She was staring at me. If she was telling the truth, we hadn’t been intimate since we started to chase Merrick and tied to the ground as she had been, at least a few dozen men had been with her that night so her most recent memories of sex was that gang-rape. For her it may well have been a year since she had sex and longer since she and I had been together and sometimes, people take longer to get over things like that. “When I was a galley slave, I was sixteen, I think.” I don’t know why I said that. She knew my past and my whip scars were still obvious. “Any Arab slaver who wanted a young boy aboard that dhow would throw me over a barrel or the rail, yank my pants down and have at me. If I was lucky, they’d spit on themselves for lubrication. If not, they’d take turns. I know how you felt back then.”
“No you don’t. You never had the person you loved watch your assault. I could endure the pounding. It was knowing they made you watch them do that to me that hurt the most.”
“I’m sorry for you. Really.”
She looked at me again and said, “You always looked twenty-five or thirty. I was embarrassed to have been older than you and now I find you were a hundred years old back then. You’re two hundred now?”
“Around there.”
“Your daughters are only twenty and Diane almost thirty. I guess you learned to like younger women.”
“To me, everyone is younger, even you.”
“What happens when they get old and you don’t?”
“I don’t know. No one has ever stuck around that long.”
“I would if you let me.”
“This isn’t really the time or place for that talk. I need to wash off. What do you know about where we are?”
“Nothing. Before you I’d never been more than a couple leagues from Arabel. Then you took me to Romania and Yugoslavia then when I chased Felix I saw Albania, Italy and Germany but I’ve never been here. I know we are in Yugoslavia or maybe Romania so these are my people, Slavs. They feared the Ottoman Empire but the Turks never made it this far so the Keep was never tested. I’ve heard from the Lodge that some people think that Vlad Dracula built it but he was farther south and east. The people here are Catholic, not Greek and Iskandar is in that direction I think. If we follow the river we should reach it in a couple days. We can learn more there.”
The water was cold. European rivers were always cold and they made my skin ache. Living the past few years in Africa and Haven thinned my blood but even Ireland I was always cold. So I dressed quickly and looked at the stars as I ate dinner then visited the bushes and went to bed. Two things I always took along were thick socks and soft toilet paper.
***
I awoke with the morning light filtering through the trees, and found Lys in my bed, my arm wrapped around her. For a moment I remembered olden days when we would do this all the time then woke her up. She looked, smiled and said, “I was cold. It’s been a year since I was warm like this. Ok, I’ll get up and make breakfast but I’m not sorry. Even if you send me away, I’ll have the memory of your arm around me and your smell in my hair.”
I checked and my sleeping clothes were still intact so all she did was cuddle so with nothing to do about it, I dressed and we ate in silence then saddled and packed the horses and continued. Two days is a long time to be alone with your thoughts. Her life showed in her gray and a few wrinkles but I had scars from a dozen wars so couldn’t complain. She wasn’t telling any lies. I may be a fool but I’m not stupid and every word she spoke was true. It was what she didn’t say that bothered me and I was beginning to accept that Felix was manipulating her without her knowledge, but Felix wasn’t the vengeful type. He wouldn’t go through all this trouble just to kill me or to take revenge on my family. If he wanted me dead, he’d walk up to me and challenge me. I figured that my family was therefore safe. So what did he want? The only possibility is that he did intend to bring Merrick back from the dead. If he had those intentions, then he’d want the long-decayed arm, leg, eye and ear Lys and I had buried. He could have tortured her for her info long ago but he wouldn’t have gotten mine. So he left her free and safe so he could catch us both, use her as a lever to get my parts, use me as a lever to get her parts and decide later if he should kill us or release us. So, we were safe until we fell into his trap.
But then, Felix was a far better chess-master and strategist than I was. I’m a guerilla fighter who takes small groups of men and harasses larger armies until they are worn down. Felix was an open field general who maneuvered companies to win large battles. That’s why Olaf hired us as Captains. We each had skills the other lacked. So, if we were being manipulated, Felix was thinking like a general and I was thinking like a terrorist. And it was easier for me to think like him than he to think like me.
“I saw the heads you piked. Sometimes you let your Irish temper control you. Do you wish I had given you children?” She was rattling again. I suppose she was trying to get me to talk to her or covering her nervousness.
“No. Arabel was too dangerous between the Turks and Serbs and Macedonians and everyone else fighting over that land. Even now I’m terrified that Felix is sneaking back to kill them while we are away. Adventurers like us make terrible parents. I’m trying to avoid thinking of them until I return because worrying will distract me from the job at hand.
“I’m sorry. But I think they will be safe. Magda, that gypsy, said they would and with all the people around to protect them, most of whom you trained, they’ll be there when you return. One last thing though and I’ll drop the subject. They said for you to do what you want to do and what you must do and don’t worry about them. English is such a difficult language, I’m glad we are speaking Slavic again. They are special women, your daughters and girl-friend. I can see why you love them.”
Even I knew that whatever I said would be the wrong thing so kept silent and she didn’t push and shortly after, the stream turned south but we saw a road nearby turn south to the stream then heading east. According to Lyssandra’s map, poor as it was, Iskandar rested on a river where it intersected with a road. Normally that happens at a ford where the river is passable so the next question was, follow the river or the road. No matter which we chose, we’d find something because roads always go from town to town and towns tend to grow around steady water which is both drinking water and sewer. So we stood there for a few minutes looking them both over and neither knowing which to take so I suggested lunch while we searched for a sign. The area here had been cleared for a rest stop and had a couple stumps, some ferns and not much else but it was clear that this area had been cleared for people following the road to rest near fresh water.
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FIRST BATTLE
We were finishing our meal when a group of men rode up. Obviously adventurers like ourselves, these had the look of men who had not the sense to quit and were struggling to pay for the next campaign. Generally, these groups came in a number of types; military, general-purpose and random-groups. The military were often a former mercenary unit who also did banditry and treasure hunting when the opportunity arose. General-purpose were those composed of an obvious fighter, a thief, scholar and a few other specialists and were composed to handle any situation but none of them well. The random groups were whatever people happened to travel together at that time. Today, I got the feeling that these were former soldiers who saw us as easy pickings.
“Dobro Don,” I called in Slavic hoping I got the pronunciation right. If they were Yugoslavs, they’d speak a different dialect than what I had learned in Kosovo or the hundred of other Slavic peoples in this part of the world. ‘Dobro don’ was Slavic for ‘good afternoon’ and was very close to ‘dobrae deyehn’ of Russia but saying one over the other marked you as a foreigner.
The men looked us over, one man and one woman, both armed, then our horses, four, two for riding and two for pack and decided that they outnumbered us three to one and so could afford to be themselves
. “Good afternoon,” they replied back. Accented but easily understandable Slovakian.
“I am Jason Obrien, Lord Innis, Baron Haven, and you are?” It rarely hurt to reveal yourself as a noble. Here, fear and respect for the gentry was inbred and made people more respectful.
“I am Andrija, my companions and I are returning from the wars with the Turks and saw your campsite. We’d like to share your hospitality if we may.”
I noticed that he ignored my title. I figured that they were deserters looking for trouble so I rested my right hand on my pommel and measured them. Easy. Despite their being mounted, they had little armor, no shields and looked hungry which would slow them down. Plus their arrogance would work for us. “The Ottoman border is a long ways from here. You must have come through Romania to get here. What news and can you tell us where Iskandar is?” I glanced and saw Lys preparing to mount. She had her sword ready also but no shield or buckler which was a liability when facing one man who outweighed her by fifty pounds. Six was suicide but I had no intention of making her suffer another gang-rape and her look said the same.
He pointed back the way he came, “Iskandar is about a day’s ride that way, along the road where it crosses the river. There is nothing there save merchants who rob those who seek the supposed wealth of Wrath’s Keep. We sought it ourselves and lost most of our men, we four are all that remains.”
“Four? I see six of you.”
“Mirko and Petar joined us at Iskandar. Now we leave that accursed place.”
I walked to my horse and saw them taking defensive positions. Definitely deserters. Hard fought and probably very good at staying alive. I pulled my bota and tossed it to them with some cheese and jerky. “We are leaving now but you are welcome to this site. Here is wine and food if you are thirsty from your ride.”
The six relaxed immediately but I glanced to Lys to keep her ready. “So you were at the Keep. That place intrigues me, come, sit and tell me what you saw.” And I sat on a log away from Lys and the horses with another bota of water from which I drank. The six laughed and dismounted and sat around, now drinking buddies and sharing the wine, bragged about their experiences. I did keep ready in case I needed to kill them but sometimes it’s easier to buy safety than fight for it. Lys was getting her bow ready as she packed the horses. She could use a bow but wasn’t in the same skill level as Diane or Fiona, both of whom had been considered for the Olympics and both of whom had gotten a hundred times better under the instruction of Slezdi. But still, she could probably kill two before they got close.
By the time the bag was empty and the meat and cheese eaten, I had learned almost everything they knew. Iskandar was a day’s ride along the road. This stream was not the one that flowed through the town. The Keep was about six or seven leagues east, north-east of the town. There were Saxons in the ruins, zombies in the dungeons and a dragon in the caverns. They never saw it but they heard and smelled its foul breathing which I thought could easily be wind passing through a guano-littered cave. Most of their men had been killed by the Saxons, the rest by the undead before they broke and ran and no wealth was worth that price. And no, they saw no evidence of wealth. Doubtless, they said, the Saxons had secreted it away. And most importantly, Iskandar seemed to exist mainly to sell gear to fools who sought the Keep.
I thanked them for their information, “But we must go for I am to meet an old friend there and don’t wish to keep him waiting.”
Petar stood, took my arm and slurred through broken teeth and a drunken tongue. “Wait, you shared food and drink, now share your woman!” He thought that was funny until I drew and removed his head, his body being thrown by the impact of my blow. These European broadswords are not designed for such fine work. I stared the rest down, bloody blade in hand and said, “I think not. My hospitality does have its limits.”
The remaining five looked at Petar’s head and body, twitching on the dirt and laughed as if I had told a great joke. One nudged his head with a booted foot and called, “Petar! The man is a Boyer! They don’t share their women. Petar, can you hear me? I guess not.” He stood, bowed as best he could and said, “Go with God or Satan, My Lord for at the Keep you will need both their help.” Then he knelt to rob poor Petar of his limited valuables. Even Mirko helped and we rode off leaving them to fight over what pennies and worn boots their former companion possessed.
“Jason, why didn’t they attack us when you killed him?”
“Petar wasn’t one of their Company. He was simply riding with them. I was lucky it was him and not one of Andrija’s men I had to kill. Otherwise they all would have been over us.”
She nudged her horse closer, touched my arm and said, “Thank you.”
We rode the rest of the day discussing what we had learned. Yes, Orcs and Undead but still no confirmation on the dragon. “I’ve met dragons before. Most were just really big lizards and snakes. A couple were dinosaurs that crossed through a StarGate from the past and those few which were real dragons were either very intelligent or just big stupid animals. Both I avoided for to a Dragon, a human is simply a meal that entertains it before it eats him. So the best you can do is to keep entertaining it until you can get it to eat your horse and maybe escape.”
“What of the heroes who kill dragons like the Saint George of the Christians?”
I laughed then, “Christians tell more lies about their saints than a drunk tells of his sexual prowess and the women he has laid. Look at the pictures and windows of George. He was fully armored and used a lance to kill a lizard smaller than he was. Lord Smaug was over a hundred feet long, breathed fire, played a mean game of chess and the only reason that he didn’t eat the countryside bare was because he slept a lot. No one could kill Lord Smaug. So some genius drove a herd of cattle and sheep into his cave and while the Dragon was sleeping off the meal, the villagers sealed the cave entrances with twenty feet of rock and concrete. Then he hired a bard to write a song about how he met the Dragon on the field in single combat and defeated him after three days of battle. Someday Lord Smaug will awaken, dig himself free and be very hungry and very, very angry.”
Humans like to think of themselves as being on the top of the food pyramid with everything else subject to their will. But more people die from a mosquito bite than from all the wars men fought. Mosquitoes, crocodiles, ticks, leeches, dragons, monitors, a hundred animals, some too small to see, eat people and know that they are higher on the food chain than is man. Only a flea doesn’t delude itself as to its own importance.
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ISKANDAR
We reached Iskandar shortly after sunset. I wanted to camp but Lys smelled smoke so we continued on to find a clean bed, hot bath and good meal. The town itself was small, only a couple hundred people and we passed both orchards and fields along the road which was unusual as most villages rely on grain and leave the orchards to hamlets. Also small villages are just a part of a vast network of villages that surround a city. Iskandar must be really isolated to be forced to grow most of its own food. We passed two inns and a dozen shops before we found one we liked. In the old days, I’d have stopped at the first one I saw but now, older, wiser and wealthier, I pushed Lys into town where the better and more expensive places were.
“It’s like Arabel. You lived by the wall because you were poor. I lived away from the walls because I was a Captain and could afford a better place. The Boyers lived near the center but spent a lot of time at their villas. There aren’t enough people here to support these businesses so there must be a lot of road travel to pay the bills.”
We found a very nice inn and paid the stable-boy a nice tip to take extra care of our horses, then I paid him more to sleep in the stall to prevent them or their tack from walking away. Then we carried our gear inside and approached the bar which was more than the usual plank on barrels. The inn-keep glanced at us, judged my clothes, Lyssandra’s poorer and worn outfit and decided that
I might be able to pay and smiled at me. “Yes, master, what can I do for you tonight?”
“I am the Lord Innis, Lord Haven, Baron Obrien. My companion and I need your best and cleanest room, a hot bath with soap and a good meal. Also after I eat and bathe, I’ll check on my horses to ensure that your boy has taken good care of them.”
He quoted a price that was outrageous but I wasn’t planning to spend more than a day or two so agreed and lay a couple silver drachmas on the counter. I had brought plenty of cash because in Haven, I tended to buy whatever currency the visitors carried just in case I wanted to travel. Most of my coin was foreign so I’d need to find a merchant’s guild to exchange what I carried into local currency but that could wait until the morning.
Immediately one of the local women sided up to me, judged that she was much younger than Lys and offered, “A good time My Lord. The best you had and ‘my’ breasts are still firm and ripe.” She glanced at Lys’ chest as she described her own.
“Meet me in the bath,” I called and handed her a penny as we followed the keep to our rooms. “Silver if I am happy with your service.”
Lys kept quiet until we were alone and setting our gear out. “Jason, are you serious about that drab?” She spat the word.
“Drab? Isn’t that what you were when we met? I should think you would be more understanding for twenty-five years ago, that was you.” She got embarrassed so I explained, “But no, I’m not serious about her sexual services. I want information and hookers hear a lot of talk from every john they approach. Maybe she has information we can use. Do what you do best and draw her out. Learn what you can. Bribe, entice, cajole her or whatever you do to make people like you and talk to you. I’ll try to keep my mouth shut and not ruin your interrogation.”