Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (18 page)

“You should die for what you have done,” Jessica snarled, her face twisted with rage. Little bits of saliva shot from her mouth and settled on Hemlock’s face. “You kidnapped my child and put her life in danger. The only reason I’m going to let you live is we might need you to help us rescue her.”

“Jessica,” said Blake. “You’re right, of course. But perhaps it would better serve the mission to locate Stephanie and get home if we temporarily put aside our differences with Hemlock here and, instead, concentrated on working with Rolan. What do I call you? King? Your Majesty? Your Highness?”

Jessica released her grip of the wizard, shoving him away from her with a growl of anger. She had learned something valuable, however. She had seen genuine fear in his eyes. That meant he could be harmed, maybe not at home, but probably here. That might be important. Time would tell.

“Rolan will be fine. Entirely appropriate under the circumstances.” replied the King. Two things were obvious: First, he was trying to be gracious, and that seemed sincere enough, and second, he was clearly deathly afraid of the possible consequences of his son’s and their daughter’s capture.

“Please, let us sit and have my military advisors do what their name suggests, give us the best possible advice as to how to proceed. I have already summoned as many as can be spared from the actual war efforts. They will be here shortly. I’m sorry I cannot include one of my fine wizards in the discussion, but the plain truth is they are all engaged in battles even as we speak. I’m afraid that we are facing circumstances as grave as I have ever seen. We are in danger of being overwhelmed by the combined Troll/Gnome forces. Our situation is clearly perilous. You must understand this.”

“First of all, how do you know of us and, for example, that our daughter has been captured by the Troll nation, or that we even have a daughter for that matter? Do you know our names?” asked Blake.

A door opened behind the King. In filed three soldiers. All three looked like they had just stepped off the battlefield. They looked that way because they had.

“To make it simple, I know of you, Blake and Jessica Strong, from a discussion I had with Pinus here,” he answered, gesturing towards Hemlock.

Jessica turned to glare at him. He vanished.

“His name is Pinus?” asked Blake.

“Yes. Pinus Porphyrius,” answered the King, “although he has always gone by many names, Hemlock among them.” Looking towards the now empty space where moments before Pinus had stood, the King said, “He does that.” He continued. “I will deal with him when he shows up again. He will. Meanwhile, in view of the fact we are fighting for our very lives here, I must confess I gave the whole thing less thought than I should have. But that was then, and this is now. We need a plan to rescue the children. Blake, Jessica, my best officers: Thargen Sturdy, my second in command, Borok Dodson, Minister of Planning and Escapes, and Dorin Esselt, Minister of Strategic Unit Deployment.”

Each man nodded as their King introduced them. Only Dorin managed a bleak smile.

Blake was the first to notice that Dorin was bleeding significantly from a large gash in his left arm. All were bloodstained, but this was something that obviously needed immediate attention.

“Take your shirt off and let me look at that arm,” he said.

Dorin looked at Rolan, not knowing what to do. “Don’t look at him, man, do as I say. I’m a Doctor of Medicine. On the battlefield, I would never question an order by you, but this is my battlefield. Take off your shirt, or bleed to death, your choice. But if you’re going to have a role in the rescue of my daughter, I would rather have you alive.”

“Do as he says,” said Rolan. “It is as he says. He is a healer where he comes from.”

“Right here, in front of the lady?” he asked. His face reddened noticeably as he asked the question.

“She is a healer as well,” said Rolan. “And where they are from, the women and men healers both take care of men and women.”

“And where might that be, My Lord, if I may be permitted to ask?”

“That is a discussion for another time,” said Rolan. His tone said much more. It said, “Drop it.”

While Blake attended to Dorin’s medical needs, and Thargen and Borok ran the war as best they could by talking to a constant stream of junior officers needing orders, Jessica pressed Rolan for as much information as she could. He repeated the story that Lieutenant Baird had told earlier that day of the capture of the two children, and how it was believed that they were both still alive. He told her that they were both undoubtedly being taken to the capital city of Slova, and tried to sound hopeful that they might be able to come up with a plan to rescue them, making sure to add that Thargen himself had once escaped from the great fortress. She learned that Rolan had known Pinus Porphyrius for his entire life, and that he did not seem to have aged a day in all that time. He went on to tell her that the wizard had done many wonderful things for the Ravenwild citizens, both of a military and non-military nature, and that he was known throughout Ravenwild, from the larger cities to the smallest villages, and that he was known to appear and disappear in the blink of an eye, often with no goodbye. Nobody had ever known where he was from, he said, or where he called home, but wizards were like that. Mysterious, secretive, some might even say a strange lot. But this was the first that the King had ever heard of an otherworld theme to one of his tricks. “But,” he said, “he
did
tell me. He could have kept it all a secret from me and, despite my objection, he absolutely insisted that it was essential that it happen, and because I have known him for as long as I have been alive, and for all that he has done for us, well … ” his train of thought wandered off. “But now …” His face was pale, lined with worry.

Being King in a land at war was hard enough, but when it was your own, when it was personal, it was a totally different affair. Jessica knew he wasn’t faking it. It was his child as well.

Rolan, Jessica, Blake, Thargen, Dorin, and Borok were all seated at the Great Table.

“Dorin, Borok, and I feel that the rescue attempt must consist of three phases. First, an all-out penetration by our spies in and around Ghasten. We must know the exact whereabouts of the children. My guess would be the dungeons at the castle itself, but we cannot be sure. Malance Venomisis will remember that I have been there. Accordingly, he might elect to move them quickly elsewhere out of fear that my direct knowledge of the castle, and in particular my escape, might make housing them there less than perfect, strategically. So first, we find out exactly where they are. Second, we need to journey to Mount Gothic as soon as possible. The wizard Taber is there. It is impossible to think we could succeed in rescuing the children unharmed, either in Ghasten or wherever he takes them, without the wizard’s magic. We will need to be shrouded. And we will need his sorcery to fight our way out. Trickery to get in. Overwhelming force to get out. He is our only hope. Third, assuming they are in Ghasten, once we have secured them we will make for The Gate. It is the closest point. Speed will be of the utmost importance. Once the shroud fails, for Taber could not possibly maintain it for the whole journey out, and perhaps not even for the entire journey in, we will need to run for it, and they will be after us with every soldier that Malance Venomisis can spare, but, with some luck, we will make it. We know, of course, that it is severely undermanned, and flanked, but having Taber there will only serve to shore it up.”

There was a loud crash as both doors of the Great Hall were flung forcefully inward by the guards to admit Luke, The Conqueror. Only a man of his stature in Rolan’s military machine could get away with this; his words made it obvious why he did what he did, “My Lord. The Trolls have succeeded in breaching The Great Wall. You will get to the tunnels. Immediately. Borok, Dorin, you will accompany the King until you have cleared Belcourt and he has made safe haven on Pine Island. It is the last safe place. The Gnomes now hold everything North of Belcourt, all the way to Dark Hollow and the Forbidden Region. I have just gotten word that not only does the Gnome army control all of this land, in Westeryl they have set up a full garrison, with central mess area, a complete armory, reconnaissance, prisoner facility, the whole business. Sire, our army is devastated. There is little chance we can survive this, now that they have broken through the Great Wall.”

His eyes became downcast. It was as though he felt personally responsible for the first violation of the Great Wall in its history. He continued slowly, with great deliberation. “We must get you to the island. From there, you know where we will all have to go.”

He glanced at Blake and Jessica. Clearly he was not about to give away future movements of the King without knowing his audience. “Right now, you and the Queen can only think of survival. And as many of the remaining forces as we can round up must survive as well, if there is to be any hope for us.”

Rolan looked his Commander hard in the eye. “There is always hope, Luke. Always.” Blake looked at Jessica. It sure didn’t sound hopeful.

Luke continued. “The Trolls obviously hold the South, and are by now pouring over The Wall. It will take them days to make the trees, weeks, perhaps, if we can hold them off, but we need to get you to the island. The Queen is there. She is safe, thanks to the wizard Paulimas. At least as of my last report.”

It was the King’s turn to speak. “This is Blake and Jessica Strong. They have a right to any and all information you would give to me. I grant them the same authority in this regard that I grant the rest of you here. Now, we go.”

As he was finishing, he had already begun moving swiftly towards the back of the Great Hall. He motioned for Blake and Jessica to follow him. His final orders to Ravenwild’s military leadership were, “We meet at the end of the tunnel. Final retreat. That is also the order for the remainder of our citizens and fighting forces. Final retreat. Make it happen without delay.”

His commanders saluted him, sword arm across heart, and went out a side entrance to enforce his command.

Both Blake and Jessica were impressed with the complexity of the tunnel system underneath the castle as they sprinted further and further along in the underground network that exited the fortress under the north end. They passed dozens and dozens of rooms, all filled with foodstuffs, weapons, body armor, and a great range of supplies to outfit the retreating forces, as they raced away from the danger above them. The thing that stuck out the most as they ran along the halls that grew darker and darker was how the lights behind them winked out as they passed by, leaving everything completely black.

“A little trick by our wizard Taber,” Rolan called out softly. “Hopefully, it will help our troops when they are being pursued where we now run. I suspect many will have to fight their way out of here very soon.”

And with that they ran on. They were heavily armed, all of them, with food and water in the packs on their backs, and it looked like at least Rolan not only knew where they were going, but had ordered the things necessary for such a fall back that might actually work for a while, at least long enough so that they could recover their daughter and get the heck out of this nightmare. Those were Jessica’s thoughts as they ran along. Blake’s were much the same as he concentrated on his breathing. He flashed back to his orientation at Naval Hospital Groton, in Groton, CT, where he had done a brief tour of duty as a submariner. It was shortly after he had graduated from college, and most of the reason he had signed up was that they had the best broadsword instructor in the country. He had never lost in the nationals. Jessica, in fact, was the only competitor to have fought him to a tie. This was where they had met. Her blade of choice had been the fencing foil, but he had quickly converted her to broadsword. Many a night they had dueled long after the other swordsmen had gone home, or out for pizza and a beer. Each had wanted the national title. Each had won it. “Who ever thought that we would really
need
this skill in real life,” thought Blake. “Breathe, breathe, breathe.” The air grew heavier, wetter. It began to smell of mold. Soon, a fine mist began to surround them. It clung to them like the embrace of an old aunt who doesn’t know when to drop it. In the distance they could hear the sound of running water, which grew louder and louder as they ran along.