chuckling grin toward Commander Aldean. “Three groups, like I said before. They’re all following each other at a distance. One set of boots in the first lot, the other with the horse. That’s probably the one that killed that fat dice cheat Gregon back yonder. The last group is the one I can’t figure. I can’t think of no reason for anyone to follow a lone soldier out into the Wildwood, but they done it.”
Duke Martin looked to Coll, who only shrugged. “How many do you think are in the first group?”
“That slave you’re after, I figure. He tried to bust his shackles on them rocks I showed you. Them other slaves you described, they couldn’t have made it this far. It’s hard to say, but either he took them boots off of a dead soldier, or there’s a soldier with him. Either way, there are three sets of footprints, and three places where bedrolls was laid out back at that campsite in the cut. One of them sets of prints be dainty. Them’s your girl’s, maybe.” Bear Fang hacked up and spat a thick wad of phlegm into the dirt. Then he took out a plug of tobacco and with jagged yellow-brown teeth bit off a chunk of it.
“See, Commander,” Duke Martin sneered at Aldean, “that adulterous bastard and maybe one of those bandits took Gallarael as hostage. I’d wager your month’s worth of coin that it’s Moyle on that horse following them. If he found out that Gallarael was traveling with the caravan then he is trying to keep her alive. He knows that is his first priority.”
The duke reached for Bear Fang’s tobacco plug and unceremoniously bit off his own cheekful of the stuff. “Maybe I’ll make Moyle my next commander,” he said around the brown wad of chew.
Commander Aldean had heard about the duke’s early days as a frontiersman and kingdom explorer, but he’d never seen the man actually in the field. They’d hunted elk and troll in the crags around Highlake Valley together, but the gumption Humbrick Martin was showing now was a stark contrast to his lazy lording lifestyle. The duke was being called out, Aldean knew. The man had no choice but to rise to the challenge. Though he detested Duke Martin’s ways, Aldean coveted his position as Commander of Highlake. He wouldn’t let that go to the likes of Bear Fang Karcher, or even Captain Moyle. Besides that, he had watched Gallarael grow from a curious girl into a beautiful young woman. As slim as the chances of her surviving this ordeal, his sense of chivalry was nagging at him to at least make the attempt to find her.
Trying to mask his uncertainty, he spurred his horse ahead of the other three men. “What are you waiting for then?” he called back. “If they’ve got Gallarael, then we have no time to waste gabbing.”
Bear Fang laughed aloud, and Duke Martin spoke around his mouthful of tobacco. “Yat’s da spirit.” After he spat the juice from his mouth he added, “You craven bastard.”
This got a laugh out of Coll, but his mirth vanished when Bear Fang spoke up.
“Only a fool isn’t afraid of the Wildwood.”
Duke Martin wasn’t worried. He had been in the Wildwood before and survived. In his youth, he and a small group of hunters, including Prince Paliver Oakarm, King Oakarm’s deceased brother, had been tracking wyvern in the foothills. Of course there was a hundred-man mounted escort following only a half-mile behind the party, but they didn’t arrive in time to save the prince from his fate. It was a shame, too, Duke Martin reflected. He and Paliver had a plan to kill Prince Ravier so that when King Maliver Oakarm died, Paliver would take the throne instead. Humbrick Martin was to be the High Lord of Parydon Isle and King Paliver Oakarm was to rule from the mainland city of Andwyn. Duke Martin would have lived better than the king himself had the wyvern not gotten hold of Prince Paliver. The day hadn’t been a total loss, though. By saving the prince’s body and slaying the beast that had killed him in a fantastic manner, Humbrick Martin guaranteed himself an eventual place among the nobility. A few years later, when Maliver Oakarm died, King Ravier took the throne and granted him the title Duke of Highlake.
To call it a gift was inaccurate. More like a curse. A punishment full of perks was what it turned out to be. A puny castle way up in the wild Highlake Valley, with barely a route for supplies to come and go, was what he was granted. He’d fortified the stronghold, built an easily defendable wall around most of the valley, which allowed protected access to the lake. He rid the passage up from Waterdon of legitimate bandits and replaced them with men who were more or less under his thumb. All in all, he’d put himself and his family in a position to rise even higher in the ranks of Parydon nobility. The problem now, though, was that Gallarael was the key to that ascension.
At this very moment Prince Russet Oakarm, King Ravier’s eldest son, was visiting Dyntalla. His ship would sail to Dabbldwyn in a few days, where he would cross the Waterdon River and then travel from outpost to outpost. After that he was to trek up to Highlake Stronghold. No doubt the Prince thought he was there to snoop for his father, but Humbrick Martin had been scheming for months to get the boy to come meet Gallarael. Now, Gallarain had made him into a laughing stock and sent their daughter into a hornets’ nest of his own making. He wasn’t one to worry about “what ifs” and he didn’t dwell on useless regret. He was a man of action; at least he had been most of his life. More recently, the mild opulence his title and holdings provided, along with the mundane duty that came with them, had softened him. Even though his daughter’s life was at stake, for the first time in years he felt alive and invigorated. It was the hunt itself that made his blood tingle. More than that, it was possibly the stakes themselves, and the location of the chase, that had him feeling so hungry. Either way, every passing moment the tree line of the notorious Wildwood loomed nearer to them, he grew more determined to catch his prey. His heart bled for Gallarael, and part of him was stricken by what was happening to her, but that only served to fuel his determination. He decided that he would follow her trail right into the dragon’s maw if that’s where it led. If he managed to save Gallarael in the process, then all the better. But he was no fool. He knew that there was little chance of her surviving this place or her captors. He knew there was a good chance all they would find were corpses.
A glance ahead of him at Commander Aldean’s back brought back his contempt a hundredfold. There was another whose chances of surviving the Wildwood were less than slim. He found that he didn’t care. He was certain that as long as he killed the man who had tarnished his honor, the man who now held his only loved one as a hostage, the man who had repeatedly bedded his wife, that he could die feeling avenged.
Early the next day the duke’s group came upon Captain Moyle’s body in a trampled area. The captain’s corpse had been ravaged by scavengers. It was a grisly scene. Duke Martin was thankful that the morning fog lingered among the tangle trees and the clinging undergrowth. For a long while, as Bear-fang inspected the scene, he felt fearful and empty. He was afraid that at any moment the tracker or Commander Aldean would call out that they had found Gallarael’s body.
Bear-fang Karcher told him that the three parties had converged here, and that one of the people now traveling as a group had been bitten by the fang-flower they’d found severed. It did little to settle his nerves. He had no way of knowing which member of the group had been bitten, but one look at the fleshy, pink-colored thing the commander retrieved from the scrub made him know in his heart that it was his daughter. He couldn’t imagine any other member of the caravan even noticing, much less trying to get close to the exotic-looking bloom.
Who was to say that Gallarael hadn’t been ravished by the bandits or eaten by the trolls too? The petite footprints they were following could be that whore’s just as easily as they could be his daughter’s.
He drew in a deep breath and the smell of Moyle’s decaying corpse filled his lungs. He started to dry heave, but caught a glimpse of Commander Aldean. That craven bastard was watching him. Swallowing back his bile, he let his contempt toward the commander steady his guts.
“We better get out the bows,” the duke said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Unless we want to end up like the captain.”
Bear-fang laughed and unhooked his crossbow from his belt. The man actually looked excited at the prospect of tracking the other group deeper into the Wildwood.
Coll spoke a few quick words and an arm-length rod of intricate wood flickered to existence in his hand. He held it as one might hold a sword.
Commander Aldean strung his bow and hung a quiver of arrows from his saddle horn. He had a grim look on his face, as if he were no longer afraid. Duke Martin clipped a quiver to his hip and strung his great hunting bow. His sword he strapped across his back so that the hilt jutted up over his left shoulder.
He decided that Gallarael was most likely lost to him; dead and gone from his life. Revenge was his motivator now. He decided that they were no longer searching for his daughter, but instead hunting the man who had brought so much shame upon him, the man who had caused all of this.
