The Caravan Road

by Jeffrey Quyle

  Alec felt his energies reach their limit, and he felt the laser light shut off. As he fell to the ground in pain, he heard the living water of the pond scream in pain and fear and hatred, as it felt itself being sucked away, drained out of its aeons-old bed, send to rush to scattered oblivion in a frozen stream bed somewhere else in the mountains, disbursed and destroyed by Alec’s last-ditch effort.

  Chapter 16 – Meeting Salem

  Alec awoke to sunlight and chilly air. Next to him he found the partial corpse of Mrs. Grean, and he rolled away in horror. He stood and looked at the nearly empty pond, and the scattered bodies that lay littered about the ground. Staggering with weakness, he strode over to Hope and knelt on the ground next to her. He placed both his hands on the young girl’s head, then reached with difficulty for his Spiritual powers, and went deep within Hope’s psyche, finding the kernel of her soul and coaxing her out.

  He severed the contact and opened his eyes, then looked down and saw Hope’s eyes also open, staring up at him. She lunged her body upward and wrapped her arms around him, catching him weak and unprepared, and pulling him down on top of her.

  “Oh thank you, Alec! Thank you with all my heart and soul for rescuing me, my lord!” she spoke fervently.

  “That thing was eating me – eating my soul alive! It was killing me and absorbing me at the same time, until you came and fought it. I could feel its thoughts as it fought you. It hated you! And you beat it!” she exclaimed. She released her hug on Alec and he rolled from atop her.

  “I’m glad you’re alive,” Alec answered, and he meant it. He had resuscitated her first, desperate to find if she was still alive. “Oh my God, that was horrible,” he uttered. “Horrible.”

  “We need to rouse the others,” he told her, sitting up. “I’m short on energy after all that battling; I’m going to need your help. You go revive Bauer and then Jasel. I’ll start on the others.”

  Together, they brought all their companions back to consciousness, except Racha, who had no flicker of soul left in her body. Her heart beat feebly and she breathed with shallow, intermittent breaths, but the pond had sucked every iota of her soul away, and Alec could find nothing to recover or revive.

  He sent Jasel and Andi up into the fir trees to find the mules, and to bring back food and dry clothing from the packs on the animals, who were roaming among the trees with the oxen, grazing happily. By the time they returned, Racha’s body had breathed its last, and they all worked to stack a cairn of stones over Mrs. Grean and her at the base of the hillside, where Stacha sat and mourned in lonely silence as the others drifted away to give her a private moment with the twin sister she had been so close to.

  The provisions on the mules offered adequate food, and blankets they wrapped themselves with in lieu of the sodden clothing they laid out to dry. For the following two days they stayed huddled in the valley, near the remaining ponds, smaller bodies of water that they determined did not have the malevolent sentience of the first pool; they were simply spring-fed ponds, still a source of geothermal warmth, and they offered a place to huddle around as the survivors overcame the shock of the attack they suffered, and Alec rested his body, spirit, and abilities.

  On the third day of their stay in the hidden valley, Alec determined that he felt recovered enough to resume the use of his powers. The clothes were dried out, and the storm appeared to have finished throwing its fury at the mountain region. Wearily, the shrunken band gathered the animals out of the fir trees and led them back down to the abandoned wagon on the caravan road.

  Alec blasted a narrow path through the chest deep snow that had settled into the valley, driven down to accumulate from the towering mountainsides above, and the surviving eight travelers returned to the wagon, which sat unmolested, trapped in heavy snow. The day on the caravan road was bright and breezeless with mild temperatures, so that after Alec cleared away more snow around the wagon, they were able to rehitch the oxen and resume their journey away from the spot of their horrific encounter.

  For two days they continued to wade through deep snow along the roadway, and Alec exhausted himself clearing the heavy snow from their path, to the point where on the third day they stopped and allowed him to rest again. Stacha devoted herself to his care, nurturing and pampering him with every opportunity, as Andi observed intently.

  I think you should let her take care of you, Bauer sent a message to him on the first day they returned to the road. She is going to be totally lost without her sister; let her find a purpose in attending to you.

  I understand, Alec agreed, and so he found Stacha walking beside or directly behind him when he was out using his energy to blow a path through the snow, and he let her hold his hand, causing him to split his powers to use Spirit energy to insulate his Air energy from his Healer energy, then pressed his Healer powers into use to keep their hands and bodies warm, while his Spirit energy sensed the depth of loss and emptiness that her soul had plunged into.

  You are a good person by yourself, and you will live a life with many opportunities to do good works that will make Racha proud, he communicated to her at last, feeling the pain of her sorrow.

  “Husband? Alec, is that you? Is there a devil trying to possess my soul?” Stacha asked aloud, startled by the eruption of words within her head.

  “It is me, Stacha,” he answered verbally. I can comfort you, he added silently again.

  “I know you can. You already do. You are the best of husbands!” she answered aloud again. “At least, the best of the husbands I’ve had, eh?” she feebly joked.

  “How do you do that?” she asked.

  “While we are holding hands, touching, I can allow our spirits to also touch each other,” Alec explained.

  “Would you like to try to use your mind to speak to me this way?” he asked.

  “Could I? Can you teach me?” Stacha asked with an excitement that Alec heard and felt, enough interest sparked to momentarily distract her from her sorrow.

  Take the words that you are going to speak, and think them in this manner, Alec instructed, placing the words concisely. Use this to broadcast them; focus on me, think of me as your target for the words.

  “Does this work?” she asked. Oh, no. Does this work? She accidentally asked aloud, then repeated her question silently.

  It did work. I heard you in my mind, he affirmed.

  Rasha would be so impressed by this. She told me that we had not really seen what a great man you were, Stacha told him, sorrowful as she mentioned her departed sister, but the pain less palpable.

  “Now let me focus on clearing the snow and keeping us warm,” Alec told her. “You think about the mind speech, and we can do some more tonight.”

  That evening Stacha prepared the food for everyone, insisting that it remained her job, and then sat with Alec and practiced. This way we can talk and eat our food at the same time! She mentally laughed. Momma always told us not to talk with food in our mouths, but this is different.

  Can you do this with anyone else? she asked.

  Yes, Alec answered. With some people I don’t even have to touch them to share thoughts.

  Could you do that with me? Stacha asked. Then we would always be together, even when we were apart.

  It is not an easy thing to do. I cannot do it with many people, he evaded a direct answer.

  When his day of rest arrived, he lay in blankets inside the wagon, a space now shared by the Grazes, a sadder, yet conversely friendlier, couple in the absence of Mrs. Grean. The rest of the group used the day to forage in the immediate vicinity of their wagon for firewood and fodder for the animals, and Jasel spent time repairing small problems with the wagon and the harnesses for the animals, while Hope and Mrs. Graze boiled water to clean clothes for everyone.

  As the sun began to set, Alec felt recharged, glad for the rest and convinced that they would travel at a faster pace when they broke camp. The depth of the snow had diminished considerably over the last day of their travels, promising that he might
have little need to use his energies for the next leg of their journey.

  When they left camp the next morning, everyone felt optimistic. The sun was shining brightly and the depth of the snow dropped to nothing an hour after departure, when they rounded a bend in the road. Alec pulled a bow and arrow out of the stores and used his Warrior powers exclusively instead of his Air energy, successfully shooting a mountain goat for their dinner.

  They stopped their travels early to build a fire that crackled merrily as they roasted the fresh meat at sunset, and everyone was in a festive mood. “How much farther do you think we have to travel?”Alfred Graze asked.

  “The merchants always claimed it was a two month trip from Black Crag,” Andi spoke up.

  “I have no idea. I’ve never traveled this way before, but I always heard about the same that Andi reports,” Alec added. “We’ve traveled slow and had delays, so I’d think we have more than another month to go.”

  The merchant man’s face looked crestfallen at the forecast. But before he could say anything further, every head rose in unison and strained to listen to the sound of a man’s voice not far away.

  Alec rose hurriedly, and grabbed for a bow and arrows, berating himself for not having set guard duty out to give advance notice of others on the road.

  “Jasel, you take a bow up to the top of the wagon. Andi, you and Bauer take positions in those rocks,” he gestured across the road to a small outcrop. “The rest of you get inside the wagon. I’ll go see who we have here.”

  All the members of the group scrambled to take their assigned positions, as Alec strode out to the front of the road and advanced several paces. He squinted against the sunset in the west and saw a dozen men on horses, four of them riding out in front of a second cluster.

  “What do we have here? You’re not looking friendly neighbor, with that bow,” one of the leaders called aloud, and the four men spread out prudently, making themselves dispersed, smaller targets.

  “We’re just travelers stopped for the night,” Alec called back. “We like to be careful on the road in the mountains.”

  “I can’t blame you,” the visitor said. He and the three others advanced slowly, as the rest of his group held back.

  Bauer, if things go bad, you and Andi target the two on the left first. I’ll go past them to neutralize reinforcements, Alec sent a message. Hope climb up the back side of the wagon and tell Jasel to target the two on the right.

  We will, Bauer agreed.

  Okay, Hope also affirmed.

  “Mind if we stop and have a bite with you? Whatever you’re roasting smells pretty good,” one of the four horsemen asked.

  “Sorry we don’t have enough to share,” Alec said flatly. The men were getting very close now, so close that Alec could see their eyes scanning the campsite, checking the locations of the defenders, examining the clues to how many folks were present.

  “Look,” the leader said, his horse now stopped just a few paces from Alec, his hand gently creeping towards the knife in his belt. “I know you don’t want to get hurt, and neither do we. Why don’t your friends just put their weapons away, and we’ll climb down off our horses and everything will be peaceful-like,” he said, and as he spoke his last word his hand grabbed the handle of his knife and flicked it directly at Alec’s chest.

  As soon as he did, Alec sprinted away, reaching behind him to catch the knife in midair as it flew through the empty space where Alec had stood. Alec dodged between horses, listening to the sound of bow strings twanging behind him, and flew down the road towards the second wave of men. He reached for his own knife as he threw the knife he held, aiming for a man whose sword was already drawn, and then throwing his own knife at the man who was reaching for a bow.

  There were the sounds of scuffling behind him, and Alec heard several sharp cries of pain, then a scream in a woman’s voice, a scream that filled him with fear.

  Hope, are you alright? He asked.

  I am, but somehow an arrow came through the slot in the wagon wall and hit Mrs. Graze, Hope communicated a great deal of stress.

  I’ll be there in a minute, Alec pledged.

  He was running towards the remaining six horsemen, and noticed suddenly that three of them had their hands bound, while the other three surrounded them and were armed. He sprinted forward, then dodged an arrow shot at him before he jumped high in the air and landed atop one of the armed bandits, knocking him from his saddle. Alec rolled away and jumped at another, as the last remaining attacker suddenly turned his horse and spurred it hard, escaping from the scene of the battle.

  Both the attackers Alec had knocked down laid on the ground, unconscious or worse. One, the first one he had tackled, was already dead from a broken neck. Alec looked around and saw that the four frontmen were all on the ground, as Bauer and Andi approached them cautiously. The rider who was escaping was disappearing around a bend in the road, while the three hostages were staring at him with both hope and horror, as well as grimaces of pain.

  “Can you guide your horses?” Alec asked them, looking up.

  “We can,” one of them, a woman he realized, affirmed.

  Come back to my camp,” Alec directed, then he turned and sprinted back to try to tend to Mrs. Graze’s injuries.

  As he ran he heard a scream, and turned to see that the rider he had spoken to was deliberately causing her horse to trod upon the man who Alec had knocked out of his saddle, the one who was still alive, or had been. Alec rolled his eyes in his head in astonishment, then hurdled over the dead men near the wagon and ran to the back of the vehicle, where he jerked the door open and climbed up inside.

  Gwen Graze was lying on her husband’s lap, her eyes closed and her face in a peaceful repose.

  “She felt no pain,” Alfred said. “The arrow hit her right in the heart. We didn’t expect it, and then there was a noise and it ricocheted off the window frame and came right at her.”

  Alec threaded his way forward into the crowded wagon, and bent over her to look, closely. He saw blood welling out of the wound, and he saw that her heart had been pierced by the arrow; there was no hope of resuscitating her.

  “Here Alfred,” Alec said gently. “Let me help you take her out into the fresh air,” he bent and lifted the woman’s light body, then backed out of the wagon and laid her gently on the ground, as her husband followed and knelt beside her.

  Bauer was helping the captives, having cut the ropes around their arms, then he held their horses steady as they dismounted.

  “Are all of you okay?” Jasel asked as he climbed down from the top of the wagon.

  “We are much better now that we are no longer in the hands of those thugs,” replied the woman who had trod upon her captor. “Thank you for your rescue.” She looked at Alec. “And thank you for recognizing that we were not part of those attacking your group; I feared we would be killed indiscriminately.

  “From what the bandits said when we approached, I didn’t think your other friends were so thoughtful in their warfare.”

  Alec walked over to the freed captives, and examined them with his Healer vision. They were battered and bruised, the spokeslady more than the other two, a pair of youths, he realized. He reached out his hand and took the woman’s fingers gently, then released a mild stream of healing power to lessen her aches. As her eyes widened in amazement, he repeated the process with the teenage boy and girl who stood silently beside her.

  “What manner of race are you?” the lady asked. “None of the Twenty Cities have warriors or healers such as this. Are your barbarian lands in the east greater than the traders say?”

  “We travel from the Avonellene Empire, but my abilities are not common there,” Alec said. He looked around.

  There was more light coming from the camp fire than from the sunset, and Andi and Bauer had industriously plundered the bodies of the dead bandits, then thrown their bodies over the edge of the road. “Stacha, cut more meat that we can roast for our guests,” Alec said. “Excuse me while
I round up the horses. Have a seat by the fire and enjoy your freedom,” he told them.

  Twenty minutes later they all were gathered around the fire, except for Alfred Graze, who sat inside the wagon mourning. Hope and others had helped him quickly gather stones and raise a cairn over his wife’s body. Most introductions had been made, so that Alec’s group knew the names of Salem, the mother of two teens, Kane, the older of the two, a boy, and Jody, a girl just entering puberty, who sat close to Hope.

  “How did you come to be captives of the bandits?” Alec asked as he sat in the ruddy firelight. He had his Spiritual senses extended to provide a guard against any other bandits that might attempt to approach the camp.

  “We were in a group of twenty, traveling on horseback, heading east,” Salem answered. “The bandits attacked us at a spot very near here, and overwhelmed us.”

  “Are there more bandits in the vicinity then? Do we need to be ready for another attack?” Alec asked, realizing that the eight bandits they had faced that afternoon must have been only a portion of the gang that was in the region.

  “There’s just the one that got away, as far as I know,” Salem answered. “There were many more bandits when they attacked us. Your other party decimated the bandit forces about a week ago.”

  “We don’t have another party,” Bauer spoke up. “What are you talking about?”

  “There was a force of people who were on foot, coming from the east, about nine or so, who came along the road just two days after we had been taken. The bandits talked openly in front of us, and when they spotted the group they thought they had easy pickings, they sent two dozen out, and only a pair of them came back.