Alec looked askance at his friend, a dozen arguments running through his mind, but as each rose to his lips he saw the weakness of his case. That led to stewing in silence for several minutes. “I need to talk to Allisma,” Alec said petulantly at last.
“There’s nothing like love to equalize all men, from the crown protector down to the everyday soldier!” Nathaniel laughed, and after a moment Alec laughed with him. Their conversation moved on to other things and the ride towards the lacertii passed quickly. By late morning Imelda called a water break for the horses.
“We’re more than halfway towards the area you want to be in,” the cavalry commander told Alec as she walked along the line of riders. “We should be there in time for a late lunch break and to see what action unfolds. Do you have any ideas about what to do if the lacertii aren’t where you expect them to be?”
“We’ll go look for them,” Alec said, bluffing more confidence than he felt about their next step.
“We only carry a few days of food in our packs, Alec,” Imelda war him. “We can’t wander around out here too long, plus there’s a war I’m anxious to get back to.”
Alec looked at her, when suddenly his health vision spotted the slight discomfort she was experiencing where he hadn’t thoroughly healed her skin and underlying muscles in her abdomen. His hand touched her midsection, and he flashed his energy into her, finishing the task that had been so daunting the day before.
Imelda felt the relief from the irritation before she even had time to slap Alec’s hand away from her. “You didn’t have to do that; it wasn’t that bad,” she said at a loss for words, but not wanting to be in debt to her spurned suitor.
“You’re welcome,” Alec grinned. “I’m going to go see if Yula needs any more healing.”
He hadn’t spoken a word with the plant ingenaire since their adventure in healing Imelda had begun, and Alec suspected Yula harbored even less good will toward him than before. As he approached her, his health vision showed that her leg was sore, and that she was slightly saddle sore as well. He reached up and placed his hand on her knee, then let his healing powers address both needs.
Yula had been facing left and speaking with Allisma on that side, and didn’t realize Alec was on her right and healing her until she felt a wave of relief make her saddle more comfortable. “Oh, it’s Alec,” she said in a softer tone that he had expected. “Thank you. That feels better.”
Satisfied that he had avoided Imelda’s difficult question and Yula’s wrath, Alec returned to Walnut and remounted. His thoughts bounded aimlessly about as they resumed riding. What would it be like to court Bethany again? Would there be a spectacle of gossip among the nobles and courtiers? What would people say?
“It’s that peak right there,” he heard Nathaniel say.
Alec asked him to repeat his words.
“I said we start to cut across the corner of the hill range at that round-topped peak up ahead, and head inland to find a nice balcony seat over-looking the lacertii re-union,” Nathaniel explained.
Imelda led the horses up a steeply cut watercourse, and then wound through the hills to stop at a point just below a ridge.
“Over this ridge is the end of the hills, and it should be about where you expect the lacertii forces to be,” Imelda told Alec as she sent out a scout to explore the land ahead and report back.
Minutes later the scout came thundering back. “There’s a hard fought battle going on below us down there,” the woman reported. “Our lacertii are fighting a larger force wearing blue tunics.”
Alec noted the possessive reference to Rosebay’s force, and he felt gladdened by the positive implications. “Let’s go take a look,” he said, and spurred Walnut onward, motioning Shaiss and Alder to join him, along with several others who came along. Just behind the ridge they dismounted, and stood at the top to viewabopanorama spread out below.
“Alder, could you focus another of those light rays on the leaders of the blue forces?” Alec asked, motioning towards a group of apparent officers standing by a raised standard. The blue army had Rosebay’s forces surrounded on three sides, and combat was underway around the entire perimeter.
Alder looked at Alec’s intended target. “Let’s see what we can do,” he said as he concentrated, then aimed his hand and unleashed a line of light energy that caught the standard, causing it to burst into flame. “It’s too far away to get accurate aim,” he reported. “I can put some energy in the general area, but I can’t promise any particular target from this distance.”
Alec stood and watched the blue forces scurrying around the flaming standard, unaware of what caused the combustion. “We could ride down and start fighting our way closer to them,” Alec suggested.
“The lacertii don’t know how to fight against cavalry, especially these new ones; they don’t have nor have ever seen horses,” Imelda said with a predatory gleam in her eye. “We could ride down that canyon over there and stay out of sight most of the way.”
Alec considered the possible outcomes. “We’ll leave Yula and Kinsey and Allisma here with a couple of guards, and the rest of us will follow Imelda’s route down to the battlefield,” he decided.
“Your grace,” Armilla said sternly.
Alec turned to look at her.
“Your grace,” she repeated, “You are the crown protector of the Dominion. You cannot go riding down into an active battle between two lacertii forces. Your duty is to remain safely waiting up here, and I will remain with you as your guard.”
Alec felt a drop in his gut, and knew that her words were so sensible that he could offer no opposition, as much as he wanted to. “You are right, and we will stay here,” he agreed. “If you wish to join this force, I will remain behind while you add your strength to the battle.”
“I’m proud of you for agreeing, sire,” Armilla said. “And I believe you. I will go and fight enough for us both!” she grinned.
“Lead them on the way, Captain,” Alec said to Imelda. “And come back safely, or I’ll come down there looking for you,” he added in a quiet whisper in her passing ear.
Imelda looked away, then looked at Alec and smiled. “We’ll all be back before you know it. We’ve got a big war to get to you know, so I expect to return soon.”
Alec sat on Walnut and watched the line of riders begin the descent down the channel in the land, quickly passing from view. He stopped craning his neck, and turned to find the other three ingenairii around him also watching for signs of the departed band. “Does anyone have a deck of cards?” he asked cheerily, trying to break the tension of the small band that would have to wait out the battle and the dangers facing their friends.
Yula gave him a withering glance, while Allisma snickered and Kinsey smiled.
They stood and waited for the cavalry unit to appear below, without any further conversation. Several minutes passed before a brief flash of light occurred, and a small fire erupted among the forces fighting against Rosebay. Another flash occurred, then another, and another. Many members of the army that had come from the mountains were becoming distracted by the unusual phenomena occurring in their midst.
Within a few more minutes, the flashes stopped, and the mounted fighters emerged into sight, riding around to strike the rear of the enemy army. The archers fired their arrows and swiftly moved on to where the first physical engagement occurred. The cavalry rode close with swords extended to strike the lacertii and then swerve back away and reform to engage again. A few riders pulled away and waited as the other Dominion forces continued the attack, a tactic that left Alec puzzled.
He noticed that the army under Rosebay’s command was starting to win ground now as they faced a shrinking and confused enemy. After an hour of striking the periphery of the blue forces, all the cavalry veered away and headed back towards the base of the hills to the point where they were no longer visible from the mountaintop watchers again. Minutes after that, the flashes of light resumed disrupting the lacertii again. From high above, Alec
could see that thanks to the intervention of the ingenairii and cavalry, the battle was going to be won by Rosebay. Many of her opponents were fleeing steadily away.
Alec and the others waited patiently on top of the hill, as the sky above began to darken with the approach of dusk. Relieved that the cavalry and the ingenairii were returning from the battle and Rosebay’s army seemed certain to win, Alec was again preoccupied by his unresolved personal concerns. “Allisma,” Alec said as he motioned the water ingenaire over towards him, “Can I ask you a question?
“Does Bethany care about me enough to marry me?” Alec asked her.
“Aren’t we a little too old to be playing these type of games, Alec? Do you want me to pass a note to her for you?” Allisma asked playfully.
“Never mind,” Alec said, irritated by Allisma’s response. “I thought that you would know what her feelings were, and give me some idea of whether we can rekindle a relationship.”
“That is something you and she need to decide for yourselves. I have tried not to gossip too much on this trip or to betray anyone’s confidence, but I know what she has said, and I’ve seen how she feels. I have a suspicion that you feel almost exactly the same way. Besides,” she told him, drawing close enough to almost whisper in his ear, “you just need to learn to communicate with her. If you had told her you were leaving this place or that, if you had told her you had this mission or that, if you had told her you loved her earlier, she would have waited patiently in Goldenfields for years.”
Alec was about to retort, when another voice interrupted.
“There’s a light rising up the path,” Kinsey called from a short distance away. Alec turned and saw that the gully was growing brighter; after a moment of consideration he realized that one of the light ingenairii was probably lighting the way for the sortie as they ascended their rocky path. They waited and within minutes the head of the column arrived back on the top of the plateau.
“Alec, come look at these wounds, please,” Imelda called to Alec as she crested the lip of the arroyo. “These folks were injured in the attack. They aren’t life-threatening injuries, so we thought they could manage to ride back to you for healing.”
Alec walked in the darkness touching the various wounded riders, using his powers to detect the harm done to each and then healing them. He helped the last one down from her horse as he closed the slash in her calf. “You’ll feel fine after a good night’s sleep,” he assured her.
The entire contingent reached the summit as Alec tended to the injured, and Imelda had set them to work putting up tents and establishing a guard rotation for the evening. By the time Alec had finished his healing, the camp was set and a fire was burning.
“Your majesty, your tent will be here, in the center of the camp,” Armilla told him as he walked up to the group gathered around the fire. “And tomorrow, we’ll have you packed and ready to return to the Dominion. We will finally leave to go home to the Dominion, won’t we?”
“Are you asking for yourself, or for Imelda?” Alec asked on impulse. He had never known Armilla to seem concerned about staying away from Oyster Bay.
“I don’t think that’s the point of this conversation,” she said loftily, giving herself away.
“I hope that we can meet with Rosebay tomorrow, confirm that she is in control and on her way back to her own land, and then we can be on our way back to Goldenfields,” Alec said. “That would be the best situation.”
“What’s the worst situation?” Armilla asked, and Alec sensed she asked for her own curiosity, not for Imelda’s sake.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll know it when I see it,” Alec told her with a grin. “Did you enjoy the fighting down there?” he changed the subject.
“It was good honest warfare, not this skulking and ambushing we’ve been doing along the river for the past few weeks. Yes, it felt exhilarating,” Armilla said. “The lacertii don’t know anything about horses or cavalry, so we have no problems in these types of situations.
”Did you see what we achieved with little more than a dozen cavalry riders?!” she added turning away to tend to her final duties before turning in for the night.
The Goldenfields forces settled into camp for the evening, and Alec retired to his tent, where Nathaniel and Armilla were also spending the night. “I’ve heard Armilla’s bloody joy in the fighting today,” Alec said to Nathaniel. “What did you come away with from the little jaunt down to the battlefield?”
“Nothing in particular for the moment, but in the long run, there’s potential trouble,” Nathaniel said. ‘The lacertii fight pretty well, but they don’t have horses, and don’t have experience fighting against horse-mounted warriors. Give them time to get horses and understand the tactics of cavalry, and the next war will be much different.”
“Next war?” Alec asked with a raised eyebrow.
“There’s always a next war. Rubicon taught us that,” Nathaniel replied. “You weren’t with him long enough to get all the philosophy and strategy he taught, but he said there’s never been a last war so far. There will be a next war with the lacertii, too.”
On that gloomy note, Alec lay down and fell asleep.
Chapter 34 – Riding the Plains
The next morning Alec was one of the first people awake in the camp, and walked quietly out to the edge of the precipice to see the eastern plain. The ground below was scattered with dark spots that Alec knew were the dead from the battle. Far out on the horizon was a dark color that Alec believed was the camp of the lacertii forces.
He sensed someone else nearby, and turned to see Imelda just steps away. “I almost snuck up on you!” she grimaced. “I thought I could catch a warrior ingenaire.”
Alec was in a contemplative mood. He had dreamed that night about being married to Bethany, and raising children with her. “Tell me about your parents,” Alec asked.
“My parents? Why?” she replied.
“I don’t know anything about them, or your home, or the way you grew up,” he told her. “I don’t know anything about parents at all, as a matter of fact, being an orphan. Did you have brothers?”
“Yes, I have five brothers, all older than me, and they’ll all want to bash in the head of anyone who tries to mess with their baby sister,” Imelda said with a heartfelt grin. “They all watched out for me, more than my parents in truth. They took me riding, and taught me swords, and played rough games with me. They didn’t treat me like a girl at all. And with them always watching me, none of the other boys in the area came around to see me.”
“Why didn’t they come join the Guard like you?” Alec responded.
“The eastern plains are a good place to live. The land is wide open and the pastures are rich, great for raising herdMost folks don’t want to leave a place like that. Inga is the only person we knew who had ever traveled more than three villages away from our home. Nobody ever saw any reason to leave. Inga’s probably the only person outside my family that my brothers and parents would have trusted to watch over me in a corrupt place like the big city,” Imelda continued to smile.
“I was determined to follow her after we heard about her grand adventures, and of course I’d hardly gotten there before Inga left, and then after I, uhm, lost my temper with you, I didn’t have a reputation that exactly invited the men in the Guard to try to flirt with me, but, what was the question?” she tailed off in embarrassment.
“I’m not sure it matters,” Alec said with a gentle smirk, which provoked a threatened punch.
“Alright then, what about you? Everyone thinks they know something about you, because of all the rumors people tell. After we left you in Bondell, I heard stories in court and in the Guard about you, and then there was nothing for so long we all thought you had died. Does anyone know the truth about you? Nathaniel seems to know more than most about some things, Bethany knew some other juicy items, but no one has any idea about more than a couple of months of your life,” Imelda challenged. “You’re the mysterious ruler who is a m
ighty ingenaire and a miraculous healer and perhaps able to communicate directly with the saints. What’s real about you Alec?”
“Oh, Imelda,” Alec said, and he sat down on the stones, his legs dangling below him as he stared at the sun rising over the horizon. He pondered the notion that the events of his life seemed to be the grist for public debate, and the topic of a morning chat with a girl like her. What could he say about his life that represented the real achievements of his character, and not just the fortune of being at the right place when things happened? “I don’t know if anything is real about me. I ran away from an unhappy life, and found a friend in Ari in the carnival, and I knew, just absolutely knew, that I wanted to be an ingenaire, like Ari was, at a time when there was absolutely no prospect for me to be one. Then we were attacked in the mountains, and it feels like I’ve been running away from something or after something ever since. I became an ingenaire by accident without even knowing. And I made a lot of decisions that maybe were mistakes, but I didn’t realize it at the time.
“I listened to you the other morning, when you doubted if I had the heart to remain faithful to one girl,” Alec said with difficulty. “I know that I can; I never tried to cheat on anyone or be untrue, despite the way things are told. Friendships just seem to develop more complications than I knew possible. I traveled with Noranda, was living with Leah, just drifted into being too comfortable with Inga, and then grew comfortable taking Bethany for granted, and every time it seems someone ended up getting hurt, sometimes even me, though no one should have. They are all really, really good people.
“I know I’ll get along okay with Inga again. I really look forward to seeing her and Lewis when we can sit and have a meal and talk about life in the Guard. But I’m not sure Bethany will forgive me, despite what Allisma says,” he added. “I should have told her more; I should have let her know why I made the choices I did, why I had to do the things I did.
The Lifesaving Power: Goldenfields and Stronghold Page 37
