Deliverance (24 page)

She heard Valamar stumble to his feet. He
then continued, “It would be a shame if they were executed the
minute they arrived because their leader was too cowardly to face
her fate. Go on and run if you want them to face the noose!”

Crystal stood shaking and clenching her
fists. Without turning around, she called back to him, “You bastard
. . .”

Valamar laughed and replied, “Well you are
too fussy to listen to me otherwise, and so when the king offered
to use them to keep you under my thumb, I had no choice but to
agree.”

Although she already knew the answer,
Crystal sighed and asked, “What do you want from me?”

“I want you as my wife, of course,” Valamar
replied. Crystal became nervous as she heard his steps coming
towards her, and even more so when he continued talking, “You and I
could have a glorious wedding here in the castle. I know you have
certainly dreamt of it as a child, didn’t you, my princess?”

Crystal clenched her fists so tightly that
she felt the skin of her palms start to tear. Valamar was so
heartless it made her sick. She kept her head bowed in the opposite
direction, and she suddenly heard Valamar’s footsteps stop right
behind her.

“If you say yes at the altar, I swear on my
fortunes that your friends will live. However, if you refuse, they
will be publicly executed . . .” Valamar paused, “. . . and I will
make you watch.”

Before Crystal realized she was moving, she
turned to face Valamar and swung her hand, slapping him across the
face. He rubbed the red spot on his cheek with almost no emotion
and then faced Crystal. He grabbed her by her arms again and pulled
her towards him, stopping her to wear her face was only an inch
from his. He was much taller than her, and so with his head tilted
downwards to face her, he looked down into her eyes and said, “I
will let that go this time, but defy me again and your friends will
die!”

With that, he placed his hand on the back of
her head and pulled her lips up to his. Crystal wanted to punch and
kick and scream at him, but after what he just said, she was
terrified of what would happen to her friends. The seconds felt
like hours, and even though she didn’t think she could want to
vomit any more than she already did, Valamar slipped his tongue
into her mouth, making her have to furiously fight back tears. Just
when she became overwhelmed with sickness and fear, Valamar pulled
away, licking his lips and smiling.

Crystal’s legs buckled underneath her and
she fell to her knees, wiping her mouth with her sleeves. Valamar
laughed under his breath and backed away.

“Even though it’s very hard to resist, I
know now you are a virgin, so I’ve decided to leave you unspoiled
until our wedding night. It’s awfully late, so I will have the
guards bring you to your room. We can begin our wedding plans in
the morning. Sweet dreams, my love,” he told her.

He then wiped his lips with a handkerchief
that he pulled out of his pocket, walked outside of the front door,
and called a few guards over. Within a few minutes, two guards were
walking on each a side of her and holding her arms by her sides.
They led her to a guest bedroom on one of the top floors and after
they shoved her inside, one of them locked the door from the
outside.

There Crystal stood, all alone, in a
slightly bigger bedroom than the biggest ones at Valamar’s mansion.
She saw the large canopy bed in the middle of the room and without
hesitation, she rushed over, fell face first onto the blanket, and
let all of her built up tears escape from her swollen eyes. She
screamed into the pillow when her emotion built up too much, and
she continued to wipe her lips. It seemed, however, no matter what
she did, she could not stop feeling his tongue against hers, and
once again, she felt the urge to puke.

Above all things there was one thing that
hurt her the most. When she was able to take a break from crying,
and with her face still buried into the blanket, she muttered,
“Blaze, how could you?”

****

Blaze realized he had fallen asleep in the
cave when he opened his eyes and early morning light was flooding
the cave. The rain had stopped, and when Blaze turned around, he
could see that the sun was barely under the line of the horizon. He
got to his feet and ventured outside, trying to figure out where he
was. He didn’t pay much attention to where he was going the night
before and as soon as he walked outside, even the approaching dawn
didn’t shed light on his situation.

Nothing around him seemed familiar, so he
decided to climb up the cliff surrounding the cave. He was roughly
three stories off of the ground, and when he looked in what he
assumed was the south, he saw what looked like a river in the
distance. Concluding that this was most likely the river near the
Caris shrine, he figured he must have run between half a mile and a
mile north, judging by where the light from the sun was coming
from.

Just when Blaze turned around to see if he
could see any more, he suddenly heard voices and his heart sank
when he saw three Daldussan soldiers coming out from behind a
boulder further up the cliff, but thankfully facing the opposite
direction.

“Shit!” Blaze instinctively, but very
quietly cursed as he dropped to the ground behind another serious
of rocks. He lay flat on his stomach, practically holding his
breath while listening to the soldiers talk to each other.

“Dammit, we’ve looked in this area three
times since before sunrise! Let’s just head back and tell the
general he’s not here!” one of them complained.

“Not a good idea; the general’s already
crabby because the king made him look for the prince and the other
rebel that escaped all night, so we hardly need yet another earful
from him!” another one replied.

“Orodan’s had his hands full since the
prince killed Perun. He’s gonna kill us if we don’t find him!” the
third one cried.

Blaze’s heart sank. So they were looking for
him, but why? Bogdan had Crystal and the others imprisoned, so why
worry about catching him now?

Just then, Blaze heard hurried footsteps
coming up the cliff, and then one of the soldiers said, “Where the
hell have you two been?”

“We just came from the cave at the foot of
this cliff; we checked in and out, but no sign of Prince Blaze,”
reported a man who Blaze assumed was another soldier. He then
realized what amazing luck he had waking up when he did. If he had
woken ten minutes later, he would be in chains already.

“Damn! We are so dead if we don’t find him!”
cried one of the soldiers.

“You double checked the cave?”

“Yes, every inch!”

“I say we all check again and then split up
and follow the foot of the cliff to see if he wandered off.”

With that, Blaze heard the footsteps leaving
and as he poked his head above the rocks, he saw five Daldussan
soldiers shuffling down the cliff. When they were out of sight and
earshot, Blaze heaved an enormous sigh of relief followed by a
nervous laugh. He sat shaking for a few minutes and finally managed
to get the feeling back in his legs, so he began to rise to his
feet.

However, his heart nearly stopped when
something grabbed his jacket and hoisted him off of the ground.
Once Blaze realized he was in midair, he turned around to see none
other than Orodan holding him several feet off of the ground.

“Thought you could hide, could you, Prince?”
the enormous general mocked in a deep, monstrous voice, “I’ve had
to spend the entire night looking for you!”

“Why were you looking for me?” Blaze
asked.

“That’s none of your business!” Orodan
bellowed, bringing his free hand to Blaze’s neck.

“The hell it’s not!” Blaze yelled in a
hoarse voice, “You know damned well I didn’t tell Bogdan about the
rebels! Now how did he find out?”

Orodan laughed and replied, “Of course you
told him! He got all of his information from you!”

“That’s a lie!” Blaze yelled even louder. He
attempted to reach for his sword, but Orodan grabbed it first,
unsheathed it, and threw it aside. While Orodan bellowed with
laughter, Blaze then kicked furiously in front of him, which hit
the enormous general but unfortunately did nothing to hurt him.

Orodan continued to roar with laughter at
Blaze’s feeble attempts to free himself, and he squeezed the
prince’s neck tighter with every kick. Blaze was finally able to
reach his boot and pull out the hidden dagger inside it. He stabbed
Orodan’s arm with all of his strength.

“OW! You son of a bitch!” Orodan roared. He
then released his grip on Blaze who then tumbled to the dirt.
Orodan pulled the knife out of his arm and threw it to the dirt
away from Blaze. He then turned back to the prince and said, “The
king said to bring you in dead or alive, so I have no problem
killing you here and dragging your corpse back to the castle.”
Without another word, Orodan then lunged at Blaze, gripped his neck
again, and pinned him against the ground.

Unarmed and out of options, Blaze knew he
had to think of something fast or else he would not live long
enough to see Crystal again. He would never see her smile, hear her
laugh, or look into her eyes again if he didn’t act quickly, and
that was all he needed to think of in order to come up with an
idea. Blaze reached his arm out to his side and searched
frantically for something he could use, and within seconds, he
found a fist-sized rock and readied it in a throwing position.

“HA! You could not hurt me with your legs,
so what makes you think that little pebble will hurt me?” Orodan
roared.

“I’m . . . not . . . aiming for . . . you!”
Blaze spat out. He then tossed the rock with all his might to the
bottom of a huge, but visibly unstable pile of boulders. The little
rock was all it took to shake the boulders out of place, and they
all began tumbling down hard. The distraction before they fell gave
Blaze enough time to slip out of Orodan’s grip just in time, and
the boulders piled on top of the massive general and buried him
alive. Thick as his skin and muscles were, they were no match for
the thousands of pounds of hard stone that crushed onto his
body.

As the boulders lay still and the dust began
to settle, Blaze coughed and hacked for air. Once he was able to
breathe normally again, he heard low, but desperate cries coming
from Orodan.

“Please . . . help,” the general hoarsely
muttered.

Blaze stood in horror. As the dust settled,
he could see the lower half of Orodan’s body had been crushed by
the stones and yet the poor bastard was still alive. Blood stained
the dirt around him and he pleaded, “Please . . . kill me!”

Blaze couldn’t believe what he saw, and
despite being taught to never show mercy in battle, he felt he had
no choice but to show pity. However, he knew he had to get answers
first.

“Tell me how Bogdan found out about the
rebels’ secrets, and I give you my word that I will kill you,”
Blaze ordered.

“A-all right,” Orodan replied. Unable to
look around and face Blaze, he pointed to his neck and muttered,
“The mark.”

Blaze put his hand on the left side of his
neck. “The tracking mark?”

“Yes. . . . Saitar . . . saw it . . . and
placed a spell on it. Anytime . . . the mage who put it on saw . .
. a vision of you . . . Saitar did too,” Orodan replied weakly.

Blaze then remembered the incident at the
ruins where they found the first shard and how Saitar had grabbed
his neck. He then concluded that that must have been when Saitar
did it. He also realized then and there that this was how Bogdan
knew about Valamar, because Thaddeus had had visions of that night.
His heart then sank when he thought of how he had called Crystal
“princess” in the mansion, and realized that it was his fault that
they found out who she was.

“Kill me, please!” Orodan cried.

Blaze snapped back to reality and replied,
“Very well.”

Blaze then lifted his sword and plunged it
straight through Orodan’s heart. The general then bled out and died
within seconds.

Blaze fell to his knees again after removing
his sword from Orodan’s chest. He felt so stupid for letting Saitar
take control of him like that and vowed to never be reckless in
battle again. At least now, he figured, he knew what was going on
and hopefully could try to find Crystal now. He didn’t know how he
would, however, if Saitar was seeing his every movement until he
got close enough to the castle.

Suddenly, Blaze’s vision became very cloudy
and he heard an echoing and booming voice in his head yelling,
“BLAZE! I AM SORRY I DIDN’T BELIEVE YOU!”

Blaze instantly recognized it as Thaddeus’s
voice. The old mage must be far enough away to have seen the whole
thing.

“I AM GOING TO PUT MYSELF UNDER A SPELL SO
THAT I WILL FALL INTO A DEEP SLEEP, SO DON’T WORRY THAT SAITAR WILL
SEE YOU! JUST SAVE CRYSTAL, BLAZE, HURRY! VALAMAR PLANS TO MARRY
HER DAY AFTER TOMORROW, SO YOU HAVE TO GET HER OUT OF HERE! GOOD
LUCK!” Thaddeus’s voice rang.

After that, the voice stopped and Blaze felt
normal again. Just save Crystal kept lingering in his head, but
Thaddeus didn’t need to tell him that for Blaze to know he had to
do it. He then realized that he needed to move quickly, because if
Saitar could tell the soldiers where he was, there was no doubt
that the place would be crawling with them soon. Before he left,
however, he shut Orodan’s eyelids and set up a smoke signal with
some nearby flint rocks so that other soldiers could locate the
general’s body and bury him.

It seemed that Crystal’s compassion had
finally rubbed off on Blaze, and frankly, he didn’t really care
anymore.

After looking up from the foot of the cliff
and making sure that the smoke signal could be seen, Blaze headed
off. Instead of heading straight east, however, he decided to move
back towards the Caris shrine, pass it, and go back to the river,
and follow it until he came near Cartigo. He would carefully
venture around the land trying to avoid the eyes of the law and
find a way to sneak into the castle.