Valley of the Ancients: Book Three of the Restoration Series (2 page)

When the pursuers began to draw close, Derek pulled hard on the reigns and they slid to a stop. The poor horse just stood there, lathered in sweat and gasping. "Dismount! Into the forests!" He didn't wait to see if the others followed his orders or no int. There simply wasn't time. He jumped from the saddle, nearly fell on his face, and then stumbled into the bushes.

Limbs slapped him across the face, briars and thorns pulled his clothes and cut his skin, vines tried on a couple of occasions to decapitate him, but the worse thing was the roots. After charging into the forest, he had barely gone ten feet before he tripped over a thick root and landed hard on his face. The problem was that the low lying bushes covered the roots making them hard to see.

Cursing, he pushed himself off of the ground and charged forward again. This time, he didn't make it five feet before he fell hard on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

He lay there for a moment, breathing hard and trying to keep his temper under control. Once again, he forced himself up from the ground, but this time he moved forward slower.

Shouts rang out back at the highway, seeming awfully loud and close. He took a deep breath and said a silent prayer that none of his comrades were still there. Surely, they had all reached the safety of the woods. Surely they hadn't refused to enter.

He began moving forward again, wincing at every step. This particular patch of forest was covered in leaves and old rotten limbs, so every step crunched and snapped loudly.

Derek continued on in this way for about ten minutes. Gradually, the forest opened up a little and walking became easier. He moved quickly, trying to avoid the more wide open parts of the forest, and the whole time he scanned the terrain for anything that might hide him or make a defensible position.

Pausing, he heard the sound of running water coming from close by. His spirits lifted at the sound. A river might just be his saving grace. It would make it nearly impossible for his pursuers to follow him and it might even carry him away to safety.

Stepping around a pine tree, Derek pulled up short. He was standing on the edge of a gulley and the water he had heard was not the massive river he had hoped for, but instead was a little creek running through the middle of the gulley. He stood on the edge looking down twenty feet to the bottom. The creek did not fill the center of the gorge, but instead there was a swampy bog-like ground around the water. "Probably quicksand," Derek mumbled to himself, his hopes crashing into despair. The gulley ran north and south. He could follow it in either direction and hope to find a place to cross nearby.

A crunching sound came from behind him, back the way he had come.

As quietly as possible, he drew his sword and then peeked around the pine tree. Three men were ten feet away. They too had their swords drawn and they were staring right at him.

At Derek's shouted command, Trestus jerked his horse to a stop and half slid, half fell from the saddle. He stumbled on the landing but kept right on moving. He glanced back the way they had come and saw the riders would be here in moments. Turning back to the forest, he saw Enstorion disappearing straight into the forest and Kara running at an angle to his right into the trees. He began to charge after her when a loud crashing sound and a man's cry pulled him up short.

He slid to a halt as he looked around for what caused the sound. Keenan's horse had collapsed, whether dead or exhausted Trestus didn't know, but the beast had pinned Keenan's left leg.

Breathing werhard, he looked back the way they had come. The riders would be here at any moment. There simply wasn't time to go back.

"Don't leave me!" Keenan called out, frantically trying to free his leg.

For a moment, Trestus considered leaving the man. After all, it wouldn't do any good for both of them to get caught. This thought had barely crossed his mind before he was sprinting back. Keenan had got them out of the torture room, and he deserved better than to be left to be killed.

Trestus slid to a stop beside the prince.

"Help me!" Keenan repeated.

Fool,
Trestus thought.
Would I really be coming back if I didn't intend to help?
"Can you run?"

"Yes. I don't think it's broken."

Reaching down, Trestus grabbed the saddle horn and heaved with all his might. The horse barely seemed to budge but it was enough. Between Trestus heaving on the horse by the saddle and Keenan pushing the back of the horse with both hands, his leg slid out from beneath the horse.

"Hurry!" Trestus said, pulling the prince to his feet. He paused only long enough to point straight ahead. "Enstorion seemed to be going straight. You follow him and I'll try to help Kara." Then, without waiting, he turned and ran northwest into the forest.

Trestus had seen where Kara entered the forest and he did his best to follow her. In some parts of the woods, it was easy to see where she must have gone, because in those places, the trees had grown so close together that he knew she had to have gone through the small gap where a tree had fallen over. There were other places, however, where the forest opened up and there were multiple paths she could have followed. While trying to move as fast as possible, Trestus paused at these places and looked for any clue to where she had gone. Broken limbs, bushes pushed askew, and a couple of shoe prints all helped him follow her path. Elated as he was to find her trail, he was nevertheless horrified at how easy it was. If he could follow her this easy, then so could their pursuers.

He pushed through a couple of thick bushes and broke into a small clearing. Knee high grass covered an oval area maybe twenty yards long and another ten across. The ground gradually sloped upwards and the far side of the clearing looked to be becoming a small hill. Movement off to his right caught his attention and he turned to look, and then dove to the ground. A small sapling, several inches thick, shot upwards at an angle and he felt the small tree tug on his shirt as it passed over him.

Hitting the ground hard, he rolled over, trying to pull his sword from its sheath.

"Trestus!" Kara called breathlessly. "I'm so sorry. I thought you were one of those men. You scared me half to death."

We're even then,
Trestus thought as he allowed himself to slump to the ground. The girl had nearly killed him and he was rushing to help her. Maybe he ought to ask her to protect him instead.

"Why are you following me?" Kara asked as she helped him to his feet. "I thought we were supposed to split up."

"Well, we are, but I thought that you might," he trailed off, not finishing the sentence. Her left eyebrow was twitching and that was never a good sign. She must have guessed that he had though" wt she would need his help. He reached down and took her by the hand, "Listen. Berate me all you want, just do it later. We have to get moving before they find us." He took a step into the clearing, heading towards the small hill on the far side, but Kara didn't move.

"Too late," she said quietly.

Trestus turned and saw that she was quite right. Four men were working their way through the forest twenty yards behind them. "Run!" he shouted.

Derek stepped away from the edge of the gulley and faced the three armed men. They had the look of soldiers who were out of uniform. They wore simple enough clothes, the like of which would fit in perfectly along the highway, but these men were muscular and too well armed to be ordinary farmers or caravan workers. They didn't have any armor on their arms or legs but signs of chain mail poked through tunics. They had dark hair and a week's growth on their cheeks.

The soldier in the middle stepped forward, "It doesn't have to be like this. We don't want to hurt you. Just come with us and you'll be fine."

Derek smiled. "A truly pathetic lie. Did you forget that I escaped from a torture room?"

The two soldiers on the sides were moving forward slowly, all the while moving farther to his sides. They had their swords out to, but there was a hesitation.

"Remember our orders," the middle guard said, ignoring Derek and focusing on the other two soldiers.

Derek could guess what those orders were. They wanted him alive.

The guard on the right jumped forward but it was only a feint. No sooner had he started forward, then he immediately retreated.

Not fooled, Derek had started to turn in the guard's direction but stopped even before the guard began his retreat. He did a quick downwards slash with his sword but not to the right where the supposed attack was coming from, instead he slashed his sword to the left.

There was a clang as Derek's sword hit the sword of the soldier on the left side. He had guessed right, the attack from the right was a feint to distract him from the real attack which was coming from the left.

As his sword deflected the soldier's sword downward, Derek jerked his belt knife out and up and felt the satisfactory feeling of warm blood hitting his skin. His blade cut diagonally across the soldier's face and the man's left eye exploded. That soldier fell to the ground screaming, but Derek was already moving in the opposite direction.

As soon as his knife hit home, he swung his sword back to the right. He swung the sword in a fast arc, more to drive the soldiers back away from him and it sort of worked. The soldier on the right had taken several steps towards him and he jumped back out of the way of the sword. The middle soldier was smarter. Seeing what Derek was doing, he waited for Derek to cut the first soldier and make his unbalanced swing. He did not start towards Derek until after the sword passed him and then he jumped forward hitting Derek hard in the chest and the two of them hit the ground hard.

Derek landed on his back and the soldier came down on top of him. A sharp pain burst through his right leg which was bent at an unusual angle. The impact with the ground loosened his grip on the sword and it went flying but he managed to hold on to his knmovife with his left hand. He quickly raised the knife, intending to stab the soldier in the back but his forearm was grabbed by the third man, who had quickly knelt down beside them.

Panic began to rise up in Derek at the thought of losing this fight. He tried to roll but the two men were ready for this and kept him from losing them.

The kneeling soldier punched him hard in the face, possibly breaking his nose. His eyes blurred and he couldn't see, but he kept right on fighting, twisting, trying to pull his knife arm loose. He twisted hard, trying to roll to the right and gave a hard tug with his left arm, and miraculously it came free.

Surprised by the sudden freedom of his arm, he nevertheless knew what to do and plunged the knife into the back of the man lying across him.

The soldier's eyes widened and his mouth opened in a silent scream. After a moment, the soldier was nothing but dead weight and Derek shoved him off.

He pulled himself into a kneeling position and desperately tried to clear the blood and tears from his eyes. His vision cleared quickly but he knelt there blinking at the scene laid out before him.

Ten feet in front of him, the first soldier he had cut was still moaning on the ground. To his right was the corpse of the soldier he had stabbed in the back. Several feet in front of him and slightly to his left was what had to be the corpse of the third man. It was barely recognizable. It was shriveled and all shrunk up, reminding Derek of the way a grape becomes a raisin. Even more astounding, was the woman standing five feet in front of him.

She had dark brown bushy hair that was nearly black and it contrasted with her white pale skin. Her eyes were the brightest green he had ever seen and they only accentuated the paleness of her skin. Her clothes were brown and rough looking. Both the shirt and pants were made out of an animal hide, perhaps deer. Her hands rested on her hips and she regarded him solemnly.

Derek looked all around for what could have done the damage to the soldier, but he could see nothing.

The strange woman still had not said a word and she turned and strode to the first soldier, the one who had been cut across the face. Slowly, she reached down and touched his forehead, ignoring the blood which covered the man's skin and clotted in his hair.

After a moment, a mist formed around the two of them and then the soldier began to shrivel. There wasn't any other way to put it. His skin dried out and began to crack, the plumpness of his skin disappeared until it looked like skin stretched over bones, and his whole body seemed to fall in upon itself. After another moment or two, the woman released what was left of the corpse and it fell back to the ground, breaking into multiple pieces.

Derek's eyes bulged at the sight and he tried to stand. His right leg was hurt though, whether broken or sprained he did not know, but it wouldn't support his weight. He gave up trying to climb to his feet and returned to his kneeling position. He tried to crawl to his sword but that too caused an unbearable pain to run up his leg.

Turning, the woman met his gaze and Derek looked around hopelessly. His mind flung around for any possibility of escape and then his eyes fell on the edge of the gulley. Better to take his chances with quicksand than let the woman touch him. He flung himself into a laying position and began to roll

He hadn't even covered half the dn uistance when the strange woman stepped between him and the edge of the gulley. She smiled down at him.

"Can't have you falling into the muck. It probably would kill you." Like a viper, her hand shot out and grabbed his left wrist. It was the wrist that still held the knife.

Looking up at the woman, Derek relaxed. At least his death would be over quickly. The mist formed around them and a warmth spread through his body. It took him a moment to realize the dull throb in his leg was gone.
Must be nearly dead,
he thought, closing his eyes.

The dark haired woman released his wrist and stepped back.

Derek's eyes popped open in surprise. He wasn't dead. The woman was standing there grinning at him.

"You must be Derek. Flaranthlas described you to me." She stepped forward and held out her hand. "My name is Leela."