by Philip Blood
“You should fill me in on what got you here,” Jatar replied as he tried to get his mind on his cousin’s problem.
“This is what I remember...” and the young man began telling what he remembered of his journey back to Lindankar.
Far away in the Gellern Forest, Corporal Bante stood gloating over the bound and gagged Lady Elizabeth. The Lindankar ruler lay unconscious on the brown leaves of the forest ground. Bante’s thoughts were gleeful, “Wait until I’ve brought back the body of the mighty Kirnath sorceress. I will be promoted immediately and any minor transgressions will be forgotten!”
One of the Tchulian soldiers spoke to the smug corporal, “It was sure lucky that we were waiting there, eh corporal?”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Bante scoffed, “I chose that spot for our ambush because there was a high probability that our quarry would come back down that road. Remember, I’m the one who thought to cut off that bend in the road, and get ahead of her to set the trap,” Bante said.
“But we didn’t get ahead of her, she was heading back the other way when she came into our trap,” the soldier responded.
“Don’t quibble, just because she came from the opposite direction means nothing; the ambush could be used from either direction, as I had foreseen,” Bante said confidently, lying through his teeth.
“You pulled that out of your, butt,” a soldier muttered.
“What was that?” Corporal Bante demanded.
“It took lots of guts,” the soldier replied louder.
“Yes, it did. Now, who wants to try that royalty I promised before I kill her?” the merc corporal asked.
“She’s unconscious, can’t we wait until she wakes up?” a different soldier asked.
“I’m afraid not, she’s a sorceress, you wouldn’t want to get fried by her magic powers now, would you? If you want her, now is the time,” Bante offered the rough Tchulian enlisted soldiers.
Hidden in some bushes near the gloating Tchulians, Hetark wiped the blood from his blade onto the jerkin of the dead sentry at his feet, before looking through the trees toward the Tchulian’s camp. He could see a large unkempt man heading over to where Elizabeth lay on the ground, Corporal Bante was grinning from where he crouched by her side.
Hetark stayed hidden behind the bushes but moved forward in a low crouch until he was within ten yards of the enemy’s camp. He quietly slipped a dagger from his belt and cupped the hilt in his palm with the sharp blade concealed along his wrist. As the soldier reached forward to open Elizabeth’s leather riding jacket Hetark stood up and yelled, “Get your filthy hands off her, you bastard. You aren’t fit to be in the same world as that woman, so join the next!”
All the Tchulians jumped to their feet as they drew weapons, this included the one who had been hunched over Elizabeth.
Hetark brought his arm forward in an up-swinging arc, launching the hidden dagger underhanded at the soldier standing over Elizabeth. The dagger struck the attempted rapist in the throat and he staggered backward gagging on his gushing blood as he fell back into the camp fire.
The other eight soldiers and Corporal Bante started forward angrily toward Hetark when four crossbow bolts struck them from the woods to their right. Three of them went down hard and the fourth collapsed slowly to his knees with a bolt protruding from his stomach.
The remaining soldiers spun to face the new attack and saw the other five Lindankar Knight Protectors step out of the forest, each holding drawn weapons in their hands and each glaring pitiless death from their eyes.
The combatants met swiftly. Drake slew his opponent after exchanging three swift ripostes and parries before slicing the man down the face and then running him through the heart.
Gustin’s sword parried the first blow his opponent dealt and then he split the man’s skull with the ax in his off hand.
Becaris fenced briefly with his opponent and then cut through the soldier’s throat with a blinding back cut that left the man unaware his throat was cut until he inhaled and the blood gushed out of his slit gullet. He grasped at his throat as he sank to his knees and Becaris ran him through the heart.
Rasal and Lasar took the longest when a soldier approached them in a fighting crouch, they argued.
“He’s mine!” Rasal exclaimed.
Lasar put a hand on his brother’s chest to halt him and said, “No, you’ll kill him too quickly, I want these filthy attempted rapists to feel some pain.”
“I promise that I’ll kill him slowly, come on let me do it,” Rasal begged, solely to torture the sweating Tchulian.
“All right, but he had better suffer for what he planned.”
By this time the man had turned deathly white and was looking around at his other dying companions, he turned to run and ran right into Drake who thrust a dagger into his stomach. Drake had just finished with his other man and stepped up behind this Tchulian merc.
Rasal and Lasar looked into the shocked Tchulian’s face as he fell to his knees and Lasar said, “You got off easy, scum!”
Bante was running through the trees with Hetark in close pursuit. The Tchulian corporal was terrified; he could not believe that his victory had turned sour so quickly. In fear for his life, he gathered his aura power and suddenly turned to kill his pursuer.
Hetark saw the fleeing corporal start to turn and launched his body into a flying tackle that caught the Tchulian in the upper body. They landed in a heap with Hetark on top. Before Bante could move Hetark’s poniard took him under the chin so forcefully that the blade went clear through his brain and skull, the sharp point projecting out through the top of the dead Tchulian sorcerer’s head. Corporal Bante’s body stiffened, and then went limp with swift death. Hetark yanked out the knife, stood and turned his back disdainfully on the now dead soldier before heading back to the other knights.
In the dark cell G’Taklar finished telling the story of his capture to Jatar’s spirit, “And then I woke up here, naked and locked to this wall in this dank cell!” He spoke aloud even though the conversation was within his mind.
Jatar’s thoughts answered matter-of-factly inside G’Taklar’s mind, “I would say that the wisest move you made was swallowing my cathexis signet ring before they discovered it on you; otherwise, they would have probably killed you outright. I think you were right; they’re probably planning on torturing you to find out the location of the ring. I’ll bet they are just waiting for you to awaken, so they can get started.”
The young man shuddered and said, “Would you mind not talking about torture? It makes me ill.”
“Sorry,” Jatar replied, “but if you want to avoid the real thing we should come up with a plan for escape, or it’s ‘you know what’,” Jatar suggested.
“I’ll never get out of here, it’s dark, I’m chained to the wall, I don’t know where I am and I’m naked,” bemoaned the young G’Taklar.
“Quit whining, I’m here with you. Remember when you came to me and said you wanted some real adventure in your life? You said you were bored with court life and you wanted to have one of those old-time adventures you read about, well this is it,” Jatar explained, trying to get G’Taklar going.
“This isn’t what I had in mind, I pictured me killing the bad guy, returning the stolen round and getting the girl. Being naked in a dark cell about to be tortured wasn’t part of the story, as least not as I saw it,” G’Taklar complained.
“Well, this is how real adventures go, you get cold, hungry, tired and you’re in mortal danger quite often. Congratulations, you’ve hit the big time in adventures,” Jatar told him sarcastically.
“Thanks a whole bunch,” G’Taklar replied dryly.
“Look at the bright side,” Jatar started saying.
“What bright side, it is pitch dark in here,” G’Taklar responded dryly.
“You could be dead, I am,” Jatar responded.
“Oh, that cheered me right up,” G’Taklar noted.
“Enough of this nonsense, it’s time we figure
d out how to get out of here. Start by running your fingers over the lock on your leg shackle, I want to feel the mechanism,” Jatar instructed.
G’Taklar complied.
Jatar felt what G’Taklar’s fingers felt and he thought to the scared young man, “Good, it’s a large lock of poor workmanship. It’s likely they stripped you to take away any sharp tools you might have had that could pick a lock. Feel around the floor and see what you can find, we need a pointed object,” the older cousin requested.
After only a moment G'Taklar said, “How about this piece of straw?”
“Keep looking,” Jatar answered.
The young man crawled around the room while feeling around on the floor. Eventually, he found a piece of string, but nothing that could be used to pick the lock. After searching the room twice he stopped and spoke in a panicked voice, “There isn’t anything, and soon they’ll be coming to torture me! What should I do, Jatar?”
“Calm down, there are always options in life; you just need to look for them. Let’s make a list of what we have,” Jatar answered.
“That’s easy, we don’t have anything,” G’Taklar exclaimed petulantly.
“We have a few items, for example, string, straw, a chain connected to your foot, fingernails, spit, hair and a ring, at least when it eventually comes out” Jatar listed carefully.
“None of those will get us out of this chain,” G’Taklar moaned.
Jatar’s thought broke in, “Quiet, did you hear something? Yes, I think there’s a rat in here!”
“Oh, now that’s just great, I’m naked and a rat is here in the dark somewhere!” G’Taklar groaned, scurrying back against a wall and shuddering. The picture of a huge rat stalking him in the dark room came into his mind.
“Are you obsessed with this naked thing? I want you to calm down, that rat could be your ticket out of these chains. Now listen to me carefully, you need to catch that rodent, and then kill it before it bites you too much,” Jatar instructed.
“What do you mean, catch that rat? I’m not touching that thing,” the young man announced.
“Would you rather be stretched out on a torture rack? I know you want to be taller, but that’s a rotten way to get there,” Jatar reasoned.
G’Taklar took a different tack, “Why do we need that rat? I’m not going to eat it, really, I’m not hungry.”
“You’re not going to eat it, although someday you may find that there are worse things you may have to eat to survive. Luckily for you, we just need its body, but not for food.”
“How am I supposed to catch a rat in the dark?” G’Taklar asked peevishly.
“Listen carefully to locate it in the room. When you hear it just pounce like a purclaw. Once you grab it, twist its head to snap the neck. There, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?” Jatar noted.
“Yes, it sounds terrible!” he complained.
“Hot coals, burning out your eyes...” Jatar said, starting to describe the future torturing session.
“All right, all right, I’m listening for the rat,” G’Taklar said, reluctantly.
He waited and got up in a crouch poised on the balls of his feet. After a couple minutes, he finally heard a tiny scratching sound come from about three feet away. He leaped across the room in a low skidding dive and swept his arms together in front of his body. He felt a small furry thing bounce over his left arm.
“Damn it, I missed!”
Jatar was silent.
G’Taklar got up and waited again. Eventually, he heard the noise again and leaped in that direction, arms wide and sweeping forward. Again he felt the rat scurry over his forearm, but this time, he turned swiftly and made a grab for the small creature. His hands grasped the hind quarters of the wriggling little beast. The swift turn made him fall sideways and he brained himself as the right side of his head smacked into the dark stone wall. The pain was so great that he nearly passed out, yet G’Taklar managed to hold onto the rat. He grabbed the rat’s head with his free hand and quickly twisted the wiggling creature between his two hands. The clawing, biting animal finally went limp.
“By Vorg’s souldead, I nearly bashed my brains out on that wall!” G’Taklar exclaimed while rubbing his head with his left hand, the dead rat in his right.
G’Taklar suddenly remembered he was holding a dead rat and his hand opened and he tossed it away from him with an exclamation of: “Uck!”
“You did fine, but now go and find that dead rat,” Jatar instructed.
“This is disgusting,” G’Taklar responded, but complied by searching around in the dark until his hand encountered the warm, dead body of the rat. “All right, I found it, now what?”
“Start ripping it apart, we need to tear out the largest bones. Then we can use them to pick this lock,” Jatar explained.
Muttering, G’Taklar started ripping at the rat’s body and immediately had difficulty with the operation. “This isn’t easy, any suggestions?”
“Try your teeth,” Jatar responded.
“Come to think of it, I’m doing all right with just my fingers,” G’Taklar replied in response to Jatar’s suggestion.
After a short time, G’Taklar managed to pry some bones away from the tendons and tissues of the rat.
“Now, try and pick the lock,” Jatar instructed.
“I don’t know how to pick locks,” G’Taklar complained.
“I’m not a sorcerer at it myself, but let me give it a try,” Jatar insisted.
“And how do you propose to do that since you don’t have a body!”
“Just relax your arms and think about letting me use them,” Jatar coaxed the young man.
“You’re not going to take over my body, are you?” G’Taklar asked, fearfully.
“Of course not, I’ll only have control of your arms.”
“All right, go ahead,” G’Taklar agreed reluctantly.
Jatar found himself in control of G’Taklar’s arms. It was a strange sensation, but that was all G’Taklar’s mind allowed. He chose a thinner bone by feel and inserted it into the lock. He twisted it around in a counter-clockwise motion, trying to move the single tumbler. The bone snapped.
“Vorg’s breath,” Jatar said in G’Taklar’s mind.
“This feels weird, my arms are doing things I’m not telling them to do,” G’Taklar declared.
“You should feel what it’s like to just have control of arms and nothing else,” Jatar responded.
He picked up another bone, this time, he used the thickest one he had. It bent, but then the tumbler gave and the bone moved around in a circle and the lock snapped open.
“I got it!” Jatar exclaimed, “Stand up and see how the chain is connected to the ring.”
G’Taklar took back the control of his arms and did as instructed. By feeling up the chain, he found another of the same locks holding it in place at the ring.
“Good,” Jatar said, the then added, “Give me control of your arms again; I need to pick this one as well.”
“Why?” the puzzled young man inquired.
“A thick chain like this can make a formidable weapon when swung around,” Jatar answered.
“Yes, like in the story of Furnian the Mighty. He used the short chains still shackled to his wrists to fight his way out of the den of the dead,” G’Taklar said, brightening at the thought of one of his favorite fictional hero’s exploits.
Jatar was amused by the sudden enthusiasm that boiled up in the young man, he knew how much G’Taklar had read and studied. “I hope this chain works as well for you as the shackles did for the warrior in your story,” Jatar said, to help maintain G’Taklar’s enthusiasm. This was the first thing that had really gotten the young man’s mind off his fear.
Once he managed to unlock the chain from the lock he said, “Now that we’re free of the wall, let’s examine the door.”
G’Taklar walked over to the door and felt around. He found that it was a door made of oil-soaked rough hardwood with rusty iron bands reinforcing it near
the top and bottom. There was no locking mechanism on this side of the door. “We’re stuck,” he exclaimed forlornly, “there’s no lock for you to pick on our side.” Fear was seeping back into his mind at the thought of the possible torture to come.
“Come on ‘Tak, would Furnian have given up so easily?” his older cousin asked, trying to give him encouragement.
“No, but he’s so strong he would have just kicked down the door. I’m not that strong or large,” G’Taklar responded.
“Everyone has their gifts in life; I’ve always been impressed with your intelligence. From what I have seen you’ve read and learned more than any other boy your age. That’s one reason I sent you to negotiate with Hervet, I trusted the brain in that head on your shoulders,” Jatar told him, figuring it would not hurt to throw the boy a compliment.
“Not enough to send me to Zinterdalin without your imprint watching over,” G’Taklar responded.
“Oh ho, I see you were bothered by that. Listen, I didn’t send the ring because I thought you were dumb, I sent it because you lack real experience. This way I could start giving you the experience to go with the book knowledge and natural intelligence you already possess. With my imprint to help you through the rough spots, I could let you go alone.
“There were some advantages doing it this way, you arrived with the outward look of being young, in charge and alone. I’m sure when Lord Ufer Hervet looked at you and learned that you were in charge; he thought he had a golden opportunity in the negotiations. He knows what experience is worth and he probably filed you away as smart, but completely green in the first exchange of words.
“I can only guess, but after negotiating with you and my hidden imprint, he probably went somewhere quiet and pulled his beard out in frustration,” Jatar thought, picturing the frustrated ruler.
“He did seem to turn red a few times after I delivered some lines you supplied,” G’Taklar admitted.
“That would have been great to see! Did his right eye start twitching?” Jatar asked.