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More soldiers are advancing upon them from all directions as James gets into the saddle. A sound of turning gears and the gates behind them begin to open as even more soldiers start pouring through.

Once James is securely in the saddle, Jiron kicks his horse into a gallop again and they race away from the city into the night. Behind them, they see hundreds of soldiers pouring out of the gates but quickly fall behind.

The road they find themselves on follows the river as it flows on their left. After getting his bearings, he realizes this is the same river they had followed on the way down to Saragon. And up ahead of them is a large force of men and a mage, perhaps even now waiting for them.

Chapter Nineteen

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As they follow the road in the dark, James can’t get the death of the slaves off his mind. A tear runs down his cheek as his emotions begin getting to him.

“You okay?” asks Jiron after they’ve ridden in silence for awhile.

“Just thinking of Derrion and the others back there, sacrificing themselves so we could escape,” he says sadly.

“I wouldn’t think of it that way,” replies Jiron. “They were fighting for their freedom, whether in death or in life. No man who has known freedom can long suffer slavery, they are either broken spiritually and are no longer the men they once were. Or they fight and die.”

James rides in silence as he thinks about what Jiron had told him.

“How or why they came to aid us, we’ll never know,” Jiron continues. “I would expect something like this has been planned for some time, seeing as how they escaped their pens so readily. You just gave them the excuse.” When James glances over to him, he adds, “This was going to happen anyway, I expect. So don’t take it so personally.”

Sighing, James says, “I suppose you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” he insists. “If you take personally the decisions of others, you’ll be carrying the weight of an enormous amount of guilt. You didn’t ask them to fight and die back there, they volunteered knowing full well what their fate would be. I honor their choice to die as men, not slaves.”

Taking a deep breath, James gets his emotions under control and replies, “Maybe Perrilin will make a song about them?”

“Probably,” he agrees. “People like songs about hopeless struggles for a good cause.”

“I’ll tell him all about it next time I see him,” he says. He feels better having decided a course of action with which he can honor their sacrifice.

“Now,” says Jiron, “we have to figure out how to get back to Cardri.” Glancing to James he adds, “Providing of course we’re going back to Cardri?”

“Yes,” replies James. “We’re going home.”

“Good,” states Jiron. “By morning we should be at that town up ahead with the bridge we passed on the way down. Somehow, we need to cross it.”

“Let’s push a little harder so we can make it before dawn,” suggests James. “Hopefully we can make it across before it gets light.”

With that, they both increase their speed to a gallop. Over the course of the next several hours, they alternate speeds between a fast gallop and a trop for optimum speed while at the same time saving their horses’ strength. They could well need it when they get there.

An hour into their ride, Jiron asks, “How far away can you sense magic?”

“I don’t know,” replies James, “half a mile or so, maybe a mile. Why?”

“Oh, I was just thinking of that mage you said you detected at the town north of the one we’re heading for,” he explains. “I was worried he may have sensed what you did back at Saragon.”

“I doubt it,” James assures him. “I didn’t do anything very strong.”

“That’s a relief,” he says.

After several more hours of riding, the sky to the east has begun to lighten with the approach of dawn, and still the town has not appeared. Worried about not making it in time, they increase their speed.

It isn’t until the sun crests the horizon that the town finally appears before them in the distance. “Now what?” James asks.

The town still has a garrison of soldiers, a hundred or so from the looks of it. Two stand