Read The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3) for Free Online

keep up despite his own wounded leg.
    When they arrived at the edge of an extremely large settlement of tents, two men peeled away silently and began to journey back out into the wilderness to resume the guard duty there, while the remainder of the group drew stares and comments in the native tongue as they proceeded towards a large tent with a flagstaff raised in front of it, a green pennant hanging limply.
    "Wait here," his escort told him.  The wounded man was escorted out of sight, and a guard stood next to Grange.
    "Remove your weapons and your pack, and leave them here," the guard told Grange.  He pointed to a small pile outside the entrance to the tent.
    Grange did as instructed.  As he bent to place his pack next to the entry to the tent he heard the murmur of voices inside the tent, speaking in the local language.  And he saw that among the items already on the ground, Jenniline's bow lay next to her pack.
    She had been caught as well, and the captors were presumably the rebels she had spoken of.  The princess had obliquely alluded to some past upheaval in Southgar society, speaking of an older regime a time or two, but without any details. Grange had paid little attention and cared even less about the politics of the Southern land.
    He cared about very little, period, except the idea of reaching Southgar and potentially having his memory - and his identity - restored.
    His new guard spoke in the Southgar language, then repeated his comment more insistently, with a wave of his sword, when Grange didn’t respond.
    "You want me to go into the tent?" Grange asked.
    The man repeated his statement in his own language.
    Grange tentatively placed a hand on the entry flap of the tent and pulled it open.  When the guard curtly nodded approval, Grange walked in and stepped forward, looking around the interior.
    A trio of elderly men stood around a table, while a half dozen others were at various chores elsewhere.
    The men looked at him, and their eyes widened.  The three spoke to one another softly, in their own language.
    "Approach us," one of the trio commanded.
    "Tell us who you are, and why you're here," the man ordered when Grange stopped in front of them.
    "I can't," Grange said simply. "I do not know.  I was in the wilderness and drank water at Yellow Spring.
    "I have no idea of who I am," he said simply.
    "You're a companion of the usurper's daughter," one man stated.
    There was an accusation, and hostility in the statement.
    "When I was at the spring, I met a girl," Grange carefully admitted.
    "But you're not traveling together, and she denied she had a companion," the man threw the statement in Grange's face.
    "We are not companions, and not traveling together," Grange calmly agreed.
    "So you would not object if you knew we held her captive, and intended to punish her?" his inquisitor let the question hang in the air.
    "If she has done something wrong and deserves punishment, I don’t care," Grange answered.  He knew the man was trying to goad him into admitting a relationship with Jenniline.
    The trio started talking softly among themselves, speaking in the language Grange did not understand.  One man kept his eyes on Grange at all times, searching for a sign that Grange understood them.
    They completed their conversation at length, and then all of them directed their attention to Grange.  "We believe you are the guard of our captive. We are told that you fought like a trained warrior, and you aren't talking like one of the flops at the court," the man in the center of the trio spoke.  “Although there’s your looks, on the other hand,” he left some comment unsaid.
    "We're going to use you," he stated after a pause, and Grange grew suddenly alert, sensing that some bargain was about to be offered.
    "We will set you free to go to the capital, if you carry a message for us," the man's eyes were watching Grange carefully.
    "That's all?  What message?" Grange asked.
    "We want payment of five thousand