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

  Chapter 6

  Grange woke up in the darkness, groggy and confused. He was in pitch black surroundings, on a bumpy, hard surface.

  “Hope?” he asked at first, thinking that he was still on the journey through the wilderness.

  As soon as he heard his own voice though, he remembered that he had reached the end of the journey, or at least a stop that was close to the end. He had the freed princess delivered to her own family, and they were just a short journey away from her home.

  “Hello?” he called as he sat up. He put his hands down, and felt more of the rough surface. It was gravelly. It wasn’t his mattress. He must have fallen onto the floor, and the floor must be strangely dirty, he tried to conjecture.

  He suddenly remembered drinking wine, and Morine. The girl had been strangely persistent in coming into his room and making sure he drank wine, he recollected.

  “Hello?” he stood up shakily, and tried to remember which direction the windows were in, so that he could open them and see if it was light outside. He placed his hands in front of him, realized that he felt unsteady, and still tired, then took two steps before his hands touched the wall next to him.

  It was a hard, clammy, cool wall, one made of stone or brick. He didn’t recollect any walls in his room that were made of stone or brick.

  He spun around and stooped to lower his hands, then explored the space behind him, searching for his bed mattress. He stepped and stepped and stepped, until his fingertips bluntly collided with another stone wall.

  Puzzled, he placed his hands on the wall and edged along its length, one hand high and one low to intercept furniture. He turned the inside of a corner, and after an improbably short distance, he turned another corner. The realization was dawning on him that he was no longer in the room where he had fallen asleep, and when he came to a metal grill door, he knew something had gone terribly astray.

  “Hey!” He shouted loudly through the metal bars, as he rattled them, and his hands groped to find a latch or other means of opening the door. There seemed to be a faint glimmer of light off to his left, he sensed, too dim to reveal any details of his surroundings.

  “Hello!” he shouted again, as he continued his tactile exploration of the door. There was a single place where a latch was installed, but it was immovable – locked somehow, by something he couldn’t see.

  He left the door and continued around the walls of the room, which proved to be a very small cell, one whose perimeter took little time to define before returned to the door again – the door and a built in bench were the only features. His sword and knife were missing he realized, when he considered the prospect of trying to dig out the mortar around the hinges of the door.

  He found his way to the bench and sat down in bafflement. He was still groggy, and slowly drifted off to sleep as he leaned back against the wall, but he started into upright alertness when he heard a cacophonous clanging noise sometime later.

  A glow was visible through his door, and it grew brighter as he sprang up, anxious to find out what had happened – what mistake had been made to move him to his cell, and where Hope was (he prayed she was not in a cell somewhere else).

  “Hello! Hope?” he called.

  “Stop your racket!” a voice rasped.

  Moments later a pair of torches appeared at his door, bright enough in the darkness that their glare was blinding. Grange was unable to see who was at his cell door, but he heard the rattle of metal on metal, and then heard the hinges creak open.

  “Traitor, we’re here to find out what you had planned,” Grange heard Goala say, as he watched the Earl step out of the glare of the two torches, which spread to either side of him in the small cell.

  “I’m not a traitor; I’m not even a part of Southgar, as far as I know, except that Hope called me her Protector,” Grange answered. It was baffling – completely baffling – to him as to how such a situation of mistaken identity, or mistaken assumptions, could have come to such a ludicrous situation.

  Goala’s hand appeared out of the darkness and slapped Grange’s cheek hard, rattling his teeth and sending him crashing backwards against the stony wall behind him.

  “I want no lies and no more of this ridiculous story of lost memories,” Goala said heatedly.

  “Where’s Hope?” Grange asked, as he held his hand to his cheek. “She’ll vouch for me.”

  “She is on her way to Southgar. We told her that you and Morine spent the night together and then ran off together this morning,” Goala answered. “She’s in a coach with our guards, and she’ll have no desire to ever see you again.

  “Nor will she ever see you again,” he added.

  “I have no idea what you think is happening, but I am completely innocent. I found Hope held captive; I rescued her and brought her to freedom; and this is how you reward me!” he shouted. “You’re the biggest bunch of fools on the face of the earth!”

  Goala’s hand swung out of the shadows on the opposite side this time, and struck him in the shoulder, knocking him off his feet and crumpling him into a heap on the floor. He looked up and from the lower angle saw that the two torch holders were Oehla and Skore.

  “Don’t touch me again,” Grange shouted as he slowly stood up.

  “What makes you think I’m anything but who I said I am?” he asked, ready to pick their flawed logic apart.

  “You look just like a spitting image of the old king, Ragnar, when he was a young man. You’re some unexpected offshoot of his tree, which we thought was completely chopped off,” Goala answered. “So your story about miraculously walking Hope through an entire camp of Bloomingians without detection, then incredibly evading all their patrols in the wilderness, well, it all sounds a bit too simple,” the Earl said. “A lot too simple.

  “I think the story of wanting to tie the Bloomingian blood lines into ours is more likely. I think the whole thing was set up to make you appear to be a hero to a naïve girl, so that you could bring her back to Southgar and seduce her, and so seduce your way back into power,” he pronounced his conspiracy theory. “Everyone in the Bloomingian settlement and all the guards and patrols were told not to intercept you, and to let you make your getaway with the girl.

  “And then, once you were here, you were only too willing to put on the banished colors of the Bloomingians, the green and red,” he added emphatically.

  “They’re the only clothes that were given to me, for the love of the gods, you idiot!” Grange shot back in anger.

  Goala’s fist came flying towards Grange again, but this time Grange was ready, aware that he was likely to be assaulted. He let his reflexes take over the control of his muscles. He ducked beneath the looming fist and moved inward towards it, while he reached up and wrenched it downward hard, using both of his own hands to squeeze and viciously twist it, so that Goala cried out in pain and shock, as his large body pivoted in response to the action.

  In a matter of seconds, Grange had the Earl’s arm painfully pinned against the man’s back, while the nobleman was held captive as a shield in front of Grange, protecting him from any attack by the two sons.

  “Back up!” Grange shouted at the two younger men, who were standing in baffled astonishment. “Back up or I’ll hurt him.” Grange reached down to the Earl’s hip and pulled his knife free from its scabbard, then raised the knife to Goala’s throat with one hand.

  “We’ll give you space. Don’t do anything rash.” Skore immediately replied. The two brothers began to shuffle backwards towards the cell’s doorway, then through it and into the darkness beyond.

  “I am not a Bloomingian!” Grange shouted. “I am just a traveler. I just want to pass through. If you’ll release me, and promise not to attack or harass me, I’ll be out of your home in a matter of minutes,” he said as he pressed Goala’s arm upward to painfully guide the man forward towards freedom from the cell.

  They passed over the threshold, one significant step forward for Grange, out of the cell and into a dark hallway.

&n
bsp; “Now lead us out of here,” Grange ordered.

  The two torches slowly moved forward, then began to rise up a set of stairs.

  “You can’t get away with this, Bloomingian,” Goala spoke for the first time since his capture, growling over his shoulder at Grange as they began to follow the Earl’s sons up the stairs.

  “Get away with freedom? I had it already, before I came here. Why shouldn’t I get it back?” Grange hissed up at his human shield.

  There was a greater light above, a sign that they were going up into the daylight. Grange paused as the two sons disappeared from view while they stepped around the corner of the doorway. He pushed Goala up to the floor level, then pulled the man to a stop, while he peered around the corner and past Goala, trying to gauge the circumstances.

  Oehla and Skore were ten feet away, their torches out and their swords drawn.

  “Guards!” Oehla shouted loudly as he watched his father being held captive.

  “What did you do to me? Put poison in that wine?” Grange asked Goala as he heard the clump of approaching guards.

  “Just some herbs the witch woman in the village gave me in the past,” Goala answered. “I should have put poison in it, then stabbed you in the heart while you were unconscious.”

  Men were appearing, additional guards. They each gasped as they saw and comprehended the circumstances, and within a minute there were a half dozen new blades drawn, blocking an easy exit for Grange.

  “What are you going to do now, traitor?” Goala grunted smugly.

  “Skore!” Grange shouted. He had a hunch that the red-headed son would be the more reasonable of the two to negotiate with. “Skore, I’ll let your father go free and unharmed if you let me walk away from your lands,” Grange offered.

  “Make no deal with this traitor!” Goala bellowed, then squealed, as Grange jabbed the man’s own knife point against his throat.

  “We’ll get out of here somehow,” Grange rasped in Goala’s ear as he hitched the man’s twisted arm and drove him a step out into the hallway. Grange followed, then started inching sideways along the wall, looking for some way to get to the exterior of the castle, and then consider a next step. They reached a corner, and Grange stopped to peek to his side, where he saw a pair of men with swords waiting, and beyond them, a large open doorway to the outside.

  “Stand back or Goala dies!” he shouted to the men, before he guided the Earl around the corner, on the way to freedom. As the pair turned, Grange heard a twang, then felt a horrific pain in his leg. He grunted with pain and looked down to see an arrow deeply embedded in his thigh.

  He inadvertently loosened his hold on Goala’s arm, and the knife point slipped away from his hostage’s neck, as his leg began to buckle. A man darted forth and seized Grange’s arm to jerk the knife out of his grasp.

  Grange cried out, as Goala escaped from his grasp, and a half dozen bodies descended upon him, grabbing every extremity and rendering him motionless.

  He cried out in pain from the arrow wound again. “Cut the arrow out of him, then tie him up,” Goala ordered from nearby, though Grange could not see him any longer.

  “Should I just slit his throat and put an end to this?” Grange thought Oehla’s voice asked the question, as a sword blade was pressed against his neck.

  “No,” Goala answered harshly. “I think perhaps we should send him up to the palace and let them find out the details of the pretender’s plot.”

  Grange screamed then in pain, as a knife suddenly sliced the flesh around the embedded arrow in his thigh, and pulled it free.

  “Have Morine stitch it up, then put him in the back of a wagon and take him to the palace. Oehla, you accompany the wagon and explain to Magnus what we’ve got for him,” Goala said. And at that point Grange passed out from pain.

  Chapter 7

  Grange awoke to the sensation of more pain in his leg. He blinked his eyes open, and recognized Morine sitting next to him, calmly stitching the wound in his thigh. He wore no pants, he realized, giving the girl access to his injured leg, but he didn’t care. His first thought was to reach up and strangle the girl who had sedated him and doomed him to his captive condition.

  His hands were tied, he found, bound tightly to his sides.

  “You should have slept just five minutes more, and then you wouldn’t even notice this,” Morine said conversationally.

  “I know about your treachery,” Grange replied.

  “I was told to get you to drink your wine, and to do whatever it took. You were a gentleman about the whole encounter, and I thank you for that,” Morine told him matter-of-factly.

  “You’ll have matching scars on your legs,” she commented in the next breath. “I’ll take out these other stitches in your other leg as soon as I finish putting the new ones in.

  “Who did this work for you? It’s very neatly done,” she asked.

  “The princess,” Grange grunted, as the needle pierced his flesh at that moment.

  “Little Hope did that for you? How very nice of the girl. I think she was sweet on you, or as sweet as a royal can be on a traitor,” Morine told him.

  “Not Hope; Jenniline,” Grange corrected her.

  “Oh? You’ve been consorting with numerous princesses have you? Had plans to be like their father and take multiple wives, did you? Doesn’t it seem a bit, I don’t know – unwholesome – to set your sights on a pair of sisters?” Morine was taunting him now.

  She pulled a knife from her cleavage, and the motion set off a sense of déjà vu in Grange’s mind. He’d seen that motion before – he was very familiar with it – somewhere in his past it had been a common sight, yet he felt the memory’s particulars elude him. Morine sliced the thread off at his wound and tied a knot in the end.

  “There, all sewed up. I think I’ve done as well as your seamstress did on the other leg. You know, you might consider not getting yourself into situations where you’re getting sliced up,” she advised.

  “How long do you think I’ll live when I’m moved to the castle?” Grange asked seriously, cutting through the girl’s banter.

  She had the point of the knife delicately positioned to begin to cut his older stitches out, but at his question her motion stopped. She paused before answering.

  “I can’t guess,” she swallowed, then cut the first stitch.

  “You’ll remember me, won’t you? You’ll remember how you helped sentence me to death by giving me that sleeping potion?” Grange asked.

  “I only did what they ordered me to,” she finally said in a low voice as she continued to cut the stitches. She was no longer making eye contact. Grange felt a series of stings as she said no more, but pulled the cut stitches free.

  “Your legs will be fine with a little healing,” she told him. “I hope the rest of you will be fine too,” she spoke in a lower voice, moving her face closer to his ear so that he could hear. “I’ll pray to Miriam for you.” She stood, and walked away, then Grange heard her voice, out of sight, speaking in the native tongue with someone.

  “Come on,” a man’s voice said, and four guards appeared. They casually lifted the plank that Grange lay on and walked with it, from inside the castle to the outdoors. The raised and lowered the plank into the well of the bed of a wagon, all without saying a word to Grange or to each other. As Grange looked up, a pair of wide planks were loosely placed over the top of the space he was in. Thin cracks of light streamed down upon him, and he was effectively hidden from view of the outside world.

  There was a sharp rapping on the false wooden floor overhead.

  “You keep silent down there now, do you hear me?” Oehla’s voice grunted. “I don’t want a single person to hear anything from you until we’re inside the palace. Do you understand?”

  “I’m not a traitor. I’m not a Bloomingian,” Grange answered.

  “Answer my question or you’ll suffer,” Oehla said sharply.

  “I’ll be quiet,” Grange ageed.

  Oehla slapped the wood slat
s sharply, then said no more. A minute later, the wagon jerked into motion, and Grange found himself being transported as a prisoner, bound for the city of Southgar.

  Chapter 8

  The wagon took two days to reach the city of Southgar. The ride left Grange bruised and exhausted, as the vehicle traveled over bumpy country roads and round-about ways to avoid the risk of passing directly by Hope on her own journey to the city on the shores of Lake Parime. Grange was briefly released at intervals and allowed to walk about, though his hands were tied, but he was inevitably returned to his hidden compartment for every leg of the journey.

  He heard the voices of the guards on the wagon talking to others as the wagon passed through the city, and then was sent through the palace gates. The wagon entered a shaded area, and Grange heard large doors closed, then the boards above him were removed, and he was lifted from his confinement.

  He was in an enclosed porte cochere, and there were not only Oehla and the guards from Skengare, but a quartet of other guards, men wearing silver and blue in their uniforms that were similar to the gown Hope had worn when Grange had last seen her.

  “We turn the traitor over to the palace for interrogation,” Oehla said formally, addressing the man who appeared older, apparently the officer of the palace guards.

  “We accept responsibility for disposal of the traitor,” the man said just as formally, saluting Oehla as he did.

  “There hasn’t been a traitor to dispose of. I’m not a traitor,” Grange said loudly.

  The officer looked over at him with a withering expression.

  “Take him to the north chambers,” he addressed his guards.

  “Will you come in and visit with us?” he turned to speak to Oehla in a casual tone, as the guards responded by laying hands on Grange and lifting him to the ground, then marching him through passages of the palace. Within ten minutes he was in an underground dungeon, locked away from people and sunlight once again.