Chapter 9

From Toreas

"What do you mean they are gone?"

"Gone, sir. We can't find them anywhere."

The commander was angry and a target for that anger was presenting himself on a platter.

"You son of a tavern whore, what do you think we are doing here? Walking around for the fun of getting our faces burnt? So we can exhaust our horses and risk brushing against the kings guards? They are two people, without horses, walking over a completely flat landscape. Find them!"

The last part he yelled. His subordinate could only salute, then quickly turned and fled.

He sent those scouts out on a hunch that their prey might try to run for it during the night. With the clouds still hanging thick overhead, it was impossible to see anything over a large distance during the night. Now that it had become day, it was not as easy on a clear day, but still, there were not many places someone could hide. It was flat in every direction for a long while, before the distant hills rose gently in the distance.

The few soldiers were placed even further ahead in case they ran for the river, had not spotted them either. A few soft fog wads this morning were not unusual, but maybe the scouts just thought they saw someone when it was just the fog.

"Commander Bannon?"

He looked over to a soldier on foot whose name he did not know, standing in front of him, saluting. His anger dissipated and he calmed down a little. This looked like a courier and an important one at that.

"That's me, soldier."

"I have orders from the general sir."

The man handed him a sealed envelope with the generals personal seal on it. Quickly he opened it and read the letter. Understandably the general was not pleased with the progress. That they had lost their prisoner was not his fault, commander Lain had already taken the brunt of that heat, wherever he was now. But there was a clear tone of displeasure at his personal failing to capture a girl who wouldn't survive a day in the woods and a peasant that met her by accident.

Of course the general had not seen his scout that this peasant killed with throwing knives. No peasant carried those as far as he knew. Still the mystery of the commander that had disappeared including the small band of disposable mercenaries he had hired for this special job, was also open. They had seen the tracks leading away through the forest, fresh tracks and only because the girl was barefoot they had been alarmed immediately. That she would try for Lionor was the easiest thing to guess. How she gotten free was another mystery. The whole rest of Lain's band just vanished into thin air. Or they were heading into a different direction, but his soldiers had looked carefully in all directions and found no other tracks than those of the girl and one other person walking with her.

Now the general ordered him to find the princess but stay this side of the river. Under no circumstances were they to come close enough to the walls of Lionor to be spotted by the sentries. There was to be no fight between the kings guards and his soldiers, that much was very strictly defined.

Bannon was sure that their prey had not crossed the river yet. Two of his soldiers were guarding the bridge even. Swimming across was possible, but it would carry you a long way before you made it across. If you ever did, because of all the rocks sticking out at odd places. To top it off it was ice cold now with winter already creeping into the higher regions. They had better chances against his armed men than in that river. If they would make it across they would be wet, extremely cold without a chance to make a fire and probably injured from all the obstacles that were sprinkled across the riverbed. They would be found in no time and captured without resistance. Or they would be washed out to sea, either dead already or drown out there.

Long ago they had stopped trying to use boats on that river. Sometimes someone tried it with a shallow barge pulled close to the shore by some animal, but that mostly took longer than a normal carriage and also was tricky to make work. Often the barges either drift off into the faster flowing part of the river and get destroyed or they run aground at the shallow shore.

"Return to the general. I will follow the orders and report back as soon as there is anything new."

The soldier saluted again and went to his horse.

Watching that soldier leave, one of his lieutenants came towards him. The other lieutenants were watching over the other groups that were strewn across the area.

"Commander, any news?"

Bannon spit on the ground.

"Nothing good. We are to stay away from the other side of the river. If the king's guard catches us, this whole plan could fail. We need that girl or we are going to be in big trouble."

The man nodded and thought about it.

"So if the question is to let her run or kill her, we do what?"

"Kill her. She can't tell anyone about any of this. If we can't capture her, than we have to make sure she can't talk."

"Understood, sir."

The lieutenant looked around and pointed towards the scouts.

"You think they saw them?"

"No. I think they were seeing some fog that was odd shaped. They wanted to see them and so they saw something in the fog that looked like them."

"Yeah, I agree. There is nothing out here. They must be still back in the trees somewhere. Maybe they even try to circle north and go over the swamps. That would be easier for them on foot but take a lot longer."

"Might be. The swamps still are dangerous and they would need a lot of supplies. The must be running out by now. Around here you can't hunt anything and there's nothing growing on these plains. So either they were getting something in secret we know nothing about or they will have no food left in a couple of days."

"We'll catch em."

"Yes we will. That or we kill them."

There was a small silence before the lieutenant spoke again.

"Why you think they paid so much for her?"

"How would I know? They must have a reason to want her as a prisoner or even dead."

"Yes, but why so much? For that money we could have kidnapped the king."

Shaking his head the commander looked towards the big city that was visible at the horizon.

"They want her bad and they wanted this all quiet and simple. The plan said it was important to kidnap her without anyone noticing for a while. With her fleeing that made it more complicated but it looks like she has been gone long enough for whatever plan stood behind this to succeed."

"And so we just clean up the mess now?"

"Pretty much."

"I hate cleanup duty."

"Don't we all? Now look that the men get ready. We are going to circle back to the forest with most of the men. Keep the ones around the river and a couple of scouts out here, in case we missed something."

"Yes, sir!"

Saluting the lieutenant went to his work, shouting at the mercenaries so they get back into their saddles.

For the commander this was more time to think about it all. Yes, they had to be near the forest. He doubted that they were clever enough to avoid them until now just to be dumb enough to be caught out here. Still, he thought to himself, he just will keep a couple more soldiers out here, just in case.