Victim of Fate (16 page)

Alto stared at the amazing creature below
him. The unicorn was breathing hard, but he didn’t seem labored or
exhausted. The unicorn had done the same thing when they’d escaped
the forest; either he was truly a magical creature of legend or he
had endurance unlike anything Alto had ever heard of. Considering
the glowing horn trick Winter had pulled on him last night, Alto
knew magic was the secret.

Resigned to a long and cold ride, Alto nearly
lost his balance and pitched off the side of the unicorn when
Winter slowed abruptly and turned.

"Ha! You won’t get me twice with that trick!"
Alto cried.

Winter let out a shrill whinny and reared up,
proving that he had a few tricks left.

"I’m going to break that horn off and stab
you with it," Alto muttered from where he lay on the ground.

Winter stomped the ground and flung his head
to the side.

Alto followed the unicorn’s gaze and saw the
remains of a campfire. He lurched to his feet and, wincing from the
soreness in his joints, stumbled over to the circle of ashes. He
fell to his knees beside it and put his hand over the black and
gray coals, searching for heat. He nodded when it warmed his skin
and fought off the chill.

"Still warm, they can’t be long gone," Alto
said. He rose up, his aches forgotten, and searched the ground.
"There!" He rushed over and pointed down at the unpleasant proof
that horses had stayed the night. He circled around, picking out
the occasional footprint in the frost-covered grasses and then
larger patterns where people had slept.

Alto moved over on a whim and looked at the
crushed grass. He knelt next to one and studied it carefully,
reaching down to touch it. Winter joined him and lowered his head
to sniff at it. The unicorn snorted and looked up at him. Alto
reached out and pushed aside some grass to pick up something he’d
glimpsed. He held up the dried blue flower and showed it to Winter.
"She was here; this was woven into her hair."

Winter huffed and stomped his foot, and then
he backed away and stomped again impatiently.

"Just a minute, we don’t know where they’ve
gone!" Alto snapped. He rose up and looked around, and then started
walking back and forth to the north. He picked up occasional marks
in the ground where dirt had been kicked up by shod hooves. He
followed the trail and picked his head up. The ground grew hilly
ahead of them and behind the hills rose the towering gray and white
peaks of the Northern Divide. "They’re heading into the
mountains."

Winter moved beside him. Alto glanced at him
and sighed. "You’re fast, but I’d guess they have a few hours lead
on us. They’ll make the mountains by noon, maybe sooner."

Winter snorted and pawed the ground.

"All right, let’s go," Alto said. "Just
didn’t think after going to all that effort to save me you wanted
to get me killed."

Alto’s equine companion flicked his ears back
and snorted again. Alto climbed onto the irritated unicorn and had
to strain to hold on while Winter burst forward into a full gallop.
They ran so fast Alto had to breathe out of the corner of his
mouth.

Alto called out directions when he glimpsed
signs of the trail of the men who had taken Patrina. They streaked
over and around the hills until they grew too steep for Winter to
easily navigate. Forced into trails and ravines, their rate slowed.
The terrain grew rockier, denying Alto the chance to spot signs of
the kidnappers’ passage.

"Whoa!" Alto cried out when he spotted a
green strip of cloth pinched between a crack in the jagged edge of
a rock.

Winter stopped and let Alto climb off, and
then he sidestepped and sent Alto stumbling.

"What was that for?" Alto protested. "Okay,
you’re not a horse, I’m sorry. It was just instinct," Alto said
while he pushed away from the rock he’d fallen against. The unicorn
glared at him.

He shrugged and turned away so he could grab
the scrap of fabric. "This was Trina’s." He peered into the narrow
crevice in the side of the hill. "It’s narrow, but you can fit.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t get too rocky or steep for you."

Winter turned to stare at the fissure and
snorted his displeasure. He showed his teeth and whinnied loudly.
Alto nodded. "She came this way. That was from her dress; I think
she left it on purpose to help us find her."

Alto headed into the crevice, turning
sideways to keep from brushing his broad shoulders against the
rocks on either side. Lichen that hadn’t died from the frost grew
in cracks of the rocks where the sun couldn’t reach. It smelled
musty and earthy in spite of the cold that turned his breath into
foggy puffs.

He searched the walls and rocks of the ravine
while he moved through it. Winter snorted and scraped his hoofs on
the rocks behind him, moving slowly and checking his footing before
trusting it. Some of the rocks shifted beneath him, threatening an
injury to the unicorn’s legs.

Alto stopped after nearly a dozen feet in. Up
ahead, he saw the ravine grew tighter and turned to the left. He
turned back to see Winter staring up, over his left shoulder. "She
must have—what’s wrong? What are you looking at?"

Alto turned to look above him, where Winter’s
gaze was focused. There was nothing there but he couldn’t shake the
feeling that something seemed out of place. He sniffed, catching
the smell of burning wood along with the musty smell of earth. He
wondered aloud, "Is that a campfire?"

"Alto?"

Alto spun, surprised by the voice coming from
behind them. Winter snorted but the crevice in the rocks wasn’t
wide enough for him to easily turn around. A man wearing a brown
tunic under a vest decorated with pockets stepped out from behind a
rock. Alto scowled and asked, "How do you know my name? Who’re
you?"

The man grinned. Alto heard a scuffle behind
him, but before he could turn, the man with the vest raised his
hand to reveal he held a stick. He uttered a word and twitched the
stick. Alto saw a distortion in the air between them, almost like
the way air looked funny on hot days as it rose off of hard-packed
ground.

Winter slumped forward, staggering until he
collapsed. Alto started forward, anxious to help his four-legged
friend. A thud behind him reminded him of the scuffle he’d heard.
He began to turn but before he could manage it, a darkness slammed
into him and dropped him into a bottomless abyss.

Alto gasped and sputtered his way to
consciousness. He shook his head and tried to move. The ropes
binding his hands and his feet stopped him. The captive warrior
turned his head, blinking to get the water that had been splashed
in his face out of his eyes. When he could see clearly, he saw that
the sun was rising and that he was lying near a campfire. Patrina
sat nearby, bound and gagged. Winter was nowhere to be seen.

"Who are you?" Alto’s question came out as a
scratchy whisper.

The man next to Alto wore dark leathers and
was the tallest man Alto had ever seen. Behind him and tending to a
couple of their horses stood the other man Alto had seen earlier in
the ravine. He was a wizard, or at least he’d used magic.

"Rynn," the tall man next to him said.

"How’d somebody as tall as you get the drop
on me?"

Rynn nodded his head towards the wizard.
"That’s Krey, my brother. Obviously, he’s a wizard."

Alto grunted. "Awful lot of trouble you went
through."

"Nobody else could handle it."

"Handle what?" Alto asked.

"Catching you," Rynn chuckled. "Don’t see
why. You wasn’t special."

"Untie me and give me back my sword
then."

"Rynn! Enough!" Krey snapped. He straightened
from tightening a saddle and turned to face Alto. "Someone is very
interested in having a conversation with you. I suggest you come
along without complaint."

"Seeing that I’ve got a headache from where I
was clubbed in the head and that I’m tied up, I’m thinking this
isn’t in my best interests," Alto responded. He turned to Patrina
and saw her staring at him with eyes that were wide with
expression. He wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell him, but he
knew she was trying.

"This girl? You saved her once and I’ve
learned you have some feelings for her?"

"She’s a friend," Alto said, trying to
dismiss Patrina’s importance in their minds. "Speaking of friends,
where’s the unicorn?"

Krey smirked. "Unicorns are incredible
beings. Any other time, I’d have spent the time and effort to
capture it. As I said, somebody very important is paying us a very
large amount of money to bring you to them."

"So you killed him?" Alto forced himself to
ask.

"Even stunned and confused, killing a unicorn
is no simple task. My brother and I didn’t have the resources at
hand to be sure of it so we left him wandering and confused."

Alto frowned even as he felt his chest loosen
to allow him to breathe. If Winter was alive, he might bring
Teorfyr to their aid. It boosted his confidence enough to say, "Two
horses and two of you. We’re tied up; doesn’t seem like you’ve got
a plan. If you’re after me, are you going to leave her behind, at
least, so you can make better progress?"

"Your friend is gagged for a reason. Do I
need to have the same done to you?"

"My friend? Oh, the princess?" Alto feigned
confusion to try to spare her what looked like an unpleasant
experience. "I helped save her for the reward and because it helped
my kingdom."

"Then you won’t mind if we kill her?" Krey
said. "Rynn, would you help?"

"Happy to," Rynn said and took three
long-legged strides to Patrina’s side. He reached down and grabbed
her by the braids in her hair and then yanked on them hard enough
to pull her over and force her onto her belly. "Seems a waste to
just kill her though."

"We don’t want her telling anyone where we
were or what we’re doing," Krey reminded him. "And you don’t want
to leave anything a wizard could use to find you or hurt you
with."

Rynn frowned. "Wizards can do that?"

Krey chuckled. "A powerful mage can do just
about anything."

"Can you do that?"

Krey glanced at Alto and then looked back to
his brother. "I can do a lot of things," was his ambiguous
answer.

"All right, I’ll just kill her then. Clean or
messy?"

"I’ll go quietly," Alto interrupted.

"What?" Krey turned to him.

"Let her go and I won’t cause any problems,"
Alto said.

Krey chuckled. "You will behave, but we’ll
keep her to be sure."

"Look, I just don’t want any innocent blood
being spilled; it’s not like I’m courting her or anything."

Krey chuckled again. "Not yet, perhaps." He
turned to his brother. "Help the princess up, Rynn, and untie the
ropes on his legs so he can keep up."

"Keep up?" Alto asked.

"Aye, my brother will make sure she stays on
his horse while you walk with us. You could run, but I’ve got my
spells, Rynn has his steel, and if those should possibly fail,
we’ve still got her."

Alto nodded. He risked a glance at Patrina
and saw her staring at him with eyes that begged him to do
something. He still couldn’t hazard a guess as to what it was her
gaze was screaming at him. When he finally managed to yank his gaze
away from her, he saw the smirk on Krey’s face that communicated
far more efficiently that Patrina had been able to. Krey knew what
the princess meant to Alto. Perhaps even better than Alto.

"I trust you won’t be upset that we don’t
entirely trust you," Krey said while pulling another rope out of
one of the saddlebags. He tossed it to Rynn. "Tie him to my
horse."

"Hope you can keep up," Rynn said with a
grin. "Obviously, falling behind isn’t an option."

"Are you going to keep saying that?" Alto
asked while the tall man looped the new rope around the rope
already binding his wrists.

"Saying what?"

"Obviously," Alto said. Then he added,
"Obviously."

Krey chuckled in the background, causing Rynn
to scowl and yank as he tightened the ropes around Alto’s wrists.
"You’ve got better things to worry about," he snarled before
adding, "obviously!"

The brothers dispensed with further
conversation while they broke down the camp and made ready to move.
Long before Alto’s headache was gone, they moved out, pulling the
warrior behind them fast enough he found it easier to jog than to
walk. After the first two passes they made their way through, he’d
stopped being thankful that they’d left him in his chain mail.

They crossed the mountains the rest of the
day, stopping only long enough for Rynn to scout ahead or for brief
breaks where Alto was given a few drinks from a skin of water. That
night after the sun had fallen behind the mountains, they stopped
and set up camp. Alto collapsed before he had a chance to drink or
eat.

The next day was the same, save that the
Northern Divide was on their left and began to fall behind them.
Alto had a hard time telling where they were, aside from the
mountains on his left. Krey and Rynn kept to the valleys between
the foothills of the mountains. He glimpsed the sea to the right a
few times, but it was leagues distant. As the day grew long, the
glimpses he managed between gasps for breath became pointless when
snow started to fall.

With the snow came darkness and a bitter wind
that forced them into setting up camp early. Alto managed to stay
awake longer but soon the wind chilled his armor and worked through
his damp clothing. He was left shivering even after he huddled near
the fire once it was started.

"We need to push hard tomorrow," Krey told
Rynn while they ate the cold rations. "This storm stopped us early
and it might snow in the passes."

Alto strained to listen while staring into
the fire. He glanced up when the wizard fell silent and saw Krey
walking towards him. The mage dropped a skin of water next to him
and then added a sausage from a pouch. "Eat. We’ve another hard day
tomorrow before we make it to the mines."