Amenozume, Heights and Depths by Jeffrey Quyle

Author:Jeffrey Quyle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Ingenairii Press
Published: 2018-08-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

When Silas awoke in the morning, the sun was above the horizon, visible from the campsite that rested on the top of a high ridge. The others were already awake, sitting and quietly eating small meals of food from their packs.

“Do you have food to share?” Silas asked Mata, who was seated on a nearby fallen tree, watching him as she ate.

“Of course,” she pulled some dry fruit from her pack, along with a stale bread roll.

“Now that you’re awake, everyone is going to want to know what to do next,” she warned him, as they saw heads turn to look at the pair of them.

The princess and Gwen were standing together, he saw. He patted Mata’s knee, then walked over to check in with the two refugees from the palace.

“We need a plan for next steps?” he guessed. Both nodded agreement.

“Lexy,” he called over the girl from the rebel army.

“Can someone draw a map in the dirt that shows where we are, where the rebel forces are, and where the city is?” he asked.

The princess used a stick to outline the island, then placed Amenozume city and its harbor in place in the northeast. She stuck a twig in the ground to indicate where they were approximately located to the south.

“And the patriots are trying to get together over here,” Lexy indicated a third location.

“So, the Brigamme Tracker is going to come from here, with a large group of soldiers I presume, and track us,” Silas pointed to the city. “And the mountain terrain just gets rougher as we go further in this direction?” he indicated the southeast portions of the island.

“That’s correct,” Gwen agreed.

“So, we can use the Princess as bait to draw the Tracker and his people deep into the mountains,” Silas began.

“You are not going to use the Princess as bait!” Gwen immediately protested.

“Hear his plan first,” Lumene held her hand up to silence Gwen.

“And then maybe the rebels could fall in behind the Tracker, and capture the whole unit. We’re never going to evade the Tracker in the long run, it can’t be done,” Silas went on. “But we can make the chase so slow and difficult that there will be plenty of time for the rebels to end up trapping an isolated squad from the palace.”

“How long would all of this take? How quickly could you go to the rebels and persuade them to send a force out to rescue us?” Lumene asked Lexy.

“From here? We’d need three days to reach the rebel camp where Card was trying to assemble everyone so that we could recover,” Lexy estimated. “I could go, but I don’t know that they’d listen to me.”

“Would they listen to Gwen?” Silas asked. “She’s the Princess’s own bodyguard.”

“And she’s going to stay right with the Princess from now on,” Gwen growled her response.

“How can we persuade them to help?” Lumene asked.

“Let the clever boy find an answer,” Gwen replied. “Can you make lightning strike them or something similar?” she asked Silas.

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