The Lord Son's Travels (33 page)

“We’ve
lost nearly half of our men,” he said.
 
His tone was even; Brendan had to look again to see the anguish in his
eyes.
 
For once Brendan had nothing
to say.
 

A
familiar elf approached; Berte greeted them with no sense of recognition.
 
“Our King wishes to speak with
you.”
 
Behind him was the slightly
rotund figure of their leader.
 
He
spoke to Berte, who translated to the waiting group.

“We
had come to bring you evil tidings, though some you have already found.
 
Titaine is fallen to the monsters.
 
This group was merely a patrol.”

Silence
from all of the surviving soldiers.
 
They encircled their leader; too stunned to even chatter amongst
themselves.
 
Adrien turned from
translator to speaker and back.
 
“How…”

Another
burst of Elvish.
 
“We have been
told by our people that Titaine is not the only victim of invasion.
 
Other cities are under siege or have
been lost to the Pale Armies.”
 
Even Adrien blanched at the news.

Brendan’s
eyes darkened.
 
He snapped, “What
of Allé-dôn?”

The
elf reassured him that his homeland was one of the few still believed
safe.
 
Breixan, Lannon, all were falling
in the surprise invasions of the last few days.
 
Vast armies of monsters under the command of one called the
Lord of the Southlands, completely overpowering the defenses of the lands, all
within a couple of days.
 
Almost
all people within the confines of the Boundary Mountains had been touched by
the horror of war and occupation of monsters.

Berte
turned to Lord Vance.
 
“Your King
is safe with a group of our kin to the north.”
 
The Angor subject’s shoulders dropped in relief.
 
“We can offer you sanctuary from the
Pale Ones at this time,” Berte assured all of them.
 
“They do not dare to harm those within our reach.” Adrien
nodded.
 
The Elves as a general
rule never held weapons; but legends spoke in warning of the times they had
made exceptions.
 
Even the monsters
were not foolish enough to risk offending the Small Ones.
 
They had been very lucky this group had
happened upon them in time.
 

The
elf continued translating his leader.
 
“We shall not camp here long; a larger army may return, and we cannot guarantee
in these unusual times they will keep their distance.”
 
The elves excused themselves to the
larger group of soldiers still requiring their attention.
 
A tent had been set up as a kind of
field hospital to prepare the most injured for travel.
 
The remaining soldiers gathered there
to chew quietly on the terrible news of war as well as their own recent
losses.
 
The leaders of the
expedition were left alone again.

Brendan
had his head in his hands.
 
When he
looked up, his face was pale and drawn.
 
He turned to Adrien.
 
“What
are we going to do?”

Adrien
didn’t answer.
 
Instead he climbed
to his feet to gather his spare clothes from his saddlebag.
 
The stench of his stained wear was
becoming too much to bear, interrupting his thoughts when he desperately needed
some kind of order.
 
Quickly he
pulled off the offending shirt and threw it onto the fire.
 
Just as rapidly, he pulled on a clean
shirt, neglecting to tie it shut or tuck it in, then returned to their
circle.
 
Elenna sighed in relief,
finally able to face his way again without gagging.
  
Brendan glanced down at his own bloody clothing,
shrugged, and repeated his question.

“It
will do no good to continue on to the King,” Adrien said finally.
 
“With so few men, we would be nothing
but an amusement to this Pale Lord.
 
Especially since we have not been able to recreate his weaponry.”

“These
… fighters used no unusual weapons against us,” Lord Vance interjected in hope.

Adrien
explained, “They had not expected a battle.
 
These were merely a patrol.”

Brendan
shuddered at the thought.
 
“If all
the lands are falling at once, what kind of threat are we facing?”

“Does
any land stand a chance?” Lord Vance sighed.

“Allé-dôn
stands.
 
And as long as it does, so
do we.”

“So
we return to fight for our own land?”
 
Brendan asked, hoping.
 
But
Adrien shook his head.

“I
will not speak for you,” he said.
 
“But I am going West.”

“Adrien,
that makes no sense!”
 
The men had
almost forgotten the woman in their midst.
 
She had listened quietly, had assumed that the men would head
back to their homeland.
 
That, she
thought, would be the logical next step.
 
Allé-dôn, if what the elves said was correct, was the only place still
together enough to make up an army.
 
And without a lot of manpower they were done.
 
Picking a fight with these monsters, she thought, was the
equivalent of chopping off their own heads.
 
Even if she could make a working pistol.
 
The monsters were ugly, smelly, and
none too bright, but they had taught her a move or two that day.
 
Brendan and Adrien had dominated the
battle, but they did indeed have to break a sweat to do it.
 
And these were only patrols, not the
real fighters…

Adrien
turned to her.
 
“You should go with
Brendan back to Allé-dôn.
 
You’ll
be safe there.”

“We’re
not going back without you!” Elenna exclaimed.
 

Adrien’s
jaw tightened.
 
“Woman, you have no
idea what comes now.
 
Brendan, you
do.
 
The risks are too high.”

Brendan
shook his head.
 
“Neda Alia,
Adrien.
 
You must return now.”

“Not
so,” Adrien argued.
 
“Neda Alia
states only that all four blades must be raised for the protection of
Allé-dôn.
 
It does not say that all
the blades must be raised over the soil of Allé-dôn.”

This
conversation was meaningless to Elenna, but her thoughts were already filled
with her own righteousness.
 
“No,
Adrien. I have no idea what scheme has popped into your head; at this point, I
probably don’t want to know.
 
I’m
willing to bet, though, that it is not an especially bright idea to do it
alone."

Brendan’s
mouth opened a little.
 
She turned
on him. “And don’t give me any of your crap about protecting me.
 
I just kicked a lot of monster ass,
thank you very much, and I don’t need you treating me like your mother’s
favorite glass vase.”
 
Even in the
midst of their bleak situation, Adrien’s lips upturned slightly at Brendan’s
abashment.
  
“And if we know
anything,” she finished,
 
“My way
home is not in your hometown.”

Brendan
accepted his loss on that front, but continued his other argument with his
companion. “Elenna is correct that is too dangerous for you to go alone.”

Adrien
smiled wanly.
 
“Only one can
complete the quest, Brendan.”

“But
where in the legend does it say how many people can watch, my friend?” Brendan
rejoined.
 
“Haven’t we been through
this argument enough times yet for you to see you will not have your way?
 
I will not leave you,” he glanced to
Elenna, “and it seems my Lady will also insist on accompanying us.” Adrien
shook his head in defeat, though in his heart gratified by both of their
loyalties.
 

Satisfied,
Brendan turned to the woman at his side.
 
Before he could even open his mouth she tightened her lips and snarled,
“Don’t even!”
 
He nodded, already
aware of the uselessness of another attempt.
 
He wondered briefly if they could sneak away without her,
but as fast as the thought entered his mind it sped out quickly again, as he
imagined her setting off alone to find them.
 
One glance at her stubborn expression confirmed to him that
likelihood.
 
Well, he thought
brightly, she had held her own as well as any today.
 
Maybe…

Before
they could rise to their feet to begin their preparations, a small voice
stopped them.

“I
will go to my King,” said Lord Vance.
 
They turned as one to gaze as the older man.
 
His expression was steady as he clenched his ruined hand in
his other fist.
 
“The men will go
with me.
 
We may yet do something
for our land.”
 
All three of the
travelers thought back to the peaceful valley he and his family had called
home, and shuddered.
 
Only a few
guards left in Thrush Valley had any ability to use a weapon with any skill.
 
An image of silly Lady Rachele with her
maidens flashed in Elenna’s mind.
 
She swallowed deeply.
 

Adrien
crossed the circle to bow deeply before the older man.
 
“Lady guide you in your travels,” he
offered.
 
Lord Vance reached out
and grasped the younger Lord’s hand briefly with his uninjured hand.
 
“May the Lady guide us all.”

Within
the hour, all of the parties were ready to depart to their separate fates.
 
The remaining soldiers of Angor bowed
to their ex-commander with respect.
 
Amongst themselves they had expressed hope that he could be urged into
traveling their way, but their embassy had been politely refused.
 
As the shock of the battle slowly wore
off, they squared their shoulders, swallowed deeply, and prepared to meet
whichever Lady, Sorrow or Joy, they would find waiting for them on their
journey.
 
The most able of them
tried to lay to rest the bodies of their fallen comrades; the best they could
do was to bow their heads in silent salute, and cover them with bunches of the
golden grains in which they would lay.
 
Now they followed Lord Vance and the elves as they crossed the fields on
the other side of the abandoned road toward the north of the remains of the
capital.
 
The three original
travelers were left as they had before they met the people of Thrush Valley;
only with more worry and less hope for the future.

Adrien
turned to his companions.
 
“We ride
to the south.
 
We have supplies
enough if we supplement with game and forage.”
 
As soon as they had mounted, the group set off across the
open field.
 
They kept a quick
pace; eyes focused on the faint green blur of the tree line far ahead.
 
Within the rustle of the blades of
grains, Elenna tried hard not to hear the groans of the monsters they knew
would be returning to their abandoned site in search of the foolish
humans.
 
She kept her eyes locked on
Adrien’s back as they rode.

Conversation
died.
 
All three were fighting off
images from the battle they had fought that afternoon. Adrien and Elenna had
had prior experience at least; Brendan had up to that day only their reluctant
descriptions.
 
When he was a boy,
Brendan had dreamed nightly of monsters coming for him; he supposed he would
have simply gone out of his mind if he had known then that those nightmares had
been foretellings of his future.
 
Even so, this battle was nothing compared to the story the elves had
told.
 
He thought of his family
back in Allè-dènè and hoped fervently that they had spoken true and Allé-dôn
was yet safe.

Elenna
wished that her brain would go away again, as it had during the fighting;
perhaps forever, so the pictures it insisted on showing her of her actions
could be locked away from view.
 
She knew sleep would be torment for a long time to come.
 
God knew what those things were or how
they came to be, but she begged Him to let her wake in her own bed with no
memories of this crazy world.

Adrien
could only clench his jaw, and picture the faces he had seen at breakfast but
were not among the group of men traveling to their defeated king.

Chapter 32

They
reached the woods just before dusk.
 
This forest was the western boundary of a vast reach of evergreens. The
eastern boundary was the Sharp Sky mountain range, which divided the Eastlands
into two nearly equal pieces.
 
By
the time they crossed the mountains, they would have left the land of Angor and
entered Emaas.
 
Adrien estimated at
least a week until they would again see the sun unblocked by overhead evergreen
branches.
 
It was a thick forest;
dark and cool, but thankfully clear of thick underbrush that would have made
their traveling impossible.
 
It was
also empty of human life; no roads crossed it to provide travelers, nor were
any of its products valuable enough to lure entrepreneurs.
 
It wasn’t considered dangerous or
disreputable, but due to its lack of marketable goods it just never garnered
much interest among the settlers of the Eastlands.
 
It was never even named; or if it had been, no one now
remembered.
 
This was the perfect
route for them.

For
the next few days they traveled during the day.
 
As far as they could determine, the monsters had not sent
anyone to follow them, and any remaining pursuers from the Lord King certainly
had found something more important to do.
 
There was no path to follow.
 
The horses had to weave their way through the trees the best they
could.
 
The ground was level and
dry, so their work was not too difficult.
 
The sun during the day and the stars at night kept them traveling due
west.
 
As soon as the sun rose, so
did the travelers, though in the depths of the forest sunrise was only a change
from complete darkness to dimness.
 
They stopped only for short breaks until the light became too dim to see
clearly.
 
Then they would find a
large enough clearing to light a fire and set up camp.
 
During their riding, Brendan would keep
his bow handy and when a hapless animal resident of the forest would foolishly
come within range, would supplement the supplies provided by the elves.
 
Most of the time, Elenna would
recognize the animal sacrificed for their meal, but twice it was something new
to her.
 
The first one was a small
deer-like creature, but the second one stopped her in her tracks.
 
She stared at the animal as Brendan
gathered his tools to skin it for dinner.

Brendan
looked up as she suddenly giggled.

“What?”
he asked.
 
He followed her pointing
finger to the carcass.

“That’s
a jackalope,” she declared with a bewildered grin.

He
nodded, trying to understand the humor she evidently found in her
observation.
 

“Dude,
that’s a jackalope!”
 
She laughed
harder.
 
This caught Adrien’s
attention.
 
He turned away from his
examination of Madoc’s foot, which had somehow picked up a loose pebble.

“You
don’t have jackalopes in your land?” he asked in surprise.
 
This sent Elenna off into gales of
uncontrolled laughter.

“Oh,
I am so over this weird place!” she exclaimed ruefully.
 
She waved her hand at the men waiting
for an explanation.
 
“No, we don’t
have jackalopes.
 
They’re
 
imaginary, just jokes… no, don’t even
ask.”
 
She sighed, then rolled her
eyes.
 
“Seriously, whoever settled
this place had an effed up sense of humor.”
 
She didn’t realize that Adrien and Brendan both stiffened at
her comment, which they took at first as an sacrilegious insult of the Lady of
All, until they realized it was one of her comments that held meaning only as a
reference to her previous home and meant nothing to them.

“Let’s
practice,” she directed at Adrien.
 
They still kept a daily practice after camp was set up for the day.
 
But now Brendan often joined them.
 
Elenna was rapidly reaching the end of
Adrien’s standard training program; she learned fast and well.
 
Already she was nearly Brendan’s equal,
and he had been considered a fine fighter amongst the troops of Allé-dôn.

The
next evening they stopped for the night by a stream.
 
The overhead foliage was thin enough here to let in enough
sunlight for some unusual plant growth.
 
No one recognized the oversized flowers growing in clumps next to the
water.
 
They were beautiful; though
the petals were each as large as Adrien’s palm they were soft and fragrant;
ranging in color from yellow to orange.
 
Their scent was similar to lilac but stronger.
 

By
the time they had completed their evening duties, the lovely blooms were
forgotten as rolled up into their blankets for sleep.
 
They kept the fire burning into the night; the evenings were
cool in the woods, though in the larger world outside it was nearly
summer.
 
They had no human or
monster pursuers, and had never seen sign of any dangerous animals, so they
decided that for once posting a night guard wasn’t necessary.
 

Elenna
pulled at the hem of her blanket, trying to curl up tighter to ward off the
cold air coming in through various gaps in her cocoon.
 
This attempt having failed, she moved
on to her next plan.
 
She opened
one eye to examine the fire.
 
To
her disappointment, it was nearly gone with only a few licks of flame clustered
at the far end of a log.
 
She yawned
and reached out for the tending stick, trying to keep as much of her upper body
as she could still wrapped in her warm blanket.
 
She poked the log several times, and concluded the fire
needed more fuel.
 
Elenna frowned,
complained under her breath and threw off her blanket.
 
The pile of logs Adrien had cut earlier
was to her left.
 
She grabbed a
couple and tossed them on the flames with some faster catching twigs.
 
This was indeed what the fire
needed.
 
She shivered in the cold
as she waited for the new logs to catch so that she could go back to
sleep.
 
While she waited she
glanced around the camp across the now glowing fire.
 
Brendan was curled up in his blanket.
 
A few feet away, Adrien also lay
sleeping under both of his cloaks.
 
Elenna turned back to Brendan.
 
The flickering light cast strange shadows across his blanket.
 
She took a few steps in his
direction.
 
The dark shapes that
caught her attention weren’t shadows, and were moving in a deliberate
fashion.
 
She shuddered in horror
when he realized what they were.
 

“Brendan!”
she whispered.
 
He twitched in
reply.
 
Elenna repeated her
entreaty in a slightly louder voice.
 
Brendan turned his head towards the source of the voice.
 
The creatures on his blanket buzzed
loudly in response.

“Oh,
shit!” she murmured.
 
More loudly
she ordered, “Brendan, don’t move!”

“What
is happening?” a third voice muttered sleepily.
 
The exchange had roused Adrien.

She
ignored him.
 
“Brendan, there are
some kind of creatures on your blanket.
 
Don’t move, and I’ll come closer and see if I can tell what they
are.”
 
She inched around the fire
for a closer inspection.
 
The creatures
paid her no attention as they squirmed around Brendan’s prone form.
 
The light from the fire was enough for
her to inspect the creatures.
 
They
were winged, with dark stripes across a bulging midsection and pointed
heads.
 
All of their bodies ended
with a sharp stinger about the length of her smallest finger.

“What
are they?” Brendan muttered.
 
He
kept his eyes shut.
 
Now he could
hear buzzing over the cracking of the fire and feel the slight movement on his
legs and chest.

“Bees,”
Adrien answered.
 
“Each about the
size of a rat.”

“Oh,
dear God Almighty!” Elenna muttered.
 

Adrien
quickly snapped, “Don’t move, Elenna.
 
If we scare them, they might sting him in defense.”

“What
do we do?” she asked quietly.

“I
don’t know.”

“We
have to do something!” she declared.
 

“I
know!” he answered.
 
He glanced at
the fire.
 
“Burn them?”

“How?
 
You’ll burn him too.”

“Lure
them away,”
 
Adrien muttered.

“What
would do that?” Brendan tried not to fidget as one bee settled on his
hand.
 
“I imagine something sweet
maybe, but…“Shit!” Elenna exclaimed.
 
Her loud voice disturbed the insects.
 
They buzzed louder.
 
One climbed closer to Brendan’s face.
 
He kept his eyes and mouth closed tightly, and held his
breath until they had resettled.
 
“Adrien, can you see my backpack?”

He
glanced towards the pile at her feet.
 
She kept the bag close to her at all times.
 
She had still never let either man get a glimpse
inside.
 
“I see it.”

“I’m
going to reach out slowly and see if I can open it without disturbing
them.
 
Watch out.”
 
She slowly and deliberately pulled away
her blanket, ready to stop if the bees responded in any way.
 
They continued in their investigation
of Brendan’s blanket.
 
One had
found an interesting spot and was probing it with its snout.
 
Another had traversed Brendan’s chest
to his neck and was nearly touching his ear.
 
He remained motionless.
 

Once
she was clear of her blanket, Elenna very cautiously crawled to the foot of her
rough bed.
 
She reached out for her
backpack, and grunted as she hefted the heavy bag one-handed.
 
Adrien monitored the insects as she
squatted into a position with the bag between her knees.
 
Very slowly she undid the zipper,
hoping that the item she needed would be easy to find by touch in the darkness.
 
She reached in and happily
immediately touched the cold metal of the soda can she had packed long ago for
school as an emergency caffeine boost.
 
She hoped the carbonation had settled after bouncing around all day in
her horse’s saddlebag, and gently pulled back the tab.
 
The strong sweet scent wafted from the
can, and she sniffed in appreciation.
 

“Let’s
hope these things want to do the Dew,” she whispered.
 
“This stuff is really sweet.
 
Pour it out somewhere away from us.
 
The scent should interest them.”

Adrien
carefully rounded the fire to take the can from her outstretched hand.
 
He winced at the powerful odor emanating
from the can and followed her directions.
 
He poured half of the can on the ground a few feet away from their
campsite and stepped back.
 
After a
thought crossed his mind, he used his sleeve to cover the opening of the
container so the insects would not be attracted to the can itself.

A
minute or two after he poured out the sweet liquid, the smell reached the
oversized bees.
 
They immediately
abandoned the blanket to race down from the man and across the ground to lap up
the nectar-like drink.
 
As soon as
they had all reached the puddle, Adrien grabbed a burning stick from the fire,
and lit the dry pine needles beneath the insects’ feet.
 
The needles blazed quickly to produce
prodigious amounts of flames and smoke.
 
A few of the bees escaped to the safety of the woods, but most perished
in the blaze.
 
Before the fire
could spread, Brendan dumped their pitcher of water on the flames.
  
Elenna stood by with her blanket,
ready to beat out any remaining flickers.
 

“What
in the Lady’s own name were they?” Brendan exclaimed.
 
Elenna reached out to grasp his shoulder. He was trembling.

 
“You okay?” she asked with concern.

He
nodded.
 
“Let’s pack up quickly and
be gone before more of them come.”
 
They packed up the camp and were gone within a few minutes.
 
The large flowers dwindled in number as
soon as they crossed the creek.
 
Adrien pointed out that the flowers were probably the bees’ main food
source.
 
Everyone relaxed as they
left what they imagined was the bees’ territory.
 
None of them wanted to stop again for some time; several
hour passed before they were ready to stop the horses and step back down on the
ground again.
 
This time they
checked the campsite carefully for more flowers or signs of insect life, and
set up a rotation for guard duty.
 
No one could sleep yet, though, as they gathered around the new,
unusually large fire.
 
It was too
easy to picture their hive nearby.