The Caravan Road (22 page)

“Hope, you and I will rest over there.  I’ll take the first watch tonight,” he announced.   “Andi, you take the second shift, Bauer, take third shift, and Marva, you’ll get to see the sun come up.”  He wasn’t going to trust the merchant brothers to be the only ones awake at night, he decided on the spot, even if it did mean extra shifts for himself and the others.

“Thank you for your trust, my lord,” Andi told him hours later when he woke her to assume her guard shift.  “I think you’re handling them just right,” she smiled as he crept into his own blankets by Hope and Bauer.

And with that the group settled into a routine of being two separate groups that travelled together and camped together, but had little interaction, other than when Alec or one of the Black Crag guards helped the brothers with some problem, typically a self-created problem that arose from ignorance, laziness, or over-frugality.

The two wiv
es were a mystery to Alec.  The extreme difference between the girls’
age
s and their husbands’
, their complete isolation from the rest of the group, and the notion that their origins were from the land of the Twenty Cities seemed inexplicable.  The girls were prettier than average, but timid as mice, and the language the husbands used
to
address the girls was crude and overbearing.  There was no logical explanation that Alec wanted to accept regarding how the wives came to be with the husbands, but he refrained from asking pointed questions, until the fourth day of the journey.

In the middle of the afternoon the group was traveling slower than Alec wanted, a result of the merchants’ continuing inability to properly lead their string of mules.  Dark clouds were on the horizon at noon, and were soon overhead, as the constant mountain breezes began to blow small, hard stinging pieces of ice and snow into their faces.  They were atop a long saddle in the mountains between two peaks, and there was no protection from the elements on any side when the intensity of the storm grew markedly, and Alec realized they needed shelter fast.

“Can you hurry the mules?” he asked Amos.  “We need to get to the next peak to get out of this wind.”

“They’re mules!  They don’t hurry up for any man – not me, not Aethos, and certainly not you!” the man bristled.

Alec took a deep breath.   Time and again the merchants had managed to irritate him, and he knew he needed to restrain his temper.  “I’m not going to hold the others back any longer,” Alec shouted through the wind.  “If you’re not going to move any faster, the rest of us are going to pick up the pace and get to someplace that’s sheltered.  We’ll try to come back to get you once we’re safe.”

“Don’t you dare tell me you’re going to leave us behind!” the man roared, as his brother came up from the rear of the mule train to find out what the shouting was about.

Alec paused.  He knew he was creating an unnecessary conflict; he had the power to project his Air energy over a wide enough arc to protect nearly the whole group.  But he was tired of the obstinacy the two large men had displayed, or even gone out of their way to flaunt, ever since the trip began.

“We’re leaving you behind.  We’ll be back when we can,” Alec said.  “You can send your wives with us if you want them to be safe.”

“And you can leave your little girly ‘ward’ and we’ll have some fun with her,” Aethos shouted back.  “Maybe we’ll just take her anyway.” The large man judged the distance from the other members of the group, and concluded he could isolate Alec before help could arrive.

Aethos drew his sword and swung it wildly at Alec.  With Warrior ingenaire speed, Alec ducked away from the blade and chopped his hand down hard on the back of Aethos’s neck, driving the man into the ground and into unconsciousness.

Amos charged hard at Alec, cracking the whip he used to drive the mules.  Alec ducked beneath the whip and ran at the man, tackling him as the mules continued to walk placidly past in the storm.

They disappeared from the view of the rest of the travelers as a squall blew heavy snow upon them.

“Alec?” Hope called.  “Is he going to be alright?” she asked Bauer.  Her opinion of Alec had risen since their journey in the mountains began.  She appreciated the protection Alec had given her in the face of the inappropriate interest that the merchants had shown.

“I saw him fight a demon once,” Bauer answered.  “Two fat men aren’t a challenge for Alec.”  As he spoke there was a break in the intensity of the snowfall, and Alec walked into view, striding along beside the mules, leading them at a faster pace than they had traveled before, even though two of them now carried the heavy burdens of the unconscious brother merchants.

“Come closer to me,” Alec shouted to the rest of the travelers, principally the skinny wives, who had fallen back behind everyone else during the short skirmish.  The power of the storm was increasing, and he could sense that the body temperatures of everyone present were dropping dangerously.  Alec knew he had to take steps to alleviate the stress they were experiencing; he extended his Air energy in a shallow half shell that dramatically redirected the biting penetration of the storm around them, making even the mules raise their heads in wonder at the instantaneous calm that enveloped them.

“What’s happening?” Andi asked, more fearful of the strange phenomena than she had been of the blizzard.

“It’s a chance to get to the mountains and find shelter,” Alec answered.  “Let’s keep moving.”

“What’s causing it?  I’ve never heard of anything like it before!” she spoke more softly, walking up next to Alec, her eyes darting in all directions.

“It’s you!  You’re doing it, aren’t you?” Hope said from his other side.

“That’s crazy!  This is something unnatural,” Andi replied.

Keep your tongue still
, Alec told her silently
.  Use your spirit.

You are doing this aren’t you?
She repeated her assertion silently, as a question.

Yes,
Alec agreed.

How?
The lokasenna asked.

I have many talents
, he replied.

But this is so big; you’re tampering with nature
, Hope protested.

I’m only using what God has made available in nature,
Alec corrected.

Can you do this any time?  Why haven’t you done more of this
? She asked. 
I’ve been freezing!

Alec turned to her and grinned; he hoped to not need to reveal all his abilities yet, so that the group would continue to move forward without coming to rely on him to make the journey unnaturally easy.

“You are mean!” Hope said aloud and punched his shoulder angrily.

“Here now, you can’t be punching the lord of Ridgeclimb,” Andi protested.

“We need to take advantage of this, whatever it is, and get to some place that will shelter us better,” Alec said loudly.  He walked back along the train of mules, checking each of them for any problems, adjusting bits a
n
d cinches, and urging them onward at a greater rate.

An hour later they reached a bend in the road where it began to hug the south side of a cliff, blocking the worst of the wind and the snow, and allowing Alec to cease the use of his energy.  The other side of the pathway was a steep slope downward, giving everyone reason to hug the mountainside to avoid the uneasy vertigo the open space on the left invoked.

Alec kept a continual watch over the two unconscious brothers, and observed that they each regained awareness within a few minutes of one another.  They slid off their rides on the opposite side of the mule train from Alec and muttered to each other for several minutes in an angry tone, but kept their distance from him.

As the sun began to fall, Alec brought the travelers to a halt, and told everyone to begin to prepare for the night.  “Why are we stopping now?  We could keep moving with the sunlight?” Amos spoke to him for the first time, while Aethos edged away from him.

“We’re just about to turn back into the wind,” Alec answered, “and I don’t think we want to be out exposed to the wind when night falls and we have to make camp.

“And there won’t be a camp fire tonight, we won’t be able to find enough tinder and wood around here to burn, so use all the blankets and wraps you have,” he added unnecessarily.

“We stop early, there’s no fire, and you beat us both when we’re paying your way,” Amos said.  “It’s time we put you back in your place.”

Alec!  Help!
Hope called, and Alec whirled to see that Aethos held the girl tightly, with a knife against her throat.

Hold still,
Alec answered, and then he astonished the entire group that was watching the tableau as he disappeared from view.  A second later, as each person other than Bauer reacted with loud astonishment, Aethos gave a strangled cry
then closed his eyes
, and as his arm slumped away from Hope’s neck, a knife suddenly flew across the camp space to land firmly in Amos’s chest.  Without a sound, Amos fell  to the ground, and Alec reappeared behind Hope, a bloody sword in his hand.

“Are you alright?” he asked, wiping his blade on Aethos’s cloak, then sheathing it.

Bauer rushed over to the pair and enveloped Hope in his arms, as the girl began to cry.  “I should have shifted shape and run away,” she sobbed to Bauer, “but I was frozen – too scared to do it.  And now those men are dead because I didn’t act fast enough.”

Bauer looked over the girl’s head at Alec, who stood up, and nodded for him to assure the girl she wasn’t responsible.

“I’m responsible for using the blades,” Alec told her, “not you.

“And they were responsible for threatening violence against you.  You didn’t cause that.  These were bad men; it was our misfortune to travel with them,” he assured her.  Alec placed his hand on her head, and used his Spiritual energy to offer her consolation. 
You are the victim, not the criminal, and my God does not hold you to blame for this
, he assured her.

Andi and Marva came cautiously over.  “What are you?” Marva asked.  “How did you do that?”

“I am an ingenaire,” Alec replied,
“
and I have special abilities.  There aren’t many people of my race her
e
in this part of the world.
”

“I know I saw what you did in the armory at Black Crag, and we both know the legends about you in the wars of succession for the empress, but I never thought I’d see something like that,” Marva said.

Alec gave a gentle smile, then saw past her, where the two newly widowed girls stood next to each other, on the far side of the mules, looking from Alec to each of the bodies of their suddenly deceased husbands.  He gave a sigh.  “Excuse me,” he told the other four, then walked calmly over to the girls.

“I am sorry that this has happened to your family.  We mean you no harm; you have done none of us wrong, and we will help you in any way we can,” he assured them.

There was a long silence.  “They were awful men, monsters,” one of the two said, Alec unable to distinguish them from each other.  “They would have killed us sooner or later after they were done using us.  Our family never would have sold us to them if they had known how bad those men were.

“Thank you,” the girl said unexpectedly, giving Alec pause.

“Can we move to a new place?  I don’t want to stay near them,” the other girl asked.

Alec looked about, seeing no easy way to bury the two bodies, although the amount of loose stones sticking up through the snow persuaded him they could pile a cairn over the dead men.  “Let’s cover their bodies, and then we can move a little further,” Alec agreed.

He instructed the group to gather together stones as he and Bauer moved the two bodies together on a small shelf of stone just below the edge of the trail.  They worked for nearly an hour and soon had the bodies covered to Alec’s satisfaction.

“Alright, we’re going to keep moving,” Alec told the assembled group, even though the sky was dark and the wind still howled.   He used his Light powers to create a glow around them and in front of them, touched each of them using his Healer powers to warm their body temperatures, then finally called upon his Air abilities to recreate the protective shield to keep the blizzard’s worst effects off of them.

Alec, you’ve grown tremendously
, Bauer told him.

The group started moving again, Marva and Andi assigned to keep the mules moving satisfactorily, as Alec led the way, intensifying the light in front of them that illuminated the path they followed.  For an hour the group moved along the slick and slippery caravan road, Alec instructing Hope to pick up any random pieces of wood she saw along the way, so that when they stopped the second time to set up their campsite for the night, Alec lit a fire that they were able to use for cooking and warmth.

When the time came to prepare to sleep for the night, Alec received the biggest surprise of the dramatic ending to the day.  He was talking to Andi, who listened to his every word with reverence, setting the guard rotation, when he observed the two widows begin talking to Hope; in the dim light of the campfire, Alec could see the lokasenna’s mouth hanging open in surprise, then to his surprise she waved her arm in a gesture, and the girls picked up his sleeping covers, and took the blankets with them to a separate sleeping spot.