Savage (12 page)

“What about women who kill their lovers?” asked Kyra softly.

Bazur shook his head. No, she should never regret that decision. It had been Petra’s evil intentions that caused the problem not her reaction. “That man was not a lover. He was an animal, taking what he wanted and discarding you after. If it had been an orc woman in that situation, she would’ve cut his head off and brought it back to town to show other men what happens when she is disrespected.” Bazur paused for a moment. He worried he lacked the words to properly describe his empathy for her. “I realize that there are men out there that would think less of you knowing your story, but be clear, I’m not one of them. Nothing you’ve said today makes me think less of you. Far from it. I admire you more knowing the strength it took to make the decisions you made. It took guts to attack the man who assaulted you. It took even more guts to walk away from your family and friends and start fresh. You are a survivor, Kyra. I respect that.”

Kyra smiled softly with moisture in her eyes. “Thank you.”

The conversation died as they struggled with their own thoughts and watched the valley below for signs of the enemy. Mauri and his men would be leaving Pera soon, deviating north towards Westmere. If they didn’t already know, the unknown enemy now would know the intended route of Mauri Planche and would start planning their attack. Bazur couldn’t know for sure, but he suspected the bandits would arrive within a few hours. Or at the very least a scouting party would arrive to setup an ambush.

As they sat on top of the Devil’s Arm waiting, Bazur started to question his own logic. Kyra was the brains of the operation, he was supposed to be the muscle, but now she had trusted him to figure out where the attack would come from so they could watch and finally learn something about who was behind the attacks. However, if he was wrong, they’d be sitting for hours waiting for nothing. What if they knew about the route and attacked between Pera and Westmere? Or if they intended to wait until Mauri crossed into Oclesh lands? Had he made a colossal mistake by committing them to their perch atop the Devil’s Arm? The vantage point was excellent, yet was exposed and difficult to retreat from if they were seen. Perhaps he needed to start thinking about a secondary plan. It wasn’t wise to underestimate an opponent, especially one as ruthless and dangerous as the one they faced. Bazur started thinking about all the things that could go wrong and how to react. He needed to be prepared for the worse. Kyra was trusting him with her life, he wouldn’t let her down.

The sun was well past its apex when they finally saw someone. A single rider coming from Pera to the watering hole at Westmere.

“Just a random traveler?” asked Kyra.

“It could be, but I doubt it. Let’s see what he does next.”

The rider made his way to the watering hole. After filling his canteens and letting his horse drink, the rider started looking around. He was looking for tracks. Bazur had wiped out their own tracks, those close to the watering hole, and the moist ground that easily left prints, so no one would be able to tell that they’d recently visited the watering hole. The stranger, if he was a good tracker would know someone had recently traveled the route, but would not be able to follow their tracks. The path they’d taken between the watering hole and Devil’s Arm was hard and rocky, no way to track them to their current position. After a brief look around, the stranger started wiping away his own tracks. Bazur smiled to himself. The man was experienced and being careful. This wasn’t any ordinary traveler.

The stranger started walking his horse away from the watering hole. From Westmere, there were two basic routes one could go. North, venturing towards the cities of Amradin or the Orc province of Irri, or east towards the Oclesh lands. As Bazur expected, the stranger was walking east, and not in a direct line like he was headed to any one destination. No, the man was zigzagging and occasionally stopping and turning to check his surroundings. For an hour, the man worked his way east getting closer and closer to their location.

When the man was close enough to see his face clearly, Kyra swore. “Baruva sack licker. That is Jasper Vargas.”

Bazur waved his hand at Kyra, indicating she needed to keep her voice down. “Who is Jasper Vargas?” he looked closer at the man as he waited for her to explain. He was about average height, narrow hips and wide shoulders with dark hair and an upright stance that indicated a potential military background.

“A former general in the royal guard. He was dismissed for repeated acts of brutality. He’s smart, vicious, and has a grudge against the prince.”

Suddenly Bazur understood. This wasn’t a scout sent ahead to pick an ambush location, this was the man who’d been organizing the attacks. Finally, they had a name and a face to attach to the long list of attacks: Jasper Vargas. Here was a golden opportunity to end the attacks on the prince. All Bazur had to do was slip down the Devil’s Arm unseen and kill Vargas.

Sensing Bazur’s thoughts, Kyra put an arm on Bazur’s shoulder. “We can’t kill him yet. Vargas may be the brains behinds the attacks, but he is not the money. Someone else is paying Vargas. Our job is to find out who is paying Vargas.”

He wanted to disagree. His gut instincts told him that they might not get a better chance to kill Vargas. But logically he knew she was right, if he did kill Vargas, they would only slow the attacks not stop them. He must wait. Bazur gave a low growl. Waiting when the enemy was so near was not something he liked doing.

It was a good thing that Kyra had advised against an attack. Only a few minutes passed before a large number of riders galloped up to Vargas. His bandits had arrived. Bazur watched as Vargas pointed to various landmarks around him. From their position atop the Devil’s Arm, they couldn’t hear what General Vargas was telling his men, but his pointing made it clear he was organizing an ambush. This was the spot where Vargas would attack Mauri Planche and his mercenaries. It wasn’t the spot Bazur would’ve picked. He would’ve gone farther away from the watering hole, closer to the border; however, he could see the logic behind General Vargas’s choice. The ground he’d chosen was surrounded by box canyons on three sides, and each canyon could hold a small army of riders that wouldn’t be visible from the trail until it was too late. The second factor that made the ambush site viable was its proximity to the watering hole. Mauri and his men would arrive at the watering hole late this afternoon. They’d spend the night at the watering hole and leave at first light. They would barely be awake, and all would have had less than a full night’s sleep as all of Mauri’s mercenaries would be taking a night guard shift protecting the camp. A tired group of men would not be at their most alert and if Mauri and his mercenaries made the mistake of trying to fight instead of fleeing, General Vargas’s men would box them in and let their archers pick them off one at a time.

“They are leaving?” said Kyra. The confusion could be heard in her soft voice.

“They’ll camp further east, off the trail. Tonight, under the cover of darkness they will return.”

“Why don’t they just stay here? They would be hidden in the canyons easily enough.”

“Possibly, but if Mauri has an advance scout moving ahead of his caravan there is a chance the scout would check the canyons today. This location is far enough away from Westmere that any patrols Mauri puts around his night camp won’t notice the movement. It is a prudent plan. They don’t have many more men than Mauri, so they need every advantage they can get. This ambush takes advantage of the natural terrain and the time of day, but for it to be successful, they must have the element of surprise. They cannot risk being seen in the canyons by a scout. Tomorrow, if a scout checked the canyons, they could kill him and still launch the attack before anyone realized the scout wasn’t coming back. But a dead scout today would warn Mauri and possibly make him change routes.”

Kyra nodded as she grasped his explanation of General Vargas’s tactics. “You’re good at this investigating stuff.”

He didn’t know if he was good at anything, but he did understand war tactics and Vargas used solid ones in planning his ambushes. “I wouldn’t say that. If I were good at this, I would’ve picked a different location to scout from.”

“What do you mean? We are safe, we have a great view of the valley and no one can see us…” Kyra looked around and then she groaned as realization hit her. “We have to climb down. Getting up here was bad enough, now you have to carry me down? We are going to die!”

“Actually, going down is going to be much easier,” said Bazur with a small smile. “We just have to wait until Vargas and his men are a little farther away. It could get noisy.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of this. In fact, I am confident that I am going to hate it.”

Ignoring her comments, Bazur focused on watching Vargas and his men heading east. The valley path turned south after a mile, and once they were past that distance the Devil’s Arm was not visible. He had watched one of Vargas’s men leave the group and head back towards Westmere to spy on the watering hole. As long as they stayed on the east side of the Devil’s Arm, they wouldn’t be visible to him either. When Vargas’s warriors all disappeared from view, Bazur crawled away from his hiding spot back to where they’d climbed up. Taking his war scythe from Kyra, Bazur prepared to climb down. “You ready?”

Kyra reloaded their packs around her neck. “No, I am not ready. This is insanity.” Despite her protests, Kyra kept moving and was soon beside him, crouched at the edge.

“Just don’t look down.” Bazur moved so that he was lying flat on his back, right at the edge of the rock formation. “You need to climb on top of me.”

Kyra crawled over him. “What are we doing? How can you climb like this?”

“Wrap your arms and legs around me.” Bazur waited until she was fully wrapped around him. Her arms clasped around his neck while her legs squeezed his torso. She couldn’t get her legs around him without him lifting his back, instead she had her knees pressed against the outside of his hips squeezing in. 

“You still haven’t answered me. How can you climb like this?”

“We aren’t climbing down. We are falling down,” said Bazur as he turned and let his body fall over the edge feet first. As they started to pick up speed, they flew down the sheer rock face. Bazur used his war scythe as a brake. Scraping it against the rocks to slow their fall. A couple of times the blade bounced off the rock face and almost caused them to start flipping out of control, but Bazur was prepared and let his arms go loose, letting the blade bounce around without overbalancing them. When they almost reached the bottom of the sheer part of the Devil’s Arm, Bazur pushed the scythe even harder against the rock to slow them even further. This time the blade slowed them greatly, but with his arms stiff to maximize the braking effect, he couldn’t prevent the blade from pushing them back. The blade took a big bounce off a ledge. It almost held on the ledge, slowing their decent to a near stop, but when the blade slipped off, they fell backwards and Bazur slammed into the ground with Kyra slamming into him.

“Oomph!” grunted Kyra as she landed on top of Bazur. “That wasn’t my idea of a good time. Next time you decide to climb a mountain, go find a goat for a companion. I’m keeping my feet on the ground where they belong. Are you okay? That had to hurt you more than me.”

Bazur took a deep breath. He hadn’t been completely sure using the scythe as a break would work. “I remembered you being lighter. Perhaps you need to lay off the sciane.”

“Jerk,” said Kyra as she gave him a quick punch to the shoulder before disentangling herself from him and standing up. “You obviously hit your head pretty hard if you are calling me fat.”

Bazur winked as he looked up at his beautiful companion. “I’ll live.” Taking her outstretched arm, he allowed her to help pull him up. His head had taken a bit of a bang when they landed, but it hadn’t blurred his vision, he just liked teasing her. “Come on, we should get down as quickly as possible. We are still exposed up here if another of Vargas’s men doubles back to watch the trail.”

Quickly, they finished making their way back down the Devil’s Arm, purposefully staying low and out of view from the watering hole. They made their way north, avoiding any areas likely to be traveled. Safely off the Devil’s Arm and out of view from any travels, they found some shade under a rock outcropping and waited. There was nothing they could do now but wait.

“Tonight I’ll sneak into Mauri’s camp. Now that we have some information about General Vargas, we can be more helpful to Mauri,” said Bazur.

“You want Mauri to turn back?”

“No. I think we are too far into the badlands. Vargas and his men will attack either way. Attempting to flee will just change when the attack happens. I’m going to help Mauri plan a counter-attack.”

“Are you sure that is wise? I don’t want to lose Vargas.”

It wasn’t the best plan, but nothing he could think of was any better. They needed to mix things up. If the attack was successful, there was no guarantee that Vargas would lead them to his employer. However, perhaps if the attack failed, he would return to his boss to explain or to get more money to hire new bandits. “It’s your choice, but I think that there is nothing to be gained by letting Vargas spring his trap.”

Kyra studied Bazur. She then ran her hands through her hair and let out an exasperated sigh. “I can’t think of a better idea. It’s risky, but the alternatives aren’t much better.”

The matter settled, Bazur settled in for a nap. Evening was still a way off and there was nothing for them to do now but wait.