The road that ran south from the edge of the
lake was simple enough to find using Lucian’s directions. The warehouses were
hidden in a deep part of a wooded area, but were also easy enough to locate.
Gerard sneaked round the buildings for a while and he found Gaius after only a
few minutes. He was delighted to be rescued, although it took him some time to
accept that the small army was not from the Crimson Flame Knights and that he
was safe with them. It didn’t help, of course, that he still didn’t speak
Ethian very well at all. Gerard had found it all very amusing – he had met
elves before, in Gorodnikov especially, and he didn’t have a particularly high
or low opinion of them. A lot of them were rich, however, so he tried to keep
on good terms with them.
Otto, on the other hand, felt deeply
honoured to have the company of a real imperial elf again. As they travelled south
he kept him riding alongside whenever possible, asking him questions concerning
Ortia, Monurbis and the West. He remembered fondly his elven mentor in Parkhaffen
Monastery, Volterius, who had taught him almost all that he knew about the
Empire, and he couldn’t resist the lure of having such company again. Otto’s
Visneorian was good, fortunately, and Gaius was quite happy to communicate with
him rather than having to try to speak Ethian again.
The route down to the mountains was
well marked but excessively narrow for a small army. There were delays while
horsemen lost their way and had to be found again. As the land rose the going
became increasingly difficult – the track that led parallel to the peaks was,
if anything, narrower and harder to traverse than the southern road, and they
struggled along it for two days before they came to the main road leading
through the pass. During that time Victoria became increasingly irascible and
impatient; it was Otto who had to take the full brunt of this anger, and every
time Victoria berated the grandmaster Gaius would look very uncomfortable and
attempt to retreat away from arguments that he didn’t fully understand.
Victoria insisted that he stayed and Gaius became more and more puzzled.
‘Who exactly is Miss Jenkins?’ he
finally asked of Otto, after several of these encounters.
Otto frowned – this was a question
that he neither wanted to have to answer nor knew how to. With a jolt he
realised that the truth was too embarrassing to admit and so, reverting back
about twenty years, he blurted out a whopper of a lie.
‘She’s an Ethian intelligence
officer’
Gaius thought about this for a
second: it was perhaps unfortunate that Otto had used exactly the same title
that Marthian used to describe Viola, and so he accepted the statement without
a blink.
‘Can I ask what she is doing in the Pale
Flame army?’
Otto realised that he was digging a
large hole for himself, but he could hardly stop now.
‘We have links with many
right-thinking governments who are willing to give…umm… help of different
kinds’ he said, hoping that this would satisfy the lieutenant.
‘I see’ said Gaius, clearly thinking hard
about what he had just been told.
‘So, why is she always so cross with
you?’
Otto swallowed. What could he say
now?
‘We have differences of opinions
about tactics…’
Gaius was just feeling ever more
confused, but he felt it wasn’t his place to ask any additional questions. It
wasn’t entirely clear to him at exactly what Imperial rank Otto would be placed,
but it was obvious that it was far above his own. He changed the subject, asking Otto for more
details about the nine hundred years that the Ortians had lost. Otto was
delighted to inform him about that historical period and at some length. In
this way the question of Victoria was abandoned, at least for the time being.
***
As soon as they hit the main road again they
encountered Crimson Flame guard posts. They were set up at every fifth mile
post, and were made up of a few bored soldiers in makeshift huts. The Crimson
Flame guards were not particularly surprised to see Otto’s little army, but
there was some doubt in their mind as to what they were meant to do with them,
so they told them to report to their superior officers, when they found them.
Victoria stayed inside the coach and they were soon bumping along down the
uneven surface of the road through the pass. Otto was also able to ascertain
that there was a camp, with about five thousand crimson knights, about a day’s
ride due north of Ortia, acting as a transit station from Monurbis to
Amansk. He really needed to avoid entering
Ortia from that side, as it would then be clear that he was fraternising with
the enemy. Fortunately Gaius knew that there was probably still the remains of
a road which ran towards Portalis from the bottom of the pass and then cut downwards
to create a shortcut to Ortia. If they took these ancient roads then they could
bypass the Crimson Flame encampment.
It took another day to get though the
pass and then yet another day to travel to where the old north-south road was
meant to be. After that there was no proper sign of a road at all and so they
had to navigate southward by the sun, through bramble and broom scrub, until
they caught sight of the city to their south-east. By these means they came to
the south gate of the white city on the afternoon of the seventh day after they
had left Castle Monurbis. However, they still needed to act with extreme
caution – Otto had no idea what had happened in Ortia when the crimson knights
had passed through, and neither did he have any clue whether the proconsul
would even know who he was.
***
Otto left his troops five miles or so south
of Ortia, just west of the old Ortia – Melloreis road and rode on with Gaius
and five of his most trusted personal bodyguards. His standard bearer, holding
the pale flame banner, also rode with them. They saw a few isolated elven
riders on their way, but none had come within hailing range, apparently being quite
satisfied to ride off immediately out of range.
Eventually the main Ortians guarding
units saw the approaching group and sent out a parleying formation, led by
Captain Erica, one of Aurelian’s newly promoted officers. She approached Otto’s
men very cautiously until she saw Gaius among them, at which point she sent her
troops forward to attempt to rescue him. Fortunately, Gaius was able to ride to
meet Erica and any conflict was avoided.
As soon as they had worked out Otto’s
identity and Gaius had told his story it was agreed that the grand master could
meet with the proconsul in the morning. Gaius rode into the city and was
greeted with enormous relief, particularly by Aurelian, who had feared that he
was dead.
Otto rode back to his army feeling
pleased with what he had achieved, but realising that Victoria would still be
unhappy with him – at no point had he be able to ask the one question that
Victoria wanted to have answered. He still had no idea where Lily was.
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