It took them another three days of bitter cold and occasional driving snow to reach the Eagle’s Nest Camp, and their disappointment was great as they looked down into a shallow tree stump rimmed valley, at a cluster of shabby hovels. He could see horses stabled in a larger building, and trash littered the general living area. It reminded Jorse of a Boktor slum. He knew that the freezing temperature was all that was keeping the smell to a minimum, or it would be as bad as any slum he had had the misfortune to visit. Men occasionally came and went from the camp, and in one case, during their long day of watching, a cart arrived, pulled by two straining horses and carrying what looked like ale barrels.
Jorse grinned at Gorku. “It looks as though our friends below will be drinking tonight, doesn’t it?”
“Beeg barrel. All get drunk.” The large guide grinned, showing cracked yellow teeth. “We steal Queen. They not know, Ha! They not know own names they so drunk.”
Jorse winced as he remembered his own experience. “We might even let their horses out. By the time they find them, if they find them, we will be long gone.” He looked at the low stony ridges surrounding he valley. “Do you see any sentries?”
Gorku squinted, and then pointed. “There; the arm moved, there and there. No worry. They open barrel and guards drink too. Sleep good. Bandit boss skin sentries tomorrow, when he find Queen gone, horses gone. Look funny, sentry no skin.” Gorku chuckled, and Jorse winced. “Look huts. Look roofs.” He pointed.
Jorse squinted, and shaded his eyes from the sun. The two dozen or so dome shaped huts seemed to be topped with irregular hides of brown or tan... he stopped when he realized what he was looking at. “Oh, gods,” he murmured.
Gorku nodded. “Bandits skin men, use skins for roof. Make good roof. Two month, three month. Skins rot—smell. Need replace.”
“They don’t cure the hides?”
“What mean cure?”
Jorse thought for a second. “Never mind.” He really didn’t want to make human hide curing into a business. This world was barbaric enough and he swallowed the sour taste of bile. “Let’s go back to the camp. It would be good if we could rest for a couple of hours before the sun sets.
“Is good idea.” Gurku nodded, rubbing his prodigious belly. “Hungry.”
Somewhere deep in his mind Jorse heard Anya whimper.
It was a strange night. The gray moon Lethe had just risen, waxing gibbous and casting a pale furtive glow on the landscape. Hades and Elysium were long gone, and a sliver of Medin was just setting. Thin clouds muted the dancing coruscation of Thalassia’s rings, while shadows wavered, creeping unbidden from rock to rock. Somewhere in the mountains, sounding forlorn, a wolf howled.
“Hmmm.” Gurku grunted, as the three crept out of the camp. “Killing moon. Blood be spilled tonight.”
“Not Hades?” Jorse asked in a whisper as he ducked behind a large rock.
“No. Gray moon thieves moon, assassins moon. Red moon the moon of the damned. Different.”
Jorse smiled. “Thieves moon is good enough for me. Let’s go steal a Queen.”
It was close to midnight when they crept past the sleeping sentries and made their silent way into the bandit’s camp. Gorku had been right. The bandits had been drinking steadily since the barrels arrived, earlier that afternoon, and now they were drunk, passed out where they sat. The silent thieves crossed three bandits snoring in the litter covered street, empty flagons still clutched tightly in their hands. Their next day wouldn’t be so pleasant, Jorse imagined.
The screeching voice of the Queen of Aion drew them to the right tent.
“Anyone! Hello!” The voice rose several octaves... into the low subsonic range Jorse guessed. “I’ve got to go pee. Anyone!” She screeched. Dala winced and Gorku put his thick fingers into his ears. “Eeeeeeeee!” The scream went on and on. Jorse felt Anya retreat somewhere deep inside of him, probably another universe; as long as it was soundproof. He gritted his teeth and stepped into the tent. It was probably the bravest thing he had ever done.
“Who are you?” The piercing voice shouted. “Untie me this instant. I have to go pee, do you hear me?”
Jorse deflated.
Jorse reached a finger out toward the struggling, screaming Queen. “What do you think you are doing? I won’t take any abuse from you. I...” The voice shut off. Gorku sighed in relief, and Dala came over and kissed him on the cheek.
Jorse took out his stelwood boot knife, and the Queen’s eyes widened. Her mouth moved but thankfully, no sounds emerged. Jorse cut her bonds with a single swift stroke. “You said that you have to go pee. Do you?” He asked the Queen, giving her a direct stare. She nodded vigorously. “You will go with Dala here.” He nodded at the black haired girl. “And do your business. Dala will see that you return promptly. Have I made myself clear?” The Queen nodded again, and followed the young girl out of the door.
“Good trick that.” The guide grunted. “We go now?”
“We go now.” Jorse agreed. “You free the horses; I’ll get the women and meet you at the edge of the camp.”
“Is good.” Gorku disappeared out the door, just as Dala and the Queen returned.
The Queen of Aion was a medium-sized, unimpressive woman, with frizzed blond hair and bags under her eyes. The nails on her hands were all broken, and the clothes she had on were obviously handoffs from the bandit camp. Jorse was surprised to see the clear imprint of a hand on her left cheek and her eyes were red. Dala, on the other hand, looked ready to spit nails.
“Trouble?” He asked casually.
Dala was bristling. “She tried to run away, fool woman. I convinced her to let us do the leading. She wisely agreed.”
“She said all that?” Jorse smiled.
“It was a short conversation.” Dala glared at the queen. “Wasn’t it?” The blond nodded vigorously. Dala looked back to Jorse with a smug look on her face. “See, I told you.”
Jorse looked down at the small queen. “We are here to rescue you. Do you understand?” Nod. “Good. Because we are in the middle of a bandit camp, and because we cannot have you screaming and carrying on, we have temporarily shut off your ability to make any sound. Temporarily. The other option was to knock you out. Do you understand?” Another nod. “Good. This is going very well, don’t you think? We will leave your voice shut off for the duration of our journey. If you are good, we will return your ability to speak when we deliver you to your king. If you are not cooperative, then your inability to speak will be permanent and we will deliver you to your king in that condition, which he may appreciate. Have I made myself clear?” Nod, nod, nod. “Fine. I think that we should go now.”
The queen plainly wasn’t a horsewoman. Using a cumbersome process of sign language and lip reading, Dala discovered that the woman had been delivered to the bandit camp in the back of a wagon, along with the food and the beer. She was, she believed, supposed to be delivered to her new owner, another bandit chieftain, in two more days. Not once did she ask about the fate of the others who had traveled with her.
The time it took them to get out of the mountains was shorter than on the way in, and on the second day, as they looked out over the edge of the last escarpment, they saw a long caravan approaching, with hundreds of camels and horses. Jorse swore.
“No worry.” Gorku said calmly. “Big caravan g
o long way round.” He pointed further down the escarpment. “Travel two day more. Big pass.”
Jorse leaned over the edge of the cliff. “Then how about those men there?” Jorse pointed to four shapes breaking from the main caravan, and heading toward their own small trail.
Gorku began to curse. “Scouts. Go first. Check trail.”
Jorse studied the slowly moving caravan. “When will the big caravan be out of sight?”
“Sundown.”
“When will the advance scouts reach the top of the escarpment?”
“Sundown.”
“Then we will take them right here, as they reach the top of the trail, one at a time. When we’ve finished we will go down ourselves.”
“What!” Gorku sounded shocked. “We no see trail. How we go? You crazy!”
“We will lead you.” Jorse’s smile was thin. “Dala, Mirek and I.”
Gorku looked from Jorse to Dala, and then to the older man. “You see in dark, like wolf?”
“More like a cat.” Dala chimed in, crawling up in back of the two men.
The big guide reached out and touched first Jorse, and then Dala. “You all family Selene?”
While Jorse was trying to frame his reply, Dala answered for him. “Yes.” She smiled sweetly at Gorku.
Gorku nodded. “Ha! I be really famous now. Three family of Goddess, one Queen. Look good on resume.” Gorku’s chest seemed to inflate. “Papa be proud.”
“Don’t count your blessings before the journey’s end.” Jorse reminded him. “We still have four bandits coming up the trail, and a whole lot of miles left to cover before we are safely back in Altai.”
“Ha!” Gorku laughed, slapping Jorse on the shoulder and then Dala on the derriere. Dala gasped, reddening, and Gorku laughed all the harder. “Small problem only.”
Chapter 15
They never had a chance. The four scouts coming up the nearly dark trail never saw the shadowy form lean out over the cliff and drop a rock, to take out the fourth man in line. The second man never saw the first fall off of` his horse, soundlessly, a dark arrow through his neck. After that it didn’t matter. Jorse took the second man, with three quick strikes of his staff, and the third was snatched out of his saddle by Gorku, as he fumbled with his sword, and thrown unceremoniously over the cliff.
Gorku whooped as he held up a fat leather bag taken from one of the horses they acquired from the scouts. “You rich! Last man you hit with rock carry money for Queen.” He opened the bag and took a quick look inside. “She not worth all that!” The Queen gave Gorku an indignant look.
“Divide the money, Gorku. One quarter is for you, one quarter for me, one quarter for Dala and one quarter for Mirek.”
The big man just stared. “What you are?” He seemed at a loss for words. “You god? No need money?”
Jorse laughed. “No, I’m not any sort of a god, my friend.”
“You king then?”
Jorse stood still. He didn’t have a flippant, easy answer, and the man deserved the truth.
Gorku’s eyes got big. “King! Hoo boy. Really look good on resume now.”
Jorse was silent for a moment as he thought.
Sitting on her horse nearby, Kalista, Queen of Aion, regarded Jorse with a speculative eye.
The massive escarpments of the Daleeth Mountains were shrinking behind them, disappearing into a hazy purplish ridge as the four travelers continued west, toward the great river. Behind them the string of spare horses was strung loosely, and all rode at an easy mile eating canter.
Dala moved her mare closer to Jorse, and gave him a cynical look. It was the first time they had spoken alone since they had left the escarpment, and they never noticed Kalista the Queen edge her own horse slightly closer.
“So, what now, oh great king?” Her tone was sharp.
Jorse gave her a level look, bordering on cold. “What is your problem, Dala? Why the hostility?”
“Well,” she looked defensive, and then resolve hardened her face. “Since you hadn’t mentioned anything to me, I assumed that you have another woman in mind to be your Queen. Anya, I assume.”
Jorse sighed. “You assume wrong, Dala.” His smile was devious. “I don’t plan to be king at all, even though I’m the legitimate heir to the throne.”
Dala frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Jorse reached out and touched her arm softly and then took her hand. “You will in time. You’re a major player in this grand game. All I need for myself is to find a nice little duchy somewhere, with a musty old castle; a unique fixer-upper. You my dear, with your spies, will be the power that virtually runs the known world.” His grin was lopsided. “That’s the plan right now, and it is always subject to change.”
Dala’s hand went to her mouth, and her eyes grew wide; two pools of deepest blue that Jorse felt he could easily lose himself in. “But who will be king then? Who will govern?”
He gave her a sad smile, then released her hand, turned his horse and rode to the back of the pack horses, where he rode alone for some time.
~~~
Relden, a small bustling port town on the river Klarr, one hundred leagues upriver of Altai, was built of heavy brown stones from a local quarry and smelled, like Altai, of dust, dates and camel dung. A sharp scent of cooking spices hung suspended in the air. Simple fishermen in tiny single masted boats slid their craft in among the more stately traders and wallowing barges from far downriver. The Klarr was still wide here, the far bank invisible over the horizon, and the water much less brackish than in the major port further toward the ocean. Gorku haggled like a fishwife, and finally traded the spare horses, the same ones they had taken from the fallen bandits, for passage downriver to the Capitol.
“Eight day.” The guide declared emphatically, as they loaded the horses on the fat, flat bottomed boat that would be their home until it reached the Altai. “No more.” A crewman took the horses and led them below deck, while Jorse helped the Queen aboard.
She had changed, he thought with more than a little satisfaction, or was it surprise? She no longer fought them every step of the way, and occasionally she would even help Dala or Mirek prepare dinner, or set up the camp for sleep at night. Once, he had even caught her smiling. Her natural dark blonde hair had grown out, and Dala had cut it to fall in natural layers to the queen’s shoulders. The style took ten years from the woman’s face.
The crew cast off the thick mooring cables, and the River Darter moved out into the brown waters of the Klarr, to the scream of the gulls and the ribald shouts of the dockside crew. Gorku found an out-of-the-way spot in the front of the boat and made himself comfortable, a look of languid satisfaction easing across his hard weather-beaten face. Jorse sat down nearby.
“No regrets, now that the trip is nearly done?” He asked the big man.
“Nah. Good trip. Rich; I be famous.”
“Do you miss your brother? Do you miss Darko?”
Gorku thought for a moment then grinned, showing his yellow teeth. “Nah. Him asshole. I get him room when I get home. Good for me—bad for him.” He laughed.
“Where is your home, Gorku? Is it far from here?” The hovels they had seen in the mountains came into Jorse’s mind.
“Nah. Fifty league upriver. Right on shore. Beeg castle. Can’t miss.”
“Castle?” Jorse asked in surprise.
“Yah.” The big man said casually, scratching his stomach. The Queen was looking on with surprised eyes. “Him Earl. Me first son. Earl too, someday.” He gave Jorse a solid slap on the shoulder. “You King, me Earl. Who care? We men.” He glanced at Dala. “She preety girl—smart too I think.” His head turned to the Queen, and he frowned. “Her. She maybe Queen, maybe not. Who care?” He leered at the woman, and she backed away. “You let talk?”
Jorse looked at the
Queen, his face blank. “We’ll see.”
There were fifty soldiers waiting for them on the dock in Altai, the dusty Capitol of Aion, when the River Darter pulled up to the bustling, crowded merchant’s pier. The relentless sun beat down like a white hot hammer on an anvil, but the soldiers didn’t appear to mind, standing at rigid attention, helmets gleaming in the bright afternoon sun. An armored man, standing at the front of the formation, took three steps forward and came to a clanking attention.
“I am Captain Astafurov. I am here to escort Queen Kalista, and you, to the King.”
Jorse looked at the man closely. “Aren’t you the sergeant I saw in the throne room, the day I left to find the Queen?”
The man’s chest seemed to swell. “Yes, sir.”
“And the former captain?” Jorse asked.
“The former Captain Krasauskas, now Private Krasauskas, has latrine duty today.”
“Very good, Captain. Carry on.”
“Yes, sir.” It was much to their credit, that neither man as much as smiled.
When the Queen rejected the waiting carriage, and instead swung into her saddle to ride along with the people who had rescued her, the captain of the guard gasped; then formed his men, twenty five in front and twenty five in back, as an honor guard. Jorse frowned, wondering just what the woman was up to.
King Serak was waiting, in all his kingly splendor, in the somewhat gloomy throne room when the small weary group trooped in. Jorse put his hand on the Queen’s arm, restraining her from her approach to the throne, and pointedly put one finger on the back of her hand. He felt Anya clear the block on the woman’s vocal cords. The Queen blinked, swallowed once and gave him a tentative smile, before she turned back, to ascended the throne and rejoin her husband. Their perfunctory hug was brief, their kiss a mere peck on the cheek and then silence. The whole throne room was silent for that matter, waiting in masochistic expectation for the inevitable explosion.
It never came.
The Corsairs of Aethalia: A Thalassia novel Page 24