long, thin, tough, razor-sharp blade penetrated several layers of heavy cloth, flesh, and muscle, and cleanly severed the aorta. The picket tensed, shuddered, then went limp, and she let the body drop.
She motioned to Margaret, who ran up to join her. They knelt beside the corpse and Differel pulled back the hood, revealing a man's face, long and thin, with a sharp chin and cheekbones, a hawkish nose, bushy blue-black eyebrows, moustache and goatee, and intricate tattoos covering his copperish flesh.
"A Jah'dez." She recovered the head. "They're nomads of the Liranian Desert, to the west beyond the Faulklyn Hills. They herd, trade, and raid for slaves to sell in the cities of Qahroe and Tumbutu. But that makes no sense. The desert is only four days away, but they wouldn't cross the mountains on their own."
"Maybe someone's paying them to."
She thought about that, and it made sense. "Could be, but who, and why?"
"We should get him out of sight."
"Agreed." They dragged him into the corral and hid him behind the water troughs. They then circled around to the left to keep the camels between them and anyone else.
Eventually they came far enough around the corral to see more. On the opposite side of the grounds they spotted another circular enclosure, one filled with people, their hands bound behind their backs. Differel instantly recognized them as the villagers, since they looked and dressed like older versions of the children. Among them she spotted Carbhfind and Haela. Though dressed like the others, Haela had short-cropped dirty-blonde hair with milk-white skin, while Carbhfind had light brown hair drawn into a ponytail and skin the color of bread crust.
Between the two enclosures some two dozen Jah'dez milled about. They had not started a fire, and from their activity she realized they were getting ready for travel.
They retreated a short distance. "This is going to be tricky. They'll leave once it's good and dark. Rescue won't arrive in time, and when they get into those hills even the cats may not find them. We've got to stall them, but we need numbers. I want you to go back the way we came and try to get behind the villagers. If you can release them, they should be able to overwhelm the Jah'dez with minimal casualties."
"What will you be doing?"
"Distracting them. Now, get moving."
"Just don't get yourself killed, Dribble. I don't want to be stuck here without a guide."
"Bog off, Maggot."
Margaret slipped away, and she gave her five minutes.
Eleanor, be ready, she thought. She felt the bird's calm assurance.
Eventually she stood up, summoned the greatsword Caliburn into her hand, and walked out into the open. At first no one seemed to notice her.
"Excuse me." That caught their attention. "I would like to speak with the person in charge."
One screamed and flew at her, flashing a talwar scimitar. She brought Caliburn up with both hands, parried with the strong of the blade, and in the same stroke gutted him like a fish. A second raider followed right behind the first. She swung through her stroke, pushing his sword aside as she decapitated him.
She waited for another attack, but no Jah'dez moved. Relaxing, she planted the tip of the sword in the dirt; the pommel came up to just beneath her chin.
"If the demonstration is over, I would very much like to speak to the person in charge, if it's no trouble."
Another Jah'dez stepped forward, but at a slow, leisurely pace. She frowned as she noticed his listless expression and glassy stare. On one shoulder sat a Zoog. Zoogs were information brokers; anyone could gain their good will just by telling them stories, but some specialized in magical knowledge. She wondered if he might be one of those.
"That would be'st me," the Zoog said. "Draydorak, at thy service." The Jah'dez placed an arm across his chest and gave a short bow.
She nodded her head. "Differel Marchioness of Elissa."
"Ah, of course, I should hast guessed. What may I doest for thee, Lady Elissa?"
"You can release the people of Nir."
"Alas, I canst not. I hast givenest my word in contract."
"Have you been paid?"
"Expenses only."
"What if I paid for them?"
His eyes seemed to glow brighter. "How much?"
She patted her purse. "I have ten gold crowns; they're yours, if you agree to leave and never return."
"Thou bargainest poorly, My Lady."
She flashed a lopsided grin. "I suggest you take it; it's better than nothing."
"Indeed?"
"Very soon now the sky will rain cats, followed by the Ulthar militia on their heels. You cannot possibly get away with the villagers before then, but you can leave now with payment, and your lives. The choice is yours."
"Thou would be'st worth ten times the whole village. What if we takest thee and flee?" The other Jah'dez started to close in on her.
She broke out into a fiendish leer. "That would be difficult." Eleanor, now!
The Wakiya rose up behind the cottages, glowing like a live wire. She hovered over the camels, her wing beats sounding like thunderclaps, and discharged a lightning bolt from her open beak into the corral. It flowed through the tethered beasts, electrocuting and barbecuing most of them all at once.
Draydorak howled, and Eleanor was flung aside as if by a physical blow.
"No!" Differel took hold of Caliburn and swung the blade up. The Zoog retreated to hide behind the Jah'dez's chest as he opened his robe and pulled out two swords.
"For God, Queen, and Country!"
Differel looked past the Jah'dez and saw Margaret standing at the head of the freed villagers. She charged the Jah'dez and they followed, roaring their outrage. The raiders turned to meet them, but the closest were overwhelmed before they could pull their weapons. Carbhfind and Haela along with a few others snatched up swords as Margaret dueled with two at once, laughing and shrieking on pure adrenaline.
Draydorak's Jah'dez pounced at her, and she drew her rondel to use as a parrying dagger. Despite its size, she could wield Caliburn like a fencing sabre.
The Jah'dez proved to be as good a duelist as she, and it took all her skill just to parry his attacks. Even so, she didn't need to defeat him, just keep him occupied until the villagers subdued his band or reinforcements arrived. Eleanor swooped low overhead, looking for an opening to snatch him up in her talons, but he pressed close to foil her. That put him inside Caliburn's reach, but it also handicapped her ability to slash or thrust. She supplemented with jujitsu kicks and pommels blows, but the Jah'dez seemed impervious to pain, and if she pushed him away he just closed the distance again.
Margaret appeared behind him. "Eat steel, worm-face!" She stabbed at Draydorak, but he roared and she flew backwards a good ten feet. Carbhfind and Haela flanked the Jah'dez, protecting each other as the Zoog couldn't attack one without leaving himself open to the other. The Jah'dez backed away from Differel, and she formed a triangle with the two farmer-adventurers as they circled him.
A fireball streaked down out of the dusk gloom. It slammed into the Jah'dez as dozens of cats dropped after it. As soon as they hit the ground they leapt onto any Jah'dez still on his feet, grabbing with their paws, biting and raking with their back claws. In no time the remaining raiders were each covered with half a dozen demonic furballs ripping them to shreds.
Draydorak had been thrown clear. Lucifer focused on him, and grew as big as a mastiff as his fiery form blazed into a holocaust.
"Zoog! You are mine!"
He leapt at him; Draydorak howled and knocked the cat aside. The Zoog then dashed towards the camels as the inferno cat charged after him. He jumped onto the back of one of the few animals unscathed, without hobbles, and as soon as he gripped the hump the beast turned and raced north as fast as it could run. Lucifer yowled and gave chase, and both were soon lost in the distance.
Differel quickly took stock of the situation and realized the Jah'dez were either dead or had run off, pursued by the cats. The villagers examined their wounded neighbors as Carbhfind we
nt to check on Margaret, who seemed to lay unconscious, while she and Haela examined the Jah'dez puppet.
"He's dead!" Haela said.
She smirked. "Not surprising. The Zoog probably controlled him in some fashion, like a puppet."
She stood and went over to Margaret. Carbhfind cradled her in his arms and gently patted her face, but Differel noted his expression didn't look just concerned.
"Will she be all right?" Haela asked.
She opened her eyes, focused on his face, and smiled. "Well, hello handsome!"
Differel smirked. "She'll be just fine."
Carbhfind helped her to her feet, but she swayed a bit and he held her steady. "Oh dear! I feel dizzy." She let him hug her close. "I might have a concussion." She turned to press against him.
"Stop drooling on him, Maggot."
"Mind your own business, Dribble. Don't listen to her, she's just a sexually repressed spinster. Maybe I should stay with you tonight, so you can keep an eye on me." She draped her arms around his neck.
He wrapped his arms around her torso. "Perhaps you are right." He favored her with a lecherous leer.
Differel touched Haela on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go before this gets any more sickening."
Carbhfind and Margaret kissed as his neighbors watched them with knowing grins.
"Too late," Haela said. "Let's retrieve the children before he brings her back. Farha is much too young to witness such a sordid display."
As they headed back to the square she said, "I guess you're going to need a place to sleep."
"Hmph. I'm certainly not going to listen to them go at it all night."
"You can have Farha's bed; she can sleep by the fire. Just do me one favor."
"Name it."
"Don't tell her your friend is staying with him. She's not as understanding as I am."
Differel smirked. "It might do Maggot some good to get her arse kicked, but I promise."
"Good, because I'd break her neck, and that's no way to treat a hero."
She chuckled, but made no reply.
+++
For more information on Sir Differel Van Helsing and the Caerleon Order, see the official site [https://www.sir-differel.com/].
Back to TOC
+++
Bonus Story: Who Put the Man in Human?
Dr. Stanton barged into Dr. Sheridan's office without knocking, but that was not unusual for him.
"Good morning, Sheri my dear," he said in a cheerful tone, as he dropped himself into the chair opposite her desk.
She looked up from her desk and hissed.
"Oh, now is that any way to greet your favorite colleague after he has just returned from a harrowing trip across a great ocean to the vast unexplored tracts of the world?"
Settling back in her chair, she put her hands together and formed a steeple with her three clawed digits, as she gave him an icy stare.
"First of all, you are not my favorite colleague. In point of fact, you wouldn't even be my colleague if Dr. Szekt had not put us together on the same project. Second, I don't give a damn where you went, so long as you were out of my sight for six months. And third, how the hell do you expect me to greet you after shrucking that siren in geochemistry?"
"Now, I told you, she was just a little fling, a passing fancy, a romp through Surpid's garden, so to speak. I love only you and always will, and it hurts my feelings to think you don't trust me."
At the sound of that familiar soothing tone, Sheridan's reserve snapped. She leaned forward and savagely jabbed a finger in his face. "If you think I'm going to let you to wiggle your way back into my life so easily, then you are delusional, my friend. And I'll hurt more than your feelings if you don't get out."
"'My friend.' You see, you do still care for me, despite your facade of displeasure. Why not simply admit it, and we can start fresh?"
She ran her left hand over her naked scalp in exasperated frustration. "Just what the hell do you want anyways?"
"I brought something back for you, as my way of apologizing, and I thought if you weren't busy I could show it to you."
Her anger vanished as her curiosity piqued. "What is it?"
"I don't have it with me; it's back at my lab. But if you'll come with me, I'll be glad to show it to you."
She smirked. "This is some pathetic attempt to get me alone so you can sweet-talk me, isn't it? Well, it's not going to work. If it was the missing link in human evolution, alive and in the flesh, I wouldn't accept it from you. Why don't you offer it to your latest tart, whoever she is? I'm sure she knows all kinds of ways to show her appreciation."
He waggled a finger in a condescending manner. "You're going to be sorry you were mean to me when you find out what it is."
She just stared coldly at him and went back to work. Shrugging his shoulders, he got up and left without another word.
A few hours later, however, the spark that Stanton had lit had blazed into a burning obsession that wouldn't leave her alone. As much as she hated to admit it, she did want to know what he had brought back. Therefore, she eventually found herself grudgingly heading for his office. He saw her coming through his open door, and he leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, with a victorious smile on his face.
He gloated when she entered the room. "I knew you would come eventually,"
Trying to act nonchalant, she crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. "What did you expect after that little hint you dropped in my lap?"
"Does this mean you are ready to forgive and forget my little transgression?"
She hissed. "Not on your little reptilian life. Listen, can we get on with this? I have to attend a lecture shortly."
He was out of his seat in a flash. "Your wish is my command! Follow me."
He strode across the room to the door that led into his lab. She reluctantly trailed him. When he reached it, however, he stopped abruptly and turned towards her, startling her.
"Through here, is the culmination of our dream, the goal we have worked so hard to achieve. What I've brought back is the greatest scientific breakthrough since the theory of evolution. What you are about to see will shake those old, stuffy bureaucrats on the institute's board to their very foundations and prove to them that our theories are not ridiculous flights of fancy."
The meaning of his speech came to her with sudden swiftness. "You don't mean--"
He nodded his head, interrupting her. "We have finally captured a hominid."
She felt too astonished to reply. She thought, A hominid! Finally, after all these years. For a brief moment she wondered suspiciously if that wasn't simply an elaborate deception meant to lower her guard, but he appeared to be in earnest, and despite his other faults, he was no liar.
She trembled as excitement rapidly consumed her. "Let's go in. I want to see this creature for myself."
His own excitement barely contained, Stanton threw open the door and rushed into the lab as Sheridan followed right behind. They startled two technicians, who were setting up an examination table, but both scientists ignored them. Instead they went to another door that looked like the entrance to a refrigerated food locker.
Stanton pulled it open without ceremony. "Behold! Man and Woman."
Sheridan gasped out of reflex and brought her hand to her mouth. The room beyond had been converted from one designed to house experimental animals in small cages into a single large animal cell. Though the necessary modifications were in place, there was plenty of evidence that the work had been completed quickly and only a short time ago.
However, it wasn't the room itself that had shocked her. Inside were two of the strangest creatures she had ever seen. Though they superficially resembled humans, with their upright stance, two arms and legs, hands, feet, large round heads and forward-facing eyes, they were so alien that she felt a momentary wave of revulsion.
For one thing, they were mammalian, not saurian. When the rest of the saurians had gone extinct 65 million years ago--except for a handfu
l of species in the western hemisphere, including their own ancestor--the mammals had gained ascendency. Throughout the world they had evolved into a bewildering variety of forms, but no one had ever imagined one of their number would eventually develop intelligence, much less tool use or culture. True, there were some scientists who insisted the cetaceans were highly intelligent, even cultured in their own way, but that was a far cry from the kind of technological culture humans had developed.
The specimens were startled when the door opened and they hurriedly stood from their crouch in the far corner of the room. Clearly they were agitated, but when neither Stanton nor Sheridan made any move towards them they seemed to relax. They even began conversing with each other, but in an unintelligible gutteral language rather than the gentle, dulcet tones humans used. Nonetheless, they did not take their eyes off either scientist.
The two were male and female, probably a mated pair from the way they clung to each other. The male's genitals were not hidden in the body cavity, but were quite obvious, and much larger than a human's. Both were practically hairless compared to other primates, except for a great mop on their scalps and a correspondingly smaller patch in their pubic regions, but the male did have hair on its face, arms and chest, and both had hairy legs, though the female's was sparse. Both had flat faces, but they had pronounced noses and full lips, with lines of fur over each eye. They also had external ears, though smaller than those of most other mammals. The female looked less muscular than its mate, and rounder, with larger hips and a narrower waist. It had only two breasts, but they were located on its chest and were large, round and firm, despite the fact that the pair had no nursing infants.
Without realizing it, Sheridan had actually walked a short way into the room. It wasn't until Stanton hissed at her to be careful that she became aware of what she had done. By that time it was too late. Before she could back away, the female had moved from its corner to stand immediately in front of her. It had moved so fast neither she nor Stanton could react. She looked up into its face as it towered over her, trepidation creeping along her nerves.
Then it grabbed both her arms.
Stanton literally screamed for an immobilizer, but she felt too frightened to utter a word. She froze, hoping that if she didn't move it wouldn't hurt her. Considering it felt incredibly strong, she had no doubt it could kill her easily.
Then it did a strange thing. It let go of her with its right hand and ran its five digits over her scalp and face. At first she thought it would scratch her, but her panic subsided when she saw that it had flat, horny pads in place of claws.
It was hard to be analytical under the present circumstance, but she couldn't help staring into the hominid's eyes. The pupils were round instead of vertical slits, and the irises brown instead of green, but they looked human, and not like those of an animal at all. The female took the opportunity to examine her closely, even as she had been determined to do the same to it, though with it safely strapped to a table.
Even as that thought trickled through her mind, the differences between them dissolved, and it was