Chapter 35 - Encounter on the Eastern Road

The three horses plodded slowly through the forest, following the narrow trail that had been blazed before them. Legs led the way, with Kaelanna sitting behind him. Gregorex followed, his head turning to and fro, as though trying to recognize his surroundings. Andres stayed just a short distance behind Gregorex. His worst nightmare was to be lost in the middle of some strange woods at night. He hated the dark, he hated being lost, and he really hated being dark and lost.

Andres couldn’t stop thinking about the old man that had blocked their patch a few moments ago. He could swear that he’d heard that voice before, but he just couldn’t recall where. Every mental trail he followed in trying the answer that question just wound up at a dead end. Finally he piped up and called out, “Hey Gregorex!”

A startled Gregorex jumped nearly a foot off his horse. Flustered, he turned back toward Andres and bellowed, “For goodness sake, Andres, keep your voice down!”

“Sorry, Gregorex,” replied Andres, speaking just as loudly as he did thefirst time. “I’ll keep it down! But hey, did that old man back there look familiar to you at all?”

“Did he look familiar? No, he didn’t look familiar!” retorted Gregorex. “How could he! It’s as dark as a pocket in these woods! I can barely see my hand if I lift it up and put it in front of my face!”

Andres, who was very susceptible to the power of suggestion, instinctively thrust his right hand in front of his face. He found that he could actually see his hand fairly clearly. However, in his haste to test Gregorex’ words, he lost his balance and nearly fell off his horse. After regaining his composure, he replied, “Oh. Well, I guess it’s true...your eyesight does get a bit worse as you get old.”

Gregorex bristled at Andres’ words. “Oh, stop it. I can see just fine, Andres, thank you very much. And if you insist, yes...that guy was familiar. But for the life of me, I can’t figure it out. And I just don’t like spending time thinking about questions that I can’t answer.”

Legs now spoke up. “Now that you mention it, that man did seem familiar,” he intoned in a slow drawl. “I’m sure that we crossed paths before.”

Andres was pleased to have started some conversation. he didn’t mind the dark so much when he was able to talk. But he really didn’t like being in the rear of this slow procession. “Hey Gregorex,” he asked, “would you mind if I got in front of you? You...you do a really good job of riding in back.”

“Well, Andres, let’s think about this,” answered Gregorex. “We’re in the thickest woods in the world, with trees to our left and trees to our right. And you want to get by me. So why don’t we do this--me and my horse will jump straight up, as high as we can go. While we’re like twenty feet up, you just gallop past and get behind Legs. By the time we hit the ground, you should be just past me, and we’ll all be just fine. How does that sound?”

“You’re grumpy,” said Andres, who then proceeded to slide his horse past Gregorex. The trail was only about four feet wide, but somehow Andres managed to bull his way past. “Thanks, Gregorex,” Andres mumbled as he and his horse wedged their way through.

Gregorex had to grab a tree branch to keep from falling off. “If you weren’t a prince, I’d knock your head off, you royal pain in the neck,” he groused.

Andres ignored Gregorex. He was just happy to be in the middle of the pack. When he got within a hair’s breadth of Legs’ horse, he asked, “Who were those guys back there? I mean, it’s a bit unnerving, thinking about some hidden guys with arrows pointing straight at my head. Where did they come from?”

“Your Majesty, you needn’t have worried,” replied Legs. “From what I’ve heard, your head is so hard that the arrows would have bounced right off. But to answer your question...those men came from Dor-ko’s castle. And if you look carefully and listen closely, you’ll notice that there are several of them working in the woods right now.”

A stunned Andres narrowed his eyes, cocked his head, and surveyed the forest to the right and to the left. “So why didn’t they thwak us?” he asked.

“Because they are loyal to your father, the king,” answered Legs.

Andres was thunderstruck. “How can that be?” he asked.

“Well, you’ve got to understand something,” said Legs. “Dor-ko and Slumbutter have three ways of getting people to follow them. Just three ways, mind you! They’re not nearly as clever as you might think.

“The first thing they do, if they want you to follow them, is that they flatter you. They tell you how great you are, and how much greater you could become if you just bowed down and followed them. If that doesn’t work, they will try and bribe you. They shower you with lands and gold and horses and anything else that they think will get you to follow them. If you can’t be flattered and if you can’t be bought, then they threaten you. They beat you, they take your wives and children captive, and they tell you that--if you ever want to see your family alive--your only choice is to serve them.

“So the castle is filled with people that never really wanted to serve Dor-ko in the first place. And you know what? After a while, everyone realizes--even the people that were simply flattered into serving--that service to Dor-ko and service to Slumbutter is futile. Do you know why? It’s because they serve a master that paid nothing for them. In the end, the master surrenders nothing, while the servants give up everything.”

“What do you mean?” asked Andres.

“I mean this,” Legs replied. “Everyone in Dor-ko’s castle is miserable. And that would be okay, if the master shared in the misery of his people. But he lives in comfort, while his people live in fear. And he got them for nothing. Flattery costs nothing--when Dor-ko flatters you, he doesn’t mean a word that he says. Talk is cheap, and Dor-ko’s talk is cheaper than most. Bribery costs nothing--when Dor-ko bribes someone, he simply takes money and land and horses from his enemies and hands them over to others. And even when he puts people in prison, it costs him nothing. He used his slaves to build his prison, and he uses slaves to grow the crops that feed his prisoners, and he uses slaves to prepare and deliver the food. So in the end, he gives up nothing and gains everything. And the people underneath him give up everything and gain nothing.

“You see, people will lay down their lives from a master that has paid a price for them. People will sacrifice for a master that loves them and willingly gives up his own comfort to help them. But sacrifice and love are things that Dor-ko knows nothing about. And eventually, the people cry out for escape.

“So there are about twenty or thirty people within Dor-ko’s castle that now serve King Maximilian. These people have been gathering together in the woods, in the middle of the night, about once a week. They’ve been plotting to plan a way to help the king and to hasten his return.

“About two or three weeks ago--it’s hard to keep track of time in the prison--the group found out that Dor-ko was planning an attack on Cliffton. So every night, these loyal subjects of the king have been sneaking out of the castle and developing a plan to disrupt the attack. They realize that they can’t completely stop Dor-ko, but they want to at least give the people of Cliffton more time to prepare to defend themselves. Three of them volunteered to surrender their horses and armor, so that we could escape. The other have been cutting down trees and piling up brush and stashing it just inside the woodline. And tonight--the night of Dor-ko’s planned attack--they are going to drag the timber across the road and start a great fire. That should slow down their assault, eh?”

“Wow,” was the only reply that Andres could muster.

“But it gets better!” said Legs, with excitement piercing through his slow speech. “When we found out that Gregorex was coming into the prison, we realized that now we had a way to warn Cliffton! We could spring him loose and send him back to his town, to let them know that Dor-ko was coming! And then we arranged to have you put in the same cell as Gregorex, so that you could be a part of the escape as well. It has all come together perfectly!”

Andres pondered this a moment. His always-active mind raced with questions. “How did the people find out about Dor-ko’s plan?” he asked.

“They found out from my father,” answered Legs. “You see, he has made it up to the highest ranks of Dor-ko’s forces. I guess you could call him a spy. He was forced to serve when I was tossed into prison. And he has worked hard ever since to earn the trust of Dor-ko and Slumbutter...knowing that one day he would strike back in revenge.”

“But how did you find out all this stuff?” inquired an incredulous Andres.

“My father kept me informed by sneaking notes to me. You see, there was a blind slave that, once a day, would deliver food to us prisoners. He would wander down to the dungeon, tapping his cane with one hand and carrying the food with the other hand. It took forever to feed all of us...he’d bring down one bowl of stew at a time, for that was all he could hold in one hand. And of course, as a blind man, he moved very slowly. But every time I got my stew, I found a little note at the bottom of the bowl. It was always wet and nasty, so I’d need to dry it out and wait till the next day to read it. But that was okay, because the food was delivered at night, and I never had enough light to read until about noon on the next day, when a little sliver of light would sneak through a crack in the wall. So anyways, that’s how I would find out. My father would write the note, slip it into the stew, and the unsuspecting blind slave would deliver it...”

With those words, Legs paused momentarily. Andres felt the awkwardness of the silence. “Why did you stop talking? What is it?” he asked.

“That old man back there...his voice sounded just like the blind servant’s voice...”

A great thought struck Andres. He blurted out, “That was no blind man! That was Ronaldus!”

Legs halted his horse and turned. “Who?” he asked.

“Ronaldus!” Andres bellowed. “You see, for the first ten years of my life, a blind man wandered around my hometown. Me and my brother, we just figured he was a pitiful old beggar. But then one day we realized that he wasn’t blind at all. He’d just been watching over us and waiting for the right time to send us on our mission to find our brother, Prince Dorian. It’s a long story, but anyway, that’s why the man seemed so familiar to me! And I bet that somehow, he worked his way into Dor-ko’s castle and pretended to be blind again! He was working for King Maximilian, right under Dor-ko’s ugly pointed nose!”

“By gum, you’re right,” declared Legs. “The king has his servants everywhere!”

“But who is the guy that you met in the corridor last night, after we got you out of your cell?” asked Andres.

“That was my father, of course,” replied Legs.

“Who is your father?”

Legs didn’t answer Andres’ question. Instead, he paused and sniffed the air. “Do you smell the smoke?” he asked. “I think the great fire is beginning! Let’s get moving!”

Soon the three horses were off at a gallop. It was a harrowing ride. Andres expected that at any moment, a branch would come whipping through the air and knock him off his mount. But the horses seemed to know the trail well, and soon it brought them back to the broad Eastern Road that had been carved through the dense forest. Andres noticed a glow off to his left. The threesome trotted toward the light, and soon saw the source of the brightness--a great blaze of fire, stretched across the entire road. The three horsemen pulled up there horses and just stared. They were transfixed, as though their feet were nailed to the ground. The inferno was awesome. Legs smiled, the way a person smiles when an elaborate plan comes together at last.

Some footsteps from behind startled Andres. He turned around and saw a riderless horse galloping toward them. The horse looked strangely familiar. It continued its gallop and came right up to Andres. In the light of the blazing fire, Andres peered into the horse’s eyes.

“It’s Ranger!” he declared. “That’s Cable’s horse! What is he doing out here? And look--he’s got scratches all over him!” Then reaching to stroke the horse’s mane, he asked gently, “What’s the matter, boy? Are you okay?”

But before Andres could say any more, Ranger turned and galloped away. He seemed to backtrack a bit, and soon his footsteps faded into the distance. Andres wanted with all his might to chase after him, but two things held him back. The first was the fact that he didn’t dare to leave the light and tear off into the darkness alone. The second was the fact that Gregorex grabbed him by the collar and said, “Look!”

Andres turned around and faced the fire again. They stared and saw two figures on horseback jump through the fire and come racing toward them. The taller horse was ridden by a relatively small figure, while the smaller horse was ridden by a mountain of a man. The riders continued unrelenting toward them.

“Raise your weapons!” bellowed Legs. Gregorex and Andres grabbed their spears and aimed them at the approaching riders. Legs shifted his horse to the middle and notched an arrow. “Halt!” he roared at the top of his lungs. “I order you to halt!”

When the approaching horses got within 50 yards, they slacked off their torrid pace. They came to a stop a few paces away.

Andres held his weapon at the ready. No one moved for about a minute. Everyone was breathing heavy and waiting for the next move. But as Andres peered into the darkness, he thought he recognized the rider of the larger horse. Unable to handle the silence any more, he slid off his horse and ran over. “Remmaline...is that you?” he asked.

Remmaline jumped off the horse. “Catch me!” she yelled to Andres. Andres caught her and gave his sister a hug. He wasn’t a particularly affectionate boy, but he had to admit that he was greatly relieved to see that his sister was still alive.

Meanwhile, the rider that had been with Remmaline slid off as well. He came over and bowed down before Andres. “Your Majesty, I beg your forgiveness,” he said.

“Pipes! It’s you!” declared Andres. “I...I kind of figured you were actually a good guy. I mean, you treated me pretty nice...for a kidnapper, anyway.”

“I am so sorry, my lord, to have taken you away from the castle. I...I just wanted to do my part to protect you. Pray forgive me, Prince Andres. And may your father forgive me as well.”

“Don’t worry about it, Pipes,” replied Andres. “You were good to me, and I’m sure my father will appreciate your taking care of Remmaline.” Then turning to his sister, Andres said, “I don’t know how you made it through that fire, but...I take back all that stuff about your being a sissy.”

While Andres and Remmaline were talking, Gregorex quietly slid off his horse and went over to Spartacus. “It’s good to see you again, old boy,” he muttered quietly. When no one was looking, he cried softly. Despite his gruff exterior, he was really a tender man inside. He thought his horse had perished at the hand of Philip. Now that he had his horse back, he longed for the day when he’d be reunited with his dear Annala as well.

Lastly, Legs walked up toward Andres. He tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Andres, do you remember asking who my father was? Well, I think you’ve already been introduced.” Then he turned toward Pipes and gave him a great embrace. “Thanks, Daddy,” he said, his voice choking. “We are free at last.”