War of the Fathers (14 page)

Despite Jorad’s suicidal plan, the remaining women and
children were herded onto the ships before he could find her. The men were
agitated as the last ship prepared to leave. They had a good idea of what was
coming next. During the boarding process, several had tried to escape and
they’d been shot. In the early morning light, Jorad noticed that a shot from a
blaster distorted the air, leaving a trail behind as it went.

“We should go,” Wes said, a slight quaver in his voice.

Jorad didn’t answer. He wasn't able to tear his eyes
away from the scene unfolding before him. As the last ship took to the air, the
Hunwei began firing into the men. The sound of screaming mixed with the blasts
of those infernal weapons.

Wes pulled on Jorad’s arm, but he stayed in place.
Where was Adar? Before he realized what he was doing, Jorad had stood and
unsheathed his sword. He’d been so busy looking for Soret that he hadn't given
his father much thought. Adar wouldn’t have let himself be taken, would he? He
might not have had a choice. There was no fighting those weapons.

“Stop!”

Jorad recognized Adar’s voice and spun around, half
expecting that Wes had managed to mimic his father, but it was indeed his
father. He was covered in blood, his face was blackened, and his eyes were
gleaming in the early morning light. A man ready to kill or willing to die,
without hesitation.

“Glad to see you,” Adar said. “Soret’s safe, sent her
out with Karn first thing. They’re with Xarda by now.”

The relief that washed over Jorad filled him with
shame. Men were dying, good men, and innocent women and children had been taken
captive. He turned back to the massacre. “We can’t just leave them.”

“It’s that or go and die with them,” Adar said. “And
if you’re stupid enough to try, I’ll knock you out. We don’t have time to waste;
we still need to stop for our stuff at the boarding house. You're needed in Rarbon;
a stand here will do nothing.”

“It’s too late.” Jorad’s voice cracked. “I should have
gone to Rarbon months ago.”

“Maybe, but do you have a better plan?”

“Hide,” Wes said. “Now!”

They ducked. One of the men from the crowd was running
their way. Jorad didn’t recognize him, but the man had seen them and was
yelling and waving as he ran in their direction. His head disappeared in a mist
of blood and pieces of skull.

Adar was right, they couldn't do anything. As Jorad
turned his back to the massacre, he caught a glimpse of Vigorock glinting with
the first light of day. If only they had more time, Jorad was sure they could
have figured the tower out; perhaps the trip to Rarbon wouldn’t have been
necessary if they had.

“Let’s go,” Jorad said.

“About bloody time.” Wes was already several steps
ahead.

Several beads of sweat rolled into Jorad's eyes and he
blinked, trying to get the stinging to go away. He wrapped several fingers of
the hand he was using to hold his bow around the arrow he kept ready so that he
could free up his other hand to wipe his forehead. While the bow wasn't much
use with the Hunwei, they'd had a close call with a group of marauding bandits
several days ago. The bandits hadn't been expecting a group of survivors from
Neberan to be so well armed.

Jorad's hand came away sweaty, but he was still
perspiring and several minutes later sweat ran into his eyes again. As he
blinked through the sweat, he examined an opening in the forest to the meadow
ahead. He almost wished that winter would come a little bit sooner. This heat
was miserable and his heavy backpack, sword, and arrow quiver weren't helping
matters. The sweat drizzled down his back and his shirt was already wet. The
forest was muggy and there wasn't as much as a breeze to help him cool down.

The heat was enough to drive a man insane. He could
smell his body odor and wished that they had time for such luxuries as baths.

The clearing ahead was large enough that they'd
stopped to observe it before crossing. There hadn't been anything alarming to
keep them from crossing, but the sheer openness of it gave them pause. Jorad
wondered if it would ever be safe again to travel on the road. They were making
good time to Zecarani considering that they'd covered most of the distance
traveling through the woods. It had almost been a week since the attack on
Neberan and they were a little less than halfway to Zecarani.

“Nice day for a walk through hell,” Leron said. Jorad
wasn't sure if he was referring to the heat or the new reality they faced.
Either way, Jorad agreed. It could have been a nice day if it weren't for both
those things.

Leron’s grim face matched what Jorad was feeling, but
Jorad cringed at how loud Leron's voice sounded in the quiet of the forest. If
Adar had been here, he would have admonished Leron for speaking too loudly.
Jorad considered reminding Leron but thought better of it. He'd already warned
Leron earlier this morning. Maybe one of these times, Jorad would take Adar's
place in the front patrol. Adar would shut Leron up quick.

After their frantic flight from Neberan, they’d broken
into three traveling groups. Adar and Karn ahead, Tere and Tarner behind, the
rest were with Jorad in between. Tere and Adar were taking great pains to avoid
one another and both appeared to be more concerned about putting distance
between the two of them than anything else. While there arrangement had several
benefits, it had one main purpose. If they came across any Hunwei, it increased
the chances that one of the parties would be able to escape. Everybody agreed
that getting word of the attack to Rarbon was more important than anything
else.

“Best enjoy it,” Wes whispered cheerfully. He was
sitting with his back to a large fallen log and his eyes were closed. “Could be
our last.”

“Quiet!” Xarda hissed, her voice barely above a
whisper. She was sitting on the same log and leaned down to smack him. It
hadn't been gentle but Wes took it in stride. He'd taken to Xarda and wasn’t
usually more than several steps away from her. Jorad had overheard Karn teasing
her about Wes yesterday and she hadn't taken it well. In retrospect, her
irritation was quite comical. At the time, dusk had just been setting in and
Jorad had been more concerned about surviving through the night.

“Don’t talk like that.” Xarda didn’t look at Soret who
was sitting a little further down on the log. She didn’t need to; everybody
knew it had been for Soret’s benefit. Nobody else in the group had lost anyone
in the attack.

Jorad went to Soret. She was staring at nothing and
had a faraway look on her face. He touched her arm. “You ok?”

Soret had her hair pulled back into a ponytail and there
was a sheen of sweat on her face with a smudge of dirt underneath her chin. It
didn't appear she'd heard the exchange between Wes and Xarda. The daggers she
now wore on her belt comforted Jorad. It wouldn't be much good against the
Hunwei, but out here Hunwei were only one of the dangerous things they might
come across. It had taken some convincing to get her to take his daggers and it
hadn't been until he'd gotten Xarda involved in the conversation that Soret had
relented. He'd felt bad for pushing her so hard but it had been the right thing
to do. She couldn't be left unarmed.

“I'm making it,” she said, her eyes coming into focus
as she looked at him.

Soret hadn’t said much since Neberan and Jorad still
hadn't been able to get the whole story from her. Based on what little he'd
pieced together from her and the others, he assumed she'd witnessed the
destruction of her home and the deaths of her parents. Sometime after that,
she'd been taken captive and had been rescued by Adar.

At night, when Jorad wasn't on guard duty, he could
sometimes hear her sobbing as she lay beside him. He didn’t know what to do or
say. He had tried several times to comfort her, but the words all came out
wrong. Eventually, he'd given up and kept by her side as much as possible,
hoping that was enough.

“There hasn’t been any sign of pursuit for days,”
Leron said again, his voice closer to a whisper this time. “We got away,”

“They haven’t cared to chase us.” Jorad wiped his brow
again. Confounded sweat.

The clearing had opened suddenly when they had reached
the top of an incline; the uphill hike was part of the reason why they'd waited
so long at the clearing. Several of the others had needed the rest but it was past
time to get going. They’d been staring at it now for close to fifteen minutes.
It was wide enough that they would be exposed for a quarter mile while they
crossed. If the Hunwei were looking for survivors, Jorad didn't relish being in
the field when one of their ships flew by overhead.

The grass in the meadow was waist high and the forest
at the other end was much thicker than the trees currently around them. A whole
army of Ou Qui could be hiding in either the grass or the trees. It was
possible that they could walk right by the Ou Qui and never know it. Jorad
looked for bushes that looked too bushy, but nothing stood out.

“Think Adar and Tere might be willing to let up a
bit?” Wes asked. “It’s been three days since we’ve seen a ship.”

“No,” Jorad said, a touch of annoyance in his voice.
Wes just didn't get it. This was their new way of life now. “And you better not
start slacking either.” He waved his hand to gather everybody's attention. The
only person that didn't look his way was Lous. That man was strange. Lous
rarely spoke. Jorad had overheard Tere muttering about Lous' crazy imagination
more than once.

“Anyway, I think we’re safe to move.” Jorad shifted
his pack and moved his sword to a more comfortable position. “I'll go first.
Wait till I've made it across.” He gave Soret what he hoped was a confident
smile. “See ya soon.”

Jorad took several steps into the meadow and stopped.
He could hear those behind him holding their breath, waiting for something to
attack him. When nothing happened, he started moving again, careful to keep his
bow in front of him with the arrow at the ready. The long grass that reached
his elbows was doing little to ease his mind and as he made his way across, he
looked for signs of life.

Even though he couldn't find tracks indicating that
Adar and Karn had passed this way, Jorad was certain they'd crossed here. Adar
tended to move in a straight line until something got in his way and the meadow
was too wide to waste time by going around. When Jorad had made it to the other
side without any problems, he gave the signal for the others to follow.

He scanned the tree line and recognized one of Adar’s
markings on a pine tree at eye level. He was right, they'd come this way. The
small carving was of a cross, with a slash underneath. It was a warning of
danger ahead and an instruction to wait. Cursing under his breath, he brought
up his bow and arrow, putting a small amount of tension on the string.

 The others were already too far into the clearing to
signal a return to the other side. Leron was almost too him, the fool had run
the whole way. Jorad would have preferred Leron to stick with them, but it was
too late now.

As Jorad's level of alertness increased, he noticed
that there were tracks on the ground that didn't belong to Adar or Karn; he
knew their boot prints well enough by now he could tell at a glance. As he
examined them more closely, he determined that there were a great number of
them. Because the boot print wasn't one he recognized, he guessed that a band
of Ou Qui had been through here recently. Jorad wished he had noticed what
Ruder's track had looked like. He'd been so enthralled with the man's disguise that
he had noticed little else.

As he tried to guess how many Ou Qui could be hiding
nearby, he considered taking his sword out and stabbing it into the ground.
Adar had known a little about and was able to explain Ruder's actions when he'd
stabbed both of his short swords into the ground in the woods of Neberan. The
Ou Qui were serious about their customs. It was apparently a great crime among
their people to kill a person who'd disarmed in that fashion. Jorad thought
better of it and decided he would rather have his sword in hand, in the event
they needed to flee.

The air here was a bit cooler because of the thicker
foliage. A small breeze rustled the branches of the tree up ahead and he turned
and regarded it suspiciously. If the other tree limbs around him wouldn't have
started to quiver from the breeze at the same time, he would have signaled the
others to stop while he investigated.

Leron approached. “I wasn’t supposed to come on this
trip, you know.”

Jorad noticed with chagrin that Leron was barely
sweating. It made Jorad want to give Leron some of the rations Jorad was
carrying. “Look alive, there's Ou Qui about.” Jorad continued to keep his eyes
peeled, afraid something would happen to the people in the meadow.

“I took my father’s place when he broke his foot.”
Leron held his bow up, but didn't look alarmed. “People are counting on you to
make a claim, you know that, right? Most believe that Adar fled to protect you
and always meant to send you back. They know your father would never abandon
them.”

Jorad wasn't surprised to hear this but it increased
his anxiety. He'd already been feeling a lot of pressure because he'd assumed
this already but there was a big difference between knowing and assuming. It
felt as though the large weight pressing down had just doubled.

“Protect me from what?” Jorad asked, his curiosity
getting the best of him. Xarda was walking beside Soret, whispering something
into her ear. He was glad that Xarda was trying to comfort her but he wished
they would hurry.

Leron looked surprised. “You don’t already know? Abel.
His jealousy is the stuff of legends! Some say he murdered your mother. Many
fear for the life of Cor.”

People thought Jorad's grandfather had killed his
mother? Certainly, that couldn’t be true. Adar hadn't talked about Abel much,
but Jorad had never heard anything like this.

“Cor?” Jorad asked as he turned toward a bird that
took off from the branches of a nearby tree. He didn't get a good look, but was
certain that the bird was a crow. He exhaled and tried to relax. Worry would
cause him to make mistakes.

“Abel’s other son.”

That got Jorad’s attention. “Adar has a brother?”

“Abel remarried shortly after you guys left.”

Jorad felt a surge of hope. Was there somebody else
who could make a claim if something happened to him? The hope was fleeting
though. Cor couldn't possibly be old enough. “What is he, fifteen?”

“Fourteen.”

It would be five years before Cor was able to make a
claim but it was good to know there was somebody else if Jorad failed. The only
problem was that the war would be over by the time Cor was old enough.

Lous was the first to join them, looking as aloof as
ever. He was closely followed by the others. Jorad pointed out Adar's warning.
While they waited, Xarda and Lous both drew their swords. Wes pulled out a
dagger and Soret got closer to Jorad.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Jorad mumbled so only she
could hear. She didn’t say anything. Her eyes were big with fear. He let go of
the arrow and patted her on the shoulder. “It’ll be okay.” As soon as he said
it, he wished he hadn’t. It wouldn’t ever be okay again.

When Tere and Tarner caught up to them a few minutes
later, they noticed Adar's warning carved into the tree. Without speaking, they
drew their weapons as well.

When the silence started to become overwhelming, Jorad
had to restrain from pacing. The others had gravitated to hiding places among
the thick foliage and he didn’t want to be the one to give away their position.
Xarda was several feet away, crouching beside a bush and she was looking more
concerned by the moment. Jorad knew her well enough now to know that it was for
Karn.

It was almost an hour later and Jorad had been about
to suggest that Tere and he scout ahead when Adar and Karn appeared. Adar was
covered with sweat, but Jorad knew that he'd be able to go for hours still. There
was a smudge of blood on Adar's face, but otherwise he looked the way he had
when they'd started earlier in the morning. Karn was covered with perspiration
as well and looked a touch more fatigued than Adar.

“We're smack dab in the middle of several traveling
bands of Ou Qui,” Adar said in answer to the questions he expected. “They’re moving
the same direction as us and traveling fast. Their bands are much larger than normal;
otherwise we wouldn’t have noticed they were here. We’ll need to travel more
closely together.”

Soret paled and Wes muttered something about wanting
to keep both his ears. The others took the news with stoic resolve. The Ou Qui
were skilled warriors and there were many stories of their exploits.