Chapter 28

The moving trucks gave Amy pause. She had been staking out the rambling colonial farmhouse southeast of Baltimore for almost a week, rotating with the investigator the paper had on payroll. She had good pictures of the rich and powerful from both sides of the aisle going to and from the stately house. Then, two days ago, people had been turned away at the door. Now moving trucks signaled another shift.

She pulled out her phone and hit one of the speed dial numbers. She knew it was a risk but had to get some more help.

“Bill, our friends look like they are moving,” she said after the investigator using the pre-programmed burner phone answered.

“Tipped?” She had warned them to keep conversations non-specific and short.

“Maybe. Moving vans are here. I need a chaser.”

“Twenty-five minutes.” The call ended.

She wanted to know where the occupants of the estate were going. She looked through the long lens of her camera, focusing on the front door to see if anyone besides the movers were going in and out. Three large wardrobes were moved out to the porch as someone yelled back inside.

A few moments later, an older woman, obviously not a mover, emerged. Amy pressed the shutter, hearing the click-click-click of the automatic shutter snapping a series of images. The woman was new on the scene.

Large men joined her on the porch, not from the moving company. They were dressed in dark pants, shirts, and black hooded sweatshirts, with the hoods up even though it was not that cold. The woman motioned to the three wardrobes, then to the truck.

The men moved with practiced efficiency, their movements betraying a sense of urgency and nervousness that spoke volumes. They seemed unaware of Amy’s presence, their focus solely on the task at hand – loading the furniture onto hand trucks, and then to the back of the moving truck in the driveway.

One load rocked as they rolled the dolly down the ramp on the porch. One man slapped the side of the piece of furniture and shouted, though she was too far to hear what he said. The woman supervising, frowned.

Amy realized what the larger pieces were. They were moving people inside the furnishings!

“Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered.

The sun was midway up its arch through the sky as Elara watched from the roof of Theron’s house. It was furthest north in the town, and adjacent to the Royal Road, which made a sharp dividing line between the east and west halves of buildings. Behind her, after several similar thatch-roofed houses, stood the larger stone home of the mayor with a sturdy slate roof with the two-story traveler’s inn next to it. The mill was on the southern edge of the town, furthest from where she expected the raiders to come from.

A thin rank of archers sat with their backs to the pasture wall that formed the actual boundary of the town. More of the archers were in the forest, along the eastern edge of the road, but dozens of yards back from the curb on its verge. She hoped they would listen to orders and not reveal themselves before the raiders arrived.

The rest of the townsmen willing and fit to fight were stationed either at one of the buildings where the families sheltered, or standing behind the shelter of the first houses near the road. A lone scout, brave man that he was, watched a flock of sheep along the large pasture to the west of the road.

Elara thought of their preparations. She was no general or commander of troops, but she was not going to allow this town to fall as Fenward had. There would be no surprise by the raiders. There would be organized resistance, no matter the mayor’s thoughts on the matter. She carefully adjusted her perch and looked north once again.

The shepherd-scout waved his staff and sent his dog careening around the sheep to move them toward the western edge of the pasture and south, toward the village. It was their sign.

A moment later, a dozen horsemen appeared over the low rise of the road, trotting south. Elara could not make out details, yet, but knew they were all hardened men, focused on destroying any resistance. She held her breath, still waiting.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she waited. Calling out a command too soon could be as dangerous as delaying too long. The first horseman broke into a gallop, followed by the others.

“Archers!” She called out, hoping the main group in the woods heard her. Below, along the wall, the men stood up and turned to face the charge. With the mix of skill and strength, she had decided to hold their first volley until the horses were within two hundred paces. The forest archers would follow, shooting once the village volley was released.

“Archers, draw!” She shouted as she rose to her knees on the thatch of the roof. She prepared her own small pellets, mentally, planning on taking out the leader if he survived to reach closer to the house.

“Shoot!”

The twang and snap of bowstrings was almost simultaneous. The volley was barely two arrows per raider, but enough hit their marks. Horses cried out and men fell as the arrows struck home. From the east, another ragged volley flew. Four horsemen were still mounted as they bunched up and continued their charge down the road. They were close enough now for Elara to see the bloodlust in their eyes as they drew their wicked curved blades and leaned low to avoid aimed shots.

They could not escape her view, however.

“Crack!” The first rider fell, his head suddenly replaced by a spray of red mist and gore.

“Crack!” The second fell, only slightly less gruesomely. Archers dropped the horses of the other two, and the men from behind the house rushed around and charged the disoriented men, quickly subduing them.

Waves of relief flowed over Elara as she looked down on the carnage. The men of the village, paled at the bloodshed, but stood resolved as they put down the injured horses and tied up any still-living men. She saw the captured raiders, noting their confused senses. She frowned. They were disoriented, but not afraid.

“We need to find the others!” Elara called out.

The mayor, leading several other townsmen were in front of Theron’s home as she climbed down. They were looking at the half-dozen captives.

“Surely, a dozen men alone could not have thought to take our town,” the mayor said.

Elara nodded. “There must be more, either coming up more slowly or managing their prisoners. I killed two last night. There must be six to eight remaining. We need to find them and free their captives from Lorindale.”

Most of the men were nodding.

“Theron,” the mayor called out. “Take ten men, move up the western edge of the road, but stay in the forest. Find them. I’ll send Daveyye up the Eastern edge. The priestess is right, we must find and free any survivors from Lorindale.”

Elara nodded. “I’ll go with Theron’s group.”

It only took a few minutes for small packs with water and rations to be assembled. Two other women, young and fit, joined the group. “We’ll come to assist with the wounded,” she said when Elara asked their intentions.

Theron set a brisk pace along the western pasture until they moved into the woods. Once among the trees, they had to slow, but not as much as Elara had feared. She moved to and from the edge of the trees, keeping a lookout along the road.

They marched nearly an hour before spotting a thin tendril of smoke across the road on the green verge closer to the eastern forest edge.

Elara wove moonbeams, hiding herself as she moved silently closer. From the edge of the road, she could see the small encampment the few remaining raiders had set up. Six men stood looking southward with one looking east and one west. No one bothered watching to the north. The dozen women and girls were sitting huddled in the middle of the camp, their wrists bound behind them, and leather lanyards cobbling their feet. They would not be fleeing on their own when the fight began. The small fire was on the southern edge, close to the main body of men.

Elara slipped back, motioning Theron and his group to get low, and creep closer. She moved to the north, planning on coming from their blind side. She looked eastward, hoping to spy Daveyye, but failing.

Trusting in her spell craft and goddess, she crept closer to the camp.

“They should be back,” one man said. “I got a bad feeling.”

Another man, one she recognized slapped the other’s shoulder. “Your feelings are for shit,” the young, evil jailor from her nightmares said.

He looked rougher, less guarded and controlled than she remembered him from the dungeon, but just as evil. If he was here, he could lead her back to Malachi.

She hated realizing she needed to keep him alive. She held still, thinking how to accomplish that. The townsmen had bows and arrows. Indiscriminate fire could kill him, even if she warned them off. She inched her way closer, glancing west to see where the men were at.

The odds were too even, unless Daveyye joined the fight, but they would have surprise on their side. She crouched low, thinking through her options.

Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on the jailor. Saving the captives was her priority but capturing him was a close second. She wanted to pay him back for the horror he had visited on the women imprisoned with her. She wanted to make him feel the fear that had filled the pen she was kept in. Elara thought of the tiny grain of sand she would send his way, then made it larger in her mind. The bigger the stone, the slower it traveled, she had realized while learning. A fist sized stone was too slow, but a round river rock, the size of two fingers clenched, moved fast enough to kill a rabbit. She imagined one just slightly larger than that.

“Goddess, hear my prayer,” she whispered and let the rock fly.

Panic sent the men looking about wildly as the jailor fell to the ground, a dull thump against his head being the only indicator of an attack.

“Crack!”

The small pellet she sent at her second target was a deadly shot.

Arrows joined the attack as the women screamed. Soon, all the raiders were down.

Elara released her spell, appearing close to the women, eliciting another series of shrieks. Men rushed in from the east and west as Elara made calming noises and began cutting the bonds of the captives.

Once the others were helping, she went to the man she needed to capture. He was still unconscious, with a knot forming on his forehead. Elara searched for and found a long leather thong, rolled him over and bound his hands tightly. A second strip of leather pulled his elbows together. Finally, she repeated her actions at his ankles and knees, taking time to cut the laces from his forest boots and strip them from him. He would be running nowhere; even should he get loose.

Theron approached her as she finished trussing her prize. “What of the other captives?” He asked. “Three of the other seven still live, though wounded.”

“Ask the women of Lorindale,” Elara said, seeing two of those women working with the townswomen to tend to their own.

Theron nodded and approached them. A moment later, one returned with Theron, who motioned two other townsmen to drag their surviving raiders over.

“Priestess, you have their leader. We want him,” the woman said.

“I need him for a while,” Elara said. “If he provides the information I need, you may have him.”

The woman was dirty and beaten but no longer cowed. “My daughter was raped and killed on his orders. I’ll have my vengeance on him.” Her voice was cold.