The Lifesaving Power: Goldenfields and Stronghold

by Jeffrey Quyle

  The size of the encampment they entered swallowed their forces up quickly, and Alec ordered the regiments to keep close together to avoid being separated. They were directed to the cavalry’s established location, a group of tents and semi-permanent corrals. Alec announced that his forces had arrived to work with the cavalry, and asked to speak to the commanding officer. He was led into a tent, where Imelda was working on paperwork at a desk.

  Chapter 29 – In the Army Camp

  She stared at the newcomers who had entered her tent, interrupting the tedious job she was shuffling through. After a second of staring, her mind registered the familiar, if changed face that led the small group.

  “Oh my goodness!” Imelda exclaimed as she rose and pushed the desk aside. “Alec! Alec! I never thought I’d see you alive again!” she said as she held out her hand; Alec in turn had begun to raise his arms for a hug, and the two awkwardly settled on a handshake and an arm on each other’s shoulder. “When I heard you disappeared in Bondell I cried. And then two seasons later someone, I think it was Inga, said that you were the new ruler of the Dominion. ‘Heaven help the Dominion!’ I said then, and began praying for all of us!”

  “The priests must have felt honored to have such a seldom-seen guest show up for prayers,” Alec replied. “You probably should have prayed for a faster right hand to fence with while you were there.”

  “And you’ve still got that scar, I see,” Imelda added in a flat tone of voice. “You and I both know you could wipe that thing away faster than you could yawn. Why are you still wearing that?” she poked a finger at his cheek. “I see you even picked up another one, you liked it so much.”

  “I wanted a reminder of the real you, the Imelda I met the first time before you rode to fame and prominence in the cavalry,” Alec replied.

  Nathaniel and Armilla grinned at the evident affection Alec and Imelda had for one another as they jabbed back and forth.

  “What brings you to my tent, Alec?” Imelda asked at length.

  “Let me introduce Armilla, my guard, and Nathaniel, a warrior ingenaire,” Alec began remembering his oversight of introductions with Cassie. “This is Imelda, the head of the cavalry for Goldenfields, who I first met when I was training medics for the Guard at the palace.”

  “And I’m still a pretty good medic. I always keep my medic’s kit stocked and in mysaddlebags. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, even if you are keeping some questionable company here,” Imelda said, shaking hands.

  “We are here to seek your guidance, if only in the literal sense,” Alec told Imelda. “We have two regiments that are going behind the lacertii lines to take up a position on the river where we can disrupt their supply lines. Major Abraham told us that the cavalry would lead us to the selected spot, so we’ve come to you.”

  “Alec, you’re the acting ruler of the Dominion, allegedly,” Imelda said in an exasperated voice. “What ingenaire tricks did you pull on Abraham to make him allow you to go on a lightly-manned mission behind enemy lines? That’s nuts. Where is he? I’ll go tell him so myself. This was my idea in the first place, and I know it’s no place for you!”

  “He is probably several days behind us, so you won’t find him,” Alec said. “You can wait to discuss this with him, but by then I expect to be far away and moving on to do my part to fight this war.” He stretched his arms high and crossed them on top of his head in a casual way.

  “As I explained in Goldenfields,” Alec began with a tone of exaggerated patience, “we have the right tools with a good fighting force and several ingenairii, so we can do a mission like this better than anyone else. I wasn’t going to be much good anywhere else, but I can help the cause doing this. Plus we’re all mounted so we can travel quickly to avoid trouble if we are detected, and with my healing powers I can keep us at full strength if injuries occur, so we don’t need as many soldiers.”

  “You really sold that story?” Imelda asked. Nathaniel nodded his head in confirmation.

  “We might as well surrender and save the time if our leaders are making decisions like that,” Imelda muttered.

  “I suppose I better lead you myself to keep you out of trouble,” she said with a straight face. “I’m supposed to have a two week leave, which is why I have time to muddle with all this paperwork, but Bethany wouldn’t forgive me if I let you get captured or killed.”

  She saw the twitch in Alec’s face. “Are you not a couple with Bethany any longer?” she asked is a softer voice than she’d used so far.

  Alec shook his head. “That’s a long story,” he answered.

  “My apologies,” she said quickly, thrown off her stride; she’d liked both Alec and Bethany as friends. “How quickly do you want to leave?” she asked to change the subject.

  “Why not leave tomorrow, or whenever you can be ready?” Alec said. “We’ve set our folks up near your corrals, so we can pack and move out relatively quickly,” he explained.

  Imelda closed her eyes for a considerable length of time. “Let’s leave the day after tomorrow. I need to get some of this paperwork done, and I’ll need to gather a section of cavalry to ride with you, and one day more won’t mean that much. This ride takes our people eight days of steady riding, which I suppose means eleven or twelve days for your soldiers.”

  “The day after tomorrow will be fine,” Alec answered. He hesitated, tempted to invite Imelda to join him for dinner, but for some reason held back. “We’ll take our leave, then. I’m so pleased to see you again, Imelda,” he finished as they shook hands farewell, and led Nathaniel and Armilla out of the tent.

  They returned to their regiments and told everyone what the schedule was, to cheering and satisfaction. The arrival in the army camp had changed the attitude of Alec’s troops, bringing a sense of imminence to the prospects of battle. Alec hoped there would be little real battle called for as they simply ambushed boats of supplies on the river.

  The next day Alec allowed his troops to rest and tend to their mounts, while he did the same without incident. By mid-day word had spread through the camp that the crown protector of the Dominion had arrived, and Alec faced a continual stream of visitors and well-wishers throughout the afternoon. He soon banished any hope of productive activity, and stood in a receiving line that wound through the camp, getting in other people’s way, though he used the opportunity to heal numerous small injuries and aches, and wearing himself out. The guards cut the line off as evening approached, and Alec was relieved to put an end to his celebrity. He sought out Imelda.

  “Did our work get in the way of your admiring crowds?” she asked mischievously.

  “They really only came to see the scar, you know,” he replied, wiping the smile off her face.

  “We’ve done everything we need to do but strike our tents and mount up,” he told her. “Do you have a planned departure time?”

  “I’d planned to leave at noon. That will give everyone time to breakdown their camp and bundle everything on their steeds,” she said.

  Alec took the news of the planned departure back to his own people, and prepared to turn in for a good night’s sleep. Yet he found himself tossing and turning with restless wakefulness, too excited to sleep despite his exhaustion. He was looking forward to being away from the cares and duties of being a national leader. Instead he would have a simple task that required no long conversations with advisors or plans to try to balance the favors of one faction against another’s. All he had to do was wreak damage on the supplies of the lacertii and prevent them from pushing their war into the heart of Goldenfields. It would be a simple way to save lives.

  When he finally fell asleep, Alec was wracked by dreams - dreams of bad fortunate, ill omens, and disastrous results, and then he dreamed of the Dominion without a king, falling into anarchy and unrest. Finally though, he was awakened by the weight of someone on his bed.

  “Is it time to arise already?” he asked, rolling over to see who had come to get him.

  John Mark sat on the be
d. “You are troubled, Alec. What is your heart telling you to cause you to sleep so poorly?”

  “I think my heart is telling me I should be a responsble ruler, and stay behind instead of riding away from my duties, which is what I want to do,” Alec replied to the visitor.

  “That is honest and insightful, Alec,” the prophet told him. “But despite your opinion and the world’s opinion and better judgment, you are destined to go on this journey. Tremendous events will occur while you are out there, and you will call upon inaccessible powers to help you in a dire situation. There will come a time when no human woman will care deeply for you, and you will be caught in the middle between two armies, and your powers will be the answer that will appear when everything is lost to sight. Before the end, you will discover the answer that settles your dilemma so that your solitary days may end in peace.

  “Finally, there will come a time when you will take a spirit back with you to the time before death, and you will surrender all your powers to undo the greatest of battle’s harm.”

  Alec sat up. “None of that makes any sense to me at all. You’re talking a lot but not explaining anything to me.”

  “That’s because you don’t have the ear of a prophet, to hear the truths that are within the words,” John Mark answered. “A prophecy ingenaire would be shivering with energy right now at all that has just been foretold.”

  “It just makes my head hurt, John Mark,” the young man sighed.

  “I don’t think I have the ability to make the right decisions for the rest of my life. I don’t think I’ll be a good leader when this war is over,” Alec told his visitor. “Please reveal the true heir to the crown soon, and let my part come to an end.”

  “Alec, when you made the decision to heal Noranda, even after you were told she would not be your partner, you showed you had the ability to make the decisions a king must make. You chose rightly then, and I know your heart will cause you to choose rightly again and again,” John Mark assured Alec.

  “That was so hard to decide though,” Alec argued. “It wasn’t easy to make that choice.”

  “If it were easy, anyone could do it. Because you have the strength to do what is right, not just what’s easy, you are the chosen one. You are the subject of prophecies. Even though you don’t understand them, they bring their power to shape your destiny. Now you have been told, and now certain things will come to pass because they have been prophesized. Get some rest and go with my blessing,” he said as his hand rested on top of Alec’s head and the troubled boy fell into a deep sleep in which he only dreamed of fencing with Imelda.

  Chapter 30 – Bethany at Oyster Bay

  Bethany remained out of spirits for weeks after meeting Alec at the Palace Ball. She avoided any possible opportunity to see him, although she wondered about him often. Life was still pleasant with Tritos paying extra attention to her since the ball, almost too much if possible.

  Alec had apparently moved on with his life, she reflected. He’d not ever come calling again or communicated with her in any way. He went to numerous balls and events, dancing with the young daughters of the nobility, she had been told.

  Before Alec left Oyster Bay, Aristotle delivered a note from Alec to the Water House. The note, however, was sent to Allisma, asking her to come with his army as a water ingenaire.

  “I won’t go if you don’t want me to,” Allisma had said to Bethany as they had talked about the request. “Or if you want to go instead, you can,” she suggested haltingly.

  “Why would I want to go?” Bethany replied automatically.

  Allisma looked at her with a neutral expression.

  “Yes, I know,” Bethany confessed. “But what can I do? Just walk away from Tritos?”

  “Alec walked away from you when he went searching for the Stronghold girl, didn’t he?” Allisma asked, bringing up the topic she and Bethany had discussed so many times over the past several months.

  “I know how I felt about Alec then, and how I felt about his pursuit of Noranda,” Bethany answered. “If I went on this journey with Alec, I’d be treating Tritos just the way I felt treated by Alec. I don’t want to do that to Tritos; he’s been too good to me.”

  “Do you love him? Do you love Alec?” Allisma asked bluntly.

  Bethany sat with her hands folded in her lap for a long time. “It doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “He sent the letter to you, not me. “You should go, if you want to. He must need a water ingenaire, and he knows you and trusts you, and he knows you can perform on an adventure like this. You showed that on the way to Bondell,” Bethany said. “I know you like to taste the exciting things in life. If he wanted me to go, he would have asked me.”

  “You know he didn’t write to you because he’s too shy and it seems you’ve chosen Tritos over him,” Allisma tried one more time. “And you don’t write to him because why? You’re too proud?

  “He did finally write to you, remember,” she continued. “And from his point of view, look how much good that did.”

  “And would it do any better coming from me? And could I write a letter to him without feeling guilty every time I saw Tritos?” Bethany answered passionately.

  “Maybe, maybe we just weren’t meant to be,” she added disconsolately.

  Allisma conced she had given her best effort, and patted Bethany on the hand without further word. Later that day, she sat down and penned a note to Alec accepting his invitation. She delivered it to Aristotle to be passed along to the palace and days later was with the army as it left Oyster Bay.

  Bethany felt the loss of her friend deeply. Allisma’s departure left her without a friendly ear to listen or an honest voice to counsel her. In response, she threw more energy into her relationship with Tritos, seeking a solid, reliable friendship that she wouldn’t lose.

  Chapter 31 – The Place for an Ambush

  Alec felt a weight on the bed. “Is it time to arise?” he asked, not rolling over.

  “It was time to arise thirty minutes ago, but because you’re the protector, we let you stay in bed longer,” Armilla’s voice told Alec.

  Alec sat up. He realized there was evident sunlight from the breaking dawn, and he heard the sounds of the camp being taken down around him.

  “What? No breakfast tray in bed?” Alec mockingly asked his guard. He felt comforted by the prophetic conversation he had the previous evening, one that he did not doubt took place. Alec found reassurance in the presence of John Mark in his life despite the fact that last evening’s conversation left him with more questions than it answered.

  Armilla’s scowl was all the answer Alec expected to receive, and he arose quickly from bed. He packed his own belongings and prepared to start the long journey his squad would make across the empty lands of the eastern wildness.

  By noon all was in readiness, and the members of the Nineteenth and Second regiments were mounted and in position, along with the huddled band of ingenairii and two dozen members of the Goldenfields Guard cavalry.

  “We’ll swing to the south slightly, then easterly for a good ways, before we turn to get behind the lacertii,” Imelda told Alec and the officers of his group. “Then we’ll have a long way to go to return to the river. “For today’s journey we’ll have cavalry in the lead and at the rear to keep an eye out for any problems.” Imelda left the Oyster Bay group and returned to her own soldiers, then began moving them away from the large army camp.

  Alec didn’t recognize any of the cavalry members other than Imelda and her lieutenant Berlisle, who Alec had met on the trip to Bondell, a sign of how much the group had grown since he had encouraged Imelda to found it, just fifteen months ago. They rode through a combination of grasslands and small wood lots, as rain began to fall from the cloudy skies and steadily drizzled on them for the rest of the day’s journey and throughout the night. As Imelda signaled for the group to stop riding and make camp for the night, Alec heard complaints from the soldiers about the rain and the lack of fires they’d have for the evening.
He moved through the soldiers to find Imelda. “We have ingenairii who could start a camp fire for you if you want one,” he mentioned briefly. She looked at him and grinned, then nodded her head and pointed to where the fire should be made. Alec went to get Shaiss and Alder, who started the fire with wood gathered from the trees in the nearby stream, and the camp settled down for the night. After a quick meal, some took shifts on watch while others slept through the night.

  The chilly spring rain held steady for the next two days; after the second day Imelda prohibited fires to avoid giving the lacertii any notice of their presence. They continued on for three more days, then Imelda announced they were turning to the east to find the river in the vicinity of where it made its great sweeping change of course as it turned north to flow through Goldenfields on its way to its confluence with the Giffey at Three Forks. Finally, two days later the terrain lost its flat prairie-like character and became rolling hills, covered mostly in tall grasses.

  “These are the hills that lead to the bluffs looking over the river,” Imelda told Alec that evening. She had said little to him during the trip, spending most of her time maintaining her role as commander of the cavalry that was now riding far behind enemy lines. “We’ll see the river at the end of tomorrow, and then the fun begins!” She gave a predatory grin that made Alec remember her fierceness when the two of them had first met. He promised himself he would make time to visit with her once they settled into a location.

  The next afternoon Imelda’s scouts reported that the river was over the next ridgeline, and they made camp at the bottom of the hill, hidden from view of the river. Alec’s soldiers became tourists briefly, climbing up the hillside to peer down at the narrow floodplain and the wide river that was thwarted by the hills in its desire to flow west.