Council of War (30 page)

As the wagon passed under the wall, Karl realized that it was very thick as well as tall. Another pair of gates swung open, and the wagon moved onto a city street. Orderly rows of stone buildings lined the street, and people walked about in a casual manner. Some of the people turned and stared as the wagon rolled by, but it was with a look of curiosity and not fear. The wagon started climbing a hill, and Karl leaned back to gaze upward. The castle stretched high into the air above his head, and there was another wall surrounding it and separating it from the city. As they passed under the castle wall, Karl estimated it to be almost as thick as the one surrounding the city.

While the road from the city wall to the castle wall had been straight and broad, that changed as soon as they passed under the castle wall. The escorting knights executed another perfect maneuver that resulted in half of the knights preceding the wagon and the other half following it. The group turned to the right almost immediately and began traveling through a series of narrow, twisting alleys. Karl gazed up at the castle and realized that they were being led around it rather than straight to it.

The wagon eventually stopped at the rear of the castle. Half of the knights dismounted and drew swords while the others formed a ring around the wagon with their lances ready to strike should the need arise. The chain was removed from the door at the rear of the wagon, and the door was opened. The officer ordered the elves to step out of the wagon. He pointed towards a tall set of wooden stairs leading up to a doorway several dozen paces above the ground. The wooden steps had no railing, but there was a wide platform at the top of them. On the platform stood a dozen archers with arrows nocked.

"Climb the steps," the officer ordered the elves.

Prince Rigal led Gerant and Lyron up the steps as the others watched helplessly. Once the elves had been swallowed through the doorway, the officer told the sailors to exit the wagon. He instructed them to climb the stairs. When the sailors had disappeared through the doorway, he told the rest of the Alceans to get out of the wagon. Karl led the Rangers up the steps. As he passed through the doorway in the wall of the castle, he found a dozen soldiers waiting for him. The soldiers had their swords drawn, and one of them instructed the Alceans to follow him. The door was slammed shut, and the corridor became dim. Four soldiers led the Alceans through a series of dim corridors while the other eight soldiers followed. The journey ended with the opening of a cell door and the instructions to enter.

"Where are the rest of my men?" Karl asked as he gazed into the empty cell.

"Enter the cell," the soldier replied threatening.

Karl glared at the soldier, but he complied with the order. As soon as the four Alceans were in the cell, the door was slammed shut and barred. The cell was unlit, but a window in the door let some light in from the torches in the corridor outside. The cell was easily large enough to hold a dozen men, but there was nothing in it. There were no beds or chairs or furniture of any kind. It was just a rectangular stone room with the single door.

"Why did they separate us?" Shawn asked.

"I am not sure," replied Clint, "but we often separate prisoners if they are to be interrogated, although we put each man in a separate cell. The question really is, why did they not separate each of us?"

"They know which of us are warriors," answered Karl. "They separated us from the sailors. I think they might have separated the elves for another reason, but I cannot be sure. Fakir Aziz said something to me once that has been bothering me. It had to do with taking elves to Tyronia. I suspect that there are no elves in Zarocca."

"Which will make it rather hard to explain their presence in our party if we are supposed to be Tyronian merchant warriors," commented Max.

"Exactly," nodded Karl as he stuck his finger into his breast pocket and stirred Peanut to life. "Undoubtedly we are going to be interrogated separately. It is essential that each of us tells the same story. Let's work that story out among ourselves and then Peanut can relay it to the others."

* * *

The officer opened the door and stepped into the baron's study. The baron put down the report that he was reading and waved the officer to a chair.

"How have you separated them?" asked Baron Ohmson.

"Warriors in one cell," answered the officer, "elves in another. I put four other humans in a separate cell. They are not warriors, but I have no idea what their purpose is."

"Are they mages?" asked the baron.

"I do not think so," answered the officer. "Yeltin was with us, and I asked him that question. He said it was improbable. No one in the group was using magic, and the non-warriors had callused hands as if they have toiled for many years. He suspects that they might be seamen."

"Seamen?" questioned the baron. "That would certainly be odd. Why didn't you put each man in a separate cell?"

"I want to give each group a chance to develop their false stories," smiled the officer. "Left alone, each man would try to feign ignorance of the reason for the others being part of the group. They will try to say as little as possible, but in small groups each group will quickly devise a common story, and they will willingly tell us that false story. The things they are most willing to tell us will be the false stories that they concocted. That will point to what they wish to hide."

"Clever," nodded the baron, "unless they have already planned for their capture. We shall see how well your theory works when put to the test. See that the prisoners are fed before you start extracting them from the cells. I want them nervous, but not fainting from hunger."

"How soon do you wish to start the interrogations?" asked the officer.

"Give me two hours to get everyone assembled," answered Baron Ohmson.

* * *

Karl sat alone in the cell and worried about his men. Shawn had been taken first and then Clint. Neither of them had been returned before they took Max away. Karl couldn't help feeling that he had failed his men in some way, but as he looked back over his decisions, he could not see anything that he would change if he had it to do over again. Stressed from hours of worrying about his men, Karl rose and began pacing the cell. He had dispatched Peanut to find Garth, but he had little hope that the other Knights of Alcea would come to their rescue. Even if they could make their way to Zarocca, they would not attack such a fortress as the castle they were being held in. Sending the fairy had merely been a way to keep the others apprised of the situation.

Karl almost jumped when the cell door was thrown open. He turned and saw the soldier waving him out of the cell. The Knight of Alcea tried to calm himself as he walked out of the cell and was surrounded by guards. Without a word, he was herded off through a maze of corridors and stairways. The trip moved upward through the castle, the dim torch-lit corridors giving way to broad hallways with sunlight streaming in through the windows. One of the soldiers halted the column outside a pair of elegant doors. The soldier knocked loudly on the door and waited for a response. While they were waiting for permission to enter the room, Karl glanced around the hallway. He fought to keep his emotions in check when he saw two men a hundred paces away. Fakir Aziz stood talking amicably to a finely-dressed man. Karl's eyes narrowed when he realized that the old man was not being held as a prisoner as the Alceans were. Shawn's suspicions immediately flooded Karl's mind, and he began to wonder if the old man was a spy for Zarocca after all.

Someone inside the room opened the door, and Karl was marched into a large conference room. A long table sat in the middle of the room, and a dozen men sat along the far side of it. On the side nearest the door was a single chair, and Karl was led to it and told to sit. The guards moved off to the sides, close enough to react if Karl had any ideas of causing trouble.

"I am Baron Ohmson," the man across from Karl said. "This is my land that you have trespassed upon. Who are you?"

"I am Karl Gree," answered the Knight of Alcea. "I apologize for any infractions we have made, but I assure you that we mean no harm. We are merely passing through Zarocca on our way to Tyronia."

"Through the Forest of Death?" asked the baron.

"Yes," nodded Karl. "We heard that Sebastian Pass was closed. We also heard that a small boat makes periodic trips between Korocca and Tyronia. We hoped to catch passage on that vessel."

"And you are the leader of this group of men?" asked the baron.

"I am," nodded Karl.

"Tell me about your group," urged the baron. "Tell me their names, and why they are accompanying you."

"We work for Sidney Mercado," Karl began. "Clint, Max, and Shawn are merchant warriors, as am I. We also have four sailors with us. Chanz, Cirris, Warren, and Ecaro are going to Tyronia to set up a shipping operation for Sidney. We also have three elves in our party. Rigal, Gerant, and Lyron were eager to put the Federation behind them. I saw some potential to using them as merchant warriors or scouts, so I took it upon myself to include them in the group. I will admit that I am not sure exactly how they will be received by Sidney, but I judge them to be good men."

"Must we go through this same story again," complained one of the baron's advisors. "It is obvious that they have practiced this story many times. We will not get to the truth with this type of questioning."

"I agree," added another advisor. "Let the torture chamber get to the real truth. We are wasting our time here."

Baron Ohmson held up his hand for silence. He looked across the table at Karl and sighed with frustration.

"As you can see," he said softly, "my advisors are convinced that you are lying. As you are foreigners trespassing on my lands, I have the legal right to hang all of you, and not even the king will question my actions. The problem with that approach is that I desire to know the true reason for your presence here. Of course, I really only need one of you alive to get that. Shall we start again?"

"We are not here to spy on you," replied Karl. "What kind of spies would sneak onto your lands and promptly fall asleep in a clearing? We really are on our way to Tyronia, and Sidney Mercado will vouch for us. Are Zaroccans so quick to kill innocent men?"

"Innocent men have no need to lie," retorted the baron. "As much as I abhor torture, it appears that you will force us to do this the hard way."

"My story will not change under torture," declared Karl. "If you must lower yourself to such means then so be it. I am ready."

"Oh, not you," the baron smiled thinly. "We will start with the sailors, and you shall watch. After they have been tortured, you will watch the executions. Then we will torture the elves, and finally the men who shared your cell."

Karl stiffened in his chair, and his hands curled into fists as rage flushed his face. "And I thought the Federation was my enemy," snapped the Knight of Alcea. "It would appear that the Zaroccans are no better."

The guards moved in close, but the baron merely smiled. "Now I think we are getting somewhere," he said. "Karl Gree, I am going to give you one, and only one, chance to be truthful with me. If I do not hear the truth from your lips right now, I will wash my hands of this matter and turn you and your men over to be tortured and killed as I have described. Once that process starts, I will not stop it. You may speak the truth now, or suffer the consequences."

Karl believed the baron was being truthful in all that he had said, but he feared what sharing the truth might mean to the other Knights of Alcea. There was a possibility that the Zaroccans might let the Alceans live if they knew the truth, but he feared compromising Sidney and the others. He struggled mentally to come up with a way of saving his men that did not endanger the mission. He looked across the table and met the baron's eyes with his own.

"May I speak with you alone?" Karl asked softly.

"For what purpose?" frowned the baron. "If you think that you can overpower me and escape, think again."

"Your soldiers can bind me to this chair," offered Karl. "While I am loath to say what you want to hear, I will take you into my confidence, but not a roomful of advisors who might have loose lips."

The baron raised an eyebrow in surprise. He had the utmost confidence in his advisors, but his curiosity was now heightened.

"Very well," he said as he stood up and waved the advisors out of the room.

The baron was a bear of a man, and he walked to one of the soldiers and took the man's sword. He walked back and stood behind his chair and ordered the soldiers to leave the room. Karl was surprised by the baron's actions, but he had no doubt that Baron Ohmson knew how to use the sword in his hand. When the last man had left the room, the baron looked at Karl expectantly.

"We are not merchant warriors for Sidney Mercado or anyone else," Karl stated, "but we are truly on our way to Tyronia. The elves escaped from Elfwoods a while ago. The other warriors and I helped them do it. The reason that we came through the Forest of Death is because the Federation army is searching for us. They have Sebastian Pass blocked and are questioning everyone. They would have captured us, so we chose the only option available to us."

"And the sailors?" asked the baron.

"The Federation is searching for them as well," answered Karl.

"Why is the Federation so keen to capture you?" asked the baron.

"Because we sunk their fleet of warships," admitted Karl. "The four sailors are what is left of the crew of the Remora, the ship we used to destroy their fleet."

"The elven of you destroyed the Federation fleet?" balked the baron. "Do you really expect me to believe that? You were far better off with your original story."

"It was more than eleven of us," replied Karl, "but yes we destroyed their fleet. Over one hundred warships went to the bottom of the Sea of Tears after burning up."

"How could such a small group accomplish such a deed?" asked the baron.

"We encircled them with a resin called flamorweed," replied Karl. "When it was ignited, everything inside the circle burned, including our own ship."