Warrior Priest of Dmon-Li: The Morcyth Saga Book Three (22 page)

James takes the first watch once they’ve
eaten and are ready to bed down for the night.

In the morning, Jiron pulls out rations he
found on the horses Therin had given them. After a quick bite to
eat, they’re in the saddle and making their way through the hills.
They continue to maintain a route to the west, with a slight
northerly heading. The hills afford them some protection from being
spotted but at the sacrifice of speed.

Some time after noon, they curve around a
hill and suddenly before them is a road going north to south. They
pause a moment before moving behind a hill bordering the road.
Jiron dismounts and while the others wait with the horses, looks
for any traffic moving upon the road.

He’s up there several minutes before coming
back down. When he returns, he says, “There’s no one on the road
and I could see it winding its way through the hills for miles in
either direction.”

“Think we should chance it?” James asks
him.

“We’d make better time, but you never know
who’ll be using it,” he replies.

“Moving through the hills is slowing us
down,” James tells him. “I think we need to chance it. If we keep a
constant watch for anyone approaching, we might be okay.”

“Alright,” Jiron says as he remounts.
Turning his horse toward the road, he continues, “Then let’s do
it.” He leads them back to the road where they break into a gallop
as they race to the north.

After only going several miles, the hills
begin to smooth out until they’re once more in grassland. There’s a
river to the west and as they go further north, it slowly draws
closer.

Several more miles finds them where the road
crosses the river. Ahead of them, a mile or so past the bridge,
sits a large keep not far off the road.

They come to a stop in the road before
crossing the bridge as they consider their options.

“Think there’s anyone still in there?” Miko
asks, referring to the keep.

“From here it’s hard to tell,” Jiron
replies. “I would think so though.”

James glances to the east where the hills
begin again, about a mile away. “We should return to the hills,
they’ll give us more of a chance to get by here without being
seen,” he suggests.

“I agree,” says Jiron as he turns his horse
and leads them at a gallop toward the cover of the hills.

As they reach the hills, James glances over
to the distant keep and sees a force of cavalry coming out through
the main gate. They’re heading down the road to the south.

“Jiron, we may have company!” he hollers to
him.

Jiron looks over and sees them leaving the
keep. Pushing their horses harder, they make their way into the
hills. After they’ve put a large hill between them and the riders,
they come to a stop and then dismount before climbing to the top of
the hill. Peering over the crest of the hill, they see the riders
continuing down the road to the south and not turning to follow
them.

“I guess that answers whether anyone is in
the keep or not,” James announces.

“Yeah,” agrees Miko. “It’s a good thing we
got off the road when we did.”

“I’m just happy they didn’t see us,” says
Jiron.

“Me too,” James says.

They climb back down to where their horses
are awaiting them. Once they’re mounted again, they make their way
through the hills toward the northeast.

An hour of riding brings them to where the
hills end. To the north is nothing but open plains. To their left
is the river where it turns to the north. They can still see the
keep far to the west and are relieved when they fail to see anyone
around.

“We’ll be pretty conspicuous out there,”
Jiron says, indicating the open plains.

“Don’t have much choice unless we want to
just sit here forever,” reasons James.

“Maybe we should stick close to the river?”
Miko suggests.

Shaking his head, James replies, “Might not
be a good idea. If there’ll be anyone around, most likely they’ll
be by the river.”

“Oh,” he says.

“Let’s stick to the plains, but keep the
river in view,” suggest Jiron.

“Alright,” agrees James. “As good a plan as
any.”

Miko gives him an annoyed look.

“What?” James asks him.

“You never take my suggestions but are
always taking his,” he accuses.

“Take it easy,” James tells him. “I don’t
always take his suggestions. We, meaning all three of us, try to
come up with the best course of action. Whichever one sounds the
best, we do. Don’t take things so personally.”

Miko doesn’t look very satisfied with his
response.

“Shall we?” Jiron asks, looking from one to
the other.

“Let’s,” replies James. Miko gives a nod as
well.

Jiron moves out, the others follow as he
angles east, away from the river. They proceed until it’s just in
view behind them before turning more directly to the north. As they
travel, they keep a constant watch for anyone out upon the plains,
but it looks as if they’re the only ones about.

By the time they stop for the night, the
keep has long since disappeared behind them. All they can see in
every direction now is plains, with the river cutting its way
through them to the west.

They decide upon not lighting a fire so as
not to alert anyone in the area where they are. Cold rations are
the fare this evening, they still have some cooked meat strips from
the previous nights to fill them up. James is still feeling the
need for more than just meat, but will have to wait on that.

During Miko’s shift in the middle of the
night, he hears horses racing past off in the distance. In the
moonlight, he can make out a group of perhaps ten riders. He almost
wakes the others but then doesn’t when he realizes they’re not
coming their way.

When he wakes Jiron for his turn at watch,
he tells him of the riders.

“It might have been that warrior priest,”
suggests Jiron once he’s heard.

“Do you think so?” Miko asks, worried.

“Don’t be too worried, remember, we’re in
the land of the Clans,” he tells him. “It could very well have just
been a group of riders moving from one place to another. Nothing
says it has to do anything with us.”

As Miko lies down to sleep, Jiron continues,
“Just try to get some sleep, we’ll need our rest tomorrow.”

“Alright,” says Miko.

Soon, Jiron can hear the soft sound of his
snores in the night. He spends much of his watch staring out across
the moonlit plains, searching for riders. He’s much more worried
about the riders Miko had told him of than he’d made out, just
didn’t want Miko to fret about them.

In the morning when James awakens he tells
him of what Miko saw last night. “I wish I had been awake,” he says
to Jiron. “Then I might have felt if Abula-Mazki had been among the
group.”

“If that was him,” Jiron says, “then he’s
ahead of us.”

Nodding his head, James replies, “I know,
that could make things difficult to say the least.”

“He’ll probably enlist the aid of the
nearest garrison, as well as send for reinforcements,” Jiron
guesses. “We haven’t any time to waste sitting around here.”

“I agree,” James says as he goes over and
wakes up Miko.

They mount and quickly make their way toward
the north, still following the river from a distance. The river
continues almost due north as it flows to the south and James finds
it odd that there are no villages along the riverbank.

“I would think there would be someone living
along the river,” he states during their travel.

“Why?” Miko asks.

“It’s a good place to live,” he tells him.
“You have access to fish and fresh water, plus transportation south
as needed. It’s just odd is all.”

“Maybe the clansmen don’t allow anyone to
live there?” Jiron guesses.

“Perhaps,” says James as he reflects upon
it. “You may be right, this could be the border area between the
Clans’ land and the Empire as agreed upon in that Treaty they’d
mentioned. If that’s the case, then there most likely will be
minimal people inhabiting this area.”

“Which could prove beneficial to us,” Jiron
says with optimism.

An hour or two past noon, Jiron points to
the west and then hollers out, “James!”

James looks over to the west and sees a band
of riders on the other side of the river. One rider has broken from
the others as he races to the north, the others pace them as they
move north. He can see the riders casting glances their way.

“Damn!” James curses. “They’ve seen us.”

“And it looks like one is going for help,”
adds Jiron.

James begins to angle his horse to the east
and the others follow his lead. “Need to put some distance between
us, fast.”

“It won’t take them long to find us now that
they know about where we are,” Jiron says as he gallops along
beside James.

“Let’s put off that meeting as long as we
can,” James replies as they race through the tall grass. He’s
worried that at their speed, one of their horses might put a hoof
in a gopher hole or something that will break its leg. That would
prove disastrous.

Glancing behind, he sees that the river and
the riders are no longer visible. They turn to a more northerly
course and push their horses as hard as they can.

A horn sounding to the southeast causes them
to glance over their shoulders. There behind them are several dozen
riders coming fast. They look to be clansmen, but which ones they
can’t tell from this distance.

They continue racing north, maintaining
their lead from the approaching riders. Hills begin to appear to
the northwest. James begins to angle toward them, the hills would
give them a better chance than open plains.

“But what about the riders we saw there
earlier?” Miko shouts to James.

“There’re less of them than what’s behind
us,” he replies. “Besides, we stand a better chance among the
hills.”

They continue racing toward the hills, Miko
keeps glancing behind them at the pursuing riders. Though they’re
not closing the gap, they’re not falling behind either. Worried, he
does his best to keep up with the others.

As they near the hills, they can once more
see the river as it flows around the hills to the west. The riders
who had been over on the other side are nowhere to be seen.

“James!” hollers Jiron. “The horses can’t
keep this up, we’re going to have to do something about those
riders behind us.”

“I know,” James tells him.

The first hill they come to rises thirty or
more feet above the plains. James steers his horse toward it and
begins to climb to the top, the others move to follow him.

At the top, he gets down from his horse and
hands the reins to Miko. “Just don’t let him get away,” he tells
him.

Miko nods his head as he takes the
reins.

Jiron and Miko just stand there as they
watch James. He faces the oncoming riders and suddenly brings his
hands together and then after holding them closed for a moment
quickly flings them open. A dozen small blobs appear to be thrown
from his hands and land on the ground.

When they hit the ground, they begin rolling
toward the riders. As they roll through the tall grass, the grass
they touch begins to wilt and die, leaving a trail behind them as
they continue on toward the riders.

“What’s he doing?” Miko asks Jiron.

“I don’t know,” he replies. “Just be glad
he’s on our side.”

James breaks into a slight smile when he
overhears that, but otherwise continues his concentration as the
blobs roll ever onward.

The further they roll through the grass the
greater in size they become. Where they had started out the size of
golf balls, now they’re the size of a bowling ball. It almost seems
that the larger they grow, the faster they grow as does the swath
of withered grass they leave behind them.

When the first riders reach the blobs
rolling toward them, the lead ball explodes, spraying a sticky goo
which envelopes several riders and horses. The others immediately
move to pass by their affected comrades, but other blobs explode as
they come in close proximity to them.

One after another, the blobs explode,
coating more of the riders in the goo, making it impossible for
them or their horses to move. They fall to the ground and struggle
to free themselves from sticky mass, but are unable to.

After the last blob explodes, all but one of
the riders has been trapped. James turns back to the others and
says, “Let’s go.” He gets on his horse and to the amazement of
Jiron and Miko, turns toward the entrapped riders.

“What are you doing?” asks Jiron.

“We should leave!” yells Miko.

Paying them no head, he continues on to the
entrapped riders. Having little choice, the other two fall in
behind as he heads toward them.

The lone rider who’s free sees them coming
and draws his sword. Turning his horse toward them, he charges, a
war cry escaping him.

James takes a rock he had acquired some time
earlier from his pouch and throws it. The rock sails toward the
rider and strikes him through the chest, knocking him from his
horse.

When they come closer to the entrapped
riders, they can see the markings of the Grey Wolf Clan. James
notices with relief that neither Abula-Mazki nor the Clan Chief is
among those entrapped.

As he approaches them, he says, “Can anyone
understand me?”

One of the riders says, “I can.”

“I didn’t kill you, this time,” he tells
him. “Continue to follow me and I will the next time.”

The rider translates for his comrades and a
growl can be heard coming from several of them.

“You violated the Pact!” the rider accuses
them. “For that, you must die!”

“No!” James shouts back. “Your clan broke it
first when they took my friend from the Windriders’ tent. I merely
came and reclaimed him.”