We doubled the guard for the rest of the night but nothing more happened. Before the sun was up over the mountains that flanked the valley, our wagons and horses were ambling along the road, which was in no great repair. I stopped our little caravan several times and Gerrex, our ranger, rode out ahead of us by himself to scout the way and to look for anyone trying to catch us in an ambuscade. I was being extra cautious since we obviously had enemies with magical abilities of some sort, whether those abilities came from divine or arcane schools. I also used those halts to mark the road and prominent landmarks on my map.
Of course, the attack the previous night was the topic of conversation that morning and I rode among our, making suggestions to as to further defensive measures we would take and giving praise for their performance during the attack and listening to ideas from them as well. Many leaders let their pride rule them, I remember a retired Stassi officer explaining to me one dreary day over cups of wine in an inn years ago, but the smart leader listens to his men and adjusts his plans when they give him good ideas because the more good ideas you implement, the more successful you will be and the more successful you are the greater your reputation will be among those men and your superiors. I had always thought that to be good advice.
Dimitri and I, while riding side by side, he on his gray dappled stallion and my on my roan mare, discussed the attack, and who might be behind it, at great length. We did not reach any conclusion as to who it was, other than it was likely the same people who had attacked me back in Gensmot.
If I used our stops to fill out my maps, Amenaruu the priest used those times to hop down from the driver's seat of our small wagon and stretch his legs and offer prayers to his sun god. Amenaruu was not tall, in truth he was a small man, but he exuded the steady calm of a true believer that combined with his frequent smiles and friendly nature made him popular with the group. The priest was, as I mentioned, driving the smaller of our two wagons and Helena was riding beside him. I could see them chatting away like old friends as I brought my mare up beside them to speak with Amenaruu. I nodded a greeting to her, which she returned, which sort of surprised me.
"Brother," I said to the priest, "I wish to commend you for your actions last night, you have preserved some lives with your quick thinking and that stone carved fact."
"Thank you," said the priest with a smile, "but I only do what the spirit of the Aten compels me to do."
"Then please keep doing whatever that spirit compels you to do," I answered.
"I will certainly try to do so," Amenaruu said as his smile got bigger.
"If you have any ideas that will add to our defense, please share them freely," I added.
"The moon was half full last night," he replied thoughtfully as his brows furrowed, "and it is waning and soon there will only be starlight to see by at night, and if the sky is overcast then we will not even have that precious light. The dwarf, of course, can see in the dark, but the rest of us cannot, and evil loves darkness. Perhaps you mages can offer a remedy as you readily create light."
"Your observations are sound," I replied to the priest. "I will give this serious consideration."
The priest just smiled in reply and I was just about to turn my horse aside when Helena, who had done nothing but give me cold glares for the last week, suddenly spoke to me, catching me by surprise.
"I give you thanks for what you did for my brother last night," she said in the formal tone of someone fulfilling an unpleasant duty.
"You do not have to give me thanks," I replied, "for I am responsible for you and your brother's safety as the leader of the party. However, your words of gratitude are noted."
"I give you thanks for your deeds last night," she repeated, "but do not think that I forgotten how you have treated us."
Puzzled, I looked at her and asked, "How have I treated you so badly? I have given you a place on this adventure, even though it concerns me that you two are here, I would have thought that might be worth some gratitude."
"We are only here because you wanted to use us for your own reasons and you have lied to us from the beginning," she countered in an angry tone. "And you have embarrassed us by telling us in front of everyone that we had been fools for buying that map."
I started to give an angry retort, but then I paused. What she had said was not untrue. I had used them for my own purposes, just like Valker was using me for his purposes, although I had used guile while Valker used the threat of violence to manipulate me. It was not a far stretch to see why the girl would be angry. By the Nine Hells, I was certainly angry at being manipulated, so it must be with her, as well.
"You make a fair point, girl," I replied, inclining my head, and I think startling her with my admission she was right. "Perhaps I have been too long in Gensmot, where everyone uses other people, or perhaps I had to do things the way I did. I do not know if this will mean anything to you, but I have been pressed into leading this expedition, so it could be I was unfairly taking out my frustration upon you. Either way, I had not given much thought to how I was treating you and your brother, and so I give you my apology, for whatever that means to you. And do not feel too bad about being duped by Greedlie, he has had a lot of practice selling it to people far more experienced than you and if you had not bought the map you would not be here, so the map has, in a sense, led you on an adventure."
"I…I did not expect you to apologize," Helena said, looking away at nothing in particular. It was a strange reaction, or so I thought, but this girl was all emotion and passion.
"I was wrong," I said, "and so I apologized. It is not such a great thing, really."
We rode along in silence for several minutes and I could tell she wanted to say more. Amenaruu said nothing, but he looked on curiously at the two of us. Helena, I could tell, was still bothered by something.
"Is there something else on your mind?"
She turned in her seat to face me more fully with her chin up defiantly, or maybe she was just looking down her nose at me, who knows?
"Last night when were attacked," she began, "you left me alone on top of that hill. You should not have done that."
"That is not correct," I replied flatly. "It was absolutely what I should have done. First, if you had left your hiding place, the Hell Hounds would have spotted you and torn you to pieces. Second, you could not have ridden with me on the stone because you would have been hurt. Of course, I could have been hurt, but I wear this thickly padded gambeson and that absorbed a lot punishment for me. Third, if the rest of us had fallen in battle, you had a chance of getting away. Finally, there was nothing you could have done to help us as you have no real power in the magical arts nor do you seem particularly keen on acquiring any."
This time it was she who had to accept the truth of the situation. The only time that she had put any effort into acquiring power had been the first night of the trip at the inn. For the last week she had done nothing about learning the Arcane Language, as far as I could tell..
"I was angry at you and I did not want to speak with you or be in your company," she replied softly.
"I had already figured that out for myself," I replied. "But what you have not figured out is that you do not have the luxury of anger as an adventurer. I offered to you a pathway to more power, power that you may well need to stay alive out here and yet you rejected it because for a petty hate. You have been nothing but gaze at Brey with moon-eyes while your brother trains with him. Your brother will get better at his fighting, but you will not get better at your magic."
"I do not make moon-eyes," she snapped back at me, "and if you are concerned about my magical training, why have you not said something to me about it before?"
"You are not my apprentice and I am not your master," I replied. "So you are not obligated to me, nor I to you. My offer to help you was given without any idea of reciprocity. You are free to stare at anyone you like for as long as you like, and to ignore the formation of your magical talents, and I will say nothing about it."
I turned my horse's head around and left her and the priest to travel on without me. By midday we were going uphill through a shallow pass between two of the mountains before descending into another valley. At the top of the pass I called a halt and Godfrey announced he would make a midday meal. The first couple of weeks of an adventure, everyone is footsore or saddle sore, so no one protested our frequent stops.
I quickly surveyed the valley before us as best I could from where we had stopped. Dimitri came up beside me and said nothing until I had finished what I was doing.
"How far are we from Sternberg?" He asked me.
"We should be there in three days," I replied. Sternberg was the last town of any consequence before we hit the plains that surround Ashie Valley.
Dimitri just grunted in acknowledgement as he looked down upon this new valley. Every valley in these mountains had some sort of watercourse in it, but the one before us had a slightly larger stream and more trees than the valley we had just left.
"I see some good sized trees down there," he said. "Probably cottonwoods and I think weeping willows by the water's edge."
"I think you are right," I replied. "Those willows might prove useful for making some wicker pavise shields for our crossbowmen."
A pavise shield was a man-sized free standing shield crossbowmen like to hide behind to avoid the arrows of the much quicker firing bows. Our mercenaries had suggested we make some by way of defense. If we made them out of woven willow branches they would not be much use during a castle siege, but they would serve our purpose well enough and they would be light enough to take with us.
"Gerrex is returning," Dimitri said pointing.
Indeed, the orc was returning at trot. His big black stallion had a white star on his forehead and Gerrex rode bent over, studying the ground for any signs that might mean problems for us. He apparently found none and he rode up the hill to meet us, stopping by Dimitri and I to give a negative report.
"I understand," I replied in the guttural Orc language. "After we eat, we will descend into the valley. We will camp early again and set up more defenses in case we are attacked."
Gerrex grunted his acknowledgement and rode over to the camp fire to get something to eat and Dimitri and I soon joined them. I discussed the idea of making the pavise shields out of wicker, and our mercenaries thought it a good idea. I noticed Helena off by the small wagon meditating on the Arcane diagram I had given to her at the inn to study.
Our midday meal consumed, we traveled onward, descending into the valley. It was pleasant enough and there was more evidence of life here. Birds darted in and out of the trees and we could see wild sheep on one of the mountainside grazing. We traveled until about the third hour of the afternoon, and then I called a stop by some large willow trees that hung precariously to the banks of the stream. The grass was thick here and green and the sun was shining. It was a pleasant and fine day and that lifted everyone's spirits. The party was used to the routine of setting up camp by now and it was done quickly. I made a few quick updates to my maps and Helena helped Godfrey gather firewood before turning to her studies. Dimitri, Charles, Gerrex, Brey, Karl, Amenaruu and a couple of the mercenaries not on watch were soon training and I joined them.
"How is it that a mage knows how to use a sword?" Charles asked me. He, like his sister had expressed thanks for his rescue and he was now he was curious about me, especially since I had just landed a solid blow to his helm with my willow stick I was using for a practice sword.
"Dimitri and I were drafted into the Stassi army several years back," I explained. "We both learned how to soldier there."
"You are not Stassi," one of the mercenaries said, his name was Anton and he was tall and lithe and had olive skin and dark hair and eyes like his fellow countrymen. Anton spoke a heavily accented common, and was the interpreter for his friends.
"I have never seen a man from Stassi before," remarked Amenaruu.
"They are an Eastern people," Brey explained, "not very tall with coarse black hair and yellow skin. Very fine fighters, really."
"The Stassi sergeant did not believe we were not Stassi," Dimitri said, "or more accurately he did not care they we did not belong to his people and we could not even speak the language. The Stassi had suffered several catastrophic defeats in the years just prior to us showing up in one of their port towns and they were looking for bodies to put on the lines. We fought with them for two years and saw four big battles and several dozen skirmishes."
"Why did thee not tell them thou were a mage?" Karl asked me.
"The Stassi only allow their clerics to cast spells," I answered. They think Arcane magic comes from devils so I told them I was a scribe so I would not be burned at the stake."
