Part Two: Day Two

Knight Marshal Garrett Myers gigged his horse as fast as it would take him. He had nineteen fellow soldiers from the city of Chester with him as they traveled south between the towering mesas of central Chartan.

The troop thundered down the dirt path as the morning stars twinkled in the heavens. It would be a few hours yet before the sun rose, but Deltia Chester insisted that he and his men move as quickly as possible.

They were to retrieve a rogue who was traveling toward Trenton. Deltia said that if they were fast enough, they could head off the girl at the Gate of Kronos, the narrow valley between the mountains that clutched the Kopf Desert to the east. The rogue carried an item of great value and power. Deltia warned them to be careful. Minus the item, the girl was a well-known thief, assassin, and pirate.

Deltia’s instruction for where to find the girl was very specific. Locals of the area knew of the area as the entrance to an underground network of caves. The girl would think she could escape them by avoiding the main path through the valley, but Deltia was adamant she would exit via the caverns at sunrise.

Garrett was long past questioning Deltia Chester’s strange foresight ability. He was almost always right about his odd predictions. Garrett followed his every instruction without question.

The men arrived at the mouth of the cave just as the morning blue twilight filled the sky. The elevation was so high, it was well below freezing. The men wanted to make a fire, but Garrett knew a fire would tell the girl to double back and find a different way out. Garrett had lived in Chartan all of his life so he knew there were other exits to the mountain passages if one was patient enough.

He positioned the soldiers behind the pine trees that overlooked the gaping threshold to the caverns below. Garrett wanted her out of the cavern before they surrounded her so she couldn’t flee into the mountains.

He was worried because the girl’s reputation preceded her. Seladia, the rogue and thief, was known throughout the kingdom of Parceta. He genuinely didn’t want the men to have to engage at all, and Deltia said it would be preferable if she were brought back alive.

The chill began to infect each of the men as they remained stationary, including Garrett. They could not know that Seladia hadn’t opted to take a different path through the mountains, one that might lead her to one of the old dwarven mining tunnels. How long were they supposed to hug their tree and wait with hungry bellies in the cold for the girl to arrive?

Terror filled the soldiers as—through the morning quiet, from not deep within the cavern—a primal roar sent an additional shiver down their spines. The men knew what it was, but they couldn’t know how big it might be.

It was the ferocious roar of a snow troll. The road guards usually took the ones outside the mountains down, but the hideous monsters occasionally roamed mountain corridors for hibernating creatures during the colder season.

A woman with long, red hair in a black travel cloak sprinted out of the cavern with a snow troll the size of a small building barreling after her. She mounted the ridge and put her feet together as she slipped straight down the snowy embankment.

The woman skipped into a run through the snow as the troll tripped over the ridge and tumbled down the hill into the men who had moved to capture Seladia.

Knight Marshal Garrett tried to give some instruction or order, but everything was pandemonium. Seladia was clearly making for the horses the soldiers had hitched at the bottom of the hill, while Garrett’s men were now trying to deal with a gargantuan snow monster.

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The troll swept its tree trunk arms back and forth, deflecting each of Garrett’s knights. It apparently had a vendetta against Seladia as it ignored most of the knight units to scramble after her. Grabbing a spear from one of his men, Garrett hoisted the projectile in a perfect arc that sailed directly into the calf of the snow troll. The beast staggered, but continued after Seladia.

“Kill the troll!” Garrett called.

The men drew their swords and charged after the lumbering hulk as it moved for the woman. For a moment, Garrett thought the troll had captured her as it stopped.

The rogue somehow lassoed the monstrosity and wound up on the thing’s neck. Crimson blood rained down the troll’s white, furry front as she stabbed it repeatedly.

Garrett’s men caught up to the beast and helped finish it off.

Ten minutes later, Seladia, Garrett, and only twelve of his remaining men stood over the defeated snow troll, panting. All of them were covered in troll blood as the thing emptied like a water balloon over the hillside.

“You didn’t run.” Garrett said to Seladia. He didn’t expect her to stick around to be captured. She had to know they were there for her.

“I ran out of food in the mountains.” Seladia said. “Plus, I was going to Narcuss anyway.”

“Should we restrain her?” One of Garrett’s men asked.

“No,” said Garrett. “If we’re going to give her a ride back to Chester, we can have her take a few of our mens’ horses back.”

“I do appreciate the assist.” Seladia said as she cut off one of the troll’s gnarled, pointed ears. She slipped it in a leather bag, and stuffed it in her inner cloak pocket. During the brief moment her cloak was raised, he saw an assortment of knives and the large barrel of a pistol holstered at her hip.

“Do you have the orb?” Garrett drawled.

Seladia met Garrett’s hazel eyes with her light blue ones. “You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

The men deliberated on whether or not they wanted to make camp before heading back. Dartis Forest was only a two-hour ride northwest.

Returning to Chester before lunch ultimately won out. Seladia helped gather Garrett’s fallen men, then took their horses back to the main road. As expected, they saw the buildings and clock tower of the quaint coastal city of Chester in the distance just before lunch time.

A soldier rode out to meet them before they could get too close to the city. “Deltia Chester has arranged a ship to meet you at the dock near Swan Hill south of Chester. The girl is to come no closer to the city with that artifact.”

“Take the injured and extra horses back to the city.” Garrett ordered his men. “I’ll escort Seladia to the ship.”

“Just one man?” Seladia cocked her brow at him from atop her horse. She watched the messenger go to retrieve the horses and prisoners with the rest of Garrett’s soldiers. “That’s ambitious of you.”

“You already told us you’re going to Narcuss.” Garrett said. “As far as work is concerned, I’m just taking a prisoner to their destination.”

“Whatever gets you paid at the end of the day.” Seladia smiled.

“I think you and I understand one another well enough.” Garrett said. “Come on. Let’s get you aboard that ship. Maybe I can catch the return ship home from Narcuss and be home later tonight.”

“Not very often that I’m glad to run into law enforcement, but I’ll always take a free ride.” Seladia said.

The two split from the others and started west for Swan Hill. To the south on their left, they could see the distant mesas of the Mesa Valley that surveyed the drama the mortals brought to one another day by day. A morning mist floated between the mesa rooks whose tower points became beacons of gold as the sun’s rays met them.

Swan Hill was a small coastal town with a dock that usually only ferried people to Chester’s wharf on occasion. Today, a speedy royal transport ship was at the end of the dock waiting to receive them.

Garrett bought some food for the trip and followed Seladia aboard their ride. The ship left the docks shortly after. Their ETA for Narcuss City was around noon.

Seladia sat back on the deck and stayed out of the way of the sailors. Garrett watched the way the shipmates looked at Seladia. It wasn’t the way they would look at any other woman. She was an accomplice of the dangerous Captain Stuval. She was a known pirate herself in many ways, and was arguably more dangerous than most.

Garrett didn’t care. As long as someone took Seladia into custody at the end of this ship ride, she would no longer be his problem. His job was simple, and that’s just the way he liked it.