The Fugitive Prince Read online

  Cass notched her arrow as she took a few steps forward into the snow. The cold frost rose and nipped her heels. Cass inhaled and drew her bow feeling the familiar tightness. At that moment, she tuned her sight down the wooden shaft of the arrow. A twirling knot ran up the wood. With a steady and guiding finger, she aimed the iron tip at the ledge. The cool wind gently blew across the side of her rosy cheek. Cass pulled the bow slightly to the left. The distance did its best to be elusive. The huntress squinted her judging eyes. Cass lifted the bow and arrow up several degrees as though to aim it at the fluff of clouds. Looking down once more at the ledge Cass held against the pull of the arrow as it desired to be set free. Her heart slowed to a steady drum. Cass exhaled. As her breath left her, so did her arrow. It sprung out and shot above the trees buzzing happily through the air. Cass’s eyes darted after it as she did her best to track the arrow. The cold of the moment pushed dryness into her eyes. She blinked, and the arrow was gone. The huntress peered passed the crop of trees at the ledge expecting some grand answer from the mountain itself. The indifferent chill of the wind picked up taking the answer away and leaving Cass in cold silence. Cass slightly shrugged as she turned towards the camp. Gregor was squeezing himself between the gap with a smile that threatened to outshine the snow.

  “Wasting arrows are we?”

  Cass smiled back as the sun warmed her windburned face.

  “Target practice.”

  Gregor leaned on the slanted barricade delivering a wobble to it from his weight.

  “It looks like you hit the mountain. That’s what you were aiming for right?”

  Cass disdainfully retracted her smile as the knight proudly rubbed his beard.

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  Gregor chuckled. He went to carry on his soft-hearted teasing, but a sudden snap cut through his swords. His heavy form vibrated downwards proliferating the wobble of the wooden logs. The palisade groaned as it and the knight collapsed forward sending dollops of snow flying up. The knight was sent shambling. His grin quickly vanished under the snow. Cass fell into laughter at the fortunate justice. Her careful thoughts brought her back up as she stopped in realization.

  “That was supposed to protect us? It doesn’t even pass for an armrest!”

  Valente lazily poked up his head from underneath his fur. His eyes drifted shakily to the pile of snow and wood and the lump of the knight floundering in the snow. He looked at the disappointed huntress and nodded to himself. He decided it better if he slept a few more minutes before dealing with this. His head submerged itself back under the fur. The knightly lump moved up as Gregor spat out a mouthful of snow.

  “Well, it fooled you. Wolves aren’t that smart. Besides, it wasn’t meant to hold someone like me. I’m… plus sized.”

  Cass could not help but nod in amused agreement.

  “I guess no one can deny that.”

  Her eyes absently drifted away from the chaos back to looking over the forest and to the distant ledge.

  “Gregor, now that there are almost no clouds out, I can see a ledge past the trees here. If we can get there, we can probably get a better vantage point. Maybe we can find our way down off this mountain. By now, we should be close to the Tharian border.”

  Gregor brushed himself free of the snow as he joined Cass’s sight of the horizon.

  “Aye. Nice spotting Cassy. We can head out soon. We just have to wake up his majesty.”

  Cass turned back towards the knight and the half disheveled piles of wood, snow, and rock that used to be a camp. Her cheeks curled up deviously, as her hands moved down menacingly. She reached for a small cloth of purple berries she had stored in her belt. Cass crept towards the sleeping prince.

  “I’ll take care of this.”

  To Valente, sleep was a beautiful thing. It was a place to achieve relaxation and meditation in restful solitude. It was a portal to let you travel to the world of dreams where anything and everything was possible. It was one of the few things that helped tie a day together. However, one moment he was enjoying a running through a glowing field filled with dancing plates of food and the next he was gasping for his life as a ravaging curse of tang invaded his mouth. Cass and Gregor had laughed, pointed, and watched him while he sprawled and shambled to scrape frostdrop juice from his tongue.

  Valente glared forward burning a hole in the traitors’ backs. Though a few hours had passed the shame and indignity still lingered as Valente followed behind the two treasonous comrades. Many great Tharians famously upheld the timeless ideal of honor and forgiveness. Even when faced with a great disservice you would live above such things and follow a higher order. Valente brushed off his conscience alongside a small remnant of snow from his cloak. The prince rubbed his hands together part for warmth and part to begin his ultimate scheming. He was determined to enact vengeance.

  A thick cold of fog spun tightly around the three restricting their slogging trek. The surrounding trees began their slow forfeit to the will of the mountain’s rock. The trees grew smaller and less dense. Expanses of stones, spikes of rock and layers snow moved to replace them. The frigid wind blasted the three with new severity as they stepped out of from the shelter of the mountain woods.

  Valente’s body shivered in response to the first crash of wind. He pulled down on his cloak to hug him closer. A cluster of adventurous snowflakes dashed on the whipping air. One in its rampaging journey angrily stabbed at Valente’s nose. The persevering warmth of his skin aptly defeated it. Brushing an itchy wetness from his face, Valente looked onward past the wisping fog.

  A ledge stretched itself out and above the side of the Nital Mountains. Valente looked at it skeptically. The stone appeared thick, but several cracks and chips of age ran through it. Valente reluctantly slowed as vertigo swirled. Gregor stopped alongside the prince taking in a hearty gulp of air. The knight peered over the Farlosian lands with a satisfied smile. Valente’s eye caught Cass’s hood bobbing forward. He rotated his, in turn, to watch in curiosity as the huntress kept walking forward. Valente nervously swallowed as he watched in silent terror. Cass gingerly stepped onto the snow of the ledge. Each soft crunch sent goosebumps along his spine. Cass stood at the edge of the ledge wrapped in wind and fog. She leaned forward and peered into the clouds below. A small tuft of snow fell free of the ledge’s side taking the bottom of Valente’s stomach with it. Valente watched it fall out of sight forever lost to the great and deadly fall below. Gregor moved forward and stood at the cusp of the ledge watching after the huntress. Valente exhaled out the anxiety and clenched his teeth against the vertigo as he walked to join his companions near the cliff edge.

  Valente arrived a safe shouting distance away from the ledge and the sharp cliffs that accompanied it. Cass turned on the ledge and trudged back towards the knight. She nodded at Gregor who also relaxed now that the huntress back on the mountain. She smiled to greet the cautiously inching Valente. Cass lingered for a moment over his worried-wrinkled face checking to see if the frostdrops were still souring his mood. There were other more falling-off-mountain related issues on his mind. The huntress pulled her arm out from underneath her furs and pointed through the fog. Her finger extended to the rough shape of a gradual slope along the side of the mountain. The path there was encompassed by frosty clouds and chilled fog. It lay open to the elements and wrath of the mountain.

  “Just beyond that lower ridge is a massive river. It has to be the Araheil.”

  Valente’s vertigo pulled back as his ears perked up.

  The river. So close.

  Cass brushed back some rampant hair behind her ear as Valente inched ever closer.

  “If we can find our way down there, we can follow it directly to the border and cross over into Tharia. We just have to march through the snow and storm, but just beyond that we will be there,”

  Cass looked to the prince.

  “The end of our journey.”

  Valente’s eyes met with Cass’s. A teetering weight in her voice hove
red over ‘our.’ Her gaze darted free as it set itself away on something beyond the fog. The prince looked down to the snow as he nodded to himself. A sprouting tendril of sadness twisted in Valente’s chest. He had grown fond of the time he had spent out here with his guide and friend. Perhaps the only real friend he had ever had. Valente followed the huntress’s sight beyond the drifts of wind and snow to the north. The Araheil was the natural border between the kingdoms. He could nearly see his homeland. Valente hesitantly stepped near to the edges of the cliff trying to see past the thick of fog.

  “It’s just a little more to Tharia…”

  Vertigo swirled around Valente, but in that moment he was in the eye of its storm. A moment of clarity and hope. Home was just in reach. A surge of gratitude overflowed as Valente spun around to bow deeply to his companions.

  “Thank you. Thank you both sincerely. You had little reason to help me get this far. I am fully indebted to you.”

  Gregor’s jolly smiling cut through the cold. His hands rose to deflect the prince’s appreciation and unexpected gesture.

  “As a knight, it is my duty to serve, and help those in need. It was an honor helping a son of Tharia.”

  Cass hid her face as she turned away. She tried to inhale the icy air. Her cheeks contained an annoyingly red burning from the prince’s genuine words.

  Soon he’ll be out of sight… and out of mind.

  Her focus returned past the spinning threads of wind and snow. She searched the side of the mountain for a way down to the lower ridge. Her eyes set upon a steep, sheer path. The edge of mountain threatened to pull it down with it, but between that and the surrounding cliff, was the only suitable path.

  “Don’t thank us yet fancy pants, we still have to get off these mountains.”

  The prince’s sight darted behind him and the cliff’s edge veered towards him in his vision. The sensation nearly threw him off the mountain. The swell of distance into the clouds below threw his head into a spin. Valente quickly moved from the edge remembering his allergy to excessive gravity. The prince nearly bumped into the knight behind him. Gregor was still doing his best to hold back the prince’s previous praise and now the oncoming body. Gregor’s grin picked Valente up. The knight patted Valente on the shoulder sending the prince a few feet deeper into the snow. The prince was thankful he was much more grounded. Gregor moved to massage warmth back into his frost-tipped beard as he looked after Cass. She moved ahead peering around at the lower edge as she judged the best path to take. Her mouth moved, yet if she was making sound it was lost in the gusts of wind the whistled over the mountain’s rock. Cass closed her eyes letting her braid bob violently in the wind as she flipped off her hood. She inhaled the open air, the deafening silence of wind, the freedom of the mountain.

  Doesn’t get this good back home.

  The momentary lull teetered on the precipice of the mountain. The wind anxiously heaved over the snow before sending the silence falling as it crumbled apart. As soon as Cass’s breath expired on the wind, the piercing noise rose up from the faint forest behind them. A distinct screech, a call of pain, carried over the wind. The dying cry of a winter wolf. The three exchanged quick glances, each bearing their own share of the confusion. As though to rise up for clarity, a rich unison of howls came forth from the woods behind. The combined force and power resonated as one forming a fearsome battle cry and a call to arms. The wind rushed up into the sky joining the call above the mountain. The surge deafened the howls to near silence and, for a moment, it was just that. The wind calmed a fraction letting more howls right out. However, as the wolves bellowed in unison, their combined voice grew cracks of deviation. Howls of battle turned slowly and steadily into that of agony as it emanated from the far wood. A yowl called out closer near the edge of the trees they had just recently departed. Something lost behind the screen of snow collided with a hearty thunk and painful cry. Gregor stepped forward drawing his claymore. Ice shattered from the blade. The sword sang as it vibrated free of the frosted sheath. In the swirling snow and fog, something tumbled at the three. The strange and mangled silhouette approached quickly as though driven by the wind itself.

  Cass reached for her bow without hesitation. Valente fumbled and struggled to free his blade from the scabbard. The frost had melded the blade to its sheath and made the handle slick. The twisting shadow darted towards the prince. His heart froze. From out of the fog emerged a tattered cloth. The menace of its shadow harmlessly evaporated in the light. Gregor darted forward as he took one hand off his blade. The drifting haze of white was sent spinning around him. He snatched the cloth from the wind that tossed it forward. Gregor’s fist constricted his blade. The knight’s smile had left on the wind as he turned to the prince and the huntress. In his hands, a torn piece of fabric lay. The white of the cloth dulled in the pure snow. Upon was splattered with a freshly crisp crimson. Valente and Cass bore immediate concern; however, it was not the blood that brought this upon them. From behind the small smear of red on the lackluster whiteness, an emblem burned in the cold. The symbol of the Iron Stars was brightly embroidered in the center. Cass slung away her bow as quickly as she had drawn it. She began a spirited jog through the snow towards the path she had just scouted. Her voice nearly lost itself on the wind in her haste.

  “There hasn’t been good snowfall since we were at the village. Our footprints are deep and all over the mountains.”

  Gregor sheathed his blade and turned to follow. His quickened strides divided the snow in two putting Valente’s trench to immediate shame. The Liosian knight called over the wind and the oncoming storm.

  “They had to have marched up after us. Someone must have spotted us leaving the village.”

  Valente did not want to be or need to be told to get moving. He entered the newly formed canyon of snow behind Gregor. Amid retreat, the prince looked over his shoulder towards the woods with a fleeting glimpse.

  Poor wolves. They don’t stand a chance.

  Valente turned his attention to his own self-preservation.

  The sad wail of winter wolves echoed over the mountain as Valente continued to run.

  -18-

  The path Cass forged was not the safest by any stretch of the imagination, but it was without doubt the quickest. The jagged bouts of stone threatened to reach up and gut those that clambered down towards the lower ledge. Gregor struggled to find footholds that were suitable or safe for his size, however, his strength was enough to help him slowly navigate down the snowy, rock surfaces. Valente followed close above doing his best to hold himself from falling and hold his nerves together. Below was a painful and most likely gruesome fall and above the howls had become nothing more than the occasional whispering whimper discarded by the wind.

  As they resumed their descent behind the huntress, the wind angrily pushed against their cloaks threatening to throw them from the small edges they clung to. Valente clutched hard enough to bring a resurgence of sensation to his cold-riddled hands. They had so quickly lost their sensation against the frigid stone of the mountain. The wind offered no mercy to the prince’s or his companion’s situation as a large gust twirled up against the mountain face. The icy wind twirled around Valente. His grip tightened further as he adjusted his position. The sudden movement sent a fracture into the old face of the mountain. Valente pivoted. A large chunk of rock flew free from where he had been. The stone narrowly missed the huntress as the snow from it showered her hood. She sent a surprised glare upwards. Gregor swayed dangerously from his own dodge as he had luckily caught himself on another protruding rock capable of supporting him. Valente looked downwards to his companions; his heart pounded and his hands ached in their frozen numbness. The knight gave a nervous smile. From here, even the large Liosian seemed to show some level of fear. The wind relaxed for a moment allowing the three to continue their steep descent. Valente tilted his head upwards towards the cliff edge they had vaulted down from. In the quiet lull of gusts, something was clear. There were no more cries o
r howls, but instead a distant and closing murmur and clatter. The prince did not have to discern them. It was shouting among the clink of metal on metal. A commanding voice howled and spun over them challenging the wind itself.

  “Keep searching. They won’t make it much farther in this weather. Tracks are recent we are on them. No hesitation. Agri Leoni.”

  The men behind the voice called out their battle cry.

  Agri Leoni. Agri grants strength.

  Valente shook his head in bewilderment. Arthan’s old lessons seeped out into his mind.

  “You never know when you’ll need ancient Farlosian.”

  Well, Arthan, at least I’ll know what they said while they try to kill me.

  Cass took less care in her steps as she appeared to have not missed the Iron Stars’ battle cry. The lower ledge was much closer now, yet just outside of a safe drop. Gregor’s foot slipped from under him showering Cass with more snow. Kicking into the rock the knight regained his foothold. Cracks broke out from the impact. Such a man was not made for this finesse. The sounds of heavy boots rumbled above and down into the stone the three clung to. Valente nervously looked up towards the still vacant ledge. Doing his best he sent a desperate look towards Cass who was too preoccupied with finding a way down to notice. A small draft of snow land on the back of Valente’s head. The prince immediately looked up. His body thick with tension at what he feared he would see.

  The ledge above was no longer empty. Several heavily geared mercenaries stood on it. A chilling chuckle spread among the soldiers like a sinister and audible smile. They had their bounties in a barrel. A plumed Liosian helmet stepped forward between the grins brushing the others aside. The captain of the Iron Stars lowered his helmet and his gaze. His eyes pierced the snow and connected with Valente’s. The cold, dark eyes stared into him. Their very sight ate away at the hope from Valente’s soul. The captain’s lips curled into a sickening smirk as he mouthed cruel words.