The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities Read Online Free PDF

least we are to be at the palace at mid-morning, and we’ll leave from there with the Rangers,” he answered.
    “Alec is asleep already, so I can’t talk to him.  But everything is settled with the Rangers for he and me to go along?” she asked.
    “And me!” Amane added in a cheerful tone.
    “All three of you are officially expected to make the journey,” Tarry agreed.
    “I’ll have Alec up in plenty of time.  Will there be someone who is in charge of everything?” she asked.  “Alec will want to find out how much intelligence we have for this trip.”
    “We can talk while we ride tomorrow,” Tarry assured her, and soon thereafter they parted for the evening, Amane walking Andi to her room to bid her good night.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3 – The Rangers of Exbury
     
    The trip did not begin well.  Alec was lethargic when Andi awoke him, and in no mood to discuss her removal from his room.  “We were only going to be here one night anyway,” he echoed the reasoning Amane had given him.  “I slept all the way through the night as it is.”
    “But you could have asked me first, or told me directly, instead of having a servant do it for you,” Andi protested.
    “Perhaps so, but it’s over with now, and we need to go see this group of Rangers we’ll be riding with,” he dismissed her concerns.
    The four of them left at mid-morning, after a long, tearf ul departure with Lord Shaln, Lady Rooney, and Casse, full of promises to be safe.  When they got to the palace they waited, for no apparent reason, with the rest of the entire assigned squad, a time when Alec’s hopes for the group began to si nk downward.  The members of the squad were all sons of nobility, accomplished in riding and hunting and fencing, but not a one of them had served in any guard or military service.  They were content to wait until after the Prince finished his lunch and came to make a speech for their departure, and then they were off.
    Their pace was slow, and Alec was disgusted to see that they brought no extra horses to carry supplies or provide replacements or rests f or the mounts they rode .
    They ended the first day just after sundown in an inn in a small town, and Alec forcefully bullied the leader of the group, Iar, into explaining the route they were taking, and why.
    “The kidnappers are known to have gone north to Villadest and Stanless, then they were said to have doubled back to Otterby, ” Iar explained slowly, as if he was stating the obvious.  “ They’re going to have to pass through Birnam Forest on their way to Mor iado c, which is supposed to be the last of the Twenty Cities they’ll visit before they disappear into the wilderness lands,” he explained.
    “So we’ll head straight to Birnam and cut them off there.  We’ll have the advantage in the forest, since we have an affinity with plants,” he said, which Alec agreed sounded like it could have some logic.
    “Can we travel any faster?” Alec urged.  “If we’re planning on an ambush, we need to make sure we get there first and we get there in time to be prepared.”
    “We’ll wear out our horses if we travel too fast,” Iar again seemed to state the obvious, as his companions Cal and Lib nodded agreement.
    “Which is why we should have brought replacement horses with us in the first place,” Alec smacked his fist down on the table in frustration.
    “This interview is finished,” Iar said, folding up his map, not ready to tolerate subversion from an uninvited member of the party.  Alec stewed over the foolishness of the group, and chose to sleep with the horses, in the hayloft above the stables.  He wouldn’t allow Andi to join him there, his frustration and exhaustion and lingering confusion over his lost memories driving him into isolation, and so she sat at the table in the inn as the center of attention of all the other members of the Rangers until she left for her room.
    Alec isolated himself for the next two nights as