Chapter Sixteen Choices #4
He gaped in surprise as Leah shot across the clearing toward the smaller of the two figures, laughing in a way he had never seen.
The smaller figure resolved into a tall, lean young man, returning a gleaming white sword to a sheath slung across his back, and a long white dagger to a loop at his belt.
“Leah!” the young man cried, wrapping her up in a tight embrace.
“Lorna,” rumbled Tomaz.
The Prince looked at him, and then at the bigger figure to whom he was nodding, and noticed it was a woman.
She had short-cropped light hair that was cut as if a bowl had been placed over her head and all of the hair sticking out of it had been sheared off.
She walked forward with a lumbering gait that reminded the Prince of the bears sometimes brought to the Fortress for court entertainment.
“I’ve always told you that you should carry valerium with you,” the young man said to Leah with a roguish smile.
“Good against Elementals,” Leah responded, smile turning into a frown, “but I prefer steel against everything else.”
“Now that is complete and utter idiocy that I cannot accept, particularly coming from my sister.”
“Sister?” the Prince asked, still trying to process what was happening.
Both of them turned to look at him, and with a shock the Prince realized that they were almost identical.
Leah’s brother was obviously male, and taller and more muscled, but he had the same lean, wiry body type as Leah did, and was about as close to a male translation of Leah as one could imagine.
One clear difference, though, was that the brother had shining, scarlet pupils that were shockingly unnatural.
The Prince had seen eyes like that among the Most High Blood, and the Bloodmages, but never among the Baseborn.
“What’s this? You don’t usually pick up strays,” the young man said, looking the Prince up and down and smiling as if at a private joke.
The red eyes seemed to mock him, and the Prince couldn’t help but think of the red crystal the Bloodmages carried to perform their magic.
The young man radiated a kind of easy and infectious charisma, as if he expected everything in life to go his way.
“He’s a friend,” Tomaz said. They all turned to look at the big man as he approached.
He was followed by the young man’s female companion and had five horses in tow, two of which were quite obviously bred for speed and endurance, as opposed to the three Leah had taken from the Defenders that were glorified pack horses.
“Oh ho, a friend,” the young man said. “Where do you come from and what could you have possibly done to earn my sister’s company? She would rather travel with a talking parrot than another person.”
He smiled mockingly at Leah.
Leah ignored him and stared directly at the Prince, who felt his throat go dry. A few awkward seconds passed, wherein the Prince just managed to prevent himself from swallowing nervously.
Was she going to reveal who he was? He wasn’t supposed to be here. They weren’t supposed to have met anyone. They hadn’t discussed any of this because this wasn't supposed to be happening.
“He’s Tomaz’s project,” she said finally. “He fell in with us when we were passing through the Elmist Mountains. He’s a runaway from a family of the Most High. His name is… Raven.”
“Raven,” Davydd said, tasting the word. “Weird.”
The Prince held Leah’s gaze and tried to convey his gratitude without words, but whether she understood or not she gave no sign.
“Mmm,” the young man said, looking back and forth between the two of them. He stepped forward abruptly with a smile that seemed to mock both the Prince and himself and offered his hand.
“Davydd Goldwyn,” he said.
Slowly, the Prince reached out and grasped the hand, noticing that it was slim but nonetheless covered in calluses that belied constant work with a sword.
He reached out briefly through the Raven Talisman but felt nothing special about him, aside from the fact he felt strong and vibrant. How had he managed to destroy a Daemon?
“Raven,” the Prince said, taking Leah’s lead.
“And this is Lorna,” Davydd said, dropping the Prince’s hand and motioning to the woman who had come up with Tomaz.
She had retrieved the large battleaxe from where the Daemon’s death had flung it and wore it slung on her back just like Tomaz wore his sword.
The Prince was shocked to find that she stood only a head shorter than the big man.
She was even more of a novelty than Tomaz was in the Prince’s world: all Guardians were men; he had never seen a woman on the same scale before.
Lorna grunted and nodded to the Prince before turning to Davydd. Her voice was low and husky.
“Eshendai. There is a force coming on us very quickly. It looks to be several thousand strong, all light cavalry with mounted archers.”
“How do you know that? They must be a mile away still,” the Prince blurted out, reaching out and sensing the army still far away but certainly gaining.
“Ignore him,” Leah said with a long-suffering look, “he thinks he’s a tracker, but he has no idea what he’s talking about.”
The Prince knew that she was playing a part, but it still made his cheeks burn, and he cursed himself for not thinking his words through.
He couldn’t know about the pursuit without the Talisman—if he wasn’t careful, the new Exiles would start asking questions he wouldn’t be able to answer.
Davydd smirked at him and gave him a sympathetic look that seemed to say he knew how his sister could be sometimes.
“Is there a cache of supplies nearby?” Leah asked Davydd.
“No,” he responded, “and you’re not going to get much further on those horses, so the normal route is out.”
For a moment the two of them stood silently thinking, and then Davydd clicked his tongue and made for his mount.
“The bridge.”
Leah’s eyes widened. “It’s finished already?”
“Indeed,” Davydd said with another rakish smile. “We were part of the first scouting party sent across. We were trying to navigate a path through this area—it’s ringed with Bloodmage traps like that Storm Walker.”
“I should have rechecked the area before running through,” Leah said angrily. “I led us right into it. I was so focused on… never mind.”
The Prince’s eyes flicked in her direction, and he saw small spots of color light on her cheeks, but the young man didn’t seem to notice.
“No worries, sister mine,” Davydd said. “We’ll lead them up to the higher pass, cross the bridge, and cut the restraints.
We should have enough time to get there, and they won’t be able to follow us.
We’ll have to repair it eventually, but since winter will be on us soon and the pass will be closed for months, we can deal with that later. ”
“The Elders will take us to task for ruining what was just built,” said the large woman, Lorna. Her mouth didn’t move much when she spoke: in fact, it barely opened, which made her words come out in a mumbled growl that took a minute to understand.
“You’re right, but there’s no help for it,” Leah said simply. She looked at Tomaz, who nodded his assent, and they all mounted, the Prince remaining silent, seeing no way forward but to go with the group for now. He had to stay out of reach of that army; he’d made his choice back at the crossroads.
Even though they would have been fine without me, he realized. These two would have been able to fend of the Daemon. I didn’t help at all.
His mood turned black, and he was glad that they all traveled in silence. He struggled to keep a sudden wave of despair from crashing over him. He focused on breathing, and pulled out his anger again, which gave him energy and focus.
He would find another way out. He would.
They made their way out of the clearing and continued the upward trek.
The temperature continued to drop, and soon they were passing patches of snow.
The Prince pulled his drape-over closer about him and settled the hood over his head.
It helped, but there was no keeping the cold out entirely, and he soon began to shiver.
They continued without stopping for the better part of the afternoon, keeping up a quick trot along a narrow hunting trail, working their way through territory treacherous enough that the army coming up behind them would no doubt be forced to slow to a crawl to maneuver their larger numbers, if they could follow at all.
At one point they passed along a ridge that afforded them a view of a castle and city far down at the entrance to a large pass through the mountain range.
The castle of Roarke.
The Prince reached out and felt the life of his brother Ramael, even from the large distance.
The Ox Talisman endowed his brother with enhanced physical strength and power, and he was positioned here in the southern-most Province because of that fact.
He was not the general that Rikard was, but he was the most unforgiving and brutal of all the Children.
His physical strength was matched only by his force of will, and he had never been defeated on an open battlefield.
The Exiled only managed to keep him on this side of the Pass because he could not bring his full force to bear on them; they were able to hide by stringing his force along with ambushes and false trails that led nowhere.
Suddenly the Prince realized the significance of what was about to happen. He was about to pass into the lands of the Exiled Kindred, a place where none of his siblings and none of the subjects of the Empire had been for centuries.
“Why did you come back?” Leah asked.
The Prince looked up. She was frowning at him. He had fallen behind the group of Exiles, and she had fallen back with him.
“You needed help,” he said. “You didn’t know the Daemon was coming. I thought I could warn you in time, and we could get away before….”
He trailed off and shrugged.
“Guess that didn’t work particularly well,” she said.
They exchanged a glance, and his black mood inexplicably lightened. He laughed ruefully. “I suppose not.”
She smiled at him. It was small and tentative, but it was a smile.
He turned away from the view of Roarke and began to ride forward again. She waited and then fell in beside him. They rode along together for a stretch of time, not saying anything. Finally, he broke the silence.
“And I couldn’t ignore what I’d seen,” he said.
He kept his head firmly facing forward. She did too, and when she spoke it was with a pausing awkwardness that was very unlike her.
“You could have. Ignored it, I mean. None of your brothers and sisters would have even given it a second thought. And none of them would have listened to what I said… for which, I apologize. It was said in anger.”
“I… there is no need for apologies. And I know that none of the other Children would have come to help you. But the more time I spend away from them the more I realize I’m not very much like them.”
They lapsed back into silence, following Davydd, Tomaz, and Lorna. A few minutes later, they rounded a boulder completely covered in snow and ice, and she spoke again, the heat of her breath misting the air.
“I know you didn’t want to come with us,” she said, her tone taking on a steely quality, as if she expected a fight. “But it doesn’t look like you have much of a choice. And I should tell you that once you cross over into Kindred lands, you won’t be able to come back.”
He looked up sharply.
“What?”
He pulled on his reins, and the horse came to an abrupt stop amidst a small cloud of dislodged snow and earth. Leah pulled up as well. The others heard the noise and turned. Leah held a hand up to them, and then turned back to him and spoke quietly.
“We don’t allow people to leave our lands. Once someone has crossed through the Pass or over the mountains with us, they must remain in Vale unless the Elders agree that they can leave.”
“And how long would that take?”
“It’s not a matter of time,” she said. “It’s a matter of trust.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and then to Tomaz waiting farther up the trail. He reached back with his mind and felt the army of the Empire still following behind them. The choice appeared very simple on its face: go forward with the Exiles, or be captured and likely taken to his death.
And perhaps it was that simple. What other choice did he have?
“Fine,” he said. “Fine.”
She held his gaze, and he realized that she knew how much the decision meant. She nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said.
Together, they turned their horses again and continued on. Leah waved to the group ahead of them to continue. A shiver ran through the Prince that had nothing to do with the cold. His mind tried to whirl into action, but he stopped it. He couldn’t think right now.
They came to the bridge not too long afterwards.
It was a simple thing, made of wood and rope coated in tar and resin to provide a steady footing.
It was thick enough and wide enough that the horses could cross, and the Prince was surprised at the quality of the construction.
They all dismounted and blindfolded their mounts in preparation for the crossing.
As he stepped onto the wood and began to lead his horse across, his heart pounded in his chest. The bridge was barely fifty feet across, and it was sturdy enough that he felt no worry of falling, even though they were suspended better than a thousand feet in the air and below them yawned a shadowy abyss.
No, what had his heart knocking against his ribs was the realization of what he was doing.
That with each step he was further confirming his decision.
Once they were on the other side, Tomaz and Lorna destroyed the wooden restraints that held the bridge in place, and then began to saw through the ropes that held it up.
After a quarter of an hour, with the sharp sound of snapping fibers, the rope unwound and split, and the bridge fell into the chasm, crashing and resounding off the steep stone walls.
The four Exiles all breathed a noticeable sigh of relief, but the Prince did not.
He followed them as they made their way through the mountain pass on the other side of the chasm, and soon they began to make their way back downward, this time on the other side of the mountain range.
For the first time in the history of the Empire, a Prince of the Realm had peacefully crossed into the Seventh Principality.