The Difficult Hundred

The Difficult Hundred

Dasher took Hadrin by both boots.

The griffon was remarkably gentle about it. His claws closed around the thick leather without breaking the skin, and he paused long enough for Drue to check the grip.

Drue mounted Dasher then they all stepped off the ledge of the mountain side roost.

Hadrin’s scream dropped away beneath them.

Kaelen and the others crowded onto the landing shelf as Dasher swept out beneath the turning vanes of Kael’Voryn with Hadrin dangling upside down below him.

“This is safer for his shoulder than the ankles,” Alster said. He watched the fork flicker in the sunlight. “The arm concerns me more.”

Dasher banked around the nearest mountain spur.

The rock passed so close beneath Hadrin’s head that his hair brushed snow from its crest.

“That concerns me too,” Alster added.

Drue looked down at his victim, reins loose in one hand.

“Dasher eats mountain deer,” he called. “Usually he kills them first.”

“What?” Hadrin shouted.

“I don’t supervise every meal.”

Dasher screeched.

Hadrin yelled through pain and fear of worse treatment, "Alright take me back. I’ll talk. I’ll talk.”

Back at the abandoned stable roost Hadrin told them there was a stableboy waiting at the Main South Landing Platform with orders to get word on the next messenger flight to Pyrathis if Hadrin did not return by midday. He told them the Guardians from Kefar numbered twenty and they had ordered loyalists placed along the roads, and some on patrol. He named three riders that were watching for them. He was to track you to your hideout and tell the Guardians where you were staying. He explained the guardians would land tonight and he would give them their location in the city.

Hadrin curled around his injured arm. “I have told you everything, now please, show pity for me.”

Alster knelt immediately. “Hold still.”

“You put it there.”

“And I have regretted it ever since.”

He poured Blena’s water over the fork and removed it in a very sharp pull which dragged his shoulder forward too before coming out of his arm. Hadrin screamed almost as loudly as he had in the air.

“That may have been torture,” Tajan said.

“No,” Blena replied. “That was infection control.”

Alster cleaned the wound and wrapped it with a strip torn from the least objectionable part of Hadrin’s cloak. He then examined the shoulder, set it with one swift movement and endured another burst of swearing.

“You will keep the dressing dry,” Alster said. “Change it tomorrow. If the skin grows hot, if the redness spreads, or if you develop a fever, find a healer.”

Hadrin stared at him. “Why?”

Alster tied off the bandage. “Because I am still one.”

Drue crouched in front of the rider. “You will miss your meeting with the boy.”

“He will send a message that you are definitely here.”

“No. Sella will show him to a locked storehouse.”

Hadrin closed his eyes.

“But someone will notice,” Kaelen said. “And when they do, they will know we were here.”

“By nightfall,” Hadrin replied. “Tomorrow at the latest. Once the Pyrathis posts hear, every loyal wing will watch the roads and skies out of here, looking for you.”

Kaelen looked towards the clouded peaks. “Six people moving together will be easy to find.”

Six Roads

They returned to the High Street Stable by separate routes.

The weeping stone walls of the stable seemed different now as they knew that it could no longer serve them. Kaelen stood at the table with a map of Emberwild Dominion. Blena and Tajan had already started packing up their things, taking only what they could carry when Alster and Drue arrived.

“We cannot leave together,” Kaelen said. “Hadrin confirmed what the notices already suggested. The larger the group, the easier we are to track.”

“And arrest,” Blena said.

“Or worse,” Drue added.

Alster looked towards the door leading out to High Street. “I was already leaving, this makes no difference for me.”

“Not alone,” Drue said.

Alster frowned. “You are needed here.”

“I am needed wherever the Rider Network is either helping us or accepting Kefar’s coin. Dasher and I can get you safely to Virielian Bloomlands and the Rider Outpost in Amaryn has loyal friends who I can blend in with, so I will support and build the Network from there. Besides without Dasher and I it would take you weeks to get there and you would have to go through every major port and road. I can have you there in less than a week.”

Kaelen moved one marker west across the map. “Drue and Alster go to the Virielian Bloomlands. Find Alfer. Learn who in the Network can still be trusted.”

Drue nodded.

Kaelen placed another marker on Ironroot Bastion.

“Word is that Thrankal went to Ironroot Bastion and his trip to Pyrathis was all a ruse so if he is still there we may be able to establish contact and let him know what we have discovered without getting arrested. At worst Blena and I can prepare a safe place for us there and we can meet up once circumstances allow.”

Blena looked at him from beneath her hood. “Plans usually work better when the people executing them are part of the planning.”

Kaelen paused. “Well things have changed in the last half hour and we need to respond quickly.”

“But you obviously had all this in mind or you wouldn’t be “acting” on it now?”

“The burden of leadership, besides Ironroot, is your home. I will need you there.”

“Ironroot is the greatest Crestrealm in Aethoria but I haven’t been back in two years. Some things may have changed.” She studied the marker. “But I know the hidden approaches, and I know the smaller ports in Bordrad Marshes and which gates will still open for me.”

Kaelen left the marker where it was. “Having a Chief of the largest city in Ironroot helping will be an asset too.” he said.

Blena’s expression became unreadable. “Having a Chief as a father means that I can’t ask for help that defies his honour bound duty. It may actually be a burden to him as he must serve Ironroot first.”

“Then we make our survival useful to Ironroot.”

One corner of her mouth lifted. “You have been spending too much time with me.”

“Nearly two years.”

“That would explain the improvement.”

Tajan rested both hands on the edge of Anderix’s drawings. “And us?”

Kaelen looked towards the broken ring.

“You and Anderix stay.”

Drue’s head snapped around. “Here?”

“Temporarily,” Kaelen said. “Someone must record what we can from the Alderat gate before Kefar seals it or tears it apart. Their continued control of Aethoria depends on controlling history and maintaining the world as it is. We need to know how it was built, what energy remains and whether it can be activated again.”

“And whether it reaches another location,” Tajan said.

Anderix tapped the section where he had drawn the underground power conduits in a plan that connected many of the Crestrealms with possibilities on a global scale. “It does. Or did. I also surmise that Alderat was only a receiver of some signal or keeper of information. There may be a device that sends signals too. There is much to investigate here.”

“Without getting arrested I hope,” Tajan reminded him.

“I have no intention of endangering our safety or interrupting our investigation.”

“Sella can help relocate you to an outpost outside of city boundaries. You can base your work from there.” Drue said.

Kaelen moved the final two markers together. “Search every inscription for Syterra, the Heartwell or another gate. Then ask Sella to help you travel to Ironroot. Do not wait if the loyalists begin searching Alderat.”

Tajan nodded. Anderix did not.

He was staring at the map.

“Anderix?” Kaelen asked.

“I understand the instruction.”

“That was not the question.”

Anderix looked around at the company, as if only just noticing the distance soon to exist between them.

“The arrangement is logical,” he said.

Tajan touched his forearm. “It is temporary.”

“Yes. That was also my conclusion.”

Alster began removing small bundles from his satchel. He handed what he thought they might need, salve to Kaelen, fever bark to Blena, two packets of heartleaf tea to Tajan.

Anderix accepted it. “I will return it to you when we see you again.”

Their evening was filled with reflections and reminders of past actions as they realised that it was the last time they would be together for a while.

Beneath the Wings

Drue and Alster left first.

Dasher launched from the western landing platform with Alster secured behind Drue protesting that the saddle strap had been designed for someone with no interest in future children. They climbed through the mist, circled once above Kael’Voryn and turned towards the distant green country where the Virielian Bloomlands waited beyond the seas and mountains.

Blena watched until they were gone.

“He will find him,” Tajan said.

“He had better,” Blena replied. “Or we may not see him again.”

Kaelen and Blena were just two hooded figures among the workers changing shifts beneath the immense northern stairs before sunrise. Once outside the city they left the trail of workers one at a time and travelled to an agreed path where riders leaving on regular sorties met them to carry them down to the lowlands. Kaelen did not look back until they reached the last bridge. Blena did.

High above them, griffons crossed and recrossed the pale sky, carrying messages, medicines, trade contracts and betrayals from one horizon to another.

By nightfall, the company that had crossed realms together had become three smaller shadows moving in different directions.

Drue and Alster had flown east towards Virielia and a missing brother.

Kaelen and Blena had turned north towards Ironroot Bastion and a past Blena had never fully escaped.

Far below them and still in the Emberwild Dominion, on top of the mountain, Tajan and Anderix remained beside Alderat’s half buried machinery. They measured the broken ring, traced the channels cut into the floor and listened to the ancient engines turn beneath their feet.

At last, Tajan set down her charcoal.

“We should sleep.”

“Soon,” Anderix said.

“You said that .01 time ago.”

“Then I have been consistent.”

She took the lamp and walked towards the path that led back to their temporary camp. After one final glance at his instruments, Anderix followed.

Their footsteps faded.

The mechanisms beneath Alderat continued to hum.

A spark climbed the fractured ring.

Another followed.

Light filed the broken section crossed the break.

The empty quadrant of the arch filled with lines of light, then filled with a thin sheet of light like green moonlight trapped beneath ice. It crackled and spat.

A voice emerged through the static.

“Receiver restored.” The sheet of light trembled.

Far away, another voice answered.

“They found us.”

Thy Quest 7: Map the Three Paths
By nightfall, the original company has divided into three groups. Create a route map or three-column chart showing who travels together, where each group is going and its immediate goal. Add one danger each group may face and explain in two or three sentences why splitting apart may help the mission even though it makes every group more vulnerable.