Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series Read online

  The sunset was fading in the sky on his right side, while the moon was rising higher on the left, and trees continued to spread gloomy darkness unendingly as the road rose and fell on its way south through the forest. There were no openings in the trees, no farm houses or woodcutters villages along the way. The road became a narrow bright ribbon in the moonlight, as details faded, and the darkness under the trees became a singular black mass. A breeze blew gently, rustling the trees, and Bethany fell asleep leaning against Alec as the miles passed beneath their wheels. The horses to their credit dutifully pulled on, and Alec grew concerned for their well-being; they hadn’t been watered or fed in hours, and he began searching for any possible stream that he could use as a watering spot.

  Within minutes, the road dropped down into a valley and crossed a stream at a shallow ford. Alec halted the wagon, gently slid from the side of the sleeping girl on the bench, and began tending the horses, giving them each an opportunity to drink from the stream, but not letting them guzzle too much. He was several minutes into the task, finishing up the last pair, when all the horses raised their heads in alarm, and nickered uneasily. Alec looked around, listening and trying to smell or detect any type of danger. He hurriedly refastened the harness for the last set, then climbed up into the wagon and unhitched the reins, giving them a flick to start the heavy wagon slowly rolling again.

  The road climbed up the side of a valley as it left the stream ford, and the horses strained to get their load moving from its still position. The horses began to slowly step forward, gaining some momentum as they tossed their heads. Alec placed his arm gently around Bethany and straightened her against him, not disturbing the sound sleep she enjoyed, as he continued to look in all directions, fervently hoping he could find the source of the horses’ unease.

  A cloud passed in front of the moon, and the bright road in front of the wagon dimmed, but the horses continued to move forward. Keep us safe, Lord, Alec silently prayed. He reached back into the wagon bed, his fingers searching until they found the crowbar he had used earlier, and he pulled it forward, ready to be swung as a weapon. The problem was most likely wolves, Alec guessed. The horses were sure to have an instinctive fear of the wolves, and a forest like this was sure to be home to a pack that could lope along the roadside waiting for the right moment to attack.

  They kept climbing the gentle incline of the road, mounting higher along the side of a ridge, and the moonlight brightened as the cloud passed beyond it. The horses seemed slightly calmer, and Alec felt a faint hope that they had gotten beyond the threat. As the horses reached the top of the ridge, Alec saw a brief glimmer of light below in the next valley. He felt relief at the thought of reaching some settlement, and being among other people again. There would be safety there.

  The road began to slope downward, and the sight of the lights was lost behind the reach of the trees again as the road turned and twisted along the natural topography of the ridge. Several minutes later they reached a wide, sweeping hairpin turn, and began to descend back towards a bright blue star, low in the sky while the lights of the settlement at the bottom of the ridge were briefly visible again, noticeably closer. Alec could distinguish several discernibly separate lights grouped together.

  His attention was dramatically redirected as one of the horses screamed loudly, and the wagon began to slow down. Alec could see someone shambling alongside the horse, attempting to grab its bridle, but falling behind. He raised up off the bench, holding his crowbar, waiting for the attacker to drop back next to his position so he could beat him away, when he heard a scrambling sound behind him.

  Alec was astonished at the notion of a band of bandits trying to ambush his wagon in the dead of night without using weapons, and he fearfully expected to feel an arrow pierce his torso at any second. His moment to fight back was about to occur; he whipped the reins madly, urging the crazed horses to move out rapidly and began to swing the crowbar at the man in the front of the wagon as he came alongside Alec’s place.

  As the heavy metal bar made contact with the man’s skull, Alec saw to his horror that the face of the man was decayed, the eye sockets empty, and when the bar hit the head the skull broke and the neck tilted violently away, but the gruesome man only staggered and fell farther behind. Alec gaped in sickened horror at the sight of the dead body that was stumbling away, then turned and saw something sickening similar crawling up over the wagon bed towards him. At the same time the far lead horse screamed, and Alec momentarily saw another of the undead fall beneath the hooves of the galloping horses, and then he felt the wagon wheels violently ride over the body.

  Alec roiled the reins again, then jerked them just as violently, trying to slow the wagon as he saw another switchback turn quickly approaching. The heavy wagon and the wild horses were slow to respond, but the decrease in momentum tossed the crawling attacker on the wagon bed forward towards the bench.

  A flare of energy seemed to erupt in Alec, as he said a quick prayer, and grabbed the tumbling undead body, using its own momentum to throw it out of the wagon, towards the side where his vision seemed suddenly enhanced and he could detect three other members of the attacking crew trying to reach a position to fling themselves at the wagon.

  Bethany was awake, he realized. “Take these reins and hold them,” he told her. Without understanding why he believed it was possible, he stepped over the front of the wagon, and hopped from horseback to horseback, then landed on the ground in front the lead horses, and used some supernatural reservoir of strength to slow the wagon enough to allow it to safely make the sharp turn. He raced around the side of the team of horses, and threw himself at the legs of the pursuers, knocking all three of them down. He rolled and stood again, then raced back to the wagon, which was gaining a lead, and jumped back up onto the bench.

  “What’s happening?” The young girl asked sharply as Alec took the reins from her and hurried the horses to pick up speed. “Where did you go?”

  “Someone in the woods was trying to grab our horses, so I jumped out there to push them away,” Alec replied. “And now I’m back here with you.”

  “Are they bad people, like the ones who killed my dad?” Bethany asked.

  “Yes, I think they’re definitely bad,” Alec answered, “but I think we’ll get away this time, just like we did last time in the city.

  “I’ll take care of you,” he promised comfortingly, removing one hand from the reins to place a comforting arm around Bethany’s shoulders. “And I’ll expect you to help take care of me,” he added, causing her to grin at him.

  His strangely heightened senses were still present, and he turned his head to scan their surroundings. Another switchback turn was still far ahead, and thankfully no new attackers were lurking nearby. But he could sense another band of them waiting along the roadside below them.

  He wondered if he was losing his mind, diminished as his memory already was, or if he was dreaming. There was no explanation for how he could have physically done the things he had just done. He pulled on the reins, beginning to break the wagon’s momentum far ahead of the curve they were approaching, and slowing the horses sufficiently to make the turn safely. As he looked ahead, he could see the road apparently leading straight down the lowest portion of the hillside to reach the settlement.

  At the same time he could see more of the undead bodies were gathering. Instead of another handful, it appeared to Alec that well over two dozen were stringing out along both sides of the road. Alec decided to keep the horses’ speed down until just before they reached the next ambush, then allow them to gain speed and attempt to fly through the attackers; he held the reins tightly and let the wagon easily roll along the roadway until the beginning of the ambush was just fifty yards away.

  He raised the reins and whipped them down, urging the horses to run faster, then he handed them to his companion. “Here, you hold these for a few minutes,” he told her. “I’m going to run with the horses again.”

  With that he slipped over t
he side of the wagon and ran up to the front, where he grabbed the harness and began to pull the wagon forward even more quickly. As he did, the first lumbering body began to run out of the woods on the left, and Alec jumped in front of it, rolling, knocking it down, getting up, then streaking forward to knock over another one.

  He ran behind the wagon to the other side, where two of the zombies were reaching for the wooden side boards. With a sweep of his legs, Alec knocked them to the ground. He raised his head as he ran, and realized that many more were coming through the forest, stumbling down the hillside, but always arising and resuming their pursuit. The numbers were overwhelming.

  But now the settlement was very close as well. Alec saw the stockade wall ahead where the road leveled out. He jumped up into the wagon and took back control of the reins. He began to pull hard, trying to slow the poor exhausted horses down before they ran head-first into the stout gateway.

  “Open the gate! We seek refuge,” Alec screamed at the settlement that was now just ahead of them. With his vision he could see the heads of men watching from the top of the stockade walls, and turning he could see the mob of walking lifeless bodies that were converging on them.

  “Let us in,” he shouted again as the horses came to stop at the very crack of the gate doors. “For the love of God, let us in,” he screamed.

  “We don’t open the doors after sundown,” a voice replied. “It’s the law.”

  “What are they? Where do they come from? Lord, save us from these monsters,” Alec yelled. He felt fear, and picked up Bethany. “You’ll be safe inside,” he told her.

  “Here, catch her,” he shouted up at a group of men he saw, and he heaved the surprised girl high up into the air, so that she landed in the arms of the gate watchers, shrieking as she flew and landed. At the same time he saw someone with a long spear suddenly jump over the wall towards him, and he felt the wagon bed sink with the impact of their landing.

  He felt a sense of gratitude for someone’s brave but foolhardy decision to come to his help. With that feeling in his heart, he turned back and saw the imminent arrival of the army of dismal, animated bodies that were about to engulf him. “God rest all our souls, and protect us, please,” he prayed, and he shut his eyes as the first of the zombies reached the wagon. There was an eerie sense of peacefulness within him unexpectedly, a stinging pain on his arm, and he sensed a strange hush descend across the whole morbid scene. He peeked his eyes open, and saw that every one of the zombies had fallen flat upon the ground and lay still, now completely motionless and dead.

  Chapter 3 – The Road to Vincennes

  Alec stared, dumbfounded, at the miraculous end of the hostilities, then turned to the man who had jumped down. The man was holding his spear upright, staring with cautious amazement at the onslaught that had ended before it began.

  “Thank you for saving me. How did you do that?” Alec asked the man.

  The warrior stared at Alec uncomprehendingly, his thick accent unintelligible.

  Alec tried again, more slowly. He gestured towards the motionless forms; “Why did they stop?”

  “How did you do that?” the volunteer replied. “I’ve never seen anything like that.” He was older than a boy, but still too young to be a man.

  He stepped closer and looked at Alec’s face in the moonlight and weak torchlight of the settlement. “You don’t know how it happened, do you? I can see the fear still in your eyes. Well, that’s a sight worth being scared of, for the rest of your life.

  “Conston, throw some blankets and pillows down here, we’ll spend the night,” he called up to someone above them. “They still won’t open the gate to let us in,” he explained to Alec. “The rule is never broken, no matter what.

  “I’ll tell you, I’m not sure why I jumped down here. I guess I couldn’t stand to just watch you out here alone. Whatever it was, something made me hop the barricade before I knew what I was up to. Look at that,” he held out a quavering hand. “I’m shaking like a leaf, now that it’s all over.

  “I have never done anything like that!” he reflected further, starting to analyze what had seemed like a certain self-imposed death wish just minutes earlier.

  “Rahm, what’s going on down there?” a voice called from above, and a pile of blankets showered down upon them.

  “Should we check them?” Alec asked, pointing again at the ranks of decayed bodies in the field around them.

  “Rolf,” the man on the wagon shouted back. “Throw a spear into one of the anideads.”

  A shaft immediately came hurling down and made an unpleasant sound as it pierced a corpse on the ground. Alec cautiously climbed down from the wagon and placed a hand on the spear that stood straight above its target. He grabbed the spear with his other hand as well and pulled it out of the ground and the dead thing, then prodded the monster gingerly.

  “Boo!” Rahm shouted as he suddenly leapt down beside Alec, frightening him visibly and making him jump in the tense atmosphere. The two looked at one another momentarily, until Alec’s face began to grin, matching Rahm’s expression.

  “I am Alec,” he said simply.

  “My name is Rahm. It’s good to meet you.” He paused. “What in the world were you doing riding through the Haunted Forest at night?” he asked bluntly. “You should be dead; I can’t imagine how you got to the town at this time of night.

  “And I really want to know how you killed all the anideads.”

  “Whatever killed them, it wasn’t us,” Alec replied. “Will my sister be safe?” he asked.

  “That was quite a toss,” Rahm replied at first. “Rolf!” he shouted at the overhead ramparts again.

  “What now?” came the reply.

  “Take the girl you just caught, and take her to my ma’s house. Tell ma to give her a bed for the night,” Rahm instructed.

  “The sun will be up soon,” he commented to Alec, pointing to the hint of pink along the eastern horizon.

  Alec began walking among the corpses, using his spear to prod and check several of them. Satisfied that they were no threat, he returned to the wagon, where Rahm stood watching him. Together they stood silently and watched the sky brighten, and the features of the wide field grew distinct, up until the point when the edge of the sun broached the forested ridge on the horizon.

  As the sun’s rays struck the corpses on the ground, they each disintegrated in a puff of smoke, leaving the field empty of evidence of the horrific events that had happened just a short time earlier. There was a loud wooden snapping sound as the gate was opened, and a squadron of armed guards came out of the stockade and surrounded the wagon, from which Rahm and Alec jumped back to the ground.

  “You were lucky to survive!” a number of guards told Alec as they mobbed around him. “No one has ever spent a night outside the stockade before and survived.

  “Why were you in the forest at night, fool?” an officer asked Alec. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bethany emerge from the gateway and hurry over towards the wagon and its crowd.

  “We didn’t know any better. We left Krimshelm yesterday and had no idea the forest was infested,” Alec said as Bethany wove through the crowd and snuggled up under his arm.

  “You were amazing yesterday.” She told him enthusiastically. “I couldn’t believe it when you threw me up to the top of the wall.

  “You should have seen him running with the horses and fighting the, what did you call them, the anideads,” she told the guardsmen. “We wouldn’t have made it here at all if he hadn’t made it happen.”

  “Where can we ride to today?” Alec asked. “We want to find a new home.” He wanted to change the topic from the inexplicable fighting ability he had found himself exercising.

  “In a hurry to leave Krimshelm? Well, we don’t answer to them; we’re a Conglomerate trading settlement, so it’s no skin off our nose,” the officer answered. “If you’re that good a fighter, maybe you ought to become a guard for us.”

  “Thanks, but we haven’t made pla
ns yet,” Alec answered. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the coins he had received as payment for his work on the Ingrid. He handed the money to Bethany. “Go into town and buy some oats for the horses and some travel food for us today,” he told her as the soldiers started to disperse.

  “I’ll go with her,” Rahm volunteered. “I’ll show her the best place to get supplies.”

  Alec eyed the young warrior. In the early sunlight his face appeared open and honest, and Alec turned to look at Bethany, seeing her clearly for the first time as well. She was a pretty girl, he realized, with short dark hair and large green eyes that sat somberly at present above a scattering of freckles that bridged across her nose.

  Alec reached over and placed his hand over Rahm’s shoulder. “You’ll take good care of her and treat her properly, right?” there was a tingle in his hand.

  Rahm’s eyes widened momentarily. “I’ll treat your sister as though you were there with us,” he said, and Alec felt certain that the boy spoke the truth.

  Bethany looked shyly at Rahm, and Alec released his hand from the young man’s shoulder. “You can go with him. I’ll wait here until you’re back,” Alec told his putative sibling, and he watched the young pair walk through the gate.

  Several minutes later a voice spoke from behind Alec. “She must look like her mother, and her mother must be a beautiful woman,” the forgotten officer said to Alec, causing him to turn. “She doesn’t look like you at all.” Alec silently nodded his head in agreement.

  “You left Krimshelm without knowing where you were going; you didn’t know about the Dead Forest, but you survived it, impossibly enough; you speak with a strange accent; your sister doesn’t look like you; and you must have a very heavy load you’re hauling if you’ve got this team of six brutes,” he patted one of the massive horses. “There’s something about your story that doesn’t add up.