Banished: A Katrina Baker Novel 01

by D. L. Harrison

  Once we were passed the keep, we walked another few hours on the road, and put several miles between us and Merrikeep before we stopped and got just an hour or two of sleep before the next day. Needless to say, both of us were tired, as well as our horses by the time we made Fairshore late that afternoon. It wasn’t just missing a few hours’ sleep that had me run down, it had been the stress of possibly being caught before we reached the first real village in Jendas.

  Not that we were safe from discovery now, it was just a lot less likely.

  No one gave us a second look, or at least not a suspicious one, as we stabled our horses, got some food, and then went up to our room to pass out…

  It was sometime before predawn that I woke up in shock to the bed shaking, and not in a good way. I looked around and heard the table and chairs rattling as well, earthquake?

  Gerard gasped and sat up with a startled look on his face, and we did our best not to be shaken off the bed until the tremor passed. My heart raced and Gerard looked just as full of adrenaline as I was.

  “Is that normal?”

  He looked confused.

  “The earthquake I mean.”

  He shook his head in denial, “No, it’s not. Not that I’ve ever heard.”

  I sighed, and laid against him, I never got tired of feeling his warmth against mine.

  “What happens to us, later I mean, when this is done?”

  Gerard looked confused, “What do you mean?”

  I shrugged, “Are paladins teamed up? How does it work. I mean, you told me this was it for you, but what happens when the king sends you off, or your goddess does, and I get sent somewhere else?”

  He frowned, “You worry about this?”

  I nodded into his shoulder. I felt needy, but at the same time I didn’t care. He was mine.

  He caressed my back and said encouragingly, “Most times I think we’ll be able to stay together. I’m following you north, and when the king sends me somewhere, you can do the same. Hopefully we won’t be split up often, but it will probably happen. I would not stray though, not even then. The king can be accommodating for couples as well, unless the need is truly urgent. I am not his slave, I can always quit and make my own way, and he knows it.”

  I sighed, I supposed that made sense, and I would follow him, how could I be willing to do less than he was right now for me?

  “Me either. I wouldn’t stray I mean. When we get back I’ll probably have a lot to learn at the temple, but you got two months off right? This shouldn’t take nearly that long…”

  I grinned up at him impishly, and the way he looked down into my eyes heated my blood. He pulled my body up along his and claimed a kiss.

  For some reason, we didn’t get any more sleep that night, and went down for breakfast when dawn’s light came into our window.

  Chapter 16

  I smiled as we rode down the street. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said I was still in Trelin. Jendas was much the same, language, dress, the manner of the people moving around. There really wasn’t even much of an accent difference that I could detect, which was why I let Gerard do most of the talking. He was able to mimic the small differences I could detect, and probably the ones I couldn’t. Even the architecture looked similar if not exactly the same.

  The only real difference I could see was the guard wore a different color uniform. The city of Fairshore could have easily been a city in Trelin. It had the same basic setup with a few modifications, but I think that might have been more the location than anything else. I wondered if all those similar traits were left over from a common kingdom.

  Fairshore was a midsized city with low walls, although there were a few differences I supposed. For one, the main street wasn’t exactly in the middle, it was closer to the lake shore. There were also sail boats visible on the lake, and I assumed they did some fishing. At least, I couldn’t think of another reason for them to be sitting out there.

  While we went through the gate, a fairly well dressed man sitting in a wagon waved us over, it looked like a caravan of some sort, a small one at any rate with just five wagons.

  “Hello,” he nodded his head respectfully, “We’re taking a small caravan to Castlehaven this morning, could we persuade you to ride along with us? My name is Danton.”

  Gerard nodded back politely and looked relaxed, although I could tell he wasn’t happy about this by the way he sat in his saddle.

  “I’m Gerard, and this is my companion Katrina. We’re also headed for Castlehaven, and would be happy to escort you. Are you expecting some kind of trouble?”

  Danton looked surprised, and Gerard added, “We’ve been out of touch for a few weeks.”

  Danton’s face cleared a bit and he said, “There is a fairly new group of bandits out there. So far uprooting them hasn’t gone well. We were hoping if we all banded together we’d make it through. The rumor is there’s both a mage, and a dark paladin out there leading their men.”

  We were kind of screwed, and didn’t have a choice, it would be too suspicious not helping as a traveling paladin normally would.

  Gerard stated calmly, “We will ride with you, when are you leaving?”

  Danton smiled, “Thank you. Just a few minutes, it would be just as well if we made the capitol before nightfall, there are also rumors of undead, but I’m pretty sure those are just fanciful tales. We’d have left already, except this morning’s ground tremor caused havoc with a few of my associates stocks. They’ve been repacking their wagons since.”

  He pointed behind us, “There they come now,” he added with a relieved smile.

  I looked behind, and there were nine more wagons of stuff coming. It looked like mostly food, but there were some other things as well.

  Gerard said, “We’ll ride ahead, but won’t get too far away.”

  Danton replied warmly, “Thank you.”

  And we rode off at a trot.

  The wagons weren’t exactly fast, but they were faster than I’d assumed they’d be, and we moved at a slow but steady clip. Both Gerard and I remained alert for any problems, and I was using telepathy to scan ahead every minute or so. If it came down to a fight, there were about fifteen guards with the caravan already, and thankfully no other paladins. No one seemed to suspect our true origins, although I couldn’t be positive of that.

  A part of myself was annoyed that the subterfuge was even necessary. Shouldn’t the people here be okay with a couple of extra people against the evil in the north, whatever that turned out to be? I knew that was naïve though, they’d suspect us of using it as an excuse to spy. I believed that Arella had to have a reason to want me to go however, although I couldn’t think of a reason why if the gods had warned people of this kingdom about it.

  Unless I was needed because they couldn’t handle it, but I wasn’t quite that vain. I’d done okay against my first mage, and even the witch went quickly. I also knew I hadn’t been fighting the best of either as far as ability and strength went.

  My next telepathic scan picked up several people ahead.

  I warned Gerard, “We’re either about to fight, or meet some people headed the other way. Not sure yet.”

  My empathy picked up the feelings of anticipation and violence that radiated off of them.

  “Okay, it’s that second one,” I confirmed.

  Gerard grimaced and drew his sword, and called a warning back to the caravan. We waited for them to catch up, and the soldiers came forward to stand with us and shield the caravan.

  Fifteen soldiers ran out of the wood, one of them wore a black breastplate and wielded a gruesome looking two handed double bladed axe.

  Gerard grunted, “I got him, you look for the mage.”

  I sent out my telepathic wave again, not expecting to find him. So far their type had been invisible to me. But I felt the man before he stepped out of the woods. He held a staff and shot a ball of fire up into the air. It looked like it would land either right on us or behind us.

  I caught it
, like I had the last one, and used aero-kinesis to send it back. Then I reached with my telekinesis and crushed his throat, and as an afterthought, so he wouldn’t suffer from asphyxiation, I knocked him out with a blunt telekinesis punch to his temple.

  He probably wished he would have shielded.

  The mage fell to the ground and he disappeared in the explosion of his own fireball, as Gerard’s charge against the evil paladin brought them together, and he parried the first axe blow, and then stepped in close and punched him in the jaw with the pommel of his sword.

  The guards met the bandits, and I stepped in to help. I knocked several over with a telekinesis wave, making it easy for the guards to run them through, and then couldn’t help looking back at Gerard’s fight. I wanted to make sure he was okay, but a part of me also wanted to watch him fight.

  His sword glowed with a white light, as did his holy symbol. The dark paladin’s axe seemed to be giving off an aura of darkness, though the blades themselves were silver colored. The dark paladin swung his axe again, and Gerard stepped inside his guard, and the axe handle harmlessly impacted on his armored shoulder. This time Gerard head butted the guy’s nose, and then stabbed the evil paladin’s side with a dagger in his left hand.

  The dark paladin stumbled back weakly, and Gerard’s sword tip opened up his throat almost negligently with a well-timed slash of his sword.

  My focus was pulled back to the remaining fighters, and I used telekinesis to put the last few that were fighting down quickly. Several of the caravan guards were wounded, and three were outright dead.

  I felt a little guilty, I’d been holding back because I hadn’t wanted to scare them or draw too much attention to myself. I also didn’t want to turn into a monster. Normal people held no chance against a super, at least the mages and other magic users could fight back. I also hadn’t wanted to be responsible for so much death, as if only killing some, or helping to kill them, somehow made a difference.

  Truthfully, after I’d taken the mage, I could have ended all the fighters with one attack, just as I had the thirty goblin monsters on Katherine’s farm back in Southwater. I could have liquefied their minds, knocked them out mentally, or physically, or just set them on fire. I could have sucked the heat from their bodies, or slashed them with the very air itself, or used aqua-kinesis and ripped their very bodies apart. So many ways to kill, but I allowed the skirmish to happen.

  Back on my world there were rules, supers fought supers. Even supervillains didn’t harm normal humans purposefully. Sure, they didn’t care all that much if a few died as a consequence for what they did, collateral damage was shrugged off by supervillains, but they didn’t go out of their way to attack someone so weak either. On the other hand, normal humans knew better on my world than to attack a super as well, they usually ran for cover.

  But here on this world I was also a paladin, those men had been evil and by the law they were dead men already. I should have stepped in after I’d faced the mage and just finished it, instead of watching Gerard fight like a love struck fool with stars in my eyes.

  But it was too easy to kill, especially normal humans. It scared me. I could so easily become a monster. I hated the death, and hoped that never changed.

  I walked over to the most wounded soldier and bent down, and muttered the prayer of healing, while I asked for forgiveness for my failure. I wouldn’t hesitate again, three guards had fallen and died beneath the blades of the bandits because of my moral quandaries. Did they have wives, children to support?

  I felt the goddess’s love as the soldier’s wounds closed, something I still didn’t understand, why would a being like that hold such love for me? Then I moved to the next. After the fourth, I was exhausted.

  Apparently channeling divine magic took a toll on the body, I’d not been prepared for that. I’d have to be careful in the future not to exhaust myself. I would need to rest before I could use that power again, and eat a lot most likely. Luckily, Gerard was able to heal the rest of the injured. The bandits were stripped, and the caravan master gave us ten percent of what was recovered.

  Then they took the time to bury the dead.

  I assumed ten percent was standard for something like this, he still had to pay the guards. Regardless, I’d just added another five gold to my tiny fortune. I still had no idea how I’d make money, but I seemed to be doing fine that way and wasn’t overly worried about it.

  It was quite a bit later when we got on the move again, and when we were alone up front where we couldn’t be heard, I asked Gerard about something that had been bothering me.

  “Gerard,” I asked softly, “When I fought that goblin mage in Southwater, and the witch bandit back in Bellmeadow, they were both shielded and I couldn’t feel them directly with my… power. In both cases I had to use my power to control a weapon and overpower their shield. This last mage had no such protection.”

  Gerard shrugged, “I can’t be certain, but mages have specific protection spells as well as generic. It’s possible this one was only protected from weapons. Or it could be he was protected from magic and weapons with two different spells, but not with a generic enough spell to stop your non-magical abilities. We’d have to ask a mage to help us experiment to figure out what blocks you and what doesn’t.”

  I frowned in confusion, “Why protect against specifics if they have one that protects against everything?”

  Gerard answered, “Magic isn’t all powerful. The more specific a task, the stronger it would be. If he had a general shield on, most likely enough attackers could break through. If he had just protection from steel weapons, then someone with a normal sword could hit him all day long and never get through.”

  I kind of got that, it was why I didn’t do flashy things with telekinesis, it took a lot less energy to kill someone with a focused blunt strike, burning their brains, or crushing their throats, than it would to set all of their body on fire or something similarly overkill.

  Gerard noted grimly, “We won’t make the city before dark.”

  I sighed, and then smirked, “Let’s hope the rumors of undead in the area are wrong then.”

  He chuckled uneasily, “They can be dangerous, but the soldiers will set sentries, we’ll be fine.”

  We stopped when it started to get dark, we were still a couple of hours from Castlehaven, the capitol city of Jendas. No one wanted to travel in the dark. We went off the road, and they circled the wagons and set up torches and sentries.

  Gerard and I shared a tent again, but we stayed dressed and ready, not only in case of undead, but because we were in enemy territory and with the caravan. It just seemed more prudent. It had been a long day, and after a large hot meal I felt sleepy, and had no problems falling asleep.

  Chapter 17

  If there were any undead out there, they didn’t find us during the night, and there were no incidents for the rest of the trip. We arrived at Castlehaven a little before noon, which was at least as large and well defended as Magehaven had been. Large stone walls big enough to be patrolled by watchful guards circled the entire city.

  We made the decision to pick up supplies before we moved on, there was no point in losing a whole day’s travel, it was barely midmorning. Plus, we were both a little wary about spending the night in the capitol. The chances were much greater that we’d run into a paladin that would recognize us for what we were, or perhaps even a spy.

  The streets were busy, and the market was fairly close to the gates, so we picked up some food as quickly as we could. We were halfway back to the gates, when we saw a good number of soldiers and a couple of paladins coming our way.

  I shocked Gerard when I used telepathy, “What should we do.”

  His mind was blank.

  I sent, “Just think what you want to say back, I’ll hear it.”

  He asked, “Are you reading my mind?”

  I replied, “Just your current thoughts, not your memories, focus my love, soldiers coming right for us.”

  He frowne
d in thought, “Maybe they’re going to pass us, let’s wait and see. If they try to take us though, don’t fight, it would be suicide.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure of that, but I didn’t want to cause a massacre in the center of the city either that would probably lead to a panicked riot. We tried to walk casually and not betray the stiffness we both felt as they closed with us. I sighed as they surrounded us.

  One of the paladins ordered firmly, “You will surrender, and come peaceably, or we will put you down now as spies.”

  Gerard thought, “Probably someone on the caravan figured it out, but was too afraid to try to take us then.”

  I nodded in agreement, I couldn’t think of any other way they’d have found out.

  I replied, “Alright, we’ll come peaceably.”

  They grabbed our arms, and cuffed them in iron. And then marched us through the streets toward the castle, and the dungeon. They weren’t exactly gentle, but they weren’t overly abusive either as they chained me to a wall. It brought back memories and I smiled as I remembered Gerard had done the same thing.

  The guard growled, “What are you smiling about?” he looked me up and down, “We’re going to have some fun later on.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes, that wouldn’t be happening, ever. Especially since I hadn’t bothered to mention that iron doesn’t affect me. Although, I supposed I’d probably have trouble with my paladin spells right now.

  The guard sneered at my equanimity and then locked the cell as he left.

  “Are you alright?”

  I replied, “Fine. They just locked me to a wall, like you did. Brought back good memories.”

  He sent back, “We need to get out of here.”

  I smirked, “Do you think so? I kind of find the décor attractive.”

  He felt frustrated.

  “I’m just teasing love, calm down and later I’ll,” I sent him a mind picture of me doing something extremely naughty. I had no idea what had gotten into me, but I think I might have excited myself more than I had him.