The Call of the Crown (Book 1) (14 page)

Si’eth paced round for a while as though thinking of a plan. After a minute, he spoke to the smaller Salrian kidnapper. “Put him in the east tent.” He pointed to the small tent, beside which Daric and Olam were hiding. “And tie him up. We break camp at sunset. At noon, you will take a horse and drop him five miles west.” The leader looked down at the small Salrian, waiting for a response.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“He is only a boy. They are not likely to raise an army on his word alone. You will see him safely away. Do you understand me, Bre’ach?”

“Yes, Father.” Bre’ach bowed solemnly.

“And don’t call me father in front of the men. At the least use my name.”

“Yes, Si’eth. Sorry.”

“And put his belongings with him. It smells like fish. I hate fish!”

Bre’ach took Ealian by the arm, leading him into the tent by Daric and Olam. Daric pressed his ear against the canvas; he could hear the Salrian warning Ealian to stay silent, then a garbled threat, something like
, “Once I’ve got you on your own.” It was hard to hear clearly.

Daric and Olam crept back to the centre of the canvas, away from the clearing. “Any ideas?” Daric whispered.

“Wait a second. See if they leave him alone.”

Olam inched back to the back corner of the tent.
He pointed at the base, at a two-foot slit bound with thin rope. He gestured at Daric to listen for Bre’ach leaving. After a minute, the Salrian exited the tent, leaving Ealian alone inside. Olam quietly undid the binding from the corner post and silently slipped inside—followed closely by Daric.

Ealian sat tied up in the opposite corner. He hadn’t noticed them yet. The tent was small and quite dark. There was a small table along the back wall; an ornate box sat on it. Three bedrolls lay spread out on the floor; a small fire pit was in the centre, next to it, a bucket of dirt to put out the fire. A few packs leaned against the far side, including their food pack.

Daric threw a tiny pebble at Ealian, then immediately put his finger to his lips, gesturing him to remain silent. Olam sneaked quietly to the tent opening and peered through a small slit without disturbing the canvas doorway.

Daric gently pulled Ealian forward and began to untie his gag. “Be silent!” he whispered. Once the gag was of
f, Ealian whispered a quick thank you and turned so Daric could undo the rest of his bonds. The Salrian had tied wrists to ankles with a tight, uncomfortable knot.

Daric quietly joined Olam, leaving Ealian to rub his wrists. “All clear?” he asked.

Olam pointed to one of the Salrians who had taken up position directly to the side of the tent, blocking their exit. Daric cursed under his breath.

Meanwhile, Ealian had noticed—whilst being tied up—Bre’ach looking at the box on the table. He went to investigate. Inside, he found a small scroll sealed with an ornate wax crest. Checking first that Daric and Olam were busy, he took the scroll and slid it into the top of his boot, covering it with the leg of his breeches. Silently and slowly, he replaced the lid of the box just as Olam turned.

Olam looked at the bucket of sand on the floor, then over at Daric and then Ealian and then back at the bucket of sand. “I have an idea, but you’re going to have to do exactly what I say when I say.”

“I do not like the sound of that!” Daric said.

“They are going to know we were here. We need a diversion, something big enough to keep them busy.” Olam scratched at his chin. “Yes, that will do. Please just wait by the corner for my signal and then run.”

“All right, Olam. I’ll trust you.” Daric looked at Ealian and waved him over to the corner.

Olam picked up the bucket of sand and placed it by the door. Reaching into the inside pocket of his cape, he brought out a curious-looking object. About the size of a small apple, it looked as though made from clay, on top a small length of twine with a black tag on the end. “Are you ready?” he mouthed the words at Daric and waited for a response. Daric gave a nod. Olam dug a small hole in the sand bucket, about three inches deep and two around. He pulled off the black tag attached to the “apple” and began to count quietly. “One.” He buried the apple in the bucket. “Two.” He picked up the bucket and began to swing it back and forth. “Three.” He opened to tent door. “Four.” He threw the bucket high in the air over the centre of the camp.

On
five,
the bucket exploded furiously into a thousand shards of whirling wood and a million particles of blistering sand. The sandy grit became a storm, shredding skin and canvas alike. The guard by the tent was stunned in the blast. Those sitting over by the fire suddenly jumped to their feet, not realizing at first that shards of wood were stuck in their backs. Each of them moaned as the realization set in. The one Salrian who remained in the centre of the camp fell to the floor, shouting in pain.

Then the horses came
. Spooked by the explosion, they had burst through their flimsy retainer and were now galloping through the camp and down the slope to the right.

Si’eth came out of his tent. “What by the gods is going on here?” he shouted. Nobody answered him. The guard by Ealian’s tent struggled to his feet and staggered towards him, his face covered in splinters. He made it a few feet and then sat on the ground, picking splinters out of his arm. He was lucky! The unfortunate Salrian closest to the explosion moaned woefully, rolling about on the ground in agony. The four by the fire had, by this time, discovered their injuries and were busy removing splinters from their backs and arms. Only Bre’ach and two others were unscathed.

Daric, Olam, and Ealian had made their escape. The three descended the hill and were halfway to the tree line when Daric sensed something. He stopped and turned around.

Si’eth stood on top of the slope, hands on his hips, staring down at him.

Daric, bullied by their success, shouted at him. “You should not be here, Salrian! Never mind kidnapping children!” He turned and continued on to the tree line. A scornful look from Olam followed.

*
  *  *

Si’eth turned back into the camp. The two that had escaped harm followed him into “Ealian’s” tent. They found Bre’ach inside.

Si’eth pointed straight at him. “You fool!” he said. “I have a good mind to make you walk from here on out! Pray we can get to Taris before they report us.”

Bre’ach didn’t answer. Instead, he held up the empty box that had contained the scroll.

Si’eth breathed in deeply through his nose. He snatched the empty box from Bre’ach and put it to his forehead. Closing his eyes, he moaned. “Stupid! Stupid fool!” He threw the box back at Bre’ach. “Well, that complicates things now, doesn’t it?” The tent flap ripped from its awning as Si’eth stomped into the camp clearing. He circled around with his hands over his head, desperately trying to concoct a plan.

“Well, we won’t catch up with them until we get the horses back! Make haste, you two,” he said, pointing to the other two Salrians. “You will have to track them! Leave good sign so we can catch up with you
. Go!”

Bre’ach took a step forward. “You do not need to track them. They will be making for their camp,” he said with a triumphant smile on his face.

Si’eth dropped his arms and rolled his eyes. “Wait!” he shouted to the two he had sent in pursuit. “Come back!” He walked up to meet them halfway.

Bre’ach look puzzled. “What? Why are you stopping them?”

Si’eth turned as he walked. “You kidnapped them from a camp!” he said, shaking his head at his son. “Is there no end to your stupidity?”

Si’eth stopped in front of the other two. “Gather the men who are fit enough to stand and get the horses back.” He turned back to Bre’ach. “How many are in their camp?”

Bre’ach thought a moment. “Err… seven, maybe eight.”

“You are kidding! They are almost our number and you kidnapped one of them.”

“He woke up!” Bre’ach protested. “Besides, one of them is a girl!”

Si’eth coughed out a laugh. “Right now, I would take a girl over you, you fool! Do you realise what you have done?”

Bre’ach didn’t answer; he just looked scornfully at his father. “You sent me for food.”

Si’eth didn’t bother to reply. He addressed the rest of the men. “If you can stand, get up and gather the horses!”

He pointed to one of the men and beckoned him over. “Take the first horse you find and ride over to Uld’eth. Tell him we need ten more men!”

“
What are you going to do?” Bre’ach asked.

Si’eth thumbed his ear. “‘
What are we going to do?’ We have to play the hunter. And pray to the gods we catch them before they make it to a town!”

CHAPTER 10

“I’m going after them soon!” Elspeth said, and for once, she stood still.

Gialyn had wondered how long it would be before she said that again. She had paced backwards and forwards from one side of the small clearing to the other for over an hour, while grumbling to herself about evermore awful scenarios. Ealian was injured. No, Ealian was dead! They captured Daric and Olam, too. All three were taken prisoner and marched across the border into An’aird Barath. On and on it went. Clearly, she couldn’t think straight. “I will give them ten more minutes, and then I’m going! Do not try to stop me, Grady!”

Grady was sat on the stump of the fallen tree they had used for firewood
. He sheathed the blade he was toying with and looked up at her. “Ten more minutes and we both go!”

Grady had arranged makeshift defences for the camp, scouting out the most defensible areas and setting up stations for everyone. Gialyn collected rocks to hurl at any attackers and moved all their belongings deeper into the forest. Arfael cut and whittled crude spears from the branches of a fallen tree. All was as ready as could be expected.

For the last ten minutes, Gialyn had sat up a tree, gazing north for any sign of his father and the others. Elspeth saw him look down briefly as she began to pace again. “Keep your eyes on the forest,” she muttered, and Gialyn quickly obliged. He didn’t want her anger directed at him, not on top of everything else. It was a wonder she had stayed in the camp this long; such was her mood.

The idle minutes had played hard on her imagination, it seemed. She had long since uncovered Grady’s ploy to keep her busy and was having no more of it. Grady, for all his calm, was also beginning to look worried, though Gialyn thought he was making a very good show of remaining calm. Only Arfael seemed untroubled, sitting there on the fallen tree, whittling away at yet another spear, and looking for all the world like a man making toys at a village picnic.

“I can see someone!” Gialyn shouted down from his vantage point.

“Not so loud!” Grady hissed his command, irritation flaring in his eyes.

“Who is it?” Elspeth asked, pushing past Grady. At that point, she probably didn’t care who heard her. She simply craved news.

“I cannot tell! They are moving in between the trees, not in the clearing yet.” Gialyn hitched a little farther up the branch. He cupped his hands around his eyes and thrust his neck forward. Bracing himself on a smaller branch, he leaned to the left. “It’s them! It’s them!” he shouted while sliding back down the branch.

“Is it all of them?” Elspeth asked.

Gialyn hit the ground with a thud.
Dry washing his hands, he brushed the dust and leaves from his breeches. “I think so. There are three, at any rate. The one in front is definitely Olam. I could see his cape and staff clearly.”

Elspeth spun on her heels and grabbed her bow. She started to march north towards the clearing.

Grady jumped up from his stump and stood in front of her, his arms stretched wide. “No, Elspeth, you wait here with Gialyn.”

Elspeth tried in vain to push him from her path. “Out of my way!” she ordered. She looked ready to pull one of her knives when Grady grabbed her arms.

“We don’t know if they were followed,” he said. “You and Gialyn gather the packs and make ready to run for the woods.”

Grady turned to Arfael. “You come with me.”

The big man just nodded as if he were expecting as much.

“No!” Elspeth groaned, pushing at Grady’s shoulder. “You are not going without me!”

“I do not have time to argue with you, child. Do as I say, and be quick about it.” Grady grabbed up his sword—more of a long knife but lethal just the same—his bow was already on his back. Reaching around Elspeth, he took half the arrows from her quiver. “Come on, Arfael. And bring your war face.”

Arfael lumbered his huge bulk after Grady, his sword on his hip, three of his homemade spears in his huge hand, and a ferocious scowl on his face.
He looked ready to take on the entire eastern army.

Gialyn found herself backing up a pace at the sight of him. And he was surprised at how fast the big man could move. Arfael and Grady ran off under the canopy, in the direction of the clearing. Elspeth looked as if she
were thinking of an excuse to follow.

“By the gods, who does he think he
’s talking to?” She threw down her quiver and kicked what was left of her arrows across the camp.

Gialyn quickly gathered them up. “Just do what he asked, Elspeth. We need to be ready!” Putting her arrows back in the quiver, he handed it to her with a nod of certainty
. It was no time to worry about her feelings. He liked her—more than liked her—but she could be stubborn to the point of stupidity at times.

After a few seconds pause, she snatched them back off him. She probably expected her contemptuous stare to have him faltering, but he ignored her. Instead, he ran around the fallen tree and began to gather their things. “Come on!” he shouted.

“What are you shouting at?” Elspeth asked him. “Has everyone gone mad? Why do men suddenly grow hairs on their chest when they think they can order women about?”

By the time they had secured the packs in a good pile by the track, the others had return, with Daric, Olam, and Ealian. Elspeth let out a long sigh of relief and ran over to her brother, almost bowling him over in her embrace. “Thank the gods you
’re safe.” She was nearly crying, though she tried hard to hide it.

“Come on, there’s no time for that.” Daric was already sorting through his things and kicking at the fire—though it hadn’t been lit since the previous night. “I want to be in that marsh in less than an hour.” He stabbed at thin air, pointing to the east.

“Why! What’s the rush?” Elspeth asked.

Gialyn hoped the answer wasn
’t as frightening as the look on his father’s face.

“No time to explain, just make haste. Please!” Daric was already securing his pack on his back. “Come on! Don’t stand staring at me like line of ducks waiting for feeding. Quickly! Now!”

The travellers gathered their belongings and loaded up. Before too long, they were all following Daric down the narrow path and into the woods.

It was a bright midmorning, yet the sun barely penetrated the thick covering of leaves and branches that enveloped the track. The dark path through the woods was barely used. Calling it “overgrown” would be an understatement. Yet Daric seemed to pay little or no heed to obstacles. He forced his way, unyielding, through the scrub.

Elspeth could see the tension in his eyes every time he turned his head to check all were still following. Her mind began to work, imagining yet more horrors. “Can someone please tell me what happened?” She turned to her brother. “Ealian. Please! Why are we rushing?”

Ealian glanced over at her and shook his head. He was clearly breathless from the run back to camp and looked quite sick. Maybe it was worry. His face was certainly white enough and sweat matted his hair, plastering it to his forehead. Clearly, he wasn’t about to explain anything.

Grady turned around quick. “Elspeth,” he whispered while gesturing her to move up beside him. She quickly caught up. “He was taken by Salrians. It was a mistake, Daric and Olam heard as much from their leader, but Olam… improvise, so they could make their escape. And now they are probably on our trail.”

“But why are we rushing if it was a mistake? Whatever that is supposed to mean.” Elspeth couldn’t let it lie.
Something was wrong, someone was coming after them, and if these men thought they were going to drag her along without telling her everything…

“Chances are they won’t be very happy
,” Grady said. “But they have horses. We will be safe if we can reach the marsh. The Am’bieth is no place for a horse.” Grady hitched up his pack. He was breathing heavy, probably from the effort of talking whilst walking quickly. “Now please, Elspeth, look to your footing and make haste. We will be there in twenty minutes at this pace.”

At Daric’s lead,
the travellers ploughed on through the knotted web of bushes and branches, hardly slowing down at all. Not even the spiky brambles hindered them. Daric cut through them at the stem and flung them to the side, mindless of the pain they inflicted on his hands.

He
was scared. A sense of fear gripped him that he hadn’t felt for many years. Not afraid for himself, afraid for the youngsters. Grady, Olam, and Arfael could defend themselves—especially Arfael—if it came to a stand-up fight. But he couldn’t allow that to happen, not with the young ones alongside. He had to get them to safety, no matter how much the blasted thorns stung his hands.

They did the hour journey from the camp to the edge of the
Am’bieth in less than half the time. Daric stopped at the edge of the woods, looking cautiously along the tree line to the north. The grey-green tint of the marsh grass and the shadow of trees made a clear view near impossible. However, as far as he could make out, nobody was following from the north, at least not on the eastern edge of the wood. He waved Olam up to the front. “Is this a good place to enter?” he asked.

Olam crouched by Daric’s side
. With his staff laid on the ground, he surveyed the area, looking both north and south. Daric though he was trying to pick out some landmarks—of which there were very few. “You see that ridge there?” Olam pointed south towards a short, shallow ridge that reached a mile into the marsh. “We should enter at the base. I have good knowledge of the path from there on—what path there is at this time of year, of course.”

“Thank you, Olam.” Daric turned to everyone. “We’ll stick to the tree line until we ge—”

Grady’s frantic waving interrupted him. Daric watched as his friend pointed to his ears and then to the track behind.
Damn!

“How close are they?” he whispered, crawling slowly to the rear of the group. He took Grady by the shoulder and cupped a hand around his ear.

“Two, three hundred paces, maybe more,” Grady said. “They are not making any secret of it. Gods, a one-legged blind man could catch up to us with
this
trail!”

For a moment, Daric felt embarrassed at leaving such an obvious trail
—and then a flash of anger because Grady knew he had no choice. His scorn was short-lived, though. Grady wasn’t blaming him for moving quickly; he was just stating the facts. They would be easy to follow.

Daric felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Olam.

“I can help, if you will allow me.”

Daric thought the older man had a mischievous smile on his face. What was he planning now? Another one of his tricks? More explosions? He decided he didn’t care as long as it got them safely into the marsh. “Anything, Olam. What do you need?”

“Just be very quiet and do not move until I say so.”

Daric and Grady looked to each other. Grady shrugged and Daric nearly laughed; he’d been here before. To be honest, he was quite curious as to what Olam had in mind. Besides, what other choice was there? “Right you are, Olam. I will tell everyone to keep still and quiet.”

Olam dropped his pack. He sat cross-legged on the ground and pushed his hands, palms down, under the dead mulch. He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. Slowly, he began to feel his way around the woods, just as he had done a thousand times before. Only this time, he was looking for something in particular.

The leaves began to rustle; the branches seemed to bend. The earth itself appeared to come to life.
Then complete silence! A bird called out from the branches above. Then another. And another. Before long, the screeching and squawking was deafening. And then, as quickly as it started…

A half mile away, the grey timber wolf raised an ear. Growling, it stood, heckles up, teeth bared. Its mate and the three other in his pack joined him. All five circled around the small clearing that was their den, snapping and thrashing at fresh air. Suddenly, as with the birds, they fell silent. Then as one, they leaped into the woods, an image burned into their minds, an image of the Salrians. Their enemy.

“That should keep them busy for a while,” Olam said.

Daric scratched his chin. “What—what did you do?”

Olam swung his pack around his shoulders and picked up his staff. “I called some… friends to help us. But at this range, the bond will only last ten minutes or so. We should go.” Olam gestured towards the marsh.

Daric shook himself back to the reality. “Oh yes, the ridge, of course.” He waved Grady forward. “Can you lead us down? I will keep the rear guard.” His friend nodded in agreement.

Daric secured his own pack and waited for Grady to lead off. As he waited, he suddenly became aware of Gialyn. The look in his son’s eyes told him plainly that he was scared. He didn’t blame him. Rather than make too much of it, he gave Gialyn a reassuring nod.
It will do him no good to treat him like a child.
He turned back to Grady. “By your lead, sergeant.”

Grady led the travellers out of the forest and south along the tree line. Darting in and out of every recess, he never strayed more than six feet from the trees. Every now and then he would point at something
—a pothole, a hidden rock or downed branch—and then mutter a quiet, “Careful here,” to those following. The soldier in him was plain for all to see.