“Of course! A surprise inspection! You’ll find everything clean and tidy, I promise you that. I just spent the last two days sweeping up every speck of dust in the whole place, even the lower levels!” the gaoler brags loudly. “Take a torch, sir. There are none lit beyond this point.”
Rael sees three torches – one is in an iron stanchion next to the gaoler’s table, and the other two rest in wall sconces. He takes one of the latter and turns to head into the dark corridor made by a row of barred cells on either side. The gaoler moves to join him, but Rael motions with an outward hand that the gaoler need not attend him.
“Very well, sir,” the gaoler says, returning to his bench at the table as Rael disappears into the gloom.
As he passes empty cell after empty cell, he notes that the gaoler certainly takes pride in his cleaning, for in fact the entire place is nearly spotless. Rael lifts the plate visor on his helm, glad to be rid of the stuffiness inside as the slightly cooler air reaches his face. Silently, he vows never to wear a helm again.
And then he stops. He can only just feel whatever it is he seeks, and it feels as if it is just below him. The gaoler mentioned lower levels. Rael continues to head down the cell block, picking up his pace substantially. He wants to run, but stops himself from doing so only for the fear of making so much noise that the gaoler may grow suspicious. Eventually, the cells end at a natural stone wall, into which is set more downward leading stone steps.
These Rael descends with almost reckless abandon as they exit into another corridor with more iron barred cells on either side, but this place is different. The level above appeared completely man-made, but this level appears to be a natural cave smoothed by human hands all around. And again, the gaoler clearly spent a fair amount of time here with his broom, for there is no dirt or dust to be seen. Rael nears one of the cells, somehow knowing that what he seeks will be in one of them, and these too have been recently cleaned. Rael moves up the left side of the cell block, checking each and every cell in turn, and finding each and every one empty and clean. That is, until he is at least a hundred feet into the prison’s second level. He peers into one of the ten foot wide cells and again finds it empty, and as he is about to move onto the next, every hair on his body stands on end. It’s near. It’s in the next cell. He knows it.
When he moves to the next, his eyes fall on the crumpled form of a young man that lays still on the floor. Rael makes no noise as he watches the figure intently until he is sure that its chest does not move. He kneels as close to the bars as he can and reaches through them, just barely catching the corpse’s tunic in his gauntlet covered fingertips. Rael pulls at the fabric slightly until he can take an entire clump in his fist, and he pulls the body closer to the bars. The face that stares back at him is one barely out of manhood with scraggily brown or black hair on its cheeks and chin, but it is neither the age that draws Rael’s attention, nor that the man’s head is bent at an unnatural angle on its neck. Even in the flickering orange light of his torch, he can plainly see the grayish tone of the young man’s skin. Another person might have taken this for the natural discoloration of a corpse, but the Dahken recognizes the even gray skin of his own race.
Rael hangs his head and stares at the floor with the realization that he is too late. Again. I should have stormed in and killed any in my way, he thinks as he makes his way back to the upper level of the dungeon.
“Did everything meet your expectations, sir?” the gaoler asks proudly as Rael places his torch back in its sconce.
“I am afraid so,” Rael replies, and he sees the puzzled expression on the gaoler’s face. For a moment, Rael wonders as he approaches if the puzzlement is for his answer or the fact that he had left his visor up to reveal the gray of his face. Can the Westerner even see his face with the two torches burning behind him? Rael asks, “What happened to the prisoner below?”
“Oh him. I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to dispose of him yet.”
“That is not what I asked,” says Rael, his tone cold.
“I tried to move him to clean his cell. He attacked me. I didn’t mean to break his neck, but the priest who brought him said he was to die in there anyway.”
“What was his crime?” Rael asks as he moves in close to the gaoler.
“I don’t –,” the gaoler begins, and his eyes go wide as he sees the gray of Rael’s face, the same gray skin of his victim below.
With a speed belying the solid bulkiness of his frame, the Westerner tries to escape around the far side of his table, but Rael’s sword whistles as it cuts the air. The man cries out as it slashes across his back, red welling up through the leather jerkin. He falls to his chest, flips painfully onto his back and scoots backwards across the floor away from his attacker. Rael calmly and with deadly silence just follows, hovering over the Westerner until the man bangs his head painfully on the iron bars of a nearby cell.
“I’m sorry! I was only doing my job!” the bald man pleads.
Rael sheathes his sword, heedless of the blood that will soon grow sticky on the blade if it is not cleaned, and the Westerner breathes a sigh of relief. He has no time to react as Rael slams the bottom of his foot directly into the man’s face. He does not need the strength of a wound to crush the man’s nose and cheekbones with the first such blow, only the weight of his body and the steel sabaton that encases his foot. The skull cracks against the bars behind it, and Rael finds himself holding onto two of the bars as he stomps his foot into the gaoler’s face over and over until nothing but a bloody pulp remains.
Rael suddenly realizes that he can’t breathe, and his heart beats so fast as to feel like it is but one long beat as opposed to many. He drops to his hands and knees, growing faint. His breathing and heartbeat slows, but he begins to cough as his Dahken blood betrays him. Bloody spittle flecks the stone floor near his face, and Rael grows angry at the inconvenience of it. He has no time for this, for he has no idea if anyone, or how many, heard the commotion; echoes of his sabaton clad foot banging on iron bars sound in his head.
He wills his mouth to close, stifling the coughs as they come, and again climbs to his feet. He looks around the room carefully and locates a pair of buckets in the far corner. As Rael stands over them, he sees that the gaoler clearly used one to relieve himself, but the other contains water. This one he takes and pours it sparingly over the lower part of his leg and foot, gently washing away blood and bits of flesh and bone. Once the water runs out, he inspects himself as well as possible, deciding that all of the obvious signs of his struggle are gone.
As Rael lowers his visor and heads for the stairs up out of the dungeon, he only hopes that no one looking asks about the wet tracks he leaves behind.
19.
“I have business up the coast in Hul’An,” the captain says in the lilting dialect of northern Tigol as the dinghy is lowered to the calm water with Rael inside. “I’ll return in a fortnight and wait one day only. After that, I leave. Understood?”
“Clearly,” Rael says as the tiny boat hits the water.
Rael had been called east for some time, and he had become rather adept at feeling the direction and relative distance based on the way his blood felt. He knew that he had to go beyond the Loszian Empire, somewhere past the vast ocean to its east, and that only meant Dulkur. That meant he needed a boat, or rather a ship, to take him there. He went south into the small kingdom of Roka and its thriving capital, Worh.
It is ironic that after the events in Martherus years ago and more recently Byrverus, Rael feels a need to avoid Westerners as much as possible, and yet he found himself in one of the largest cities in the Shining West. As such however, he avoided the fat and slow Western style galleys and instead checked with the ships’ captains of the slimmer Tigolean vessels. The first two explained that they had no interest in sailing to Dulkur, but the second informed him of a ship that he knew to be headed that way.
The Serpent Dragon is a long, slim Tigolean cutter that favors speed over its ability to carr
y goods, and so her captain, a Tigolean by the name of Ahireo, tends to carry information more than cargo. He’s short, even as Tigoleans go, standing only just over five feet tall, but his men obey his orders with so much alacrity as to make one think the man a ten foot demon. Rael thinks that the two curved and single edged swords at his waist, a longsword and shortsword in their length relative to Western weapons, likely account for this. Ahireo has the dark brownish yellow skin common to northern Tigoleans, a slender but wiry frame and a headful of silk-like black hair that falls to the middle of his back in a ponytail. The main has long whiskers of the same color and texture that blend into a beard of the same that drops at least four inches below his chin. He doesn’t speak Western very well at all, but fortunately Rael picked up enough of the captain’s native tongue for the two to communicate.
“You want passage to Dulkur?” Ahireo had said.
“I believe so,” Rael replied, “but I am not sure exactly where.”
“Then how do you expect me to take you there?”
“I go where I feel led,” Rael explained. “I will know when I have reached the right place.”
“Such a voyage is difficult. You want me to sail to the gods knows where. What if I am not amply supplied?” Ahireo asked.
“You are saying it will be expensive,” Rael concluded, and he reached into a sack attached to his sword belt. From it he withdrew a fist sized red gem, and he saw the captain’s eyes light up, even though his face remained stoic. “I think this would cover any expenses you may have and then some for quite some time.”
“Welcome aboard, but I have no room for the horse.”
“Then I will sell him,” Rael said with a sigh.
The Serpent Dragon was aptly named for the vessel was only perhaps fifteen feet wide on deck and well over sixty long. She was made of a light but strong wood that caused her to sit up high in the water. The crew seemed to have difficulty maneuvering the ship in the tight quarters of the docks at first, but once they were clear enough to open the Tigolean fan sail, the ship shot across the bay and into the Narrow Sea with a speed the likes of which Rael had never seen from a ship. Five months later and after two stops in Tigol, the ship had found its way to the southern coast of Dulkur.
They continued north up the coast until Rael suddenly called for a stop. He looked across a hundred yards of the bluest water he had ever seen to a white sandy beach. About a hundred feet beyond that started the trees – huge leafy monstrosities that completely blocked out all view of anything beyond them. Ahireo called for the dinghy, saying, “I’ll not risk beaching my ship in those shallows. You must row yourself in.” Rael thought about arguing the point, considering the size of his payment, but chose against it.
Rael uses his oars to push himself away from the Serpent Dragon and turn the bow of his tiny vessel toward the beach. As he begins to row away, he realizes that he has done nothing to require the ship’s captain to return. It might have been smart to require some form of collateral, something to force Ahireo to come back for him. As it stands, all he has is the Tigolean’s word, which Rael is not sure has any value in this world. On the other hand, if he is stranded and if he manages to find his way back, he could very easily ruin the man’s reputation for reliability.
Its sail spreading wide, the Serpent Dragon quickly speeds off into the distance while Rael still rows his way toward the beach. He realizes suddenly how disgustingly hot and humid it is here, as the sun threatens to bake him in his armor as if it is an oven, and sweat pours off of his face. It is still winter in the Shining West, but it would seem that this place does not know the meaning of the word. As the oars slosh through the clear water, they disturb fish of all sizes and colors, including some small sharks that swim where the water is only a few feet deep. Rael was prepared to jump out of the boat and pull it the rest of the way ashore by one of its mooring lines, but the predators swimming about make him alter his thinking. Rael sets his eyes on the horizon to the west and, unblinking, puts all of his effort into keeping the oars moving.
His oars hit the sandy bottom, and it appears that the boat will go no further, having struck sand. Rael takes his eyes off the thin white line where blue sky meets blue water and looks over the side of his dinghy to see that he sits in less than a foot of water. Deciding that a hungry shark would find it too difficult to reach him here, he drops his oars in the bottom of the boat and hops over the side with a splash. The bow’s mooring line floats alongside it in the water. This he takes in both hands and loops it over his right shoulder as he begins to trudge toward the trees ahead. The line pulls taught, and Rael is almost pulled off his feet for the weight of the small boat. He steels his resolve and digs his feet into the shifting sand, thankful for his heavy boots for even through them he can feel that the sand is nearly white hot.
Once he has pulled the boat into the trees, he almost doubles over with exhaustion. He realizes that he can barely see for all the stinging sweat in his eyes, and he shakes his head like a dog might, throwing salty sweat all about him. Still standing, Rael leans his weight onto his knees as his breath tries to escape him, for the air here, though cooler for being hidden from the sun, is thick with moisture. Coughs threaten to take over. He knows that if he allows them to start, they may not stop for hours, so Rael tightens all the muscles of his chest and abdomen in refusal to let the coughs control them.
Finally breathing easier after who knows how long, the Dahken pulls himself erect, and he finds himself in a world like none other he has ever seen. He had read of Dulkurian jungles at some point, and this most assuredly must be one. Thick trees with ropy vines about their trunks rise to make a canopy at least a hundred feet in the air, and all manner of green plants that range from a foot tall to as tall as a man crowd the floor. All of these have huge pointed leaves, very little different in shape from a Western longsword and some almost as big. The ground under foot is an amalgamation of browns and greens from both living foliage as well as that which has fallen.
Rael starts when he realizes he is surrounded by animal life as well. Just a few feet to his left, a hairy spider, almost as big as his head with frightening orange and black stripes, sits in a man-sized web sucking the life from a small bird. A several foot long snake slithers up a vine nearby, flicking its forked tongue to taste the air, and on the ground ahead, an army of red ants attacks a beetle that’s as big as his fist. Some sort of animal growls in the distance, and it sounds almost like one of the West’s mountain cats, though much larger. There must be a thousand things here that can kill a man, he thinks.
Rael feels the pull in his blood as if it is close, but he almost does not wish to follow it. The urging is less now than it ever has been, and it is a familiar feeling, not unlike when he went into Byrverus’ dungeon. He fears that he will only find more evidence of death, but he must go on. He reaches into the bottom of the boat and retrieves the two and a half foot blade that Ahireo had called a machete.
“You will need it,” the captain had said.
“I have my sword,” Rael argued unknowingly.
“Swords are for cutting men. This is for cutting plants,” Ahireo explained.
After only an hour, Rael finds movement through the thick jungle growth to be exhausting work. The machete is in fact an excellent tool for clearing the greenery from his path, but the constant wielding of it in short chopping motions causes his sword arm to ache. However, he finds that he is completely uncoordinated with the thing when he tries to switch hands. In addition to the labor, Rael cautiously watches where he steps, for he finds that the ground is not remotely level. Also, there are many holes, both large and small from the burrowing of the gods knows what kind of animals, and he is fairly certain he does not want to shove his booted foot into one of them. Most of the animals and insects of the area avoid him as he chops his way through. Those that make no motion away as he approaches, Rael gives a wide berth; if they’re not afraid of him, perhaps he should be afraid of them.
Rael pushes on
this way until the jungle grows dark as the sun sets. He catches glimpses of the bright orb here or there, and as it begins to drop below the horizon, he decides it would be best to stop. The ground is treacherous enough in daylight when he can see where he places his feet. Wondering if he can expect to be eaten by predators large or small in the night, he finds a good tree to lean against. As he dozes away to sleep, huge raindrops awaken him as they begin to fall slowly at first and then so hard that they almost sting. The tree he has chosen at least provides him some shelter.
When Rael wakes, he thinks he has slept long into the morning, but of course he cannot be sure as the sun is blocked by both the canopy and the gray clouds over top of it. Rain still falls, a heavy driving rain, and it has done nothing to cool the air of the jungle further. It has only added to the thickness. The ground underneath him has turned muddy, and the mud has worked its way into his legguards just as the rain has soaked the linens under his hauberk. Rael rubs at his eyes groggily, savoring the burning sensation behind his eyelids. He feels like he hasn’t slept at all, and he wants to go back to sleep. Rael groans as he pushes himself to his feet.
He pulls the machete from his belt and takes one step east, and then he cries out in pain as a tiny dagger stabs itself into his right calf. Rael falls to the ground, clutching madly at the legguard over the boot. He demands that his fingers unbuckle the straps holding it in place, and they only barely obey him as they shake. Just as he manages to loosen the legguard enough to pull at his boot, a bulbous bodied spider works its way out of the top of his boot and falls to the ground. Its body and legs are shiny and black, and its abdomen which is at least two thirds of its total size has a row of red dots up its back. Rael sneers with disgust as he slams his fist down upon the thing. The arachnid crunches, and an ugly purple liquid splatters the underside of his fist, which he quickly wipes off in the mud with disgust. Rael tightens the straps on his legguard, grunting with the pain of it, and again stands to continue his journey through this hellish place.
Blood Loss: The Chronicle of Rael Page 14