The raid on Darguna…and Watsel.
"I heard they're in league with unnatural creatures from the wilds of the north. Beasts." Her head tipped down. She was silent for a moment, then she took a deep breath and looked up again. "There have been signs he's getting back to his old ways here, though."
"What signs?" Alara asked.
"Some say they saw his men bringing women into the tower in chains in the dark of night. I know one woman escaped. She talked with someone on the north side of town before heading out of town with some strangers. I heard she said something about going home, but she didn't seem to know any place in Galderia. Maybe she was crazy. I don't know. But people say he kept one woman in his tower for himself. And his ship, which always sits in the harbor, left port a week ago. I hoped he and his men were on it—that they'd decided to leave Pertlass for good. But they hadn't. They've been seen around town, and the rumor is he's still up there in his tower." Jan took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. She wiped the corner of her eye with her finger. "I wish somebody could stop him."
"Cormac," I said, looking past Jan's shoulder to him. "We can't just sit by and let this go on, can we?"
He shook his head. "If what she says about the place is true, about his men and how dangerous they are, we might be going into our last fight."
Our last fight? I hoped he was dead wrong, but it was clear he might be right. I couldn't help but wonder, was this going to be the end of my grand adventure?
"I sure hope not, but we came here to rescue the woman Alara saw in her vision. And this is the proof what she saw was true…though I never doubted her." Alara placed her hand on top of mine, as I continued, "We know what kind of monster we're dealing with too."
"Den," Nithia said, "I'm afraid for you."
I looked at her and seeing in her eyes the sincerity of her feelings for me warmed me inside. "If I am the Guardian, then this is what I'm here for, isn't it?"
She nodded and I saw a tear in the corner of her eye.
I looked at Alara, Nithia, and Tara. "You all have given me strength." Literally in two cases. "And Cormac, we've fought together once before and I would choose no other man to stand by my side in battle." I was really feeling the drama of my speech. I went with it, realizing we were about to head into a Frank Frazetta painting of raw conflict between heroes and demons—metaphorically speaking demons, I hoped. This was why I'd been chosen. This was my destiny. Yeah, I was drinking my own Cool-aid, but I couldn't help myself.
"Well, I'm sure as hell not going," Monica said. We all looked at her. "It's not that I don't care," she said, clearly a little embarrassed by how her declaration came across in light of everything we'd just heard. I knew she didn't mean to say she didn't give a shit about the people of Pertlass or any of the other people who'd suffered at the hands of Ruja Kurg, but her timing was bad.
"No," I said, looking to her and then to Alara, Nithia, and Tara. "You all will stay here. Cormac and I will go."
"That's stupid," Tara said. "Two of you? I'm going too."
Of course you want to go. I was simultaneously impressed and annoyed at Tara's insistence on always being in the action, no matter how dangerous.
Alara glanced to her staff, which was leaning against the wall, then turned to me. "It's going to be difficult, Den. I can help." I saw her face tense up and she swallowed. It looked like she was holding back a well of emotion. "Too many have suffered. The sisters of my order…" She couldn't finish what she wanted to say. She struggled to keep tears in check.
I placed my hand on her upper arm. "You would be fierce in a fight, I know. But I want you to stay with Monica and Nithia." I glanced at Tara and decided not to add her name to the list of people staying because I knew she'd argue the point right then and there. "I'm not planning on taking them all on. With just two of us-"
Tara cleared her throat loudly.
I looked at her and saw she wasn't going to back down on going along. "We are going to sneak in, if possible. I don't want to fight all his men. I just want to find the woman you saw and get her to safety…and to…"
"Kill that bastard Ruja," Tara said.
I looked at her. She was deadly serious. "Yes," I said. "He needs to be stopped."
"But I can help," Alara said.
I nodded to her. "You could, but I want you to check out what Jan said about the woman spotted on the north side of town. See if you can find who talked to her and what they know about her or the people she left with."
"Why?" Alara asked. "You think she's another…"
She didn't need to finish her sentence. I knew she was wondering the same thing I was—that the woman who headed north out of town may be another college babe from Austin. Okay, Alara wasn't thinking about her in those terms, exactly, but she knew the woman might be another person in need of our help.
"Yes," I said. "Maybe." I glanced at Cormac, then turned back to Alara. "Looks like we may be doing this sort of thing for a while."
"And don't forget the Dark One," Nithia said.
Her comment jolted me. I swung around to her. "Wow. Thanks. Yeah." The upswell of invisible heroism I had been feeling quickly sprung a leak.
"The Dark One?" Jan said. "You mean Thautus Kurg?"
"Who?" Alara and I said in unison.
Cormac stood up. "Yes. That's who we mean."
Alara and I exchanged looks of the epiphany we each had.
"Ruja Kurg…" I said.
Cormac finished my sentence. "Is the distant cousin of Thautus."
I connected the dots inside my head. Ruja ran operations on this side of the Sea of Ronak, spreading his own version of what the Dark One—Thautus Kurg—did on the other side. Ruja setting up his base in a port town made sense. He was trafficking whatever he took back to Thautus, or at least giving him a cut. Pertlass was the foothold Thautus Kurg had on the land—this side of the sea.
The list of reasons why Cormac and I…and Tara had to go into the tower and kick the shit out of this Ruja guy kept getting longer.
I had second thoughts about not taking Alara in with us. Her lightning magic would be useful, but I knew Nithia and Monica couldn't handle themselves if anyone in town went after them…and Jan had painted a convincing picture of just how dangerous Pertlass could be. I needed to know I didn't have to worry about them while Cormac, Tara, and I were inside the tower.
I turned to Jan. "I know we'll be walking into a viper nest, but is there a way inside without getting seen?"
Her eyes looked up to the right and she tapped her finger on her chin, which had a few thin hairs on it. "Well…there may be a way."
Chapter 31
The best part of Jan's plan was seeing the coast for the first time. She took us—Cormac, Tara, and I—down to the docks and had us join in with a crew of men and women hauling into a horse-drawn cart the piles of fish which had been caught that morning.
So, there are horses in Galderia, I thought. I wished we'd had them for the trek from Darguna, but at least I knew now they existed. I vowed the next time we had to make a long journey to some place in this strange world, we would do it on horseback.
The Sea of Ronak was beautiful, stretching out to the horizon—no land from the other side in sight. It might as well have been called an ocean, complete with waves and a tide, I was sure. There was a warm breeze blowing in against us and I could taste the salt in the air. Gulls flew about, some soaring, others landing to pick up scraps from the day’s catch. The sun was past midday and dipping toward dusk.
I didn't see any vessels on the water, but there were several small fishing boats tied to posts along the shore, along with a few larger ones and a single ship, which I assumed belonged to Ruja. The men on it glared down at us and all the others walking around near the docks, but they didn't seem to have anyone in particular in their sights.
I had strapped my sheathed sword on my back and wrapped my cloak over it, tucking it underneath and into the belt which normally held my sheath. It was bulky but hid the weapon
, which was the aim. Cormac did the same with his axe, but with less subtlety. Tara had unstrung her bow and put it half inside her quiver with the arrows, and likewise bundled her cloak around it. We were three oddballs working the fish yard with bundles of crap on our backs.
We got a few strange glances, but nobody really cared why we looked the way we did. They were too busy using brooms to push the smelly piles of fresh fish off the decks of the boats or using rake-sized wooden spoons to shovel the catch from the smaller boats. All of it was being loaded into the horse-drawn carts parked beside the shore. Several people worked a line carrying large wicker baskets from a few giant fish piles over to another group of pulled carts. That's what Cormac, Tara, and I did once Jan told a man running one of the lines we were there to help.
After we joined in, I saw Jan talk to the man again. She was pointing at us. I saw the man nod and she gave him a pat on his arm. He nodded to her and they parted. Then Jan came back over to me, pulling me away from the fish line for a moment.
"He knows what to do," she said. "When you finish loading up the fish follow whichever wagon he takes. He'll make a quick stop a couple of streets away. You three will need to be fast, and make sure nobody sees you."
She was referring to the worst part of the plan. We finished loading the fish and, while the other men and women talked with each other or stepped down to the water to wash the fish smell off, we swiftly walked alongside our co-conspirator's wagon piled high with hundreds of fish. He took a corner and then another before stopping. He glanced back at us and nodded, then he looked around, evidently making sure no one would see what we were doing.
Cormac, Tara, and I looked at each other. "This better work," I said. The smell of the fish was already getting to me. I liked a good fish dinner, but hundreds of them piled high put out an odor that was starting to turn my stomach.
"Don't tell me you don't like the taste of fish?" Tara said before turning to the wagon and pushing herself up onto the back of it and climbing over the wooden plank at the back. I couldn't help but watch her rear as she leaned over the plank and then hoisted one leg over it and then the other. Talk about mixed stimuli.
I turned away from the wagon for a second and drew in the last reasonable clean breath of air I'd have for the next twenty minutes, then I climbed into the wagon and pushed my body down into the pile of fish like Tara had done. I turned onto my back and looked to see if any light came through. All was dark. The fish were covering me completely. I wiggled my feet slightly to make sure I felt the weight of the fish on top of them, which I did.
"Looks good," Cormac said. I felt him burrowing down into the fish too.
"Den?" Tara whispered.
"Yes?"
"I hope this works," she said.
"Me too."
The ride to the tower compound where our driver was to deliver the load of fish seemed to take forever, but in reality in must've been only a few minutes. I heard him talking with some other men, who I assumed were guards or thugs of some sort who worked for Ruja. I heard the creaking of what sounded like a large gate opening, then a few moments later the wagon moved again. I did my best to breath quietly, though I wanted to gag from the smell. The fish were still wet and drips were making their way onto my mouth, which I kept tightly shut.
The wagon stopped and after some more talking which was hard to make out, I heard our driver dismount. A few seconds later I heard him climb onto the side of the wagon.
"Okay, you three," he said. "They're gone. You can come out. They won't deal with these fish until morning. It gets cold enough at night to keep them."
Cormac, Tara, and I pushed our way through the load of fish on top of us like we were struggling to get out of a womb. I made it to the surface and looked around. Our driver was gone, along with the two horses which had pulled the wagon. Cormac and Tara came out of the pile too. I tipped my head forward, spilling a fish.
We were in the middle of a large walled-in courtyard. I looked back and saw the gate we'd come through. It was shut and blocked any view inside. The walls were stone and behind them I could see the tops of the structures which surrounded us—the rest of the compound. Set a few roofs back was the tower, rising well above everything else. It was built from a dark stone and looked like it could easily house quarters for fifty men…and at least one damsel in distress and one evil bastard.
We got down from the wagon and unbundled our cloaks to get at our weapons. I used my cloak to wipe the fish juice from me, but when I was done I knew I still smelled. I abandoned my cloak, since it reeked worse than I did. I glanced over and saw Cormac and Tara had done the same.
"You two ready?" I asked, drawing my sword.
Cormac held his axe in front of him and nodded.
Tara pulled her bow from her quiver and braced one end against the ground, leaning into the wood until she had it bent enough to restring it. Then she pulled an arrow from her quiver and notched it. "Ready."
Despite our fishy smell, we set out to sneak into the tower and find the girl, without being discovered if possible. I didn't think we'd make it too far before one of Ruja's men saw us, but it was our best plan. Of course, as far as plans go, it was pretty shitty, but we had no other options if we wanted to save whoever he had captive. Finding her was our first priority. Taking down Ruja was high on our list though. Not dying was pretty up there too, but we knew the odds of that happening increased with every step we took.
There was a door at the top of several steps at the back of the courtyard opposite the gate. Surprisingly, after taking it, we made it through two small buildings undetected. The first was evidently where they chopped up the fish and packed them in salt. The second was a dry foods storage place.
When we stepped out into a small open-air corridor which ran between some of the structures, our luck ended. We came into the corridor about midway and three men at one end spotted us.
"Intruders!" one of them yelled, and they all ran toward us.
"Scoot," Tara said, bumping me with her hip. I glanced over and saw she had her arrow sighted on one of our attackers. I moved over and she released the string, sending the arrow down the long corridor and into the man in the center of the group. He fell as he groaned from the pain. The other two dodged his body and kept running for us. They were still twenty feet away and Tara was drawing another arrow. It looked like the fight would be over easily. Cormac and I were ready for whoever made it past Tara's arrows.
I heard a commotion behind us. I turned just in time to see four more men rushing at us, and one of them ahead of the others with a sword drawn. He was about to swing it down on Tara. I pushed her to the side with one hand and twisted in her direction, swinging my sword up to block the other man's blade. Our swords clashed as we each tried to strike the other. He was good, but somehow I was keeping up with him. I didn't have time to think about my moves. My body just reacted. With every impact of steel on steel, I could see the force of my swings were taking a toll on him.
Cormac stepped toward the two remaining men from the first group of attackers, engaging them both with his axe. I didn't have time to watch, but I trusted he could handle them. I had three more almost upon me to deal with. When the guy I was fighting took another swing, I used my sword to block it and push his blade down toward the ground, then I stepped in and walloped him with my fist on the side of his head. He flew like a rag doll into the wall and collapse to the ground. With another well-aimed arrow, Tara took out one of the three almost on top of us.
I heard a scream behind me and glanced back. Cormac had struck down one of the two men he was fighting. I sprang back and clashed swords with both of the two on my side. Tara was between Cormac and me, unable to use her bow now, as the fight on both sides drew close. Clangs of metal and grunts of men filled the air. Then I drew blood on one of my opponents. He fell to his knees which put him in a bad spot. The other man and I kept fighting and a moment later his sword cut across the kneeling man, finishing him. I saw the surprise in my attacke
r's eyes at what he'd done, and I used the split second of his hesitation to step in and slam the hilt of my sword into his face. He fell back, bludgeoned and quickly unconscious.
I glanced to Tara to make sure she was okay, then I turned around to Cormac. He was still trading blows, metal to metal, with the last man standing against us.
"You need any help?" I asked.
Cormac blocked his opponent's next move then swung his axe high and came down against the other man's sword, breaking it in two. His axe drove into the man's chest, which I'm pretty sure killed him almost immediately.
Cormac exhaled and turned to me. "No. Thanks. I'm good."
"I guess so," I said.
We stood for a moment, catching our breath—bodies on both sides of us and a horrible fish smell in the air.
Our breather was cut short as the doors at both ends of the corridor flung open, almost perfectly timed with each other. Five men came into the corridor on each end.
"You've got to be shitting me?" I said.
"This is not good." Tara grabbed my arm.
Cormac looked at me. "Yeah. She's right. Not good odds. And how many more after them?"
I wasn't ready to give up, but fighting waves of Ruja's men coming at us from both sides seemed like a losing proposition. I was worried for Tara. She wouldn't stand a chance in close combat against the men and their swords, and I knew Cormac and I could only handle a few at a time.
"Plan B," I said, kicking the door we came through open more. "We fall back. At least we can take them on from only one side that way."
Cormac nodded. "Tara, go."
She heeded his words and went back into the dry goods storage room. Being closer to the door than Cormac, I followed Tara. "Come on, Cormac."
He edged closer to the door.
"Cormac!" I yelled. "Don't be a hero."
He glanced at me. "Yeah. I'm not stupid." He backed up, watching the ten men closing in at a run. He found the doorway with his rear leg and stepped through.
Dennis the Conqueror: A Harem Fantasy (Sword and Sorority Book 1) Page 23