The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3) Page 4

  "That's all? You’re just kidnappers collecting ransom?" Grange asked with a hint of a sneer.

  "Don't be impudent, boy!" one of the men snarled.

  "If they do not meet our demands," the man in the center pronounced icily, "their beloved princess will become the bride of Victor, the rightful heir to the crown, and she will be the mother to a new dynasty of Bloomingians." All three of them seemed to scrutinize him closely, looking for a reaction.

  Grange stood silently, weighing the distasteful options placed before him.

  "What if I refuse to carry your message?" he asked.

  "Then we'll dispense with the month's wait and let Victor start breeding the brat tonight," one of the trio snapped.

  "I'll carry you message, if I'm allowed to talk to the princess first," Grange replied. He wasn't sure what he expected to accomplish, other than to see Jenniline and let her know he was going to carry the message. He doubted that she would feel any gratitude, but he would see her anyway, and carry the message that would perhaps purchase her freedom.

  The trio spoke among themselves again, squabbling until they resolved their dispute.

  "Very well," the center speaker said. He spoke loudly in the Southgar tongue, and a pair of the other men in the tent stood up, then came and stood next to Grange.

  "Escort him to visit the captive, then bring him back here," the man in the chair instructed the pair.

  One of the men grabbed Grange's arm, and led him from the tent.

  Both the men were armed, Grange saw. He wouldn't be able to easily overpower them, and with his bad leg, he wouldn't be able to outrun anyone to escape, he conceded to himself.

  They walked for five minutes, letting Grange see that the camp was an extensive settlement, and not just a military one. There were women and children in residential areas, and a marketplace as well. The camp housed a whole society, he saw, a swathe of the population of Southgar that had been displaced into exile.

  A tent stood almost alone, next to one other structure, isolated from the rest of the settlement. Two guards stood outside of each tent as Grange's escort directed him towards the smaller of the two.

  As they approached the entry, it flung open, and an elderly, stooped man with a paunch came out.

  Grange's escort bowed, and forced Grange to bow as well, his movement awkward as he favored his slashed leg.

  "What are you bringing us?" the old man asked pleasantly. "He looks familiar, vaguely,” the man said as he peered myopically.

  "Another captive, your highness," the escort explained.

  "Someone came to rescue my future bride, did they, and failed?" the old man saw humor in the story he spun. "By all means, let him see her loveliness before he is executed," the man said dismissively. "Carry on," he directed as he walked away to the other tent next door.

  The two escorts spoke intently to one another in their own language, disagreeing about something, until Grange grew impatient. He wrenched his arm free.

  "I'll go in while the two of you squabble," he said. He left his escorts and went between the pair of guards at the tent entrance to pull the flap open and step inside.

  "I'm sure you didn't expect to see me," he told Jenniline as he entered the main chamber of the tent.

  The girl sitting on an upholstered chair looked up at him calmly, though there were tear tracks on her face.

  She took time to translate his words, then answered in the same language. "I'm not sure what to expect any more," she replied. "Who are you?"

  Grange stared in confusion.

  The girl was not Jenniline.

  Chapter 4

  "My name is Grange," he answered, at a loss as to what to do. He stepped closer to the girl. "Where is Jenniline?" he asked.

  "Stop taunting me!" the girl cried at him fiercely.

  "I'm not taunting. I thought I was coming here to see Jenniline," Grange explained. "The princess from Southgar," he added.

  "I know who she is," the girl hissed. "She's the reason I'm in this predicament."

  Grange stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Who are you?" he asked.

  "As if you didn't know," the girl shot back. "I'm her sister."

  Grange stared at her, not certain who the girl was, or why he had been sent to her. He didn't want to reveal anything to his captors if Jenniline was still at liberty in the wilderness.

  There was a slight resemblance around the mouth and chin, he thought. The features on this girl weren’t as sharp as Jenniline’s – they were softer.

  "I met a girl in the wilderness," he stated. "Her name was Jenniline. She had guards with her. Do you know who they were?" he tested the alleged sister.

  The girl studied him.

  "One of them would have been Trensen; he'll be faithful to her until the day he dies," she said.

  "He was," Grange agreed softly.

  "Trensen's dead?" the girl exclaimed, rising from her seat.

  "And Jenniline? Did you kill her too?" she asked in a flat voice, expecting the worst.

  "I didn't kill anyone," Grange replied. "And I believe Jenniline is still alive. She left the hot spring four days ago."

  "Why weren’t you traveling together? Where did you meet her?" the girl asked.

  "She found me at Yellow Spring," Grange answered. "She was bringing me back to Southgar. We separated at the hot spring because I'm injured and can't go as fast as her.

  "You’re her sister?" It was his turn to ask skeptical questions. "She didn't mention any sisters," he said, which wasn't quite the truth. She had mentioned siblings generally, and a half dozen sisters in fact, though not in a positive light.

  The girl blushed faintly, giving Grange a moment of satisfaction in seeing someone else display their embarrassment.

  "We haven't been particularly close," the girl admitted. "We have different mothers, and Jenniline is older than I am."

  "Why are you here?" Grange asked.

  "I had a dream," the girl said wistfully. "I dreamed of the great god Acton, speaking to me. He told me he'd sent Jenniline on her god walk to find Southgar’s hero," she told Grange, which corresponded closely with what Jenniline herself had told him.

  "Acton said I had to help finish the job. In my dream he told me to arm myself and sneak away from the palace and come south into the wilderness to help complete her task."

  "So I did, but the rebels caught me, and now they plan to marry me to the awful man who was just here," a new tear rolled down her cheek.

  "Will your father pay a ransom for you?" Grange stepped in closer to the girl and lowered his voice. "These people are going to send me to Southgar to propose a payment for your freedom."

  She looked at Grange intently, a momentary spark of hope flashing, then dimming, in her eyes. "No, he won't pay. He'll just say I was stupid to get myself into this mess."

  Grange digested her answer. He was horrified by the thought of the lovely young girl being married to the man he had seen leaving the tent.

  "Why would they give you to that man?" he asked.

  "Count Victor is the senior known member of the Bloomingian dynasty, who my father overthrew a generation ago. These are most of the people left who still support the old order. You have to know that, of course," she answered.

  "I told you, I have no memories, and I don't even know your language anyway," he responded.

  She was a lovely girl. He could see some resemblance to Jenniline in her looks, and in her personality too, though she wasn't as proud and abrasive as Jenniline. But she was lovely, achingly beautiful.

  "What's your name?" he asked.

  She gave a tiny smile. "My name is Hope, ironically, considering that I have none," she answered.

  "Have a safe journey to Southgar," she said, indicating her dismissal of him. "It's been nice to meet you, and it's good to know that Jenniline is safely returned."

  He stood there, not knowing what else to say or do.

  "Farewell Hope, and good luck," he finally muttered, then went out the fla
p of the tent to where his escort impatiently waited.

  "Did you say all your goodbyes?" one guard asked in a taunting voice as they walked through the camp.

  "For now," Grange said sullenly. He was depressed by the girl's circumstances.

  An hour later, Grange found himself outside the camp of the Bloomingian rebels, a pair of guards escorting him northward through the wilderness.

  "I can find my way north to Southgar from here," he told the man and woman who were accompanying him. The sun was setting in the west to their left.

  "You're sure?" the woman asked. The man had not spoken to him, but Grange had concluded that the man didn't speak the common language, but only his own, the tongue of Southgar.

  She spoke to her companion, their words briefly flowing back and forth, then she spoke to Grange.

  "We will part from you here. May you find success on your journey," she offered, as the pair stopped walking, and a gap began to stretch between them and Grange.

  Grange nodded his acknowledgment and kept walking on the narrow track before him. He continued on for ten minutes, wondering if his escort had truly left him alone, unobserved, then stopped.

  He had developed the rough outline of a plan, a fantastic, unrealistic improbable plan. He wanted to return to the village and rescue the girl. He wanted to return to the tent where Hope was held, and lead the girl away from her captivity and her unjust fate.

  He turned, and started walking back south, alert, eyes open and scanning all quarters of the horizon for signs of guards. He reached the spot where he had parted from his escort without being stopped or challenged, and he kept moving cautiously forward, leaving the game trail to begin to carefully force his way through the untamed greenery once again.

  Several minutes later, as the sun set, he spotted the faint glow of light from a few lanterns in the camp. With a start, Grange realized that he was virtually already inside the camp, that many tents were unlit and closer than he had expected, due to the poverty of the people and the lack of candles, firewood, or lantern oil.

  He stopped and slid his pack off, then set it under a bush at the edge of the settlement's opening. Unencumbered, he took his bearings in the last rays of the twilight, and assured himself that there were no guards on patrol, then began to creep into the settlement, vaguely sure he knew which direction to go to find the tent that held the captive princess.

  Grange's exploration took fifteen nerve-wracking minutes before he found the two tents with the guards on duty. He crept around to the back of Hope's tent, then slowly used his knife to open a small portion of the bottom seam of the tent material, stuck his head inside and looked around in the thick darkness. The girl was not there.

  Grange gave a soft curse, then hurriedly climbed into the tent to reduce his exposure to the surrounding settlement, and he considered his next step. He was frustrated; he was there to rescue her, and she was so inconsiderate as to not be in place when he wanted.

  There was a second chamber to the tent, he suddenly recollected, and in the darkness he identified the flap to the other portion of the tent. She might be there, he reasoned, and he stealthily tiptoed over to the folded-over flap of cloth and carefully lifted it away.

  And he suddenly felt the sharp point of a knife at his throat, as the flap was ripped from his hand.

  "A beth fyddwch chi'n ei wneud nawr, rapist?” Hope hissed, as she dug the knife point against his Adam's Apple.

  "What are you doing?" Grange asked urgently. "I'm here to rescue you!" he exclaimed.

  There was a moment of silence, which Grange had come to recognize as the translation time the Southgar people needed to understand him.

  " Stranger? Grange?" Hope asked. He felt the knife pressure ease slightly.

  "They said they sent you north to ransom me. You told me the same yourself," she said.

  "I couldn't stand the thought of letting you be married to their Count," he said.

  Hope removed the knife from his throat.

  "How did you get here? How can you help me?" Hope asked.

  "I snuck into the camp, and we'll sneak back out," he told her.

  "We'll freeze to death out there," she answered immediately.

  She was going to reject his rescue attempt, the stunned boy realized. Somehow, his plans to be a hero had gone completely wrong. He was going to have to sneak out of the camp alone, and resume his journey alone.

  "But I'd rather freeze to death than be married to old, fat Victor," Hope said at that moment.

  "Let me put on my clothes and we'll try," she suddenly said. She released the tent flap that she held, and he was alone again in the main chamber of the tent. The flap opened again a split second later, and Hope suddenly hugged him.

  "Thank you, Grange," she whispered.

  She released and closed the flap again. A moment later he heard the sound of her rummaging in the other room, then two minutes later she came out, wearing a bulky outfit of multiple layers of clothes.

  "Let’s go," she said.

  Grange went to the back of the tent, dropped down, and looked out through the opening.

  There was a pair of guards stationed just twenty yards away, talking quietly to one another.

  "We'll have to wait," he whispered back to Hope.

  "We can't wait," she answered. "They'll be here any minute to take me to Victor," she said urgently.

  Grange closed his eyes and dropped his head in frustration.

  "Alright, be silent," he ordered, before trying to creep out of the tent without being detected.

  Just as he got his body through the opening, the guards started moving, and he froze in place. They didn't look in his direction but disappeared around the corner of the tent.

  "Hurry!" he hissed, as he realized that they were probably the very guards assigned to fetch Hope away. The pair of escapees were only seconds away from being caught, and they hadn't even gotten out of the tent!

  "Move out of the way, you blockhead," Hope commanded, as she crawled and she bumped into his rear while she barreled out into the open.

  "Which way?" she asked before she even stood up.

  "Princess?" a guard's voice called from the front of the tent.

  Grange grabbed Hope's hand and pulled her to her feet, then began to lead her swiftly away from their impending capture. He dragged her as he wove through the camp towards his pack and the path to freedom.

  A series of shouts arose behind them, and Grange knew that Hope's absence had been detected. It was hopeless to go on, he knew, though he might be able to escape alone if he abandoned the girl.

  "You go on without me," she said at that moment, echoing his thoughts as she relaxed her grip on his hand.

  "No!" he was galvanized by her concern for him. He wouldn't leave her to face her fate alone, he knew. He tightened his grip on her and kept her running in his path, running as best he was able on his sore leg.

  Seconds later he swerved into the bushes around the perimeter of the settlement, and by either skill or luck, came immediately upon his hidden pack of supplies. He grabbed it with his free hand and kept plunging into the foliage as he attempted to put as much space as possible between the camp and Hope and himself.

  "Grange, stop!" Hope called in a clear voice.

  He halted and looked at her.

  "Every branch is hitting me in the face," she complained.

  He pulled his pack on his back, then spoke to her.

  "Put your hands on my hips and your face against my pack," he suggested. "We've got to keep moving."

  He turned without waiting, and felt her comply with his direction, as the uproar in the settlement increased. He resumed traveling, using a slightly slower pace to allow Hope to hold on.

  They moved in what Grange hoped was a northward direction, a cloudy sky leaving him uncertain, but plunging on, anyway, recklessly, as he sought to put distance between them and pursuit.

  Grange trotted on and on and on, until Hope's grip on his hips tightened.

&nbs
p; "Stop!" she said urgently.

  "Are you hurt?" he asked with concern, fearful that they were being followed.

  "No, I have to pee!" she explained. She let go of him and disappeared into the growth around them. Grange heard her grunt and rustle as she removed layer after layer of clothes, and he chuckled in spite of the tension that gripped his soul.

  After Hope reversed the process of restoring her clothing they began running again, until Grange heard a sound not far away. He instantly stopped, and they heard the tramping and talk of a squad of guards pass by, only yards from their position. The guards were speaking in the Southgar language, frustrating Grange who listened without comprehending.

  "What did they say?" he whispered the question into Hope's ear when the voices faded away.

  "They think I escaped on my own," she said. "They're convinced they're ahead of me, and they'll set up a cordone just ahead to catch me if I get this far," she reported gleefully.

  "Let’s get going then and get around them before they realize we've been through here," Grange urged. Hope resumed her grip on him, and they moved ahead.

  They crossed an established trail, the route the guards must have used, then they angled slightly away, weary but determined to escape.

  When the sun finally rose, Grange saw that they had been moving in a northwest direction, away from the Bloomingians and Southgar both. He adjusted their course to go due north, and they continued on, their steps growing slower and slower until finally. Grange knew they had to rest.

  When he stopped, Hope immediately released her hold on him and collapsed.

  "Do you think it's safe to rest?" she asked wearily. She looked up at him and he saw the exhaustion in her face.

  "Yes, princess," he replied as he dropped down. "We can rest," he said. He removed his pack and positioned it so that they both could use it as a pillow, then he rested his head and closed his eyes. He opened them suddenly moments later, when Hope pressed herself against him.

  "This is only to help us stay warm," she told him. "Remember that."

  He closed his eyes again and grunted his agreement. He was so tired and cold, and the number of layers of her clothing were so numerous, that he had no thought of anything remotely approaching an inclination towards romance. But images of the faces of a girl with red hair, and one with very dark skin and a warm smile, flashed through his consciousness for the fleeting moments before he fell asleep.