The Jongurian Mission Read online

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  The next morning Halam sent Conn and Jal out into the rain to survey the road once again. This time Jal came racing back to camp after little more than an hour.

  “We’ve seen them,” he eagerly reported, panting for breath. “They’ve been captured.”

  “What!” Rodden exclaimed, and the other men quickly gathered around.

  “Conn decided that he’d head back up the hills to the city and have another look. He came running back down the road shouting for me, so I thought that he’d been spotted and that we both were going to be captured. But it turns out that he’d spotted Jurin and Pader in the city. Both are tied to posts atop one of the wooden buildings next to the mountain wall.”

  “Tied to posts?” Halam asked. “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t see it myself, sir. Conn went back up to the city to keep an eye out, but said that I’d better send for you to have a look.”

  The men looked at one another and then wordlessly gathered up their things and started back toward the road. By the time they made it back up the hills to the city overlook afternoon was already approaching. Conn whistled from behind a few large boulders to the left of the road and they joined him and Halam there.

  “They’ve been tied up like that all morning,” he said, pointing toward one of the buildings close to the mountain in the western section of the city. “It looks like they’ve been beaten quite severely, hanging motionless the way they are.”

  “Bryn, let me see that spyglass,” Halam said to his nephew. He took it and put it to his eye then passed it over to Iago. “It looks like they’re barely conscious.”

  “Aye,” Iago agreed, “whoever it is that’s captured them has really done a number on them. They’ll not be walking off that roof.”

  “It has to have been Zhou’s men,” Willem said as he looked through the glass. “Why would the city watch do such a thing?”

  “I agree,” answered Halam. “The watch would most likely throw them in a gaol, not display them atop a building like this. Somebody wants us to see them.”

  “And chance a rescue so that we can be caught and displayed alongside them,” Trey said. “If whoever did this didn’t think that there were some of us still out here, Jurin and Pader would be dead already.”

  “We’ve got to go in and get them,” Bryn said.

  “Aye,” Willem said and Iago and Halam nodded their agreement as well.

  “And risk being captured as well?” Flint asked. “We are way over our heads here. We know nothing about this city or who could’ve done this.”

  “We can’t sit idly by and watch those two men die down there,” Willem said. “Jurin risked his life to save us and bring us this far. You want to repay him by leaving him to die on some rooftop?”

  Flint ashamedly looked down at his feet before Trey responded. “I think what Flint means is that the odds are not in our favor here. Jurin knows the most about Jonguria and if he was taken so easily, what chances do the rest of us have?”

  “Besides,” Jal pointed out, “it’s obvious to me that someone is just waiting for us to try and free them. We wouldn’t make it within one hundred feet of that building before we were spotted.”

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Willem said.

  “And I,” Iago replied.

  “Our chances of getting out of Jonguria alive are decreasing fast,” Halam said. “Jurin is our best hope for getting home. While it will be risky to free him, I see no other option.” Trey and Flint said nothing to that and once again the men looked to Halam for leadership. “It’ll be dark soon and I assume that somebody will come and bring both men back inside that building. We’ll have to act soon, then. I suggest that a few of us go through the city gates like we’re any other ordinary citizen. If we follow the wall we’ll eventually come to the point where it gives way to the side of the mountain. From there it’s only a short distance to the building where Jurin and Pader are being held. Once we stake out the perimeter and get a feel for the place, we can move in.” He looked around at the faces gathered close. “I expect it to be bloody and we may suffer some casualties. If we’re able to free them, then we’ll have to rush back to the city gates and down the road. Most likely we’ll be followed all the way.”

  “Won’t it raise some suspicions when several Adjurians are running toward the city gates with weapons drawn while being chased by armed Jongurians?” Rodden asked with a chuckle.

  “Do you have any other ideas?” Halam asked, annoyed.

  “One of you can take this rope we’ve been carrying and use it to scale the city wall. With the cover of darkness, there’s a much better chance of getting out of the city unseen by the watch,” Conn said.

  “That wall can’t be more than fifteen feet high,” Jal said. “You shouldn’t have any problems throwing the rope over or scaling the wall, so long as the other end is anchored securely.”

  “We can send someone down to a spot outside the walls to secure it and possibly provide cover with one of the bows in the likely chance that you’re being followed,” Flint said.

  “Alright, it sounds like an idea,” Halam agreed. “This is all being thrown together rather fast, so if anyone else has any suggestions, please voice them now.”

  “I like the idea about the rope,” a voice said from behind them. The men spun around to look for who’d spoken. They were shocked to see Wen leaning up against a boulder not more then ten feet from them. He was wearing the same dun-colored pants and shirt made of wool as they had seen him in several days before, although he had a thicker leather tunic now to protect against the rain. A long curved blade was sheathed at his belt and a bow was strapped across his back, the arrow fletches blending in with the whiteness of his hair. He casually picked dirt from underneath his fingernails. “Less chance of being spotted at the gate that way,” he finished, looking up at them.

  “Have you been following us this whole time?” Willem asked after a few moments had passed.

  “Aye, you leave an easy enough trail. I’m surprised that you weren’t attacked by Zhou along the way. He was following you too. But then I guess his plan here,” Wen motioned at the two men atop the roof, “wouldn’t have come off.”

  “Zhou’s been following us?” Halam asked with surprise. “But we saw no sign that anyone was following us.”

  “Zhou’s men, at least,” Wen said. It was easy enough. Not all men need to travel by the light of day when the whole world can easily see them.”

  The men all looked at each other, amazed that this old man, and he appeared quite old standing there in the rain, was able to follow them this far and sneak up on them just now. Not quite sure how to respond to his sudden appearance, they just gaped before Bryn spoke up.

  “So you’ll help us then,” he said to Wen with a large smile.

  Wen smiled back. “Do I have much choice? The sooner you folks get back to Adjuria the sooner my life can return to peace.”

  “Do you have any ideas, then?” Halam asked.

  “Seems to me that your plan will work just fine,” Wen replied. “Get into the city, get your friends, and get out.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be as simple as that,” Conn said skeptically.

  “No?” Wen said. “I don’t see why not. You do know how to use that axe at your belt, don’t you sir?”

  Conn looked down at the small hand-axe he had been carrying since they washed up on the beach. “It’s better for chopping kindling than for fighting,” he said.

  “Aye, that it is,” Wen replied. “Perhaps you had better stay outside with the boy then.”

  “But I want to come,” Bryn said excitedly. He pulled out the dagger that Iago had given him. “I think this is better than any axe,” he said, holding the blade up proudly.

  The men chuckled and Wen smiled as well. “But have you ever looked at the life go from a man’s eyes after you have stuck it in his chest, lad?”

  “No,” Bryn meekly replied while he looked d
own at the ground, “but I could.”

  “But not tonight, lad, not tonight.” Wen looked at Halam. No more than three men should accompany me into the city. Any more than that’ll draw suspicion. We’ll need at least two to hold a position waiting for us outside the wall. The rest can stay up here until we’re done.”

  “I’ll go,” Iago said first, fingering the hilt of his longsword.

  “As will I,” Willem joined in.

  Halam looked around at the other men. He didn’t expect that anybody else would volunteer. The rest were sailors who knew the sea, not fighting. Rodden had spent most of his life behind a desk in Plowdon, and Bryn was far too young for anything like this. Not for the first time did he regret ever taking the boy from Trun. “I’ll go too, then,” he said at last, looking at Wen.

  “Good, three strong fighters with experience in war.” The three men looked at one another for a moment and were about to ask how he could have known they’d seen battle, but he continued before they’d had a chance. “Now who will go down to the wall?”

  “I think Flint and I will,” Trey said, and Flint nodded.

  “As soon as we get the men over that wall,” Wen continued, “run as fast as you can back toward this spot.” He looked at the four men who would be staying. “You’ll be ready to run with us down that road. We’ll head toward a spot that will lead to a complex of narrow canyons and which few men know about. They will lead us around Waigo and through the mountains to the Isthmus.”

  “There’s a way around Waigo?” Iago asked.

  “Make sure you watch my back in there and I’ll show it to you,” Wen replied. “Now take a few minutes to make sure you’re ready. It’s dark enough now for us to go and I expect those two will be taken off that roof soon.”

  Iago and Flint separated their remaining arrows into two equal piles then put them in their sheaves while Halam and Willem checked their shortswords. Flint took the long coil of rope they’d taken from the ship and went over it before putting it back in a pack and handing it to Willem. When they were finished they nodded at Wen.

  “Alright, we’ll all head toward the gate together, but halfway there you two turn left and follow the wall to where it meets the mountain,” he said to Flint and Trey. “We’ll get the rope up the wall and down to you before we head to the building where the men are being held. Try and secure it to a heavy stone, or else fasten it around your waist. We’ll need to run and grab it, and can’t be worrying that it won’t hold our weight. Remember, we’ll be moving fast out of that city. After that just wait and do nothing. It shouldn’t take us more than a few minutes to get in and get out. Most likely you’ll hear us coming by the shouts of men dying not far off.” He smiled and looked around at the men one more time. “Now let’s move.”

  Wen headed toward the road and was already walking down the hill before the others jumped up to follow him. He seemed confident of a successful outcome, Bryn thought as he watched him walk away. That was good; he had his doubts. Any men that were able to capture Jurin, who’d done so much to survive in Jonguria since the war, had to be tough. But then he remembered that Wen was the man who supposedly trained Jurin how to fight, and he felt better.

  Trey and Flint separated from the other four and walked across the valley floor toward the end of the wall and the spot where the mountain rose up high above the city. Bryn tensed up and held his breath as Wen, Willem, and his uncle approached the gate, but with little more than a nod at the guards from Wen they were through. Trey and Flint took up their positions and a few minutes later the rope flew over the wall as promised. They took hold of it and Trey helped to tie it around Flint’s waist. After that Trey and Flint sat down next to the wall to wait and the men on the ridge had no choice but to do the same.