Once again, it was time to trod our well-worn path up the mountain. I was nervous as we traveled. I kept expecting that a squad of soldiers would overtake us at any moment. I knew it was an irrational fear, but even irrational fears find purchase in one’s psyche during times of stress and I was very stressed.
“Do we want to go by and visit Segerick first or go back to our company?” I asked the others.
“I think we need to go back to the company first,” Bowen replied. “I wouldn’t want the rest of them to catch a bad case of death just because we delayed for too long.”
“Yeah, you have a good point,” I admitted. “We do need to warn Segerick’s people, though, so they can be packed up and ready to depart. And what are we going to do about Bethany? I suppose we could ‘find’ her and use our share of the gold to purchase the company’s third. She let us know in no uncertain terms that she wanted to return with us.”
“Do you think the company would sell?” Aleyda asked.
“If the price is right, I don’t see why not. We may have to overpay a little but let’s face it. If we can make it back to the ship with all that gold then our money problems will be over, at least for the foreseeable future.”
“That’s a lot of ifs,” Aleyda replied. “If one of those idiots gets into town and starts bragging, we might be pursued all the way back to Shroud Hallow, or beyond.”
“We just need to make certain that we caution them and then caution them again all the way down the mountain,” I replied.
“Do you really think all the cautioning in the world will keep Yahg from running his mouth?” she asked.
“We need to send someone down to tell Captain Clemenzio that we need to be ready to load up and set sail immediately,” I said. “We need to time our return to port with the tide. If we get everything scheduled right, we should be able to slip out of town with nobody being the wiser.”
“Yeah, everything on this trip has been proceeding so smoothly thus far,” Bowen opined.
“Hey, we’re due for a good break,” I said.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Bowen answered.
We were not overtaken by a squad of soldiers. As a matter of fact, due to our very early start and the more scarce population of the island, we didn’t see anyone before we reached our turnoff from the main trail. There had to be a more efficient way to get where we were going without taking the meandering path that we always did, but we didn’t have time to find it. We probably walked two or three hours more this way than we would have on a better path but now was not the time for experimentation. We had a system that worked.
We had just spent a significant amount of time back at port and I was frustrated that I had become so single-minded in my goals that I had not bothered to contact the ship. If I had, we would have a crew ready and waiting to evacuate us from the island. I doubt that they would complain, either, because they would be leaving more than a week early. I doubt the crew was enjoying island life anymore than I was.
Once again, our plan was to avoid fights on the way up to the gold seam. It would be pretty damn stupid of us to get killed when we were so close to the end zone. So, we kept a scout ranging ahead of us looking for trouble. Once again, that scout was never me. I guess that Aleyda and Bowen weren’t exactly overwhelmed by my scouting abilities. I wondered how they thought I had survived in the first place before I had ever encountered them. Then, thinking back on all my blunders, I realized they probably had a point.
We did have to dodge some of the local wildlife on our way up the mountain. I was so tired, having stayed up all night, that I didn’t even ask what we were avoiding. Instead, I just stood at the side of the trail ready to draw my sword in case the other shoe dropped. I wondered if the other two had taken turns sleeping by the side of the trail. If they hadn’t, I didn’t understand why they both looked fresher than I felt. Oh, that’s right. They didn’t have to con a bunch of guards into letting them sabotage a magical gateway.
Thankfully, the other shoe never dropped and our avoiding trouble strategy seemed to work for us. When we clambered across the ridge near where we had fought the wyvern, I had to move very slowly. I didn’t trust my balance in my sleep deprived state. I slipped a couple of times and lost some skin for my troubles but I didn’t plunge to my death. After that, it was smooth sailing. As night was falling, we were getting close to our camp. That’s when a pair of humans slipped out of the undergrowth close to the trail and confronted us.
“Well, what have we here?” one asked. “Was your mission a success?”
“It was,” I replied. “The gate will require major reconstruction before it is operational. The project is probably set back weeks or months.”
“Good,” the man replied. “That’s really good. Too bad you will never make it back to camp to report your success.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “We’re just minutes away.”
“The man you killed earlier, his name was Domnin,” the man replied. “He was my friend. He was friends to all of us. I doubt his spirit can rest east knowing his killer is still walking the earth. So we mean to remedy that.”
That’s when I heard the sound of more feet stepping out on the trail behind us.
“James,” Bowen said. “There are two more behind us.”
“So, you don’t follow your Captain’s orders?” I asked.
“What the Captain doesn’t know won’t hurt us,” the man, the soldier, replied.
We were outnumbered. While Aleyda was more than a match for any of them, Bowen and I would likely be less fortunate, especially with our respective levels of sleep deprivation. I started weighing probabilities in my mind. Even if we somehow managed to prevail in a fight, we would have to explain why we slaughtered four more of their men. I was fairly certain that wouldn’t engender a whole lot of good will with the rest of the troops. Even if we won, we would likely end up injured or subject to another ‘accident’ later on our trip down into town. The Captain couldn’t be everywhere and he couldn’t see everything. He was only human. Fuck it, I thought. Time to go for broke. I hoped we were close enough to camp.
I opened my mouth as if I were about to respond to the man’s last statement, but instead of doing do I drew in as much breath as I could. Then, instead of replying to his remark I screamed into the lengthening shadows.
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“Attack! We are being attacked.”
I didn’t know whether my cry would reach the camp given the amount of dense foliage around us, but I didn’t give up and kept screaming. Immediately understanding what I was trying to accomplish, Bowen started screaming the same things as well. As soon as we started yelling, the human I was speaking to bounded forward and unleashed a swing with his sword aimed at my neck. I flinched as the sword reached towards me only to almost sag in relief when I heard the clash of blades as Aleyda’s own sword swept out to parry the blow. Then, she stepped forward and booted the man backward, gaining some space to use her sword. With that brief reprieve, I managed to draw my own weapon and so did Bowen, while we kept screaming out all the while.
I stopped yelling long enough to talk. “We need to fight defensively,” I said. “If we kill these men, we will never make it off the island.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t make them bleed some,” Aleyda replied.
We stood with our backs to one another in a loose triangle. Then, Bowen and I started screaming our fool heads off again, hoping that someone in charge would come to our aid. Of course, if the wrong people showed up we probably would only succeeded in lengthening the odds against us.
Glancing at our opponents, I could see that a couple of them were more hesitant, less committed to the cause than the other two. The Captain seemed like a no nonsense sort of leader and I doubted that he would take this level of insubordination lightly. The other two, though, they were all in. They bounded forward to engage.
A clock had started in my mind. Depending on how the Captain had arrayed his forces, we needed to hold out for five minutes at least, maybe as much as ten. And that was provided that anyone had heard our cries in the first place and they responded immediately.
The human that was speaking launched another attack at Aleyda. His committed buddy stayed close to his side, almost like the two were prepared to fight in formation.
“Watch our back,” I screamed at Bowen. Then I stepped forward to protect Aleyda’s flank from the other soldier.
Aleyda parried the second attack with an almost contemptuous ease. Then, she thrust out with a textbook riposte causing her attacker to dodge backwards. That fouled their little two man formation. I lazily swung my sword high at the other man. He parried easily but the swing wasn’t the real attack. Instead, I bounced forward and put all of my weight into a crushing stomp onto the instep of his lead leg, fouling his counter. I knew I had done a little damage because he cried out in pain and staggered a couple of steps backward.
“Flee now and I will forget you were ever here,” I called out to the two men who had not yet engaged. Based upon the crashing sounds I heard, I assumed they went bolting back into the woods. My suspicions were confirmed when Bowen stepped up and joined us in the line.
“Keep an eye out for more threats,” I told him. “They may come back.” Bowen then stepped back out of my view and continued to yell.
I didn’t have the breath to yell anymore. I was in a fight for my life and needed the oxygen to fuel my attacks and defense. While I had been talking, their loudmouthed leader had moved forward to engage with Aleyda again. Their swords flashed as they exchanged attacks and parries. These soldiers were clearly scouts of some sort as they were only wearing light leather armor. I heard Aleyda grunt and metal strike metal as she missed a parry and her armor was forced to absorb the punishment.
My opponent limped forward, preparing to return to our engagement. He had switched stances so his damaged leg was no longer in front. That was alright, though. It would rob his swings of quite a bit of their power. He launched a flurry of attacks at me. I parried the first and dodged the rest. He took my dodge as a sign of weakness and kept pressing the attack. I decided to go for broke. He stepped forward in an overhand swing aimed for my head. I managed to parry but not strongly enough. I meant to deflect the blow to make it slide off to the side of me, but the strike was just too powerful. Instead, it drove my own sword down into my right shoulder, lacerating it. I guess even missing some of his power, he had enough to handle me. He was a bit off balance after the powerful attack, so I took the hit and repeated my previous maneuver. This time, I stepped forward and drove all of my weight into the lower part of his uninjured leg. He tried to pull his leg back and all I managed was a glancing blow, but even a glancing blow to you shin hurts if you haven’t done much body hardening. He cursed and wobbled backward again.
I glanced over towards Aleyda. She had somehow managed to disarm her opponent. Instead of fighting a man with a sword, she was not facing a man with a long dagger and he was bleeding from a couple of superficial wounds. Even with her short stature, she had a reach advantage due to the length of her sword and she was putting it to good use. She launched attack after attack, keeping her opponent off balance as he madly tried to defend himself.
I quickly reacquired my opponent. He was not moving very fluidly anymore. I knew I couldn’t kill him, but Aleyda was right. It didn’t mean I couldn’t make him suffer a little. I started darting in and out, making him move his feet in response. His forward leg looked mostly recovered, but anytime he had to put much weight on his rear leg, he nearly stumbled. I ratcheted up my threat level, constantly launching attacks at him and then bounding away. My shoulder had stopped bleeding from my superficial wound and most of the pain was gone by this point.
I don’t know how long Aleyda and I engaged in our little dances with our opponents but it was for quite awhile because my own movements started to slow and I was breathing very heavily. As I have mentioned before, in a fight seconds can feel like minutes and minutes feel like hours. My opponent was still a threat. He tried to counterattack when he could. At some point, I heard metal ping against metal from Aleyda’s direction.
“You’ve thrown away your weapon,” she said. “How stupid of you. Oh, I see you came with another backup.”
I was starting to think that I would drop from exhaustion before I subdued my opponent. I was about to ask Bowen to take over when I heard him speak.
“Many feet moving down the trail from above,” he said.
This was the moment of truth. If we had inadvertently summoned more opponents, we were done for. But if help had arrived, we had survived. I wondered which it was going to be.
A squad of soldiers charged down the path, an older, grizzled man leading them. I recognized the man. It was one of the sergeants I had worked with earlier.
The soldiers quickly separated us. “What’s going on here?” the sergeant demanded. “Why are you fighting?”
“These soldiers came looking for revenge for Domnin’s death,” I managed to gasp out. Wow, I had actually remembered a name!
“Is that true?” the sergeant asked our opponent who had done all the talking earlier.
“Yes, it’s true,” the man replied. “And if you all weren’t a bunch of cowards, you’d help us finish the job.”
The sergeant turned to his men. “Take those two into custody for mutiny,” he said.
His men moved to comply but our two attacker weren’t going to go down without a fight. With no way to vent their ire on us, they turned on their fellow soldiers, who outnumbered them three to one.
The fight was short and it was vicious and at the end our attackers were dead, each sporting a panoply of wounds.
“Let’s get you back to see the Captain,” the sergeant said.
We walked up the trail, the bodies of the dead carried by their former companions. I was led up to the Captain.
“Were you successful?” he asked.
“Yes, I took down one pillar and most of the overhanging portion of the gate,” I said.
“Good,” he replied. “That will set them back for quite awhile. You have done your part so I will do mine. Enjoy your new wealth.”
The sergeant stepped forward and reported the altercation we had on the trail. The Captain’s face darkened with each word. Finally, he gave a very short order.
“Hang the bodies of the mutineers as an example to the men,” he said.
“Were these the only two?” he asked.
“They were the only two that I saw,” I lied.