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Authors: Guy Stanton III

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BOOK: A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind)
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I started to walk
away, when I saw the house number, Rassian St. thirty one. Having an idea suddenly I skipped ahead to the pot outside the boy’s house. Grabbing my knife, from my waist band I tapped the pot with the haft of
the knife. Dong! Excited I swung the haft of the knife again like a hammer against the pot’s side and the sound of braking pottery echoed loudly up and down the street, but no
body seemed to have heard it. An oil skin pouch lay in the hollow cavity of the underside of the pot and in it I found the spy’s documents. I stuffed the oil skin pouch inside my shirt and made my way towards the door of the house.

I knocked briskly on the door and it opened almost im
mediately surprising me by the suddenness of the action. A middle aged woman stood before me with worry lines creased across her face as she studied me. I repeated the words that the spy had given me and nodding she turned and called to someone behind her. A boy stepped past her to stand in front. The woman gave him a tight hug, kissed him on the head and then shut the door quickly, as tears streamed out from the corners of her eyes. The boy turned away from the closed door to face me. The boy was a sturdy looking one and he bore the pack on his back well.

“When do I see my father?” He asked almost immediate
ly with an earnest eagerness.

I shook my head stiffly and said, “He’s not coming with us.”

“I see.” The boy said softly.

He looked away from me ducking his head down as he did so. It was growing lighter by the second. We needed to get out of here before the changing of the guard at the jail took place and they closed the cities’ gates.

“We need to go, follow me quickly and as silently as you can. Can you ride a horse?”

“Yes, a little anyway.” He said lifting his head back up and I pretended to not see the moistness gathered in the corners of his eyes.

 

We were miles away from the city, when I looked back and saw the first signs of pursuit in the distance. From then on our lives had been one of constant action, as we moved northward in an irregular manner as I alluded the pursuit that had gradually grown more distant.

It was dark enough now to move on and I woke the boy, who came awake startled. We mounted up and I led the way through the darkness that was gently highlighted
, by the glow of a half moon.
I looked back after an hour and saw that the boy was almost asleep in the saddle, as he relied more on his horse’s natural instinct to follow mine than con
scientiously directing its path himself. It was working for the boy so I let him be and monitored his horse’s progress after me a little closer to make sure he continued following me.

The boy hadn’t said a word since we had left Kharta. Looking at him now hunched over in the saddle with a blanket wrapped around him to ward off the night’s chill remind
ed me of the awesome responsibility I had taken upon myself to get this boy to safety in the Valley Lands. I should have left him behind for both our sakes. Still I didn’t regret my decision completely, if I could get this boy to a better life than I had experienced it would be worth the risk at least in
some ways. Having the boy along had changed my escape route considerably though. He wasn’t up to an all out run for the Valley Lands so I had decided on a route that I hoped that our pursuers wouldn’t expect. Instead of taking the ob
vious route further up through the Hagathic Wastelands I was taking a gamble on another route. I was going to bypass the Zoarinian forces that I felt sure awaited us on the other side of the Hagathic Wastelands, by going partially through the Plains of Zoar the very heartland of the enemy.

I doubted that my pursuers would expect even me to do something crazy like that. I would avoid the Zoarinian out
posts stationed along the northern border of the Plain of Zoar, by hiring a Kawnia Lake fisherman to take us across the lake and drop us off on the shores of the Silepsium Moors. From there it would be a straight shot to Kingdom Pass and the Valley Lands beyond.

 

Two days later we made it into the Lomar Swamplands and if I hadn’t lost anyone still on our tail by now then I wasn’t going to.

I had gone back to the camp that I had left my men at hoping to increase the strength of our party northward, but the camp had been deserted with castoff supplies and clothes laying around like my friends had left i
n hurry without time to pack.
I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to cause them to leave one of our most secure camps so hastily. Perhaps it hadn’t been so secure given that the Valley
Lander had found us. Just how had he been able to do that? Blind luck I guess.

I had been looking out for my friends for so long now that I felt like I was somehow at fault for the hard times that seemed to have befallen them in my absence. They would have to make do for themselves from now on, because I wasn’t going back to the life of a bandit. My responsibility was to get the boy to safety as I had promised his father that I would and then get the reports to the high council of the Valley Lands. Then other things would occur. What they might be I wasn’t sure, I’d just have to discover them along the way. I was anxious to meet this grandfather who had been searching for me for so long. Maybe when I was in the land of my father my purpose in life would be clearer to me. I hoped so.

 

I parted the heavy knot of reeds in front of me slightly to glance through towards the boats pulled up in the sand across from us. The water was up to my waist and it was surprisingly cold for this time of year.

I watched as the Kawnia Lake fishermen finished hauling the day’s catch in from their fishing boats. Having finished their task they started off towards the sleepy village in the distance. I waited until the sun had almost disappeared over the horizon before I felt it was safe for us to move from the heavy reeds we were hidden in.

We had run straight into a Zoarinian patrol two nights ago. It had been a
unexpected surprise for both parties. In
the chase that followed we’d had to practically run our hors
es into the ground to avoid capture. Last night I had released the horses so that they would lay down a false trail for our pursuers to follow and we had set off on foot towards the lake hoping that the patrol would take the bait and follow our worn out mounts instead of us.

It seemed to have worked out so far in our favor, but there was nothing favorable about our current circumstances. The water we stood in was dark and it stank. Dead fish and lake debris swirled around us in the murky water, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Leeches! I could feel them sliding along my flesh and then the sudden pinch of pain when they bit on and started to suck my blood.

All I wanted to do right now was roll in a barrel of salt, until every last one of the retched things shriveled up and fell off. I hate bugs and anything close to it, especially leeches. The arena dungeons had been full of bugs and the poor ex
cuses of what passed for medicinal experts assigned to patching up fighters had employed the heavy use of leaches in all their remedies. I had grown too loath both. It was all I could do to remain calm, as I stood there being fed upon.

The boy looked as miserable as I felt. “Okay
, there gone, let’s go!”

We waded through the reeds over to the beach, where I slid a sturdy looking small craft with a single small sail out into the waters of the lake. Pushing it further out into the current I reached for the boy and lifted him into the skiff and then climbed in myself. I rowed away from the shore for
awhile to get some distance between us and the beach and then I unfurled the sale and set the rudder on a course to take us to the northern side of the lake.

I turned to the boy, after I had tied the rudder off, “Now that we’re on our way let’s get these stinking bloodsucking leeches off!”

 

 

Chapter Three

Hunted

We sailed through the night and most of the next day be
fore we reached the far end of the lake, which bordered the Silepsium Moors. I had never seen a more foreboding stretch of land, as was laid out before me now. Not even the Hagathic Wastelands could compare with the somber mood of these moors.

I kept my reservations about the gloomy moors to myself though. No need to infect the boy with my uneasiness. I pulled the boat up onto the shore and after a brief meal of fish we started out into the moors.

The boy was like a shadow in how close he stuck to me. He was still as silent as he had been since we’d left Kharta. That night we had another fire and ate some more fish along with a few wild vegetables that I had managed to scavenge on the way.

Things were going well for us, until the next day. As we were traveling along through the scrub brush of the moors a sense of foreboding came over me. We were being watched! I glanced at the boy behind me and I could see that he sensed that something was different as well. Perceptive boy, I thought approvingly to myself. I put my hand on his shoulder reassuringly, and felt him draw slightly closer to me. I had been followed before, it was in fact almost a daily occurrence in my life, but this feeling of being followed was dif
ferent in some way. It took me a couple of hours of puzzling over it to realize what was different and then it was almost too late.

I didn’t tell the boy, as it would only have stressed him out more and he would find out soon enough what was fol
lowing us. I quickened our pace through the dense brush searching the gathering darkness ahead of us for a spot to make a good account of ourselves and perhaps live out the night.

We weren’t being followed by humans. Moor wolves were shadowing us! I had heard the stories and the stories had been enough to convince me that I didn’t want any part of them. Unfortunately I did have them, quite a lot of them. Moor wolves traveled in packs. The wolves of my home country that I had never seen were of a bigger build than the
se moor wolves and remained solitary for most of their lives.

I could see wolves ghosting along behind us now, through the gathering shadows.

Snap!

Looking off to my right I saw another wolf lurking not twenty yards off to the side of us. That was a bad sign. The wolves of my home country didn’t hunt men as a rule, but I had heard that if moor wolves were hungry they would at
tack just about anything. The boy had noticed the wolves and his pace after me quickened even more. These wolves
were definitely interested in us as prey, because they were moving in on us now, which was a clear indicator that they had gone past the point of being merely curious as to our presence here.

We didn’t have much time left to us and I breathed a sigh of relief, when I saw what I had been looking for up ahead of us in the gathering darkness. It was a shallow impression in the land, which was surrounded by boulders on three sides.

“Over there boy!”
I said directing the boy ahead of me because the wolves were more likely to go for him first.

“Stay back between these boulders, while I hold them off from the front.”

“No!”

Surprised, I glanced down at the boy, who had suddenly given proof that he could still speak and quite vehemently at that. “No?” I asked.

“I want to help you!”

I nearly insisted that he do as I had told him to do, but I glimpsed the desperate need in his eyes and thought better of it. I liked the boy’s spunk.

“Okay then.” I drew my short sword from the holster it rode in on my back and handed it to the boy. The blade was just light enough for him to handle it, without it being too cumbersome for him to manage. “Stay behind me and pro
tect my back.”

He nodded his head vigorously in response as he gripped the sword hard enough to squeeze impressions on the steel handle. He was still pretty much where I had wanted him
from the beginning, but he was there under his own terms and I respected that as a sign of strength that hinted at the kind of stalwart man he would be someday.

The sudden yipping and snarling taking place around us told me that the time for survival was once again upon us, as we faced off against man’s ancient foe the wolf. I withdrew my sword and turned to face the snarling yellow eyed assail
ants arrayed out before me in a half circle.

There were five of them. A big mangy eared male made the first move as he lunged toward me. I half knelt forward on one knee and ripped my blade through the length of his stomach, while he was in mid flight and then quickly stepped aside to avoid his falling carcass. As his trailing death yip sounded out I flung myself to the right away from the boy, and decapitated a second wolf in one fluid swing of the blade in my hand. I quickly launched myself towards a third wolf diving in for the boy off to my left. I heard an anguished yip sound out behind me as I attacked the third wolf. The wolf tried to retreat, but my blade found its heart first.

I wheeled around sword at the ready, as fear gnawed at me to see what had become of the boy and the other wolves during my time away. What I found was a dead wolf lying at my feet that had been brutally hacked several times. My gaze went from the dead wolf to the blood dripping off the boy’s sword. I glanced up the blade to the boy’s white knuckled hands and finally my eye’s drifted to the boy’s frightened but proud face.

“Nice job!”I said meaning every bit of it.

I saw a tremulous smile emerge on the boy’s face. Without this kid watching my back I would most likely have had a moor
wolves’ teeth wrapped around the back of my neck or calf muscle.

BOOK: A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind)
8.98Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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