Nearing the trees, other soldiers emerged from the woods in the moonlight. Gorias wondered, “They traveled out here in a caravan of wagons? To where?”
The Black Raven climbed down and said, “They head toward Mysoline in theory and divert here.”
The rest dismounted and tied their horse’s reins to a fallen deadwood. As Gorias patted Traveler, Alena said, “The Keep is a half moon rock formation where the pirates can come ashore with ease.” She motioned beyond the veil of trees at a distant object. “Their great vessel must anchor out there, but smaller boats can navigate into the keep without getting to a dock.”
While they walked in the woods, Gorias said, “I remember hearing of the Keep a hundred years ago, not a natural beach, but a great abyss that dips down beside the crescent of rock. One can row up to it and step off into Transalpina, but many fear what lies below.”
Orsen scoffed as the four soldiers took up behind them. “Childish nonsense. There’s a gouge in the earth there and a shelf of rock sticking out, not a gateway to the abyss. Yes, I’ve heard that crock of dung story. Of course a pirate would use this as a dock as the farmers around here have no guile to interfere in such matters.”
Gorias took a quick look back out of the woods at the sprawling farms that covered the land and then scanned the heavy shrubs hemming in the area where the long wall of the Keep began to rise. These bushes covered the bottom of the rising rock like a beard, sometimes pushing vines up to where the stony wall terminated. “Most old superstitions get there for a reason. I’m not saying there’s anything evil about the Keep, but I’ve found its better not to put your peter out for sunshine in places with a bad reputation.”
The elite soldiers exchanged glances, but Alena said, “Scholarly advice.”
“There are more old drunken whoremongers than there are scholars, so ya better listen up.”
They only walked a few hundred yards before several dozen troopers bedecked like the Ravens melted from the landscape. They ringed the outer edges of a mass of regular Transalpinan troopers.
Orsen whispered to Gorias, “At times like this, do you feel afraid? Knowing you cannot escape if they decide to kill you?”
Gorias shook his head. “Hell no. I’m ready to die, young man. Many of them aren’t. I know I’d take eight or nine motherfuckers with me, so that cushion keeps many honest. Besides, ever see a seven-hundred-year-old man scamper up a rock face and leap into the ocean?”
The troopers parted and allowed them to walk through. The area of planning had only the dimmest of lanterns and a makeshift command area by a couch-sized boulder. On this potato-shaped rock lay a scroll with two graying men in officer’s regalia pointing to it. The one on the left, a very tall man, partly due to an oblong head, was unknown to Gorias, but he recognized the other in a moment. Tall, but very thickset, with fingers so heavy Gorias wondered how he tied laces on anything, the man’s shaggy white beard hooped around a worn face and balding head. The hair in the rear of his head flowed long over his chain mail in the back, a light armor that struggled to cover his barrel chest and thick belly.
“By the ass of Odin, Gorias La Gaul for real.”
“General Thynnes,” Gorias said and the two old warriors clasped right hands. They didn’t let go. “It’s been quite a spell.”
Thynnes rolled his eyes and belched out a boisterous laugh. “Speak to me not of spells, La Gaul. There’s wicked deviltry afoot here and I mean to stop it.”
Gorias released his hand and turned to the map. “Yeah? How ya gonna do that?”
“Like always,” Thynnes grunted. “I’m going to stomp its balls into oblivion like it was a common drunk in a bar fight. This won’t be pinching off a stubborn turd, no, this will be a blow with finality. There’s a ban on wizardry and spellcasters in our land.”
“I’ve heard tell.”
“Somebody is fucking around, though,” Thynnes snorted, coughed and spat. “That’s the only explanation for the goddamned dragonfire business.” Thynnes looked to Gorias. “You know how this shit can be happening, don’t you?”
“I have an inkling. There are no dragons and one can’t carry a flint stone to create dragonfire in the twigs.”
Thynnes nodded sharply. “Exactly. I’m so fucking glad to take council with someone with a few brains and who’s been smellin’ their piss for longer than twenty years.” He then stared at the oblong-headed officer. “No offense, Colonel Schou.”
The other officer smiled. “None taken, sir. I’m interested to hear and meet Lord La Gaul.”
“Gorias is fine,” he said and shook Schou’s hand. “I’m only here as a favor to the Queen.”
Thynnes cleared his throat and gripped the parchment again. “The old girl is coy, even at this late date. She keeps her damned friends close as the clap, don’t you know?”
Gorias nodded. “So it’s these pirates? What are they about?”
“They’re smuggling something shitty into Transalpina. From what our sneaky pickets said, there was something sent out to them before we got in close, probably cargo from the goddamned traitors in Albion.”
“You folks are sure there are traitors?”
“Ain’t there always? Some sissy punk always wants to get the high ground in life by not doing a damned thing or by not fighting. Pirates, who’d deal with such scum? Goddamn navy, they polish their pricks and let these fuckers in close.”
“I met an Admiral yesterday.”
“Rosman?”
“Yeah?”
“Prick with ears. Anyway, I have a nasty idea what but not to who is supplying the pirates. I think we have them with their balls out this time. Maybe they’ll roll under torture.”
Thynnes motioned them all to follow as Gorias said, “What are the pirates smuggling in?”
They all climbed up a trail in the rising stone and soon peered over a crested rock cropping down into the Keep. Two small rafts stopped by the lip of the rock outcropping and several pirates climbed out, pulling their boats onto the land. In the distance sat a vessel anchored beyond the drop beside the Keep.
“See?” Thynnes asked Gorias. “You know what it is.”
Gorias’ eyes widened as he saw the pinpricks of lights, like glowing balls in the boats, each as big as a child’s game ball. “Dragonfire.”
Alena pushed up beside Gorias and whispered, “Where would they get such a thing? How?”
Orsen added, “And what is someone doing with it in Albion?”
Gorias stared a long time and Thynnes said at last, “You know the stories. You know where they are getting it.”
“Pergamus.”
Thynnes nodded. “There’s no other place, even if it’s a fuckin’ legend. You know where it is, don’t you?”
“Not exactly. It’s been centuries, but granted, it’s not far from here.” Gorias rubbed his eyes and blinked. “That damned wizard, lied to my face.”
Thynnes jeered him. “What? That never fuckin’ happens to you?”
“Sure, but what makes me angry is, he wouldn’t have done that if he thought there was a chance of me coming back alive.”
Thynnes drew back on the dirt path and started to motion for his men to fan out away from them. “I guess we’ll soon see if you get to die in the line of duty, huh?”
Alena stuck near Gorias as they moved back some, saying, “Pergamus, that’s just a fairy tale like Lemuria on the other side of the world, not real like Atlantis, right?”
“Pergamus isn’t a place, like they all think,” Gorias said low so only she could hear. “They think it’s an island, a special place, and well, kinda. Pergamus isn’t an island.”
Though she wore a questioning look, she stayed quiet as Gorias and the others started to jog to keep up with the troops encircling the edges of the Keep. He saw her watching Orsen as he hung back from the rest and disappeared into the troopers far behind them. Courage, Gorias mused, wasn’t that kid’s strong suit.
Gorias drew nearer to Thynnes. “Couple dozen pirates,
probably all armed.”
Thynnes nodded. “We’ll take enough hostages.” He then swept his right hand out, and near to fifty men spilled out of the brush into the moonlight.
Alena whispered, “Those aren’t Black Birds.”
“Ravens,” Gorias corrected her with a droll voice. “Regular archers, correct?”
Thynnes said, “They’re green troops but everyone needs practice. I figure firing down into the fuckin’ darkness and any surprises that lurk will be a learning fuckin’ experience.”
The archers didn’t let out a shout or a declaration to the pirates. The squad took a knee and leveled their longbows. The pirates saw them in the moonlight and stopped fast.
Gorias noted, “Longbows, damn, they’ll slice them to the wishbones.”
A hail of arrows released, probably leaving a few targets clean, but under such a barrage it appeared all of the pirates would die. Once the arrows released, the pirates also took a knee and pulled up tiny metallic shields on their left forearms. Near to all arrows were deflected by these small shields, save for one that found a home in the bent knee of the pirate nearest one of the boats. This man grabbed his knee and fell, screaming.
Thynnes looked at Gorias, “That was either a lucky shot or highly skilled.”
Eyebrows raised, Gorias replied, “In the heat of battle, they are interchangeable.”
Undeterred, the bowmen reached back and quickly notched another arrow.
One of the pirates stood up a tad, long hair blowing in the breeze. “Hail!”
Before another volley flew, a rain of projectiles struck the archer squad. Near to every shot went awry as many rocks, shiny balls and sharp objects rained on them, swooping up from the depths of the Keep’s darkness.
Thynnes stepped back, frowning. “We are undone, fucking traitors out in the dark.” He waved his left arm, indicating the Black Ravens should now descend unto the Keep. “Fucking pricks. I hate traitors, don’t you?”
Half laughing at his obsession with traitors, Gorias followed Thynnes as he fell in behind more regular army troopers that in turn followed the Black Ravens disappearing into the night.
Alena hissed quietly, “Traitors?”
Gorias grabbed her by the wrist so they wouldn’t get separated in the night. “Those pirates are coming to meet somebody with dragonfire. I guess they were still around and had slings to flummox the archers.”
He released her and drew his swords. She did likewise, sliding out her blade and a dagger. The Black Ravens slithered into the brush where the party hid, and soon flushed out a group of men in regular clothes, armed with short swords and slings. The elite troopers cut them down for the most part, quickly chopping through their ranks like a gardener who discovered a snake. Gorias saw one of the men; turban tight to his head, mouth gaping, both arms hacked off, a scream caught in his throat, still running.
The archers stood and started to take better aim, but still only struck a couple of the pirates down, for the invaders still defended themselves well. Their attention now turned to the crop of men flooding in from the brush.
“Alive!” Thynnes shouted. “Leave some alive.”
Gorias and Alena moved down the side of the Keep but she patted Gorias’ arm, seeing Orsen staying up top. He shrugged. “We’re probably stupid coming down here.”
One of the pirates screamed out, “We’re had!” The pirate turned and started to push the raft back into the sea, but a bowman struck him in the spine. The boat drifted off into the current as the pirate fell face-first into the sea. He never swam. The arrow in his back twitched twice.
“Surrender!” one of the Black Ravens shouted.
From the group of surviving pirates and their Transalpinan friends a thin pair of arms arose, holding a globe of flickering dragonfire. The sphere of fire illuminated a mound of blue-black hair.
Gorias grabbed Alena and pulled her behind him. “Aw, crap…”
The woman from the pirates shouted, “What shit!” and threw the globe at the largest mass of Thynnes’ troopers.
Gorias had time to turn and push Alena far back toward the path on the steep drop they descended before he reached down to his belt and armed up his helmet.
The globe descended in the midst of the archers and Ravens, shattering like glass, but the contents spreading like the sun broke over the land. From out of the spot where the globe broke belched a huge flame that just kept growing. Like the billowing cloud of a furnace yet made of churning flame, the dragonfire arose, not caring who it touched, pouring over the archers and troopers like lava, giving them all several seconds to understand they were aflame and run a few steps before their joints turned to ash and they fell to flaming mush.
Thynnes and many more fled and took cover behind folds in the rocks, but a majority of the archers and several of the regular army died where they stood, melting away, their bones rattling on the floor of the Keep.
The pirates retreated to their rafts, many laughing, but the tall woman stepped from the group. Beside her was another slender woman with black hair, tattooed all over her flesh. The first woman stomped forward, hip boots flat on the rock surface, a dagger in her left hand and a coiled whip unraveled from her side. An archer who survived got to his knees and notched an arrow. She took note of him and he let the missile fly. Her whip lashed the object down as well as his second volley. The big gal stalked over and lashed the whip around the archer’s neck, and yanked. The archer twisted as the whip ripped back, his neck and throat shredded of flesh.
She swung the whip back and snapped it down. The whip’s tails glittered from the metal treatments affixed to it.
The dragonfire died down a little but amid the flames, only Gorias La Gaul, clad in his smoking armor, gauntlets and helm secure, stepped through the liquidy inferno. His cloak melted away in the fire as his heavy waist belt lost a few links and fell to the rock surface. He joined his twin swords at the handles and spun the weapon like a fan.
“You can die like any other,” the woman screamed, whips snapping near Gorias. “Come dance with Noguria!”
“Deliverance will come,” Gorias said, voice muffled in the helmet, still advancing, blade fan spinning slow.
Noguria took up an attack stance, left leg planted back and right bent forward, whip curled back ready to strike. She slapped the knife to a housing on her hip and it adhered. Noguria’s hand slipped into one of her belt pockets and she threw out four metallic objects into Gorias’ path.
His swords slowed in their spin, but skillfully swiped at two of the twisted objects, each whirling sword tip scooping one up and sending them back at their owner. Noguria dived out of the way and rolled back up into her defensive position. The two projectiles stuck into the side of the nearest boat just by the edge.
“Caltrops,” Gorias named the wicked objects as he stepped over the others. “Meant to ruin a horse’s hoof. Cute.”
“Good enough for a horse’s ass,” Noguria shouted, pulling a second whip out in her other hand, lashing out, trying to encircle Gorias’ knees.
So light on his feet, Noguria’s mouth gaped, Gorias hopped back, legs apart more to avoid the caltrops, and he eluded the whips treated with jagged glass. “Yer outta yer league, sister,” Gorias yelled and glanced over at the boat. He set eyes on the shorthaired pirate girl, but quickly refocused on his opponent.
Noguria’s boots tapped like a dancer, trying to confuse him of her advance or intent to retreat. She kept lashing out with the whips, but her eyes betrayed her, darting past Gorias to the area where Thynnes hid, then to the tall guard of the Queen also coming into the open. Alena ran toward the crowd of traitors at the edge of the dragonfire burn.
Gorias seized her moment of panic and stepped forward, separating his swords back to his hands. His looming form made Noguria lash out to disarm him, wrapping both wrists in the whips. Gorias dropped his swords, not letting the whips slide down to his pommels, clutched the ends of the whips and pulled her to him.
Terror presented i
n her mind as she approached the warrior but her survival instinct rose up. She slammed into Gorias’ frame, impacting on his chest, blood spilling from her jaw from the hit. His arms encircled her in a bear hug, but she quickly rotated, releasing one of her whips. Right hand into her other pouch, Noguria reached for his face as Gorias tightened his grip. Instincts running high, he flinched and pushed her away just as the hand slapped at his visor. Noguria meant to squash the diminutive tablets from her pouch into his open visor to his flesh, but his last-second jerk move made her gloved hand slap his helmet side instead.
Gorias’ left hand let go and yanked down his visor just as the dragonfire from the tablets crushed on him started to flower. Noguria slithered from his grip and fell to the rocky surface, rolling over a dozen times to avoid the plume of dragonfire as it ran over Gorias.
Alena stopped in sword fighting one of those deemed traitors from Transalpina long enough to gawk at Gorias taking a few steps and shaking off some of the dragonfire. It snaked about him and nearly took on the shape of eels as it started to disperse, finding nothing to eat.
Gorias reached down, trying for his swords, not waiting for it to clear completely.
The girl in the boat screamed at Noguria, “Run!”
Her ego bruised, Noguria bit her bottom lip, started to get to her knees and faced the boat.
Gorias hopped, much of the fire off him, blocking her path to the tiny boat.
Noguria went at him again, lashing out with the last whip she held. The lash wrapped about one of Gorias’ blade tips. He stopped moving toward her and let the blade she seized fall down to his right side. Gorias stepped on the blade, pinned her whip to it, and gripped his sword by the flat of the gleaming metal.
She held her whip too long, trying to pull it back, but did release at last. She drew back just as Gorias disengaged the handle, gripped the flat and swung his sword by the blade, cracking her across the cheek with the handle. The shot spun her around, but Gorias had her fast, holding her from behind by the shoulders like he meant to apply a gentle massage, but instead he drove his helmet into Noguria’s skull. The dragon-skinned material broke through her hair, collapsed her cranium and hit the moisture of brain matter before Gorias drew back, and permitted Noguria to fall down. The whip mistress convulsed a few times before she lay still.
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