by Peter Plasse
“Very good,” said the doctor. They embraced. On a whim, he said, “I love you, Daria. I have loved you for a long time now.” “And I love you, Doctor,” she return.
The doctor laughed briefly at the attempt at a kiss. “We’ll do better next time. Go now. Go.”
Daria patted Stephanie on the head and kissed it gently. “We may not carry this off, child,” she said quietly, “But we will do our best. Good luck to you then.”
Stephanie didn’t budge. More than anything, she wanted to give this odd stranger/caretaker/nurse a hug for the love that she had extended to her, but she focused on the doctor’s words, and because he had not cleared her from his last order, she remained completely motionless. And it’s a very good thing she did because Malance Venomisis had stopped outside the tiny room and snuck back for a surreptitious peek to assure himself that the girl was indeed in a coma. He was out of earshot, but wanted verification. Seeing the doctor and the Troll nurse exchange a romantic embrace did not faze him in the least. But seeing the child entirely unmoving, despite the ministrations of the two medical people, gave him enough convincing that he left.
They huddled by the small campfire.
“I thought I had lost you,” Blake said, exhaling sharply as the horror of that possibility again crossed his mind.
“Mmmm,” said Jessica. She sipped warm water from the one tin cup Blake had managed to rescue from the remains of their once intact boat. “Now what’s the plan, Stan? Or perhaps I might put it this way, how the heck are we ever going to get out of this one? Where are we anyway? Do we even know? Man, I wish I had that rotten piece of garbage Hemlock here. I would wring his scrawny neck. But before he died, I would bring him back so I could do it over and over and over again. And imagine us, falling for that line of baloney about him needing us to save his people from extinction. I’m telling you … ”
“Hey, hey, hey,” said Blake. “Slow down there, speedy. I too would like to hurt this guy, but it isn’t helping us right now. We have to figure this one out, and we can’t take a lot of time to do it. We need to get to Mount Gothic and hook up with the Queen and the wizard-guy and come up with a plan to rescue our girl. Are you ready to travel?”
She threw the remainder of her water on the fire, which hissed in protest. “Ready.” She tried to smile and failed. Blake noticed and said, “I know. I know. We’ll get her. I promise you, we’ll get her.”
They worked their way downstream for the remainder of the day. They neither heard nor saw any sign of Gnomes, Trolls, or other forms of danger. They tried to walk quickly, but by nightfall their footfalls were leaden and their senses slightly dulled from exhaustion. “How much further can it be?” asked Jessica when they had paused for a rest and a drink from the river. “We’ve been walking all day, and we haven’t seen anything that looks like what he described as Mount Gothic.” “Hard to say. We may as well make camp now, over there, in under those tall pines. Come on.” They were astounded when they started to penetrate the outermost branches of one of the massive trees and almost fell into it. Someone had been using its under-canopy as a frequent campsite. There was a sleeping area, complete with bedrolls and some sort of waterproof ground cloth that looked like an animal skin, but was unlike any animal skin that either of them had ever seen. There was firewood, a tiny cooking pit, a metal box containing dried meat and vegetables, and another of dried fruit and nuts, all of which smelled unspoiled. There was even a third in which they found some dried leaves suggestive of some sort of spiced tea, and a jar of a substance that was clearly honey.
There was also a short bow with a small quiver of deadly looking arrows.
They looked at each other, shocked by these incredible findings.
“I almost wish it was empty,” said Blake.
“You mean in case Papa-Bear decides to come home while we are sleeping in his bed.”
“Exactly. Now the real question is, can we decide, on a preponderance of the available evidence, that this camp is Human, or Gnome, or Troll, or some other as of yet unknown species?”
“Very well put, professor. The bow looks Gnome. Way too small for Troll, but it could be Human, if a little small. And the height of the place would be way too low for a Troll. The ones we fought averaged at least a foot taller than you, so I think we can exclude Troll. Did you notice any footprints? It’s too dark now to make any out. The dried meat tells me Human. I have no idea why, it just does. Anyway, do we stay or push on? That’s the real question. I can’t decide. You decide.”
While she was talking, Blake methodically went through assorted effects that were stored in a small pile behind the fire pit. There was an assortment of pelts, two waterskins, and a small silver belt, affixed to the buckle of which was the exact same falcon’s head as the one on the signet ring that Rolan had given to Blake on the river. “What have we here?” he mused. “Looks like it belonged to a child. Look at the crest on the buckle.”
Jessica strained to make out the figure.
“No question,” she said. “Doesn’t help us though. She might have been a captive. In a way, it kind of supports the theory of it being a Gnome structure, because no child would ever leave such a beautiful belt behind, let alone one bearing the crest of the royal family.”
“Unless they left in a hurry,” said Blake. “Anyway, it seems our options are, take what we need and try and find our way to some shelter for the night, or roll the dice and camp here. What do you think?”
“I’ll take first watch,” she said. She handed him one of the parcels of food. “Eat, Papa. I’m going to fill these waterskins. If I’m not back before you finish, go to sleep. I’ll wake you for the late shift.” She took a few pieces of the dried meat and moved outside.
She drifted between the branches, and his thoughts drifted with her.
“Yeah, I’m going to nod right off to sleep while you are out roaming the countryside in a land of creatures to whom killing you seems the main purpose of their existence,” he muttered to himself. Instead, he made his way to the edge of the branches of their temporary campsite and watched her make her way down to the river’s edge. Both moons had risen now, and he could make out her form quite clearly as she glided along. He saw her bend down, fill the waterskins, and return. With the passage of every second he expected something to jump out and overwhelm her, or otherwise tear asunder the serenity of the beautiful summer night, but she returned without incident and they made their way back into the shelter of the great tree.
“What about a small fire?” he asked.
“Go for it,” she replied.
Each knew that a fire, however small, might lead their enemies right to them. But they also knew that the most important threat facing them now was exhaustion, and the prospect of some warm food, and some tea with honey, outweighed the additional risk of discovery that a fire added to the equation.
In a few minutes, he had a simple stew made from some of the meat and dried vegetables that he had found in the metal box. Jessica began to devour hers.
“Time to review the plan,” said Blake. I guess we have decided to spend the night here at the ‘Four Seasons’. In the morning, we continue downstream until we near the end of the flat water and the beginning of the third set of rapids and, if we look to our right, we should be able to see Mount Gothic. We climb it, we get ourselves intercepted by friendly forces, and make contact with the Queen and the wizard guy. What was his name again?”
“Taber,” she said. She chewed, deep in thought, on a particularly tough piece of meat. “What do you suppose happened to Rolan?” she asked.
“Hard to say, isn’t it. Killed? Drowned? Split on us? Who knows?”
“Why would he split on us?” she asked.
“If he felt we might be a serious impediment to his mission of reuniting with his Queen and Taber. He is, after all, a king, and it looks like his people truly are on the verge of extinction. Anyway, if he felt we represented a threat to his mission, even a small one, or we might slow him down,
I can see where he would, you know, take off and leave us to our own devices.”
“Mmmm,” she said.
She picked up the small belt and examined it carefully, starting with the buckle, then inspecting each individual link by the small amount of light provided by the cook-fire.
“What are you looking for?” he asked, then, “More tea?”
“Please,” she replied absently. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “But there’s something about this belt that might hold a key to solving our problem.”
“What problem are you talking about?”
“Ending this nightmare and going home.”
“What do you mean?”
She thought for a moment. “I don’t know, but doesn’t it strike you as hugely coincidental that the figure on the buckle matches the one on Rolan’s ring perfectly? And remember that thing he did with the ring, that thing with the beam of light? I wonder if this belt does anything special like that.”
“Good thought. We’ll bring it with us, that’s for sure. All right then, sleep is the order of the moment. Don’t wander off.”
She stood up, checked her broadsword to make sure it was loose in its scabbard, leaned forward, planted a kiss on his forehead, and eased her way out into the night.
Blake straightened up the tiny campsite and organized all of the gear for a quick getaway. Seconds later, he was asleep.
It was just as Minos Arterios had promised. In a split-second they went from standing in the living room to standing in a small glen. There were three horses tethered there, happily munching on the lush summer grass that grew in abundance.
“Smells like Gram’s,” remarked Orie, referring to the smell of pine that permeated the air. He deliberately kept his voice down so as to set the tone for the entire undertaking. Gracie went immediately to the horses to make friends, while Ryan and Orie got to work on spreading the uppermost map out in front of them, laying some small rocks at the corners to deal with the pesky breeze that kept trying to make a mess of their planning.
“Gracie, come on over here,” he said, adding, “please.” Again he spoke softly.
Gracie finished her inspection of the tethering method, the like of which she had never seen, and joined them. Orie had drawn a dagger and was pointing with it to the map.
“First of all, we are definitely here,” he said, indicating an X with the words ‘Starting Point’ printed next to it. From his rucksack he pulled out a simple needle compass, placing it beside the map. He looked all around them, motioning for them to do the same. “Now let’s all get this down pat,” he continued. “We might get separated, and it will be critical that we all know how to get back together.” He studied the map again for a bit. “The way I see it, those,” he waved towards the mountain range directly in front of them, “are the Quaglore Mountains … and … we are already in Slova. Everybody agree?” He waited while Ryan and Gracie oriented themselves. “As you can see, they are mostly to our east, and they represent the northwestern border into Slova, home of our soon to be friends, the Trolls. We need to cross over the one right in front of us and then make it to here, Troll, without getting caught. That means we will be traveling at night and camping off the trail during the day. Ryan, how far would you say this is?”
“Sixty miles,” answered Gracie, “more or less. Maybe a hundred?”
“I agree,” answered Ryan with a grin, then, “I would have gotten there.”
“Okay, quit it you guys, this is serious,” said Orie. “Look here, in this town named Troll, is that lame or what? It says there is a raft hidden on the eastern shore that we need to find, and we’re going to float down the river for … jees, a couple hundred miles … no, more like four hundred … maybe five … wow … to pretty much where the castle is. Man, that’s a seriously long way … Ryan, get out the rest of the maps and see if there is a more detailed one of Troll.”
And on it went until the small group was confident enough that they knew where they were, and where they were going, to start the first leg of their long journey. Following this, Gracie gave the boys their first and only riding lesson.
“The first thing you need to know,” she said, “is their names. Look, they’re engraved here on the saddles. Mine is Lightning. Orie, yours is Thunder. Ryan, yours is Fury. You need to make friends with them. You need to love them, and they need to know that you do. Your lives will undoubtedly depend on them, and if they know that you love them they will put themselves in danger for you. Horses are like that. Most people think they are no more than dumb beasts that carry them from here to there. Not the case. They are highly intelligent animals, and definitely develop strong feelings for those who would ride them. What I'm saying is, take care of them and they will take care of you.”
The boys spent the next half hour bonding with their mounts. They spoke their names repeatedly as they groomed them for the trek that lay ahead. Much though she knew it was way too little training, she also knew that time was of the essence. So, just as the sun was setting, they took their first actual steps in the rescue effort of Stephanie.
For the first few hours, they rode in silence up the trail, guided by the intense light of the two Inam'Ra moons. At one point, however, the going became too steep and the footing too treacherous. On Gracie’s command, they all dismounted and started walking the horses along. Soon, even this became inadequate to deal with the difficult climb, and they were forced to advance with one horse at a time with one pulling and two pushing. It might have been easier had they been able to shout encouragement to the animals as they struggled upwards, fighting against the steep incline, the loose scree, and potholes that threatened their hooves every inch of the way, but they were forced to keep their encouraging words down to mere whispers. Gracie was the leader in this, soothing and cooing the animals all the way as they inched their way slowly up the mountainside.
By midnight, they had all the horses together again at a place where the trail widened out enough to accommodate the three animals side-by-side. Everyone in their little outfit was breathing heavily, even the horses, whose bits were covered with lather.
“We have to let them cool down,” said Gracie, “and they need water badly.”
“Ryan, get out the maps,” said Orie, “and see if there is any water along this trail. I’ll give them some of ours. We need to drink too.”
He gave each horse sips of water from their waterskins, pouring a tiny amount at a time into the palm of his hand and letting them lick it out. He thought of Mickey and Johnnie and how he used to get a kick out of the feel of their tongues when he was a little boy. “Sorry, Fury,” he said to the last one, “I wish it could be more. Ryan, what do you know?”
He handed the waterskin off to Gracie, and she took a sip. “Not too much,” he said, “we need to make it last. Just a mouthful. Hold it in your mouth as long as you can.”
“I don’t see any water on this side of the mountain,” he said. They all looked. They all agreed.
“Then we make do with what we have,” Orie said. “We have three waterskins. That will have to be enough. I can’t see that Minos Arterios would send us this way only to have us die of thirst. Let’s go.”
For the remainder of the night, they pushed and pulled and grunted and sweated and struggled furiously to make it to the top of the mountain. There were parts of the trail that were actually quite easy, and there were parts that were so difficult that they swore they would never be able to traverse them. But they worked together, they never gave up, and about an hour before sunrise a small clearing rewarded their valiant efforts, off to the right of which was a dense thicket in which they could hide out with the horses for the day. With any luck, anybody passing by this way would merely continue down the trail without noticing them. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.
“This is where we sleep,” said Orie. “I’ll take the first watch. Gracie, you tether the horses, Ryan, you unload them and prepare us a little camp. Make sure they get a little water and some o
f the oats in the saddle bags.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” he said. They exchanged meaningful looks. Their faces were covered in sweat and grime. Their hands were rubbed raw from the continuous pulling on the reins. Every muscle in their bodies ached beyond belief. They were hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, yet when Orie said, “The last time you looked like this was the first day of football practice last fall,” Ryan couldn’t help but smile.
“Yeah,” he said, “compared to that, this is a piece of cake.”
“I’m going to scout ahead a little,” he said. “Make sure there aren’t any surprises around the next few bends. After you get the horses unpacked and the camp set up, you should scout back a bit and make sure nobody’s following us. And cover our tracks as best you can. Use small branches to rub them out. If anybody comes by here, it must look like we never passed this way.”
“Will do,” he said.
Once the horses had been led deep into the thicket, and Ryan and Grace were about their assigned chores, Orie moved silently away from the small clearing. He knew that they had made some noise getting to where they had gotten, but he also knew that the windings and turnings of a mountain trail tend to obscure routine travel noise, and they had been very careful to not shout, or even raise their voices, so unless someone was right up on them, they were most likely still incognito to this point. He checked his sword to make sure it was loose in its scabbard, as he had seen his father do a hundred times before when they were practicing in the barn. His sword and his daggers were all that he took with him, leaving his longbow, two crossbows, battle-axe, and mace tied to his horse. He didn’t want the weight and, more importantly, he didn’t want the rattles.
He glided along on soft leather moccasins, making not a sound. Listening. He thought he heard a noise from up ahead and stopped to listen intently for several minutes but, hearing nothing, he kept going.
