David Wells - Linkershim

He pushed through the tall grass and found a little pool of still water next to a large tree at the edge of the meadow. After a moment of searching for any soldiers watching him, he was satisfied that they’d left him unsupervised. He stripped off his tunic. Then he took off his armor shirt, rolling up one of his most prized possessions and hiding it under the roots of the tree before thoroughly washing his tunic and wringing it as dry as possible.

“Mark this place, Little One, and guide Jack here. Tell him to wear my armor until he can give it back to me. It’ll serve him well.”

“But won’t you need it, My Love?”

“If they found it on me, it would raise too many questions that I don’t care to answer. I’m safer without it for now. Just make sure Jack retrieves it, because I do want it back.”

Alexander returned to the Lancers a few minutes later.

“You learn quickly,” Udane said. “I expected you to run off.”

“Then why did you let me wander away without an escort?”

“The first attempt at escape usually proves to be a very educational experience. We wouldn’t want to deprive you of the opportunity to learn your place, now would we?”

Alexander didn’t respond to the taunt, but instead dutifully mounted up.

Sometime later in the afternoon, he noticed the colors of several men on a bluff overlooking the trail they were following. A moment later, the sensation of danger flooded into his mind, the coming moments revealing themselves to him all in a rush. He slipped backward off the rump of the rhone and tumbled behind a tree, attempting to make it look like it was a clumsy accident. A moment later, a volley of arrows rained into the side of the soldier and rhone, killing them both. Rocks broke free from the bluff and started crashing into the flank of the Lancers’ single-file column, killing two more rhone along with their riders, followed by a second volley of arrows that killed another three Lancers before the attackers vanished into the forest.

It was over before any resistance could be organized. The position of the attackers, coupled with the steep terrain, made it impossible for the Lancers to give chase. Udane rode along the line of his soldiers, inspecting the damage and cursing under his breath.

He stopped and looked down at Alexander, who sat resting against the tree. “Looks like you got lucky today.”

“There are a lot of ways I might characterize today … lucky isn’t one of them.”

Udane chuckled. “Mount up with another soldier and try not to fall off this time. Hate to have to put you down because you broke your leg.”

Just before the sun slipped past the coastal range behind them, Alexander got his first look at the scope of the Lancers’ operation. Several hundred feet beyond the wood line, stretching as far as he could see in both directions, was a timber wall. Behind it was a large fortified camp divided into two sections, one with walls to keep the Lancers safe from attack and another with walls to ensure that their prisoners didn’t escape.

Despite the blatant immorality and inherent dishonor of the Lancers, they were a well-regulated and disciplined fighting force. Rank was obeyed and they carried themselves with pride. These were professional soldiers, and all the more dangerous because of it.

Alexander and Kalderson’s men were taken to the prison camp. While the soldiers certainly didn’t show them any respect, they were handled with the kind of care given to a valuable commodity as they were processed and assigned sleeping quarters.

Alexander soon found himself in a large tent with eleven other men, most of them Andalians. A soldier assigned him to his cot and informed him that the evening meal would be served shortly.

He lay down, ignoring the rest of the men in the tent and cleared his mind. Several moments later, he slipped free of his body into the boundless source of all creation and then just as quickly he slammed back into his body again, struggling to breathe, gasping for air, the collar around his neck relaxing its death grip a moment after he returned. He breathed deliberately, filling his lungs to capacity and exhaling slowly until his heart stopped racing.

The next man over was sitting on the edge of his cot looking at Alexander intently. “That shouldn’t have happened unless you’re a wizard … and then only if you’re dumb enough to try and cast a spell with that choker around your neck.”

Alexander sat up shaking his head, the implications of the man’s words sinking in even as he floundered for a plausible explanation. The last thing he needed was for anyone to figure out who he really was.

“Udane said he was going to punish me for trying to run,” he said, touching his neck tenderly.

“We all try to run.”

“Yeah, but I busted him in the mouth when he caught me.”

The man looked at him for several moments before a smile slowly spread across his face and he broke into laughter. He was a mousy little man, five and a half feet tall and just over a hundred pounds, but he had curiosity in his eyes and deep turmoil and loss swirling in his colors.

“I’m Hod,” he said, extending his hand.

Alexander took it and said, “I’m Alex.”

“You don’t look like you’re from Andalia, Alex.”

“I’m not. My sister and I booked passage out of Southport, bound for Baden in Tyr. The war is getting bad on Ruatha and we have kin on Baden. Unfortunately, we were attacked by pirates and our ship wrecked on the reef. We barely made it to shore.”

Hod nodded cynically. “Doesn’t surprise me. The Babachenko and Tyr have an arrangement. Any ship off our coast that’s not flying the Andalian flag is fair game for Tyr. He attacks them, runs them to ground and then lets the crew escape into the forest, while he strips their ship of anything worth taking. Then the Lancers round up the castaways and sell them at the slave market.”

“This place just keeps getting better. So who’s this Babachenko?”

“You really aren’t from around here,” Hod said. “He’s the Voice of the King, the real power behind the throne. The most important thing to know about him is that you don’t want him to know anything about you. Slaves who attract his attention have a bad habit of disappearing.”

“Good to know,” Alexander said, mentally adding a name to his list.

In the distance, a bell tolled three times and Hod stood, rubbing his hands together. “Time to eat,” he said eagerly. “As much as I hate the Lancers, I have to admit they do feed us well. Certainly a lot better than we’ve had since the sequestration started.”

“They feed cows and pigs pretty well, too, right before they take them to market,” Alexander said under his breath.

***

After dinner, the slaves returned to the tent, not because the Lancers required them to, but because they had nowhere else to go. Alexander got the impression that the Lancers were indifferent to the prisoners’ conditions. Their only real concerns were ensuring that their merchandise wasn’t damaged and didn’t escape.

Alexander noted that the women were being kept separately from the men, probably a wise precaution from the Lancers’ point of view, but it left him separated from Anja and he was worried about her. For all of her strength and fierceness, she was really just a child and she was very much out of her depth. More calculatingly, Alexander also had to admit that she posed the greatest risk of exposure for him and his identity. At the moment, the only thing they had going for them was anonymity. If anyone even suspected who he really was, things would get much worse very quickly.

He lay down on his cot and reached out for Chloe.

“Have you looked in on Anja?”

“Yes, My Love. She seems frightened and alone. I’m worried about her.”