Istoria Online- Square One

by Vic Connor

  “We stumbled on a lead when asking about somebody rich who could be ill, though. That tower across the street, see?” I ask. “The Opzichter’s daughter has been sick. Some ailment nobody in Duurstad knew how to treat. The Opzichter had two of the best doctors in Europe brought here to see if they could find a cure…”

  Juanita’s dark brown eyes gleam with hope.

  I shake my head. “Turned out to be a dead end, too. There was a large mass held five days ago, to thank God for having restored the child’s health. We went to the Church and confirmed it. The service happened the day before I was killed in our failed ambush of Barboza, which means the Opzichter’s daughter can’t have been healed by Uitzli. The Opzichter showered the two European doctors in gold and they departed.”

  Abe pulls his head back and takes a long, noisy sniff. It seems to sober him up somewhat. “She bain’t ‘ere, me lad,” he admits. “Our sweet lil’ angel ain’t in this Dutch ditch.”

  As if on cue, buzzing dots approach us from every direction. Juanita offers them refuge among her interlaced fingers. “They have found no scent of her,” the witch confirms.

  I nod. “All right. She may be here in Duurstad, somewhere well-hidden, or there may be somebody else in town who knows about her. But we need that map, and whoever could read Uitzli’s glyphs and is willing to be healed by Aztec magic could be from Tepetlacotli. We could kill two birds with one stone with this job.”

  “And you always said the map was the key, young Jake.”

  Memory Unlocked…

  Failed!

  I swallow a curse; no point risking some passing, overly pious citizen being offended by my foul language. “I have this horrible hunch that map won’t be half as awesome as I fail to remember it,” I grumble, “and that’ll be a major disappointment. But fine, I’ll have to trust my earlier self’s judgement on the matter.”

  “Shall we then let the mapmaking woman know we accept her commission, young Jake?”

  “Yeah.” I swing on my crutches toward the workshop’s entrance. “Let’s.”

  Miyu hisses a warning as soon as I set crutch inside the workshop.

  I stop. It takes my eyes a few seconds to get used to the dim light inside…

  …Van der Kaart has company. Two men; one woman. All carrying weapons.

  “Ah, you are back,” the mapmaker says. “Good.”

  Standing on my crutches in the workshop’s entrance, my silhouette sharp against the light, I’m the easiest target for anybody who has half a clue about how to shoot. And I’m blocking the way for my allies to storm inside and rush past me, to boot.

  I stay put.

  “Come on, come in,” Van der Kaart calls, a little impatiently. “The sooner we finish with the introductions, the sooner you can leave.” She waves at the drawer beside the wall clock, where the gun schematics lie neatly folded. “I thought I had made myself clear that being quick is in your best interest?”

  All right…

  …not a trap, then.

  I approach the huge table drowned under stacks of paper, exaggerating my hobbling to buy me time and appraise Van der Kaart’s other guests.

  One of them we’ve met. Hendricks was among the guards at the town entrance: the shaved one, now openly displaying the grips of many flintlock pistols jutting out from his coat. He nods at me and smiles. “Hallo again, friend.”

  “You have already met, I see,” observes Van der Kaart. “As you entered town, I presume?”

  “Indeed,” I say. “But your other two guests…”

  “Docteur Rousseau,” says the second man. He wears a long coat and he, too, is armed with pistols, although only two. He inspects my bound, crippled legs. “Mon Dieu… Awful accident, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Not quite,” I reply. “More like a dreadful result of poor planning, you could say.”

  He nods noncommittally.

  The woman carries a musket as tall as she is. Her coat is similar to Rousseau’s. There’s a nasty scar across her right cheek—as if something had exploded in her face—which she partly conceals under her curly black hair. “Serena Lombardi,” she announces with a curt nod. Her name and accent are all I need to know she’s from some Italian province.

  Abe takes my right flank as Miyu takes my left.

  I sense no hostility from Van der Kaart or the other three. On the other hand, the little gnome is nowhere to be found…

  “Well met,” I say to them, then turn to Van der Kaart. “I assume you will now let us know why we are all here?”

  “I was hoping you would be here to say ‘yes’ to my proposal,” she informs me. “As for Hendricks, Lombardi, or Rousseau, one of them will accompany you on your journey to Aztekenstad and back. Just to make sure all goes according to plan, you understand.”

  And if we refuse to bring company along?

  You said one of them… Who?

  All right, let’s get going.

  This is unacceptable, I’m afraid. We refuse.

  “You said one of them… Who?”

  “That would be for you to decide,” she replies. “Those in your line of employment tend to prefer companions who complement their skills. A wise choice.

  “Monsieur Rousseau and I go back a long, long time. He’s no stranger to brutal battlefields and has treated many a wounded soldier. He frowns upon, how should we put it—” She looks at Juanita’s staff “—upon divine intervention in the healing process, though.

  “Hendricks helps me from time to time when some errand, like this one, requires a bit of…”

  “Of schooting rather than babbelen,” finishes the soldier, grinning.

  “Ja; when guns may need to do most of the chatter, so to speak. He has earned fame as the fastest pistol shooter in Duurstad.”

  Aha?

  “Last but not least, as your Bard would say.” Van der Kaart nods toward Serena. “If Hendricks shoots fast and often, Lombardi prefers slow, careful precision.”

  “I see,” I say. “One shot, one kill, right?”

  A bright smile lightens up Serena’s scarred face.

  And if we refuse to bring company along?

  We could use somebody else with medical knowledge.

  The more pistols our party has, the better.

  A sharpshooter would be a fine addition to our crew.

  All right, let’s get going.

  This is unacceptable, I’m afraid. We refuse.

  “Be nice havin’ a proper Christian doctor, me lad,” proposes Abe.

  “The Christian gods have little sway where we are going to, my child,” the witch counters.

  “Uitzli,” hisses Miyu. “Heal.”

  “That’s a good point,” I agree. “If we find Uitzli there, then more healing would be overkill.” Or, well, overheal. “And if we refuse to take company?”

  “I’ll have to send somebody else instead, Mister Russel,” says the mapmaker. “Which may be more expensive for me than your services. Which may force my hand to raise the prices of certain goods, if you catch my drift…”

  “I think I’m able to see where you are going, Madame.”

  “Then be quick to decide, Mister Russel.” She frowns. “Remember, they’re all highly skilled. You may have something to learn from whoever travels with you.”

  Now that’s neat, and it puts things in a different perspective. I wink to Hendricks: “The more pistols the better, yes?”

  “No doubt!” He smiles.

  “Until you need to kill something far, far away,” Serena warns. She seems somewhat disappointed by my choice.

  “Your loss,” says Rousseau.

  Actually, we will travel with…

  All right, let’s get going.

  “All right,” I say. Let’s not second-guess ourselves here: Hendricks the fastest-gun-in-Duurstad it is. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

  New Quest:

  Van der Kaart’s Boodschap

  Escort Hendricks to Tepetlacotli

  There you go; now we’re in busin
ess.

  From beneath the mountains of paper covering the huge table, Van der Kaart pulls out a small wooden box and hands it to Hendricks. “Open het nooit,” she says to him.

  “Ik weet.” He tucks the box inside a small pouch on his belt.

  I cough politely. “Would that be all, Madame Van der Kaart?”

  “Until you return,” she says, “it will be.”

  “Farewell, then.” I bow as charmingly as I can and pivot on my crutches. “C’mon, crew,” I add, limping toward the workshop’s entrance. “That box won’t deliver itself, will it?”

  21

  Painkiller

  De Groot and the three other guards give us a nod as we leave Duurstad. Van Dyk exchanges quick, hushed words with Hendricks, while De Groot wishes us good luck. Moments later, we climb the sandy dune where the beach meets the jungle—it resembles a head with a receding hairline—and we find the familiar dirt trail among the bushes and trees.

  Hendricks has a map of his own. Payment from a previous Van der Kaart’s job, he explains. “Oh, ye know, just dis and dat,” he explains when I ask him what the job was about.

  The crude sketch Ol’ Abe drew on the ground when we were camping during our first night was quite accurate, now that I can see a real map: Amoeba-shaped as Isla Hermosa’s shores might be, the four main settlements lie roughly in the four corners of a rectangle. Duurstad, which we’ve just left behind, is on the southeastern corner, or lower right. Villarica is northeast, or upper right. Morgantown is somewhere in the northwest—Hendricks’ map isn’t specific on its whereabouts. And Tepetlacotli, our destination, is in the southwest.

  “So, this be where we comes from,” says Ol’ Abe, tracing with his rough-skinned finger along the Northern Road from Tepetlacotli to Villarica, descending afterward to the south, crossing a bridge right after leaving the crossroad behind, then a second bridge just before reaching Duurstad.

  “It’s already noon now,” says Juanita, “we could go back the way we came, through the Northern Road, and hope to reach to the Aztec city by tomorrow’s afternoon, if we keep a good pace.”

  “Or we could go straight west,” I suggest, looking at Hendricks’ map, “through this Southern Road here directly to Tepetlacotli, and we should be there late tonight with luck, no?”

  Old Abe taps the southern shore, somewhere midway between Duurstad and Tepetlacotli. “This ‘ere be Barboza’s plantation,” he says.

  “And de zuidenwayg,” adds Hendricks, his finger following the Southern Road, “runs close.”

  Time is of the essence, gang; the Southern Road it is.

  Let’s play it safe, gang; let’s take the Northern Road.

  “No time to play it safe, gang,” I argue. “Not when time is of the essence; the Southern Road it is.”

  Abe grins; Hendricks smiles. Miyu doesn’t seem to care either way.

  “Let us move then,” Juanita says, with only the slightest hesitation in her voice.

  It’s mid-afternoon when Abe pulls his head back and, after a long, loud sniff…

  Nose for Storms:

  Dark Clouds

  …“Troublin’ times ahoy,” he advises.

  We reach a clearing in the jungle, about fifty paces long and thirty paces wide, and pause to listen. A bird chirps, and a light breeze ruffles some leaves here and there.

  “Wait,” I say.

  Miyu lowers her naginata, the Noh mask scanning left and right.

  “Ik see nothing,” Hendricks says.

  “But if our ol’ mate Abe is right,” I point out, “this would be a great place for an ambush.”

  Abe grunts his approval and walks ten paces ahead of me, taking the right flank; Miyu follows suit on the left.

  We keep our eyes on the tree line on the opposite side of the clearing.

  The Noh mask tilts forward. “Inu,” Miyu hisses.

  Human wails echo across the trunks. Ferocious barking soon follows them.

  Three men come running out of the woods. They are naked, save for dirty loincloths. One of them is black-skinned, the other two are brown. They all appear panicked, running toward us with their attention on whatever is chasing them.

  The black man in front notices us when he reaches in the middle of the clearing. Surprise and fear make him stop in his tracks; the other two, still unaware of our presence, ram into him hard enough that they all trip over, falling head over heels.

  A fourth, almost-naked, brown-skinned man stumbles out of the forest. He isn’t able to take more than three steps when a pack of huge dogs tackle him down and pin him to the ground.

  “Alanos,” mutters Juanita. “Those are Spanish Alanos, those dogs.” The fear in her voice is palpable.

  The three men that fell in the clearing don’t dare to stand up, looking at us and the pack of dogs with equal fear.

  “Those dogs will tear them to pieces,” Juanita says.

  “Nay,” Abe says. “They be jus’ keepin’ ‘em down. None too gently though, but jus’ keepin’ ‘em down—"

  Three men, dressed in Spanish fashion, follow the dogs into the clearing. One brandishes a whip.

  “—‘till their masters show up,” Abe finishes.

  One of the brown-skinned men in the clearing stares at Juanita. The plea in his eyes is as clear as if he were screaming.

  I pull out my left thigh pistol and shoot into the air.

  Everything goes quiet as dogs, slaves, and Spaniards turn to look at me.

  [Threaten]

  [Negotiate]

  [Attack]

  [Bluff]

  [Plead]

  “This was a warning shot,” I threaten, tossing the smoking gun and drawing the pistol from my right thigh. “There won’t be another. Leave these men alone and get out of this clearing while you still can.”

  “Mind your own business, English scum,” replies the man with the whip.

  “Spanish dog…” growls Abe, inching forward.

  “Hold the line, Abe,” I order.

  “These belong to Señor Barboza,” the man with the whip continues. “So you get lost, if you love your life.”

  Oh. Barboza’s property; now that’s a bonus…

  Unflinching Calm

  …things slow down, become sharper: the three mortally scared slaves in the middle of the clearing … the five dogs keeping the fourth slave down … the arm holding the whip raising…

  Careful Aim

  …my right arm jumps up, pistol trained at the hand grasping the whip…

  Crippling Shot:

  Missed!

  …wood splinters fly from the tree behind the Spaniards as my bullet sinks into the trunk.

  “God damn it!”

  That got the Spaniards’ attention, though. “¡Ataquen!” yells the one with the whip, pointing my way. As soon as he snarls his order, the dogs come running at us.

  Appraising Gaze

  Five dogs, with furs of different colors. Blue and Gray go for Miyu; Copper, Sable, and Fawn go for Abe; all Alanos, each powerful enough to take down a strong man. “Hold the line!” I reach for the gun on my left hip. “Hendricks, shoot down Fawn!”

  Miyu’s blade weaves its pattern of silk and steel while Abe, cutlass in hand, braces for impact.

  Copper is the Alpha male; I take a shot…

  Miss!

  …the damn dog is too fast, and my bullet ricochets off the ground.

  Hendricks seems to grow extra arms as he draws out his pistols with lightning-quick speed, shooting one, twice, thrice on Fawn; with a whimper, the dog tumbles down.

  Lopez, as I’ve identified the one with the whip, is drawing near on our right. The other two, named Juarez and Suarez—both armed with nothing but clubs—approach from the left; they move carefully and are still about thirty paces away.

  I draw the first pistol from my left crutch.

  Copper dodges Abe’s cutlass and locks its jaws on the pirate’s leg, while Sable jumps in the air and sinks its fangs in Abe’s right arm. Both dogs expertly pul
l him down with their combined weight and momentum. Cursing every demon in hell, the pirate falls on his back and drops his cutlass. Copper and Sable bite him savagely; I have Sable less than six paces away…

  Point Blank

  Crippling Shot:

  Critical hit!

  …blood and bones spray from its left hind leg. With a heart-wrenching wail, Sable releases Abe’s arm.

  There’s another blood-curling yowl as Hendricks, who has drawn his rapier, puts Fawn out of its misery with a thrust to the dog’s chest.

  Sable whimpers and wails. Abe, still on the ground and cursing like a madman, tries to kick Copper in the head.

  Miyu’s silk and steel pattern is an even match for Blue and Gray: Neither the naginata’s metal tongue reaches the Alanos, nor the dogs’ jaws find a solid target to close on.

  I draw the second pistol from my crutch.

  Juarez, on the left, yells and screams, engulfed in a whirling swarm of angry bees. Suarez seems to hesitate, realizing they may have picked the wrong fight. Lopez, swishing his whip, slowly backs from the rapier-wielding Hendricks. The Spaniard’s eyes stay intensely focused on the Dutch blade, giving me a chance…

  Crippling Shot:

  Hit!

  …my bullet flies true and bites Lopez on his right thigh, sending him to the ground.

  “Try not to kill them!” I yell. Especially the dogs, I think. Sable howls in pain again, writhing on the ground as a pool of blood forms around its rear legs.

  I draw the last pistol from my left crutch.

  Juarez drowns in a thick, black tide of bees. He drops to his knees, begging for mercy. Suarez tosses his club and runs for the trees…

  Crippling Shot: