Into the Abyss

It had been centuries since he’d done first aid, but he still remembered most of it. His main concern now was why Hortwell hadn’t come to. It had been a couple of days, long enough for Zargoffelstan to build a small hut of stone, and log ceiling, sealed with tar brought from a swamp, not too far away as a demon flies, the old man should have come to. The cut was bad, but he didn’t think it that bad. Hopefully there wasn’t any internal damage he’d missed. All he could do for now was just wait by his master’s side.

Chapter 27

The sun was setting over the mountains, Jenn shifted her position a little to bring relief to her sore posterior; they’d been riding all afternoon now. Thank the Goddess that they hadn’t encountered anyone on the way. The going had been slow through the forest, trying to wind between trees with the cart. Luckily that part of the forest was fairly thin, otherwise they never would have gotten carts through. Jenn suspected, of course, that Lenamare would at least take credit for their easy trip though, if he were here he’d probably be telling everyone about his wise forethought in periodically thinning the forest for just such an emergency. It really wouldn’t have mattered if he actually had or not, since either way, he would probably take credit for it.

About an hour ago they had reached the edge of the forest and after a brief reconnaissance by the soldiers they were on their way across the plain, rising towards the mountain pass. Jehenna was periodically ordering soldiers to speed everyone up, she wanted to reach the base of the pass before nightfall. Other than that she didn’t do much except look annoyed and preoccupied. She’d refused to allow any cloaking spells on the grounds that Exador might have wizards or demons out looking for traces of magic. Thus it was that everyone was continually on the lookout for patrol parties, albeit unlikely any should be so far from the siege.

Jenn simply drove on, her hands were getting chapped from the reins of the two horses pulling Jehenna’s overloaded wagon, and her rear end was feeling worn thin. Whenever Jehenna had ordered a turn to go around something or other, Jenn had tried to get a look back to see how the children were doing two wagons back. However, she was never able to get a really good glimpse, they were apparently just laying low. When they’d stopped about three hours ago at a stream to water the horses and to let everyone take care of personal functions, she’d gone back to check on them.

Chass and Gloria seemed to have lost some of their fear, and were willing to get up and move around when the wagon stopped, Sydney had just complained about the rough ride and how he was getting splinters everywhere. Rupert, as usual, was looking intently about him, apparently searching for any sign of pursuit, and not very happy with the stop. She hadn’t questioned him, just smiled and patted him on the head, to which he gave the expected shrug of annoyance for a boy his age. She imagined that nothing much had changed since then except that Sydney’s temper had probably gotten worse. Master Trisfelt had been jovial as usual. When she’d complained to him about her sore seat he’d just laughed and explained that it was precisely for such occasions as this that he maintained such a well-padded one.

As the wagons climbed higher toward the pass, the terrain gradually became more and more rugged, larger boulders began appearing and the grass was getting thinner and longer. Trees were becoming scarcer, and when found, were mainly scrub trees. The brown soil here was fairly dry and dusty, this side of the mountain was shielded by the mountains, and not many storms made it this far up towards the mountains from the giant valley in which Hartwell and Lenamare’s Tower were located.

It was decidedly getting dark by now, they wouldn’t be able to go too much further, not without using light spells, and considering Jehenna’s objection to glamours and hiding spells, Jenn doubted she’d want to use any light spells that would make them detectable to magic sensing beings, not to mention anyone or thing with eyes. A soldier pulled his horse alongside Jehenna’s side of the wagon.

“Ma’am, are you about ready to set up camp for the night? Pretty soon it will be too dark to see to collect fire wood or set things up properly.”

“Sergeant,” Jehenna replied, “I realize that, but this party is under my command. We will stop when and where I give the word and not until then. Is that understood?”