A short time later, Alfred and the other soldier returned, and Alfred said, “There’s a small ice cave over there.” He pointed slightly to the west. “We put him in there and piled some rocks over the entrance.” Sitting as close to the fire as he could, he said, “I don’t think it ever thaws out up here. He’ll be safe there, Sergeant.”
Erik nodded. His mind pleaded to fail into black despair, and he felt as if he needed nothing more than to lie down and sleep. Instead he knew he had to plan and to work, for there were six other men, and one very special being who was more than a man, who were now dependent upon him to survive, and he had made a promise, a promise he would honor. He took a deep breath, pushed aside fatigue and failure, and turned his mind to getting everyone out of these mountains.
Roo looked up as a commotion broke out downstairs. Several voices were raised in protest. “What . . . ?”
“Nakor!” he said as the Isalani gambler hurried up the stairs, a step before three waiters trying to halt him.
“You can’t go up there!” shouted Kurt, trying to overtake Nakor.
Roo stood up and said, “It’s all right, Kurt. He’s an old . . . business associate.”
“I tried to tell him,” said Nakor. He grinned at Kurt as the now disgruntled waiter turned and descended the stairs.
Roo said, “What brings you here?”
“You do. I just came from the palace, and Lord James tells me he can’t give me a ship. I need a ship. He said you have ships, so I came here to get a ship from you.”
Roo laughed. “You want me to give you a ship? What for?”
Nakor said, “Calis, Erik, Bobby, the others, they’re stuck down in Novindus. Someone has to go get them.”
Roo said, “What do you mean, ‘stuck’?”
Nakor said, “They went down to find and destroy the Pantathians. I don’t know if they destroyed them, but they hurt them badly. Calis sent Miranda to his father on some important business, and now they are all stuck down there with no way to get home. Lord James says he can’t spare the ships and is going to keep them here to defend the city. So I thought I’d get one from you.”
Roo didn’t hesitate, but turned to Jason and said, “What ships of ours are in the harbor?”
Jason consulted a sheaf of paper. Thumbing though the pages, he said, “Six, of the—”
“Which is the fastest?”
“Bitter Sea Queen,” answered Jason.
“I want it outfitted for a six-month voyage and I want fifty of the toughest mercenaries we can hire ready to go with us at first light tomorrow.”
“With us?” asked Nakor.
Roo shrugged. “Erik is the only brother I’ve known, and if he’s down there with Calis, I’m going.”
Nakor sat down and helped himself to a cup of coffee from a pot on the corner of Roo’s desk. He sipped the hot brew and said, “You going to be able to do this thing?”
Roo nodded. “I’ve got people I can trust I can leave in charge.” He thought of Sylvia and Karli, and then Helen Jacoby, and said, “I need to say a few good-byes.”
“I need to eat,” answered Nakor. “Oh, Sho Pi is downstairs. Being more polite than I, he believed them when they said he couldn’t come up here.”
Roo motioned to Jason to fetch Sho Pi and said, “And then I must go find Luis and Duncan. I need to work out who’s in charge of what while I’m gone.”
Jason nodded and departed, and Roo said, “We’ll get them back.”
Nakor smiled, nodded, and drank more coffee.
Epilogue
Rescue
Erik pointed.
Calis nodded. “I see it.”
The five remaining soldiers sat atop a bluff, overlooking the ocean, before a rude hut they had called home for more than two months. “The fisherman who carried word spotted it on the horizon before sundown yesterday. He said they were sailing far to the south of the Queen’s ships’ normal patrol. Too close to the iceberg floes for anyone who knows the local waters.”
“A Kingdom ship?” asked Renaldo, turning to look at Micha, the other soldier who had accompanied Calis, Erik, and Alfred down from the mountains.
“Perhaps,” said Calis, forcing himself upright on a makeshift crutch. He had endured punishing conditions when they had come down from the mountains, three months earlier. Alter six days in the caves, with nothing more than torches and each other for a source of warmth, they had started downward. Calis had regained a bit of strength during that time, but had to be assisted for the first two days.
They reached a cave below the snow line where Erik started a fire and trapped some hares, and they rested another two days. After that it had been a long walk, for not only could Erik not find the valley with the horses in it again, lie almost put them on the wrong side of the river Dee, with no way to ford to the southern side.