The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1)

by JF Smith

“But... you’re...” Roald turned white and his mouth hung open uselessly.

  “Yes, Roald, that is whom you think it is,” affirmed Gully in the ensuing silence.

  Roald stared and his jaw moved slightly as if he was trying to speak. He suddenly fell to one knee and dropped his eyes to the floor in front of Thaybrill’s feet.

  “Forgive me, Your Highness,” he said breathlessly. “I have never had the honor of seeing you in close and I did not recognize... how can this even be poss—” Roald, still on one knee, glanced back sideways at Gully and asked incredulously, “Was it you?! Did you abduct the prince?”

  The question broke the prince’s nervousness and he laughed, which made Gully’s heart lighter to hear.

  Thaybrill said, “No, certainly not! Rise up, good soldier Roald! Perhaps the only swordsman in the whole of the kingdom whom I trust implicitly at the moment. Stand, please, and I’ll allow no more gestures of ceremony around me.”

  Roald slowly stood, still struck in amazement, as Thaybrill passed around him to stand next to Gully. Thaybrill continued, “Your brother, Bayle, is the one who has saved my life! He rescued me from the men that are the true evil behind these crimes, men who have betrayed the kingdom. It is the Domo Regent and the Lord Marshal, lord over all of the Kingdom Guard and the one to whom you pledge loyalty, who are behind my abduction. Behind all of the abductions. And the nobleman Chelders veBasstrolle, too! Traitors to the Iisendom, the wicked lot of them!”

  Roald practically gasped, “What?! The Lord Marshal, too?”

  Before Prince Thaybrill could confirm it, Roald shook his head emphatically and said, “It is of no matter. If the Lord Marshal is a part of this, then I brook no allegiance to him at all. My duty, my loyalty, is to the crown before all else, Sire! That is you. It is a blessed gift from the watchful stars above that you are safe, Your Highness!”

  Roald glanced at Gully with a fond grin of thanks, then looked back at the prince again. He squinted slightly in curiosity and began, “It is quite—”

  Before he could finish his thought, the door to the apartment again opened and two large men stepped in through the doorway.

  Roald whipped around at the sound, and at the sight of the two unfamiliar men, he instantly assumed a defensive stance and drew his sword from its sheath on his side in a flash. He stepped in front of the prince to defend him if necessary.

  At the sight of a sword drawn on them, Gallun and Gellen dropped the packages with which they had returned and fell into an attack posture. Gully could see in their eyes that they were about to transform into wolf form whether they were wearing clothes or not.

  He shouted, “Stop! All of you, stop! Gallun, Gellen, do not!”

  Gully jumped around Roald, knocking over a chair, and threw himself between them.

  “This is Gallun and Gellen, Roald. They are with us. They are friends,” said Gully. He turned to the fighters and said, “Gellen, Gallun, this is Roald, whom we have come to see and who has just arrived.”

  Everyone slowly relaxed out of their tense postures. Gully said, “Careful, Roald, these two are excellent fighters, even without the benefit of weaponry. You’d be hard pressed to find an advantage over either of them. They are good friends, though, and very good men to have on our side, as I will explain.”

  The five men settled in, prepared the simple dinner that Gallun and Gellen had brought back, and ate hungrily as Gully related his tale to Roald of all that had happened. He delicately left out the parts of the story that admitted his thieving for fear of the prince’s reaction, and he left out any indication of the balmor natures of the Mercher clan when he described the gypsy people in the woods.

  When he got to it, Gully glossed over how he rescued the prince, but Thaybrill would have no part in that. He interrupted Gully and gave Roald a far more richly detailed version of the story. Thaybrill ended his tale of the rescue by commenting, quietly, “I have your brother to thank for my life and continued possession of my tongue.” He glanced one by one at Gully, Gallun and Gellen. “For the first time in my life, I have people, good men, around me that I truly trust and among whom I feel a sense of belonging. I do not know what will become of me, or of Iisen, but I feel more at home with you men than I ever did with the people responsible for raising me.” He looked around the room again fondly, and not without a certain fretfulness over the coming days and weeks. “I count it as a privilege to spend what may be the end, or what may be the beginning, with friends such as you.”

  The words warmed Gully, but also made him feel the same again as he had felt about hiding his true self from Gallun and Gellen. He blushed and got up to poke at the fire a few times.

  He busied his hands by fetching Roald’s pipe, and the good quality apricot tobacco his brother set aside for special occasions, to give to him. He awkwardly continued on with his story as he did so. He left out the details of the bloody revenge Gallun and Gellen took on the swordsman, unsure how the prince would react to a swordsman’s murder, even if the swordsman was a traitor.

  He gave Roald his pipe, and the letter to read as well.

  Roald took the letter, noting the blood on it and examining the broken wax seal. As he read, a pallor came over his face and his mouth dropped as the horrible words in the message sank in.

  Roald looked up at Gully and the prince, his head shaking back and forth in disbelief. He whispered, “All of this... it’s all designed to allow Maqara to invade! Sending the Guard away to chase after shadows and phantom kidnappers! All of this is to enslave us! We have no time! Less than a week! Only five days! While the Domo Regent sits in the Folly pulling on strings to overthrow Iisen!”

  He looked hopelessly at Gully. “And we don’t know whom we can trust and who is a part of this! We have no time to stop this!”

  The prince’s face fell along with Roald’s. Gully knew he quickly had to pull them from the despondence into which they were falling. He had hoped Roald would rise to meet the threat facing them, but Gully could see he was overwhelmed.

  “Forgive my boldness, Prince Thaybrill, but Roald... Roald, it is not so hopeless as that. I have been thinking as we walked today, and thoughts have begun to form into something that might help us. Roald, I will need your considered thoughts on this as well.”

  His brother nodded, desperate for any way out of the impending doom.

  “First, though,” said Gully, “how has the disappearance of the prince been handled? What story has been publicly presented by the Domo Regent?”

  With shaking hands, Roald lit his pipe to help sooth his nerves. He said, “He has spread lies, as you would expect. He blames, forgive me Gallun and Gellen, the cannibal gypsies for sneaking in and stealing the prince. The citizenry is in a froth from fear of gypsies so stealthy that they can take even the crown prince from under our noses and spirit him out of the city with no one knowing. The Lord Marshal has almost every single guard in the city off looking, based on reports of sightings to the north and west of the city. My squad has only returned today from a search out west towards Dill and we are to go off again tomorrow even farther. The Lord Marshal has mentioned probably calling in veBasstrolle’s contingent of the Guard as well. But after reading this letter, it is clear that was always a part of the plan. It is all a ploy to leave the path from the pass to Lohrdanwuld undefended.”

  “We must get Prince Thaybrill into public view as soon as possible. This will expose the Domo Regent as a traitor!” said Roald.

  Gully shook his head. “Nay, nay,” he said. “I now believe that this strategy would not work. The Lord Marshal is a part of this. The first thing that would happen is that whatever guards are sent to protect the prince would only be acting to remove him from public view and to remove whoever has helped him, whether they be fellow guards or not. We would all die at their hands this time, without doubt. The Domo would explain it away by saying it was an impostor prince seeking to foment trouble. His plan would hardly suffer at all.”

  The room grew quiet and Gully
knew he would need to nudge everyone in a better direction.

  “They do not know we are in the city, though, and they do not know the prince now has people on his side, one of whom is an honest swordsman. We must cut the head off the viper before it can strike us. Our problem is that it is a three-headed viper,” said Gully. “We need more people on our side,” he prompted.

  Roald’s eyes lit up. “My squad! I can bring them here! Once they see the prince alive and well and hear who is truly behind this, they will of course side with us. We can get to the Domo Regent and the Lord Marshal and arrest them before their suspicions are aroused!”

  Thaybrill paled slightly. “Are you sure, Roald? Are you sure you can trust these men of yours that they are not a part of this?”

  “Without a doubt, Highness!” said Roald enthusiastically. “I spend every day with these men and know them as I know myself. They are not a part of this conspiracy, and I will bet my very life on it.”

  Gully said, glad to see Roald on the right track. “Yes, but it is a bigger fight than just that. We will have to work on multiple fronts. How many can you bring ’round, Roald?”

  “There are six in my squad.”

  “Time is very short and we must also be preparing for an invasion by the Maqarans,” said Gully. “Except we cannot trust any of the Kingdom Guard under veBasstrolle. Who knows how many Guards under him are a part of this!”

  Roald stood and puffed on his pipe a few times, his eyes afire with how to proceed. “veBasstrolle’s men would have been the most convenient, but we can send word by swift horse to veKinn’s and veOusthendan’s Guard contingents. We can have them rally and march to the pass in a few days.” Roald breathed out some smoke as he thought through the timing. “Time is tight to gather our forces, and it will still be tricky to protect against the Maqarans with the little bit of information we have. Without knowing their true numbers, how they are armored, and precisely when they begin to move on Iisen, we could still easily be caught unprepared and fail.”

  Gully felt stronger now that he was witness to the strategist coming alive in his brother.

  Without much thought, and feeling truly hopeful for the first time, Gully blurted, “The Mercher clan! They can put their skills to use and help!”

  Roald looked curious and said with the pipe hanging out of his mouth, “Hmm? Skills? What skills do you speak of, Bayle?”

  Thaybrill glanced curiously over at Gallun and Gellen, both of whom looked uncomfortable with the sudden attention.

  Gully realized his mis-step and tried to deflect attention from it. He stammered, “Well, they know the South Pass Road and...”

  “How does that help us get advance information?” asked Roald. “It sounded like—”

  “I misspoke,” interrupted Gully, feeling his skin tingle in his embarrassment at giving away the Merchers in a way he had promised solemnly not to do.

  Gellen, though, had stood in the meantime. Gully noticed this, and his eyes pled with Gellen for forgiveness at almost giving them away. But Gellen had already taken his tunic off and began to take his breeches off as well.

  The prince and Roald noticed Gellen’s strange behavior, too. Prince Thaybrill said, “Why is he disrobing?”

  Gallun watched his brother, sighed when he realized the decision his brother had made, and then began to take his clothes off as well. The instant Gellen was undressed, his image fluttered in the firelight, and then there was a large wolf where the man had been.

  Gully felt awful at putting them in this position, but also thankful that Gellen was willing to be the one to actually betray the secret.

  The prince cried out and jumped from his chair while Roald lunged for his sword against the wall. Gully leaped across the room to where there were now two wolves standing quietly while everyone else was frantic.

  Gully stood between Gallun and Gellen and said, “Wait, Roald! Stop! Thaybrill, please!” He put his hands on the heads of the wolves and said, “This is still Gallun and Gellen! They are the same men you saw but a moment ago, but they can take the form of wolves.”

  At seeing Gully with the animals, his hands calmly on their heads and the wolves allowing it, the prince stopped from trying to flee around the table and stared dumbly. Roald stood frozen, waiting to see if the wolves would attack or not.

  “You need not be afraid of them, you have my word,” said Gully, kneeling down to be closer to his friends, to prove they were not violent. Gallun turned and even licked at Gully’s face once.

  “Gallun, please,” said Gully impatiently and wiping at his face.

  Gellen turned back into a human, causing both Roald’s and the prince’s eyes to almost pop out of their heads.

  Roald put his hand to his forehead like he was feeling ill. “Can this be real?” he said in a whisper.

  “This is some sort of evil magic!” exclaimed Prince Thaybrill, as white as a sheet.

  “No,” said Gully with a sigh. He could not help but feel like he had betrayed the Merchers and the patriarch in particular by not holding his tongue, and his heart felt very heavy as a result. “No, Thaybrill. No magic, and no evil. The Merchers are merely different from us, and there are very few of them left. But they are good, honorable people, and peaceful. I was being truthful when I told you that they have suffered much worse at the hands of the slave traders than Iisenors have. But they can help us, Roald! Gallun and Gellen can change between human form and wolf form at will. I have seen their fighters skirmish, and they are very skilled, even without weapons. Others among them can transform into birds of prey, keen of eye. Think of the value of having eyes in the sky to study the gathering Maqaran forces!”

  Gellen stood in human form with his arms crossed over his chest while Gallun remained in wolf form next to Gully. Gully bit at his lip while he hoped that Roald and Prince Thaybrill would be able to shed their fear.

  “They can turn into wolves, or other animals? Whenever they choose?” said Thaybrill curiously.

  “Yes,” said Gully, nodding.

  “But they do not attack us. The wolf sits next to you as if he knows you.”

  “He does know me. It is still Gallun sitting here. He has a human body, and a wolf body, too, but it is always Gallun’s mind and soul that inhabits them. It is still Gallun seeing and hearing us speak right now. Isn’t that right, Gallun?”

  The wolf nodded his head to prove he understood every word.

  Roald said, “That is the most remarkable thing I have ever seen in my life!”

  “They are few in number and do not wish to cause trouble or have trouble find them, but they will help if we ask,” said Gully.

  Thaybrill stepped forward and put his hand out tentatively. “May I?” he asked as he reached nervously towards Gallun. Gallun nodded again and the prince put his hand on the wolf’s head.

  A look of amazement crossed his face again and he turned to Roald and said, “The wolf is as real as you or I!”

  “You should have one throw himself upon you in the woods in panic or excitement and you find how very real they are!” said Gully dully.

  Gellen shifted back into wolf form and began to growl sullenly at Gully.

  Gully began to argue with him, “Every time! You don’t have to... oh never mind, this is not the point! You may as well stay in whatever form you are most comfortable with for now. Back to the plan...”

  Roald seemed to have trouble tearing his eyes from the unbelievable sight of his brother arguing with a growling wolf, even if it felt very much as if it was mostly in a good humor. He said, “The plan... yes! We need to send one of the guards south to veKinn’s fief to gather the contingent there. Another guard will go north to veOusthendan’s fief.”

  Gully piped in and said, “Roald, I would like for you to go with Gallun and Gellen to ask the patriarch of the Merchers for their help.”

  “Nay, nay,” said Roald, shaking his head. “You should go to the gypsy clan since they know you. I will be of better service here to see to it that the D
omo Regent and the Lord Marshal are taken into arrest.”

  Prince Thaybrill finally spoke up. “No, Roald. You must be at the Pass.”

  Roald looked confused. “Sire, why is that?”

  “Because you will be in charge of all the forces defending Iisen there.”

  “Me?!” gasped Roald. “Your Highness, I am but a lieutenant. I cannot—”

  “But you obviously have a mind for this, and I need someone leading the forces there that I trust without question,” said the prince. “And I trust you.”

  “Yes,” said Gully, “I agree with Prince Thaybrill. We cannot afford to let someone take charge of our forces and risk them being a part of the conspiracy. You can do this, Roald!”

  “But... who will arrest the Domo Regent and the Lord Marshal?” asked Roald.

  “Two soldiers to gather forces from veKinn’s and veOusthendan’s fiefs. Two soldiers to go to arrest veBasstrolle personally. You will go gather the Merchers to help and travel to the pass. That leaves two more from your squad. Those two, plus myself, will go after the Domo Regent and the Lord Marshal,” said Gully.

  “There will be four of us,” said the prince firmly. “I will not send you into this without being willing to go with you. And I know where the Domo Regent and Lord Marshal will likely be inside the Folly.”

  Gully would have argued, and he also had been inside the Folly a few times himself under less than honest circumstances, but he could scarcely admit to that at the moment. The knowledge of the likely locations of the Domo and the Lord Marshal would be very useful, though.

  “Yes, I suppose you are right. Once the traitors in charge of this conspiracy are arrested and the head of the viper is removed, it will be safe for Thaybrill to re-emerge. It is agreed then?” asked Gully.

  They all agreed to the plan, and began to put it in motion.

  Roald left immediately to gather his squad. In the meantime, and since dusk had fallen, Gully took the prince up onto the roof so that he could pray to his father on behalf of all of Iisen for support and luck.

  Gallun, Gellen, and Gully sat quietly while the prince prayed. When he was done, Thaybrill said to Gully, “Bayle, I again find myself in your debt. I was at an utter loss for any way of preventing total disaster. And here tonight, you and your brother Roald have constructed a plan that very much sounds like it stands a chance of success!”