As Churn complied, they could see the strangely clad woman calm noticeably. Stepping near his burly companion, the young healer smiled and asked, ‘How badly are you hurt?’
The three-second translation delay was down to about one second now, but Hannah still answered in wavering English, ‘I don’t think so
… I don’t think so… my stomach hurts and my eye is sore, but otherwise, I guess I’m all right.’
Hoyt rubbed his palm thoughtfully across his chin, knelt beside her and offered a wineskin filled with water. ‘Here. Have something to drink. We’ll try to talk when you’re ready.’
‘Thank you.’ Hannah uncorked the skin and drank every drop. She passed the empty skin back and asked, ‘Can you tell me where I am… where this is? I haven’t been able to figure out-’
‘Can you understand me?’ Hoyt interrupted loudly, then cursed himself when the strange woman cringed and sidled away another two or three paces. He indicated his chest and said, ‘My name is Hoyt Navarra. This-’ he clapped a hand on the back of one of Churn’s tree-trunk calves, ‘this is Churn Prellis.’
‘I’m Hannah Sorenson,’ she said. She did understand them, but was dumbfounded as to how. She was making out the words almost as quickly as they were spoken now.
‘Hannah…’
‘Sorenson.’
‘Soren-son.’ Hoyt tried it out. ‘Hannah Soren-son. Hannah Soren-son, do you understand me? What I’m saying?’
‘I do,’ Hannah replied, but from the look in the strange man’s face, Hoyt’s face, she wasn’t certain he could understand her. She nodded instead. Maybe, since she could understand this weird guttural language, she could speak it if she tried? God knows how, though, she thought, but let’s give it a go. She closed her eyes and took a calming breath, then let the awkward words come on their own.
‘Is this better?’ she offered in broken Pragan.
Hoyt beamed. ‘Excellent! So you speak Pragan. We were worried… well, I was worried. Churn here manages to do just fine without any language at all – any language you might read or see scribbled on a piece of parchment, anyway.’
‘Where are we?’ Hannah climbed painfully to her feet, swaying slightly, but determined to have this conversation standing up so she could break and run if things began to deteriorate.
‘Well, we’re in a valley near the Pragan city of Southport,’ Hoyt said as he reached into a satchel at his belt and withdrew something which turned out to be several pieces of dried fruit. Handing them to her, he went on, ‘It’s not much of a town, but the harbour remains busy and that keeps interesting goods and people moving through on a regular basis.’
‘Pragan?’
‘Right. Praga. This is Praga.’ Hoyt was confused by her question, but gestured in a semi-circle as if the entire nation was at his fingertips. ‘Have you been unconscious for some time? Sick or something? I ask only because Praga is a big place and most people know when they arrive in it.’
One of the Malakasians began to stir, groaning and rolling onto his side. Churn moved quickly across the road and summarily kicked the soldier back into unconsciousness.
Hannah winced, and looked at Churn with a mixture of gratitude and terror. ‘Do you know them?’
‘What? This crew? No!’ Hoyt laughed. ‘‘But they’re all the same when you get right down to it. So knowing one is knowing them all, rutting dry humpers.’ Embarrassed at his off-colour language, he added with a sniff, ‘Sorry.’
‘But I thought-’
‘Thought what?’ The young healer looked interested.
‘I thought from the way you were dressed that you and they might be part of the same… I don’t know, troupe?’
‘Troupe?’ Hoyt cast Hannah a sidelong glance. ‘Those are members of the Malakasian Army, the occupation force that patrols the entire nation of Praga – in fact, every land in Eldarn, for that matter – making sure there is no resistance to the royal rule of the great Prince Malagon… the horsecock.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘How can you not know this?’
Hannah’s breathing was shallow. It was something supernatural. It had been going on too long to be a dream. She had gone somewhere, been dropped somewhere. Steven and Mark were here. That had to be it. Her heart pounded a high-stepping tarantella.
How was she going to get home? Two moons. How was she going to find Steven? The strange mediaeval costumes… would there be phones, buses, planes, any of those things she needed?
She shuddered, then squared her aching shoulders and muttered, ‘No. I suppose I haven’t.’
‘Where are you from, then?’ asked Hoyt curiously, before realising that he and Churn might have stumbled into a dangerous situation. His dreams of the fat Malakasian galleon and her rich cargo began to fade.
‘Denver, Colorado,’ said Hannah quietly. ‘I’m from the United States of America.’
Hoyt was not surprised the names were unfamiliar to him; Churn obviously had no idea where Denvercolorado was either. Shaking his head ruefully, Hoyt realised he would have been more surprised if Hannah had named a city he did know.
‘Well, then…’ He tried to sound reassuring. ‘We need to go somewhere safe and talk.’
‘Can you help me?’
‘For a time, yes, but I think eventually we will need to get you to someone with a bit more clout in situations such as these.’ He thought of Alen Jasper, and the curious man’s knowledge of many strange and wonderful things.
‘Is he far from here?’
‘Not really, no, but we have to make a few stops first.’ Hoyt looked sadly up the hillside. He would have to find a new hiding place for his library.
‘Why?’
‘We’ll need to change your clothes for a start, and we must have travel supplies.’ He turned to Churn. ‘Are they dead?’
Churn signed, ‘I think one of them is.’
‘Demonshit.’ Hoyt spat angrily in the dirt near the Malakasian bodies. ‘Well, we can’t just kill the other two… all right, all right, we’ll have to hurry, that’s all.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Hannah did not like the look on the lanky young man’s face: as if he’d just discovered all his carefully laid plans had gone awry. She thought for a moment of bolting, sprinting back the way she had come, to the grove of trees atop the hill. She felt her face flush with fight-or-flight adrenalin.
‘Flight, for Christ’s sake, go with flight,’ Hannah whispered to herself, but she hesitated. There was nothing in that grove, no wardrobe or magic doorway, no curiously stitched tapestry or magic carpet waiting to take her back to Idaho Springs. She had to trust these strangers; they had already saved her life.
Hoyt regained control of his features. ‘Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that one of those fellows might be dead.’ Seeing Hannah cringe, he softened. ‘Oh, don’t worry. It’s all right. They were going to kill you eventually. Our problem is that the other two will be awake before too long and that might make for some difficult travel conditions, especially if they give a description of you to the officer in charge. Granted, they probably weren’t supposed to be out here, and they most certainly were not supposed to be raping young women, but even so, killing them tends to upset the officer corps. The other two may keep their mouths shut for a while, but they won’t be able to cover up their friend’s murder – sorry, untimely death – for very long.’ He tried diligently not to alarm her further. ‘So we need to get into town in a hurry. There are a few places we can hide for a few days while we change the way you look, but eventually we’ll need to make our way north.’
Hannah had no idea what Hoyt meant by difficult travel conditions , but the notion that the Malawhomevers were an occupation army, and that the dead and wounded soldiers – because that’s what they were, soldiers – on the road were Malawhomevers, was not lost on her. ‘So, what will the Mala-’ She paused, trying out the unfamiliar word.
‘-kasians, Malakasians,’ Hoyt filled in the gap.