Techromancy Scrolls: Soras (17 page)

We fed and watered our horses and gave them long tethers to graze on the green grasses that seemed to grow everywhere in the Hinterland Forest, even with not much sunlight getting through the thick canopy of leaves. It was so different than the west side.

Then we settled on our bedrolls and ate a meal of jerky, dried berries and nuts, and some flatbread that was still soft in the middle. I stood and stretched and said, “I have first watch.” Ranelle cocked an eyebrow then inclined her head, then nudged her chin at Penelope, who hopped up and grabbed her bow, heading the opposite direction I was heading.

I inclined my head and went to the top of the overhang to watch the three sisters as they did their monthly dance around each other in the night sky. I absently wondered if Celeste was gazing upon them wherever she was this evening. I missed having her by my side. I saw a bright flash on Mother Luna and I closed my eyes and made a wish upon the debris strike.

I split my time between watching the others sleeping below and gazing at the stars and the debris ring around the Earth. I grabbed a stick from the ground and pulled my dagger from my boot and absently whittled the wood as I sat to watch. I wasn't artistically inclined, so my whittling skill entailed making a big stick into a smaller stick, but it helped pass the time.

The sky was starting to cloud over, hiding the sky and darkening the night when Roman stepped up beside me. I looked up at the man. He looked haunted as he stared in the direction of the sea then down at me and he offered a hand. I sheathed my dagger then took his hand and he hoisted me to my feet and I gave him an acknowledging nod. We'd get Udele back. Then I made my way back down to camp. Penelope was arriving back at the same time. Sara must have relieved her.

We exchanged smiles then I laid on my bedroll and pulled my cloak tight around me, it was warmer than any blanket in the slight chill of the summer night. I was asleep before my eyes are fully closed.

I awoke screaming, with Ranelle's hand over my mouth. I blinked away the vision. The dark knights were in pursuit. A man wielding so much power. My world was pain, but I searched for something as I was being pursued. It was Celeste, something about Celeste. The vision was clearer and more detailed now, it was getting closer.

The phantom pain receded and I nodded to Ranelle, I'd be alright now. She uncovered my mouth, there were four sets of concerned eyes looking at me. I shook my head. “Just the vision again. There was something about Celeste and a man with great power pursuing me. There was so much pain.”

Roman asked toward Ranelle, “Transference?” He didn't know the extent of my visions.

She just nodded once.

I assured her as she looked at me, “I'm fine now.”

She nodded and moved back.

Roman offered up in a low voice, “There was that bearded vrajitor I saw with Mother. Perhaps he was the one in your vision.”

I thought about the man perusing me he did have a shaggy dark beard shot through with silver and long shaggy dark hair. I nodded. “It could be.”

We packed up our gear and stowed them on our horses then mounted up. Ranelle looked back to Roman. “Where is this island?”

He pointed down at the Sea that now looked even more majestic and daunting than it did from so far off. “Just south of Fisherman's Point, in the Throat.” The Throat was one of the two fingers of land that extended into the main body of the sea.

I mentally pictured the map in my head. It was about a two day's ride around the base of the sea from the Keep and around to the Throat. It was also where the bard songs told of where the stronghold of Lord Cedric was swallowed by the sea.

Ranelle nodded and turned us south on another marked game trail. I could see Fisherman's Point below from our vantage point, it was the narrow gulf of water between the two fingers of land. No more than a half day's ride away.

We continued in silence, moving swiftly. At one point we had to cross the Ring as we neared the sprawling waters. Sara took the lead and she held her hand up in a fist, just like we knights did to signal to stop and wait. A patrol of two knights in the orange and green of Solomon trotted past, heading north. After a couple minutes, she signaled us forward and we skirted the forest away from the roads into the village.

We ate as we went along to keep up our strength as Father Sol sat high in the sky, it was around noon. I missed the luxury of Celeste's miniature wrist clock.

We saw cottages and other buildings start to pop up sporadically. The spacing growing denser and denser as we moved along. Soon we were paralleling the large fishing village of Fisherman's Point. It looked the size of Owensdale, and I knew it was one of the smaller towns around the Great Sea. Only Highland had a larger population than Solomon, the jewel of the Lower Ten.

They had two proper cities in the realm as well. It would be amazing to see such a metropolis. One was the thriving metropolis built around the Keep itself, which had more people alone than lived in the entire realm of Wexbury. The other was Cedric's Gateway on the north banks of the sea, named after the founder of Solomon.

Everywhere I looked through the trees at the village as we passed I could see docks stretching out into the waters with boats lashed tot he docks. I could see sailboats moving about in the waters as far as the eye could see. And there was a monster of a sloop tied off to one dock. It had to be seventy or eighty feet long. It made the Mermaid look like a minnow. I could see another one coming into the docks farther down the bank.

I whispered to Rain, “Such huge boats.”

She shook her head. “The Altii call it a ship, not a boat. They even have ships which dwarf those, with multiple masts and sails. They use them to transport huge loads across the sea, or for large-scale fishing with nets they drag behind them.”

I shook my head in disbelief. Was there nothing we couldn't accomplish in these modern times? I absently wondered if Bex's invention of the Auto-Wagon could somehow help ships move more quickly through the waters.

We continued forward and farther away from the road and deeper into the woods as we left Fisherman's Point behind. After an hour of travel, Roman slowed us and dismounted. We followed suit and gathered around him.

He whispered, “The Solomon patrols don't go this deep into the throat. But this is where I started seeing these dark knights patrolling. We need to move even more stealthily, it would be better if we led the horses on foot.”

We nodded and he took the lead, followed by Sara, Ranelle and me, with Penelope guarding our backs.

Our eyes were constantly scanning the forest, including the trees. This I could do, I did the local patrols with Celeste and Bowyn from time to time. They are still giving me the years of training which I should have received when I was but a squire.

An hour later we saw a man in that dark armor and cloak slowly making his way through the trees. We moved down into a small hollow and waited as our blonde archer kept her bow trained on the unsuspecting man until he passed by. We all exhaled in relief. I could hear the creak of Penelope's bow as she released the tension on the bowstring, then she slipped the arrow back into her quiver.

We waited in silence for five more minutes to make sure he was alone and not circling back before we headed east again.

We paused as we saw Father Sol starting to dip below the Whispering Walls. I was beginning to ponder just how much farther we needed to travel. Between riding and walking for over four hours, I was wondering just how deep the Throat of the sea was.

Then we paused as the forest thinned a bit. There was a rocky beach just ahead of us with two dark knights patrolling. Roman pointed out into the water and I could see an island, not more that five hundred yards out, with the ruins of a great castle stronghold rising up from it like the bones of a long dead ancient beast.

There were a couple towers still mostly intact. Two-thirds of the outer defensive wall was mostly intact but crumbling, whether, from time or the cataclysm that separated the keep from the land, it was unclear. Nature had been diligent in reclaiming the island for its own over the centuries. Most of the ruins were overrun with trees and vines.

Ranelle held her hand out as we hid behind some underbrush. I automatically withdrew my spyglass from my pouch and handed it to her. Hey! It was so ingrained in me from being with Celeste that I hadn't even thought about it. Why don't these women ever get a spyglass of their own? I grinned, knowing I really didn't mind, it made me feel useful. So I waited as she studied the ruins until I could look at them myself.

I scanned the ruins with my spyglass, they were impressive even at this distance, I paused where the main portcullis should have been. The upper wall had crumbled to block the archway, most likely during the earth rumble. A small section had been cleared away, just wide enough to walk through. Two heavily armed dark knights guarded the narrow passageway. I could see no one else.

There were five large rowboats tied off to the rocky shore of the island and I wondered how many people were inside. I turned my gaze to the shore and just a way down from the patrol was a pen with possibly twenty saddled horses.

I lowered the spyglass and nudged my head toward the horses. The Greva acknowledged it. We were seriously outnumbered if there were twenty knights in the ruins. We'd have to be smart, stealth was truly the order of the day.

We pulled back and had a whispered conversation.

Roman said, “I see no other entrance, so we have to get past the guards somehow without their notice?”

I started humming the next verse of ‘Ode to the Sea’ as Ranelle asked, “A diversion then?”

Sara shook her head. “Without knowing exactly where Mother Udele is being held, they would realize it was a diversion before we could extract her. The walls must hold two or three square miles, they must have had a small village in there. And that narrow passage is a choke point and we would be easily picked off.”

I finished humming the verse and whispered with excitement, “There is another way.”

All eyes turned to me and I explained, “The next verse of the song tells of how the people were trapped but Lord Cedric led them through the bolthole to safety.”

They stared at me like I was speaking an unknown language. So I sighed and just sang the refrain quietly for them, it had an odd cadence compared to the first verse and it always sounded like there lines some were missing. Maybe over time, some had been forgotten.

As the gate walls fell

Lord Cedric did yell

To his people, he bid the bolthole

Holding the walls on his back

Growling defiance did he

As his people did flee

Then followed to the boats and he smiled

Twas a great Lord indeed, who saved every last man, woman, and child

Pen asked, “Bolthole?”

Ahh, that was their confusion. I blushed at having embarrassed myself by singing again. I asked, “You don't know what a bolthole is?”

Ranelle shook her head and I explained, “Every keep and castle has a bolthole. It is a secret exit used by the Dukes and Duchesses to escape if the castle is overrun. They are closely guarded secrets. There are trained masons in every Dukes guard, who lay the foundations for any new keeps or castles. So when the other masons are brought in to construct the castle, the bolthole is already in place and none of the workers know of its existence.”

I learned of the location of the one in Wexbury Keep after I was knighted. All Knights knew of it so they could guard the evacuation the Duke and Duchess if they ever needed to be spirited away. May that day never come.

There was a false floor on the sub level of the barracks, the stone cover slid aside to reveal a stairway. The passage below it exited in the large tunnel beneath the castle on the outside of the large iron gates that were sunk into the bottom of the Hawktail River as it flowed through the keep. A little boat was hidden up in the shadows of the alcove, that they could use to make their way upstream in the shadow of the Grove and get to safety where a contingent of Knights of the realm would be waiting.

I smiled. “Lord Cedric had used his to evacuate the entire village when the main gates were blocked.” Then I thought about my vision. What had I seen behind Mother Udele when my point of view changed to face her? I tried to replay the sweeping, blurred vision.

I was peripherally aware that my power of the spirit started streaming from me like a soft explosion of white mist being pushed away by a stiff breeze. I could see the vision again, much slower. I pulled myself out of it before Udele spoke those words that hurt from the power she put into them.

I felt exhausted as the mists faded, but I turned to Ranelle, who looked like a beacon of white as my power disappeared. I whispered excitedly, “I know where they are holding her! In the castle dungeon, I saw the bars in my vision.”

The ruling minstrel smiled crookedly at me then turned to the others. “Now we need to figure out how to get to the island and find this bolthole without being detected.”

Roman offered as he squinted at the island, deep in thought, “If Sora Laney is right, then this bolthole would be on the backside of the island, that is where the towers are, so it stands to reason that is where the castle was located in the keep.”

He looked back toward Fisherman's Point and then to us and said, “There is a Gypsy dock not far from here, one of our fishing access points that Solomon gifted us back yon. We can use one of the boats to approach the island from the sea, and locate this bolthole.”

We nodded and then Pen asked, “Once we have her, what then? The alarm would be raised, every knight in Solomon would be on the lookout for us.”

Ranelle studied me with the most serious look I have seen on her face. She was not the joyful, laughing minstrel I first met. At that moment, she was the Great Mother of all the Mountain Gypsy clans. I swallowed under that piercing gaze which seemed to be taking my true measure like she could see inside me to the frightened girl I tried not to show.

Then she asked in a voice that sounded cold and detached like I would imagine from a noble of great standing. “In your heart Laney, do you truly believe these dark knights are acting on behest of someone else, not the will of the realms of the Altii?”

I swallowed again and searched deep inside. Beyond my knee-jerk reaction of denial. Did I truly believe that one of the Lower Ten would actually risk war by perpetrating such an act against the Mountain Gypsies? That a Knight of any realm would possibly kidnap and torture an old woman who's only crime was loving her people? Was there anything that our Duke could say to us, that could make our own knights do such a deed even if ordered? The answer was a resounding no.

I whispered as I shook my head, “We Altii may be young, but we are honorable people. Sure we have some bad elements among us, and tend toward violence at times, but on the whole, we are decent. I think these dark knights are operating on their own agenda and Solomon is not aware of their deeds. I can't imagine what they have taken Mother Udele for.”