134 – Set the trap

  Caspian joined Karen in bringing her horse tack in. “Steven says you have to do to the kids what you did to Rox and him.”

  “Yes, and he’s not happy about it.” Karen picked up the saddle and its related things.

  “I think he just wants to get home.” Caspian got the bridle and saddle bags.

  “I can sympathize. On the other hand, Rox wants to prevent this from ever happening again. That means charging into a fight. That is why I need the time with the kids and Rox.”

  They went into the bunkhouse, and Karen turned to the tack area and an open saddle horse.

  “And where will I be in all this?” Caspian hung the bridle and related stuff on the end of the saddle horse.

  Karen put the saddle down, then the blanket over top of it. Caspian handed her the saddle bags. “With me. Wherever that ends up being.”

  Caspian stopped, realizing that Karen had just offered information in opposition to her previous reticence. Karen also realized that she had said more than she wanted to.

  “I never said that. Don’t say anything to the Caplan’s.” Karen’s demeanor showed its sharp edges.

  Caspian cocked his head slightly. “Does that have to do with my dying?”

  “Yeah. Drop it, or you will.” Karen turned and walked away.

  Caspian almost reached out to swat her attractive fanny as she went.

  As the afternoon progressed, curtains were located to divide the sleeping areas, and hung from curtain rods that gridded the room overhead. Karen designated her own bunk on the right hand, with Caspian a little down from her. Steven and Rox designated a pair for themselves on the left, with Diana and Alex taking the next two separating their own areas.

  The bunk house also had a bath house attached at the far end. The hot water was limited in supply, but replenished quickly from a pump on a well. There were only three tubs, but everyone was able to wash up with a few awkward moments as people changed out. Afterword they were able to do some laundry, which was hung across some hooks and lines strung for the purpose.

  The storm began to intensify as night fell. A small caravan arrived just before dark, and filled the stable with their animals. One of the stallions in the group took notice of Karen’s horse, but they were separated before trouble of any kind could start.

  Dinner was a hardy cafeteria meal shared by the livery stable and all the people who both worked and lodged there. The caravan also shared the meal, before seeking lodging elsewhere. The trader’s dialect was the most common language at the table, and it took Diana and Alex a few moments to get it rolling off their tongues.

  After dinner while Steven and Caspian talked with others, Karen took Rod and the kids back to the bath house for privacy. Rox paused with Diana paying attention, and put up a magic privacy barrier sealing the room.

  Karen sat down on the floor with the others following in a loose circle. Diana and Alex sat on either side of their mother.

  “Now, Diana, Alex, do you know why you were kidnapped to begin with?”

  Diana shook her head.

  “No,” Alex said emphatically.

  Karen looked at Rox, and then continued. “You were kidnapped because the king and queen of this land are afraid of you. At some point in their lives, you will kill them. I have done some research about this, and need to put that information into your minds, so that you can recall it when you need it but not until then.”

  Alex scoffed. “Like those people did to me, to put their language into my head.”

  Karen nodded. “Right. Did it hurt?”

  “No, but I had some strange dreams, and they were all in their language. It took two days before I could speak it properly.”

  Rox picked up the explanations. “I want to take care of this now. I am afraid that if we try to leave and go north now, they will discover that you are gone and come back to get you. Then neither I nor your Father may be able to come get you.”

  “Dad wants to go home right now.” Diana interjected.

  “I know he does. But he also does not want to have to come back.” Rox rubbed Diana’s back. “He has agreed to do this. So Karen is going to share with us what she has, then tomorrow we start for Skarg, and see where things go from there.”

  Karen took control of the gathering. “Roxanne, I will do you first, so that the kids can see what happens.”

  Rox nodded. “Diana, can you sense the magic shell on the room? Warn us if it changes. Do I need to lie down?”

  “So you don’t risk falling down, yes.”

  Rox lay with her head before Karen’s lap, and Karen put her hands onto Rox’s face.

  “The Vulcan mind meld,” Alex quipped.

  “Hush, Alex,” Rox answered.

  Soon Alex got up, and Rox talked Diana through dropping the shell on the room. They went back out into the main room of the bunkhouse.

  Steven looked up from lying on a bunk. “What were you doing in there?”

  “Just this.” Karen stepped up to him and put her hand on his head. She touched his mind and flooded it with all the information she had learned on how to defeat the king, his mannerisms and habits, and how she expected the meeting to go.

  Steven passed out from the force of Karen’s actions. She had to buttress herself by her psionics to not appear weakened, as she crossed the room to her curtained off bunk where she quickly went to sleep. Rox pulled Steven’s blanked over him, and saw that the kids were also getting ready for bed.

  Caspian watched sitting on his bunk. “So, what did you learn?”

  “That Karen is a remarkable woman. And Steven can sometimes be as stubborn as I am. We set out in the morning, for Skarg.”

  “Do you have a plan?” Caspian got up and doused the candles that lit the bunkhouse in a circuit of the room

  “See what happens.” Rox closed the curtain for her and Steven’s area and lay down on the bunk next to Steven, wishing the bed frames were large enough to accommodate two people.

  Journal of Steven Caplan: Day 155

  Karen and Rox both demonstrate what happens when two women get an idea going on between them. Rox respects my wishes to just get out of here, but has the bit in her teeth to go get in a fight, rather than quietly slip away. Karen has more going on that she will not talk about. In another story she might be called the Spook haunting the operation.

  Yet I can’t shake the feeling that I should keep my attitudes to myself, and just go along and let things happen. That everything will somehow work out.

  I’m being railroaded here!

  After the storm blew over, the temperature dipped again, and everything froze. But having spent the afternoon and evening in a warm shelter, the ponies and horse were refreshed and ready to go. Karen arranged that the other caravan went first, but they sent south instead of toward Skarg.

  The sky was cloudless and bitter cold, but slowly the forest began to warm up with a slight east-going breeze. As things thawed, they went from frozen to dry, skipping being muddy. The moons were coming up later each day and each in their time advancing through their cycles, and all three advancing toward a vertical conjunction.

  As they walked Alex was less leery of Karen, and Diana began asking Caspian questions about magic that surprised him. Cyrril stayed away from Diana, not being unfriendly, just stand-offish. Steven was surly, but went with things. Soon he was holding his wife’s hand as they walked. Karen set a slightly faster pace, and soon the kids were riding the ponies as the rest quick walked.

  The Caplan’s and their guides stopped for the day a bit early in the mid afternoon, and Karen led them off the road and aside into an unused meadow that might have once been a way station. Steven and Rox gave each others knowing looks as they evaluated the place.

  The kids quickly set to gathering firewood. Roxanne and Caspian put the fire ring and camp together. Steven followed the kids to the nearby stream and after some investigation picked a spot to fill all the water bags. Karen disappeared for a bit then returned with three freshly killed critters to add to the groceries for dinner.

  Steven had become proficient in skinning and cleaning critters, of necessity. They still reminded him of rabbits, but were a bit larger in body and more skittish, with smaller ears and larger noses. Alex was curious to watch Steven slaughter the critters. Diana just wanted to get them cooking; they did not begin to look like food until over the fire. Shortly they were gathered around a fire, with three carcasses cooking on makeshift spits. After washing his hands, Steven got one dutch oven going with a loaf of bread. Rox got the other going with vegetables slow roasting.

  Alex saw them first at the same moment that Cyrril heard them.

  “Look, a biker gang.” Alex pointed across the fire and into the trees.

  The adults turned to look where he was pointing.

  “Shut up, you little freak. They’re new wave.” Diana pushed Alex over to hide behind the log.

  Over twenty light infantry men charged at them from the woods coming into the meadow.

  Caspian spoke and waved his hand across the approaching line. The closest three ran into an invisible field of force, and staggered as they kept coming. Caspian stood, and spoke more forcefully, tossed a bit of stuff from his pocket, and waved back across the line. A vaguely amber field of light appeared at half the distance to the charging foe.

  Caspian stood where he was, brandishing his staff in one hand and his hand-crossbow in the other, and readying another spell.

  A feeling of déjà vu passed over Steven as he rolled to his right, grabbed his sword from its sheath, and stood as he turned. His mood lightened as he paused to survey the situation, and charged at the left side of the line.

  Roxanne lunged to her left and got her staff. She activated the ends, and was a step ahead of Steven going to the right.

  Karen stood, and grabbed the kids as they went over the log, and pulled them to the ground. “Stay down. We can handle this.”

  Karen watched Roxanne get to Caspian’s barrier, which two troopers had hit going full bore and were now sprawled out beside. Roxanne swung one end of the staff into the barrier, nullifying that part of it, and in a continued motion with the other end she batted a trooper fifteen feet through the air. Steven swung his sword through the barrier, collapsing his section and smashed into the shield of the closest trooper, knocking him down. The battle was well joined, as Karen had choreographed the night before in her last psionic lessons to the Caplan’s.

135 – Spring the trap

  Karen put a hand on each child’s shoulder, and gave them a mild psionic shock stunning their motor functions. She then stood up, pulled her hood over her head and her scarf over her nose, and stepped directly behind Caspian. He cut loose with a lightening bolt that ripped into another trooper, split into two forks and continued to split through more troopers and several trees. Karen quickly reached around and cupped Caspian’s chin with her left hand, and tipped his head back into her right hand. With him off guard, she stunned him and quickly entered his mind. With practiced swiftness she shut off all his voluntary motor functions. To the world he would look dead. She then shut down his mind. To any cursory examination, he would appear dead, until she turned his mind back on. He was out cold before he could flinch. His heart and breathing became very slow. To anybody looking, it looked like she broke his neck.

  Karen dropped Caspian, careful that he did not fall in the fire, and pulled her sai’s from their sheaths. Diana weakly spoke as Karen stepped away.

  “You killed him. I thought you were a friend.”

  The pathos in Diana’s voice hurt more than any wound Karen had received to her body. More than Karen could afford to reveal. Jobs weren’t supposed to get this personal.

  “I’m an assassin, kid. It’s what I do.”

  Karen the blocked the sword of an over zealous trooper with her left sai, and broke his sword arm with a strike from her right. She then proceeded to keep the kids and Caspian from further harm, while Roxanne and Steven were overwhelmed and captured.

  Steven turned to see Caspian fall from Karen’s hands, and then had to worry about his own fight. Quickly he was surrounded by six uniformed and armored pike men, their pikes pointed at him. He put his hands out, and dropped his sword and knife, while looking around. Roxanne was being similarly contained. He kept his hands open and away from his sides. Two other men took his arms and restrained them as they bound his arms behind his back. They escorted him back toward the camp. One of the men stopped to pick up his sword and knife. They stopped ten paces from the camp.

  Karen was more or less where she had always stood, with her hood throwing her face into deep shadows. Caspian was on the ground at her feet. The kids were being carried around the fire circle by some more of the troop. Steven and Rox were knelt down near each other, but the pike-men still surrounded them. Alex and Diana looked dazed, as they were put on the ground between their parents, and told to sit quietly. Steven noticed that four of the guards were cradling hurt arms, and one a bad limp, as they came or were helped away from Karen. And two others were picking up weapons from the ground near her.

  Déjà vu hit like a ton of bricks as Steven recognized was what going on. With it came the realization that everything would work out for the best in the end, though things would be uncomfortable for a while first. He leaned over to Rox, and spoke quietly in English.

  “It’s that time. The time of my dream. Everything will work out.”

  “Wonderful,” Rox deadpanned. “Any idea how or how soon?”

  “Nope. But it can’t be too long.” Steven was full of ambivalence as he answered.

  “Well, you said this was Karen’s trap. Now we have sprung it. So, are we the first mouse or the second?”

  The 50 or so troopers mulled about as a wagon was brought in from the woods. The Captain of the troop riding on horseback came in at the same time as a cart, and took charge. Some grouped off, and began pulling some stuff from the cart, and began putting something together. Quickly they assembled four cages. The severely wounded were attended to and loaded onto the wagon, the walking wounded arranged behind it. The dead were lined up on the other side of the cart from the Caplan’s. Also the troop kept themselves between the Caplan’s and Karen as much as possible. Cyrril was found and placed on Caspian, who was laid next to the several dead troopers.

  Steven noticed Karen doing something with her horse and their cart, but could not see what.

  Once the cages were finished, they were brought over behind the Caplan’s. They looked like wood crates with two of three slats removed on all six sides. One side was not yet attached. Carry handles were attached to the tops of the boxes.

  The Captain stopped his horse in front of them. “You are now prisoners of the King. By his orders: to render you compliant you are to be stripped and carried to his audience for further disposition. Behave well, and you will be honorably treated. There are blankets for you to wrap in against the weather. Now, strip.”

  The pike men did not withdraw, as two men lifted each Caplan to his or her feet. Steven felt his bonds on his wrists loosed, and watched the men stand back. He then looked at Roxanne, up at the horseman, and back at Roxanne, and each child.

  Steven looked back up. “On your word of honor.” He turned to his family. “Do as he says. Take off your clothes.”

  Steven started with his girdle, then his leather coat, and proceeded from there. A man came forward and took his stuff as he took it off. The same was done for each of his family. Steven noticed that his sword had been wiped clean and was sheathed, as was his knife. Shortly he stood naked. Very cold manacles were put around his ankles, and wrists, and the leads from these hooked through a collar at his throat. He was then given a blanket with a hole in the middle to wear as a poncho. Steven noticed that the troopers appeared to be acting with as much respect and courtesy as they could. They even got the Caplan’s extra blankets to wrap in.

  They were then led over to the cages, and each put in one. Diana and Alex were still dazed, and so were manhandled a bit to do this. Diana was obviously crying. Alex trying to hold strong. Roxanne, while frustrated, looked resigned. But Steven could see fire smoldering behind her eyes. They were put into the cages, and the sides secured on. Steven found he had enough room to sit, or crouch a bit. But not enough to unbend his legs. And the boards on the bottom were far enough apart that he could not sit on two comfortably. Most of the blanket ended up wadded up as a cushion. Poles were fixed to the carry handles on the top.

  The Captain then assigned two troopers to stay and attend to the dead, and then several other bearers for the cages and a marching order. Steven is carried in front, with Alex next, then Roxanne and Diana. Eventually Diana is placed beside Steven in the marching order with Rox behind her and next to Alex. All their things are put onto a common litter, and that carried behind them on their cart, with it put into line behind the cages. The trooper’s wagon is at the back, with the walking wounded in ranks or behind the wagon. A second wagon appeared from the forest, with more of the trooper’s cargo on board. It was placed at the rear of the line when it finally moved out.

  “Anyone who molests, or touches these prisoners in any untoward manor will have that part of his body cut off. Their majesties want them intact.”

  Karen tied her horse aside and put her things she had pulled off the cart down on top of Caspian’s pack and things, as though they were her own. She then did her best to stand aside from the troopers.

  As the party departed the Captain sat on his horse and watched. The two he detailed to stay behind mulled about lining up the dead, and generally cleaning up. He watched as the party left and then nudged his horse over to where the assassin was watching all this from across the fire. He untied four sacks from his saddle horn, and tossed them across the fire ring to her. They landed with the heavy sound of coins. She picked the sacks up, finding the total near thirty pounds. Opening them in turn, she sifted through a mixture of coins and precious stones. The rest of the Queen’s five pounds, and the Viceroy’s twenty five plus.

  “Is that satisfactory?”

  She looked up. “Yes. Treat them well.”

  At that he reined his horse around and rode out after the party and joined the rear guard.

  The caravan headed out to the road and went along toward Skarg for an hour, before stopping in the road, and setting up camp. The food in the Caplan’s cart was added to the food from the troopers. However the dutch ovens had been left behind.

  It rained that night, and the Caplan’s were allowed to sleep under their cart, being given their underwear back.

  The caravan carried the Caplan’s for several days, giving only enough food and water to keep hunger and thirst bearable. They were told that when they have to relieve themselves, to let their bearers know, and they will leave the trail. They are not allowed to speak. In all of this, Steven felt no despair, only a sense of waiting. Roxanne finally seemed to pick up on this, and tried to join him. Alex and Diana were the most upset. On the second day they are all allowed, one at a time to get out and walk for a few moments. This was repeated every so often there after, as they were carried through the forest back to Skarg.

  Journal of Steven Caplan: Day 156-161 (retrospective)

  We traveled a different road from the one we went out on. Further, we turned onto a side road and went south to a different spoke road to go into Skarg. The wounded were separated from the company at this time. I never learned what happened to them. This took us maybe two extra days. We wondered why, but none of the guards were willing to talk; no surprise there. Diana and Alex got over things quick. We were generally treated well

  The weather warmed back up very slowly. Otherwise it was cold and damp.

  In the end we were on out sixth day in custody when we finally passed through the gates of Skarg.

  The company came into Skarg by a different gate than Steven or Rox, or the kids had been through after six days of cold damp travel. Just before the gates the cages were opened, and the chains and collars were put back on. These had been left off when the Caplan’s were in the cages, for the last week. The road they were on wound a little through the usual markets and warehouses before passing through some residential areas. They passed through four districts, and three city walls that defined these districts. As they made their way through some of the locals jeered them and threw garbage and filth at them. Most locals just got out of the way. The troop then arrived at the center districts of the city and crossed a bridge to the Fortress.

  Upon entering the outer fortress walls, the troop divided by into smaller troops.  Steven and Alex and their litter of their things are taken into the fortress. Rox and Diana are carried through a different entrance. The remainder and the Caplan’s cart are taken in a third direction.