The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3) Read online

  “Put your hands on either side of the wound and hold the edges against each other while I stitch your flesh together,” she immediately instructed him.

  He looked down, and saw that she held a needle in one hand while the other hand helped demonstrate how she wanted his leg wound to be pressed. He obediently placed his hands next to hers, and she lifted her fingers away. “Now, don’t be a child,” she instructed him, then she plunged the needle into his leg, and started painfully stitching his injury.

  Grange bit his lip silently as Jenniline placed stitch after stitch in his flesh along the length of the terrible gash. The agony of the procedure lasted for several minutes before Jenniline stopped stitching, bent low, and bit the threat off, then efficiently tied a knot in the end.

  “There, now don’t move for a bit,” she told Grange. “I’ll bring you something to eat and drink in a little while, after I soak in the spring.”

  Grange silently nodded his head in agreement, and Jenniline disappeared.

  He grunted in pain once he was sure she was gone from earshot. The stitching had been extremely painful, and he breathed heavily for a minute, then braced himself and slowly lowered his torso to the turf without moving his leg, so that he could lay on his back, and once again fall asleep.

  “Time to get up, or you’ll be awake all night,” Jenniline woke him two hours later, with a nudge of her toe against his ear. He opened his eyes and looked up. She stood directly over him, a towering figure with a face that was lost in the glare of the sun that shone straight down into his eyes. Her legs, which were close to his face, were clearly bare – she seemed to have shed most of her clothes for her time to soak in the pool, but Grange was too dazed to do more than squint against the sun’s glare into his eyes.

  “Don’t fall asleep again. Here’s some food,” she bent low and laid the dried meat and fruit on his chest, then departed again, leaving him alone once more. Grange carefully sat up and ate his food slowly. Shortly after he finished, Jenniline came and sat down beside him. She wore more clothing than before, but her arms and legs were bare in the warm air of the thermal spring oasis.

  “Trensen, was a good man,” she told him. “I owe it to his spirit to remember his good deeds and strong spirit.

  “He rescued me from bullies when I was a five year old girl – that’s the first time I remember him,” she began, and she proceeded to ramble through memories of the man, the first signs of softness than Grange could remember the princess exhibiting.

  “He made the other girls of the palace family stop picking on me; my mother was out of favor before she passed away, and so I was lower in rank, and easy to target,” she said. “But Trensen told the other girls that the family of a monarch had to learn to show kindness and mercy when it was called for.

  ”I don’t know if he really believed that,” she started to add, then stopped. “I think he did believe it,” she said softly. “No one else in the whole palace would agree though,” a large tear welled in the corner of her eye, and she brushed it away.

  “So I realized I had to be strong to protect myself, because the bullying didn’t stop, of course. It only moved into the shadows where Trensen didn’t see it.”

  “There are other princesses?” Grange asked. “And other mothers?” he asked the second question in a lower voice, the answer hinted at by Jenniline’s comments.

  The girl was silent. She stood up. “I’ll go put these back by the campsite,” she announced, and then strode away.

  Grange knew that he had offended her. He shouldn’t have asked the question; it was touchy and personal, and he didn’t know this princess person at all, despite having hiked through the wilderness for a week with her.

  Minutes later he heard Jenniline’s return, and she arrived with her arms heaped with all the belongings they both had.

  “Since you can’t move about, I’ve brought the campsite to you,” she explained. “Here’s everything. Get something if you need it, but don’t strain that leg or tear those stitches trying to get something. Just wait; I’ll be back,” she told him as she stood up. “I’m going to look around the grounds; you’ll be safe here while I’m gone.”

  She left him again before he could say anything. She walked out of sight, and Grange was alone again.

  He looked at the pile of belongings that she had dropped just out of his reach. He rolled carefully onto his side and inched his way towards the pile, then reached over and pulled his pack away from the other items. He pulled in into his control and sat up, then opened the pack, feeling compelled to look for something within it, though he didn’t know what.

  When his fingers touched the smooth, hard contours of the small flute he carried, he knew it was what he was looking for, and he pulled it out of the bag.

  He recognized the flute. For the first time since he had been discovered at the Yellow Spring, he knew what the flute was, and he knew he knew how to play it. Another fragment of his memory had returned.

  He lifted the instrument to his mouth and began to softly play a tune, the first one that came to his mind. It was a gentle song, possibly a lullaby, the way it flowed so smoothly and placidly.

  “What are you doing?” Jenniline appeared suddenly. She had apparently been back in the spring waters, for her hair was unbraided and dripping wet upon her shoulders and her back. She stood looking at him, holding her blouse in front of her. She’d clearly hurried to check on him upon hearing his music.

  It was obvious what he was doing, he knew. And then he remembered, or re-remembered, the locket with the picture of the princess.

  She had looked so pleasant in that miniature portrait. The artist had made her smile, and put a spark in her eyes. The reality of the girl that he had been exposed to was nothing like the pleasant girl in the locket, and he wondered which was the true Jenniline. Or perhaps life had changed since then, and changed her outlook.

  “I saw a picture of you once, a long time ago. It was inside a locket, and I was in a city,” he blurted the revelation out.

  Her eyes widened slightly, and she stared at him in silence.

  “I don’t remember anything else. I don’t know when it was, or where,” he felt unnerved by her scrutiny. The flute, which he had held in front of his mouth, slowly dropped away from his face.

  “There was an old woman, who was my nurse, who left the palace a couple of years ago. She was one of the last servants from the old king left in the palace, but she took good care of me. She had a locket picture of me,” Jenniline almost smiled as she recollected her former nurse. “I never knew where she went after she left the palace. It’s hard to believe she could have gone far; where do you think you’re from?” she asked Grange.

  “I can almost tell, but I don’t quite remember,” he said as he strained to grasp the incomplete memory that was haunting him.

  Jenniline waited impatiently for several seconds. “You were a fool to drink the water of Yellow Spring,” she said as she shook her head, then stepped back away from him.

  Grange stared at her, and she suddenly assumed an air of haughtiness; she shifted the blouse she held to better cover her chest, then turned and disappeared back into the foliage. He shrugged, and started playing the first new nameless tune that his fingers treated as a natural course to follow among the holes in the flute. The song was a cheery one, and he played it through completely, then repeated it once, before he put the flute down.

  He let his fingers wander down to examine the stitches in his leg. The wound felt drier and firmer; he would be able to begin to move his leg soon, he was sure. And he felt the need to move it soon, as his bladder slowly produced more discomfort, the longer he lay on the ground without attending to it.

  Grange considered calling upon Jenniline, and asking her to help him stand up so that he could move away from the campsite. That consideration lasted for half a second; he knew she would contemptuously reject his request for aid. And he hadn’t even pulled his own pants on; he couldn’t hobble around in her presence
and maintain his dignity if he had no clothing.

  He looked around, and saw where Jenniline had dropped the bows and arrows from their other campsite, the weapons that had belonged to her and to Trensen. He grunted as he rolled over to the weapons, then used Trensen’s bow as a staff to help him stand, keeping his leg as stiff as possible. He awkwardly maneuvered to pull his pants on, one leg at a time, then staggered into the brush to finally relieve himself.

  His short return to the campsite was a noisy one as he cracked and trampled more branches and bushes. When he pressed his way through the foliage and regained the camp, he saw that Jenniline was sitting on her bedroll, looking up at him with an expression of disdain. He mentally let his senses focus on his leg, and was satisfied that he didn’t feel any harm done to the stitches in his wound.

  “Do you have a good reason for being stupid?” Jenniline asked as she watched him hobble his way to his resting spot. She stared at him as he settled himself back down on the ground, but she offered no help.

  “I feel better,” he said simply.

  She stared at him then stood up and walked over to him. “Your shoulder looks like it’s been hurt nearly as badly as your leg recently. I don’t suppose you know what you did to it?” she asked. “And your leg is okay, I’m sure?”

  “My leg is fine, and you know as much about my shoulder as I do,” Grange answered abruptly. He lay back and closed his eyes.

  “One day,” Jenniline said as she stepped back, then returned to her own set of covers. “We’ll wait one day for you to heal. You’ve got enough scars that I can see you’re a warrior. You’ll be ready to go the day after tomorrow.

  “I’ll take you straight to Acton’s temple, and let him deal with you,” she decided.

  The name of Acton, the god of war, sparked another of the myriad of memories that were hidden in the clouds of Grange’s soul. He remembered songs that he had played on his flute while at Acton’s temple, somewhere.

  He lifted the flute and began to play the martial tune, a melody that called upon soldiers to march and fight.

  “You were a musician who just happens to be a warrior?” Jenniline asked caustically.

  Grange shrugged, and finished the tune, them put the flute on the ground next to him.

  “Why did you have three men escorting you out in the empty wilderness?” he asked Jenniline. “There’s nothing out here that I’ve seen since we came together.”

  “Not out here,” she agreed after a pause. “But closer to home, there are still rebels, supporters of the old regime, even after all these years, a whole society of them.” She started to say something more, then stopped, as Grange waited. “I’m going to go back to the hot spring to soak,” she suddenly said as she rose to her feet, then walked away.

  Grange laid back and looked up at the sky, where gray clouds were beginning to roll into view as the sun descended towards the horizon. Jenniline returned at sunset, and silently shared more of their dried food supply with Grange, just before rain started to fall on them. It was a heavy rain, and despite the warmth of the small thermal oasis, Grange felt chilled. He carefully rolled onto his side and curled up as best he could, when Jenniline touched his shoulder.

  “We should get in the water; it’ll keep us warm,” she advised. She offered a hand to help him stand, then escorted him to the edge of the pool of spring water, while he used the bow once again as a crutch. They slid into the waters, and Grange sighed with relief as the heat enveloped his body.

  The rain abated sometime past midnight, but both the weary travelers were asleep by that time, and they only awoke with the sunrise, as the clouds overhead grew thinner and gray light appeared in the east. Grange stayed in the water as Jenniline brought more of their supplies for breakfast.

  “How long is the trip back to Southgar?” he asked her when he finished eating.

  “Traveling in your condition, probably around five days,” she hazarded an estimate.

  “And, there are,” Grange paused as he searched for a word, “rebels or enemies on the way?” he asked.

  “Sometimes,” she agreed. “They move about, but they are mostly in the southern fringes of the country.

  “If we had more supplies we could try to go around them, but we’re limited, and it’s been a long trip already,” she said. “It would help if you were healthy and we could move faster.”

  “Should we split up?” Grange asked. He didn’t see any advantage to Jenniline in having him as her companion, and he didn’t have any fondness for her continued, abrasive company.

  “If I travel alone, I can reach home in four days, maybe even three,” she said so quickly that Grange knew she had already considered the proposition. “You don’t know the way to return on your own, or how to avoid the rebels, though.”

  “I go north, and it doesn’t matter if they catch me anyway, does it? They’ll have no use for me,” he told her, speaking practically.

  “That’s true, you wouldn’t mean anything to them. You’d only be a burden, as long as you didn’t join them as a fighter,” she spoke, and her words picked up speed. “If they caught you, they’d just release you.” Grange could tell he had opened the door to an idea that the girl wanted to pursue.

  “Go ahead,” he told her. “You can leave today and be back at your home in a few days. I’ll leave here tomorrow and follow. When I get to Southgar, I’ll,” he paused, not sure what he would do. The girl had talked about the temple of Acton, but what that would do wasn’t clear. There was nothing clear in his future, just as there was nothing evident in his past.

  “When you get to the temple, you’ll ask to present yourself to the God, and tell the priests about all that’s happened in the wilderness,” she said. “Then the God Acton will know if his hero has arrived or not,” she spoke with a touch of bitterness. She stood up. “I’ll go pack my things,” she said, then turned and was gone.

  An hour later, Grange hobbled to the campsite, as Jenniline was strapping her pack of supplies onto her back. She picked up her bow and put it on her shoulder, the last step she needed to take to be ready to leave.

  “When I get back, I’ll tell the temple to expect your arrival; there’s a priest there, Elred, who’s especially faithful to his god,” she told Grange. “I’ve left you enough supplies that you can probably even rest here another day extra if you need, to help strengthen that leg,” she told him.

  “You’ll want to go due north for three days, then angle to the north east after that. You should get back to civilization within five days. If the rebels do intercept you, just tell them you drank from the Yellow Spring, and your memories are disturbed,” she added. She hitched her pack up slightly, ready to really go.

  “Yr wyf yn gobeithio y Pwerau uchod yn rhoi cymorth i chi deithio yn ddiogel ac yn gyflym,” Grange told her. He was of a mixed mind about her departure. He would have preferred to travel with someone who knew the countryside, and who could provide assistance if needed, but the girl was prickly and clearly had no desire to travel with him. They were better off going their separate ways.

  Jenniline’s eyes widened. “What did you say?” her face turned red.

  “I said, ‘I hope the Powers above give you support to travel safe and swiftly,’” Grange replied with a feeling that something was wrong.

  “No!” Jenniline shouted. “You spoke in our language. You’ve known how to speak the Tongue all along! You’re some kind of an impostor! You probably didn’t even drink any water at Yellow Spring, did you?” she spoke with passion. As she did she released the straps on her pack, pulled her bow off her shoulder, and let the pack slide to the ground.

  She pulled her sword free from its scabbard.

  “There’s only one way to deal with spies,” she said menacingly.

  Chapter 2

  Grange watched in alarm, then scrambled to reach for his own sword, as he saw Jenniline pull her sword free and start to advance towards him. He felt a twinge in his thigh, and momentarily thought about the stitch
es there, then ignored the pain as he pushed himself up to his feet and held his sword defensively.

  “Jenniline, I don’t know your language,” he said quickly. “If I said something, I didn’t know what I said.

  “Maybe I am from Southgar. Maybe my memory is starting to return, a little,” he tried to placate her. She was approaching him determinedly, holding her sword firmly, circling around him, and making him slowly turn to match her, wincing from the pain in his leg as he tried to maneuver.

  “I fought for you when your men went crazy,” he reminded her.

  “It must have been some kind of trick,” she snarled. “Maybe you did something to make them attack in the first place.”

  Jenniline launched her attack, springing in close and pulling her knife off her hip, so that when Grange swung his sword to stop the attack from the sword in her right hand, the knife in her left hand sliced across the skin of his arm, leaving a bloody red line.

  “Jenniline! Stop!” Grange screamed. “Think this through; what have I done to threaten you?” he asked.

  The girl stabbed her sword viciously. Grange blocked the attack, and for a second he saw an opportunity to harm her, but he held his strike, and dodged out of the way of her knife.

  “I’m the one who said you should leave to go home on your own,” he reminded her.

  “You are a trick, or you are a trap,” she hissed at him as she continued to circle him. Her tactic of continual motion was an effective one, Grange realized, as he continued to try to twist himself on his lame leg fast enough to maintain his defenses.

  She launched another attack, then followed his defensive success by engaging in a new attack immediately. She attacked low, and when he blocked the slice, she swung her knife, then raised her sword. Her sword hit him, but it had twisted as she tried to recover from his defense, so that its flat side only scraped across his chest without cutting his flesh deeply.

  “I am not your enemy!” Grange shouted. He flung his sword forward so that his hand and hilt struck Jenniline in the center of her chest and pushed her away, breaking the engagement momentarily.