The Reluctant Warrior (14 page)

“I’m for anything that works,” Jed said. “Let’s just get her out.”

Rex squatted down beside the stone to inspect it. “In ancient times when invading armies came against a city and had to get through the massive stone walls, they would kindle huge fires against them and when the stone was good and hot would douse it with large quantities of water.”

“And the sudden change in temperature would crack the stone,” Jonathon interjected.

“Precisely, that made it easier to demolish.” Rex dug his hand into his pocket. “I’ve got my lighter so all we need now is some wood and water.”

Jed looked around. “There are plenty of dead trees dotted around the place; their branches should provide enough fuel.” He looked down towards the bottom of the mountain. “And there’s a stream down there, but what do we bring the water up the hill in?”

“We’ve got our cooking pots in our packs,” Jonathon suggested.

“Won’t be enough water,” Rex said dejectedly. “It’s a big stone so we’ll need a good sized fire and plenty of water.”

“What about this depression in the ledge?” Jed asked. “It looks like it’d hold thirty gallons or more. Being solid rock it should hold it, and with the three pots it’d only take a couple of hours to fill it up.”

“That could work,” Rex was starting to sound optimistic. “You explain to Amora what we’re going to do while Jonathon and I make a start.”

Two hours later they had a good blaze going. “We need to keep it up for a couple of hours,” Rex explained. “If we want it to crack it needs to be heated right through.”

By the time they had finished ferrying the water the rock was about ready.

“Right, let’s give this thing a shot,” Rex ordered, “everyone with pots at the ready to splash the rock as fast as we can.” Picking up his pot he dipped it into the depression. “All set to go on my count… one…two…three.”

As the three men furiously tipped pot after pot of water the rock hissed like the boiler of a steam engine, and when they had exhausted their supply and the steam had disappeared they were elated to see the huge crack that ran the length of the stone.

Rex grabbed a branch and jammed it into the deep crack. “Come on you two,” he bawled, “give me a hand.”

Heaving with every last ounce of strength they were rewarded when one half of the boulder toppled from its twin and disappeared down the mountain. Jed pulled his knife out and began to dig ferociously, the hole left by the vacant piece of stone much bigger now than the one he had thrust his hand through earlier in the day. Fifteen minutes of digging and he would have her out. Rex and Jonathon dropped down beside him and dug for all they were worth.

“I think we can lift her out now.” Rex dropped his knife and placing his head in the hole called to Amora. “Are you okay?”

There was no answer.

“Amora, can you hear me?”

There was still no answer.

Jed suddenly panicked. “You don’t think the smoke from the fire got to her?”

Reaching in Rex grabbed a handful of clothing and began to haul. “Give me a hand,” he ordered gruffly.

Jed caught a glimpse of blonde hair. Was she breathing? Another heave and her head came to the hole. “Is she breathing, Rex?”

“I can’t tell yet. We need to get her all the way out.”

Three pairs of strong arms slid Amora’s limp body out from beneath the ledge and laid her gently on the rock where they stood. Rex knelt down and checked for signs of life. “She’s breathing,” he said with relief.

Jed tried to control his trembling hands. He had feared her dead when she hadn’t answered, and now that he knew she was alive his body was betraying the dread he had felt.

“The heat from the cooking stone must have made it unbearably hot in there,” Rex observed. “She must have passed out from a combination of that and a lack of oxygen.”

Jed squatted down beside her. “Amora…Amora,” he called softly. “Wake up, honey.”

One eye flickered open briefly.

“She’s coming round,” Jonathon said. “I’ll take my pot down to the stream and get her some water.”

Jed tried again. “Amora…Amora.”

She opened both eyes this time.

“Are you all right, honey?” he asked gently.

“I’ve got a bad headache but I think I’m all right.”

“That’ll be the dehydration,” Rex explained. “Jonathon’s gone to get you some water.”

Jed helped her to sit up.

“I heard you yell,” she said, “and saw the rock coming. I just had time to jump over the ledge and wedge myself under it.” She paused for a moment to get her breath back. “I didn’t think the rock would block me in.”

“It was a freak accident, sweetheart. I’m just glad you’re alive.” Jed put his arms around her and pulled her against his body. “From now on I’m going to keep you close.”

She smiled into his face. “Does it take a girl to almost get killed before she wins your heart, Jed Rand?”

“You always had my heart, Amora. I was just too afraid to let you know it.” He sat cuddling her until Jonathon had returned. Taking the pot of water from his hand he put it to her lips. “Drink plenty,” he urged her, “you need to replace what you’ve lost.”

Rex was looking at the sun. “We don’t want to rush you, Amora,” he said, “but as soon as you’re able to we’d better get moving. We’ll need to find a safe place before the sun darkens.”

Amora bravely scrambled to her feet. “I’m all right to travel now,” she said bravely. “And I know a place we can stay, my father used to take me there when I was a girl.”

As Jed walked hand in hand with her down the lower slopes he marveled at how the near tragedy had flicked a switch inside him. One moment he was desperately trying to keep her at arm’s length, the next he was fully prepared to surrender his heart to her.

Chapter Fifteen

Twelve hours was all the time they could allow Amora to recover before they struck out again for Chantros. They were racing against the clock where Montrose was concerned. Every delay gave him more time to find and destroy the community.

They were soon to travel through an area full of rivers, lakes and lush pasture that stretched for forty miles or so across a vast undulating plain. It would have sounded a pristine paradise if it were not for the giant lizards Amora had told them inhabited the place. And by giant lizards Jed took it to mean dinosaurs, if the heights and girths she had estimated them at were accurate. The very name dinosaur sent chills up and down his spine, the thing that he had seen crossing the warm lake with Rex and Jonathon a few weeks back was scary enough. A plesiosaur he now believed it to be. But what he really didn’t want to run into was a big raptor, or even worse, a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Rifles or not it would be more than a mission to drop something of that size.

The problem was, there was next to no cover, so they were subjected to mile after mile of flat ground with very few trees or rocks to hide from any threat. It was certainly going to be challenging, and he didn’t relish the thought of being responsible for Amora’s safety as well as his own. But after yesterday’s episode on the mountain he was experiencing an almost fanatical fear for her welfare.

His mind slipped back to the conversation with Rex and Jonathon on the mountain yesterday just before the earthquake. He had said something to them along the lines of not being able to take the girls back home with them. Only, now that he had let his defenses down with Amora he was faced with a real predicament. He couldn’t take her back to New York if he found a way back and he couldn’t stay here if he did. It was a classic catch 22 situation if ever he had seen one.

What made it even harder was Rex had promised to help him get back home if they found a way of doing it. But how could he hold Rex to that promise now he was marrying Frida? There was no way he would separate the two just to accomplish his own selfish ends.

So was he stuck here for the rest of his life, a life that may extend to another six hundred years? Rex and Jonathon seemed to relish the prospect, but the thought of being unable to get back home filled him with dread. Six hundred years of being on the run from Montrose didn’t thrill him either, and that was going to be the case if there was no special weapon at Chantros. As he trudged along deep in thought he was unaware of Amora coming up beside him until he felt her warm hand slip inside his.

“You are very quiet this morning,” she said.

“Am I?”

“Are you worried about crossing the Plain of the Giant Lizards?”

“Aren’t you?”

She smiled at him. “Not with you to protect me. The Noragin have never known a warrior as mighty as Jed Rand.”

There it was again, that mighty warrior nonsense. The pressure he felt trying to live up to it was beginning to weigh him down. If only they knew. If only Amora knew the truth. He was no hero, and he felt fear along with the best of them when the situation presented itself. If she knew that would she still idolize him the way she did? Would any of the Noragin still idolize him if they knew?

Cassie would laugh if she could hear what they said about him. In her eyes he had been a loser. Talk of him being a mighty warrior would send her into fits of laughter. How glad he was that she wasn’t here now to denigrate him. His confidence had soared without her constant negativity bringing him back down to earth.

“Will we get married on the same day as Frida and Anna?” Amora asked, wrenching him free of his melancholy thoughts.

“I will need to think about that,” he said quickly. “Something as important as a wedding needs quite a bit of planning.”

“You’re not having second thoughts are you?”

“No…no nothing like that,” he said honestly. How could he explain to her that he wanted to marry her but didn’t want to live here, and couldn’t take her with him if he found a way home?

“So what are you thinking then?”

“I was thinking we should have a big celebration on our wedding day, not a small one like Rex and Jonathon will have.” She went very quiet and he could tell she was thinking it over.

“Yes,” she said eventually, “a warrior as mighty as you should have a big celebration. It is only right.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. The delay to their nuptials would give him the opportunity to work something out. Maybe he could find a solution to the dilemma.

“When you have defeated Montrose and his Sky-Gods we can go back to my father’s farm.” A sad little smile played itself out on her lips. “I haven’t been back there for over sixty years. I suspect it is all overgrown now.”

It dawned on him that she already had their future planned, a future where he, the mighty warrior had vanquished Montrose and his allies, setting the scene for all the Noragin to return to their ancestral homes. He would farm her family land for the next four hundred years or so, until the sons they would have would take over.

How could he tell her he knew nothing about farming other than what he had picked up as a boy on his uncles farm? And that had been all highly mechanized, none of this horse and cart technology that prevailed here.

“I expect the house and farm buildings will be falling down too,” she said.

He was only vaguely listening to what she was saying now. Her concept of life was a primitive one, so how could he explain to her that he was a big city boy? For that matter how did he explain to her what a city was? She would never know anything larger than a village of a thousand or so.

“I could keep the hens and ducks like mother used to, and she always kept a vegetable garden too.”

He already missed the sound of traffic, and the smell of hotdogs on a busy New York sidewalk, and watching a baseball game on television with a cold beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. So how could he tell her the mighty warrior was just a two minute wonder? That in reality he was just a domesticated softy who only hardened up when he was in training for an expedition.

“We will have lots of children,” she gushed excitedly, “and I will teach our daughters to cook and sew while you teach our sons to hunt and farm.”

He tried to picture her living in the city. The sights and sounds of the twenty first century would terrify her. Then the longing for her homeland and peoples way of life would slowly but surely kill her. No, New York was not the place for her, nor would it ever be.

“Maybe Frida and Anna could persuade Rex and Jonathon to live on the farms next door to us,” Amora suggested. “I’m sure they would love it. Then we could all be together, and their children could play with ours.”

Even if he never made it back to New York, if he settled down here, did he have it in him to live out five or six hundred years with the same woman? Six years was all he had lasted with Cassie, and even though Amora was a cut above the spoilt city girl six hundred years sounded like a prison sentence.

“Maybe the Noragin will elect you to the high chieftainship. You would unite all the tribes under one banner,” she said proudly.

A sudden flash out the corner of his eye captured his attention, and so halting he concentrated on the spot he thought he had seen it.

“What’s the matter, Jed?” Amora stood at his elbow trying to pick out what he was looking at.

“Rex…Jonathon…over here.”

Rex back tracked to where Jed was standing. “What’s up?”

Jed pointed of into the distance. “I think I saw a brief flash amongst the rocks way back there.”

The three men trained their eyes on the spot and waited.

“There it is again,” Jed said.

“Looks like sunlight off steel.” Rex kept watching until it flashed again. “Unwanted company I’d say. Montrose’s men must have spotted the smoke from the fire we used to crack that rock.”

Jed calculated the distance. They were about three quarters of a mile off and probably closing the gap fast. How many of them there were proved impossible to tell, but outrunning them was unlikely to be an option.

Jonathon turned to Jed. “So what do you want us to do?”

Jed sighed. Why was it him that had to come up with a plan? On all their other expeditions it had always been Rex who had taken the lead. This time, however, he had remained uncharacteristically quiet. “We can’t outrun them,” Jed said, eventually. “Nor can we simply ignore them. We’ll need to find a defensible spot and do our best to take them out.” Jed scouted their position out. “We’re too exposed here to make a stand, so we’ll have to keep moving.”

The four moved off apprehensively. How many men had Montrose sent after them? Jed knew the three rifles he had with him wasn’t going to be enough to beat off the threat, and so he was going to have to come up with something extra special this time, something that nobody could possibly expect.

Rex moved in closer as they picked their way over the stony ground. “This isn’t good is it?”

“No,” Jed said bluntly. “They look to be travelling faster than we are so I figure they’ll be on top of us within the hour.” He looked back and checked their position as if to confirm his statement. “Make that less than an hour,” he concluded. “If we get into a fire fight with them we’re going to lose.”

“I figured that might be the case,” Rex confessed. “I’ve been kinda hoping you had a cunning plan up your sleeve.”

“Nope…not yet.”

Rex’s face fell. “Not what I wanted to hear.”

“Sorry to disappoint you but this may just be the one time the mighty warrior doesn’t come through.”

“Yeah,” Rex said guiltily, “sorry about dumping that mighty warrior thing on you, but the Noragin were looking for a hero when we came along and you just happened to be the one they preferred.”

“Probably would have been you if you hadn’t gone and got yourself wounded. You’d have led us on the attack at Montrose’s fortress and come back the hero.”

“Not a chance,” Rex said humbly. “I’d never have had the guts to pull that one off. No, you’ve earned that moniker.”

“It’s not really one I want,” Jed freely admitted. “And it’s not likely to be one I’ll still have after this is over either.” He nodded in Amora’s direction. “I fear what they’ll do to her if they get a hold of her.”

“We’ll come up with something. We’re not going to let anything happen to Amora.”

Easier said than done, Jed thought. Rex had always been an optimist but this time they were really in trouble, and no amount of wishful thinking was going to get them out of it. What could he do? What might he find up ahead that he could turn into a weapon to defeat Montrose’s men?

“Amora…Amora,” he called, to the pretty woman, “can you come over here for a moment.”

She walked back to where he stood waiting for her. “Yes, Jed?”

“I need you to tell me what the terrain is like up ahead. What will we encounter in the next hour or so?”

She gave it some thought for a moment. “This rocky ground goes on for at least another mile, and then just before we reach the Plain of the Giant lizards we’ll come to a big swamp.”

Jed’s ears were suddenly on alert, “a swamp?”

“Yes, but we can skirt around it if we want to.”

Jed saw a glimmer of hope. It was a long shot maybe, but what did they have to lose. “This swamp…tell me more about it.”

“I’ve only been there once before,” she confided. “My father wanted to show it to me but I was frightened by the place.”

“What was frightening about it?”

She screwed up her face at the memory. “It was full of strange animals and insects. And leeches,” she looked terrified at the mention of them. “Huge leeches the size of a man’s hand.”

“Anything else you remember,” he probed.

“The smell, I remember there was a strange and overpowering smell and there were bubbles bursting on the surface of the water all the time.”

He placed his hand under her chin and turned her face towards him. “I know it was a long time ago,” he said gently, “but do you remember if there were any small islands in the swamp?”

“Yes,” she answered, puzzled at the question, “there were many. We camped the night on one of them.” She noticed the gleam in his eye and guessed the horrible truth. “We are going into the swamp aren’t we?”

“It will be all right, Amora, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Please stay close to me in that swamp,” she pleaded. “It is not a place that I ever wanted to go into again.”

“I won’t leave your side for a second,” he promised her. “Now, lead us to that swamp.”