Ranger Rising: Claire-Agon Ranger Book 1 (Ranger Series)

by Salvador Mercer

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, lad,” replied Will.

  “Get everyone to follow me into the water. We walk upstream just on the edge of the river where it is shallow, no tracks on the banks,” he said, walking down the bank and into the river’s edge only a few feet. Once he was sure everyone had followed him, he headed due north but stayed in the river. Once again, his feet were cold, and there were some complaints about walking a mile or more in cold water, but the cold was a motivator and they quickly covered the distance in just under a half hour.

  Once they reached a spot where they could go no further, Targon led them the last few hundred feet back onto the bank and up a small rise where the river was now a full white water rapid. He took out a section of rope from his pack and asked for the only other rope Cedric carried in his pack and, tying the two together, he handed one end to Will. “Tie this around your waist. You can’t grip it with two hands, but you are a large man: I need you to anchor yourself behind this large rock while I cross the river and secure the other end,” Targon said. “Once across, I’ll give you the signal and have everyone follow just above the white water using the rocks to step on.”

  “This looks dangerous,” Salina said, looking out at the dark, brooding water. “I’m not sure we can do this.”

  “You’ll have to trust me,” Targon replied. “I’ll go first. Watch where I step: you should just be able to make out the rocks underneath even in the faint starlight. They are a light brown, and the water is a darker, murkier color. Besides, as I said before, getting caught on this side of the river by the Kesh will be worse.”

  That seemed to motivate the entire group as they all understood they were lucky Targon happened to surprise the brigands outside the crevice. Otherwise, they all would be captives or dead by now. They lined up, one adult with a child, and Salina took Karz personally by his hand as Cedric and Agatha tied the rope around Will’s waist. Will took up a position almost in the river by a large rock that stood waist-high, and planted his feet on either side of it, bracing himself.

  Targon stepped out gingerly at first, and then with more confidence, and started across the river, careful not to let go of the rope he had tied to his waist and making sure his footing wasn’t braced against a slippery, moss-covered rock. At one point in the middle of the crossing, the water almost came up to his waist, and he quickly moved through the area, arriving on the east bank. He had, of course, crossed here before, the memory of his father’s death still too vivid in his mind. Once across, he found a small dead tree trunk to loop the rope around and secure it so the entire rope was now hanging waist-high across the river. With one last tug on the rope to make sure it was secure, he called out loudly above the roar of the river. “Ready. Start crossing.”

  Salina was first with Karz firmly clutching her belt, with Marissa following as they used the rope with one hand to cross the river. Agatha came next alone, followed by an elderly couple, Horace and Emelda, if Targon remembered their names correctly. Then came Yolanda with her daughter, Amy, strapped to her chest. Amy was the youngest in the group, barely three years old, and so Yolanda, the single mother, had simply lashed her to her chest and used both hands on the rope. Targon noted that poor Karz was almost completely wet as the water reached all the way to his neck when they reached the center of the river. Salina had a firm grip on her son so the water didn’t sweep him downstream and most certainly to his death. Two elderly women crossed next, Celeste and Olga, followed by the oldest child, Thomas. Thomas was twelve years old and was crossing by himself, both hands wrapped tightly around the rope. Bringing up the rear was Cedric, who held onto little Jons or Jonathan, the last of the children, a lad nine years old, as well as a young girl called Monique, who appeared to be a teenager just about the same age as Targon.

  Salina reached the east side of the river, and she and Targon helped the others across and onto the bank, one by one. Once everyone was across, Targon motioned for Will to come over. Will only had the one good arm now and almost slipped twice, but finally he, too, crossed, and the wet, sorry-looking group of city refugees was laid out along the rocks, too cold and too drained to do much more than breathe. “We need to get moving!” said Targon as he looked up into the sky, which started to glow a deep reddish color in the east. It is a beautiful sight, thought Targon as the crenellations of the Border Mountains’ silhouette could now be clearly seen with the approaching dawn as a backdrop.

  “Can’t we just rest here?” asked Horace, trying to warm himself and his wife, Emelda, as they leaned against a rock near the riverbank.

  “It isn’t far,” said Targon. “In fact, we passed the river pool and the place where I intend to hide us not long ago before we crossed the river, just over five minutes, and we can rest there.”

  “Come on, everyone. You heard the lad. Let’s finish this,” Will said while still standing but offering his good hand to Horace for him to take. Not wanting to let this one-armed man outdo him, Horace took Will’s hand and stood up and then helped his wife. Cedric grabbed Jons, and the rest of them stood again on shaky legs. “Lead on, lad,” Will stated, motioning for Targon to lead.

  Targon took off south again, this time walking farther away from the river, which after about five hundred feet, the ground leveled out and the water eddied and slowed quite a bit and became much broader and deeper. Targon knew the ground along and near the river would leave footprints, so he walked them first into the forest and then south, skirting the river by a healthy margin.

  “I thought you said five minutes?” asked Marissa, as they now had taken the long way around and were shivering in the forest with only the sound of the river, faint as it was, to their right. “It’s been at least twice that now.”

  “There it is,” stated Targon, motioning toward some brush through some trees in the direction of the river.

  “I don’t see anything,” said Lady Salina. Targon walked a short distance, about a hundred feet. Then he walked by a tree surrounded by some vines and low bushes, disappearing from view. The rest followed and found themselves entering a crude doorway into a small, dilapidated shack, since building would be too extravagant of a word to describe the structure. It measured barely ten feet long by ten feet wide and was just high enough that Will didn’t bump his head against the roof. The group huddled together inside the structure, taking off their wet cloaks and pulling blankets and dry, if not clean, clothing from their packs.

  “Well I’ll be a dragon’s mother,” exclaimed Agatha, looking around in disgust at the dirty four-walled structure. There were slots along each wall, including one in the door they had just used to enter, obviously for shooting arrows through, but vines had covered most of them. They peered out and saw the faint early morning sunshine from the sun, which had not risen yet but was quickly lighting up the area with its impending light. “All you boys out. Go on now, scoot!” she said as she went back to the door and opened it, giving Cedric a nudge out the door as he was closest to it and had entered last. “Give us ladies ten minutes to change properly, if one can do such a thing in such a dirty room.”

  Will just chuckled but exited after a confused Cedric, and Targon took Karz by the hand and stepped outside. “And no peeking!” were the last words they heard Agatha screech as the door was shut rather abruptly.

  “Come on, follow me,” Targon said, heading to the river but back upstream where several rocks were visible. The sun finally started to rise. There was a large, flat boulder Targon knew well, and he took the ragtag group of men and boys to it. The forest blocked direct sunlight from reaching the bank that early in the morning, but there was a clearing where another pool of water had eddied into the east bank, and the forest had to maintain its distance. The rock stood right in the middle of the pool, and Targon reached it by stepping on three other rocks that were shallowly submerged. Targon sat on the large, flat piece of granite, looking east. “Soon we shall feel the dragon’s warmth,” he sa
id, referring to the Agon sun.

  Cedric, Will, Horace, Thomas, Jons, and Karz joined him on the rock. Targon stripped down to his leather breeches and laid his boots and other clothing items on the rock to dry. He grabbed his almost empty pouch and put it under his head and closed his eyes. Soon, the sun rose above the Border Mountains, and the first rays of light hit the river, the far west bank, and the rock they were on. Its glowing warmth felt good and, despite the cold rock beneath them, they were too tired to care much.

  Cedric had taken out an odd-looking book bound in red and seemed to peruse a few pages before tucking it back into his pack and using it as a pillow beneath his head. Soon, the heavy breathing of the boys and old man Horace could be heard. Targon cocked an eye open and looked over at Will, who was sitting, holding his injured arm, looking across the river. “What happened at Korwell?” Targon asked softly, now sitting himself up, facing Will.

  Stifling a yawn, Will looked over at Targon and then closed his eyes as if trying to remember. After about a minute, Targon actually thought Will had dozed off before the grizzled veteran began to speak. “It was late at night but not long before dawn,” Will began, thinking back a few days to that fateful event. “I was up early as usual, preparing the gate to be opened for our usual business. I always enjoyed watching the dawn, and I was in my usual place on top of the eastern gate tower waiting for it. That was when it happened, when hell broke loose.” He opened his eyes, looking at some unknown spot to his west, like a man lost in a dream.

  “What happened?” Targon asked more tensely now. “What happened to the guard?” He wanted to know, thinking of his brother, Malik.

  “The horn of death sounded,” Will responded as he continued. “The attack came without warning. They were already in the town, and a few somehow infiltrated the castle even though the gate was still closed. They hit us first, killing almost all of my soldiers. I took three of them before being forced away from the gate. They hit us from inside and outside. I cut the clamp that held the gate shut so they couldn’t raise it, but after being forced away, the gate somehow opened. I saw the chains drop, so it should have been impossible to open it. The gate weighs more than ten horses and would take a hundred men with pulleys and rope to open it, but I could hear it opening, and then I saw the Kesh scum come streaming through it. I could only think to warn the king, so I ran into the castle just in front of the oncoming horde of thieves and cutthroats. I reached the inner courtyard and started to climb the king’s tower. You know the one in the center of the castle?” Will asked, suddenly looking over at Targon for confirmation.

  “Yes, I think I’ve seen it from a distance,” he said. “It would be the tallest tower, no?”

  “The tallest, yes,” Will responded. “But before I could start climbing, the king’s cousin came down screaming the king was dead. He was covered in blood, and, for a moment, I thought him either mad or that he had harmed the king, but then two of the assassins had followed him down the stairs and one of them finished the deed by throwing a dagger into his back.”

  “And the guard?” Targon asked, now fully immersed in Will’s story.

  “As Lady Salina said . . . slaughtered,” he finished.

  Targon took a moment to take this all in. He assumed the king would have escaped: surely they had secret tunnels for just such an occasion as this. This was the first time he had confirmation from anyone that the king had died in the attack. “Well then, how did you escape?” Targon asked, saddened at the news.

  Will seemed to compose himself and continued with his account. “Well, I ran out the back into the rear courtyard where I came across Lady Salina and her two boys. They seemed confused but were unharmed. My captain, the lady’s husband, had left days earlier to lead a patrol to the southeast, having heard that some bandits and thieves had robbed and killed a few farmers near Cree. He was already overdue by half a day, and so the castle guard was leaderless without him, the king, or the king’s cousin. I didn’t trust the escape tunnels in the dungeon. I thought for sure they were compromised and no longer safe. Lady Salina wanted to use them to escape as we heard the screams of death all around us. I managed to rally half a dozen soldiers around me, and we headed to the southern wall where we had a few drainage culverts. You know the ones covered by cast iron bars and gates? The culvert gates were only used for maintenance and had a sturdy lock on each of them. The culverts were few in number and very small. I barely fit in the one we used, but I used my key, as the sergeant of the gate, controlling access to the castle was one of my responsibilities, to open the small gate in the southern culvert.” Will paused for a moment, thinking.

  “You mean you escaped through a drainage ditch?” Targon asked incredulously.

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Will continued, looking back at Targon eye to eye. “We found ourselves facing a small group of pillaging thieves as soon as we got out. We surprised them and took them out, but I lost three of my six soldiers, including Hans and Kovar. We ran south then east through the town and saw several people hiding or lying wounded. The Kesh were taking no male prisoners. We could see young men and old men and even a few boys lying dead in the streets. Fires started to sprout up all around us, and we could only think of escaping. We took what little we had and grabbed anyone who was willing to flee with us, and we headed east into the tall fields of spring corn and wheat. There is no hiding to the west as those fields were just plowed and had little cover, while the Kesh came from the north, and the south also was just pastures filled with cattle and livestock.”

  “Is that where you found Horace and the others?” Targon asked, motioning to the sleeping man.

  “They were on the east side of town, yes,” replied Will. “We fled, but before we could reach the tall grass, the bandits were on us. The rest of my soldiers fell while covering the retreat of our group. I would have fallen, too, if not for Lady Salina. She took me by the arm and told me they were defenseless now without me. We ran off and on for half the day before stumbling to that crevice by late afternoon where you found us.” Will started to laugh just then.

  “What’s so funny?” Targon asked, confused by Will’s laughter in the midst of such a sad story.

  “Agatha,” Will said, stopping his laughter but still keeping a smile across his face. “We took whatever we could find from the town before we fled: a few carrots on a cart, some potatoes that were sitting on a window sill drying, some corn from the fields, and a few blankets that were hung out to dry. But Agatha . . . well, she had taken her cooking pot and was using it to hit any brigand we came across on his head. I swear she must have given at least a half dozen brigands headaches with that black pot of hers.” He looked away from Targon and back across the river again. “So when we arrived at the little brook and looked for a place to hide and sleep, we found that draw in the creak bank and we started a small fire. Cedric had some flint and was able to start a fire, and, well . . .” Will started chuckling again. “She set her pot on top of the fire and we all threw whatever we had into it, and she started cooking stew,”

  Targon started to laugh as well at the thought of Agatha swinging her deadly pot projectile and then using it to cook with. “I see what you mean,” he responded, “but what about the captain? What about Lady Salina’s husband?”

  “Well, we saw them from the small rise on the east side of town. We cleared the fields and started to climb as we were still in the shadows from the early morning sunlight, but far to the south we could see the patrol, nearly forty horsemen strong, trying to reach the town. The lady almost ran back down, forgetting her children and the rest of the group, but then, just as they reached the town, they ran into a large group of brigands. There was a fight and many fell, but more than half fled again to the south, including, I think, the captain, followed by thrice their number of mounted Kesh. I had to drag Lady Salina back, but when she saw her children, she gained control of herself and we fled east. So there is hope her h
usband and many soldiers still in Cree and Fornz may have survived. At least, one can hope.”

  Targon looked from Will over to the rising sun’s glare, letting its warmth strike his face. He was understanding now that the events that impacted his family’s lives were much greater, much more complicated now. “Well, we need to do something, and I need to find my family . . . and Marissa’s family,” Targon stated.

  “What do you intend to do, lad?” Will asked, now looking around and yawning again.

  Targon, too, yawned, and thought for a moment. “I must head north to the old trade road and see if I can get to those lock carts.”

  “What carts?” Will asked, confused.

  “When I went to Korwell, I saw over thirty of those slave carts the Kesh use, and they all looked fully loaded. I fear anyone who survived the attack was taken prisoner and they are being taken to Kesh,” Targon said.

  “How is that possible?” Will asked. “The old trade road ends at the Border Mountains. I rode patrols there in my younger days, and the mountain roads into Kesh have been destroyed, crumbled into the canyons, and the bridges were all fallen.”

  “I don’t know,” replied Targon, “but the slave carts are here, and so we must assume they have found a way in.”

  “Well, individuals on foot, maybe horses single file, could pass, but those mountain passes are narrow and the drops are deep. I just don’t see how they managed anything larger than a single horse,” Will said.

  “It doesn’t matter. They are here, trust me. I was locked in one for hours,” Targon stated, remembering his experience. “So I will go and see if I can track those carts and see where they are being taken. I fear my family has been locked inside of one for a couple of days now, at least.”

  “Better get some rest, then, first, laddie,” Will responded a bit softer now, understanding the boy had his reasons just as good as anyone else. “What about the rest of us here?”