The Unexpected Heir: A Tale of Alus (35 page)

He called out again, but already Toman was swimming with one arm while holding her with the other. The man was powerful and, even with her weighing him down; he managed to find a large piece of wood. Xerese was made to hold onto a long rectangular piece that was thick as a beam. Where it had come from, she couldn't guess.

Her legs tried to kick to keep her with the wood and her thick dress tangled around them. She looked for Toman. Holding onto the beam just a foot from the woman, she could see him scanning around them looking for Dillon.

His cries wafted past her before being swept away by wind and rain.

Minutes passed and Xerese began to feel the weight and drag of her dress more and more. They were far enough south that the water was cool but not freezing. The girl supposed that it was still cold enough to die from hypothermia after time, but that could be shortened by other factors.

Surprisingly calm as they floated being lifted by waves and dropped back down again, Xerese looked at her guard and worried what would happen to them now. The ship was broken and some had sunk. They were north of Taltan, but she didn't know how far away or if the current would help bring them towards the mainland or push them further out to sea.

She slipped dragged back by the skirt of her dress. Taking on water a moment, Xerese pulled herself back onto the beam choking on the surprise mouthful of water.

Toman took hold of the dress near her waist and tore the lower half free with a series of quick jerks. Looking at him in shock, she started, "What...?"

"You can't kick or swim with all of that dress pulling at you, can you? We need to be able to move or we'll drown."

"We'll drown out here anyway!" she shouted back. It wasn't from the anger of the indignity of having her dress torn from her, Xerese was ready to complain more about him daring to believe that they had a prayer of surviving this storm long enough to try to find their way to land. The ocean was too vast to think that a ship would find them ever and certainly not during a storm.

"We have to try!" he ordered the girl and that was how they spent the remainder of the storm. The waves tossed them about as they held onto their single piece of salvation. As it passed, Xerese looked for the brother moons, but the clouds kept their light from them. When the dawn came, they were exhausted. Toman used the light from the east and worked to swim in the direction south should be.

The Zephyr had tried to evade the worst of the storm by turning south, but Xerese had no idea how far they had made it before the storm caught the frigate. Taltan could be miles away or leagues. She didn't know, but Toman continued to push her to try.

When the sound of the waves around them changed, she barely had the strength to lift her head to see land above the crashing breakers. They struggled as the sea threatened to dash them against the rocks or pull them back into its embrace once more. Toman's strength was enough to help the girl climb onto the wet sand. Her bare feet squished against it. It was solid, yet her body continued to feel the movement of waves as memory.

Though Xerese just wanted to collapse on the beach, Toman half carried her further inland. They found grass above the sand and beyond that thin brush. From the top of the first low hill, they could see nothing but rolling prairie. There was no town or village in sight.

"Now what?" the girl asked sitting down now that he wasn't dragging her anymore. The grass bent as it brushed against her bare legs and Xerese looked down seeing very little of the red material of her dress remaining. Half naked, the air coming from the ocean made her shiver.

"We rest and then start walking west," Toman stated as he sat down as well.

"That's your plan?" she asked in disappointment.

"You have a better idea?" he countered. "We don't know where we are, but home lies in the west. My best guess is that we are still in Tseulty territory, but beyond that I would just be guessing. If we follow the coast, eventually we will find a town and figure out how far we still need to go.

"If we're lucky, someone will help us."

"And if we're unlucky," Xerese asked trying to pull her wet hair back as she wove it into a thick braid.

His eyes said something else, but the man tried to use humor to lighten the mood. "Then it will be a very long walk."

Another breeze carried over the rise making Xerese shiver. The girl stood and moved to sit beside Toman. Tucking against him, she pulled his arm over her for warmth not worrying over appearances or if he would take advantage of her. With her back against the guard, Xerese closed her eyes and fell asleep in the grass with little effort.

Chapter 19- The Unnamed Village

Toman woke her up with the sun nearing its zenith. She could tell that he had let her sleep later than he wanted to as Xerese woke still feeling exhausted from floating in the ocean for over a day. Her mouth was surprisingly dry considering they had been surrounded by water for so long. Unfortunately the salt water of the Glacian Ocean wasn't drinkable for humans.

The sailors of the Zephyr had been talkative around the pretty girl and one conversation had centered around knowing someone who had been bet to drink sea water for a day. He had become sick well before the time had expired from what the men said.

Having no supplies, canteens or bags; Toman couldn't hope to bring her water, so the guardsman led her east as soon as she could stand. A handful of berries found while she slept replenished some liquids as she ate and walked, but they needed water.

A small stream was found around mid afternoon.

She watched as Toman lay on his stomach to use his hands to pull the water to his mouth. Xerese knelt looking down at her bared legs. The sun had already turned them slightly red before she had awoken. The skirt part of her dress was likely somewhere out in the ocean, she thought sarcastically to herself. A lightweight tunic of white had been on underneath her red dress. Running a little long, the white material reached to nearly mid thigh and now served as a sort of skirt; though it was scandalously short by royal standards.

The upper part the dress looked ragged after their time in the sea. With the right arm nearly torn free before the ship had been struck by lightning, one side looked more like a vest while the other long sleeve remained attached but several rips exposed skin letting her see the scratches from being tossed from the sinking ship.

"Should we go back and see if anyone else makes it ashore?" Xerese asked as she cupped her hands to draw some water. Her knees were wet to reach far enough to find clear liquid.

Pausing as he drank, the large man turned his head to look at her without leaving his stomach and said, "The current could sweep them for miles either way, if anyone else even survived. We needed water and soon we will need to find food. A few berries won't hold us for long. We also need to consider finding some sort of civilization."

"Do you think that we made it to Malaiy?"

He shook his head. "At best, we're in Tseult. The last readings from the captain said we were nearing the edge of Tseult, but we could have drifted back to Kloste instead."

As the man stopped talking again and drank, Xerese contemplated the steadily running water. It wasn't deep and only a few feet across here, though scoring in the earth above revealed that at times it flooded and probably expanded up to ten times its current size. Apparently the storm that had caught them had remained to the north, unless the stream was even smaller before it.

She drank again and considered the cool, clean water against her skin. Salt remained on her skin as it dried after leaving the ocean. Wanting a bath, Xerese would have been hard pressed to get clean in the small stream. Removing the lingering right sleeve where it had slid down to cover her forearm, the girl tried to rinse some of the salt from her arm.

The water was cool, but warmer than the ocean had been. It came from southern lands where winter wasn't the bitterness to the north.

Her laces running up the front of her bodice were loosened and Xerese began to slide the remainder of the red garment over her head. Tossing the top half of her dress onto the grass, the lady moved to the center of the stream kneeling to let it rinse her legs as she cleansed her left arm.

Catching Toman looking for a moment, the lady ignored him. The white tunic maintained her modesty, at least what was left of it.

"I'll scout ahead and see if I can find anymore berries or fruit," the guardsman said gruffly as he stood. Toman looked away from the girl. While a child might be considered covered well enough even in Yalan where it was so warm, Xerese was a fully developed woman. Their society would find the simple tunic unacceptable in mixed company for sure.

Xerese nodded without comment. It would have been amusing to see the big man embarrassed if not for the current predicament they were in now.

The cool water helped the itchiness caused by the salt, but it couldn't wash away the loss she felt. Dillon had been her guardsmen for a few years. While she couldn't exactly call either guardsman a true friend, they were close and familiar. The Zephyr had been a shorter experience, but she felt the loss of all those men and thought of the families that would never see them again.

Sighing, Xerese stood up and felt the wind touch the water on her legs and arms giving her a chill. She took the red remnant and dried herself with it before looking for Toman. Assuming that he was just giving her a little space to bathe, even if she hadn't taken off all of her clothing; Xerese didn't think that he would go too far, but the young lady didn't see him nearby. Brush and trees could hide him from her she supposed; but suddenly realizing that she was alone, Xerese began to get the same hollow feeling that she had just before the storm had hit.

A rustle in the brush from the far side of the stream caused her to hold still like a deer feeling a hunter. When Toman pushed through holding the bottom of his shirt out before him, the girl released her held breath in relief.

He stopped looking shocked and commented as he averted his gaze, "I thought that you would be more dressed when I returned."

Snickering as Xerese shook her head, the girl replied, "Until we find someplace where we can find something suitable, this is about as good as it will get, Toman. I'm sure that you've seen me with less on occasion so stop acting like a nervous child and tell me what you found."

The big man took a deep breath before crossing the distance between them. "I found some wild prapple trees. Maybe there was a farm nearby once upon a time, but the area looks pretty wild now."

He tossed one to the dark haired girl, who dropped the red top back onto the ground to free her hands. Biting into the fruit, she found that it was juicy and sweet. The fruit wasn't quite in season yet, but Toman had managed to find several ripe enough to eat.

Kneeling to keep the tunic tucked lower along her legs, the young lady sat less comfortably than the guardsman. He had managed to keep even his boots in the wreck she thought enviously. Her bare feet already hurt a bit from finding rough patches and biting weeds. Stones were worse than the grass for her soft soles, but she was ready for neither.

"I wonder how far we will have to walk to find a town," Xerese ventured to speak after eating a second prapple.

The man seemed to take that as a reason to get started once more and stood. "I have no idea, but at least we can expect to find something along the northern coast. Even walking, there is usually at least a fishing village within a few days of each settlement, I'm sure."

Looking less convinced, the girl stood and brushed the clinging grass from her shins. She didn't want to contradict her protector, but Xerese doubted that Toman knew settlements along the coast as well as he inferred. Still, they had little more to go on and little to lose by walking near the ocean. Water ran to the sea and people created homes near water. The logic that they would find someone in a day or two was likely at least.

She picked up the ragged, red bodice and began heading west following her guardsman once more. Like the torn garment, Xerese felt like her life was in tatters now as well. She just wanted to find people and go home again. Putting one foot in front of the other was the first start, the girl thought as she plodded along following her only protector.

Thunder rolled in from the north as Philip sat listening to the rain on the back patio. It was night and darker still thanks to the clouds blocking out the light of the moons and stars. Monsoon season was beginning, he thought. As a former sailor, this was the time of year where you tried to remain close to land in case there was trouble. Though it was the beginning part of the season, they had begun to see rain falls more often over the last week.

The farmers likely needed some of the refreshing water, but for others it was a hindrance. He wondered if Serafene and Alicia had made it to her sister's castle on the far side of Yalan yet. Rain would slow a carriage and, if the roads grew too bad, could stop them completely.

If the worry of assassins in the night wasn't enough, now the weather was getting in on making him lose sleep. Philip didn't hear the footsteps behind him before the voice of his steward asked, "Is there anything that I can do for you, my lord? You have been out here for awhile and hardly ate much for dinner."