Kelven's Riddle Book Four by Hylton Daniel

Author:Hylton, Daniel [Hylton, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2013-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

40.

Aram, Boman, Edwar, and Matibar, along with Wamlak, Jonwood, Mallet, and thirty mounted men swung into the gap on the border of Cumberland that led northward onto the great plains whereupon they would turn west. Aram had three goals in mind. The first was to discover the route on the southwestern part of the plains where Manon had diverted the slave trains and disrupt any of that activity he found being conducted. Unable to transport them any great distance, he intended upon simply freeing the women and the drivers into whatever local populations of free people that might be round about. He would slay the attendant lashers and overseers, burn the wagons, and give the oxen to nearby farmers, if there were any. If there were no such populations, he would be tasked with moving the women and drivers eastward through dangerous and unknown territory. It was a problem which he’d decided would be resolved as – and if – it arose.

While in the west, he also wanted to look upon the ravaged land of Aniza and see whether or not there were yet people in that region to which he might give aid. Or perhaps they could be rescued and folded into the ranks of the free people – in Cumberland maybe. Marcus had told Aram of his suspicion that Governor Kitchell was rapidly hardening toward making a decision to stop the flow of his young women into the north, so any people that he and his company made free and then released into the Governor’s care would very likely be protected.

In conjunction with those other purposes, this journey would also enlarge Aram’s knowledge of the geography of this part of the world; knowledge that he might use to his advantage in the war against Manon.

At least as important as any of those other reasons, and perhaps even more pressing, was his desire to gain a clearer idea of the number and conditions of the people that dwelt on the southern fringe of the plains, and how he might begin the process of their liberation.

In any event, he was determined upon the killing of any lashers and overseers they encountered, thereby lessening the amount of evil in the world and helping to render the troops that rode with him as yet another cadre of hardened veterans.

They exited the gap and rode up the road by the valley where they had met Manon’s forces in the spring. As they thundered over the bridge past the battlefield, every head was turned to the left, staring at the ground where so much blood had been spilled. Much had been lost upon that piece of ground, but much of lasting substance had also been gained. Though every man in the column had been engaged on that day, each of them other than Aram and Matibar felt, strangely enough, that he was gazing upon something mysterious of which until now he had heard only rumor.

Captain Matibar’s feelings were different indeed. The Senecan had to admit privately to himself that he entertained something that felt very akin to jealousy.

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