The Jongurian Mission (41 page)

Halam looked them over for a few moments before speaking. “I think that we go by groups of four at a time. Run across as fast as you can, then get well into the forest on the other side before stopping. After a few minutes have passed, the next group goes.”

“That sounds good to me” Iago said.
“Who goes first?”

“Bryn, Rodden, Sam, Flint,” Halam said, “are you ready?”

They nodded that they were and headed up to the edge of the forest. They waited a few minutes and looked down the road as far as they could to make sure that no one was coming in either direction, then Sam counted to three and they bolted out of the forest at a sprint. The road was quite large, wide enough for two full-size carriages to go down abreast, Bryn figured as he dashed across the hard-packed dirt. There was about ten feet of clearing on the other side before the forest thickened up again and they dashed through and well past it without slowing, finally coming to a stop a good fifty feet or more past the tree line. They smiled at each other. They were breathing heavily and their hearts were racing from the excitement as much as the exertion.

“Now that wasn’t so hard was, it?” Sam said.
“Kind of fun, actually.”

They laugh
ed and looked out past the road from which they’d come, ready to see the other groups follow. A few minutes passed and then Halam, Pader, Jal, and Fess ran out and were by their sides a few moments later, panting and breathing heavily, but smiling all the same. Dilon, Conn, Iago, and Willem came after, leaving only Millen and Trey on the other side of the road. A few minutes went by, and then they two rushed out into the road.

They were half-way across it when a cry went up somewhere to their left.
They both were frightened to a halt by it, and stood for a moment looking down the road. When they turned their heads back to the forest their faces were a mask of fear and they ran all the faster to get to the forest’s edge. The sound of horses’ hooves beating on the road could be heard from within the forest, and suddenly four horsemen appeared on the road ahead of them. Those in the forest crouched down among the bushes and tall grasses and hid behind some trees. Iago and Willem pulled their swords from their scabbards and Dilon unslung his bow.

“No,” Halam said quietly but forcefully.
“We don’t know who they are or what they want yet.”

“They want to kill us is what they want,” Iago said, continuing to pull out his sword.”

Halam stayed his wrist and looked into his eyes. “If you do that we may
all
die,” he said. “Wait a moment.”

Iago stared back for a moment then slid his sword back into the scabbard.
“A moment, then,” he said.

Bryn was able to see quite well from the
hiding spot he’d chosen. The Jongurians wore faded brown leather jerkins and hide pants. Two of the men had their hair cropped short while the other two’s grew long and well past their shoulders. Two of them had bows slung over their shoulders and each had a shortsword sheathed to his belt. Their horses were black and a heavy sheen of sweat showed on them as if they’d been ridden hard all morning. The two men with long hair followed Millen and Trey off of the road and to the edge of the forest and called out something in Jongurian. They obviously wanted the two men to stop, and seeing that their companions had crouched down somewhere ahead of them in the forest, they did as instructed. The men jumped down off their horses as the other two men cantered up behind them and headed toward the two Adjurians. Millen looked down meekly at his feet but Trey stared intently at the men as they approached. Some words were said quickly in Jongurian to the other two men still on the road, then one of them gave a quick back-hand smack to Trey and he crumpled to the ground under the unexpected blow. The other came up to Millen but only laughed when he saw Millen staring at his feet. He pulled out a short length of rope and tied Millen’s hands together, then did the same to Trey, pulling him back to his feet when he finished. Bryn could see a trickle of blood coming from Trey’s mouth as he stood up. The Jongurians pulled them up to the road and got both of them up on one of the horses, handing the reins to one of the other horsemen.

The two men on foot then pulled the shortswords from their scabbards and began to slowly walk into the forest.
Bryn met his uncle’s eyes, and Halam put his finger up to his mouth for Bryn to be quiet while he slowly pulled the shortsword from its sheath at his belt. Bryn pulled his own dagger out and fingered the hilt nervously as the two men got closer. They moved slowly, looking all around them and brushing aside the undergrowth with their feet as they moved further from the road. They were thirty feet away, then twenty, and Bryn could feel his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

The sound of a galloping horse could be heard in the distance, and Bryn peered through the grasses to see a
rider slow to a stop by the other two men. They exchanged some quick words, then the horseman who’d suddenly appeared turned and galloped off down the road the way he’d come. One of the other Jongurians called out something to the men in the forest, and one of them turned and began to head back toward the road. The other kept coming on however. He was not more than ten feet away from Bryn, then only five. Bryn squeezed the hilt of his dagger tightly and could feel tears coming to his eyes. He looked over at Halam, but he only motioned with his hand for Bryn to stay down.

Another shout came from the road, and the man stopped, standing still while he took a long look deeper into the forest, then turned and headed back to the road at a quick walk.
Bryn let out a sigh of relief as he watched the man jump onto the horse with the other man who had entered the forest. All four horses then turned and galloped off down in the same direction that they’d come.

After a few minutes Halam rose from the brush and called out for the other men to gather round.

“They took Millen and Trey,” Conn said. It was obvious that he was frightened.

“Aye, and they would have taken more of us if that rider had not come when he did,” Halam replied.

“They were only four, we could have taken them!” Iago said loudly to Halam.

“And what would we have done when that other rider appeared to see us butchering his friends?” Halam asked.

“I would have put an arrow through his heart,” Iago replied.

“Perhaps,” Halam admitted, “but perhaps he would have rode away and brought more men down on us.

“What are we going to do about Trey and Millen?” Willem interrupted. “We can’t just leave them.”

“No, we can’t,” Halam agreed.
“We follow the road from the forest to wherever those men took them and assess the situation. I’d like to resolve this without bloodshed, if at all possible.”

“They’ve already spilled Trey’s blood, didn’t you see?” Iago said angrily.

“And let’s make sure that’s all that is spilled!” Halam shot back.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Rodden said, stepping between the two men, “let’s follow the road and see where it leads us.
They headed north, not south to Bindao, so there must be some small town or village, or perhaps only a camp. We follow these men to it and figure out our options then. For now I suggest we get moving.”

Halam and Iago kept their eyes locked for a few moments longer then Iago broke off his gaze, angrily storming off into the forest in the direction the horses had gone, the others falling in behind him.

They followed the road for quite a few hours and dusk was approaching when they heard the sound of voices from up ahead. Willem and Iago motioned for silence and the group crept forward. Several hundred feet ahead of them the forest broke into a small clearing set next to the road. Three canvas tents were erected around a large fire and several Jongurians sat around it passing wineskins while they talked. The five horses they’d seen on the road, as well as two others, were hobbled and grazing on the clearing’s grasses. There was no sign of Millen or Trey.

“Those are the four we saw on the road,” Willem said, indicating the men that sat around the fire.
“We know there’s at least one more, and judging from the horses, probably another two. They must be in the tents.”

“That
’s most likely where Trey and Millen are, then” Conn said.

“Twelve against seven seems pretty good odds to me,” Iago said, stroking the sheath of his longsword.
“Don’t tell me that you’re going to let another fine opportunity pass us by Halam.”

Halam gave the man a hard look.
“I don’t want us to be the first to shed blood. We don’t even know for sure if they took Millen and Trey here or not. Could be this is where these men chose to stay the night while some other men took both of them further on up the road somewhere.”

“Maybe we should send someone to sneak into their camp and have a peak in those tents,” Fess suggested.

“Wouldn’t be too hard the way those four are carrying on,” Pader pointed out. The men were talking loudly and occasionally they would let out bellowing laughs at something that had been said. “If we give them a while longer with those wineskins, they’ll be sleeping soundly and we can walk right through their camp.”

“I’d say it’s about thirty feet from the trees to the tents in each direction,” Willem pointed out.
“They’ve the tents behind them blocking one direction, and the horses off to another side of that giving more room. Once it gets darker the light from the fire will only illuminate an area of about ten feet.”

“Someone could sneak in from behind those tents at that point,” Pader said.
“You wouldn’t even have to come around to the front, I bet. You could just peek under the flap.”

“It
’ll still be dangerous,” Halam said. He looked around at the men staring back at him for guidance. “So who should go then?”

After a moment Bryn spoke up.
“I’m the smallest,” he said.

“Aye, and also the least experienced, lad,” Iago said.
“It’d be much too dangerous and the chances of something going wrong are too great.”

“I can do it,” Bryn replied adamantly.

When no other objections were sounded, Halam looked down at his nephew. “Do you really think you can pull this off, Bryn? You would have to be as quiet as a mouse, and as quick.”

“All I have to do is look under the tent flaps.
How hard can that be?”

They all looked at him and smiled.
“He’s a brave lad, I’ll say that much,” Jal said.

“Best take this then,” Pader said, pulling his dirk from his belt.

“I still have the dagger Iago gave me,” Bryn replied, showing them the ivory-hilted blade. “Besides, I don’t think I’ll be getting close enough to use it, and no one’ll be looking for me.”

“Alright,” Halam agreed.
“We’ll wait until it gets darker, then have ourselves a look.

It only took an hour for full darkness to come upon them.
The men around the fire were louder than ever, and another had come from one of the tents to join them. There was little chance that anything could be heard over their talk and laughter, so Willem, Fess, and Bryn circled around to the back of the camp from the edge of the forest. It was nearly pitch-black without the light of the fire.

“Are you ready, Bryn?” Willem asked one last time.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Well, good luck, and move slow and quietly.
It’s not a race.”

Bryn nodded his head and got down on his hands and knees.
He crawled until he was ten feet from the back of the tents, then got down on his belly to creep along the grass until he was right behind the first tent. The horses were near but they didn’t seem to pay him much mind, satisfied as they were with their grazing. He looked back toward the forest, but could only make out the faint outline of the trees. Satisfied that he couldn’t be seen, he reached under the heavy canvas and lifted it up, peering slowly into the tent within. It was as dark inside as it was without, so he slowly crawled behind the center tent. Light poured out into his face when he slowly lifted the flap up, and when he looked in he saw two tall Jongurian men with long black hair standing in front of Millen and Trey who were sitting on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs. Bryn couldn’t see their faces, but he could see that blood was matted in Trey’s hair on the side of his head. The Jongurians seemed to be questioning them in their own language, and Millen and Trey both shook their heads that they didn’t understand. One of the Jongurians began yelling at Millen, then came up and slapped him hard across the face with the back of his hand, sending him falling to the ground. Both the Jongurians laughed while Millen struggled to sit back up. Having seen enough, Bryn crawled over to the last tent, but it too was empty, so he crawled back toward the forest, getting on his hands and knees for the last ten feet.

“They’re both in the center tent,” Bryn reported when he got back to Willem and Fess.
“Both are tied up and they’re being beaten. It looks like the Jongurians are questioning them. There are only two in the tent with them, and the other two tents are empty.”

“Good work, lad,” Willem said, tousling Bryn’s hair.
“Now let’s get back to the others.

The rest of the men were where they left them, anxiously awaiting their return.
Halam grabbed Bryn in a strong embrace when he walked up.