The Way to Freedom: The Complete Season One (Books 1-5): An Epic Fantasy Action Adventure (The Way to Freedom Series)

by H. M. Clarke

  “They let you onto their mountain?” Dalon asked incredulously.

  “No, of course not! They met us in the plains and then took us to another part of the ranges. One that they shared with the Arranians.” Hanton stopped his explanation short at the mention of the Arranians. That seemed to bring out bad memories in the tracker. “They didn’t want to treat us gently. If we were there to learn then we had to learn their way, and their way means leaving their youngsters to survive on the Borderlands by themselves for six months to see if they had correctly learned the survival skills from their elders. I do not like the Arranians.”

  Hanton withdrew into himself and dropped his horse back behind Dalon to ride alone with his own thoughts.

  Dalon caught sight of the mountain again and shivered.

  The snowdrifts were already deep and they were not even a third of the way up the mountain. Dalon had ordered his men to dismount and walk to make it easier on the horses in negotiating the snowdrifts. Each man and horse took it in turns leading the group, forging a path ahead through the snow to make it easier for the others to follow.

  Everyone was uneasy.

  They had expected to be met by the Pydarki two days back when they crossed into what the Mountain People thought was their border. But they had seen nothing. Nothing but grass and now nothing but snow.

  Dalon had the creeping feeling that they were being watched. The only person who seemed not to worry was Captain Vosloo who determinedly forged his way ahead up the mountain, dragging the others along behind him.

  It was now mid morning and Dalon was debating whether to wrap his horse blanket about him over the top of the three wool lined coats he already wore. Spring had just begun on the plains but had yet to reach the mountains that seemed reluctant to shed their white finery. High above them a hawk circled, occasionally screeching it’s presence across the mountainside. Tails of hares could be seen disappearing into the brush and snow on either side of them, disturbing the many small mountain birds that lived among the bushes and brush.

  Quickly looking behind him, Dalon sighed in relief when he saw only his own men. He had that feeling of being watched again. He glanced carefully around him but saw nothing unusual.

  Hanton now rode ahead with the Captain, looking for signs that others had passed that way. So far he had found nothing, the only tracks or markings that Hanton had found were those of hares, foxes and birds.

  The group came to a flat piece of ground, surrounded on three sides with thick evergreen conifers that cut out the icy cold wind that blew around the mountain and enough large rocks that protruded from the snow to make adequate seating.

  “We will stop here for the night and maybe for the morning as well.” The Captain said.

  Dalon left Captain Vosloo and began shouting orders to his men who immediately jumped into action to build a suitable campsite.

  As he stood near the centre of the camp where the fire was being laid, Dalon felt those invisible eyes upon them all.

  Night came quickly.

  A large fire was built in the centre of the camp with tents ringing it on the outside. The horses were picketed on the far side of the camp where the trees were the thickest, their tails turned to the harsh wind. The men had eaten their first hot meal in nearly a week. And, although it was cold, the men enjoyed the fact that they did not have to slog through the snow first thing the next day.

  Captain Dalon had set the watches for the night over their meal and had then gone to bed. The feeling of being watched had stayed with him during the day and had intensified as soon as night fell. He had doubled the usual watch but, unusually, none of the men complained - maybe they felt something as well. He crept away early to his tent to rest and think.

  Dalon could not sleep. Outside he could hear snoring coming from other tents and the gentle murmuring of the two men on watch by the fire. Occasionally, he could hear the footsteps of the outer guard as they stepped too close to the rear of his tent. Or the nickering of the horses on the picket lines as their opposites passed them on the other side of the camp.

  He took a pull from his water container, he had refilled it using snowmelt from the fire before dinner.

  Captain Vosloo had gone into his tent as soon as the evening meal finished. Dalon knew that something was worrying him but could not work up the nerve to ask him. It was not his place to ask the Captain his problems. Yet, reports from men who served with him on the border stated that he was an easygoing man who had a good rapport with those under his command. It was also said that he did not believe in hiding things from his command, that he trusted them to do what was right, as they trusted him. Dalon wished he knew what was going on but above all, he wished that he was off this One-forsaken mountain.

  He leaned back in his bedroll, resting his head on his hands and stared at the canvas ceiling of his tent. The flames from the fire outside made flickering shadows dance against its white walls, but he still could not sleep. Thoughts whirled around in his head but would not settle, something the Captain had mentioned preyed on his mind but he could not remember what it was.

  After a white of fruitless thinking, Dalon slowly drifted into sleep.

  Dalon’s eyes snapped open.

  Something was wrong. But as he lay in the dark he could sense nothing. He could hear the snoring coming from the tents around him and the clink of metal as one of the men on watch moved on the far side of the camp. He was just imagining things.

  Dalon reached across the tent to take a sip from his waterskin when a noise outside stilled him. A snuffling sound came from the back of the tent. It sounded as if a large hunting dog was sniffing the trail of a fox that it had run to ground.

  The Lieutenant slowly turned his head to the rear of his tent. The light of the campfire had died down and the inside of the tent was in near darkness. Outside, the half moon cast enough light to throw dark shadows against the canvas walls.

  What Dalon saw nearly made him forget to breathe.

  Snuffing unconcernedly at the rear off his tent was the perfect shadow of a large creature that reminded Dalon of both a cat and a dog and there was the strong smell of fox in the air.

  Suddenly its nose poked under the tent flap showing a flash of pure white fur and a nose that reminded him of the large wildcats that roamed the plains to the south.

  Dalon then heard the loud crunching of two pairs of boots as they approached his tent. “’Ere what’s that?” he heard one say. The other guard realized what was happening.

  “Lieutenant!”

  Dalon watched as the nose disappeared back under the tent flap and a low feline growl answered the men.

  “Don, watch out!’ he shouted as he turned and grabbed his sword belt and, barely stopping to untie the flaps, bolted out the front of his tent.

  He raced around to the opposite side that his men were approaching from, jumping unconsciously over guy ropes and spikes in the moonlight.

  He heard querying shouts coming from the two men by the fire, asking what was going on. Dalon pulled his sword from its scabbard and tossed the belt to the ground as he came around the corner of his tent.

  He halted dead in his tracks.

  The creature before him was huge. The moon shadows that he saw against his tent had down played the size of this beast. It was the size of a small pony and was heavily built. At first glance, it looked like a grizzled white wolf but it had a short stocky tail and black tipped ears like the small tawny mountain cats that hunted in the western mountains. As he came around behind it, the beast turned to look at him. It’s face looked like a mix between a wild dog and a cat.

  It has the long nose of a dog that terminated in the v shaped nose that cats have. It panted like a dog, but had sharp teeth and fangs like a cat.

  The one thing that struck Dalon to the core of his being was the beast’s eyes. They glared at him like blue ice and looked entirely too human. There was intelligence and cunning within those eyes.

  He was struck by the feeling that t
he creature knew what he was thinking and could understand what was said around it.

  The beast turned its head back towards the two men and growled low in its throat. Dalon heard footsteps and a loud curse behind him and knew without turning that the sentries by the fire had joined him. In a few minutes, the other pair of circuit sentries will be coming behind on the other side.

  “What do we do Sir?” Don called across the creature.

  “We’ll wait for the other two to join us and then…”

  The beast turned back to look at him as he spoke and he saw the human-like eyes narrow.

  The Lieutenant took an involuntary step backwards under that gaze. Dalon knew he looked death in the face. The creature dropped into a half crouch, never taking its gaze away from the Lieutenant; getting ready to leap.

  Suddenly in the distance the howl of a wolf echoed across the night and was answered immediately by several others. The white beast moved its gaze in the direction of the howls and spat, the wet globule hit the side of the tent and began to eat through the material.

  The howls echoed once again and seemed to be closer. The creature swept its gaze over the men and then leapt up from between them to disappear into the trees and bushes that surrounded their camp.

  The men stood facing the bushes with bared steel for what seemed like hours but was only a few minutes before relaxing enough to speak.

  “What was that?” one man asked.

  “Don’t know, I don’t want to know,” another man answered.

  Dalon turned from studying the hole left by the creature’s spittle in his tent, he felt like running his finger around the edges of the hole but he dared not touch it.

  “The watch will be doubled again tonight, Sergeant Don.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “I will inform the Captain of what has happened.”

  Dalon stood back as Captain Vosloo inspected the paw prints left in the snow, a solider holding a lighted torch so that everyone could see. The prints looked to be that of a dog and were the size of a large dinner plate. They were clearly defined and showed that the creature was more massive than Dalon had imagined.

  The Captain slowly stood, brushing away the snow that clung to his knee as he knelt.

  “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

  Hanton spoke up from beside the Lieutenant. “I have…the footprints I mean.” He clarified when all eyes suddenly focused on him.

  “As I told the Lieutenant, I lived for six months with the Pydarki. Once, when we were on patrol along the Arranian border closest to here we came across prints much like these. The young Pydarki that were with us got excited and immediately sent us Suenese back to camp. We never found out what it was about. Until now.”

  “Did you find any other tracks?” Dalon asked.

  The tracker shook his head.

  “This is it. There is not even a claw mark anywhere else around the camp.”

  Dalon turned to the Captain. “I’ve doubled the watch, I have a feeling that we will see them again.”

  Captain Vosloo glanced again at the footprint and the melted hole in Dalon’s tent.

  “Soldiers should not have to be afraid of the local wildlife,” Vosloo said and stalked off in the direction of the campfire.

  There were no further incidents that night and the sun rose on an alert but uncertain camp.

  Dalon did not sleep that night, unlike the Captain who went back to his tent and, as yet has not come out. The Lieutenant glanced again at the Captain’s tent and saw no movement.

  The Center Watch had started the morning cooking pots and Dalon poured himself some tea from a kettle and seated himself on a rock beside the fire.

  Nursing the warm mug more for its warmth than thirst, Dalon watched over a still quiet camp.

  The Lieutenant watched as the men worked the pots around the cook fire and sipped carefully at his tea.

  Something niggled at the back of his mind, something was not right. That seemed to be happening a lot lately.

  Dalon swept his eyes across the camp again. He saw the six men on patrol in the outer circuit, there was four men around the center, a pair of which was doing the cooking, and there was the pair of men guarding the horses.

  Taking another sip of his tea, he glanced carefully around the circle of tents that surrounded the central fire. There were seventeen tents, his thirty men shared two to a tent and he and the Captain had single tents. Dalon’s eyes rested on the Captain’s tent. Its front tent flaps gave a gentle wave in the cold morning breeze and it took a moment for the Lieutenant to realize that inside it was empty.

  He shot up from his rock like an arrow, barely missing his leg with burning tea as his mug dropped to the snow, and raced over to the tent’s entrance to peer inside to make sure that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. The men at the fire stopped what they were doing to finger the hilts of their swords uneasily.

  “What’s up Lieutenant?” one man called as Dalon turned to face them from the tent, a frown creasing his forehead. The tent was neat and ordered and the bedroll looked as if it hadn’t been slept in. The Captain’s pack was gone.

  Dalon came slowly out of the tent and faced the men who crowded around him

  “The Captain has disappeared.”

  Chapter Eight

  Unexpected Friends

  The wispy smoke was barely noticeable above the thick trees that lined the mountain’s side but the sharp eyes of the Haterle’magarten could see it clearly. It drifted lazily just above the snow-capped trees before it was broken up and blown away by the morning breeze.

  Trar duly reported the sighting to Tayme.

  ‘Who do you think it is?’ Tayme asked. Their countless days searching had revealed no trace of either Kalena or the party who took her. He was desperate for any sign that might indicate where she was. and Tayme clung to the hope that she was still alive. Adhamh would have felt it if she had…

  Tayme did not want to think about it. Somehow, a pair Speaking Crystals know when one is destroyed.

  Trar answered Tayme with a mental shrug.

  ‘Let’s go check it out just the same. It’s the first time we’ve seen any sign of habitation since our search began.’

  Slowly the five Hatar turned and glided low against the trees, dipping and diving along the undulating canopy in an effort not to be seen. As they slipped along the tree tops, Adhamh’s silent presence loomed large in Tayme’s thoughts. Ever since they had left Vosloo and their Wing on the Red Plains the Hatar had not been very forthcoming in what had exactly happened when he was knocked from the sky. He only repeated what he had told Trar the day they found them on the grasslands.

  And when Tayme asked about what he meant by his comments on the Captain, Adhamh remained unusually silent. Over the last few days the Hatar had withdrawn so much into himself that he hardly said a word to anyone.

  And who could blame him. The Hatar had lost someone who he has shared every moment of his life with for the past eight years.

  Tayme could understand.

  With Kalena gone he felt as if a part of him had been ripped out and hidden away. Now all Tayme had to do was to find it again.

  ‘Trar, see if you can find somewhere close by where there is enough room for us to land. We humans will approach on foot and see if we can get a look at what’s there.’

  Trar quickly began to scan the forest ahead of them, her red feathered head quickly moving back and forth looking for a large enough break in the green.

  ‘There is a suitable place over to the left Tayme. It does mean a bit of a walk for you to that campsite.’

  Tayme gave Trar’s neck a good scratch. ‘After all this time in the air we need the exercise.’

  The group veered a little to the west, following Trar’s directions.

  It was a tight fit but all the Hatar managed to land and bunch up in the large clearing that had obviously been cleared by fire as blackened stumps of cracked and broken trees poked clear above the snow. It s
at just to the south west of the campfire and even with the distance on foot it was close enough for the Hatar to respond quickly to any call for help.

  Even in the tightness of the clearing Tayme noticed that Adhamh managed to stand to one side with enough separation between him and the other four Hatar to look like an outcast. He will have to try and get Adhamh out of the shell he is hiding behind but that will have to wait until later.

  Tayme quickly dismounted along with the others and grabbing his sword belt and a brace of daggers quickly called the three other riders to him.

  “Make sure you have your swords ready and some daggers close to hand. We don’t know who is beyond by that fire but whoever had attacked Adhamh had firstly done so in this area.” Tayme swept an arm around him, taking in all the trees, bushes, snow and the great mountain of Daegarouf.

  “The bastards still could be around lurking where the Pydarki cannot detect them. For all we know this campfire could just be a group of Pydarki out on a picnic. Even so, just follow me and do as I say. Got it?”

  The three Flyers nodded.

  Quickly, the group crossed from out of the morning sunlight and into the sheltered gloom of the evergreen branches. This high up on the mountain they still grew strong and thick and as the Flyers moved deeper into the trees they found that the snow barely reached the ground. Dried leaves and pine needles crunched and shattered underfoot and birds called out from snow-clad branches hidden above them.

  Instinctively, Tayme and his Flyers knew in which direction lay the campfire. All Flyers have a good sense of direction. It was well known that you could blind fold one, spin them around and lock them in a chest and they would still be able to point out North. It was one of the gifts given by the Krytal.