Jed knew only too well the devastation they could wreak, so Montrose still had the advantage over him.

Jed glanced up at the smoky sun and judged that this world’s night was not more than two hours away. Montrose would probably rest his men somewhere in the forest near the Skraeling village. If so, then that would be his second mistake of the day and the one Jed hoped would give him the opportunity to free Rex. Ironically, freeing Rex would be the least of his worries. It was feeding the thousands of Noragin and Skraeling men, women, and children whilst housing them in dark and cramped caves, risking running into Montrose’s men every time they were forced to come out into the open to hunt that was praying constantly on his mind. Then there was the danger of everyone being in the same place at the same time. If Montrose found them he would annihilate them all in one foul swoop.

“Rifles collected and we’re ready to move out,” Jonathon reported.

Jed placed a friendly hand on Jonathon’s shoulder. “Right, then we’d better make a start.”

The men were tired, and so Jed knew he couldn’t move them along at the pace he would like to. At the rate they were travelling it would take another three hours to reach the Skraeling village. Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing, for most of Montrose’s men would be asleep making it easier for him to slip into the camp undetected. Getting back out again was going to be the really tricky thing. With both he and Rex in uniform they ran the very real risk of being mistaken for Montrose’s men by the Noragin. It was bad enough being shot at by the enemy, but being shot by your own men didn’t bear thinking about.

Jed called Jonathon over as the men half jogged half walked towards their destination. “Been giving some thought as to how I’m going to get in and out of Montrose’s camp,” he confessed. “There’s going to have to be some sort of diversion to get me in.”

“I could start a fire fight on the edge of the camp,” Jonathon suggested. “It would give you the opportunity to circle round back and slip past the rear sentries.”

“It could work. But it’d have to be a good enough feint to draw most of the camp towards your position.”

“I’ll manage it,” Jonathon said confidently. “But how are you going to get back out again?”

“I’m hoping the uniforms will get us through Montrose’s men. It’s you mistaking us for two of his men and shooting us that worries me.”

“And that’s highly possible given we’ll be firing on anything in uniform.”

“What we need is some kind of signal,” Jed said. “The trouble is a signal might alert the enemy to the fact we’re imposters.”

“You’re going in with a rifle,’ Jonathon said, “so if you come back out without it and with your hands above your head then we’ll know it’s you and Rex. Only, walk out and don’t run, as a running man is more likely to be shot.”

“I guess it could work,’ Jed said thoughtfully. “I suppose we really don’t have any other choice.”

When they did reach Montrose’s camp it was exactly as Jed had expected, most of the men had retired to their tents to sleep. Montrose hadn’t been naïve enough not to post sentries all around the camp however.

“Give me five minutes to get into position on the far side of the camp before you start shooting,” Jed told Jonathon, before disappearing into the thick undergrowth.

Jed crouched behind the shrubbery until he heard the firing start, then slinging his rifle across his shoulder made his move. “Patrol coming in,” he called out.

“Halt where you are.”

“Just a patrol coming in,” Jed repeated.

“What patrol?” The voice sounded skeptical.

Jed took a deep breath. This was the moment that would either get him into the camp or get him killed. “Montrose sent us out to make sure none of the Skraelings could cross the river and go for help.”

“Where is the rest of your patrol then?”

“The Noragin ambushed us. That Major Rand fellow was leading them and I’m the only one that got away.”

As the sound of gunfire from the far side of the camp grew in intensity the guard began to flick his head nervously back in that direction. “That’s them now,” Jed said quickly, hoping to cash in on the young fellows concern. “I need to report to Montrose on their numbers and the weapons they’re carrying.”

“Were you close enough to see them?” the sentry asked incredulously.

“As close as I am to you now and there were at least three thousand of them.” He could see the effect the lie was having on the fellow. The mention of such a strong enemy attacking the camp painted pure panic across his features.

“Come through then,” the sentry said eagerly, as if Jed’s information would be the salvation of them all.

Jed hurried past; searching frantically for Montrose’s tent which he was sure would be the largest in the camp, an ego like his w ould demand no less. Picking his way through the men rapidly draining from the tents he spotted a big tent pitched proudly in the centre of the camp and headed directly for it.

Montrose flung the tent flap aside and emerged wearing only his faded khaki trousers. “Secure the perimeters,” he bellowed. “This frontal attack may just be a ruse.”

Jed pulled his cap down over his eyes and kept on walking, all the while praying that Montrose wouldn’t recognize him. If he could just skirt around to the back of the tent he could use his knife to cut through the canvas. He was sure Rex would be in there.

“You there,” it was Montrose again, “come here.”

Jed kept his head down and carried on walking. “Not me, please God don’t let him be talking to me,” he muttered softly to himself.

“You there,” Montrose’s tone was getting harsher, “I said come here.”

Jed was under no illusion now; Montrose was addressing himself directly to him, and so he was going to have to front up. “Yes Sir?” he said, stopping just in front of the colonel but still with his head down and cap over his eyes.

“Why didn’t you answer when I called you?”

“Didn’t realize it was me you were speaking to, Sir.”

Montrose looked him up and down. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you soldier,” he demanded.

Jed slowly and reluctantly brought his eyes up to meet the colonel’s and saw the instant recognition in his eyes. Not hesitating for a second he unshouldered his rifle and sent it crashing into the big man’s face. Reeling backwards Montrose crashed through the tent flap to lie unconscious on the ground. Leaping over the sleeping form Jed wasted no time in getting to where Rex was tied to a post to slice through his bonds.

“What took you so long?” Rex grumbled.

“Yeah right,” Jed retorted. “Here, put this on.” He threw the uniform onto Rex’s lap. “And be quick about it, we don’t have much time.”

“Finish him off,” Rex urged, jerking his head in the direction of Montrose at the same time he was stuffing a leg into the trousers.

Jed pulled the bolt back on the rifle a split second before a private careered through the tent flap, swinging the rifle up and pulling the trigger he blew him back through. Picking up Jed’s knife Rex sliced an opening through the rear of the tent as Jed fired at another unwelcome visitor.

“Come on, Jed,” Rex insisted, “let’s get out of here while we still can.”