Chapter XXVIII
They laid the unconscious wizard on top of the hill.
“I can’t believe a man with such serious wounds is still breathing,” whispered Angela. The claws left terrible marks on the dying man’s chest.
“We have no time to relax now. Rufus' steed escaped, while mine has been cut in half. We could not make it with just three horses, so I have to track down the runaway. It won't be too distant. Wait here, I’ll be back soon,” Uriel sat on Angela’s horse and hooted.
With Lucius holding the reins, Michael and Angela sat on the ground next to Rufus as the wizard awoke.
“I can’t survive. You must rush away. The vessel is aware of your presence, but if you depart now, he won't be able to detect you, and the necklaces will provide a veil of concealment. Don’t think of them as simple things... You must make your way to Aleman, Vittorio will find you there. If not, follow the map. It’s in my pocket.”
Rufus said a few more words before falling silent forever, but Michael couldn’t make them out.
Shortly after the wizard’s death, Uriel returned and brought a horse. Angela told her everything and handed over the map she found in his pocket, which the Blondy looked at once and then kept in his pocket.
“We have to go. We have little time. The horses are tired, but we still need to get out of here before those scumbags find us. Let’s collect our weapons and run, but first, we have to burn Rufus. We can’t risk him getting marked...”
After the wizard’s corpse was set on fire, the riders left the place. Uriel saw the tracks of a small army, and they followed it, to confuse the pursuers.
In the afternoon, it started raining, and they took shelter in the trees, had breakfast without lighting the fire, and rested the horses.
As soon as the rain stopped, they set out on the road. If Rufus stayed away from any human encounters, Uriel would look for the horsemen’s tracks and follow them to keep any chasers off their trail. Blondy often deviated from the map, though they always managed to get back on track.
They hardly stopped. If they came down only to rest the horses a little, for a short time.
It rained a lot. After the rain, their clothes dried up, sticking to them. They diminished their food supply. Even if they conserved it, they would only have a few days’ worth of supplies. Uriel educated his companions on the road and showed them the symbols that could decide their path. It could be the moss on the trees or the stars in the night sky. They learned Rufus' map by heart, in case of loss or damage of the paper.
They did not enter burnt villages and settlements; they moved carefully. As Uriel used to say: - “In such places, bandits will live.” - They did not enter any settlement to find food, they watched from a distance as much as possible.
Angela was not inferior to Uriel in horse riding. Lucius and Michael were newbies.
A couple of days after the wizard passed away, when they had put some distance between themselves and the battleground, Blondy started up his fencing lessons again. They now possess a considerable number of weapons from Mondelay, the sword of Rufus making up one of them, equaling five swords altogether. Not to mention, two daggers, eight knives, and two crossbows with eighteen arrows were present.
Angela was the best at throwing a knife, which was added to her training besides using a sword. Michael was very curious about where a tavern-dancing girl from Mondelay had learned to ride horses and shoot arrows, but he waited until Angela mentioned it to him one evening.
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Tired from training, they sat at the foot of the tree and shared the leftovers of their last meal.
“I come from the Shabay tribe. I learned to ride a horse when I was very young,” Angela said, as Lucius praised her for riding.
“The Prairies of the Empire,” the Blondy spoke, and Angela silently nodded.
“My father was a tribal leader and when the Samaritans attacked us. He was one of the first to fall fighting with them. Then they sold me as a slave.”
“I became a dancer later. I worked in different cities for my master, while in Mondelay...”
Angela's tale got the group talking, and they all started to share their stories.
Uriel remembered his childhood and told stories about his brother when he returned from captivity in the kingdom of Samaratia.
“My brother's name is Nehirah Arch de Ludgar, but those in his inner circle called him El-Shahd. At an early age, they brought him to the imperial court to ensure Al-Moravid's faithfulness. He was raised in Royal Throne, the capital of Samaratia. They gave the city this name because, as the legend goes, four kings ascended the throne at the same time there.”
“Nehirah was an Al-Moravid prince and heir to Ryan Arch de Ludgar, but my uncle was against his enthronement because he believed a boy raised in Samaratia would be a slave to the emperor if he ascended the throne, and Al-Moravid would never be free. So I was being raised as a future heir...”
“I've been fortunate enough to have the best masters teaching me martial arts since I was a kid. My uncle was the one who taught me about the politics of the royal court, and I would often be present when he talked to generals and nobles. As a ten-year-old, I could go head-to-head with people four or five years older than me and sometimes I would even come out victorious...” - the Blondy was lost in his own thoughts, as Michael’s question eventually jolted him back to reality:
“Then?”
“Then my brother arrived,” - Uriel said with a strange smile.
“You should have seen my uncle’s reaction when he saw him at the border.”
He had painted his eyes pitch black in the imperial style, plaited his long, cascading hair, and wrapped a silk sash around his head, if you didn't look closely, you could mistake him for an imperial princess not a warrior prince from Al-Moravid.
He sat on his horse with a slight slouch, relaxed and inconceivably different from my uncle’s knights. The one-handed sword hung too loosely from the belt and looked more like a piece of jewelry than a combat weapon. He didn’t look like a soldier, though his lean muscles were visible in his imperial-style clothes, which he wore a little loose.
“Nehirah smiled at us with a glowing green gaze and a gleaming white smile when he arrived. He spoke in a soft voice with an imperial accent and introduced his attendants to us with great politeness. He had a one-eyed, swarthy man, an old man with long gray hair and a long beard, a bald young lad, and a young woman with beautiful long hair. My uncle and the other lords, as etiquette demanded, shook hands with all four as equals, although it eventually became clear that the first two were criminals granted amnesty at the banquet, the third a liberated slave, and the fourth a woman encountered on the road, a harlot brought to delight Nehirah. My uncle was furious when he realized who he'd just treated as an equal.” - Laughter mixed with Uriel’s narration.
The official Samaratian delegation eventually caught up with us, and my uncle had to justify why he had not waited for them, since he mistakenly assumed adulterers, slaves, and criminals were the official representatives of the Imperial Throne. When my enraged uncle looked for my brother, he found him in his own tent, half-naked, with this woman and another man. The guards did not dare to stop him... I thought he would have killed my brother on the spot when he pulled the skirt of the tent, but I only saw a man emaciated with anger and an elated ambassador...
Mikhail thought the Blondy would continue the story, but time passed in silence without Uriel saying a word.
“Tomorrow we must hunt, or we will run out of food,” said the Blondy after a long time.
“On what?” Lucius asked.
“Probably on deer, though the crossbows are small and won’t kill anything at long range, so we’ll have a bit of a hard time hunting anything,” said the Blondy.
After a long day of riding and practicing, they quickly drifted off to sleep, leaving only Michael to keep watch. They were deep in the forest, and the thick foliage almost completely blocked out the sky, but one could still make out how cloudless and vast it was. Michael still found solace in being here, despite everything. The rustle of the leaves blended with the rhythmic breathing was oddly calming to his ears. He thought almost carelessly about the past and the future. He was unsure of what would happen next if they would reach their desired location, and what they would discover when they did...