Shadow Of The Mountain (24 page)

Draz saw the older sister rush into the group of men, pushing them away from her family. She screamed at them, begging and pleading. Her cries were met with laughter.

The little girl still stood where her sister left her, small and alone. Draz’s gaze darted to the men at the bottom of the slope, then back to the girl. She stood halfway between them. Anger grew inside of him, boiling into a hot and dizzying fury.

“Damn it,” he said, unbuckling his sword belt and swinging it to his back. He secured the belt across his chest, pulling it tight. “Damn it all.”

Draz eyed the men one last time, chest heaving with breaths of adrenaline.

He bolted from his hiding spot atop the hill and raced down to the little girl.

***

Draz kept what trees he could between him and the Gallans as he darted down the slope. The fallen leaves beneath him were damp and he had to be careful not to lose his footing and slip. His eyes never left the men, heart begging them not to turn and see him in the open. If they saw him now, he would be dead.

The forest evening was dimming to darkness and he prayed the shadows would be on his side. Every step he took unseen was a monumental blessing and a stupendous risk.

The little girl still had her back to him when he finally reached her. He swept her up in his arms, clamping a hand over her mouth before she could scream, and was off again back up the hill.

She weighed less than a sack of flour but began thrashing her arms and legs around, her shrieks muffled by his hand.

Draz paused behind a nearby tree with her, still a distance from safety.

“Hush, child,” he whispered harshly into her ear. “I’m Amorian, and I’m saving your life.”

Her flailing died down, and she tilted her head back to look at his face. She saw the hood of his brown cloak with large eyes of hazel and tears began to stream down her cheeks. Even children recognized the cloaks of Amorian soldiers, both brown and green alike. Draz released his hand from her face, asking for silence with a finger to his lips. Her body trembled.

“My parents are down there,” she whispered.

Draz heard more female screams erupt from below, whether from the mother or daughter he could not say. Right now, he didn’t want to know, didn’t want to look. The foul laughter of the men drifted to him, feeling all too close.

He took a breath, then sprinted out for the last forty yards of the incline.

Draz listened to their voices, waiting for the cry of alarm. He crested the rise and the forest leveled out before him. Tall trees spotted the hilltop, spearing thick baris bushes that were scattered amongst the forest floor. He continued running, praying they were clear of the threat. Jornan and Vextis were in hiding somewhere a short distance away.

Then he heard the shouts.

Soon men could be heard coming up the hill behind him, thrashing up through the leaves and branches. Draz didn’t know if they had seen him, but they knew there was a little girl somewhere out here and she couldn’t have gotten far.

“What’s your name?” Draz asked as he ran, stretching the distance between him and the pursuing men.

“Terra,” she croaked through her tears. “My name is Terra.”

“Terra? I’m Draz,” he told her between breaths, scanning the forest as he went. “We’re in a bit of trouble, you and I…and I’m going to need your help…You’re going to have to do exactly as I say, okay?”

He ran with her in his arms for nearly half a mile before finding the small clearing where he had left Jornan and Vextis earlier. It was getting darker and harder to see. He slowed his pace and searched the surroundings, trying to find something that looked familiar. He couldn’t see their hide, which didn’t surprise him. That was the whole point of it.

Just then he heard a soft hooting from nearby undergrowth. Looking toward the sound, he saw a hand reach out seemingly from the ground beneath a thicket of thorn and brush, waving a pale dagger to catch his attention. It was indeed a fine hide, Draz thought. He damn near ran right by it.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We’re going to find my friends now. They will help us,” he told her. “And we must be quiet.”

She wrapped her legs around his waist and he took off once more at speed, away from the hide. He ran about thirty yards down a thin trail before leaping onto a nearby rock.

Carefully, he moved from rock to rock, using exposed tree roots where he could, making his way back to his brothers, trying to conceal his trail whenever possible.

Eventually he reached the hide, coming up behind it, away from the clearing. He saw the top of Jornan’s head leaning out near the ground, holding up a thin pile of thorn and pine branches. The youth was waving him forward calmly, his expression a mixture of frustration and concern. Handing Terra to Jornan, the two vanished into the ground.

Draz heard the men enter the clearing before disappearing into the hide after them.

***

The cold trench had little room for movement, but the spot had been chosen with care and was well concealed. Draz was on his side, covering Terra with his cloak, while Jornan lay on his back with Vextis in the middle. All three were facing the clearing and able to peer out through the pine branches covering their hide to watch the Gallan men as they came into view.

They saw the father pushed to the ground as he grunted with pain. Even in the twilight, you could see his battered face and tunic covered in blood. He was alive, but barely.

No sooner had the mother entered the clearing than she was spun around and dealt a crushing blow from a fist to her face, sending her down. The daughter cried out in anguish, falling next to her parents.

“The little runt’s run off,” one of the men said.

“She won’t make it far,” another answered.

Draz saw the father roll to his back, coughing up blood. He struggled up to an elbow, but a boot kick to the mouth put him back down.

“Stop it! Stop!” the daughter shrieked wildly, scrambling over to protect him. “Please! We’ll do anything! Just please stop hurting them!”

Draz pressed Terra tighter against his chest, covering her face and ears with his cloak. He could feel her rapid heartbeat.

“Anything?” a man asked. “You’ll do anything?”

“Yes! Just please stop hurting them!”

The man took her by the throat, his grip lifting her up to her toes and bringing her in close.

“You will do
everything
,” he told her, voice hateful with promise. She wheezed out a frightened breath before being thrown to the ground.

Draz heard horses approaching the clearing and looked to Jornan. His brother’s face was strained and their gazes met. The other held his hand up in the shadows and signaled, his fingers motioning out the silent question:
Attack?

Draz returned in sign:
No.

Jornan clenched his jaw and turned back to the clearing.

Two horsemen arrived. One was of the Gallan party, a lean man riding a chestnut gelding and holding a burning torch. The other was the Volrathi tracker atop a dark mare.

The tracker was garbed all in black, like a shifting shade in the night. He wore a black cloak and dark iron breastplate, gray leggings, and polished, black boots. The thick hilt of a broadsword stuck up from his saddle and a long, curved dagger threaded his belt. He was younger than Draz had thought, early twenties maybe. Draz and the rest had never seen a Volrathi before and being this close to one was chilling. He was part of an army responsible for the Amorian defeat at Goridai, the massacre of Corda, and countless other acts of barbarism against their nation.

The tracker’s presence quieted the men. He swung down from his saddle, handing off the reins. A large bearded Gallan took the torch from the other rider and approached the Volrathi.

“We lost one of the daughters,” he informed him. “A little girl, eight years or so. We can head back to camp for the night and pick up her tracks in the morning.”

The Volrathi didn’t answer, instead stepping away from the group. Kneeling down, he reached out and touched the ground. Draz watched him pick up a fallen leaf by the stem, twirling it between fingers, looking thoughtfully around the small clearing.

Draz felt his bowels fill with dread. The stars were emerging now, iridescent specks that grew stronger in the darkening sky with a moon that was nothing more than a slender dagger scraping against the horizon.

Surely this man could not read tracks in the black of night, his mind insisted, even with a torch. Draz had tried to cover his path to the hide, but thinking back he knew the ruse was hurried and slovenly. He hardly had the time to lead the men away, running past the hide just enough to get them out of the small clearing.

Doubt began to gnaw at his heart. Should the men wait here till morning, Draz knew the Volrathi tracker would find his tracks. They’d be discovered and killed, or worse. This had been a stupid plan, but it was all he had at the moment. Everything now depended on their silence. The dark clad man rose, tossing the leaf to the side.

“The girl will be close,” he told them, his voice deep and thick, hanging heavily in the air. He looked to the parents at his feet, and then the sister. “Within shouting distance,” he continued evenly.

The Volrathi moved to his mare and pulled a length of chain and shackles from his saddlebag before returning to the family. The father was barely conscious, but the mother and daughter were huddling together next to him, immobile with fear.

“Call to your daughter,” he ordered, the chains rattling softly next to him.

The mother looked up at him through a swollen eye. “No,” her voice quivered.

The Volrathi turned to the older daughter. “Call to your sister.”

The girl shook her head, shoulders trembling. “I won’t do it.”

The tracker pushed the women aside and took the father by the boot, dragging him away from them with one hand as if he were a child. The women began to scream.

Draz watched the Volrathi pull the man to a tree at the edge of a clearing, shackling the iron clasp around his throat. The chain was then wrapped around the tree trunk and secured with another clasp. The father was coughing up blood, in no condition to resist.

A long rope was thrown to the Volrathi, and he looped the end of it around the father’s neck several times before tying a knot. The other end of the rope was secured to the Gallan’s gelding, whose rider walked the horse over to the tree and dismounted. The way they moved, it was clear they‘d done this before.

Draz glanced over to Jornan, his breath halting in his chest. His sword brother’s eyes could hardly be seen now, flickering in the light of the torch that streamed in through their hide’s cover.

Jornan‘s sign was barely visible, but Draz made it out:
Attack
. It was no longer a question.

Draz shook his head.
No
, his hands signed back.

There could be no victory here, only escape. They were in no position to handle this.

“Call to the girl,” the Volrathi ordered to the women again, more forcefully this time.

“Stop it! Stop!” the daughter cried. “Please don’t! Please!”

The tracker smacked the horse’s flank and the women cried out in terror.

The beast reared up, bolting into the darkness. Draz pulled Terra tighter against his chest, feeling the hooves thundering across the clearing from their trench. He watched the line as it ran out, closing his eyes against the horrible sight to come, but nothing could block out the sound.

The rope snapped tight and the man was ripped apart.

***

Draz arrived to the foot of their mountain early the next morning, carrying the sleeping Terra in his arms. Jornan walked next to him in silence while Vextis was behind a ways concealing their tracks. The air was cold this high up in the ranges, and the Gambit rose before them like a stone colossus, blotting out much of the barren blue sky that peeked through the forest canopy.

They approached the mountain from the western side, up a rising trail that led to an open patch of land. As the ground leveled, a field spread out beneath the high walls of the mountain where a gaping fissure split the rock face like a jagged wound two stories tall that slid deep into the Gambit’s center. Tall grass grew wild across the open land, dotted with enormous boulders and stones, a few so large they looked like mammoth toys left behind by the child of some ancient giant.

To the east, the forest wrapped around the mountain for a mile before thinning to steep shelves of crumbling rock and soil. To the west, just a few dozen feet away, the open land dropped sharply to cliffs that plummeted down into a valley floor hundreds of feet below.

Looking up the mountain face, Draz saw one of their lookout points some sixty feet above. Herkle was perched at the spot and waved down to them.

Larkin emerged from the fissure carrying a spear, looking as if his large frame were about to burst out of his breastplate of polished iron plates and boiled leather. Trobe followed him, sword belted to his side and green cloak spread across his shoulders.

“I was about to send some boys out looking for you,” the instructor told them, his tone relaxing at the sight of the girl in his arms. “But I knew you’d be back eventually. I see we have a new arrival.”

“Her name is Terra,” Draz said, gently shaking her awake. “She’s had a rough night.”

Terra woke up and looked around for a moment, but then settled back into his arms and almost immediately fell back asleep.

Trobe chuckled. “I think you’ve made a friend,” he said, brushing a strand of hair from her face. The instructor’s tone remained easy, but there was no mistaking the seriousness of his gaze. “What happened out there?”

Draz turned to Jornan. Their eyes met, but his sword brother said nothing. Seeing Vextis approach, he walked off towards the tracker to have a word with him.

Draz handed Terra to Larkin.

All alone
, he signed with a twist of his hand. “Make sure to give her to one of the women,” he said then. “And she hasn’t eaten all night, so try and find her something.”

“Sure, no problem,” Larkin said softly, taking her in his big arms. He moved off, disappearing into the fissure of the mountain.