“I remember,” he said as his family left the temple. Walking down the steps, he left Karli behind, saying, “You take the carriage. I’ll walk from here.”
Roo made his way along the streets until he was clear of Temple Square, when he found a public carriage and hired it. Within minutes he was leaving the city, on the road for the Estherbrook estate. He wondered at his foul mood. Sylvia had become such a source of wonder for him that any anger or frustration was left behind. And for reasons he hadn’t pursued, her father never seemed to be at home these days, so within minutes of his arrival for supper—or like today, a surprise midday visit—Sylvia would welcome him with open arms and quickly lead him upstairs. Roo was astonished and delighted to discover her appetites matched his own. Occasionally he wondered who had first taught a well-bred young lady like Sylvia so many inventive lovemaking tricks, but she had never volunteered anything of her past before meeting Roo, nor had she asked about his previous experiences.
As the carriage rolled into the Esterbrook estate, Roo realized the cause of his foul mood. Of those who attended Helmut’s naming ceremony this day or who would attend the celebration that evening, the one Roo most wished could be there wasn’t.
Erik signaled and the column of riders halted. By hand signs, the order to dismount was passed. Erik rode at the head of the column next to Miranda and Bobby de Loungville, while Calis and a man named Renaldo scouted ahead.
The boat had been beached at the location Calis had planned on, and the Captain had been visibly relieved when agents from the distant City of the Serpent River had appeared within days. News from the front was grim.
A great fleet was nearly half completed, and the armies of the Emerald Queen now held total control of the continent, save the small region south of the Ratn’gary Mountains and some of the western coast. Otherwise, the reports were uniformly dreadful. The Emerald Queen’s host was ravaging the entire continent. They were stripping the land of every resource as they sought to create the great fleet they needed to cross the ocean and invade the Kingdom. The deaths of thousands of slaves captured during the war were ignored.
Several minor rebellions among the host of former mercenaries had been crushed mercilessly, with the rebels publicly crucified or impaled before elements of the army. As further punishment, one man in a thousand had been selected by lot to die by being burned alive before his comrades, a further warning that any sign of disobedience would bring only utter destruction.
Erik had thought about the time every man in his squad was held accountable for the other five. Each member of the squad had effectively seen that no one failed, because it would have returned every one of them to the gallows.
The only good news in all of this for Calis’s company was that the Emerald Queen’s whole attention was turned to the immediate area around the City of the Serpent River, the city of Maharta, and the Riverlands. The area in which Calis and his company were to operate was almost devoid of any sign of her army.
Calis observed that that would probably cease to be the case as they neared their destination. Horses had been secured and brought to the boat. Local clothing had been exchanged for their Brijaner gear, and six of Calis’s agents took the Brijaner longship and moved it down the coast to a fishing village where they had made arrangements to hide it in a large drying shed until the time to escape came.
No one mentioned that few felt that possibility likely.
Now they were in the mountains, having moved through the foothills for a week, and had yet to encounter anything remotely dangerous. Erik had been one of those to flee the Saaur through the tunnels occupied by the Pantathians, and knew some of what they were likely to find, for once it had been determined that Calis’s Eagles—whom the Pantathians thought to be only a rebel company of mercenaries—had entered the mountains, a full-scale Saaur occupation of the area had resulted. Erik knew only the bold deception in pretending to be one of the human companies replaced by the Saaur, and moving directly to the front, in the opposite direction from that which logic dictated they take, had saved them on that prior journey.
Renaldo ran up, and between pants reported to de Loungville. “The Captain’s found a safe campsite and says we’re done for the day.”
Erik glanced around and saw several hours of daylight were left. De Loungville saw the same thing and said, “We’re close?”
Renaldo nodded. He pointed through the trees. “There’s a ridge there, and from there you can see both the river gorge and the bridge. I take the Captain’s word for the latter.”