The proud commander slid the work of art into its sheath and strapped the sheath to his back.
The time was near.
He was ready.
Except now he had to piss again.
General Rayles met him at the fortress base. “Their castle has been surrounded. Shall we invade?” he asked in Tek.
“No. Wait for me to arrive. I will lead the assault,” Zaffka answered.
“Very well, milord. Your transport awaits.”
A band of Tek bodyguards accompanied Zaffka and Rayles to their transporter and the group crossed the bloody battlefield to the Lithian castle.
A soldier with a single red stripe at his neck greeted Zaffka at the castle’s main entrance.
“No one has left since we arrived, milord. We believe the King is still inside.”
Zaffka nodded. “Very well,” he said in Epertasian. “I find them.”
The Tek officer tilted his head with a squint.
Rayles grinned and whispered in Tek, “You have been practicing. Very good.”
Zaffka’s bodyguards led him and Rayles through the castle’s main entrance. The walls were bare. Empty boxes were strewn on the floor, giving one the impression the castle had been robbed. Epertasian words were painted on the walls and Rayles asked Zaffka what they read.
“Die, Tek demons. There is nothing for you here.”
Rayles smirked. “When will these fools learn we care not for their possessions?” he asked no one in particular.
Zaffka ordered the soldiers to clear each room and line any survivors along the front wall. He and Rayles climbed the dark staircase into a long, bright hallway.
At the opposite end waited a lightly armored man. He wore a sword, a shield, and the arrogance of a man who knew how to kill.
“My turn,” Zaffka whispered. Rayles backed into the stairway.
“Who you?” Zaffka asked in Epertasian. “Are you King?”
The man replied. “I am Carver. And this is as far as you go.”
Zaffka drew his sword.
Carver did the same while raising his shield.
Zaffka took a deep breath, huffed a bored sigh, and then charged.
Carver responded in kind.
Zaffka pointed both of his arms at Carver and flinched. Thunder shot from the cylinders along his forearms, first from his left, then from his right. One blast missed its target by a squank hair. The other slammed into Carver’s shield, knocking him to his backside. He leaned his head around his shield, stared for a moment at the smoking hole in its center, and then tossed it aside.
“Why not face me head on, coward, instead of using your witchcraft?”
“Oh, my friend, that wasn’t witchcraft. It is called gunpowder.”
“I don’t understand your filthy language.”
Carver dusted himself off and rose to his feet. Zaffka leaped and swung his sword. Carver ducked. The sword sliced through the hallway stone wall with ease. Carver’s eyes bulged like all of the previous warriors who had seen the sword’s power right before they felt it.
Zaffka chuckled. “Now, that’s witchcraft.”
Carver shrugged his shoulders as if unimpressed. He lunged with his sword. The blade ricocheted off the Tek’s armor. He dropped to a squat. In one fluid motion, he swept Zaffka’s legs while shoving him to his back. The impact slid Zaffka’s sword from his hand along the hall floor. His armor hissed and spurted as he scrambled to make distance between them. Carver dove at him, heaving his sword at his head. Zaffka jerked to the side, impressed with Carver’s skill.
The brave defender of the castle lunged at the Tek again but struck only armor. Zaffka put his knuckles against Carver’s leg. Carver’s eyes briefly told Zaffka he knew his mistake. The Tek flinched. A concussive boom let loose. The Lith warrior fell to his back, clutching the fresh wound on his thigh. Though his armored thigh plate now wore a bloody, smoking hole, Carver didn’t make a sound.
Zaffka strolled past to retrieve his sword. He turned back to Carver and stood above him. He removed his helmet to better see his fallen foe. “Not bad,” he said. He took a couple of deep, agitated breaths. “Where King?”
Carver tried to lift his heavy sword but Zaffka stomped his arm back to the floor.
“You’ll never find him. He is far away by now.”
“No matter,” Zaffka said through clenched teeth. He raised his blue sword with both hands. “We find him. Eventually.”
Carver shouted, “Basta …” but Zaffka drove the blade down through his chest, silencing his scream. The blade lodged in the stone floor beneath him. With an air of arrogant pride, he watched as Carver twitched. Slowly the life left the Lith warrior’s body. Once the twitching had ceased and Zaffka could gain no more sick pleasure, he grunted and wiggled the handle of his sword until it pulled free of the stone and armor and bone. Zaffka sensed Rayles standing behind him.
“Round up everyone.” he ordered. “Locate the tunnels and send search parties through. Find the rest of the royal family and execute them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You and I will leave for the area known as Havens Ravine in the morning. That is where the real battle will take place. These Epertasians will fight hard to protect the land they call Thasula. Our armies should be in position soon.”
“It’s all coming together, milord.”
“Of course.”
CHAPTER 35
ATROCITIES OF WAR
Aidric opened his eyes to the bright cloudless sky. He tried to sit up but winced and grabbed his side. His blurry pupils slowly focused in the light until he could look around. The broken and battered bodies of his men surrounded him. They never stood a chance. A battalion of Epertase’s finest soldiers were slaughtered in an instant and he had led them to the slaughter.
He breathed through his nose because his jaw hurt too much to move. The air was thick and putrid. Vultures, too many to shoo, pecked at the flesh of his men. He gagged, spraying vomit and blood from his nose and through the gaps where his front teeth once were. Some of his men writhed and moaned in pain, too weak to fight off the scavengers. He willed himself to his feet.
I’ll find help, I promise, Aidric silently vowed to his brave, dying comrades who still drew breath.
As he straightened, he froze, waiting for the ripping pain in his lower back to subside before he could start up the same bloody, mud-covered hill that began the fight.
He was partially up the hill when he realized something that made him more nauseous. Not the rivulets of blood oozing from the many wounds on his battered body, not the pools of blood from the day’s battle flowing down the hillside, but what he heard over the ringing in his ears. Or more accurately, didn’t hear. The Lithian battlefield was as quiet as a tomb beyond the hills. Surely the battle is not over so soon.
By the time he reached the top of the same hill where he’d felt so confident before the battle, the suns had risen and fallen. The cries of his men had become fewer and weaker. As he peered over the crest of the hill, he saw smoke rising from the villages of Lithia. The sight told him what he didn’t want to accept.
Tens of thousands of Lith soldiers lay bloodied in the matted, chewed-up grass. Women and children who had refused to evacuate searched the impossible sea of carcasses for their husbands and fathers and brothers and sons. The wounded crawled, trying to do what they could to help their friends, while others sat and sobbed in the face of such annihilation.
Mammoth craters unlike any he had ever seen created by man, large enough to bury five or six horses, marred the ground. Body parts and torsos and burned grass surrounded the holes.
Aidric wobbled at the sheer magnitude of his failure. He puked again. There was more blood in his vomit than before.
Most of the day passed before he reached the bottom of the hill. He was exhausted and weak and had lost too much blood. He collapsed onto his back near a small puddle, no bigger than a footprint, that burned beside him. He winced and bit his tongue so he could roll to his sid
e and get a better look at the fire that floated on the dark water. Something was familiar about the black gunk. And then it hit him. It was the same dark liquid that had sprayed from the Tek’s neck several nights before.
He looked past the burning puddle to an old woman who approached, her dress, arms, and face smeared with red. She mumbled something but Aidric couldn’t hear. The ringing in his ears must have gotten worse. She crouched in front of him. “Can I help you?” she mouthed.
He nodded weakly. She was a big woman, strong, and she lifted his arm over her shoulder. Together they walked to a horse-drawn wagon full of dying men. An elderly man, maybe the woman’s husband, helped Aidric into the wagon. A lifeless soldier lay next to him and the elderly man mumbled something to the woman before the two of them pulled the dead soldier from the wagon to the ground.
Aidric whispered, “My men are on the other side of the hill. Help them.”
He strained to hear the woman’s reply. Her lips said she knew about his men, that others were helping them. She gently brushed the back of her hand along his cheek. “You’ll be alright,” she said. He closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 36
BROKEN TRAILS
Simcane knelt in the high grass of the Great Plains as the blades tickled his thick calf muscles. He turned toward the castle walls from the edge of the forest of Concore. His instincts argued with what he expected to find. The clumped dirt at the forest’s edge stunk of dried blood and crumbled between his fingers.
“Is this where Rasi was last seen, Jasper?” he asked one of his seven hired hands.
“Yes, sir. My contact in the King’s Elite Guard told me yesterday. He said Rasi had been struck by an Epertasian arrow and fell from a tree.” Jasper scanned the trees.
Simcane ground his fingers together before flicking the dirt into the breeze. He wrinkled his forehead.
“East,” he muttered.
“Sir?”
Simcane rubbed his chin while staring east.
“Sir?” Jasper asked again. “Why east? Tevin has gone south to Shadows Peak. Shouldn’t we as well?”
“We’re not chasing Rasi. We are searching for Alina and she has been taken east. Why would Tevin …” He trailed off.
“Rasi probably circled back, sir.”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“You don’t believe that, do you, sir?”
I just don’t know. Simcane grunted. “We will follow where this trail leads. If Shadows Peak and Rasi are what we seek, we will find them soon enough.”
Simcane climbed onto his horse, Eko, and surveyed the landscape one more time. Something didn’t feel right and in his experience if something felt wrong, he’d best be leery. The band of mercenaries gathered and followed him east.
Alina’s trail led Simcane and his men into the town of Parson.
He turned to his hired hand, Bach. “Somebody here must know something. Put out the word, two bits for any information.”
Bach replied, “Aye, sir,” and the mercenaries dispersed.
Simcane made his way into a quaint, crowded pub at the edge of town. He absorbed the condescending stares of the high-class clientele but paid them no mind. After all, their stares weren’t going to quench his thirst.
The seated customers at the bar left little room for his bulky frame and made no effort to create any. Simcane crammed between two snooty men and waved the tender over.
“Ale,” he ordered. The tender seemed to ignore him, turning away to speak to another patron. Without warning, Simcane lunged over the bar and grabbed his shirt. The tavern went silent. The bartender froze.
“I’m looking for Rasi. We can do this nice or not so nice.”
The tender stammered that he’d never seen Rasi while shaking like a man about to piss his drawers. Simcane released his shirt. The other men in the bar quickly looked down at their drinks. He asked again with a louder tone, but the uppity connoisseurs neither knew of, nor cared to share any helpful information. Simcane upped the ante with silver, but it seemed a couple of bits didn’t sway men of privileged status as much as the men he was used to associating with.
By late afternoon, the tender delivered Simcane yet another ale with a look of disbelief, perhaps not used to men consuming such quantities, at least not while remaining vertical.
Simcane muttered, “Just the drinks, not the stares,” and the tender diffidently turned away.
Simcane downed his latest ale. With little more than the gulper left in his mug, Jasper burst through the front door, attracting everyone’s curious eyes.
“Simcane,” he shouted as he knifed through the crowd. “Simcane?” He leaned into Simcane’s ear and whispered, “I found a vagrant. Said there’s a lot of strange activity of late in the warehouse district.”
Simcane shoved his hand into his bag causing the tender to flinch. He tossed several coins for the ale, plus an extra one for an undeserved tip, onto the floor behind the bar and left to the continued stares of the crowd.
A man met him before he could fully exit the bar. He was covered in dirt and alcohol-stink and his clothes were in shambles. His hair stood like the feathers of a diseased peacock. He waved his arms and flapped his mouth in incessant ramblings, revealing more fingers than teeth or smarts.
“Hey, hey,” the man shouted. “Where’smyreward. Huh? Huh? Huh?” His mouth seemed to move faster than his brain. Simcane told him to calm down with enough force to get the attention of a god.
“Hey, man. Hey, man. TheLactneewarehouse. Lottaactivitylately. Yeah. Way too much for the holiday season, that is.”
“Lactnee?” Simcane asked.
“You don’t know Lactnee? Everyone knows about Lactnee. You heard of Lactnee boards, right? Most of Thasula was built using them.”
Simcane didn’t remember hearing the term but had grown tired of the conversation and halfheartedly agreed.
The vagrant glared at him like he wasn’t so sure. “You heard about the Great Conflagration Fire of Matthew 937, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have. Get to the point.”
“Well that’s where it started. They say a clumsy worker started the fire with his weed stick.”
“Why do I care?”
“Because the warehouse is abandoned now, left for the rats and the less fortunate.”
“You mean like you?”
The vagrant crunched his nose and smirked as if not amused.
“I want you to take us to it tonight,” Simcane said.
“Sure, but it’ll cost ya.”
Simcane agreed to the vagrant’s demands.
As the suns settled, his team of mercenaries slowly returned one by one, each with little or no information gained. They mounted their steeds and followed the vagrant upon his no doubt stolen spotted jackass toward Lactnee.
The warehouse district was a town in itself, full of the hard-working men who made and transported supplies to all of the venders of Thasula. Simcane had been through the area a couple of times many years before but a lot had changed since then.
The homeless man pointed down the road to the burned-out building of Lactnee. “That’s it.”
“Where is everyone? I’ve never seen it so …” Simcane fished for the right word. “Dead,” he finally said.
The homeless man, so full of knowledge, said, “The workers take off Matthew Day and don’t return for several weeks. Most of them travel to their hometowns with their families.”
“How do you know this ‘activity’ is what I seek?” Though he asked, he could not envision a better place to hide a princess.
“I saw the strangers last night. Creepy. One of them, big as you.”
Simcane looked down at the man who sat proudly upon his jackass. “And you? Not enough jobs for you to work?”
The man gave a look that said “don’t judge me” while holding out his outstretched open palm.
“Very well. Pay the man,” Simcane said and jerked his massive steed to the side. He clopped forward a couple of steps before dismountin
g.
The toothless informant scurried across the road and disappeared into the shadows, most likely searching for a way to spend his new-found wealth.
Simcane turned to his men. “Leave your horses here. We will approach on foot.”
Bach asked, “Should we circle around to the rear?”
“No,” he answered. “As little of light from the street torches as there is, I am sure there is even less around back. I prefer to see my enemy in front of me. Besides, we are not expected. We will walk through the front door and do our work.”
They cleared the street, hugging the walls of the factories and warehouses as they snuck closer and closer to Lactnee.
“Stay alert, men,” Simcane said. “A kidnapper of princesses will likely be skilled.”
CHAPTER 37
THE LACTNEE WAREHOUSE
The men reached the front of Lactnee. Four of his soldiers crept past the doorway and crouched next to a pile of waterlogged wood, careful not to be seen through any of the many decayed holes in the walls. There was a slight breeze and the foundation creaked and swayed with it.
Simcane waved his hand. Jasper crawled to the rotted door. He glanced over his shoulder, waiting for Simcane’s command. Simcane gave the approving nod. He stood up, drew back his foot and bashed the door open.
He took a step inside. A shrill voice cut through the night air, stopping him cold. “Well, hello,” the voice said.
Jasper twirled around. Simcane stepped out into the street torch light. Pretty good. Sneaking up on me is not easy, he thought.
Light of Epertase 01: Legends Reborn Page 16