“I would love to see what is inside,” admits James, and then lets out a big sigh. “But we better make the best time we can, while we can. No telling how long we will have before we run the danger of encountering the Empire’s armies once we get through the mountains.”
“Good idea,” agrees Miko, slightly more enthusiastic than the occasion called for, “we better hurry along.” With that he kicks the flanks of his horse and quickly continues down the road, putting distance between himself and the old keep.
Grinning at his friend, James quickly hurries to catch him and then together they continue down the road. The plateau area with the abandoned keep is quickly left behind.
The rest of the afternoon passes fairly quickly with more waterfalls, though none as spectacular as the three tiered one earlier. About mid afternoon, the sun falls behind the high mountain peaks to the west and the air begins turning chilly. It’s not too terribly uncomfortable at first but over the next hour, the temperature drops rapidly. Soon they pull on the jackets bought earlier in Trademeet.
“I see what you mean,” Miko tells James as he puts his jacket on.
“About what?” he replies.
“About how cool it gets up here after the sun goes down,” he explains.
“My grandfather taught me to always be prepared,” says James. “He used to say ‘It’s better to bring a jacket you’ll never need than to need the one left at home’.”
“Wise man your grandfather,” comments Miko, now warm and comfortable.
“Yeah, he was. But you know, when they are giving you these little gems of wisdom, you seldom see the value of it at the time and often see it as being a big nuisance.” James sits in thought for a while before breaking out in laughter.
Miko looks at him and asks, “What’s so funny?”
“I was just remembering when I came to realize the value of that particular gem,” he says as he begins to explain, but then pauses for a moment.
“And what happened?” Miko prompts him.
Smiling at the memory, James says, “Well, it was summertime and we planned a trip out to the coast, San Francisco was the name of the city. Now, my grandfather was telling me that I should bring my jacket, that I may need it. But it was really hot where we were and I couldn’t see the need of it. We arrived at the city and decided to go see Alcatraz, that’s an old prison situated on an island in the middle of the bay. I got on the ferry that was going to take us over there, and froze.”
Smiling, Miko is enjoying hearing about James’ little goof up.
“I told my grandfather that I was cold,” he explains. “But he just smiled and called it a lesson learned. We stayed there on that island for what seemed like a long time and I froze the entire time. I was miserable, my nose was running and I was shaking. When we finally returned to the mainland, I made a beeline toward this guy who was selling hot clam chowder and grabbed me some.”
“I’ll never forget that experience and I will never be caught again without a coat, not if I can help it.” Finished with the story, James rides along in silence for a while, silently reminiscing about home.
Shortly, he begins noticing the smell of wood smoke. He looks around for a plume of smoke that could indicate a forest fire, but doesn’t see anything. The smell steadily increases as they continue, when he suddenly realizes that they must be approaching the top of the summit and what he has been smelling is the smoke from many campfires.
Cresting the top of the Pass, they come to the way stop and are surprised at how many people are camped there. A contingent of soldiers is also there, seeming to be keeping order.
As they approach, one of the soldiers breaks off from his fellows and approaches, holding up his hand to have them stop. “Sorry, but the way stop is bursting to capacity with more coming in all the time,” he explains. “You two will need to camp a little further back down the road.”
“Why?” James asks. “What’s going on?”
“Refugees from the fall of Saragon,” the soldier explains, indicating the people at the way stop. “They’ve been pouring through the Pass for the last day or so. We made a temporary camp here for them and will keep them here until we know what is to be done with them.”
“Why not allow them to go on into Trademeet?” Miko asks.
“Those are the Captain’s orders and he didn’t explain himself to me,” the soldier replies.
“No problem,” James tells him. “We can camp a little further back down the road tonight and then continue on over in the morning.”
“Sorry,” he says, “but we got orders that no one is to be allowed down the east side of the Pass until further notice.”
“What?” James exclaims. “Why?”
Looking like he’s tired of explaining the same thing over and over, the soldier says, “Like I said before, that’s the Captains orders and he doesn’t explain them to me.” The soldier, having said all he intends to, turns around and heads back toward the camp that has been set up at the way stop.
“Now what are we going to do?” Miko asks.
James gives Miko an exasperated look and says, “Would you stop asking me that!”
“Alright, alright,” he replies.
“Let’s go back down a ways and find a campsite,” James says. “Maybe we can think of something.”
Going back down the road, they find a widening of the road with enough room for them to make their camp and not be on the road. James sends Miko to gather firewood before it gets dark while he stakes out the horses and gets them ready for the night.
Miko makes three scavenging trips before collecting a sufficient store of firewood to last throughout the night. James gets the fire going and has dinner started before the light completely fades. While sitting around the fire eating dinner, two men appear from the direction of the way stop and approach their campfire.
“Hello,” one of the men says.
“Good evening gentlemen,” James replies, then waits to see what they will do.
They approach a little closer to the fire and James can see that they are eyeing their food hungrily. He says to them, “Would you two care to share our fire this evening? We have enough to share.”
“Yes, we’d like that,” the other man says. “But we actually came to see if you could spare some for our families. You see we fled Saragon when it fell with nothing but the clothes on our backs.”
“Certainly,” James says, “if you don’t have too many,”
The taller of the two men almost breaks down and cries while the other says, “Thank you very much.” Turning to the taller man he says, “Silas, go and bring ‘em over.”
Silas nods and heads back toward the refugee camp. The man says, “My name is Bellon, I was a farmer before the Empire’s army sacked our city.”
“How did you get out?” Miko asks.
“When the Empire overran the walls, it was total chaos,” Bellon explains. “People were running in every direction trying to get out. My grandfather used to be a smuggler way back when he was a younger man and once showed me an old smuggler route into the city that he said no one, not even the Governor knew about. Silas and I found it and used it to get our families out past the walls. The tunnel came out in a pile of old stones a dozen yards from the river, almost two miles north of the city.”
“We were past the enemy lines and ran all night and all day, hiding whenever we heard someone approaching. We did that until we saw some of our soldiers coming from the City of Light. We waved them down and told them where we were from and what had happened. They told us to head here, saying we could find refuge and safety.”
“Remarkable story,” James says. About that time, Silas returns with the rest, two women, an older boy and two smaller children. All have the lost look of those who have had their lives torn asunder.
James stands when the ladies approach and says, “Welcome to our campfire. You are welcome to stay here the night if you wish. We don’t have a lot of food, but what we do have we will gladly share.” Turning to Miko, he says, “Get the rest of the food out of the bags and pass it out, they look as if they could use it.”
The two families situate themselves on the ground around the campfire and wait for Miko to distribute the food. As it happens, there is enough to go around, maybe not enough to stuffing their bellies, but sufficient to still their hunger.
