Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series (24 page)

“
She’s a plain girl, although I think her looks are improving. Don’t toy with her heart,” the man pleaded.

“
You’ve done an impossible task, smuggling her this far away from the palace with the forces of the Conglomerate searching for you; you must be an amazing man. That’s all I wanted to tell you,” Gottfried wound up. “Thank you for listening to the heartfelt concerns of a doting cousin. Now let’s go have some fun.”

Alec considered the words he had heard. Gottfried clearly spoke from his heart, and spoke with affection for Caitlen. He’d remember Gottfried’s caution, especially since he had already steeled his heart to resist the potential infatuation he knew Caitlen threatened him with. Yet he’d done no more than have one kiss, and that had been play-acting. The prophecy’s words suggested they had a future together, one that promised to be stormy, not romantic, but together nonetheless. And there was Bethany back in the Dominion; the future he hoped would yet be his. He would not, however, cease to be Caitlen’s friend and protector.

They rode through the woods in a new direction, following a narrow game path, until Gottfried stopped and made a motion to Alec to stay silent. They dismounted and tied their horses to a tree, then carried their bows with them along the trail of game tracks that led to the spring. Ahead, Alec spotted a cloud of steam, and he smelled pungent odors.

Gottfried whispered in Alec’s ear. “You go right, and I’ll go left. Take the first shot you get, and if you hit anything – give a shout.”

They split up, and Alec cautiously crept to his right, slowly spiraling in towards the steam that rose from the hot spring. He saw a movement and stopped, notched an arrow and waited patiently. A large buck deer materialized from the shadows in the steam. Alec raised his bow and fired a shot, one that flew true and straight and struck the buck just behind the shoulder. The animal reared, took three plunging steps, and fell to the ground.

“
Gottfried, I got one,” Alec called. He walked over to the animal’s carcass. It was a large one, he noted as Gottfried arrived within three minutes.

“
Magnificent trophy!” Gottfried said, patting Alec on the back. “I’ll go bring the horses over; you stay here with the carcass.” He disappeared into the forest, and Alec looked idly around the his surroundings and at the edge of the spring. His eyes suddenly focused on a small plant growing among the hoof prints at the edge of the water.

It was drayton’s agrimonia, the sovereign remedy for virtually every illness Alec’s’ healing knowledge knew! He was astonished to see the rare plant, one he had never been able to use before. There was a whole patch of the agrimonia spread around the spring, and Alec realized there were crystals of various minerals growing as deposits laid down by the mineral waters. Alec began busily plucking plants and minerals, stuffing them in his pockets and his arrow quiver, oblivious to the world until he heard Gottfried and the horses stop at the deer carcass.

Together they slung a line over a tree branch, then raised the carcass and field dressed it in a half hour’s time. Once it was firmly attached to Alec’s horse, the two hunters began the ride back to the estate. They had spent most of the day out in the woods, and the sun was below the western mountains by the time the home was in sight. It was large enough to be called a castle, Alec thought to himself as they entered the stables, congratulated by the grooms and the cooks.

“
Is Caitlen available?” Alec asked as soon as he was cleaned up and comfortably warmed by a hot bath. The sky outside was dark by the time he left his room to search for his companion.

“
Wait until dinner,” Thressa answered. “Since your buck came in late, dinner will be served a little bit later than usual.

Nearly two hours later, Alec was led to the dining room by a servant, and seated at the table. Another servant brought in a steaming platter of steaks from the buck, followed by a variety of vegetables. A minute later Gottfried, Thressa and Gerlach arrived and sat down. The three bowed their heads in silence for a minute then looked at Alec and smiled.

“
Where’s Caitlen?” Alec asked, suddenly feeling an overwhelming sense of anxiety.

“
Alec, do you know how long you slept here?” Gottfried asked. “You were asleep for four days. Caitlen told us you might rest for a long time. She said we needed to keep you calm and rested for as long as possible, so that you could recover and be healthy.”

“
Where is she?” he knew his face was growing pale; he could feel the blood draining away in panic.

“
She didn’t want to put you in danger any more she said,” Gottfried continued. “She told us that you had almost died trying to save her, that the challenge of guarding her on this journey was too much for just one man.”

“
Has she left already? How long ago?” Alec asked.

“
She hired two guards and joined a strong merchant’s caravan that is traveling past Black Crag on its way to the lands of the western barbarians on the far side of the mountains. She left at dawn three days ago,” Gottfried explained at last.

Chapter 15 – Into the Mountains

Alec left Gottfried’s castle at the break of dawn the following day. “Don’t try to follow her,” Thressa had urged him. “A single man traveling alone won’t stand a chance of surviving the journey through the mountains in the winter.”

“
The caravans take special wagons to protect the people from the weather, and they have horses specially bred for the altitude and the cold. It’s a death wish to try to follow her,” Gottfried told Alec. But by the end of the meal, they knew they had failed to dissuade him from the attempt.

“
Here,” Gottfried had handed him a small bag of coins. “You’ll be able to buy supplies on the western edge of the city, and more expensive supplies in the first few villages in the low mountains. We will burn incense in your name at the shrines, and hope to see you again someday.”

Alec had walked away, and by midday he was standing with a full pack on the road, just outside the western gate to the city. He’d bought the pack and flints and steel and a small supply of kindling and a variety of travel foods. He’d added a layer of furs and a pair of snowshoes, and had virtually none of Gottfried’s money left.

The mountains provided the source of innumerable stories from the proprietors of the stores he visited, stories about storms and lost travelers and bands of bandits, as well as stories of monsters in the mountains and strange magical spells, and stories about the fierce warriors of Black Crag, some men, but mostly women, who were trained in the use of multiple weapons, and trained to use them all well. They were fair, but not merciful.

Alec adjusted the straps and began his journey. Caitlen had joined the only caravan that had left in the past week, a well-supplied and well-fortified force owned by a rich merchant who dominated the trade with certain tribes of the western barbarians, supplying amber and gold and exotic spices that were not available through the shipping houses on the western seas.

Although Alec believed Caitlen was as well-protected as possible, she was not protected by him, and he was divinely-charged with protecting her, he knew. He had no doubt that he would meet her, and that she would overcome her fears and accept him back as her companion, realizing that they were meant to accomplish something great together. And he hoped that God would intervene and let Bethany and the street tough fighters from Delphi’s gymnasium be there waiting and able to join him as well to fight for the princess as they led a force back down to Vincennes.

That night he slept under a yew bush, shivering in his furs as he awoke several times, and raising his body temperature back to a comfortable level. He awoke in the morning and ate some trail bread and some plants he collected on the way, then resumed a grueling pace that he hoped would let him catch the caravan before it reached Black Crag, a journey that promised to be two weeks long under optimal conditions.

Alec reached a small village in mid-afternoon, after which the road and the valley it followed began to climb much more steeply. Despite the exercise of the climb, Alec still had to devote a great deal of healing energy to keeping his body warm. That night he snuck into a crude barn that sustained an impoverished-looking farm in the mountains. He slept with a group of pigs, relishing the body warmth they shared, and then snuck out when he heard the farmer begin to unlatch the door the next morning.

Through the long, lonely nights of his journey Alec thought often of Caitlen, sometimes with her dark hair, sometimes with her silver hair. And when he didn’t think of the lady of the court, he thought about the Dominion. So long ago and so far away it seemed, but Noranda and Brandeis and Bethany all lived back there with all his other friends, and he missed them, and knew that his absence made the restoration of order in the Dominion a greater challenge.

His third day in the mountains took him through the last village on the road. He stopped in the tavern for warm food, and was looked at as a man already dead because of the impossibility of his task. He warmed himself by the fire, learned that the caravan was still more than two days ahead of him, and then left with the dismal but hot food in his belly.

Two days later he found that his use of healing power was starting to strain his abilities, as he kept climbing into thinner air and more snow. He kept his healing energy on at all times, yet walking against the wind made it difficult sometimes to gain more than a mile in an hour, and then a blizzard blew in. Alec wedged himself into a crevice between two boulders that faced away from the wind, pulled his furs into a cocoon around his body, and stay cramped there for two days until the storm’s fury abated.

He understood the impossibility of a single man getting through this journey, and questioned whether he would have been able to bring Caitlen safely through the dangerous passage. He presumed he was still less than halfway to Black Crag. With the blizzard past, he strapped on his snow shoes and began to walk over the deep new layer of snow it had deposited. The snow shoes were effective, but cumbersome and slow, making his attitude grow blacker hour by hour.

The next day, things got worse.

Chapter 16 – Raspute’s Cave

Alec pulled his snow shoes on in the morning as he rolled out of his small campsite, a rock overhang that passed as a cave in his eyes. By midday, as he stepped atop the drifts in the road, he had a nagging sense that he was being watched. He dropped his healer power and drew upon his warrior energies, scanning the countryside for evidence of danger. A movement on a hillside above the next valley caught his attention. It was at least an hour away, he judged, so he resumed using his healing powers to warm himself, and cautiously proceeded.

Banditry in the harsh winter conditions seemed impossible to Alec. The weather would make the terrain a difficult place to survive, and the number of caravans in the winter time seemed too few to support anyone up here. In all his time climbing the mountain road he’d not seen another living person since he had left the last village. As he drew closer, he dropped his healer energy and resumed his warrior energy, pulling a throwing knife outside his coat for ready access.

There was a man kneeling in the snow behind a bush on his left, and another one in the rocks on his right, plus the one he had seen originally, slowly working his way down the hillside, closer to the road. “I know the three of you are here,” he shouted loudly. He heard his voice echo down the valley below. “I will not harm you if you let me pass peacefully.”

The man behind the bush stood up. “Are you traveling alone? By yourself in the mountains?” he asked.

“
I am. My destination is Black Crag,” Alec replied feeling colder, but still keeping his warrior powers engaged as he stepped further forward. “I’m not a trader, I have no money. Just let me pass.”

“
We will let you pass peacefully if you pay the toll. Otherwise you need to turn around,” the man on the left said. The man on the right stood up too, and began to approach him, while the man up ahead finally descended to the level of the road.

Alec awkwardly unsheathed his sword, and pulled it out in his left hand, while he held the knife in his right. “I can pay the toll in a different way, without money,” he offered. “I have healing powers that will sooth your aches, cure your ills and mend your wounds. Let me heal each of you and I’ll be on my way. I don’t want to have to kill you.”

“
What? Magical powers? Are you one of the lokasennii? I’ve never heard a claim that they possess healing powers?” the robber on the right answered as he came within reach of Alec. They seemed to be taking Alec seriously without dismissing his claims out of hand.

Taking a chance, Alec released his Warrior energy, and re-engaged his healer powers. He warmed himself with his first burst, as he turned to look at the man on his left. The robber had a terrible infection in his tonsils, and a festering sore in his right foot. “Give me your hand,” Alec told his unknowing patient.

“
What? So you can stab me up close?” the man asked.

Alec hastily sheathed both his weapons, and reached his hand out, as if to an unknown dog. The robber’s gloved hand stretched out towards him, and Alec grabbed the exposed wrist above the glove, injecting his energy into the man, and removing the two local pains that bothered him.