S
ticks caught up with Prince Lewis over a league away. Lewis and Pratt were marching a force just over two hundred men over the grasslands. They were all knights in full suits of armor, riding on horseback. The banners of the House of Steel flapped in the wind.
“Five hundred Gond, you say?” Prince Lewis said. His face was ashen and his shoulders slumping. He held one hand over his side and the other on the reins of his horse. A stiff breeze rustled his hair. “And Ruger rides into the jaws of death. So like him.” He glanced at his second in command. “What do you think, Pratt? Do you care to taste the sting of the lead hornets?”
“Those cowardly barbarians fear a straight-up fight.” Pratt shook his head. “If it is true what you say, that one man can kill many from a great distance, then I say we need a fuller army.”
Lewis scratched an eyelid and said, “True.” He eyeballed the rifle slung over Sticks’s shoulder. “Why, she could take you out, Pratt, at close range.”
Pratt blanched.
“I’d never assault the crown,” Sticks said as she continued to ride alongside the prince. She didn’t know what else to say. She’d already given the prince all the information she had at her disposal. She’d shared Ruger’s plan too, which was, for lack of a better word, insane. “Prince Lewis, might I ask what you are thinking? I should return quickly.”
Prince Lewis leaned his head her way and said, “It’s a big decision. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I didn’t want to face those rifles again.” He tapped his chest. Underneath his cape, he wore a full breastplate made from the King’s Steel. A helmet of the King’s Guardians hung from the saddle. “The things I have to do to become king.”
They kept riding, eyes ahead, without saying a word.
Pratt finally broke the silence and said, “I like this part of the country. I prefer the seaside for retirement, but I must admit, after this trek, the fields of wildflowers are growing on me.”
“Is that all you think about? Retirement?”
“I’ll be old someday,” Pratt replied. “My bones groan. My father told me when your joints start feeling as stiff as wood, the old time is coming.”
“You aren’t going to have an old time. You’ll be the Guardian Commander, protecting me and my family. Assuming I get the chance to have one.” Lewis waved his hand at a pair of men riding not far behind him. “Derek. Gravely. Come.”
Two rugged men rode up into the group. They were Guardians in full armor. Derek had a full smile on his face. Gravely was stone-faced and ashen.
“My finest scouts,” Lewis said to Sticks. “They will ride with you and report back to me.”
Derek gave Sticks a flirty nod. Gravely didn’t even look her direction.
Prince Lewis sucked his teeth. “If you chance upon Ruger, tell him that we’ll get there when we get there. Oh, and one more thing. Don’t get ambushed.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Sticks whipped the reins of her horse and galloped off with Derek and Gravely right on her tail. She didn’t know what to make of Lewis’s response. He didn’t seem eager at all to engage in full battle with the Gond. She didn’t blame him either. The Henchmen were in way over their heads.
What in the Elders is Ruger going to do? If the Gond sniff us out, they’ll slaughter them.
She spurred her horse onward, faster and faster. They rode nonstop before slowing to a trot.
“Why did we slow down?” Gravely asked in a dry voice.
Sticks felt spiders crawling up her back. The prairie breeze died down. Ahead were long fields of tall grasses. She’d ridden through it once already, but something seemed different. She slowed her horse to a walk.
Derek exchanged a look with Gravely. “Say, pretty, what’s got you all twitchy? Didn’t you just pass through here?”
“Yeah.” She unshouldered the rifle and flipped the safety mechanism from Safe to Fire. “That doesn’t mean something might not have crawled in there since I passed. I have a feeling. Keep your eyes open.”
She led the trio into the high grass. The stretch of field was hundreds of yards long. She followed the flattened path in the waist-high grasses she’d plowed through over an hour earlier.
A spotted deer burst out of the grass.
Sticks and the men jumped in their saddles.
Derek chuckled. “Now my heart is moved by the sight of a comely woman. Heh heh heh. If there is something in this grass that’s not a bug or varmint, I think we’d be better suited to speed along.”
Sticks led her horse in a zigzag pattern, keeping the rifle barrel pointed ahead and downward. She noticed small trees sticking up only a few feet out of the high grass. She didn’t remember seeing them before. She pointed her weapon at the trees.
Derek and Gravely acknowledged her signal. They pulled their swords free, split away from each other, and moved toward the little trees. Both men stopped short of the trees. Leaning over their saddle horns, they looked at the trees and shrugged.
Sticks took a close look at a tree sticking up out of the grasses. She could have sworn it had just been planted there, but nothing about it was remarkable.
“Perhaps you overlooked them when you rode straight through,” Derek said. “Who’s going to notice a little tree?” He glanced about. “I see many.”
Gravely led his horse forward.
Sticks did the same, but she could have sworn the trees hadn’t been there before.
They cleared the high grasses, and the tightness in her chest eased. She put the rifle on Safe and slung it over her shoulder. The terrain was clear ahead. She walked her horse forward and lifted the reins to snap them, then her instincts caught fire. She twisted her head around.
Gond sprinted out of the edge of the grasses and launched javelins into the trio’s horses.
Sticks flew out of the bucking horse’s saddle and landed hard on her back.
