by Dean Cadman
“I can’t see any sign of infection yet, which is a good thing,” she said, trying to reassure him a little. “I’m going to put some of this healing salve on your legs, so we can hopefully keep it that way. I’ll be as gentle as I can, but I’m sure it will still hurt. Sorry.”
He didn’t reply, he just nodded slightly and kept his eyes tightly closed. Alexia began to very carefully apply a thin layer of the healing salve to his wounds. His body stiffened slightly at her touch, and he took a sharp intake of breath. But other than that, he made no other movements or sounds. She was impressed.
By the time Alexia had finished applying the healing salve, Morgan was sweating profusely with the pain. But he had never once cried out during her administrations. She bent forward to inspect her work more closely in the dim light, and was happy with what she saw. She realised that she needed to tell Hershel about his injuries, even if he didn’t want her to. He couldn’t ride any further on that mule. He must be allowed to ride in one of the wagons instead, or he may very well not even make it to Stelgad. Especially if any infection did set in.
“There. We’re done,” Alexia said quietly. “I hope I didn’t hurt you too much.”
He opened his eyes, still very sweaty, and still flushed with embarrassment.
“Thank you,” he said. “Your hands were very… soft.”
She smiled at him, and his face flushed even redder than before.
“Morgan, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” she said, nodding towards his injury. His eyes went wide once more, and his jaw fell open slightly at her words. She laughed at the stricken look on his face, knowing exactly what was going through his mind.
“I meant your injury. The rest of you looks just fine,” she reassured him, chuckling loudly at his expense.
“Oh,” he replied, blushing deeply again. Then he gave her a broad grin, as he covered his legs with the blanket once more.
“Morgan, you know that I need to tell Hershel about this, don’t you?”
“No, please. Don’t,” he pleaded.
“I’m sorry, but I must. You’re in no fit state to ride tomorrow, let alone the rest of the way to Stelgad. I promise that I’ll speak to him discreetly, and not tell anyone else how bad you are. We need to get you on one of the wagons. Preferably in the back of one, but if not, at least driving one so that your legs don’t take any more damage. Don’t worry, I have an idea how to make it still seem like a punishment for you to Hershel. I can be very… persuasive, when I need to be,” she said smiling at him.
“Yes. So I’ve found out,” he replied stifling his own grin. Chuckling at his words, she finally stood up from being on her knees with a groan. Then she let out a second groan, as she realised just about every pair of eyes in camp was trained on her and Morgan. Their silhouette against his campfire must have been very clear for all to see. She rolled her eyes and sighed, knowing exactly what she was in for when she returned back to her camp later.
She wasn’t disappointed by the comments when she did finally return to camp. Pippa locked eyes with her as she approached the campfire, raised her eyebrows at her, and a grin which spoke a thousand words spread across her face.
“What?” Alexia asked sarcastically.
“Nothing,” Pippa replied innocently, her grin spreading even further across her face. Alexia shook her head to herself, and headed towards Hershel’s campfire without another word. She needed to speak with him about Morgan’s injuries, as well as the following day’s mode of transport for him. Hershel noticed Alexia approaching, and came to meet her halfway between the two camps.
“Everything alright?” Hershel asked in the darkness, lifting his chin towards Morgan’s campfire. It was a good job that it was dark, or Hershel would have seen Alexia’s cheeks flush too. She knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, but just the thought of Hershel having any doubts about that was enough to make her suddenly self conscious about it.
“No, not really,” she replied. “That’s why I came to find you. I need to speak with you about Morgan.”
“How bad is it?” Hershel asked, surprising her with his question.
“Very bad. But how did you know?”
“When I saw you visit his camp last night, I fully intended having a very different conversion with you tonight. One that involved the paladin’s rules regarding open fraternisation in front of the new recruits. But tonight when I saw you making that healing salve, I realised that your visit was for a different reason, other than the one I’d thought. Even though, I doubt many of the others will see it that way,” Hershel replied, giving her a knowing smile.
“Yes, sorry. I didn’t think about that until it was already too late. But his legs are really bad, Hershel. I have no idea how he’s managed to ride today, or even the last few days for that matter. He has absolutely no skin left on the inside of his legs, from his knees to his thighs. Please, Hershel. Let him ride on one of the wagons for the rest of the trip.
“I heard Ethan complaining a lot today about driving his wagon. He said he was being shaken around too much on the rocky road surface. Maybe you can replace him with Morgan. That way it wouldn’t look like you were favouring him in front of the new recruits. It might not be very comfortable for him, but at least it would give his legs a chance to heal,” Alexia said hopefully.
Hershel remained silent for a while before he spoke again. Obviously weighing up his options. “You like him, don’t you?” he asked, putting her completely off balance.
“Err… yes. He seems like a nice guy,” she replied truthfully.
“Yes, he is. But if half of the stories around the barracks are true regarding his romantic exploits, you need to be careful around him,” Hershel replied, with concern evident in his voice. Alexia couldn’t help laughing at his statement. Never before had she ever met anyone less threatening in her life. No matter what the rumours were—and she had heard quite a few herself—she doubted that Morgan would even dare speak with a girl, let alone do anything he had be reputed to have done.
“He’s really not like that at all. But don’t worry, I can look after myself anyway,” she replied, still smiling at the image of Morgan’s blushing face.
“Yes, I bet you can. I never thought I’d say this, but I might actually feel sorry for the lad,” Hershel said chuckling to himself. “Okay, I’ll put him on wagon duty tomorrow. In the meantime, try to keep your visits a little more… discreet.”
“Thanks Hershel, I will,” she replied, as he turned away and headed back to his own campfire, shaking his head to himself as he went. She took a footstep towards her own camp, then stopped mid-stride. Had she just admitted to Hershel that she intended to visit him again? A fresh smile spread across her face, as she made her way back towards her own campfire, and the inevitable innuendos that awaited her there.
Chapter Eighteen
Lusam was glad to finally stop riding for the night, and he was sure the others felt the same way too. Since leaving the old abandoned miller’s cottage, where they’d met up with Renn and Durlan, they had ridden almost constantly until the following night. They’d stopped only briefly to swap their tired horses at several waypoints that Renn had prearranged. But apart from that, they had ridden with very few breaks until now.
Renn was convinced that the King’s men would already be in pursuit of them, and probably had been since daybreak that morning. And given what Lusam had already learned about the King from the High Priest, he had no reason to doubt Renn’s assumption.
Renn knew the route to the Nauroe’s village well. He had travelled there many times to arrange passage to Thule for dozens of Afaraon’s spies. He knew where all of the best campsites were to be found. The ones which concealed his location from anyone who happened to be passing by, and the ones that gave him the best vantage point from which to see anyone approaching. It was the latter that he chose for their first night under the stars.
Just as the road crested a steep hill, Renn called a halt to their day’s travel. He dismounted
and led his horse off the road, and into a nearby copse of trees. The trees were not particularly dense, nor did they cover a very large area, but they did conceal another slight raise in the level of the land. It wasn’t a very steep hill, but by the time they reached its summit, it gave them an almost unrestricted view of the valley they had just travelled through.
They each picketed their horses, then left them to feed on the sparse grass which grew between the trees. They had only recently allowed their horses to drink at a stream in the valley below, so at least they wouldn’t have to worry about finding water for them anytime soon. Lusam scanned both the valley below, and the dark horizon for any signs of life with his mage-sight, but he saw nothing of any note.
“I can’t see anyone following us,” Lusam said, leaning against one of the large trees.
“I wouldn’t expect you to, lad. Not yet anyway,” Renn replied, whilst unsaddling his horse. “Even if they started their pursuit immediately after discovering their unconscious spies, it would still put us a long way ahead of them. Neala said that the spies always changed their shifts at dawn. Which means you should have already been eight hours ahead, even before they were discovered. And you probably gained another two hours on them by levitating up that cliff. So if they are ten hours behind us, that would put them somewhere on the other side of those hills opposite.”
“Just because we did, what makes you think that they will stop for the night?” Neala asked, looking back towards the opposite side of the valley.
“If I’m honest, I wouldn’t expect them to stop. But they’ll have to travel much more slowly in the darkness. The King will have sent his best trackers after us, of that you can be certain. They’re called the Nylian, and they come from the northern continent of Podrana. I once witnessed how they operate, and I can tell you, they are unparalleled and relentless trackers. They’re just as happy to travel on foot, as they are on horseback. And the horses they ride are a special breed, used only by the Gimorn people who live in the far northern plains of Podrana. A small and sturdy animal, capable of travelling great distances without requiring much rest or food. They can, and do eat on the move, and are capable of outrunning any other breed of horse that I’ve ever seen,” Renn replied.
“So why are we stopping for the night, and allowing them to gain ground on us?” Durlan asked, before anyone else could.
“Well, if I’m right, they won’t want to cross that ridge on the opposite side of this valley tonight. They’re expert trackers, so they’ll already know how far ahead of them we are. One thing they won’t want to do, though, is give away their position to us. They’ll already know that they don’t stand a chance against Lusam in a direct confrontation. But if they can work out where we’re going, they’ll try to beat us to our destination. Their best chance of success is to either catch Lusam unawares, which I think is unlikely, or somehow drug him,” Renn said.
“If they’re such ‘expert trackers’, won’t they already know that you and Durlan have joined us? And also that we’ve changed our horses several times today?” Lusam asked.
“Aye, you can count on it, lad. That’s another reason why I don’t believe they’ll crest that ridge tonight. Their horses might be extremely durable, but even they need to rest at some point. Now they know we have fresh horses waiting for us, I doubt they’ll want to overtax their own. The smart thing to do would be to make their camp out of sight of us, and restart their pursuit at first light,” Renn replied.
“Do you think they’ll know where we’re going?” Neala asked, obviously concerned for Lusam’s safety. Renn contemplated her question for quite a while before he finally answered. And when he did, it wasn’t the answer she’d hoped for.
“I don’t know,” Renn replied truthfully. “Whenever I’ve made contact with the Nauroe, I’ve always been extremely careful not to be followed by anyone. I knew that if an Empire agent was able to follow me, the lives of our spies would be in grave danger. The tenuous working relationship we have with the Nauroe has existed for more than a century. But it’s a relationship between the High Temple and the Nauroe. So theoretically, the King should know nothing about it. But I fear there’s very little that the King doesn’t know about in Afaraon. So, as I’ve already said, I don’t really know. Sorry.”
“Do we have any chance of outrunning them?” Lusam asked hopefully.
“No. Not directly. But over the past century the High Temple has learned a few tricks along the way. You’ll see for yourselves tomorrow, when we next exchange our horses. From here on in, all horses will be exchanged at a junction or crossroads. There will also be four other riders with them, each one matching as close as possible our own weight. Once we exchange our horses, they’ll ride in one direction, while we travel in different one. Each exchange point will also be concealed from direct view, usually just over a ridge, or within a thick forested area. So it should make it very difficult for them to track us accurately,” Renn replied.
“What do you mean, ‘should?’ Surely they’re bound to follow a wrong trail eventually, aren’t they?” Neala asked.
Again, Renn took his time to answer her, as if he didn’t really know what to say. “In the most northern and remote parts of Afaraon, the local folklore often speaks of Nylian trackers who have a special relationship with their horse. A relationship which somehow allows them to use the horse’s own senses of sight or smell, as if it were an extension of their own. I, like any other sane person had discounted the tales as fanciful for years. That was, until I witnessed something with my own eyes that I still cannot explain to this day.
“Eleven years ago, we discovered an Empire spy working at a local tavern in the southern part of Lamuria. The tavern was a high class establishment, and as such, was often frequented by the higher ranking members of Lamuria’s society. The man in question had been overheard by an off duty officer enquiring about certain sensitive information regarding the High Temple. Unfortunately, by the time reinforcements had arrived, the man had vanished into the night, and all hopes of catching him along with it. Or so we thought.
“It just so happened that Queen Marie had recently taken a Nylian tracker into her employment. It was the perfect opportunity for the Queen to test her new acquisition, and so the Nylian was the one who led the pursuit that night. It was a dark moonless night, and none of us really expected to catch the spy. Especially when we came to the first set of crossroads, and there was no clear evidence of which way he’d gone. It was a busy junction, and many passing horses and carts had churned the muddy earth there.
“Maybe, if the Nylian had dismounted his horse and spent some time studying the tracks, he might have been able to tell which of them were the freshest. Although I doubt it. The thing was, he didn’t even look at the tracks. To me and the others there that night, it seemed like his horse had simply sniffed at the ground like a giant hound dog, then decided by itself in which direction to travel.
“The same thing happened at the next three junctions, and by the time we reached the fourth, every man in our party thought we were being led around like fools by the Nylian tracker. But not a mile later we had caught up with the spy, and to this day, I can’t explain how he managed to do it.
“The Queen was so impressed by the Nylian’s incredible tracking abilities, they soon became a permanent fixture of her royal arsenal. When Queen Marie died eight years later, and Prince Theodore became King, the Nylian trackers swore a new allegiance to him. And to this day, they remain loyal to the King over all others. Since then I’ve even heard people suggest the Nylian trackers can telepathically communicate with their horses, but I think that might be taking it a little too far myself,” Renn said, chuckling at his last statement.
“I wouldn’t be so quick to discount that, if I were you. Lusam can communicate with animals. I’ve even seen him do it. And actually, so have you,” Neala said, grinning at Renn.
Renn began to deny seeing anything of the kind, then his eyes widened as he suddenly realised what sh
e was referring to. He turned to face Lusam and gave him a look which said ‘she better not be right, or you’re in big trouble’, then waited for him to respond. Lusam couldn’t help grinning at the look on Renn’s face, but he still took a step backwards out of his immediate range.
“What?” Lusam asked innocently. “I had nothing to do with what happened to you in Prystone. It wasn’t my fault that you got your leg caught in your own rope and the horse dragged you through the mud,” Lusam protested innocently.
“Alright lad, I’ll give you that one, but explain this to me. Why did all of the horses, including the one that was dragging me behind it, suddenly decide to run to the opposite end of the field, and then neatly line up against the fence exactly where you were standing?” Renn asked, watching Lusam’s face closely.
Lusam couldn’t help himself, as a wide grin spread across his face at the vivid memory of Renn being dragged through the muddy field by the horse.
“But if I hadn’t called the horse over, it would have dragged you around that field all day,” Lusam weakly protested.
Durlan was the one who broke the awkward silence which followed, but not before Renn had given Lusam a look which told him that the matter was far from over.
“You must have northern blood in you, kid,” Durlan said.
“What do you mean?” Lusam asked, glad to have the conversation take a different path to the one it had just been on.
“My wife’s father was from the northern continent of Podrana, and he too could do something very similar to what you were just describing. I’ve never been there myself, but apparently it’s quite a common trait amongst the Podranian people. They use their abilities to help them tend to their livestock. But when he joined our village as a young man, he used his abilities to help our people catch large quantities of fish and other sea creatures. He was quite a legend in our village, I can tell you,” Durlan said chuckling to himself.
