Portals of Infinity: Book Four: The Sea of Grass (8 page)

The next day started out a bit different, when Smoke came back to the teepee looking rather excited.

I had been helping Henry unpack his gear; he wanted to do a service of some sort that night.

"What's got you so excited?" I asked.

"They're going on a raid!" Smoke said and started to gather up her gear.

I grabbed her arm and turned her to look at me. "What?"

She pulled her arm loose, "They're going on a raid, they're leaving soon, so I have to get my things and go."

I grabbed my weapons harness, my pack, which had my bow tied to it, Tom's saddle and bridle. "What are we raiding?"

Smoke looked at me, "you're coming?"

"Somebody has to keep you out of trouble," I smirked, and then winced as I got clipped by one of her spears as she turned to head out of the teepee.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I hurt you?" She growled.

"So what are they raiding?"

"Come along and find out!" She said flicking her tail at me.

I shook my head and smiled wryly. "Have you ever been on a raid before?"

Smoke shook her head, "No, that's why I have to hurry; I don't want to miss this one!"

"They're not all fun and play," I said from behind her, "Just remember that."

She flicked her tail at me again, "You don't have to come you know."

"I may not," I said in a low voice and she turned to look at me surprised. "If I don't think you should be raiding whatever it is they're going to attack, I won't take part in it."

"You'd stay behind?" she asked curious.

I nodded, "I represent Feliogustus, Smoke. I can't just go doing whatever I wish," I thought I heard a laugh in the back of my head at that, but it was probably just my imagination. "I have responsibilities."

We stopped by where her wolat was browsing, and I whistled for Tom who trotted up looking happy when he saw the saddle.

We got them saddled up quickly, then I followed Smoke again as we walked over to where the party was gathering, leading our mounts.

"Ah, Smoke, it will be good to have you with us," a male I didn't recognize said smiling.

"Rhys, this is Will; Will, this is Rides Well,"

We touched palms and I nodded to him.

"Ah yes, the champion of the god that has come to the People, I've heard of you."

"What are we after today?" I asked him looking around at the group. There were about forty warriors assembled, about a quarter of them were females.

"A caravan headed for Barassa!" He smiled, "There have been less of them this year, so we haven't had many opportunities."

"Will this be enough?" I asked curious motioning to the gathered group.

Rhys nodded, "We will be meeting up with another group. The Caravans tend not to have more than a double quad of guards. The scout said this one appeared to be the same."

A double quad was eighty, unless we were meeting up with a lot more warriors, we weren't going to have numbers on our side. We were mounted however, so that would help.

I looked at Smoke, who looked at me, and I nodded, "Anything that hurts Barassa is fine with me."

"Good! Let's go, we have a long ride before us today!"

I watched as he called for everyone's attention, and we all mounted up and followed him out of the village.

Seven

East of Aldar Village

We rode for about three hours, leaving the plains and heading into lightly wooded hills that were the eastern border of the plains and met up with another group, of about twenty, who joined us. Twice single riders rode up to us, talked to Rhys, then rode off again. I figured they were our scouts.

We stopped around noon to eat, and let the wolats rest for a while. Another one of the scouts joined us while we did.

"Okay," Rhys said as we gathered around him, "The caravan is about a twenty minute ride after we cross over that ridge," he motioned eastward. "It's almost to the ford of the river; we will attack them just as they're nearing it."

"What about the guard post to the south of the ford?" One of the others asked.

"It's almost empty, just a few soldiers stationed there now. The quad that Barassa used to keep there is gone."

Everyone smiled when he said that.

"So, here is the general plan," he said and then proceeded to sketch out what he wanted everyone to do.

"Why are we leaving the way to the river clear?" Smoke asked as Rhys drew out the lines he wanted everyone to follow.

"If they can not escape, they will fight to the death. If we allow them an out, they will flee, and hope to come back later and recover whatever we do not take."

I'd swear Smoke almost pouted.

"The goal is not to kill any more of them than we have to," Rhys said looking at Smoke. "This isn't a war, this is a raid. Besides, if we kill them all, they won't come back next year so we can raid them again, now would they?"

There were several laughs from the group as he said that. But I started thinking about what Rigel had said on the council, and the idea of embargoing Barassa.

I wasn't so sure I wanted this caravan to come back next year. But I also wasn't keen on the idea of slaughtering a bunch of merchants either.

Everyone went and checked their weapons, their saddles, and their mounts, and then we all saddled up and followed Rhys as he led us towards the caravan. I noticed he dispatched half a dozen riders, who split up and rode ahead of us and to the sides, to scout out any possible ambushes I guess. Rhys obviously had done this before, and he also apparently was suitably paranoid to make sure that everything was as it appeared.

The trees started to thin out as we progressed and after a few minutes Rhys stopped and held up his hand. Everyone stopped and looked at him.

"We will ride out from cover shortly. Ready your weapons, remember my orders."

He waited while they all readied spears and I readied my bow.

"Now, Ride!" he called and we all followed him, moving first into a canter, and then into a full gallop as we broke from cover.

The caravan members saw us immediately, there were twenty wagons, all of which were very large and had a team of ten of the oxen like creatures pulling them. They raised the alarm, and the guards all moved to the side of the caravan we were approaching from, and all those riding on the wagons jumped off drawing weapons, except for the drivers who were trying to coax more speed from the oxen.

I lowered my body closer to Tom's head, turning my bow sideways guiding him with my knees as I got ready to shoot. It was then that I noticed something about the wagons; ten of them had people sitting in the back of them. A
lot
of people. People who I could see were chained to each other and probably the wagon.

I hated slavery and I knew that Fel opposed it as well. I kicked Tom to a harder gallop, and as we drew within bow range I sat up, and as everything slowed for me I called out "Kill the Slavers! In the name of Feliogustus, kill all the Slavers!"

Once again, a sunbeam found me and on my leather armor the symbol of Fel appeared and I could feel the effect of my presence bursting forth like a shockwave as I invoked my champion status.

I shot all of the arrows in my hand in less time then it took to think about it, I grabbed another bunch from the quiver and sent them on their way just as quickly. I killed eighteen guards, three drivers, and every merchant I saw standing anywhere near the slave wagons. I ignored the others completely. I went through the thirty arrows I had brought, then tossed the bow to the side and drew my swords, riding straight at one of the slave wagons, then turning quickly to the left and riding down along the line of them, killing everything in my path, sparing only those who dropped their weapons and fled.

When I got to the end, I turned Tom around and reversed my course, riding back down along the length of the caravan once again. Most of the rest of the band was following Rhys's orders. Rhys and his group had turned to concentrate on the regular merchants, which they were harassing, and who were fleeing rather hastily looking over their shoulders at what was being done to their slave trading companions.

But about a dozen of the band however must have felt the same way about slavery as I did, because they had followed me and using their spears they had engaged the guards and merchants and were killing them as well. Unsurprisingly Smoke was in the lead and had already killed or seriously wounded two. She moved to engage a third as I rode back down along the line of wagons, using my enhanced speed, strength, height, and mobility to kill at least a half dozen more before they all dropped their weapons and ran. I followed on their heels, Tom growling and snapping, with Smoke and several others along side me as we slowed and let them run.

When they got to the river and started running into it, we turned and rode back to the caravan at a much slower rate.

"What was
that
?" Rhys yelled at me angrily as I rode up, "I said to drive them off, not slaughter them!"

I looked at the bodies on the ground. I had probably killed thirty of them, and the ones who followed me had easily killed just as many. I looked up at the slaves on the wagons; Rhys's people had taken the keys off the dead merchants and were slowly freeing them.

"Feliogustus does not tolerate slavery, neither do I," I said calmly. "We only killed those who were seeking to make money off of it."

"Do you think they'll keep coming this way if you kill them all?" He growled.

"No, that is why I killed them. Why I plan on killing all of them."

"Then they'll just stop coming!" Rhys fumed, leaning closer and putting his muzzle almost to mine.

"Exactly, they'll stop coming. And Barassa will stop being the major slave port, and will become poor, and we will be able to destroy it. Without Barassa, the slave trade becomes less profitable, slavery won't make the merchants enough money to keep doing it, and there will be less of it!" I said calmly and looked him in the eyes.

"You can't know that!" He growled.

I smiled slowly, "You would be surprised at what I know. Without a place to sell slaves, merchants will switch to something they
can
sell. Money, wealth, those are the things that fuel any trade. Traders will not pursue trade that makes them no money or costs them their lives.

"Besides, I thought that the People hated slavery?"

Rhys sighed, "My father's mother was a slave, rescued from one of these very caravans. We raid them as often as we can, and lead away as many as we are able. I worry that if they stop coming here, they will go places where we can not find them."

I thought about that for a moment, this was obviously a personal crusade for him, for many of them. I remembered then that Smoke's mother was from lands far to the north, I turned to her, she was sitting on her wolat to my left.

"Your mother was a slave as well, wasn't she?"

She nodded, "Striker led the party that saved her, while she fell in love with my father, she felt she owned him a life, and so gave him Hans to thank him."

I nodded slowly. I turned back to Rhys, "My family has always fought against slavery; it goes back many generations in my homeland. That fight was eventually won. I want to start that fight here, and I want you to help."

Rhys looked at me stunned, "You want me to help?"

I nodded.

"It will take years, lifetimes!" He balked.

"Yes, I suspect we will all be long dead before the fight is finished, but if not us, who? If not now, when? We will still be dead many years from now, but wouldn't you rather go to your end knowing that you were the one who started this?"

Rhys blinked and looked around, looked at the freed slaves who were starting to gather into groups on the grounds.

"I hear your words, Champion. We will discuss this later." Rhys turned then to the others, "Burn the slave wagons once they are empty. Raid all the food and clothing you can find for the freed. Take what you can from the other wagons; we need to get these people moving if we want to be back on the Sea of Grass by nightfall!"

I smiled and turned to look at Smoke, who was watching Rhys fairly closely.

"Deep thoughts?" I asked her softly.

"Hush you," She said and her ears went down in a feline blush as her face fur ruffled.

"You fought well today," I told her. "I was impressed."

"Thank you."

"With a woman like you to help him, I suspect he will go very far on this quest."

Smoke Dancer slowly smiled at me, "You know, I believe that you are right," and with that she urged her wolat around me, to follow Rhys as he went to see to his people and his orders.

That night we made camp out in a small ravine on the plains that Rhys knew about. We'd freed four hundred and twenty-six slaves. Each wagon had been packed with about forty on average. Their condition wasn't great, but it wasn't too bad either. They hadn't been fed in two days, and barely given enough water to survive. I guess that was to keep them weak and tractable during the journey.

The food we liberated from the caravan was eaten within minutes of our passing it out, and all the water we could find there or brought with us was rapidly consumed as well. Rhys had detailed four teams to start bringing water back in rotation as we had marched away from the ambush site, and he'd also sent off another two teams of ten men each to go hunt.

That had left half of our original number to guide and protect over four hundred people.

That didn't turn out to be too much of a problem actually; they all realized that their freedom, as well as their survival, lay with us, so they willingly did what we asked of them.

Rhys shook his head as he sat down next to me at the campfire several hours later, "There are a lot more of them than I expected. Usually two hundred is a lot."

I nodded; Smoke was with him of course, she hadn't left his side since we'd left the ambush site. I don't think it had quite occurred to Rhys that she had staked her claim on him, but I think everyone else had at this point. I figured once he got this situation under control he would notice.

"I talked with several of them," Smoke said softly, "they were household slaves from Metina. Their owners were offered a high price for them, as slave prices in Barassa have increased. They have heard rumors that the slave markets in Barassa are empty."

Rhys looked at her, apparently a little surprised that she was sitting so close to him. "Well, that would explain the numbers." He turned and looked at me. "So, what's our next step?"

"The queen and the Hiland council want to do what they can to stop the slaves going to Barassa. They have about five hundred soldiers who can ride wolats. If you were to help them, lead them, what could you do with them?"

Rhys laughed, "Like they would listen to me."

"Will is married to the queen, Rhys. They will do as he tells them." Smoke told him.

Rhys looked at me in surprise, "Truly?"

I nodded, "Yes, it will take them a few weeks to get here, but what could you do with those kinds of numbers?"

Rhys thought about that, staring into the fire for a minute. Suddenly he laughed, "I could control almost all of the trade that goes in to Barassa. If they're any good that is."

I shrugged, "You're probably going to have to teach them how to fight like the People do; they've never fought mounted before."

Rhys growled and shook his head.

"No one said this was going to be easy," I told him.

"Rhys, we can do this," Smoke said softly and put a hand on his arm.

"We?" He asked looking back at her a little surprised.

"Yes, we."

Rhys slowly smiled; I think he suddenly realized that Smoke was interested in him. "I have to make the rounds one more time before I can get some rest, Will. Please, ask the queen to send all that she can spare, and
we
," he looked at Smoke and smiled, "will do what must be done."

He stood up then, and held a hand down to Smoke who took it, and he pulled her up onto her feet.

"See you in the morning, Will,"

I nodded, "See you both in the morning, Rhys, Smoke."

"I can't send messages for you, Will," Fel said. We were sitting outside the bar again in my dream.

"Rules?" I asked.