Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian (9 page)

The notch of the river valley was clearly evident, and the ancient city that sat above the river at that point gleamed brightly, just as it had two years earlier, when he and Leah had floated past it, traveling in the opposite direction. Alec camped across the river from the city, arriving at the site as the sun set, and the next morning, he and Walnut found a ford where they could cross to the opposite shore and ride up into the ruins.

The pristine appearance from a distance dissolved up close, beginning on the weed-infested road that led from the river banks to the overlooking city set up on a mountain spur. Stones were cracked, displaced, or missing from the pavement, walls were tumbled down piles, and statutes were heaps of dismembered stones. Alec stopped and looked at a statute of a woman who stood in the center of a square. Her head was on the ground below her feet, and her arms were broken off at the elbows.

Alec looked at the weathered face that looked up askew from the ground. The gentle smile still retained a placid welcoming expression that made Alec wish he had known the model. Its implied gentleness reminded him of Helen Millershome, whose gentle courtesy and compassion were the greatest Alec had ever known.

As Alec walked Walnut around the city, he kept vigilant for any signs of other visitors or residents among the ruins. He had an uneasy sense that he was being followed, but there were no signs that anyone but wild animals had disturbed the urban setting in the recent past.

He tied Walnut to a rusty iron hitching ring outside one large building and went inside. The city had crept up the side of the mountain. Alec had chosen to reach the tallest building in the highest point of the city, and began climbing the interior stairs, seeking access to the roof, and the views he expected it to offer.

The architects of the ancient city had favored large windows and interior courtyards that lent light and air through the rooms and hallways of the building. Alec found the concept to be practical and attractive;
if I ever build something new, it will be like this
, he promised himself. He easily found the stairway, and climbed upward through the clutter and debris that had accumulated over unknown centuries of abandonment.

When he finally reached the top, he was on a flat roof that gave glorious views of vistas that stretched three quarters of the way around. Only the mountain behind him blocked the view.

It was just past midday, and the sun was high overhead. Alec looked due north.

He could see the river valley stretching miles and miles to the north, running between two mountain ridges. Somewhere up along those mountains were the remains of Walnut Creek and Riverside. What would they be like now, two years after their horrific devastation by the lacertii?

To his left, stretching west was the rolling tableau of foothills that gave way to flat prairie, and the river slightly meandered as it made its long, slow way across the empty space, disappearing on the horizon without any significant bend in its path.

He’d left a lot behind out there in the west. He’d run away from the confusion of Bethany and Imelda, from the toil of the crown protector, and from the despair of his status as ingenaire without powers. Over the many days he’d been alone with Walnut, Alec had thought a great deal, and tried to understand what he was doing by running away.

He knew that he shouldn’t have left everything and everyone behind without explanation. Only the blessing he’d received from John Mark gave him confidence that it was right. He held on to that confidence tenaciously. In several more days he hoped to reach his destination, and confirm that he had done the right thing.

As he idly pondered what awaited him up the river, his eyes casually focused on a small, dark patch moving with purpose along the river bank, coming towards him. He strained to make out details, but could resolve nothing more than the likelihood that it was a handful of riders on horses. As he watched them intently, the group paused for several minutes, then changed direction, and headed directly towards the river. They appeared intent on crossing the river at the same ford he had used that morning.

Suddenly, Alec no longer felt so lonely. He was about to have companions, he realized.

Chapter 9 – First Encounter

By the time Alec reached the great white city, Rashrew, Imelda and their followers had left the City of Bondell and ridden south along the sea coast for two weeks. The Goldenfields cavalry and Bondell forces had reached the southernmost city in the Dominion, South Harbor, then turned inland to begin hunting down the ruffians and smugglers who were their target.

On the day Alec awoke and rode into the ruins, Imelda awoke in a small village along a shallow river in an inland mountain village.

“We’re going to split our forces into four groups,” Rashrew instructed a mixed assemblage of leaders from the Bondell and Goldenfields forces.

The cavalry forces were in a village that was the farthest reach from the capital of Bondell. The nameless village had been attacked twice in the past month, and Rashrew suspected that it would be attacked again by the same band of men who had looted it before.

“Imelda, your group of Goldenfields riders will go further east to look for signs of the raiders – camps, stations, or even stationary forces. Ride as far as a day out, then turn around and come back. We’ll have a local guide go with you to help identify local landmarks for the first few miles. Try to map out as much as you can, especially any strongholds or any trails that show obvious signs of usage.

“The second group,” he continued, “yours, Mitae, will go back west along the river to see if anyone has tried to sneak in behind us and to keep things clear. Same goes for you; ride out a day, then ride back here, and map the things you see.

“I’ll take the third group. It will be mixed riders from both Bondell and Goldenfields. The locals think there’s a canyon out east that may be used as a camp for the raiders, so we’re going to ride east with the first group for a few miles, then our guide will point out the canyon, and we’ll follow it to its end, looking for any signs of trouble.

“The last group will be the smallest,” Rashrew finished his instructions. “We’ll leave a dozen hidden here in the village, as protection. If anyone is watching us and sees our forces ride out, they may think they can strike these folks while we’re gone, and this way we’ll have a nasty surprise waiting for them. Cole, you’ll keep your folks in the large green barn behind the stone house.”

“Do you really think they’ll attack?” Cole asked.

“We’ve been paying folks cash for goods and use of their stables the past two days,” Rashrew answered. “If word of that has spread, and if it looks like we’ve left the village, it should provide a tempting target.”

“So we’ll meet back here tomorrow night?” Imelda asked.

“Yes,” Rashrew agreed. “Everyone should ride out this morning, set up camp when night falls, then come back here tomorrow,” he confirmed.

The meeting broke up, and the commanders went to collect their gear and their riders. Imelda and her two dozen soldiers set out with a local man as their guide, and Rashrew’s group riding behind them. The river valley they rode in was a green floor from which steep stony mountains rose, creating a sense of entrapment. Imelda looked at the trees and foliage that grew from shelves and crevasses among the mountain sides. This would be a dangerous place to be ambushed, she thought. The land was different from the open plains she was used to in Goldenfields, and she’d spent many hours trying to imagine how to fight in such circumstances. She looked now at possible escape routes in every situation; out on the plains it was easy to avoid trouble, but here she knew that hidden enemies could rain harm down on a squad and inflict serious harm, or even catastrophic destruction if there was no place to escape to.

The other thing she spent time thinking about was Alec, and particularly something she believed he had done to her. She found that she was able to comfort and heal small wounds and aches, a talent that had come to her since Alec had resurrected her on the battlefields in the wars with the lacertii. She’d known that Alec’s friend Cassie had developed healer skills after Alec had saved her life, through some transference of his essence to her during his intimate exercise of totally committed healing energies. She had found that the same transference had implanted his healing abilities in her as well.

Since the discovery, she had tried to analyze and practice using her new ability, delighting in what she was able to do. She found that she could heal best when she could concentrate and picture what she wanted to accomplish. Combined with her medic training, also from Alec at an earlier time, she felt confident and thankful for her ability. Almost every member of her cavalry had been treated as she practiced her new talent on every ache she was aware of.

She thought about Alec himself as well. There was no way to reach out to him to find out how he was, or learn how he felt after reading her note of farewell. She wondered when he awoke, and where he was now and what he thought about her. Probably he was in Goldenfields or even back in Oyster Bay, living in the great palace. What does a crown protector do, she wondered irreverently.

Rashrew was saying something to her, she realized. “What did you say?”

“That canyon up ahead on the right is where we will depart,” the Bondell leader repeated. “Move your men to the front and continue forward. We’ll stay in the back and peel off. Good luck and happy hunting!” he stuck out his hand and shook vigorously as they parted.

Imelda refocused on her duties as they rode past the mouth to the narrow canyon. She turned and paused to watch Rashrew ride jauntily away; he had kept the command of cavalry riders both loose and united with his boisterous sense of humor and ability to relate to all the riders, regardless of background. He was a good leader, she admitted. As they rode further her mind came back to the task at hand, and she resumed scanning her environment. She realized there were fewer of the cultivated fields along the river. The floor of the river valley was almost the only flat land available to grow crops, except for some terraced fields she had seen closer to the village, but here they were getting too far from the village to be useful.

“That canyon,” the local guide said, referring to Rashrew’s destination.

Imelda looked at the man, who she’d barely noticed so far. He appeared to be about her father’s age, with all the teeth on the right side of his mouth gone. His speech was slightly slurred as a result, and she had to listen carefully.

“What about that canyon?” she asked.

“It’s dangerous. We never let our people go up there anymore, because when they do, they never come back. Even if a shepherd found the tracks of a whole herd of sheep going into the canyon, we wouldn’t go in after them,” the man explained. “Your companions are strong, so they should be okay.”

“Why is it dangerous? Does anyone know? Wild animals? Bandits?” Imelda asked, her curiosity aroused. Rashrew had almost a score of riders with him. Some were from Bondell, not trained in fighting from the saddle, but good fighters nonetheless. And some were part of her command from Goldenfields, who were practiced in the best ways to maximize their lethal ability from atop a horse.

“We think it’s ghosts,” the man responded to her question.

“Ghosts?” Imelda asked in a skeptical tone.

“There are very old, very, very old buildings in that canyon, older than anyone who ever has lived in our village. The oldest folks remember them always being there, always deserted,” he answered. “Of course I don’t really think there are ghosts,” he added with a sheepish grin, “but it’s as good an explanation as any.”

Imelda turned to Hopkins, her second-in-command, and asked that he start taking notes for map-making now that they were past the canyon. She send three scouts out in front, urging them to try to ride as high up as they could, looking for game trails to use, and to look for notable features or signs of human use.

An hour later they stopped to water the horses and to grab a bite of lunch. Imelda stared at a shallow canyon, where a stream of water could be seen gushing from an opening high up in the wall of the mountain.

“It’s cold water,” she heard.

She looked behind her where their guide, Davon, stood looking over her shoulder. “I’ve gone up to the end of the canyon, and that water is like ice when it comes out of the cave!”

Imelda laughed, and regretted that she didn’t have time to go feel the icy water herself. But she recognized that they needed to travel as far as possible, so with a sigh, she ordered everyone to mount up, and they resumed riding.

That night, they camped without a fire. They’d traveled more than thirty miles, Imelda estimated. Few bandits on foot were likely to journey so far from the village if it represented their closest target. There’d been no signs of any banditry anywhere along their route, and Imelda wondered if they had gone on a wild goose chase.

How far did these mountains stretch, she wondered, and what was on the other side? The locals didn’t know; there was no end to the mountains, they shrugged. Imelda stood up and walked from one sentry post to another, asking if anything unusual was evident. Satisfied that the campsite was secure, she laid among her own covers and fell asleep.

The next morning the camp was awake at sunrise and started moving back west towards their village base. They rode during the morning with the sun behind them, taking two breaks before they got back to the canyon that Rashrew’s force had ridden into.