Once at the border, Darien sadly said good-bye to his parents and handed them over to Prince Edwin’s officials for safekeeping. Darien was assured, by letter from the prince, that they would be made comfortable and kept secure under royal protection in a secret location.
“I am proud of you, my son,” Darien’s father said. “Be strong.”
“Be safe,” Darien’s mother added. She wept loudly as they rode away.
Darien and his officers decided to head south from Gotthard toward the section of Marus that adjoined Palatia, to a walled-in town called Kellen. It was large enough to accommodate the 100-strong regiment that traveled with Darien, but remote enough to hide them for a while. It also stood at the entrance to an area called the Valley of the Rocks, a rough wilderness where they could escape if King Lawrence found them and decided to attack.
“Do you think he would be so obvious?” Colonel Oliver asked as they strategized. “You haven’t been declared a criminal as such. Why would he take such direct action?”
“He sanctioned the massacre at the convent. He’s capable of anything,” replied Darien.
As they drew closer to the town that evening, the woods opened up to a long stretch of flat fields. Darien noticed that the road seemed unusually deserted. “This is the only paved road to this part of the country,” he said. “One would think that it’d be busier.”
Farther on, they saw that some of the telephone and telegraph poles had been knocked down, the lines cut.
“This looks awfully suspicious,” Colonel Oliver noted. “I’ll scout ahead.” He nudged the horse with his heels, and it picked up speed. They watched him for a few minutes until the road took him over a small hill.
Darien held up his hand for the soldiers behind him and slowed their pace. If there was trouble ahead, he didn’t want to rush into it.
Half an hour later, Colonel Oliver returned. He looked frazzled. As he brought his horse to a stop in front of Darien, he reported, “Palatians. They have taken Kellen.”
“No! Kellen is a good two miles inside Marus land!” Darien said.
“They’re a brazen bunch,” agreed Colonel Oliver. “Let’s attack immediately!”
“Not so fast,” Darien insisted. “Not until we have a plan.” He quickly looked around, then pointed to a hill in the distance. “Let’s camp there until we decide what to do.”
The debate among Darien and his officers on the hilltop went on for an hour. Some of them said there was little they could do to help the people of Kellen since they had only sidearms, a few rifles, and their swords. Others said it was the king’s responsibility to save Kellen, not theirs. He’d learn of the Palatian attack soon enough and would have to respond, they reasoned. Colonel Oliver felt strongly that they should attack the Palatians and drive them from Kellen—it was their duty as Marutians—but he confessed that he didn’t know how.
Darien listened to the debate, sitting with his hands folded under his chin. Apart from a question or two, he didn’t contribute to their arguing. From the top of the hill, he looked out across the flat green fields and to the Valley of the Rocks far beyond. “Majestic,” he said.
The debate ceased as his officers turned to him. “What did you say?” they asked.
“Majestic,” he repeated. “Look at the beauty of this land. It speaks of the glory of the Unseen One.”
“Haven’t you been listening to us, General?” an officer with a wolflike face asked irritably.
Darien stood up and walked over to Kyle and Anna, who’d been watching the debate with undisguised boredom. They would have entertained themselves with something else or rested from the journey, but Darien had asked them to stay nearby. They were about to understand why.
“What do you think, Kyle?” Darien asked.
Kyle was shocked to be put on the spot like that. He blushed, then stammered, “What do I think?”
“You’re my guardian angel,” Darien said with a smile. “Would I be in danger if I attacked the Palatians?”
Kyle struggled with his answer. He wanted to impress Darien and his officers with his cleverness and insight. But the truth was nothing in his gut instinct helped him one way or the other. However it was that he knew when Darien was in danger, he couldn’t manufacture the feeling or predict when it would come. Finally, he shrugged and answered, “I don’t know, General.”
A few of the officers chuckled. Darien ignored them. “Anna?” he asked.
“Yes, sir?”
“You have been taught by the Old Judge and Sister Leona. You, better than most of us, know the ancient ways.”
“I don’t know that much,” Anna said, also embarrassed about being made the center of attention.
Darien leaned close to her and said gently, “Yes, you do. You see what we cannot see, then speak what we can’t hear.”
She searched Darien’s face and watched as it suddenly transformed from the confident face she saw now into a dirt-smudged, sweaty, and weary face in her dream. “Darien—” she began to say, but he turned away from her. He was in front of a roomful of people where he raised a chalice and said, “May the Unseen One receive glory from our victory!”
Standing in the corner of the room was a group of scowling soldiers—Anna didn’t recognize their uniforms but guessed they must be Palatians. Next to them, standing like a proud guard, was the mayor of Kellen, a grin stretched across his chubby face. How she knew who he was, Anna couldn’t say. But she recognized him as surely as if she’d seen him a dozen times.
“To the Unseen One!” everyone shouted as they drank from their cups.
Darien turned back to Anna. His face was no longer smudged or tired. He looked as he had before. “Anna?” he said.
Anna blinked a couple of times. The room, the people, and the Palatian soldiers were gone. She was back on the hilltop. “What?” she asked.
“Will you tell us what the Unseen One wants us to do?”
“You’ll win,” she responded. “You’ll save Kellen and win.”
Darien smiled and told her, “Thank you.”
Anna sat back and rubbed her burning eyes.
Addressing his officers, Darien said, “All right, we’ll attack the Palatians.”
“No!” the officer with the wolflike face said. “It’ll be a slaughter! We can’t go against them with the weapons or men we have.”
“The Unseen One goes with us.”
“Because this girl said so?”
Darien looked at his officer with a determined expression. “She is a voice,” he said. “We will have victory because of the Unseen One.”
Colonel Oliver stood up. “You heard the general! Now let’s get everyone ready!” he ordered.
After Darien and his officers walked away, Kyle asked Anna, “How did you do that?”
Anna slowly shook her head, a helpless look on her face. “I don’t know how it happens. How do you know when Darien is in danger? It just happens, right? It’s the Unseen One who does it.”
“But you’re sure we’ll win?”
“We’ll win.”
Kellen was a walled town, fortresslike in appearance, with a large gate that served as its only formal entrance. But it also had smaller entry points along the seemingly endless circular wall for bringing in livestock and getting rid of rubbish. General Darien disguised a dozen of his men as traders and shepherds, then sent them in one and two at a time to position themselves at those entrances. The Palatians would be looking for a large army headed by the king of Marus, Darien knew. They wouldn’t be on the lookout for stealth fighters.
The Palatian officers had taken over the mayor’s offices and residence. The remaining Palatians—almost 1,000 in all—camped in the open spaces around the town. The citizens of Kellen were beaten into submission by the Palatians, then told to go about their business as usual and be ready to serve the Palatians as needed.
On Darien’s signal, after the sun had gone down, the rest of the men casually entered the city and began to quietly capture or ki
ll the soldiers who’d been put on guard duty.
While his disguised men carefully dispatched pockets of Palatian soldiers, Darien and Kyle walked past the guards at the front gate. (They had been captured and replaced by Colonel Oliver and other Marutian soldiers.) They made their way to the center of the city. Kyle was dressed in his normal clothes, while Darien was dressed in his general’s uniform.
“I sure hope this works,” Kyle whispered once they were positioned in the middle of the main marketplace. Torches blazed on all sides, casting an eerie yellow glow on the two of them. As a first impression, Kyle thought Kellen looked like a cross between a Western town (like Dodge City) and a village from Robin Hood’s days.
Darien winked at Kyle, then shouted, “I am Darien! Come and take me!”
He had to shout it a few times before the Palatians could be stirred to respond. As they surrounded him, Darien crouched down and began to jump around like a monkey, making screeching and hooting noises.
A Palatian officer broke through the circle of soldiers. He had dark, slicked-back hair and a pointed beard. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
Kyle rushed forward to him. “Please, sir, I found this man wandering in the forest,” he said. “He kept screaming that he was General Darien. I brought him here for the reward you Palatians said you’d give for handing him over.”
On hearing his name, Darien screeched even louder: “Darien! Darien!” He made faces at the soldiers, tugged at their shirts, and even tried to climb on the shoulders of a guard.
“I don’t have time for madmen,” the officer said, clearly not believing what he was seeing.
“Mad?” Darien cried. “Me mad? Mad me? I am Darien! Take me to your leader!”
“My leaders are busy,” the officer growled. “Now go away.”
Darien wouldn’t be so easily brushed aside. He howled like a dog, then screeched and danced like a monkey. “Take me to your leader!” he yelled over and over.
Kyle grabbed the officer’s sleeve and asked, “If this man is really Darien, what’ll your bosses say if you let him go?”
That stopped the officer.
“Take us to your general,” Kyle said. “Let’s talk business.”
The officer signaled for two of his men to help lead Darien to the mayor’s office.
General Gaiman, head of that particular Palatian regiment, wasn’t pleased to see his officer, Darien, or Kyle. He frowned wearily, the deep lines on his dark forehead bunching up over his nose. “He looks like Darien, but he’s obviously mad as a hatter,” he concluded.
Darien was racing around the room, knocking things off the desk and walls.
“Get rid of him,” General Gaiman said.
“How?” the pointy-bearded officer asked.
“Throw him back outside the gate or lock him up—I don’t care. I’m more concerned about Lawrence’s army, which will likely show up any time now.”
The officer sighed, then gestured for two guards to take Darien back out.
“What about my reward?” Kyle complained.
“Your reward is that I’ll let you go free rather than kill you,” the general said. “Now get out.”
At the doorway, Kyle and Darien exchanged a quick look and then sprang into action. Darien pushed the two guards into the hall and closed the door on them. Kyle pulled out a small pistol he had tucked under his shirt and fired it at the front window. The sound of the shot and the breaking glass were the signal for Darien’s men to attack throughout the town.
In one fast motion, Darien deftly swung around, grabbed a large marble bust from a nearby pedestal, and brought it crashing against the officer’s head. General Gaiman dashed to the desk, where a pistol sat in a holster hanging from the chair. But Kyle, who was closer, reached it before him and snatched it up.
“Give me that!” the general snapped.
Kyle threw the pistol to Darien, who caught it with one hand and then pointed the muzzle at the general. He smiled. “Now sit down so we can go over your terms of surrender,” he ordered.
Within two hours, Kellen was once again a Marutian town. While many Palatians were wounded, killed, or had fled from the town, not a single member of Darien’s army was hurt.
In a banquet room at Kellen’s largest (and only) hotel, Darien raised a toast to the Unseen One and the victory He’d given them. The Palatian officers scowled, the mayor of Kellen grinned a chubby grin—and Anna smiled because the scene was exactly as she remembered it.
The stranger arrived at Kellen first thing the next morning. He came on horseback and wore a long cloak and a wrap that hid his face and protected it from the sun. Darien’s guards at the front gate let him through but used the phone in the guardhouse to alert Darien that the stranger was coming. Darien was having breakfast with some of his officers, along with Anna and Kyle, at the Kellen Hotel’s restaurant.
When told that the stranger had reached the front of the hotel, Darien threw his napkin onto his plate and got up. He walked from the restaurant, through the plush lobby, and out onto the front sidewalk just as the stranger dismounted. Kyle felt nothing in his stomach to alert him to any danger. Anna was silent.
“Darien!” the stranger said warmly and pulled the wrap from his face.
“George!” said Darien happily. The two men shook hands, embraced, then went back into the hotel. Darien offered the prince some breakfast.
“I’m afraid I don’t have much time,” George said. He looked older than Kyle remembered. Could he have aged so much in just a few days?
Darien sipped some coffee. “Then tell me what you’re doing here,” he said.
“The king knows you’re here,” George answered. “He’s been tracking you ever since you left your parents. In fact, word is getting around the entire country about the battle with the Palatians.”
“How could they know so fast?” Darien asked, surprised.
“The way they know everything faster than we expect,” George replied. “My father and General Liddell contacted the newspapers.”
“To what purpose?”
“They reported that you came here to negotiate with the Palatians, but a loyal royal regiment attacked and drove the Palatians away. The Sarum Herald is saying that my father and General Liddell will come to secure the town and capture you for your treason.”
Darien couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He fumed, “How could they spread such lies and still call themselves honorable men?”
“They dispensed with calling themselves honorable men a long time ago. My father is truly insane. I see that now.” George hesitated, then added, “I’ve come to affirm my allegiance to you and your future kingship—and to warn you that you’ll be grossly outnumbered when my father’s troops arrive.”
“Does the king know you’re here?” Darien asked.
“No. He left Sarum without asking where I was or where I would be going. I’m not sure he trusts me anymore. He does things without consulting me.”
“Like attack Sister Leona and the women at the convent?”
George went pale. “That wasn’t my father’s doing,” he insisted. “He may be insane, but he’s no barbarian.”
Darien glanced over at Anna, who was nibbling on a crescent roll. “I know otherwise,” he said grimly. “The attack was his idea.”
George looked as though he might be sick—or argue—or both. But he didn’t.
“Stay with us, George,” Darien urged. “Don’t go back to him.”
“I . . . must,” George said, grieved. “While he lives he’s still my father and my king, and I have to support him.”
“In everything?”
George shook his head. “Not everything. But my remaining with him will be useful to you. I can send you information about his plans, to the best of my ability.”
Darien thought it over, then reluctantly agreed. “All right,” he said, “but please be careful, George. And know this: If and when I am king, you will rule with me. That I promise.”
&nbs
p; “Ruin,” Anna suddenly said. She had a distant look on her face.
“What?” Darien asked.
“I see ruin. A terrible battle. The king and his family will not survive against you.”
“Against me? I will not fight the king—or his family.”
“I see many wounds and blood and . . .” Anna suddenly gasped. She dropped her roll without seeming to notice. In a different tone she said, “Darien, the people of Kellen will hand you over to the king.”
“Will they?”
The mayor, who sat eating at a nearby table, blustered, “Hand our champion over to the king? Never! What kind of thing is that to say?”
Anna said plainly, “The king will surround the city and demand that they deliver you. They will. You must leave Kellen now.”
“Thank you, Anna,” Darien said.
Anna’s eyes cleared, and she turned red to see everyone staring at her. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We’re leaving,” Darien announced and stood up.
Prince George left and, within an hour, Darien’s men were mobilized to leave Kellen. The mayor was insistent to the last minute that Darien could stay. Darien said he appreciated his offer but felt it would be better for all if they left.
As they rode out of town, Anna looked back at the mayor, who stood waving at the front gate like a bowling ball overdressed in a coat and vest, a gold watch chain linked from his vest button to a small pocket on the side. In her mind’s eye, Anna saw that the watch had belonged to someone close to the king. Just as the watch was in the mayor’s pocket, so was the mayor in the king’s pocket. He’d been reporting to the king’s spies everything that had happened.
That meant the king and his army were closer than any of them realized. Anna saw them on the horizon as clearly as if they’d really been there.
“We have to hurry up,” she told Darien.
Darien didn’t question or argue with her statement. He simply ordered everyone to pick up their pace.
The Valley of the Rocks was well named. It was mostly desert, with only spots of vegetation near what was left of a dying river. The rest of it was dirt and tumbleweeds. The rocks, which rose canyonlike on two sides, were a beautiful reddish pink—Kyle and Anna had no idea what they were called—and jutted up in formations that could easily be seen as faces or figurines. They surrounded Darien’s army on all sides.
The Marus Manuscripts Page 11
