Search for Audric

by Richard S. Tuttle

  "No," the Odessian prince shook his head. "If we attempt to go around it, we will surely meet the Borundans seeking us."

  "What about going around it to the west?" asked King Caedmon. "Is there a way?"

  "It stretches for hundreds of miles," answered Horst, "and the Borundan army patrols both ends of it. They do not waste their patrols here because it is unlikely that anyone would cross the badlands to sneak into Borunda. There are few sources of water between here and Odessia, and most people would never find them. One is more likely to find the skeletons of past adventurers than something to drink."

  "Do you know where the water is?" asked Sandar.

  "I do not," answered Horst, "but there are other forms of nourishment in the desert that can sustain one's life."

  "I don't know where to begin to cross this wasteland," sighed Kenra. "I am a man of the forest, not a desert horseman."

  "I will lead," offered Horst. "Use your water sparingly."

  The Odessian prince turned to his left and led the group along the rim of the canyon. After riding for a while, Horst turned onto an extremely narrow ledge that descended along the canyon wall. The group moved very slowly and the men grew very anxious as they looked at the steep drop beside them.

  "Do not look down," warned the Odessian prince. "Our Odessian beauties will not lose their footing, but they will get nervous if you do, and you don't want a nervous horse right now."

  Jared closed his eyes tightly and let his horse follow the others. He kept them closed until he realized that the group had reached the floor of the canyon. When he opened his eyes and looked up at the towering cliff walls, a shudder raced through his body and his mouth felt dry. He reached for his water skin.

  "Not so soon," King Caedmon advised softly. "We must use it sparingly."

  Jared nodded and took his hand away from the water skin, but his desire for water only grew stronger within his mind until he could think of nothing else. He closed his eyes again and let the horse follow the others.

  As the sun reached its zenith, Horst drew a long scarf out of his pack. He subconsciously wrapped it around his head in the manner used by the desert tribes of Odessia. While the other princes and King Caedmon thought nothing of the headscarf because they had spent summers in Natura, Sandar grew instantly curious.

  "Why does he cover his head?" he whispered to Gunnar.

  "Many reasons," answered the Arin prince. "It insulates him from the sun and the wind, and keeps sand from entering his nose and mouth. It also helps reduce the glare of the sun. It is common to wear such a headscarf in Natura. You have never been to the desert, have you?"

  "No," replied Sandar. "If it is all like these badlands, I could just as easily forego the pleasure."

  "It is actually much different," smiled Gunnar. "There are great hills of sand stretching for miles in every direction, and one can easily get the feeling that it goes on forever. There is little to give one a sense of direction, and when the winds blow, you cannot see the person in front of you. The blowing sand can wear your skin off if you leave it exposed, so the Odessians keep well wrapped."

  "Delightful," Sandar replied sarcastically. "You give me much to look forward to."

  "There is also beauty in the desert," smiled the Arin prince. "There are natural springs in the desert that flower into the most beautiful and serene places in the world. Some of the areas of springs are quite large and have become the breeding grounds for the Odessian beauties. You truly will enjoy your trip back to Anatar. You will see things that most of the people in the Land of the Nine Kingdoms have never seen. Maybe my father will let you return to a horse camp one day."

  "I thought the horse camps were only for royalty?" asked the Arin soldier.

  "Not really," Gunnar shook his head. "It is quite expensive to attend the training camps, but they are not exclusively for royalty. Most countries send their princes at least once. It had been a tradition for hundreds of years to send the young royals for an entire summer, but over time it has been slowly abandoned. Now the foreign princes might only attend for a single month. Arin and Salacia still carry on the tradition of an entire summer. In fact, both Prince Derri and I spent many summers in Odessia."

  "I don't think King Caedmon is going to send me to an expensive riding school," chuckled Sandar. "Besides, I already know how to ride a horse."

  "Horse camp is more than learning to ride a horse," explained the Arin prince. "It is a sharing of cultures and traditions. It is about learning weapon skills and strategy. It is about understanding survival skills and discovering the truth about your inner self. It is so many things that it is hard to describe. As for my father sending you, he values you a great deal, Sandar, as do I. He does not accept just anyone into his personal bodyguard. Surely you know that."

  "I do know that," nodded Sandar, "and I am honored to have been chosen to serve him, but I still do not see his expending a great deal of gold on my behalf."

  "I think you underestimate his regard for you," smiled Gunnar. "Mention the horse camp to him as you travel through Odessia and see if he does not offer you a chance to attend one."

  Horst halted the column at the edge of another canyon, and the conversation died. Gunnar saw the Odessian prince gazing to the south behind them, and he turned to see what had caught the eye of his friend. Far to the south, upon the rim of the first cliff, was a long line of riders.

  "Well over a hundred of them," commented King Caedmon.

  "There are more to the southeast," announced Prince Derri. "They certainly know exactly where we are now."

  "We have half a day's lead on them," declared the Odessian prince. "Let us not waste that time staring at them."

  Horst turned to his left and began paralleling the rim. Once again he found a narrow path down into the next canyon. By the time they reached the bottom of the path, the sun was casting long shadows across the parched earth. Horst led the group at a quick pace until the sunset. As the sky darkened, the group approached a vertical wall in front of them. The Odessian prince turned and began searching for a way to the top of the cliff.

  "You won't find anything in the dark," Kenra said. "Let's camp until morning."

  "We can't," Horst replied. "The Borundans will not stop, so neither can we. If we camp here, they will be upon us before morning."

  "We cannot ride forever without rest for ourselves and the animals," King Caedmon interjected. "To do so would make us weak and kill our horses, and I do not intend to cross the badlands on foot."

  "What choice do we have?" asked Gunnar. "We cannot make a stand against hundreds of Borundans."

  "That is precisely what we must do," replied the Arin king. "Let Horst find us a path to the top of this cliff. Once there, we will camp and refresh ourselves. We will sleep in shifts while the others guard the path to the top. A few men ought to be able to raise havoc on an army forced to climb the cliff single file."

  "That is what I had in mind," grinned the Odessian prince. "We might also damage the trail enough to force them to abandon all hope of using it to follow us. That will cost them time as they try to find another."

  "Agreed," nodded the king. "Let's get on with it."

  Horst spent an hour finding a trail that had some markings of past use. He dismounted and cautiously led the group up the side of the cliff at an agonizingly slow pace. It took over two hours of walking up the zigzagging trail until they finally reached the top.

  "We will have a bite to eat," announced King Caedmon, "and then we shall sleep. Jared and Sandar will take the first watch, as the Borundans are not likely to arrive soon. Make the best use of your sleep time as possible. We may not have such a defendable place to camp tomorrow night."

  The group ate sparingly and stretched out under the stars. Sandar and Jared sat near the edge of the cliff and stared out into the darkness.

  "I see no campfires from the Borundans," Jared remarked softly. "Do you think they will follow us all the way to Odessia?"

  "Without a doubt,"
nodded Sandar. "They want us all dead."

  "I don't understand the feelings of people," frowned Jared. "Those people following us, do not even know us, just like the men who hunted my father and me. How can men so easily agree to kill strangers?"

  "They are soldiers," shrugged Sandar, "like myself. They become soldiers to serve their king and country. They don't always understand the reasons for their orders; they just obey."

  "That doesn't make sense to me," replied Jared. "To kill someone is an unthinkable act, but to do so without reason is insanity."

  "I killed several men back in that meadow," Sandar responded, "and I do not think it was an act of insanity. They wanted us dead and killing them was the only way to stop them. There is nothing insane about wanting to live. When the Borundans start climbing this trail, I will kill them again." The Arin soldier turned to look at Jared in the faint light of the waxing moon. "What I don't understand is why you do not defend yourself as I do. Are you so willing to die that you will let the Borundans come up and slice your throat?"

  "I do not wish to die," Jared answered, "but I cannot kill, either. My father was the same, and he taught me to be as I am. If people are after me, I will run, and I will hide, but I will not strike out at them as they seek to strike me. Why should I become what they have become?"

  "Yet you allow us to kill to save your life," Sandar pointed out. "Do you hate us for doing so?"

  "I do not hate anyone," Jared replied. "I have watched all of you kill other men, but I know that you do not do so senselessly. You are protecting yourselves, and that makes a difference. Still, I would prefer that you found a different way to stay alive, but I am at a loss to suggest one."

  "So we are not necessarily deranged," retorted Sandar. "We are merely defective for not finding a better way to stay alive."

  "You are taking my words as some kind of disapproval of your actions," frowned Jared. "That is not how I meant them. You all are good men. I know that. I can feel it inside me. If I did not believe in Gunnar and the rest of you, I would have run away a long time ago. Nor am I trying to say that I am better than any of you, or that I know a better way to act. I only know what I was taught."

  "But you were taught to use a bow and a sword," countered Sandar. "You even continued those lessons on the trip to Tarent."

  "Yes," sighed Jared, "but I cannot wield them against other men. Sandar, all that I am saying is that there must be a better way to solve differences between you and your enemies. I know that killing to take someone else's gold is an evil thing to do, while killing to defend yourself is not, but I see the results as being the same. A man dies, and his body rots and decays. He is no longer able to hug his child or spread his knowledge. I think that is a terrible waste of a life."

  "Sometimes," Sandar shook his head, "but sometimes the world is a better place because of a man's death."

  "Is it?" posed Jared. "What if the man could be made to change? What if he could be made to see reason and end up doing great things for the world? If he dies, those great things would never come to be."

  "Those are nice thoughts," replied Sandar, "but that never happens. An evil man just becomes more evil. They never change. All they end up doing is creating more deaths and more sorrow for the innocent. When you find a way to change an evil killer into a good man, you let me know. Seeing one is the only way I will ever believe in such folly."

  Jared sighed, but he did not reply. He stared out into the darkness where he knew that the Borundan soldiers were creeping towards him.

  * * *

  Gunnar and Kenra sat on the edge of the cliff taking the final watch before the sky lightened enough to continue onward. Every once in a while, moonlight would reflect off of some metal in the canyon below. The princes had been using those flashes to keep track of the Borundans' progress.

  "That one is close," Kenra remarked softly as he stared downward. "They must be right at the base of the cliff now."

  A distant scream echoed off the walls of the canyon, and the Arin prince nodded.

  "They are further along than you thought," he commented. "That sounded like one of the Borundans missed the trail on the way up here."

  "Should I wake the others?" asked the Salacian prince.

  "Not yet," answered Gunnar. "I have been thinking about how we are to leave this place. We can fire arrows down on them and they are incapable of firing back, but sooner or later, they will discover an alternate path to the top. If we make a stand here to defend this path, we will lose in the end."

  "And if we abandon our position," countered Kenra, "they will be right on our tails."

  "Correct," nodded the Arin prince. "We need something in between the two extremes."

  "So all we have to do is continue shooting arrows at them after we are long gone," Kenra offered humorously. "Not a problem, we can do that."

  "I wish it were that simple," chuckled Gunnar.

  "Then I shall grant your wish," the Odessian prince said as he walked up behind Gunnar and Kenra. "You two should get the rest of the group up and get ready to depart."

  "What do you have planned?" Gunnar asked suspiciously as he and Kenra rose.

  "One man can keep the Borundans busy for a while," answered Horst. "I will be that one man while the rest of you head northward. When I think you have enough of a head start, I will abandon my position and join you."

  "That will put you only two hours ahead of the Borundans," Gunnar shook his head. "I don't like that plan."

  "You think like an Arinite," grinned the Odessian prince. "I can get almost four hours head start on the Borundans, which will give the rest of you plenty of time to be far away."

  "Do you want to explain that statement?" asked King Caedmon as he joined the group. "Are they here already?"

  "They are climbing the path now," nodded Gunnar.

  "The secret is to make them wary of climbing to the top," declared Horst. "If we all stood up here and fired arrows at them, they might be inclined to wait until the arrows stopped before coming up. That would not give us much lead-time. My method is to allow them to climb unmolested while you head north. When they are finally in sight of their goal, I will start picking them off one by one. They will retreat to the bottom and wait until the arrows stop. When they think I have left, they will try again, and I will skewer them again. I will repeat that as often as necessary until you have a sufficient lead on them to keep you safe."

  "So they will move more cautiously than they could," nodded the king. "The plan has some merit."

  "They will wait a short while between attempts," continued Horst. "I will time my departure so that I leave right after one of my attacks. That will give me some extra leeway."

  "They also will not be able to keep the pace of an Odessian beauty when you finally do leave," nodded Kenra. "It is amazingly simple and might actually work."

  "Be careful that they do not seek an alternate path up the cliff," warned King Caedmon. "If they get around you, the speed of your horse will not save you."

  "Understood," nodded the Odessian prince. "Time to get moving."

  Sandar and Jared were awakened as the sky began to lighten. The five warriors mounted and headed due north with Kenra leading the way. Horst had been left with three full quivers of arrows and he sat where he had a good view of the path approaching the top.

  The sun was just peeking over the horizon when the Borundans came into view. The Odessian prince nocked an arrow and let it fly into the chest of the lead rider. The Borundan clutched his chest and leaned away from the cliff, throwing his horse off balance. As the man and horse tumbled from the path, Horst was already letting his second arrow fly into the second man.

  Screams and shouting echoed off the walls of the canyon. Horst fired one arrow after another as he worked his way down the line of Borundans. As some of the horses became riderless and continued up the path, the Odessian changed his tactic. As much as it panged his sensibilities, the Odessian prince started targeting the horses.

  Th
e Borundan column halted with the new lead rider refusing to go forward. Horst rose and moved his position until he found a spot that allowed him new targets. Once again he started with the new lead man and worked his way down the path. Shouts and curses showed the Borundans to be in a panic. The men wanted to retreat down the path, but others behind them were refusing to move, and the path was too narrow for anyone to pass. That refusal threatened to spoil the Odessians plan.

  Horst placed his bow on the ground and pushed a large rock towards the rim of the canyon. He struggled to move it quickly before some of the Borundans got up the nerve to charge up the path. With a final push, the rock teetered on the lip of the canyon and then fell downward. Horst was panting from exertion as he raced to pick up his bow and look down on the Borundans.

  The boulder had not only smashed down on the leading group of riders, but it had also hit several other sections of the winding path. There were four large gaps in the line of Borundans soldiers, and all of the Borundans were trying to back off the path. The boulder had proved to be a much more potent weapon than dozens of arrows.

  Horst let the Borundans retreat without any further attacks, but he did line up two more boulders near the rim while he waited for them to retreat down the path. The Odessian prince rested on the rim while he waited to see what their next move would be. For over an hour the Borundans did nothing but talk and point up at the top of the cliff.

  Eventually, the Borundans sent riders out in search of other paths, which Horst fully expected. What he had not expected were the Borundans abandoning their horses and coming up the path on foot. When he thought about it, it made a great deal of sense. Men on foot could walk up the path until Horst started shooting and then start scaling the cliff wall. Horst would not be able to shoot them all, and he would soon be overwhelmed, but there was a minor flaw in their plan. While the Borundans would indeed take the summit of the cliff eventually, Horst had no need to stay and defend it, and the Borundans would be without horses until someone brought them up. The Odessian prince smiled and waited for the men to get closer.