Deliverance (25 page)

Of course, even Blaze knew that this was
going to be much easier said than done.

****

On the first day of his journey, Blaze made
it back to the river, crossed it, and found his way to the other
river. There were soldiers every now and then along the banks, but
thankfully, the areas were covered with enough hills that he could
navigate around them to avoid being seen. On occasion, he dared to
sneak into the soldier camps to steal supplies, such as a cloak to
cover his face and neck, a canteen with water, food, money, and a
few knifes he figured would come in handy.

He traveled east along the river, and even
though he was constantly exhausted, he only slept in areas he knew
he wouldn’t be found, and he didn’t sleep for more than an hour or
two at a time. On the second day, he figured he could cover more
ground if he had a horse, so he traveled south a short distance to
a village where he bought a horse with the money he stole from the
soldiers. He somehow didn’t attract the attention of the soldiers
nearby, and was even more thankful that the rancher who sold him
the horse didn’t recognize him from the wanted posters that the
soldiers had posted in the village. Blaze rode on his dark brown
horse the rest of the day and once again slept only a few hours
that night.

Blaze finally reached the edge of the forest
around Cartigo by noon on the third day. After tying his horse near
a small pond and giving him plenty of food, he set off towards the
wooded area. Upon arriving, he snuck around a group of trees and
happened to catch eye of several soldiers patrolling the area.

Damn, Saitar must’ve warned Bogdan I was
coming, Blaze thought. He began to carefully move to the side when
his foot caught something metal on the ground. Thinking at first
that it was an old horseshoe, Blaze went to kick it off of his
boot, when he realized that whatever it was, it was stuck in its
place.

He bent down to examine the object and
realized that it was not a horseshoe, but a handle that was
attached to a small wooden door in the ground. Overgrown roots and
weeds covered up the little door, and after brushing it all off,
Blaze pulled the handle and opened the door. Inside was a ladder
that led straight down into a tunnel. Blaze wondered if it might
lead to the castle, but then he remembered something Crystal told
him: she and Gavril had escaped the castle ten years before through
a tunnel that led just outside the forest.

He knew that Bogdan never found the tunnel,
so he decided that this was the best way to sneak into the castle.
He crawled inside and climbed down the ladder, quietly shutting the
little door behind him, and once his feet were on the ground, he
ventured forward into the unknown.

Thankfully, some holes in the ground let
light escape into the tunnel so that Blaze could see where he was
going. He walked and walked for a good while, and the further he
went, the more soldiers he could hear above him. The tunnel
continued forever, and curved and dipped downward or upward every
now and then. He could hear rats squeaking and scurrying away from
the sound of his boots splashing into small puddles of water. Just
when he thought he would be navigating the tunnel all day, a small
amount of sunlight shined on another ladder at the end of the
tunnel. Blaze grabbed onto it and climbed up to the ceiling where
another small, wooden door lie, and barely lifted it.

He slowly peeked through the crack and
didn’t see or hear anyone, so he lifted the door all the way and
came out of the tunnel. He realized he was in some kind of storage
room, and there was a small window that sunlight escaped through.
The room was small, and there were a few shelves with ceramic pots
and a few brooms leaned against the wall. The little door he came
through was covered with a rug and had fallen off when he lifted
it, so just in case, he placed the rug back on top of it.

He crept up to the door and pressed his ear
against it. After hearing nothing on the other side, he opened a
crack and peeked through it. He realized almost immediately that he
was in a corridor on the ground floor near the kitchen, and also
realized that the dungeon wasn’t far from there either. After
making sure that no guards were around, Blaze crept into the
hallway and darted off in the direction of the dungeon.

Blaze sneaked around several corridors as he
made his way to the east wing of the ground floor, and to his
annoyance, there was a guard stationed right by the entrance to the
dungeon. Dammit, he thought. He realized that he would have to get
rid of him somehow, and then he had an idea. When he raided the
soldier camp, Blaze had found some poison throwing darts, and he
had practiced with those after some halflings showed him how to do
it, so he decided to give it a shot.

When the guard looked in the opposite
direction and exposed his neck, Blaze swiftly flung his wrist and
shot the guard square in the neck. He dropped to the ground and
died almost instantly, and so Blaze hurried up and dragged him into
the dungeon door after unlocking it.

Blaze then closed the dungeon door, dressed
himself in the guard’s armor, and carried the guard’s body to an
empty cell, where he dropped the body down and left it. Blaze then
peeked through the bars of each cell, looking for a familiar face.
Several prisoners cried to him for mercy, but he ignored them.
Finally, he heard a familiar voice say, “That damned king of
theirs,” and Blaze instantly recognized it as Sigurd’s.

He ran in the direction of the voice and saw
Sigurd as well as Kerali, Maryn, Taryn, and an unconscious Thaddeus
in the cell as well. The old mage sat upright with his legs folded
and his eyes closed. He muttered dreamily when Blaze approached and
then with a loud gasp, Thaddeus awoke and stared straight at
him.

“Blaze! Is that you?” Thaddeus asked.

“Blaze?” Everyone exclaimed at once.

Blaze replied by removing the guard helmet,
exposing his face.

“AHA! You made it, my boy!” exclaimed
Thaddeus, who rose to his feet and ran to the cell bars to meet
Blaze.

“How DARE you show yourself after what
you’ve done!” Sigurd growled at Blaze, “If I had my axe, I swear
I’d—”

“Oh hush, Sigurd!” Thaddeus interrupted, “Do
you honestly think if Blaze actually did betray us he would risk
his life to sneak in here to help us?”

“What are you saying, Thaddeus?” asked
Kerali.

“Blaze is innocent,” Thaddeus replied.

“And how do you know that?” asked
Sigurd.

“I saw it! I saw him fighting that big
fellow . . . oh, what was his name?”

“Orodan,” Blaze clarified.

“Yes, Orodan! I saw Orodan tell you about
the mark and how Saitar used that to get information! As soon as I
did, I knew that the traitor could see the vision too, so I quickly
alerted you and put myself to sleep so that Saitar couldn’t see
anymore!” Thaddeus explained.

“So that’s why you told us not to wake you?”
Maryn asked.

“Exactly!” Thaddeus replied. He then turned
back to Blaze and said, “I am so relieved that you came, but you
need to find Crystal quickly! The wedding is in two hours!”

“I thought she was here?” Blaze replied.

“No, no, she’s been locked up somewhere
else. The ceremony will be in the hall on the third floor, from
what I hear,” replied the mage.

“Okay, we can split up and try to find her
before the wedding,” Blaze replied and then began shuffling through
the key ring.

“We stay here!” Sigurd barked.

Blaze paused and replied, “Why?”

“Sigurd is right. If the guards notice that
we are gone, they will immediately alert Bogdan, and Crystal will
be put in much more danger than she is already in. If you do not
find her before they notice we are gone, then she could get hurt
because of us. I refuse to take that chance,” Thaddeus said.

“By my axe, I will not disgrace her father’s
memory by putting her in more danger so I don’t have to stay in
this dirty cell. He was a great ruler and an even better person;
his daughter is no different,” Sigurd replied nobly.

“Yes, she has been a loyal friend as well as
a wonderful leader, and I will not let her be hurt,” Kerali
added.

“Don’t worry, Blaze. We’re tougher than we
look,” Maryn said.

“We can wait to get out of here a little
while longer,” Taryn added.

Blaze sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll find her
myself.”

“Oh and there’s something else you need to
do once you have gotten her out of Cartigo,” Thaddeus said.

“What?”

“While I was asleep, I had a vision of my
brother, Malcolm. He came to me and told me that the last Gaull
shard was with him, and that he took it to the Lost Realm when he
died. It lies there now!”

“The Lost Realm?” Blaze asked.

“Crystal will explain it. All Malcolm told
me was that the shard was there and that the two of you were needed
there. He also said that Crystal will be able to learn the secret
to holy magic if she goes there!” Thaddeus concluded.

“Okay, so does Crystal know how to get
there?” Blaze asked.

“No, so you will need to visit the City of
Magi to consult with the elders about it, and they can also remove
this,” replied Thaddeus, who then pointed to Blaze’s neck where the
tracking mark was.

“Good, because this thing is more trouble
than it’s worth,” Blaze replied.

“By the way, what happened to Gavril?” asked
Thaddeus.

It just dawned on Blaze that the general
wasn’t in there, so obviously after the incident by the river, he
hadn’t been captured.

“We got separated . . .” Blaze replied.

“Oh, well, I suppose you can find him
later.” replied Thaddeus, “Now go, hurry!”

With a nod, Blaze replaced his helmet and
darted off down the corridor and out of the dungeon.

CHAPTER 17

Gavril carefully snuck around the edge of
the forest outside of Cartigo to find a way past the soldiers
stationed throughout the area. He saw all the soldiers in the
surrounding forest, and even though he didn’t know why they were
there, he knew there was only one way into the castle. He continued
to search until he found the trap door he was looking for at the
foot of a large tree. When he saw it, he went to open it, but
realized something was odd; it had been opened recently.

“Don’t tell me they found this,” he
muttered.

The young rebel traveling alongside him
muttered back, “Wouldn’t they be stationed here, then?”

“Maybe, but there’s plenty of open area for
us to get away from an ambush, so they could be waiting to trap us
on the other side of the tunnel where there is no place to run,”
Gavril replied.

Whether he was right or not, he knew this
was the only option he had to find Crystal. For the past two days,
he traveled frantically south towards the rebel hideout. On his way
there, he ran into survivors of the attack on the hideout led by
the Daldussan General Orodan only a few hours after the team had
left. The shards they had collected were stolen and the whole
hideout was in complete ruin. Very few rebels survived, but those
who did found a place for the weaker people to hide and those who
could fight well enough traveled north to find their leader and
warn her.

Along the route to the Caris shrine, they
came across a weary Gavril, who informed them they had been
ambushed by Bogdan and that Crystal and the others had been
captured. They informed Gavril of their news as well. Despite what
they had just been through, the surviving rebels still wanted to
fight, so Gavril took temporary charge as leader and planned a
sneak attack on Cartigo to rescue their comrades.

“So what are your orders, Gavril?” asked the
rebel.

“We’ll move in one group at a time. I will
go in first and you can follow a little ways behind. When I see
that it is safe to go in, you can go back and inform the others to
come in as well,” Gavril commanded.

“Yes sir!” the rebel replied.

After they told the other rebels the plan,
Gavril and the younger rebel traveled through the tunnel under the
city. They walked carefully with their swords drawn in front and
upon reaching the end, Gavril instructed the rebel to stay his
ground. The former general then emerged from the tunnel after
making sure it was clear. He then inched closer to the door and
stopped dead in his tracks when he heard two male voices just
outside the door.

“My, you make a wonderful groom, Lord
Valamar.”

Gavril recognized that as Saitar’s voice. He
then heard Valamar reply, “I have quite a luscious bride, as
well.”

Gavril had to calm himself from shaking
almost hard enough to shake the hilt of his sword.

“It amazes me how easy it was to get her to
agree to this. All we had to do was threaten to kill her friends
and she followed orders like a puppet,” Saitar coldly stated.

Gavril mouthed “son of a bitch” when he
heard this; he wanted to slice through all of them for taking
advantage of Crystal’s love for her friends.

“I can’t believe how easy it was to get her
to not only trust the prince, but to fall for him too, it seems. I
just loved the broken look on her face when Bogdan told the rebels
the truth,” Valamar replied.

Gavril could feel his face flush bright red.
Though he didn’t want to see it, it was evident that Crystal was
falling in love with Blaze, and the fact that he led her on only
angered Gavril more.

“Oh, but here is the best part, Blaze didn’t
turn them in,” Saitar replied.

Gavril’s heart sank and his face turned from
red to white.

“He didn’t?” asked a confused Valamar.

“Not willingly, no. You see, I saw the
little tracking mark they branded him with, and so I left my own
mark on it so that whenever Thaddeus would get a vision, I would
too. I soon could see that the rebels were gaining his trust, so
the king decided that there was no better way to crush their hopes
forever than to make them think Prince Blaze fooled them all,”
Saitar stated.