Chapter 9

The haunting sound of an owl lifted me from my dark dream. Hostile ships had landed on the Amarian coast to avoid the intense storm system north of Conquest Point’s peninsula. While we had experienced the mild outer edges of the storm, the eastern coast had received its uncharacteristic fury. Webster’s nightly implant download identified at least a dozen ships sinking between Conquest Point and Heraldsburg’s harbor. Thankfully, half of them were small scout ships flagged as Raiders and the rest were fishing boats; thus, none of the wrecks were Derwen’s merchant ships. Merchant cogs don’t handle well in the heavy weather; they sit high, giving them a poor center of gravity for harsh winds. The galley ships used by the Raiders leak in torrential rains, which tends to swamp them in high winds.

I touched one of the tent poles and found the switch for its night light. A dull yellow glow illuminated the rod’s surface, which cast enough light for me to find my backpack and the PDA. Julie stirred in our sleeping bag, but she didn’t wake up. The PDA indicated it was nearly dawn, which the growing chatter of the birds confirmed. I placed the wireless earbuds into my ears, while using the PDA interface to pull up the satellite view of the local area. I identified our destination and labeled it as Heraldsburg on the map, repeating the process with the crossroads at Strawberry Landing, and the two fishing villages nearest us on the coast, labeling those as Village A and Village B.

I typed to Webster. Query: Estimated number of hostiles at Village B?

He surprised me. A cartoonish, three-dimensional avatar of a white man with white hair wearing highly polished plate armor appeared in a pop up window.

“Two damaged ships with an estimated one hundred combatants have beached at Village B,” the avatar announced in my earbuds.

“Webster, what is with the avatar?” I typed.

“I have adapted to my new role, Medieval Times Advisor,” he answered in a confident tone. “I am more than a construct for running an interstellar spaceship. My function has expanded.”

Any semblance of sleep fell off me. Our tumble through the wormhole had affected him more than I had believed. My mother was the A.I. expert not me, yet I felt certain he had developed a split personality. If it were a logic error, then could signal an upcoming breakdown. I had intuitively avoided any real conflict with him about the adjustment in my medical nanomites. For one thing, Webster’s adaptive changes had saved my life and I was past complaining about my idyllic love life. Fortunately, I knew when to shove things aside that are out of my control.

“A medieval avatar is a bold statement,” I typed, extemporizing, not having the time to deal with any deluded thinking.

“I knew you would understand the diplomatic necessity,” he answered.

“Can you tell me where our friends with the carriage and horse escort are located?” I typed.

Webster zoomed the map over to a small hamlet on the King’s Road, which didn’t fit with my expectations.

“Your companions stopped and returned to this merchant filled village during the inclement weather,” Webster explained.

Count Vee had stopped for the day, early in the afternoon.

“Please contact me if the hostiles leave Village B,” I typed.

As an afterthought, I remembered to ask Webster about the sick looking plant and the crop yield estimates in Conquest Point. He confirmed my impressions, the harvest wasn’t going to be a good one. After that, I logged off the communication interface.

Julie sat up. “What’s going on?”

I vowed to myself not to talk about Webster anywhere near our PDAs or the shuttle. No doubt he could use such electronic devices to monitor our conversations.

“Life isn’t easy or fair,” I commented to my glassy eyed wife. “Wake up for a few minutes and I’ll tell you when we go for a walk.”

Later, when we were returning from relieving ourselves in the wet woods, I told her about the Raiders and how Webster was acting. Not surprisingly, Julie had similar concerns about our situation. Running into slavers within a day’s journey was bad luck, more than anything. Our A.I. acting even more strangely reached into our deepest fears. Just the other side of the wormhole, our Empire was at the point of conflict over the growing power of artificial intelligence. Here, we had to hope Webster wasn’t going crazy, just becoming eccentric. I dreaded the thought of anything more serious.

Fortunately, an adventuresome squirrel jumped tree to tree, near our tent, chattering at us to leave. We both found that funny and had a good laugh, which lightened our mood. Julie looked at me and shined her light onto her face, while she squished her lips in a bad impression of a human squirrel. She lost her humor when she half tripped. Vines and shrubbery pulled at our feet, promising a good fall if we didn’t summon the right level of concentration. Thankfully, having flashlights helped quite a bit when we both turned them back to the ground; we wouldn’t have gone as far without them, with the unwanted pools of water we had to dodge. “We should have put our raincoats on before heading outside,” I thought. “Neither of us will make that mistake when we leave the tent again.”

Zetia and her tent partner stepped in front of us and gasped, both with a hands over their mouths.

“It’s the flashlights,” Julie whispered in my ear, and then took a step forward.

“Don’t be concerned. This is harmless moon light,” I explained to the two women. “The light is stored inside enchanted tube until we need it.”

Zetia’s companion dashed to her tent, which made Julie sigh. “Zetia, come here! Lord Solon, why don’t you sort out our tent? We’ll join you in a minute.”

Julie wanted a moment to settle Zetia, which was understandable, so I began walking the short distance to our tent. My wife pulled Zetia aside and they fell into a hot discussion. By the time I’d turned on the interior lights of the tent and rolled up our sleeping bags, they pulled back the door flap and entered. Julie kept Zetia in the tent vestibule, which was a mudroom at the front of our tent.

“This is fantastic,” Zetia commented. “I had no idea. No one outside can see the light through the fabric! Is this truly Moon Mother light?”

Julie’s arm around Zetia’s waist stopped our corporal from stepping further inside; the warrior was in awe and had almost tracked in mud and grass to our sleeping compartment. Zetia froze, letting Julie contain her.

“Mistress, I meant no disrespect,” Zetia blurted, half turning her head to Julie, who kissed her on the cheek.

“You are naturally excited about becoming my assistant and entering our magical tent,” Julie quickly answered.

Knowing better than to keep me in suspense when I could tell something was going on in front of my eyes, Julie walked over and explained. “After getting to know Zetia on the trail, I decided to invite her to become my executive assistant. She just accepted.”

“She is your assistant?” I asked, totally surprised.

“Corporal Zetia is energetic, intelligent, faithful and diligent in her duties,” Julie answered.

“What is your assistant to do?” I asked dryly.

“It’s a combination lady-in-waiting and apprentice magic user,” Zetia answered proudly. “Of course, I will act as a bodyguard for both of you too. Is this when I kiss him?”

My eyebrows must have given that questioning look, because Julie announced. “Yes, the kiss is required; every woman in the Solon household must demonstrate fidelity and loyalty. There is moon magic and body magic, and today you will begin the journey with both.”

I was tempted to roll my eyes, but didn’t dare disrupt anything that was obviously so important to both women. Julie pulled my arm and made me step up to Zetia. Indeed, without any hesitation, Zetia joined our clan by kissing me. It was a warm, giving kiss that lingered longer than necessary.

“Welcome to the family,” Julie declared, rather smugly. “Now take off your boots and sit down. I will give you guest access to my magic mirror. Your first lesson will be recording a message.”

“We will have to give notice that you are leaving your company,” I added, wondering why my wife was giving Zetia access to the PDA.

“Don’t worry, my contract renewal is up. This will be my last assignment with the company. This is so wonderful. Mistress Julie promised to double my pay, so I can afford to support my mother and sister in Convey,” she said. “Milady has expressed that if I like Juniper Hills, we can invite them to live under your protection.”

“Of course, this makes more sense to me now. Is your sister unmarried?” I inquired, while looking at Julie.

“Her husband was killed, defending the city during the Raider invasion of Convey. My poor sister is a widow at 17 years old, and now dependent on my income to support her baby girl.”

Shaking my head, I put my shoes on, after my rain coat and rain pants, and then left them alone. I took in an admiring view of the blazing fire in front of Zetia’s tent, before walking over to talk to her tent partner. She apologized for acting like a coward and running away from the magical light. It didn’t take much to reassure her that she wasn’t the first to suffer a little nervousness around magic. I gave her a quick hug, and praised her for having one of the few fires in the camp. After that, in order to dispel the awkwardness of my strange appearance, I had her try on my raincoat for a moment. In a few minutes of conversation she was back into normal character, a confident warrior.

Scratch was his usual gruff self when he greeted me at the mule rope line, while supervising the attending warriors that were feeding the animals. I pulled him away from the other men, and then I had him take me to Scout, who was washing up by the stream when we found him behind their tent. Our guide was shirtless; his muscled back indicated good physical strength. In fact, without his shirt on we could see the corded strength of his forearms and the pillar of his neck, an archer’s physique. He got dressed while regaling us with anecdotes of his past trips to the north under similar wet conditions. After Scout saw my serious face in the light of a fire, he stopped trying to tell stories.

We conferred about the rotten weather and the likely condition of the trail ahead. Scout remarked that the worst was behind us and the rest of the terrain ahead was more favorable for the mules. Both men anticipated that the dense forest trees wouldn’t hinder us as much as we approached Strawberry Landing, but the shrubs there were particularly thick with thorns, near the road.

It was too early to tell the Wolves, but I wanted Scratch and Scout to know about the Raiders, so I told them. Scout was a little stunned at my pronouncement, but Scratch soaked up the information with confidence that it was true. I drew a simple map on the ground and poked the location of the fishing village with my stick. Scout knew of the village, but he hadn’t ever visited it. Scratch lived in Convey like the other Wolves, and he hadn’t traveled this far north before. After a long give-and-take conversation, we agreed it was unlikely that the Raiders would head west away from the coast, but the road to Heraldsburg linked with the fishing village. It wouldn’t be smart for the Raiders to approach the princess’s port town with so few men. Although, if they weren’t aware of the area, they may stumble in that direction, since the road followed the coastline. We concluded that at an ideal pace and in good weather, we were over a day away from the King’s Road. Thus, there wasn’t any chance for an encounter with the slavers until we reached the crossroads at Strawberry Landing.

When we broke away from our impromptu meeting, Scout opted to ride ahead to test the trail. The sergeant and I could see that fresh air and the excitement of the news was a refreshing tonic for our guide. In fact, I liked how calm and mature he acted in the face of danger, so I approved of his departure and the three of us separated. The Wolves went about their business of making breakfast over the fires before dismantling our camp. Neither Zetia nor Julie were in my tent when I returned, which gave me a private moment to eat an energy bar and think more about the day ahead. I recorded a brief video to Kate and informed her of the twist in our mission. When I was ready I took our things and loaded them on the pack mules. Yesterday’s experience taught me I’d been stupid to wear my armor, so I loaded it upon a pack animal too.

When I returned to our tent Julie was teaching Zetia how to work the internal lights. When I stepped inside the door, Zetia immediately welcomed me. I suspected Julie had instructed her on it as a household protocol.

“Let’s show Zetia how to take down our tent,” Julie said with faint amusement. I knew when the crease of her forehead appeared it was a sign she was trying to hide her mirth.

“Sure,” I said politely.

“He is moping,” Julie explained to Zetia. “It’s all in the body language. You’ll catch on in time.”

“I am standing right here,” I said defensively.

“See what I mean,” Julie countered.

Zetia laughed. Julie went on about how to detach the poles, so I went outside and pulled the stakes out of the ground. I saw Zetia’s tent mate had already taken their wedge tent down, and she was rolling it up. When Zetia came out and saw the woman taking down their tent, she looked conflicted between helping her new mistress and her tent mate. Julie solved the problem by sending Zetia to assist her friend. A few other tents near us were already gone, and we quickly broke our tent down and packed it on a mule.

There was some mystery attached to our magic tent and our rain gear, but for the most part the men acted normal around Julie and me, as we left our camp behind at dawn. A few minutes after we started, all the mules were strung out in single file on the narrow trail, plodding carefully north. Scratch insisted on going first, so I tailed him. Julie followed me and Zetia rode behind her new mistress. Zetia was wearing a plastic bag over her helmet, which looked ridiculous to me, but she wore it proudly as a badge of honor from Julie. Zetia’s tent mate seemed impressed with Julie’s gift, so I hid my smirk from them. Distracted, a wet tree branch slapped me in the face. Mercifully, they didn’t laugh at me.

At the next ridge, the forest canopy changed shades of green as our animals walked among a patch of white barked trees. It was a stirring change of contrasts, the green weed covered landscape against a sea of white wood that had black speckles on the bark. Flakes or stripes of thin bark had curled back on parts of the trees, revealing a brown underside. The thin-leaved branches had a graceful look, an almost decorative quality that caught the eye and captured one’s attention. I looked at Julie and we exchanged words of similar appreciation for the pretty trees. If anyone else felt the way we did, they didn’t show it. “They haven’t been stuck on a space ship or they’d appreciate birch tree patches more,” I thought.

About the time we struck a particularly rough and narrow segment of the trail, our troop became stretched out more than usual. I recognized we were feeling a little saddle sore from dealing with the bounces and debated whether to call for a rest stop or let things go because of my plan to confront the wayward Raiders. By peeking at my PDA, I could see we’d made reasonable progress. For now, I felt happy. I made my decision and clipped my tablet back on my belt, while the trail switched back on itself, opening up a much wider and pleasant stretch of trail, “pleasant” meaning a flat stretch full of mud with another hill to climb at the end.

Thankfully, the trail widened enough that Julie trotted beside Zetia and I paired up with the sergeant. After a long trudge through the mud, we stumbled to the crest of a hill and a well-worn path that I suspected was the fork to the forest village, hidden by thick vegetation. My companions fell silent for several minutes, which was likely the reason we came upon a frail and elderly looking couple. Both parties crested the hill at the same time. Fear froze them in our path.

“Peace be with you strangers,” I declared. “We wish you no harm, we are merely following the trail to the King’s Road. Do you want for anything?”

My question stunned them. Wisps of hair the color of gray clay adorned their mostly bald heads. They were a matched pair, with saggy ear lobes and bent backs, curled fingers that clutched walking sticks. Both were equally thin.