Guardians of Aandor Book III
Blood of Ten Kings
©2018 Edward Lazellari
CHAPTER
9
A prince among men
Daniel
awoke in a dark wood. The queasiness, aching joints, and vertigo were
bad...worse than the morning after he and Adrian snuck off with Mr. Lutz's pint
of Jägermeister--which he and Adrian surmised must be the German word for
Nyquil.
Daniel
tried to stand up, but his head weighed fifty pounds and pressed him back on
his ass--the world was two sets of swaying phantom images attempting to
converge into a single picture. He closed his eyes and put his head between his
knees for a moment. Then, slowly, he lifted his head and looked around.
The
brush was dense and riddled with thorns and thistles that threatened to scratch
out an eye and scar you like a rabid coon. A smoky haze softening the edges of
the world reminded Daniel of old Hollywood movies that used nylons over the
lenses to soften actresses past their prime. The forest smelled of bacon.
The
last thing he remembered in the meadow was trying to help Seth and then a
searing light. Then just infinite blackness--he and his friends were specks of
dust flying through an immeasurable vacuum. Daniel couldn't gauge their
velocity, but millions of lines of light, what he could only imagine were
entire universes, riffled past like the edges of discs in a cosmic jukebox--in
the deep reptilian recesses of his mind, he knew that if they'd collided with
so much as a stray proton, they would be obliterated. And then they fell toward
one disk...and then they were pulled toward the darkest pool in that light,
like a still lake as seen from the air. It drew them like a beacon in the
storm. Lelani did something--though how she could move or think in that state
was beyond comprehension--she changed their course. The wizard found a stream
away from the dark spot and diverted them all--but it was rough...literally
fighting momentum and thrust from midair.
And
then he woke up here...alone.
His
heart was beating rapidly; cold shivers ran down his back despite the warmth. I can't be here, he thought, realizing
tens of thousands of men beyond these trees wanted to kill him. Daniel balled
his fists tight, his fingernails dug into his palms. Don't panic, he thought over and over, trying to stave off exactly
that.
Something
bounced off his head and onto a bush. It was a granola bar. Twenty feet above,
his backpack dangled from a branch. With the wooziness fading, Daniel shimmied
up the tree and crawled out on the branch to retrieve it. Someone below was
making a racket, running toward his spot.
Daniel
cautiously climbed up to the next large branch to put more foliage between him
and the ground. A young boy of about nine or ten broke through some brush. He
was breathing heavily, dressed in drab browns with leather sandals. Behind him
came heavier footfalls with the clanking of metal. The lad ran ahead a few more
steps before backtracking over his own footprints and diving into a hollow log
behind a shrub, disturbing a family of porcupines that had scurried out
irritably.
Two
men in red and black uniforms were on the boy's trail. They followed the false
footprints, and beyond, no doubt thinking to recover their quarry's trail. The
boy exited his log pulling painful looking spines from his arms and face as he
started back until they heard more men coming from that direction.
"Pssst!"
Daniel signaled. The boy squinted to find Daniel in the tree. Daniel waved for
him to climb. The boy scurried up, reaching the branch just below him. He was a
wiry kid and tried to make himself even thinner on that branch. They faced each
other, Daniel looking down and the boy looking up wide-eyed and scared.
Three
new men approached with a girl and boy on rope leashes, both slightly younger
than Daniel's new friend. They shoved and tugged at the children mercilessly.
The girl was scratched up and crying--her rope chaffed at her neck. The lad
that Daniel assumed was her brother tried to help, but his handler yanked on
his rope and then smacked him on the head with a studded glove. The kid wavered
on rubbery legs and collapsed, but immediately sprang back up and steadied
himself. The men who'd run by moments before rejoined their friends beneath the
tree, having realized they'd been tricked. They conferred with each other in
Farrenspiel, which Daniel did not speak. He'd exclusively been studying
Aandoran--which was close enough to Middle English for him to be grateful for
that Chaucer elective in junior high--but had yet to start any of the empire's
other languages. The tone of the men's conversations was not lost on anyone
though. One of them began shouting angrily into the woods; this time, Daniel
understood them even through a heavy accent.
"You
are fast rabbit, but come now or we will hurt little ones!" To illustrate
their point, the man handling the girl took her face in his studded leather
glove and squeezed. She cried out.
The
boy on the branch closed his tear-streamed eyes trying to pray this situation
away. Daniel wished he had retrieved his pistol from the pack.
The
boy on the leash tackled the soldier manhandling his sister, slamming into his
hip with his whole body. His handler yanked harshly on the rope, harder perhaps
than intended because the boy's neck bent with a sickly snap, and the lad went
limp.
The
young boy's leg jittered. Daniel heard the child struggle to draw breath, like
a wet and raspy wheeze. The other soldiers chastised the man who had broken the
child's neck, but the tone lacked human concern--it was anger at having lost
chattel. The girl wailed over her fallen brother. On the branch below, the
older boy's face turned wet and twisted with helplessness and rage.
Don't do anything stupid,
thought Daniel, a little too late.
The
boy rolled off his branch. He landed badly, but that didn't stop him from
battering the nearest soldier ineffectively. The soldier laughed and bound the
boy with his brother's leash. The younger boy still jittered on the ground,
seizing up as he suffocated slowly. The soldiers dragged the two siblings away
as they pleaded not to leave their dying brother.
Daniel
climbed down and approached the dying boy. His wheezing grew fainter. He was
very aware of his dwindling life; his fear painted in the whitish blue of his
face. He gaped at Daniel with bulging eyes that said he'd intended to do much
more living than his scant few years. That strained glare seared itself into
the prince's memory; it was the most disturbing thing Daniel had ever
witnessed. The boy's raspy grunts pleaded to put him out of his misery.
Daniel
knelt next to him, unsure if he should touch the kid--his mind a jumble of
thoughts. Lelani or Reverend Grey would know what to do, but neither was here.
Daniel retrieved his pistol from the pack and aimed it at the boy's temple--and
stayed like that, hand and gun quivering for far too long. What if they hear it? he thought, justifying his delay. Daniel's
eyes welled with the realization that he was unable to follow through...he
couldn't end this child's suffering. Time relieved him of this burden; Daniel
didn't even hear the boy's final breath to mark his passing from the world.
Daniel
was not cognizant of how long he sat beside the body. He was overwhelmed--by
this child's death, by the fact that he was in Aandor, the very last place he
should be without protection. When he emerged from his daze, the sun was past
its apex. He pulled the cell phone from his pack. No signal whatsoever. He was
truly on his own, in a strange
universe.
Daniel
donned his protective vest, clipped his hunting knife to his belt, and
holstered his gun. Malcolm had given him the Rock Island M15 for his fourteenth
birthday in February; there wasn't a piece of antiquated armor that could stop
a .45 caliber slug. He looped the nylon holster onto his belt.
The
child looked so innocent...at peace. Daniel had a hard time tearing his eyes away.
He'd watched his stepfather drown in his own blood. But, cruel Clyde had earned
that death. This boy...this could have been Bree MacDonnell or his stepsister
Penny. He touched the boy's face--a fading remnant of warmth remained, just
enough to confirm the lad was once a living being. These children were his
subjects.
I hid like a coward,
he admitted, disgusted with himself. Daniel's hand rested on the pistol. Cal
spent hours teaching him how to properly handle the weapon. Those animals
rounding kids up like chattel wouldn't have had a chance against him. If Daniel
had acted, that kid would still be breathing...running to safety with his
siblings.
Fuck!
Daniel
sobbed as though he'd lost his own brother. Why was he filled with shame? He
didn't know these people. The guardians just started forging his chains of
obligation without asking if he wanted to be the prince of anything. All he
ever prayed for was a dad who wouldn't beat the tar out of him and a mom who
wasn't addicted to drugs. How the hell
did I end up becoming the savior of a million people?
He
couldn't explain what propelled him to pursue those soldiers--rage at his own
impotence...shame for being too weak to end the boy's suffering--fear because a
gunshot might have brought attention on him. Daniel wouldn't look at his own
reflection right now. But if he rescued those kids it might set things right,
and then he could search for Cat and the others.
The
trail was easy enough to follow--he heard their bellowing fifty yards out. The
forest ahead thinned. The soldiers and kids were in the back yard of some
homestead--a log-built structure with a thatched roof. A makeshift chicken coop
was against the house and beside it a bloody tree stump for chopping the
poultry. A few feet from the coop a large wagon wheel rested against a shed. A
three-wheeled buckboard leaned toward its missing limb. Twenty feet to Daniel's
left, near the edge of the tree line, was an outhouse that was unfortunately
upwind of his position; the lingering odor of smoked barbeque took the edge off
the shit smell. From his vantage, several columns of black smoke rose over the
forest into the sky in the distance. A dirt road ran in front of the log
house--Daniel suspected they were on the outskirts of a town that wasn't faring
very well.
The
kids were tied up, listless. Two new soldiers came around the corner of the cabin
dragging a muddied, beaten woman and a bloodied man who was an older version of
the boy Daniel met in the forest. The children cried out, "Momma! Papa!"
The soldiers handed off the pair to the backyard crew.
"Where's
Aldrich? Where's Aldrich?" the mother asked repeatedly, counting only two
kids where there should have been three. She became hysterical as the
realization of what happened to her youngest son set in. One soldier began
slapping her. Her husband, also anguished over his son's death, stupidly rushed
the man and punched his jaw. Daniel was frozen with fear behind a bush. There
were too many soldiers, and they were all psychotic. The invaders pounced on
the father, stabbing him in the back and neck until he went limp. The family
wailed as soldiers threw his bloody body into the chicken coop. Then they
separated the hysterical mom from her kids. She slapped the man who stabbed her
husband and tried to claw his eyes out. She took out a good chunk of his cheek.
He punched her nose, and she fell hard on her knees. They bent her over the
chopping block face down and bound her wrists with rope and staked the rope
into the ground.
Daniel's
heart caught in his throat. Were they going to behead her? He unholstered his
weapon and clicked off the safety. His hand was shaking...he forgot to breathe.
He had no plan. Should he walk into the yard and order them to release the
hostages? Would they even recognize the gun as a weapon? What would Cal do?
Another
soldier rushed out of the cabin cheering that he'd found the family's money
stash. Most went to claim their cut, but not the main instigator that the
mother had attacked. He dropped his britches and urinated on her hands, then
wiggled his manhood before her face. His cohorts joked that she would bite it
off. The instigator grabbed the daughter and dragged her before the woman. He
placed his dagger point on the little girl's throat, and with a huge grin,
again shook his prick before the woman.
Daniel
was about to shoot him, when gunshots in the distance froze everyone in place. Birds
rushed from the trees as the echo reverberated through the forest. It had to be
the guardians, but the echo made it impossible to pinpoint where it came from.
After a minute, the soldiers resumed their thievery, leaving strange noises for
others to investigate.
A
fat soldier abruptly exited the outhouse. He turned to his right and spotted
Daniel crouching in the brush. The soldier got over his shock first and drew
his long sword. Daniel blew a doughnut-sized hole through the center of his
chest. The others turned toward the gunfire and pulled their weapons. Daniel just
began shooting in the order closest to him; proximity had become the plan. While this happened, the young girl slipped
out of her captor's grip, and got away. True to the soldiers' predictions, the
mother lunged forward as far as she could and did indeed bite down on the instigator’s
cock. The soldier squealed like a slaughtered pig, screaming bloody murder as
he battered her head with his fists. When he freed himself of her, he fell hard
on his ass, bleeding profusely from a raw stump. Go mom! Daniel thought.
One
soldier grabbed the son as his shield. Daniel aimed carefully, let out his
breath and squeezed the trigger, evacuating the soldier's right eye and
everything behind it. Only a
single soldier remained standing--he drew his sword clumsily.
Daniel
fired--click, click, click--the
fucking thing jammed. Up close, the man was older and more portly than any
soldier had a right be; he approached Daniel, wary of the gun. Daniel looked
around and grabbed the outhouse guy's long sword. It was cruder than the
weapons he'd trained with...the balance was off, it was slightly bent, and riddled
with nicks and dings. But it was sharp. Daniel's stance was instinctual,
drilled into him over months. This was it, the bullshit test to see if he was a
big poser.
The
young boy suddenly slammed into the soldier from behind throwing the man off
balance. He swiped back with his sword, just missing the lad by inches, tripped
over his own feet. He fell toward Daniel, landing before the prince on his
back. Daniel almost felt bad for the man, with his network of blue varicose
veins across his pasty white neck. The old soldier swung up at Daniel and
nearly took his ear off. Daniel easily deflected the next blow from his
vantage. Daniel couldn't tell if it was because the man was stunned from the
fall, or if he was truly a pitifully bad swordsman, but windows of opportunity
kept presenting themselves. The prince was annoyed...didn't this asshat realize
he was being merciful? With the soldier's next back-handed slash, Daniel
stepped forward and put his full weight on the man's sword arm and slid the tip
of his sword into the soldier's throat. The soldier gurgled and died.
The
instigator, meanwhile, got his shit together enough to retrieve his short sword
and was about to stab the still bound mother. Daniel ran forward thinking this
was it--this would be his dreaded
first real sword fight, but the solider, in the throes of a myopic rage at the
woman who'd performed his penectomy, ignored the prince entirely and managed
one jab at her shoulder before Daniel lunged his long sword into the man’s
lungs. The soldier staggered back, stunned. He fell on his knees then collapsed
backwards.
Daniel
cut the mother's bindings. She slipped off the chopping block rubbing her
wrists. Her mouth was bloody. She crawled to her sodomizer on hands and knees,
locking eyes with him as he coughed up blood, and shoved his own cock into his
mouth while screaming and pummeling the man. Her children rushed in to pull her
off him.
A
squad of six new enemy soldiers rounded the house and faced them. Daniel
couldn't fight them all. The men advanced on them. This is it, Daniel realized. I
finally make it back to the land of my birth, to die without ever meeting my
parents.
A
strong gust whipped the soldiers off their feet and slammed them into the cabin
smashing the wall. They landed in the dirt with an inglorious thud.
"You
gotta be more stealthy, kid," Seth said from the edge of the tree line. He
held his wizard's staff at its end like a stickball bat. "Going all
gangsta in these woods is going to get you stabbed."
~~2~~
Daniel
had never been happier to see anyone in his life. He had a million questions
for Seth, but the wizard waved them off and signaled a silent retreat into the
forest.
"Shouldn't
we go in the direction of the other gun shots?" Daniel asked.
"No.
More soldiers that way. Lelani can find us with a spell--if she's still alive.
If not, it doesn't matter."
"Don't
say that." Daniel started to follow but stopped. The family appeared
exhausted--brutalized, huddled tightly in the dirt at the end of their world.
The woman stared into nothingness, lost in the memory of the life she woke up
to this morning.
"Come
with us," Daniel told them.
Mom
didn't budge, but her son was happy to have a plan and began to pull her up.
His sister helped him.
"There's
a thousand enemy soldiers ten miles in every direction," Seth objected.
"We can't take on refugees."
The
son ran into the house for items they'd need, and emerged with two sacks.
Daniel rummaged the
defeated soldiers for the better sword and scabbard among them. Then they all
slipped into the woods.
The
boy steered them along the barest of paths through brambles and bushes and
ancient trees. Ten minutes in, the woods to their left thinned, and they had a
clear elevated view of Yarmouth. Four thousand souls called this town home. The
main street was a grubby muddy line that served as both road and drainage
ditch. The dwellings were built mostly of thick wood timbers, plaster, and
thatch. A few larger buildings had the look of stone, probably government
offices or the homes of the affluent. Enemy soldiers stood out in their red
uniforms like an angry infection among the browns and grays of the feudal town.
A section of the outer wall was aflame, threatening to ignite the structures
built against it. Wooly black columns of smoke rose from deep within the small
city, writing the account of this siege on the sky.
Beside
the western gate, someone had stacked wood and dead bodies. The soldiers lit it
up. Daniel watched the flames grow higher. His heart caught in his throat when
the enemy began hoisting up on a winch a portly, well-dressed man nailed to a
wooden frame. They dropped him in the center of the pyre. He writhed and
struggled, but even if he freed himself, there was nowhere to go. The man's
shrieks carried through the forest and sent a cold shiver through the group.
Below, the soldiers fed the flame with more wood and wagonloads of the dead.
The scent of roasting meat grew thicker, and Daniel wanted to wretch, now
knowing the source of that smell. How
many of these pyres had they lit? A tugging at his sleeve pulled him away
from the flames. The boy made gestures to leave now. And Daniel agreed, having
seen enough. They crawled cautiously behind shrubs as they passed this area to
avoid being spotted.
Twenty
minutes on a thin, barely trodden path brought them to a rocky outcrop that
looked like the top of an underground mountain jutting from the earth. High
trees and bushes surrounded the outcrop. A small stream burbled in front of an
overhang shaped like a rocky lean-to that could shelter them from sun and rain,
and more importantly, would dissipate the campfire smoke as it hit the roof and
fanned out into the sky. A hammock hung between two trees, and the remnants of
a campfire lay beneath the overhang.
"Me
and my mates fish here," the boy said. "There's a stocked pool behind
the rock and berry bushes all around."
The
woman started a fire in the stone pit and set up a kettle. The girl foraged for
greens and herbs while her brother went to catch some fish. Daniel sat on a low
flat rock beside the pit and tried to come to terms with the cruelty he'd
witnessed; all to annex this piece of real estate for Farrenheil.
"What
shall we call you, milord," asked the mom. A mother in her late twenties
calling Daniel 'milord' felt as natural as a prostrate exam. Her soft voice was
a harsh contrast to its hard tone; if feudalism did one thing well, it was to
ingrain subservience when in the presence of one's betters--even, apparently,
when experiencing your own personal catastrophe. Steam from the kettle brought
a growl to Daniel's belly. He didn't recall getting hungry.
"Daniel.
Danel, actually," he said after remembering his birth name here. "But
my friends call me Daniel or Danny."
"Like
our new prince," remarked the little girl.
Fiona
introduced herself and her son Jack, named for his grandfather, and Sally, a
little clone of her mom. Her dead son was Aldrich, Sally's twin, named for his
father, a wagon maker. Fiona washed herself in the stream, wading in up to her
knees and immersing her head like a baptismal aspirant to let the cool rush
carry away one’s sins with the dirt and mud. With the grime and mud removed, Fiona
appeared younger than Daniel realized...little more than college age. She had fair
skin and golden hair that accentuated her blue-green eyes.
"So,
this is Aandor?" Daniel asked.
"Oh,
this is definitely Aandor," Seth confirmed. "I was exhausted in the
meadow fight after just a few spells, but I woke up here charged with energy.
Magic is everywhere. I would have struggled to create that hard wind force at
their house if this was New York--here, it was easy breezy. Pun intended."
"Great.
So you can lightning-blast these Farrenheil fuckers all the way to the
capital."
"It's
not about having enough power. Lightning
is complex mojo. Haven't been able to replicate the advanced stuff on my own. I
know a few spells reasonably well... the hard air for example. I can make a
halfway decent shield...not very effective against spells or machine guns
though without Rosencrantz. The tree was my crutch; now it's probably
dead."
"Dead?!
You sure?"
"Didn't
you hear it scream?"
"No...But
I heard all of you. Speaking of the others..."
"Gunshots
woke me," Seth said. "I was heading in what I thought was the
direction they came from when I heard your fire. You only got off five of an
eight-round clip. What happened?"
"Pistol
jammed."
"Combustion
sciences don't play well here. The gun's probably cursed now. You should throw
it away."
"That's
stupid. Why would magic care about combustion?"
"Hey,
I didn't write the laws of physics for this universe. One story says ancient
wizards placed a spell over this world to neuter science as a competitive
power. Remember, wizards are scientists too. They know how to make gunpowder
and stuff. Another is that magical energy is sentient--intelligent electrons or
something. Combustion works on super heated air and explosions, so maybe it
disrupts the energy--hurts them? Who knows? All we know is that engines,
electricity, and guns don't work for long in Aandor. It's meat cleavers all
around. I'm keeping my pistol a virgin until I'm desperate. And you should
throw your gun away. Seriously."
Jack
returned with three fair-sized fish, which they cooked with some parsley that
grew along the edge of the outcrop. The meal barely satisfied. The thought of
high fructose corn syrup and corn-fed anything didn't seem so bad about now.
"Fiona,
is Yarmouth the only town in the area?" Daniel inquired.
"Aye,
the only town. There's a village between here and the capital ten leagues west.
The village of Iibswitch is ten leagues north near the Sevren, and there's a
proper river town--Crowe's Porte--half day's ride east along the Blue Road.
They have a bridge to the north."
"Iibswitch,"
Seth said. "That's near where my mother runs an inn."
"Wrong
direction," Daniel said. "Our best bet is to head away from the
capital."
"The
enemy's all over the countryside," Seth said.
"Yeah,
but they were magically air dropped on Deorwine Plain outside of the capital
and fanned eastward from there." Daniel grabbed a stick and sketched the
kingdom in the sand. Fiona and the kids watched in fascination as he wrote the
names of major landmarks as best as he could remember.
"You
can write?" Jack noted. "You really are a lord, then."
"You
couldn't possibly guess..." Seth responded.
"The
enemy's south and west of us," Daniel continued, ignoring the budding adoration
society. "The farther east we run, the less saturated the countryside will
be with enemy squads."
"But
Farrenheil is pushing west from Red King's Gate," Seth said.
"No.
Farrenheil hasn't taken that fort yet.
Time differential, remember--The Gate's probably still unaware of the
invasion."
Daniel
looked at the map again and circled a swatch of forest southeast of Yarmouth.
"I guess we can trek deeper into the woods here; stay away from the road
entirely."
"Them's
centaur lands, milord," Sally said pointing to the area.
"Centaurs
patrol the Blue Road for my fath...umm, the archduke? Friends, right?"
"Friends
is not the word I'd use, milord," Fiona said. "Aye, they mind the
forest about the road, but 'tis for their own interest s'much as ours. None of
that lot takes kindly to men who stray from the path. We're not welcome in
their villages. There's much sorry history between them beasts and men."
They probably don't think too highly of
being called beasts, Daniel thought.
"It's
a moot point anyway," Seth said. "We should find the others. Cat will
have kittens when she realizes she's in Aandor."
Daniel
chuckled. Seth took a moment to warm up to his own subconscious wit.
Voices
came out of the forest, many footsteps heading their way along the path. Daniel
pulled his sword and Seth readied his staff. A boy slightly older than Jack
came around a tree carrying a young girl in his arms.
Behind
the teen were four more, a young girl and boy, a young pikeman and a woman of
comparable age. They carried only their fatigue covered with soot and ash.
"Hail
Jack, Aldrich's son," said the teen. "May we warm ourselves by your
fire?"
"Aye,
Fulbert, you may," Jack said, without consulting anyone.
"There
are more behind us," said the pikeman.
"They're
going to lead Farrenheil right to us if this keeps up," Seth said.
"We're barely two miles from town."
"What
are they supposed to do?" Daniel said. "Stay there and die?"
"The
lads come to this glade to escape chores and pestering sisters," Jack
said.
"Hey!"
Cried Sally.
"It
is not on any map, nor easily found."
Oswin,
a pikeman for the lord magistrate, had been off guard duty when the attack
happened. He saw the magistrate cut down by archers and returned home to his
wife and then escaped through a drainage tunnel. The two children with him
belonged to a fellow guardsman who had died defending the magistrate.
As
the sun fell toward the horizon, eight more town folk appeared led by another
young boy. Soon, four hearths blazed in their little camp. People settled in as
much as they could in a dark wood. My
people, mused Daniel.
"Aye...
I'd sooner take my chances with the centaurs," the pikeman said as they
discussed Daniel's plan. "These men of Farrenheil are vicious with lust
and plunder. They assault as though seeking revenge for some heinous wrong. They
are enslaving everyone. I'd sooner die by a centaur's spear. We'll follow you,
milord."
Follow me?
Daniel thought. Oswin was about eighteen, and as the only local man in uniform,
Daniel hoped the pikeman would take charge and organize everybody. Seth
chuckled at the look on Daniel's face.
"What?
I'm in charge just 'cause I can fucking read?" Daniel said in English.
"You
have straight white teeth, shiny hair, and your clothes have a high thread
count," Seth said. "You ooze smarts--everyone's begging for someone
smarter than them to take charge and save them."
"I'm
fourteen."
"Great.
Next February, you can legally marry, join the army, and own property."
Daniel
countered Seth's smirk with a smoldering glare.
"Look,
kid..." Kid was Seth's signal
that he was about to impart serious wisdom. Seth was so seldom serious, Daniel
felt obliged to listen when he got this way. "You're from a higher station
than these folks, and they sense this. More importantly, you're a survivor, and
they sense that too. Until now, you survived for yourself...your street smarts
and book smarts were your umbrella. To save these people, you have to let them
under that umbrella. Same skills you always used to get by, only bigger scale.
That's leadership."
Every
once in a blue moon, Seth revealed intelligence beyond what he's credited with.
What he left out was how much harder factoring everyone else's safety would be
in Daniel's decisions. Like playing five chess games at the same time.
"We
can't stay here," Daniel said, finally. "Eventually the patrols will
find this place. Tomorrow we move deeper into the forest--all of us. Hopefully
Lelani will find us before we run into her people."
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