The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3) (40 page)

He lit globes of light that floated in the air over the campsite, and the glowing balls provided sufficient illumination, as Grange started assigning duties.  “Inge, take Kiergor, Paile, Brigin, and Merched, and show them how to tend to the horses.

“Tranch and Skore, set up sleeping areas for everyone.

Jenniline, take Hope and Carrel and Halsten, to start preparing the meal,” he directed.

“Hilto, Acco, Remar, come with me, and I’ll show you how we’re going to patrol around the perimeter of the campsite,” he finished with assignments.

The following instructions in campsite preparations took nearly two hours, and all parties were exhausted when everything was complete.  The training had been slow and frustrating for those who knew what they were doing, and for those who had tried to learn.

Grange set up three sets of guards to patrol the campsite in shifts through the night, then lowered the brightness of his floating light globes, and let the travelers fall asleep.  He and Acco were the first shift of guards, and together they walked about the perimeter of the camp, making sure that all was peaceful.  They awoke Jenniline and Carrell for the second shift, and went to their sleeping blankets, to settle in for the night.

Grange was the first to arise, shortly before dawn.  He observed Skore and Merched walking the patrol around the campsite, and went out to join them.

“We think we saw a rabbit,” Merched reported.  “I’m not sure I feel safe with such wild animals running around,” she smiled in the darkness.

“I’ve lived in some rough parts of the city, but after sleeping on the ground for half the night, and walking through the woods for the half the night, I think I’d go back to sleeping in the rough parts of the city, if only you hadn’t haunted me with that crazy dream,” Merched complained.

“And I suspect my dear cousins will complain even more when they awaken in the morning,” Skore added.

“Which isn’t far away,” Grange advised.  He noticed that shades of gray were starting to appear among the shades of darkness, as light slowly climbed over the horizon.

“With a good day’s progress, we’ll be back home in the castle tonight, and everyone can have a comfortable night under roof,” Skore pointed out.

Grange returned to the campsite, and started preparing for the start of day, as others slowly rose, and asked for direction on where to find the restroom, or what to eat, or how to pack.  Through patience, and then bullying, Grange managed to drive everyone to finally be prepared for departure early in the morning, and they resumed traveling south through the countryside.

When they stopped at midday, several of the princesses complained of saddlesoreness.  Grange went among them, using his control of the energy to relieve them of the pain, but only received cursory and grudging thanks from Acco, while Hilto, Paile, and Brigin accepted the relief without comment.

“Is this the edge of the wilderness?” Brigin asked that evening, as the sun started to set on their slow-moving group.   The roads had grown rougher as they moved further away from the capital city, slowing the pace of their travel, while Grange had lofted glowing balls of light to keep the path ahead of them lit, until they finally arrived at the gates of Goala’s castle.

“This is how we take the horses to the stables,” Grange explained to some of the party who had never dealt with such mundane activities before.  After a nervous welcome by Goala, and a hearty stew for their dinner, the princesses wearily went to the small number of suitable rooms, where they slept two to a room, while many of the men in Grange’s traveling party slept in the hayloft of the stables.

“We’ll arrive among the Bloomingians in three or four days,” Grange explained to his assembled group the next morning.  “Definitely four, possibly three,” he estimated.  “That’s the good news.  The bad news is that horses won’t do any good down in the wilderness.  The brush is too thick, and we’d probably have to carry our own forage for them to eat.”

“How are we going to travel then, in a carriage?” Hilto asked.

Grange paused for a moment.  “We’re going to walk – all of us,” he said firmly.

There were groans from the audience.

“Surely my lord, we’ll be able to take mules to carry supplies?  You don’t mean to make us all carry our own food, do you?” Jenniline spoke up.

“When he and I traveled through the wilderness together, we had to carry our food and supplies on packs on our backs!” she indignantly told the other princesses.

“You deserve better than that!” she exhorted them.

“Let us have mules, please, Lord Champion!” Paile called out, as the others muttered darkly.

“Yes, certainly, we will take mules to carry our supplies,” Grange agreed, to murmurs of approval.  He looked over at Jenniline, trying to decipher why she had stirred her sisters up.  He had intended to take mules as pack animals all along, just as Asloe’s tin mine had relied upon mules to carry supplies.

“Everyone pack as lightly as you can, and we’ll leave soon,” Grange ordered.

There was a delay while a few of the travelers deliberated over how to reduce the amount of material they would pack into the wilderness, and Grange spoke with Jenniline as they waited.

“What was all that about the mules?” Grange asked his counsel.  “I planned to use mules anyway.”

“I know you did, but making it look like you did us a favor made the princesses – and maybe a couple of others – feel better, as if they’d won a point in the contest,” Jenniline told him in a patronizing tone.  “You’ll need to start thinking of these things if you’re going to be king someday,” she warned him.

“Or maybe I just need to pick you to be my queen, and take care of them for me,” he threatened in response.

“If you make me queen, I’ll be your widow before we’re married,” she threatened in response.

“Look, mom and dad are arguing!” Inge helpfully called out to the others in the group as he spotted the two leaders in their dispute.

Grange and Jenniline both laughed at the jibe, then Grange walked away to a spot where he had a clear view of the moon.  He hadn’t communicated with Brieed in several days, and he wanted to let the Palmland wizard know that he was on the move.

“Master Brieed,” he began as he stood alone in the castle yard.  “I am traveling from Southgar into the wilderness,” he began his message.  “When Acton named me as his champion, he said that I would reunite the Southgar people, bringing the exiles back into the nation.  I am traveling now, on my way to visit them, and ask them to come back.”

He thought about trying to explain the dynamics of the competing dynasties, and his role as the heir apparent of one dynasty, then decided it was not important to share.

“I cannot tell you where I will be from day to day, but I will send you messages, and when we reach our destination in a few days, I will let you know.  I hope all is well.  I know that Grace must be a big help to you, and I’m glad she’s there to help,” Grange wrapped up his message.

Shortly thereafter, Grange led the group out of the fortified castle, into the mostly settled region that bordered on the wilderness.  It was a landscape he had crossed with Hope, many weeks before; he had little recollection of it, and so they travelled in a southern direction, wandering slightly to the west as they went.

The road was rougher than it had been in the heart of the nation, and so their travel was slow, but the group maintained good spirits.  They camped at night, with a camp fire and Grange’s lights glowing, and traveled again the next day, their first full day of travel in the true wilderness.  Halsten and Skore were in the lead, cutting bushes and branches away to create a path that the rest of the company could easily follow.  Grange followed, walking in the midst of the princesses to offer protection to them, though he mostly focused on storing more energy in his wand, wanting it to be fully charged and available when the group reached the Bloomingian camp.  The suitors and the other men escorted the mules at the end of the train.

That night Grange set out three members of the group on each shift of the watch, and their fire was only a small one, not visible from any great distance.  Grange, Jenniline,  Halsten, and Skore talked about the likelihood of reaching the Bloomingian territory  the following day.

“The Bloomingians don’t come all the way up to our castle in Skengare,” Skore reported.  “But they do make raids on farms within our liege lands.  So we could run into a party of their folks any time now.”

Grange notified the guards of the danger of a raid, and took the second shift of the guards patrol himself, but no troubles arose, and the next morning they resumed their trip south.  The suitors were assigned to cut the path open for the travelers and their beasts to travel along, while the princesses were assigned to guide the mules, and the others strung out along the path and crashed through the brush on either side.

They were ambushed by Bloomingians shortly before their lunch stop.

Remar was cutting the brush in the lead, while Kiergar was lopping branches behind him to widen the path, when they both cried out in alarm.

Grange looked up to see each of them taken hostage by a pair of roughly dressed men, and moments later there was crashing noises on either side of them as the rest of the raiding party emerged from the brush, sword, knifes, and arrows ready to attack.

“All of you halt and stand still!” one of the assailants spoke loudly, as Hilto screamed in fright.

“We are a peace delegation,” Grange spoke up as he stepped forward.

“Silence!” the Bloomingian leader shouted at him, moving down the path to confront him.

“We come to offer peace to the people of the Bloomingian camp, and we invite them to return to Southgar,” Grange ignored the order, as he gripped his wand and prepared to remove the weapons from the hands of the attackers.

“Lower your weapons, and escort us to your camp, so that we can talk about how to reunite all of Southgar,” he said.

“Hey!” one of the Bloomingians in the back of the group spoke.  “This is the Princess Hope!  She’s come back to us.”

“And him,” another one spoke up, “He’s the one who helped her get away!  I recognize him.”

“It is foolishness in the extreme for the two of you to come back,” the leader spoke forcefully.  “You will be punished for your antics.”

“I think not,” Grange said.  He raised his wand and whirled it in a circle over his head, commanding the power within to take all the weapons away from the Bloomingians and to lift the weapons twenty feet in the air.

There were shouts among all the attackers, as they felt their weapons invisibly wrenched from their hands and thrown up into the air.

“What demon’s magic is this?” the leader shouted.

Grange touched his wand to his throat, to amplify his speech.  “Everyone remain calm,” he said.  “This is no demon’s magic; it is the power we will use to fight the demons.

“Release your hold on our people,” Grange looked at the front of the column, where Kiergar and Remar were still held tightly.

“We do not come to attack you.  We come to talk to you, at the command of the gods,” Grange spoke.

“Send messengers back to your camp now, to tell them we are coming, and to allow them to prepare for our arrival.  The rest of you may go or stay with us, as you please, all except at least one must stay with us to be our guide to find your camp,” Grange said.

“Go talk among yourselves,” Grange offered, “And decide who will do what.”  He began to walk forward, passing by the attackers who had come out of the brush.  When he reached Kiergar and Remar, he reached out to remove the hands of their captors, who had not complied with his order, but who passively allowed him to set his companions free.

Grange waved his wand again, and all the weapons in the air moved together into a cluster, a large, hovering ball of metal and wood.

“All of you, make your decisions,” Grange commanded the Bloomingians.  He pointed his wand at the brush in front of the group, and caused it all to burst into flame, burning a lane straight ahead through the wilderness growth for several hundred feet in length, then he made a sudden breeze extinguish the flames.

“You mean you could have been doing that all along,” Remar asked indignantly.  “My shoulder aches like this for no good reason?”

Grange!” Jenniline called.  He turned to look back along the corridor, and saw that the leader of the Bloomingians had taken Hope hostage.  He stood behind her, one arm around her stomach, and one arm tight around her throat.

“Stop these dark magic tricks!” the man shouted.  “Return our weapons to us instantly, or the girl will die.”

Grange looked at the man and tried to judge how to treat the situation without causing harm to Hope.  As he stood there for the moment considering what to do, Merched suddenly sprang forward from the cluster of women.  She grabbed the man’s arm that was choking Hope and she sank her teeth into his hand, biting hard, so that the man shouted in pain and surprise.

Grange pointed his wand, and caused a narrow blast of air to strike the man, passing just over Hope’s shoulder to strike her captor in the face, snapping his head back and driving him off of her.

Grange called upon the energy again, and erected a protective wall that separated the Bloomingians on the outside from the people of his own group on the inside.  He opened the wall and stepped out, as the people gasped and shouted in surprise at the sudden appearance of the glowing green wall.  With another wave of his wand he created a second wall of energy, a blue one, that ran parallel to the first, trapping the befuddled attackers in a narrow ribbon of space.

“Enough!” he shouted.  “You and you and you,” he pointed at three of the men who had turned from captors to trapped captive, “I am going to release you, and you will go to your camp to let them know we are coming.  Do you need anything to go, and will you leave now?”

The men all looked at him helplessly, then looked at their leader, who was rising to his feet again.

“Who are you?  What are you?  What are you going to do to our people?” he shouted at Grange.

“He is the Champion, chosen by Acton, the god of war,” Jenniline answered.