The Southern Trail (Book 4) (19 page)

"Stay here and keep things in order," Marco ordered.  "I'll be back in a little while."  He took his leave and crossed the plaza, then went back to where he had left the injured soldier.

“Are you feeling better?” Marco asked the wounded man as he entered the dim alley way.

“Oh stars!  You scared me; I was sleeping,” the man said.  “Yes, I’m feeling better – better than I should.  I’ll be able to leave in the morning.

“How did the battle go?  What happened?”

“Your folks did a lot of damage to my companions.  They left, and they took a couple of hostages; one of them is a woman, and I want to get her back,” Marco told him.  “Where do I need to go to find her?”

“They took a hostage?  That wasn’t the plan.  I don’t know what to tell you,” the wounded man said.  “We were lucky that there were some drifters coming through, and they joined us; maybe they took her.  It doesn’t sound like anything anyone around here would do.”

“Drifters?  What does that mean?” Marco asked.

“They work in the northern lands in the spring, and in the southern lands in the fall,” the local fighter said.  “They were on their way south, and they agreed to join us.  I think they wanted plunder more than revenge, but we needed the extra fighters,” he explained.

“Where can I find them?” Marco asked.

“How quickly will I heal?” the man responded.  “I can lead you to their camp location when I can walk, if you will trust me.  If I can trust you,” he said, staring at Marco forthrightly.

“I’ll not harm you if you help me,” Marco assured him.

“Let me sleep, then come back in the morning and check on me,” the man told him as he tested his limbs.  “I feel like I’ll be able to take you to my village.”

“What’s your name?” Marco asked.

”I’m Nestor,” the man answered his eyes already shut.

“Sleep well Nestor,” Marco said, then he left the man.

Seeing that the man was already drifting off to sleep, Marco left him and returned to the plaza.  Few men were working, as the adrenaline rush of the battle wore away and the exhaustion of the night set in.  Marco went around among the injured men who were laid together along the edge of the plaza.  Those who were awake he made sip the waters of Diotima's spring.  Those who were unconscious he treated himself.

By the time he was done he felt exhausted.  The moon was high overhead, and a few sentries were slowly walking around the plaza.  He went back to his cell in the basement and retrieved his knapsack that he had left behind, then fell fast asleep, in a dreamless slumber.

Marco awoke with a start in the darkness of the cellar room, and wondered what time of day it was.  He walked down the hall towards the stairs and found bright sunlight streaming from the sky above.  His walk to the plaza revealed that the men there were awake, eating breakfast, and waiting for him to appear and give them directions.

"What are your plans for us?" Hearst asked.  "The men are asking me what to do.  So far we've fixed breakfast and started burying our dead."

"Sounds to me like you're doing as well as any officer," Marco complimented the sergeant.  "Would you like a field promotion?"

"What nonsense you talk," Hearst laughed.  "I'm not so gullible as to fall into that trap.  I just need to survive six more years as a sergeant, and I'll have a pension to my name.

"How's Fyld doing?" Marco asked after sharing a laugh with his friend.

"He's resting peacefully," Hearst replied.  "All the injured seem to be doing pretty well.  Did you have anything to do with that?"

“It doesn’t matter,” Marco brushed the issue aside.  “Let’s go see if the Captain is awake.”

The two walked together, and as they approached, Marco saw that Duchess Rhen was sitting beside Fyld, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth.  The captain was awake, and the two of them were talking.

“We were saved by a miracle last night, I’m told,” the captain said as Marco crouched down beside him.

“We were saved,” Marco agreed.

“They took Princess Ellersbine, and I plan to go get her,” Marco decided to be direct.

“You’ve got enough men to be able to finish the trip south, and we may be able to rejoin you along the way.  You’ve got plenty of supplies for the number of men you’ll have.  And you’ve got yourself and Hearst, so you’ve got good leaders,” he stated.  “The attackers were a combination of local folks and drifter men who were passing though on their way south. 

“I’ll find their trail and I’ll follow it, and I’ll find Ellersbine,” he finished.

“Just as simple as that,” Fyld said.

“It may not be so simple, but I know my destiny involves the princess,” he looked over at Rhen, with who he had once discussed the name on the back of his torq.

“I wish you all the best of luck.  Take good care of one another; I want to hear amazing stories from all of you when we get together again in Foulata after all of this is over,” he told them.

He looked around the plaza as he stood.  Once, when they had embarked on their adventure aboard three ships, there had been scores and scores of men.  Now there were less than a hundred, and many of those were wounded.

“I believe you’ll do it,” Fyld said.  “I saw you fight those Corsairs.  I’ve seen how you’ve handled Argen and Varsen’s behavior.  You’re capable of great things Marco.”

Marco reached down to squeeze Fyld’s hand, then exchanged a hearty shoulder slap with Hearst.  Last he hugged Rhen and held her tight.

“Be careful Marco; I know you can do this.  I believe it’s meant to be,” the duchess told him.  She kissed him on the cheek, then smiled at him.

He grinned at them all, then straightened his belt, and walked away from the plaza.  It was touching to see and hear the evidence of friendship each of the three of them felt with him, but he felt compelled to go after Ellersbine.  It was a different compulsion from the geas that Lethe had laid upon him, but he was nonetheless moving off deliberately in a direction that was challenging.  Whether it was a self-imposed compulsion or one imposed by Iasco, or even if it was from some other source, he was determined to find what fate awaited him on the path he was setting his feet upon.

Nestor was sitting up in the sunshine just outside the entry to his alleyway when Marco returned to him.

“I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind about this,” the wounded man said.  He pressed himself to his feet, shaking off Marco’s offered assistance.  “Are you sure you want to do this?  Are you sure you want to trust me?”

“I am not a Docleatean,” Marco spoke in the language of Barcelon and the Lion City.  “I have traveled with these men, but I am not one of them.”

Nestor looked at him with a squint in one eye.  “I don’t know what you said, but it wasn’t the language of Docleatae, was it?”

Marco shook his head.  “It’s the language of my homeland in the north.  I trust you, and I hope you’ll trust me.  Are you ready to go?”

“Yes, just be patient with me,” Nestor said, and he started to slowly hobble through the ruins, moving in the direction away from the plaza at a moderate speed.  Marco followed.

They walked slowly for over half an hour, enough time to have gotten out of the ruins of the city, Marco thought, though he didn’t say anything aloud.  Nestor stopped and looked around, then looked up at the sky for a long moment. 

“We’ll have to go back this way,” he said as he passed Marco and started to retrace his steps.  “I missed a turn.  I don’t come in here very often; none of us do.  It’s supposed to be haunted with the spirits of all the people who were killed here.”  He turned a corner, and suddenly there was a gateway in the city walls in front of them.  Nestor seemed to gain strength from the sight of the greenery outside the stony gates, for his pace increased, and they left the city walls in just another minute.

Marco looked up at the position of the sun; they had come out on the east side of the ruined city.  Nestor was heading in a straight line, walking due east to get into the forest that lay between the city walls and the not-too-distant mountains.

“Are we going the same way the kidnappers went?” Marco asked his guide.

“I imagine so,” Nestor replied.  “They would have almost assuredly headed back to our village, which is not far from where their camp is.  They follow their own set of paths that are separate from the roads and the rivers used by the army.”

“How long will it take us to get there?” Marco probed further.

“We will arrive back at my village by late afternoon.  We would be able to make it sooner if my health was better, but we will make it,” his guide assured Marco.

They passed into the forest, and Nestor found a game trail that took them immediately inward, as Marco followed close behind.  For the rest of the morning Nestor wove his way along the pathways through the forest, and they reached the end of the relatively level land that the city of Rurita occupied.  Their path reached the mountains that climbed higher, and Nestor chose paths that zigzagged back and forth as the rose up the side of the mountain, swinging inward to take advantage of ravines as well.

Nestor called a halt after a half hour of climbing the incline.  “We’ll reach the summit pretty soon, but I need to rest for now,” he said as he sat upon a tree trunk.

Marco offered him a drink of Diotima’s water, and urged him to drink deeply, then they sat in silence.

“So are you a sorcerer with that finger?” Nestor asked.

“The water from the finger is a gift from a spirit that lives at an enchanted spring,” Marco answered.  “The finger doesn’t make me a sorcerer.

“But some of the other things I can do might make me one,” he added softly.

“Why have you not killed all these soldiers, if you’re not one of them?  A sorcerer can do anything he wants,” Nestor probed.

“I have a greater mission that I am pursuing,” Marco answered.  “And I have come to learn that many of the soldiers are good men, men I would not want to kill.”

“A sorcerer with a soft heart?  There’s something wrong with you, my lord.  We’ve always thought you had to have no heart to be a sorcerer,” Nestor told him.

They walked on in silence for some time after that, following the path, fording mountain streams, rising and falling with the terrain.  They walked along and Marco grew relaxed, enjoying the calm of the forest, where only animals and insects made sounds, along with the rustle of leaves overhead.

The forest suddenly grew silent, and Marco grew alert, looking around, just as a half dozen men suddenly stood up all around them, surrounding the two of them.  The men all held bows, and the bows all had arrows, and the arrows all were pointed at Marco.

“Welcome back Nestor,” one of the men said, “and thank you for bringing us a captive.”

“He may be a captive, or he may not be,” Nestor said, as he stepped away from Marco.  “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Nestor!” Marco exploded in surprise.  “I healed you, hid you, kept you alive, set you free, and now you want to tell these men I might be a captive?  I’m disappointed in you,” and he was in fact truly disappointed by the man.

“You don’t talk to our chief that way,” one of the men said sharply.  “It’s not the place of a Docleatean dog to try to discipline its master.”

“Gently, Horac,” Nestor chided the man.  “Marco, I will not deny that you have been good to me, and I owe my life to you.  But you traveled with the Docleateans and you fought on their behalf.

“How am I to be sure that isn’t just a trick to find out where my village is so that my people can be killed?   That’s the Docleatean way, isn’t it?”

“That may be their way, but it’s not my way,” Marco said.  “As I told you, a woman was taken hostage, and I am only interested in protecting her.”

“Horac, is this true?  Was there a hostage taken?  And is there anyone following us?”

“My chief, we saw no one following you; he is not leading others to attack us.  Yes, there was a woman taken hostage by the men of the fields; she and her beloved are great nobles of the Docleateans, they claim.  The men of the field have taken them and are heading south to seek ransom from the king,” Horac answered.

Nestor sat down upon a fallen tree; he was worn out by the long morning of travel while still recovering from his injuries.

“This woman is with her beloved?  Then what are you to her Marco, if the man she is with is her beloved?” Nestor asked.

Marco saw a pair of men grin at the apparent emptiness of his loyalty to Ellersbine.

“The man who was taken with her is her fiancé, but he is not her beloved,” Marco answered.

“She has told you this?  She has told you that she secretly loves you, not this other man?” Nestor questioned.

“She has not told me any such thing.  I do not know that she loves me yet, but I believe she will,” he blushed slightly at the claim.  “Her friend has told me that she does not love her fiancé.”

“This gets curiouser,” Nestor said.  “You are chasing after a group of armed men so that you can rescue a woman who does not love you.  I’m glad I’m too old to be in love,” he grinned, and the others grinned in appreciation of his gest.

“Nestor, I ask you to be fair, and to simply take me to their path, and let me follow them.  Whatever else happens is none of your concern,” Marco replied.

“If it happens around my village, if it endangers my people, it is my concern,” Nestor spoke more sternly.

“Enough!” Marco shouted.  He was tired of the verbal fencing.  He wanted to follow the trail that would lead to Ellersbine, and he was ready to go immediately.  He raised his right hand, and as he did, he noticed in passing that the fingertips were golden now.  He closed his eyes momentarily, and thought of the great blue protective dome that Iago had thrown up over the pier at the Lion City, and he threw a similar dome, a much smaller dome, up over himself, to protect him from the arrows of the men who surrounded him.

All of them immediately released their arrows, which struck the shield around Marco and bounced away.

“Nestor, stop this fencing and foolishness,” Marco spoke intensely, staring at the man.  “I told you I was a sorcerer, and yet you’ve carried on this foolish waste of my time.  Are we going to proceed, or shall we do something else?” he growled threateningly.