The Unsuspecting Mage - Brian S. Pratt [156]
“Why not allow them to go on into Trademeet?” Miko asks.
“Those are the Captain’s orders and he didn’t explain himself to me,” the soldier replies.
“No problem,” James tells him. “We can camp a little further back down the road tonight and then continue on over in the morning.”
“Sorry,” he says, “but we got orders that no one is to be allowed down the east side of the Pass until further notice.”
“What?” James exclaims. “Why?”
Looking like he’s tired of explaining the same thing over and over, the soldier says, “Like I said before, that’s the Captains orders and he doesn’t explain them to me.” The soldier, having said all he intends to, turns around and heads back toward the camp that has been set up at the way stop.
“Now what are we going to do?” Miko asks.
James gives Miko an exasperated look and says, “Would you stop asking me that!”
“Alright, alright,” he replies.
“Let’s go back down a ways and find a campsite,” James says. “Maybe we can think of something.”
Going back down the road, they find a widening of the road with enough room for them to make their camp and not be on the road. James sends Miko to gather firewood before it gets dark while he stakes out the horses and gets them ready for the night.
Miko makes three scavenging trips before collecting a sufficient store of firewood to last throughout the night. James gets the fire going and has dinner started before the light completely fades. While sitting around the fire eating dinner, two men appear from the direction of the way stop and approach their campfire.
“Hello,” one of the men says.
“Good evening gentlemen,” James replies, then waits to see what they will do.
They approach a little closer to the fire and James can see that they are eyeing their food hungrily. He says to them, “Would you two care to share our fire this evening? We have enough to share.”
“Yes, we’d like that,” the other man says. “But we actually came to see if you could spare some for our families. You see we fled Saragon when it fell with nothing but the clothes on our backs.”
“Certainly,” James says, “if you don’t have too many,”
The taller of the two men almost breaks down and cries while the other says, “Thank you very much.” Turning to the taller man he says, “Silas, go and bring ‘em over.”
Silas nods and heads back toward the refugee camp. The man says, “My name is Bellon, I was a farmer before the Empire’s army sacked our city.”
“How did you get out?” Miko asks.
“When the Empire overran the walls, it was total chaos,” Bellon explains. “People were running in every direction trying to get out. My grandfather used to be a smuggler way back when he was a younger man and once showed me an old smuggler route into the city that he said no one, not even the Governor knew about. Silas and I found it and used it to get our families out past the walls. The tunnel came out in a pile of old stones a dozen yards from the river, almost two miles north of the city.”
“We were past the enemy lines and ran all night and all day, hiding whenever we heard someone approaching. We did that until we saw some of our soldiers coming from the City of Light. We waved them down and told them where we were from and what had happened. They told us to head here, saying we could find refuge and safety.”
“Remarkable story,” James says. About that time, Silas returns with the rest, two women, an older boy and two smaller children. All have the lost look of those who have had their lives torn asunder.
James stands when the ladies approach and says, “Welcome to our campfire. You are welcome to stay here the night if you wish. We don’t have a lot of food, but what we do have we will gladly share.” Turning to Miko, he says, “Get the rest of the food out of the bags and pass it out, they look as if they could use it.”
The two families situate themselves on the ground around the campfire and wait for Miko to distribute