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“Plus, we’d have a sick Drayce on our hands,” Caelan muttered.
“Sorry,” his friend apologized.
Caelan waved it off. It wasn’t Drayce’s fault. He certainly didn’t blame him, and he was still determined to drag Drayce along with him. “Other option?”
“What other option is there?” Eno said, tossing up one hand. “If we wait on this train to get to Caspagir, that’s gonna be a week at best.”
“We hike,” Rayne stated in a hard voice. It was the answer Caelan had been expecting, but it didn’t stop his breath from freezing in his lungs. No one moved or even breathed as the weight of the idea settled on them. Walking in the Ordas, particularly this deep, without the protection of a full platoon of soldiers was unheard of.
But it was also their best option. They couldn’t be that far from the Caspagir border. As a small group, they could move fast and quietly, possibly avoiding detection by whatever lived among the dense trees.
“Through the Ordas? You’re insane,” Drayce countered, finishing with a nervous laugh.
Rayne wasn’t laughing. In fact, he looked disturbingly serious. Caelan’s stomach knotted, but he was in agreement with Rayne.
“By this map, we aren’t far from the border with Caspagir. About a day’s hike. If we push hard, we can make one of the Caspagir border towns. From there, we can arrange transportation to Sirelis. Once we’re out of the Ordas, it will also be easier for us to send word of the trouble we’ve had. It would put us one to two days behind schedule.”
“Plus, the Empire wouldn’t be searching for us to enter the capital from that direction,” Eno added. He scratched his chin, his expression thoughtful. “It’s not a bad idea.”
“Except for the fact that we’re walking through the Ordas. No Man’s Land. The land of the lost gods!” Drayce was nearly shouting when he finally finished. He wildly waved a hand toward the darkness beyond the train car. “We don’t know what’s out there waiting to eat us. And that’s assuming we don’t walk right off a cliff.”
“True, but if the Empire is causing trouble for Caspagir, they will want to keep the kingdom from receiving assistance. They will be more likely watching the ports than the Ordas borders.” Caelan gave his friend a weak smile before turning his attention to Rayne. His heart fluttered and he prayed he wasn’t dooming his three friends. “It’s dangerous, but the smarter option appears to be hiking to Caspagir. When do we leave?”
“Jake prefers to start for town in the morning at first light. We can stay here and set out at dawn,” Rayne replied.
Eno shook his head. “And we’re sitting ducks here if this rockslide was the Empire’s doing.”
“You’d rather leave in the cover of night?”
“Ha!” Drayce barked out. “And walk right off a cliff in the darkness.”
“We’re not going to walk off a cliff. We’ll stick together. Secure ropes to each other if we have to.” Eno rolled his eyes and glanced over at Caelan. “We walk for a bit, get some distance from the train. We can camp for the rest of the night in the flat spot. Catch a few hours of sleep and then depart for the border in earnest.”
How in the world did Eno expect any of them to actually sleep while in the middle of the Ordas? He’d not heard of anyone living in the Ordas. There might occasionally be some hunters who wander in, but anyone who survived such an endeavor was always back well before nightfall.
“This is a horrible plan,” Drayce muttered.
“A dangerous one, at least,” Rayne added.
“All true, but it’s our best option,” Caelan declared. “Get your stuff together. We leave in ten minutes.”
6
Drayce Ladon
This was insane.
The train was currently stuck on a section of track where one side was a mountain that climbed almost straight upward, while the other side was a sharp slope downward filled with trees and thorn-covered vines.
As they crept away from the train with all their possessions on their backs, they were forced to follow the tracks for what felt like a quarter of a mile before the drop-off eased enough that they could head around the train, finally getting them moving in the right direction, toward the Caspagir border.
While they’d packed, Rayne had studied not only the map they had, but any he could lay his hands on from the train workers. Besides the town off the tracks at Caspagir, there weren’t many others marked along the border. One option was to follow the tracks to Caspagir. While it would make it easier for them to find civilization again, it would also make it much easier for the Empire to locate them.
Caelan had vetoed the idea, arguing they should just take the fastest route east to Caspagir that offered the best cover. They needed speed and safety. Not the best combination.
