Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (20 page)

The eyes of Daria grew wide as he spoke. “You will die,” she said. “Nobody has ever escaped from this fortress. There is no way.”

There was another brief silence as each retreated into private thoughts. This time it was the doctor that broke it.

“There was one who did,” or at least this is what he had heard long ago. “But you’re probably right,” he said. “But I would rather die trying than be part of something so perverse.”

Then,

“Will you help me?”

Daria looked at him. She seemed to be studying his face. All the acts of skill, and wisdom, and compassion, to which she had been witness in the years they had worked together flooded back to her as snowflakes in a storm. Never once had his course been steered by thoughts of what was best for him. It had always been dictated by what was right for his patient. She had seen him save lives, set broken bones, deliver countless babies of both Troll and Gnome descent, and ease his patients into the next plane when their time in this one was at an end. She had seen him work tirelessly when all of his attendants were too exhausted to keep going, refusing to give in to the demands of sleep as long as his patients needed him. She thought back to the day he had told her something his mother had said to him early in his training, “If you always do for your patient what you would do for me, or your father, or your wife or child, you will always do well in this noble profession. As a doctor, you will take care of paupers and you will take care of kings. Remember this always: If you put them all in a hospital gown, they all look the same.” And he had. He truly had. Suddenly, she knew what to do.

“Yes. I will.”

To the great surprise of each, they found themselves hugging. A Troll nursemaid and a Human doctor, lost for a moment’s time in the passion of an embrace. Sworn enemies, in one magical twinkling they became allies against the wickedness that was the rule of law in the castle and throughout the land.

When they had finished this emotional tribute to the spirit of what is right, the doctor said, “Good. This is very good. We will need a plan. We will need supplies. Weapons, of course. My goodness, I don’t have the faintest idea of how to get out of here.” He found himself talking so fast he could hardly get the words out.

Daria put her finger gently to his lips, looking deep into his eyes.

“Leave all of that to me, Doctor,” she said. “You concentrate on waking this girl up. Without her awake no plan can succeed.”

“Thank you, Daria,” he said. “May the Old One always remember the good thing you have done today.”

She walked back to the bench and picked up her basket.

He sat back down on Stephanie’s sickbed. “Child, forgive me for this,” he said. He raised his hand to slap her again. As it descended toward her face, she caught it, opening her eyes. “That’s okay,” she said, “I’m awake.”

It was a wild ride for the next hour as the three of them fought against the mighty currents and standing waves of the river. Rolan barked commands, and they obeyed. Both Jessica and Blake felt their strength begin to fade, now functioning only on the desperation that comes from either do or die. Fortunately, there were two moons up now, which helped them to see the rocks that tried to sink them at every turn.

They rounded a bend and the waters calmed.

“Rest now,” commanded the King. “I will take it for a while.”

Each slumped in the small craft as they drifted almost lazily down the river.

“Two moons,” mused Blake. “Interesting.”

“You missed the time of three moons,” said Rolan as he scanned the shorelines, looking for signs of the enemy. “It just passed.”

Jessica propped herself up on an elbow. She too kept her eyes glued to the shores. “Why didn’t they come after us?” she asked. “The Trolls in the cavern back there. Why didn’t they use the boats?”

“Too small, for one thing” said Rolan. “Way too small for Trolls. Besides, you’ll never find a Troll in a boat. They can’t swim a stroke, and are deathly afraid of the water. Good thing to know, if they’re ever chasing you. More than once, we Humans have had to swim away from them to safety.”

“Where exactly are we going?” asked Blake.

“We are presently on the King’s River North, moving southwest,” said Rolan. “Its course is interrupted when it empties into Duck Lake, from which it flows outward again on its southern reach. There is some good news in this in that it means we’re going farther and farther from Slova, home of the Trolls. They have recalled much of their fighting force to a place called The Gate, which is the southeastern-most of our settlements. It’s a large, walled fortress and, for as long as I have been alive, our most important source of protection against a Troll invasion from the south. The rest are, as you know, laying siege to the castle. So it’s likely we have seen the last of the Trolls for a while. The bad news is as we head further and further west we get closer and closer to the Gnome nation of Vultura.

“Close to end of the King’s River North is another lake, Canyon Lake. Out of Canyon Lake, the King’s River continues and marks the border of Ravenwild and Vultura.

“Now, to answer your question, we’re trying to get to a mountain called Mount Gothic. It’s the largest mountain in Ravenwild, over fourteen thousand feet, a glacier, really. At about six thousand feet, the glacial cap begins, solid snow and ice. It is at the beginning of this glacial cap where we have a large hideout with enough provisions hidden to support our entire army for a winter. Maybe two. We have never had to use it, but there are troops stationed nearby, and as of the last reports I received not a month ago, it is to this day undiscovered and secure. The Gnomes, you see, are cold-blooded creatures. They could never ascend to that height. They would freeze to death before they made it halfway up. Even in the summer. Another good trick to stay alive: If you’re ever being chased by Gnomes, make your way as fast as possible to the highest, coldest areas and you’ll be safe. In fact, there’s a rhyme that every Ravenwild schoolchild learns. ‘If you feel cold all the way to your bones, know you are safe from those nasty Gnomes.’

“I would feel a lot less confident if the Trolls were still about in large numbers. The cold doesn’t bother them at all. They thrive in it.”

Jessica listened to all this and hung her head in dismay. How their lives had changed in a matter of days. She found herself wishing that this would all just end.

But wishing something doesn’t make it happen.

Blake noticed her posture and put a reassuring hand to her shoulder. “We’ll get her back,” he said softly. “We’ll get her back.”

“I have no doubt,” she returned. “But it doesn’t help that we are headed in the wrong direction and headed that way as fast as possible to avoid capture ourselves.” She shook her head, as if to shake off her fears. She managed a dour smile. He returned it, his no less bleak. “How soon can we expect to get out of this boat and onto shore so we can climb this mountain and hook up with the wizard and be about the business of rescuing our child?”

“We’ll float now for most of the night,” Rolan said, “Due west. In the morning we’ll come to another set of rapids. Bad ones, but not as bad as the ones we already came through. I’ll wake you up to help me before we get there. Once we have passed those there will be another stretch of flat water for the better part of the morning. When we see the next set of rapids, we’ll disembark and proceed north towards Mount Gothic. It’s impossible to miss it. It’s the tallest peak.

It will be to all of our benefit if you two could get some sleep. I will, once we have cleared the next stretch of whitewater. You will wake me up when you hear the next set of rapids after that, and, as I said, we’ll leave the boat and head for Mount Gothic.”

“Sleep,” mused Blake. “Not quite yet. How long a trek is it to the hideout? Do we have any provisions?”

All three had been forced to ditch their packs in the fight with the Trolls.

“Is this river water safe to drink? Are there containers in which to carry water? Waterskins, maybe?”

“From where we land to the hideout at Mount Gothic will take about five days if we push hard. There should be some stores in the bow there.” He pointed to a box-like protrusion in the bow of the small boat. He continued speaking while Blake rummaged through it. “This river water is glacial melt, the purest water of our world. It’s perfectly safe to drink.” Blake held up the waterskins. “Good,” said Rolan. “We’ll fill them before we start up towards the mountain. There will be springs and streams along the way, all glacial melt as well.”

In addition to dried meats, fruit, and flatbread, Blake found a container of fishhooks and some spools of line. He divided these up, giving four hooks and a spool of line to each of them. The container he gave to Jessica. He hooked his four to his sword’s leather sheath. Jessica put the container inside of her jacket. The line he tucked into a pocket. He was glad for the light of the two moons. It made the survey of their meager provisions a lot easier than it would have been to have to search in the dark.

“What if we
do
get separated?” asked Jessica. “What do we do then?”

“Make your way to the hideout. You will basically climb the mountain, keeping an eye out for Trolls and Gnomes of course. As I have said, once the weather feels cold to you, you will not have to worry about Gnome war parties, but you will always have to watch out for Trolls. When you get close to the hideout, sentries will intercept you. They will either be Human, Elf, or Dwarf. Show them this.” He removed a ring from his left ring finger and held it up to them, saying, “They will know it, and know you got it from me.” The stone of the ring was in the shape of the head of a falcon, the official crest of the house of Fairman. He rotated the stone ninety degrees clockwise and released a tiny latch on the ring itself. There was an audible click, and the ring started to hum. In a few seconds, the falcon’s eyes glowed an intense red. Rolan pointed the ring towards the water. A beam of light shot out, and the water hissed in protest. He then reset the latch and rotated the stone back to its original position. “The heat effect is not its intended use,” he said. “It was crafted by the wizard Taber to be activated as I have just done, and pointed towards the sky in case you were out hunting and got lost, or injured, it would serve as a locator beacon. Unfortunately, now that the Trolls and Gnomes have free reign in our land, you would never know who was going to respond.

“Tell them of the situation in Belcourt; that the Trolls have breached the Great Wall. Beyond that …” he drifted off. “Beyond that I have no idea, honestly.”

He handed the ring off to Blake.

“Without meaning to sound callous,” said Jessica, “but I, we, cannot be concerned with your situation here. We only want one thing: To get our child, and yours of course, back and return home. There’s no more to it than that.”

“I understand,” said Rolan.

“In summary,” said Blake, “You will wake us up at the sound of the second set of rapids. We will traverse them and then hit flat water. At the beginning of the third set, we will leave the boat and head towards the tallest peak we see to the north. This hike should take about five days of hard climbing. All the water we see along the way will be potable. The sentries will intercept us, and we will unite with the Queen and the wizard and formulate a plan to rescue the children, which we will implement as our first order of business.” He passed some of the dried meat and fruit to each of the others and they ate in silence for a while.