Page 13

We ride hard and swift towards the Dark Forest. The terrain is uneven and bumpy and our captive bounces around in the small cart we have placed him in.

A twinge of guilt pulls at my conscience at the bruises I have no doubt he will awaken with, but I quickly consign such thoughts to the furthermost recesses of my mind.

We had no choice but to subdue him with the nightlily and to transport him as such, as we simply couldn’t risk him being awake and alerting anyone to our presence.

The whole operation is high risk and hangs on absolutely nothing going wrong.

It has been a resounding success so far, and all we have to do now is ride hard for the border and cross over into Ardvalla as quickly as possible.

The moon is high in the sky by the time we reach the Dark Forest and I’m glad of the little light it provides, even though I wish it were more.

The Dark Forest is named after the black bark of the trees here but, as Ailish tells it, also because the Ellerban believe dark forces from long ago took up refuge here and still linger.

However, she maintains the Ellerban people would do better to fear it for the very real living threat of prowlers who have made it their home.

Prowlers, she explained, are those who have been exiled from their communities for breaking the Ellerban code.

I can’t help wondering at the severity of what these people have done as, it seems to me, the Ellerban have little enough in the way of laws or codes.

As we make our way deeper into the forest, I have to admit I have no desire whatsoever to encounter these prowlers and I hope our passage is as uneventful as it was on our way here.

Alas, it seems this is not to be. We haven’t been in the forest long when a pair of the Khaleeni front riders approach. They and two others were riding ahead to scout for trouble or danger and, it seems from the expression on their faces, they’ve found one or the other and maybe even both.

“Your Majesty,” Aneeya addresses me, “there is danger ahead. We need to either conceal ourselves or divert to another path through the forest.”

“What is the nature of this danger?” I ask and I can see from her face she is concerned. The Khaleeni front riders are fearless so I instinctively know if she is so concerned then I need to take this threat very seriously.

She looks to her companion and then at Ailish.

“There are soldiers up ahead and they are led by a prince. They are Ellerban.”

I turn my head to look at Ailish and I can see from her puzzled expression this information is surprising to her. However, before I can ask her what it means she quizzes the two front riders herself.

“You’re sure they are soldiers and not prowlers? And how can you be certain they are Ellerban?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they reply in unison.

“They are all dressed in uniform,” Aneeya adds, “and they wear the insignia of the white mountain on their right arms and their leader wears the symbol of the white eagle.”

Ailish’s expression turns from one of surprise to shock, and her head swivels around to look at me.

“The white eagle?” I ask Aneeya. “Are you sure?”

“Oh yes, Your Majesty, it stretches across his shoulders and even in the black of night in this dark forest, there’s no missing it.”

I look at Ailish.

“What the devil?” I ask. “How can there be two of them wearing the symbol of the king?”

“I don’t know, Your Majesty,” she replies. “It’s unheard of for someone to wear the robes of the king if they are not the actual king or at least going to be king.”

“Damnation,” I curse under my breath as I wonder which one of these princes I have stashed away in the cart.

“What are they doing?” I ask Aneeya.

She looks at Karina, her co-front rider, and from their expressions I can see they are perplexed.

“They are torturing what seem to be two of their soldiers. From what we could tell, they are accusing them of being traitors and of having involvement in a plot against the other prince.”

“What?” Ailish exclaims before I can respond. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they answer in unison again.

“How far away are they?”

“A little over a thousand yards.”

Ailish turns to me. She looks deeply troubled.

“My Queen, this is extremely unusual behaviour. Usually, any soldier suspected of failing in his duties or being part of a plot against a prince or king is subjected to a trial by the captains, and if found guilty is then either hung or shot through the heart with an arrow. A slow death by hanging is for traitors and a quick death by the arrow is for those who may have served Ellerban well in the past but failed their fellow soldiers in battle. However, these instances are very rare and I can’t remember the last time a soldier was accused of treason.

There is something very wrong here and with your permission I’d like to ride ahead and see for myself what is happening. ”

I pause for a moment and think over Ailish’s words, and also the fact that the other prince is wearing the symbol of the king.

Up to this point I have been confident I have the correct prince, especially since he is the warrior I dreamed of.

However, now I am curious to see the second prince as I wonder if perhaps they are similar in likeness.

In truth, I feel a strange connection to the man lying unconscious in my cart and I want to see if I feel the same way about his brother.

“Very well,” I say to Ailish, “you, Kes and I shall ride ahead with the front riders to observe what is happening and the rest of the Khaleeni shall conceal themselves here with our captive and await our return.”

The words have barely left my lips when Ailish is pointed in the direction the front riders came from and urging her horse into a gallop.

It doesn’t take too long until we arrive at the spot where Kyra and Naomi, the other two front riders, are concealed in a thicket.

Approximately one hundred yards away is a clearing in the forest where twenty soldiers are gathered in a semicircle around a man I presume is the other prince of Ellerban.

Just as Aneeya said, the symbol of the eagle stretches across his shoulders.

In front of him, hanging from the branches of a tree, are two young soldiers.

It’s clear from their appearance they have been subjected to ill treatment as blood oozes from a number of wounds.

Their faces have been pummelled to the extent their eyes have swollen shut and their shirts hang from their bodies in bloody shreds.

Crack!

I jerk involuntarily in response to the sudden, sharp sound of a whip cracking through the air and landing viciously upon the torso of one of the unfortunate soldiers.

It lands with such force it shreds yet another piece of his shirt and opens an additional wound upon his skin.

I wince at the sound and at the intense pain I imagine it must have wrought upon his already tender flesh.

“Who are you working for?” the prince bellows. “This is your last chance. Tell me whose coin you took to betray my brother and his family.”

The soldier hangs there and it’s obvious to anyone looking on that he is incapable of speech, but the prince raises his whip again.

“Your Majesty,” the soldier beside him says, “is it not time for the arrow? We’ve got nothing from them and they’re not fit to tell us any more.”

The prince turns his head, slowly and deliberately.

“Unless you wish to join them, I advise you to keep your counsel to yourself, Captain. I and I alone shall decide if and when they get the arrow. Traitors such as these deserve a long, slow death and I am not finished with them yet.”

From my hiding place in the thicket I have a good view of the prince and am surprised at how unlike his brother he is.

His hair is brown, the colour of the acorn in autumn, and it falls lightly about his face.

I can’t make out the colour of his eyes, only that they possess an unpleasant glint, but the cruel twist of his mouth is his most prominent feature.

His thin lips are stretched tight across his face with the upper lip curled upwards in the corner like that of a snarling dog.

He couldn’t be more unlike his brother, and I can’t help wondering if they have different mothers.

He raises his whip again and furiously lashes it against the young soldier’s skin until strips of flesh are hanging from his body along with the shreds of his shirt.

In truth it is hard to watch such cruelty and I close my eyes for a second.

As much as I wish to intervene, I dare not.

I can’t risk compromising our mission or the safety of the Khaleeni, but I feel nauseous as I open my eyes and gaze upon the two young men hanging forlornly from the tree.

The one who hasn’t been whipped as much bravely struggles to raise his head and manages to say, “Stop,” before his head falls to his chest as he passes out.

I hear a sharp intake of breath beside me and I turn to see Ailish with a shocked expression on her face and her hand clasped over her mouth.

“What is it?” I ask.

“The soldier who just spoke, my Queen, he’s my cousin. He’s a good man. There must be some mistake. He doesn’t deserve this. We need to do something.”

I look back at the horrific scene and the prince looks even more furious and throws his whip to the ground. His face is contorted into an expression of anger and disgust, but there is also something else there, and it looks suspiciously like satisfaction.

The captain starts to raise his bow.

“Just say the word, Your Majesty, and I will end them,” he says, addressing the prince.

“Put down your bow, Captain,” the prince replies. “They will hang here as a warning to all those who plot against the royal family of Ellerban. Leave them for the forest rats.”

With that he turns his horse around and heads off in the direction of Bawna, thankfully on a path through the forest that will take him in the opposite direction to where the rest of the Khaleeni are hidden.

I watch as the eagle on his back disappears into the dark of the night and feel a sense of relief he is not the prince I am taking back to Ardvalla.

Not only did I not feel any sense of connection with him, but the opposite is true.

His sadistic cruelty revulsed me to the point I need to swallow the bile burning in the back of my throat.

We wait until he and the last of his soldiers are well out of sight and then we rush over to the two unfortunate souls hanging from the tree.

We cut them down and lay them gently on some blankets from the back of our horses.

They don’t make a sound as we handle them, not even a groan, and it’s clear they’re grievously injured.

Ailish begs me to take them with us to Ardvalla, and even though they will slow us down and make our return journey even more dangerous, I agree.

However, as we bring their battered bodies with us, I wonder if they will even survive the night.