Betrayal in the Highlands (15 page)

“So what happened?” Pond persisted. “She’s pretty and clearly your type of woman.”

“My type of woman?” Edmund squinted up at the brilliant blue sky. Noon approached, and still they weren’t more than a few miles from Baroness Melody’s estate. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, she’s pretty and smart and has a fiery spirit. She’d balance you out just fine.”

“So you’re saying I’m ugly, stupid, and boring, is that it?”

“Oh, I don’t mean you’re stupid by any means!” Pond winked at Edmund. “But you could use some livening up, and a woman like that would certainly do the trick.”

Disgusted, Edmund urged Fatty Moron to keep up. But the big man could only waddle, and even then he needed excruciatingly frequent breaks.

“So what happened?” Pond asked a third time.

“Nothing,” Edmund said, jogging faster.

Pond trotted after him, his boots making sucking sounds each time he pulled them from the ankle-deep mud.

“Nothing?” he repeated doubtfully.

Edmund stopped and waved again for Fatty to catch up.

“She wanted to adventure with us.”

Soaked with sweat and gasping for breath, Fatty wobbled toward them, his pack and rolls of fat bouncing in unison.

Edmund shielded his eye from the bright sun and pointed to a drainage ditch on the other side of the field. “We’ll rest there. Come on.”

He resumed jogging.

“I wouldn’t mind, you know,” Pond said. “Her joining us, that is. It’d be wonderful to have another member of our merry band. And she seemed nice.”

“She’s not joining us.”

“But you’d considered it, right?”

Edmund cursed. Fatty was well behind them again, doubled over and breathing hard, sunlight glistening off his bald head.

“We have to do something about him. He’s slowing us down, and he’s as inconspicuous as a dancing ox.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Pond said.

Edmund beckoned for Fatty to hurry.

“Maybe we could send for her,” Pond went on. “You know, once we find a more suitable place.”

“Maybe,” Edmund found himself saying.

“Really? So you like her?”

Edmund scanned the fields of swaying grass still gleaming with drops from the previous night’s rain. Nobody seemed to be in sight but ever since finding Pond and Fatty lying unconscious in the rose garden, he couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched.

“So do you like her?” Pond asked again.

Edmund didn’t want to think about it.

“You know I’m going to keep asking,” Pond said.

With Fatty galumphing closer, Edmund headed toward the drainage ditch. Pond pressed his question.

“So—”

“Yes! Yes, I like her,” Edmund said. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?”

Edmund scrambled into the ditch, glad to find it was only partially filled with trickling water. He sat on the stones lining the sides of the embankment, now hidden from anybody who might come into the fields, and unslung his pack. Pond sat across from him. Becky began to nose around.

“Problem one.” Edmund held up a dirty finger. “She’s a child.”

Pond hooted. “Hardly!”

“All right, she isn’t exactly a child. But she acts like it, all impetuous and everything. Besides, she’s almost half my age.”

“So?”

“Oh, never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Of course I would,” Pond said. “What’s problem number two? I’m sure you have at least thirty of them all mapped out in that busy head of yours. You’ve probably made a list of pros and cons of being with her.”

There was a pounding sound, and then Fatty appeared over the lip of the ditch. He seemed relieved to have found them, as if he thought they had disappeared into thin air. He stumbled down the embankment and cast himself to the ground, mouth flopping open like a large sweaty fish.

Pond handed him a waterskin.

“So go ahead,” Pond urged Edmund. “What’s the next problem about you and Abby?”

Drinking in long, gulping swallows, Fatty arched his eyebrows, curiosity in his beady eyes.

“He likes Abby,” Pond said.

Fatty grunted in approval.

“Even if she did have similar f-f-feel, feelings—which she probably doesn’t …” Edmund sighed and shook his head. “Even if she did, I’d be putting her in danger. I’m putting both of you in danger. You’ll probably end up dead because of me. It’s just a matter of time.”

At this, Fatty stopped drinking, the color draining out of his flabby face. He turned to Pond, lips trembling.

“I’d be dead without you,” Pond said to Edmund. “Or worse. So it’s a wash, isn’t it? Look, Ed, you can’t live life worrying about what bad things might happen. Live life trying to make good things possible and everything will work out.”

“Where do you get those little gems?”

“I make them up as I go along!”

“Kind of like our adventures,” Edmund grumbled.

He poked his head out of the ditch and scanned the surrounding fields. Still nobody was in sight.

“Let’s just worry about getting to Long Ravine, okay? We’re not out of danger yet.”

And at this rate, we never will be
…

Chapter Seventeen

Early morning on the eighth day since they’d fled from Baroness Melody’s guesthouse, Edmund, Pond, Fatty, and Becky continued eastward from Dardenello through the green prairies of Havendor. They should have arrived at Long Ravine four days before, but Fatty had slowed their progress significantly; he walked at an elephant’s pace, placing one sizable leg securely in front of the other as he shifted his bulk. Worse, he had to rest every fifteen minutes.

Of course, the weather hadn’t helped, either. Coastal winds had driven inland yet another spring storm, and for two days it poured, forcing them to huddle under a leather tarp that barely covered Fatty, let alone everybody else.

And then that morning, they woke to find the entire countryside smothered in heavy fog so thick it felt like they were walking through floating rain. Even with their lantern illuminating the fog’s silvery wisps, they could hardly see more than a couple of paces in any direction. Fortunately, rising five feet above the surrounding tree-filled swamp, the road they followed was broad and well-marked. All around, crickets chirped in an endless serenade punctuated by the periodic deep belching of bullfrogs.

“What’re we going to do with him?” Pond tilted his head toward Fatty, who was leaning up against a tree, wheezing. “I mean, I like the big guy and want to help him, but we’ll never get anywhere if he travels with us.”

“We just have to get him to Long Ravine. It shouldn’t be much farther.”

Edmund examined a series of horse tracks in the black mud.

Since leaving Dardenello, they hadn’t come across many people—a couple of merchants and a band of ranchers driving their bleating sheep to the slaughterhouses. However, only an hour before, as they were preparing to break camp in the woods flanking the road, a solitary rider flew by in the dimness, head and body cloaked so he couldn’t be seen.

Somewhere in the fog to their left, a fish sprang from the water with a muffled
kerplunk
.

Edmund stood and wiped the mud from his hands.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he said eventually, unable to shake the feeling that the rider had something to do with them. “But I’m worried.”

“About what?” Pond asked. “The rider? How would anybody know where we are?”

“How did they know we were in Dardenello?”

“Good point.”

Edmund gave the tracks one last fleeting look.

“All right.” He hoisted his wet pack higher onto his shoulders. “Let’s get moving. I want to—”

Snarling, Becky bolted up the road. Within seconds the creeping fog had consumed her.

“Becky!” Edmund shouted, running after her for a few strides. “Becky, get back here!”

He stopped and listened. Up ahead, a horse whinnied, followed by the muted sound of trotting through mud, which soon quickened into a gallop, growing louder as it approached.

Damn it!

“Somebody’s coming!” Edmund grabbed Pond by the shoulder. “Hurry. Hide!”

“Where?”

“In the swamp!”

Dashing off the causeway, they pushed past a wall of cattails, their boots sinking into calf-high muck reeking of green algae and rotting leaves. Edmund doused the lantern and hid behind a dead tree.

“Becky!” he called in a harsh whisper.

To his amazement, Becky stopped barking and scurried toward him, splashing as she fought her way through the tall reeds.

Still up on the road, a doubled-over Fatty sucked in air.

“Fatty!” Edmund called.

Fatty looked up, his block-like head swiveling in all directions in an attempt to locate everybody. Edmund waved his arms through the gloom. Fatty began thundering off the road toward him. But it was too late.

Three horses burst into view, their features obscured by the stifling mist.

“Halt!” one of the riders cried.

Fatty froze midstride.

Come on, Fatty! They can’t bring those horses down into the swamp! Run!

Aiming an arrow at Fatty’s ample chest, the middle rider spurred his mount forward as the other two riders readied their shields and spears.

“Where’s that damned dog?” muttered one spearman.

“Who are you, and what business do you have on this road?” the bowman demanded of Fatty.

Uh-oh. This isn’t going to go well
…

“What’re we going to do?” Pond whispered to Edmund. “We can’t just let him stand there by himself. They’ll shoot him!”

From a nearby lake, a loon cried mournfully.

Drawing his sword as quietly as he could, Edmund peered between the rustling reeds. The dark outlines of the three riders were swathed in murky air, yet even through the fog he could see they were formidable fighters, tall and muscled.

“Speak!” the bowman commanded, his horse inching closer to the whimpering Fatty. He pulled his bowstring further back. “Who are you, and what business do you have on this road?”

Fatty started sobbing—the guttural gurgling of a scared animal.

“We have to do something,” Pond said to Edmund. “They’ll kill him.”

Without waiting, Pond stood and called out, “Don’t!”

One of the riders wheeled his horse in Pond’s direction, raising his spear above a round shield.

“Who’s there?” he shouted into the mist. “Come forth! Come forth this instant!”

Sword in hand, Edmund sloshed his way through the mud and cattails, following Pond, an algae-covered Becky by his side.

“There’s only t-two, two of us,” Edmund said, grey wisps gliding past them. “Two of us and a dog.”

“And the big fella can’t speak,” Pond added, scrambling up the rocky embankment. “Don’t shoot him.”

One of the riders cursed. “He’s not a troll. He’s that blasted moron from Dardenello!”

“We should just shoot him and end his miserable existence,” the other rider grumbled.

“Hush,” the bowman said and turned his arrow toward the dripping Edmund and Pond as they reached the road. “Let us first hear what this is about.”

Edmund noted their shields. They were dented and scuffed with frequent use, though their center emblems of a white tower in a crimson field were brightly polished.

“Sheathe your sword,” the bowman commanded, “and come closer. I want to see your faces.”

Pond approached the riders, hands raised, thick mud and marsh water dribbling from his boots. Edmund didn’t move.

“Sheathe your sword,” the bowman repeated, drawing the bowstring to his ear.

“First tell me who you are and who you serve,” Edmund said. “If I’m g-g-going, if I’m going to die with an arrow in my chest, I’d rather have a sword in my hand.”

“We are Guards of the Road,” the bowman replied. “We serve King Ambrose, Prince Raymond, and the people of Havendor. And you can die in any manner you wish.”

Reluctantly sheathing his sword, Edmund strode forward with as much dignity as he could manage with cattails in his hair and boots that squished with each step. Beside him, Becky growled at the well-groomed horses.

“That’s close enough,” the bowman said. “You’re not goblins, that’s plain. But who are you, and what are you doing on this road?”

“Goblins?” Edmund repeated, examining the three men.

Each wore helms of interwoven chain link and carried long, double-bladed swords suitable for battle on horseback at their waists. Their chestnut destriers wore matching barding covered by white linen, drenched by early morning dew and splattered with dark mud.

“I am Edmund,” he said and immediately regretted it. He’d been wanting to use a different name but couldn’t come up with one quick enough. “This is my companion, Mr. Pond.”

Pond bowed.

“And you are apparently acquainted with our friend.” Edmund motioned to Fatty standing behind them like an obese quivering statue. “If you w-w-wish … if you wish to know, the dog’s name is Becky, though she rarely answers to it.”

Becky stopped growling, her attention suddenly diverted by a pair of black-headed cranes taking flight from deeper in the swamp.

Not far away, a loon cried again. On the other side of the road, another answered.

“You’re from Dardenello,” the road guard on the left said, lowering his spear and shield.

“We are,” Edmund replied.

Don’t say too much. Just ask them where you are and bid them a good day.

“You’re that fellow who bought Moron here with a ring.” The rider turned to his companions. “The diamond was said to be as large as a thumbnail.”

Wonderful. Word is spreading like wildfire. Every thief and cutpurse will be looking to steal from you. Abby was right.

Abby
…

The bowman lowered his bow, slackening the string. He lifted a hand and bid his comrades to be quiet. “Let us not gossip like women. There is evil afoot and we have tasks to perform.”

“Evil?” Pond said. “That’s all we need.”

“Now, Mr. Edmund,” the bowman said. “I have heard of you, though what I have heard may not be the King’s Truth. Still, by all accounts, you are in good standing with Baroness Melody, and I trust her judgment.” He reined his horse to the side of the road. “You and your companions may continue along your way, though I suggest you not tarry. There are more than just travelers and their hounds hiding in these bleak swamps.”